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kjnoren Since: Feb, 2011
#3326: Sep 17th 2017 at 5:14:41 AM

My issue with the way Greek mythology is treated in Wonder Woman has less to do with inaccuracy than with how thoroughly imbued with Christianity it is. It also has no good reason for being that way, I can easily come up with at least two ways for how Ares ended up in the First World War and needed to be stopped by Wonder Woman, while you still have the rest of the Olympian gods around.

Punisher286 Since: Jan, 2016
#3327: Sep 17th 2017 at 5:18:27 AM

Given how the gods like to screw around with people during the Trojan War, I doubt that they wouldn't stick their noses into something like WWI. Which would make the story more complicated than it needed to be.

Also it establishing Ares as a threat pretty quickly. And since the gods in mythology don't really die for good, and we have reason to question some of the things that Hippolyta told Diana, there's no real reason why we couldn't see them return moving forward.

TobiasDrake Queen of Good Things, Honest (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
Queen of Good Things, Honest
#3328: Sep 17th 2017 at 7:03:32 AM

Could you elaborate on what you mean? Like, she flat out states they did try to help mankind but where rejected. What other implications are there?

Exact words: "The gods created us, the Amazons, to influence men's hearts with love and restore peace to the Earth."

This alarmingly plays straight the gender stereotype about men being wild and savage beasts and women being beacons of pure love and sensuality who exist to soothe men's dangerous tendencies. Especially when it's accompanied by a visual of a horde of women climbing buck-naked out of the sea to greet Roman Legionnaires.

This idea that the Amazons were created to fix the world by seducing men into being less monstrous seems weirdly out-of-place in a story that is otherwise about an empowered nation of female warriors, especially one that takes as many opportunities in the London sequence to challenge the gender norms of the era it's set in.

I know the common comparison for this movie is First Avenger, but I feel like there's also a bit of Agent Carter in Diana's journey, which is certainly to the film's credit.

Should I be afraid of this friend of yours?

She's a paranoid schizophrenic and is very proud of the Norse blood in her, so yes, probably. tongue

But in seriousness, the thing about the f*cked up face is the way it flies in the face of the idea that female characters have to constantly be pretty sex objects in film. Dr. Poison's face has these weird ceramic sections that mess up her features and make her look unattractive, which is not something you see out of Hollywood often.

I mean, there's also the trope about Beauty Equals Goodness which is on full display with the contrast between the Amazons and Dr. Poison, but Hollywood's need for every onscreen woman to be f*ckable usually overrides that. Evil women are typically still super-sexy. Often even more super-sexy than the heroic women.

So props to the film for presenting a woman with a f*cked up face like it's no big thing.

I don't know what she meant about the boob being cut off, to be honest. I know she's referring to the myth that Amazons cut one of their boobs off in order to better use a bow, but I'm not sure where she spotted that. There's a woman early on who has one boob uncovered and a leather harness over the other; I think she mistook the leather harness for being flat or something?

My issue with the way Greek mythology is treated in Wonder Woman has less to do with inaccuracy than with how thoroughly imbued with Christianity it is. It also has no good reason for being that way, I can easily come up with at least two ways for how Ares ended up in the First World War and needed to be stopped by Wonder Woman, while you still have the rest of the Olympian gods around.

That happens to Greek myths a lot, distressingly enough. Zeus frequently gets played up to be a kind and loving skyfather, while Hades and Ares take turns being Greek Satan. The rest of the pantheon, if they're present at all, basically play the role of God's Angels in Christianized Greek myth, working under Zeus and carrying out his plan across the world.

edited 17th Sep '17 7:06:17 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.
windleopard from Nigeria Since: Nov, 2014 Relationship Status: Non-Canon
#3329: Sep 17th 2017 at 7:23:29 AM

This idea that the Amazons were created to fix the world by seducing men into being less monstrous seems weirdly out-of-place in a story that is otherwise about an empowered nation of female warriors, especially one that takes as many opportunities in the London sequence to challenge the gender norms of the era it's set in.

It's put of place because it doesn't exist in the movie. At all. There is zero evidence this is how the Amazons were going to help people. Hell, it's later shown they can speak multiple languages so the idea that they're basically just going to seduce men into being nice has zero basis in the film.

TobiasDrake Queen of Good Things, Honest (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
Queen of Good Things, Honest
#3330: Sep 17th 2017 at 7:25:14 AM

A bunch of naked women are told to use love to go influence men's hearts. What, exactly, does that sound like to you?

