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Post by takewithfood on Dec 8, 2019 16:47:00 GMT -5
Trailer:
I have so many questions, not the least of which is what's going on with Steve, but also how did any of this happen without Batman eventually hearing about it? But anyway, looks like a fun romp. I don't have very high expectations, but I'll keep an eye on it.
It's due out June 5th 2020.
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Post by Gris on Dec 9, 2019 8:03:53 GMT -5
DC keeps getting better, but I don't know if the pace is enough. I mean, it seems like an enjoyable movie, but meanwhile Marvel had their Infinity War and the CW just started Crisis. The Blue Monday cover is very nice but it carries like 80% of the trailer and without it seems pretty generic (besides golden armor and riding the lightning).
And yeah, the Steve Trevor situation (Captain América? Circe illusion? Robot/Clone? Gods meddling?) stinks of "we didn't even consider doing the movie without dragging on the romance angle".
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Post by takewithfood on Dec 9, 2019 9:22:32 GMT -5
The music is definitely pulling a lot of weight here. That Suicide Squad trailer really changed things (it's soooo goooood!), even for Marvel; you can hear it in the way they used Immigrant Song in the first Ragnarok trailer. But I think there's more going on here. Feels weird using spoilers on a trailer, but I don't think everyone wants to speculate this much about the plot: What I think is interesting about this trailer is that it lays out a theme a lot more clearly than I'm used to seeing in other DC movies.
Maxwell Lord appears to have some sort of magic crystal that I'm assuming is granting him his powers. He talks about how people can have what they want if they just want it enough. Meanwhile, Diana talks about the unhappy parts of her life, and then how nothing good comes from lies. Kristen Wiig's Barbara Ann Minerva also experiences a transformation from an awkward nerd into a vamp reminiscent of Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman.
If you look at the snippets of dialogue, the trailer makes it sound like Maxwell Lord is using his powers to give people what they want most, even if it's only a lie or an illusion, which is what I think is going on with Steve:
So, it seems like a lot of themes about wishful thinking, letting fantasy distraction you from reality, facing hard truths (like Steve's death and maybe the fact that Diana needs to move on from him after all these years), and moving into the future.
Now, this could just be clever editing on the part of the trailer people; a lot of this dialogue is edited together from fragments, and almost none of it accompanies the film of the character speaking those lines. But it makes a lot of sense as a character arc for Diana, and would make a smashing film anyway. I hope this is what it's about.
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Post by Gris on Dec 9, 2019 14:17:52 GMT -5
Oh I'm sure, or at least pretty confident, that the plot will manage to sort out things in a convincing and adequate way at least. The thing is that I don't really care for Steve Trevor as a character or what does he bring to the movies and I'm not Chris Pine's biggest fan, so his presence is whatever at best.
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Post by takewithfood on Dec 10, 2019 0:13:02 GMT -5
I agree, though I think it might be cute to see the fish-out-of-water roles reversed. And maybe for Diana to realize along the way just how much she's grown/adapted/moved on in the last 40 years. Basically I like him better as a trope or character device than an actual character.
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Post by Gris on Dec 11, 2019 12:42:44 GMT -5
Basically I like him better as a trope or character device than an actual character.
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Post by Gris on Aug 23, 2020 4:29:08 GMT -5
New trailer that kinda undermines the movie by showing that it's a bit more the usual fare than expected. Weird:
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Post by Gris on Nov 20, 2020 4:16:03 GMT -5
We will have this movie on HBO Max on December 25th, no extra charge, so it will be time for some holiday watching.
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Post by mcr on Dec 25, 2020 19:19:33 GMT -5
Spoiler free post. Watched it and preferred the first one.
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Post by takewithfood on Dec 26, 2020 18:06:27 GMT -5
Yeah, I also preferred the first one by a lot. WW84 starts out pretty strong, but sags in the middle and winds up a mess. A bit worrying for the DCEU, as Wonder Woman is the best thing it has going for it. I liked the mid-credits scene, though.
