Wonder Woman (2017)

[Perfect Xero]

6 hours ago, Lonesome Rhodes said:

So Diana destroys Aries c. 1919.  She presumably stayed on earth.  Man is supposedly worth a fig.  Then Lenin and Stalin come to power, murdering tens of millions.  A scant 15 years later, Hitler rises to power in the very same vanquished Germany.  She just sat back and watched?

How the  heck does the canon as it was explained in the movie survive?  Amazons intercede, Aries goes by-by, and man knows peace for a loooong time, until Aries returns.  It's garbage that first Zeus, and then Diana (presumably), failed to terminate Aries.  Now she just flits around like your friendly neighborhood Spidey?  She didn't and doesn't go after the terror groups who have metastasized?  Pol Pot?  How about the grossest polluters/spoilers of mother earth?  

I appreciated very much the centrality of man's inherent evil.  I loved Gadot and Pine's performances.  Thewlis was a fine villain.  

What I can't abide is poorly drawn canon.  

As with most things in life, I find this best explained via Futurama:

Bender: Y'know, I was God once.

"God": Yes, I saw. You were doing well until everyone died.

Bender: It was awful. I tried helping them, I tried not helping them but in the end I couldn't do them any good. Do you think what I did was wrong?

"God": Right and wrong are just words. What matters is what you do.

Bender: Yeah I know, that's why I asked if what I did-- Forget it.

"God": Bender, being God isn't easy. If you do too much, people get dependent on you. And if you do nothing, they lose hope. You have to use a light touch like a safecracker or a pickpocket.

Bender: Or a guy who burns down the bar for the insurance money.

"God": Yes, if you make it look like an electrical thing. When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.

[GHScorpiosRule]

Not to be nitpicky...okay, I am being nitpicky, but it's Ares. No i. Aries is the zodiac sign and not related to the God of War.?

[VCRTracking]

12 hours ago, Perfect Xero said:

18 hours ago, Lonesome Rhodes said:

So Diana destroys Aries c. 1919.  She presumably stayed on earth.  Man is supposedly worth a fig.  Then Lenin and Stalin come to power, murdering tens of millions.  A scant 15 years later, Hitler rises to power in the very same vanquished Germany.  She just sat back and watched?

How the  heck does the canon as it was explained in the movie survive?  Amazons intercede, Aries goes by-by, and man knows peace for a loooong time, until Aries returns.  It's garbage that first Zeus, and then Diana (presumably), failed to terminate Aries.  Now she just flits around like your friendly neighborhood Spidey?  She didn't and doesn't go after the terror groups who have metastasized?  Pol Pot?  How about the grossest polluters/spoilers of mother earth?  

I appreciated very much the centrality of man's inherent evil.  I loved Gadot and Pine's performances.  Thewlis was a fine villain.  

What I can't abide is poorly drawn canon.  

As with most things in life, I find this best explained via Futurama:

Bender: Y'know, I was God once.

"God": Yes, I saw. You were doing well until everyone died.

Bender: It was awful. I tried helping them, I tried not helping them but in the end I couldn't do them any good. Do you think what I did was wrong?

"God": Right and wrong are just words. What matters is what you do.

Bender: Yeah I know, that's why I asked if what I did-- Forget it.

"God": Bender, being God isn't easy. If you do too much, people get dependent on you. And if you do nothing, they lose hope. You have to use a light touch like a safecracker or a pickpocket.

Bender: Or a guy who burns down the bar for the insurance money.

"God": Yes, if you make it look like an electrical thing. When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.

It's why when World War II was happening DC comics didn't have Superman getting involved oversees because he could have easily just took out Hitler and ended the war!

There's an amusing moment in the DVD commentary for Superman: The Movie director Richard Donner and creative consultant Tom Mankiewicz had a disagreement on why Superman would be implausible in the real world. Mankiewicz said the inherent problem with Superman is if he exists why is there famine, war and suffering in the world? He could easily end all of that so Mankiewicz wrote Jor-El telling his son it is "forbidden to interfere in the course of human history."  That he should be an inspiration to mankind but they shouldn't be dependent on him. Donner said no, that's not the problem at all. Donner argued that Superman's dilemma isn't that he would do too much, it's that it could never be enough. As powerful as he is he's just one man.  He can't save every life and prevent every disaster that happens around the globe by himself.

Edited June 15, 2017 by VCRTracking

[Raja]

10 hours ago, Lonesome Rhodes said:

So Diana destroys Aries c. 1919.  She presumably stayed on earth.  Man is supposedly worth a fig.  Then Lenin and Stalin come to power, murdering tens of millions.  A scant 15 years later, Hitler rises to power in the very same vanquished Germany.  She just sat back and watched?

How the  heck does the canon as it was explained in the movie survive?  Amazons intercede, Aries goes by-by, and man knows peace for a loooong time, until Aries returns.  It's garbage that first Zeus, and then Diana (presumably), failed to terminate Aries.  Now she just flits around like your friendly neighborhood Spidey?  She didn't and doesn't go after the terror groups who have metastasized?  Pol Pot?  How about the grossest polluters/spoilers of mother earth?  

I appreciated very much the centrality of man's inherent evil.  I loved Gadot and Pine's performances.  Thewlis was a fine villain.  

What I can't abide is poorly drawn canon.  

You just have to accept yes, she stood by and watched until the super human Krytonians arrived. And there you have it clean canon.

[GHScorpiosRule]

11 hours ago, Lonesome Rhodes said:

So Diana destroys Aries c. 1919.  She presumably stayed on earth.  Man is supposedly worth a fig.  Then Lenin and Stalin come to power, murdering tens of millions.  A scant 15 years later, Hitler rises to power in the very same vanquished Germany.  She just sat back and watched?

How the  heck does the canon as it was explained in the movie survive?  Amazons intercede, Aries goes by-by, and man knows peace for a loooong time, until Aries returns.  It's garbage that first Zeus, and then Diana (presumably), failed to terminate Aries.  Now she just flits around like your friendly neighborhood Spidey?  She didn't and doesn't go after the terror groups who have metastasized?  Pol Pot?  How about the grossest polluters/spoilers of mother earth?  

I appreciated very much the centrality of man's inherent evil.  I loved Gadot and Pine's performances.  Thewlis was a fine villain.  

What I can't abide is poorly drawn canon.  

 

1 hour ago, Raja said:

You just have to accept yes, she stood by and watched until the super human Krytonians arrived. And there you have it clean canon.

Or that she did help in the fighting, but she alone couldn't save everyone or wasn't able to stop Hitler. Even she can't be in different places at the same time.

[Raja]

8 minutes ago, doram said:

Or maybe she did help & that's why tens of millions of people died, not thousands of millions of people. 

In secret and no other photographs caught her, meanwhile ignoring all the others besides Nazi Germany? It is cleaner to just let humanity do what we are going to do  before the super human aliens arrived 

[Lonesome Rhodes]

Good replies, all.  Thank you.  A difference, as I understand it, is that WW is sworn to help man, for whatever dumb reason.  Superman is merely an immigrant.

[VCRTracking]

6 hours ago, Raja said:

6 hours ago, doram said:

Or maybe she did help & that's why tens of millions of people died, not thousands of millions of people. 

In secret and no other photographs caught her, meanwhile ignoring all the others besides Nazi Germany? It is cleaner to just let humanity do what we are going to do  before the super human aliens arrived 

When she was looking for that picture of her that Lex had in BVS we assumed it was because she wanted to keep her existence in the past a secret. Now we know it's because she wanted a picture of Steve. There could be other photographs of her throughout the last 100 years but nobody made the connection that they were one woman.

[GHScorpiosRule]

20 minutes ago, VCRTracking said:

When she was looking for that picture of her that Lex had in BVS we assumed it was because she wanted to keep her existence in the past a secret. Now we know it's because she wanted a picture of Steve. There could be other photographs of her throughout the last 100 years but nobody made the connection that they were one woman.

This. Especially the bolded part for me. Plus, my own head canon is that Diana didn't want to get attached to anyone after losing Steve the way she did. I don't know if we'll find out what happened with Sameer, Charlie and Chief in Justice League, or if we'll have to wait for the sequel. Also, a co-worker told me that she read how Jenkins hasn't been asked or isn't even directing the sequels?!???

I didn't get a chance to ask her where she read it, so I can't provide a link, but that does NOT make me Happy. JENKINS should direct not only the sequels, but the rest of the movies!

[Spartan Girl]

DC should be down on their knees thanking her for giving them their first good movie in this new franchise.

[MarkHB]

15 hours ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

Also, a co-worker told me that she read how Jenkins hasn't been asked or isn't even directing the sequels?!

The sequel isn't green-lit yet.  Patty Jenkins was given a 1-picture contract for WW, which is SOP for Warner Bros. when it comes to these sorts of movies (there's a world of difference between making small, character-study movies like Monster or what Kevin Smith does, and making a movie with a 9-figure budget, and not everyone is up to the challenge).  The flip-side of that deal for WB is that now Patty has proven herself, she's linked to a very successful film about a hero who in turn has a lot of fan interest and energy behind her, and it's time for the studio and Patty's agent to talk money.  So I believe that 1) Patty will make WW2 and be paid quite well to do so, and 2) Gal will be also getting a raise in her next contract.

Also, I can't remember if I said this here or elsewhere, but when that last trailer dropped I said that, in the scene where Steve says "Technically, the war is that way, but first we have to go this way." she gives him a look like "I came here to win the war, not go to Selfridges."  Lo and behold, when they get to the shopping sequence... they're at Selfridge's (you can see the sign as they go in).

