firecat

Not a review, just a couple of reactions and a list of subverted tropes.

I liked it quite a bit.

The opening scene on the island, where you see many women training, fighting, horseback riding, and so forth, was worth the price of admission.

Subverted tropes: (1) Diana (Wonder Woman) rescues the pilot, Steve Trevor (Chris Pine). (2) Diana and Steve sleep together. Usually when that happens in a movie, the woman dies. In this movie, Steve dies. (3) Diana and Steve put together a team that includes a Moroccan, a Native American, and a Scot. Usually when that happens in a movie, one of the POC is the first to die. In this movie, Steve (who is white) dies and all the POC are left alive. (4) One of the villains is a woman scientist. (5) A lot of superhero films are about the superheroes showing their goodness by refusing to kill anyone directly (although they mostly don't care about all the people they crush in battles taking place in congested downtown areas). Diana kills loads of people.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

snippy

I love that Diana kills people even though she also says first you offer a hand to shake (etc.), because she acknowledges that not everybody will cooperate with a desire for peace.

From:

lilacsigil

I have always liked that Diana was willing to kill as a last resort when faced with lethal force used against her or others, and it was done very well here: she was not cruel or casual or vicious about it, but it was entirely clear that she killed non-superpowered soldiers in battle, but spared Dr Maru when Dr Maru was helpless. I was impressed they killed off Steve, too.

The first part of the movie was so utterly awesome to me that I was slightly disappointed all through the remainder, but not because it was bad, just because the start was *that good*!

From:

kore

I also loved that Diana totally followed her own moral compass and was never punished for it. She just goes off and does whatever she feels is right! I think that's pretty unusual for a female hero.

From:

tagryn

Something that I think won't get much notice is that Steve was killing a *lot* of people in the movie, surprisingly so for a supposed "good guy," and there wasn't any ambiguous 'well, maybe they just got hurt real bad but are still alive' as has often been used in the past with superhero movies. Diana's killing was noteworthy because it broke the whole heroes-don't-kill trope, but to me Steve's kills seemed done in an almost *casual* way, like she was killing because she had to to stop Ares' scheme but wouldn't have if she could have avoided it, but with Trevor it was just business as usual and not something he even thought about for a second.

Which makes sense, in that we see in the film that Ares is manipulating not just the Germans, but also the Allies, to embrace violence and war. Its the whole of "Man's World" that needs redemption, not just the side that Steve and his crew are fighting against.