Read Ron's takedown at WWAC and Mon's review at Bam Smack Pow.
This is Part 1 of the episode transcript.
Ron: Hello and welcome to another episode of Stereo Geeks. On this What’s New installment, we're discussing Wonder Woman 1984.
Mon: I'm Mon.
Ron: And I’m Ron.
Mon: This is a spoiler-filled review. If you haven't been able to catch the film yet, save this episode and come back to it later. If you are looking for a spoiler-free review, we've got two of them in our show notes.
So, this is probably one of the most-anticipated superhero movies of the year. It's the first time that a female-headlined superhero film has got a sequel, and this is also probably the first time that a female director has been able to helm a blockbuster sequel. So, Wonder Woman 1984 sees the return of Gal Gadot’s Diana Prince. We also have Chris Pine returning as Steve Trevor. New cast members include Kristen Wiig’s Barbara Minerva, Pedro Pascal's Maxwell Lord, and numerous faces from around the world in bit parts and cameos.
Ron: So, what is the story? We see Diana Prince stopping a heist for antiques and some of these antiques end up in the Smithsonian, where she has been working in the anthropology and archaeology department. Barbara Minerva, who is a gemologist and geologist, joins the unit for this particular FBI investigation. What they discover is a simple citrine quartz antique which looks quite unassuming, but thanks to Diana's language skills, she realizes that this could actually grant wishes. Is it real, is it not real? Who knows? But soon after Barbara and Diana handle it, certain things start to change and not always for the better. In comes Maxwell Lord, an oil magnate, with a lot of interested investors, and a lot of pressure, and he's got his eye on that citrine quartz.
Mon: So, we get this Indiana Jones kind of vibe with this story. There's essentially this antique item which is going around granting people's wishes. Diana's wish comes true. Barbara's wish comes true. Maxwell Lord becomes the wishmaker himself. The crux of the story is to stop these wishes from coming through, because they start destabilizing the world. And it tries to examine humanity when they're at their worst. And there's a lot of action involved, some drama, some emotion. And in the end, instead of a huge climactic battle that we are so used to and kind of bored of, instead, we get a plea for humanity to be their better selves.
Ron: There has already been a lot of discourse about this film. We’ll be completely honest; we were underwhelmed.
Mon: More than underwhelmed, I was disappointed. We expected so much more from this film. We expected a more polished product, a better-executed product. More than anything, I think we just expected something that would be of a higher caliber quality. And we didn't get that. I think the biggest problem with this film is that it came across like a DCEU movie, and that is an insult.
Ron: Let's face it, the DCEU is a mess. I think the first installment in this new franchise, Man of Steel, came off pretty well.
Mon: It had promise and potential, there were definitely problems with it that people were very vocal about.
Ron: But since then, it's completely fallen away. We got Batman V Superman, which was touted as this massive battle, this expansion of the universe. It was disappointing. It didn't understand its characters. It tried to do too much. It fit in, I would say, six movies and five origin stories into one film, and that has completely derailed where the DCEU was planning to go. Wonder Woman was one saving grace. The third act of that film definitely did fall away, we all felt that way, but up until then, there was so much to love about that movie. Then you got Justice League, which kind of cemented the issues that we had with Batman V Superman, but also compounded them. I feel that Wonder Woman 1984 really struggled because of those films, and how they already cemented Diana's future. That impacted the writing of this film. But I can't say that the execution of the editing could be placed in the same department.
Mon: I would say that a lot of the DCEU has struggled with a lot of poor writing. It's been very contrived the plots have been convoluted, to say the least. The characters have been inconsistent. With Wonder Woman 1984, they had a great premise, because it was so simple. It literally is a classic story of finding something, getting something, and making a sacrifice for the greater good. But the problem is with this film, the editing, the pacing, kind of felt off. It feels a little over-bloated, but at the same time, not all the characters get their due. I do wonder if there were external strings that were pulling at different spots, which is why they seem to be doing too much, and at the same time, too little.
