So, apparently WW is pretty good.

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

Spoiler

Yes, it's Erich Ludendorff, actual real life WW1 general. Although he's not so much the head of an evil subfaction as he is just the only German general willing to go to any lengths to win the war. He's more just a rogue element in the German army. It's not quite a sharp and in some ways troubling divide as between the Nazis and Hydra.

That said, while the name is the same and their attitudes and philosophies towards war are the pretty much the same, there are some key differences between WW Ludendorff and real Ludendorff, chief among them WW Ludendorff lacking a sweet 'stache.

You also forgot that he takes magic Ancient Greek crack to get shitty super powers. That was just so pointless. They didn't go anywhere with that. He lasted a full 2 seconds against Wonder Woman. If they wanted him to seem to be Ares they should have just made him glorify war and be an asshole period.

Spoiler

For my money the magic crack, which you'd honestly think he'd be handing out to all his boys, just made a man already teetering on the edge jump straight off it. My low point is still that fucking evil laugh he and Poison do after knocking of a room full of German generals (which very strangely goes unremarked at a function where they were undoubtedly expected to appear): seriously scene needs cut

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Spoiler

Yes, it's Erich Ludendorff, actual real life WW1 general. Although he's not so much the head of an evil subfaction as he is just the only German general willing to go to any lengths to win the war. He's more just a rogue element in the German army. It's not quite a sharp and in some ways troubling divide as between the Nazis and Hydra.

That said, while the name is the same and their attitudes and philosophies towards war are the pretty much the same, there are some key differences between WW Ludendorff and real Ludendorff, chief among them WW Ludendorff lacking a sweet 'stache.

You also forgot that he takes magic Ancient Greek crack to get shitty super powers. That was just so pointless. They didn't go anywhere with that. He lasted a full 2 seconds against Wonder Woman. If they wanted him to seem to be Ares they should have just made him glorify war and be an asshole period.

Spoiler

For my money the magic crack, which you'd honestly think he'd be handing out to all his boys, just made a man already teetering on the edge jump straight off it. My low point is still that fucking evil laugh he and Poison do after knocking of a room full of German generals (which very strangely goes unremarked at a function where they were undoubtedly expected to appear): seriously scene needs cut

It wasn't even a laugh, more of a giggle. Which is why it was so out if place.

Honestly there is almost nothing good about the villains in this movie. Good for them that the movie is more about Wonder Woman's character development than anything else.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

I watched it!

It was good!

Spoiler: Mostly!

I didn't like Ares. I thought the twist in the third act was nice, playing around with Diana's expectations of how war works, and having her realise that humans just do this to one another, without needing an evil force behind it. Then A.K.Ares shows up and I'm like, well that's cool enough, turns out he was masquerading as one of the armistice negotiators (which is really clever when you think about the eventual consequences of the armistice...) and he gives this villainous speech, but...

...he has...

...a moustache...

I can't take Ares seriously! He looks like a math teacher! He's sitting there in his big suit of god-armour, his helmet just got knocked off, he's talking about how humans are bastards and all I'm hearing is OKAY KIDS THIS IS HOW CALCULUS WORKS

Can't he have thrown off the disguise and revealed his true form? I mean, even when he's all armoured up in shrapnel-armour (liked that btw) you can STILL SEE the moustache behind his helmet. And his voice never reaches the point where I actually got intimidated by him. He just pops up, goes "I am dramatically revealing my true identity!" and then he's floating around hurling thunderbolts like a tweedy little wizard.

And he still has the moustache in the flashback to Ancient Greece after he got struck down! That is period-inaccurate facial hair! GROW A BEARD ARES

CHRIST

But yeah, the rest of it was good. Gal Gadot does a surprisingly strong performance. Chris Pine proves that he's often underrated, yet again. Dr. Poison is a surprisingly nuanced villain; I'd like to see her reappear...somehow...well, probably not, but I liked her. The fight scenes were great, but used slow-mo a little too excessively. Everything else...works pretty well, not exceptionally well, I didn't have my mind blown or anything, but I left thinking "That was a pretty good movie!" It aims lower than Batman v Superman did, but it has the advantage of actually hitting the mark, unlike Batman v Superman.

