I took some time off to watch WW84 and build up my own views on it, away from what everyone thought. I put my feelings about it aside and gave it a honest shot. Whosoever wants spoilers not, turn thee at the gate. What you read after this, is entirely on you.

This is the kind of film you make when you're more concerned with protecting a fictitious character's reputation instead of treating them like, idk, a character. This film isn't about a character, this about karma houdinis, unfortunate implications, deus ex machinas, etc.

This film may aim for Donner on the surface (i'll get to that) but it bounces between Lester's Superman II & III. Our introduction to Diana easily fits the latter, comedic music, slapstick & all. A child is almost killed? No matter, the audience needs comfort via smiles & winks.

Diana has been defanged, which was honestly a long time coming since her solo decided she was too good for actual struggle &, vulnerability. She has no rage for the kind of scum she deals with, like mall thief who almost kills a child. She just carries an air of content smiles

Her character entirely evolves around a matronly form of heroism. Baddies have to be taken care of like babies, no harm can come to them, and when someone else is harming them, her character becomes the pillow they land on so they don't get boo boos. It's eye rollingly sterile.

Her powerset is the silver age's "new powers as the plot demands" trope incarnate. Her lasso can conveniently do anything once she has a need to, she herself has now gained the power to turn things invisible like Zeus or make them see things while wrapped in her lasso, like Ares.

Tho, this is credited to the lasso, just one of many things it can magically do out of nowhere now, including infinite stretch length. She can also fly now. Out of nowhere. Yes, its def flying. Might not be as versatile as Superman, might be gliding on air currents, still flying.

But somehow, we're expected to believe a woman who refused to give up on the world, thinks mankind is so much more & is worthy of her love & protection, can't move on from Steve and find love in all this sea of "good" she claims exists. And she won't cross the street bc reasons.

Talking of crossing streets, her interaction with Barbara Minerva starts as a meet cute. The kind of loser meets hottie stuff that leads to romance if it were any other film & they weren't both women. There's Barbara asking her to lunch in short order, her going back to see Barb-

--at work, bringing up said lunch, Barbara abandoning important fbi work & being the first in a long time to make Diana laugh. This is all going somewhere right? Nope! Bc here comes the SS. Unfortunate Implications to dock at the bay, cannons ready to sink this wannabe ship.

Steve is back, except not really. Steve is actually some poor dude, whose bodily agency has been usurped by a magic stone & thus, only appears as Steve Trevor to Diana. No one else, not even Steve Trevor himself sees what Diana sees when he looks in a mirror. What's the problem?

Oh nothing, just a little something from the Ol' Lester playbook called sexual violation. Diana sleeps with Steve, who is not physically Steve, but someone else and she does this fully being aware it's not his body and the real owner isn't really in a position to give consent.

Just like Superman III, where Superman is bodily violated by the villain's henchwoman, while under influence of synthetic kryptonite & unable to truly give consent. And where that film brushed off the repercussions with "that guy's gone", this film does one better, it ignores it.

It continues to baffle me, the kind of things that get onscreen wrt Diana from the same ppl who were so offended by the idea of her absolving herself of responsibility for the human race for 100yrs. They made it seem like it's about her dignity but what's dignified about this?

She would never do this vulnerable, human thing her ancestors also did bc she's too good to but she's not beneath this other actually inexcusable thing we want her to do? 100yrs thing is wrong, sword & shield is wrong but panty shots, boob faceplants and sexual assualt is A-Ok?

Being emotionally hung up on love to the point of robbing someone else of their life to get Steve back and adamantly refusing to give it back is ok? Getting physically destroyed and dressed down by Barbara as she watches helplessly is ok but emotional vulnerability isn't?

Under Patty & Johns, Diana's character seems immune to the idea of true vulnerability, truly bad choices or consequences. Any mistake can be walked back and treated like a sacrifice on her part. It's the kind of thing that ultmately tears down what could be great characters.

The first film went to great lengths to prove Diana's uninformed views of the world & the world war right and this film goes to great lengths to avoid her facing consequences for her choices, ironically enough after trying to teach us such things exist with the opening prologue.

Kid!Diana is barred from completing a race bc she took a shortcut she wasn't told not to take (they could've easily disqualified her for not hitting her last marker). The lesson, she didn't deserve to finish bc she took unfair advantage, so you think it'd apply later. It doesn't.

