Ww84

[Tyndmyr]

It is, after many, many delays, finally out, both in theaters and on HBO. I'm curious to hear what ya'll think of it.

Spoilery review/rant in spoilers:


So, nothing has happened to Diana since WW1. Literally, nothing. Sure, the guy's name is Pine, but you could maybe do something other than that over a guy you knew for maybe a month 70 years ago. The cold war is happening, but Diana doesn't care. Instead we get to watch her mope, and her "ugly" coworker fawn over her. "Ermagerd, you know latin" the woman with a biology degree and three other degrees says, because latin is clearly a language that nobody in higher education can vaguely understand.

There's not much plot for the first third of the film, because we have to wait until ugly girl loses her glasses, straightens her hair, and goes from being bashed by everyone to universal adoration. Top marks for originality here, chaps, I've never seen THIS plot before.

The antagonist is Mando, without a helmet. He tries. Bless the poor bastard, but he does try. He just has nothing to work with, because this movie is against setting up anything in advance, choosing instead to narrate motivations to us after the fact. He's not the villain, though. He doesn't even steal, apparently, as we find out that the artifact was originally purchased by him, and it turns out that it was Wonder Woman who stole it. That's right, Wonder Woman is the villain. This is set up by us looking at her childhood, and discovering her willingness to cheat in order to win.

We then jump to her using a wish to bodyjack some hapless innocent's body for her boyfriend's mind to ride around in. The movie takes the time to acknowledge what they've done, mind you, but it doesn't seem to recognize that, uh, stealing someone's body and then having all the sex with it is maybe a little morally questionable. WW is absolutely not bothered by this.

She also has, in standard DC fashion, embraced doing a fair bit of property damage, sometimes solely for convenience, not even to save lives. She maintains her anonymity, for instance, by smashing all cameras after the fact with her tiara, which now has the properties of Captain America's shield, after the fact. I guess that's how cameras work?

Dear BF, having returned, is shocked by the world of 1980, because it has coffee, and then physically removes WW from the driver's seat, because, I guess, his WW1 piloting skills means he is better equipped to drive everything from fighter jets to modern cars to the plot itself. The fighter jet becomes an invisible fighter jet, because making things invisible is now WW's power, which is explained after the fact via a coffee mug. This happens on the 4th of July. Pilot flies invisible jet while explaining that piloting is just about feelings.

Over the next 24 hours before Christmas, the rest of the plot takes place. She has a fight in which her powers rapidly weaken, revealing that the wish monkey-paws(the movie will actually use this terminology to repeatedly, laboriously explain it to you) your wish, taking whatever it is that you value most. Which, for Diana, is power, of course. This weakening somehow doesn't impact her ability to invent new powers on the fly, like the invisibility thing.

They teleport back to NY from the middle east between screen cuts while no time passes, and despite everyone only ever getting one wish, former ugly girl gets a second one because screw the rules, the plot needs to happen, and she chooses to be a cat. Take backsies exist for wishes, and so WW offs her beau because she wants power. She then needs to fly to the battle, and can't do so, because she has forgotten that she has a plane, probably on account of it being invisible.

She remembers that flying is about feelings, and she has feelings. She can fly now.

She fights the cat, and transforms into a full set of golden armor that she was apparently carrying in the numerous pockets on her original costume, and which has its own backstory, from when Amazonians were all enslaved, which you probably forgot about, because it's never been mentioned before. It was made from the armor of all the other amazonians, which explains why none of them have armor, except when they do. The armor does nothing. The cat knows that her scene has ended, and patiently stops and waits for the remainder of the movie to happen.

The bad guy has taken over the world, because he is "touching" everyone on earth by talking to them on TV, something that even the movie explains wouldn't work, but then it does. Everyone on earth gets every wish they want granted at the same time, which causes some upsets. Diana is unable to reach him because of some unexplained wind power that has to do with how television works, but she gives a speech, and everyone on earth thoughtfully gives up their wishes, and take backsies rule. Including the antagonist, of course.

Every consequence is thus undone, sort of, except for all the ones the movie forgot about, like the bad guy still using Marine One as his personal joyride, which seems implausible with no longer brainwashed crew. It's Christmas in DC, with the usual thick layering of white snow and evergreen trees lining the streets of the pastoral scene as exists nowhere in the city, and Diana makes googly eyes at the guy who was bodyjacked, who seems remarkably unperturbed about his entire life having presumably collapsed while he wasn't at work or home for the past six months.

[GloatingSwine]

I have heard it described as "The plot of Superman II with the execution of Superman IV".

Sounds pretty apt.

[Talakeal]

Worst DCEU movie yet, and that is saying something. This one didn’t even have good humor or action set pieces to make it entertaining.

The plot made no sense whatsoever, and the rules seemed to be made up (and then forgotten) as they went along.

I did like Kristen Wiig’s performance, and I really wish the movie had spent more time on her arc.

Also missed how exactly she cheated in the opening scene, or how it was known. Was it really just using her smaller size to take an alternate path? Because I have to tell you, in most movies that would be shown as a positive...

[Tyndmyr]

Also missed how exactly she cheated in the opening scene, or how it was known. Was it really just using her smaller size to take an alternate path? Because I have to tell you, in most movies that would be shown as a positive...

Yeah. I honestly expected it to be portrayed as positive because of creativity and what not, but I guess she missed a waypoint, so it counts as cheating by whatever the Amazonian rules are. The audience is never shown or explained the rules, so it's most definitely not clear, but her mom stops her before the finish line and claims she cheated.

[Khedrac]

I for one enjoyed it. It's not a great film but I did not think it that bad - and it has a few nice homages to previous versions.

The total dearth of other new films out may well work to WW84's advantage, but I still rate it better than Justice League.

There is exactly one bonus scene at the end, quite early in the credits (if you see the special guest star entry you are past it) so unless you are interested in the credits (which I try to be for all the hard working people) there is no need to stay to the end.

[JadedDM]

I enjoyed it, as well, but I can't disagree that it has quite a few flaws and very strange choices.

The weirdest thing about the body surfing stuff is that the morality of it is never brought up. You'd think, especially during the parts where Steve is trying to convince Diana to let him go and rescind her wish, he would bring up the fact that the hapless fellow he's possessing can never return to his own body as long as Steve possesses it as part of his argument on why keeping him alive was wrong. But he doesn't. Nobody does. It's so odd.

I also felt that entire moral of the story--that you shouldn't take shortcuts to get what you want--is somewhat undercut by the fact that Lord's wish was the only one made with knowledge and intention. Diana's and Barbara's wishes are made by accident, as neither actually believed they would come true. Most everyone else was basically tricked into wishing by Lord. It feels like the real moral of the story is, if someone touches your shoulder and asks, "You really wish for X, don't you?" you should never say "yes."

Also, I understood why they didn't go that route, but I have to admit I was a little disappointed the movie didn't end with Diana snapping Lord's neck on live TV. :smalltongue: (Admit it, that dialogue about how the stone needed to be destroyed to undo its wishes made you think, at least for a moment, they might take that route.)

That cameo in the credits was great, though.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Tyndmyr
Spoilery review/rant in spoilers:

I want to ask if you’re making all this nonsense up, but in my heart I believe that you aren’t.

So Diana makes things invisible now, rather than throwing a switch on her jet’s cloaking device?

And she somehow coopts someone else’s body (who looks exactly like Boyfriend) so Boyfriend’s mind can drive it? But where did Boyfriend’s mind come back from? If she wished his mind back, why can’t she wish his body back too? That seems more convenient for everyone.

And then she…kills him? But without killing the host body? This is confusing.

[Talakeal]

I want to ask if you’re making all this nonsense up, but in my heart I believe that you aren’t.

So Diana makes things invisible now, rather than throwing a switch on her jet’s cloaking device?

And she somehow coopts someone else’s body (who looks exactly like Boyfriend) so Boyfriend’s mind can drive it? But where did Boyfriend’s mind come back from? If she wished his mind back, why can’t she wish his body back too? That seems more convenient for everyone.

And then she…kills him? But without killing the host body? This is confusing.


The wishing stones powers and costs are very vague. Diana traded her powers for her boyfriend to come back, and them the villain steals the power so she couldn't make another wish if she wanted to. But she can still undo the wish, for reasons.


Her boyfriends “soul” was brought back from “the afterlife” to possess a random guy. He looks different, but is still played by Chris Pine do to cinematic convenience Hot Tub Time Machine style.

[JadedDM]

I want to ask if you’re making all this nonsense up, but in my heart I believe that you aren’t.

So Diana makes things invisible now, rather than throwing a switch on her jet’s cloaking device?

And she somehow coopts someone else’s body (who looks exactly like Boyfriend) so Boyfriend’s mind can drive it? But where did Boyfriend’s mind come back from? If she wished his mind back, why can’t she wish his body back too? That seems more convenient for everyone.

And then she…kills him? But without killing the host body? This is confusing.

She reveals that since Zeus made her homeland invisible, and she's his daughter, she can make things invisible, too.

She basically wished to have him back, and the stone brought back his spirit and put it into another guy's body. But Diana only sees Steve, and everyone else sees this other guy; it's sort of a Quantum Leap thing (including a scene with Steve looking at himself in the mirror but seeing someone else).

But every wish has a price, so Diana starts losing her powers. At the end of the film, she realizes she has to let him go in order to save the world, so she rescinds her wish, and Steve leaps out of the body. I can only assume he starts leaping from host to host, within his own lifetime, hoping that each leap will be the leap home.

[Tyndmyr]

I want to ask if you’re making all this nonsense up, but in my heart I believe that you aren’t.

Hah, I'm not even half that creative. This whole thing is just...bewilderingly crazy. I can't imagine how the writers settled on this.


So Diana makes things invisible now, rather than throwing a switch on her jet’s cloaking device?

And she somehow coopts someone else’s body (who looks exactly like Boyfriend) so Boyfriend’s mind can drive it? But where did Boyfriend’s mind come back from? If she wished his mind back, why can’t she wish his body back too? That seems more convenient for everyone.

And then she…kills him? But without killing the host body? This is confusing.


Apparently you can un-monkeys paw yourself by just saying "I renounce my wish" which is told to them by someone who arrives thirty minutes before the movie ends, claims to be the reincarnation of some other dude that isn't explained, has a magical book of lore he hasn't read, but which he knows contains the answer.

He informs her that the device with latin on it is some ancient prehistoric thing that doomed atlantis and the mayans and what not, and then vanishes from the movie entirely.

It's never made clear why it was necessary for the wish to borrow someone else's body. Nor anything about how the undoing works.

The rules for wishes as given are very few, and all of them are broken at least once, and at least once for each its lamented that they can't be broken.

It's sort of vaguely implied that boyfriend is in some heaven-like place prior to being called back, but he doesn't seem put out at being in the 80s instead. Maybe he goes back there?

[Lord Raziere]

I watched it with my mother and she liked it. Me?


Honestly, this pretty much fits what I know of DC storytelling to a T. the setting is almost boringly wholesome and upbeat, the villain is villainous and represents the desires everyone has deep down, being a basically an avatar of greed through it showing how greed can be destructive to the entire world. Diana is truth and thus saves humanity with it, but only after confronting the truth of what she wanted herself. I haven't seen any other DC films, but this is pretty in line with how DC tell its stories in my experience, its pretty black and white morality and Diana knows she was in the wrong by not renouncing the wish sooner by the end. Cheetara provides a good foil, though to be honest I thought their early interactions were romantic in nature but I guess thats just me.

I would say its decent at least to me. I'm not going to defend it or anything, those are just my thoughts.

[Dire_Flumph]

I liked it (saw Soul the same day and liked that a lot more though), but wouldn't rate it any higher than fine. Gadot, Pine and Wiig were all great, I had to keep reminding myself Pedro Pascal is capable of better, no standout moments, a lot of story threads that went nowhere (Minerva's story just sort of ended, didn't it? And what was the point of the gold armor other than merchandising?), a fair amount more dodgy CGI than I expected. But fine.

I'd have liked something to expand on Diana's character more, but as a standalone Wonder Woman movie, sure, I had a good time.

About the body surfing, we all agreed that was shoved in there only because of the actor's resemblance to Lyle Waggoner. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty confident that's the case.


Yeah. I honestly expected it to be portrayed as positive because of creativity and what not, but I guess she missed a waypoint, so it counts as cheating by whatever the Amazonian rules are. The audience is never shown or explained the rules, so it's most definitely not clear, but her mom stops her before the finish line and claims she cheated.

She didn't complete the course, I thought that was pretty clear. It was a horse racing (and archery) portion of a triathalon. She fell off her horse, and that likely was an instant disqualification (she kept looking behind her, and that really wasn't smart but understandable because of her age). She instead bypassed a section of the course and tried to pretend it didn't happen. I used to work for the IronMan Triathalon in Kona and I can tell you they wouldn't hand out Kudos for bypassing sections of the course.

[Talakeal]

Cheetara provides a good foil, though to be honest I thought their early interactions were romantic in nature but I guess thats just me.

Not just you.

[Tyndmyr]

I wonder if they didn't originally float some sort of jealousy motivation for their opposition, then ditched it? It would at least make the interactions with Cheetara make a little more sense overall.

[Lord Raziere]

I wonder if they didn't originally float some sort of jealousy motivation for their opposition, then ditched it? It would at least make the interactions with Cheetara make a little more sense overall.

Yeah, that would make more sense
because all of WW and Cheetara's interactions make it look like that WW is going to try out dating her to try and move on from him:
-meet cute at where they work
-discussing their love lives at a cafe
-WW saving her from some drunk dude at night just out of nowhere

these are pretty romantically coded encounters, but then nope he just comes back because wish stone. guess they didn't want to set off a internet firestorm or whatever.

[Chen]

So forgetting her newfound ability to make things invisible, they talk about radar and they could still detect the plane even if they couldn’t see it. So her solution was making the plane invisible (unable to be seen)?!? It was clearly interacting with the clouds that wouldn’t even stop radar!!!

[Dire_Flumph]

So forgetting her newfound ability to make things invisible, they talk about radar and they could still detect the plane even if they couldn’t see it. So her solution was making the plane invisible (unable to be seen)?!? It was clearly interacting with the clouds that wouldn’t even stop radar!!!

Well, that's can't see because it's dark vs. can't see because of a magical barrier. Different other thing.

If the Amazon's disappearing barrier just blocked visible light, Themyscira would have been found long before the 2010's

[HolyDraconus]

Well, that's can't see because it's dark vs. can't see because of a magical barrier. Different other thing.

If the Amazon's disappearing barrier just blocked visible light, Themyscira would have been found long before the 2010's

Eh, when real world we still have missing data on the bermuda, like ships that was lost since the 1920s being found this year, it doesn't hold up.

[Dire_Flumph]

Eh, when real world we still have missing data on the bermuda, like ships that was lost since the 1920s being found this year, it doesn't hold up.

Themyscira is a bit bigger than a ship and above water. If it wasn't protected from radar imaging then yes, it would have been found a lot earlier than the 2010's.

[HolyDraconus]

But a ship, an Ocean liner, is bigger than a jet.... hell, goat island was a myth for decades.

[Peelee]

Eh, when real world we still have missing data on the bermuda, like ships that was lost since the 1920s being found this year, it doesn't hold up.

The Bermuda Triangle (or anything else about Bermuda and missing ships/planes/vehicles) is basically statistically normal. The only reason it even became notable was because it was one of the most heavily travelled areas in the world for some time, so even though the percent of vehicles that were lost was the same as everywhere else, the actual number seemed large to the layperson.

[Cikomyr2]

Twas okay. Bit weak in parts, but nothing abysmal. The thematic structure of the movie was there at least.

Also, the OP rant is kind of all over the place. Max did not "own" anything. Wonderwoman did not steal the stone. The stone was seized in a black market, so it was initially stolen in the first place. And the story makes sense that while what Diana did at the start was clever and resourceful, it also meant she wasn't achieving success through the mean the challenge was meant to be fought. She failed the challenge, and rule bending wasn't okay there.

The same way that just wishing to get something is not the proper way of getting it. It backfires because you didn't get it properly, and it will cost you. So there was some thematic structure that held up.

Sad that they never acknowledged the moral dilemma of the poor smuch possessed by Pratt.

[CharonsHelper]

It could have been a solid B if they'd chopped out 40 minutes and closed several plot holes like Steve knowing how to fly a 1980s jet when he'd only flown 1910s planes before. (That one was easy too - just have the body he was inhabiting be a pilot and make it so that he was able to use that knowledge.)

That - and they took too long explaining that the wishes came at a terrible price. Maybe I missed it - but his getting things after granting wishes confused me for awhile.

As it was - it was maybe a D+. It had cool moments, and I still liked the main characters, but the plot and pacing were a mess. (Which is an interesting situation. Usually a messy plot makes me dislike the main characters. I suppose because unlike most messy plots, the MCs didn't ever really hold the idiot ball.)

[Palanan]

I'm getting the sense that this was a real chop job in terms of the writing and scene editing. Just going by what's been said, it feels like there were several rewrites which were never really smoothed together.

Were the delays only caused by the pandemic, or were there some New Mutants-style reshoots as well?

[Spiderswims]

I'm getting the sense that this was a real chop job in terms of the writing and scene editing. Just going by what's been said, it feels like there were several rewrites which were never really smoothed together.

Were the delays only caused by the pandemic, or were there some New Mutants-style reshoots as well?


Most places say there were plenty of WW84 reshoots.

It does have a vague story that was cut up and edited and reshot.



The Egypt part really stands out.....in DC, zip to Egypt and zip back to DC.....in an hour or so? Plus the whole go to Egypt...and, er, find the bad guy on a random road in seconds?

And there is way too much focus on the whole D plot of "every man is an anti woman monster".

And the not Trump villain? Sure, guess all the Trump haters thought it was a great accurate character? And the 'great' Trump wall bit?

And the movie just.....sort of ends? Everyone world wide un-wishes? But there is still worldwide devastation?

[Clertar]

It's just too bad that they cut the original end credit scene out, where WW wakes up and says "that's it, no more gin and tonics before bed."

[MikelaC1]

Yeah. I honestly expected it to be portrayed as positive because of creativity and what not, but I guess she missed a waypoint, so it counts as cheating by whatever the Amazonian rules are. The audience is never shown or explained the rules, so it's most definitely not clear, but her mom stops her before the finish line and claims she cheated.

Having not seen the movie I cant say for sure but just because her mom said she cheated doesnt make it so. From the original movie, we have seen numerous times that mom will go to any length to deny Diana her birthright.

[CharonsHelper]

Having not seen the movie I cant say for sure but just because her mom said she cheated doesnt make it so. From the original movie, we have seen numerous times that mom will go to any length to deny Diana her birthright.

No - kid Diana totally cheated.

[J-H]

I was actually planning on watching this movie before it came to Redbox, because the first WW movie was good and I trusted the director/team to make another good movie again. This from someone who hasn't even gotten around to watching Infinity War yet, or Aquaman.

I've seen enough reviews at this point to know that I'm not going to bother with it now.
:(

[Cikomyr2]

Having not seen the movie I cant say for sure but just because her mom said she cheated doesnt make it so. From the original movie, we have seen numerous times that mom will go to any length to deny Diana her birthright.

First of all, it's not Diana's mom who stopped her and said she cheated. It was her trainer.

And she did cheat. She skipped a step in the relay race. No race with position markers will ever accept a winner that skipped one of the marker.

[Talakeal]

First of all, it's not Diana's mom who stopped her and said she cheated. It was her trainer.

And she did cheat. She skipped a step in the relay race. No race with position markers will ever accept a winner that skipped one of the marker.

The thing is, if she missed one of her markers, is it really "cheating" or just not being eligible to finish the race?

[Dire_Flumph]

The thing is, if she missed one of her markers, is it really "cheating" or just not being eligible to finish the race?

The latter. Cheating is pretending it didn't happen and trying to finish anyway and that's what she did.

[Talakeal]

The latter. Cheating is pretending it didn't happen and trying to finish anyway and that's what she did.

So, in essence, she is throwing a child to the ground and calling them a cheater for what, as far as she knows, could very well be an honest mistake?

[Cikomyr2]

So, in essence, she is throwing a child to the ground and calling them a cheater for what, as far as she knows, could very well be an honest mistake?

No. Because she didn't just merely missed one. She skipped part of the race. She didn't ran as much as the other competitors. It's outright cheating in a *race*

[Talakeal]

No. Because she didn't just merely missed one. She skipped part of the race. She didn't ran as much as the other competitors. It's outright cheating in a *race*

Two problems though:

1: Did they *know* that she skipped part of the race?
2: The conversation sounds like Diana sure thinks she is still eligible to win, and her trainer never says anything to dissuade her of this notion. Hell, why throw her to the ground and mess up her shot at all if she was ineligible to win?

[Dire_Flumph]

Two problems though:

1: Did they *know* that she skipped part of the race?
2: The conversation sounds like Diana sure thinks she is still eligible to win, and her trainer never says anything to dissuade her of this notion. Hell, why throw her to the ground and mess up her shot at all if she was ineligible to win?

1: "You took the short path. You cheated Diana. That is the truth. That is the only truth, and truth is all there is."

I'm not sure how much clearer you want.

2: Diana thinks she's still eligible to win because she's a child and that is literally all that matters to her. The fact that she cheated and bypassed a section of the track is irrelevant to her because in her mind she deserves to win because she's better than everyone else. She was taken out of the race forcefully because she had refused to admit on her own that she was disqualified.

If there's anything that's actually relevant in this scene to the rest of the movie it would be the danger in taking shortcuts.

[Talakeal]

Eh, just seems like a lot of assumption and overreaction for someone who isnt eligible to win anyway. But I don't know why I care so much, it was probably the least confusing part of the whole movie.


Did anyone else have problems with the quality of the streaming? My picture was incredibly grainy and had to pause to buffer every few minutes, which isnt a problem I have had with other streaming services.

[JadedDM]

I can't stop thinking about the mechanics of wishing.

Early in the film, one of the scientists jokingly touches the stone and wishes for coffee. He is pleasantly surprised when he gets one. Presumably, he drinks it all. So my question is...can he renounce his wish? He already drank it. How does that work?

[Willie the Duck]

Two problems though:
1: Did they *know* that she skipped part of the race?
2: The conversation sounds like Diana sure thinks she is still eligible to win, and her trainer never says anything to dissuade her of this notion. Hell, why throw her to the ground and mess up her shot at all if she was ineligible to win?

