Why are Wonder Woman Movie Adaptions so Bad?

Despite being a pop culture icon first debuting 80 years ago causing a shockwave of spinoffs, merchandising, and honestly a pretty weird history on it’s own, the Wonder Woman franchise has been continuously producing awful movie adaptations that make you wonder who greenlit them in the first place.

Let’s break down exactly why each Wonder Woman movie is flawed, in order of best to worse, and maybe why it doesn’t really matter.

Wonder Woman (2017)

We’re going to start off basic. It does not take a genius to realise the number one reason these movies so often miss the mark is because they’re Hollywood blockbusters. They are shallow action movies that attempt at raising some profound revelation but always end up falling short. Out of the three movies I’m going to discuss, this one is the most accurate to Diana’s character but there are some questionable choices especially in its characters.

There is, without a doubt, ableism in the portrayal of Doctor Poison. She’s disfigured and hides her scars behind a mask. Although these features aren’t inherently bad, it’s the fact that Ares uses her as an example of why mankind should not be saved going so far as to strip her of her prosthetic. It’s an odd scene in an otherwise unproblematic movie. It’s not as if this film is the first to do this. It’ll definitely not be the last either. But in a movie about empowerment it’s odd that it takes the stance of “not those people though”.

I have a huge problem with Etta Candy in this movie. After being so graciously spoiled by her presence in the comics, you bet it was a huge surprise when I found out that she was in this movie too! Do you remember her? Me neither! But apparently she appears as Steve’s secretary. Yes, you heard that right. A prominent character in the comics is reduced to a secretary. What a win for feminism. I will go further in-depth about why this is such a huge problem when I get to the movie that does a little more with her.

Speaking of feminism, isn’t it odd that the first female superhero movie we get includes some dude that practically moves the entire plot. This would not fly with a male lead superhero movie. Do you see Lois Lane carrying Superman? I don’t think so. It would be hypocritical of me to complain about Steve’s overwhelming presence after just complaining about Etta’s lack of a presence, especially since both of them have roughly the same amount of significance in the comics. But it is just something about the fact that Steve names Diana that really strikes a nerve with me. There are so many cool origin stories for the name Diana Prince, yet they chose that one. Really?

And yes, Diana is powerful and she saved the day but only after Steve’s sacrifice compels her to. An interesting role reversal that immediately loses its impact. I’m not going to go all CinemaSins and tell you that the fact that this movie chose to focus on the typical “power of love” drew away from my enjoyment of the film, actually, yes I am telling you that because it was corny and uninteresting.

Also, can we all just admit that Diana and Steve had zero chemistry in this movie? The way that Steve treats Diana is in no way romantic and it’s weird that it’s portrayed as such. You can try to excuse it by saying that it’s during the war and that’s just how it was. And to a certain degree, I’d agree with you especially since the movie attempts to tackle the issue of women in war and the workplace in general. But there’s a trend going around with these Wonder Woman adaptions where Steve is not “the best” but simply “a little better” and that’s such a low bar to set. If it wasn’t for fanservice of Pine’s naked body, I would’ve assumed this movie was directed by a man.

I’ll be fair to this one. It was good and arguably the best.

This is a very poor start to this rant considering how little flaws were present in this particular movie… Don’t worry it’ll get worse from here.

Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)

Despite its release date being pushed back numerous times, no one through the process of scripting, directing, filming, editing, and screen testing looked at Wonder Woman 1984 and went “wait this doesn’t make any sense”. I honestly do not understand how this made it through so many checkpoints without being called out for being a nonsensical garbage piece of media. I guess we can just all be glad that Cheetah didn’t end up looking like she was about to join the Jellicle Cats. This movie felt like it was trying to speak of comic book fans and then proceeded to be yet another example of playing it safe for the profit. I dare you to name one thing that this movie did that was new or innovative in any way. There are some minor overlaps with the problems of the previous films such as the direction they took with Steve and Diana’s relationship for example, the fact that Diana learns how to fly because of some guy explaining how a plane works.

I can’t remember any ableism in this movie but there sure was a lot of racism. Again, this isn’t only DC’s fault, it’s something that we see pretty often in Hollywood. The misrepresentation of Arabic people as corrupt and hostile is rampant in the media but in a movie that attempts to comment on many facets of social justice, they certainly made a mistake ignoring race in this conversation. Many have criticised both Wonder Woman live action films for only focusing on white feminism and now with WW84 being casted as another white saviour movie, it’s not looking good. These are major issues that we can’t overlook. Not only was this section of the film unnecessary from a social standpoint, it was also just confusing from a filmmaking perspective too. If anything was to be changed about this film, I think we’d better start here.

However, my biggest problem that is unique to this movie is about how they treat Cheetah.

In the comics, Cheetah is a product of medical neglect. Plain and simple. She was manipulated into becoming Cheetah with promises of being just as great as her friend, Diana, but when things go south, no one is willing to take the steps to help her. The fact that Diana is incapable of understanding that her personal connections are just as important as saving humanity is the reason so many of her villains exist. Characters like Cheetah weren’t born villains but instead it was the loneliness they felt when the one person they thought they could depend on ends up abandoning them that causes them to devolve. Her origin story isn’t only a comment on relationships but also on how the medical system and other institutions fail the very people they’re sworn to protect. Cheetah is a tragic villain and that’s what makes her so good.

The movie’s interpretation of the character stays true to her motive but not much else. The fact that magic is the reason Barbara becomes Cheetah takes away from the overall message. She doesn’t become evil because of desperation but rather because the magic stone is literally taking away her humanity. The connection between Diana and Barbara is so essential to their characters yet the movie doesn’t really recognise this, or at least, not to the degree that it should have. When Diana tries to reason with Cheetah, stating that they’re friends and how dare she betray them like that, it’s almost laughable. This movie’s idea of “female friendship” is diluted queerbaiting and one coffee. You could argue that it was due to time constraints that they couldn’t fully develop this relationship but this movie is two and a half hours, what else could they possibly think is more important?

