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LTTP: Wonder Woman (Spoilers) - My Goddess

Good thread, Quantum. Tell the haters to go somewhere else.

Thanks - I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that it has haters, but I guess any film does, no matter the quality.

It just seems silly to criticize the last act especially when there's almost (or no) MCU or DCEU film with a good ending fight. I was meh on Man of Steel but honestly the final fight with Zod is the closest thing that springs to mind when I think "Wow" for final battles. Maybe Civil War... but it felt a bit anti-climactic.

If this was MCU I think I'd have it 8th or 9th best. Just above Cap 1.

Opinions and all, but that is mind-boggling to me. The only MCU films in terms of quality that come near it IMO are Guardians 1, Avengers, Winter Soldier, and Civil War. And all of those had nothingburgers for finales/big boss battles. They also had nowhere near the character development, cinematography (Winter Solider was excellent in this regard though), or story.

If we're talking Fox or Sony, then of course Spidey 2 (not sure that even counts since it was almost 20 years ago) and Logan come into the mix... but Wondy still wins IMO.
 

yuoke

Banned
Thanks - I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that it has haters, but I guess any film does, no matter the quality.

It just seems silly to criticize the last act especially when there's almost (or no) MCU or DCEU film with a good ending fight. I was meh on Man of Steel but honestly the final fight with Zod is the closest thing that springs to mind when I think "Wow" for final battles. Maybe Civil War... but it felt a bit anti-climactic.

Most people criticize it since they liked the rest of the movie more overall than some others, probably mostly MoS and BvS.
 
Steve: No — we are doing something. We are! We just … we can't save everyone in this war. This is not what we came here to do.
Diana: No. But it is what I am going to do.

That's a great part.

A better part is the village celebration and dancing in the snow though. That's probably the best scene in the movie.

All that stuff between those scenes (charging across No Mans Land and the village fight) was just take it or leave it though.

The movie was good. No doubt. The end kinda lost it's way but whatever.
 
The movie didn't do much for me at all but I though Gadot and Pine had pretty good chemistry.

Yeah, I find the complaints about the final Aries fight absolutely ridiculous. The movie delivered a big battle with a god of war. A villain they had been setting up since the intro. it was a bad ass fight too. People dont like to see cool action scenes in a movie nowadays which blows my mind

What? People not liking the final fight has nothing to do with "people not liking cool action scenes nowadays" (what reality did you even pull this bizarre assertion from?)
 
Most people criticize it since they liked the rest of the movie more overall than some others, probably mostly MoS and BvS.

This, and again, my biggest issue is that it muddies the themes. It's also a bit jarring tonally as it kind of just feels...dumber is I guess the word I'd use (I'm talking about dialogue here as well as the way it plays out) compared to the rest of the movie. As much as I like big final battles, I kind of wish Ares was purely about manipulation instead of being a physical force. That would have been an interesting take.
 

DonShula

Member
Good movie. I'll buy it on digital. But I feel like it's still getting extra praise for not sucking like everyone expected. It's far from perfect (pacing, 3rd act) and it's OK to just call it "good." Good is good, after all. I appreciate that my kids now have a squeaky clean female superhero to emulate.

And this thread should have gone into the OT ;)
 
That's a great part.

A better part is the village celebration and dancing in the snow though. That's probably the best scene in the movie.

I really loved that scene. I feel like it would've been left out (or not even thought of) by most other filmmakers. Her reaction to the snow and the people dancing to the piano was a joy to see between the bleakness.

And this thread should have gone into the OT ;)

giphy.gif
 

DonShula

Member
^^^ Can't even argue. 32 with two kids and slaying it as an action star playing a straight laced character. Quite the middle finger to Hollywood. She da real MVP.
 
It's great because they turn the conventional villains into more side roles so Diana can learn how horrible humanity is all on their own.
 
It's great because they turn the conventional villains into more side roles so Diana can learn how horrible humanity is all on their own.
That's an interesting take that I didn't think about. It's definitely true. It was almost shocking to see her reaction to the gas and believing Steve may be corrupted too, to seeing that humanity could just in fact have a lot of fuck ups. She goes through a great deal of revelations from that point all the way up to the end, really. I can't remember seeing such character development in that form, at least not from a cape flick.
 
Re:Diana Being Ares' Sister:

Wait, is Ares WW's brother? She calls him this near the end. Does she mean brother in a vague sense? How would she even know if he was her brother??

Not that it detracts too much from the great parts of the movie, but the ending was really confusing.

