Wonder Woman Movie

Perez, her original creator, did that too. The only reason the lack of virginity thing is relevant was because the power of the Cheetah was supposed to go to a virgin. Barbara stole it and was cursed to be a beast of insatiable hunger. But she was a horrible person before that too. Her first story with Diana had her trying to steal the lasso and this encounter is when Diana realized women could be just as cruel as men.

So it's another thing like Captain Marvel getting "married" where it was deemed acceptable by a writer in the 80's, and then was quietly ignored (but never explicitly retconned) by everyone else later.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Dec 31st 2020 at 9:46:43 AM

Rebirth did revise Cheetah's origin. Barbara and Diana are very close friends, when Barbara has to leave for the expedition, Diana has a bad feeling about it and tried to convince Barbara not to go, but Barbara insists all will be fine and Diana gives her a JL grade tracker watch to be sure.

Veronica Cale was the one who arranged the expedition to INSURE Barbara would become Cheetah and made sure the tracker was made useless, so when Barbara didn't come back Diana went after her found the shattered tracker and the now transformed Barbara who blamed Diana for her current fate...at the time neither knew the tracker was sabotaged. Hence they are now enemies.

Yeah, but that's a complete overhaul that came decades later. I'm talking about it being ignored within Post-Crisis itself.

If you're talking about Avengers #200, that wasn't ignored. It received a Take That! in Avengers Annual #10 and was later referenced in The Pulse by Brian Michael Bendis.

Barbara being cursed for not being a virgin was less about her morality and more showing how she was ignorant of the cultures she was trying to exploit. She sought the power of the Cheetah without knowing the cost. But yeah, the virgin thing didn't come up often.

It was considered acceptable back then?

Pretty sure people hated it then too which is why the carol came back

"Never referenced, except when writers want to give it shit" is kind of what I meant by "ignored, but not retconned."

That's how it usually looks when something is treated as persona non grata by writers on a regular basis, but technically isn't actually out of continuity: every once in a while a writer will bring it up only to drive a knife into it, but otherwise nobody will touch it.

I forget, did we ever see Stagg renounce his wish? If not, then technically Lord still has all the benefits from the oil wells.

Even if he didn't (which, Stagg has every reason to do) then by Max renouncing his wish every wish he granted goes, right? Or did I read that part of the movie wrong?

No idea, though given the big sequence of people renouncing them after Lord renounces his own, I'd doubt it.

And Stagg should be in jail, so there's a chance he didn't even see Lord's broadcast.

Well, I didn't put it a lot of thought as I enjoyed the movie, but it has a lot more of issues that I catched on at first.

And one thing it bothered me, was it necesary for Diana to be a little girl in the competition? Not only it makes the other amazons look incredibly bad that the best of them couldn't keep up with a little girl, but it makes the whole scene ridicoulus. The could've her between 14 to 16 years old and would've been more believable, and not make the others amazons look incredibly pathetic.

Unless her mother deliberately choose the worst of the worst to compete againts her daugther to give her a ego boost, which would be really bad parenting.

Edited by eligram on Jan 5th 2021 at 12:26:04 PM

I think she was just a little girl in it so they could cast the same Young Diana actress from the first movie.

All I kept thinking about in that scene was how so many in the crowd would be cheering the kid and how the winner would probably lie awake at night thinking about how she was still outrun by a kid for 90% of the race.

Wow, wait. She's the same actress from the first movie?

• checks google*

Huh, she is. Is such a rare practice from hollywood that it surprised me.

Indeed, that event afected heavily the moral of every amazon for centuries, which led them to be utterly unprepared for Stepenwolf arrival and caused all the unnecesary deaths.Thanks Diana!

Edited by eligram on Jan 5th 2021 at 12:40:08 PM

Yeah, that scene is kind of weird. I'm definitely not the only person who noted this, but it doesn't come across at all like Diana is cheating in that scene, which is a bit of a problem, because that scene is central to the movie's overall message.

