My Ideas for a Wonder Woman Movie
Is it possible to do a good Wonder Woman movie? How can Diana break the idea that CBMs with female leads are doomed to fail with the mainstream audience? Find out after the jump.
By jaycr -
Jul 08, 2013 12:07 AM EST
Source: Templo Kaori
Joss Whedon in November 2006, explaining the delay in developing a proper script.
Wonder Woman is one of the more complex and difficult characters in comics. For many talented writers she is the ultimate challenge, because unlike Batman or Spiderman, she is not a human being with a background that you can find relatable... even a difficult character like Superman has Clark Kent and a supporting cast like Lois, Jimmy or the Kents to show his human side.
For Wonder Woman we have a highly unrealistic tale of a Paradise Island populated by beautiful, virginal and morally perfect female warriors. Her mother made her out of Clay and she is born as a gift from the Olympian Gods to be the perfect woman. It´s very hard to feel identified to her origin story.
To add more trouble, Diana was created by a very disturbed person. William Moulton Marston was a brilliant man with twisted ideas about women and sexuality. The man himself lived with his wife and his mistress, despide the fact that he preached about women´s rights. To be honest, the early success of the Wonder Woman comics was due to all the bondage and sexually charged images that several lonely soldiers enjoyed during the war. Sexuality is a huge part of the character and this turns her into a paradox.
When DC changed the character to a politically correct girlfriend in the 50´s due to the witch hunt against the comic book industry, the character died. American society doesn´t know how to handle the idea of a strong and independent woman. Not even the american feminist movement knows how to handle it. Wonder Woman became a feminist symbol in the late 60's... and this is poison for the readers and writers alike. For me feminists are great villians but awful heroines. You can´t sympathize with a man hater.
The main problem with Wonder Woman is that she is an Icon, not a character. On the top of that she is a female icon, and being an female icon turns her into a Virgen Mary kind of character. If Superman is expected to act like a Boy Scout, and that makes him boring, now think about what it means for Diana to be a virginal heroine fighting crime in a Miss America swimsuit.
If you want an example of a successful female character take Catwoman. She is smart, beautiful and enjoys her own sexuality freely. Her evolution is interesting. She began as a villian, a thief, although I believe that what made her evil in the early years is the sexual temptation that she represents for Batman and the reader. American society can´t accept a woman that use her sexual power to dominate a man... that´s a taboo that remains to our days. Any woman that play the sex card becomes a villian.
In Catwoman´s case we see her moral redemption in the relationship that she has with Batman. He wants to make a good woman of Selina Kyle and eventually she becomes Bruce´s wife and they have a daughter, Helena Wayne, but this almost killed the appeal of the character. You can´t ´portrait Catwoman as an evil maniac like the Joker... she is not a bad person and in recent years this lead to her change into an anti hero character. Catwoman´s moral flaws are what makes her atractive.
For me the key to have success with a Wonder Woman story is what Brian Azzarrello did in the New 52: Turn an Icon into a human character. To acomplish this you need to find a good moral compass for her... she is a smart, capable and independent woman that is trying to adapt to a brave new world. And when you are trying to adapt to a new place you make mistakes... therefore you can´t be perfect.
This is also touched by Paul Dini in the comic Spirit of Truth, when Clark tells Diana that her problem is that she is not able to understand mankind because she is too perfect. This is a brilliant way to put a character´s mouth the main complain that all the writers have about her. A perfect character is a boring character.
So, how can we make Wonder Woman a successful a movie?
You need to reinvent her as a modern woman. To define what a modern woman is the tricky part. You need to humanize her and I believe that rather than go back to the 40´s origin story, you can break the rules and show us her current world. Now the question is if Diana needs a secret identity or not?
If you use the secret identity she will have to create another character to hide Wonder Woman. On the other hand, she can be a 24/7 Super Heroine working for the US government on secret missions and avoid all the stupid disco spinning thing... sorry Lynda Carter fans, but that's cheesy by today's standards. Plus I think that these missions can create a moral dilemma for her and you can build something interesting out of that.
I like the idea of adapting greek mythology to the modern times. The changes made in the New 52 take her in the right direction, however we still don´t have a Year One or Birthright kind of comic that show us how Diana became the kind of heroine that she is. I think that this is movie that we need. Not how she got her powers, but how she find out her mission as a heroine.
Back in the 60´s Dennis O´neal tried this approach by removing her powers and had her learning Kung Fu and living like a crime fighter in training while she also tried to be a cool, modern Mod girl. This was a failure and O´neal still regrets it. However I think that his intentions were correct but the execution was wrong.
Think of Diana as a 1st generation inmigrant that arrieves to the modern United States. She is powerful, however she is confused and overwhelmed. She had to leave behind her home and the only person that she has to guide her into this new world is Steve Trevor. This is an idea that was explored in the great Wonder Woman animated movie.
I would focus on building a good supporting cast for her. For me Steve is very important to the story, but he is a troubled character too. He is the traditional romantic interest of Diana, however this always feels really forced. How can a powerful goddess like her fall for a simple guy? To build up this chemistry between Steve and her, you need to create a likeble guy that is smart, capable and strong. If you make him weak and have Wonder Woman saving his ass several times, you will turn him into a joke. The new Steve must be assertive and funny,he can be shown as a womanizer, but it's important to avoid making him too obnoxious. I would like to see arguments between them, but I would appreciate if they don't sound like a feminist speech against the evils of men.
What about the Villain?
