Wonder Woman is good

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  • June 10, 2017 at 10:47 am #69875
    Avatar photozn
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    Just like the reviews say.

    It’s not just the best DC film, it’s one of the best superhero films.

    You have to like that kind of film to see it but if you do it’s a good one.

    June 10, 2017 at 12:43 pm #69876
    PA Ram
    Participant

    Seeing it Tuesday. I hated Batman vs. Superman and Suicide Squad. I’m giving DC one more chance.

    "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. " Philip K. Dick

    June 10, 2017 at 12:52 pm #69877
    Avatar photoZooey
    Moderator

    I rarely go to movies, but I’ve been thinking of going to see this one in part because I got into another Facebook holy horror over the film that dwarfs that other one I posted here on the DNC/Clinton/Sanders. It was on the question of feminism, and I never got any answers, so I think I have to see it for myself.

    I was wondering why nobody had posted on it yet because Super Hero films are usually referenced here.

    June 10, 2017 at 1:01 pm #69878
    Avatar photonittany ram
    Moderator

    It’s certainly the best DC film. I really liked it.
    To me it had more of a Marvel vibe even though it was a DC film.

    June 10, 2017 at 1:40 pm #69879
    JackPMiller
    Participant

    Come on zn. You mean it was great. It was da bomb, off the chain, it was lit. Any more catch phrases or slang you can think of that can work here? Please add. The movie was incredible great.

    June 10, 2017 at 3:24 pm #69883
    Avatar photozn
    Moderator
    Zooey wrote:

    . It was on the question of feminism, and I never got any answers, so I think I have to see it for myself.

    By all means go see it because if nothing else the 2 central actors (Gadot and Pine) just nail it.

    But ask any question you have here.

    The film has caused some controversies on that front, though a lot of them come from the fact that feminism is not one thing so it has stirred different feminisms to debate one another.

    June 10, 2017 at 7:51 pm #69888
    Avatar photowv
    Participant

    Yeah, one of my female-friends saw it and liked it. She thought it was the first time Hollywood has done a decent female-super-hero character.

    I have no desire to see it though. I’m boycotting super-hero movies until Hollywood makes a marxist super-hero.

    w
    v

    June 10, 2017 at 8:27 pm #69889
    Avatar photozn
    Moderator
    wv wrote:

    Yeah, one of my female-friends saw it and liked it. She thought it was the first time Hollywood has done a decent female-super-hero character.

    I have no desire to see it though. I’m boycotting super-hero movies until Hollywood makes a marxist super-hero.

    w
    v

    Diana (the character’s name in the movie) IS marxist.

    It;s the first time a woman director had made a film about a female superhero.

    Broadening the genre definition, I think it;s only the 2nd time a woman director has made a big budget action film.

    This one works because the writing is smart, and the lead actors just plain hit homeruns with the characters.

    There’s all these minor things in it. For example at one point the 2 leads (Gadot and Pine) are travelling to get behind German lines during WWI. They have brought with them 3 men to assist. One is a scottish marksman. We find out in the course of events he can’t bring himself to shoot anyone. He is clearly wrapped up in shell shock–in fact they drive that home. He makes up for that by using his scope to see things the others can’t. At one point Diana asks one of the other companions why they brought the scot along with them. The guy she asks is a Moroccan who is there because he’s a natural con-man and master of spy techniques though doesn’t belong to any actual government agency, he just improvises. He answers, we cannot all be what we want. Look at me, I always wanted to be an actor, but I’m just the wrong color (he’s clearly north African arab). So just in a couple of small details that could go right by if you didn;t notice, you see Dianna learning all the complexity of a world she never knew (she was raised on a hidden utopian island by amazons…which btw sounds ridiculous when I write it but they sell it and make it work).

    Just detail after detail like that and in each case the key actors just nail it.

    .

