We suffered through Suicide Squad to get to Wonder Woman’s feature debut in 2017’s aptly titled Wonder Woman, and it was wonderful. Gadot played a different Wonder Woman from the one we briefly fell in love with only a year earlier. She was a younger, less experienced Diana, seeing the world outside her cloistered pastoral training grounds for the very first time. From a storytelling and character development point of view, it was a refreshing take, and a great chance to take advantage of Gadot’s natural acting instincts (and charm) to their full effect.
But even she couldn’t save an abysmal, depressing Justice League. It was rushed, incorporating too many new characters without enough time to be properly introduced. The plot was forced, not by any real storytelling reason, to keep Superman out of the story until the end because his godlike powers are simply too much to keep a sustained fight going (the way mere mortals can sustain an Avengers fight for seemingly unending hours). The film abandoned all attempts for the plot to make any sense. DC decided to vomit characters and plot at us at a dizzying pace that tried to skip the decade of work Marvel did for the first Avengers movie to feel inevitable and anticipated, rather than interminable and obligatory.
Aquaman seemed like an attempt to change the overall tone of the series from the darkness that came before it to something lighter. That was probably a smart move, because while there’s nothing wrong with a darker tone, it needs to be earned to some degree. Ben Affleck’s Batman (the Batfleck), for example, wears his darkness very well, and matches the brooding, world-weary version of Batman he portrays. I’m actually a little bummed they’ve already recast him, as I was very interested in seeing him lead a solo movie. But there’s also more mass market appeal to following the trail blazed by Marvel in making its films action-comedies. They leaned into that even harder with Shazaam!—which I’d argue is more comedy-action since it’s jokes first and fights second. As a comedy and not a superhero action CGI-fest, I actually thought it was one of the better of the series.
Which brings us to the present. There’s a Suicide Squad sequel up next called Birds of Prey that I wish all the best. But what I’m really looking forward to is Wonder Woman 1984. She’s back! For anyone who skipped the section above, welcome to the conversation. I’ll start by throwing down a gauntlet: Let’s admit it, Wonder Woman is the best thing that’s happened to the DC Extended Universe movies, and they should crank out as many of these things as they possibly can.
We have been blessed this early December with an early look at what 2020 has in store for the future of the Wonder Woman series. Set in 1984, almost 70 years after the events of the first film, we see a lonely Diana defending the world and saving regular people, but at a cost to herself. Still reeling from the death of her first and only love, Steve Trevor, she seems comfortable and well-adjusted to the world. It’s no longer a fish out of water story (at least, not for her). Enter into this, the return of Steve Trevor! Yes, that’s right, for marketing purposes and I suppose because it was the only way short of freezing him in a block of ice like Steve Rogers, this Steve is somehow magically returned from the dead to Diana in 1984. How is he back? It’s unclear, and it doesn’t really matter. But I’m betting it’s either 1.) A gift from the gods in return for all the hard work she’s done in protecting mankind, including putting down Ares’ attempt to stoke war, or 2.) He’s clearly a trap from the movie’s baddies, and at some point he will either betray her, or he will be used as bait or some other macguffin to handcuff her and cause her even more misery. For further marketing purposes she’ll probably overcome this with new skills/powers/abilities hinted at in the trailer, but I’m guessing it will serve as a central point of her misery at some point in the film’s third act.
For our new villains, we get Pedro Pascal as Maxwell Lord and Kristin Wiig (really?) as Cheetah. I don’t know a ton about Lord, but he’s supposed to have some sort of telepathy powers. That makes me wonder if Trevor is even back or if Lord is manipulating Diana into doing bad things in the movie. That’s probably going to bum me out, as I think Gadot is one of the best sympathetic emoting actors on the big screen other than John Krasinski. Watching her get emotionally crushed is going to be a gut punch. We don’t see a lot of Wiig, and the trailer has her made out to be a gal pal of Diana’s, but like many villains, something will happen to turn her into the powerful and fearsome Cheetah. Hopefully we get a look at her in full makeup in a future trailer.
Let’s not close without pointing out all the super neato things in the trailer to squee over. She’s lassoing lighting! She has golden armor with wings! She’s at the mall in the 80s! Everything is so 80s! There, I got that out of my system. Seriously though, the aesthetic of the film looks really cool. The color saturation is dialed up to 1,000, in keeping with the style of the era. Her new abilities and skills, her new armor and powers, all seemed well timed to show her progression as a character and hero. I have to say I also love the marketing imagery for this as well. The totally off the charts neon explosion background in the recently released promos looks amazing.
The film’s release is still a long way off, but if this is what the future of DC has prepared for us, then the way ahead looks bright indeed.