Eh, just seems like a lot of assumption and overreaction for someone who isnt eligible to win anyway. But I don't know why I care so much, it was probably the least confusing part of the whole movie.
We know she cheatedbecause someone in a position to make that declaration said so onscreen. It probably bothers you because that's how it was shown -- Diana continuing to race and then *wham* physically stopped and then she and us the audience are told that she'd been cheating (making us retroactively reframe what we just saw). (Unless I missed it, haven't rewatched to check), there wasn't the setup where the relay markers were pre-explained so that when you see her head down the shortcut, you recognize, 'oh, hey, she's not supposed to be doing this.' Instead there's the mental whiplash of:
movie-"you cheated"
your brain-"no she didn'... oh, I guess she did."
Mind you, from a storytelling perspective, it's rather important that she was cheating, as it sets up the main theme of the movie -- can't cheat/take the shortcut-- but they sure could have set it up better.

[Tyndmyr]

Well, that's can't see because it's dark vs. can't see because of a magical barrier. Different other thing.

If the Amazon's disappearing barrier just blocked visible light, Themyscira would have been found long before the 2010's

It got found by the Germans in WW1. And then I guess also again by Steppenwulf? I don't really know what those have in common, but the former at least doesn't seem amazingly stealthy.

I'm mostly okay with handwaving Themyscira because backstory and whatever, but, like with Wakanda, it probably doesn't do to dwell on those plot aspects, because it'll bring up odd questions.



Also, the OP rant is kind of all over the place. Max did not "own" anything. Wonderwoman did not steal the stone. The stone was seized in a black market, so it was initially stolen in the first place.

In her investigation, she eventually turns up that Max's name was on the box, it was apparently being shipped to him before being somehow stolen from the black market. Who is stealing and why doesn't seem very clear, but those people don't appear to work for Max.

This might also be a casualty of editing, perhaps there was a subplot there that got cut. As it is, the theft functions only as a way to involve WW, it doesn't seem to be fleshed out beyond that.



Were the delays only caused by the pandemic, or were there some New Mutants-style reshoots as well?

There's at least speculation of reshoots and re-edits, though certainly the pandemic was at least partially to blame. I'm not sure precisely how much responsibility to attribute to each cause.


Having not seen the movie I cant say for sure but just because her mom said she cheated doesnt make it so. From the original movie, we have seen numerous times that mom will go to any length to deny Diana her birthright.

That's certainly true, though it would only make the thematic choices even more muddled. If she was in fact not cheating, then her eventual character growth should be something related to that, perhaps realizing that forging a new path is right and proper, even if it means avoiding tradition. Sadly, nothing like that's in the finale, and there isn't even really any character growth.

I think they meant to portray it as cheating, but they didn't set it up for the audience to understand this while watching her actions. We know she's doing *something* but they don't even bother to describe the nature of the competition before the scene starts, let alone set rules or stakes. Given that it's a fairly isolated culture with some unusual features, one can interpret it multiple ways until that point, and even then it might be confusing if you don't trust the arbitrary authority figure.

[CharonsHelper]

I'm mostly okay with handwaving Themyscira because backstory and whatever, but, like with Wakanda, it probably doesn't do to dwell on those plot aspects, because it'll bring up odd questions.


I will say, Themyscira makes a heck of a lot more sense than Wakanda. At least it has magic protecting it rather than somehow independently creating the best technology EVAR because of their magic metal, when technology is integrally tied into trading of ideas etc. while they are largely isolationist. Themyscira actually suffers from their isolation near the beginning of the first Wonder Woman movie. Their warriors are badasses, but a lot of them still died to WWI era guns.

Plus Wakanda does somewhat interact with the rest of the world - yet somehow everyone around is too stupid to realize that they are super advanced.

[HolyDraconus]

I will say, Themyscira makes a heck of a lot more sense than Wakanda. At least it has magic protecting it rather than somehow independently creating the best technology EVAR because of their magic metal, when technology is integrally tied into trading of ideas etc. while they are largely isolationist. Themyscira actually suffers from their isolation near the beginning of the first Wonder Woman movie. Their warriors are badasses, but a lot of them still died to WWI era guns.

Plus Wakanda does somewhat interact with the rest of the world - yet somehow everyone around is too stupid to realize that they are super advanced.

In defense of Wakanda, while the rest of the globe was hard at work on warring, they was trying to better their people. When a nation is completely directed to the betterment of its people its not terribly far fetched. Sure, a lot of modern advances today is the results of war, but that doesn't mean they all have to be.

[Keltest]

In defense of Wakanda, while the rest of the globe was hard at work on warring, they was trying to better their people. When a nation is completely directed to the betterment of its people its not terribly far fetched. Sure, a lot of modern advances today is the results of war, but that doesn't mean they all have to be.

They say that necessity is the mother of innovation, and while war is certainly a necessity, its not the only one.

[Julian84]

So I feel some of OP's rant is a bit hyperbolic and unfair :smallsigh: I'd say this film is pretty comparable to the first WW, though lacking in action and a cohesive 1st and 2nd acts. It's certainly not as messy, unfocused, and all over the place as Suicide Squad was.

The Themyscira Summer Games segment could have been cut entirely. It's visually interesting but it is way too much time spent establishing a fairly elemental moral, especially for the heroine with the Lasso of Truth.

The mall fight should have been recut to hold the cheese and focus more on the plot relevance of the story beat, because this is really our inciting incident: The dreamstone is knocked off its path to Max and finds its way instead to Diana and Barbara.

I completely thought for a while that [Diana x Barbara] (https://youtu.be/1jP19q5WT9s?t=50) was going to be a real ship in this movie, I'd been thinking that since the trailers. As someone who has been in a romantic relationship with someone who did not have the same financial or material background as myself, that alone was the basis for some tension and resentment. I certainly went into this movie willing to accept that Barbara's inferiority complex would introduce a toxic element into a romance with Diana, especially if Diana is pining for an "uncomplicated" romance with her sort of boyfriend who died 70 years ago.

I very much agree that the knowledge of the Dreamstone needed to be a lot more explicit from the beginning for both Diana and Barbara. Diana making a deliberate wish on the Dreamstone for Steve to return would be fine because it shows she's flawed and human. It also creates a villain she has a personal stake with, as Barbara decides she wants to have what Diana has so she won't ever be in the position to be vulnerable, jilted, and heartbroken. Bam, instant motivation.

I liked Pedro Pascal, I liked his Maxwell Lord. No complaints there.

What is confusing to me is why the Dreamstone had twists on Diana's wish. The first is by placing the soul of Steve into the body of another person which is really, really squicky when you begin to think about it, and becomes a very unheroic flaw for Diana as she totally accepts this. I figure this chalks up to Hollywood values dissonance, though. Then her powers are waning. If they wanted both of these, my thought was have Diana's powers failing be attributed to Barbara's wish: She's literally taking what Diana has. Have this keep going until the climax in the 3rd act and you have a very vulnerable Diana and it gives a lot more emphasis to the lasso's importance and the choices of the other characters to renounce their wishes is still rewarding because it relies on Diana's ability to be a good person and hold the moral high ground with a little help from the lasso.

Oh and she realizes that she needs to let go of Steve because the situation is squicky. Or, you know, if he came back as just Steve maybe just have her realize she can't hold onto him while trying to get everyone else to give up what they want.

The whole Egypt segment... Was probably a Grant Morrison script holdover and could have been done literally anywhere with oil. It was pretty forgettable in the long run.

Oh and for the folks who are wondering why Diana wasn't able to get over Steve Trevor in 70 years... I mean, she's shown to be basically immortal? If he was her first real love and was lost in a traumatic and painful way, that'll stay with you for a while. Maybe she processes trauma at a slower rate than normal people do?

[Giggling Ghast]

I heard a joke from a lady on Twitter that WW84 was a feminist film in that it inspired her to make less crappy movies.


If there's anything that's actually relevant in this scene to the rest of the movie it would be the danger in taking shortcuts.

I’m a little fuzzy on the definition of shortcuts. Say I was paralyzed from the neck down - how is it a shortcut to wish that I could walk again when the only path to doing so is through a wish?

[Traab]

I heard a joke from a lady on Twitter that WW84 was a feminist film in that it inspired her to make less crappy movies.



I’m a little fuzzy on the definition of shortcuts. Say I was paralyzed from the neck down - how is it a shortcut to wish that I could walk again when the only path to doing so is through a wish?

If the doctor told you you would be regaining full use of your body with hard work then yes, that would be a shortcut. No not every wish is going to fit neatly into the category of a shortcut, but the general ones would. "I want to be rich, i want to be famous, i want to be skilled" etc etc etc. All things you could attain, at least technically, through hard work and earning it. So getting it through a wish would be a shortcut. Im sure out of the billions of wishes out there, there are plenty that wouldnt be considered a shortcut, but its a freaking action flick, dont expect it to make 100% sense and cover every possible angle everyone examining it can think of. What you need to do is determine if its at least fridge logic worthy. Meaning at the time you watched it did you accept it? Then walk to the fridge to get a drink and go "hey wait a minute... what about xyz?" From what it sounds like, there are plenty of parts that fail the fridge logic aspect in this film though. :smalltongue:

[Kitten Champion]

If the doctor told you you would be regaining full use of your body with hard work then yes, that would be a shortcut. No not every wish is going to fit neatly into the category of a shortcut, but the general ones would. "I want to be rich, i want to be famous, i want to be skilled" etc etc etc. All things you could attain, at least technically, through hard work and earning it. So getting it through a wish would be a shortcut. Im sure out of the billions of wishes out there, there are plenty that wouldnt be considered a shortcut, but its a freaking action flick, dont expect it to make 100% sense and cover every possible angle everyone examining it can think of. What you need to do is determine if its at least fridge logic worthy. Meaning at the time you watched it did you accept it? Then walk to the fridge to get a drink and go "hey wait a minute... what about xyz?" From what it sounds like, there are plenty of parts that fail the fridge logic aspect in this film though. :smalltongue:

Frankly, in a world such as that of DC comics, which is defined by marvellous world-reshaping superpowers that characters are either born with or receive as fantastical gifts from others, that rings pretty hollow.

[Giggling Ghast]

The moral of the story is, unless you were born with divine powers like Wonder Woman, you don't deserve them, you cheating bastard. :smalltongue:

[Saintheart]

The moral of the story is, unless you were born with divine powers like Wonder Woman, you don't deserve them, you cheating bastard. :smalltongue:

Even if you worked hard to get them and didn't take any shortcuts in doing so? :smallbiggrin:

[Peelee]

Watching it as I speak.

OK, it's pretty blatant that she lost the race. They were supposed to shoot arrows through various targets. Because she fell off the horse and dropped her bow, she didn't hit one of the targets. Frankly, the worst thing about that scene was that the older woman knew that she took a shortcut. I don't know how she got that knowledge, but apparently she did. In any event, even without the shortcut, Diana didn't hit all the targets and should have been disqualified. It's very clear as shown.

It's already ridiculous that Captain America can do that with his shield, so why should I be particularly bothered when Wonder Woman, who is more magically powerful/capable than Captain America, can do that with her tiara? Frankly, I think it's stupid when Cap does it and it's stupid when WW does it, but if anyone accepts that Cap can do it, they shouldn't have a problem with WW doing it IMO.

[HolyDraconus]

Watching it as I speak.

OK, it's pretty blatant that she lost the race. They were supposed to shoot arrows through various targets. Because she fell off the horse and dropped her bow, she didn't hit one of the targets. Frankly, the worst thing about that scene was that the older woman knew that she took a shortcut. I don't know how she got that knowledge, but apparently she did. In any event, even without the shortcut, Diana didn't hit all the targets and should have been disqualified. It's very clear as shown.


As to thatIt was shown that each time they hit the target it shoots up a flare, which then is seen and the amazon for that flare signals for the pennant to be lowered. When she cheated, it was realized because everyone else was still hitting their flares while she did not. To suddenly show up at the end of the race and try to win it when its clear that she failed... eh. The movie has a lot of issues... I wont give it that one.

[Peelee]

As to thatIt was shown that each time they hit the target it shoots up a flare, which then is seen and the amazon for that flare signals for the pennant to be lowered. When she cheated, it was realized because everyone else was still hitting their flares while she did not. To suddenly show up at the end of the race and try to win it when its clear that she failed... eh. The movie has a lot of issues... I wont give it that one.

Fair. Though it is possible that she just dropped her bow without being unseated, but yeah, it doesn't bother me enough to complain about it at all. I wouldn't have given it a second thought if it hadn't been for the discussion in this thread before I saw it.

Also, I liked her line "I'll stick with the one I don't have." And I'm liking Mando in this so far. The hair is so cheesy 80's.

[Dr.Samurai]

I did not have high expectations going into this because I did not think the first Wonder Woman was much more than "probably the best DC movie to date" at the time. I think for that it was overrated in general.

But this sequel is pretty bad. Which is unfortunate, because there were some good elements that had potential.

The race at the start of the movie is completely unnecessary. We already know that Diana is stronger than all the Amazons, so there is no need to see her as a child beating everyone else. It only serves to set up the moral of the story. The execution of this is pretty poor (as it is not clearly obvious that Diana is aware she is cheating). It is obvious to the audience because the film shows us that she missed a waypoint marker, but it isn't clear what the rules are and if what she does constitutes as obviously cheating *to Diana*. Secondly, the moral that she learns "all we have is the truth and that is all that matters" is so loosely connected to the plot of the movie that it doesn't really seem worth the screen time this race took up. Any normal human can struggle with the choice Diana had to make and come up with the fortitude to make the right choice in the end. We don't need to be told what the right thing to do is at the start of the movie.

That said, the dilemma Diana finds herself in with the Dreamstone and Steve is very good. In a better movie, this would have been great, as Wonder Woman's powers and abilities cannot "defeat" this situation, and it really puts her in a struggle we can all understand and force her to make a sacrifice in order to do the right thing and be a hero. In this movie, it was just sort of bizarre that Steve returns into someone else's body (wtf?) and also Diana starts losing her powers (double wammy!). I liked that she struggled with this (probably my favorite beat of this movie), but something was missing. I would have liked to see her make the conscious effort to continue on without her powers and try to beat Maxwell Lord and not be able to, and sacrifice her life with Steven in order to regain her powers to save the world. Something like that.

Speaking of Maxwell Lord, the villains in this movie suck. I hate loser villains. We've seen that portrayal of Barbara Minerva a million times at this point. It's a credit to Kristin Wiig that even though this is a type of character I can't stand, I still found her somewhat compelling and interesting. I wanted to see what Barbara was going to do next. Her transformation into Cheetah and that fight at the end were absolutely awful though. Dimly-lit CGI battle... no thanks.

Maxwell Lord is a sleezy car salesman-type who somehow knows about the Dreamstone. It is unclear (or at least I don't recall) how he ever knew about it or, given that he has no money, he orchestrated its theft. But he's clearly banking on obtaining this magical artifact to change things around. Maxwell is the worst sort of schemer; petty, vindictive, and desperate. Again, I don't like these types of villains and don't find them interesting. The powers he obtains by becoming the Dreamstone do make sense, and yet I was confused at first how it worked. The Dreamstone grants a wish but takes something from you (I guess). So when he becomes the Dreamstone, it was a little confusing to me because we are seeing that interaction take place in a more contractual sense, where Maxwell says out loud what he will take and makes it happen. I got the impression that someone with more savvy and forward thinking could utilize the powers of the Dreamstone in a much more effective and impactful way, and so Maxwell Lord was just a nonstop disappointment as he wished his way into rapidly-induced health issues and desperately tried to figure out how to grant mass wishes to steal... life forces... or something.

At the point that Steve was trying on outfits, I realized we had been watching the movie for some time and turned to my partner and said "can you believe this is a superhero movie?" seeing as the only superhero stuff going on had happened like 40 minutes before in the mall. Which, by the way, was a pretty cheesy scene and amounted to little more than Wonder Woman repeatedly leaping with her lasso from one floor to another. The action was repetitive and disappointing and the tone was a little too campy for me. The tiara should have been left out IMO as it just looks cheesy to me but I understand the want to include her full suite of powers or equipment. Patty Jenkins absolutely loves displaying Wonder Woman in midair and slow motion, and the movie can do with less of these display shots throughout it. Less slow motion in general would be good because she doesn't utilize it in a way that enhances the scenes. Same with Wonder Woman sliding around on her greaves; it was great when she first did it in that village fight scene in the first movie. But it doesn't mean it's always a good idea to do or that it looks good all the time.

With regards to the music... I'm sure this is a me thing but when I first hear a moving piece of music in a movie, that scene and the emotions in it stick with me. In the movie Sunshine (spoilers ahead) Capa is, as far as he knows, the only crew member still alive on the ship and makes the no-turning-back decision to blow the airlock and expose the ship to the vacuum of space with no way to repair it. He has been having nightmares each night about falling into the sun, and now, in order to save the world, he must leap through space onto the payload, which is hurtling into the sun. The song playing during the scene where Capa releases the payload and then makes the jump is John Murphy's Adagio in D Minor, and it is absolutely amazing. It evokes bravery, responsibility/duty, sacrifice and I've watched it many times since seeing it the first time.

They play this song when Diana abruptly learns how to fly after revoking her wish. I wanted to like the scene, as she comments earlier about Steve and flying and that is what always stuck with her. But it just didn't make sense for me in the movie. She had just received her powers, so it was weird that it happened right then all of a sudden. I didn't know what she was feeling except maybe pain at losing Steve, and perhaps anger at Maxwell Lord. So it's weird that this results in learning how to fly. Coupled with the song and my attaching it to the scene in Sunshine, and this scene in WW84 really didn't work for me.

Similarly, the song Beautiful Lie plays in BvS when we see young Bruce Wayne walking from the theater with his parents before Joe Chill arrives and kills them. This was a good scene in an otherwise pretty bad movie that worked really well. I knew what was about to happen, but the song and the slow-motion sequence worked well to still build up to a scene we've seen a million times. I actually found myself thinking through it "Young Clark is probably helping someone right now and learning a life lesson about humility and community from Pa Kent" and "Diana is probably leading her team of amazons in training to another victory in war games against the adult trainers". Meanwhile Bruce is about to come face to face with powerlessness, loss, suffering and agony, terrifying fear, etc. Something about the scene seemed very formative to me; Bruce Wayne, as a kid, has come up against the most terrifying moment of his life, and has lost everything dear to him, and will grow up to be a man that knows no fear and is willing to battle super powerful aliens and monsters to save people, because he has already faced his greatest fear/trauma.

They play Beautiful Lie when Diana is speaking to the world through Maxwell/Lasso of Truth and entreating them to revoke their wishes. Again, it just doesn't seem to fit for me. I guess the title seems to fit with the notion that the wishes being granted are "beautiful lies", but that doesn't mean the song works there lol. Again, probably just me, but after the disappointing Cheetah fight, I was disappointed that Wonder Woman just had to convince everyone to take back their wishes. And then Max running off to save his kid seemed off too, like... is he going to get away with practically causing Armageddon? Because he reconciled with his son?

Overall... someone else needs to write Wonder Woman movies going forward. We need better villains and plots and we need more Wonder Woman. This movie really didn't tell us much about her. In fact, she seems kind of stuck up in the first part of the movie before Steve arrives. She isn't even that warm to Barbara when they eat out together, mostly just trying to explain that she doesn't have it as good as Barbara thinks. It's enough to make you roll your eyes through the back of your head. We don't even know that the truth is important to Diana, we only know that she was told this when she was a little girl, and then she tells everyone else at the end of the movie. We need more Diana/WW in the next movie. We need to get to know her better. Barbara, Maxwell, and Steven seemed to have more screentime/development than Diana, which is a shame.

Ok, that's my thoughts.

[BloodSquirrel]

Reposting what I said elsewhere:


I'd love to hear the behind-the-scenes story of how this one happened. I've heard that there were a lot of re-shoots after test audiences saw the original cut, and it certainly feels like it. Just like a lot of DCEU films, this one is completely unfocused, morally and tonally confused, and full of bizarre choices that should have been cut out as soon as an editor gave the script a once-over.

Like... did we really need so many scenes of Caveman Steve staring in wonder at the advanced technology of the 1980s? Or screwing around with his wardrobe? What was the point of the golden armor? You could have taken it completely out of the movie and nothing would have changed. Meanwhile, Diana feels like a neglected side character in her own movie. She comes across as childish and selfish for having to have Steve beat her over the head with the right thing to do.

Oh yeah, and why did Steve have to come back in another man's body? It's completely inconsistent with how the rest of the wishes work, and adds a really creepy edge to Steve and Diana's romance. And there was no reason for it. At all. Not even from a narrative perspective. It's a completely baffling choice.

Far from being woke, as a lot of people feared, this movie's message feels almost Randian, except without Ayn Rand's trademark subtlety. Even as a fan of Atlas Shrugged, the message in WW84 comes off as a kind of finger-waving at the audience that's completely inappropriate in a Wonder Woman movie. The movie ends with the audience being directly lectured by Diana in a way that would make John Gault blush.

There's probably a reason why ultra-didactic writers like Rand or Heinlein don't translate well to the silver screen, and it's probably because in order to get away with lecturing your audience you actually have to have something more interesting and complex to say than "Don't wish for more nuclear weapons", and there isn't time for that stuff in a superhero action movie.

I can't stress enough here how much it would have wrecked this movie's message to have a single character decide to use his/her wish responsibly. You'd think somebody, somewhere in the world would wish for, I don't know, a cure for cancer. Or for all of those nuclear bombs that are about to destroy the world to disappear.

And, yeah, the special effects are really, really bad. Half of the scenes of Diana jumping/flying look like somebody was dangling an action figure on a string, and her lasso effects looked like something out of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?.

It's not the worst DCEU movie by a longshot, but it might just be one of the most disappointing.

EDIT: Random question: I'm not sure what the timeline here is supposed to be, but does anyone else wonder if Bruce Wayne wished for his parents to come back to life?

[Peelee]

EDIT: Random question: I'm not sure what the timeline here is supposed to be, but does anyone else wonder if Bruce Wayne wished for his parents to come back to life?

Ya know, I was getting ready to defend this against all the hate because while it hasn't been great, it hasn't been bad. Pretty solidly mediocre. But then I got to that scene and it nosedived hard.

C'mon, you know there would have been at least one person in New York City Gotham that would have been like "i wish YOU'D SHADDAP!"

ETA: The ending saved it, but then, I'm a sucker for that kind of ending.

