Wonder Woman Movie

My apologies Ambar; I didn’t click the link earlier and assumed you were referring to the holocaust. I didn’t know about the Herero genocide. That’s horrifying. When my high school discussed the partitioning of Africa all the murder and genocide got left out (we mentioned what Belgium did to the Congo only in English when we read Heart of Darkness).

Sure it does. By suggesting that they could have come out of the trenches if only they'd had a goddamn Amazon to lead the charge, it is insulting them. Right.

Yet somehow, First Avenger wasn't insulting all the people who died to stop Hitler when it claimed it's made up villains were worse than he was. Do you not see the logical inconsistency in your position? And how it lends itself to convincing me that his really about you liking Marvel and hating DC, rather than anything deeper?

Most people outside those of us with an unhealthy interest in the history of genocide aren't overly familiar with the Herero genocide. It is, however, the pioneering genocide of the twentieth century, prefiguring a lot of the techniques that later get used in the Armenian Genocide and indeed, the Holocaust.

edited 18th Dec '17 11:22:24 AM by AmbarSonofDeshar

As I already explained in my last post (but then, you might have missed the edit), there is a difference between a movie using war as a backdrop and making no bones about doing this, and a movie claiming that it has something profound to say about said war and then going and botching what it tries to say in the execution.

Again, agree to disagree. And again, if you really think that this is about Marvel vs DC, you should read my extended rant about a certain episode of the Punisher. I don't HATE DC. I don't even hate Wonder Woman, I think it was a decent movie, but one which frustrates me on multiple occasions. What I do hate is the DCEU, because I think that WB could do better.

edited 18th Dec '17 11:32:26 AM by Swanpride

I mean, ya defended Inhumans until it actually aired and we saw first hand all its shittiness. Can’t blame a guy for thinking you got some fandom goggles on.

And Ambar gets what you’re saying, he thinks it’s better to imperfectly try to address the horrors of war than to use it as just a backdrop to this degree. Where the actual Nazis are just a footnote to the story.

Yeah, well, that was more about people really poking at one of my pet-peeves: Underestimating how difficult it actually is to combine CGI animation with an realistic environment. Plus, I felt they jumped on the hate train a little bit too early. They were right in the end, though, and you might have noticed that I made no attempts whatsoever to defend Inhumans since I have seen the pilot (I actually nominated Inhumans as worst Drama and worst new show of the year just today). And even before I saw the pilot I was clear that I wouldn't forgive it if the show just hacks off Medusa's hair in the first episode and spends the majority of the runtime on earth. Because, guess what, it is not about brand for me. I am ready to give Marvel a little bit more the benefit of the doubt because they have earned it with their track record. But Marvel can just as fast loose this privilege as DC can earn it. You know, on the flipside, I tend to give DC the benefit of the doubt when it comes to their animated stuff, while I don't expect a lot from Marvel.

edited 18th Dec '17 11:51:06 AM by Swanpride

‘Plus, I felt they jumped on the hate train a little bit too early.“

There ...was no too early with that one.

In my defence, I never saw dexter, so my experience with Scott Bucks work was pretty much limited to Iron Fist which I actually quite enjoyed despite its flaws.

Fine fair enough.

Although just to be clear I’m more or less with Ambar on this one.

That's okay, I certainly don't need your agreement.

https://www.cnet.com/news/wonder-woman-review-gal-gadot-dc-world-war-i/

A review which voices similar sentiments.

This was expected since WWI is pretty much the grimdark fest where everyone fuck up, on the other hand WWII have be flanderized into pretty much a supero conflict were a bunch or supervillian have hijack europe, is kinda deshonesto actually.

Reading the discussion, I agree with two points.

First is that I don't think WW portrays the trench warfare as something easily overcome if only the French troops were brave. It reads pretty explicit to me what happens: Wondy goes in first, draws all the fire, the machine gunners get distracted trying to piece her impenetrable shield, Steve's gang takes them out, and then the French troops rush out of the trench to swarm the Germans. It wasn't a problem of lack of bravery, it was merely the turret gunners getting taken out created an opening.

Second is that I don't think The First Avenger whitewashes the reasons for the rise of the Nazis in post WWI-Germany. In his dialogue with Steve, Erskine is explicit as to the cause: Hitler seducing the population after a depression with a "big show" and appeals to their racial and mythological superiority. When he says Germany was the first country invaded, it didn't necessarily mean military invasion.

I doubt Ambar is unaware of how Hitler won over the German people, he doesn’t think it absolves them.

More important what hitler did wasnt brainwashing, the Germán people become acomplish of is Crimes, we cant just put the nazis as thing that it just exist in germany and that it, is unfair.

there,better?

edited 18th Dec '17 1:06:19 PM by unknowing

I have no idea

Well, there's an if, and, or but in the discussion of the WW 1 element.

1. The movie is about how Wonder Woman is WRONG in her Black-and-White Morality and her belief the Germans are being led by her version of Satan as well as the Allied powers being a bunch of good guys.

Obviously, WW realizing there are no heroes let alone heroes on both side is not a lesson you can apply to WW 2.

2. Ludendorff is a Genius Bonus for people who know who he is because he is, actually, the guy who masterminded Hitler's rise to power until he went senile, died, and left Hitler in charge. So much so if WW killed him then it's entirely possible Hitler wouldn't have risen to power.

3. The No Man's Land charge is not about bravery but the fact Wonder Woman is a superheroine and an embodiment of a brighter more wonderful age. It's about as insulting as Captain America charging the Nazis or Superman attacking a nuclear missile.

edited 18th Dec '17 1:34:49 PM by CharlesPhipps

Kinda but the problem is more than world war 1 is grimdark setting per none such having a superhéroe e moving down people like that is.....weird, really weird.