It wasn't even a laugh, more of a giggle. Which is why it was so out if place.

I really liked that giggle...

I mean, villains like to make a joke once in a while. I liked it; it was charming in a very disturbing way.

Was there anything of this movie that confirms all those rumors that the movie is a mess?

Nope. If there was trouble behind the scenes, it doesn't show.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

Pretty good film overall, though it lacks that one special aspect that could skyrocket it into outright classic territory like Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy. The obvious has already been said, so I have some other thoughts:

-Steve's entourage are a neat little encapsulation of various flaws of mankind, the war, and the values of the early twentieth century. Sameer wanted to be an actor, but was discriminated against solely due to his race in spite of his talent. Charlie suffers from PTSD which was an infliction that was newly diagnosed at the time, and Chief profits from both sides and does so with a clear conscience due to the horrors his own people suffered from Europeans and Americans.

-Speaking of which, kudos for the writers for making Steve useful for the first time in a goddamned age.

-The film interestingly enough gives some retroactive insight to Diana in BvS (though it doesn't make BvS a better movie). Heck, you can tell she so got her battle grin during the Doomsday fight from Antiope.

-DC needs to make Themyscira a mainstay in the verse and not just because it's just gorgeous from a design perspective (shooting in Italy does wonders for scenery) but because the lore stuff with the Amazons and the Gods was really interesting and I want to see more of it. Speaking of which...

-In terms of sequels I'd double down on the Classical mythology angle. Seriously, have Diana do some Jason and the Argonauts/Clash of the Titans stuff and deal with ancient monsters or magical threats

-Which could also lead into some concepts for Justice League Dark or Shazam!/Black Adam.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

-DC needs to make Themyscira a mainstay in the verse and not just because it's just gorgeous from a design perspective (shooting in Italy does wonders for scenery) but because the lore stuff with the Amazons and the Gods was really interesting and I want to see more of it. Speaking of which...

If you pay attention to the JL trailer, you can see that the Amazons go to war against Darkseid parademons. Although that could be in the past, I like to think that the invasion of Earth will be the last straw, and Hippolyta finally unleashes her army of warriors who have been training for thousands of years and each and every one of them is in their prime.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

-In terms of sequels I'd double down on the Classical mythology angle. Seriously, have Diana do some Jason and the Argonauts/Clash of the Titans stuff and deal with ancient monsters or magical threats

I would say to look at Azzarello's run for ideas, but...

Spoiler

Hippolyta mentions that Ares killed the rest of the Greek pantheon single-handedly, so presumably they can't appear.

There are still things they can do with a kind of urban fantasy vibe, either with Greek mythological creatures, the Titans (Typhon is a solid "generic world-destroyer bad guy" enemy idea), or maybe the Furies. The Greek Furies, not Darkseid's Furies.

Actually, now that I think about it, they'd almost certainly do something with Circe. She's the closest thing Wonder Woman has to a decent archnemesis once Ares is out of the picture.

 

[happyninja42]

-In terms of sequels I'd double down on the Classical mythology angle. Seriously, have Diana do some Jason and the Argonauts/Clash of the Titans stuff and deal with ancient monsters or magical threats

I would say to look at Azzarello's run for ideas, but...

Spoiler

Hippolyta mentions that Ares killed the rest of the Greek pantheon single-handedly, so presumably they can't appear.

There are still things they can do with a kind of urban fantasy vibe, either with Greek mythological creatures, the Titans (Typhon is a solid "generic world-destroyer bad guy" enemy idea), or maybe the Furies. The Greek Furies, not Darkseid's Furies.