[HolyDraconus]

The hangups i have is why is there hesitation to return a dude to the afterlife while hes body jacking somone else. As someone said that i agreed with, if Superman did this crap, or Hal Jordan, it would be so wrong as to be bashed into oblivion, regardless of the fact that the body gets its mind back. But because its WW it should be overlooked??? and no amount of hand waving changes the fact that at the end of the movie, two nations are at war, another nation has been severely affected, and countless people are straight up dead.....but its snowing on Christmas so we are supposed to forget that??

[Peelee]

The hangups i have is why is there hesitation to return a dude to the afterlife while hes body jacking somone else. As someone said that i agreed with, if Superman did this crap, or Hal Jordan, it would be so wrong as to be bashed into oblivion, regardless of the fact that the body gets its mind back. But because its WW it should be overlooked??? and no amount of hand waving changes the fact that at the end of the movie, two nations are at war, another nation has been severely affected, and countless people are straight up dead.....but its snowing on Christmas so we are supposed to forget that??

Eh, I think there would be a similar response over it happening in Superman. Imean, it already is being bashed into oblivion, from what I can see.

Also, as far as endings I'm a sucker for, I more meant reuniting with his kid.

As far as consequences... well, the fictionalized versions of both major countries were *******s so I don't much care. They can both go rot. The other one? Same. I realize I may be in the minority on not caring about that terribly much, of course.

[HolyDraconus]

As far as consequences... well, the fictionalized versions of both major countries were *******s so I don't much care. They can both go rot. The other one? Same. I realize I may be in the minority on not caring about that terribly much, of course.

Its more than that though. You can't hold a people truly accountable for the things a nation chose to do. Plus, since this movie was supposed to be a telling of a "past" story it screws that up by making WW a liar about quitting heroics for a hundred years, and the gaping hole of a planet that has started: not on the verge of but actually started a nuclear war. So what, the movie takes place in an alternate timeline then from what they said it would be? Or is modern day just Fallout with a DC spin?

[Traab]

Does wonder woman even HAVE any good villains to work with? Most of the ones I know about are the originals created in the heady days of casual racism, sexism, and the fact that she was created as a bondage fanfic about how women want to submit to men. (And oddly at the same time women being destined to rule the world. This dude had some issues)

[Kitten Champion]

Does wonder woman even HAVE any good villains to work with? Most of the ones I know about are the originals created in the heady days of casual racism, sexism, and the fact that she was created as a bondage fanfic about how women want to submit to men. (And oddly at the same time women being destined to rule the world. This dude had some issues)

You can take your pick of morally questionable Greek deities and assorted mythological villains -- Hades, Circe, Medusa, etc.

As a bonus, you don't even have the issue of name recognition, as your general audiences have already heard of them.

Though, for whatever reason, I think the first Wonder Woman established that essentially the Greek pantheon was dead. Or something like that.

[Willie the Duck]

Eh, I think there would be a similar response over it happening in Superman. Imean, it already is being bashed into oblivion, from what I can see.
Agreed. From what I can tell, everyone who is talking about the film is mentioning that Steve is using another dude's body (w/o consent) and it is a huge problem. I don't know how 'but if Superman did it...' can make any sense. How much harder could the decision be bashed?


Frankly, in a world such as that of DC comics, which is defined by marvellous world-reshaping superpowers that characters are either born with or receive as fantastical gifts from others, that rings pretty hollow.
Normally I would say something like 'none of the standalone DC Hero's personal plotlines make sense in a world where the rest of them exist. Superman could solve almost all of Batman's challenges, and vice-versa. You have to view them as not taking place in the same world until they are in a crossover product.' However, they do rather directly include external-to-WW references in this one, so it doesn't work.

[CharonsHelper]

Though, for whatever reason, I think in the first Wonder Woman established that essentially the Greek pantheon was dead. Or something like that.

At least the Olympians are. It was vague enough that they could probably say that many of the lesser deities are still around - and definitely a lot of the mythological monsters.

They could have pretty easily had an explanation that the Olympians had locked away a bunch of the worst ones in a prison which was powered by their godly might - but with Ares (the last Olympian) now dead, they escaped into the world.

IMO, fighting an assortment of Greek myths who are trying to take power in the modern world sounds like a much better premise than a monkey's paw wishing stone.

[Talakeal]

Does wonder woman even HAVE any good villains to work with? Most of the ones I know about are the originals created in the heady days of casual racism, sexism, and the fact that she was created as a bondage fanfic about how women want to submit to men. (And oddly at the same time women being destined to rule the world. This dude had some issues)

Circe, Silver Swan, and Giganta are classics.

Dr. Psycho is super entertaining if he is anything like he is on Harley Quinn.

Dr. Cyber is basically female Dr Doom.

Basically any monster or morally ambigous minor god from Greek Myth works.

[Dire_Flumph]

Does wonder woman even HAVE any good villains to work with? Most of the ones I know about are the originals created in the heady days of casual racism, sexism, and the fact that she was created as a bondage fanfic about how women want to submit to men. (And oddly at the same time women being destined to rule the world. This dude had some issues)

So Egg Fu is off the table then? :smallwink:

Besides the ones already mentioned she's got plenty of adversaries from Greek Mythology to work with even if the gods are mostly gone. I think a movie with Circe or Medusa as a villain could be good.


Dr. Psycho is super entertaining if he is anything like he is on Harley Quinn.

Would *Never* happen, but I'd love it if they did. I'll admit I don't know much about the comics version of Dr. Psycho, but after the HQ version it could only be a letdown.

[Talakeal]

Would *Never* happen, but I'd love it if they did. I'll admit I don't know much about the comics version of Dr. Psycho, but after the HQ version it could only be a letdown.

I know. The DCEU is evil, but it isn’t *that* kind of evil.

I am already preparing myself for the inevitable let down that will be the Suicide Squad version of King Shark.

[Giggling Ghast]

EDIT: Random question: I'm not sure what the timeline here is supposed to be, but does anyone else wonder if Bruce Wayne wished for his parents to come back to life?

Alfred: Sorry, Bruce, your mom and dad have to return to Hell because Wonder Woman said so. No shortcuts!

(I don't think Martha and Thomas went to Hell, it's just funnier saying it that way. Also, I'm not sure that Hell would even exist in the DC Cinematic universe, since apparently the only true gods on Earth were the Greek ones. I guess everybody just goes to Elysium or Tartarus.)

[Talakeal]

Alfred: Sorry, Bruce, your mom and dad have to return to Hell because Wonder Woman said so. No shortcuts!

(I don't think Martha and Thomas went to Hell, it's just funnier saying it that way. Also, I'm not sure that Hell would even exist in the DC Cinematic universe, since apparently the only true gods on Earth were the Greek ones. I guess everybody just goes to Elysium or Tartarus.)

Aztec gods also exist iirc.

[Tyndmyr]

I heard a joke from a lady on Twitter that WW84 was a feminist film in that it inspired her to make less crappy movies.

I’m a little fuzzy on the definition of shortcuts. Say I was paralyzed from the neck down - how is it a shortcut to wish that I could walk again when the only path to doing so is through a wish?

One could build that motif into a wish-based movie, but this one certainly didn't. The guy accidentally wishing for coffee, for instance...he's not even intending to take a shortcut, cheat, or screw someone over. Just expressing a momentary desire for coffee. Hardly evil, yknow?

I also wouldn't consider someone crippled wishing to walk to be evil for doing so, though. That's...pretty reasonable. If it was 'regain walk at the price of someone else being crippled in my stead' well then you have interesting consequences to consider. Thats the kind of monkey's paw that brings up big ethical questions that are fun to chew on.



It's already ridiculous that Captain America can do that with his shield, so why should I be particularly bothered when Wonder Woman, who is more magically powerful/capable than Captain America, can do that with her tiara? Frankly, I think it's stupid when Cap does it and it's stupid when WW does it, but if anyone accepts that Cap can do it, they shouldn't have a problem with WW doing it IMO.

It is ridiculous in general. A certain degree of ridiculousness can be tolerated in any comic book movie, though, provided it's mostly consistent. A power might be quite unlikely indeed, but if we accept the power as part of the movies premise, and it remains consistent, it isn't a big deal. We're not going to suddenly bash Spiderman 3 because a radioactive spider bite probably wouldn't do that.

But sudden, unexplained power changes are a bit wonkier, and there's a lot of them in this film.

This is particularly true when you have multiple sequels to be consistent with.


I did not have high expectations going into this because I did not think the first Wonder Woman was much more than "probably the best DC movie to date" at the time. I think for that it was overrated in general.

I found a few parts of your analysis interesting, figured I'd go over 'em in spoiler as the original comments were spoiled.

I don't object to the race existing, really...I just found it interesting how much this movie apparently inadvertently portrays WW as a villain. If it'd been "she cheated, and then later, learns her lesson, overcoming this flaw" that would be, well, just fine. Not particularly novel, but functional. But...she never really cheats as an adult. There's not much connection there. Maybe that too died in editing.

I do admit that staging big CGI fight scenes at night, with maybe some water thrown in to further obscure the fight does feel a little overdone at this point. It's not a thing that is enough to make me hate a movie by itself, but it's certainly not a point in favor. Like....I enjoyed Venom, but this was not because of the big fight scene at the end, which was largely forgettable.

Slow motion works best when it's used for emphasis. Use it to showcase the weight of a moment, often an impactful decision. Throwing it around everywhere is an odd stylistic choice. You can get away with it in something ludicrously stylized like 300, but even there, it's usually got more connection to impactful moments than in this film.

>Similarly, the song Beautiful Lie plays in BvS when we see young Bruce Wayne walking from the theater with his parents before Joe Chill arrives and kills them. This was a good scene in an otherwise pretty bad movie that worked really well.

Snyder is really, really good at making those sort of self-contained mini-stories. That's one example, the opening to sucker punch is another. He's really, really bad at many other things, but in that specific area, a lot of directors could learn from him.

I think the film might have benefited a good deal from learning the rules of the dreamstone earlier. The monkey's paw aspect to a wish is fine, and in keeping with a lot of mythology, but all of the rules, all of which are also broken, aren't properly set up. Perhaps the theft itself could have introduced at least some of this, even if the characters didn't believe it at the time.


Does wonder woman even HAVE any good villains to work with? Most of the ones I know about are the originals created in the heady days of casual racism, sexism, and the fact that she was created as a bondage fanfic about how women want to submit to men. (And oddly at the same time women being destined to rule the world. This dude had some issues)

You've got the greek pantheon to work with, and a lot of those are pretty easy to cast as villains, or at least as antagonists. You can also cross over into other pantheons. I'm not a regular WW reader, so I can't speak for the entire history, but as I understand it, comics have largely taken a pretty casual "everything exists" approach to most dieties, even making up new ones as convenient. You've already got other gods in, ugh, suicide squad. It feels like Wonder Woman would have a reasonable objection to such dieties attempting to straight up murder all of humanity.

Making this good would, as with the Marvel films, require putting a lot of work into the comic versions and bringing them up to date. The Ego of the GotG films is far better fleshed out than in the comics.

[Traab]

Honestly, as far as the greek pantheon goes, aside from ares and hades, you cant really work with them as direct enemies as the amazons worship the olympians and its considered bad form to stab your gods in the face. Those two aside, most of the god are neutral or favor the amazons iirc. I do like the idea of the greek monsters being released/reborn for whatever reason though. A more controlled medusa would be an awesome villain. A beautiful woman who can turn people to stone, with an axe to grind against the amazons because she hates them for being favored by the gods while she was betrayed by them (Holy cow did she ever get the short end of the stick, depending on which version you read. Raped by posiden in athenas temple where she ran to for help, only to be punished by athena for "defiling" her temple by being raped there.) Heck, that backstory alone would create some incredible drama as you can truly sympathize with her while not supporting her actions. And then you have wonder woman who has to acknowledge the great wrong committed by one of her peoples patron goddesses and decide what that means for her and her thoughts of the gods themselves.

[HolyDraconus]

Alfred: Sorry, Bruce, your mom and dad have to return to Hell because Wonder Woman said so. No shortcuts!

(I don't think Martha and Thomas went to Hell, it's just funnier saying it that way. Also, I'm not sure that Hell would even exist in the DC Cinematic universe, since apparently the only true gods on Earth were the Greek ones. I guess everybody just goes to Elysium or Tartarus.)

Catholic God exists in DC.

[Dire_Flumph]

Alfred: Sorry, Bruce, your mom and dad have to return to Hell because Wonder Woman said so. No shortcuts!

Probably for the best because given the monkey's paw nature of the wishes Martha Wayne probably came back in Martha Kent's body.

[GloatingSwine]

Catholic God exists in DC.

He did.

He left around 2006.

[Giggling Ghast]

Catholic God exists in DC.

In DC. Not the DC Cinematic Universe.

Have you forgotten that Zeus sent his only daughter to save humanity from Ares, the God of War? Zeus basically takes the role of the Christian God in this universe, and WW is an analogue for Jesus.

For that matter, I guess all the Greek myths we know are wrong too, since Zeus never created humans and Ares never killed the whole pantheon.

[HolyDraconus]

He did.

He left around 2006.


In DC. Not the DC Cinematic Universe.

Have you forgotten that Zeus sent his only daughter to save humanity from Ares, the God of War? Zeus basically takes the role of the Christian God in this universe, and WW is an analogue for Jesus.

For that matter, I guess all the Greek myths we know are wrong too, since Zeus never created humans and Ares never killed the whole pantheon.

As long as Constantine is part of the DC Cinematic universe, catholic God exists as well.

[Traab]

As long as Constantine is part of the DC Cinematic universe, catholic God exists as well.

Is he though? I dont recall seeing a constantine film that wasnt animated since keanu did his long before all this started. I think there was a hellraiser tv series wasnt there?

[HolyDraconus]

Is he though? I dont recall seeing a constantine film that wasnt animated since keanu did his long before all this started. I think there was a hellraiser tv series wasnt there?

Its supposedly in the works (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1071873/), and hasn't been cancelled last checked (https://screenrant.com/constantine-2-movie-release-date-cast-story-updates/).

[dancrilis]

I liked it - it had a lot of flaws that I looked past as it sortof felt like a well done older movie rather then a mediocre modern movie.


Normally I hate heroes body snatching in the same way I hate heroes using time travel - you don't have the right to delete an non-named (and possible offscreen) character solely for your own convenience, which is what both of them effectively tend to do (albeit in different fashions).
In this case the movie glossed over it hard enough that I kindof shrugged and glossed over it also.

Magic out of nowhere is something that shouldn't happen and if it does it shouldn't be forgotten about - if Wonder Woman is going to be a powerful sorceress that is fine she has the time to practice, if she is going to be a fairly poor quality sorceress that is fine she has the time to practice and perhaps not much talent, if she is going to be a reality warping deity fine she has the time to practice etc.
In this case I just assumed that it was because they wanted to have an invisible jet for the hell of it and it wasn't something we were meant to care about - so I didn't, she had any number of ways to get to Egypt so ignoring how they actually did it was largely fine.

Undoing wishes - he needed the global connection, she was connected to him via the lasso of truth, they could wish over the connection, the lasso can show the truth to people, so I feel the lasso showing the world the truth i.e that they were destroying themselves, was fine.

Cheetah - she wished to be powerful and got powerful, Lord then directed power to her to make her more powerful, he undid his wish so she lost her extra power - but we never saw her undo her own wish, so she could reappear I imagine.

Wonder Woman can't physically reach Lord - well he was kindof a reality warper at the point so I think it was poorly explained but fine her reaching him physically would have left the answer as killing him which wasn't the movie that was being watched and would have been very odd mood whiplash.

Wonder Woman can't get over her dead boyfriend from decades ago - I don't mind this, firstly she ages very slowly so 70 years for her might be only a few weeks in normal person time, secondly people do occasionally fall in love and if the other person dies continue to live full lives but never go for another realationship.


I think if they have tried to make the movie darker or more gritty I would hold it to different standards but as it is it was enjoyable enough.

[Peelee]

people do occasionally fall in love and if the other person dies continue to live full lives but never go for another realationship.
No slight against Wonder Woman here, but Peevy in The Rocketeer did this the best.

I think if they have tried to make the movie darker or more gritty I would hold it to different standards but as it is it was enjoyable enough.
It could have been made differently without going darker or more gritty, though. I think stylistically they nailed it for an 80's period piece, it was just that there were too many stumbles. But yeah, I still enjoyed it.

[Chen]

Probably for the best because given the monkey's paw nature of the wishes Martha Wayne probably came back in Martha Kent's body.

I don’t think there was supposed to be a Monkey Paw’s effect to the wishes though. Only Diana’s got messed up (throwing Steve into someone else), everyone else just paid the additional price the stone asked for. Once Lord was granting wishes he was doing it so he could take whatever he wanted but the wishes weren’t generally corrupted. It’s strange that Diana both had her wish corrupted AND paid for it with her powers.

[Clertar]

Having watched it (not a super focused watch, I must admit) and thought about it for a couple of days, the lingering feeling is that the whole plot was built with the primary goal of being able to have Chris Pine back in the movie, coming up backwards with plot points that could justify that. Seeking to replicate one of the graces of the first film with their chemistry and romance, it ended up being a disgrace for the sequel.

[Tyndmyr]

In DC. Not the DC Cinematic Universe.

Have you forgotten that Zeus sent his only daughter to save humanity from Ares, the God of War? Zeus basically takes the role of the Christian God in this universe, and WW is an analogue for Jesus.

For that matter, I guess all the Greek myths we know are wrong too, since Zeus never created humans and Ares never killed the whole pantheon.

There is an offhand reference, once, in this film of all this being the work of another greek god. I expected it to be hephestus, because, yknow, making artifacts, but it was a god of lies instead. There was the name, but it escapes me.

So, technically, it kind of was? But not terribly directly. It certainly isn't very plot-relevant.

[Giggling Ghast]

Dolos? Apate? Those are my guesses, not that it matters.

[Talakeal]

Dolos? Apate? Those are my guesses, not that it matters.

It was in fact Dolos.

[Tyndmyr]

Dolos, that's it, well spotted.

Unfortunately, I don't know enough about WW to know if there's some sort of comic analogy for the plot.

[Giggling Ghast]

Those are the Greek gods associated with trickery and deceit. They’re pretty obscure.

[JadedDM]

She also referred to him as the Duke of Deception, which I believe is a DC comics character, right?

[Peelee]

The Mod on the Silver Mountain: Let's be sure to keep all discussion of deities firmly rooted to those existing in Wonder Woman, DC, or other explicitly fictional contexts. I don't believe anyone has stepped over the line yet, but some references are getting close.

[Dr.Samurai]

I don’t think there was supposed to be a Monkey Paw’s effect to the wishes though. Only Diana’s got messed up (throwing Steve into someone else), everyone else just paid the additional price the stone asked for. Once Lord was granting wishes he was doing it so he could take whatever he wanted but the wishes weren’t generally corrupted. It’s strange that Diana both had her wish corrupted AND paid for it with her powers.
I do think the Monkey's Paw effect was intended in the movie.

The cost of Diana's wish was her powers. Throwing Steven into another person's body was not the cost (as seen by the fact that Diana did not even care). I think that choice was more to avoid questions like "where did your body reconstitute?" but that's a pretty weak reason actually so I'm probably wrong there.

Barbara's cost was that she was no longer the warm person that she was before. They only really showed this twice, and I thought both times were pretty weak. The first was when the guy brought her a new stack of data to go through and she brushes him off rudely. The second time was when the homeless man that she befriended recognizes her and she tells him to mind his own business. (FWIW, I think these were both pretty weak examples, but Wonder Woman calls it out in the White House battle scene so I believe that's the intent, though Wonder Woman was not privy to either of those scenes.)

Maxwell's wish also cost him by taking away his health. The king's wish for his sovereign lands was granted but in a blunt and dramatic fashion that caused him immense grief. The president's wish was granted but in attaining more nukes he actually came closer to war instead of averting it.

I just think the movie was so haphazard about Maxwell's powers that it was a bit convoluted. Especially with Barbara, we see that type of transformation happen with villains all the time without a monkey's paw effect. And Maxwell's cost could be any villain's cost with using a powerful artifact beyond their limits. On the one hand, I don't want to say they need to beat us over the head with the rules, but on the other hand the plot seemed a bit chaotic to really understand how this was all supposed to work.

[M1982]

With all this talk about the deities related to WW; I can't wait to her her meet Shazam. After all his power is based on several of these very deities too. I wonder if that will be brought up or just ignored.

Diana: Wait, you're wielding powers granted by my father and some of my cousins?


As for WW84, I can only second what has already been said in this thread: Not the worst DCU movie, but the most disappointing.

Because the first WW was either the best or the second best DCU movie. Personal opinion, can't decide if I like the first WW or Shazam more.

So the 2nd movie failing so big to follow in the 1st ones footstepts is really a shame.

[Zevox]

Just watched it, after also re-watching the first one, since I thought refreshing myself on it might be a good idea going into the sequel. Glad I did, I'm completely sure I appreciated Steve's role in the movie a lot more for it. I liked the role reversal of him being unfamiliar with the modern world while Diana is, in contrast to where they were when he brought her to England in the first film.

That said... yeah, it's just not nearly as good as the first. Decent and a fun watch at times, and there's certainly ideas that could have made for a very good movie in it, but it does not come together like the first did.

Obviously, the issue of Steve being in someone else's body, and nobody ever bringing up why that might be a bad thing that Diana should be bothered by is a huge one. Don't know why they did it that way though - was there some limit on the stone's power to bring him back in his own body? It sure didn't seem to have any trouble bringing things into existence from nothing at other times, so I have to imagine that, no, it's just a dumb, pointless decision on the writers' part. The only thing it seemed to change relative to if he'd just been brought back is that he had access to the guy's apartment, but the only thing that mattered for was the wardrobe-choosing scene, which could just as easily have happened at a store.

There's also Cheetah. I feel like they had a good storyline for a character there... but there doesn't feel like there's any reason that she became Cheetah, specifically. And by that I don't mean that she didn't feel like the comic character, I've never read anything with the comic version of the character in it so I wouldn't even know about that, I mean that I don't get why this woman became a supervillain that looks and moves like a Cheetah-woman. There's her offhand remark about wanting to be an "apex predator," and the fact that she liked Diana's cheetah-print shoes back at the start of the film, and that's about it.

There's also a general tone thing that just doesn't feel right for me. This is a much sillier movie than the first, but it feels like it's still trying to take itself just as seriously as the first did, and that doesn't feel quite right for me. I mean, we get random things like Diana lassoing a lightning bolt while flying, for no reason and with no explanation. Which I'd like in a more Thor: Ragnarok style "just do cool and silly things and have fun with it" film, but that's not what seems to want to be.

In general, I'd say things end up nosediving for me when the movie gets to its climax. I don't know if there could have been a satisfying resolution to a problem like this one - I have serious reservations about the decision to build the film around someone gaining the ability to grant Monkey's Paw-style wishes because of that - but there definitely wasn't one here, and it became pretty obvious that there wouldn't be by the time Wondy was fighting Cheetah. Who I guess can't ever be in another film, since she got her powers through a wish that the ending revoked. Which is sad since she's, to my understanding, Wonder Woman's most classic villainous counterpart, and as I said I do like the storyline they had going for her overall.

Speaking of, I really don't think doing two villains in the same film was a good idea. Cheetah playing second banana to Maxwell Lord just inevitably leaves her a bit disappointing as a villain.
So yeah, I don't think it's terrible - it's not even the worst DC film I've seen (that's still Green Lantern), and there's plenty that I've skipped because of a combination of disinterest and hearing bad things about them that I have little doubt are worse (i.e. Batman vs Superman, Suicide Squad, etc) - but it's definitely disappointing. Especially as a sequel to possibly the best DC film (Shazam is the only one that makes me hesitate there).

[Cikomyr2]

I just don't understand how this movie can end up such a mess with so many delays. I mean, was it absolutely terrible at first and it was artificially improved to a muddled mess, or was it actually good at first and it got wrecked with executive meddling?

[Dire_Flumph]

Obviously, the issue of Steve being in someone else's body, and nobody ever bringing up why that might be a bad thing that Diana should be bothered by is a huge one. Don't know why they did it that way though - was there some limit on the stone's power to bring him back in his own body? It sure didn't seem to have any trouble bringing things into existence from nothing at other times, so I have to imagine that, no, it's just a dumb, pointless decision on the writers' part. The only thing it seemed to change relative to if he'd just been brought back is that he had access to the guy's apartment, but the only thing that mattered for was the wardrobe-choosing scene, which could just as easily have happened at a store.

Patty Jenkins has since confirmed on social media that the whole reason for the other body thing was that the guy Steve jumps into resembles the Steve Trevor from the TV series as played by Lyle Waggoner. So it's another one of the many callbacks in this movie to that show. But one they really should have thought the implications through a bit more. I can understand Diana and Steve being selfish for awhile and making excuses, but they should have at least acknowledged they were hijacking someone's body for Steve's resurrection and that should have been another reason why Diana undid the wish later.

[BloodSquirrel]

I just don't understand how this movie can end up such a mess with so many delays. I mean, was it absolutely terrible at first and it was artificially improved to a muddled mess, or was it actually good at first and it got wrecked with executive meddling?

Delays almost always make a movie worse.

The thing you have to remember is that unless you're going to throw everything you have away and completely re-make the movie, then you're strictly limited in what you can do to fix a movie once you're finished with principle photography. Even if you're willing to re-shoot 90% of the movie, you're still probably stuck with the same cast, sets, costumes, etc. So you've got to try to take what you have and gerrymander a different movie out of it. On top of that, you only have so much money to burn, so budget is going to become an issue.

It tends not to work out (See: about half of the other movies in the DCEU, where this has been a rampant problem).

What tends to happen is that the first version of the movie has some major problems that need to be fixed, but in the process of trying to fix them the plot/theme/characters become a lot more muddled because the rest of the movie wasn't made with those fixes in mind. We know that WW84's first version didn't get good reactions from test audiences and they had to do a bunch of reshoots, but we don't know the details. In all likelihood, it traded one set of problems in the original cut for another set of problems in the final one.

Example: It'll be interesting to see what Zack Synder's cut of the Justice League movie looks like, but one thing that's already apparent is that he wrote/filmed a movie that was way too long to edit down to a 2-hour runtime*, and in the process of trying to cut the thing to a reasonable length they wound up cutting out a lot of the character development. Ray Fisher has been very vocal about how much they cut from his part. Whether that stuff was any good in the first place is yet to be seen, but the end result was that we were left with a movie that was full of missing pieces. Unless a movie is already full of filler, halving its length is going to require a lot of structural changes in order to work, and that's impossible to do in post-production.

*Which is completely inexcusable- I don't care how good the Synder Cut winds up being, the man knew that he was supposed to be making a film to be shown in theaters and that runtime is a major issue


Patty Jenkins has since confirmed on social media that the whole reason for the other body thing was that the guy Steve jumps into resembles the Steve Trevor from the TV series as played by Lyle Waggoner. So it's another one of the many callbacks in this movie to that show. But one they really should have thought the implications through a bit more. I can understand Diana and Steve being selfish for awhile and making excuses, but they should have at least acknowledged they were hijacking someone's body for Steve's resurrection and that should have been another reason why Diana undid the wish later.

Even without the uncomfortable implications, that's still way too far to go out of your way for the sake of such a minor reference. The idea should have dropped merely on the basis of how it made the plot more complicated for such a inconsiderable benefit. Screentime should be treated as a scare resource in a feature film. Pretty amateurish mistake, IMO.

[Giggling Ghast]

The WW84 Pitch Meeting, in which the executive pushes as hard as he can against the whole possession thing:

https://youtu.be/4_Tm0SxIp6w

[Traab]

The WW84 Pitch Meeting, in which the executive pushes as hard as he can against the whole possession thing:

https://youtu.be/4_Tm0SxIp6w

Look, I just need you to get ALL THE WAY OFF MY BACK about the possession issue.

[Chen]

The WW84 Pitch Meeting, in which the executive pushes as hard as he can against the whole possession thing:

https://youtu.be/4_Tm0SxIp6w

This is GOLD.

[Traab]

This is GOLD.

Pitch meetings all rule imo. Also, just wanted to add that im loving how this reaction is spreading everywhere. Im watching a youtube channel called shadiversity where the guy primarily talks about medieval tech and lately has branched out into things like reviewed melee weapons in sci-fi/fantasy films and books to determine if they work, or the quality of the fights in films. Even HE has gotten into this with a video titled, I think, "Wonder Woman just RAPED a guy!!!!" Honestly, this level of horrible mistake is on par with a studio releasing a film on the life and times of harriet tubman, and every single black role is filled by a white person wearing blackface, including harriet. You just have to wonder what they were thinking that they greenlit this idea and didnt expect the backlash that will ensue precisely .005 seconds after anyone outside of the company hears about it. I mean, we even have movies specifically about body swapping and the morality of doing just about anything with said body. This isnt some new concept they got wrong, its pretty well established that boinking someone in another persons body is straight up BAD.

[Willie the Duck]

Pitch meetings all rule imo. Also, just wanted to add that im loving how this reaction is spreading everywhere. Im watching a youtube channel called shadiversity where the guy primarily talks about medieval tech and lately has branched out into things like reviewed melee weapons in sci-fi/fantasy films and books to determine if they work, or the quality of the fights in films. Even HE has gotten into this with a video titled, I think, "Wonder Woman just RAPED a guy!!!!"
Shad has done this before. Back when Captain Marvel and Alita: Battle Angel came out, he put out some videos* about how disgusting a movie CM was, and how A:BA was positively transcendent, at the same time that that was the reigning position amongst a certain segment of the internet discussion stratifications. Combine that with some comments he's made about whether comic books should cater to female readership, and I'd say he's thrown his lot behind a specific social movement. None of which is not his right, and going farther down that discussion would probably be political. I just bring it up to say that it really isn't an 'Even HE has gotten into this' scenario, so much as a 'well of coursethis guy who has courted this kind of thing for a while now has a take on the situation' scenario.
*Which also raised some valid points, but clearly started from a premise and worked their way backwards.

[Traab]

Shad has done this before. Back when Captain Marvel and Alita: Battle Angel came out, he put out some videos* about how disgusting a movie CM was, and how A:BA was positively transcendent, at the same time that that was the reigning position amongst a certain segment of the internet discussion stratifications. Combine that with some comments he's made about whether comic books should cater to female readership, and I'd say he's thrown his lot behind a specific social movement. None of which is not his right, and going farther down that discussion would probably be political. I just bring it up to say that it really isn't an 'Even HE has gotten into this' scenario, so much as a 'well of coursethis guy who has courted this kind of thing for a while now has a take on the situation' scenario.
*Which also raised some valid points, but clearly started from a premise and worked their way backwards.

This is true, i do recall him talking about captain marvel, I havent watched the alita one, and I wasnt interested in captain marvel. i stick to him debating on the validity of the weapons being used by various characters or how awkward and obnoxiously wrong the sword fights are, (or how well done they are, too be fair) rather than watching him go doug walker on movies. I just saw that mentioned in my feed and found it amusing. I still think one of my favorites is watching him swing around a replica of sephiroths absurdly oversized sword. Its so big he had sound issues because he is like 30 feet from the camera to avoid knocking it over with the silly thing.

[Dr.Samurai]

I am genuinely shocked that such a terrible decision was made for such a minor callback. Oh well.

What do you think was the reason for including Barbara into this movie? Couldn't Maxwell have made himself on a par with Wonder Woman? Or create some henchmen? I really liked Kristin Wiig's portrayal (again, even though this is a tired trope) and I feel like she was wasted here. Can she return now that everything has been undone?

[CharonsHelper]

What do you think was the reason for including Barbara into this movie?

Because "Cheetah" is one of WW's classic villains.

[BloodSquirrel]

What do you think was the reason for including Barbara into this movie? Couldn't Maxwell have made himself on a par with Wonder Woman? Or create some henchmen? I really liked Kristin Wiig's portrayal (again, even though this is a tired trope) and I feel like she was wasted here. Can she return now that everything has been undone?

Aside from the fact that the Cheetah is an existing Wonder Woman villain, there are a lot of reasons that you *might* add her into the movie. Her story, in and of itself, could be worth telling, and if you're going to properly explore a theme showing multiple characters deal with it in multiple ways is valuable. It's certainly more interesting to have Wonder Woman fight a rival than a nameless henchman that Lord just created.

Case in point: Having both Vader and the Emperor as villains in Star Wars provides a more interesting conflict/final encounter than if you just had Vader be the Emperor. Streamlining your villains down to one person isn't always the best thing.

In WW84's case, though, it's hard to identify the intent behind anything, because the movie seems to lack definitive intent overall. As noted, the Steve possession thing was thrown in just for the sake of a minor reference. It's not clear that there really was any deeper thought put into it other than "She's an iconic villain that WW can get into a physical fight with".

[Giggling Ghast]

I speculate that Cheetah WAS supposed to be the main villain of the movie but somehow Maxwell Lord got crammed in there.

[Clertar]

I speculate that Cheetah WAS supposed to be the main villain of the movie but somehow Maxwell Lord got crammed in there.

Yes, because they just had to bring Chris Pine back in any way possible, and the wishing stone was apparently how they decided to do that. So the plot was built or rebuilt around it.

[Dire_Flumph]

I speculate that Cheetah WAS supposed to be the main villain of the movie but somehow Maxwell Lord got crammed in there.

Or the other way around. It really did feel like the 90's/00's Superhero movie method of "cram an extra villain in there and figure the plot out later"

[Dr.Samurai]

Because "Cheetah" is one of WW's classic villains.
Sorry, I was unclear.

I know who Cheetah is. It just seemed like the plot had to do with Maxwell Lord and the Dreamstone, and Barbara/Cheetah was secondary. Which is a shame because she could have been much more. I'm not too familiar with older versions of Cheetah but I remember Barbara I think was cursed by some god's totem and became the Cheetah. And IIRC she could infect people by scratching them. That may just be from a JL comic now that I think about it; I'm not sure how she was in WW comics.

Aside from the fact that the Cheetah is an existing Wonder Woman villain, there are a lot of reasons that you *might* add her into the movie. Her story, in and of itself, could be worth telling, and if you're going to properly explore a theme showing multiple characters deal with it in multiple ways is valuable. It's certainly more interesting to have Wonder Woman fight a rival than a nameless henchman that Lord just created.

Case in point: Having both Vader and the Emperor as villains in Star Wars provides a more interesting conflict/final encounter than if you just had Vader be the Emperor. Streamlining your villains down to one person isn't always the best thing.

In WW84's case, though, it's hard to identify the intent behind anything, because the movie seems to lack definitive intent overall. As noted, the Steve possession thing was thrown in just for the sake of a minor reference. It's not clear that there really was any deeper thought put into it other than "She's an iconic villain that WW can get into a physical fight with".
Yeah that's sort of the feeling. And even that fight was pretty lackluster. And the armor was another plot point in the movie that seemed crammed in there for no reason. Seconds into the fight she tosses the wings off because they appear to be damaged. I don't even remember why she put the armor on in the first place. I think there was a significant look or something to signify why she used the armor, but it can be completely removed and nothing would change IIRC.

[CharonsHelper]

Sorry, I was unclear.

I know who Cheetah is.

No - I got you. I was being a bit silly by meaning to imply that that was the only reason.

I think they were basically looking for the spectacle of a superpower fight (which Max Lord doesn't really get you) and Cheetah was the foe they chose. They just shoehorned her in there to justify the super-fight.

[LaZodiac]

Speaking of, I really don't think doing two villains in the same film was a good idea. Cheetah playing second banana to Maxwell Lord just inevitably leaves her a bit disappointing as a villain.[/spoiler]
So yeah, I don't think it's terrible - it's not even the worst DC film I've seen (that's still Green Lantern), and there's plenty that I've skipped because of a combination of disinterest and hearing bad things about them that I have little doubt are worse (i.e. Batman vs Superman, Suicide Squad, etc) - but it's definitely disappointing. Especially as a sequel to possibly the best DC film (Shazam is the only one that makes me hesitate there).

Hey, Green Lantern is much better in the director's cut. The theatrical release basically inverted the message of the film. The worst DC film is definitely Suicide Squad.

That said I do agree otherwise. Wonder Woman 84 was... not a waste of my time. It was good, but not nearly comparable to the first, and was JUST enjoyable.

It does whoever get a special stamp of "super hero movie where literally no one dies" which is genuinely refreshing- especially in the Synder verse.

[dancrilis]

Even HE has gotten into this with a video titled, I think, "Wonder Woman just RAPED a guy!!!!"
...
This isnt some new concept they got wrong, its pretty well established that boinking someone in another persons body is straight up BAD.

In fairness Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor didn't know what was going on at the time - she made an innocent wish on what she thought was a random rock and then he appeared, he had less knowledge of what was going on.

For instance it was possible that Steve was in the body permanently - no take backs - and that the soul/mind etc of the guy had been obliterated by the process, so less possession and more a replacement.

Or it is possible that the guy killed himself and Steve's soul inhabited a convenient empty body before it cooled.

They had no idea (and no interest in finding out*), but assuming it was a permanent change then there is no reason Steve shouldn't have used the body as his own (as he also did when he put it in harms way and could have gotten it killed).

It isn't great but I am not sure it is as bad as some people are making it out to be - if I wake up tomorrow and I am 70 years in the future I am likely going to regard whatever body I am in as mine (eventually) because I am the one it in, I wouldn't be as quick as Steve was about that realisation (might take months or years and likely be something that weighs on me even decades later at times), I think most people would also decide that the body they are in is theirs.

*they perhaps should have had an interest in finding out but that would change the tone of the movie.

[Zevox]

Hey, Green Lantern is much better in the director's cut. The theatrical release basically inverted the message of the film. The worst DC film is definitely Suicide Squad.
I did say "that I've seen," and then indicated that I haven't seen Suicide Squad but have heard enough to suspect that it's much worse.

As for Green Lantern, I haven't seen the director's cut, but I do have a hard time believing it would improve it much. There was just so little of any substance there in the film to begin with. Though to be fair, I also don't think it's as awful as a lot of people make it out to be, just on the weak side of mediocre - and very disappointing to me personally since the Green Lanterns are actually my favorite superheroes.

[LaZodiac]

I did say "that I've seen," and then indicated that I haven't seen Suicide Squad but have heard enough to suspect that it's much worse.

As for Green Lantern, I haven't seen the director's cut, but I do have a hard time believing it would improve it much. There was just so little of any substance there in the film to begin with. Though to be fair, I also don't think it's as awful as a lot of people make it out to be, just on the weak side of mediocre - and very disappointing to me personally since the Green Lanterns are actually my favorite superheroes.

Genuinely, all of the substance you'd want would be in the Director's Cut. There is a scene in the theatrical version where Hal tries to trick the villain into thinking he could use the power ring, and uses it as a ploy to get it back, which ends with him saying he could never use the ring. In the director's cut it is literally the exact opposite, with our hero trying to legitimately convince him that anyone can use the ring, anyone can fight against fear. There's also added scenes that make it clear that Hal and the villain whose name I'm blanking on are pretty similar people, used to be friends, and established why we should care about him as a person.

[Rodin]

Aside from the fact that the Cheetah is an existing Wonder Woman villain, there are a lot of reasons that you *might* add her into the movie. Her story, in and of itself, could be worth telling, and if you're going to properly explore a theme showing multiple characters deal with it in multiple ways is valuable. It's certainly more interesting to have Wonder Woman fight a rival than a nameless henchman that Lord just created.

Case in point: Having both Vader and the Emperor as villains in Star Wars provides a more interesting conflict/final encounter than if you just had Vader be the Emperor. Streamlining your villains down to one person isn't always the best thing.

In WW84's case, though, it's hard to identify the intent behind anything, because the movie seems to lack definitive intent overall. As noted, the Steve possession thing was thrown in just for the sake of a minor reference. It's not clear that there really was any deeper thought put into it other than "She's an iconic villain that WW can get into a physical fight with".

The Emperor demonstrates how a lot of comic book movies get it wrong. The Emperor is only introduced in the second movie, and he is only around for a single scene that tells us "this character exists". He doesn't do much in Return until the climax - he arrives on the Death Star and then hangs out in his throne room until Luke and Vader arrive.

We don't get an origin story. We don't learn about his background. His motivation is simple - rule the galaxy. He's the Big Bad Evil Guy and exists as a way to focus the story on Vader.

Comic book movies often try to introduce two (or three) villains from the Rogue's Gallery. They try to tell multiple origin stories and show the villains working independently of one another while also trying to give the superhero character conflict. The result is usually a mess, and the only one I can think of that did it well is The Dark Knight.

From the descriptions I've read in this thread, WW84 is no Dark Knight. They tossed in an extra villain because "that's what comic book movies do, right?"

[Lemmy]

A mainstream movie where WW rapes a dude and is okay with essentially killing him just so she can be with a cute guy she met 70 years ago...

I didn't think I'd see the day...

{Scrubbed}

[Chen]

Any sort of body swapping in an unwilling manner is basically akin to rape. But it’s hard to actually make the case that Wonder Woman raped the person. I mean the whole concept of consent doesn’t really take into account the fact that someone mind/soul could somehow subsume someone else’s body. I mean it was magic there not even any clear evidence one way or another than the body/mine of the other person wouldn’t just plain revert to what it was before if Steve somehow could leave it.

All that said it was a completely useless angle to put into the story. The goddamn stone created a gigantic wall out of nothing it could very easily have made Steve his own body. It would have been an issue for Steve long term with no documentation and such but guess what: they used that point ANYWAYS saying he had no passport and forced them to steal a jet, despite the fact the body he stole probably DID have a passport!

[BloodSquirrel]

The Emperor demonstrates how a lot of comic book movies get it wrong. The Emperor is only introduced in the second movie, and he is only around for a single scene that tells us "this character exists". He doesn't do much in Return until the climax - he arrives on the Death Star and then hangs out in his throne room until Luke and Vader arrive.

We don't get an origin story. We don't learn about his background. His motivation is simple - rule the galaxy. He's the Big Bad Evil Guy and exists as a way to focus the story on Vader.


In fairness, that only worked in the Star Wars OT because we still knew very little about the setting at that point. The same thing didn't work for Snoke: the timeline was well-established enough at that point that "Were did this guy come from?" was a major question that a lot of people were annoyed at not getting an answer to (until they did, which wound up being even worse).

A comic book movie set in what is ostensibly the 1980's Earth needs to justify it's villains a little more than that. One thing that the OT Star Wars was much better at, however, was economy of screen time. We never get a scene of Darth Vader which serves no purpose but to characterize him. The movie does it by showing him do things which are relevant to the plot. His introduction is incredibly effective, and it's used not just to establish who he is and how much of a badass he is, but to also set up the movie's main conflict (Getting the Death Star plans to the rebellion).

I actually find it kind of annoying how people have started insisting that you can't introduce multiple heroes in a single movie. Movies used to do it all the time. Until the MCU, nobody had even thought of the idea of using a bunch of movies to set up the individual members of an ensemble cast. Movies back then were just much more efficient, and knew how to explain what a character was about without stopping the rest of the movie to devote ten minutes to their backstory or showing them do something irrelevant to the plot.

We learned almost everything we needed to know about Han Solo just from his conversation with Luke and Obi-Wan where they were negotiating a ride off of Tattoine. The same scene that was used to characterize Princess Leia was also used to explain the bad guys' plans and show off the power of the Death Star.

And the Emperor... well... they did a ton of work with music, visuals, and Ian McDiarmid's performance. One really, really good scene can do more to establish a character than twenty minutes of bloated screentime.

[BloodSquirrel]

mean the whole concept of consent doesn’t really take into account the fact that someone mind/soul could somehow subsume someone else’s body.

No, we've pretty much already decided as a society that having sex with someone who is unconscious or under the influence of extreme conscious-altering drugs is rape. The only functional difference here is whether or not the guy's consciousness would ever come back, but if you have no idea one way or the other, then you are morally obligated to proceed as if it can. Nobody would accept "Well, there was only a 50% chance that the brick I threw off the top of that building would land on somebody's head" as an adequate excuse.

Quite frankly, there's no excuse for Steve and Diana to have not even bothered to ask the question. It would have been one thing if they'd said "Well, we don't know how to fix this, and we need to save the world, so we'll just have to do what we have to do", but neither of them even stops for a moment to worry about what happened to the guy whose body Steve is using.

[Hopeless]

So why not reveal Chris Pine is playing his own great grand son the result of a relationship that broke down before he went to war and didn't return?

So instead of being resurrected Diana meets a descendant of her first love who is investigating Max Lord and she ends up helping him after Lord steals the wishing stone?