Mind you, it did have a few real life incredible personas like the Red Baron and Sir Lawrence.

Both stories ended tragically, though.

I do think the movie was about losing one's idealism, though.

Personally, I thought the First World War was handled very well in Wonder Woman. Maybe not from a strictly historical accuracy perspective, but definitely in placing us of the audience into the setting. To borrow Ted Chiang's terminology, Wonder Woman's treatment of the First World War was all about the truth of feeling, and was ready to set aside the truth of fact when the two came in conflict.

I wouldn't say that Wonder Woman was about the loss of idealism either. Rather, it is a coming of age story, where innocence is lost and idealism is tempered when the first naïve and simplified conceptions of the world are shattered. Diana learns to see the world in greys, but also comes back strengthened in her own values. In some ways, she is more of an idealist at the end of the movie than in the beginning.

From a moral standpoint, I'd say the absolute low point of Diana's arc is right after she has killed Ludendorff. Steve and his team has followed her and helped her and fought by her side, but when Steve asks her to help him finish his mission, she turns him down. At that moment, all the people she initially despised show that they are her superiors in courage.

Who says that it absolves the Germans? It is just important to remember that by being seduced by Hitler they ended up under a dictatorship under which a huge population of Germans died...not just Germans of Jewish faith (sorry, I always have a problem with just calling them "Jews" as if they had nothing whatsoever to do with German societies, a lot of them felt like Germans and I always feel that we take something from them if we just call them Jews instead of mentioning what they were, too, Germans), but the mentally ill, the Sinti and Roma, the communists, the homosexuals and pretty much everyone who didn't agree with Hitler...and that is not even counting all the people who died defending in a war they might or might not have believed in. And I am glad that The First Avengers pointed that out. Though, as I already pointed out, it doesn't even try to say something about the war, but about American propaganda, shining a self-critical light on the figure of Captain America - the good and the bad. The good in that he as a symbol meant something, the bad in that the comic figure was eventually used to sell a lie about the heroism of war.

I am just frustrated with Wonder Woman because I think the movie had something there. We get this amazing dialogue in which Steve says that maybe they are all guilty for this war and then they go and undercut the whole thing. They should have left Ares out of the movie.

You know what would have been truly amazing? If there hadn't been a doctor poison or anything like this, but Diana realising that she CAN'T end this war by killing more soldiers. She is distraught and feels like a failure. And then Steve tries to comfort her and tell her that it is just a matter of time before Germany goes down because the defence is already breaking down. But Diana, having listened to German officers, knows that they won't just give up. So she goes to Germany with a new plan: Trying to convince the German officers to give up (who naturally doesn't listen) but in the end she ends up in the middle of the German mini-revolution and helps the people to get it off the ground properly. I would have been okay with that.

I just felt that this movie should have ended with humans realizing "it is time to stop this war" instead of a big CGI monster fight and some explosion.

Ultimately, the problem with World War 1 is there's no happy ending. The war ends because the United States enters the war and brings a fresh power against exhausted ones, which the Allies use as an opportunity to wreck revenge. Then a global depression occurs and this is hijacked by fascists. Also, there's the influenza plague. It's a shitty couple of decades ahead before it gets worse.

But Lundendorff does make an excellent embodiment of the war mongers who learned nothing fro the conflict.

I also like how when the Germans remove their masks, it's obvious they're a bunch of teenagers.

Which Wonder Woman killed just moments earlier....

Because they were trying to kill her, and others. That's war.

Kill or be killed.

The law of war.

Yes, well, that may be why Wonder Woman retired for 90 years.

Albeit, I imagine her retirement was intermittent at best.

Gasp! You mean people die in wars?

You are glad First Avenger white washed WWII Germany, first by making excuses for them, then by removing the Nazis from the equation and saying that Hydra is totally worse. We get it. You are free to like it for doing so. But maybe do that somewhere else. This habit you have of showing up in DC related threads to talk nonstop about how insert Marvel movie here did it better is tiresome. Lord knows, the rest of us don't come to the Marvel threads to bitch about how DC is totally better than Marvel; shame you can't return the courtesy.

The Hell it does. You can't talk about American propaganda if you divorce it entirely from the war it's talking about, and First Avenger has nothing to do with WWII. It uses it as a backdrop, before removing the Nazis from the equation and claiming that it's band of Take Over the World cartoon villains—and villains who are entirely divorced from Nazi ideology at that, given their eventual willingness to employ nonwhite people—is totally scarier than Hitler. I mean, Cap has to save Berlin from getting destroyed, folks.

Remember what you were saying about disrespecting the soldiers? You are now praising First Avenger for disrespecting the soldiers. Every person who put their life on the line to stop Hitler was behaving heroically, full stop.

"The movie refused to whitewash the side of the war that I wanted whitewashed. How dare it!" That's what you are repeating. Again and again and again. Ares was in no way involved in starting the war. He tells us this himself, while under the influence of the Lasso of Truth. So every time you act like Ares' involvement somehow absolves anyone, you are admitting that you didn't watch the movie and/or don't understand how the Lasso works.

That would have been heinous. That would have been giving a fictional character credit for ending the war. The whole point of the film was that Diana cannot end the war; the best she can do is prevent Ludendorff and Ares from restarting it; it's up to the people on both sides to actually negotiate a peace treaty—something they were in the process of doing, when Ludendorff and Ares' gambit tried to screw it up.

edited 18th Dec '17 9:21:08 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar