Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)

[Trini]

 

[Trini]

Reviews are out today; here's a spoiler-free one: https://io9.gizmodo.com/wonder-woman-1984s-powerful-message-soars-above-its-sup-1845836519

---

Reminder that the FanDome event is today, 12pm Pacific/3pm Eastern: https://www.dcfandome.com/ww84_cs

[Spartan Girl]

The Entertainment Weekly review says they’re a cameo from a certain real life person who was big in the 80s, and ohhhhhhh how I hope it’s going to go down the way I hope it’s gonna go down. It probably won’t, but I can dream.

They posted the opening moments of little Diana competing in the Amazon Olympics. I so wish I had a drive in theater near me!

[VCRTracking]

That Hans Zimmer score in the opening scene was epic.

[MarkHB]

The FanDome event is available on YouTube under several official accounts including DC and HBO Max.  If you haven't watched, there's one part about 20 minutes in where Gal and Patty leave the stage and join Hans Zimmer for a musical treat... heartily recommended!

Related to that,

Spoiler

anyone who thinks the adjective "demure" is inextricably linked with "cellist" has never watched Tina Guo perform.

 

[ApathyMonger]

I enjoyed it, but it struggled to live up to the first one.

Spoiler

 

In a move more like the early 70s comics, this often feels more like a Diana Prince movie than a Wonder Woman movie. In the first 90 minutes, there's only one Wonder Woman scene, and it's not a great one. They're really hampered by the dumb BvS "nobody's heard of WW" thing, and I really wish they'd just ignore it.

The villain's plan didn't really work for me. Explaining his motivations with a last-minute childhood abuse montage felt fairly cheap, and giving him a happy ending after all he'd done felt undeserved. Pascal was good though, and I was very happy this wasn't yet another movie in which the villain's motivation was that he hates women.

I think bringing back Pine was a mistake. He's fun, and I love the scenes of her showing him around echoing the first film, but their connection wasn't strong enough for me to ever believe she'd be willing to give up her powers to get him back.

The whole thing about Pine being in some other guy's body was kind of creepy? Especially considering she has sex with this guy's body? Who was he? Why him? The Christmas epilogue scene where she met him was cute, but absolutely not worth the confusion of that plot.

I liked Wiig a lot, and could have used even more of her. Her heel-turn to siding with Pascal mostly happens off-screen, and I'd have liked to have seen more of it. The early scenes with her and Gadot are fantastic, and I'd have loved more of them together too.

The movie is very cynical about what people would wish for if they had a chance. I guess it's a commentary on both the present and the whole "greed is good" 80s thing, but it gets a bit depressing.

 

 

[Spartan Girl]

How did you see it early?

[ApathyMonger]

35 minutes ago, Spartan Girl said:

How did you see it early?

It's in cinemas internationally. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7126948/releaseinfo

[MarkHB]

Also, HBO Max announced yesterday that it's now available on Roku!

[AimingforYoko]

Anybody else having trouble getting it to stream?

[ketchuplover]

Spoiler

When Max Lord wished to be the stone I thought he would be turned into a human sized version of the stone

 

[Guest]

I thought it was enjoyable but had a lot of flaws. I wanted to love it but couldn’t help feeling let down. They could have cut at least 30 minutes and made a better movie. Having Steve be in someone else’s body was completely unnecessary and tainted all his scenes with Diana. I felt like there was one too many villains and Cheetah was wasted. 

All the actors were wonderful and I felt like the story let them down. The invisible jet was definitely a highlight although I wish they had Diana be the pilot. I really liked the idea that your wish cost what you valued most but thought the execution was sloppy. Particularly once Max started putting wishes in people’s mouths. Overall it was just too cynical about human nature and the resolution didn’t really make any sense. 

Edited December 26, 2020 by Guest

[JessePinkman]

I really wonder (no pun intended) what's going on at Warner Bros. that they greenlit this...the plot is both too complicated and too simplistic to carry a movie.

[Sakura12]

I'm glad I didn't pay to see this in the theater. It really wasn't good. 

The first movie I left it feeling uplifted, this one was meh. It felt longer than it needed. And did everyone just forget everything? Did that guy at the end not realize he missed a few days of his life or did it never happen. 

[AimingforYoko]

I enjoyed the Steve-Diana scenes and enjoyed the battle with Lord's security forces in Egypt. The rest was kind of meh.

I get the idea of sympathetic villains, but not the execution. So Max grew up poor and bullied. So what? So Barbara wanted to be the alpha for once. So let the world go to hell so she can? 