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.
Discar Since: Jun, 2009
#3331: Sep 17th 2017 at 7:27:47 AM

This alarmingly plays straight the gender stereotype about men being wild and savage beasts and women being beacons of pure love and sensuality who exist to soothe men's dangerous tendencies. Especially when it's accompanied by a visual of a horde of women climbing buck-naked out of the sea to greet Roman Legionnaires.

This idea that the Amazons were created to fix the world by seducing men into being less monstrous seems weirdly out-of-place in a story that is otherwise about an empowered nation of female warriors, especially one that takes as many opportunities in the London sequence to challenge the gender norms of the era it's set in.

Keep in mind this was a heavily watered-down version of the story being told to a pre-teen girl in an effort to convince her not to put herself in danger. She meant "love" as in the type of love we see between Diana and her family on the island, and the type of love we see between Steve's comrades later; friendship and companionship, not necessarily romance. Likewise, the fact that the Amazons were enslaved and now deeply distrustful of humans implies that this plan utterly failed.

Though honestly, it wouldn't be out of character for the mythological Greek gods to try and create an entire species to try to seduce men into doing something. Didn't that actually happen a few times?

edited 17th Sep '17 7:28:36 AM by Discar

windleopard from Nigeria Since: Nov, 2014 Relationship Status: Non-Canon
#3332: Sep 17th 2017 at 7:43:13 AM

[up][up] like I might need a whole lot of context before I reach a conclusion.

Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#3333: Sep 17th 2017 at 7:47:45 AM

Pretty sure 'men' is being used in the Ye Olde sense, ie. mankind meaning humankind (but men first and foremost because deeply ingrained patriarchy), and they're naked in the mythic Aphrodite-rising-from-the-waves sense, and they did in fact clothe themselves at some point between arriving on the shore and going on their mission. I get how the Christian patriarchal themes of the Old Masters kind of painting that the whole intro is done in could seem to run counter to themes of women's rights, but I think the value of Wonder Woman is in reinforcing that the struggle goes on— women in Britain won't have even had the right to vote for a full hundred years until next year.

Zeus and Ares being positioned as the Abrahamic God and Lucifer was meant to render the symbolism more immediately recognizable to modern audiences. Spoilered for Tobias: Despite being portrayed as benevolent, for example, it's in trying to please Zeus and act according to what she believes to be his divine plan that Diana finds herself entirely misled about the nature of Ares, to say nothing of humanity as a whole.

edited 17th Sep '17 10:36:51 PM by Unsung

thatindiantroper Since: Feb, 2015
#3334: Sep 17th 2017 at 11:02:16 AM

"A bunch of naked women are told to use love to go influence men's hearts. What, exactly, does that sound like to you?"

Steeeretch.

AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#3335: Sep 17th 2017 at 12:42:59 PM

Yeah I didn't get the impression they meant that the Amazons were sent to seduce men either, but love in general, including romantic and platonic kinds. Like they were paragons meant to guide them. And I think Tobias is taking classical art throwbacks a bit too much at face value. They probably wanted to play up the distinction between Amazons and mortal men but they do also show mundane human women in the paintings so men is not gender-specific.

Punisher286 Since: Jan, 2016
#3336: Sep 17th 2017 at 10:17:41 PM

Also Hippolyta says that Zeus created humanity to be fundamentally decent to begin with. But then Ares started messing with things, so The Amazons were basically an attempt to try and fix things/put things right again. But that go screwed up as well somewhere along the way (the actual details for the Amazon's enslavement are left very vague, they just say that it happened at some point).

KJMackley Since: Jan, 2001
#3337: Sep 19th 2017 at 10:21:25 AM

The official final total for Wonder Woman is 411 million Domestic and 819 Worldwide.

The thing about everything Hippolyta said is that she is lying to Diana, casting all of the smaller details in doubt. Ares does confirm some things, but mostly about his rebellion against the other gods. It's vague enough that any retcon is both plausible and has an in-story reason. Justice League is depicting a MASSIVE war against Apokalips, and you'd think something of that nature might have been mentioned in Diana's bedtime stories. Although some people have suggested that the history lesson may come from Diana as recounting another bedtime story.

