I’m well overdue for this, but it’s finally time for me to talk about the Wonder Woman movie! I saw it about a week and a half ago after 3 previous failed attempts to see it, so it was an ordeal. But it was well worth it because I had a blast.
Themyscira was absolutely gorgeous. I was blown away by how incredible it looked. Honestly that alone was enough to make my eyes water just a bit. And I actually had a tear or two roll out of my eye at the scene where Diana stormed the Front. It wasn’t the first time we’d seen her fight, but it was her very first battle outside of Themyscira–her first stand and action as “Wonder Woman”. It was amazing and it made me emotional.
There’s a lot to be said about the interactions between Steve Trevor and Diana. I’ve always felt that Steve Trevor is a very… risky character. At this point in time it’s such a sexist, trope-ish relationship setup. Just the whole “he’s the first man this woman has ever met so she’s automatically going to fall in love with him” scenario. And it’s so easy to make his character into this blowhard jerk. Which is exactly what Joss Whedon did in his scrapped 2006 script for a WW movie
I feel like this one paragraph has it all–calling a woman delusional, insinuating that she causes her own problems, the hardcore objectification, and blaming her for his feelings. Like holy shit it’s almost impressive how bad this was. But seeing this helps to contrast what we almost got with what we did get. And what we did get was pretty darn good.
There were things like innuendos between Steve and Diana, but they weren’t really at Diana’s expense. The movie did a good job of making Steve likable, and the interactions between him and Diana enjoyable. Yes, Steve did have to semi-babysit Diana while in London, and he had to teach her so much about the world outside of Themyscira. But again, the movie handled these very easily shitty stock situations quite well. Like, in London, I felt that the butt of the joke of Diana’s inability to understand how women were expected to act was on the society, not on Diana. When a room full of powerful, influential men got flabbergasted and incensed because a woman walked in, we were laughing at them, not at her.
Out at the war, Diana was naive. She didn’t understand things, and Steve did. However, Diana was still the hero. She still stormed the front. She did what everyone believed to be impossible. She inspired everyone around her, including Steve. And Steve? For all his measured, worldly knowledge and wisdom, still made mistakes. Like yeah, of course Steve was going to stop Diana when she tried to kill a general during a dinner party right before the war was about to be negotiated to a close. Of course he stopped her from acting recklessly without understanding what the consequences of her actions would be. And what happened? An entire village of people was needlessly slaughtered for it. The takeaway from that whole scene wasn’t, “Jeez Diana stop being so stupid and just listen to what the man tells you, okay?” It was a complicated situation where no matter what happened it was going to be bad. So even though we still had the clash between Steve’s mature understanding of the world and Diana’s naive one, it was still framed in a way that kept them as equals, rather than shoving Diana down to build up Steve.
It might just be because I’m biased, but this was possibly the only time that I didn’t feel that a villain saying to the hero “hey you should join me we should totally work together to kill all humans or whatever” was completely stupid. I liked that they went with the “Diana is a demigod” origin for her, since it worked for this (human people going “all humans should die” is ~edgy~ but literal gods debating it is another matter). And it worked well with Diana’s established character history in the film. She was raised in an isolated utopian society were she, for the most part, was taught that men were good. They were wise and gentle, and it was only through the treachery of Ares that these good men did evil. Diana was virtuous, noble, and courageous, and she believed that mankind was too.
Ares barely had to do a thing because mankind committed their atrocities all on their own. So when it finally became clear to her how wrong she had been, she was understandably devastated.
And Ares wanted to do something about it. He didn’t seek to destroy mankind because he was evil. He sought to destroy mankind because they were evil. So, in that moment, I felt his offer to Diana. His offer to Diana didn’t try to appeal to greed or a desire for power. It appealed to her sense of justice. To simply continue doing what she’s been doing–destroying evil so that good can prosper. Starting over so that the world could actually be a utopia, free from the selfish, callous, and hateful cruelty of mankind. But of course, what made Diana the hero was the fact that she could still see the good in mankind, where Ares couldn’t. That inability to accept the existence of a world of grey was what made Ares the villain. So I really liked that Ares tried to get Diana to join him. It was an offer that was noble in intent but absolutely evil all the same, which is what a lot of the bad in the world is like. But Diana rose above that and overall I thought the whole journey was a great way to develop her character.
Finally, there was one issue I took with the movie tho. Ares in the flashback. They didn’t need have David Thewlis play Ares in the brief flashback too–after he was defeated and cast down by Zeus. Ares has always been able to change his form so there’s no reason as to why they needed to have him be a pale British man in his 50s with a stupid 1910s-style English mustache. Why not also have Zeus be played by Mr. Bean or John Cleese while they’re at it?
Aside from that 3 second noticeable error in judgement, I enjoyed the movie a lot and thought they did a good job on pretty much every front. With any luck I’ll have a chance to watch it a second time this summer!
Cheloneuniverse 