So, let's talk about some of the elements of the film. It kicks off with us getting a feel of Diana's life in 1984. We see that following the end of the First World War, she did stick around with her crew from the first film. Unfortunately, since she's immortal and most of them weren't, she watches them grow old. We see a picture of her with an older Etta Candy. It's great to know that she had those friendships, and that they were a huge part of her life for a while. Ever since then, it appears that Diana has really struggled to have a life. She's not been able to make any other friends. We don't see any pictures of any other friends in her house. She is living a lonely life as a superhero. She tries to keep a low profile. We see her busting cameras so that she's not caught. Interestingly, people do know that there is a female superhero saving them, but they don't know who she is and they also seem to be not investigate it. Also, she does not have a code name. It's funny, but the code names of these characters are never used in the film, so no one actually calls her Wonder Woman.
Ron: But actually, this is something that we've seen throughout the DCEU. Superman isn't really called that as much. In Man of Steel, it's almost said. After that we do hear the name a little bit more. But generally, they call him Clark or Kal. Batman is probably the only one whose moniker is used, but Aquaman, or the Flash, definitely not. Even Cyborg, but at the time that we meet him in Justice League, he’s still getting used to his abilities, so maybe you could still excuse that. But Flash, it looks like he's been a superhero for a while. And I don't understand why that is. It's a bit strange that they've gone with this direction.
Mon: Yeah, I'm surprised that the reporter who's talking about how there's a female superhero doesn’t say, and who is this Wonder Woman? You expect that to happen but it didn't, so that's an interesting writing choice.
Ron: But I also think that that's a writing choice that has been foisted on this film by Justice League and Batman V Superman, because, according to those films, Wonder Woman has been hiding in the shadows, while she's still been doing her superhero-ing. And that's why nobody really knows who she is or her name. But the thing is that Wonder Woman comes into the world outside Themyscira in 1917, or 18. It's 1984 now in this film, and by the time it's BVS and Justice League, it's, you know, 2017, 2019. That's a really long time for somebody to be hiding, especially when we know that Diana is driven by her need to do good. It just doesn't make sense. And it’s stunted the character.
Mon: I agree. It's shocking to think that someone like Diana, who has been surrounded by a very supportive family of Amazons all her life, she gets out there into man's world, and that's it. She's like, all alone, all the time.
Ron: It especially doesn't make sense because whenever we see young Diana, both in the first film and in Wonder Woman 1984, when she's participating in the Amazon Games, we know that this group of Amazons around her, not just her mom and her aunt, but everybody around her, their entire focus is on this little girl, because she's the only little girl that everybody knows there. Yes, she's the Queen's daughter. But she also has some fantastic abilities and a very different way of looking at things. We see her at the Amazon Games, she takes a shortcut so, she's not allowed to win because of that, but she has a completely unique perspective on things. And I don’t think that somebody like that will choose to have a lonely life because the people that she loved in the real world are now gone. It just doesn't make sense to me.
An analogy that I thought of when I was looking at the scenes where Diana is sitting all by herself and, you know, enjoying a drink and a meal by herself, was the Borg and Seven of Nine, and how she really struggled when she first left the Borg because she was so used to having those voices in her head. And then suddenly, it was all silent; she really struggled with that. But what happened was that she joined a new collective, she joined the crew of Voyager, and that really helped her. I don't understand why Diana hasn’t been given the same treatment.
Mon: I thought it would have made more sense to show that sporadically, Diana goes through these bouts of loneliness, because it's hard for her to connect with people who she knows will age, will die, and she will be left alone, and she has to start that entire cycle again, that makes sense to me. So, in between her being with Etta and the others, and when you see her in this film, she would have at least met one generation of people who she could have connected with and gotten close to. But we don't see that, at all.
Ron: And also, the future films that we see Wonder Woman in, it's implied that she doesn't have any support system around her.
