Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman was undeniably a groundbreaking feat for not only comic book films, but for women in film and for the industry as a whole. Every woman I talk to about it had physical and emotional reactions and connections to that film. The beauty and impact of Wonder Woman is going to be very difficult to duplicate but if anyone can do it it's the genius of Patty Jenkins and Gal Gadot. Come Christmas Day we will get to experience the heroism of the beautiful Amazonian Princess Diana once again. But before we let the inevitable brilliance of the next chapter for Diana wash over us, let's recap and revisit the first movie and take a deep dive into the new movie’s trailer to piece together what we know about this story before we get the joy of watching it.

In act 1 of the original Wonder Woman film we get immediately emotionally connected to not just Diana but the women closest to her just in time to see one of those women die, we get Steve Trevor and Diana leaving the island. I would also just like to remind everyone of just how comic book accurate a lot of this movie is, as far as superhero origin stories go they did an excellent job of blending her original inception with the several reboots Wonder Woman and DC have been through.

Act 2 brings us a lot but nothing more important than the scene that made me cry, the no man's land scene! This whole movie is people (mostly men) telling Diana “No” and she goes with her heart and does what she feels is right and I could not love her more. Steve tells her that crossing no man's land is not possible and her response is pretty much, well I'm gonna do it anyway...and of course act 3 gives us Diana fighting Ares and realizing that fighting with and for love is more important than anything else thus solidifying this as the best possible characterization ever in a film adaptation of a comic book.

So now that we’ve recapped the first Wonder Woman let's take a quick look at the trailer for 1984 and try and track where this is going. First we start with a flashback of little Diana (which I LOVE) I was hoping we’d get flashbacks because they show a connection to who she was on Themiscrya. When a character doesn’t age and they lose the people they care about to death and old age (think Steve Rodgers) it can be very difficult as a writer to remind the audience all that this character has been through if you don’t see, not only how long they’ve been alive but who they had to leave behind so I love flashbacks for her going into her second film. Next we see little flashes of Kristen Wig, who is playing Cheetah, and of course we see Diana look up and see Steve Trevor. Going by the dialogue we get from Cheetah, who is named as Barbara (Ann) Minerva on IMDb (the post-crisis version of the character) it looks like we might actually get a mix of origin stories for Cheetah, which was what I was hoping for. For more info on the various origin stories check out my article on the history of Cheetah. And the iconic last scene of the trailer we see Diana in her golden suit of armour and I am simply so excited for this movie that I am going to cry.

So last but not least we need to assess what questions we still have going into this masterpiece (yeah I know I haven't seen it yet, but I will bet on Patty Jenkins everytime). How is Steve Trevor alive? How are we introducing Cheetah? As in what pieces of her origin are we pulling from which version of her character? And how did Wonder Woman get her new uniform?

I for one can not wait to find out the answers to these questions and once again experience Wonder Woman grace my screen in her proper depiction.