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Tuckerscreator (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#3351: Sep 20th 2017 at 9:25:18 PM

It's one of those issues where "a picture is worth a thousand words". Canonically, the script is right: the Armistice ended the war that day, and Steve and Diana merely ensured it stayed ended that day. But film is a visual medium, so a shot that seems to give the impression of "blowing up this guy brought up the sun and cured everybody" fills in a blank in viewers' minds too effectively, even if the villain spends a good five minutes under a truth lasso saying the exact opposite.

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Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#3352: Sep 20th 2017 at 9:27:26 PM

Yeah. I don't think that was the intention, but that's how it looks. Most of what happens after Sir Patrick/Ares suits up and launches into a punching match with Diana actively undermines the Aesop that she gives both before and after it happens. If they had to have a big burly brawl in glorious computer graphics, they could've done a little more with Ludendorff's Hulk juice, but the real victory was always about saving the Armistice from Doctor Poison's bombs. What I really liked was Ares ghosting around gloating about how his evil plan never actually required him to do anything.

edited 20th Sep '17 9:33:37 PM by Unsung

TobiasDrake Queen of Good Things, Honest (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
Queen of Good Things, Honest
#3353: Sep 20th 2017 at 9:27:42 PM

Quite. Like I said in my review, the movie's Show and its Tell conflicted with each other.

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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
#3354: Sep 20th 2017 at 9:33:13 PM

People have said that before but I never got the criticism. I don't see how Diana fighting and killing Ares makes her a hypocrite. Even if you're someone who believes in love, peace, and understanding, there will still come a time where you need to fight for those ideals. Sometimes, yes, that means physically fighting, against an enemy that can't be reasoned with and can't be stalemated, who must be destroyed outright.

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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
#3355: Sep 20th 2017 at 9:36:13 PM

That's what everyone on every side of World War I said about everyone else on every side of World War I.

Like I said at several points in my review, that's exactly the kind of theme that's really better suited to World War II, where the Nazis were indisputably the Bad Guys and had to be stopped with extreme prejudice.

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Tuckerscreator (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#3356: Sep 20th 2017 at 9:38:04 PM

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.

I can't find an online source as of yet, but a Blackfoot friend from Canada told me that Native Americans have the highest enlistment ratio of any ethnic group in the US military.

EDIT: Ah, the Smithsonian is the source.

edited 20th Sep '17 9:41:27 PM by Tuckerscreator

Per the mods' repellant efforts to avoid all responsibility, I regret to announce this is the end of my time on TVT. I'm going now. Goodbye.
Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#3357: Sep 20th 2017 at 9:38:49 PM

@Sharknado I don't think it makes her a hypocrite. It undermines the Aesop that it didn't take some evil supervillain to kick off this war and that there is no Red Skull to punch in the face— the real battlefield is us, all of humanity, our own choices and capacity for good and evil and the responsibility to choose wisely when confronted with the latter. The evil that leads to World Wars isn't some supernatural force, it's just fundamental human viciousness that we need to recognize and defeat within ourselves.

Except no, here's a convenient Tin Tyrant for our hero to punch until he explodes.

edited 20th Sep '17 9:39:28 PM by Unsung

windleopard from Nigeria Since: Nov, 2014 Relationship Status: Non-Canon
#3358: Sep 20th 2017 at 11:09:08 PM

That would work if Diana defeating Ares was actually what stopped the war.

And yeah, I'd buy Tobias' "lady boner" criticism if we didn't see Diana befriending other people or just being shown to care for others.

SonOfSharknado Love is Love is Love Since: Oct, 2013 Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
Love is Love is Love
#3359: Sep 20th 2017 at 11:16:02 PM

Like, the point of using Steve as a point of reference isn't that Diana is inspired to fight because of Steve's attractiveness or her romantic interest in him. It's because his sacrifice and good nature symbolize the good in humanity and are her proof that humanity is worth fighting for and protecting.

This really isn't that hard.

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Shadao To be a Master Since: Jan, 2013 Relationship Status: Shipping fictional characters
To be a Master
#3360: Sep 21st 2017 at 12:06:28 AM

In regards to Broken Aesop, I think what people are not getting about the final battle is that Ares is not a Red Skull-figure. He has become an anti-Wonder Woman, a god-like figure who succumbed to the idea that Humans Are Bastards and deserve to die. He just didn't have the means to wipe them out the usual way (smite them with plagues or natural disasters), so he manipulate human nature to do the work for him.