Mon: Yeah, it's that lack of support system more than her having a love life or anything, it's fine, that part’s fine with me, but not having any friends, any relations at all? Unless she goes back to Themyscira for a significant amount of time after this film, maybe between Wonder Woman three, which has already been greenlit, and when we see her in BVS, maybe she goes off back to Themyscira because she's like, oh there's a whole new generation of heroes fighting in man's land, let me go hone my skills and help the Amazons. Who knows? That’s the only thing I can think of.
Ron: The problem is that it's already been implied that she doesn't go back to Themyscira ever.
Mon: Oh, that’s already been implied? There's no hope. This is the problem. She's just been so poorly written by the other films that her own franchise is being hindered and hampered by that. Let's get back to the movie.
So, Diana meets Barbara on her first day at the Smithsonian. Barbara is the quintessential loser character in a superhero movie. She's a mess, she's a klutz, she's intelligent, but nobody sees that.
Ron: Nobody even remembers her.
Mon: Yeah, she got hired and the person who hired her doesn't remember her. Though that lady has great style. Amazing!
Ron: I need to see her again.
Mon: Yes. Barbara's introduction reminded me so much of Pamela Isley in Batman & Robin, and I began to wonder if that's a good analogy or not. But she grows out of it, in a way. But that's the thing about this film. It's very much a sort of old-fashioned genre film, kinda silly, but also not-type of film.
Ron: When I was watching it, I felt like I had been transported to 1984, because this film is not just set in 1984, it feels like it was made at that time.
Mon: Yes. And in a way, I feel liked that simplicity. Unfortunately, it gets derailed after that. We'll get to that in a moment. So, Barbara, as soon as she sees Diana, is completely smitten by her because, who wouldn't be? But she's not just smitten by her because of her looks. It's because Diana is so smart, and when they meet for lunch, it becomes obvious that Diana is also really kind. She sees the best in Barbara because, Barbara is fairly funny and she's very chatty. So, Barbara sees all these great aspects of Diana.
And then later, when Barbara is going back to work, she's almost attacked by this drunk on the sidewalk. Diana comes and saves her, and that's it, you know, it's like this hero moment, which we’re used to seeing, but it's usually a guy saving a girl. But Barbara is saved by Diana, and that cements what's supposed to be envy or jealousy of who Diane is and what she can do. But the way it was played out, it was almost like Barbara is even more fond of what Diana is as a person. Unfortunately, because of Barbara's comic book origins, she's not allowed to pursue or engage with Diana as a friend or something even more. Instead, they become enemies.
But we do see that Barbara is a really kind person. She's always trying to help. She's very smart. We see her saving up food and giving it to a homeless gentlemen that she obviously sees often on her way to work. And she just seems like a really, really nice character who is misunderstood by the world.
And then she makes a wish. She basically wishes to be Diana, not realizing that Diana has layers herself, which is that she's a really lonely person. So, this kind of avarice sort of propels Barbara’s storyline for the rest of the film.
As soon as Barbara becomes cool-Barbara, she meets Maxwell Lord, who has taken a great interest in her. What Barbara doesn't realize is that Maxwell is not interested in her; he's interested in this citrine quartz antique that happens to be in her possession. And that's because it's a wish-making machine.
Ron: And we'll find out later on that Maxwell has been looking for this for a very long time. It's heavily implied that Maxwell was actually behind the heist but it's like a throwaway, two-second scene, so it's very hard to actually piece that together. But we can assume that that's what happened. And the problem is that Wonder Woman got in the way, the heist wasn't completed, and the artifacts actually ended up in the Smithsonian, which is why he ends up having to wheedle his way in through an investment meeting. But, fortunately he's a charmer. So, he manages to get exactly what he wants from Barbara
Mon: So, the question is, why is Maxwell Lord, this oil magnet, after a wish-machine? It doesn't seem like something that he would need. After all, he's so successful, he's making all these ads, he's making all this money, he has beautiful women surrounding him. What does he need?
