Wonder Woman 1984 is finally here and boy, it does not manage to rise up to all the lofty expectations and hype created to ensure that it’s major delays don’t translate into people losing interest. Even without the added responsibility of exceeding the success of the first film, it still comes across as a mashup of melodrama riddled with potholes as Patty Jenkins has literally thrown caution to the wind with not one but multiple plots points in the story. Things just happen in WW 1984 for the sake of it and no sound logic exists to back up their existence.&
(The following article contains major spoilers from Wonder Woman 1984. Our advice would be to watch it asap so you can join in on how a major chunk of it did not make sense)
And for the ones who have watched the over 2 hours 30 minutes of Jenkins’ making one disjointed plot decision after another, let’s begin:
Presumably no one ever took photos in 1984
After the Amazonian annual game flashback, we see Wonder Woman in 1984, swinging from one spot to another in a mall to stop four goofy, small-time criminals. The robbery scene in itself is botched up- “I’m not going back!”, so hey, I’m going to hold this kid over the railing and almost drop her to that I can go to jail for and a murder. But Diana swoops in on her Lasso of truth to save the girl after which she proceeds to destroy the cameras as if that will also magically erase the footage that has already been recorded.&
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After she is done tying up the robbers in her Lasso multiple times and…banging them against the bannisters, repeatedly, she winks at a little girl and puts her finger to her lips to imply that her saving her is a big secret as if the countless people in the mall are blind or don’t possess something called a camera. In fact, Diana has been swinging around, helping people, and thwarting crime rather publicly, it is hard to digest the fact that no one ever took a picture of her. It’s not like portable cameras didn’t exist in 1984.&
As Diana didn’t change the appearance of her alter ego (not even the you-are-ugly-if-you-wear-glasses trope Jenkins pulled with Barbara) and does have a “normal” life this time, it is hard to digest the fact that her cover was not blown, like ever.&
Wonder Woman 1984 undoes Justice League
In Justice League, after Diana advised Bruce to move on and quit mourning his deceased parents, Bruce lashed back by reminding her that “you ran away for a hundred years because your boyfriend died!” So, um, the events in Justice League happen in 2016 and Wonder Woman 2 takes place in 1984- the math doesn’t add up. Either “ran away” means swinging around in public for years or 100 years was just an exaggeration because Diana is pretty busy with her parody-style saving-people-in-broad-daylight missions in WW 1984.
There is also the part where Diana learns to fly in the film but she is never shown flying in Justice League. It’s either because flying becomes too boring for her or Jenkins wasn’t really that keen on maintaining continuity.&
The weirdest Fourth of July ever
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After Steve miraculously flies a fighter jet for the first time with the knowledge of piloting planes back in 1918 and Diana turns it invisible, they witness fireworks in the sky. For Jenkins-knows-why, Diana tells Steve that it’s the 4th of July. But just minutes before this scene, Barbara gave food to a homeless guy and told him to stay warm. Stay warm in July, that too in D.C.? But it’s not just that. There are literally people walking around in coats and furs. The logical choice would have been to say that it was New Year’s celebration which would have went along nicely with the cold and winter clothing but just like the countless other points in the film, lazy screenwriting gets the upper hand.&
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Why on Earth did Barbara go running?
While we were already reeling from the way the character was build up in the story, her initial descend into total evilness was, um, rather bumpy. It all rested on the scene where she violently attacked a man who had previously tried to assault her and who catcalls at her again. She beats him within an inch of his life and this moment, which is more about defending yourselves from a rapist, is set as a sign of her losing her humanity. But our question is why did she leave the museum in the first place?
Let’s back up here for a moment- mere minutes before the above-scenario happened, Barbara was researching the origins of the Dreamstone and for some reason, she looked majorly pissed off while looking at some slides. After snapping at a co-worker who is just one of the many infatuated with the “upgraded” Barbara, she takes off, running through the streets before she runs into the said abuser and gives him a severe beating.&
So, what did she find while researching about the stone such that it got her majorly ticked-off before she even laid eyes on the man? You would think that when she does tell Diana about her findings the next day, she is hiding something big. But nope, throughout the film, there is no grand revelation from her side about the mystical object. Thus, what really happened was that she was looking at the slides, decided to get all worked up, and go out running. O…kay.
Steve running around in another man’s body
The stone dumped Steve’s body in the nearest male it found, even though it made a never-ending wall appear out of thin air, and Diana, given her immense love for him, saw her dead lover’s face instead of the stranger’s. Everything is fair in love and Diana doesn’t give two hoots about the fact that Steve has taken over the body of an innocent man who most probably has a life of his own. In fact, this topic never comes up in the film as Diana is too giddy to broach the subject.&
In an attempt to make it all mushy and cheesy, the story ends up projecting this man as more like a mannequin than a real person as Steve spends days, probably weeks, running with Diana around countries to catch Maxwell Lord and not once does anyone- the man’s friends, family, or maybe a girlfriend- is shown enquiring about his whereabouts. It was all done to bring Chris Pine to the sequel and apparently, it was too much of a hassle to give the unknown man a brief backstory or making Diana realize how wrong it was for her to let her boyfriend control another, very much alive, man’s life (which he kept putting in danger).& &
Why did Diana wear the golden armor in the first place?
After renouncing her wish, her powers were at their 100% and she had no idea that Barbara had upgraded her wish- she didn’t know that she would need protection from Cheetah’s deadly claws. But she still went back for the armor instead of making a beeline for Maxwell immediately. She must have thought, “Oh, let’s go all the way back to my apartment, grab the golden armor for no logical reason apart from shrugging off its wings in style, while Maxwell Lord is literally destroying the world!”&
Some would say that she wore it as protection against the heavy fire that she encountered upon her arrival but she faced far worse during World War I without the armor. So, for her to fear a little gunfire is hardly a plausible reason. Anyway, all the armor did was slow her down, something that was painfully visible. Plus, the armor had lasted thousands of years, that too after facing hordes of angry man pounding on it and yet it broke pretty easily. Looks like, it was just added entirely for the trailer to look all “Ooooh!” as it barely gets a cameo appearance in the film.&
While Patty Jenkins has explained why WW1984‘s villains are the way they are, the reasons behind her disorganized and erratic plot decisions for the film would need a mini-documentary of their own. Wonder Woman 1984 is now streaming on HBO Max.
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