Ww84

[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?

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.

Spoiler: Captain America's shield

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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.

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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, and hasn't been cancelled last checked.

[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.

Spoiler: Some items

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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.

Spoiler

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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.

Spoiler

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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).