Some have explained this a little poorly, saying that Diana knew that Ares was her brother from the start. No, she didn't.

Apparently, everyone on the island knew that Diana was a daughter of Zeus, *except for Diana herself*.

She was told early in her life by her mother (Hippolyta) that she was sculpted from clay, and that she begged Zeus to bring Diana to life. A convenient story, but not the truth.

At the beginning of the movie, Hippolyta finally succumbs to Antiope's wishes to begin training Diana to fight. However, she has one stipulation - that Diana is NOT to be told what she is, or how she came to be. (meaning, she is not to know that she is actually Zeus' daughter, a child that Hippolyta and Zeus had together.)

We get another hint at this when Diana leaves the island. As they watch her sail off into the distance, Menalippe asks Hippolyta "Should you have told her?" Hippolyta replies "the more she knows, the sooner he will find her". Even as she leaves, Hippolyta does not want her daughter to know who she really is.

Another lie told to Diana is that the sword she takes from the island is a 'god killer'. It's not. Diana herself, being a god, is the true god killer. Ares tells her this after destroying the sword: "My dear, *that* is not the god killer. You are. Only a god can kill another god."

It is then that Diana realizes the truth. She is Zeus' daughter. Since Ares is Zeus' son, that makes them siblings, and is why Diana says "Goodbye brother" just before she kills him.
 

shaneo632

Member
It's a solid 7/10 movie. Shits itself in the third act but perfectly enjoyable for the most part, as is also basically my opinion of most MCU films.
 
Great write up and agree with basically everything you said. It's my favorite movie of the year and I certainly didn't see that coming.
 
Didn't like it much and found it to be a boring origin story(last act was also pretty bad), but I'll agree that Gadot is perfect for the role and I'm glad it showed that female superhero films can do incredibly well at the box office.
 
I find Dr. Poison strangely attractive.

That is all.

Yeah I though she was so freakin adorable I couldn't understand why she was the person we were supposed to hate.

I really liked that Wonder Woman had a distinct feminine fighting style, where flexibility was her advantage from the men, and she still runs like a girl and not a track athlete.
 
Yeah I though she was so freakin adorable I couldn't understand why she was the person we were supposed to hate.

I really liked that Wonder Woman had a distinct feminine fighting style, where flexibility was her advantage from the men, and she still runs like a girl and not a track athlete.

The photo they showed of her from her 'file' during the movie (pre-scarring) was pretty beautiful. She's quite the lovely woman, to be sure.
 
So, I have been frantically trying to see this film before it left theaters (life and scheduling keeps me from seeing pretty much anything in theaters), and finally I got my chance to see Wonder Woman (beware, GIFs ahead!).

I was inordinately excited for it (Wondy's been my 2nd favorite CB character next to Spiderman for a long time), but also worried that it wouldn't live up to the hype. Glad to say that I was completely wrong there.

The movie is so well paced and has great contrasts from scene to scene (the transition from Themyscira to London was stark, and yet both environments felt real, and very well done). Then as they trudged forth to "The Front" it captured the contrast of the beauty of Diana's home, the bustling New York vibe of industrialized London, and then the desolation of war-torn Europe spectacularly. The cinematography was so on-point.

Going from this:



To this:



Was such a great contrast. I loved the WW1 setting, and I love Greek Mythology (one of the reasons WW is among my favorite comics). I never thought a mix would work, but it did.

I was one of the fence-sitters when Gadot was picked for the film and was worried we'd have another Cavill (beauty with no brains), but I ate my words for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She nailed the role perfectly. It was one of those "born to play it" performances that you only get seemingly once a decade (the easiest one to spring to mind is RDJ as Tony Stark and before that, Hugh Jackman as Wolverine). Seeing her go from excited and goofy (a baby!), to confused (when the assassins showed up and she saw the misogyny of the early 1900s), to horrified (when seeing the injured soldiers), to determined (when talking to the people fleeing from the front lines and the looting/pillaging), was great. Chris Pine nailed his role as Steve Trevor and played off of Gadot so well. I knew Pine was a good actor, but I had no idea Gadot had so much range in her, I was laughing at the fish-out-of-water one minute then going "yea fuck up some proto-Nazis!" the next. They were splendid together. "Can we freeze him like they did Steve Rogers?", I thought., wistfully

And then this shit happened:








...

I was shook, to the core. I just sat there with my jaw about to disconnect from my face.

How could anyone make Wonder Woman in a WW1 setting using the Lasso of Truth look legit on film? Patty Jenkins should be arrested for sorcery.

