Ww84

[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]

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.

Spoiler: Yeah, it's pretty stupid....

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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

Spoiler: Yeah, it's pretty stupid....

Show

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]

Spoiler

Show

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?