    June 10, 2017 at 8:48 pm #69890
    Avatar photonittany ram
    Moderator
    wv wrote:

    I’m boycotting super-hero movies until Hollywood makes a marxist super-hero.

    w
    v

    Sm

    June 12, 2017 at 4:17 pm #69961
    Avatar photozn
    Moderator

    For those who have seen it…there’s a scene everyone will recognize where Diana and Steve set sail from her island. At one point she innocently invites him to sleep next to her. He hesitates because of social gender rules and customs he grew up with, which she does not understand. They’re very awkward about it all. The scene is considered one of the films highlights because of the way it pokes fun at both her incredulous innocence and his straight-laced morality.

    Well according to the actors, that entire scene was improvised.

    .

    June 14, 2017 at 12:54 pm #70032
    PA Ram
    Participant

    Okay, saw it.

    It was okay. Not great. A bit hokey. A bit predictable.

    Visually, it was good but we’ve seen it before. I like the female superhero running the show. That’s a good thing. I like the actress playing Wonder Woman. It wasn’t a bad film. But I’ll still take The Dark Knight trilogy as the standard for these things.

    I will see Justice League. I have to. My wife is in love with Jason Momoa.

    • This reply was modified 7 years, 5 months ago by PA Ram.

    "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. " Philip K. Dick

    June 14, 2017 at 1:11 pm #70034
    Avatar photozn
    Moderator
    PA Ram wrote:

    Okay, saw it.

    It was okay. Not great. A bit hokey. A bit predictable.

    Visually, it was good but we’ve seen it before. I like the female superhero running the show. That’s a good thing. I like the actress playing Wonder Woman. It wasn’t a bad film. But I’ll still take The Dark Knight trilogy as the standard for these things.

    I will see Justice League. I have to. My wife is in love with Jason Momoa.

    I give it more credit than you do. I rank it right there with Spiderman 2, X-Men 2, the Dark Knight Rises, and the 1st Avengers film. I think it is a very different thing from DKR–equal and a completely different thing.

    June 18, 2017 at 9:42 am #70173
    Avatar photoZooey
    Moderator
    zn wrote:

    For those who have seen it…there’s a scene everyone will recognize where Diana and Steve set sail from her island. At one point she innocently invites him to sleep next to her. He hesitates because of social gender rules and customs he grew up with, which she does not understand. They’re very awkward about it all. The scene is considered one of the films highlights because of the way it pokes fun at both her incredulous innocence and his straight-laced morality.

    Well according to the actors, that entire scene was improvised.

    .

    I saw it on Friday, and I liked it a lot. I put it up there with the top tier of superhero films. This scene you mention was very good, and there were a few other moments that were brief, but also good. Like the bit with the ice cream. They didn’t belabor it. Just a quick snapshot of her “newness.” The way she carried the sword around in London like it was perfectly normal, too. And I absolutely loved her casual complacency when she walks in on him as he is getting out of the pools. She just has no sense of embarrassment whatsoever. It was wonderful.

    I am also a big fan of the way the relationship between WW and Captain Trevor is presented. At first, he is protective of her, and even tries to shield her when surrounded by the Nazi agents. But when he realizes what she is capable of, he simply respects and supports that. There is no resentment, no power struggle. But, otoh, he also does not surrender his authority. All the other companions also just accept her skills for what they are. That may have been my favorite thing about the film. She was just better than everyone else, and everybody was just fine with that.

    It is a good movie.

    I don’t have high hopes for a sequel, though, because a lot of the charm comes from her naivete, and you can’t continue to play that for long.

    June 18, 2017 at 9:59 am #70174
    Avatar photozn
    Moderator

    Good post. You captured a lot of what I saw.

    There was also a subtle sense of double entendres.

    Like the scene where she walks in on him bathing. She says what’s that and indicates with her head in a slight gesture, seemingly aiming at his body. He gets a startled look then goes oh I get it…and so he lifts up what she was “pointing to” and says, that’s a watch. And she says “you let that little thing tell you what to do?” It was funny.

    I notice reviewers are missing things. Like there are reviewers who actually think she was molded of clay and brought to life by Zeus. They don’t realize that’s a lie she was told (the truth being more clear when she says to Ares, “good bye brother”).

