'This world was a beautiful place just as it was… and you cannot have it all. You can only have the truth. And the truth is enough. The truth is beautiful.' - Diana Prince
Wonder Woman 1984 (WW84) is a 2020 superhero film which explores the adventures of Wonder Woman aka Diana Prince (Gal Godot) following her first title film Wonder Woman in 2017. Set in 1984 (surprise!) it sees Diana face the antagonists Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal) and Cheetah aka Barbara Minerva (Kristen Wiig). It got a lukewarm reception with people criticising the script and the book office revenue was unavoidably impacted by loss of ticket earnings due to the pandemic. I personally wouldn't call it a bad film. It isn't amazing but it is far from awful with great actors and cinematography. I want to focus on what the film tries to say about truth and desires. The execution isn't perfect, but it does explore the interesting and relatable topics of envy, pride and the unavoidable cost of our greed. Spoilers ahead! Achieving gain
WW84 had a lot to live up to. Wonder Woman's first film was very popular and well received with high hopes for the sequel. The original film, set in WWI, is Diana's origin story with WW84 being our next look in at the character. Our first scene is set in Diana's childhood where we see her cheat to try to win a pretty epic athletics competition against her fellow Amazonians on their island paradise of Themisycra. It's a really interesting setting, an island of superhuman warrior woman from Greek mythology, so it was great to see it again. I am happy that they didn't set more of the film there though as that would have undermined the emotional impact of Diana never being able to return to Themiscyra following the events of the first film. It's a really good opening and is quite clear in how it lays out the message of the film. The point of the competition is not to show us how amazing Diana is (we already know that) but for the General, and Diana's Aunt, Antiope (Robin Wright) to give an opening moral message. Upon stopping the young Diana from claiming a false victory Antiope declares, 'You cheated, Diana ... That is the truth. That is the only truth, and truth is all there is ... You cannot be the winner, because you are not ready to win, and there is no shame in that. Only in knowing the truth in your heart and not accepting it. No true hero is born from lies.' This is pretty much where we skip ahead to 1984 and so it's clear that the film has something it is trying to say about truth. It is truth which Diana comes back to in her speech at the end of the film. It's an understandable topic for WW to explore, Diana literally has a the Lasso of Hestia which compels those who touch it to tell the truth. Truth is extoled as a high virtue - 'truth, justice and the American way' to reference what Superman has claimed to stand for. This opening scene also introduces the idea of pride, ambition and particularly trying to gain accomplishments through unscrupulous means. Diana desires victory in the competition and, after it becoming clear that she will not win, she cheats before being reprimanded by Antiope. This fairly relatable basic idea of a child cheating to win a game is then echoed in Maxwell Lord's ambition for money and power through what starts off as some kind of pyramid scheme. He's a liar, trying to secure wealth by deceiving people. Focusing on Lord's story, through undoubtedly clever and determined means he secures the 'Wishing Stone' and becomes able to grant the wishes of others - taking a price in return. By the end of the film he has risen up the worldly ranks to become pretty much the most powerful and wealthy human - at the cost of his relationship with his young son and his physical health.
What I am glad about is that the film doesn't support a kind of American Dream message, that if you have the enough willpower and determination you can and you should gain prosperity. It is a great lie not only that with enough determination we can achieve anything but also that what we should desire above all else is material gain. Sure Lord is a liar but it took great skill and intellect for him to secure the Dreamstone. You could therefore argue that he deserves all the power he seeks. The film doesn't support this though and instead it is Lord's relationship with his son which is prized above all else. Similarly Diana may have physical prowess, she is literally the daughter of a god, but her life is never shown as perfect or without challenges and she doesn't expect or seek material gain based on her physical and metaphorical strength. The film shows the corruption which is innate to power and challenges the idea that the determined can and should have material gain. The Dreamstone The Dreamstone itself isn't a perfect idea. It's a concept which has been explored multiple times elsewhere before; something which the film acknowledges in the reference to the stone being like the 'Monkey's Paw'. Nevertheless, the essence of the message that our actions have consequences and that what we wish for can have disastrous consequences is important. My little nit-pick about the Stone is in the mythology which the films attaches to it. It is claimed that the stone brought down various civilisations, 'It first appeared in the Indus Valley almost 4,000 years ago. It popped up again in Carthage in 146 BC. Kush, 4 AD. Romulus, the last Emperor of Rome, he had it on him when he was assassinated in 476. The last record is in some previously unknown dead city near Dzibilchaltun.' - Barbara
Obviously a magic rock didn't cause these civilisations to collapse and I don't expect historical accuracy from superhero film. However, this appears to be a bit of lazy writing. It is important to show the devastating impact of the Stone and people's uncontrolled consumption. However, it is just uncreative to assign it as a cause for real-world, historical societal collapses which we can attribute to other matters (or at least historians have pretty good guesses). It would have been better I think to root the Stone more in Greek mythology and the world of the Amazons. It is offhandedly said to have been created by the Ancient Greek god Dolos but this is so minor and I had to go back and check which specific god Diana says made it. Dolos was a very minor figure in Greek myth, although he was regarded to be the personification of lies which is something. It would have been better I think to anchor the Stone more securely in the same mythology which created Diana and use that to show its dangers instead of using fictional history. Maxwell Lord Detour over and getting back to Maxwell Lord his character arc concludes with him learning the lesson that personal relationships are more important than material gain and ego boosts. It's a fairly predictable conclusion and not anything particularly new but it's not terrible. I think it would have been nice to see exactly what happened to him and his son following the main events of the film and explore the ongoing consequences of what happened. Nevertheless, the issue which Lord's character embodies is solid. He is the con-man trying to make it big through unscrupulous means. His TV catch phrase sums it all up 'Life is good but it could be better' He allows us to explore unchecked and unlimited consumerism and personal pride, envying whatever we do not have. What Lord has to learn is that material gain will not make his life better and that he has to deal with the consequences of his actions. Similarly, Diana has to face the consequences of having whatever she wants. Guess who's back? This brings us on to the area of most critique in the film - the return of Steve Trevor (Chris Pine). It is important thematically in this exploration of truth and consumerism but first I do want to acknowledge the issues.
So, Diana uses the Dreamstone to half-intentionally wish for Steve Trevor to return. Steve, her love interest from the previous film, is clearly still loved and mourned for by a lonely Diana who understandably wants him back. The trope of death becoming meaningless with all these resurrections is a criticism of superhero films, as well as sci-fi and fantasy more generally. However, Steve doesn't just pop out of thin air in his resurrection but effectively takes over the body of another man. It is this 'body swapping' which has people angry. I can understand why it was used. It stops it from being a proper resurrection for Steve which could seek to not undermine his actual death in the last film and/or show the hollow nature of the gains offered by the Dreamstone. It also feeds into this idea of actions have consequences as Steve's resurrection has inadvertently effectively killed this man (he does eventually get his body back). However, it really doesn't work. Diana and Steve show no concern about this man's life, we don't even get his name. He no longer exists because of them and yet they show absolutely no moral qualms about it. The fact that they also use that body for sex and put it in physical danger further adds to the issues. Body swapping his a fairly common sci-fi/fantasy trope and it can be understandably linked to issues around personal autonomy, control and consent. What this appears to be is again just very lazy writing but to the point where it is quite harmful. Some may be able to ignore this fantastical moral issue but I find it brings me out of the film and find Diana and Steve pretty morally reprehensible for their actions. The film really should have just avoided this whole body swapping thing and maybe also not bothered to bring Steve back at all. Don't yet me wrong, he is a great character and Pine portrays him well. However, his partial resurrection undermines his death in the first film and because he doesn't truly come back it also undermines Diana's dilemma over whether to sacrifice him to stop the Dreamstone from causing havoc. We've already seen her in the modern day sans Steve and so it has less of an emotional impact when she renounces her wish. That all being said, the film appears to be trying to reflect how life is unfair and how sometimes we have to make sacrifices for the greater wellbeing of others and ourselves. In itself, Diana, and Steve's, decision for him to die (again) to stop Lord and the Dreamstone is heroic. They choose the greater good and it is this sentiment which Diana tries to spread to others affected by the Dreamstone. Barbara Minerva This whole 'be careful what you wish for' trope which WW84 explores is linked to envy, the idea that the grass is always greener on the other side.