Ron: I absolutely love the entire sequence when we see Maxwell returning to his office. It's magnificent; it's got a huge entryway; he's got a fantastic secretary; it looks beautiful. And then you go into the actual offices, and it's completely bare. There's junk everywhere; his office space is basically a glorified junkyard, hidden at the back, that can only be accessed from one particular section so that nobody gets to see the complete devastation around him. So, we find out that Maxwell Lord, billionaire magnate is actually a fraud!
Mon: He's running a Ponzi scheme where he's been getting investors to invest in his company, BlackGold Cooperative, to dig for oil in places where nobody's ever found any. So, these oil wells are basically dry, but he's been investing in them, and he's sinking. He's behind on all his bills, and worse, he has a son who he has to take care of every other weekend.
Ron: Hiding his losing empire from his son, who obviously hero-worships him, is becoming more and more of a problem.
Mon: He wants to be the great man that his son believes him to be, at the same time, he knows that he's made a huge mistake with this whole venture, and now the investors are after him. So, he's desperate. He's gonna do everything in his power to get that artifact. And he succeeds. He charms his way into Barbara's life.
Ron: And by the time Maxwell gets the artifact, we have a pretty clear idea of how it works because Barbara wished on it. We see her actually making the wish, and she slowly starts becoming, at least from an outward appearance, more like Diana. She has a better style; she looks neater. She's not as much of a klutz. But more importantly, it’s everybody else's perception of her that changes drastically. Suddenly, everybody notices Barbara. Suddenly, everybody wants to be her friend. This is not the Barbara that we saw at the start of the movie. This was very much the reaction that we were used to seeing Diana getting.
Mon: People were fawning over Diana, now they're fawning over Barbara. And Barbara starts becoming a little bit stronger. We see her in the gym, pumping weights like nobody's business, and people, you know, who are much, much more muscular than her are like, whoa, what's going on? She's getting what she wants.
Ron: But it’s not what she expects. Because she doesn't know that Diana is Wonder Woman, so the strength that she expects to get from the wish is a lot more than she bargained for. Meanwhile, Diana herself gets a wish of her own. Now, we know that she misses Steve Trevor. He was obviously her great love, and it's left a hole in her life. Then Steve Trevor comes back. Let's talk about that.
Mon: Yeah, again, a very old-fashioned way of reintroducing a character, especially one who is dead. Turns out that when Diana made a wish for Steve to return, he returned in the body of another man. But Diana can only see him, she can see Steve Trevor, but when Steve looks in the mirror, he sees this other guy. So, who is this other guy? Who knows! We don't know anything about him. We just know that he's now a walking host for Steve's consciousness. It's a little bit disturbing.
Ron: It is disturbing and just today, I was reading a long Twitter thread about how recent films and television shows have been leaning into this particular trope quite often. I was actually surprised to see how many properties have been doing this.
Mon: Really? I didn't realize that. Wow.
Ron: Yeah. Because there are dubious consent issues here. This man obviously doesn't get a choice to be Steve's host. And, by dint of being Steve's host, he's in a relationship with Diana. He's participating in these action sequences, he's a pilot, he's doing all these things. Does he actually want to do any of them? Does his body have a reaction to, you know, flying up in the air? I mean, they do go pretty high up. That altitude change has an impact on your body.
Mon: Maybe he's afraid of flying, who knows?
Ron: We don't know.
Mon: There's a lot that needs to be questioned about this particular story choice. I wish there had been a different way of bringing Steve back. Like, couldn't he just have been brought back as a corporeal Steve? I mean, he didn't need to be in another person's body. Because honestly, once Steve is back, it's amazing.
