Posted in: Comics, DC Comics | Tagged: dc comics, frank cho, liam sharp, patty jenkins, wonder woman, Wonder Woman 1984, WW84

Comic Creators React To… Wonder Woman 1984

So, a fair few big-name comic book creators and retailers have seen the new Wonder Woman 1984 movie. I saw it a couple of weeks ago on the biggest screen I could and thought it was rather fun. A sentiment not shared by many in the comics industry though, it seems.

Frank Cho: Just saw Wonder Woman 84. NO SPOILER. One word: crap.
Mediocre story combined with many leaps of logic, forced emotional situations, terrible acting and poor general narrative storytelling. One of the worst movies ever made. This movie, like 2020, is a raging dumpster fire. A big "X" for me.

Peter David: Am I the only person curious as to why, in 4 1/2 hours of screen time in her own movies, the title character has yet to be addressed by anyone as Wonder Woman?

Colleen Doran: I really enjoyed WONDER WOMAN 1984. I know some folks had issues with it, but by golly, I loved that 1980's vibe. The story was very comic book-ish and fun. A really nice distraction from our dark times!

Ilias Kyriazia:  WW84 spoilers

which is the biggest plot hole in cinema?
-Who heard the word "rosebud" being spoken?
OR
-No one in story addressing the fact that an innocent man gets erased out of existence so Diana can spent time with a guy who had a one night stand with 70 years ago.

Justin Jordan:  Apparently very polarizing because I've seen it compared (in a bad way) to Superman III and Batman Robin. Which seems overblown. It's fine. I don't think it's actually worse than Wonder Woman, just different, and it's probably better than most of the DCEU. But it generally seems to be making a superhero movie more or less the way they did in 1984. I'm not 100% sure this was an intentional choice, but I'm not super keen on it. I don't mean in the special effects and such. I mean that, for instance, Diana has essentially whatever she needs as the plot demands, but an essential plot point is she's losing her powers, but since I'd be hard to pressed to tell you exactly what her powers are and aren't, this doesn't land super well.

I will give them that Wonder Woman, the daughter of Zeus, is a better character to do this kind of stuff, but it's basically the same as the Reeves Superman being able to rip his logo off as a weapon, or repair the Great Wall with repairobeams or whatever.

Likewise, it doesn't really try to make some plot point make any goddamn sense – Steve, a WWI pilot, both knows what jets are, can fly them, and the Smithsonian keeps jets fueled and has an airstrip for….some reason. I don't like this kind of stuff. To me it feels contemptuous of the audience. Especially here, because the movie isn't actually built around this logic. You can't really have that coexisting with a world where Diana purposefully destroys security cameras to stay secret.

It's two different kinds of storytelling, and they don't mingle well. If you're going for camp pulp, which is the only way that jet thing will…ahem….fly, then you have to commit, and this doesn't.

Will Morgan: Gal Gadot is flawless; I have not one adverse comment about her. At times she's clearly struggling with a script that is, to be polite, uneven, but by Cracky, she sells it hard. Chris Pine is…largely pointless, when he's not actually getting in the way of the narrative. His default expression of open-mouthed imbecility rapidly grates.
I liked the fact that they tried to give us a different take on villainy than the usual movie 'nebulous god/energy being thing with undefined zappity-zap powers'. Unfortunately, the actor was not charismatic enough to convey a character whose *entire deal* is predicated upon charisma.
Kirsten Wiig is reliably vapid and irritating, so if no other virtue, she has consistency.
Some (not all) of the fight scenes were inventive and entertaining, the opening 'trials' was breathtaking (and clearly where most of the budget went) …but the pacing was saggy and all over the place
And am I really the only one bothered by the whole non-consensual sex issue?

Dennis L Barger Jr: Yep here's the breakdown, Wonder Woman rapes a dude in this movie… very problematic indeed

Brian Hibbs: I have seen a lot of superhero films in my life, and I sadly have to say I thought WW84 was one of the worst ones I have ever seen. And I thought the first film was one of the best I have seen (well the 3rd act is a giant CGI-laden mess, but that's mostly true of every superhero film) Things happen that function without internal logic, action is utterly, painfully weightless and without consequence, and Galdot was barely in the costume at all.Worst part is it could have been decent if they had just picked fewer threads, and then actually followed them with some focus — I liked the relationship between Diana and Barbara for example, but they just sketched out too much and didn't actually do the work to get the arc functioning correctly.
And I literally couldn't figure out why Chris Pine was in the movie whatsoever… like did his contract say he HAD to be in two movies? (That's not how Options usually work, right?) Not quite "Catwoman" bad, but really lacking almost any reason to sit through two and a half hours of it, which is a damn shame given how much I like Gadot as Wonder Woman.