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Post by mcr on Dec 26, 2020 18:54:53 GMT -5
I felt like they could have cut at least 90 minutes out of that 151 minute movie, and made it like an hour long TV special. This movie wants me to do a Wonder Woman story, but, you know, good. While Pascal did an admirable job playing their version of Maxwell Lord, his character doesn't seem like the kind that would have any significant role in future stories. Ditto Wiig as Cheetah: although her rivalry with Diana and the fact that she knows her secret identity could spell a return, the fact that it is set almost 40 years in the past makes me wonder what they would do with her in a WW or JL movie set in the 2020s. The two longer-lasting concepts introduced in this movie, Diana's flight and invisible jet, could have been played up so much more - it would have been badass to see her in the golden armor doing a full on aerial battle. And the jet felt more like a gag - same with Carter's cameo, not meant to be developed much beyond what they showed on screen. So of the four/five big things that happen in the movie, only one of them is likely to have any significance beyond the contours of the film.
The Dreamstone concept was interesting, and they could have done so much with it by introducing one of Diana's classic rogues: Circe. Have her trap Diana within the stone, playing out something from classic Greek mythology like the Odyssey, or something similar. Or use it to corrupt Diana far more than the random chaos that played out by Lord's wish granting. I actually had the same complaint with Episode IX and Rey - that they could have done so much to play into the idea that desire fuels the darkness within her, but it was a wasted opportunity.
Instead, we got to see an almost mortal Diana - constantly outclassed by such unstoppable foes as: a padlock (no, really), and a telephone pole (again, no, really). So, you know, the thing that makes her character great - being a badass, was gone for like 2/3 of the movie.
I'll say this much: The weirdest episode of The Mandalorian so far. And as good as Pascal is, and he and Wiig saved this from being borderline unwatchable, I think it's pretty clear from this movie that he can't carry a trash heap by himself, which worries me if Grogu doesn't return.
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Post by takewithfood on Dec 26, 2020 23:10:07 GMT -5
I have to agree with pretty much all of that. Maxwell Lord feels like more of a plot device than a villain: He and the Dreamstone are in the movie mostly just to bring back Steve, give Cheetah her powers, and create some action setpieces. This made for a very awkward final showdown between Lord and Diana, where the day was saved by the most cheesy/sappy deus ex machina I've ever seen, where I guess he suddenly remembers he loves his son, and so he just undoes everything he's ever wanted? The fact that they decided to cram Lord's entire backstory into a 30-second montage at the end of the film shows how mismanaged he was as a character. I love me some Pedro Pascal, though, and I thought he did a great job as usual, but you're right that there's only so much he can do. Kristen Wiig was great too, and I liked Cheetah up until she became a reject from Cats. It's rare that I say this, but they really should have gone with a less comic-book-accurate portrayal and just kept her fully human. I'm confused as to what happened to her in the end; in theory she should still have her pre-cheetah powers because she didn't make her first wish through Maxwell Lord, she made it directly on the stone. If that means she still has all of Diana's powers, that could mean she wouldn't age and would look the same in any modern movies. I doubt they would bring her back for a hypothetical third movie because for some dumb reason studios don't like to bring back villains, but the possibility is there. I think the part of the movie that works best is the chemistry between Gal Gadot and Chris Pine. Pine really sold the wonder and joy of his character, and I found it infectious. However, their plotline was marred by just how fucked up it is that Steve Trevor returned in the body of some random dude, and that they were both pretty much fine with COMPLETELY ERASING HIM FROM EXISTENCE if Steve were to stay permanently. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK. The whole time I felt nagged by thoughts like "Does the guy have a job? A family? Friends? Are they going to look for him? If Steve goes away and this guy comes back, will he notice he's lost all these days? Or worse: is he conscious somewhere inside Steve Trevor, watching everything they're doing? IS WONDER WOMAN EFFECTIVELY RAPING A GUY? ??" I honestly don't know why Steve Trevor had to come back that way. Why couldn't he just appear, why did he have to steal a guy's entire life? When that did wished for a farm and got cows, did the cows take the place of some people? WHAT IS HAPPENING AAAHHHHAnyway. I feel like the people making this movie don't quite know what to do with Diana as a heroine. They want her to be this symbol of goodness and virtue, yet they are forced to keep her a secret from the world because even the World's Greatest Detective doesn't know who she is until like 2015 or whatever. They want her to solve her problems with love and motivational speeches, yet she's given a power set that limits her to hand-to-hand brawling. Unlike in the first movie where she got to square off with soldiers and tanks and the literal god of war, Diana doesn't really get to cut loose in this film, and all the fight scenes feel very muted and subdued. Also on that note, Patty Jenkins is just not a good action director. Her fight sequences do not flow naturally, they only move awkwardly from key shot to key shot. Diana is leaping in slow-motion off a truck, she's pushing a truck while using it as a shield, she's stuck under a truck and struggling to get free, she's on the hood staring down Maxwell Lord - these are the moments in a fight sequence that they clearly wanted to emphasize, yet the stuff in between feels very forced and confusing. Add in some feeble green screen and janky wire work and the whole thing feels very amateur. The final fight with Cheetah was especially weak, which is often the case when a fully CGI character fights a real person: The real person can't adequately react to a CGI cat leaping off the walls with superhuman speed, and a CGI character is never going to look as clean and fluid as a real person. Staging the fight at night helps cover up a lot of this, but also makes it harder to appreciate the beauty of it. EDIT: Bonus spoiler thing I forgot the first time around: Also, I found the scene in which the drunken man tries to assault Barbara a second time very confusing. She has powers the second time, and she kicks his ass and possibly even kills him (it's unclear if he survives), and they seem to have inserted this mini plotline solely to establish that Barabara is now evil.
Because up until that point, she has been a very sympathetic character: She is friendly and sweet, and frankly pretty interesting (her job is fascinating), but awkward and subsequently ignored. Even warm-hearted Diana seems to find her a little off-putting at first, and only invites her to lunch out of pity. All Barabra wishes is to be like Diana, who is a good, beautiful, and charismatic person - that's a pretty innocent wish. When she gets what she wants, she mostly just uses her newfound confidence and style to feel good about herself and make other people laugh; at her worst she gets a little shallow and treats people as poorly as she used to be treated.
To me, she crosses over into a villain the moment she opposes Diana in stopping Maxwell Lord for selfish reasons - she wants to keep her wish. She's still sympathetic, but she is acting against the hero and ultimately against the greater good, and I thought that was one of the strongest moments in the story. However, I guess they felt they needed to underline that she's EVILâ„¢ now, so they put this little scene in where she kicks this dude's ass.
But this guy was clearly going to assault her, and all she did was kick the fuck out of him to teach him a lesson. Isn't this the same thing that most harsh heroes would do? I could absolutely see Batman or Daredevil doing basically the same thing to him. Can you honestly say you wouldn't do the same? So to me, not only is this scene not even necessary to establish Cheetah as a villain, it doesn't really even work. This script is such a mess.
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Post by Gris on Jan 16, 2021 5:27:52 GMT -5
Finally watched it and oh boy, it's all over the place. In general terms and many of the specifics I agree with the spoilered bits in the posts above, so I'm not getting into particulars here. I'm not a fan of the first one, it fell flat for me, it didn't make a lot of sense, it was weirdly ableist and racist and the ending was uninspired. But this one is even worse, since it comes across as aimless. Sometimes it wants to be a goofy Raimi take (without his expertise), others a well meaning take akin to the DC CW series, while others it gets (slightly) Snyderish or just into generic superhero fare. It's too many movies at once and none of them particularly interesting.
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Post by ZehnWaters on Mar 11, 2021 16:57:13 GMT -5
I liked it a lot. Hit the right emotional notes but the middle section needed a strict rewrite.
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