Wonder Woman 1984 is finally here and boy it does Not manage to meet all of the high expectations and hype that was created to ensure the huge delays don’t cause people to lose interest. Even without the added responsibility of beating the first movie’s success, it still feels like a potholed melodrama mashup as Patty Jenkins literally threw caution to the wind with not one but several plot points in the story. Things only happen in WW 1984 and there is no solid logic to ensure their existence.
(The following article contains major spoilers for Wonder Woman 1984. Our advice would be to see it asap so you can join in as a big part of it is made no sense)
And for those of you who have watched the over 2 hours and 30 minutes in which Jenkins made one incoherent action decision after another, let’s begin:
Probably Nobody ever taken photos in 1984
After the annual Amazon Game recap, we see Wonder Woman in 1984 swinging from one place to another in a mall trying to stop four silly little criminals. The robbery scene itself is botched – “I’m not going back!” So hey, I’m going to hold this kid over the railing and almost drop him so I can go to jail and a murder. But Diana plunges into her lasso of truth to save the girl. Then she destroys the cameras, as if doing so magically erased the footage that has already been recorded.
After tying the robbers in her lasso several times and … repeatedly beating them against the railing, she winks at a little girl and puts her finger to her lips to suggest that her rescue is a great secret, as if The Countless People in the mall are blind or do not have a so-called camera. In fact, Diana has been rocking around, helping people, and more publicly foiling crimes. It’s hard to digest that no one has ever taken a picture of her. It’s not that portable cameras didn’t exist in 1984.
Since Diana hasn’t changed the look of her alter ego (not even the ugly glasses Jenkins put on with Barbara) and this time has a “normal” life, it’s hard to digest the fact that her cover hasn’t been puffed up as always.
Wonder Woman 1984 undo Justice League
in the Justice LeagueAfter Diana advised Bruce to move on and stop mourning his deceased parents, Bruce hit back, reminding them that “You ran away a hundred years because your boyfriend died!” So, um, the events in Justice League happen in 2016 and Wonder Woman 2 takes place in 1984 – the math doesn’t fit together. Either “ran away” means swinging around in public for years, or 100 years was just an exaggeration because Diana is pretty busy on her parody missions to save people in broad daylight WW 1984.
There’s also the part where Diana learns to fly in the film, but she is never shown flying in Justice League. Either because she’s getting bored of flying or Jenkins wasn’t really keen to maintain continuity.
Weirdest Fourth of July Ever
After Steve miraculously flown a fighter jet knowing how to pilot airplanes for the first time in 1918 and Diana makes it invisible, they witness fireworks in the sky. For Jenkins-knows-why, Diana tells Steve it’s July 4th. But just minutes before this scene, Barbara was giving food to a homeless man and telling him to stay warm. Stay warm in July, even in DC? But it’s not just that. There are literally people walking around in coats and furs. The logical decision would have been to say that it was New Year celebrations that would have gone well with the cold and winter clothes, but like the countless other points in the film, lazy scriptwriting prevails.
Why in the world did Barbara run?
While we were already wavering from the way the character was built up in the story, her initial descent into total malice was pretty bumpy. It was all based on the scene where she violently attacked a man who had previously tried to attack her and who calls her again. She beats him within an inch of his life and this moment when it’s more about defending herself against a rapist is a sign that she is losing her humanity. But our question is Why Did she even leave the museum?
Let’s get back here for a moment – just minutes before the above scenario occurred. Barbara was investigating the origins of the dream stone and for some reason she looked very pissed off looking at some slides. After snapping at a colleague who is just one of the many who are enthusiastic about the “improved” Barbara, she takes off and runs through the streets before she runs into the said perpetrator and beats him violently.
So what did she find while researching the stone that got her severely checked off before she even looked at the man? You would think if she told Diana about her findings the next day, she was hiding something big. But no, there is not much revelation on their part about the mystical object throughout the film. So what really happened was she looked at the slides, decided to get excited, and walk away. OK.
Steve is running around inside another man’s body
The stone threw Steve’s body into the nearest male he had found, though an infinite wall appeared out of the air, and Diana, in view of her immense love for him, saw the face of her dead lover instead of the stranger. Everything is fair in love, and Diana doesn’t worry about Steve taking over the body of an innocent man who most likely has a life of its own. In fact, this topic never appears in the film as Diana is too dizzy to bring up the topic.
In an attempt to make everything squishy and cheesy, the story projects this man more like a mannequin than a real person, as Steve spends days, probably weeks, running across countries with Diana to catch Maxwell Lord and nobody once. The man’s friends, family, or perhaps a girlfriend are asked about his whereabouts. Everything was done to get Chris Pine to continue, and apparently giving the unknown man a brief backstory or making Diana realize how wrong it was for her to let her boyfriend control someone was too much of a chore alive, the life of man (which he repeatedly endangered).
Why did Diana even wear the golden armor?
After giving up her wish, her powers were 100% and she had no idea that Barbara had improved her wish – she did not know that she would need protection from the cheetah’s deadly claws. But she was still going back to armor instead of going straight to Maxwell. She must have thought, “Oh, let’s go all the way back to my apartment and grab the gold armor for no logical reason other than she shaking off her wings in style while Maxwell Lord literally destroys the world!”
Some would say she wore it as protection against the heavy fire she encountered upon arrival, but she faced far worse in World War I without the armor. For them, it’s hardly a plausible reason to fear a little gunfire. Anyway, the armor only slowed them down, something that was painfully visible. Also, the armor had lasted thousands of years even after facing hordes of angry men pounding on it, and yet it broke fairly easily. Looks like it was just added in full to make the trailer all “Ooooh!” since it hardly gets a cameo in the film.
While Patty Jenkins explained why WW1984The villains are as they are, the reasons for their unorganized and unpredictable decisions about how to act for the film would require a mini-documentary of their own. Wonder Woman 1984 is now streamed on HBO Max.
Subjects: Wonder Woman 2, Wonder Woman
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