Author Topic: Wonder Woman  (Read 5435 times)

MattDrufke

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Wonder Woman
« on: June 04, 2017, 07:12:08 AM »
I'm just gonna cut to the chase:

Man, was the ending to this film BAD. It was SO BAD.

We obviously know that Wonder Woman is going to survive because we see her in the beginning of the movie. That being said, there was absolutely nothing interesting about her last battle (or the reveal who the villain was). She never seemed in danger of losing this fight and doesn't even win it in a way which shows that she has grown or learned anything.

I feel like a much more interesting movie would've been if Diana had helped destroy the weapons bunker, THEN fight the General, THEN Ares shows up and says, "Ha! Here I am and blah blah blah..." and then vanishes WITHOUT any fight at all. Give her a reason to stick around and keep fighting evil.
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Bondo

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Re: Wonder Woman
« Reply #1 on: June 04, 2017, 08:23:43 AM »
Ares is a bit of a red herring. Yes, she vanquishes him, but it is making a commentary on our habit of wanting to assign the ills in the world with a particular face or label. I was just talking about this in the General Chatter thread related to the latest terrorism incident in London. We want to say the problem is bin Laden/Al Queda or ISIL and if only we kill the Ace of Hearts from our deck of bad guys, we will return to a good place. I'm not going to say that the end of the film was amazing as cinema (I think the battle with Ares was the least interesting action set piece) and the leap at the very end was just kind of silly, but thematically it is on point.

Keeping Ares around would undercut this by making him the continuing focus of her energies. Now she knows it is an everlasting struggle to make things better on the margins.

MattDrufke

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Re: Wonder Woman
« Reply #2 on: June 04, 2017, 10:26:04 AM »
I get what you're saying here... I just wanted more. It sounds like maybe you did, too.

I'll also be the first to admit that while this movie is fine, it left me very underwhelmed. I could see that if someone was just super into this movie, it could've been a lot more satisfying. It just didn't really do it for me.
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sdb_1970

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Re: Wonder Woman
« Reply #3 on: June 04, 2017, 04:08:57 PM »
I agree with both of you.  The bad was that I saw the "twist" coming from a mile away, and it felt like the reins had been handed back over to Zack Snyder for the final 25 minutes of immortal-bashing action.  The good was the thematic, as Bondo put it nicely, and to that purpose, I thought Gadot (who seemed like a toss-in piece of character-inflation-to-cover-up-weak-narrative in BVS:DOJ) did an effective job at bringing an innocent/naive sense of strength and purpose to the character (kinda like Christopher Reeve), while retaining (dare I say) a distinct element of "femininity" (as opposed to recent trend of merely servicing an expanding audience by doing little more than shifting the gender of the badass, as in, e.g., Mad Max: Fury Road).

In any case, I was glad the DC powers that be opted to hold on to the more subversive quality of the magic lasso.
« Last Edit: June 04, 2017, 04:13:41 PM by sdb_1970 »
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sdb_1970

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Re: Wonder Woman
« Reply #4 on: June 04, 2017, 06:53:38 PM »
... also, a clever bit of casting + makeup effects for Dr. Poison?


« Last Edit: June 04, 2017, 06:56:01 PM by sdb_1970 »
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Adam

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Re: Wonder Woman
« Reply #5 on: June 05, 2017, 12:13:34 PM »
Can someone help me with a plot point clarification?

-Diana's mother seems to want to protect her from knowing her true heritage ("The more she knows, the easier it will be for him to find her," or something like that she says*.)

-The reveal that she is Zeus' daughter is just that, a reveal/surprise, near the end of the movie.

-So why does Diana's mother offhandedly sort of but in a crucial scene tell Diana that she's not an Amazon?

* Is this only supposed to be about the secret of the sword?
« Last Edit: June 05, 2017, 02:55:20 PM by Adam »
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FLYmeatwad

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Re: Wonder Woman
« Reply #6 on: June 05, 2017, 07:53:58 PM »
I thought that was strange too, but the only thing I could come up with was that she knew she wasn't an Amazon her whole life (she thought she was sculpted from clay and was the only child, so I assume that made her not a 'real' Amazon in the way the others were created), but she didn't know she Zeus' daughter.

In the scene where she's fighting her aunt, she uses powers while blocking a sword, and that seems to confuse the other Amazons, and even her to some extent, but not the exact same it seems, though her mother and her aunt seem to take it as normal. But either way, it's definitely a strange thing that threw me off as well.

saltine

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Re: Wonder Woman
« Reply #7 on: June 06, 2017, 01:42:28 AM »
Quote
-So why does Diana's mother offhandedly sort of but in a crucial scene tell Diana that she's not an Amazon?

Diana has always known that she's not Amazon.  She thinks she was molded from clay and breathed into life by Zeus.

As she grows up, she realizes that she's got some powers but thinks that she is channeling Zeus.  She doesn't know she's a god, daughter of Zeus, until she's fighting Ares.
Texan Down Under

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Re: Wonder Woman
« Reply #8 on: June 06, 2017, 05:24:53 PM »
I'm just gonna cut to the chase:

Man, was the ending to this film BAD. It was SO BAD.

I agree wholeheartedly. I think the movie begins and ends rather poorly. I was disappointed to see so much CGI in the opening introduction to the amazons and their training. I'm not sure who is impressed by obviously-fake fight choreography and stunts, but it felt like a missed opportunity to actually show us how adept these warriors are.

It was unfortunate, too, that the trend would continue throughout the film. I quite like David Thewlis but if you've gotta CG the shit out of his body and movements just to make him seem like a menacing god of war, maybe cast someone else?

Still, thoroughly enjoyed the film for the most part. Liked the chemistry between Diana and Steve, the fish-out-of-water stuff when they first get to London, and the big set piece when WW saves the village. Refreshing to see something enjoyable coming out of DC and I honestly might have liked it more than Guardians 2  :o

Quote
We obviously know that Wonder Woman is going to survive because we see her in the beginning of the movie. That being said, there was absolutely nothing interesting about her last battle (or the reveal who the villain was). She never seemed in danger of losing this fight and doesn't even win it in a way which shows that she has grown or learned anything.

This feels like a big problem for Superhero movies in general these days. It's a challenge to manufacture stakes when your main characters are basically (or literally in this case) gods, but they still seem to miss the mark rather often. Like you said, I don't think I worried about the outcome of the fight at any point during it, and the film similarly seemed to pay no mind to the bystanders at the base as they fly around blowing things up and hurling tanks at one another. Aren't Diana's friends just a few yards away off screen? What about all the soldiers that Diana wants to save because she believes they are innocents poisoned by Ares's influence? If memory serves, the establishing shots showed the base crawling with people. Where'd they go?

Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: Wonder Woman
« Reply #9 on: June 07, 2017, 07:14:46 AM »
The opening and closing act of this film were so boring to me. The setup is so much exposition and nonsense that we don't need. All we need is Diana is daughter of Zeus, grew up on an island of only women, and she was born to stop Ares. Everything else doesn't factor into the plot in a meaningful way.

The conclusion is just another battle between two seemingly indestructible beings and a lot of flashy explosions. I did like the bit with Chris Pine's character, but just about everything else in the final act left me feeling like I was just watching the end of Man of Steel again, but without the horror of seeing a highly populated area reduced to rubble.

 

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