Wonder Woman: The Series
Feb. 4th, 2011 12:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seriousficOkay, I had some thoughts about this left over from the Power Girl post, so here goes. Basically, this should be everything Peej isn't. Whereas Power Girl is a little campy and fun... think Charlie's Angels... Wonder Woman should be played mostly straight, even arch. Just as the world of Middle-Earth should be treated seriously in an LOTR movie, you can't have Wonder Woman run around fighting monsters and then wink to the camera about it.
Basic premise, everyone knows it. Steve Trevor crashlands on Paradise Island, Diana leaves to fight Ares in Man's World, sexy results. So, there's your pilot right there. The series itself needs more of a story engine. Diana isn't a local crimefighter. Her helping out the LAPD with bank robberies would be like Stephen Hawking teaching first-grade math.
So, focus on Diana the ambassador/political activist. She travels the world, talking about peace and feminism and blah blah. However, this is (to some extent; she really does want to save the rain forest) a cover for her investigations into mythological threats, Ares and otherwise. That makes sense, right? If Batman shows up in your town asking questions, you'd be like "Ho shit, did the Joker escape? Is the Joker going to kill us all?" But if Diana shows up and says "Hey, where can I get a nice ice cream sundae? Oh, and what's with this string of unexplained disappearances?", you'd be like
You could even go really meta with this and have Diana be not only a goodwill ambassador, but the star of her own reality show. Hey, if people would tune in for Sarah Palin's Alaska, imagine how many people would watch a travel show hosted by Princess Diana. Kinda like a Ghost Hunters where they actually have to fight ghosts...
Supporting cast, you're really spoilt for choice, since there's no definitive people you have to have in there, so you can pretty much just get whoever's necessary to make the ensemble work. Steve Trevor, obviously, for the UST and military liaison person ("Diana, I know you don't like Santa Prisca's government, but try not to blow the country up... okay, you blew the country up, but it was full of zombies, so that's in your favor."). Publicists and aides from the Perez and Rucka years, for some "West Wing with superheroes" type stuff. Maybe Helena and Cassie Sandsmark, replacing Vanessa Kapatelis and Julia Kapatelis, to serve as Diana's research people (think Giles and Dawn). Io and her adorable crush for tech stuff, and of course Hippolyta, Phillipus, and the rest would be recurring. And so on, as necessary.
As for the "Diana Prince, everywoman" stuff, that can die a swift death. Do you care how Chilean people live? Do you want to live among the Chileans and see what it's like to be a normal Chilean? No, assuming you're not in Chile (sorry, if you are, no offense meant). You're part of a community already. Similarly, Diana is normal within the ranks of the Amazons. She doesn't need to assimilate or normalize herself, and she probably spends a good deal of her off-hours at home in Themyscira with her friends. That gives her a sort of "home base" which she's otherwise lacking (an "invisible jet" the size of Air Force One would do as well).
Villains are easy. I see the show not as having a Big Bad a season, like in Smallville, but more of a revolving door of baddies who fit into a plot arc. Diana might spend a few episodes (or one) tangling with the Cheetah, then get mixed up in a plot by Veronica Cale, then fight someone totally random like a zombie pirate, and so on. The villains would have miniaturized character arcs of their own, not just be flat schemers continually breaking out of jail to torment Diana to no result. For instance, Artemis would start out as a villain, slowly switch to the side of good but still see Diana as a rival, then eventually end up a trusted ally and member of the main cast. (Think the Cara/Kahlan relationship with LotS, only somehow more femslashy...) And her redemption arc would fit into a larger, season-long story about the Greek gods disappearing, or stopping the Amazons from going to war with Man's World, or whatever. Hell, with Darkseid as a kinda-sorta Wondy villain, maybe we could do a season of fighting Apokolips with Diana's BFF, Big Barda.
THIS SHIT RIGHT HERE, LIVE ACTION.
Finally, in a thematic sense, the show would be about the responsible exercise of power. Obviously, with foreign policy as it is, this is a big deal, but the show wouldn't have to be preachy or obnoxious. Diana would lead by example. You don't need her to give a big speech about how waterboarding is wrong, just show her treating defeated enemies with respect and compassion, and then this proving beneficial later on.
And lest you think she'd be too perfect or light a character could be interesting... well, Lois & Clark worked for a couple seasons with a full-fledged Superman who never mind-raped his best friend. And hell, Star Trek TOS was about a whole crew of people who were, by the day's standards, perfectly enlightened as to race, gender, and so on (the worst thing in-canon would be McCoy's hipster racism towards Spock. Think about it. IT TOTALLY IS.) Same thing with TNG. Just portray Diana with as much dignity and nobility as Jean-Luc Picard, you're halfway there.
As for Diana being stuffy... there's no need to "fix" this by having her sing along to Single Ladies or make jokes about hentai. It can be a fun character quirk that she doesn't immediately pick up on pop cultures references (although, yes, she should know how a fucking gas nozzle works). I mean, I know someone who didn't know Superman's origin. She's reading this horrible porn I sent her (she described it as "forty pages of Wonder Woman angsting about having sex with a dog"), and the thing that throws her is that yellow sunlight gives Superman powers. If an American woman who's in comics fandom doesn't know that Krypton exploded, we can forgive a woman from a magic island for not knowing who Mr. T is.
For an example of this, NCIS. I haven't watched a lot, but Gibbs is generally Captain Awesomesauce who doesn't joke around much, but the supporting cast picks up the slack in the "quirky charm" department. Same thing would work with Diana.
And this would be her costume, obviously.
ETA: If Lucy Lawless were Hippolyta, would Lynda Carter as Athena be weird?