    And one review that says Trevor initiates their lovemaking. No he doesn’t. She gives him a frank and clear “come hither” look…he was about to leave till seeing that.

    It’s amazing isn’t it btw that little Buttercup of The Princess Bride is the same actress who plays General Antiope, Diana’a Aunt, in Wonder Woman (obviously Robin Wright).

    June 18, 2017 at 10:04 am #70175
    Avatar photowv
    Participant

    spoiler alert

    June 18, 2017 at 10:29 am #70177
    PA Ram
    Participant

    The “twist” didn’t surprise me but the fact that Lucy Davis from the BBC version of the office was Etta WAS a shock.

    r

    "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. " Philip K. Dick

    June 19, 2017 at 9:04 pm #70226
    Avatar photoBilly_T
    Participant

    I saw it today and really liked it. One of the best ever superhero(ine) movies, IMO. Marvel or DC. Lotsa reasons for that, but I think the most important was the pacing. The director gave the film time to breathe, develop, pull you in. It wasn’t a string of (sometimes gratuitous) action scenes without a pause, which is a problem for me when it comes to this genre. Other films seem not to trust their own material enough to let us get to know the characters and their motivations. This one did.

    The artwork was excellent too . . . the color shifts, the gray of London compared with the beautiful, sun-drenched island of the Amazons. And Gal Gadot herself, as someone said in the movie, is a work of art. That’s one very beautiful woman.

    Loved pretty much everything about it. But not everything. Two things would have improved the film for me:

    1. Don’t have Ares kill all the Greek gods. It makes no sense in any context, if the idea is to make Diana’s origins within the world of Greek Mythology. It serves no purpose, especially if they want to do sequels, to kill off all the gods, and my own (pet peeve) belief is that you just don’t maul and murder stories of genius that go back 2800 years at least. They’ve stood the test of time. Leave them intact, at least as general structures.

    2. I would have given Gadot — whom I’d love to wait for — a lot more things to say. I think they shorted her a bit on dialogue.

    June 19, 2017 at 9:11 pm #70227
    Avatar photoBilly_T
    Participant

    Also, for those of you who have seen it, have you also read the comics? I haven’t, so I don’t know if they strayed from those or adhered closely to them. But I wonder about the accents of the Amazons. What do you guys think they were shooting for?

    While the ancient Greek mythographers differed somewhat about their place of origin, some saying Libya, but most placing them somewhere near the Black Sea, I couldn’t quite get the accent. Sounded a bit like Russian, but not really. Maybe Georgian, which wouldn’t have been half bad if they tried to stick closely to the myths.

    But, again, it bugs me that they had Ares be the lone survivor god from the pantheon and the most powerful. Ares was never depicted that way. Though some stories do have him as the father of the Amazons, which is kinda interesting when it comes to the comics.

    Anyway, good movie. Oh, and I finally saw Doctor Strange, on Netflix. Liked it, but not as much as I thought I would. It started out really great for me, but then succumbed to almost mindless action sequences that happened too often and too quickly. I wanted much more exposition, backstory, character development. The artwork and special effects, of course, were amazing.

    June 19, 2017 at 9:55 pm #70228
    Avatar photozn
    Moderator
    Billy_T wrote:

    But I wonder about the accents of the Amazons.

    Gadot couldn;t modify HER accent so they just kind of created one to make it seem like Diana was speaking like an Amazon.

    I don’t think they were trying for anything. I just think they were trying to position Gadot’s accent so it was less out of context.

    Btw the gods die in the film because they die in the comics. That’s just comic book lore.

    June 19, 2017 at 10:12 pm #70229
    Avatar photowv
    Participant

    Is it not true that Gods can be killed:

    link:http://norse-mythology.org/tales/ragnarok/

    Ragnarok
    “Battle of the Doomed Gods” by Friedrich Wilhelm Heine (1882)

    Ragnarok (Old Norse Ragnarök, “The Doom of the Gods”) is the name the pre-Christian Norse gave to the end of their mythical cycle, during which the cosmos is destroyed and is subsequently re-created. “Ragnarok” is something of a play on words; an alternate form, which sounds almost identical when spoken, is Ragnarøkkr, “The Twilight of the Gods.” The significance of this variation will be discussed below.