Wonder Woman needs to kill him to prevent him to end his genocidal campaign, but it comes at the burden of dealing with humanity's own inherent darkness for years to come. Ares was trying to accelerate mankind's destruction, and he brings up the question "Is protecting humanity worth it?" Wonder Woman believes in man's capacity for good, but she now realizes that proving humanity's worthiness to continue as a species will be a long road and difficult task.

edited 21st Sep '17 12:08:24 AM by Shadao

windleopard from Nigeria Since: Nov, 2014 Relationship Status: Non-Canon
#3361: Sep 21st 2017 at 12:29:01 AM

As for the Germans, we saw that not all of them wanted the war.

KJMackley Since: Jan, 2001
#3362: Sep 21st 2017 at 12:56:11 AM

My personal favorite bit of the entire movie was Chief telling Diana that his people were killed off by Steve's people. It's part of the whole message that every society has their demons, and are capable of great good and great evil. That's where the story comes to a head in the third act, where Diana sees people both churn out the war machine and embrace each other in gratitude, both great good and great evil. Now I will agree, the in-story narrative is weakened in that Diana's initial breakdown was from her own perception that Ludendorf was Ares, and that the death of actual Ares coincided with everyone giving up war. But that's more the limitations of the narrative, the death of Ares needed a sense of relief.

Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#3363: Sep 21st 2017 at 1:05:20 AM

It's not a broken Aesop, necessarily. Just a muddy one.

I take issue with it only because I think the movie is pretty clear about its intent elsewhere, yet it still feels the need to end on a giant monster to punch, something they could have easily done without. The idea that there was no one person to blame for World War I would've come through much more clearly if Ares hadn't been physically fought and beaten.

edited 21st Sep '17 5:52:34 AM by Unsung

kjnoren Since: Feb, 2011
#3364: Sep 21st 2017 at 5:35:40 AM

For all that I dislike how the movie mishandled Ares and the rest of the Greek gods, there are still plenty of things the movie got right, and a lot of it centers on Steve's gang.

Chief is the first person to rock Diana's rather simplistic and black-and-white world view, when he says that Steve's people stole his people's land. Apart from the whole thing about giving Native Americans a voice, he also gives an example that he can forgive Steve and still work with him as a friend.

Then we have Sameer, who not only manages to tell Diana about racism, but also teaches Diana the difference between the role a person plays and the person. That sequence when she asks him about Charlie, he answers about himself, and then she suddenly sees Chief's actions is just excellent acting on Gadot's part.

Charlie, on his part is scared shitless when going into No Man's Land, but still goes on, and then he breaks down completely in the village square. Both Steve and Diana had tried to help him earlier, but either out of pity or to be a soldier, but it didn't help him. It's first when Diana reaches out to Charlie the man as someone still worthy of trust and value that he starts to heal (and then we get a nice coda in "Etta Candy's Mission" where he has broken his alcohol addiction/self-medication).

But perhaps most interestingly, there is the scene where Diana refuses to help Steve, and Steve and the rest of the gang continues onwards. That's arguably the lowest point for Diana from a moral standpoint in the entire movie. She fails her friends and her ideals, and I can easily imagine she puts a lot of blame of Steve's death on herself after that.

From this viewpoint, Diana pretty much has to forgive Doctor Maru and let go in the end as a signal that she has learned all the lessons that the gang could teach her, and by forgiving Maru she can also start forgiving herself for Steve's death.

TobiasDrake Queen of Good Things, Honest (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
Queen of Good Things, Honest
#3365: Sep 21st 2017 at 7:38:10 AM

And yeah, I'd buy Tobias' "lady boner" criticism if we didn't see Diana befriending other people or just being shown to care for others.

People who cease to matter in the conclusion with Ares, which boils it down to Diana, Ares, and Diana's feelings for Steve. She flashes back on his declaration of love for her right before she starts declaring herself a champion of love. None of the friends she's made come up at this point; the film draws a firm contextual line between the developing romance with Steve and Diana fighting for love.

Wonder Woman needs to kill him to prevent him to end his genocidal campaign, but it comes at the burden of dealing with humanity's own inherent darkness for years to come. Ares was trying to accelerate mankind's destruction, and he brings up the question "Is protecting humanity worth it?" Wonder Woman believes in man's capacity for good, but she now realizes that proving humanity's worthiness to continue as a species will be a long road and difficult task.