[GHScorpiosRule]

Thanks @MarkHB!

I totally think it's a no-brainer, especially since they (WB) gave that hack Zack Snyder, Carte-blanche over the DCEU. And he fucked it up straight out of the park as far as I'm concerned.?We know, if not for the personal tragedy that befell him, he'd still be involved with Justice League, but that's moot because that movie is pretty much done and it will be his work. Whedon is just...I don't know what he's doing.

Like @Spartan Girl said, WB should be on their knees and give Jenkins whatever she wants to direct. If they want their DCEU franchise to survive/succeed, that is.

[methodwriter85]

Woman Wonder, at Day 13, is now at 227 million, pulling ahead of Man of Steel's 223 million at the same point in release.

Yeah, they better get the team back together.

Except for Chris Pine. I loved Chris, but man I do not want his character resurrected. That includes giving him a look-alike relative, which is what they did when they moved the Wonder Woman t.v. show to the present-day.

Edited June 16, 2017 by methodwriter85

[Perfect Xero]

Joss Whedon's unproduced script from 10 years ago leaked about a month ago apparently (I had been unaware), I haven't read it myself, but based on recent chatter it was, uh ... questionable.

[VCRTracking]

35 minutes ago, Perfect Xero said:

Joss Whedon's unproduced script from 10 years ago leaked about a month ago apparently (I had been unaware), I haven't read it myself, but based on recent chatter it was, uh ... questionable.

It's bad but it's also a rough draft and they all suck or are so different from what actually ends up onscreen

Cute pic found on Reddit:

[Bruinsfan]

Yeah, the lack of Diana's own viewpoint sounds like a fatal flaw in the basic foundation of the story to me, not just something that can be polished up in later drafts. And the multiple focuses on women's bare feet convinces me it's genuine.

As for Patty Jenkins returning to direct any sequels, there is no amount of money she could possibly be asking for that wouldn't be worth paying to keep her onboard. Aside from the financial success of Wonder Woman itself, the movie has singlehandedly arrested the freefall of the studio's reputation regarding management of a multi-billion dollar film franchise.

Edited June 16, 2017 by Bruinsfan

[Lugal]

2 hours ago, Bruinsfan said:

Yeah, the lack of Diana's own viewpoint sounds like a fatal flaw in the basic foundation of the story to me, not just something that can be polished up in later drafts. And the multiple focuses on women's bare feet convinces me it's genuine.

Exactly. Rough draft aside, it still has a lot of Whedon's touches that show up in his other projects (his foot fetish is well known).

 

2 hours ago, Bruinsfan said:

Aside from the financial success of Wonder Woman itself, the movie has singlehandedly arrested the freefall of the studio's reputation regarding management of a multi-billion dollar film franchise.

Personally, I think the real test will be Justice League.  That will prove if the DCEU is really back on track or if WW was just a fluke.

[tennisgurl]

I'm not going to judge the Whedon script TOO harshly, because its just a first draft, and it could have changed a lot before the finale product, but what I read there just reeks of Whedon. I like Joss Whedon, and think that he has done and I'm sure will do great work, but I tend to dislike some of the way he does feminism. He always seems like he needs Evil Sexist Men to sprout off pointless Evil Sexist Stuff and be Evil Woman Haters to be easily defeated by his waif heroines because Girl Power (see that awful episode of Angel with the Misogyny Demon) but is actually a really cheap way to get the audience to dislike the villain and make the female hero look "badass" without having to do much. I tend to prefer when we see woman just being competent and awesome, and not having to prove that they can be awesome to sexist men over and over again. He also tends to give women kind of stereotypical "woman" issues, like the Black Window backstory in Age of Ultron, or the multiple uses of rape imagery with exclusively female characters, which I find to be really annoying and gross.  I actually really like that Diana doesn't come across with a ridiculous amount of sexism, even during WWI. Steve and his buddies don't care that she's a woman and have no problem letting her take the lead on fighting when they see what she can do (and no painful "A GIRL did that?!?! moments for anyone), and the only real sexism she faces is when the generals act all scandalized that a woman walked into their meeting, which could have been more that a random person just walked into their top secret military meeting, and even they're willing to listen to her when she starts translating the journal. Diana can just be a strong character who happens to be a woman, whos gender informs her, but does not define her.

So, I'm less amazed that they finally made a really good really superhero movie with a female lead, but more amazed that they actually made a really good DC movie! I HATED Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad, while I was pretty meh on Man of Steel, but I really enjoyed this one a lot. It was fun and exciting in a way that the other movies weren't, but still being very emotional and having some great character moments, and allowing the situation to stay serious when it needed to be. And, oh my GOD someone finally turned a light on! At last! And people in this movie actually smiled! At each other! Its madness! The No Mans Land scene was just as epic as I heard it would be, and I thought the final showdown was suitably kick ass. Its the first DC movie that I will watch again, certainly. I also got a kick out of the weird evil friendship between Dr. Poison and the evil German general. It was horrifying, but I kind of laughed at them both evilly giggling when they through in the pointless gas mask when they killed the German high command. It was an interesting character beat to have the two sadistic personifications of humanities evil to also be capable of having a real friendship and showing actual loyalty to each other, while still being evil.

