Mixed feelings about wonder woman film. Anyone? Help me feel better about it.

[lindysalsagal]

Ok ok she saves the world and vanquishes the man-god Zeus. Whatever. I was not impressed with their rendering of him, anyway.

Nice few seconds of Chris Pine, though..... Niiiiiiiice. In an innocent way. Relly, relly niiiiiiiice. Rent it and hit the freeze button niiiiiice.

Ok ok she's gorgeous and innocent. OK men cooked up wwI, sure, we knew that.

But she doesn't get all her powers until they hurt her boyfriend...That is when she puts it all into full gear....

Chris Pine's character not allowed to be as comical as usual (not his fault.)Funny snark about men not being needed for bodily pleasures....

The boyfriend does the really selfless thing, good for him, but, would have been better if she had, somehow,,,

I guess I was hoping for something deeper in a comic book: my mistake.

Glad the women weren't objectified by men. Almost no german accents. I like german accents.

Not so glad the evil scientist was a woman....

Not so glad the whole thing was about a goddess instead of a really amazing human woman

Not so glad humans keep using the god paradigm to avoid taking responsibility for themselves and the earth....

Great cgi and artwork. Mediocre standard-issue music.

Anything I'm supposed to feel better about than I do?

[bettyellen]

1. Sadly, I think a lot of it is there are no lingering shots of her inner thighs,

cleavage etc. that's a new thing, right? I kind of feel like grownups are too jaded to get how weird those T&A things are for kids- especially if you're supposed to idolize her.

[Croney]

2. She first crossed her arms on the island.

So she didn't have to do most of the fighting scenes later on, she could have just... crossed her arms. But then we wouldn't have had the same movie! She was immortal, so of course her lover had to die, because he would have grown old and died anyway. I thought maybe they conceived a child, and the woman in modern times was WW's granddaughter. But no, it was still her, being immortal and all.

I saw it a second time with a 12-year-old girl, and she was mesmerized. She loved it. I was happy.

[lindysalsagal]

4. Ok. My daughter loved it. Twice as old.

[Fresh_Start]

3. feel better about it because girls seeing the movie feel better about themselves

not perhaps as good as they would have felt with a Madame President but at least its a small sign of hope for them.

[NewJeffCT]

12. On the TV Show Supergirl

the president is a woman played by none other than Lynda Carter, the best known TV Wonder Woman. (I'd say first, but Cathy Lee Crosby was WW in a TV movie before Carter, if I recall)

[shenmue]

5. That was Ares, not Zeus

Sorry to be picky.

[lindysalsagal]

6. You're right. My bad. Mixing up fake gods.

[Orrex]

11. As opposed to real ones?

[mucifer]

7. It did pass the Bechdel test. A few other thoughts:

I thought it was pretty similar to the male super hero movies.

How could they do the wonder woman movie without her being a goddess if it was in the comic books?

I actually really liked that it was WWI and not WWII.

But, overall I'd say it was pretty good .

[Lotusflower70]

8. Bad ass

I love it because it pisses off Fox news. It adds rebel badaasery to it. It inspires resistance. It shows strength, beauty and intelligence. I love that some weak, whiny snowflakes collectively lost their shit over the women only screening. That was awesome to be surrounded by feminists and comic book fans.

I love that it inspires and excites little girls. Seeing them in their Wonder Woman costumes was a powerful thing. Seeing the pride in their mother's eyes was amazing. These girls can look back on the moment and feel the impact.

I look at it as an important step. There are great superheroes and superheroines. Comic book nerd that I am, I realize you have to have the right mix to translate them onto the big screen. DC comics have great characters and material but the writers and directors fuck them up. Marvel has the formula down to a T. Women get eye candy and some romance. Men get the alpha males and visual appeal. Of course they use humor and action so well. I want it all from the characters. I want intelligence, strength, humor and passion regardless of gender. And of course, the bond is key. The relationships are a guide.

I also love that Wonder Woman has a female director. The script gets flipped. It's a start of moving the superheroine forward and making her more complex. It can't happen all in one movie but it shows the possibilities.

[mythology]

9. Given that she made it to modern day,

and the lesson of Trevor's death was that people have a choice to be good or evil, that it's not predetermined (which was her naive thinking to start), which is the exact opposite of the god paradigm you complain about, it was absolutely the right call to have Trevor sacrifice himself.