This is the second film with Di in a row (third if you count Josstice L) where the villain gets away scot-free. Dr Poison runs off & is never seen again, Steppenwolf... And then Max Lord just...hugs his kid. What consequence did any of them face? We don't know.

In the aftermath, what happened to Diana and Barbara's barely there friendship? We don't know. None of these characters are seen again. Bc in the view of the storytellers, it's not as important as the superficial speeches, smiles and drippings of "truth" & "hero" in dialogues.

Speaking of consequences, the mcguffin is a magic stone with wish granting consequences the film is inconsistent on. The latter half of the film tries to frame Diana's wish as the reason for slowly losing her powers; the price to bring Steve back but prior to this, in the first-

--half, it's not the wisher who pays a price, something is taken from someone else & given to them. A guy wants free coffee, he gets it from a colleague who can't give the original recepient who is sick. Diana wants Steve, gets Steve back by stealing someone else's life. Barbara-

--wants to be special like Diana, she starts getting more agile, confident, outspoken, popular & strong. But only when her superstrength appears do we see Diana's strength start to falter. It's not until Lord makes himself the stone & starts personally choosing a price from ppl--

--that the concept of paying a personal price narratively appear. And she made her wish well before Max Lord did, so it makes no sense that her faltering strength and powers are suddenly tied to her wish. And that to regain it, she has to "let go" of Steve, who's not "Steve" btw.

And the ability to renounce a wish without needing the stone or Max only exists to further sterilize this film of consequences. While as a child, she loses a race as consequence/lesson, as an adult, she gets her strength entirely back. No further price paid than losing a guy who

--was always gone. Everything returned to zero. Even the renouncement is inconsistent, Max renounced, it should ly have affected his own wish & the stone recreated. It shouldn't undo the wishes he granted to others. But they're all individually able to renounce theirs after him.

The wish explosions disappear and the missiles dismantle but the fact ppl don't magically transport back to where they were before a wish and the riots that happened as a result of the wishes still happened. So it's inconsistent in depicting whether things return to zero or not.

Ppl get to walk back their choices with no repercussions despite the lesson that taking shortcuts carry a price but at the same time, the trash that's accumulated as a result still exists. So there's some kind of consequence. It's just inconsequential consequence.

Diana doesn't have to face the man she violated as a consequence, he doesn't have to remember what she did. Instead, she gets a meet cute with him later; the exceptional man in the whole film beside Steve who can hold conversation with her without trying to bed her. Karma houdini

In a film about truth, we just get lies and lies as the storytelling cheats to favor and validate the heroes' whims at every turn. This film fits the bill of pretentious. For its attempts to make it seem like its saying something deep and profound, it spends an admirable number--

--of it's runtime not only not commiting to it but actually not saying anything at all. At the end of the day, what exactly is the truth? What's the message? That you shouldn't lie to get what you want? Be content? There's a price to greed? How? There's no consequence in WW84.

You can walk back anything and not have to live with your choices. You can renounce everything you did wrong and pick up that nothing happened. Like Superman took Lois' memories in Lester's Superman II instead of dealing & living with his choices, Diana just gives up Steve & the-

--usurped persona is none the wiser for it. Like it never happened. Instead, he gets ship teased with her. She avoided all the uncomfortable outcomes & realities of her choices. And so can you apparently. Once a speech full of platitudes has been drummed into your eardrums.

I don't know why Diana isn't good enough to be her own character without trying to turn her into a pale imitation of what P & J think is Donner's but is actually Lester's Superman. The way they've gone about dismantling the original Diana from BvS only to recreate a watered down-

--incomparable version that only exists to appeal to ppl who believe the worth of a superhero comes down to how good they make you feel, how well they smile, speeches & how much you can cover up the unsavory realities of the things they sometimes do, is completely disappointing.

Diana is worth their best efforts but alas, its the guy who's approach everyone readily erased who seems to actually treat her like a character. A character who's unique, separate & incomparable to any other wordswoman in fiction. So why is P/Js idea of Diana a female Superman?

I once raised concerns about this, a fear after the release of WW in 2017, that based on the lengths they went to sanitize the character's tragic backstory to make her appealing to audiences, that they were making the same mistakes the Reeve franchise did. And the clear attempts-

--to call back to that film & the obsession with fun, will not end well. It'll bring down a character, who's finally getting a shot & she'll hit the same wall Superman did as a franchise. That day has come. This is that movie I feared back then. This is the reaction I dreaded.

I mean, when you're right, you're right. https://twitter.com/kennysama_d/status/904478157851504640?s=20