Ramble: Wonder Woman
Here's our Wonder Woman ramble! This is probably the only vid I'll make on Wonder Woman, so. ~Exclusivity.~
As June is now drawing to a close, I'll be collecting the topics for our next ramble!
Upon rewatching this I felt my energy was quite low at the start... it improves
Comments (30)
K I know im too late and shouldnt have any opinions on a movie that old and not super memorable but the only thing I remember about wonder woman is being so annoyed about the love interest. The entire thing ruined the movie for me. I dont remember the plot at all, all I remember is I just hated the guys face. I think it had big male love interest written by dudes vibes? Anyways, imo it should have been mlp- it should have been about platonic friendship love!! I think I was most annoyed because the movie would have been very pleasant otherwise but i had big sour grapes over that romance plot
I wish your old videos still had links to watch!
Did you ever send Max this video? You've met and become friends since then and he's changed his tune on the Mary Sue thing to a degree that is somewhat in line with what you said here.
Augustus Caesar's mom was over protective.
Okay so I wanted to watch the whole video before I commented but after like 20% of the video was just about why Rey from Star Wars isn't a Mary Sue I lost interest. I really don't mean to be such a critical dick but this is the first patron video I've seen. Anyway I disagree with most of everything you have to say in this video except that Arrival was bad, which it was (At least Villeneuve's worst feature to date) and that Wonder Woman and Rey are not actually Mary Sue characters (which they are not)! So basically I'm just going to complain about Wonder Woman in a rambling comment! My biggest issue with the movie is a thematic one, in how it presents human conflict. Chris Pine's character talks about how the war is convoluted and confusing and morally grey, and how this is a war with no good guys! And yet we are expected to cheer for him as he is blowing away prussians with a shotgun? From the moment the Germans beach on magical Amazon island, the movie seems to have very concrete ideas about who the villains are and who the heroes are. You could argue that "well they made Aries a British guy" but that doesn't change the fact that the guy who kills his allies and huffs moon dust and is trying to drop a super weapon on a population center wears the same uniform as the guys brutally oppressing European villagers for no reason. Or that when he is defeated you see a bunch of German soldiers hugging and crying. For some reason his war-magic didn't have any effect on Wonder woman's allies or indeed any of the British characters we meet for the entire movie. If they were going to go into it with that in mind, it begs the question of why they didn't just set the movie in the morally unambiguous World War 2, as opposed to the genuinely convoluted and tragic World War 1 to which I have a possible answer: The problem is, in World War 2, the country with the mass-death super weapon was AMERICA and we ACTUALLY USED IT. TWICE. On the topic of World War 2, if Aries was causing all the problems, does that mean World War 2 still happened? In the DCEU did Hitler or the Nazis come to power?was there a holocaust? Does the United Nations exist? And if the answer to these is yes then it just proves that she was wrong the whole time about the nature of man!! Speaking of the philosophy of this movie, despite its veneer, this movie is UNABASHEDLY pro-War. Chris Pine has a whole mini-logue about how "well you can either do nuthin or do sumthin!" which is a tacit endorsement of interventionism, the cause of almost every American involved conflict after 1945. Also as a smaller gripe, she destroys a whole church with a tank (to kill a single sniper) which is a war crime. It's a war crime to deliberately destroy religious structures. Like I think Wonder Woman's biggest weakness is her naive optimism and stubbornness, but that doesn't matter if her overly simplified world view gets completely validated at the end! The movie has like liberal curtains, and for some reason that prevents anyone from seeing the rest of the hawkish decor that fills the rest of the room where WE are the good guys and it's OUR JOB to find the BAD GUYS all over the world and STOP THEM!! Chris Pine's character seems to be the only who speaks truth about how War actually works and how mankind actually behaves, and he ends up just being totally wrong and it's Aries the whole time. Which again begs the question of why there would ever be any conflict ever again for the rest of Human History. Anyone I thought it was neo-liberal pro war propaganda and I really did not like it at all. Was that clear?
Split, really? That movie just isn't an accurate portrayal of people with MH problems, and I should know. I respect your opinions, but I really just don't like that movie, sorry. :/
I think a lot of people including Max Landis confuse the basic idea of what a Mary Sue actually is. All a Mary Sue is is a character added into a pre-existing fictional universe that's inexplicably the best at everything and/or every major well-established character loves them immediately or their approval is easily gained. By the simple fact that it's her movie and the micro-universe within the greater DCEU is built around her Wonder Woman isn't a Mary Sue even if she's an overpowered character because the universe is built around that. What makes Rey one is that there's no reason for the way the original trilogy characters respond to her like they do. It makes no sense for Han Solo over the course of one conversation to decide that after years of searching for it the millennium falcon should not go to Chewbacca or Leia but to Rey. Why after the death of the love of her life at the hands of her own son would Leia want to hug and cry on the shoulder of Rei and not Chewbacca his best friend and one of her oldest friends? And does Chewie just come with the millennium falcon like a prewired speaker system the previous owner didn't want to bother removing? Those are what make Rey a Mary Sue in the same way basically every player character in a video game is, going from nobody to the leader of the entire army/kingdom/galactic empire after a few weeks. Sorry for the long post this is supposed to be your ramble, not mine. I love your videos and I hope this didn't come across as rude or disrespectful.