    But first, here’s the tale itself….”

    June 19, 2017 at 10:22 pm #70230
    Avatar photoBilly_T
    Participant
    zn wrote:
    Billy_T wrote:

    But I wonder about the accents of the Amazons.

    Gadot couldn;t modify HER accent so they just kind of created one to make it seem like Diana was speaking like an Amazon.

    I don’t think they were trying for anything. I just think they were trying to position Gadot’s accent so it was less out of context.

    Btw the gods die in the film because they die in the comics. That’s just comic book lore.

    That makes sense. She’s Israeli, right?

    So you’ve read the comics? Did they try to stay close to them on all the elements? Comic book fans have been known to go crazy when movies don’t.

    Another interesting aspect for me, while I was watching the film and freezing half to death in the theater. I shoulda brought a coat!!

    When Diana finally finds her powers, they’re so great, to a cosmic degree, I was thinking: She doesn’t need any help at all. She has the strength of Superman, or more, and looks like she could kick Hulk’s butt, she can all but fly — well, leap endlessly — and Ares took his best shots at her and he couldn’t do her in. Seems like a Batman is kinda superfluous with her on the scene.

    Btw, Marvel has that same kind of issue when it comes up with its teams. Some of its characters are just top flight martial arts experts. But human, all too human. Tremendous when they take on “normal” bad guys. Others have cosmically awesome super powers that can destroy worlds and such. Seems strange (at times) when the relatively “normal” heroes team up with these true masters of the universe.

    Of course, it’s all escapist fare and meant to be fun. Not really meant for dissertations and international seminars. Though, I imagine that happens in some venues. Like The Big Lebowski with its cult followers and their academic conferences . . . .

    June 19, 2017 at 10:25 pm #70231
    Avatar photoBilly_T
    Participant

    Also, speaking of the feminist side of things: Gadot apparently only received $300K for her performance. I hope she has “points” too, and not on the net but on the gross. The infamous “Hollywood accounting” tricks have stiffed more than a few actors and directors. If memory serves, the director of the LOTR movies, with their billions in revenues, was told his movies didn’t make any profit so he didn’t receive his bonuses. Lawsuits quickly followed.

    June 19, 2017 at 10:30 pm #70233
    Avatar photoBilly_T
    Participant
    wv wrote:

    Is it not true that Gods can be killed:

    link:http://norse-mythology.org/tales/ragnarok/

    Ragnarok
    “Battle of the Doomed Gods” by Friedrich Wilhelm Heine (1882)

    Ragnarok (Old Norse Ragnarök, “The Doom of the Gods”) is the name the pre-Christian Norse gave to the end of their mythical cycle, during which the cosmos is destroyed and is subsequently re-created. “Ragnarok” is something of a play on words; an alternate form, which sounds almost identical when spoken, is Ragnarøkkr, “The Twilight of the Gods.” The significance of this variation will be discussed below.

    But first, here’s the tale itself….”

    Norse mythology is one of the few that has that happen. I’m just started on a new scholarly work about Irish mythology (2016), a subject which has fascinated me since I was nine. Good, but a little bit too cautious, IMO. He seems overly worried about making firm deductions from the evidence — archaeology, religious texts, literary works, etc.

    By Mark Williams:

    http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10827.html

    But the Greeks didn’t do things that way. They didn’t kill off their Olympians. Though the Olympians overthrew the previous pantheon, the Titans (Prometheus was one of them).

    Ares was sometimes made fun of by the other gods, and was never depicted anything close to the most powerful. He wasn’t really all that respected by Zeus, Hera, Apollo, Demeter, Athena and company.