I thought Diana was pretty cool in Batman v Superman, but I loved this version of her. Her interactions with London were super endearing, and I loved how sweet and kind she was, while also being a badass with a capital B. And her romance with Steve was super cute, and I totally bought the connection that had after a relatively short time frame. Speaking of, I'm super impressed that they actually made Steve Trevor work, and a lot of that came down to Chris Pine, who was just the perfect combination of world weary and cynical, and heroic and likable. He was clearly a good character on his own, and didn't need to be made look lesser just to make Diana look good, or vice versa. They worked as a team, and clearly grew respect each other, as well as enjoy each others company. I also enjoyed the supporting cast, especially Steve's war buddies and Etta Candy. They all had tons of personality, and made a strong impression with only limited screen time. Honestly, I'm kind of disappointed that we are cutting to Dianna in modern day as a jaded antique dealer, and we wont get another movie of WWI era Diana having adventures with Steve and their friends.

Its like someone at DC realized that their characters can actually have personalities that go beyond "angry", "brooding", or "talking about the importance of the movie". Or whatever was going on at any time during Suicide Squad.

[Kromm]

On 6/10/2017 at 2:46 PM, Sandman said:

Marston wasn't exactly a thoroughgoing feminist, however; in his conception, the bracelets' primary function was to restrain Wonder Woman. She takes them off, she becomes overcome with basically homicidal rage. The ability to deflect bullets was a lucky side-effect.

There's more to the bracelets than that.  At least to my memory. Most of what Martson was saying was misunderstood even back then, and now even moreso.

Remember, for example, that a lot of people cry outrage at how often Wonder Woman was chained up in the old comics. Without taking into account that Martson made the point, I believe, that Wonder Woman in chains always involved her breaking free of them. By herself, and not being released or assisted, by the way. So instead of being a symbol of bondage, it was a symbol of freedom. I think even a lot of comic writers, like Grant Morrison, who claimed to be confused about Wonder Woman never really thought about it in those terms.

Getting back to the bracelets, rather than the frequent chains which sometimes accompanied them... I believe they were actually called "bracelets of submission" and were about a concept of Martson's called "loving submission". Which on the face of it, just by the name, sounds sexist as all hell. It SOUNDS like what some old school Mormon husband does if he marries a bunch of women and makes those Sister Wives do whatever he says. But that's not what the phrase meant in Marston's lexicon.

The actual problem with Martson's theories, and what the bracelets represent, wasn't that they were sexist, but rather than they were based on a really wack-a-doodle belief he had about how people should react to authority figures. The "master" who the Amazons submitted to wasn't a man, but a woman. Aphrodite. And while all of Marston's work reeked of barely hidden sexuality, in this case the allegory wasn't about the Amazons being subservient to men, it was about them being subservient to this loose concept of Love. It's a strange, somewhat obnoxious and outdated concept, which doesn't fit with actual feminism at all I think, but it also wasn't intended as some kind of backhanded statement against women. Marston at least claimed this made women superior, not inferior. That it made them more sane individuals than men, because surrendering to love was more sane than surrendering to hate (or war, as represented by Ares).

The whole thing about the Amazons going nutty when the bracelets are removed came a bit later on I believe, and I think wasn't meant to be simply about gender. It went back to Martson's wacky beliefs about authority. It was supposed to be some symbolic equivalent to someone striking away the rules of society, and the discipline imposed by those rules. 

We could also get into what the lasso really was supposed to mean too. I seem to recall that's not quite as simple as it seems either.

[Zuleikha]

I'm a writer--albeit not one anywhere near the professional level of Whedon--and I don't buy this notion that early drafts are completely uncritiquable things. This was far enough along that Whedon was shopping the project and there was buzz based on it. Also, it does tell us a lot about his base level approach to the movie and the character of Diana.

I feel like Whedon got a lot of unearned praise for Buffy's feminism, and in a way, gets more critique than he deserves now. Buffy was never that deep in its feminism. It was an idea that required a female lead, and Whedon did a decent job writing/showrunning a story that mostly served her well. But David Greenwalt probably always deserved more credit than he got for holding the story together (certainly Buffy fell apart after season 3 when Greenwalt moved to Angel), and Whedon's later stories are male centered plus whatever the heck we want to call Dollhouse. Whedon's a good writer so his female characters are better than many male writers--and he got a LOT better about writing inclusively--but he does a lot of the types of things that male writers get critiqued for in discussions of the importance of representation. He slut shames; he gratuitously sexualizes; he has his tormented waif thing. 