I had heard a few people griping about the "last act" and still wasn't sure when or what they even meant. After viewing it, I honestly still don't. Was it the bar/night scene with Diana and Steve? That was beautiful. The singing and her seeing snow for the first time and the joy in humanity's hearts in the midst of war was so well done. The Gala/Castle scene had me on edge because I was wondering if it was gonna be some huge shitshow of Diana fighting a bunch of German soldiers in the middle of a dance party, and I was wondering if there was any foreshadowing to Steve saying Diana might not know for certain if Ludendorff is Ares (but the cutaways to him huffing the gas and glowing like some kind of demon kept me distracted). The scene where they gassed the town was stark in showing the horrors of war, and I thought Gadot did a great job showing Diana's horror at seeing what mankind is capable of. You could see the seeds of doubt planted in her mind as to what she truly thought of humanity (setting up the penultimate scenes with her and the big-bad perfectly). Her fight with Steve and their separation had me wondering pretty hard what was to come. Anyway, I digress.

To the ending!

While I typically can see most twists a mile away, I did not see the Ares one coming. When she stormed the airfield/poison factory, and battled with Ludendorff, at first I was kind of annoyed because the film had been so great up to that point... I thought "Man there's no way Ares goes out like some fucking jobber..." and I thought back to the 2008 WW Animated Film (which I adore) that ends with that epic fight between her and Ares.

I had come to peace with the fact that I would never get to see Diana, Princess of Themyscira, and Ares, God of War, go toe-to-toe. It was still an awesome film up to that point and I figured hell maybe Dr. Moreau (is that how its spelled? kind of funny if so) turns into Cheetah or something. And then...

SIR PATRICK IS ARES WHAT!?!

That guy I dismissed as the kooky guy that bankrolls the team's adventure and then wants to control them but knows he can't, the archetype you find in some films...

IS ARES!!!

YES!!!

But would they go all out? Is this Ares' disembodied form after she killed his physical one? What's going on?

And then... LIGHTNING EXPLOSION... and then...



After 30+ years on this Earth, I finally get to see Diana battle Ares!!

Would they fuck it up?

No! This is Patty Jenkins!



So I wondered - what will happen? Along with thoughts of "I hope Steve lives, I love Steve!"

Sadly it was not to be. His acting at the end, saying goodbye to Diana, and then in the plane, had such range within such short time. I shed a manly tear when he took his final breath.

And then... OH HELL NO NOT STEVE!!



And then... wait... a moment of clarity in the midst of Diana going apeshit? What's happening?


I loved this scene. It showed such contrast between the hero that Diana is and will become, and the monster that Ares is (while the entire time trying to convince her otherwise).

Then... FINAL BATTLE!


Just like the No Man's Land scene, I was stuck to my chair, having my brain melted by what I was seeing on screen. They did it! The crazy bastards brought out the real Ares!! Him assembling his armor from the wreckage of everything around him was glorious, and the final fight was by far the most satisfying of any comic book film I can remember since Spider-Man 2. Diana going full DBZ on Ares and blasting him into a dust-crater was so fucking satisfying. I had been waiting so long to see this happen in live action and they finally did it, and they did it so well.

The decision to show her recalling these events in modern-day, and looking back on her origin was fantastic. I really hope they do the next DCEU films justice (no pun intended) because Wonder Woman set one really high bar.

Gadot, Pine, and Patty nailed it. What a great movie. My new favorite CB film, overtaking even the glorious Spider-Man 2.



*apologies for any typos or rambling as I am sick at work writing this up so I can stay awake :D





It's been almost 3 months since the film came out, its coming to digital at the end of the month, and bumping the OT for a post this big seemed silly, sorry

I completely dismissed Ares too, and I'm usually one to get things like that. That's why I love it so much.
 
Movie was awesome indeed op, but I personally was not of the left turn the movie made at the very end of movie with the Ares battle.

Also, can't we stop posting stuff saying "this thread didn't mean to be made" please. OP had a great write up on his/her own thoughts and there's nothing wrong with that. Stop backseat moderating.
 
gal-gadot-wonder-woman-walking-up.gif


The entire setup and execution of this scene was pitch perfect, couldn't believe when I read it was almost cut.

It will be interesting to see if this is addressed by Patty in any of the extras coming with movie release to digital/physical. I would love to see the storyboards that she made to convince others to keep the scene in.
 
gal-gadot-wonder-woman-walking-up.gif


The entire setup and execution of this scene was pitch perfect, couldn't believe when I read it was almost cut.

I'm just glad DC is opening up and accepting input from their filmmakers. I can't imagine WW without that scene. It's incredibly character-defining.