Actually, now that I think about it, they'd almost certainly do something with Circe. She's the closest thing Wonder Woman has to a decent archnemesis once Ares is out of the picture.

Not to mention this is Comic Book Logic, which means that death is as serious as a mild cold for most people. The fact that anyone has been killed means nothing. They can always come back later. So yeah, I wouldn't really worry much about things like "They can't do *Insert Plot Idea* because *Insert Character* is already dead" That's never been a problem for comics in the past, and I doubt it will be an issue in the movie universe either.

 

[happyninja42]

I'd kill to see a live action version of the Medusa fight (I think it was new 52?) Where Medusa was threatening to broadcast her gaze over live TV and petrify millions of people

So wonder woman blinds herself and beats the shit out of her

Given the super hearing and super senses of most of the DC heroes, that's actually not that big of a handicap. They could just close their eyes, and likely still know exactly where she is, and just beat her senseless

 

[McMarbles]

I can confirm that Wonder Woman is, indeed, good.

 

[Elijin]

I felt like the scenes were out of sequence when...

Spoiler

Steve is telling the others about how she's looking to fight Ares because she's an Amazon who was made from clay and stopping him will stop all war, only for chief and the others to go 'Well, that just sounds crazy.'

This scene should have happened BEFORE Veld. As it was, they had just watched her break a trenchwar deadlock by walking at it while deflecting bullets. Her feats included leaping over buildings and throwing an APC across the town square. An APC which took 3 of them to carry the steel door which she ripped off single handedly.

But her talking about the greek gods is crazy at that point? I imagine they'd believe almost anything in that post-battle high.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

There are still things they can do with a kind of urban fantasy vibe, either with Greek mythological creatures, the Titans (Typhon is a solid "generic world-destroyer bad guy" enemy idea), or maybe the Furies. The Greek Furies, not Darkseid's Furies.

Actually, now that I think about it, they'd almost certainly do something with Circe. She's the closest thing Wonder Woman has to a decent archnemesis once Ares is out of the picture.

I wouldn't even say urban fantasy, just go straight Greek Epic like Clash of the Titans or Jason and the Argonauts with Wonder Woman fighting off mythical threats and deal with the last vestiges of the old world. It's an excuse to have a juxtaposition of the modern world against the ancient world and maybe have Diana go to exotic locations. You could even use it to introduce concepts that could be central to Shazam, Black Adam, and even Justice League Dark.

 

[happyninja42]

I felt like the scenes were out of sequence when...

Spoiler

Steve is telling the others about how she's looking to fight Ares because she's an Amazon who was made from clay and stopping him will stop all war, only for chief and the others to go 'Well, that just sounds crazy.'

This scene should have happened BEFORE Veld. As it was, they had just watched her break a trenchwar deadlock by walking at it while deflecting bullets. Her feats included leaping over buildings and throwing an APC across the town square. An APC which took 3 of them to carry the steel door which she ripped off single handedly.

But her talking about the greek gods is crazy at that point? I imagine they'd believe almost anything in that post-battle high.

I think you forget that one of that group said exactly what he said. "Based on what we just saw her do, maybe it's not bullshit."

Besides, the truly skeptical don't just make assumptions. Just because she shows an unusually high level of strength, doesn't mean she's a literal god, or that gods are real. I mean,

Spoiler

Dr. Poison made up a gas that gave a regular human super strength and endurance, we see him sniff that stuff a lot in the movie. For all they know, she's something like that. Some kind of super soldier program, who is also just a bit crazy obsessed with Greek Mythology. Because nothing that she did was completely outside the realm of human ability. At that point anyway. She wasn't shooting lightning bolts out of her hands (yet), she wasn't flying through the air, or anything completely impossible to normal humans. She was essentially an uber-human, in her capabilities. So while they would be more than happy to acknowledge that she was incredibly powerful, that doesn't automatically lead to the conclusion of "Plus she's a Greek God, and God Killer herself." That's a lot of unverified baggage tagged onto the end of what she did, that isn't necessarily justified by the evidence.

