Batman Returns (1992)
Directed by Tim Burton
Production Design by Bo Welch

Though Furst's sets for Burton's first "Batman" had been preserved for the inevitable sequel, the director decided to scrap them and hire Bo Welch to design a revamped Gotham City. The major location is Gotham Plaza, an obvious analog of New York City's Rockefeller Center, it houses Shreck's, an art deco style department store, and the Gotham Christmas tree. Statues begin to work their way into the city's architecture, with huge figures dwarfing the local dignitaries at the tree lighting ceremony. What space there is feels entirely vertical: the buildings seem to go on forever — Burton repeatedly uses single shots to take us from street level to the rooftops and back again — but there doesn't appear to very much real estate in Gotham beyond the central Plaza, and there's certainly far more back alleys than thoroughfares. Though sequels, as a rule, ramp up the effects and the budget, "Returns" feels a good deal more intimate, perhaps even more claustrophobic than its predecessor. The mood the sets evoke is one of grandeur, but also precariousness: many of the tallest structures in establishing shots look like they're being propped up by enormous angled beams while ominous steam leaks from every visible crevice.

Batman Forever (1995)
Directed by Joel Schumacher
Production Design by Barbara Ling

With Joel Schumacher easing into the director's chair, Gotham got a substantial makeover from new production designer Barbara Ling. Though we still see the city mostly at night, it's certainly a much brighter place; even before the Riddler and his brainwave-leeching invention start pumping out waves of Ecto Cooler green energy, the town is swimming in bright spotlights and splashes of neon. Arkham Asylum, Gotham's jail for the criminally insane, makes its first onscreen appearance, looking quite the "castle of shadow" that writer Akiva Goldsman described in his screenplay. Schumacher clearly wanted to reshape Gotham, but he elided the problem of trying to live up to Burton's iconic representation by setting major set pieces over water instead of on land; Batman and Two-Face first do battle in a helicopter aimed at "Our Lady of Gotham" (a.k.a. The Statue of Liberty) and the climax finds the heroes scaling an enormous metal island shaped like one of the Riddler's super-TV receivers. Overall, this place belongs visually somewhere between Burton's moody Gotham and the gaudier one Schumacher would ultimately carve out in his second directorial effort (see below). As such, it's somewhat forgettable, even though it's not nearly as embarrassing as the black lit beast that was coming next.

Batman & Robin (1997)
Directed by Joel Schumacher
Production Design by Barbara Ling

In the film that temporarily destroyed the Bat franchise, the Caped Crusader and company bounce around a city that looks like a rave inside the antiquities wing of the Gotham Museum of Art. Everything glows neon and fluorescent — even the graffiti lining the undersides of bridges is illuminated by ultraviolet light — and everything is propped up by completely nonsensical Greco-Roman figures the size of skyscrapers. One major chase sequence involves Mr. Freeze driving his Freezemobile off a highway suspended far above street level, crashing through the head of a enormous naked figure, driving down its arm and then launching himself off its middle finger. His plans to, y'know, freeze everyone revolves around the Gotham Observatory, a planetarium carved into the side of a cliff, held aloft by another illogical statue. Plenty of blame for this Battastrophe fell to screenwriter Akiva Goldsman, but in the "Batman & Robin" screenplay, his description of the observatory only notes that it is "set atop the banks above the Gotham River and the city beyond." Nowhere does it mention that a naked man the size of the Chrysler Building need be placed underneath it, so that one's on Joel Schumacher and Ling. Most hilarious design touch: the factory Batgirl and Robin drive through in the middle of a rough and tumble motorbike race that's abandoned except for a still-operational disco ball.