[peridot]

I don't really understand the Diana that we first met in Batman v Superman to this one.  In BvS, wasn't it implied that she stayed away from the world after the war, and didn't use her powers?  She's using them left and right in this one.

I couldn't really get behind the fact that Diana and Steve was using some other guy's body to be together.  When I saw them in bed together, it kind of turned my stomach. 

I want to know how everyone reacted in the aftermath.  This was the first wide-scale showing of magic, right?  Lord should have been arrested or something, his face was on every screen in the world.

[txhorns79]

I'm sorry, but that was kind of a dumpster fire of a movie.  I like Gal Godot.  I like Chris Pine.  I like Kristen Wiig.  I felt like there was a good movie within what they had, but it was lost to whatever that unfocused mess was.  And seriously, whomever came up with the idea that Steve should somehow possess someone else's body in order to come back should be banned from the writer's guild.  I don't know why they made that choice, or what purpose it was supposed to serve.  It also would have been nice to get some closure on Barbara.  Does she recall what happened?  Does she know Diana's secret now going forward?  It felt like she was only Cheetah for 10 minutes, and it essentially amounted to nothing.    

And just to say something positive, I did like that little picture of Diana and what appeared to be an older Etta Candy (perhaps from the 1950s) they stopped for a moment on in her apartment.  They dealt with it a little by having Diana essentially be a loner, but I'd have to imagine it would have been pretty sad for Diana to watch her WWI friends age and die, while she stayed young. 

[TheOtherOne]

16 minutes ago, peridot said:

I don't really understand the Diana that we first met in Batman v Superman to this one.  In BvS, wasn't it implied that she stayed away from the world after the war, and didn't use her powers?  She's using them left and right in this one.

 

I'm too lazy to do a search, but everything I've read from Gadot and Jenkins on the subject makes it sound like they're ignoring that bit from BvS, because it was stupid.

[Guest]

9 minutes ago, TheOtherOne said:

I'm too lazy to do a search, but everything I've read from Gadot and Jenkins on the subject makes it sound like they're ignoring that bit from BvS, because it was stupid.

Jenkins has only said that she is ignoring Whedon’s Justice League. She also said worked with Snyder to map out where Diana would be through BvS and JL. 

[jah1986]

2 hours ago, Sakura12 said:

I'm glad I didn't pay to see this in the theater. It really wasn't good. 

 

That was the first thing I said when the movie ended, I would have been so disappointed if I had paid movie theater money to see this.  There was barely any Wonder Woman in this movie.  I also thought it was too long and wasn’t really about anything. I will say the kid in me loved the mid credits scene.

Edited December 26, 2020 by jah1986

[Robert Lynch]

God, it was too damn long! I am sorry, but every time I see Wiig I expected her to breakout into her annoying SNL traits.

 I am afraid the story was too much, especially for two hours and 30 minutes. 

And some of the politics in this one was too similar to what's happening now. Some of the ideas made me go where have I heard this before. At least the first one learned to be better. This was just a confusing mess.

[Captain Carrot]

I liked the acting in this, but there were so many things that I had a problem with.

It wasn't Steve or Diana's fault that he was hijacking someone else's body, but the fact that neither of them cared about what they were doing to an innocent man was just horrible. The movie would have been better if her renouncing the wish was about the fact that they were doing something wrong instead of her losing her powers.

What happened to Barbara and where her actions while under the influence of the stone reversed? (She may have killed that guy, at the very least he could have her arrested for assault).

What happened to Max? It's great that he got to reconcile with his son, but people must have died due to his actions. Was he arrested off screen?

[vb68]

42 minutes ago, txhorns79 said:

It felt like she was only Cheetah for 10 minutes, and it essentially amounted to nothing.    

This is what I came to say. Yes, it was horribly unfocused, and I guess I really don't understand the ending. So Max Lord decided he did love his son and everything was ok? Alright. But my biggest gripe is that it felt like we didn't get the full Cheetah until one scene near the end.  Kinda a waste of all the build up.

So only Diana was seeing Steve Trevor. I think?  Gal Gadot and Chris Pine did what they could, but it really did seem badly thought out.

 

Quote

but every time I see Wiig I expected her to breakout into her annoying SNL traits.

I thought I was hearing  "Penelope"- the one who has to one up everyone- in some of her vocal stylings. 

Edited December 26, 2020 by vb68

[TheOtherOne]

31 minutes ago, Dani said:

Jenkins has only said that she is ignoring Whedon’s Justice League. She also said worked with Snyder to map out where Diana would be through BvS and JL. 