Punisher286 Since: Jan, 2016
#3338: Sep 19th 2017 at 10:23:51 AM

I wonder if the Amazons will just be in that one scene (where Steppenwolf arrives on Earth) and in flashbacks, or if we might get an "all hands on deck" scenario near the end? Like if the threat is a massive as it appears like it's going to be, maybe the Amazons show up to help out (and perhaps Mera and some Atlanteans as well)?

MadSkillz Destroyer of Worlds Since: Mar, 2013 Relationship Status: I only want you gone
Destroyer of Worlds
#3339: Sep 19th 2017 at 10:43:36 AM

"You can't change the world without getting your hands dirty."
KJMackley Since: Jan, 2001
#3340: Sep 19th 2017 at 10:52:28 PM

I figure it would be primarily in the flashbacks and the introduction to Steppenwolf. Having the final battle call in entire armies of supernatural warriors to win the day would diminish the importance of the individual members of the league, especially those not Wonder Woman or Aquaman (because they would at least be responsible for calling them to arms).

TobiasDrake Queen of Good Things, Honest (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
Queen of Good Things, Honest
#3341: Sep 20th 2017 at 7:25:23 PM

Hey, I'm back. Getting Viking to step away from her social games - Destiny, Smite, Payday 2, etc. - long enough to actually watch a movie is very difficult. She's given me the go-ahead to finish the critique on Wonder Woman without her, so that's what is happening now.

"Would you like to buy an ice cream?" You know, I'm actually a little disappointed that Steve was here for this. He narrowly saved Diana from a hilarious comedic misunderstanding over the nature of capitalism.

"You should be very proud." He absolutely should. Ice cream is a societal treasure and anyone who says otherwise is literally a Nazi. Literally. Declaring publicly that you dislike ice cream actually auto-registers you to start receiving pamphlets on how you can assist in the ethnic cleansing of your neighborhood.

"It's awful." You should see the other guys. No, not the other army, they're just as bad off. I'm talking about the dead. Literally millions of dead on both sides of the conflict. An entire generation lost to the horrors of war. Not as bad as Captain America's war nor is it as horrifying, but certainly every bit as tragic because of the pointlessness of it.

Putting Ares at this particular point in time was actually a good call. As much as I disdain them for using him as Greek Satan, Ares is the god of violent, pointless, chaotic war and this is the greatest example of that in human history. Even if they hadn't done the stupid "Zeus made Amazons with his dying breath to save mankind from Ares" bit, Ares could still easily be the villain of this conflict. Never before or since have so many died over basically nothing at all.

This war was a glitch in Imperial Europe. It happened because of a perfect storm of political relationships, obligations, and requirements of its era. Everyone lost so much but nobody gained anything. There was nothing for anyone to gain. Millions of people died because everyone was contractually required to start shooting at each other even though nobody had a good reason to do so. If ever there was a war that could justifiably be blamed on a violent murder-god frenzying up the populace, this is the one.

"It is over for you. It is over for all of you." Yeah, I'm not really clear on how General Clearly Ares actually plans to get away with murdering the other generals like this. There should be armed guards standing right outside that door watching him do this. Who the f*ck goes to a meeting of leadership and is just like, "Security in case something goes awry? Pfft. Who would ever attack the most powerful heads of state in a nation that is presently at war? This is World War I! We do things by the honor system around here!"

"That mask won't help." "They don't know that." [lol] Ares gave them an excuse to start stabbing each other over a useless prop. Even though they're all going to die anyway, he just wants them to do some random violence while they're at it. This is a nice bit of characterization on his part.

Oh, cool, a Native American is among the soldiers Steve and Diana hooked up with. That's a representation win, right there. A quick Google search even tells me that Chief is played by Eugene Black Rock, an actual native - specifically, a member of the Kainai Nation in Alberta, Canada - and not a Mexican, which is who usually gets cast for the roles.

This isn't just solid representation, it's also historically accurate; Native Americans enlisted in droves for WWI and were often put to work as code talkers. The 400-500 Native Americans languages were largely unknown to the European nations present for the war, which made them a perfect language to then encode in secret messages. Even if you could break the encryptian, the message might as well be gibberish if you don't speak Lakota or Cherokee or Hopi. If you grew up German in the early 1900s, you probably didn't even know those languages existed.

"Get off me, woman! Stop making a fuss!" I just notice the shellshocked Scot is wearing a kilt. Another historically accurate point; many regiments of the Scottish military did, in fact, wear kilts to war during the great one.