As for the evil scientist being a woman, is it the contention that only men can do awful things? History says we are more likely, but it doesn't say women are incapable. Iraq for example during Sadaam's regime had not one, but two women highly involved in their biological/chemical weapons programs.

[Amaryllis]

18. Also the evil scientist was a lesser badass compared to the two guys; the one who was sniffing .

the stuff that turned him super strong and Ares.

And she didnt get all her powers BECAUSE they hurt her boyfriend but because of the insights she put together from what he said right before he left.

And I too liked it the message about choice, and that it's not about whether they deserved to be helped or not; it's about what you believe. And about love.

[alarimer]

10. It was interesting that she could have killed the scientist but chose not to.

Giving her a chance to be something other than evil (or setting up the sequel, LOL?).

Other than that, I thought the hype was overblown. Pretty standard issue super hero movie. The plot was fairly compact and it moved along quite well.

I preferred Guardians of the Galaxy, Part 2 because of the humor (and because of Groot!).

[politicat]

13. I'm glad the chemist was a woman.

I really don't like a reductionist narrative that equates morality with gender. If women are only allowed to be super-competent enablers (Etta), or leaders and badasses (Amazons, Diana)... it's still limiting women's place in the universe. When female characters are written as intelligent, capable, not primarily sex objects or accessories, and both protagonists and antagonists, that's progress.

Doctor Poison, by virtue of being a young woman probably born between 1880 and 1890, certainly had to fight hard to be recognized as a genius chemist -- which she is, without a doubt. In many ways, Poison is a mirror of Diana -- raise a brilliant young woman in dire misogyny, make everything about her looks even when her appearance has nothing to do with her skills, deny her most political and professional power and advancement based solely on her gender, ensure most of the leadership dismisses and insults her, and disconnect her from all social and affectionate potential relationships with a facial injury... Then introduce one unscrupulous person who takes her seriously, values her skills, respects her intellect, displays some cameraderie and affection, and appears to have an honest, supportive (if destructive to others) relationship with her. Voila: misogyny and prejudice nurture a monster. Her conversation with Steve - when he's trying to manipulate Poison by showing interest - is pretty clear that Poison is deeply stung by manipulation. She's had it happen before. She's always been used, and she's done.

I also liked the idea of Ares being a politician who just feeds young lives into war and uses free will as a tool for his end goals rather than being the battlefield general. (Not Zeus, though, and DC definitely adapted the mythos.) He's far more a Rumsfeld, which was refreshing.

As for depth - it's there, but it has to be mined, and that's okay. Comics (and related media) are our contemporary repository for mythic stories and archetypal narratives. There's not a lot of surface-visible depth in Beowulf or Morte d'Arthur or Roland, but we've got whole literature departments that dive deep on those. Most mythic stories appear pretty shallow if you just stumble across them without being academically exposed, but because they've survived centuries, we automatically credit them with depth, then go looking and find it.

My aside: I really want to know what WWII was like for Diana. Having had a few years to absorb and acclimate, it had to be miserable for her. And I'd kill for a cross-universe fiction where Steve Rogers teams up with her. Pairing two idealists with superpowers would be great. They might get each other killed, but they'd die happy, doing what they believe is right.

[Amishman]

14. It's a movie. It's entertaining. That's all it needs.

Not everything has to have a message, let alone a perfect message.

Just take it in and be entertained.

[yurbud]

15. Wonder Woman was always tied to Greek mythology, so any change there would piss off fans

[Dave Starsky]

16. I think your post is a strawman.

I do not care for super hero movies. I think it's a tired and overworked genre. I grew up reading Batman comics. I love that character. And I have watched Batman go, cinematically, from being "The Darknight Detective", on par with Sherlock Holmes, to just another high-tech thug out for revenge. Fuck that. Superman is also now portrayed as an angst-ridden conflicted moron who doesn't know what to do with himself.

This was the first movie I've seen since the 1978 Richard Donner Superman movie that actually conveyed what it means to be a "super hero".

[Coventina]

17. Dr. Poison is a villain from the comic book.

So she wasn't just invented for this movie.

I don't know if that helps at all, but, it excites us nerds.
😀

[lindysalsagal]

19. Then I found this: Kindergardners reacting to the film: Sweet:

"You're right: Wonder Woman was way better than Frozen."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/everyone-needs-to-read-this-list-of-how-kindergarteners-reacted-to-wonder-woman_us_593ea132e4b02402687b2933