My Thoughts on WW84
I watched this movie and I thought that I would share my thoughts with anybody interested in reading. Before I begin, I will start by saying that I did enjoy the movie. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I am easily entertained, but I like to just let myself forget about reality and most movies can do that for me. If you have not seen the movie, I recommend that not read this…
The movie starts out on Themyscira and the first thing that stood out to me was how different and larger the island looked from the first movie… and there seemed be a MUCH larger population of Amazons judging by the crowd in the games being held. There seemed to be a much smaller number of Amazons in the first “Wonder Woman” movie. And then you see a young Diana participating in the games. This seemed odd since she was older when Hippolyta finally gave Antiope permission to train her. This goes against the original storyline. I can see the entertainment value in a young Diana participating, but it would have been nice if those behind the scenes took note of the fact that Diana was clearly older (and taller) when Hippolyta gave Antiope permission to train her. We know that Diana was training in secret, but as far as her mother was concerned, Diana was not training so why would she be allowed to participate? Wouldn’t the ability to participate mean that Diana is receiving some level of training? And going one step further, if Diana was somehow allowed to participate without training, how well she performed would be a clear indication to Hippolyta that she is doing better than she should be.
At the end of the games, Hippolyta told Diana that the world is not yet ready for all that she will do. That is a strange thing for mommy dearest to say if she supposedly hopes and prays that Diana will never need to be protected or protect herself, especially since there were no plans for Diana to ever leave the island. So, as far as Hippolyta is concerned, her daughter is not receiving any training and she will always live on the island. That line sounds good, but doesn’t jive with the storyline.
The Asteria character was a surprise mention. It was said later that she was the greatest warrior. Antiope was originally hailed as being the greatest warrior. Do filmmakers just not take into account what is said or happens in previous movies?
Flash forward to 1984, and once they have set the scene, Diana swoops in here and there to minorly save the day. But it doesn’t stop there! Next, she just happens to show up at a mall and saves the day there as well. You see her TV room later in the movie, but there was no way she would have known about the hit at the mall since she was already out and about kicking a car and saving a bride. How are we supposed to think she knew to be there? I never got the impression that one of her abilities is being all knowing.
We then see that she is still pining over Steve Trevor. By now it’s been 60-something years since his demise. I wouldn’t say that she has to be in a relationship, but you would think that after that many years she would have come to terms with his loss and at least accepted it. She wouldn’t have to like it, but in the interest of something more realistic, she shouldn’t still be so heartbroken. Steve Trevor was a great guy, but it’s not as if every other guy on the planet is a scumbag in comparison.
Next, the character of Barbara is introduced. 2 men couldn’t stop to help her with her papers and a third guy slightly acknowledges her, but then it seems a bit too much when the woman that hired her doesn’t know who she is. We’re working a little too hard to make this woman the obvious underdog. You don’t have to have a seemingly pitiful character to have someone who would wish to be like Diana.
A little later, Diana checks in on Barbara and the wish stick (yes, I know it’s actually called the dreamstone, but I prefer ‘wish stick’) that the FBI wanted help with ends up held by Diana. She briefly closes her eyes and her hair moves so she obviously made a wish for Steve Trevor. But she did it silently. Later on, Max Lord, after having become the wish stick, had some line about having to hear the wishes being spoken. How was it that only hers didn’t need to be spoken?
Steve Trevor’s watch is at an angle when we first see it… but then when it starts ticking again after Diana’s wish it’s laying down flat. Originally, one side of the wrist strap was bent in such a way so that the watch is sitting at an angle. Later, when it resumes ticking, both parts of the strap were laying down flat. That’s at least one blooper! (In addition, the 3 silver, square things by the watch (no, I don’t know what they are) are also arranged differently from how there were originally.) That may be the only blooper I’ll notice…
I liked in the next scene with Diana and Barbara how you see that Barbara has made some assumptions about Diana’s life. It’s easy for all of us to look at somebody, and going off of what little we know about them, assume that their life is/has been easier or is better than ours. There obviously wouldn’t be a movie, but it’s too bad that Barbara doesn’t really take it to heart when Diana says that her life hasn’t been what Barbara thinks it was like. We all need to remember that everybody has struggles.
After the dinner, Barbara heading back to work. After giving a homeless friend what is left from her early dinner, she ends up harassed by a second homeless man who happens to be drunk. There is clearly no one around, but Diana shows up out of nowhere and saves the day. This clearly fuels Barbara’s desire to be like Diana, but Diana has never been shown to have hearing like that of Superman/Clark Kent. I wish there was a clear explanation of how Diana knows when and where help is needed in a situation like this one. Again, I don’t believe she is all knowing.
After Barbara is back at work she, not surprisingly makes a wish to be like Diana. It’s not as if people wouldn’t see that wish coming. “Strong, sexy, cool, special.” The next morning, after waking up from having fallen asleep at her desk, you see right away that she gets her wish when she very easily handles herself in heels… and Jake and her boss know her, although I think it takes her some time to figure out that her wish came true.