 

[Elijin]

I felt like the scenes were out of sequence when...

Spoiler

Steve is telling the others about how she's looking to fight Ares because she's an Amazon who was made from clay and stopping him will stop all war, only for chief and the others to go 'Well, that just sounds crazy.'

This scene should have happened BEFORE Veld. As it was, they had just watched her break a trenchwar deadlock by walking at it while deflecting bullets. Her feats included leaping over buildings and throwing an APC across the town square. An APC which took 3 of them to carry the steel door which she ripped off single handedly.

But her talking about the greek gods is crazy at that point? I imagine they'd believe almost anything in that post-battle high.

I think you forget that one of that group said exactly what he said. "Based on what we just saw her do, maybe it's not bullshit."

Besides, the truly skeptical don't just make assumptions. Just because she shows an unusually high level of strength, doesn't mean she's a literal god, or that gods are real. I mean,

Spoiler

Dr. Poison made up a gas that gave a regular human super strength and endurance, we see him sniff that stuff a lot in the movie. For all they know, she's something like that. Some kind of super soldier program, who is also just a bit crazy obsessed with Greek Mythology. Because nothing that she did was completely outside the realm of human ability. At that point anyway. She wasn't shooting lightning bolts out of her hands (yet), she wasn't flying through the air, or anything completely impossible to normal humans. She was essentially an uber-human, in her capabilities. So while they would be more than happy to acknowledge that she was incredibly powerful, that doesn't automatically lead to the conclusion of "Plus she's a Greek God, and God Killer herself." That's a lot of unverified baggage tagged onto the end of what she did, that isn't necessarily justified by the evidence.

Welll

Spoiler

I'm not saying they'd accept she was a god, which doesn't matter as that wasnt on the table at the time. Im saying they'd accept she was an Amazon, creature of myth. And accept she believed what she said, even if the god part wasn't something they could get behind. Like steve, I guess.

Also worth noting that the super soldier pills weren't in play, so doesnt lend credibility one way or another (and were a result of a god tampering with mankind)

I really respect the depiction of war though. Made me think of how in cap A first avenger everything was upbeat, they always seemed to have the upper hand and it just seemed too....pleasant.


Edit: my phone was having no part of spoiler tags sorry about that.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Spoiler: Mostly!

I didn't like Ares. I thought the twist in the third act was nice, playing around with Diana's expectations of how war works, and having her realise that humans just do this to one another, without needing an evil force behind it. Then A.K.Ares shows up and I'm like, well that's cool enough, turns out he was masquerading as one of the armistice negotiators (which is really clever when you think about the eventual consequences of the armistice...) and he gives this villainous speech, but...

...he has...

...a moustache...

I can't take Ares seriously! He looks like a math teacher! He's sitting there in his big suit of god-armour, his helmet just got knocked off, he's talking about how humans are bastards and all I'm hearing is OKAY KIDS THIS IS HOW CALCULUS WORKS

Can't he have thrown off the disguise and revealed his true form? I mean, even when he's all armoured up in shrapnel-armour (liked that btw) you can STILL SEE the moustache behind his helmet. And his voice never reaches the point where I actually got intimidated by him. He just pops up, goes "I am dramatically revealing my true identity!" and then he's floating around hurling thunderbolts like a tweedy little wizard.

And he still has the moustache in the flashback to Ancient Greece after he got struck down! That is period-inaccurate facial hair! GROW A BEARD ARES

CHRIST

Spoiler

I've enjoyed David Thewlis since seeing him in the nihilistic little British film "Naked" many, many years ago. Seeing an actor best known for playing a nebbishy little twerp stomping around as the literal God of Wars was so flagrantly absurd it was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud.

 

[happyninja42]

Welll

Spoiler

I'm not saying they'd accept she was a god, which doesn't matter as that wasnt on the table at the time. Im saying they'd accept she was an Amazon, creature of myth. And accept she believed what she said, even if the god part wasn't something they could get behind. Like steve, I guess.

