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Wonder Woman (Warning Spoilers!!!)

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  • Wonder Woman (Warning Spoilers!!!)

    Who saw it? What did you guys think? Spoilers welcomed as they were noted in the subject.

  • #2
    I saw it Thursday night, and thought it was great.

    I can admit that it was a bit formulaic, and I could even see it's supposed surprise reveal with Aries at the end coming a mile away (literally with the very first seen in which David Thewlis showed up), and I'm sure I'm not alone there, but it was all presented so well that it didn't matter if you could see things coming because they were all still entertaining to see. Furthermore, I appreciated that the focus on character before action that was set forth in the DCEU with Man of Steel held true, giving us several emotional moments. The humor also worked quite well, in my opinion, as it was pretty much all played towards Diana's ignorance of the world, and Gal Gadot played it so well that you could feel the genuine laughter in the theater. And while I know some people may have strong opinions on her origin one way or the other, I thought the utilization of her rebooted Demigod status as the truth while maintaining her pre-Flashpoint "made of clay" origin as a tale told to her for her protection growing up was fantastically well played. Ultimately I have nothing negative to say about it.

    In fact, I told my brother as we left the theater that the only thing I'd have wanted done differently is after Aries formed his armor, menacingly burning the barbute form into his helmet, and they pull the framing back for that full villain shot with the weapons behind him, I would've had him bellow "Behold the God of War!" But that is for purely nerdy reasons, as I'm a fan of Injustice, and it's just one of the simple lines he says during health bar depletion... but of course, he couldn't say that really, not after what he told Diana, but still, it's what I heard in my head as it happened.

    So yeah, I loved it. But then I loved BvS, too, so some people may not really care what I have to say about DC movies anymore, as I am clearly biased.

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    • #3
      Great! Best DC movie in their current universe (though I still really dug Man of Steel). Both Gal Gadot and Chris Pine make it work. The action is like scenes out of 300, and it works nicely here. I like that they didn't overuse the Xena-like music theme too much... it is only in the right places, maybe 3. The scene on the battlefield rallying all of the soldiers I found even more moving than what Steve Rogers did in Captain America 1. The humor was great, and never comes off corny or forced to me... some of the trailers had me worried. Really nothing to complain about. Personally I kind of wanted to see her kill some of those "monsters from other worlds" she talked about in BvS. Maybe in the next one. Also, WW's comment in BvS about giving up on the world doesn't really make sense here, or explained... maybe WWII did that for her (or any one of a number of major conflicts between WWI and BvS)? Maybe that's even inferred. Pretty good. Go and see it.

      On a fundamental level, I don't like WW being this Immortal thing that's been around 100+ years. It's not that it makes her unrelateable, but as a woman brought to life from clay (and I'm so, so glad they went with that origin rather than the New52 "Ah ah ah, actually Zeus did have sex with your mom and that's where you came from!" though the fact that they don't actually SHOW her origin in this makes me worry they may actually reveal that to be the case in movie #2... I can almost hear the "story room" sessions with Geoff Johns pointing to revealing Zeus as her biological father being "The Empire Strikes Back moment of the WW trilogy!!!" or something equally hacky) making additional barriers to people connecting with her in the here and now seems odd. I don't like the Immortality aspect they're following. I don't think they needed to have her in WWI, WWII, none of that. A simple coming to Man's world in the present a few years before BvS would have been great. It could have been Iraq, Afghanistan, something like that (there is NO version of Wonder Woman that has fought in WWI other than this one, and the WWII Wonder Woman stuff is confined to the Golden Age of comics and the corny TV show from the 70s... later on in the 90s it was retconned to actually be WW's mom who fought in WWII). I also want WW to fly as she does in everything else, and not just with some invisible jet from the camp stuff. I hope we never see an invisible jet for her ever, beyond some stealth nod. Maybe they'll add that to her powers in something to come.
      Highlander: Dark Places