No, she said she knew where Diana ends up at the end of Snyder's Justice League so WW84 could follow from that. ("The only thing I have done, and have always tried to do, is -- I knew, when Zack was doing Justice League, where she sort of ends up.") I haven't seen any comments that anything was mapped out going as far back as BvS (unless you have a link for that).

Meanwhile, Gadot had this to say.

“None of us knew exactly, exactly, the back story of Wonder Woman. And once they decided to shoot the solo movie for Wonder Woman and we started to dig in to understand the core of this character, we realized that, actually, there is no way that Wonder Woman would ever give up on mankind,” Gadot explained.

“The reason why she left the island was because she wanted to make their lives better and safer—they are her calling. So, I’m giving you a very honest answer, but it was—sometimes in a creative process, you establish something that is not necessarily the right decision, but then you can always correct it and change it. So Wonder Woman will always be there, as far as she’s concerned, for mankind,” she added.

 

Edited December 26, 2020 by TheOtherOne

[Guest]

13 minutes ago, TheOtherOne said:

No, she said they "sort of mapped out" where Diana ends up at the end of Snyder's Justice League so WW84 could follow from that. ("The only thing I have done, and have always tried to do, is -- I knew, when Zack was doing Justice League, where she sort of ends up.") I haven't seen anything was mapped out going as far back as BvS (unless you have a link for that).

I was referring to the part right before your quote, “Jenkins noted that she worked closely with Snyder to maintain a sense of character continuity for Diana Prince/Wonder Woman through “Wonder Woman,” Snyder’s “Justice League,” and the upcoming “Wonder Woman 1984.”  It doesn’t say specifically BvS but I read it has her sticking with the previously continuity. WW84 seems to stick with her being unknown by having her asking people to keep her a secret and taking out security cameras. 

[TheOtherOne]

4 minutes ago, Dani said:

I was referring to the part right before your quote, “Jenkins noted that she worked closely with Snyder to maintain a sense of character continuity for Diana Prince/Wonder Woman through “Wonder Woman,” Snyder’s “Justice League,” and the upcoming “Wonder Woman 1984.”  It doesn’t say specifically BvS but I read it has her sticking with the previously continuity. WW84 seems to stick with her being unknown by having her asking people to keep her a secret and taking out security cameras. 

That part is a paraphrase by the article's author, not any direct quote from Jenkins herself (which is why I followed the link back to the previous article to provide the actual quote). Even if we believe it's true, that still omits BvS from the previous continuity they're adhering to, because, as Gadot noted in her comment, the BvS comment makes no sense for how the character was later portrayed.

[Quickbeam]

Saw it, enjoyed it.....I feel I could have cut about 40 minutes out and made a tighter movie. Way too much Pedro Pascal, not enough of Wiig ( which is odd for me, I don’t like her comedy much). It was kind of a jumble. I did love the beginning with the games. 

[Winston Wolfe]

That was...less than great. And I really wanted to like it.

As others have pointed out, very happy I didn't waste a theater trip on this. Some serious editing was required, this flick was 30 minutes too long and I wonder if some better material ended up on the cutting floor.

8 hours ago, Captain Carrot said:

It wasn't Steve or Diana's fault that he was hijacking someone else's body, but the fact that neither of them cared about what they were doing to an innocent man was just horrible.

This theme failed with Ghost Whisperer on TV and I'm a bit sad/surprised WB would try it here. The idea itself wasn't sustainable - you hijack some innocent guy's life just to be together? Not a heroic move, and they both knew it deep down inside.

8 hours ago, vb68 said:

it was horribly unfocused, and I guess I really don't understand the ending. So Max Lord decided he did love his son and everything was ok? Alright. But my biggest gripe is that it felt like we didn't get the full Cheetah until one scene near the end.  Kinda a waste of all the build up.

Was never a Kristin Wiig fan (always thought she was over-rated) and cringed when the casting was announced. Other than some fair-to-middling action scenes, what did Cheetah add?

And yes, the whole premise was convoluted and the ending somewhat anti-climatic. When all was said-and-done it seems like the main characters all went back to their lives pre-wish, but how can that really be possible?

After an absolutely fantastic first Wonder Woman solo movie (and a pretty decent stab at Aquaman), looks like DC/WB have gone back to not being able to figure things out. Damn shame. 

Edited December 26, 2020 by Winston Wolfe

[txhorns79]

16 minutes ago, Winston Wolfe said:

When all was said-and-done it seems like the main characters all went back to their lives pre-wish, but other than Diana, how can that really be possible.

I was very confused with the Cheetah/Wonder Woman fight.  I thought Diana apologized to Barbara because she realized Barbara's refusal to take back her wish meant that Diana would have to kill her, but instead all that happened was Barbara got wet and transformed back into her former self anyways once Max renounced his wish.