Basically, he never should have been viewed as a male writer who was particularly good at representation because he never really was. OTOH, other male writers don't get dragged for writing/directing that is way more problematic than what Whedon does because no one expects any better from them.

Which is why I'm glad that DC prioritized having a woman direct Wonder Woman because I do think Jenkins made choices that most male directors would not have made, and why they better pay her whatever she asks for the sequel!

[voiceover]

Ugh.  Just blew through all those Jessica-justifyin' tweets.  Was she getting all this from her Michael Hauge book?

Thanks for filling us in on Screenwriting 101, Jess.  Of course, that'll make his crap 206th draft that much harder to defend.

[Bruinsfan]

13 hours ago, Lugal said:

Personally, I think the real test will be Justice League.  That will prove if the DCEU is really back on track or if WW was just a fluke.

Well I did say arrested, not reversed. Justice League will have to stand on its own merits, but thanks to Wonder Woman it probably won't have to swim up a waterfall in terms of the public's expectations. We've seen proof that the DCEU can have a good film; now it's just up to the powers that be to learn from it and choose to make another one.

[tennisgurl]

So, I read more of the JW Wonder Woman script, and oh my GOD did that suck! When I just read the bits and pieces, I thought maybe it could been salvaged through a shit ton of editing, but now? Nope. That was the greatest cinematic bullet dodged since they pulled the plug on the Nick Cage Superman movie. To me, whatever movie exec looked at that script and promptly flushed it down the toilet is one of the great unsung heroes of the modern age. What an utter mess, both on a feminism level, and from a pure screen writing level. It takes everything that the movie I saw last night got right, and does the opposite.

Did you like that the Amazons were a realistic mix of warrior women of different looks, ages, and races? Now? Don't worry, we will describe how hot they all are at every turn, just so nobody thinks these badass warriors are less than classically sexy. Given its JW, I can only assume he pictures them all as sexy, doe eyed waifs who can throw tanks around a room despite not weighing more than 90 pounds wet.

Did you like how Steve was an interesting and engaging character who was cynical and world weary but was also a heroic and selfless person who respected Diana from day one, and she was clearly the protagonist? Well, screw that noise, now Steve is an annoying asshole who spends all his time lecturing Diana about what an idiot she is, and is the TRUE hero of the tale, while Diana is some kind of magical creature to be observed from affair, and not an actual person with a personality or agency or anything.

Was it cool to you that the movie lacked awful, painfully outdated racial stereotypes, and the POC characters were competent and likable? Meh, what the people REALLY want is the only non white person seen is a black gangster who says such golden lines as "Get Yo Skank Ass Offa Me" and is basically the personification of every negative imagine of black men they could find (granted, there could have been better portrayed POC characters in there somewhere, but I couldn't find any).

Was it refreshing to you that Diana didn't constantly have to fend off terribly written sexist men who call her a bitch and a whore and throw out not subtle rape threats every five seconds? Was it nice to see that all the notable male characters treated her with respect and friendship and as soon as they saw what she could do, they immediately let her lead the fighting without a second glance?  Well if you didn't, have I got a script for you!

I could go on, but instead I'm just going to hope that Joss has learned a few things since he wrote this in 2005, especially now that he's been tapped to direct Batgirl. I think he has, but this is also the guy who was super proud of himself for having Loki call Natasha an old fashioned gender based slur in Avengers (the first and only time he has shown sexist views towards women) about five years ago, so who knows.

[VCRTracking]

I've read Buffy scripts Joss wrote and the characters(especially the female ones) are never described in the way it is in his WW screenplay. I think Joss wrote a script specifically so that Wonder Woman's producer at the time, Joel Silver would greenlight it and it worked.

In an interview with Collider last year:
 

Quote

 

You’ve tried, over the years, to bring Wonder Woman to the screen, but it didn’t pan out. Why do you think it’s worked now, but didn’t work then?

SILVER: I don’t know. I hired a young guy, named Joss Whedon, who nobody really was aware of. He wrote a great script. I don’t know what the movie is going to look like or be like, but he wrote a great script. For whatever reason, the studio didn’t like it and didn’t want to do it. We were close, at one point. We were prepping a movie, at one point. I was trying to get George Miller to direct it, at one point. But Joss wrote a great script, and he was supposed to direct it, but they just didn’t see it and they didn’t want to do it. They said, “We’re not going to move forward,” and it went back into the DC Comics world. Sandra Bullock was interested in doing it, but I just couldn’t put it together. They don’t always happen the way you want them to. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes you’re happy with the result, sometimes you’re not, and sometimes you can’t even get it together. That’s just the process of movie-making. You’ve gotta just roll with it and accept what happens, hope you can get it made and hope that people will go see it.

 

 

He mentions that it was a "great script" three times so obviously those vivid descriptions Joss wrote stuck to his brain 12 years later! Also "young guy nobody was really aware of?" He was hired after he had the Buffy series ended and he had written on Speed and Toy Story!