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      • #4
        Originally posted by Andrew NDB View Post
        a woman brought to life from clay (and I'm so, so glad they went with that origin rather than the New52 "Ah ah ah, actually Zeus did have sex with your mom and that's where you came from!" though the fact that they don't actually SHOW her origin in this makes me worry they may actually reveal that to be the case in movie #2... I can almost hear the "story room" sessions with Geoff Johns pointing to revealing Zeus as her biological father being "The Empire Strikes Back moment of the WW trilogy!!!" or something equally hacky) .
        Did you doze off during the movie? That's EXACTLY what they did! Ares confirms the New 52 origin right before the final fight. And I see no problem with that.
        __________________________________________________

        "Really? We are trapped in a room with a machine that can cut off my head. Now that's a longshot."
        --Connor MacLeod in Peter Bellwood's original Highlander II script

        Comment


        • #5
          Uh, yeah, Andrew, how could you miss that? Also, we see her flying in the film a couple of times (notably as she hovers during her fight with Aries, but more obviously in the final shot when she takes off into the sunset after sending Bruce that email), so why would you just be hoping for that power to be included down the line? I'm seriously beginning to think you didn't even watch the film.

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          • #6
            I really dug the hell out of it, and I never had any particular affinity for the character (a bit like Cap, a character I didn't care for until his movie made him my favorite MCU character). My bigest reservations going into the movie were related to Gadot's acting, which I found stiff in other films, and it felt like they were minimizing her dialog in the trailers. Im so glad to have been wrong - she was wonderful (whoops, pun) in the role, and left me more excited to see her again in JL than anything else that film has shown.

            My one gripe would be bookend segements - going back to the "crossover-via-email" bit felt forced. I think those would have worked better had she actually been delivering the narration to Bruce Wayne himself, or perhaps even Lois Lane, rather than just talking to herself.

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Tootsie Bee View Post

              Did you doze off during the movie? That's EXACTLY what they did! Ares confirms the New 52 origin right before the final fight. And I see no problem with that.
              What was the line? There's many problems with that. It's unnecessary and has never been a part of her origin until the past 5 years. Why take something like WW that has been around for the better part of a century, a purely female, beautiful origin, and change it just to force a male into the picture? The implication is that WW needs a biological father to work (when she hasn't for 70 years), and I think that's pretty outrageous to the character.

              Originally posted by Takk View Post
              Uh, yeah, Andrew, how could you miss that?
              Again, what was the line? I got up to pee once, but all I recall was general rumblings about he is basically his father because he "gave her life" when she was clay. But I just took that to mean he "gave her life" (i.e., Hippolyta makes the clay baby, prays to Zeus to give it life, lightning bolt hits it and voila), not came down and had sex with Hippolyta.

              Ugh, I hope you guys are wrong...

              Also, we see her flying in the film a couple of times
              Nope. The Ares thing is less hovering as it is hovering down after she lept up, and the visual cues are that she's "charged up" with Ares' own blue energy power at that point, which she dishes back to him. And we know she doesn't have it because she's not flying around in BvS... there would be no good reason why that wouldn't have come into good use with Doomsday (or would there be any good reason why she'd be on a commercial airliner flying coach at all).

              but more obviously in the final shot when she takes off into the sunset after sending Bruce that email)
              Totally not a takeoff. The wife and I were watching that very closely. It's a forward leap, same as when she's making huge leaps through walls earlier and so on. I would've loved to have seen her fly at the end... it could have been this pretty cool Neo-at-the-end-of-The-Matrix moment, but obviously that doesn't work with WW not being able to fly in BvS (and there's really no good reason she'd pretend not to be able to in that if she could).
              Highlander: Dark Places

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              • #8
                How do you figure she couldn't fly in BvS?

                Yeah, we never saw her too high off the ground in that, but she came straight down from the sky when she covered Batman from Doomsday's blast, and saw her take really long straight leapssimilar to Superman's theoughout MoS. Furthermore, she went from walking off a plane in a Metropolis airport to making it all the way across the bay to a Gotham port in a matter of minutes... do you really think she didn't fly over it to come down as she did?

                I don't see how that's not being able to fly... I mean, even Superman flys through walls, so why is Wonder Woman going through them instead of over them suddenly a sign of mere jumping instead of flying?

                Clearly you don't agree, but I'd say she flew in both films.

                As for flying on a plane to go back to Europe, she's always flown more slowly than other characters, that's how they justified her having the invisible jet, and look at the time it took her to get across the bay... clearly flying over the Atlantic would be faster via a commercial airline.

