Wonder Woman TV Series Shelved

Discussion in 'Science Fiction & Fantasy' started by Admiral_Young, Jan 8, 2011.

  1. Lapis Exilis

    Lapis Exilis Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I believe that is JLA: A League of One by Christopher Moeller. One of the best WW stories ever written.
     
  2. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    ^You may be right, since I do have that one.
     
  3. Nerys Myk

    Nerys Myk A Spock and a smile Premium Member

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    The costume is the Perez series was based on symbols found on Diana Trevor's Air Force uniform.

    No thanks, Emily kinda creeps me out. Now if it was Zooey....
     
  4. Gaith

    Gaith Vice Admiral Admiral

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  5. Nerys Myk

    Nerys Myk A Spock and a smile Premium Member

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    Everything is better with hot lesbians. I know that drawing looks better with a picture of two women kissing next to it.
     
  6. Vendikarr

    Vendikarr Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    If I had to pick a sticking point for WW, it would be the belief in the Greek gods in the modern age. While those gods are the source of her power, most writers of her books like to hit you over the head with them time and again. She becomes the poster child for ancient Greek religion, and becomes one note.

    The same thing happened after the Crisis in 1985. They associated Power Girl with ancient Atlantis, and then it seemed any time she was used it was in connection with Atlantis. It gets old.

    This may be why the upcoming Thor movie makes the Norse gods aliens. It gets around them actually being gods, which I think many people may have a tough time accepting.
     
  7. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Do you prefer the double W or the eagle covering her breastplate?
     
  8. Nerys Myk

    Nerys Myk A Spock and a smile Premium Member

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    The double W with the eagle head.
     
  9. Gaith

    Gaith Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Hell, might as well do this right... :p

    [​IMG]
     
  10. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    My impression is that the DC Universe, like the Marvel Universe, has interpreted the gods of classic mythology as some kind of higher being that isn't literally divine but some type of sci-fi surrogate. I think DC's Greek pantheon is treated as the same class of being as Jack Kirby's New Gods (Darkseid and the like).

    And stories about ancient gods existing in the modern age aren't unprecedented. There are the Percy Jackson books and film, for example. Or "Who Mourns for Adonais" on Star Trek, though that went the "they were really aliens" route. Heck, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys did episodes claiming that at least one or two of the Greek gods survived to the present day. And it's worth noting that in the 1970s, Filmation's Shazam!, about a present-day superhero with the powers of multiple mythological figures, was one of the biggest hits on Saturday morning television (although the entities that gave him his powers were portrayed in only a very limited way in the show).

    As for the Thor movie making the Asgardians aliens, I think that's just because they're putting the film explicitly in the same continuity as Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Captain America, etc. Audiences have no problem with fantasy films set in the modern world -- look at Harry Potter. But the general, non-comics audience would probably be confused by the kind of indiscriminate blending of fantasy and SF tropes that's commonplace in comic books.

    Or it could be about marketing, the same reason they're putting HYDRA logos in place of swastikas in Captain America. I notice that the current Avengers cartoon identifies Thor and his people as "Asgardians" and avoids referring to them as gods. The toy companies might be uncomfortable with the possible reaction from the Bible Belt if they try selling figures of "pagan gods" to children.

    Of course, there's no reason an adaptation of Wonder Woman would have to focus as heavily on the mythological aspects as the comics do. I don't remember the gods ever showing up in the Lynda Carter series.

    See, saying "Wonder Woman wouldn't work because of this one specific thing" is misunderstanding something about the character. The main reason Wonder Woman has had problems with her popularity is that she's so many different things. There are so many different facets to her character and her mythos, so many different angles and interpretations. It's been hard to pin down a definitive take on who and what she is. Yes, she can be a mythological champion, and that's been played up in the comics and animated adaptations of recent decades. But she can also be a patriotic American symbol, a champion of gender equality, a heavy hitter in the Justice League, the core figure in a "stranger in a strange land" narrative, an embodiment of a romantic ideal, an object of fetishism, an earth mother, an Emma Peel-style secret agent, you name it.

    I once read an essay that made an interesting point. There are lots of different male superheroes that can share the load of embodying aspects of manhood and male identity. But Wonder Woman is called upon to be the singular superheroic standard-bearer for all things feminine, and that makes her too complicated to pin down as having a single defining identity.
     
  11. saturn5

    saturn5 Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Never was there a truer statement!:)
     
  12. Vendikarr

    Vendikarr Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Personally I have no problem with the use of the Greek gods, as long as they are used sparingly. I would use them to set up the origin, and perhaps showing daily life on the Amazon homeland. After that, let's forget about them, for at least the first season.
     
  13. Admiral_Young

    Admiral_Young Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    ^ This is how I would use them, sparingly and only when it mattered. Kind of like the Time Lords in Doctor Who back in Classic Who.
     
  14. Lapis Exilis

    Lapis Exilis Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    You're kind of jumping way out there, dude. She used the lasso on herself to search for dishonesty in the way she approaches the world and her work. It's like meditation, not a drug. It's not about perfection, but the striving for integrity.