Wiig ends up being turned into Cheetah as a result of a curse intended for Diana who is left depowered as a result of the wish stone being activated by Circe in her effort to restore herself as she's incredibly old.

When she's forced to use the Eagle armor caused Circe to drop the curse as she realised rather than left for dead and forgotten her former fellow Amazons actually honored her memory.

Was the soul swap actually necessary?

[Dr.Samurai]

Any sort of body swapping in an unwilling manner is basically akin to rape. But it’s hard to actually make the case that Wonder Woman raped the person. I mean the whole concept of consent doesn’t really take into account the fact that someone mind/soul could somehow subsume someone else’s body. I mean it was magic there not even any clear evidence one way or another than the body/mine of the other person wouldn’t just plain revert to what it was before if Steve somehow could leave it.
It's a fair point because the magic is never explained. The "rape" also strikes me as a technical complaint against the movie because the movie never really addresses the problem. It's not like they bring it up and treat it as a non-issue.

That said... we're supposed to see heroism in a superhero movie, and something like this leans in the other direction. Diana wanting to keep Steve around and struggling to choose to lose him a second time so she can save the world is heroic. It is less so when that moral dilemma includes stealing the life and body of an innocent person.

Again, knowing the flimsy reasoning behind this decision (that it was completely meta and not story related) tones down the offense (at least for me) considerably. But still, it sticks out.

All that said it was a completely useless angle to put into the story. The goddamn stone created a gigantic wall out of nothing it could very easily have made Steve his own body.
Indeed. Definitely begged the question as you are watching the movie, which is a problem.

[Lemmy]

The fact that they don't even bring it up, and in fact barely acknowledge the rights and well being of "handsome guy" just makes it much, much worse. Specially considering there are multiple moments when WW acknowledges that Trevor is indeed possessing someone else's body.

It gets even worse when we remember she could undo that at any point... But only does so to regain her powers. And very reluctantly. She was perfectly fine essentially murdering "Handsome Guy" just so she could date that guy she knew for a couple weeks decades earlier.

If it were the other way around... With Superman having sex with a random woman possessed by Lois Lane, do you think people would be nearly as forgiving?

[Peelee]

If it were the other way around... With Superman having sex with a random woman possessed by Lois Lane, do you think people would be nearly as forgiving?
......yes?

Eh, I think there would be a similar response over it happening in Superman. Imean, it already is being bashed into oblivion, from what I can see.

Agreed. From what I can tell, everyone who is talking about the film is mentioning that Steve is using another dude's body (w/o consent) and it is a huge problem. I don't know how 'but if Superman did it...' can make any sense. How much harder could the decision be bashed?

[Lemmy]

I highly doubt it.

And I hope we never have to find out.

[Peelee]

I highly doubt it.

I mean, I'm interpreting "forgiving" in sarcastic air quotes here, since a huge portion of this thread has been harping on it and a large number of articles have been written about your precise complaints here.

[Keltest]

I mean, I'm interpreting "forgiving" in sarcastic air quotes here, since a huge portion of this thread has been harping on it and a large number of articles have been written about your precise complaints here.

I honestly cannot remember having a conversation or reading a review where the main takeaway wasnt mostly "Hey, WW basically rapes a guy and the movie doesnt even touch on it."

[Dr.Samurai]

The fact that they don't even bring it up, and in fact barely acknowledge the rights and well being of "handsome guy" just makes it much, much worse.
Sure. But not as bad as say... Steve telling her explicitly how the wish works "this man can see and hear everything, but can never wrest control from me, a prisoner in his own body, forced only to witness how I choose to live his former life, until he is eventually driven mad and his soul withers away..." and Diana saying "I don't care about any of that, it is a small price to pay for the two of us to be together..."

The movie doesn't say that, even though Diana's indifference to the situation is sort of implied. They mostly treat it as a quirk and for a few laughs. But the movie is not saying "yes, this is magical rape and Diana doesn't care, she actually enjoys it!". So, for me, it's a really stupid part of the movie that detracts from the movie, but it's not something to be outraged over (not saying that you're outraged, just explaining why I think the meta reasons for making this choice, and the way the movie treats it, says to me that this isn't a commentary on Diana's behavior towards consent).

If it were the other way around... With Superman having sex with a random woman possessed by Lois Lane, do you think people would be nearly as forgiving?
I'm inclined to agree with Peelee here, in the sense that this is being called out by everyone, so it's not really going over smoothly or getting glossed over.

However, I do think you're also right. The call outs seem to me to be more of a "hey did you even realize the implications of that wish, movie goer?" I think the difference is that if it were Superman, not only would we be having these conversations, but we'd also get all the vapid social commentary about certain groups and their toxic behavior towards others.





That group being Kryptonians, of course.

[CharonsHelper]

Comic book movies often try to introduce two (or three) villains from the Rogue's Gallery. They try to tell multiple origin stories and show the villains working independently of one another while also trying to give the superhero character conflict. The result is usually a mess, and the only one I can think of that did it well is The Dark Knight.

Despite having two villains around (3 if you count Scarecrow being in the very beginning), The Dark Knight didn't even really do that at all. They showed The Joker, but they pretty much glossed over his origin. And both Two Face's origin and the stuff he got up to were tied to The Joker, with his murders fitting nicely into the montage of Joker's crime spree.

[Lemmy]

I honestly don't see how the movie treating it as a joke or as "just a quirk" is any better...

And, sure, it isn't going smoothly... But it's nowhere near the outrage we'd see if it were Superman & Lois Lane. It certianly wouldn't be called "just areally stupid part of the movie that detracts from the movie, but not something to be outraged over", even though I agree with this sentiment (this is just one (particularly bad) reason the movie is awful).

But I really do hope we never have confirmation one way or another.

[Peelee]

I honestly don't see how the movie treating it as a joke or as "just a quirk" is any better...
And neither does almost anyone else. That is the point being made here. Congratulations, like, everyone is already agreeing with you on this.

And, sure, it isn't going smoothly... But it's nowhere near the outrage we'd see if it were Superman & Lois Lane.
Id rather be concerned about a real problem than the imagined reaction to a hypothetical one. And hey, it seems like most people are. Mission accomplished!

[Lemmy]

And neither does almost anyone else. That is the point being made here. Congratulations, like, everyone is already agreeing with you on this.

Id rather be concerned about a real problem than the imagined reaction to a hypothetical one. And hey, it seems like most people are. Mission accomplished!
Fortunately, I can agree and also point out double standards and hipocrisy in the way the movie is being generally treated.

EDIT: I mean by general media and reviewers... Not anyone here.

[Peelee]

Fortunately, I can agree and also point out double standards and hipocrisy in the way the movie is being generally treated.

What double standard?! The movie is being condemned for this.

[Lemmy]

What double standard?! The movie is being condemned for this.
Yup... Allthough nowhere near as badly as it would be if it were the other way around.

To be clear, I actually agree with the idea that it's just a really dumb aspect of a really dumb movie (that would still be bad even without said aspect). Not something to be super outraged about.

I just think the difference in treatment is... Worth noting. Oh, well.. I don't want to hijack the thread with that particular discussion, anyway. Just wanted to comment on it. And I did.

In any case... WW1 was decent (impressive, considering everything else DC was releasing at the time)... WW2 is garbage... So, by the law of averages... WW3 gotta be great, right?

[Peelee]

Yup... Allthough nowhere near as badly as it would be if it were the other way around.

You keep saying this without any justification or reasoning.

Let me put it this way - person A commits a crime. Person A is convicted and sentenced to the death penalty. You are complaining that if Person B committed that crime they would have gotten the death penalty but even harder, and you are upset by this "double standard" of person A just getting off light with the death penalty.

I don't know why you want to die on this hill, but at this point if you are still insistent, be my guest.

[Lemmy]

You keep saying this without any justification or reasoning.

Let me put it this way - person A commits a crime. Person A is convicted and sentenced to the death penalty. You are complaining that if Person B committed that crime they would have gotten the death penalty but even harder, and you are upset by this "double standard" of person A just getting off light with the death penalty.

I don't know why you want to die on this hill, but at this point if you are still insistent, be my guest.

More like... One gets the death penalty, the other gets.... A fine and a few months in jail.

I don't really want to "die on this hill". I just thought it was worthing pointing out... So I did.

[LaZodiac]

Y'all really just forgetting Superman erased Louis Lane's memory with a kiss, meaning she was sexually advanced on without her knowledge, and no one cared huh.

Now yes in modern times, now that we're aware of how dumb and bad that is, we point to that and go "hey that's ****ed up, especially since for Superman Returns they decided to make it so that she got pregnant at that moment in time, making it SUPER gross and rapey".

Look, I get it. You wanna that if Superman did what Diana did it would be "more bashed" due to some beliefs about what it means to be a good person. We all get it, we're not stupid. You've more than made your point clear.

Peelee disagrees, as do most of us, partly because Wonder Woman 84 is getting (rightly) trashed for this aspect in particular. If you don't want to die on this hill, I'd suggest... getting off the hill, maybe?

[Dr.Samurai]

I think the point Lemmy is making is that the condemnation would be of a different fervor and tenor if it were Superman. And yes, this is speculation. I happen to think he is right. But no way to know and the point has been made so we can move on.

I am not very familiar with Wonder Woman's rogues gallery. What villains would fans like to see in a third movie? Also, did people like the portrayal of Maxwell Lord in this movie? I think in the comics he is a powerful telepath right? And I think WW ends up killing him. This ended in basically the opposite fashion. Thoughts?

[LaZodiac]

I think the point Lemmy is making is that the condemnation would be of a different fervor and tenor if it were Superman. And yes, this is speculation. I happen to think he is right. But no way to know and the point has been made so we can move on.

I am not very familiar with Wonder Woman's rogues gallery. What villains would fans like to see in a third movie? Also, did people like the portrayal of Maxwell Lord in this movie? I think in the comics he is a powerful telepath right? And I think WW ends up killing him. This ended in basically the opposite fashion. Thoughts?

Maxwell Lord is, by my understanding, basically just her Lex Luthor. He's a brain boy who is smart and does crimes with minions. She killed him during a comic book event where it was revealed he'd do a really bad thing or whatever.

Honestly, I don't know TOO much about Diana's rogues gallery, but most of them seem really... silly, in a way that would be hard to translate to the big screen. I could see her tackling other gods but then that's not really a super hero movie, necessarily. Honestly, having her second film (as flawed as it is) be about a theme and not caring about the big super drama or whatever, may actually be the best for her. Diana is all about being an icon of inspiration and guidance, the Amazons in setting are supposed to do that, so having her fight less dramatic, maybe even silly villains in order to bring forward a valuable lesson is a good idea.

[Lemmy]

I am not very familiar with Wonder Woman's rogues gallery. What villains would fans like to see in a third movie? Also, did people like the portrayal of Maxwell Lord in this movie? I think in the comics he is a powerful telepath right? And I think WW ends up killing him. This ended in basically the opposite fashion. Thoughts?

I don't think she has any memorable villains, TBH...

I can think of Ares, Cheetah and Giganta... Circe, maybe? Sometimes one rogue Amazon or another...

Maxwell Lord was more of a JL villain that WW ended up killing... Although he may have grown to be more closely associated with WW since then, I don't know.

A very common mistake super-hero movies make is using their top villain in the fist movie, so they end up with nothing of the same "weight class" left to use later. It's particularly bad when the hero only has a few well-known villains.

[dancrilis]

I don't know if the critique that Superman would be more harshly treated holds up.

For examples:
In Man of Steel Superman destroys a truckers truck which likely has destroyed that man's livelihood because he didn't like how the guy acted in a bar.
In Captain Marvel* the title character apparently steals a guys bike because she didn't like him giving her some advice.

The second was treated my media as much worse then the first despite the first being I would say objectively much worse then the second.

*full disclosure I have not seen this movie so hopefully I am not misrepresentation it.

And that ignores the earlier examples indicated by LaZodiac above.

For the example itself from Wonder Woman 1984 - neither Steve or Diana knew what was going on, Steve justifiable treated the body he was in as his body, Diana after the initial meeting only saw Steve so treated him as Steve.
This is poor but I think the decision to gloss over it was likely for the best.

[Lemmy]

EDIT: Nevermind. No point in continuing this argument any further.

[LaZodiac]

I don't know if the critique that Superman would be more harshly treated holds up.

For examples:
In Man of Steel Superman destroys a truckers truck which likely has destroyed that man's livelihood because he didn't like how the guy acted in a bar.
In Captain Marvel* the title character apparently steals a guys bike because she didn't like him giving her some advice.

The second was treated my media as much worse then the first despite the first being I would say objectively much worse then the second.

*full disclosure I have not seen this movie so hopefully I am not misrepresentation it.

And that ignores the earlier examples indicated by LaZodiac above.

For the example itself from Wonder Woman 1984 - neither Steve or Diana knew what was going on, Steve justifiable treated the body he was in as his body, Diana after the initial meeting only saw Steve so treated him as Steve.
This is poor but I think the decision to gloss over it was likely for the best.

For discussions sake, the scene from Captain Marvel is a deleted scene (so not in the movie, and not valid, since they DID remove it) where she meets a biker who makes lewd, unwanted comments to her. She gives him a zap of energy and then takes his bike, Terminator style.

[Ramza00]

For discussions sake, the scene from Captain Marvel is a deleted scene (so not in the movie, and not valid, since they DID remove it) where she meets a biker who makes lewd, unwanted comments to her. She gives him a zap of energy and then takes his bike, Terminator style.

Also clearly a reference as a “homage” to other fish out of water movies such as the terminator 2 biker scene where the superpower person does horrible things to get someone else’s clothes and stuff. Vers is trying to figure things out, rude guy purposefully violates personal boundaries involving space, after violating said space he asks “you need a ride” in a way that is condescending (but he may think is charming), she takes his bike and clothes off a store mannequin.

It was a homage but also inverting that Terminator 2 scene for how people treat men and women are different. Furthermore it was much shorter the deleted scene being less than a minute vs 4 minutes of action.

[Willie the Duck]

For discussions sake, the scene from Captain Marvel is a deleted scene (so not in the movie, and not valid, since they DID remove it) where she meets a biker who makes lewd, unwanted comments to her. She gives him a zap of energy and then takes his bike, Terminator style.
Yep. Stuff gets left out of movies for a reason. If we use those, why not previous versions of the screenplays where such and such protagonist character started out as a villain, or the like?


It was a homage but also inverting that Terminator 2 scene for how people treat men and women are different. Furthermore it was much shorter the deleted scene being less than a minute vs 4 minutes of action.
It's also part of the story of T2 that the protagonist robot isn't really a good guy, so much as a amoral robot programmed to obey the good guys' orders. CM doesn't have the same framing, so it would have been a wildly out-of-character moment for the sake of an homage gag.

[GloatingSwine]

It's also part of the story of T2 that the protagonist robot isn't really a good guy, so much as a amoral robot programmed to obey the good guys' orders. CM doesn't have the same framing, so it would have been a wildly out-of-character moment for the sake of an homage gag.

It's also part of the story that Vers is not currently a good guy. It actually is in line with her presentation at the time as a Kree special forces soldier with little regard for the norms of the primitive planet she is currently stranded on.

[Willie the Duck]

It's also part of the story that Vers is not currently a good guy. It actually is in line with her presentation at the time as a Kree special forces soldier with little regard for the norms of the primitive planet she is currently stranded on.

Ah, good to know. I didn't know where in the movie this deleted scene was supposed to be.

[BloodSquirrel]

I don't know if the critique that Superman would be more harshly treated holds up.

For examples:
In Man of Steel Superman destroys a truckers truck which likely has destroyed that man's livelihood because he didn't like how the guy acted in a bar.
In Captain Marvel* the title character apparently steals a guys bike because she didn't like him giving her some advice.

The second was treated my media as much worse then the first despite the first being I would say objectively much worse then the second.

*full disclosure I have not seen this movie so hopefully I am not misrepresentation it.


First off, Man of Steel was pretty seriously savaged, with the running theme of "Superman isn't acting like Superman".

Second, the framing of the truck scene was entirely different. Clark is being presented as troubled and conflicted, and part of the movie's plot (and its sequels') is that Superman winds up looking to a lot of people like more of a potential threat than a hero. The Captain Marvel scene is framed as "empowering". The offender in the truck scene also goes much farther, actually pouring a beer over Clark's head and physically threatening him.

Third, Man of Steel ends with Superman killing someone, which became the lightning rod for most of that kind of discussion. Even if it was more morally justified than the truck scene, it was still breaking a rule that people consider to be one of Superman's defining traits, and people were pretty upset about it. This was also the movie where Pa Kent told Clark that he should have let a whole school bus full of his classmates drown to death, so stuff like the truck scene winds up looking a lot less disturbing by comparison.

I also don't think the T2 scene is comparable at all. Arnold isn't reacting to somebody being rude to him. He's 100% the aggressor. He walks into the bar and demands that somebody give him his clothing and his motorcycle. The guy he robs was just minding his own business before that. Yeah, the guy puts a cigar out on his chest, but he was just standing up to some crazy guy who was trying to extort him at that point. Also keep in mind that we weren't even supposed to know which robot was the "good" guy yet. The marketing gave it away, but right until the scene where he runs into John, for all we know he was planning on killing him.

EDIT: Just re-watched it, and, yeah, it's 100% shot, framed, and scored as the opening scene to a horror movie (which makes a lot of sense, given that the first movie was more of a horror movie, and T2 is still playing with those expectations). The reason it's so much longer is because it's building up tension, and the bar patrols are clearly the ones we're supposed to feel sympathy for.

[BloodSquirrel]

Also clearly a reference as a “homage” to other fish out of water movies such as the terminator 2 biker scene where the superpower person does horrible things to get someone else’s clothes and stuff. Vers is trying to figure things out, rude guy purposefully violates personal boundaries involving space, after violating said space he asks “you need a ride” in a way that is condescending (but he may think is charming), she takes his bike and clothes off a store mannequin.


Two thing: first, the scene is still in the movie. They deleted the part where she zaps him, but she still steals his bike.

Second, he doesn't violate her space at all. He pulls into an empty parking space, parks his bike, and says:
"Nice scuba scoot"
"Lighten up, honey. You got a smile for me"
(under his breath) "Freak"
Then he goes straight into the store.

I also don't really buy that she's supposed to be morally ambiguous at this point. She's a fish out of water, but nothing in the movie paints her as anything other than unambiguously heroic.

EDIT: Looking at the original scene- wow, it's way, way worse than the Man of Steel one. She threatens to permanently cripple the guy.

EDIT: And I just watched the Man of Steel scene again, and, jeez, yeah, that guy didn't just pour a beer on Clark's head, he started by groping a woman, then he poured the beer on him when Clark asked him to stop, then when Clark didn't take the bait, he shoved him as hard as he could. The only reason he apparently didn't do any else is shoving Clark turned out to be like shoving a concrete wall. Then, when Clark turns around and starts walking away, he throws a beer can at the back of his head.

Interestingly enough, even in the scene where Clark is the victim, it's an assault on a woman that's used to make the perpetrator unsympathetic enough to justify Clark confronting him in the first place.

On an unrelated note, how did nobody hear anything when Clark shoved several wooden poles through a Mach truck?

[Lemmy]

On an unrelated note, how did nobody hear anything when Clark shoved several wooden poles through a Mach truck?
Maybe they did, but then he kissed everyone at super speed to make them forget about the noise.

[Dargaron]

Is it just me, or is the current incarnation of Wonder Woman the worst member of the Justice League lineup to give a lesson about unearned power and taking shortcuts? Virtually all of her powers are the result of divine heritage. Superman at least had a fig leaf scene about how he had to learn how to avoid sensory overload, a decent chunk of Aquaman's powers were acquired by seeking his magic trident, and both Cyborg and Flash are the products of lab accidents with legitimate physical side-effects. At best, she's tied with Superman.

It also doesn't help that Wonder Woman (and admittedly, most DC movie heroes) tends to overpower her enemies instead of outfighting them. In Wonder Woman, the fight scenes vs. humans generally emphasized her superhuman strength/speed/durability rather than combat skill, and even when she was fighting an equal (Ares), the climax consists of her no-selling his abilities before overwhelming him with a single attack.

[BloodSquirrel]

Eh... it's not like she sought out easy power. She has the powers that she was born with, and she generally uses them for good. Even the Steve wish was an accident.

I think the real problem- as I've pointed out before- is that the message itself is full of unfortunate implications. It doesn't work once you start asking questions about people with horrible, terminal illnesses or mothers in underdeveloped countries with starving children. It doesn't even work with some of the wishes like "I hope you drop dead!". I mean, what's the message there, that he should have killed her the good ol' fashioned way, by beating her death with a hammer?

[Kantaki]

It doesn't even work with some of the wishes like "I hope you drop dead!". I mean, what's the message there, that he should have killed her the good ol' fashioned way, by beating her death with a hammer?

No, of course not.
Using a tool would be taking the easy way after all.:smalltongue:

[Vrock Bait]

Does anybody else think that Wonder Woman’s abilities in this movie were kind of... lame? The web-swinging with the lasso, the Captain America tiara stupidity, the shiny pointless action figure armor...

[Ramza00]

Second, he doesn't violate her space at all. He pulls into an empty parking space, parks his bike, and says:
"Nice scuba scoot"
"Lighten up, honey. You got a smile for me"
(under his breath) "Freak"
Then he goes straight into the store.

Since we are talking about the physical assault version (the deleted scene), he literally gets into her face and pushes away the newspaper.

The scene used in the movie she just steals his bike after checking her out from a distance. It is a completely different thing, both are irritations, but being irritating / flirting from a distance is different than violating a person's space and forcing a confrontation where the other person has to give you eye contact. :smallsigh:

[Dr.Samurai]

Since we are talking about the physical assault version (the deleted scene), he literally gets into her face and pushes away the newspaper.
This is certainly one way to describe it.

The scene comes across as wish fulfillment born out of resentment. Like... people are so fed up with the advances of men that we just wish we could physically overpower them and make them feel pain.

This is the same reason it doesn't work in Man of Steel either, because Clark comes off looking petty. And, as others have pointed out, in that scene the jerk actually gets physical with both Clark and the waitress.

But anytime someone has that much more power than someone else, we expect them to restrain themselves. That's what makes them heroic. The ideal of Superman is that someone can wield incredible power and be practically invincible and still be selfless and treat everyone in a way that keeps their dignity in tact. That if you raise someone the right way, as the Kents did with Clark, they can be godlike in power and a superhero, not a tyrant or a bully.