To the contrary, it's basically the kind of "using brains over brawn" that is (rightly) framed as a positive trait in most works (cf. Mulan's military training in the Disney cartoon Mulan and Steve Rogers' military training in Captain America: The First Avenger).

And although I generally wouldn't use the Spartans as a positive example for almost anything, I was taken aback by the scene in part because they had a culture built around physical training to a large extent, just like the fictional Amazons, and the Spartans were big believers in Not Cheating Unless You Get Caught.

Edited by Hodor2 on Jan 5th 2021 at 10:49:05 AM

Well, I wasn't taken back by that because, while the rules wasn't explained, you could infer that she needed to lit the firework from all checkpoints, and she forgot to do the last one before going for the shortcut.

So it was obvious by everyone she cheated, so she couldn't win.

I guess that part of it didn't really sink in for me.

My overall sense is that what Diana did is supposed to be the equivalent of Marathon course cutting. But I don't think it really comes off the way, because the scene is about subverting Diana and the audience's expectation that she won the competition by being a Guile Hero.

I think I didn’t realize the shortcut was cheating because a minute earlier Diana catapults herself up the obstacle course instead of climbing through it and the narrative doesn’t treat that as a problem.

If anything, I found it out of character for Diana to be dumb enough to forget about the checkpoint she just failed to lit and believe everyone wouldn't notice that she didn't.

I found it odd she was allowed in the contest since we know from the first film Diana's training was in secret with her aunt since her mother wouldn't allow it, this wasn't discovered until Diana was a young teen THEN she was allowed to train with the other Amazons with her mothers reluctant permission

Having Young Teen Diana in the contest would have fit more thematically and been consistent with the first film.

Honestly, Diana feels out of character at weirdly pivotal moments. Chief among them being having to be talked into renouncing her wish by Steve. It's weird she was willing to let a completely innocent man's existence be suppressed for Steve's sake, and it's even weirder that she had to be convinced to let him go to actually save the world. Not that I'm saying Steve should have gone kicking and screaming or anything, it's a very this-Steve Trevor thing to do to agree that he has to go, but it feels very out of character for Wonder Woman to be unwilling to make that call, especially when she's had sixty-something years since his death to come to terms with it.

Frankly, after all that time has passed, the fact that her wish is to bring back Steve rather than, say, her aunt who she would have known for far longer, or even to be able to go back home given that "missing Steve" is implied to be part of a broader feeling of isolation, doesn't work to the movie's credit.

Yeah. And to state the obvious, it doesn't really help the "you're a cheater unless you can succeed without shortcuts" message because Diana was a young kid competing with seasoned warriors. Granted, a young kid who was born a Flying Brick.

I also agree with that. Something which I think hurts the message of the Barbara plotline is that Diana herself is pretty selfish and immature in the movie.

Edited by Hodor2 on Jan 5th 2021 at 12:00:58 PM

Yeah Diana kinda devolved as a character because her entire motivation in this film is just missing Steve.

Which ironically enough is pretty unfeminist especially compared to last film where her motivation isn't wanting the guy.

The evil Artifact of Doom might have something to do with the OOC moments.

I don't know about that. I really liked the first movie's ending, especially the scene where everyone is celebrating V-E Day and Diana and co. are looking at that wall plastered with pictures, and Steve's is just one of many. And the ending speech where Diana says that she believes in love, but it's very specifically not just romantic love for Steve, it's... how do I put this, a belief that the human race's simple capacity for love (romantic or otherwise) can change the world for the better. The second movie retconning it into "oh she just misses Steve" undermines that and it was disappointing.

I feel the movie would've benefited had they more firmly establish that all of Diana's WWI buddies are dead, that may have added a bit more dimension to Diana's desire to bring Steve back and her feeling like she's cutting herself off from the world. They kind of hint at it, but it's very subtle and it's something you have to infer.

But maybe that may have been too similar to the Captain America movies. The first Wonder Woman film got a lot of comparisons between The First Avenger, and this one features the hero's partner coming back into their life after long-thought dead.