Edited June 17, 2017 by VCRTracking

[benteen]

I've liked Joss Whedon's work as a filmmaker but greatly dislike him as a person.  I also think he is a pretend feminist. 

While Wonder Woman is a character I think should have been on the big screen much sooner, I think Wonder Woman worked out just fine without him.

Edited June 17, 2017 by benteen

[Perfect Xero]

2 hours ago, VCRTracking said:

I've read Buffy scripts Joss wrote and the characters(especially the female ones) are never described in the way it is in his WW screenplay. I think Joss wrote a script specifically so that Wonder Woman's producer at the time, Joel Silver would greenlight it and it worked.

In an interview with Collider last year:
 

 

He mentions that it was a "great script" three times so obviously those vivid descriptions Joss wrote stuck to his brain 12 years later! Also "young guy nobody was really aware of?" He was hired after he had the Buffy series ended and he had written on Speed and Toy Story!

I think that "young guy" bit is supposed to be a tongue in cheek joke, as Joss was pretty well known at the time and is obviously really high profile now. He's saying, "Look, I hired the well known Mr. Feminism and Comic Books to do a script, I did all I could do at the time."

As for calling it a 'great script', repeatedly, I kind of feel like that's Hollywood for, "It didn't get done because they didn't like the script, but I don't wanna throw this guy under the bus, so I'm going to repeatedly talk about how great the script was."

[VCRTracking]

52 minutes ago, Perfect Xero said:

I think that "young guy" bit is supposed to be a tongue in cheek joke, as Joss was pretty well known at the time and is obviously really high profile now. He's saying, "Look, I hired the well known Mr. Feminism and Comic Books to do a script, I did all I could do at the time."

As for calling it a 'great script', repeatedly, I kind of feel like that's Hollywood for, "It didn't get done because they didn't like the script, but I don't wanna throw this guy under the bus, so I'm going to repeatedly talk about how great the script was."

Sure but even before Joss's script Joel Silver didn't understand how he couldn't "put it together" with Sandra Bullock. I've never read the script they sent her but Drew McWeeny has and as bad as Whedon's script was....

[mcree]

18 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

the only real sexism she faces is when the generals act all scandalized that a woman walked into their meeting, which could have been more that a random person just walked into their top secret military meeting, and even they're willing to listen to her when she starts translating the journal

One of the effects of setting the movie in WW1 is that women didn't get the vote in the UK until shortly after. Etta has a line mentioning suffrage. (When first instituted, women had to be 30 years old. Ten years later, it was changed to 21 to match men.)

The Act passed early in the last year of the war, and the first election was a month after it ended. A separate Act between those last two events gave women the right to run for and hold office.

So in the first meeting the "what's a woman doing in here" murmuring makes sense. In the second meeting with the generals and the journal, it was more of a who is this random person, expressed as the more gendered who is this woman. But neither reaction is overplayed. 

[Sandman]

On 2017-06-17 at 2:13 AM, Kromm said:

Which on the face of it, just by the name, sounds sexist as all hell.

Is it okay if I admit I'm struggling against the urge to say "See?"

I'll  see myself out.

[Bruinsfan]

I feel like I should send Sandra Bullock a thank-you muffin basket for making sure the described version of the WW script was put out of its misery, stat. She may not fit my ideal of Wonder Woman, but she was a superhero that day!

[Spartan Girl]

That Joss Whedon script was just...ugh.  I have no words.

[snarktini]

On 6/7/2017 at 7:49 AM, Perfect Xero said:

Of course Ares was the one who was pushing for the Armistice in the first place. And, assuming that the DCEU history roughly follows our own, the promise of reparations demanded in the Armistice were a strong contributing factor to the rise of Nazi Germany. Which leads to humanity developing nuclear weapons.

When he speechified that they had to obtain "peace at any cost" I twigged to him being a bad guy. An uneasy, high-cost armistice could lead to ongoing unrest and recurring eruptions in the way a decisively won war wouldn't. Hadn't jumped all the way to him being Ares at that point, but it didn't take much longer.

I loved it! Thrilled to see a decent flick from DC. Loved seeing WW as an interesting woman and a total badass, great rendering of this character. 

