In my last post hating on Wonder Woman 1984 I focused on the many plot holes and what a waste of time the second half of the movie was. I didn’t stop to consider why it was so sh-tty compared to the excellent first movie, also directed by Patty Jenkins. It turns out Jenkins got much more creative control with this film. The weird balloon-in-the-sky ending, the quite good Washington DC 80s setting and the nonsensical invisible jet scene were her ideas. (Again, where was the spinning costume change scene?!) After the commercial and streaming success of 1984, Wonder Woman 3 has been fasttracked for a hopeful theatrical-only release and they’re surely giving Jenkins a boatload of cash again to make it. (Not that she didn’t earn that, men regularly get huge ass deals and she made them a ton of money.) Gal Gadot is back of course. Jenkins has said it will be set in modern day and she made it sound like Cheetah is probably coming back. Chris Pine’s character is likely dead-dead.
Warner Bros chairman Toby Emmerich has now announced that the franchise will continue into a third instalment.
He said: “As fans around the world continue to embrace Diana Prince, driving the strong opening weekend performance of Wonder Woman 1984, we are excited to be able to continue her story with our real life Wonder Women – Gal and Patty – who will return to conclude the long-planned theatrical trilogy.”
Jenkins told The Hollywood Reporter that she is “not doing another period piece” and will follow Diana in the present day.
She added: “I’m not planning to put it in the past again, because where are you going to go? You have to go forward. It’s definitely a contemporary story.”
As well as the threequel, Jenkins has also sketched out the plot for a spin-off focusing on the Amazons, but she is keen to hand over the directorial reigns for that one. – From Sports.Yahoo.com
Max Lord definitively renounces his wish at the end of Wonder Woman 1984 in order to save son Alistair, but the choice is much murkier when it comes to Dr. Barbara Minerva. In her final shot of the film, Barbara is no longer in Cheetah form, but we also never see her explicitly renouncing her wish. According to Patty Jenkins, the ambiguity was intentional.
“I have my reasons for making it ambiguous, and I think it’s not clear what her point of view [is] on everything that just happened … I love that we wrap up Max Lord’s point of view, and that you see the culmination of that storyline, I think is so important. But the truth is there may or may not be more to come [for Barbara].” – From Den of Geek
[From Sports.Yahoo.com and Den of Geek]
Cheetah was robbed in WW1984! (Sidenote: Gizmodo did an awesome post about how Wonder Woman is that friend who ditches you when she hooks up with a guy. They also agree with me that WW is a sad sack for being hung up on a guy she knew for two weeks a lifetime ago.) I loved seeing Barbara’s transformation, but she didn’t get enough screen time and she turned from 80s vixen to Cats extra in about a minute. I hope Cheetah gets more backstory and is more of a fleshed out character in the next movie.
I also hope that, whatever deal she struck on making her own decisions again, Jenkins will take criticism of this film to heart and will hire better writers and editors. As a writer/editor (editing is also very important, especially in audio and video), I think we make all the difference. Not all ideas are good, and even the best creators need people to edit them. That said, the first Wonder Woman was incredible. The screenwriter for the first film was Allan Heinberg along with a completely different team of writers from this sequel, which Jenkins co-wrote. She should just take the L on the second one and bring back most of the people from the 2017 movie.
What I see when watching Wonder Woman and Cheetah fight #WW84 pic.twitter.com/Zad1LJOB0S
— David (@flipitbleu) December 26, 2020
Photos are screenshots from HBO Max and also via Instagram
Ooof. The second movie started poorly with the opening scene and just stayed underwhelming for the next two hours. Chris Pine was easily the best thing happening because the story itself was trash. Wiig was also good but for some reason both WW films have the same issue – the female villain is second string to a guy who’s motive isn’t even clear. Just burn everything for no reason. So much potential wasted.
I’m not a ride or die WW fan, so I wasn’t super invested in the success of the movie, but I did like the first film for the most part and I thought it was one of the strongest DC entries to date and it was great that it centered around this particular character and had a female director.
All I wanted out of the second one was entertainment and it just face planted so bad – how could you do such a great job on your first try and do so poorly the next time around? It’s like they were forced to slap something together to keep people interested, which clearly wasn’t the case and half this shizz shouldn’t have made it off the editor’s desk.