A bit later, Diana checks on Barbara and Maxwell Lord is there. He offers Diana a TV. She says she’ll stick with the one that she doesn’t have… but then later you see her with Steve Trevor in a room in her apartment with multiple devices that strangely look like TVs. Uhh… did Diana Prince just tell a lie…? She may not have a TV that she uses for entertainment purposes, but she still has them…
We follow Maxwell Lord to his office where we can see he isn’t doing well on a financial level… and could have been happier to see his son. And now we know who else will be the main problem for Diana.
Diana seems to look further into the wish stick and finds a paper at the bottom of its box that indicates that Maxwell Lord may have purchased it… but with what funds? And why wouldn’t he have already picked it up from the jewelry store?
I did like how Steve Trevor didn’t get his body back, but instead used the body of somebody else. I have issues with this part of the movie, mostly because in “Justice League” it was known that Diana lost Steve circa 1917 (WWI). Even though she technically didn’t see him, the fact that he was temporarily resurrected counts… that is something else that goes against what was already known.
When we see Max Lord ready to make his wish, I wasn’t quite ready for him to wish to become the wish stick. Maybe others saw that coming, but that was a nice surprise for me.
Barbara opening her fridge, and literally not knowing her newfound strength, rips the door off of her fridge… and then easily lifts a large amount of weight at a gym. One of the things she specifically wished for was strength, but I wonder if she got the equivalent of Diana’s strength. That was never really clear.
We see Maxwell Lord with the Simon character from his office and we can see that Maxwell has wasted no time in starting to cause problems for people. As a bad guy from the start (sort of ), I guess I like that he wasted no time in trying to make the world what he wanted for his benefit and his benefit alone.
It was fun watching all of the different outfits Steve tried. I couldn’t help but get a laugh out of the fanny packs. I wonder how someone from an earlier time would react to a moving staircase. Would it be similar to Steve’s or quite different?
When Steve and Diana are going to Cairo, she just assumes that Steve doesn’t have a passport. While it would be true that Steve himself wouldn’t have a passport, she would have no way of knowing if the man that belongs to the body Steve’s using has a passport. But, then we couldn’t have the scene where Diana and Steve steal a plane so that she can make it disappear and they can romantically fly through the July 4 fireworks. I have to admit, doing that might be fun… but then Steve magically knows how to get to Cairo from Washington D.C.?? He is a pilot and knows how to fly a plane… maybe I’m wrong, but wouldn’t he need a little more information in order to ensure that he goes in the right direction… and lands in the correct city?
We later see Barbara being harassed by the same man from earlier. With her increased strength she is able to physically punish him for the previous encounter and for bothering her yet again. We don’t learn until later that the wish stick takes as much as it gives, but did the movie people have her unnecessarily take it too far? We already know that she has gained superhuman strength, but it seemed to be a little too much too soon. I can’t help but feel that they could have come up with something else to show that she was changing for the worse. Maybe just having an atypically unfriendly encounter with her homeless friend could have been enough? Maybe? Maybe not?
When Diana and Steve meet Barbara to speak with the supposed Mayan shaman about the wish stick, Barbara commented that it was fast. My impression was that she was surprised they were already there, but there was no indication that Barbara knew that the two of them had left the country. Diana called her on the phone, but there was no mention that they were in Cairo, Egypt. I can’t decide if that is a blooper or if there is a deleted scene where they tell Barbara where they were.
Also in the above-mentioned scene, we learn that the wish stick takes your most valued possession after granting you your wish and the only way to stop it is to destroy the wish stick or renounce your wish. By this point we have witnessed Diana having lost some of her strength and becoming wounded in previous scenes. Basically, she seems to be losing her god (I use a small ‘g’ since it’s fictional and the Greek/Roman gods never existed) status and becoming mortal. It would be surprising if anybody thought that Diana would be willing to kill Maxwell Lord… and there’s no way any audience member would be shocked that she just couldn’t bring herself to renounce her wish. She of course will initially refuse but who wouldn’t see it coming that she will eventually have to face the facts and do it anyway?
It was maybe a nice touch that even though Maxwell Lord’s wish to be the wish stick worked against him, almost as if the wish stick gets the last laugh. He gets his wish to grant wishes that benefit him, but the wish stick is still able to take something, which seemed to be his health.