    • This reply was modified 7 years, 5 months ago by Avatar photoBilly_T.
    June 19, 2017 at 10:37 pm #70235
    Avatar photoBilly_T
    Participant

    The subject of sticking at least somewhat close to the mythological originals is a personal one for me, most likely because the myths and studying them was so pivotal in my life. At the age of nine, along with basically discovering the Rams, the Lakers, and the Giants, getting into World Mythology literally changed my life. A major light bulb went off for me and I’ve never looked back. It was probably the most important thing in freeing me from Christianity and belief in any one religion. I just could never look at them the same again after I got into comparative myths and religions.

    Hope all is well with youze guys.

    June 19, 2017 at 10:43 pm #70236
    Avatar photozn
    Moderator
    Billy_T wrote:

    so you’ve read the comics? Did they try to stay close to them on all the elements? Comic book fans have been known to go crazy when movies don’t.

    I never read them. But a daughter knows the lore. There are several different versions of WW in the comics, I am told, and the film charts its own path through all that, picking up different things and molding them together, and leaving different things out.

    June 19, 2017 at 11:02 pm #70240
    Avatar photoBilly_T
    Participant
    zn wrote:
    Billy_T wrote:

    so you’ve read the comics? Did they try to stay close to them on all the elements? Comic book fans have been known to go crazy when movies don’t.

    I never read them. But a daughter knows the lore. There are several different versions of WW in the comics, I am told, and the film charts its own path through all that, picking up different things and molding them together, and leaving different things out.

    I’m probably like most of the folks here. Read some of the various superhero comics as a kid. Didn’t follow them over the years. But when the movies came out, it did spark some really surface-level research on a few of them via Wikipedia. Mostly Marvel, though. It seems that there are dozens of reboots, alterations, alternative versions/univeres, etc. etc. in both the Marvel and DC universes . . . it’s pretty much impossible to keep them straight. And they both have an overwhelming number of super heroes. Only way I see of navigating through this, when I care to, is to limit the characters to a small set. And to basically ignore the endless resets/reboots/anti-matter heroes.

    For their fans, I suppose it’s not “chaos” and they love the panoply. For this old fogy, I wish they had kept the changes to a minimum, and maybe fewer heroes overall.

    Oh, well. Again, it’s escapist fare in a time when we need that. It’s not James Joyce.

    Btw, a belated Bloomsday to anyone here who cares.

    July 4, 2017 at 9:43 pm #70713
    Avatar photowv
    Participant

    I havent seen the movie yet, but fwiw, here is a negative review
    of WonderWoman. (it starts at the 15:40 mark)

    link: https://thetrap.fm/show/episode-119-bating-for-gadot-62517/

    July 5, 2017 at 6:50 am #70720
    Avatar photonittany ram
    Moderator
    wv wrote:

    I havent seen the movie yet, but fwiw, here is a negative review
    of WonderWoman. (it starts at the 15:40 mark)

    link: https://thetrap.fm/show/episode-119-bating-for-gadot-62517/

    Ick. I couldn’t listen to more than 5 minutes of that pompous, pretentious, hipster crap.

    Like all movies, there are some weak spots. But overall this is a very good film. Among the best of its kind.

    July 5, 2017 at 7:39 am #70721
    Avatar photowv
    Participant
    nittany ram wrote:
    wv wrote:

    I havent seen the movie yet, but fwiw, here is a negative review
    of WonderWoman. (it starts at the 15:40 mark)

    link: https://thetrap.fm/show/episode-119-bating-for-gadot-62517/

    Ick. I couldn’t listen to more than 5 minutes of that pompous, pretentious, hipster crap.

    Like all movies, there are some weak spots. But overall this is a very good film. Among the best of its kind.

    ==============

    I had mixed feelings/thots about it. I listened to all of it, and i thought they got better toward the end. Among the gazillion ‘hipster crap’ comments there were some good points i thought about pro-militarism in the movies.
    I posted that review before i listened to it — now that i’ve heard it I’m sure there are some folks that will not like the review. At all 🙂
    I’d suggest only listening to the last part.

    w
    v

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