Wonder Woman Movie

That last paragraph is getting really personally charged. Let's leave the direct accusal out of here.

edited 18th Dec '17 9:02:23 PM by Tuckerscreator

I suppose you're right; I've accordingly edited out the last paragraph.

I do stand by my overall point though—claiming to dislike Wonder Woman because it's "not historically accurate", and then turning around and praising First Avenger is invalidating your own argument.

To be fair, I have a non-political reason for why HYDRA is the villain of the First Avenger.

You can't sell toys of Nazis.

But Hydra are Nazis. The Character Formerly Known As Skye said so

Pfft. That would imply people watched Agent of Shield.

:)

It's not about being insecure, but you started a debate again by posting a super-biased video against the movie. If you did the same for every movie, that would be fine, but it happens to be on the one DC movie which everyone tends to agree is pretty great.

The ire here probably comes from the fact that you have a "glass half-full" attitude towards Marvel movies, and a "glass half-empty" towards DC. Iron Man or AOU are movies whose quality is not comparable to Wonder Woman - implying they are is in itself dismissive and tends to show a pretty clear bias.

Just imagine if someone mentioned the flaws in Batman v Superman or Justice League after mentioning everything that supposedly goes wrong in The Winter Soldier. Imagine how you would react.

And I posted said video with the note that I disagree with the notion that Wonder Woman sucks, but felt that the video overall did a good job to point out some of the problems the movie has.

If you can show me a vid which is titled "Why the Punisher really f... ups up the gun control discussion" I will gladly post this one too.

Also, I compared Wonder Woman with movies which are on a similar level quality wise on my personal list. And which also happen to be superhero movies which have lofty aspirations of addressing a bigger theme but failing to really pull it off for various reasons. And which, btw, also critically rated similar to Wonder Woman.

The problem here is not that I happen to not like the DCEU, the problem is that you are selectively noticing whenever I comment about something DC related, but blissfully overlooking when I am similar critical about the MCU. Because of YOUR bias, not mine.

edited 19th Dec '17 5:38:15 AM by Swanpride

“Imagine how you would react.“

I’m imagining stuff spontaneously combusting.

Also after you said it was insulting to two entire countries it’s a little hard to swallow the “ I don’t think it ‘sucks’.”

Not the movie as a whole, one specific scene in it. Which could have worked if they had tweaked it a little bit, btw.

Plus, it is not my fault that the US has this whole "hiding in the trenches" myth related to France. And a giant catalogue of movies don't giving a shit about portraying Europe even remotely correctly.

I didn't read that "the French are cowards" interpretation into that scene at all, myself. The soldiers seem about as brave as any other World War I soldiers, because hiding in the trenches was what you did in WWI, what everyone did, just hoping that Field Marshal Haig (or whoever) didn't want to move his desk four inches to the right that day. It was what the trenches were for, and as the first big war where shelling, machineguns, and tanks were used, charging across No Man's Land would've been suicide for anyone, regardless of nationality, unless their heritage happened to be Themiscyran, Kryptonian, or (if you want to get anachronistic about it) Gothamite. They're French because we're in France, and I thought the soldiers and the villagers were portrayed quite sympathetically.

edited 19th Dec '17 6:21:25 AM by Unsung

You have a lot of balanced reviews to pick from. You just happened to pick one with a hateboner for the movie.

Hmm...

On RT:

• Wonder Woman: 92%
• Iron Man 3: 80%
• Age of Ultron: 75%

Now, there are MCU movies near 92% on RT.

• The Winter Soldier: 89%
• Civil War: 91%
• Guardians of the Galaxy: 91%
• The Avengers: 92%
• Thor: Ragnarok: 92%

It's not like there was a shortage of movies to pick from that are objectively "of similar critical rating". You just happened to pick two that were not of similar critical rating.

I probably missed your post using this video to discuss the flaws in Thor:Ragnarok then. Because on the internet, the most interesting and balanced discussions always start by using incredibly one-sided videos and then saying "...I don't agree with everything BUT he has a point".

I didn't say your bias was "DC bad & Marvel good", although I still have to find the one DC work your praised to high heaven like you do AOS for example. It's more of a matter of accentuating the positive with one, and accentuating the negative with the other. Or that you said you didn't go past the pilot of Supergirl, but you suffered through the entire first season of AOS, which, first, your loss, and second, does not exactly ring like giving the same chances to both shows (and you can't even call the CW card because it wasn't on the CW back then).