In the scene where Diana and Steve are in the room with the TVs that she doesn’t have, he sees Asteria’s armor. We learn that she stayed behind so that the Amazons could escape after Hippolyta freed all of them from mankind who had enslaved them. And again we go against what we already know. In a story that Hippolyta told a young Diana in “Wonder Woman,” she did, in fact, free the Amazons, but it was said that she “led a revolt that freed us ALL from enslavement.” All means everyone. All doesn’t mean that one sacrificed herself so that the rest could go free. I also did some searching on Asteria. What I found showed that she was in Greek mythology, but as a god and not as an Amazon. I have no idea what is in the comics/graphic novels, but it goes along with Hippolyta’s story better if she was instead one who had been gifted with a special suit of gold armor and somehow was believed to have been lost, left behind, died (or something else) after the Amazons became free and moved to Themyscira when Zeus created it to hide them should Aries/Ares ever return to finish his mission of “an endless war where mankind might finally destroy themselves” and the Amazons along with them. (Going back to Antiope for just a second, it’s bad enough that she lost her life… only to also lose her status as the greatest warrior. Let’s kick her while she’s down, shall we?) I don’t even see what the big deal was with Asteria. She just looked like a woman cowering under the golden armor while many, many men pounded on it. And, it would be easy to still have Diana try to find Asteria but only find the golden armor. Just because she was lost in one way or another doesn’t mean that she was forgotten. Her not being mentioned in “Wonder Woman” wouldn’t be a big deal at all.
On a side note, I came across a page that poses the question if there could have been 2 Wonder Women operating at the same time. This isn’t impossible, but maybe not fully. For one reason, Diana, according to the movies, is a god while Asteria is not. Albeit superhuman, what Diana can do would surpass Asteria’s abilities. Second, the getup that Diana acquired before leaving Themysicara is something that Asteria never would have had. Granted, she would have had her golden armor for a time, but it would have given her a much different look… and you would think that there would be records about a wondrous heroine saving the day in her shiny, golden armor. I mean, it’s already gotten around just in this movie that there is a woman (Diana) saving the day every so often, so if Asteria was going around saving the day here and there for a time while still in possession of the goldem armor, wouldn’t there be records of a heroic woman in gold? This is purely my opinion…
Anyway, moving on…
I don’t know if the movie glossed over how Diana and Steve learned that Maxwell Lord went to the White House to meet with the president or if I somehow missed it… Either way, I really have no idea how Barbara would have also learned that he was there. I have no issues with the fight scene in the White House, but her showing up there without anyone having discussed in her presence where Maxwell Lord was seemed highly convenient, for lack of a better word. It wasn’t a surprise that she figured out that she would have to protect Maxwell Lord in her desire not to lose what she gained from her wish, but Barbara’s wish wouldn’t make her all knowing.
While in the oval office, Maxwell sees what look like poster boards with information about a Global Broadcast Satellite that uses particle beam technology to override broadcast systems. It was said that it, in a way, the particles they send touch everything, or more accurately, the technology they want to access. Not much later, Maxwell Lord uses this for the granting of wishes. Maybe he doesn’t need to physically hear the wish being spoken, but it seemed a stretch, to me at least, that he would be able to grant wishes this way. The technology allowed him to touch technology, but there wouldn’t be any contact with people… except maybe for a scenario in which a person touches the TV while making their wish. Maybe I am one (of the few? of the many?) who desires that things in movies make more sense, but contact with the wish stick was required when making a wish… the particles only made contact with technology and nothing else. To me, believability was just lost. It also doesn’t make sense that, when people were making their wishes, he said he would take their health and their strength in exchange. Okay… that works in the short term, but not in the long term. Everybody would die because he took their health. Where would he be when everyone is dead? Is this bad guy just not that smart?
On her way to confront Maxwell Lord (who I don’t think was in earshot when Maxwell told the president that he needed immediate access to the Global Broadcast Satellite, so I’m not sure how she knew where he was) Diana remembers what Steve said about air… and all of a sudden she is flying. My knowledge of Wonder Woman may be limited, but I remember her having an invisible plane in the TV show. I don’t ever remember her having the ability to fly on her own with or without the use of her lasso…
And we get a second fight scene with Diana and Barbara, who has been upgraded to Cheetah status thanks to Maxwell. But, she is not the once-again invincible Diana so she loses this fight… but unfortunately she mainly loses due to water and electricity not being a good mix instead of losing at the hands of Diana. I wouldn’t expect Diana to kill her, but for Barbara-Cheetah to instead be defeated after a beat down from Diana that takes enough out of her that she would need some time to recuperate… enough time for Diana to stop Maxwell Lord (obviously).
I forget exactly how it is that Maxwell Lord leaves where he is to go find his son. Maybe Mr. Lord heard his son’s wish and grants it, while also coming to terms with what he has become? He did seem to truly be apologetic when he spoke to Alistair. Aside from this, I can’t help but wonder… Maxwell Lord renounces his wish, which was to BE the wish stick. This was not addressed, but wouldn’t the wish stick leave him and return to its original state? And wouldn’t Diana then have to be tasked with destroying it? One or more gods may have empowered the stone by imbuing universal elements into it, but I don’t see why she wouldn’t be able to destroy it so that it could never again wreak havoc.
As I said in the beginning, I did enjoy the movie. It would just be nice if a movie doesn’t give the opinion that it was made purely for the sake of making a movie. And in the case of a sequel or prequel, that it would be true to what the audience already knows from previous movies (and maybe not necessarily what was in the comics since more may see the movies than those that read the comics). My thoughts or opinions may not meld with those of others, but we are all different and that is okay. If you read this whole thing, thank you very much! I appreciate it!