Which undermines the entire point that Ares didn't have a genocidal campaign and humanity was destroying itself. The point of the confrontation was to drive home the idea that World War I was not the product of Ares's machinations. He gave the weapons to man, but it was man who chose to use them.

But then the film lightswitches into, "No, actually, Ares is just a bad guy trying to Kill Em All and Wonder Woman needs to beat him in a knock-down brawl to immediately end the war."

You can't have it both ways. Either it was all Ares's fault or it wasn't.

EDIT: Shit, let's add that to the list of reasons why this would fit better in World War II. If the idea is supposed to be that Ares only gave humanity the idea for their weapons, then killing him now accomplishes nothing and does not contribute in any way to ending the war because nobody's actually fighting under Ares's influence in the first place.

And it doesn't even stop man from developing more devastating weapons of annihilation because WWII's got a doozy of a weapon like nothing Ares ever conceived in this film. We're going to blame chemical warfare on Ares but say that after his death, we totally built nukes just fine without his influence?

Of course we are. Nuclear weapons were created by the Americans and German ex-pats, so bringing them up would interfere with the general message that the Germans are unambiguously the Bad Guys of this morally grey conflict.

Like, we want to talk about humanity destroying itself through the use of powerful weapons? Gas bombs are cruel and horrible, but they were never a serious threat of global extinction. Nuclear fire? That remains a very legitimate threat to the future of mankind to this day.

edited 21st Sep '17 7:52:20 AM by TobiasDrake

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thatindiantroper Since: Feb, 2015
#3366: Sep 21st 2017 at 7:58:43 AM

"But then the film lightswitches into, "No, actually, Ares is just a bad guy trying to Kill 'em All and Wonder Woman needs to beat him in a knock-down brawl to immediately end the war."

Again, that doesn't end the war, the war was already ending. She had to kill Ares here because he just effectively gave her an ultimatum. He asked her to join him in slowly killing off humanity, I doubt she comes li just say "No thanks" and walk away.

Nor why should she ? The dude slaughtered half her family. Even if he only manipulated humans that' s enough of a reason to put him down frankly.

unknowing from somewhere.. Since: Mar, 2014
#3367: Sep 21st 2017 at 9:03:05 AM

sorry double post

edited 21st Sep '17 9:33:43 AM by unknowing

"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"
unknowing from somewhere.. Since: Mar, 2014
#3368: Sep 21st 2017 at 9:33:15 AM

""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. "

for some reason im picture hydracap being spotted because he dislike icecream

"If you grew up German in the early 1900s, you probably didn't even know those languages existed."

I think some people today dosent know those language exist.

" 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."

Also that film try to out nazis the nazis with Hydra which feel it make the nazis look good, here it show germany fault without are stealing their lighting

"Blood to the blood god! Skulls for the skull throne!""

LET THE GALAXY BURN.....sorry, I like my heretic slip for a momenttongue

" 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."

....is that racist against clay people? I think it isgrin

" She fails her friends and her ideals, and I can easily imagine she puts a lot of blame of Steve's death on herself after that."

I remenber a scene in Bv S when she see superman copre and her expresion is on grief, is easy to said is not the ifrst time she saw someone laying down for humanity.

edited 21st Sep '17 9:33:54 AM by unknowing

"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"
TobiasDrake Queen of Good Things, Honest (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
Queen of Good Things, Honest
#3369: Sep 21st 2017 at 9:35:46 AM

[up][up][up] So she had to kill Ares because his plan to wipe out humanity was already failing of its own accord and nothing he did would stop it from doing so? Ares had already been defeated by human nature before Diana ever left Themyscira and nothing she did ever mattered?

Remember: Ares asserts that his only involvement is that he gave the Germans the idea for the gas bombs. He's not working with Dr. Poison. He's not leading the German army. He's not even rallying the West to fight. Shit, the armistice that actually ends the war was his idea.

What part of this equals "Ares must die to end this war"?

edited 21st Sep '17 9:36:24 AM by TobiasDrake

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Punisher286 Since: Jan, 2016
#3370: Sep 21st 2017 at 9:54:59 AM

No not really. Because Ares didn't have to do anything. Ludendorff and Dr. Poison were going to do their thing regardless of Ares or no Ares, Armistice or no armistice. And the British leadership (more on them later) were going to let it happen in order to try and not undermine the negotiations.