As for the Punisher, that's the one thread where you randomly mentioned that the first reason for its low-ish initial rating on Netflix you thought of was, I quote, "a bunch of angry DC fanboys". That is not something that strikes me as the sign of an objective, balanced, unbiased opinion.

edited 19th Dec '17 6:06:01 AM by Julep

Edit: You know what? Never mind. I am not doing this again. Or ever again. If it is still impossible to properly discuss this movie, it won't be for at least the next ten years.

edited 19th Dec '17 7:46:17 AM by Swanpride

Julep, surely Swanpride isn't obligated to go along with the critical consensus. If they view Wonder Woman as being equal in quality to Iron Man 3 and AOU, surely that's their business.

I'm not saying that there's no bias here, mind you, but it does seem like you're trying to advocate for an objective marker of quality here.

So wanted to drop back in and comment on a few things. I'm definitely with Ambar/the thread here in terms of opinions toward the movie/understanding of German history. To clarify, I don't have at all a problem with Ludendorff being a social darwinist rat bastard, because that's what the historical guy was like. And I have no issue with the presentation of French troops or civilians. Really no idea where that criticism is coming from. As I understand the movie and the War, basically, the troops couldn't move more than a few feet because of how the trenches worked. And Diana functioned as an Outside-Context Problem that solved that issue and allowed French troops to advance in a way that wouldn't otherwise be possible.

I think to the extent I have an objection to the presentation of Germany, it's because of the absence of sympathetic German rank and file soldiers. I can't speak to how true this is in general (besides the famous Christmas Truce, which is the inspiration for a number of works), but it's a familiar idea probably because of All Quiet on the Western Front and is in keeping with the film's ultimate presentation of Diana as a protector of all of humanity and Martial Pacifist. Not necessarily someone fighting with them against Ludendorff. But like among the "tableau of humanity" Diana sees.

In terms of the First Avenger comparison, I have to say that while I'm Team Cap all the way and love Peggy Carter the character/Agent Carter the show, I'm definitely ambivalent about how the MCU presents Hydra and studiously avoids calling them Nazis and exploring their specific views on Jews and other "undesirables" as opposed to their broad Take Over the World plotting.

Regarding Erskine's comment, I don't have a huge issue of it, because I think that a refugee from Nazi Germany (and perhaps refugees generally) would be likely to take one of two views toward an evil regime taking over their country. One view (Erskine's) would be to view them as an aberration and disease that "invaded" and which by extension treats countryman who buy into it as something like otherwise good people who were "infected". The other view (thinking for instance of ''Woman in Gold' about an Austrian Jewish refugee') would likewise despise Hitler, but would also direct ire toward citizens and the country for buying into Nazism and turning on their neighbors. What view one takes probably depends on one's experiences and where one falls on the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism.

On a different note, although I really like the MCU, I liked Wonder Woman fully embracing fantasy/mythology as opposed to the MCU's largely Sufficiently Advanced Technology approach.

Oh. One other thing I really liked about Wonder Woman was that message of how she was there for humanity, regardless of whether or not they "deserved her". Because one thing that (I think understandably) gets various DC movies labeled as Objectivist- thinking specifically of the Nolanverse and Man of Steel (especially Pa Kent's infamous speech) here- is this idea of the public not adequately appreciating the hero. And an implication that the hero would be justified in "going Galt" and abandoning humanity. So, I really liked how the movie has Diana conclude that it doesn't matter whether or not people are deserving of her help. She will help them just because it's the right thing to do, especially because Humans Are Flawed and come in all gradations of morality. Also, not sure whether intentional, but it comes across as what I'd recognize as a Jewish view of divinity in relation to humanity as opposed to the Christian symbolism more often favored in superhero movies.

Edit- Sorry, kind of a long post

edited 19th Dec '17 8:32:00 AM by Hodor2

When you are using expressions such as "critically rated similar", you are the one trying to advocate for the objective marker of quality.

I have no issue with being biased, I myself am biased, in that with a few exceptions I prefer DC characters, which is aggravated by my favorite part of Marvel (the X-Men) not being part of the MCU in the film section of the forum.

But I have an issue with constantly bringing a sour mood to all DC threads. Here, it's "look at this super-negative review of the movie, I don't think it's that bad but really we should discuss its flaws". In Justice League it's "WB should really change how it works because it is hitting a wall". In the Box-Office thread it's "what a failure Justice League was, I don't think I have seen something of similar proportion in 20 years". I haven't seen a single positive conversation started by Swanpride in a DC thread. It's always about pointing out the flaws and being disappointed.

And then playing victim by saying that DC fans really are intolerant and can't have a proper conversation when that annoying behavior is pointed out.

edited 19th Dec '17 8:35:43 AM by Julep

Oh. Your post reminded me of another thing. So I wasn't really thrilled with Gadot's acting early on, but I ultimately felt she really sold Diana's combination of charming naivete, intelligence, and nobility. And speaking of which, I really liked the aspect of her character that despite being sheltered, she was very well-read (thinking specifically of that erotic treatise presumably written by one of the Muses, her mastery of all languages, and her work at the Louvre in the present-day).

Partly it makes sense simply because I think anyone living on a small island with no visitors would get a lot of reading done (especially if they were living for thousands of years). But I also really appreciate that understanding, also on display in American Gods that since gods are so often associated with wisdom and culture, a god would naturally gravitate toward being an autodidact.

It also avoids the cliché of "naive = ignorant of sexuality", which is so, so common among "sheltered" or "innocent" characters in fiction.

Which in turn participates in not making sexuality gross or strange, because it really should not be.

edited 19th Dec '17 8:49:14 AM by Julep

And people accused me of getting personal. You are now insisting that anyone who disagrees with your opinion must be doing so because of personal insecurity. Because your opinion is, of course, objectively right and no one could possibly disagree with you in good faith.

Now there's a pointless aside. No one here's accused you of being socially insensitive. You've gotten those accusations over in the diversity thread, given your repeat insistence that the erasure or whitewashing of nonwhite characters is acceptable (while becoming furious at the suggestion that a white character could be played by a nonwhite actor because "her red hair is so important to the character") but it hasn't happened here. Although now that you've gone and opened that door a part of me has to wonder why.

So yeah...I wrote my Master's on WWI. I spent two years immersed in the literature surrounding it. Much of said literature was American. This "hiding in the trenches" myth you keep referencing? Not a thing.

It doesn't show up in the scholarly historiography. It doesn't show up in the popular historiography. It doesn't show up in a majority of American documentaries. There may be sectors of the American public that think this way, but it hasn't been a part of the actual teaching of history at any point in the last forty years. Which means you are so desperate to find something wrong with this film that you are inventing problems in American historical scholarship so that you can claim the movie's "flaws" are products of that.

And of course, you don't get to complain about "disrespecting the French" after your whitewash of the Central Powers, and you don't get to complain about historical accuracy after praising First Avenger's handling of its subject matter.

Well I can speak as a Frenchman who had to learn WWI history in class that I never felt like the Poilus looked like cowards in that movie. I am not as much of a specialist as Ambar on the subject, but I have read a couple of Tardi's (wonderful) comic books along with All Quiet on the Western Front, and the simple fact to portray soldiers standing their ground in those utterly horrible conditions shows a huge amount of bravery.

(Apparently the first minutes of recent movie See you up there were far more brutal than WW as far as trench depiction goes - but WW never claimed to be an accurate depiction of WWI warfare)

I haven't seen that being raised as an issue in the French press either. Even though we are not big on patriotism, insulting the memory of the soldiers during the First World War is pretty much seen as an universal no-no, considering they were the victims of one of the largest and most senseless slaughters of the 20th century.

On the other hand, they could have portrayed a French higher-up behaving like Ludendorff and no one would have cared, because the high command of the time is almost universally seen as a bunch of heartless cretins (and "the good one" among them is Pétain).

edited 19th Dec '17 9:20:16 AM by Julep

@Hodor 2 (in 3490):

I thought the treatment of the German rank and file was rather decent, given the constraints that the movie faced. One part is the role that Chief plays, who smuggle little luxuries to both sides, and is hugged by both Germans and British soldiers. Another is the way that the German soldiers by the end remove their masks and are exposed as just kids. Third is the reaction of the German soldiers in the trenches when Diana reveals herself: they are terrified but still fighting back to defend themselves.