Spoiler

I'm not sure they ever accepted she was "a creature of myth". She said she lived on an island, and they call themselves the Amazons. Considering there is the Amazon jungle, and you could technically call the people who live there Amazons, it's not that far of a stretch. They never react in any way like they believe she is somehow mythical. Their reaction seemed more to me like your typical "ok, she's a weird foreigner lady, but whatever, I don't really care." I mean, I knew a guy who thought he could communicate with angels, and while I humored him when he spoke, it doesn't mean I believed him. And if that same guy, suddenly started jumping 30 feet through the air, tossing tanks, and blocking bullets, while I would be shocked as fuck by his abilities, it wouldn't make me think he was actually talking to angels. The two things aren't connected. And accepting that she believes what she said also isn't that big a stretch. Again, my angel talking companion truly believed it, and I didn't question his belief, that doesn't mean I believed him though.

The only one of them that was actually buying her story (at least partially), was Steve. Because he had seen far more things that were unexplainable than they had. The stuff with the mist shield over the island, feeling the lasso of truth forcibly punishing him if he tried to lie, etc. The others, just saw a gorgeous woman, who acts a bit weird, do some physically incredible things.

Now, if they still were skeptical after seeing her float in the air, battling a guy who summoned metal to his body, and shoot lightning from her hands....well they'd still be acting appropriately, because it could just be someone like Superman, who is just simply an alien, and not a god. Sadly those lines get so easily blurred in DC, that "sufficiently advance technology viewed as magic" is par for the course for the setting.

 

[KissingSunlight]

This was the safest and most derivative Post-Dark Knight DC movie. I didn't hate it. I just got a feeling that there was a smarter and edgier draft of this movie that they didn't film. At least, the other movies had something interesting. This one had nothing challenging about it like Man of Steel or interesting characters like Suicide Squad. Here's hoping that Justice League would provide something interesting later this year.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

I'd kill to see a live action version of the Medusa fight (I think it was new 52?) Where Medusa was threatening to broadcast her gaze over live TV and petrify millions of people

So wonder woman blinds herself and beats the shit out of her

I never read that comic but now I really want to.

Given the super hearing and super senses of most of the DC heroes, that's actually not that big of a handicap. They could just close their eyes, and likely still know exactly where she is, and just beat her senseless

Super-senses is actually one of the few powers Wonder Woman has never been depicted having, to my knowledge.They're iffy on whether she can fly, whether she's bulletproof, whether she can actually do magic, but she's never seen doing the super-hearing thing that Superman can do. Along with heat/x-ray vision, that's been one of Superman's proprietary schticks.

I'd still be impressed if I saw Wonder Woman beat up a guy with her eyes closed. Oddly, I'd be more impressed than if I saw Batman do it, because I just kind of assume that fighting blind is one of those things Batman can do, along with judo and DDR. [http://pre08.deviantart.net/456f/th/pre/i/2010/244/1/4/batman_ddr_by_itswalky-d2xtnrr.jpg]

Spoiler

I've enjoyed David Thewlis since seeing him in the nihilistic little British film "Naked" many, many years ago. Seeing an actor best known for playing a nebbishy little twerp stomping around as the literal God of Wars was so flagrantly absurd it was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud.

Spoiler: It's like...

Spoiler: this guy...

Spoiler: ...is also this guy?

Nup. Nope. Not seeing it.

Worst casting choice in the entire DCEU, if you ask me.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

I really respect the depiction of war though. Made me think of how in cap A first avenger everything was upbeat, they always seemed to have the upper hand and it just seemed too....pleasant.

Wonder Woman actually makes the first Captain America film look almost...insensitive, in retrospect. Like, Captain America is fighting in WW2, but there's no sign of the extermination camps or roving death squads. No Jewish refugees, half-starved and looking for lost family. No trenches filled with bodies. No comfort women. It's like he's fighting some sanitised, parallel war. He's not even fighting real Nazis; he's fighting some weird Nazi octopus science cult.