    But, I agree perfect heroes are a bore and some writers have treated WW that way. Of course, wildly, inescapably flawed heroes can be a bore too - witness a lot of the Batman stuff written 1995 to today. In dealing with heroic characters it's important to have the struggle with demons - and overcome them most of the time.
     
  15. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    ^Exactly. Diana lassoing herself is a metaphor for honest introspection, the kind of self-questioning that prevents arrogance and misplaced feelings of superiority. If you read the writings of some of the truly best people in the world, people like Gandhi or Mother Theresa, they're the first to call attention to their own flaws and imperfections, and the last to have any pretensions of being better than anyone else. What makes them good people is that they don't assume they're good. They force themselves to examine their own feelings and actions honestly and critically. They judge only themselves harshly, no one else.

    By the same token, if Diana only used her lasso on other people, that would put her above everyone else; she'd be judging them, compelling them to confess their lies, but refusing to hold herself to the same level of criticism. That would be obnoxious. Forcing herself to confront her own flaws, to submit to the same expectations as the adversaries she tackles, keeps her humble. It's an absolute, 180-degree misreading of this to say it gives her "perfect clarity for a fact [that she is] righteous." It does just the opposite -- it forces her to recognize her own imperfections and failings. It doesn't fix them for her. It just shows her what her faults are. In order to overcome those faults, she has to do the same hard work as everyone else.
     
  16. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I enjoy being ridiculous, I know I'm, being ridiculous but every day.

    Do you like it when people call you a liar?

    Does it feel good? Especially when they have no proof and they're wrong?

    I'm supposed to believe that Diana does that to herself every morning, calls herself a filthy liar and then sets to prove that she is right that she is wrong in the soul every morning? Utilizing the some sort of logic, this is how priest flagellate the sin out of themselves till their should blades are breaking through their skin.

    How often does Diana find lies she tells herself, and what does she do to those lies.

    How does she kill the lies inside her?

    1984?

    Surely removing her history to make her present more virtuous is a bigger lie than most any lie she could have told which needs extraction from her memories?

    How does she apologise to the people around her for being bound by those lies like some sort of lie mummy (the mother of all lies!!!)?

    How can she be so selfish as to not share this clarity with her friends?

    how can they be her friends if they resist the clarity she offerers.

    Her friends must be monsters if they are wallowing in the filth of deception and deceit.

    A decent hero would slay these monsters, and a good human being would just remove them from her life to replace them with more, with "completely" honest people, because she doesn't want to chance infection.

    Really that's it.

    Fear.

    Do you have an STD test after every time you have sex?

    Not, every time, and not after every time with the same lover if he tested well already.

    She is afraid of being corrupted by man's world.

    Honesty dialysis must be needed if you are constantly risking drowning in the filth of lies told constantly by everyone you meet and everyone you don't meet who are just kinda/sorta near by.

    Like how you need a EV suit in space.

    Maybe she's got a little Aspergers?

    What's the difference between constantly cleaning your hands and constantly cleaning your soul?

    They did something similar with Iron Man a few years ago (and then forgot about it).

    Tony Stark's big problem is that he is an alcoholic so when he was being vetted by congress for the job of secretary of defence for the USA, he explained that his health problems had caused his liver to die and it had been replaced by a mechanical valve which will not and cannot metabolize alcohol. It is impossible for him to get drunk even if he is drinking, so therefore he is a good person who is not a risk to the country and the presidency if he is awarded the position because he has no weaknesses.
     
  17. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    In the lap of squalor I assure you.
    "Yesterday I was imperfect and full of flaws. Now I'm trying to fix that, but lets just take a peek and see how I'm doing today, I'll be very miffed if I'm still more imperfect than I was yesterday because I'm really trying to be a better person, and I'm oh... Lets just take a look..."

    You don't open the oven when you're cooking a souffle.

    Did I mention that I believe if any of this would hold water that it would be subconscious? Insecure rather than vain. Troubled rather than conceited.
     
  18. Captaindemotion

    Captaindemotion Admiral Admiral

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  19. Admiral_Young

    Admiral_Young Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I'm not sure how it would make any difference if all the networks passed on it due to budget concerns to bring it back next year. If he rewrites the script to reflect their concerns then yeah maybe we could see it but I'm thinking that DC Ent will just get someone else to make a pitch.

    I know I'm going to regret chipping in my own two sense here...but why would Diana need to lasso herself for retrospection? Surely the wisdom taught her by her Amazonian teachers over the years of her tutelage (some might call it conditioning as Bruce has referred to it on occasion) on Themyscira would give her the means of examining herself. I'm not protesting the concept of using the lasso on herself...I'm saying it shouldn't be necessary in the first place. One of the themes of Countdown and "Infinite Crisis" is flawed heroes. Wonder Woman has become flawed because she succumbed to using violence to solve a problem instead of reason and compassion. Bruce became paranoid. Clark failed to inspire and take lead. All of these were flaws that lead to the events of Infinite Crisis. Regular people have flaws and we deal with them on a constant basis. The same should be the same for heroes, it doesn't mean they're any less of a hero.
     
  20. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    You know the joke. He's probably worked it all out to cost no more than an episode of Ally McBeal or Boston legal, but the network can't forecast commensurate returns to justify the same capital outlay.