There was an attempt at portraying the importance of different relationships but it ends up focusing purely on the romance between Steve and Diana. Let me make this clear, they brought a dead man back to life so they could continue to force a connection from a three day relationship that happened 66 years ago instead of focus on the core of the (modern) Wonder Woman comics - the friendships Diana once had with the big name villains.

This isn’t even mentioning the fact that Barbara is queercoded and that Gal Gadot wanted a female love interest but I digress.

Sure, the movie was fun. I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it, but it’s certainly not on my favourite movies list, Wonder Woman related or otherwise. There were too many plot holes, they tried to change up the character dynamics to little success, and was just a whole heap of missed opportunities.

Wonder Woman (2009)

This is the lesser known Wonder Woman movie and for good reason too. Despite having a fairly higher rating (even higher than WW84), it commits the most crimes out of all the movies. It spends all of 75 minutes trying to make up its mind on feminism and the satire of masculinity. It constantly swings between “men bad” and “feminism bad”. The movie tries to create a nuance around our idea of what it means to be a woman and how modern feminism tends to forget that there is still power in taking traditional roles of being a mother or a housewife, but then completely undermines this, not only in its poor pacing, but also its deeply unlikeable characters.

This movie’s interpretation of Steve Trevor makes Chris Pine’s look like a gentleman.

His only purpose in this film, besides sticking to the canon of the comics, is to be the contrast to the male villain. He’s supposed to be the representation of mankind that Diana is supposed to be attracted to due to his unyielding kindness and selflessness. This is the stock standard for every Steve Trevor to exist. Except this one. This Steve is the definition of a ‘nice guy’. I’m not even kidding, he even uses the “women only go for bad guys” rhetoric. He does nothing but objectify Diana and tries to get into her pants yet in the end, Diana turns around and goes “yes this here is the guy that makes me think men aren’t all bad”. They try to make you empathetic to his situation by making him spew his innermost thoughts and go the “I only act like this because I’m afraid of being hurt” direction but it doesn’t work very well when this is never sustained as a part of his character unlike all the other bad things he does.

I’ve already gone into my grievances with the representations (or lack thereof) of Etta Candy, but boy I will do it again. I was very shocked when a blonde lady in a pencil skirt appeared for all of two minutes and try to get into Steve’s pants. This is not the queer black lady representation we are looking for. It’s like these movies knew the significance of Etta and then proceeded to throw it entirely out the window. They thought they had to include her because she’s a large part of the lore and then pulled her out faster than a Hollywood executive burying their gays. Even though Etta Candy originally debuted as a white woman she was certainly not the flirtatious “I can’t pick up a pen off the ground, oh Steve help me” that we see in this movie. Etta can be any race or sexuality the directors desire but if she’s not a badass plus sized woman whose honesty is as brutal as her military fighting skills then I don’t want it. This is like the whole Cassandra Cain situation again. (Yes, I’m aware Birds of Prey was released ages after this movie but you get my point.)

Now let’s get on with the star of the show, the titular character herself, Ms Diana. She’s useless. Ok, that’s it, that’s the review. Maybe that was a little harsh. Diana in this movie isn’t completely hopeless, she does end up killing the villain and ending the war, (sorry, spoilers for a movie I do not recommend you see). But that is all after she gets flung around like a barbie given to an overactive toddler.

This movie tries to make us understand that there has to be a union between men and women, communication is key, and that we should stop antagonising each other. Which is pretty bold for a movie that barely passes the Bechdel test.

This movie is beyond bad. This isn’t even mentioning the art style with main man Ares looking like he just got off from an appointment with Kendall Jenner’s plastic surgeon. Some poor character design right there. Oh, additionally, were you looking for a movie with character development or an arc of any kind? Well you’re not going to find it here unless you count Artemis trying to read books after her sister dies as significant to the plot.

I’m surprised we even continued to make Wonder Woman movies after that terrible display but I’m glad that it got better from here.

But does it matter?

Despite what I’ve just spent the last thousand or so words saying, I don’t think that comic accuracy is the key here. It doesn’t make a movie better or worse but there is a line that these films are trampling all over. How far can you deviate from a certain influence before it no longer resembles the original text? Although WW84 contains characters from the comics, they’ve significantly warped them far past the author’s intention and purpose of their creation. By taking away certain qualities of these characters, is Cheetah reduced to a white lady’s midlife crisis and is Diana just an armour-clad supermodel?

When you change from one type of media to the next, of course there will be certain aspects that are lost in translation. There’s more restrictions with what cinema can do and oftentimes that means changing, and as it suggests, adapting the source material. This definitely doesn’t excuse the multitude of poor choices that were made but it’s certainly something to think about. Even if these films try to convince you that they hold the secrets to understanding human behaviour, at the end of the day they’re just here to entertain and maybe that’s enough.

But where do we go from here? Are we doomed to forever be subjected to downright terrible Wonder Woman films?

Well, no.

A movie that covers all the good that I mentioned already exists. It is comic accurate, features Etta Candy in her superior form, has a Steve that I don’t despise, and successfully tackles the balance of Diana’s relationships and responsibilities, and is beautifully animated. What more could you want?

Besides that little blurb, I’m not covering this final movie in fine detail. Go watch it yourself.

Wonder Woman: Bloodlines (2019) is by far my favourite. As the name suggests, It follows the comic’s Bloodline arc pretty closely so it can be a little jarring with certain plot elements but I still recommend you give it a watch. This movie encapsulates everything that the Wonder Woman franchise stands for. But enough from me, go develop your own opinion before I spoil everything in another post.