In Man of Steel, Clark lets his father die out of fear of being revealed. Martha tells him he doesn't have to save anyone because he doesn't owe anyone anything. Clark drives tree trunks through a guy's truck, and levels a city while trying to save it. These are some of the reasons some people took issue with Man of Steel.

It's the values that make them heroic. And in either scene, Clark with the lumberjack, or Vers with the motorcyclist, they look very petty and weak. There's no lesson imparted or wrong righted; it's just revenge or opportunism.



Does anybody else think that Wonder Woman’s abilities in this movie were kind of... lame? The web-swinging with the lasso, the Captain America tiara stupidity, the shiny pointless action figure armor...
Yes. The tiara was corny. The armor was pointless as you say. I like a lot of what they do with the lasso. But the mall scene where she just keeps leaping back and forth was dumb, and the lightning slinging as well (especially after she learned how to fly). We need more villains that can go toe to toe with Diana IMO.

[Ramza00]

This is certainly one way to describe it.

The scene comes across as wish fulfillment born out of resentment. Like... people are so fed up with the advances of men that we just wish we could physically overpower them and make them feel pain.

Yes.

Exactly.

First let's postulate that movies are fiction, it is absence / presence, it is not really happening it is just an illusion in one's mind. Yet simultaneously it provides cathartic release.

The world is not equal, and people take advantage of the fact. Why should some men purposefully advance on other people and say you have to give me attention and energy and I will force a confrontation for I feel entitled to this attention and I think it is fun.

Only for the roles to be reversed in an instant. Of course this is wish fulfillment. Yet that wish does not come out of a vacuum, it does not exist out of nothing, it exists for there are men who make other people feel uncomfortable not one or two times in other people's lives but dozens of times.

[Dr.Samurai]

Yes.

Exactly.

First let's postulate that movies are fiction, it is absence / presence, it is not really happening it is just an illusion in one's mind. Yet simultaneously it provides cathartic release.
Right, but it's a cheap cathartic release. When Peter gains his powers and starts bullying Flash Gordon, it may feel cathartic to him, but it's still wrong. When he gets that sweet sweet cathartic release watching the annoying store clerk get robbed, he sees his Uncle pay the price for his bad behavior (Sony spiderman, since it's been too long to remember Raimi spiderman for me).

Spider-man has the lesson in it. Man of Steel and Captain Marvel don't. Clark gets to ruin a guy's life and walk away. Vers gets to nearly cripple a guy and steal his stuff and walk away. There is no wrong righted or lesson learned, just revenge and opportunism.

The world is not equal, and people take advantage of the fact. Why should some men purposefully advance on other people and say you have to give me attention and energy and I will force a confrontation for I feel entitled to this attention and I think it is fun.

Only for the roles to be reversed in an instant. Of course this is wish fulfillment. Yet that wish does not come out of a vacuum, it does not exist out of nothing, it exists for there are men who make other people feel uncomfortable not one or two times in other people's lives but dozens of times.
I know it doesn't come from a vacuum. I called out where it comes from; resentment. This is like me wishing I could throw a driver off the road Chronicle-style because of my own road rage. It's the worst in us, not something our superheroes should be doing unless its a teachable moment.

Wishing you had the powers to save your friends or family, or to stop someone from harming people is okay. Wishing you had the power to hurt someone because they are *bothering* you and then acting on it is quite different. It's cheap and weak, and that's why they come off looking petty on screen when they do it. All IMO of course.

[LaZodiac]

Wanting to throw someone into the road is not comparable to wanting to punch the guy who is making unwanted sexual advances on you.

Every woman I know has had a moment where they wish they could do what Captain Marvel did, because in situations like those they feel threatened for their lives. It's just not comparable to "Superman gets grumpy someone was mean to him when he tried to be a hero". One is about having the ability to fight back against someone who typically gets all the power, one is about throwing a fit in rage. The Marvel scene may come from some degree of resentment, but it's a resentment that comes from a place of legitimacy.

Also in what world does Carol "almost cripple" a guy. She zaps him. She basically hit him with a taser.

[Ramza00]

Right, but it's a cheap cathartic release. When Peter gains his powers and starts bullying Flash Gordon, it may feel cathartic to him, but it's still wrong. When he gets that sweet sweet cathartic release watching the annoying store clerk get robbed, he sees his Uncle pay the price for his bad behavior (Sony spiderman, since it's been too long to remember Raimi spiderman for me).

Spider-man has the lesson in it. Man of Steel and Captain Marvel don't. Clark gets to ruin a guy's life and walk away. Vers gets to nearly cripple a guy and steal his stuff and walk away. There is no wrong righted or lesson learned, just revenge and opportunism.

First she did not hurt him besides a firm handshake in this deleted scene. We as the audience do not know what happens next. She could be bluffing. Once again abscence / presence and uncertainty. This same uncertainty is part of the fun for some viewers, horror to others, we can not be confident of what would happen next for we only see one outcome out of many.

Second for your bigger point. This is a movie universe that has iron man, a man immune to consequences. Why do some characters get to have consequences for being mean and saying you are not heroic, while others do not. Tony Stark is an arms dealer, Thor almost starts a multi planet war for he is a hot headed, Dr Strange was an [censored] when he was at the top of the world, and when he lost he seemed to punish the world for he could only visualize from his own narcissism. This is a movie origin story, heroes being [censored] is part of the story.

So why focus on Vers and not on Tony?

[BloodSquirrel]

Every woman I know has had a moment where they wish they could do what Captain Marvel did, because in situations like those they feel threatened for their lives.


I've got news for you, it's not just women who have had to deal with confrontational *******s who we wished we could just beat the **** out of. I once had someone almost run me over as I was getting out of my truck in a parking lot and have the audacity yell at me for being an "idiot" for being in the empty parking spot that he was speeding into without looking. I've had people actually threaten to kill me.



It's just not comparable to "Superman gets grumpy someone was mean to him when he tried to be a hero".

You're right, it's not comparable- that guy was trying to cause serious physical harm to Clark. He was way, way worse than the guy in Captain Marvel.



Also in what world does Carol "almost cripple" a guy. She zaps him. She basically hit him with a taser.


First she did not hurt him besides a firm handshake in this deleted scene.

Okay, can we not start being blatantly dishonest? She was crushing his hand hard enough to make him scream in pain. If you have to start characterizing causing severe pain to somebody as a "firm handshake" then it's a pretty good sign that you're making excuses for something that you shouldn't be making excuses for.


This is a movie universe that has iron man, a man immune to consequences. Why do some characters get to have consequences for being mean and saying you are not heroic, while others do not. Tony Stark is an arms dealer, Thor almost starts a multi planet war for he is a hot headed, Dr Strange was an [censored] when he was at the top of the world, and when he lost he seemed to punish the world for he could only visualize from his own narcissism. This is a movie origin story, heroes being [censored] is part of the story.

Thor was declared unworthy and was sent to Earth to learn a lesson. By the end of the movie, he had done a complete 180 and destroyed the bitfrost to stop the Frost Giants from being wiped out.

Dr. Strange was very pointedly taught a lesson in humility by the Ancient One as step one for his new training.

Tony Stark was nearly killed by one of his own bombs, kidnapped, and held as a prisoner by terrorists. When he got out the first thing he did was quit being an arms dealer.

All of the other characters were presented as having flaws that they overcame. Well, except for Tony, who kept screwing up in every movie, getting his ass kicked for it, only to overcompensate in the next movie and create another mess. Until he died. The only thing Captain Marvel had to learn was, uh, to just be more powerful.

[Dr.Samurai]

Wanting to throw someone into the road is not comparable to wanting to punch the guy who is making unwanted sexual advances on you.

Every woman I know has had a moment where they wish they could do what Captain Marvel did, because in situations like those they feel threatened for their lives.
Well, I certainly cannot speak for all women (or men for that matter). But even if Carol did not have deific powers, this man is not threatening her life in any way whatsoever.

It's just not comparable to "Superman gets grumpy someone was mean to him when he tried to be a hero". One is about having the ability to fight back against someone who typically gets all the power, one is about throwing a fit in rage. The Marvel scene may come from some degree of resentment, but it's a resentment that comes from a place of legitimacy.
Sure but... do you think that a guy has never wished to have the power to defend someone else or himself against a bully? The situation with Clark is also real. Not all men feel that they can legitimately defend themselves or others against an aggressor. Everyone has these feelings of inadequacy and resentment.

The difference is that the server in MoS tells the guy to stop and to leave her alone multiple times and he continues touching her. In Captain Marvel, she could have easily done the same thing and the scene would have a totally different tone. Instead, she says "Smile?", "How about a handshake?" and then (I thought) squeezes his hand extraordinarily hard (maybe I'm remembering it wrong but I thought she was crushing his hand not zapping him).

Meaning that it doesn't even take persisting after someone tells you to bug off to justify hurting them because she didn't even do that. Simply approaching her is enough to warrant a violent extortion.

Also in what world does Carol "almost cripple" a guy. She zaps him. She basically hit him with a taser.
What do you think she meant by "I'll let you keep your hand", that she was going to tickle him?

First she did not hurt him besides a firm handshake in this deleted scene.
I believe you. I always go around giving people a firm handshake until they immediately fulfill all my demands. Works every time :).


Second for your bigger point. This is a movie universe that has iron man, a man immune to consequences. Why do some characters get to have consequences for being mean and saying you are not heroic, while others do not.
Who am I giving a pass to? Aren't we talking about how Wonder Woman didn't care about Steve possessing another man's life, Clark destroying a man's livelihood, and Captain Marvel extorting someone for their gear? When did I give anyone a pass?

I gave the example of Spiderman. Heroes can certainly do wrong things, but it is usually a teachable moment, or part of character growth. If they keep doing bad things they get labeled as anti-heroes or something along those lines.

I don't want to make too much of it because obviously different people will see/like/relate to different things in these characters. But I thought your original comment on this was worth replying to.

[BloodSquirrel]

Here's the deleted scene:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1LhpXfxx2M

Here's the Man of Steel scene:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYgsU8RRYkM

[JadedDM]

I've got news for you, it's not just women who have had to deal with confrontational *******s who we wished we could just beat the **** out of. I once had someone almost run me over as I was getting out of my truck in a parking lot and have the audacity yell at me for being an "idiot" for being in the empty parking spot that he was speeding into without looking. I've had people actually threaten to kill me.
And was this a one off instance, or is this the constant background radiation of your life? Do you always worry about getting into a car at all, because so many of them have tried to run you over in the past?

Because this is the kind of thing women live with every day, all day, for their entire lives. And some have outright been killed because of it.


Simply approaching her is enough to warrant a violent extortion.
He did more than 'simply approach' her. He was actively harassing her. She made it very clear--from the look in her eye, to her body language, to her deliberate attempt to ignore him--that his advances were unwanted. Instead of respecting that and moving on, he invaded her space and demanded she smile for him--as if she only existed for his own benefit.

How do you think that scene would have continued had Vers not been a Kree super soldier, but just an ordinary earth woman with no special powers or super strength? How far do you reckon that guy would have escalated things until she complied with his 'requests'? Because if he was willing to violate her personal space and force her to pay attention to him like that...I have the sneaking suspicion he wouldn't have just walked away if she had told him to.

[Ramza00]

I've got news for you, it's not just women who have had to deal with confrontational *******s who we wished we could just beat the **** out of. I once had someone almost run me over as I was getting out of my truck in a parking lot and have the audacity yell at me for being an "idiot" for being in the empty parking spot that he was speeding into without looking. I've had people actually threaten to kill me.

It is a question of frequency and how people who move through the world. Women are going to have a different frequency ratio with confrontational [censored] ... much like men who are 8 feet tall vs 6 feet 8 inches tall vs 5 feet 8 inches tall will have a different frequency of hitting their head on low hanging things.

You can tell by the body language in the scene they choose not to use, and thus it is a deleted scene that she was uncomfortable and she was signifying to others, that she wanted boundaries and space. How he choose to put pressure on those boundaries multiple times. It was disrespectful, it was discourteous. It is not how men should interact with any other humans whether men with women or men with anyone else.

If you do not get this ... well this is a world, not just a nation, but a world of freedom and liberty :smallsmile: so you do not have to get how that guy was being a creep. :smalltongue:

[Lemmy]

I'm annoyed by telemarketing all the time...

Next time I write a story, should I make my supposedly heroic protagonist hurt, intimidate and rob a telemarketing agent?

There are plenty of widespread behavior and actions that annoy me... Which ones can I use as justification for my character to seriously harm someone, while still presenting said character as virtuous?

[Ramza00]

There are plenty of widespread behavior and actions that annoy me... Which ones can I use as justification for my character to seriously harm someone, while still presenting said character as virtuous?

You can't separate what is excellent*, from the immediate context, that is one of the big deal points built inside multiple versions of virtue ethics. Being brave is knowing when to run and when to be brash, being brave is the midpoint between being a coward and being foolhardy and where exactly that midpoint is excellent depends on context :smalltongue: Sometimes the same action makes sense vs nonsense depending on the situation at hand and thus things are all relative. Much like your heart rate should be higher if you are stressed and pump full of adrenaline, this is healthy, but if your heart rate is always too high that is not healthy. Contexts matter, relativity brings clarity and insight for life is complicated.

Yes this quickly becomes The Thermian Argument, for all screenwriters, directors, etc get to choose what is relevant for the fictional world they create. A world full of narration (diegetic) and images where the actors interact with (mimesis.) Well the screenwriters etc get to choose what they bring to the table.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxV8gAGmbtk

*Virtue is Latin and means excellent, the similar word in Greek is Arete, and I will stop here for each language has its own word for similar concepts.

[Lemmy]

Well... Both movies show their worlds as "real world, but with these differences".

Nothing in them leads me to believe that the action of the jerks should be considered more harmful or in any way worse than they would be in real life...

So it still shows two super powered beings giving completely disproportionate responses to bad behavior...

It's just that one of them keeps getting excused, for some reason.

[DeadMech]

I'm annoyed by telemarketing all the time...

Next time I write a story, should I make my supposedly heroic protagonist hurt, intimidate and rob a telemarketing agent?

There are plenty of widespread behavior and actions that annoy me... Which ones can I use as justification for my character to seriously harm someone, while still presenting said character as virtuous?

There is pretty clear difference between a telemarketer annoying you at dinnertime and someone who makes habit of making others feel unsafe through intimidation and unwanted contact and attention.

Or the difference between a telemarketer trying to manipulate you into buying something you don't really need vs someone trying to psychologically attack you and make you feel inferior or unbalanced.

The scale of these transgressions aside, a telemarketer is easily escapable by simply hanging up a phone. When some jerk is accosting you in bar even removing yourself from the establishment isn't guarantee that they will leave you alone and the encounter will end. I've seen people acting like the bullies from both movies end up laid out on the sidewalk with broken noses and it's pretty rare I feel bad for them when their actions have consequences.

[LaZodiac]

@LemmyIt's almost as if the two scenes aren't comparable or something.

Like one scene is a hero acting out of character in edgy man-pain, and the other is a soldier showing a jerk exactly what he gets for thinking all woman are easy prey.

[Dr.Samurai]

He did more than 'simply approach' her. He was actively harassing her. She made it very clear--from the look in her eye, to her body language, to her deliberate attempt to ignore him--that his advances were unwanted. Instead of respecting that and moving on, he invaded her space and demanded she smile for him--as if she only existed for his own benefit.
Yes, I mean, you can be as descriptive as you want and try to make this as alarming as possible but... he literally said "Nice scuba suit" and she looked at him and then carried on with her reading. Then he said "How about a smile?" and pulled the paper down a bit and she said "A smile?" and he said "Yeah, I'm trying to help you, the least you can do is smile" and she said "how about a handshake?" and since he thinks he's getting the conversation he was looking for he chuffs and shakes her hand and introduces himself. And then she hurts him and forces him to hand over his stuff.

And we're like wow, she just hurt that guy and stole his stuff and other people are like "yeah but he stood next to her and talked to her".

How do you think that scene would have continued had Vers not been a Kree super soldier, but just an ordinary earth woman with no special powers or super strength? How far do you reckon that guy would have escalated things until she complied with his 'requests'? Because if he was willing to violate her personal space and force her to pay attention to him like that...I have the sneaking suspicion he wouldn't have just walked away if she had told him to.
Right, so now the guy is probably a sociopath or a rapist and we should punish people for potential crimes. Sure. I'm sure he was definitely going to do something in broad daylight in the parking lot of a strip mall.


You can tell by the body language in the scene they choose not to use, and thus it is a deleted scene that she was uncomfortable and she was signifying to others, that she wanted boundaries and space.
I think you're reading way more into that scene than is there. She does not signify that at all. Vers is looking for information and is on a mission. She hears someone speak to her, she takes a look and is not compelled to give it another thought. She is not uncomfortable, she's the strongest Marvel superhero on screen to date. This guy is nothing to her. He does not even deserve a response from her because she is busy and not interested.

And this is the part where you say "yeah, and since she didn't appear interested at his first comment, he deserves to be assaulted for trying again". And we'll just disagree there as well :).

It is not how men should interact with any other humans whether men with women or men with anyone else.
It's a poor way to display that in my opinion. I think most people know not to impose on others to a certain degree. What this guy does in Captain Marvel is hardly that. It would have worked better if he behaved more like the guy in Man of Steel, or if the scene is literally a fantasy that plays out in Vers head before she takes his motorcycle while he is in the store.

It's like when the action hero "gets the girl" at the end of the movie. This is saying that someone that is bold and courageous, selfless and fit can expect to get the girl of his dreams, because by having those qualities he is becoming more desirable to the opposite sex. It is more likely that the girl he is attracted to will also be attracted to him. But you can watch a movie like that and walk away with an idea like "I hate how the movie objectifies women like... just because he killed 100 terrorists with his bare hands, saved her life, her family's life, saved the world from an intergalactic threat and cured cancer, he just thinks he is entitled to have her like she is just some piece of meat for the taking, ugh".

It's in the execution. And in this case, they simply didn't make this guy that offensive to make this work. But I recognize that some people see a lot more in that scene than I do.

[LaZodiac]

Yes, I mean, you can be as descriptive as you want and try to make this as alarming as possible but... he literally said "Nice scuba suit" and she looked at him and then carried on with her reading. Then he said "How about a smile?" and pulled the paper down a bit and she said "A smile?" and he said "Yeah, I'm trying to help you, the least you can do is smile" and she said "how about a handshake?" and since he thinks he's getting the conversation he was looking for he chuffs and shakes her hand and introduces himself. And then she hurts him and forces him to hand over his stuff.

And we're like wow, she just hurt that guy and stole his stuff and other people are like "yeah but he stood next to her and talked to her".

Right, so now the guy is probably a sociopath or a rapist and we should punish people for potential crimes. Sure. I'm sure he was definitely going to do something in broad daylight in the parking lot of a strip mall.

I think you're reading way more into that scene than is there. She does not signify that at all. Vers is looking for information and is on a mission. She hears someone speak to her, she takes a look and is not compelled to give it another thought. She is not uncomfortable, she's the strongest Marvel superhero on screen to date. This guy is nothing to her. He does not even deserve a response from her because she is busy and not interested.

And this is the part where you say "yeah, and since she didn't appear interested at his first comment, he deserves to be assaulted for trying again". And we'll just disagree there as well :).

It's a poor way to display that in my opinion. I think most people know not to impose on others to a certain degree. What this guy does in Captain Marvel is hardly that. It would have worked better if he behaved more like the guy in Man of Steel, or if the scene is literally a fantasy that plays out in Vers head before she takes his motorcycle while he is in the store.

It's like when the action hero "gets the girl" at the end of the movie. This is saying that someone that is bold and courageous, selfless and fit can expect to get the girl of his dreams, because by having those qualities he is becoming more desirable to the opposite sex. It is more likely that the girl he is attracted to will also be attracted to him. But you can watch a movie like that and walk away with an idea like "I hate how the movie objectifies women like... just because he killed 100 terrorists with his bare hands, saved her life, her family's life, saved the world from an intergalactic threat and cured cancer, he just thinks he is entitled to have her like she is just some piece of meat for the taking, ugh".

It's in the execution. And in this case, they simply didn't make this guy that offensive to make this work. But I recognize that some people see a lot more in that scene than I do.

You're not a woman so I just don't think you can get it. I do like how you realize that at the end of your post though.

And, I feel again it is important; the scene where she actually gives him a zap or crushes his hand or whatever she does to him, is the deleted scene and thus not actually IN the film. Maybe they removed it because they did realize they were giving in a little too much, projecting their desire to lash out at the unfortunate reality that you have to be cautious of basically every man as a woman. Maybe they decided it didn't really fit the pacing, and that people would consider it in bad taste even if they do agree with wanting to do that. Maybe they just realized if it was in the film they'd receive endless amounts of people complaining about purely this scene and nothing else. Maybe it's just a bad scene.

Ultimately, the lived experiences of the woman I know have them being like "hell yeah, wish I could do that to every creep that couldn't read the signs, or did and forced himself on me anyway". You don't have that, so it doesn't read like that to you. That's okay, we can agree to disagree on that, for the most part. It's just a fun movie.

[Lemmy]

IMHO, both scenes are very similar and very easily comparable. In fact, both movies share many of their flaws.

I completely disagree with the notion of "you don't get because you aren't [insert demographics]". That's not even an argument. It's just a cheap way to dismiss someone else's thoughts.

Empathy is a thing. Understanding is a thing. Things humans are actually really good at. Just because I disagree with your opinion and conclusion, doesn't mean I don't "get it". Saying someone else can't understand others' position just because they don't share their [insert human characteristic], is having way too low an opinion of their fellow humans.

I also disagree with the idea that someone being a bit of an creep or annoying jerk comes even closely to justifying serious physical harm, intimidation and robbery. Specially when they pose absolutely no threat what-so-ever. There are many other behaviors that are far more threatening and harmful than that, and would still fall shot of meriting such a response.

That said... If those were the only crappy scenes in their respective movies... Superman and CM wouldn't have come off as unlikable as they did. And both examples are nowhere near as bad as "I'm okay essentially killing this innocent man if that means I can kiss the cute guy I knew for a couple weeks 40 years ago".

[Ramza00]

IMHO, both scenes are very similar and very easily comparable. In fact, both movies share many of their flaws.

I completely disagree with the notion of "you don't get because you aren't [insert demographics]". That's not even an argument. It's just a cheap way to dismiss someone else's thoughts.
Multiple people have brought up the same point. Who is doing the dismissing here?