Diana's march through the fleeing refugees is heartbreaking. Before watching this, I felt very strongly that this was DC's take on The First Avenger. I still feel that way, but I actually feel like this does First Avenger better. That film used WWII largely as a set piece. Events took place there largely out of obligation, with very little of the actual war emphasized. Here, the plot is written in such a way as to really explore the horror and magnitude of WWI.

I still maintain that this is DC's transparent attempt at aping Cap, particularly because there's nothing to my knowledge about Wonder Woman's story that really necessitates she be a woman out of time. Like, I don't read the comics, but nearly every adaptation of Wonder Woman I've ever seen has had her leaving Themyscira in the nebulous time period of "Nowish". I really feel like they set it here just because Marvel's star-spangled hero with a film right before their big team-up happened in WWII. Fighting in WWI is not an iconic and undying aspect of her character like WWII is for Cap, Wolverine, etc.

But damn if it doesn't improve upon the original.

"We are doing something. We can't save everyone in this war." Steve is absolutely right here. I understand where Diana's coming from, but this isn't any kind of conflict she was ever prepared for. She has bullet-repelling bracers, quick reflexes, and a cool sword, but they have the ability to kill hundreds of people with a single shot fired from literally miles away. I'm sure she'll find some way to superpower her way to victory in the end, but even that won't save everyone.

This war is big, it's ugly, and countless people are dying with every hour that passes.

"No, but it's what I'm going to do." …I know I'm an awful human being for saying this, but I would laugh so hard if her slow-mo badass climb up the ladder and out of the trench was cut abruptly short by a bullet punching through her skull. I don't want her to be proven right here because she's mistaking a can't for a won't. When Steve says, "We can't save everyone," she hears, "We won't save everyone. I refuse to do so, because I'm not an awesome heroic person like you."

For that reason, I really want her to be anticlimactically driven right back into the trench, because it's kinda insulting to the people who fought in this war to depict them as uncaring strawmen like this.

This action scene of Diana storming the trenches is really cool but also feels really disingenuous. Like it's saying that what we really needed in WWI was a way to kill the Germans harder. The victorious, triumphant music blaring as Diana sends a parade of corpses and wounded home to Berlin exactly like the one she passed after getting off the train seems to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of this conflict. The problem with WWI wasn't that the Germans were resisting us really hard. It was that everyone was even fighting at all.

Like, philosophically, she just lost the war against Ares. Rather than opposing his meaningless bloodshed, she leapt into the fray and helped slaughter some humans in the name of it. I really hope that comes up, but the music seems to be indicating that we're supposed to be going, "WOOT! Go Diana! Kick those Germans' asses! Blood to the blood god! Skulls for the skull throne!" This, ironically, is a bit of action that would be much better fit to Captain America's WWII setting.

I'm not sure why we even needed that scene of Ares killing the German military leadership and assuming control if we're supposed to be cheering for the Germans to die anyway.

I mean, she's not explicitly killing anyone, but - wait, never mind. She just chucked a guy out a window. He fell a story and landed on his neck. That guy is totally dead.

I am so confused by what just happened. Diana leapt into the air and a tank fired its shot at her. She raised her shield to block the shot, which it did, and then fell to the ground and resumed charging. Um, no? Even assuming the shield is powerful enough to withstand the blast and protect her from it - a reasonable assumption; it's magic Amazon gear, so whatever - it should still have thrown her backwards from the force of impact.

Cap actually did that scene right in The Avengers, where he curls himself around his shield in midair to escape a grenade detonation. The blast throws him out the window, but the shield protects him from harm. This was an explosive several times more powerful than that one. A character who doesn't even have flight capabilities doesn't get to No-Sell it in midair.

This lasso bit is another really awesome bit of violence in the name of the War God against men serving their country, but I can't help but wonder why nobody's shooting at Steve.

"Diana, shield!" …what? That jump was all Diana. There is no way even four men pushing up really hard on a slat of metal launched her that far. As such, I have no idea what Steve even thinks his contribution to that jump was.

Also, nice symbolism in destroying a church with that attack. It's a subtle reference to the fact that Diana's here to slay a god.

"Everyone is fighting their own battle, Diana. Just as you are fighting yours." And all those people you just killed were fighting theirs. Again, this would fit better in WWII, where Germany was the clear-cut Bad Guy, rather than the morally murky WWI where everyone was a victim of circumstance.