It will be interesting to see if this is addressed by Patty in any of the extras coming with movie release to digital/physical. I would love to see the storyboards that she made to convince others to keep the scene in.
I can't wait for the 4k Blu-ray. I hope it has that in the extras.
 

Toxi

Banned
One thing that really works is they nailed the dynamic between Gadot and Pines' characters. Neither is treated as a buffoon or stereotype. They both respect each other and their fish out of water moments come with mutual understanding.
 
One thing that really works is they nailed the dynamic between Gadot and Pines' characters. Neither is treated as a buffoon or stereotype. They both respect each other and their fish out of water moments come with mutual understanding.

WW is a character rich film. There is a real chemistry going on there. This is one of the reasons that the emotional notes are so strong, especially towards the end. If you fully buy into the chemistry and the personalities of both, then you truly do feel the strength of emotion from Steve's death.

Not everyone gets that from this film, and that's fine. But I've been wanting a true superhero with sincerity ever since Christopher Reeve's Superman of decades past. It was such a refreshing change from the brooding superhero with questionable motives and a seeming self-loathing.

Diana delivers. True heroic morals and intent. Yes, even love - but delivered with absolute believability. That is NOT a popular road to travel in movies these days, but boy was it welcome.
 

error4041

Member
The No Man's Land scene followed by the celebration in the village were fantastic, but I thought the movie was trying to have it's cake and eat it when the soldiers stopped fighting when Ares dyed, and there were a couple moments like the giant WMD airplane that felt like it was pulled out of other cape films, but the movie does a lot of great things like the action and character moments that these are pretty small complaints.

Still don't like the electric cello when it blares through an action scene, I think it would have worked better it they took the riff and played it with a normal cello with some horns and percussion instead
 
The No Man's Land scene followed by the celebration in the village were fantastic, but I thought the movie was trying to have it's cake and eat it when the soldiers stopped fighting when Ares dyed, and there were a couple moments like the giant WMD airplane that felt like it was pulled out of other cape films, but the movie does a lot of great things like the action and character moments that these are pretty small complaints.

Still don't like the electric cello when it blares through an action scene, I think it would have worked better it they took the riff and played it with a normal cello with some horns and percussion instead

I can see that cello riff getting a little tiring over a few movies, dunno. They might need to change that up with - as you say - other instruments. Some kind of a new sound. The length of the riff itself is also pretty short, so hopefully that won't dictate the length/beats of any given battle or fight scene.

Definitely hear you regarding the soldiers stopping hostilities when Ares dies. The best explanation I have heard is that the soldiers are relieved that the huge battle they were witnessing was over, and they just got a 'sense' that hostilities should end. Maybe Ares influence wasn't absolute, but it was enough to cause relief of some kind when that influence was gone.

Put another way, as Diana says "But then I glimpsed the darkness that lives within their light. And learned that inside every one of them, there will always be both."

With this in mind (men will always have a dark side) Ares influence was a tipping point perhaps that pushed them into the idea of war. The death of Ares may have removed that small but important influence.

We're not meant to think this means the end of all war for all time. We know there was a world war 2, and all the other conflicts that happened after Ares was destroyed.
 
gal-gadot-wonder-woman-walking-up.gif


The entire setup and execution of this scene was pitch perfect, couldn't believe when I read it was almost cut.

I thought this was going to a much better scene from all the hype it got. I found it lacking. It should have been one of those rise up and cheer moments. It was just meh to me.

That third act was one of the worst I can remember. 6-7/10 for me.
 

Maddness

Member
I loved the movie until this exact scene.


and that part to me seemed so bad because it just seemed like she was sliding everywhere that it brought the movie down for me a bit. Plus I didn't really enjoy most of the fight with Ares.

Other than that it was awesome.
 

Ri'Orius

Member
The last 30 minutes or so completely ruined the movie for me. It went from interesting, somewhat grounded superhero film to a predictable bore-fest.

Thematically, it felt completely out of whack, too. Diana is trying to protect humanity from some great evil, but is slowly learning that humanity is it's own worst enemy sometimes, but fighting for what is right is what being a hero is about, etc. etc. Just kidding, humanity are just some pawns in some silly comic book god war. I don't know why I expected more from a DC movie, but the first 2/3rds really lulled me into a false sense of narrative hope.

Should've ended right when she killed the general with Steve leaving to save the Allies from a chemical weapons attack. That would've been great. I'll just pretend that's what happened.