[Lemmy]

Multiple people have brought up the same point. Who is doing the dismissing here?
If multiple people claim others can't understand them just because they don't share a characteristic, them said multiple people are indeed too easily dismissing the opinions and conclusions of others.

"CM/Superman is justified in her/his actions because the person was a jerk! And people are tired of dealing with this type of jerk!" is an argument... Not one I agree with, but it's an argument. I disagree with the conclusion, but I can understand the line of thought.

"You don't get it" isn't an argument. It's simply an statement that the other side's unable to fully comprehend your stance. "You don't get it because you aren't [X]!" sounds very condescending and dismissive, at least IMHO. Specially if the other side is trying to understand.

I honestly believe that human beings are very good at empathizing and understanding others when they actually try. And I'd like to think everyone here is at least trying to understand each other's PoV, even if we will never reach an agreement.

[Ramza00]

If multiple people claim others can't understand them just because they don't share a characteristic, them said multiple are indeed too easily dismissing the opinions and conclusions of others.

We are talking about experience vs lived experience. In English this may seem weird of how you phrase those two concepts but it has been an important philosophy concept for about 200 years now.

Furthermore in other languages such as German and the Romantic languages they have different words for these concepts. In German it is Erfahrung v. Erlebnis (often translated as lived experience.)

https://medium.com/@jacobhoerger/lived-experience-vs-experience-2e467b6c2229

—————

I repeat if several people find a certain style of body language to be creepy, then maybe you should listen to them and not just dismiss it.

Furthermore the guy in the video (watch it) knows he is doing it. He purposefully while shaking Vers hand says...”People call me *purposefully pausing followed by voice change to do emphasis* THE DON”

It is all an act, it is all bravado, he literally calls himself a nickname that means gentleman, lord, or mafia person depending on context, THE don.

He is a creep, there are several beats that indicate he is a creep, and you should listen to people when they say his physical behavior make them feel uncomfortable.

[Lemmy]

Ironically, it seems you misunderstood my point... That actually a little funny.

I didn't say the posters are wrong for considering the character's behavior to be creepy.

Hell! I even referred to the very same character as "a bit of a creep" myself.

I have no problems with that statement. I don't find it dismissive at all. I just disagree with the notion that his behavior merits the level of punishment CM inflicted upon him (same goes for SM and the other guy, even if the other guy was quite a bit worse than the man in the CM movie).

What I consider condescending and dismissive is claiming that others are unable to understand a situation, condition, experience or feeling just because they haven't personally lived it.
IMHO, that claim is simply not an accurate description of reality.

Now... I could agree that most people don't try to really understand each other's experience... But from what I observed through out my life, most of us are certainly capable of doing so when we try. Or at very least, capable of understanding far better than many seem to think we are capable of.

[Ramza00]

Okay Lemmy what was the worse crime*

1) Giving a firm and hot handshake yet not causing permanent injury, just scaring a creepy man who was purposefully doing behavior he knew did not allow the women to have any control in the situation?
2) The man having terror for he did not understand what was happening and strong women may actually really hurt him (except she did not really hurt him, he was just scarred and terrified for he did not know) ?
3) Vers stealing his bicycle?

*Not literally a crime, just using playful language here.

Vers did all three, but which of the 3 makes it the worse of that experience?

[Lemmy]

Honestly... The whole scene would've been perfectly fine if she had simply said some variation of "leave me alone" before immediately escalating it to violence against a persons who poses absolutely no threat to her, and had not stolen his bike.

Also "give a firm handshake" is really downplaying it... The man seems to be in excruciating pain, to the point where he falls to the ground, unable to speak. I'd be surprised if he didn't have a couple broken bones. She literally says she'll only let him keep his hand if he gives her his bike. That's way more than "a firm handshake".
Besides, the handshake is extra terrifying because it not only hurts, but also make shim unable to even run away...

CM could have just given him a black eye and, I don't know, comically thrown him at a garbage bin like a in a 90's movie... In the same vein, Superman should have just punched the guy, rather than destroyed his livelihood.

Last, but not least... "What is the worse crime" is a moot point to me... Because I expect the (supposedly) heroic protagonist to be better than "random nameless jerk #428".

[Ramza00]

Last, but not least... "What is the worse crime" is a moot point to me... Because I expect the (supposedly) heroic protagonist to be better than "random nameless jerk #428".

But that was not the genre that the MCU was trying to do with Captain Marvel, they were trying to borrow from several late 80s and early 90s movies and Kevin Feige specifically said Terminator 2 was the biggest inspiration. Likewise Ben Mendelsohn who played Talos said Robert Patrick‘s T1000 was the biggest influence on how he played said character.

The bike scene is supposed to remind you with false nostalgia of Terminator 2, but also they change it up. Vers in the first half of the movie is supposed to be a mixture of the Terminator played by Arnold, Sarah Connor, and the wiseass of 12 year old John.

Vers is a solider, something very similar to a robot. She thinks she in a planetary level conflict so of course she is going to steal to achieve transportation, creepy guy was just the first opportunity.

Literally the Kree vs Skrull have a massive war, a war where if the Kree think something bad has occurred they will bring their fleet to fragment the planet’s surface.

Vers thinks she is Arnold, or Kyle Reese who has a mission from her superiors to save a planet. Come with me if you want to live and all that jazz.

————

As for the handshake and all that Vers did not invite this conflict, he did.

You said Vers should give him one more chance to de-escalate before scaring him, hurting him, but no permanent damage. Well creepy guy knew he was getting signals to ignore her, she was putting up boundaries, and he choose to violate them, ignore them, and forced her to grapple with him attention wise for he wanted her to pay attention to him.


https://youtu.be/W1LhpXfxx2M

[Traab]

So i watched the scene, he bugs her, she squeezes his hand till he drops to his knees in pain then robs him. its... not the best look no. It was a weak attempt to "justify" robbing a random guy for her convenience. A better approach would be this dude is harassing, maybe grabbing, some other woman, and she shows up, knocks him across the parking lot, then takes his stuff. Making him unlikeable ENOUGH that nobody really cares she robbed him. From what i read before this whole discussion went WAY off in the deep end about gender issues and real world blah de bloo, I can agree that it may have been an attempt to show where she was as a character so the rest of the film is about her becoming more of a hero, in theory. I didnt watch the film so cant speak to how well if at all they followed up on that aspect. I also agree that in general, when the hero does something wrong, like spiderman letting the criminal go, there is generally a lesson involved with that. When there isnt, the scene becomes even worse. A hero is supposed to be better than that, but its ok (from a story telling standpoint) when they abuse their power early on so long as there is a consequence that teaches them a lesson about doing so. great power, great responsibility, etc.

[LaZodiac]

For what it is worth, I've been burned because of situations where I've said "you're just wrong/you don't get it" so I was couching a lot of my words in that way.. So if anything I say sounds like I'm condescending to you, it's not my fault. It is not my intent.

And for what it is worth, I do agree that the scene is a little silly. I think it makes sense in universe (she's currently part of a space facist cop group that raised her since birth to treat disrespect with violence, and later learns that this is bad) but I am glad it was removed from the film regardless. And yeah we can all agree that regardless of how good or bad this is, it is still quite uncomfortable that Diana is just so casual about Steve bodyjacking a person.

[Chen]

And yeah we can all agree that regardless of how good or bad this is, it is still quite uncomfortable that Diana is just so casual about Steve bodyjacking a person.

If the actual reason for the body swapping is just that random tiny callback I can see why they didn’t bother with the uncomfortableness of it. If they didn’t realize what a cluster**** it would be for such a small joke they clearly didn’t think of the implications of it at ALL.

[Willie the Duck]

they clearly didn’t think of the implications of it at ALL.

Clearly. Handing such a gimme to those who would already be looking for reasons to very publicly and vocally hate the film had to have been an oversight. There's just no benefit to it.

[False God]

Clearly. Handing such a gimme to those who would already be looking for reasons to very publicly and vocally hate the film had to have been an oversight. There's just no benefit to it.

If every movie was made with what haters thought in mind, all we'd get to watch is CinemaSins on the big screen.

[Dr.Samurai]

I mean... there are plenty of reasons to consider this movie a bad movie. My own original thoughts on it mention the Steve body switch merely in passing, noting it was weird. Of course when you get into a conversation about the body switch, thoughts get expanded, but I don't think people don't like this movie simply because of the body/mind swap. The movie is a jumbled mess that goes from boring to confusing to dark muddy fight scene. There are some minor good elements that probably made a great movie in a parallel reality.

[GloatingSwine]

If every movie was made with what haters thought in mind, all we'd get to watch is CinemaSins on the big screen.

Or the Disney live action remakes....

[Chen]

I mean... there are plenty of reasons to consider this movie a bad movie. My own original thoughts on it mention the Steve body switch merely in passing, noting it was weird. Of course when you get into a conversation about the body switch, thoughts get expanded, but I don't think people don't like this movie simply because of the body/mind swap. The movie is a jumbled mess that goes from boring to confusing to dark muddy fight scene. There are some minor good elements that probably made a great movie in a parallel reality.

This. The body swapping is a stupid plot hole for a dumb reason but it doesn't really substantially change the movie. In fact, by not actually addressing it at all, the movie would have been the same if they did just re-create Steve's body from nothing. And as such it would still have all the OTHER problems it had.

[Traab]

This. The body swapping is a stupid plot hole for a dumb reason but it doesn't really substantially change the movie. In fact, by not actually addressing it at all, the movie would have been the same if they did just re-create Steve's body from nothing. And as such it would still have all the OTHER problems it had.

I agree its hardly the one thing that makes the movie bad, but there is a difference between "These scenes dont work and confuse the story" and "What the actual *&@#& were they thinking to include something that becomes even more morally reprehensible the longer you think about it?" Its like the complaints about Man of Steel, where clarks dad basically tells him he should let people die to protect his secret, or whatever the wording was. Its just this jarring, terrible scene that basically violates everything that makes someone a hero as well as being deeply out of character in general.

[Kitten Champion]

I agree its hardly the one thing that makes the movie bad, but there is a difference between "These scenes dont work and confuse the story" and "What the actual *&@#& were they thinking to include something that becomes even more morally reprehensible the longer you think about it?" Its like the complaints about Man of Steel, where clarks dad basically tells him he should let people die to protect his secret, or whatever the wording was. Its just this jarring, terrible scene that basically violates everything that makes someone a hero as well as being deeply out of character in general.

I think in this case - though couching this by saying I haven't seen the actual movie - this is a matter of unfortunate implications. The WW84 creative team didn't think an aspect of their movie through, anticipating one reaction (a fun reference for classic WW fans) and getting another (That's kind of squicky).

Man of Steel on the other hand, that's how Jonathan Kent was supposed to be portrayed. That scene is part of the thematic underpinnings of the movie, and is boldly highlighted for its significance. It's just that the philosophic vision for Man of Steel as portrayed in its many speeches and symbolic imagery was and is... controversial. Ya'know, for lack of a more diplomatic word. You can't really remove it from the movie as Clark's arc - such as it is - doesn't make sense without understanding the Kent's mindset.

The comparison for the WW84 which comes to mind for me isn't another Superhero movie though, it's The Crimes of Grindelwald. As in, the whole thing with Nagini being revealed as actually being a Korean woman once-upon-a-time. I'm sure in Rowling's mind that was going to be a neat connection to the Harry Potter series as this nugget of lore inserted into her prequel thing-y. However, a lot of the audience didn't view it that way, and for something that added nothing to the overall narrative and could've been wholly removed, we now have to deal with the implications for Nagini's role in the Harry Potter novels as a whole.

Edit: Like was said though, Nagini's reveal wasn't the reason The Crime of Grindelwald isn't a beloved masterpiece, it's just one link in a chain where you can point to and say "that's not the greatest decision you could've made".

[LaZodiac]

You're right in every respect except for JK Rowling doing it on accident. I have no faith she didn't have at least a part of her having it be entirely on purpose.

[Kitten Champion]

You're right in every respect except for JK Rowling doing it on accident. I have no faith she didn't have at least a part of her having it be entirely on purpose.

Sure, but I don't really have the energy or mindset to care what her authorial intent really was. I'm just going by the usual reason a reference is included into a prequel to a popular Hollywood property - and the reason given for WW84's dilemma - because the reference evokes memories of the works we presumably have some deep-seeded affection/nostalgia for and [that = good enough].

Honestly, whether Rowling understood what she was doing with Nagini or she was wholly ignorant of it... I don't think either way makes her look particularly wise.

[Dienekes]

Apologies for the tangent but having not seen Grindelwald, what was the problem with Nagini? A snake that was too clever to be just a snake in the original series is now a person who I assume got transformed into a snake via magic mumbo jumbo.

Seems pointless, but fine.

[GloatingSwine]

"White man keeps transformed asian woman as pet" is not exactly a Good Look.

But by JK Rowling's standards it's positively woke, so.....

[Kitten Champion]

Apologies for the tangent but having not seen Grindelwald, what was the problem with Nagini? A snake that was too clever to be just a snake in the original series is now a person who I assume got transformed into a snake via magic mumbo jumbo.

Seems pointless, but fine.

Well, the main thrust of it was turning what was little more than a pet - with no agency or basic humanity - of the White wizard supremacist in the books into what is now canonically understood to be a Korean woman with a horrible disease, steps on several pretty ugly stereotypes.

Then, when prompted on Twitter, Rowling decided to explain that Nagini is a reference to Naga, which she credited as being Indonesian folklore and thus it's all okay, apparently. With the actor herself being Korean and the Naga myth primarily being rooted in Hinduism, the tweet reeked to many of "it's all Asian so whatever" kind of mentality.

The underlining point for many critics was that Rowling wanted to force diversity into her Wizarding World and had been trying to rewrite what many perceive as her more parochial sensibilities through these kinds of abrupt retcons, and genuinely doesn't know what she's doing.

Lastly, when it was optimistically argued that all the contention surrounding Nagini would be resolved by the movie's release which would put her into some kind of thoughtful context, the answer turned out to be no. She's superfluous... and in a movie that's so ineptly assembled stands out as yet another thing rammed into the script.

[The Glyphstone]

IIRC, she didn't even get any dialogue. Just stood around next to the villain, frowning and looking like eye candy in a dress every scene she was present in.

[Traab]

You're right in every respect except for JK Rowling doing it on accident. I have no faith she didn't have at least a part of her having it be entirely on purpose.

I will be honest, I dont believe much of anything rowling has revealed about her characters after the books came out. Primarily because almost every single one of them had absolutely no hint in the novels and it made no difference to the events. Its like revealing that dennis creevy was actually not anglican. Okaaaay? It just felt like strange attempts to stay trending in twitter or something more than expanding her universe in ways that matter. Maybe believe is the wrong term, a better one might be "care" i dont care, because most of her reveals are meaningless and not supported by anything. They just feel like silly things being tossed out at random to trigger a discussion. Sorry for the tangent, it just always seems to bug me whenever her reveals get brought up and the motive behind them.

[Dienekes]

"White man keeps transformed asian woman as pet" is not exactly a Good Look.

But by JK Rowling's standards it's positively woke, so.....

I mean, it's the villain. Literally Magic Mega Hitler, so I don't really expect them to get the good looks treatment.


Well, the main thrust of it was turning what was little more than a pet - with no agency or basic humanity - of the White wizard supremacist in the books into what is now canonically understood to be a Korean woman with a horrible disease, steps on several pretty ugly stereotypes.

Then, when prompted on Twitter, Rowling decided to explain that Nagini is a reference to Naga, which she credited as being Indonesian folklore and thus it's all okay, apparently. With the actor herself being Korean and the Naga myth primarily being rooted in Hinduism, the tweet reeked to many of "it's all Asian so whatever" kind of mentality.

The underlining point for many critics was that Rowling wanted to force diversity into her Wizarding World and had been trying to rewrite what many perceive as her more parochial sensibilities through these kinds of abrupt retcons, and genuinely doesn't know what she's doing.

Lastly, when it was optimistically argued that all the contention surrounding Nagini would be resolved by the movie's release which would put her into some kind of thoughtful context, the answer turned out to be no. She's superfluous... and in a movie that's so ineptly assembled stands out as yet another thing rammed into the script.

But this seems fair enough criticism. Though a part of me feels it may be less bad if written better. Person with problem lashing out at others about it is something that happens in real life. Quite a lot and can be examined in fiction easy enough. It just seems like she didn't examine it all just kinda threw it in. Since the whole "she said nothing/had no agency" stuff other posters have brought up.

Glad I didn't waste time on the movie then.

[Dr.Samurai]

Re: Agency

It seems to me that complaining that a Korean woman chose to be loyal and devoted to a white man is removing agency from her. Like... everyone else in the Potter-verse is allowed to be a death eater or secretly working for Voldemort but if it is a person of color it's a problem.

He's evil. He controls, abuses, kills whoever he wants. If he has Nagini under mind control or if she actively follows him, she is no different than any other character in the same circumstance. Except for some people, she is, because she's not white.

[LaZodiac]

The issue is that there's a lot of bigoted **** attached to Asian folk and reptiles. It's not just that this character is a Korean woman who becomes the slave of a wizard nazi, it is a number of factors that all compound into one gigantic mess of issues.

Also it is worth noting that she didn't... choose, to be loyal. The curse just forces her to become a snake. And also it is mentioned among other things that Voldemort basically nursed himself back to health on her milk. It's all sorts of gross unfortunate implications that all stem from the decision to make this basic ass Evil Snake Pet into... a living sentient woman who was cursed to become a mindless serpent, and who receives no characterization beyond being a morality tether for another character.

And for the record if any other character WAS in her predicament, we would hate that as well! Like how everyone ****in' hates the werewolf character because the presentation of lycanthropy comes off as just bad AIDS symbolism.

[Ramza00]

Re: Agency

It seems to me that complaining that a Korean woman chose to be loyal and devoted to a white man is removing agency from her. Like... everyone else in the Potter-verse is allowed to be a death eater or secretly working for Voldemort but if it is a person of color it's a problem.

He's evil. He controls, abuses, kills whoever he wants. If he has Nagini under mind control or if she actively follows him, she is no different than any other character in the same circumstance. Except for some people, she is, because she's not white.

Symbolism is not just something that comes out of nothing, it is not Creatio Ex Nihilo, it always build on existing imagery and symbolism even if the reader is not aware of it. It is an additive process, layers upon layers that add new meaning onto old until it becomes shorthand and you forget the old. How many people remember the female maiden names of the the 4 mothers who birthed their grandparents (aka the female great grandparents) ? These details, these gifts, these meanings did not come out of nowhere, we merely forgot them, much like you can not remember the name of 4 out of 8 great grandparents.

One aspect of criticism, one of many, is asking why are you adding to harmful stereotypes? It is always a choice, and you do not have to do it. It is an act of “Agency” on the creator when they choose to continue said stereotypes that hurt people, it is a choice.

In the last page I referenced the Thermian Argument, where writers give in universe reasons why they continue toxic stereotypes. Yeah, you have in universe reasons, that you created, but one of the reason art is art is due to the cultural influence, and you are playing a carnival game.

It is a cultural product when it is beneficial, and when people criticize your toxic storytelling choices, it is merely a story stop being sensitive.

[Traab]

The issue is that there's a lot of bigoted **** attached to Asian folk and reptiles. It's not just that this character is a Korean woman who becomes the slave of a wizard nazi, it is a number of factors that all compound into one gigantic mess of issues.

Also it is worth noting that she didn't... choose, to be loyal. The curse just forces her to become a snake. And also it is mentioned among other things that Voldemort basically nursed himself back to health on her milk. It's all sorts of gross unfortunate implications that all stem from the decision to make this basic ass Evil Snake Pet into... a living sentient woman who was cursed to become a mindless serpent, and who receives no characterization beyond being a morality tether for another character.

And for the record if any other character WAS in her predicament, we would hate that as well! Like how everyone ****in' hates the werewolf character because the presentation of lycanthropy comes off as just bad AIDS symbolism.

Snakes dont have milk, he used her venom. Unless you are talking about something other than the whole book 4 tri wiz thing. If so my bad. And honestly, I dont recall hearing anything serpent related to insulting asians. Im not saying there arent any, just that ive heard a LOT of nasty bigoted things for a lot of races and such over the years, but nothing related to asians and reptiles that I can think of offhand.

[LaZodiac]

Snakes dont have milk, he used her venom. Unless you are talking about something other than the whole book 4 tri wiz thing. If so my bad. And honestly, I dont recall hearing anything serpent related to insulting asians. Im not saying there arent any, just that ive heard a LOT of nasty bigoted things for a lot of races and such over the years, but nothing related to asians and reptiles that I can think of offhand.

I was probably thinking of that yeah, and got my wires crossbreed with the order to milk Nagini.

Here are some things Reptiles have that racists believe Asians have; scaled yellow skin, slanted slit eyes, lispy s's due to their forked tongues, claws, and so on. There's other reptile and snake associations with the whole "in Veitnam they'd slither around and ambush you like cowards" and so on. It's all nasty stuff that is, correctly, forgotten about in modern day.

[Dr.Samurai]

The issue is that there's a lot of bigoted **** attached to Asian folk and reptiles. It's not just that this character is a Korean woman who becomes the slave of a wizard nazi, it is a number of factors that all compound into one gigantic mess of issues.
I would just say that, up until you educating me on this, I had no idea. So I ask, is it reasonable to expect an author to know this "number of factors that all compound into one gigantic mess of issues"? Because I didn't.

Secondly, is it then reasonable to expect that when these factors are revealed to said author, they should care as much as other people do and take action?

Because again, to use myself as an example, I don't. I appreciate the different perspective on this but I truthfully do not see the harm and I HIGHLY doubt that many people saw racism when they watched the movie.

[LaZodiac]

I would just say that, up until you educating me on this, I had no idea. So I ask, is it reasonable to expect an author to know this "number of factors that all compound into one gigantic mess of issues"? Because I didn't.

Secondly, is it then reasonable to expect that when these factors are revealed to said author, they should care as much as other people do and take action?

Because again, to use myself as an example, I don't. I appreciate the different perspective on this but I truthfully do not see the harm and I HIGHLY doubt that many people saw racism when they watched the movie.

If Nagini was the only time JK Rowling shoved her foot in her mouth, wrote a racist stereotype, or generally made an ass of herself publically, I'd be more inclined to assume she might not know.

