Wonder Woman 2017 - Beating Marvel to the punch

Thanks. I’ll report back in 5 hours time. Hope they will enjoy it. I was debating between WW and Guardians of the Galaxy 2 but I am leaning towards WW mainly because I think the girls will enjoy a woman lead as a superhero.

WW is much more appropriate for young kids than GoG2. Little gore, no foul language.

If this were a video game, there would be cries that WW is way too OP and needs to be nerfed. In the end, she is sronger than superman or anything else the DC Universe will ever see. Child of Zeus, who is announce to be the sole creator of the Universe, pretty much leaves no room for anyone else, and the final battle proves it. She pretty much beat Prof. Lupon’s butt.. They should have grounded her better and made her more down to Earth, like Marvel did with CA. Sure he had powers, but there as something connecting him with the average Joe. Why can’t she just be a super skilled and trained warrior princess?

I will add that I thought Wright did a good job, and should have had a larger role in the film post Amazonia.

I felt Pine was ok, but really unnecessary for the film. And please someone explain to me why he had to die (if he did in fact die)…if the gas was that easy to destroy, and he had already secured the plane, why did he do something stupid like kill himself, especially when he discovers he has something to live for, Bad, bad wrong choice.

Gadot was fantastically cast and presented. However [spoiler]I was surprised they made her as dumb as an Ox. I understand they thought they were going for naïve, but there were too many mixed signals and she came off as stupid imho. I found the “Will you not sleep with me” scene to be long, labored and predictable, especially when she reveals she is well read on human biological behavior.

Then, in all of her battles once she leaves the island, she charges everything like a bull, and if she is knocked back, she does the same attack strategy only maybe faster/harder. There seemed to be little thought given as to how to match and defeat a foe.

And then the completely unnecessary gassing of the village which she had “saved” previously the night before. After they took the village, there was no preparation for a counter attack or efforts to protect, even though they were well behind enemy lines. I find it hard to suspend belief enough to believe that everyone would just hang out at that café and announce there was nothing to do towards fighting the war until the next morning, so everyone just danced and ate bread, etc right after so many people had been killed (including loved ones) and after them clearing all the bodies from the square…Does not fit with the death and devastation that had just occurred. This film actually could have had some really good anti-war overtones if they just took the time to recognize life and death around them. WWI was brutal, that should have been the innocence lost, and we just glossed over that even though they were right in the middle of it…but we know the Indians were mistreated and the Fez guy could not get a job as an actor due to his skin tone.
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Do you mean Pine, the actor, in particular or do you mean his character? If the later, I disagree. He was her introduction to the outside world. I don’t see how the movie would have worked all that well with WW just doing her thing, by herself. In fact, I appreciated how he played a necessary role in the movie, but didn’t feel all that central, so as to distract too much from Gadot.

Without Pine’s character she likely would’ve gone back to Themyscira.

WW isn’t nearly as strong or tough as Superman.

The issue I had with the village was that the movie established the opposing lines had not moved, no one had gotten across No Man’s Land in months, yet that village is now suddenly under assault, women and children in trench lines, people being sold as slaves. It was a bit silly, but obviously a plot device to motivate WW to attack the German lines.

I thought it was fun and Godot was really fabulous BUT also felt that the writing and tie-ins with the DC stuff really let it down in the last half.

She’s SO powerful there’s nowhere to go. I just don’t see why she’d want to stay with the puny humans after she beats Ares. To sign up for what? An eternity of saving fragile humans? With the gods gone there’s no challenge.

The battles up to the village were great & I really enjoyed the balletic slow / fast framing of the shots. The set pieces at the end were just dumb, though. The sidekicks have nothing to do. Pine has no reason to die. Diana and Ares repeatedly shoot / deflect bolts of lightning until one dies (yawn).

The DC framing at the beginning / end are a waste of time. I get the purpose in terms of tie-in to the DC universe, but within the context of the movie by itself they are schmaltzy and dumb.

Fun. But would love to see her in a better vehicle.

Diego

The context of the comment about Pine is really more in reference to my thoughts that the script needed a rewrite in several ways. So if stuck with that script, yeah you need him and I agree he was not too much overbearing Kirk as I was afraid he would be.

In this film, one could definitely argue she is stronger. (though I don’t want to get into a nerd war over SM v WW, as the film does not deserve that level of dedication).

I’ve seen the movie and either my Google search is wrong, or I don’t understand your comment.

Begun this nerd war has.

She struggled to lift a tank, so I am curious why you think the film showed her to be the stronger of the two.

I don’t think that the term “Wonder Woman” actually appeared in the movie at all. I think she was just “Diana” throughout. I don’t remember any cringe-inducing line of dialog introducing the term (“Wow, what a super man… hey…”).

Answering Mok’s questions; will contain some spoilers:

[details=Summary][quote=“mok, post:211, topic:78034, full:true”]I felt Pine was ok, but really unnecessary for the film. And please someone explain to me why he had to die (if he did in fact die)…if the gas was that easy to destroy, and he had already secured the plane, why did he do something stupid like kill himself, especially when he discovers he has something to live for, Bad, bad wrong choice.[/quote]
Pine’s character had to die for the same reason that the village had to be gassed: to provide counterpoints in Diana’s struggle on how to perceive humanity.

The village died to convince her that all she has to do is to defeat Ares, because humans (men) have no agency in what they are doing. Trevor’s mission - she feels - is wasteful because he’s not going after the magical “reset” switch; he’s treating the symptoms, not the disease. The gassing of the village is there to reinforce that view for her.