None of that changes without Ares. That was all the humans. All Ares did was to give them a pretext to speed up their timetable. Ludendorff and Dr. Poison have to act NOW because the war is about to end, and then their plans become useless.

Also the whole "only the Germans were evil" thing is undermined by the fact that:

1. ALL of the other high-ranking German commanders wanted to stop fighting, and openly opposed Ludendorff. It's why he had them all killed, they'd have tried to stop his plans.

2. The British High Command are depicted as both squabbling (the politicians yelling at each constantly to the point that Sir. Patrick cannot even get a word in), callous (seemingly not caring that thousands of soldiers and civilians, their own soldiers no less) would die in Ludendorff's attack, and just generally condescending and dismissive, And the one guy (Sir Patrick) who seems pretty decent, turned out to be freaking Ares in disguise.

3. 99% of the atrocities committed were carried out by the men under Ludendorff's direct command. And even then we're shown that most of them are doing it out of fear and fatigue. Also Ludendorff is the only one who uses poison gas in the movie onscreen.

4. The Central Powers DID commit the bulk of the atrocities during WWI, and they WERE the aggressors most of the time. Now was it more muddled morality than in WWII, sure. But this idea that all sides were equally guilty is, simply not true.

And as for the "German soldiers at the end," they just watched two gods tear up the area with godlike powers, their leaders are either dead or missing (again see that scene early of them only following Ludendorff out of fear), their gas supply was destroyed, and the war is ending anyway. Oh and one of those gods, who just killed the other, is STARING RIGHT AT THEM!! So yeah, them deciding "time to stop now" makes total sense.

This film is one of those cases where I have to go "were some people just not paying attention, because it's all there if you are?"

Tuckerscreator (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#3371: Sep 21st 2017 at 10:38:46 AM

I think it wasn't necessary to end the film with defeating Ares. In fact, I think it would've been more in character for him to retreat back into the shadows rather than try to punch Diana into agreeing with him. He's been playing the long game for thousands of years; he can wait a little longer, continuing to sneak out weapons, sending Di on a wild goose chase, and slowly wearing down her spirit with the world's ugliness until she can't fight the temptation to agree with him any longer. Would've been one way to keep him around in the modern day and justify Diana's pessimism by BVS.

"Well, it was nice to have an actual godly battle again after so many millennia. Time to fake my own death, take a century vacation, and then keep driving this foolish girl paranoid. evil grin"

edited 21st Sep '17 10:41:32 AM by Tuckerscreator

Per the mods' repellant efforts to avoid all responsibility, I regret to announce this is the end of my time on TVT. I'm going now. Goodbye.
thatindiantroper Since: Feb, 2015
#3372: Sep 21st 2017 at 11:01:28 AM

Ares doesn't have to die to end the war , he has to die so that he doesn't keep trying to make things worse.

Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#3373: Sep 21st 2017 at 11:41:05 AM

But Ares just finished saying that he didn't actually have to do anything for humanity to start World War I. Nobody's having any trouble following the internal logic of why megalomaniacs need to be fought, but having Ares enter the fray personally obscures the less obvious but more poignant (and timely) lesson that it's ultimately not gods or supervillains who make people do bad things. It doesn't ruin the movie or anything, but it does weaken it.

MetaFour AXTE INCAL AXTUCE MUN from a place (Old Master) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
AXTE INCAL AXTUCE MUN
#3374: Sep 21st 2017 at 3:36:47 PM

Shit, the armistice that actually ends the war was his idea.
In other words, Hitler's rise to power and WWII were Ares' indirect handiwork.

In real life, the post-war sanctions against Germany were a compromise between different competing factions. So they wound up being the worst possible choice: just harsh enough to play into the victimhood narrative that fueled the Nazis' rise to power, but not actually harsh enough to stop them from rebuilding the war machine.

In Wonder Woman, all of that was deliberate on Ares' part. He says that his armistice is "A peace treaty they can't possibly keep" or something to that effect.

I didn't write any of that.
KJMackley Since: Jan, 2001
#3375: Sep 21st 2017 at 3:53:47 PM

A number of historians claim that the armistice was actually rather tame and reasonable, but the Nazi party rose to power on the impression that it was unfair. The big deal was that WWI ended in a truce rather than a victory for either side, which is why WWII is viewed as a continuation of the conflict in WWI rather than a completely separate war.

Gadot will host Saturday Night Live in October.

edited 21st Sep '17 3:57:05 PM by KJMackley


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