One thing that I believe it's missing in her world, at least outside the comics, it's a father figure. Despite the fact that Zeus is her father, I see Ares filling that role in a better way. Ares is her mentor in the combat techniques as it was shown in Wonder Woman 0. They share a bond that Diana doesn't have with her mother or any other amazon. This is a very complicated relationship, because Diana is also a compassionate person. I can see Ares as a character that lost his way, his sense of honor (as modern war has) and now only seek the thrill of blood, gore and senseless violence in the name of greed and power. Ares can be a Darth Vader kind of villian to Diana, if we compare her to Luke.
Why not placing Ares as the guy that controls the US Military? It can be done by having him disgased as an important official in the Pentagon or even the NSA. He can be the one sending Diana on those missions without her knowleadge and she, and Trevor, can begin to place all the pieces together to realize that something is wrong. Like Mulder and Scully in the X-files.
I can see Diana having an Epic fight with Ares as the biggest action scene of the movie. Mano a mano, between the 2 best warriors among the Gods. During the fight Ares can tell her about Zeus. Something like... so you are telling me that you are my father. No... I am your uncle. Noooo!!! (JK).
At the end of the movie, after Ares tell Diana the truth about her origin, and this will let her to confront her mother and her amazon heritage. With this revelation about her true origin, we can think of a sequel.
If I would need to fit the movie to the JL universe, I can have Steve Trevor getting a call from Amanda Waller, the new secretary for Meta Human Affairs, telling him about a mysterious girl that they recently found frozen in the Arctic.
And what happened to the Amazons and her origin story?
Regarding her origin, I think that we can have the original as a flashback, they can even do it in Animation, like in Harry Potter when they tell the story of the Deathly Hollows. Then we can learn her motivation to leave the Island. I think that Diana would feel lonely and alienated in Paradise Island, therefore, her decision to leave despite her mother's wishes. Her relationship with the other amazons would be cold, expect for Artemis and a couple more. This will make the amazons a more realistic part of the Wonder Woman mythos. Relationships among women are complicated... only in porn you can see women happily sharing everything.
We can explore her relationship to Hippolyta as a very tense one. They love each other as mother and daughter, but Diana is a rebelious and strong willed young woman and they often clash and have different ideas and world views. Diana is a girl that want to explore the world beyond the Island and her mother is seen by her as an obstacle to achieve that goal. Plus I think that Hippolyta is so busy running the Island, that probably can't realize how lonely and anxious Diana feels.
I am playing with the idea of having Diana to runaway from the Island to save Steve from the Amazons rather than having her winning the tournament and getting the uniform from her mother. Why would the amazons be concerned about Steve if they decided to isolated themselves due to their distrust of men? This will fit better with the whole inmigrant idea... I see no point of having the Island as a perfect paradise, actually I think that Diana can see and learn about the flaws of her own people and this helps her to appreciate her new life in the US.
What about the Invisible plane?
I always thought that it was really stupid to see the Amazons building an invisible plane. They live in a island that has remain unchanged since the ancient Greece times and somehow they have the technology to develop an invisible plane. We can have Trevor and Diana to be discovered and rescued by the US military... I believe that she can fly him out of the Island and reach an US ship in the Mediterranean Sea. That's better than using the plane to leave the Island.
However if you want an invisible plane, then let's have the US government give her one so she can go with Steve on these weird secret missions. I believe that it's better and fits the idea of giving her a more realistic background.
And her costume?
She can use several costumes. In the flash backs in the Island we can have her wearing an spartan type of armour, with the Shield and the Sword, specially during her training with Ares. I think that Ares can be the one that gives her the lasso of truth and the tiara at the end of her training or she can receive them from her mother, when she is being prepared to become Queen of the Amazons.
During her missions she can wear the New 52 outfit, either with pants or shorts. If you miss the Miss America suit, we can do a little cameo, like showing a model on TV or a Magazine wearing that bathing suit, just as an easter egg. Another funny idea... we can see her watching the old Lynda Carter show and getting her superhero name from that.
Do we need a Wonder Woman movie?
After throwing all those ideas, you may wonder if such movie must be done. Warner is planning a TV series around Diana and this format can help to build and explore her character, if done well, even better than a 2 hours and a half movie.
However I think that a movie will get her back in the map better than a TV Series and to be honest, Wonder Woman is one of the forgotten characters of DC Comics, despite the fact that she is considered part of the Trinity with Batman and Superman.
Wonder Woman doesn't have her own animated series, like Batman, Superman and even Green Lantern. She only has 1 comic book, if we don't count the Justice League and other books where she appears as a supporting character.
In the view of many comic book fans, she is just another hot pin up girl with big boobs and long legs.
Her animated movie was good, but due to poor sales, no more animated projects based on her or any other female character for that matter are being developed. We can see her as a guest character in the Justice League Movies, with Batman or Superman always been the leading characters. To be honest, I think that the real trinity right now is Batman, Superman and Green Lantern.
I think that she has the potential to be a great character on her own. In a time when women are taking more active roles in politics, economy, culture and entertaiment and other areas of society, Wonder Woman deserves to receive more exposition to the mainstream audience. The New 52 is a great start, but I think that the suits at DC and Warner need to see her as a respectable property, not as an annoying feminist poster girl made to please a bunch of angry women or a hottie that sell posters that horny lonely men can paste on the walls of their bedrooms.
I want to see Diana taking her rightful place with Bats and Supes as an important comic book character.
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