The "inexplicably" part might be explained in episode 8, though. IE Rey is a Palpatine, was adopted by Han and Leia and so grew up with Kylo Ren, was trained by Luke and witnessed the massacre of her fellow padawans (but survived because she was stronger than Ben and/or he couldn't bring himself to kill her and that's why he still had to prove himself to Snoke by killing his dad instead). Luke used the force to wipe out her memories and replace them with "your parents abandoned you on Jakku as a child" memories because imagination was never Luke's strong suit, and he dropped her on Jakku (as an adult) knowing she would survive just fine and worst case scenario she would steal a ship and look for her parents forever until she dies. That would explain why she can use the force like a trained jedi, knows how to fly the Falcon and Han isn't surprised by that, and of course why Han and Leia are fond of her and Kylo Ren knows who she is. It's a little convoluted, granted, but that memory switch thing has been done in Star Wars before, and they NEED an elaborate mind blower of this magnitude to explain the whole SuperRay thing or... or I won't like episode 8 either I guess... My theory also explains Luke's face at the end of Ep7 like... "Oh snap did Leia tell her everything? Better let her talk first to be sure... come on... yes that's my lightsaber... JUST TALK ALREADY!"
If you don't feel it's appropriate to post the 13 Reasons Why video on your main channel, you could always post it here. We don't judge.
What did you think about Cars 3?
I freaking loved Arrival. I really didn't think they would make movies like that anymore, it's not like people could sit through Close Encounters of the Third Kind nowadays. In any case, Arrival is not about aliens or language. It's about free will! A movie made for my dying kind. Ex Machina is a bit better, and it has Poe Dameron in it... what did you guys think of that one? It also has a slow burn feel to it.
If I remember correctly, the PTSD guy was Scottish, not Irish.
The guy that played the actor "Sammy" in the film is Moroccan French.
The second Thor movie may be the least essential of the current Marvel batch. It also committed the sin of hiring a widely-liked actor (Christopher Eccleston) to play a character from one of the most highly-regarded story arcs from the Thor comics (Malekith the Accursed) and then give him so little to do. The first one, though, had lots of good character moments (I love that bit near the beginning where pre-humility Thor has arrived for his coronation and he’s walking through the cheering crowd, flipping his hammer, pointing out people in the crowd … “Hey, this guy right here! Yeah, he knows the score!”) and some legitimately compelling arcs, particularly for Loki. Also, Kat Dennings calls Mjolnir “Mew-mew”. I am unreasonably jazzed for Ragnarok. The Hulk was the best part of The Avengers and I had been waiting to see a proper fight between him and Thor since I was itty-bitty.
I'd really like to see your 13 Reasons video. I think you'd deal with it in a sensitive but still enjoyable to watch way.
I loved arrival! I'm surprised you disagreed. The pace was slower and didn't rely on eye candy which I liked. I almost always agree with all of you choices or atleast am highly entertained. The background noise in this video drove me crazy though hahaha 😂 You could always post your 13 reasons why video here if not on your main channel if the concern is controversy. Keep up he great work Jenny!
Since the aliens can see all time at once, there was no need to rush or do anything differently because they knew she would figure it out in time.
Did the Wonder Woman pilot really have the same plot as Catwoman, with an evil make-up lady who sells a product with a horrible side effect?
It is entirely possible I literally am confusing it with Catwoman because I saw them both only once and around the same time, but I also feel like yes that was just the plot of both of them
the Arrival aliens were annoyingly persistent, the movie lost me after they failed to abandon trying to communicate via language and resort to Pictionary and/or Charades instead
Now you mention it, a little weird they couldn't manifest an image of a cartoon bomb with a countdown clock on it
I know that I dislike the term "Mary Sue" because it is not a critique, it is a dismissal. It's also fairly sexist, since there is no male equivalent to the term. It's just another way for people to be insulting, while pretending they are merely being critical. Oh, and it was another entertaining ramble, thank you for sharing.
There is the term "Marty Stu" but it is much less used. Probably because, as you suggested, the Mary Sue allegation is often comes from people being sexist.
If that warrior lady was not Diana's aunt that is news to me
She actually IS the sister of the queen but her name also begins with "Ant"
The entirety of Arrival I was waiting for Jeremy Renner's character to have a point, and he kind of... never does. I guess we're supposed to feel something about the relationship between him and Amy Adams not working out even though we're never shown them liking each other. Like, at all. And all the people who complain about Rey being a Mary Sue are some fake geek boys who clearly didn't read the prequel novel that I certainly did not buy from the impulse display at a Michaels craft store while buying yarn. It explains everything and is... okay it's basically fan fic, but I enjoyed it and it does give a good reason for Rey to be good at flying (that helmet thing she puts on is a flight simulator training thing, she's basically just a video game nerd).
Agreed, I know people don't like/count stuff that's "only explained in the books" and generally I get that. But imo even without the prequel book confirming it, there are obvious textually-supported reasons for Rey to be good at the things she's good at. She can fight because she grew up on Jakku where everybody's a starving evil criminal. She can fly ships because, even if you don't know about her scavenged flight simulator, it makes sense that somebody who spent her whole life familiarizing herself with ship parts to survive would know how to fix them and what their buttons do. And re: practical experience she even has a throwaway line to Finn explaining that she's flown in-atmosphere a few times.
Do you want one of your patrons to tweet/PM this video (timestamped) at Max Landis? He has tweeted about your videos before so he'd probably watch it? That might be kinda weird too. Honestly, I think the best solution is to convince Screen Junkies to do a "Is Rey a Mary Sue?" movie fight question and have you and Max duke it out.
I actually between shooting this and posting it talked to him about it anyway
I found the no man's land scene kinda sad because she was kicking the asses of all these soldiers that she said weren't really evil, just corrupted by Ares. I think part of the reason I reacted that way was because your take on Vader's Rogue One slaughter which really resonated with me. I still loved Wonder Woman though.