Oh, hey, look, Faith is dressing as Wonder Woman for Halloween

[seriousfic]

So, by way of Internet magic, some concept art of how Wonder Woman might have looked like if Joss Whedon had made a movie about her has surfaced. And it's... at least there's no black leather. IDK, the pantsuit look is the best of the bunch and it just screams uninspired to me. Turning her bathing suit into pants and a tanktop. How very... DeviantArt. And when I think dignified warrior-goddess of truth, I ALWAYS think "belly shirt." And what's with the thigh-high boots? They practically come up to her ovaries on that trenchcoat one. I'll stop.

Metal buckles on everything? Vomit.

This was, of course, the movie that fell through because none of TPTB were really interested in making it. Yeah, the world's most iconic superheroine brought to the screen by the critically-acclaimed creator of Buffy The Vampire Slayer? That'll never work. Now a movie about Jonah Hex from the director of Horton Hears A Who? I'VE GOT A MONEY-BONER JUST THINKING ABOUT IT!

Tl;dr - Pteryges or GTFO. If it's good enough for the hero in every Greek period piece ever made (including Troy and Clash of the Titans, which came out this year), it's good enough for Wondy.

Comments

[rann.livejournal.com]

I think the problem with making a Wonder Woman movie is that you have to deal with the old Wonder Woman TV series, which is going to be the vast majority of the public's perception of the character. Same as, before the Tim Burton films, everyone's primary impression of Batman was reruns of its campy TV series.

You can't just go directly from Adam West and Burt Ward running around in silk and spandex to Christian Bale ninja-fighting Liam Neeson. You need to ween people off of their old expectations. That's why the Burton Batman films have value even if they don't age well... they took the goofy, silly Batman of the old TV series and made it darker and edgier, and thereby replaced the TV series in the public consciousness. So when Nolan came along, he was free to do his thing because people wouldn't be going "Why isn't everyone cracking jokes? Why isn't Commissioner Gordon fat and ineffectual? Why isn't the Joker laughing exaggeratedly every two seconds?"

I think ultimately Superman Returns was the same sort of thing, just set in the same continuity of the old movies. Kind of a transitional thing. They knew they couldn't just ditch the old movies entirely, people would have howled for their blood. So Superman Returns took one for the team so that they could get people off the old stuff gradually, and when they do a reboot they can say "Okay, that new stuff from the last movie? Here it is with some more new stuff, and none of the old stuff."

In other words... I think there'll have to be a kinda lame Charlie's Angels style Wonder Woman movie where she wears a skirt, has huge hair, and so on, before we'll be able to get a good one. We'll have to give the non-comic-reading, non-cartoon-watching public time to get used to the idea "Oh hey, it's not Lynda Carter."

[rocaw.livejournal.com]

Ooh, good point!

[mcity.livejournal.com]

> I'VE GOT A MONEY-BONER JUST THINKING ABOUT IT!

And since Megan Fox is in it--

No, wait, that joke's too easy.

[rocaw.livejournal.com]

She deserves her own movie, dammit!

[jlbarnett.livejournal.com]

Whedon's to depressing. He'd end up doing something thoroughly stupid to add his version of "drama" to the movie

[rann.livejournal.com]

Y'know, Whedon's version of drama is really pretty much... drama.

Character death, relationships that end badly, people not making it out of dangerous situations unscathed, etc.

The only reason people react so badly to it and act like he's some freak of nature for actually killing off characters to yank the emotional heartstrings is that audiences have gotten used to the status quo being maintained. That most creators, especially of TV shows, have become too gunshy of scaring off/angering the fanbase to bump off what might be peoples' favorite character.

I mean, it's nothing new. People have been raging about killing off favorite characters since Spock at the least... a group of fans even took out a newspaper ad claiming they had figured out exactly how much money the studio would lose if they did it. So fans have been threatening creators with Don't Harm My Precious Favorite via the wallet for awhile now.

I guess Whedon just doesn't care. Maybe he's been canceled so often he figures what the hell.

(Also this is an argument I've made since before Whedon hit it big. The boohooing over Tasha Yar's death is a prime example. "It was so POINTLESS!" "Yes, the pointlessness was itself the point. Now go back to making snide jokes about only ever killing off redshirts.")

[jlbarnett.livejournal.com]

I've never heard any snide jokes about them being the only ones to be killed off, you know from a meta thing, merely jokes about their life expectancies.

Joss' dramatic scenes almost always require someone, somewhere to be so stupid they must have brain damage and that the worst possible thing that could happen is a certainty to happen. As opposed to the random chance it would be.

Of course my emotional heartstrings might be stunted. My reaction is annoyance that the potential stories of the character are now out the window and being pissed off at the writer for them trying to manipulate my emotions.

[rann.livejournal.com]

You know it's kind of the writer's job to manipulate your emotions, right?

I mean, I know what you're saying, and it is annoying when it's blatant or lazy manners of doing so. Blatant can sometimes work anyway... Angel Beats!, for example, can be pretty blatant about going right for the heartstrings and yanking. However, if you're bothering to connect with the characters on any level instead of sitting back and trying to do a story diagram of all the ways the series violated some Ten Commandments Of Writing Emotionally Subtle Fiction or whatever, it still works.

And remember, you wouldn't be upset about him killing them and ending their stories if he hadn't manipulated you into liking them in the first place.

[jlbarnett.livejournal.com]

I don't consider it manipulating if I feel it's an honest reaction.

But to be honest, I actually kind of prefer a story where you can sit back and look at it and it all kind of falls together. I'm not sure how to really phrase this. A writer has to put together a concept that makes sense to me, be true to it and have people who react in a way that I can believe.

As for liking a character I'm pretty easy as long as the character's informed attrubutes don't clash with their actual portrayal.

[rann.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm just rather bemused by what seems to happen with a lot of Whedon's detractors where the things they dislike about him... the random-seeming death, the emotional upheaval, all that... are considered to be the defining traits of having him work on any series, to where they want him to stay as far away from everything as possible.

But that the other stuff involved with his projects... engaging writing, interesting characters, creative stories, and the rest of the stuff that made him such a big name and thus highlighted those other traits in the first place... just sort of happens to magically fall from the sky and if we clap our hands and believe that will happen to the project without bad ol' Joss showing up to ruin the day.

Honestly, between a really "eh" project where everyone lives and is happy at the end of the day, and a really awesome take on the characters and story where Steve Trevor suddenly catches a bullet in the lung in the last fifteen minutes... well, sorry Steve.

[jlbarnett.livejournal.com]

If I somehow ever got the power to develop some series for TV or comics I'd be happy to have him flesh out the premise and the characters.

Then I'd fire his ass cause I wouldn't want him anywhere near the plot.

And I just don't consider his stories all that creative. At least not in a good way.