I don't know if Gal Gadot and Chris Pine just know each other better or since they've been on two films, they're more comfortable, but they have such an easy, fun chemistry. And Diana and Steve's relationship here just plays out so simply. They're having fun. They're so happy to be with each other. And it's not just about the physical closeness; they're just enjoying each other's company. I just loved it so much.
Ron: I loved Diana with Steve. This is the kind of Diana that we have been looking for, not just in Batman V Superman, not just in Justice League, even in Wonder Woman 1984, at the start of the film. You just don't want your hero to be so miserable! We get some idea of how happy Diana can be when she's with Barbara during that lunch date, but once she has Steve back, she's so much lighter, so much happier, she becomes relatable.
Mon: Yeah, because she's engaging with another person. She's not closed off, and we don't expect Diana to be closed off. She's a superhero; she should be a happy person but she's not. I don't think that she is necessarily miserable; she's made a choice, and she's sticking by that. But I don't think she's happy. When Steve comes back into her life, you can see that this is who she really wants to be. And that can be because Steve is somebody who understands her, who knows her and her power, so there's nothing to hide. She can be her own real self.
I just wish there was a way for them to give her that with some other character, whether it's somebody that she meets in the beginning and then grows into a relationship where she can be her natural self, that'd be awesome. It doesn't have to be a romantic one. If she wants that, it'll be great, but it can be with a friend.
But yeah, I have to say, I was worried about Steve coming back, and I don't agree with how he was brought back, but man, I just loved their scenes together. Listen, I don't know why, but I love it when long lost loves are re-found and stuff, and with Diane and Steve, I don't know, they just made it work in the first film, and it's so emotional, and you can be so easily invested in it in the second film, as well. I have to say I really, really liked it.
Ron: I agree with the fact that Diana could totally get something like this kind of joy with other people, and it's a bit frustrating that it seems like Diana has kind of closed off her life, not just because her friends have now gone, but because Steve is gone. The DCEU seems to be telling us that since Steve died in 1918, Diana has not been with anybody in a romantic sense, which I guess we can understand, but also it's been almost 70 years! It just seems a little bit strange for someone who has seen so much of the world, and who has so many interests, to hinge her entire romantic interest on one person who she knew only for a very short period of time.
Mon: Another thing is that Steve was the first man that Diana met and yes, he's written as a really great character, and it's easy to understand why she would have fallen in love with him, but to constantly reiterate the fact that he's the only person she ever loved is ridiculous.
Ron: It doesn't make sense to me because she's obviously a grown woman living on Themyscira. So, you're telling me that there was nobody that she had a romantic relationship with? We know that there were obviously Amazons who were together, and she does talk about having some experience in the first film, so it doesn't make sense to me that Steve, who was the first and only man that she had met at that point, would be the only person that she claims to truly love.
A lot of people have been drawing parallels between Diana and Steve, and Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter. But the thing is, I don't think that's equitable. Because for Diana, it's been some 70 years in this film. By the time it gets to BVS and Justice League, it's been even longer than that. Whereas for Steve Rogers, he goes into the ice for 70 years. For him, he's only been away from Peggy Carter for a few years. So, it's still understandable that he would want to go back and live his life with her. For Diana, whose experiencing life every single day, it just doesn't make sense.
Mon: Yeah, if this film was maybe five to 10 years later, I'd understand that. Diana is immortal, so it makes sense that she's going to experience time in a completely different way. So, a few years for her may not be enough to get over a love like she had for Steve. But honestly, like come on, in 80 years, she has to have met somebody else, at least one person! Okay, I'm not saying she has to be in love with that person and that wasn't her, you know, her-forever, but she has to have been with other people, just to have a social life, to feel like she belongs on Earth. It just seems weird.
And again, as you said earlier, it is because of how she was written in BVS and Justice League. The writers of her own franchise are really struggling to shoehorn those aspects of her character in. I'm actually beginning to think that it might make sense for Wonder Woman 3 to just not go there. Just forget about romance; let her live her life.