See, the thing that gets me is that she's defeating the god that's been manipulating humans into going to war for centuries... in World War I.

Like, if you'd set in in WWII it could maybe make sense. That seems like it was kind of "peak war," historically speaking. But the idea that Ares was behind WW1 and then twenty years later it happens again, bigger and badder but free from Ares' influence is just... what?
 

GhaleonEB

Member
I loved the movie until this exact scene.

and that part to me seemed so bad because it just seemed like she was sliding everywhere that it brought the movie down for me a bit. Plus I didn't really enjoy most of the fight with Ares.

Other than that it was awesome.

Heh. I thought it was an absolute highlight of the film. Intensely emotional moment, visually gorgeous, interesting stuff happening with the story (Diane unleasing her full powers in an uncontrolled fit of rage and it's scary as hell). I have some quibbles with the 3rd act, but I love how the Ares fight plays out. Great, layered story telling going on throughout it.
 
See, the thing that gets me is that she's defeating the god that's been manipulating humans into going to war for centuries... in World War I.

Like, if you'd set in in WWII it could maybe make sense. That seems like it was kind of "peak war," historically speaking. But the idea that Ares was behind WW1 and then twenty years later it happens again, bigger and badder but free from Ares' influence is just... what?

The point is that Ares hasn't actually manipulated them into doing anything, all he does is give humanity's worst inspiration for weapons and strategies. The armistice he's been setting up to cause WWII (which, mind, presumably goes through) is implied to be the first time he's taken a direct role in anything.
 

Brakke

Banned
The extent to which the movie just re-skins Captain America 1 is bananas.

A handsome man named Chris plays a man named Steve who sacrifices himself to destroy a superweapon-carrying quasi-Nazi plane.

WW really didn't need to kill that church, either. Superheroes gotta get their collateral damage in check.

I thought the movie was trying to have it's cake and eat it when the soldiers stopped fighting when Ares dyed

Yeh the end was a mess. Tried to make this whole thing about how evil is in the hearts of men and there's no monster you can slay to end war and whatever. But then WW slays a monster and immediately ends a war and here's all these villainous Germans just giving up the fight right there on the tarmac.
 

Shaanyboi

Banned
See, the thing that gets me is that she's defeating the god that's been manipulating humans into going to war for centuries... in World War I.

Like, if you'd set in in WWII it could maybe make sense. That seems like it was kind of "peak war," historically speaking. But the idea that Ares was behind WW1 and then twenty years later it happens again, bigger and badder but free from Ares' influence is just... what?

World War 1 was pretty fucking horrible, dude....
 

DeathyBoy

Banned
See, the thing that gets me is that she's defeating the god that's been manipulating humans into going to war for centuries... in World War I.

Like, if you'd set in in WWII it could maybe make sense. That seems like it was kind of "peak war," historically speaking. But the idea that Ares was behind WW1 and then twenty years later it happens again, bigger and badder but free from Ares' influence is just... what?

I never understood this complaint because...

We DID have WW2 in our reality. And Vietnam. And two Gulf Wars. And a Cold War. And the War on terror.

So how is it so hard for people to believe those wars would still happen in the DCEU?
 

Ultimadrago

Member
I recently watched the film and came away almost laughing at how bad/average it was outside of a few combat scenarios. I heard good things, but perhaps they were relative to recent DC film receptions?

Gal Gadot's wasn't a great presence either, though perhaps with a much better script and direction this could be improved. I haven't really seen her in enough to make a judgement there.
 

BioFan

Member
If this was MCU I think I'd have it 8th or 9th best. Just above Cap 1.

I wouldn't put it above Cap 1...cos the final battle is terrible. WW has some better moments than Cap 1 for sure (themiscyra scene, no man's land), but I felt the movie takes a lot of notes from Cap 1 (and Reeve's Superman). I feel WW is Captain America : the Peggy Carter, if Peggy Carter were the one who becomes Capt America but Steve is still the one who sacrificed himself at the end. It could have been better but the last scene is too stupid. Red Skull is better than Ares!
I honestly don't get the hype WW is receiving...it IS the best DCEU movie but just a good movie overall.
I'm a huge JL Animated series fan, am I the only one who doesn't see Gal as Diana? She is a good Wonder Woman but she is no Diana...
 

Aselith

Member
The extent to which the movie just re-skins Captain America 1 is bananas.

A handsome man named Chris plays a man named Steve who sacrifices himself to destroy a superweapon-carrying quasi-Nazi plane.

Whoa, yeah, one plot beat. That shit bananas, I hope they gave the CA writers a credit!
 
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