Had it been me making the movie, I would have just made it Wonder Woman v. Cheetah.  There was a potential good story there with a sympathetic Barbara simply being corrupted by having access to Diana's powers (as she lacked Diana's training or discipline), and it fit in with the theme stated at the opening, i.e. that you cannot just claim a victory without having actually earned it.  

[GHScorpiosRule]

Just saw it and like others, the thought going through my mind was I’m so glad I didn’t waste money to see this in the theater.

90% of this was just nonsense filler.

And Hollywood still doesn’t get that there are NO YELLOW/NY style cabs in WASHINGTON, DC!!!

And I certainly don’t remember seeing any astronauts walking around the Air & Space Museum handing out whatever this one was during the NUMEROUS times I went there in the 70s-90s!

Only TWO good things:

1. Diana/WW FLYING as she has done in the DCAU

2. LYNDA CARTER as Asteria!

Though I should have known it from the color of her eyes when Diana was telling Steve the story, not to mention I kept wondering if she was going to make an appearance!

Oh BOO-FUCKING HOO, that Lord was bullied as a kid as a way to excuse his being a villain; then out of character remorse at the end? Please. 
 

Same with Cheetah. Who we didn’t actually get to see until the last 30 minutes and only for 10 minutes. I’m not familiar with her backstory except for what I learned from her appearances on DCAU Justice League so calling BULLSHIT here based on that.  It’s just as bad as Michelle Pfeiffer’s Selina/Catwoman.

I was expecting so much more and better from Jenkins. I guess I should be grateful that Steve wasn’t WWII Steve’s grandson. But having him inhabit another person’s body was just as squicky.

Edited December 26, 2020 by GHScorpiosRule

[SeanC]

This was a big old swing for the fences, but it was mostly a miss for me, unfortunately. The movie has a whole bunch of ideas, but on a basic level it's kind of incoherent -- for instance, thematically it's trying to position Lord and the wishing stone (or whatever) as representing lies versus Diana's trusty embodiment of truth, but a monkey's paw isn't a lie; every wish Lord grants becomes "true", whatever that can be said to mean. There's no thematic contrast between these things, however much the movie tries to spin it as if there is.

Much as I like Chris Pine, but I thought from the beginning that bringing him back was a mistake, and nothing in this sequel changed my mind about it, because it renders the whole movie backward-looking (and even if the whole point is supposed to be that Diana should stop doing that, we've already been on that emotional journey with this character). I don't think this sequel really takes Diana's character anywhere new, in favour of recycling through the character dynamic from the first film.

Also, a lot of the special effects in this are...bad. Weirdly bad, honestly.

[dwmarch]

I'm not particularly invested in the DC universe so I thought the movie was alright. But it should be noted that I stopped watching the first one about half an hour in because it was boring.

The worst aspect is that old trope of Hollywood where sexual assault is okay as long as the person consents after the fact. We see that one guy get turned into Chris Pine and then he goes on vacation for a while as Chris drives his body. WW and Chris Pine get it on (which raises a whole other set of questions but I'll keep it PG here) and then once the original guy has his body back we see him having some low-key flirtation with WW that tells us if he knew he had already slept with her he wouldn't mind. And that is not how it works.

I was confused by WW's ability to fly. She's very acrobatic and uses momentum to get around as if she can fly but later on in the movie she just figures out how to actually fly based on the insightful instructions of "it's not that hard, there's air and wind and stuff..." Also, I am doubtful that a WWI era pilot would be able to jump into a modern jet and get it off the ground. I am very doubtful that a jet (that was parked at a museum no less) would have the fuel capacity to go from Washington DC to Egypt.

So Max Lord was the only one who wished for more wishes? I feel like a world where any wish could come true would be full of wiseguys trying to game the system so Max would have had some competition there. Also, no ridiculous wishes from kids? I wish the ocean was chocolate. I wish it rained M&Ms all day. I wish unicorns were real and were all over the place. They could have gotten pretty whimsical with the kind of things people were wishing for.

There was also an early rule established about each person only getting one wish but WW and Barbara both had exceptions to that. Maybe it was because they originally wished on the rock so Max could still grant them a wish as well but they never bothered explaining how it was supposed to work.

I really liked the chase in Egypt. That was nicely done and served as a good showcase for how WW is very powerful but that doesn't mean every conflict is going to be easy for her. The moment where she was stuck between the two APCs reminded me of Captain America trying to keep a helicopter from taking off in Winter Soldier.