"Ludendorf is Ares." I don't feel like Diana has an appropriate level of information to declare that all of a sudden. She's right, but it feels like she's right because she read the script, not because this is actually grounded in any kind of real logic.

"I forbid it!" "Sir, I'm losing you." Steve is so court-martialled for that stunt. He should not have done that. He could have at least pretended he was going to follow orders and then gone behind the military's back. Openly declaring the intent to go AWOL and cause an international incident is basically saying, "Please, sir, I want so badly for you to have me arrested on sight just as soon as you can relay orders to your MPs."

He can't even claim that they discovered some piece of intel that necessitated quick action after hanging up now, because his obviously disrespectful method of ending that call already declared everything that needed to be declared about his criminal intentions.

And then Steve and Diana participated in adrenaline-fueled canoodling. Hollywood's favorite kind of canoodling, frequently mistaken for romantic love.

"Who will sing for us?" grin I really like the camaradarie between Diana and the Howling Commandos. They're a fun bunch.

"What are you doing?" A strange woman comes out of the woods dressed in a cloak and approaches you? You're a wealthy noblewoman. This is clearly a bandit set on robbing you. There are people, like, three feet away. Scream, idiot.

"Have we met?" Probably, yes. He was a spy in your camp. You've likely seen him a thousand times by now, so the fact that this gambit works is a testament to how little attention you pay to your soldiers. Which isn't a criticism. She's not in the military hierarchy, so far as I know. She's a scientist, not an officer. She is under no obligation to be able to tell one grunt from another.

Diana sticks out like a sore thumb at this part. Mostly because of that dress. It accentuates how alien she is to this kind of environment by being bright blue, conflicting with the darker palettes of everyone else's outfit. She's really lucky that the first woman to bumble past her just happened to be wearing such thematically appropriate attire.

[lol] She has her sword in the back of the dress. Everyone can see that. It's hilarious.

Why nobody's raised an alarm about the poorly-disguised assassin, however, I could not for the life of me say. She is surrounded by soldiers. Someone should have said or done something.

Does Diana have, like, Amazon chemical-weapon immunity or something? This shit's basically super mustard gas. Her skin should be burning off after she marches into the gas cloud and starts staring distressedly at the victims.

Yeah, it's still potent. Steve gets there and immediately starts coughing. So I guess Diana just doesn't breathe or something? And maybe this stuff doesn't absorb through skin, making it significantly less potent than mustard gas? I don't know. Then again, she's legally a pot, so that could be why it doesn't affect her.

Man, a Hylian scrounging for rupees would be the death of her.

"You stopped me from killing Ares!" Really.

"It isn't just the Germans that Ares has corrupted, it's you too." Well, yes, sort of. Now we're touching on the "both sides in the wrong" angle, but in the stupidest way possible. The Germans are bad because they're evil, wicked people who kill civilians needlessly, and the Americans and Europeans are bad because Steve wouldn't let her murder a man in cold blood.

They amazingly found a way to blame both sides while still laying all heinousness at the feet of the Germans. The crime of the Westerners is not being brutal enough in their opposition to the Germans?

Hey, they found a way to have Steve ride his motorcycle through the woods across German lines. All he needs now is a shield to throw.

"As magnificent as you are, you are still no match for me." God-killing sword, ladies and gentlemen. Destroys the divine. Easily stopped by metal.

"And your wrath upon this world is over." Ooh, please tell me he's not actually Ares. That's going to be amazing if he's not actually Ares. They played him up as Ares so hard that it would be a fantastic twist.

"They were killing each other. Killing people they cannot see. Children." Welcome to WWI, Diana. I really like this bit. Diana killed Ludendorf who may or may not have been Ares and it changed absolutely f*cking nothing about the war.

I still wish they weren't playing the Germans as face-eating monsters and everyone else as valiant heroes, though.

"We're all to blame." "I'm not." Yes, you are. You totally killed a bunch of Germans in the name of a holy crusade. You're not above all this, Diana. You're just as violent, prone to radicalization, and ready to kill on an act of faith as everyone else in this war. I really hope Steve brings that up.

"Help me stop it right now." Every time they do something that makes me feel like the writers really understood this war, they do something after that makes me feel like they didn't. Like, Steve is totally right that they need to stop the gas but at the same time, framing it as ending the war is missing the fundamental point behind the War to End All Wars.

