Wonder Woman

[thegatorgirl00 she/her]

Did anyone else make the Diana as a Windrunner connection? Near the beginning, she says 'I am wiling to fight for those who cannot fight for themselves.' It's not the exact words Kaladin uses, but the meaning behind them is the same, and that's what matters. 

At the end

Spoiler

When she doesn't kill a helpless Doctor Poison, she seems to e coming to the realization about the next ideal and protecting those you hate, as long as it is right. 

 

[Iarwainiel I she/her]

On 6/19/2017 at 8:53 AM, thegatorgirl00 said:

Did anyone else make the Diana as a Windrunner connection? Near the beginning, she says 'I am wiling to fight for those who cannot fight for themselves.' It's not the exact words Kaladin uses, but the meaning behind them is the same, and that's what matters. 

At the end

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When she doesn't kill a helpless Doctor Poison, she seems to e coming to the realization about the next ideal and protecting those you hate, as long as it is right. 

 

Have an up-vote, GatorGirl! I noticed the first one, but not the second one.

Also, when Hippolyta says something to the effect that "wars don't make heroes," I immediately thought that Mad Ben Styke (from Brian McClellan's Sins of Empire) might disagree. :-)

The lump in my throat when WW climbs out of those trenches and into no-man's-land is exactly the same as the one I get reading about Bridge 4 and the Battle of the Tower.

This is such a great movie!!

Edited June 21, 2017 by old aggie
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[Retsam]

I saw Wonder Woman and thought it good, not great.

I don't think the movie did as well at averting the "evil Germans" trope as they could have.  The film pays some lip-service to the idea that WWI was a pretty grey on grey war... but that only goes so far when you've got the German leadership giggling over the deadly toxins they're inventing to bomb London with, while on the trenches they're apparently doing horrible things to the towns they occupy.  We have to stop the war because it's costing "thousands of German lives" is "we need to stop the war because we're losing" not "because it's a tragic waste of human lives".  And even the framing of that scene: the British leadership meets in a well-lit council chamber, while the German leadership is meeting in a dark castle basement.  

It kinda felt like they were trying to have their cake and eat it too: trying to realistically portray WWI as a tragic conflict in which there really weren't good guys and bad guys... but still have scenes where Wonder Woman got to punch "bad guys".  The running across the trench scene and the following village scene really didn't work for me, because it felt like the movie celebrated it as some heroic victory, but the reality is that trench lines shifted back and forth all the time, and that having the people in the village cheer over some Germans getting killed, despite that their village was still ruined, they probably still didn't have any food and they were still in the middle of warzone... it just didn't work for me.  

And, the movie just gave me a bit of deja vu.  Stop me if you've heard this one before:

Spoiler

It's a movie in about an inherently noble and idealistic superhero, armed with a shield, fighting against Germans in a World War with a ragtag band of misfits at their side, ending in a scene in which someone named Steve makes a heroic sacrifice to bring down a plane that's en route to bomb a major city, with the whole movie serving as the direct lead-in to a big superhero ensemble film set in the present day.  

I'm not try to say the Wonder Woman film is a clone of Captain America film, there's some pretty big differences in tone and such, but the similarity still was a bit uncanny.  

So, yeah, a decent movie.  Stacks up against some of the Marvel superhero films (which, as far as I can tell, hasn't happened since the Dark Knight), but it's not near the top of the list for me, personally.  

[Iarwainiel I she/her]

@Retsam - Your post brings up a couple great points and, though I personally loved the movie, I've also enjoyed pondering what you wrote.

First, re: the name "Steve" - We know that both characters had that name in the original comics, so there's the source. But why might they have had the same name? As my moniker implies, I'm a tad older than most Sharders (I think). Back in the post-WWII baby boom, closer to when the original comics would have been created, parents in that "Greatest Generation" were strangely non-creative when it came to naming their children. Among the 15 girls in my first grade class, there were 5 Debbies, 3 Susies, and 2 Kathys. It was the same for boys: 3 Daves, 3 Mikes, 2 Jimmys, 2 Johnnys ... you get the idea. So having 2 "Steves" would have been seen as normal, not copy-cat at all. It might have even seemed "organized" to people - that someone with the name "Steve" would be a herioc figure. This might make an interesting sociological study, if anyone's looking for a topic for a dissertation or thesis.

Another potential topic for those endeavors, for someone studying culture or literature, would be the similarities and differences between historical fiction, historical fantasy, alternate history, fantasy/fiction with historical elements, etc. These are all distinct sub-genres, and they all scratch a different itch, so to speak - some will find one more satisfying, others another. It's almost like moviemakers need to let audiences know which sub-genre a movie is in, to set expectations right. IMO, "Wonder Woman" is closer to the last group I mentioned, fantasy with historical elements. It's certainly not an alternate history, or even really historical fantasy - it's much less related to real history than even the first Captain America movie was.

Thanks for your thought-provoking ideas, Retsam!