[vb68]

1 hour ago, Winston Wolfe said:

other than some fair-to-middling action scenes, what did Cheetah add?

A classic Wonder Woman villain, who had never been done before in live-action.  While I don't think she should be as loquacious as say The Joker, a full version of Cheetah would probably still be quite mouthy and even a bit witty. At least more than we got here. And Wigg can certainly do word play. In short, they should have had more fun with the character IMO.

Edited December 26, 2020 by vb68

[ProudMary]

Something else that bothered me: Early on, Diana made a big deal out of trying to discover which God was behind it all. That was the reason she had Barbara research where the stone was found.  I was waiting for Wonder Woman to have to fight that God to stop the madness, just as she had to fight Ares in the first WW movie, but the writers just let that plot point drop. WTH?

[Guest]

2 hours ago, TheOtherOne said:

That part is a paraphrase by the article's author, not any direct quote from Jenkins herself (which is why I followed the link back to the previous article to provide the actual quote). Even if we believe it's true, that still omits BvS from the previous continuity they're adhering to, because, as Gadot noted in her comment, the BvS comment makes no sense for how the character was later portrayed.

Neither are direct quotes from Jenkins. I dislike when authors quote only some phrases because they usually do it to misconstrue what is actually being said. Here’s the actual quote: 

“The only thing I have done, and have always tried to do, is -- I knew, when Zack was doing Justice League, where she sort of ends up. So I always tried… like, I didn’t change her suit, because I never want to… I don’t want to contradict his films, you know? But yet, I have to have my own films, and he’s been very supportive of that. And so, I think that thatJustice League was kind of an outlier. They were trying to turn one thing into, kind of, another. And so then it becomes, ‘I don’t recognize half of these characters. I’m not sure what’s going on.’

Based on that and the movie it appears that they are trying to work with the story of BvS rather than throwing it out. That’s also consistent with Gadot’s quote. Diana didn’t give up on humanity but she also eschewed any kind of recognition. If they had thrown it out it probably would have been a better movie than spending time on Diana trying to keep her presence secret.

4 hours ago, AimingforYoko said:

So Barbara wanted to be the alpha for once. So let the world go to hell so she can? 

I actually did have sympathy for Barbara because she had no clue what she was wishing for when she wanted to be more like Diana. Where the movie failed was in showing what Barbara lost. Based on what Diana said it seems Barbara lost her humanity which took her on the path to being Cheetah. I think that’s why the movie failed by trying to have two villains. The same story with only Barbara as a villain who was well developed would have worked at lot better. 

[Guest]

The more I think about the movie the more it bothers me that Diana was so completely hung up on Steve nearly 70 years later. Her apartment in the beginning with all the Steve stuff was just sad. I’m also tired of Steve being the one pushing her into doing the right thing. I liked the Steve and Diana scenes but bringing him back was a massive mistake. 

Wonder Woman 1984 is shockingly regressive - This quote by Jenkins just makes me sad. Gal is a great Wonder Woman and deserved a better movie. 

Quote

Sixty-six years after her (brief!) romance with Steve, she is still single, with no suggestion that she's been romantically involved with anyone else. "This storyline was so clearly about Steve coming back, the whole story was about Steve," Jenkins has justified, as reported by Digital Spy. "It's all a love story with Steve." But why does it need to be about Steve? The movie is literally called Wonder Woman! Diana's fidelity to her long, long, long dead boyfriend feels oddly conservative and out-of-character, rather than romantic.

Edited December 26, 2020 by Guest

[Peace 47]

I’m a DC girl at my core (to the extent that I’d generally rather engage with the seemingly endless stream of “flawed-with-some redeeming features” DC movie content over what gets turned out on the Marvel side (no matter how well-reviewed and widely beloved).  I say all of that by way of noting that even with all that built-in goodwill and slack, this movie definitely tested my patience on several fronts.

I’m not saying anything new from what people are saying upthread, but the unintentional roofie-ing by Diana and Steve of the unnamed body man was inexcusable storytelling.  It’s a comic book movie; there are a million ways to bring a dead character back, and they landed on possibly the actual worst one for the times, given where they went with it.  (And I say that as someone who did desperately want Steve to show up again in this movie and was willing to buy into pretty much any amount of crap to get him back.)   I heard that it was a homage to the 80s movie “Heaven Can Wait”?  I don’t know if that is true (have never seen that film), but even if so, the 80s are not 2020; find another way, for the love of Zeus.

Even hating how it unfolded, I did cry when Diana had to say her goodbye to Steve.  The way he said that he was already gone but would love her anywhere hurt my heart.  And I really liked when Diana said her trailer line about radar, and Steve responded with “Shit, Diana” because it felt like a real and grounded response to what was happening and had the right mixture of humor and slight irritation.  It was better than the lines about how flying is just about being at one with the wind or something.

I just binged The Mandalorian within the past couple of weeks, and it upped my enthusiasm for this movie after accruing a lot of respect for what Pedro Pascal did with his role in that show, where he demonstrated a lot of subtlety.  Here, I did feel like there was a lot of overacting on his part, although the script he was performing was so broad and filled with “villain platitude” statements, that I don’t know any actor could have done better. The theatrics with Lord’s focus on his son at the end read especially poorly in light of what happened on The Mandalorian at the end of S2 and the tremendous subtlety there.

This film’s climax in general was cheesy as hell.  The shots of people basically staring at the camera renouncing their wishes?  I don’t know why, but it felt like something that would have come out of a cheesy 90s TV show.  The fact that Diana had to talk her way into resolution of the climax with Lord is an interesting angle for a superhero movie, but the “twist” that she was talking to the world at large and not Lord specifically (although also to him) felt weak, and the platitudes she was spewing were not original.

The score was beautiful, though.

[PepSinger]

I’ll say more later, but I want a man to look at me the way Steve Trevor looks at planes.

[Kromm]

I've seen some fairly dismissive reviews of this, and even relatively good ones that harp about it not being as good as the first, and I... actually really disagree 

I know Geoff Johns even has had complaints in his comics work of not fully understanding Wonder Woman, but I think he and Patty and David Callaham figured it out. The general public probably doesn't agree, because the Rotten Tomatoes, IMDB and Metacritic scores all suck, but I saw what I needed in this. 

Some may hate that there's no true 100% villain.  But that's very in line with certain comics eras of the character, or rather that Diana always believes in redemption, even if her attempting it doesn't always work. 

A bunch of stuff (like how the public could EVER forget her after all we saw) was definitely handwaved. But the values, the spirit, was very true, including having a far superior ending than the first movie. It perhaps sucks that we have no idea what happened to Barbara, but that vagueness was clearly intentional to keep the character in play if ever needed again. 

I even enjoyed the bits people are mocking as cheesy. Yes, that includes the mondo cheesy post credits scene. Why not have it?  It actually linked back to the actual story, while accomplishing fan service at the same time. 

I approve. The world in general may not. 

[Kromm]

5 hours ago, ProudMary said:

Something else that bothered me: Early on, Diana made a big deal out of trying to discover which God was behind it all. That was the reason she had Barbara research where the stone was found.  I was waiting for Wonder Woman to have to fight that God to stop the madness, just as she had to fight Ares in the first WW movie, but the writers just let that plot point drop. WTH?

A god fight was the single most hated thing about the first movie. I think it was wise of them to avoid another one, even if they probably needed a hair more exposition at some point about why the relic was a threat all on it's own. 

[Winston Wolfe]

4 hours ago, Dani said:

Wonder Woman 1984 is shockingly regressive - This quote by Jenkins just makes me sad. Gal is a great Wonder Woman and deserved a better movie. 

That review pretty much nailed it - and brought up even more flaws in the movie that some of us missed. The whole shoe thing seemed a bit odd, but I hand-waved it away while trying the unravel the convoluted plot line. And given what a strong personality Gal Godot seems to be, I'm wondering (no pun intended) if she didn't push back at some of the writing.

Also, the trope of Barbara being dismissed by peers was a little specious as well. I've never paid much attention to Kristen Wiig, but this movie made me realize she's a rather attractive woman. While Barbara may have been socially awkward, she would have gotten tons of attention from her male colleagues (particularly in an educational setting) based on optics alone.

And as others pointed out, two villains were totally unnecessary, a part of the reason this movie was too damn long. I've never seen Pedro before, but that was some serious scenery chewing. Clearly he was either directed (or chose) to play the character as big as possible.

Another big question: if 70 years have gone by, and Diana has been doing good deeds all this time, how has Wonder Woman been able to maintain her anonymity? Even though she took out all the cameras in the Mall scene, plenty of folks saw her. I don't get it.

Edited December 26, 2020 by Winston Wolfe

[Kromm]

6 hours ago, dwmarch said:

The worst aspect is that old trope of Hollywood where sexual assault is okay as long as the person consents after the fact. We see that one guy get turned into Chris Pine and then he goes on vacation for a while as Chris drives his body. WW and Chris Pine get it on (which raises a whole other set of questions but I'll keep it PG here) and then once the original guy has his body back we see him having some low-key flirtation with WW that tells us if he knew he had already slept with her he wouldn't mind. And that is not how it works.

I admit I disliked the way they did this. If they insisted on this body snatching plot I do think it should have been made clear that maybe the man otherwise might have died at that point instead. That solves most of the problems--if it wasn't really that man's body anymore either. I wish they'd thought of that. 

[Winston Wolfe]

5 hours ago, Kromm said:

I admit I disliked the way they did this. If they insisted on this body snatching plot I do think it should have been made clear that maybe the man otherwise might have died at that point instead. That solves most of the problems--if it wasn't really that man's body anymore either. I wish they'd thought of that. 

Ghost Whisper took that route when Melinda's first husband died - his soul was spirited into the body of a then-dying man (who miraculously recovered) whose spirit was transitioning into the afterlife. That made the whole body-switching concept somewhat easier to swallow for fans, as both characters had problems making the adjustment. However, it didn't seem to be much of an issue for Steve and Diana.

Edited December 26, 2020 by Winston Wolfe

[ApathyMonger]

21 minutes ago, Kromm said:

I admit I disliked the way they did this. If they insisted on this body snatching plot I do think it should have been made clear that maybe the man otherwise might have died at that point instead. That solves most of the problems--if it wasn't really that man's body anymore either. I wish they'd thought of that. 

Apparently in the original version of the ending scene where she meets the guy at Christmas he asks her out on a date, so there's a whole possible "it was all meant to be" thing going on, but it was cut after test screenings, leaving it feeling very weird.

[Sakura12]

The movie started out great, I loved the Amazon Olympics and the mall scene. And I enjoyed Steve being the fish out water this time and Diana showing him around. Then it started to fall apart. For as long as they had this movie to work on, the editing was as choppy as all the rest of the DC movies. 

I also don't know why they even went with the body switching. It was a wish stone that turned Barbara into a cheetah so why couldn't it bring back Steve in his own body? Because it was pretty horrible for Diana to have sex with that guys body. Did they use protection? How would it be if she got pregnant. The ending scene where they awkwardly stare at each other doesn't make up for it. Is she thinking about dating him or what since she already had sex with his body. That's just wrong. 

I get what we they were trying to do but it felt like too much and too little at the same time. And I'm still left wondering if everyone forgot everything except for Diana, Lord and Barbara. How does that work? 

[krankydoodle]

26 minutes ago, ApathyMonger said:

Apparently in the original version of the ending scene where she meets the guy at Christmas he asks her out on a date, so there's a whole possible "it was all meant to be" thing going on, but it was cut after test screenings, leaving it feeling very weird.

I laughed when they abruptly ended their conversation with him saying, "Well, see you around." It really was weird. I'd love to know the reasoning for bringing Steve back in someone else's body.

[shrewd.buddha]

13 hours ago, Dani said:

I wanted to love it but couldn’t help feeling let down. They could have cut at least 30 minutes and made a better movie.

Like most others, I was mostly disappointed.
The only reason that the run time didn't bother me was because I streamed it in my living room, no bathroom break worries  - -  and mostly: there haven't been a lot of movie options this year.

At one point, I wondered if the producers were intentionally going for cheesy. Some of the special effects were poor: especially some of Diana's running during the caravan action scene. 

This is one of those movies that make you wonder how it got made by a team of so-called professionals writers. Wonder Woman has a vast catalogue of stories to explore .. and they decided on this?
It was way too magical/silly: massive stone walls and nuclear warheads appearing out of thin air and then disintegrating. 

Edited December 26, 2020 by shrewd.buddha

[Spartan Girl]

GIVE US AN AMAZON PREQUEL!

Seriously, the Themyscira Olympics was definitely the high point of the movie. The visuals, the score, everything about it was just so epic. Plus we got to see Hippolyta and Antiope again.

The rest of the movie? Well...

I’m not going to say I hated it. I know sequels are hardly ever better than the original and I’ve learned to lower my standards (especially this year). And visually there was so much to love: Diana flying, Diana kicking ass at the mall, lassoing lightning, looking flawless as hell in the 80s...and the Lynda Carter cameo!

But after all these months of speculation, Steve came back via a magical wish stone? Which was powerful enough to give Barbara powers, but had to use someone else’s body to bring Steve back? Really? I loved watching Steve and Diana together (Gal and Chris have great chemistry) but...yeah that was problematic. Had it not involved hijacking another living guy’s body, it would have worked better.

I didn’t have a huge problem with Diana not being interested in romance other than Steve, but it could have been written in a better way that didn’t feel so regressive. I could buy Diana, after outliving Etta and all her other friends, deciding that getting emotionally attached to another person wouldn’t be worth the eventual heartache; not to mention getting hit on by random assholes for 40 years made her a little more jaded.