Everyone on every side of the war thought this same thing. We need that win. That decisive victory. Let's strike the blow that will end the war. Let's deal the damage that will end it. One more battle. One more crossing. One more victory. This will be the one, I promise you, this is it.

Stopping the shipment of gas is important but acting like this act of violence will totally be the violence that ends the war is just giving into the same emotional fallacy that led to the war lasting as long and being as fruitless and as devastating for everyone that it was. This is not a war that can be won.

Sir Patrick was Ares?! Okay, yeah, that's a solid twist. I'm going to wait for him to Motive Rant a bit before I try to guess at his intentions here.

[lol] I like how Ares calmly waited for Diana to go up on the roof, retrieve her sword, and then come back down.

And he's not even in the box, because he's in the reflection. That's cool.

"The God-Killer?!" "My dear child, that is not the God-Killer. You are." Also a cool twist. It was pretty heavily foreshadowed that she was his kid in some way, but that obvious twist veiled the true twist behind it. Well played.

Ares's motives horribly conflict with the actual character of Ares in greek mythos, but they do work well for creating a nuanced and interesting villain. He's sympathetic in a way that Greek Satan figures usually aren't allowed to be.

"It's on a timer! If we ground it here, it's the same thing!" Steve's gonna have to put her in the water. Fortunately, they'll thaw him out in fifty years to join the Justice League.

If Diana can withstand explosions in her face that throw her hundreds of feet across the base and land her ass on concrete without so much as a scratch, I don't know why she even bothers blocking bullets.

"NOOOOOOOOO!!!" Despair-fueled Super Saiyan transformation? Seems a bit cheesy as a second wind option.

"Just like your Captain Trevor." What. No, seriously, what. He actually was on a roll with amping up her rage over Trevor's pointless death, and then he's just like, "Also, f*ck that guy that you like that set this off." As villainous monologue mistakes go, that one was pointlessly stupid.

I could totally criticize how stupid this scene where Diana chooses her faction based entirely on having tingly feelings in the nether-regions for a person but let's be honest, 90% of male heroes do the same f*cking thing.

"Let's destroy the humans!" "You know, I'm really feeling what you're laying down, but I also really want to bone that one human, so I'm afraid I can't be on your side. Sorry, the power of boners and/or lady-boners is stronger than philosophical debate."

And now she can destroy swords with the power of her mind, without even blocking them. Okay. Ever since she went Super Saiyan, Diana just sorta stopped having any kind of understandable powerset. This is basically a wizard's duel now. "I cast my shield spell." "Well, I cast my anti-shield spell spell.

"It's not about what they deserve. It's about what you believe. And I believe in love." Specifically, sexual/romantic love and not the general love and compassion kind. I will smite you with my lady-boner!

It's a shame Ares melted her sword earlier because this would actually be the perfect time for her to have a large, phallic instrument to pierce him with.

It's weird to me that Ares uses so much lightning. Lightning is supposed to be Zeus's thing. I kinda feel like his character in general would actually work better if he was Zeus. It would make more sense of him being petty and contemptuous of humans; Zeus despised us. There could also be a great parallel with Prometheus; he gave man fire, which was the spark of invention and creativity, and now Zeus is using man's creativity and invention to destroy them, perverting Prometheus's gift.

…and then Ares died and everyone started hugging and the war was abruptly over? So, WWI really was all Ares's fault and everything that they said about the nature of humans was totally wrong? Humans are naturally peaceful people who were just being corrupted after all? The hell?

How do you explain WWII then, movie? This shit got so much worse.

"And now I know that only love can truly save the world." Specifically, my lady-boner.

"This is my mission now. Forever." And then she jumped so hard that she's pretty much going to crater whatever she lands on. God, I hope it's not a rooftop. Diana's new mission is to randomly kill some French people for the sake of her throbbing lady-boner.

So, that was a lot of fun. This was way better than DC's usual fare and I actually stand by what I said earlier: this is totally First Avenger, but it's also better than First Avenger. It improves upon the original.

At the same time, I do feel like it was very confused about its own themes. It wanted a War is Hell message but it also wanted the Germans to be clear-cut Bad Guys. It wanted the West to be murky and morally ambiguous but it didn't want them to do anything unheroic. It wanted to declare unambiguously that this war is a product of man's evil and not of Ares, but it also wanted the conflict to abruptly end with Ares's demise.

The film's Show strongly conflicted with its Tell, and the result was a movie that wanted to have deep philosophical themes but was unwilling to support them in its action.