Jason Pearson: The movie was okay. Not as great as it could've or should've been. But nowhere near as bad as Batman vs Superman, Shazam or the Justice League movie Of course Lynda Carter should've been Gal Gadot's "young Princess Diana's" mother in the opening scene. And not a post-credit left off. What a missed opportunity for a "pass the torch" moment.
I didn't like the interpretation of Maxwell Lord, with his demographically-correct adopted Asian kid (though not as bad as Jurassic Park 2 with Jeff Goldblum having a dark skinned black girl as a blood daughter) I definitely didn't like the Raiders of the Lost Ark rip off scene. And Cheetah- well, she should've looked more like the Classic Cheetah then an old Lita Ford. The movie ended okay. And 'okay' is better than most of these comic book movies nowadays. Geoff Johns and Zak Synder had a great run but it's time for them to go. But what do I know? Not much, really…

John Cimino: I've been hearing reviews from all over the spectrum for this one. The worst movie ever to an action packed masterpiece. No, it's not the worst and it's not the best either. I, of course, loved Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman and I'm a sucker for romance and love, so I enjoyed her relationship with Steve Trevor (even though I really thought I wouldn't). Yeah, the movie is clunky and goes all over the place, but I enjoyed it because it had some of those "great moments" that I was just talking about. Although some were pretentious and predictable, others were full of comic action goodness.
My favorite part was that Warner Bros FINALLY included Wonder Woman co-creator Harry G. Peter in the credits at the end and it was bitter sweet because Roy Thomas and I went on a public rampage to make that happen since he was not mentioned in the first movie. I'm not saying it was all us, but we had a hand in it. Hey, Roy has a BIG voice and I just used that to put it in the face of those who needed to see it. And a little cameo at the end during those credits by a special guest star was a nice treat.
In ending, it all comes down to how I felt after I saw it, and I felt entertained. Hey, my daughter enjoyed it too, so who am I to argue with that? After such a crazy year, feeling good about something I wasn't too invested in wasn't that bad. I guess I don't take these movies as seriously as others in my old age, even if my daughter says I'm always trying to be Peter Pan and have the soul of a child haha. I give it 3 Magic Lassos out of 5.

Tony Lee: 1) the whole prequel bit screamed of 'let's shoehorn in the Amazons as they were really awesome and if we make Diana younger we can have all the ones who died that people were annoyed that they died back! Yay!' – unfortunately they ignored the 'Diana secretly trained so Mom doesn't know' bit from the first movie by having 10 year old Diana almost win.
2) The golden wingsuit. It was like someone wanted Hawkwoman in the film. They mention it in the prequel scene. They show a flashback explaining why it's important. Diana has it in her house and explains to Steve about it. And then, AFTER she gains all her power back she wears it for like half a fight and then ignores it. NO NEED.
3) Poor Kristen Wiig – Cheetah was NOT needed in this and suffered from 'we need a woman for Diana to fight' syndrome.
4) Geoff Johns levels of 'lets destroy the world and then one wish makes it all okay while not actually fixing things' ending. Having millions of people renounce their wishes should reboot EVERYTHING. Or create a multiverse slip. Having everyone wandering around after makes a mockery of it. Also, how the FUCK does Max find his kid when he flew off to a secret bunker leaving him?
5) Ghost Steve. Urgh. I get how they needed this, but if it's a wish, they could have just had him wished into existence, not taking over some poor shmozo's body to be consensually screwed by a completely aware of this Diana.

José Villarrubia: Like so many others I'm watching the new Wonder Woman on TV. The first scene is simply appallingly cute and annoying. Then the movie starts…

Matt Adler: COVID is not the only reason not to see Wonder Woman 1984 in theaters.

Timmy Heague:  Wonder Woman 1984 is so bad it's a spit in the face to the previous movie. Makes Suicide Squad, BvS and Justice League look like Oscar contenders. If you watched the trailers hoping to get a movie full of awesome action over kick ass 80s bangers…You're gonna be disappointed. Every small fight scene in the movie was in the trailer. It was insane.
For a movie called Wonder Woman 1984, it did a really awful job of using that era. Awful job. So disappointed. They could have just done it set in modern day and it would have shaved off maybe 2 minutes of screen time that was integral to that.
Did they not bother to see what makes 80s periodic pieces like Stranger Things. They did such an awful job of it I had to immediacy put on Black Mirror's San Junipero to give me what I thought I was going to get in WW1984.
I truly don't understand how it's the same director as the previous movie.
My excitement for Jenkins directing Star Wars: Rogue Squadron has gone down significantly.
Bringing back Steve Rogers, I mean Steve Trevor Chris Pine was not done well in the slightest. Felt so forced and pointless.
The beginning of the movie having a flashback to her origin was so long. Only to have the theme of the movie be mentioned regarding truth and lies. Sigh. Boring. Yawn.
Pedro Pascal was my favorite thing about the movie as a favorite DC character of mine but wow even he couldn't save this train wreck.
An hour in after only witnessing one small fight scene, I thought to myself what was so off about this movie. Ironically it was that it felt like a terrible TV movie. At least I didn't have to pay to see it in the the theatre?
I really wanted a bright, colorful, and fun movie like the posters and trailers had me thinking it would be. Such a shame
This has been your latest segment of Rotten Timatoes. Goodnight and god bless.

While Liam Sharp had a rollercoaster of a reaction when it was noted he wasn't in the list of Special Thanks credits, especially as his design for Cheetah was the one used in the movie.

Sadly I didn't make the grade, but then they can't thank everyone! Glad to see Greg and Nicola in there. It does feel like they somehow forgot I did the Cheetah Rebirth story though…

Only for Patty Jenkins herself to tweet out;

Holy Moley, I just discovered your name wasn't in the thank you's of #WW84 @LiamRSharp!! No idea how it fell off as you were in the OG list!! Thank you @LiamRSharp for all of your great work on this character!! We meant to have you see that on the big screen!

And for Liam to react

Very graciously the delightful Patty Jenkins went on record on Twitter saying sorry, and that it was a horrible oversight. It makes a huge difference knowing I wasn't overlooked or written out, and that it was just a mistake. Patty is a class act, and for her to do that personally speaks volumes. She sent me a much longer private message too. Nice way to end the day!

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