It's also made explicit in that Diana has to learn that it's not only the Germans that are under Ares's control (or influence), but all of humanity, to various degrees. It could have been handled better, but I imagine doing so would be tricky given the structure of the film.

No argument about Wonder Woman having a far more idealistic (as opposed to cynical) view of humanity and heroism than the rest of the superhero movies (either Marvel or DC), and in some ways I think placing it in the First World War better allowed us to see that light. In many ways, I thought the Wonder Woman that appeared in Bv S jarred with the one that Wonder Woman created, and the reviews of JL seems to reinforce that: neither Zac Snyder nor Joss Whedon knew how to handle Patty Jenkins's vision of the character.

“Because one thing that (I think understandably) gets various DC movies labeled as Objectivist- thinking specifically of the Nolanverse and Man of Steel (especially Pa Kent's infamous speech) here- is this idea of the public not adequately appreciating the hero. “

If by reasonable you mean cockamamie then sure. The “people don’t appreciate the hero” isn’t even sort of limited to D.C. X-Men is built on it, Spider-Man features it prominently, Winter Soldier and Iron Man 2 end with the heroes throwing double middle face Niger’s at the nearest government officials,who are either gormless dupes or actively evil. Sounds pretty Objectivist to me. Even in the First Avenger Cap has to repeatedly defy his superiors to get the job done. Heck at least in Mo S and Bv S people distrusting Superman is presented as reasonable . Holly Hunter’s character isn’t an anti Superman zealot, secretly evil or easily bamboozled by Luthor. She’s just a civil sevant doing her job. The soldiers in Mo S quickly come around once they see him fight for them, and then play a big role in beating Zod and co. The President clearly regrets having to nuke Superman to get Doomsday. Heck, Clark even fights with Perry and accuses him of not caring about poor people . Does choosing to punch a billionaire for taking what he sees as over zealous action against criminals sound like Randian philosophy ?

This and Nietzschean and Nihilist have got to be the most vacuous descriptions of these movies.

Sorry for the long post but if the university is going to make me read Rand’s dreck I may as well get some use out of it.

If anything, Nietzchian is what you can call batman in BVS, the way he compared his upbringing as "the world only make sense when you forced too" comparing to Superman "being destiny to something great" Batman pretty much see himself as the slayer of god, the ubermech...when in reallity he is close to the last man, a being trap in his own damn nihilism to do something about it.

And about WW Swan, I feel the film have a challange that to build a idealistic superhero in one of the most grimdark moment of human history, so far it did well.

Also I think you are mixing your myths, the most comon is that the french are a bunch of coward in WWII, something america media like to play over and over(including Ultimate Cap actually) but I have never here about french soldier stading in their trench.

@Hodor 2 Thanks for actually tackling the topic at hand.

Mmm...I think you are right. I don't think that I would have minded Ludendorff so much if there had been any positive depiction of any German soldier in the movie. In fact, it could have been a great element of foreshadowing he had survived and had functioned as the danger about to come. It just feels dishonest when the movie claims "yeah we are all guilty", but then the Germans are cartoonish villains and the British side it turns out WAS influenced by Ares. While the German side wasn't? I admit I am not clear about this, but it comes off that way (and again, I am not the only one who complained about this aspect of the movie).

I think someone else pointed out that Wonder Woman is destroying some of the artillery before the soldiers leave the trenches. Honestly, if that is the case, I flat out missed it o overlooked the implication, but then I might change my vote from "what were they thinking" to "couldn't they have made this more clear, damnit".

PS: The French supposedly being cowards when it comes to war fare is a thing. And it became a particularly big thing in the 1990s, when France refused to help the US attacking Iraq. The whole "freedom Fries" campaign build on those old sentiments.

In this case it would be helpful to give a French soldier a major role, too, instead of building the a huge chunk of the movie around social inequality and racism in the US. It's a little bit like saying "yeah, your war was terrible, but let's address some of the REAL issues here".

I think overall it would have been helpful to have an European (maybe French) expert on war around. Someone who can give the whole script a non-American perspective....

edited 19th Dec '17 11:55:20 AM by Swanpride

Sameer is French Algerian don’t know exactly if that counts, and it was perfectly clear that the soldiers were only able to move ahead after she destroyed the artillery.

The actor who plays Sameer is also a French American.

edited 19th Dec '17 12:03:41 PM by thatindiantroper