I will give this film credit for succeeding where Captain America in Avengers Endgame failed abysmally: Diana realizing that you can’t cheat your way to a happy ending. And contrary to some people thinking Diana having to give up Steve in order to regain her full powers means a woman can’t have it all blah blah blah, it didn’t come off that way to me. You can have it all, just not with your dead boyfriend in someone else’s body.

So yeah, Patty Jenkins isn’t immune to sequelitis. But I’ll still take her over Whedon and Snyder any day. And I’ll be ready for a third movie in a much better year.

[slowpoked]

18 hours ago, txhorns79 said:

Had it been me making the movie, I would have just made it Wonder Woman v. Cheetah.  There was a potential good story there with a sympathetic Barbara simply being corrupted by having access to Diana's powers (as she lacked Diana's training or discipline), and it fit in with the theme stated at the opening, i.e. that you cannot just claim a victory without having actually earned it.  

God, you nailed it! I think the dynamic between WW and Cheetah was actually the best part of the movie, the early friendship and the corruption of Barbara that made her the villain. And as you said, it would have tied neatly to the opening scene where Antiope stopped Diana from winning because it wasn’t earned. This trope is often over-used in superhero movies - but it’s true: a big part of what makes a great superhero is the discipline and training to know when to use your powers. Otherwise, you end up like Cheetah.

Even more disappointing because the part I most enjoyed was their (too short) fight scene at the end, with WW’s new armor and full blown Cheetah transformation. I really like them going head to head at it and wished it was longer. I liked Kristen Wiig at the role - when her casting was first announced, I thought it was an inspired choice (they could have easily gone with a young Hollywood vixen), and she turned out to be one of the better parts of this movie.

16 hours ago, Dani said:

I actually did have sympathy for Barbara because she had no clue what she was wishing for when she wanted to be more like Diana. Where the movie failed was in showing what Barbara lost. Based on what Diana said it seems Barbara lost her humanity which took her on the path to being Cheetah. I think that’s why the movie failed by trying to have two villains.

This too. We got bits and pieces of her humanity, but because they also have to set up Maxwell Lord as a villain, Barbara got set aside once he came on the scene. I really liked the way Diana leaned on her early on regarding the stone, and they wasted a potentially really good story there. As it was becoming clearer there was a trade-off to the granted wish, I was left thinking, so what did Barbara lose?! Took me awhile to understand that.

Like most of you, I feel let down by this sequel. I didn’t get that feeling of “Wow, that was awesome...” right after watching a great movie (like I felt after the first WW). I didn’t mind the cheesiness of it - it was the 80s after all - but I also wouldn’t have brought back Steve, made Cheetah the main villain and do away with Maxwell Lord (is he even based on a comic book character?). The resolution was clunky as hell - I know that they previewed what else the Lasso could do with that scene with Steve and Asteria, but I didn’t quite follow what it was doing when it started flashing the bright yellow light in screens all over the world.

Edited December 26, 2020 by slowpoked

[Shannon L.]

1 hour ago, shrewd.buddha said:

At one point, I wondered if the producers were intentionally going for cheesy. Some of the special effects were poor: especially some of Diana's running during the caravan action scene. 

My family watched it last night and my husband and I, who were both teenagers in the 80s, said that it was basically an homage to cheesy 80s movies.  The silly situations, the over the top acting, the bad special effects (although, I don't know if that was intentional).--the only exception being that digital looks better than film.  It's as if Patty Jenkins wanted it to look like it was made in 1984.

We were all disappointed.  Personally, there were a couple of moments I liked, but for the most part, it was a let down.  My kids comments were:  "That was a rom-com with a villain subplot" and "There was no reason at all for that to be set in 1984" to which my husband responded that if it had been present day, it might have been marginally better.  It just occurred to me this morning that maybe the nuclear weapons were why it was set in 1984 (a nod to War Games?), but they didn't really focus enough on that to make it a good enough reason to put it in that decade.

I like how they brought in the invisible jet.  I'd like to see what Gal Gadot could do with a drama--I think she'd surprise us with some really good acting skills.  She had some really moving moments in this one.  I'm not sure how I feel about bringing Steve back--especially in that manner--but I've always liked fish out of water story lines, and Gal and Chris are great together, so I enjoyed those scenes.  I also liked the chase scene in Egypt and Pedro Pascal was great in that final scene with his son.  Personally, I cheered when I saw Linda Carter. No matter how cheesy, I loved that they gave her a cameo.