Basic premise, everyone knows it. Steve Trevor crashlands on Paradise Island, Diana leaves to fight Ares in Man's World, sexy results. So, there's your pilot right there. The series itself needs more of a story engine. Diana isn't a local crimefighter. Her helping out the LAPD with bank robberies would be like Stephen Hawking teaching first-grade math.
So, focus on Diana the ambassador/political activist. She travels the world, talking about peace and feminism and blah blah. However, this is (to some extent; she really does want to save the rain forest) a cover for her investigations into mythological threats, Ares and otherwise. That makes sense, right? If Batman shows up in your town asking questions, you'd be like "Ho shit, did the Joker escape? Is the Joker going to kill us all?" But if Diana shows up and says "Hey, where can I get a nice ice cream sundae? Oh, and what's with this string of unexplained disappearances?", you'd be like
You could even go really meta with this and have Diana be not only a goodwill ambassador, but the star of her own reality show. Hey, if people would tune in for Sarah Palin's Alaska, imagine how many people would watch a travel show hosted by Princess Diana. Kinda like a Ghost Hunters where they actually have to fight ghosts...
Supporting cast, you're really spoilt for choice, since there's no definitive people you have to have in there, so you can pretty much just get whoever's necessary to make the ensemble work. Steve Trevor, obviously, for the UST and military liaison person ("Diana, I know you don't like Santa Prisca's government, but try not to blow the country up... okay, you blew the country up, but it was full of zombies, so that's in your favor."). Publicists and aides from the Perez and Rucka years, for some "West Wing with superheroes" type stuff. Maybe Helena and Cassie Sandsmark, replacing Vanessa Kapatelis and Julia Kapatelis, to serve as Diana's research people (think Giles and Dawn). Io and her adorable crush for tech stuff, and of course Hippolyta, Phillipus, and the rest would be recurring. And so on, as necessary.
As for the "Diana Prince, everywoman" stuff, that can die a swift death. Do you care how Chilean people live? Do you want to live among the Chileans and see what it's like to be a normal Chilean? No, assuming you're not in Chile (sorry, if you are, no offense meant). You're part of a community already. Similarly, Diana is normal within the ranks of the Amazons. She doesn't need to assimilate or normalize herself, and she probably spends a good deal of her off-hours at home in Themyscira with her friends. That gives her a sort of "home base" which she's otherwise lacking (an "invisible jet" the size of Air Force One would do as well).
Villains are easy. I see the show not as having a Big Bad a season, like in Smallville, but more of a revolving door of baddies who fit into a plot arc. Diana might spend a few episodes (or one) tangling with the Cheetah, then get mixed up in a plot by Veronica Cale, then fight someone totally random like a zombie pirate, and so on. The villains would have miniaturized character arcs of their own, not just be flat schemers continually breaking out of jail to torment Diana to no result. For instance, Artemis would start out as a villain, slowly switch to the side of good but still see Diana as a rival, then eventually end up a trusted ally and member of the main cast. (Think the Cara/Kahlan relationship with LotS, only somehow more femslashy...) And her redemption arc would fit into a larger, season-long story about the Greek gods disappearing, or stopping the Amazons from going to war with Man's World, or whatever. Hell, with Darkseid as a kinda-sorta Wondy villain, maybe we could do a season of fighting Apokolips with Diana's BFF, Big Barda.
THIS SHIT RIGHT HERE, LIVE ACTION.
Finally, in a thematic sense, the show would be about the responsible exercise of power. Obviously, with foreign policy as it is, this is a big deal, but the show wouldn't have to be preachy or obnoxious. Diana would lead by example. You don't need her to give a big speech about how waterboarding is wrong, just show her treating defeated enemies with respect and compassion, and then this proving beneficial later on.
And lest you think she'd be too perfect or light a character could be interesting... well, Lois & Clark worked for a couple seasons with a full-fledged Superman who never mind-raped his best friend. And hell, Star Trek TOS was about a whole crew of people who were, by the day's standards, perfectly enlightened as to race, gender, and so on (the worst thing in-canon would be McCoy's hipster racism towards Spock. Think about it. IT TOTALLY IS.) Same thing with TNG. Just portray Diana with as much dignity and nobility as Jean-Luc Picard, you're halfway there.
As for Diana being stuffy... there's no need to "fix" this by having her sing along to Single Ladies or make jokes about hentai. It can be a fun character quirk that she doesn't immediately pick up on pop cultures references (although, yes, she should know how a fucking gas nozzle works). I mean, I know someone who didn't know Superman's origin. She's reading this horrible porn I sent her (she described it as "forty pages of Wonder Woman angsting about having sex with a dog"), and the thing that throws her is that yellow sunlight gives Superman powers. If an American woman who's in comics fandom doesn't know that Krypton exploded, we can forgive a woman from a magic island for not knowing who Mr. T is.
For an example of this, NCIS. I haven't watched a lot, but Gibbs is generally Captain Awesomesauce who doesn't joke around much, but the supporting cast picks up the slack in the "quirky charm" department. Same thing would work with Diana.
And this would be her costume, obviously.
ETA: If Lucy Lawless were Hippolyta, would Lynda Carter as Athena be weird?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-02-05 04:14 am (UTC)Though my idea is to have Artemis acts as Diana's counterpart. Think of her 'Fi' to Diana's 'Western'. She could have come with Diana from Themyscira.
Though I think I would prefer if she got the animated treatment rather than the live action one because there is more wiggle room there.
Also there is a lot of action figure potential there that no one seems to realize.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-05 10:35 am (UTC)