Whereas Wonder Woman, she comes off as even more innocent and naive than Captain America ever was, but as soon as they arrive in France she's walking past all the human shrapnel left in the wake of a world war, and Steve Trevor almost has to grab her and haul her along saying we can't help them right now, and that's the most heartbreaking part of it. This is a literal demigod, a lady who can bench-press a tank, and she's looking at a guy with no legs and processing the fact that there is just nothing she can do.

Spoiler: Off-topic segue!

That's what I think Snyder was trying to do with Superman, but he never quite pulled it off. The elements were there, but the tone and the context were all over the place. In Man of Steel, Superman goes from having obliterated half the city and killed the last surviving member of his race to quipping alongside a general and going to work at the Daily Planet. Even in BvS, it's like he never seems to care about the collateral damage. The closest he gets is feeling a little mopey over a bomb going off in his face, which was 100% not his fault. Batman is driven to the point of madness by the loss of life in Metropolis, but all Superman can do is go "we gotta save my mother, Bruce!"

Why, Superman? Why do you only seem to care about Lois and your mother? He never visits the graves of the tens of thousands of people who died while he was fighting Zod. He never seems to acknowledge the moral quandary that maybe if he bursts over to Africa and maims a militia warlord, then later a rival militia will come in and slaughter all the people in the camps that warlord was protecting. He never looks at a person dying of cancer and says "Wow. I can't cure that with punches."

There's some legitimately interesting moral questions implied by the existence of superheroes that the Marvel films never really address. I feel like the DC films have always been trying to address those questions, particularly in BvS. We've got a Superman who receives as much criticism as he does praise whenever he intervenes to save someone from something. We've got a Batman who has been emotionally eviscerated by two decades of crimefighting that left him with nothing but dead friends and scars. But BvS just never connected the fucking dots, it was as if they wanted us to fill in the blanks there and go "yeah, Superman's totes morally conflicted." And then they start fighting, because Batman hates Superman, I guess, but then they team up because Batman doesn't hate Superman anymore and ultimately it's all Lex Luthor's fault; they just go an arrest him and beat up a giant monster and all is well.

Like, Captain America bugs me in retrospect because it's morally sanitised. BvS bugs me in retrospect because it's dark and gritty but never explains why it's dark and gritty; it's just a bunch of grumpy people punching each other. Wonder Woman finally gets the balance right; it shows you a cynical and depressing look at the nature of human evil and the impotence of any individual to really stop it, but it does so through the lens of a hero who really wants to help people. It's cheesy sometimes, but it's cheesy for a reason. That lady who innocently assumes that men fight wars because of an evil god because they can't be doing this of their own free will - her innocence is necessary in order to highlight just how callous something like industrialised warfare can be.

 

[Veylon]

Whereas Wonder Woman, she comes off as even more innocent and naive than Captain America ever was, but as soon as they arrive in France she's walking past all the human shrapnel left in the wake of a world war, and Steve Trevor almost has to grab her and haul her along saying we can't help them right now, and that's the most heartbreaking part of it. This is a literal demigod, a lady who can bench-press a tank, and she's looking at a guy with no legs and processing the fact that there is just nothing she can do.

I found it rather darkly hilarious that she went straight from recoiling at the horrors of war to giving no quarter to anyone even vaguely in her vicinity.

Moreover, like much of the movie, it doesn't make any sense. She grew up on an island of warriors, not pacifists. She embraced this ethos, seeking out training in how to make people die by the skillful application of specialized killing utensils. She must surely be aware of the concept of inflicting horrible injuries in battle; her chosen vocation in life revolves around it.

If that's not enough, her visit to the trenches isn't even her first rodeo. She took part in the beach battle. She should know what maimed bodies look like; she and her fellow amazons created several literal boatloads of them.