                Really, based on the fact that she was hovering without movement during the final battle with Ares (seriously, go see the movie again, she does this during the battle right around the same time that Ares tells her she's actually a demigod child of Zeus, which is that line you're looking for), I took it as she didn't realize she could fly until that intense moment of her life, which is why she didn't fly earlier in the film, and then the lift off at the end was simply the obvious flight to confirm it. But I guess it wasn't that obvious. And more bizarrely, apparently some people actually think she wasn't flying at the end of BvS, even given her line of descent down from the sky to save Batman... go figure.

                I just really don't see how she wasn't flying.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by Takk View Post
                  How do you figure she couldn't fly in BvS?
                  Because she never did.

                  but she came straight down from the sky when she covered Batman from Doomsday's blast,
                  We didn't see her coming down from the sky. We saw her coming down from above... rooftop, window, etc.. Maybe detaching from a hang glider, who knows.

                  and saw her take really long straight leaps similar to Superman's throughout MoS.
                  But those were leaps.

                  urthermore, she went from walking off a plane in a Metropolis airport to making it all the way across the bay to a Gotham port in a matter of minutes... do you really think she didn't fly over it to come down as she did?
                  Yeah, I really think that. If she could fly we'd be seeing furious flying punches, whipping her lasso down from above, that sort of thing. Like WW does in everything else.

                  I don't see how that's not being able to fly... I mean, even Superman flys through walls, so why is Wonder Woman going through them instead of over them suddenly a sign of mere jumping instead of flying?

                  Clearly you don't agree, but I'd say she flew in both films.
                  The evidence just isn't there. And I seem to recall interviews with Snyder around the time BvS asking about flying and he did reply with something akin to, "She doesn't have all of her powers... yet."

                  Really, based on the fact that she was hovering without movement during the final battle with Ares (seriously, go see the movie again, she does this during the battle right around the same time that Ares tells her she's actually a demigod child of Zeus, which is that line you're looking for),
                  I'm still a bit stuck on this. Is it specifically stated or only inferred that she's Zeus' biological child? Because we already knew he gave her life from clay... that makes him her dad in a roundabout way, but that's very different than "Zeus had sex with Hippolyta, and 9 months later gave birth to Diana" (which is NOT the origin of WW, never has been until the New52, and now even that has been removed again with Rebirth). I admit, I could be wrong but I really don't recall that being implicitly stated anywhere in the movie.

                  I took the "You didn't tell her, Hippolyta??" secret as being that Diana is the God-Killer, not the sword, which is what she (and we) assume is the God-Killer throughout the movie. Not that she's a biological child of Zeus.

                  And again, about the hovering, it's made fairly clear that she "borrows" Ares' own energies (including flying). When she expended them killing Ares, that was that.

                  I took it as she didn't realize she could fly until that intense moment of her life, which is why she didn't fly earlier in the film, and then the lift off at the end was simply the obvious flight to confirm it.
                  There was no lift-off, that was a very, very clear jump.

                  But I guess it wasn't that obvious. And more bizarrely, apparently some people actually think she wasn't flying at the end of BvS, even given her line of descent down from the sky to save Batman... go figure.
                  There is no line of descent from the sky. We don't even see the sky in the shot. For all we know -- and now we know more of her in WW, and we see this -- WW was making long leaps from rooftop to rooftop getting closer to the action before jumping down.

                  Oh, and...

                  http://screenrant.com/wonder-woman-m...owers-workout/

                  "She has unbelievable endurance. She is exceptionally strong. She can jump really high and practically fly."

                  "Practically fly" is not flying. Maybe someday, though. I don't know how useful her "really high jumping" is going to help them when they arrive on Apokolips.
                  Highlander: Dark Places

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                  • #10
                    You need to see the movie again and pay attention to the conversation with Ares during their battle.
                    This discussion is simply becoming redundant and all too circular, so I'm just gonna leave it be.
                    Take it as you will, and enjoy it as you like... that's my approach to fan culture these days.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Takk View Post
                      You need to see the movie again and pay attention to the conversation with Ares during their battle.
                      I'll definitely give it a closer listen next time. I feel like I'm pretty much on the level with it, though.
                      Highlander: Dark Places

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        According to Ares, the reason that she can be a god-killer is that only a god can kill a god. She isn't a god if Zeus merely gives life to a clay model to make her. (In the Golden Age, all of the other Amazons were sculpted and given life by Aphrodite, but that doesn't make them gods, now does it?)