So, the lead up to the actual plot of the film is a bit long; it does take time to try and introduce these characters, in some cases, reintroduce these characters, and explain what the world is like. So, what essentially happens is that Maxwell Lord becomes the wishing stone himself, and then he starts getting what he wants by granting other people their wishes. But each wish that somebody makes, they need to give something, they need to sacrifice something. Now the problem with the film is that the rules sort of get made up as we go along, which is a huge problem, because you can't be invested, because you don't understand what's happening. Once you understand it, it's like, oh okay, now I get it. I get why this is happening.
Ron: And that's why I think this film will actually be more enjoyable when you watch it the second time around. The first time you watch it, you're wondering why is this happening? Because the characters, especially Maxwell, knows more about what's going on with the story than we do, which is not usually how it happens for a viewing experience.
Mon: So, for example, with Barbara, as she discovers more of her popularity and more of her abilities, she loses a really key aspect of herself, which is her kindness. Unfortunately, that part of her wasn't that well built-out in the film. We only see one scene, but we do figure it out. With Diana, she's hanging out with Steve, but she's losing a huge part of myself, and that's her power. We realize that when Diana actually starts getting hurt by bullets, and she's not healing from them.
Ron: Which is obviously a huge drawback when you're a superhero trying to save the world.
Mon: Exactly. With Maxwell, since he's the wishing stone, every time he grants a wish, he starts losing some of his health. So, everyone has a ticking timebomb attached to them, as the film goes along. So, what’s Maxwell trying to do? He's basically building up his empire, he's getting greedier with every wish that he grants. And the problem is, he's going to people who are desperate, so they're asking for stuff which is really going to destabilize the world.
So, there's this scene, and we’ve got to talk about it, I guess. He goes to Egypt. So, the oil magnate of the year is someone in Egypt. For Maxwell to get that guy’s oil, he grants him a wish, and that guy says he wants the resurgence of his Bialyan Empire. And suddenly there's a wall in the middle of Egypt and everybody is out of water.
Okay. So basically, let's just talk about Egypt, get it over and done with and move on to the rest of the film, because this scene really annoyed me. And it's not just the scene. The problem is there are other elements, which will tie into the scene, which also bothered me. Because unconscious bias, apparently, is a huge problem when making films.
First of all, the Egyptian oil magnate is wearing Arabian garb which aren’t Egyptian. My knowledge of Egypt is more ancient Egypt than modern Egypt, but I'm pretty sure that what he's wearing is more Saudi Arabian than it is Egyptian.
Ron: In fact, when I first saw the magazine cover with him, I honestly thought that this was somebody from Saudi Arabia, but then it turns out that the gentleman is in Egypt. And not only that, he's actually sold his oil to the Saudi Arabians already. I was so confused.
Mon: Yeah, so was I. I’m not sure I have the entire history of oil and its relations in the 1980s so I'm not going to get into that. Better people than me will have the knowledge so we can check those out. But the problem is that, the garb doesn't look right. Then, when Diana and Steve are in Egypt, there's a lot of people who are wearing full burkhas, and it just doesn't seem authentic. Because in Egypt, they have a lot of different kinds of traditional wear, and not everyone wears a full burkha. There is also no city there in Cairo; we only see the suburbs, which are close to the Pyramids and stuff. It just felt like such a backward way of showing a Middle East and North Africa country.
Ron: It was very ‘this is another place’. This is not ‘us’.
Mon: Yeah, it's just so stereotypical, and I was just shocked that it was in there.
Ron: Do check out the tweets from MENA folk on Twitter because they have a lot more information about the divine wall that arises, and the treatment of the characters themselves, because we don't know a lot, and MENA folk definitely will be able to tell you a lot more.
There are some other very dodgy references Iran and Iraq. The moment I heard it, I was just like, oh god, please don't.