Also, I maintain that Ares would have worked better if he was Zeus, but I digress.

The film is definitely flawed, but as I said, it's far better than anything DC's ever put into the DCEU. If this is indicative of the post-Snyder direction these films are taking, there may be hope for Justice League yet.

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.
Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#3342: Sep 20th 2017 at 7:37:56 PM

The thing is that while obviously everyone had some share of responsibility for WW 1, according to the admittedly little I've read about recent WW 1 scholarships, a lot of the blame for the situation IS on Germany's shoulders (and to a lesser extent Austria); there was a lot of discussion about that when the film first released. So it's not exactly a total moral grey area.

The real Luddendorf was also apparently not much like he is depicted in the film.

edited 20th Sep '17 7:38:44 PM by Draghinazzo

SonOfSharknado Love is Love is Love Since: Oct, 2013 Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
Love is Love is Love
#3343: Sep 20th 2017 at 8:15:52 PM

I'm not gonna lie, Tobias, I know it's your... humor, but as soon as you started ending every sentence with "Ladyboner", it kind of killed the review.

My various fanfics.
KarkatTheDalek Not as angry as the name would suggest. from Somwhere in Time/Space Since: Mar, 2012 Relationship Status: You're a beautiful woman, probably
Not as angry as the name would suggest.
#3344: Sep 20th 2017 at 8:31:43 PM

[up][up] I mean, he wasn't a full-on supervillain, but he was a proto-Nazi, and was a major perpetuator of the "stabbed in the back" myth, which became part of a wave of anti-Semitism that the Nazis rose to power on.

Oh God! Natural light!
RhymeBeat Bird mom from Eastern Standard Since: Aug, 2009 Relationship Status: In Lesbians with you
Bird mom
#3345: Sep 20th 2017 at 8:52:04 PM

The War ended because of Armistice. Trevor ended the war, only in the sense that the gas would have reignited it. That was the reason Trevor was told not to go on the mission. The fear that his operation would interfere with the negotiations.

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Shadao To be a Master Since: Jan, 2013 Relationship Status: Shipping fictional characters
To be a Master
#3346: Sep 20th 2017 at 8:53:42 PM

The problem with blaming both sides of the war is that it's going to be pretty tricky when war crimes are involved. As well as the fact that the Nazis didn't came out of nowhere. They needed to have some kind of fertile ground for them to get off. Really, I think they did their best to emphasize that the Germans are not evil. Ludendorff is the only major character explicitly confirmed to be a German (as Dr. Poison is implied to be a Spaniard), and it's quite clear he's a rogue general who shoots his own men and betrays his superiors in a gruesome fashion.

The only other evil Germans are the spies that ambushed Steve Trevor in London. However, that is typical spy work in Hollywood, and anyone tasked to find spies and prevent leaks would do the same here in the movie if it happen to them.

edited 20th Sep '17 8:54:24 PM by Shadao

Tuckerscreator (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#3347: Sep 20th 2017 at 8:53:49 PM

I like how Ludendorff here spent the last 30 seconds of his life hearing some mysterious woman boasting about how there's an entire secret order dedicated to killing him and being destined from birth to do so, wondering what on earth is going on.

TobiasDrake Queen of Good Things, Honest (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
Queen of Good Things, Honest
#3348: Sep 20th 2017 at 9:18:03 PM

The War ended because of Armistice. Trevor ended the war, only in the sense that the gas would have reignited it. That was the reason Trevor was told not to go on the mission. The fear that his operation would interfere with the negotiations.

We literally see the survivors of Trevor's squad and the German soldiers stand up, lay down arms, and start hugging each other immediately after Ares's death.

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SonOfSharknado Love is Love is Love Since: Oct, 2013 Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
Love is Love is Love
#3349: Sep 20th 2017 at 9:19:32 PM

Yeah, because they're glad they're not dead, when it looked like they were standing in the middle of the end of the world.

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TobiasDrake Queen of Good Things, Honest (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
Queen of Good Things, Honest
#3350: Sep 20th 2017 at 9:22:33 PM

It's still a glaring association.

  • Ares dies.
  • Everyone immediately stops fighting.
  • Peace rings out across the world.

Pretty strongly suggests that Ares's death caused peace.

EDIT: Hell, when they were standing in "the end of the world", they were totally willing to try and kill Diana anyways.

edited 20th Sep '17 9:23:19 PM by TobiasDrake

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