                        And if you want an outside source: http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/...s-clay-bondage
                        __________________________________________________

                        "Really? We are trapped in a room with a machine that can cut off my head. Now that's a longshot."
                        --Connor MacLeod in Peter Bellwood's original Highlander II script

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Tootsie Bee View Post
                          According to Ares, the reason that she can be a god-killer is that only a god can kill a god. She isn't a god if Zeus merely gives life to a clay model to make her. (In the Golden Age, all of the other Amazons were sculpted and given life by Aphrodite, but that doesn't make them gods, now does it?)
                          No, doesn't make them gods. Yeah, very much not in love with the "she's a goddess" now thing. Unnecessary. She doesn't need to be a "god" to stand toe-to-toe with Batman and Superman.

                          Judging from the rest of the lore in the movie, it sounded to me that there were probably going with the Post-Crisis explanation for the Amazons: "The Amazons were created by the goddess Artemis from the souls of women who had died at the hands of men, and were given new and stronger bodies, made from clay transformed into flesh and blood. These Amazons escaped Heracles (the Greek name for Hercules) and his men to an isolated and magically protected island, this one called Themyscira."

                          WW is special because she was sculpted from clay by Hippolyta (in a later post-Infinity Crisis tweak, with the blood of her mother on it, too) and then Hippolyta prayed to the Gods and poof, WW is born. The only thing different this go-around is that they're saying it was Zeus himself that answered the call and specifically lightning bolted her to give her life, specifically to one day finish the job on Ares if he ever rose up again.

                          So you're traditionally right... I don't remember anything in Greek mythology about gods being able to make other gods like that, but in the world of WW, I don't see anything directly saying that they can't. I do expect to "Meet Dad" in the next one, probably played by Ralph Fiennes or something, and it'll be made clear one way or the other in WW2.
                          Highlander: Dark Places

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                          • #14
                            I loved WW. I'm not a see-movie-in-theaters person, but I'm ready to go see it again this weekend.

                            As to the flying I heard on the DC Movie News podcast that there is at least talk of adding the Jet *shudder* in future films, which lends to her not being able to fly under her own power in the current films. She was shown in the film learning about her new powers in real time and having several "Wait.... I can do that??" moments. So they can still add flying as an official power which I would prefer to that horrible jet.

                            I'm not really sure how making WW immortal makes her harder to relate to, or creates a barrier to connecting to her. For me relating to a superhero is all about relating to their morals and convictions and getting that "I can do great things, too!" feeling from watching/reading their adventures. I have nothing in common with Nightwing but that doesn't stop me from feeling a connection to him and being invested in his story. I have noting in common with Wonder Woman but I still care for her and want to know more of her story and what she's been up to the last 100 years.

                            From a more practical stand point making her immortal and setting her first story in WWI makes her a direct parallel to Captain American in the MCU and DC is doing a lot of cut/paste from Marvel right now. WW is just the first time they made something that can actually compete with MCU's story telling.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Warning...if you are going to see the film in a smaller theater...take earplugs. You will still hear everything but you won't have a headache from being exposed to the very, very, very loud soundtrack for the duration of the film. I had a new pair in my purse but gave them to my friend's mother to use. She was so happy to see her childhood heroine finally get her own film on the big screen. Seeing it in 3-D was fun. The special glasses were even flexible enough to fit over my regular glasses.

                              Comment


                              • #16
                                WB is wisely selling Justice League on Diana now:

                                __________________________________________________

                                "Really? We are trapped in a room with a machine that can cut off my head. Now that's a longshot."
                                --Connor MacLeod in Peter Bellwood's original Highlander II script

                                Comment


                                • #17
                                  Originally posted by Tootsie Bee View Post
                                  WB is wisely selling Justice League on Diana now:

                                  Big time.
                                  Highlander: Dark Places

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