[tennisgurl]

My dad wanted to watch this movie for Fathers Day, so I saw the movie again a second time, and I really enjoyed it all over again, even after seeing it just a few days apart. My dad isn't really a big fan of super hero movies (his favorite superhero thing is the 60s Batman show) but he's a big sucker for a period piece and he wanted to see what Wonder Woman would be like, so he wanted to see it. He really liked it, and I caught a few things I didn't catch the first time. Like, when British Ares first sees Diana in the meeting, he doesn't just look surprised to see a random woman, he looks legitimately shocked. Later he tries to play it off, but you can tell the second time that he recognized her. Dad asked if he might like some of the other DC movies (for context, he thinks several of the MCU moves are too dark and sad), and I said they probably wouldn't be his cup of tea :)

[Sakura12]

2 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

My dad wanted to watch this movie for Fathers Day, so I saw the movie again a second time, and I really enjoyed it all over again, even after seeing it just a few days apart. My dad isn't really a big fan of super hero movies (his favorite superhero thing is the 60s Batman show) but he's a big sucker for a period piece and he wanted to see what Wonder Woman would be like, so he wanted to see it. He really liked it, and I caught a few things I didn't catch the first time. Like, when British Ares first sees Diana in the meeting, he doesn't just look surprised to see a random woman, he looks legitimately shocked. Later he tries to play it off, but you can tell the second time that he recognized her. Dad asked if he might like some of the other DC movies (for context, he thinks several of the MCU moves are too dark and sad), and I said they probably wouldn't be his cup of tea :)

If your dad thinks the Marvel movies are dark and sad, then the dark and depressing other DC movies are not for him. 

I've seen Wonder Woman three times, I can't remember the last movie I saw that many times. I went with friends, then with my mom, then with my sister. And I loved it each time. 

[Lantern7]

How much did Gal Gadot get for playing Diana? In my opinion, not enough. Apparently, there are a few cases where some actors "only" get six figures to start . . . but all Gal did was smack Affleck and Cavill to the side with her awesomeness, raise the bar for DC movies, and gave fans hope that Justice League might not be that bad. Cavill made $14M off Man of Steel alone. I rank Brandon Routh as a better Superman, and that's overshadowed by Ray Palmer and Lucas Lee.

[tennisgurl]

Hehehe that's exactly what I told him @Sakura12 about the MCU movies. I told him that the MCU was actually the happy superhero universe. I mean, yeah there is plenty of sad stuff, but its generally optimistic, and, you know, the characters actually smile at each other from time to time. The DC universe is so depressing, that I think more people smiled in this movie than in the entirety of Batman v Superman. And this movie was set in the trenches of WWI!

Watching the movie again, there were two scenes I super loved the second time. I loved the whole exchange between Steve and Diana right after she yelled at all the generals about sending their soldiers to die without leading them themselves, and Steve admits that he even though he said they were going to stand down, they were actually going to the front. She was so shocked and confused by the fact that he was lying, and Steve was just like "I'm a spy! Lying is literally my job!" and used her lasso to show that he was telling her the truth. Later, during the saving of the French village, I freaking love when Steve sees the sniper in the tower, and he remembers some of the Amazons using a shield to launch attack at enemy's, and he tells his buddies to hold up a piece of mettle, and was like "Diana! Shield!" and she totally went right with it! #relationshipgoals

*sigh* I just really liked Steve and Diana, ok? Why must all my favorite superhero period piece romances end in tragedy?!?!

[GHScorpiosRule]

18 minutes ago, Sakura12 said:

 

I've seen Wonder Woman three times, I can't remember the last movie I saw that many times. I went with friends, then with my mom, then with my sister. And I loved it each time. 

For me, it was The Dark Knight-which I saw five times. This movie is just as awesome, if not moreso, so it deserves me going to see it the same number of times!? I plan on No. 3 with a college pal in the next week or so.

[thuganomics85]

Quote

*sigh* I just really liked Steve and Diana, ok? Why must all my favorite superhero period piece romances end in tragedy?!?!

Hey, at least in this universe, there is one possible way for a reunion...

Scene from any future Justice League film:

Clark: "Crap!  There is no way we can beat Darkseid/Brainiac/insert big D.C. villain!  We need help!"

Diana: "I got it!  Barry, you need to go back in time and rescue Captain Steven Trevor.  He will be a great ally in this battle!"

Barry: "But how is some solider from World War I going to help with this?"

Diana: "Don't make me repeat myself, Speedy."

Bruce: "Dude, I think you need to just do what she says."
 

[GHScorpiosRule]

The only thing I care about in this article, is this:

Emmerich said that Patty Jenkins is already working on Wonder Woman 2, and that it will take place in the past, but not during World War 1 like the last movie. “It will take place somewhere between 1917 and 2017,” he joked.

??????????

http://batman-news.com/2017/06/20/new-warner-bros-president-is-ready-to-compete-with-marvel-admires-r-rated-superhero-movies/

[TheOtherOne]

[voiceover]

Yeah: the rumor going around about the Gal v. Henry salary  is bullshit.

Unfortunately a case of "A Lie goes around the world before the Truth can get its cuff bracelets on."

[ChelseaNH]

More on the pay issue: http://www.vulture.com/2017/06/gal-gadot-wonder-woman-salary-why-it-was-so-low.html

Her pay was similar to other first-time superheroes, and Cavill probably earned a similar six figures.

