Wonder Woman Movie

Since even 300 is getting a sequel (What, is Titanic 2 next?), we can lean on the Greek mythology aspects. My concept of isolated contact to the modern world can easily mesh with unleashing monsters at the same time. Ancient foes in modern times, or Ares has been running the world to hell for Centuries, but now that there's a champion for peace he'd better watch out.

The revised plot is that ordinary American woman picks up the hammer of Thor, er belt of the Amazons and is found worthy in spite of her self-doubts. She fights some crime, discovers the conspiracy, is stripped of her powers (and everything else of course) and brought helpless in chains before the big bad god of war. She then applies the teachings of the amazons to win anyway and regains her powers. In the after credits scene she is recruited by Nick Fury, er Batman for this new superteam he's putting together.

Of course, since its DC Universe, wouldn't it be shocking if it was someone else's rogues gallery character that turns out to be the villain? That'd be a twist.

Well I think the main issue with Wonder Woman is that she really does not have that interesting or impressive of a Rogues Gallery, when it comes to superheroes you are defined by your enemies. Cheetah and Giganta are rather distinctive from a visual/power standpoint but they are far from being able to carry on as the Big Bad. Her more iconic elements are rooted in Greek mythology like Ares, Hades or Hercules but there are so many revisionist adaptations of those mythological elements (Troy, Clash Of The Titans, even 300) that it would be hard to make it unique, unless you go for a budget busting "Eight-Headed Hydra in modern city" route.

Truthfully the best thing they could do regardless of the plot is keep her both warrior and regal, a harcore badass and comfortable being feminine. Too many action girls have this apathetic, aloof attitude that tries so hard to not be female (unless playing it up as a distraction) it ends up being almost counter-feminism, that you can't be feminine and strong at the same time. Black Widow and, to a lesser extent, Mystique have fallen into that trap from time to time.

I think my plot holds tighter to the concept. The powers just make her super. She is the hero. She wins not by having the stronger arms, but rather by having the better ideas. She beats the man by yanking the rug out from under his concept.

Something I've thought would be interesting in a Wonder Woman movie (or any re-doing of her origin story) is if the Amazons have been pirating broadcasts and satellite feeds from the outside world for decades. Diana got to be a big fan of American television, so that, when Steve Trevor shows up, she a) has already learned English, and b) is fascinated by the world she's only ever seen on TV screens. While there would be some superheroic mission prompting her to leave Themiscyra, her motivation would be more akin to an Otaku who's won an all-expense paid trip to Japan.

So let's write up the script and donate it so they ain't got no excuse.

My ending goes like this:

The de-powered Ms Prince explains to Buchanan why his scheme won't work. He rejects this and stomps off to activate his doomsday device. Ms Prince finds her bling, transforms back into Wonder Woman, and chases after him. Buchanan shoots at her, she bounces the bullet back, and it cuts the cable holding up his platform. She reaches out to grab him, but he blocks her grab and falls down to the lava. With a flash he's gone.

She finds Steve, puts a splint on his broken leg and carries him to safety as the volcano lair erupts behind them.

Roll credits.

Back in D.C., Steve is the hero of the hour, but he gives all the credit to that mysterious Wonder Woman. Ms. Prince is as apparently skeptical as everybody else about this. She drives him home, he insists that he'll be fine on his crutches and will be back to work in no time. As she is returning to her apartment an object flies right by her face and embeds itself in the wall next to her. As she picks this up we see that it's a batarang. She reads a message engraved on it and then raises her eyes to scan the rooftops.

The end.

The original explanation for her invisible jet was the Amazons had scrying device they could use to learn about the outside world, saw people's inventions and started copying them because they had nothing else better to do. They didn't have so much in depth on say, Germany's warpath or this land in between Canada and Mexico but I suppose them learning English for fun would fall right in line if they were listening in on the airwaves more directly. What I did not is that it highlights the jet for the non practical novelty that it is and not using that knowledge for war felt...unamazonish. Toys are nice but shouldn't the invisible plain be treated as a fearsome weapon?

My idea is that there would be some supernatural nasties on the side of the Axis powers, prompting the Amazons to send one of their own to deal with it, who just happens to take a liking to the outside world.

My thought would be to skip most of the origin story for the movie, and open with Special Agent Diana Prince of the No Such Agency, who quickly discovers that much of her past is a lie created by Deception (we'll skip "the Duke of") in a vain attempt to neutralize her as a threat. She was supposed to have become a "normal" woman, but Diana's strong personality caused her to excel for the last few years anyway.

By the quarter hour mark, she's regained most of her real memories. For this version, the Wonder Woman costume deliberately evokes the American flag because the Amazons wanted her to investigate goings-on in the USA, and they figured a patriotic motif would make the locals like WW.

The really obvious villain is Mr. Martial, who runs Martial Enterprises, which not only makes weapons, but is involved in creating super soldiers, providing privatized military operations and is generally pretty scummy. The twist towards the end is that Mr. Martial is not in fact Ares, but his personal assistant Elly is Eris, who is behind the whole thing in an effort to spread discord across the world.

Eris' doomsday weapon is a device that will scramble everyone's brain language centers, making them unable to understand each other or read. In addition to Deception, who is mostly an illusionist, Martial Enterprises also has the Cheetah and a couple of other physically-oriented minions to provide fight scenes.