Wonder Woman (2017): The Good, The Bad, and the Fixes

All right, let's say this right off the bat. I liked the Wonder Woman movie. I really did. It was fun, it was pretty, it set up a great iteration of the character. But I liked it more for what it represented (a good, female-led superhero action movie) than what it was (a fun way to kill a couple hours).

Did it make me cry?
Yes, but I'm a sleep-deprived feminist.

It had flaws, like everything does, and this is where I'm going to lay out what I personally liked, didn't like, and how I would have changed it.



The Good

1) This is an origin movie where the main character undergoes a realistic shift in perception (from morally simplistic righteous warrior to adult coming to grips with the morally grey reality of the world, without giving up on the pursuit of "good"). This is exactly what a coming-of-age origin story should be, instead of just learning to punch people harder and saving the world from clockwork doom.

And yes, DC did crap out at the last second, but the intention was there.

2) They used actual athletic women for Amazons. This seems like a small point, but it's important. The Amazons are Warrior Women. Warriors and Women come in all different shapes and sizes and colors, and while not all shapes, sizes, and colors were represented here, there was at least some diversity. Aside from the much appreciated racial diversity, it was particularly nice that many of the women who played the Amazons were athletes, not just supermodels. They were martial artists, wrestlers, trainers, Olympians, etc. It's not necessarily obvious when casually watching the movie, but it's something that adds incredible detail and wrenching beauty when you re-watch.

3) In addition, the movie definitely stunning. Although I thought the CGI was a little hit or miss, the scenery, architecture, and costuming for Themyscira were incredible. The costumes certainly had some sex appeal, but they also created strong visual ties to ancient armor styles.

The landscape!

The costumes!

Hilariously (well, it's either laugh or stab someone right now), the Justice League movie missed this point entirely.

Left is from Wonder Woman, right is from Dawn of Justice. Notice anything different?

The Bad

1) As mentioned above, the major problem I have with this movie is that they kind of crapped out on the basic theme (reality doesn't fit into simple good/evil boxes, people are complicated, punching someone doesn't magically fix the world). They set up this idea so beautifully, having Diana quest tirelessly after the paper villains, and setting up a showdown between her and them, only to find that nothing had changed and violence was still inexorably spreading through the world. And then Ares dusts off his evil laugh and shimmies into his evil suit and does the evil stuff. And defeating him fixes everything after all.

2)Also, just to nitpick-

Actually, no, it's not nitpicking, it's pretty major and kind of a weird choice. This movie borrows heavily from Captain America: The First Avenger. Which is kind of a weird choice, considering that movie was...I think the polite term is bland. And it is certainly true that most of these tropes appear in many films. But, you know, recent superhero movie from a rival company...it doesn't look great.

Because really,

• There’s this blond, all-American boy named Steve (who’s played by a guy named Chris).

• And he fights on the front line for America and its allies, although he sometimes disagrees with the big generals in order to protect the troops on the ground.

• At his side in this fight is a band of misfit racial stereotypes who provide support and comedy.

• Sometimes Steve rides a motorcycle into battle.

• And in the end, Steve steals onto an evil German plane filled with super-weapons designed to destroy the American allies. Although Steve manages to take control of the plane, he is forced to destroy the plane at the expense of his own life in order to save the day.

Now, who am I talking about? Steve Rogers or Steve Trevor? It's kind of like they just threw Wonder Woman on top of the Captain America movie.

Fixing the Movie

1) Lose the “daughter of Zeus” angle. It confuses the story, and serves only to bolster DC’s ridiculous and deeply unnecessary ret-con of Diana’s origin. (For those who have no idea what that means: for most of Wonder Woman's history, the authors have stuck with the idea that she was made of clay and given life by the gods. Recently, DC decided that this origin story was actually a lie to cover up the fact that her mom had sex with Zeus. Which is sort of like telling your kid that a stork brought them home to avoid talking about sex. In that it's way more embarrassing when you believe that and tell people about after the age of 6. Pick one origin and stick with it [I scream at DC as it giggles and recreates its entire universe for the bajillionth time]).

2) Lengthen the fight with the evil general. He’s pretty underused and pointless as is, and she kills him easily. If the fight is longer, it becomes the focal fight for the movie as Diana faces the evil that exists in humanity (disguised as the evil of Ares), and it becomes a real stepping stone for Diana’s journey, a momentous fight, a journey to hero-dom and adulthood, but also the last of her righteous blindness (as it was in the movie). This then allows us to circumvent the insanely boring CGI wasteland fight with Sir Morgan/Ares by focusing on a more human opponent, and allows Sir Morgan/Ares to be a more realistic, and surprising villain for the movie. If the General’s fight is longer, the viewers will be more convinced that he is the true villain, and the revelation that he is not Ares is more devastating for Diana, and more likely to tempt her to the dark side when Ares does reveal himself.

3) So instead, Morgan/Ares’s conflict with Diana is a more emotional one. If you need more action, make the battle within the mind, put visions of war and conflict in her mind, maybe make her fight herself or her friends in her mind. If you want to go dark, make her lose hope and attack friends and the Germans that remain, or go after Doctor Poison. BUT DON’T MAKE THE WEIRD BRITISH PROFESSOR GUY PUT ON STUPID VIDEO GAME ARMOR AND START AN UGLY CGI APOCALYPSE. It’s idiotic, boring, predictable, and it undermines the entire point of the movie.

To wit: good and evil resides within all people, and although outside influence can increase the power of one over another, nothing can erase either good or evil within us entirely. NOT: there’s a bad guy, and although he might hide among the good guys, if you can find him and punch him, everything will be fine and everyone will live happily ever after.

Look at this face.

Now look at this end-game armor. Does this look like David Thewlis should be in this armor?

No it does not. No offense to David Thewlis, he's a wonderful actor and I think he can do menacing very well. But the mustache alone disqualifies him from this armor.

But he doesn't have to be the stupid video-game boss. After all this time, Ares isn’t the god of war that goes out and hits people with swords anymore. Maybe he never was. He’s an influencer now, encouraging war because he feeds on conflict. And David Thewlis could have nailed that, given the opportunity for a little more subtlety and a little more face-time.

Also, and this is very important, do not make those f***ers hug at the end of the fight. That random German and the discount Howling Commando? No hugs. Like, maybe they don’t kill each other. That’s fine, we can find a way to stop the big fight another way. But that hug was the final f**k you to the whole point of the movie (you know, that whole good and evil exist simultaneously thing I was just screaming about).

No hugging the Nazis

What you can watch instead (or in addition to!)

Wonder Woman (2009)

Don't run away just because this is an animated movie. You may not have heard about it when it was released, but that's just the way of DC animated features. I swear, it's actually an excellent movie, and it tells much the same story (Ares is making trouble, Steve Trevor shows up on Themyscira, Diana jumps at the chance to leave and put things rights). It's a classic Wonder Woman story, although this one wasn't period and instead exists in the modern day. Honestly, I prefer this one to the 2017 version in many ways, although they both have their pros and cons.





Captain Marvel (2019)

I love this movie too, and I think it provides an interesting corollary to the Wonder Woman franchise. While Wonder Woman is a product of an all-female isolationist country where her powers and sex are celebrated and normal, Captain Marvel is the story of a woman raised in the modern patriarchal US culture. Both are iconic characters, and both provide important viewpoints and storylines. Both are heavyweight characters that will hopefully have a fruitful future in their respective cinematic universes.