[voiceover]

8 hours ago, ChelseaNH said:

More on the pay issue: http://www.vulture.com/2017/06/gal-gadot-wonder-woman-salary-why-it-was-so-low.html

Her pay was similar to other first-time superheroes, and Cavill probably earned a similar six figures.

Yeah.  So it said in the Vanity Fair link I posted.

[Lantern7]

Sorry I linked it. I mean, it seemed like one of those crappy ironic stories where the more-acclaimed female actress got shortchanged.

[MarkHB]

I've linked it in various places too, even before the "compared to Cavill's $14M" meme got attached to it.  But the funny thing is, the original source for it was an interview she did on Israeli radio (might be in Hebrew, I'm not sure), and some of the stories out of that said that the $300k was her salary for BvS, leaving room for the interpretation that she might have gotten a bit more for her larger roles in WW and JL.  I am not sure which was right, and the "we aren't going to pay this relative unknown a ton of money" idea seems sound regardless.

[Bruinsfan]

Chris Evans' base salary was that for the first Captain America movie, so it doesn't sound outrageous for me. My main concern is if Gadot's WW contract had similar performance bonuses to Cavill's, because after BvS she was a more proven critical hit than he was prior to his solo feature. Really I'll only be outraged if she's not paid at least as well as he is moving forward.

[icewolf]

My problem with Henry Cavill making more money is that I find Cavill's Superman to be one of the worst superheroes in the modern era.

The guy is bland as white bread, not much of a personality, needed to be told to be hero by his space dad, and is mopey as hell. Call him Mopeyman instead of Superman. I don't know how much of this is his acting or the writing, but even good actors can elevate badly written material. The colorless world that Zack keeps using REALLY doesn't help.

Batman isn't much better, being a huge dickweed that brands criminals. Ben Affleck also gives off a "I don't give a shit" vibe, just look at all the SAD Affleck memes that have exploded online.

Wonder Woman is the first DCEU hero that I actually like. I WANT to rewatch her movie, I WANT to see her sequel.

[methodwriter85]

1 hour ago, icewolf said:

My problem with Henry Cavill making more money is that I find Cavill's Superman to be one of the worst superheroes in the modern era.

The guy is bland as white bread, not much of a personality, needed to be told to be hero by his space dad, and is mopey as hell. Call him Mopeyman instead of Superman. I don't know how much of this is his acting or the writing, but even good actors can elevate badly written material. The colorless world that Zack keeps using REALLY doesn't help.

Batman isn't much better, being a huge dickweed that brands criminals. Ben Affleck also gives off a "I don't give a shit" vibe, just look at all the SAD Affleck memes that have exploded online.

Wonder Woman is the first DCEU hero that I actually like. I WANT to rewatch her movie, I WANT to see her sequel.

That was what I liked so much about her. She actually loves this. She actually is having fun. Cavill's Superman seems like a humorless jock who's pissed that he has to do this instead of play ball like he wanted to. I think someone kind of nailed it when she talked about what bugs her about Cavill- he doesn't have kind eyes. That's a big problem for someone who's supposed to be playing a huge hero and is supposed to radiate goodness and kindness.

Ben's personal problems seem to have leaked over into his acting, it looks like.

Edited June 21, 2017 by methodwriter85

[Raja]

5 minutes ago, methodwriter85 said:

That was what I liked so much about her. She actually loves this. She actually is having fun. Cavill's Superman seems like a humorless jock who's pissed that he has to do this instead of play ball like he wanted to. I think someone kind of nailed it when she talked about what bugs her about Cavill- he doesn't have kind eyes. That's a big problem for someone who's supposed to be playing a huge hero and is supposed to radiate goodness and kindness.

Ben's personal problems seem to have leaked over into his acting, it looks like.

Well having fun in Batman v Superman where she could let loose and would not be a god just running through puny all but defenseless humans. She was just doing the duty she was created for in the Wonder Woman movie as opposed to loving to mix it up

[Perfect Xero]

2 hours ago, methodwriter85 said:

That was what I liked so much about her. She actually loves this. She actually is having fun. Cavill's Superman seems like a humorless jock who's pissed that he has to do this instead of play ball like he wanted to. I think someone kind of nailed it when she talked about what bugs her about Cavill- he doesn't have kind eyes. That's a big problem for someone who's supposed to be playing a huge hero and is supposed to radiate goodness and kindness.

Ben's personal problems seem to have leaked over into his acting, it looks like.

Given some of the things that Kevin Smith has said about working on a Superman movie with Jon Peters, I don't think any of that is an accident. Peters (and I suspect Snyder) sees Superman as a caged animal, he's a guy who could beat up anyone and everyone but constantly has to restrain himself because he's so much stronger than they are.

It's hard for me to blame Cavil, I think it's possible that he could've been a good Superman, but he was cast as a version of Clark directed by a man who sees the films as 'deconstructing' superheroes and being produced by someone who thinks that Superman should have "the eyes of a killer".