Mon: And, yeah, there's this soldier fighting, and he's very obviously supposed to be an Arab soldier. We don't know which part of the world he's in, but he's suddenly wishing for nukes and I'm like, what? If somebody is invading your country, you're not wishing for nukes, you’ll be wishing for them to go away! It's so stupid, right? It's like this stupid stuff that they put in which makes you wonder how blinkered are people, that they cannot see beyond who they are, and who other people should be, or look like in their brain.
Ron: And this is what I meant when I was saying that this film felt like it was made in 1984.
Mon: Yeah.
Ron: This is the kind of nonsensical, badly-researched MENA representation that you would expect from a film from the 80s. In 2020, when we have the internet and sensitivity readers and viewers, I just don't understand what is happening with this film.
Mon: How can this get greenlit in the first place? It just frustrates me no end. You're enjoying this film, and then you have this really horrible kind of representation, and that's it, all your enjoyment of it just goes down the drain.
Ron: So, there's an action sequence that happens in Egypt which is problematic. Aside from the fact that the action sequence itself has some pacing issues which dogs this entire firm, and I don't understand what was happening with that. At one point, there are these children in the middle of a road playing football and Wonder Woman has to save them.
Now there are a couple of issues with this. A) the way it was shot, you could very very clearly see that Wonder Woman is holding dolls. In fact, one of them actually hits their head on the road and I'm just like, ‘are those kids okay?’
Mon: Wonder Woman’s arms can't be long enough to get around both those kids at that angle.
Ron: Yeah, I don't know what they were thinking. That entire scene just had some dodgy CGI, very weird pacing, and that whole doll scene was weird.
Now the other problem is, and I'm asking our listeners to please research this, it seems a lot like that shot was based on real events from a few years ago, where some Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip were killed in an Israeli bomb attack. The politics of this is so bad. And we cannot avoid the fact that Gal Gadot used to be in the Israeli Defense Force, and she has been very vocally in support of them, even as Wonder Woman.
So yeah, I really, really wish that they had just left that entire Egypt section out because they did not know what they were doing, and they have made a lot of people very very angry.
Mon: And after this she’s going to play Cleopatra. I honestly sometimes worry about the fate of humanity. Which is exactly what this film is supposed to tell us not to worry about.
Ron: The problem is, it's very hard to take the last act where we're supposed to believe that humanity can actually be better, when human beings making a film like this make such colossal mistakes.
Now, you’ve got to ask yourself, how is this happening? The pacing of the action sequence and the weird thing with the dolls, that's direction, that's editing, that's production. The writing of that Egyptian scene, the fact that those children seem to be representative of something that had happened just a few years ago and is very fresh in a lot of people's memories, now that's a writing thing.
Now, this film was written by Patty Jenkins, who's also the director, Geoff Johns who has been an executive producer for a number of DCTV shows as well, and Dave Callaham. Anybody who's been following the DCEU knows that Geoff Johns has been problematic, to say the least. A lot of Ray Fisher’s issues with Justice League had to do with Joss Whedon, and Geoff Johns.
Geoff Johns is also the man who once told Candice Patton, who plays Iris West-Allen on The Flash, that she would never suit up ever. Fortunately, the creators of that show went in a different direction and we did get to see Iris not only become a superhero in her own right, but also the leader of Team Flash.
There have been a lot of controversies around Geoff Johns, even with the first Wonder Woman film, he was strongly against the No Man's Land scene, which he said was very dark and didn't quite fit the tone of the film. Fortunately, Patty Jenkins, with some assistance from Zack Snyder, was able to bring that scene to fruition. And it was honestly one of the best scenes, not only from that film but from that year.
The writing: a lot of people are wondering how the writing credits have impacted the story of this film, we can't know what was written by whom. Generally these are collaborative environments, so, the blame for the scenes has to live everybody's feet, but I do want people to understand that there's a context behind the issues that we are finding in this film.
Mon: As you always say, and we have said this several times on our podcast, entertainment and pop culture does not live in a vacuum. We have to address how different people will be impacted by what they see on screen.