This is explored in Barbara's character, as someone who envies Diana's beauty and skill. However, once Barbara has (initially unknowingly) wished to be 'like Diana' her physical abilities and power corrupts her and she fears loosing her abilities. Barbara failed to realise that Diana's life is hard too and that no one has a perfect life or is fully content with how things are. Barbara's character comes of a little trope-y and her 'fall to the dark side' isn't entirely organic or understandable, I don't think. For once it would be nice to see a sidekick-like-character with low self esteem who envies the hero not go all evil. The fact that we don't see where Barbara ends up is also disappointing. It appears that she didn't willingly give up her wish and so how she regarded her decisions and Diana's intervention is unclear. It's a long film and I suspect that although closing scenes were planned for her, and Lord, there simply wasn't the time. This is a shame and reflects poorly on the film's pacing, especially because we have many scenes focusing on them in the first half the film. However, Barbara's character is a clear attempt to explore the idea of envy and acknowledge that no, the grass it not always greener on the other side. All of the wishes in the film end in disaster and Diana is shown to be right when she says that '... you cannot have it all. You can only have the truth. And the truth is enough. The truth is beautiful.' Truth But what exactly is truth? Yes I know, this a question debated by philosophers for centuries past and to come, but the film does clearly focus on truth so it invites us to think of this. However, Diana gives us no definition of truth and, from the above quote, seems to suggest that truth is something fairly abstract. It is a virtue to strive towards.
And I don't think its ambiguity is, entirely, the film's fault. As a society we don't have a clear consensus over what truth is. We could say it is whatever can be empirically proven or tested but then we get into the issues of the limited nature of human comprehension and understanding. Does truth really even exist or matter? Is everything just 'alternative facts'? It's a shame that the film doesn't explore the nature of truth anymore than it being some lofty virtue. Also, how does truth link to be being content with your life and not seeking selfish advantage? I'm not entirely sure. Perhaps truth is needed so we can fully accept who we are and that our selfish wishes would ultimately bring more destruction than gain but I'm not entirely convinced. Maybe the film just wanted to cite some great moral in Diana's speech so just threw in the word 'truth' in here and there? Be careful what you wish for is definitely something I can get behind but I don't really understand what it has to do about truth.
This is a real shame because Wonder Woman (2017) did a great job at exploring a big moral question - are humans inherently good or evil? Are they worth saving? Diana begins naively thinking mankind are totally innocent and being led astray by the evil Ares. Ares presents the counter view that humanity should just be left to destroy itself, as it will inevitably do. However, Diana finally settles on Steve's middle path, that humanity is capable of both good and evil and that we should be optimistic. It is really well handled, an important but not cliché topic that fits in the film's setting, character and themes without being overbearing and making it seem like a two hour moral lecture. I just don't think WW84 really knows what truth is and, unlike it's predecessor, doesn't spend enough time delving through the idea. You could blame this entirely on the script or the whole 'Western mindset' it was created in but I'd say that it is a bit of both. Truth, I suppose, is like an anchor which we can cling to to understand the world and what we should do. It is this truth, this perception of right and wrong, which Diana comes to believe in and convinces others to espouse to. What we root our understanding of truth in, what defines what is true or not, is something this film fails to explore. Conclusion So WW84 is, shall I say, a fairly mixed film and I hope the third instalment of Diana's story sees an improvement. There was some great acting, cinematography, costumes and opportunities yes but the script and pacing needed work. The missed opportunity to say something meaningful about truth left me confused and the whole body swapping debacle just makes me angry. WW84 did say something important about the inherent destructive nature of selfishness though and this lesson is very apt for our current climate change situation. Like Maxwell Lord, we have to learn that we cannot consume endlessly or we too will face an end to our society. Maybe saying that this film is all about truth is going a bit to far, but it definitely about selfishness and the destruction we bring in our pursuit for vanity's gain.
Thanks for reading!
If you want to get those brain cogs whirring here are some questions you could think about -
What is truth? How do we determine what is true and what isn't? Is there an infallible source we can use?
What do you think of the 'be careful what you wish for' cliché? Do you think that it is relevant in today's world?
What would you wish for if you could wish for anything? Would you answer differently if you had to tell others what you thought?
What do you think of the morality of body-swapping in films? Is it harmless goofing around with impossibilities or an unavoidable allegory for loosing autonomy or sense of identity?
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