This year, fans everywhere have been jonesing for some real, quality superhero movie content.
Gal Gadot, goddess that she is, came to provide.
As promised, the second trailer for Wonder Woman 1984 debuted at the DC FanDome event
— and it's not all glitz and flashy action like the first trailer for the sequel movie
was...there's even more substance. This trailer finally provides some much-wanted details
about Kristin Wiig's Cheetah, including the first real glimpse at what her transformation
from archaeologist Barbara Ann Minerva into her villainous alter-ego looks like. Along
with that, each character's motivation is more clearly summarized in the new trailer.
Wonder Woman 1984 is obviously a film meant to be more about clashing personalities and
dreams than about saving the world or defying the conquests of gods like the first Wonder
Woman was back in 2017. It's narrower and more personal, but that doesn't mean the stakes
aren't profound.
Here are some small details in the new Wonder Woman 1984 trailer that you might not have
caught, and what they hint at for the movie at large.
“Barbara. What did you do?”
The ending of the first Wonder Woman 1984 trailer, released during Brazil's Comic Con
Experience in December 2019, appears to be the beginning of the second trailer.
Early on, we see a simple enough cut of a carrier helicopter approaching a massive satellite
receiver on a small archipelago. The kicker comes later, as the trailer ends with the
fight between Diana and the now-fully-transformed Cheetah. There's little doubt this could be
the climactic final showdown between them, given the no-holds-barred sparring they perform,
and the fact that Diana is donning her slick, upgraded golden armor. But the point here
is that where the battle takes place is the same location we see at the beginning of the
trailer. You can tell from the concrete aesthetic and lighting, as well as from the little bit
of the smaller communications arrays that are briefly seen.
We don't know where this is yet, of course, but it's probably the MacGuffin of Wonder
Woman 1984. It's likely somehow related to whatever nefarious plot that smarmy businessman
Maxwell Lord has. Cheetah is acting as a flunky for him throughout the story, so what's so
critical about a satellite receiver that she must be the last line of defense against Diana?
It's been awhile, so it's understandable if you didn't remember. But it looks like we'll
be seeing more than just Diana's mother Queen Hippolyta reprising an Amazonian role. During
the opening scene of the trailer, which depicts a portion of the Amazon Games, we see a long
line of Amazonian women along with young Diana. At the forefront of that line is someone we've
seen before: Venelia.
It's a surprising turn to see in a flashback, as we know Venelia goes on to assist Diana's
aunt Antiope in training Diana as a warrior. Perhaps in these flashbacks incorporated in
Wonder Woman 1984, we'll get to see a little bit more of Diana's sisters-in-arms and her
relationships with them. And hopefully, the sting of getting bested by an eight-year-old
during an Olympics-style competition won't last too long for Venelia.
The new trailer also finally gives us a peek into Barbara Ann Minerva's motivation as a
villain: jealousy.
"You've always had everything, while people like me have nothing."
It upends the presentation of her relationship with Diana in the first 1984 trailer as being
pretty friendly. What "everything" seems to mean to Barbara, more than beauty or money,
is status and confidence. To quote the woman herself:
“I want to be an apex predator.”
The scene in which Diana exits a limousine, all eyes turned to her, at some swanky gala
is immediately followed by a sequence of Barbara walking into that same event while others
look her up and down with obvious reluctance to approach. We know Barbara is an archeologist
and a colleague of Diana's, but little else is confirmed about the movie’s take on the
character. What could cause her to be so ostracized from her professional community and create
all this hostility that she eventually unleashes on Diana, despite Diana's attempts to befriend
her?
A slightly less-subtle small detail present are the parallels between young Diana Prince
and adult Diana Prince.
It happens right at the trailer's outset, as young Diana is participating in the Amazon
Games alongside her sisters. We watch as the tiny warrior sprints with all her might, surpassing
her competitors with an expression of determination on her face. That's spliced with footage of
adult Diana racing down a city street, making the exact same face her younger self did all
those years ago. Then, as kid Diana bolts up the curved edges of the oval amphitheatre,
pumping her arms through the air and finally leaping into the open air beyond the dome,
we see adult Diana slicing the city air with her gauntleted arms and then swinging her
Lasso of Truth before flinging herself into space.
It's a compelling bit of parallelism, and possibly hints that Wonder Woman 1984 will
be digging deeper into Diana's upbringing to show how she became the superhero she is
today.
“You are stronger than you believe. You have greater powers than you know.”
It seems that somewhere in the course of the movie, Maxwell Lord will basically wish himself
into the White House with the mysterious artifact that gives Barbara her powers and lets Diana
have her long-lost love Steve Trevor back. In the first trailer for the film, Lord's
big overture to the world about giving them what they want is filmed over a diamond-themed
background. In another scene from that trailer, we see magical gusts buffeting the artifact
as Lord performs some supernatural act. Perhaps he grants the whole world's wishes to gain
legitimacy as President?
The new trailer includes Lord's speech as well, but the broadcast takes over several
computer monitors and plays out over the air waves as citizens hang on to Lord's every
word with curious confusion. It’s also clear that it’s happening from the White House
Briefing Room. Later, we see Cheetah and Wonder Woman fighting in the actual White House,
and the men attacking Diana are almost certainly Secret Service as well as Capitol Police.
Finally, we have a shot of Barbara and Lord on Air Force One discussing Evil Plans, and
you can see the embroidered seal of the Presidential office on Lord's seat.
This is a sizable twist from what we understood from the original trailer: We were initially
led to believe Lord was simply a billionaire businessman, which provides plenty of power
all on its own. As Tears For Fears wisely counseled in 1985, everybody wants to rule
the world — but what does "more" mean for Max Lord, if the seat of American power isn't
enough? We can't wait to find out when Wonder Woman 1984 takes flight October 2, 2020.
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