Thanks to social media, there have been a lot of people who are very vocal about if you love this film, you still need to address the issues that it has, especially when it comes to representation.
Ron: I mean, the first one had problems with representation as well. Wonder Woman, when she left Themyscira, didn't have any women around her. Etta Candy had a couple of scenes, but that was hardly anything memorable. The diverse crew around her, even they were quite definitely lodged in stereotypes, which didn't really make sense even then. So, for this filmto seemingly not have learned anything from that experience-
Mon: It almost doubles down on it.
Ron: Yeah. I would have to say it does, which is really really frustrating.
Mon: And, had this film been elevated in other aspects, had the pacing been perfect, the editing been perfect, we would have had a much more constructive discourse around it. But the worst parts of this film are hard to ignore because there is just so much of it.
There are representation issues, there are editing issues, there are pacing issues, there are characterization issues, there are writing issues, and there is direction issues. Where do you start?
Aside from the Egypt part, there is one bit of representation that did not make any sense to me. Ravi Patel, who shows up in like one scene as a descendant of the Mayans, helps Barbara, Steve and Diana figure out what they need to do to fix the problem of this wishing stone.
So, this is really really confusing. He is referred to as a shaman. They call him something like Babajide, it doesn't make any sense—you either say Baba Ji, or nothing. And his name is apparently Frank Patel, which is okay because the actor is of Indian origin. What doesn't make sense is how is he related to the Mayans.
The Mayans are from the Americas, they have nothing to do with the other parts of the world. Had they gone to somebody who knew about the Indus Valley Civilization, or had some connection to that, it would have made sense, but instead you have somebody who is obviously of Indian descent who has Mayan heritage, and I was really confused by this.
Part of me wants to give the creators the benefit of the doubt. Far too often, if you go to somebody in movies, who have some kind of ancient ancestry, they're usually white characters, even if they happen to be Mayans or something. So maybe they're saying, because the Mayans were from BC eras, it's a long time. It's quite understandable that their descendants would have mixed with cultures in the Americas, some of them would be of Indian heritage. So I want to give them the benefit of the doubt, to say that, yes, it's possible that someone with Mayan heritage eventually married into Indian families. But the only problem is, why does he have dreadlocks, and he’s called the shaman, but also named Babajide, whatever that means. It's just all mixed up and messed up. Had it just been this one character who was represented in this weird fashion, we could have called it out and ignored it. But, in conjunction with the horrible MENA representation, I guess you can say this movie is a bit of a mess. It is an ignorant biased mess.
Ron: On the other hand, there's a bit of representation that's actually more modern, in a way. Maxwell Lord’s son, Alistair, is very clearly of mixed origin. He looks Asian and Latino, which is exactly what Lucien Perez, the young actor playing Alistair, is. Now, a lot of people were a bit confused why Maxwell Lord, who is clearly Latino has an Asian son, and I'm just like-
Mon: That’s your takeaway from this?
Ron: From all the representation that this film gets wrong, the one moment of representation it gets right, people have a problem with?
But of course, these are certain kinds of people—you know what we mean—but it's also moments like these that make our viewing experience so confusing. Because you're like, okay, so you can show us a biracial family which is representative of modern families, but on the other hand you have this Egypt stuff, and Babajide.
Mon: I sometimes think that, you know, when you do too much you mess up. If you do a little less, you get it right. Why try so hard? What are you trying to prove and who are you trying to prove wrong? All you're doing is succeeding to prove the wrong people right.
Ron: In fact, the whole thing could easily have been done at the Smithsonian with either Barbara and Diana's own expertise or with somebody who had already been introduced as being in the department,
Mon: They could’ve talked to Jake, he was there all the while in the Smithsonian. Just talk to him, or whoever else was there. Why do you have to bring in another guy who just ruins your viewing experience even more.
Read Part 2 of the transcript here.