>>103382139Ratigan had the clear physical advantage, so the heroes trying to get up close and dirty wouldn't have gone well. Besides which, it's made clear that the battle between hero and villain in this case was primarily an intellectual one, so Ratigan had to be taken out in a clever manner to highlight his intellectual defeat. I guess if I was to change the scene a bit, I would have made it so that Basil deliberately tries to draw things out and arrange it so Ratigan winds up where he wants him when the clock strikes midnight. Capping that off by ringing the little bell (calling back to Ratigan's earlier use of it and highlighting exactly what is about to happen) would have thus made a what is already a solid sequence slightly better.
That aside, this scene and the climax of Oliver and Company kind of put the climaxes to much of the recent Disney movies to shame. The newer ones never feel as suitably intense as those older films. I remember when I watched Zootopia and, aside from knowing how the scene would play out because I'd seen all the cliches before, feeling like it's just a bit too slow and lacking in energy. I mean it, rewatch that sequence, and you can't help but notice that.