But, suffice to say, it is simply the latest in a long line of a woman pissing any respect she had away because she just can't stand those trans folk.

[Ramza00]

If Nagini was the only time JK Rowling shoved her foot in her mouth, wrote a racist stereotype, or generally made an ass of herself publically, I'd be more inclined to assume she might not know.

But, suffice to say, it is simply the latest in a long line of a woman pissing any respect she had away because she just can't stand those trans folk.

Yep context matters. People create good faith, skeptical, etc based off history with an individual person.

[CharonsHelper]

Snakes dont have milk, he used her venom. Unless you are talking about something other than the whole book 4 tri wiz thing. If so my bad. And honestly, I dont recall hearing anything serpent related to insulting asians. Im not saying there arent any, just that ive heard a LOT of nasty bigoted things for a lot of races and such over the years, but nothing related to asians and reptiles that I can think of offhand.

The only one I've ever heard is the old "dragon lady" trope - which I'm not sure counts as a "reptile" thing, since dragons aren't real. Which interestingly, my wife (who is from China) had never heard of before I mentioned it at one point.

[False God]

I would just say that, up until you educating me on this, I had no idea. So I ask, is it reasonable to expect an author to know this "number of factors that all compound into one gigantic mess of issues"? Because I didn't.
Yes. If you're going to write about it, you should know something about it. And many authors do this because it adds a level of credibility and quality to their writing that is plainly visible. Now, JK may not have thought Potter would blow up like it did when she wrote it, and just not given two kicks, but that's....not a good excuse.


Secondly, is it then reasonable to expect that when these factors are revealed to said author, they should care as much as other people do and take action?
Yes. Because if your ultimate argument is "I don't give a hoot." Well then the complaints about your character, or JK's, are justified. Mistakes are understandable, but as mistakes they should be corrected. If you make a mistake and just say "Well, I don't care." then that's all on you, because people should care. Because not caring perpetuates the acceptability of such things.


Because again, to use myself as an example, I don't. I appreciate the different perspective on this but I truthfully do not see the harm and I HIGHLY doubt that many people saw racism when they watched the movie.
If you don't see the harm, you don't understand the issue. If you didn't see the racism, ignorance is an acceptable excuse...once. If you knew, saw, and still don't care well...that's on you. And if your response to that is "I'm okay with that." Then understand some people may not be okay with you. As people are thusly not okay with JK.

[M1982]

Well, the main thrust of it was turning what was little more than a pet - with no agency or basic humanity - of the White wizard supremacist in the books into what is now canonically understood to be a Korean woman with a horrible disease, steps on several pretty ugly stereotypes. But isn't that the point? He's supposed to be wizard Hitler, isn't he?

[Traab]

The only Cinema Sins video I've watched was the one for the Mad Max: Fury Road. The main things I remember are them complaining about a tree not being uprooted literally moments before it gets uprooted and a spectacular inability to understand character arcs. This kind of stuff is less "nitpicking the plot to the exclusion of everything else" and more "filling out complaints on the fly with literally no revision and no ability to understand media in order to churn out a video that only YouTube's algorithim could see merit in."


Sometimes you just have to make room for more onscreen baby deaths. Everyone knows that deep themes and high stakes are constructed from dead babies. The next Fantastic Beasts film is supposed to be "big", so I anticipate 3-4 times as many baby murders.


In all fairness, there is a deleted scene in which Credence and Nagini say words to each other. However, the editors were right to cut it out -- it really doesn't do anything. Nagini also doesn't join Grindlewald at the end because it would have been out of character for her to do something. Also in all fairness, Nagini's personality is one part moldy cardboard and one part ugly tropes, and she should never have existed.

Cinema sins is a lot like Death Battle. They do a lot of stuff just to trigger responses. Watch it if you find them amusing, not to find serious consideration of a movies flaws. The sins list is a solid swirl of real issues, joke issues, and wrong issues. The last two make people want to discuss it in the comments section which means people come back to the video a few times to reply to replies and such.

[Kitten Champion]

The main problem with Cinema Sins is that they popularize a way of viewing and critiquing media which is pretty shallow and can be actively harmful in one's comprehension and appreciation of a work. Deconstructing a work into talking points that treats art criticism as though it were empirical analysis where one could derive whether a work is good/bad through this warped Sin-esque measurement system where they're objectively "right" but lack any genuine critical thought or emotional engagement with it.

Sure, they've got the insulating element of being essentially a comedy routine, and Cinema Sins can do some effective comedic delivery if nothing else... but every time I see someone claiming one of their videos as justification for a work being terrible or claim they've "destroyed" a particular piece of media, I just cringe.

It's kind of like how certain people discover the concept of tropes - or just the TVtropes website - and start seeing all media through the prism of recurring fictional elements and clichés. It's annoying, basically.

[GloatingSwine]

The main problem with Cinema Sins is that they popularize a way of viewing and critiquing media which is pretty shallow and can be actively harmful in one's comprehension and appreciation of a work. Deconstructing a work into talking points that treats art criticism as though it were empirical analysis where one could derive whether a work is good/bad through this warped Sin-esque measurement system where they're objectively "right" but lack any genuine critical thought or emotional engagement with it.

Sure, they've got the insulating element of being essentially a comedy routine, and Cinema Sins can do some effective comedic delivery if nothing else... but every time I see someone claiming one of their videos as justification for a work being terrible or claim they've "destroyed" a particular piece of media, I just cringe.

It's kind of like how certain people discover the concept of tropes - or just the TVtropes website - and start seeing all media through the prism of recurring fictional elements and clichés. It's annoying, basically.

They also make hostile edits to the work for the sake of jokes about it. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ti3chBx2Pc&list=PLB8NXe_on1cV3bJvw_FA1FX-FI7PGZnV_)

If you watch Cinemasins, you are watching youtube wrong as well as watching movies wrong.

[Ramza00]

They also make hostile edits to the work for the sake of jokes about it. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ti3chBx2Pc&list=PLB8NXe_on1cV3bJvw_FA1FX-FI7PGZnV_)

If you watch Cinemasins, you are watching youtube wrong as well as watching movies wrong.

Yeah I liked Cinemasins in 2013 when the videos were short.

But when the videos became longer I realized more of their craft and what they are doing. If you are not familiar with the founders of Cinemasins they are two former SEO, search engine optimizers, and viral content creators prior to creating the Cinemasins youtube channel.

They do those hostile edits and other things for they understand how to create engagement and other algorithm nonsense. And it becomes far more obvious the longer the videos get, for they get more money with how YouTube restructured their algorithm from short videos to long videos. They are incessant nitpickers trying to fill time. But that is not worse of it, in my opinion creating nonsense and hostile edits to fill time and drive engagement means they are not doing anything in good faith, it is all a hustle.

And you are allowed to do hustles, not everything has to be done in good faith :smalltongue: but why should I care about you when I know you are not on the level and I can see the grift one is doing?

[Traab]

Honestly? I dont get the issue. I mean, why the heck is ANYONE taking cinemasins seriously as a source for determining whats "wrong" with movies? From the first time I watched it I knew it for what it was. An amusing joke not to be taken seriously. The closest they get to "seriously" critiquing is poking fun at tropes. Half their "plot holes" are blatantly not, and all in all, they arent reviewing the movie like say, nostalgia critic, just doing fast edits and funny comments. You might as well take HISHE as your source of movie reviewing.

[LaZodiac]

Honestly? I dont get the issue. I mean, why the heck is ANYONE taking cinemasins seriously as a source for determining whats "wrong" with movies? From the first time I watched it I knew it for what it was. An amusing joke not to be taken seriously. The closest they get to "seriously" critiquing is poking fun at tropes. Half their "plot holes" are blatantly not, and all in all, they arent reviewing the movie like say, nostalgia critic, just doing fast edits and funny comments. You might as well take HISHE as your source of movie reviewing.

Then congrats, you aren't one of the many folk who do take it as gospel. You'd be surprised at how many people see this and think it is all legitimate.

And on that note; what they do is definitely a review. If you go through an entire film pointing out every thing "wrong" with it, jokes and "intentionally bad" takes and all... you are doing a review. A ****ty one, but still a review.

[Ramza00]

Honestly? I dont get the issue. I mean, why the heck is ANYONE taking cinemasins seriously as a source for determining whats "wrong" with movies? From the first time I watched it I knew it for what it was. An amusing joke not to be taken seriously. The closest they get to "seriously" critiquing is poking fun at tropes. Half their "plot holes" are blatantly not, and all in all, they arent reviewing the movie like say, nostalgia critic, just doing fast edits and funny comments. You might as well take HISHE as your source of movie reviewing.

Why are you calling out my younger self? :smalltongue:

Honestly this is about the good faith vs bad faith I was mentioning earlier.


If you assume CinemaSins is doing this in good faith, then you see it as an endeavor where they are trying to build a better movie via their project. Putting a dream into the universe via ones Endeavors.
If you assume CinemaSins is doing it via bad faith, or just as a way to get money you see the same endeavors as just time wasters or perhaps as actively harmful.


How we deal with meaning and nihilism in this world is a thing we have to ask ourselves often. For example this arc in My Hero Academia involving X and Y. :smallamused: [edits out my own thoughts for it would be spoilers for anime people and it is like 3 layers removed from the original conversation]

I say it is the cultural time for the right amount of being earnest in this contradictory and Dionysian age.

[HolyDraconus]

How we deal with meaning and nihilism in this world is a thing we have to ask ourselves often. For example this arc in My Hero Academia involving X and Y. :smallamused: [edits out my own thoughts for it would be spoilers for anime people and it is like 3 layers removed from the original conversation]


Gasp! How dare you spoil My Hero Academia for me! Its ruined for me now!!!

[Trafalgar]

I should've liked this movie. I like superhero movies and I like Wonder Woman as a character. I liked the first Wonder Woman movie. Patty Jenkins is a decent director (Monster is an excellent movie). Gal Gadot, Kristen Wiig, and Pedro Pascal are actors I like.

But I found myself not losing interest in the movie the longer I watched it. I ended up shutting it off about 2/3 of the way through the movie and finishing it on another night.

In my opinion, the biggest issue was the writing. I suspect they started with a series of action scenes they wanted (A fight on military trucks on a desert highway, WW in golden armor, a fight in a 80s shopping mall, etc) and then tried to come up with a bare bones plot that connected the action scenes together.

I feel like SW:RoS had a similiar problem. It seems that studios are focusing their efforts on creating a series of spectacles without creating a good story or solid dialogue.

[Dr.Samurai]

Yes. If you're going to write about it, you should know something about it. And many authors do this because it adds a level of credibility and quality to their writing that is plainly visible. Now, JK may not have thought Potter would blow up like it did when she wrote it, and just not given two kicks, but that's....not a good excuse.


Yes. Because if your ultimate argument is "I don't give a hoot." Well then the complaints about your character, or JK's, are justified. Mistakes are understandable, but as mistakes they should be corrected. If you make a mistake and just say "Well, I don't care." then that's all on you, because people should care. Because not caring perpetuates the acceptability of such things.


If you don't see the harm, you don't understand the issue. If you didn't see the racism, ignorance is an acceptable excuse...once. If you knew, saw, and still don't care well...that's on you. And if your response to that is "I'm okay with that." Then understand some people may not be okay with you. As people are thusly not okay with JK.
Well, the holier-than-thou tone of your post really put me off lol.

I will say this... neither you, or anyone else has demonstrated the point you're asserting. My "ultimate argument" is not that I don't care. It's that you haven't shown me something to care about. You have asserted that the choice JK made is harmful and perpetuates racism, but you haven't shown it. Further, you expect people to simply believe your assertions AND change their opinion or behavior on the strength of the assertion alone. And when they don't, you reply with judgements and ultimatums of the kind that your post is riddled with.

This is not how the world works in general. You have to earn changing other peoples' minds and behavior. Simply complaining about something and claiming bad things are happening is not enough. Telling people that they have one "get out of jail free" card if they make a "mistake" is meaningless if you can't show a mistake has been made. Or if you don't have anything to substantiate that you are some sort of authority to determine who can be forgiven and excused or who is doomed for all time.


Well, it seems CinemaSins really hurt people in this thread :smalleek:. Try out CinemaWins for something more positive/thoughtful :smallcool:.

@Trafalgar - re:writing

As an example of the weird writing... the golden armor could have been Diana's attempt to fight the bad guys and save the world while clinging to her wish and losing her super powers and invulnerability. The armor could have protected her and perhaps boosted her physical abilities while she was powerless. Once she realized she needed to rescind her wish to defeat Cheetah and Maxwell Lord, she could shed the armor in a triumphant moment where she overcomes her own wants and desires to have the power to save the world.

But instead, the story order is mixed. She loses her powers, rescinds her wish and regains her powers, learns how to fly, puts the armor on and it is immediately pointless (no need for wings, no need for protection).

[Trafalgar]

@Trafalgar - re:writing

As an example of the weird writing... the golden armor could have been Diana's attempt to fight the bad guys and save the world while clinging to her wish and losing her super powers and invulnerability. The armor could have protected her and perhaps boosted her physical abilities while she was powerless. Once she realized she needed to rescind her wish to defeat Cheetah and Maxwell Lord, she could shed the armor in a triumphant moment where she overcomes her own wants and desires to have the power to save the world.

But instead, the story order is mixed. She loses her powers, rescinds her wish and regains her powers, learns how to fly, puts the armor on and it is immediately pointless (no need for wings, no need for protection).

Normally, I think it is a pointless mental exercise to rewrite a movie, but this makes too much sense. I wouldn't be surprised if this was something in an early draft that got revised for some weird reason.

[Mordar]

My wife and I finally watched this last night. Both of us thought it was better than the things we'd heard about it...but that is faint praise.

The biggest issues we had seemed to be pacing and hand-waving/inconsistencies.

Pacing is the harder of the two for me to tease out, as I understand the (a?) logic behind keeping all of the scenes they presented in the film, but it needed to be at least 30 minutes shorter. We needed less time on Maxwell Lord and Dr. Minerva, and more effective use of the time on them as well. But every scene I want to remove is tied to something else.

The scene with the investor and the scene with the ex-oil magnate for instance - I really would want them consolidated into one, but the investor scene is where he learns his plan works and thus has the confidence to try the tactic with a much more powerful and supported individual. The desert scene is necessary because they wanted to do the invisible jet/fireworks sequence *and* the APC chase sequence where we learn Diana can impart supernatural resilience to small children she grabs while swinging like Spider-Man ('cause the landing on the road and rolling over on them would have hurt them badly). And the invisible jet/fireworks sequence is key to her learning how to fly. And her learning to fly...well, you get it.

The fashion show? Gender reversal from the first movie. Still, could have given us 3 or 4 minutes back. The White House, perhaps could have gotten a few minutes shorter - and removed the stupidly reductionist "I wish for more nukes" bit which betrays a foundational stereotyping of the person supposedly sitting in that particular White House. But where else? Trim the bit of Diana running through the woods to the big race? Cut out Dr. Minerva's dress shopping? Relay the info dump on the stone's origins as a straight result of Dr. Minerva's research? Each of these things is tied to other reasons for keeping them in, though.

...and you can't do this Minerva/Cheetah without Maxwell Lord, and both are necessary for the lesson and resolution...ugh.

The hand-waving and inconsistencies have been hit already - how does Steve know how to fly a jet? Why is the jet accessible by an archeology head? Why is it on a runway and ready for takeoff? Each question begs more. Why were there so many 70s staches? Why was there so little 80s music? How can you effectively run a black market business in (sometimes large) stolen antiquities from the third level of a popular mall? Why did Dr. Minerva wear non-80s Nikes when they made a point of showing Steve's originals? Why did the Lasso extend to any necessary length?

I expected much better. Still, better than any other DC theatrical release of the last 20 years other than WW.

- M

[Clertar]

Still, better than any other DC theatrical release of the last 20 years other than WW.

- M


Just out of curiosity, are you counting or not Nolan's Batman trilogy?

[Mordar]

Just out of curiosity, are you counting or not Nolan's Batman trilogy?

I am including them, and I know this is a can of worms...they were better than the end of the previous Batman series, and Heath Ledger offered a pretty compelling performance, but other than that I think there were a litany of plot issues and character issues. They were well-shot and visually pleasing at times, and I'll watch Morgan Freeman as virtually any character...but overall, didn't love them. They would be at worst three of the next five films on the list, though. Maybe even three of three.

- M

[The Glyphstone]

Were you not a fan of Birds of Prey? From the little I remember hearing about it people seemed to enjoy The Amazing Adventures of Harley Quinn And Some Other Female Superheroes.

[Thales]

My parents and I watched it at my father's insistence, and I was certainly not a fan. (For the record, my father was quite disappointed, but my mother liked it a bit more, once she was willing to turn her brain off and go with it.)


Contrary to many people here, I actually liked the fish-out-of-water stuff with Steve (though definitely the body-snatching was very sketchy and had literally no reason to be in the movie, and if for some reason you insist on it being in there, it should have been handled very differently). If you're making your movie a period piece, go with it! Have Steve experiencing more than 80s fashion and the DC Metro. Play up him learning about the moon landing: that's one of the great accomplishments of mankind so let us see it through the eyes of someone who recognizes the scale of it! The more human-scale stuff is important to make these movies work.

I've read a lot of wishes-gone-awry plots (including the original Monkey's Paw), and they all have logical issues. But this one was particularly bad on that front. First of all, there was no pattern to the drawbacks. Magic is a fine plot element, but it has its own logic to this. Corrupted wishes are generally ironically so, but the drawbacks here weren't remotely connected. Nor was there a pattern to them: Diana's powers, Barbara's empathy, Maxwell's health? The actual granting of the wishes veered between weirdly crappy (Steve taking someone's body instead of popping into existence out of nothing) and weirdly benevolent (Maxwell really should have turned into a rock, but then of course the movie would have ended — maybe have his health suffering be gradual petrification?). Once Maxwell gets the stone's powers, the drawbacks go from odd to essentially separate wishes entirely. I'm not quite sure why Maxwell was able to take a mulligan on the price he sought from the Egyptian oil guy — if the price is his oil, that's on you for not knowing he didn't have any. Too bad, jerk genie, you've had one put over you. Maxwell seemed to become addicted to granting wishes, but why this was the case was never clear. Perhaps the stone had a consciousness and it was under a compulsion to grant wishes? Besides Maxwell's original wish for control over wish-granting, which was clever but worded in a way such that it had an obvious way to go catastrophically wrong, no one tries to do anything smart with the wishes. Maxwell doesn't try to fix his health until the end, he for some reason still works on his business despite having essentially infinite power, and Steve doesn't take advantage of the apparent fact that Maxwell can't help but grant wishes (which granted he probably doesn't know about) when he's grappling Maxwell in the White House. Perhaps remove Maxwell's wish to become the stone, and just have him put it on the end of a scepter and have to work harder to get useful wishes out of people since he no longer gets a bonus wish in determining the drawback? Fits his "Lord" name better too.

For things to be fixed by renouncing wishes is bizarre. Diana's wish is straightforwardly enough renounced, since it didn't make a physical difference in the world. But what about the cup of coffee the Smithsonian guy wished for? Is he now mildly dehydrated? I heard one of the wishes in the wishstorm near the end say "I wish I was dead". Well, that person won't be renouncing that wish. In fact, it really strains credulity that everyone who made a wish renounced it or even was capable of renouncing it. Barbara, for instance, had her empathy and humanity magically removed in return for superpowers she was enjoying. Why would she be willing to renounce her wish? And even granting that they somehow did, that doesn't fix the problem! There's still a nuclear war going on, and it makes no sense that only wish-granted missiles got launched. Why would they all disappear?

The whole plot with Barbara was very poorly motivated and thought out. First of all, having your empathy magically drained is not the same thing as character development! But that's kind of necessary, because otherwise her motivation is very weak. I think the movie would have been better served by continuing the relationship between her and Maxwell. Sure, he was just using her to get at the stone, but Barbara is naïve and not used to people acting like they like her — perhaps have her defend Maxwell because she really thinks there's a connection between them. (Heck, if you're going for a really happy ending, have it actually work; give Alistair a new mom!) That also explains why she actively helps Maxwell with his scheme which runs against her interests instead of just keeping him alive but, say, locked in a cage. I like the earlier suggestion to add a bit of romantic jealousy in there too; let Barbara have been interested in Diana!

There was also a lot of carelessness on smaller parts of the plotting. After Diana renounces her wish, her powers are restored. We see her unleashed, running from near the White House lawn, lassoing onto a monument, then onto a passing jet, catapulting herself into the clouds. There, she glides, impossibly fast and impossibly easily. When her momentum flags, she lassos onto the clouds and onto the very lightning! Her divine power, spectacularly realized. After several minutes of this phantasmagoria, she lands adroitly back at her apartment. In the Watergate. Which is about a mile from where she started. Now, I couldn't do it myself, but I think a skilled but normal human sprinter could get from the exact location she starts that scene to the Watergate in less time than that scene took. This is like Superman using his eye beams to heat a frozen meal, but with astonishing production values and dramatic ambience. (Of course, the thing she got at her apartment, the armor, made no difference in the movie, but at least it looked cool.) And once she got there, why go in and confront the villain instead of smashing the big broadcast disk? If he used wish power to protect it, sure, but show that!

I will say I liked the post-credits scene. It's a good way to write the real-world history of the franchise in, and tie up a minor loose end.

[Tyndmyr]

Were you not a fan of Birds of Prey? From the little I remember hearing about it people seemed to enjoy The Amazing Adventures of Harley Quinn And Some Other Female Superheroes.

Birds of Prey is one of the few superhero films I was unable to even finish. It's truly terrible in a way that isn't even funny to mock. I could rip on it a great deal, I think. However, I'd rather rewatch Suicide Squad from start to finish than get through the last chunk of it to be able to bash it completely.

As to the 80s thing...that's a fair point. There's a lot of fantastic 80s music and stuff there. That could have been really amazing.

[Psyren]

*takes a wiiiiiiiide step around the JK Rowling stuff*



If you watch Cinemasins, you are watching youtube wrong as well as watching movies wrong.

There's a "right" way to watch YouTube? And movies? News to me...

OT: I enjoyed Birds of Prey despite its many flaws; I didn't enjoy WW84 nearly as much. A lot of that is expectations - the bar for a Harley Quinn movie was pretty low for me, given her last outing, whereas WW1 set the bar much higher. The other is that while I go into anything starring Harley expecting questionable behavior and an unreliable protagonist, it's a lot more jarring when Diana is the focus.