By contrast, Trevor’s sacrifice is there to bring her back after her delusion has been quashed. Ares has convinced her that he’s not the reason behind the evil that she’s seeing. The mastermind that she killed did it on his own, not unduly influenced by the gods or magic or anything. She’s tempted to buy into Ares’ thinking that humanity could be wiped out and the world reclaimed for the Amazons since ‘mankind’ is a flawed creation. Trevor’s selfless act was necessary to show her that there was hope for a better resolution.

My one real disappointment with the movie was that the post-battle scene seemed to imply that Diana was right about everyone acting eeeevil due to divine radiation or something. With Ares dead, all the German soldiers - who must have known they were loading poison gas on an airplane to be dropped on British/French/Belgians the night before the armistice - stood up, shook themselves off and decided that they ought to give peace a chance or whatever. I don’t know how I would have played the scene if I were director (maybe having them assisting their comrades to slink off), but I found it disappointing they way it was played.

On why Trevor didn’t just ditch the plane in the ocean or something… eh, there was some line about timers, I think You can’t look too deeply at this stuff. Someone had to throw themselves on the McGuffin Grenade.

I took Diana’s attitudes to be a combination of arrogance and naïvité. She views the outside world as populated by children with foolish beliefs and no understanding of how the world actually works.

The “sleep with me” scene is a good example of that: she knows (intellectually) what sex is, and once she figures out why Trevor is stammering, she chides him on it and then lectures him on why he’s being stupid. She doesn’t realize that he was trying to show her some respect or to be sensitive to her situation; she just thinks he’s a doofus and that his societal hang-ups are dumb.

It’s much the same with her “bulling” her way across Europe. She sees an objective, doesn’t understand why Trevor & Co. are messing around with preparation, dialog and subterfuge when the solution is RIGHT THERE, dammit!

Diana is effectively the embodiment of the Ugly American.[/details]

Recommend you never look up what Superman’s creator was into then. Seriously.

she gained strength as a progression throughout the film. Previous scenes should could not lift a tank. End of the film, she was master of the universe.

Just got back from the movie. I liked three-quarters of it. It really does fall apart once the big bad shows up.

I was really hoping they would go with the George Perez solution for the big fight, but I knew it wasn’t going to happen because this is a big-budget DC movie, so you have to show a CG explosion-fest at the climax. Instead, they surprised me by perverting the Lasso of Truth and having the Big Bad try to use it against Wonder Woman. Lame and pointless.

The one nerd nitpick I have is that the power level for Wonder Woman was really inconsistent. She gets shot on the beach (which healed quickly) but they showed that the bullet grazed her arm and cut her. Later, she’s getting flung into walls and vehicles, smashing into the ground, etc.

Finally, what has she been doing since 1918? Way to help the Earth when we were invaded by Kryptonians.

What was that? Sorry if you brought it up earlier, I didn’t see it searching the thread for Perez. I met George Perez at a NYC comic con about 7 years ago. What a great dude.

For whatever reason, her powers only started manifesting once she started seriously training and then started just ramping like crazy as each minute of the movie went by (for example, what happened to her when she scaled the tower to get the gear). Alternatively, perhaps her powers only started manifesting once Ares started taking a more direct hand in mortal affairs.

They had some lines about “him finding her” if she either became aware of who she was (presumably, becoming aware of her powers). They never really developed that much beyond that, but one can assume that her powers were somehow being suppressed for most of her life.

I think she was busy racing cars with Diesel.

Keep in mind that Perez’s 1986 run had Wonder Woman come to “Man’s World” in the middle of the Cold War. Ares’ plan is to bring about the ultimate blood sacrifice by instigating a nuclear war. In the big fight with Ares, she wraps him with the Lasso of Truth and forces him to see the reality of his plan - that if everyone on Earth dies, there will be no one left to worship him. Forced to see the folly of his plot, Ares retreats. It’s a resolution that emphasizes peace, compassion, and honesty.

Here, we get “I believe in Love!” then she kills him with a lightning bolt.

Look at the Ares toys:


He’s got a monsterous skull for a head, no visible face beneath, and based on the LEGO set, he’s also gigantic.

In the film, it’s always just David Thewlis in armor, face visible, and never enormous. The helm has horns, but he’s not literally wearing a skull. He’s not in the previews, so there isn’t much out there to show in comparison, but here’s some rando instagram shot I found:

I know toys frequently start production before the final cut of a film is nailed down (remember Constable Zuvio from The Force Awakens, a character that showed up in the toy line but was cut from the movie?), but it just struck me as curious that Ares was so noticably different in the film—especially that he was never gigantic—so I wondered if there were some rather serious last minute changes to the finale.

I saw this earlier today. This was a great movie. I thoroughly enjoyed Gal Gadot and Chris Pine. I don’t think the movie would have done well without either of them, and he brings something to this movie the other ones before it totally lack which drags those other movies down. It has as gorgeous soundtrack I am very likely to buy. I cared about nearly all the characters they presented, even the side ones. I wanted to see more about the Amazons who did an excellent job against tech they didn’t know.

Also, this more than any other movie in the DC verse is going to get me to see Justice League. I couldn’t care less about the other two since they’re movies were mostly… meh, but her presence in that group makes me willing to give it a shot.

I also should add, I don’t just put it at the top for DC, but this is a top for all the superhero movies in my book. I’ll buy this when it comes out.

Didn’t Ares more or less look like that in the Amazon flashback scenes, when Diana was learning about her origin before leaving the island?