All of the criticisms are well earned. Having said THAT, what really bums me out is how this brought out all the obnoxious sexist fanboy contingent crowing about what a failure Patty Jenkins is and how no one wants movies about WW and a bunch of misogynistic garbage. It’s just so gross.
As a fanboy myself I agree that there is a lot of piling on. I do not even bother to listen to most of the male reviews on Youtube because I can tell from the title that it is some gleeful celebration of a woman failing because of “woke” behavior. I personally love WW and I want it to succeed.
Which is ironic because they whinged for the non-existent “Snyder Cut” * so much that they’re actually getting one, even though Zach Snyder hasn’t made a good movie in 16 years**, and even that one he had James Gunn holding his hand by practically co-directing via the screenplay.
*and yeah, it was non-existent, because the studio had to give him 70 million dollars and a couple of months just to film the scenes that would make it possible to edit together AND EVEN THEN he couldn’t make it fit into the run time of a typical already overlong superhero movie. And it will also be terrible, for the record.
**300 is not a good movie and it is also very racist.
After seeing this I’m very worried about her Star Wars series.
@tiff-SAME! I was so excited when it was announced PJ is going to direct a Star Wars film, now I’m unsure of that decision.
Also, during the invisible plane part, all I could think of is this: https://youtu.be/zokdM9KF4tA
I think WW benefited from having a great team of writers and editors.
Patty Jenkins just took on too much and the plot just had too many holes to suspend belief. That’s a tall order in the DC universe especially when the bar is set at “just entertain me during a pandemic when I’ve been home for 9 months straight.”
I haven’t bothered to watch the second because the reviews have been so “meh”. I though Captain Marvel was a way better option for badass women.
I don’t feel like it’s a good sign that they’re going to try to fast track a 3rd. Sort of comes off like “hey let’s get another one out quick before people stop caring” over focusing on quality – especially given the mixed reviews for the 2nd.
Yup. That’s pretty much what is happening. The reviews on this one dropped so fast that the score on RT and other sites within a matter of hours dropped this down to a not fresh rating. I watched it Christmas Day and was just perplexed at the choices Jenkins made and the bad acting that was going on.
@Erinn —- WW84 is 1h15min too long in my opinion; that movie didn’t need to be that long; I also think the acting is not that great; I don’t remember much from the movie except some parts which were so funny as they were particularly bad.
The fact that the 3rd one is getting fast tracked is a bad sign
I’m not sure I agree with CM being a better option but I definitely am nervous about the fast-track. Hopefully PJ will bring back Allan Heinberg, who co-wrote the first WW movie.
I loved Captain Marvel – I’ve watched it a few times, and I’m not at all invested in the Marvel universe or whatever. I just liked that film.
I hope Wonder Woman 3 is better. There is a ton of valid criticism about WW84 out there right now, hopefully the powers that be listen, and make the 3rd one better.
What kills me is this is supposed to be set in 1984, where are the songs from the 80s? The hair, clothes, etc. Diana still looked like she was set in a different time and place instead of going for the 80s look.
The plot was really bad, but other writers have pointed out how problematic it was for Steve to take over another guy’s body and the rewriting of MENA history and them choosing once again to make someone with brown skin the bad guy. You know how many 80s movies had Russia as the bad guys? It makes zero sense how they wrote and plotted this one. It was so so bad.
Don’t get me started on Diana and her BS I will only love one man I hung out with for 5 days 60 freaking years ago. She’s a damn Amazon. You are telling me that she didn’t see one dude she was interested in. And the sad Diana alone as a single woman thing made me want to scream. The 80s in the U.S. was sliding into a more solid feminist movement. You had women demanding larger roles for themselves and wanting autonomy over their own bodies. Jenkins could have done so much with this besides the wish thing which made zero sense.
FYI, the Maya culture is not extinct.
Diana being a sad/lonely woman throughout time made the most sense to me. She doesn’t age, so she can’t have friendships, let alone a relationship. That’s why she was hesitant to have lunch with Barbara, because she has to be alone to protect her identity. Single feminists were all empowered and shit because they have families and friends. Diana feels like she can’t have it, which then ties into Justice League where she finds a family (too bad WB fucked it up, because it would have been a nice character arc).
Steve knows her secret and was her introduction to the world and died in a way that’s traumatic for anybody, so I get the pining. When you keep to yourself, and your only relationship in the human world was that one person, you’re going to want to hold onto that.
