Fixing Wonder Woman

I might be in the minority, but I hated the movie. Maybe it's because I had high expectations and came away disappointed.

I agree on the points the OP made, but I could have overlooked those if it weren't for the big problem I had; how they portrayed Diana.

Origin: Now, I am not deep into the lore on WW's origin, so I miss some critical things, but we have a cute 8-year old that wants to play warrior on an Island of warriors. Okay, sure. Now flash forward a few years here and there with bits of mom being mad and now we have a grow up warrior that kicks ass and throws light that can knock the greatest warrior of all time on her keister. The Amazons are smart, capable warriors, but Diana is played as a bit of dim wit. Particularly later when she keeps insisting on Ares as being behind it all without being self-aware enough to realize she's not on the Island any more and these humans don't just don't buy into the whole Greek God thing.

Fix: I would have loved to have seen a much more gritty version of Diana being raised and trained. Tell her at the very beginning that she is the killer of gods and was Zeus daughter raised on earth to defeat Ares in battle. Make her a bad ass that has trained hard and earned her stripes. We could have still had the heartful scene with Mom saying goodbye and "You can never come back" and it would have played just fine. The other benefit is that they could have given her battle scars and shown that she was hardened to fight a God and that would also add to the credibility of her risking everything to find Ares.

Love Story: I haaaaaaate that they polluted this with a love story. Drop that on Batman Begins; he became a warrior because he loved a girl. Blech. Diana is warrior. She can be attracted to Steve, even want to do right by him, maybe a roll in the sack for fun times. But, to pin the whole reason to make the leap at the end to kill Ares because of LOVE. Grrrr.

Fix: Let it be about revenge on the Germans, the desire to save humanity (and it can be pinned on honor or a warrior code, not just LOVE), hell even the life-long mission to kill Ares to protect the Amazons AND humanity. That seems pretty noble.

Also, to the dim-witted part, have her completely self-aware that Ares is clearly in disguise as a leader of the war and use it make jokes and lighten the mood in some key spots. I love a little drop of humor in tense scenes. Instead, she just keeps on about how she has to get to Ares and it's played like she's dead serious that everyone should just KNOW that Ares is a bad guy at the front.

Last bit, i'll echo that I love David Thewlis as an actor, but what a horrible choice. The whole reveal/switch at the end was sloppy. I'd have rather dropped a hint where he gives them money at the bar, and made it super clear with the phone call and maybe added a scene of him trying to thwart them with a secret phone call to the German's or something. Let him be the bad guy for 1/2 the movie instead of just dropping it in at the end. It was almost a mcguffin even though you knew it was coming.

I such high hopes this would finally be a proper hero movie with a Woman as the central character that didn't pander to some giant movie trope like LOVE CONQUERS ALL. Just a proper bad-ass hero kicking some evil villain ass, and oh btw its a girl. I loved the TIL post earlier this week that said that all the characters on Alien were written without regard to gender. I would love to see a studio finally make a hero movie where the gender didn't matter till they started casting and found the perfect actor/actress to play the role. /rant

/r/fixingmovies Thread