I guess I understand that (kind of) but the elephant in the room is Gal Gadot’s distracting beauty. If you have to lay low forever, you have to be forgettable or kind of plain. Not ugly, but ordinary. Like anyone would forget someone who looked like Diana.
How does this deserve a sequel? It was as bad as the first one was good, and I loved the first one. DC just sucks compared to Marvel. I can only hope ScarJo’s Black Widow movie is great because women super heroes deserve better.
There has to be a better villainess than the “I’m not cool and I want to be like Diana Prince so I’ll change into an apex predator yay” character. I don’t know a lot about DC comics but I’m sure Wonder Woman has faced other female antagonists with better back stories. Make her stand alone, she doesn’t need to be a bodyguard to some other villain. I really didn’t understand her motivation to protect Maxwell Lord. Prior to the battle at the White House she only knew him as some rich donor guy who was trying to swipe the *spoiler alert* thing. Why was she so angry at Diana?
That said, the new movie should be set more recently and Steve should be placed on the back burner. I re-watched a few episodes of the old series and noted that they brought Steve back as Steve’s son. Imagine two Lyle Waggoners running around, lol.
Because she wanted to keep her wish, and Diana is trying to take it away. They could have done more with that, but i think her motives were generally clear. She started off as a doctorate who wasn’t taken seriously because of her looks and low sex appeal, and once she got it, she viewed Diana almost like a competitor and relied on her newfound status in order to feel valued. Her insane protection of the guy was because he’s protecting her interests
If i was still in lit class, I would definitely link this to misogynistic conservative women who feel valued by shitty men because of their youth, and would go against the world’s interest to keep that validation…but I don’t think the writers are smart enough to do this intentionally
The more I think about this movie, the more I hate it. I was entertained while watching it and distracted from the pandemic for 2.5 hours, but those things don’t actually make a good movie. The CGI was corny and fake-looking, the racial stereotypes outrageous, the villains boring, and the story didn’t make sense. Dreck.
I’m excited to hear Cheetah being given another chance. Apparently Wonder Woman’s biggest weakness is her ability to fall over in love and be lonely. Lol, like that’s her kryptonite…love. I just think the Steve plot was terribly mishandled..I disagreed with him dying in the 1st film and they believed this was the best way to loop him back in. They could have went the distant cousin route on this film and did a couple of flashbacks. Wonder Woman could be distant from people afraid to open up but still loving her life. Introverts do this everyday. She should have at least moved on after 30 years, yeesh.
Yeah, I was surprised they killed Steve off after her only knowing him for like… a week…since he’s a fairly substantial part of the comics. I actually think that was a mistake (killing him off in the first film and in such a tropey way), but once they killed him they should have just left him dead or had him come back as one of his distant cousins as in the comics.
Fast tracking this movie is a symptom of the problems facing DC comic movies. Instead of world building like Marvel, they sought to jump ahead with rushed storylines, pairing these characters together. This movie sucked. Diana hadn’t grown from the first one. She’s still pining for Steve after 60 years and it’ll be another 20 years by the time we catch up with her in Batman vs Superman. It doesn’t make sense. None of it makes sense. And that’s because no one stops long to explain Diana’s motivations.
The Themiscrya scenes are so beloved because there’s world building there. None of that follows adult Diana. Jenkins should admit she can’t write and hire a competent team of writers to make Diana more than just a pretty face. She squandered Cheetah. I guess she can go back and have the original origin story for Cheetah, where she’s obsessed with the Amazons, in this last movie. But…who’ll care.
Yuck. I liked WW84 except for Wiig’s lame character.
DC’s problem is they focus too much on these bizarre villains and not on the heroes.
So I didn’t like WW84, but I’m glad Patty Jenkins will get a chance to hopefully finish the trilogy on a high note. Even with all of the problems in the second film, she does do a lot of good, too. I commented to my husband how, even with WW in a skimpy costume, Diana’s not sexualized. There’s no lingering shots on her ass or chest. And the Amazons wear real armor in her movies, not the sexy boob armor they wore in JL.
Hopefully Patty will take her time and bring in the folks from the first movie. They were clearly a really good team, as the first movie was great.
I’m a comic book nerd and I liked the invisible jet scene 😆 I was legit thrilled lol
Cheetah was the weakest part of WW1984 and that’s saying a lot as the hold movie was Meh.