(upbeat instrumental music)
- What up, guys?
Helen here to talk about the film
that convinced you to create a new fake Gmail account
so you could try to nab another one
of those recently discontinued HBO Max trials.
That's right, "Wonder Woman 1984."
Now, like most of you, we were big fans
of the first "Wonder Woman"
and we're naturally stoked about the sequel.
And while plenty of people thought the movie was fun,
others were a little disappointed.
And while people might want to nitpick plot holes
or action sequences,
we at Wisecrack thought we'd try to learn something
about screenwriting by asking the question,
"'Wonder Woman 1984,' what went wrong?"
And of course, spoilers ahead for a brand new movie
and a rather old British story.
But before we get into it,
I wanted to take a second to tell you
about Wisecrack's Patreon page,
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which is also how much it cost for a set of snap bracelets
back in 1984.
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And now back to the show.
And now a quick recap.
"Wonder Woman 1984" finds Diana living
in that glitzy decade working as an archeologist
at the Smithsonian.
There, she and her anxious, supposedly unlikeable
new friend Barbara study a seemingly worthless stone
that promises to grant wishes.
Each lady makes a wish.
Diana that her dead boo Steve was still alive,
and Barbara that she was more like Diana.
And surprise, their wishes come true,
but the stone is stolen by badman Max Gold,
who basically wishes for a thousand wishes.
- I wish to be you, the Dream Stone itself.
- But, of course, there's a catch.
The stone giveth and it also taketh.
Diana loses her powers, Barbara her humanity,
and Max the moist air entering his nostrils.
Oh, and maybe also his kid.
Then Max goes full Oprah on wish granting
sending the world into chaos,
and it's up to Wonder Woman to stop him,
not with violence but with
(dramatic instrumental music)
the truth.
Now, lots of people have their various reasons
for liking or disliking this film.
But we think one of the best ways to look
at the film's flaws is through its central narrative engine.
- The monkey's paw.
- Now, it doesn't take a Film Studies degree
to see what the film is trying to say.
It's pretty clearly telegraphed in the opening flashback,
which sees a young Diana try to win an Amazonian race
by taking a shortcut.
Sneaky shortcuts, Robin Wright warns us,
equal very, very bad.
- You cheated, Diana.
- But, but that-
- That is the truth.
That is the only truth and truth is all there is.
- [Helen] Anyway, this quickly becomes a lens
to view the greed-is-good mentality of the 1980s
or America's general love
of get rich quick schemes and grifters.
- [Max] Do you have everything you've ever wanted?
Aren't you tired of always wishing you had more?
- [Helen] Get it?
Cheating your way into wealth is just as bad
as cheating in an Amazon race,
and it's up to Diana to set the record straight.
- This world was a beautiful place just as it was.
And you cannot have it all.
You can only have the truth.
- Now for many at Wisecrack, this moment felt a little dumb.
Like after hearing those words,
Bernie Madoff wept a single tear
and apologized to all of his victims.
But part of the reason it might have felt hollow
is the nature of the wishing stone itself.
Supposedly created by some sinister god,
all we know is that it is indeed a trick
which gives you your wish while also taking away
something very important to you.
In this way, the stone is indeed a monkey's paw,
as Steve rightly points out while casually possessing
the apartment, body, and genitals
of an innocent, unsuspecting engineer.
But what even is a monkey's paw?
Well, that term just so happens to come
from a short story of the same name
by British writer W.W. Jacobs.
Published in 1902,
the tale chronicles the unfortunate events
that befall one family after they wish upon
their friend's shriveled little monkey appendage.
Despite being warned by said friend
to pitch it onto the fire again like a sensible man,
the patriarch of the family,
who notes that he has basically everything he needs in life,
wishes for 200 pounds, because why dream big, right?
The next day their son dies in a factory accident
and the couple receives 200 pounds
in whoopsies money from his employers.
The distraught matriarch convinces her husband
to use the second wish to bring their son back to life.
But upon hearing the zombified son knocking at the door,
the spooked-out dad uses the third wish to kill him again.
Yes, that's the end, and the moral of the story.
Careful what you wish for.
The whole thing is basically a screed
about not messing with fate.
If the Old Man upstairs wants you to have 200 bucks
to blow one Funko Pops,
he would have already turned your hot water back on.
It has since, obviously, become a trope.
- This aftershave made women want me,
but it also made me impotent.
- So how does "Wonder Woman" botch this trope?
Well, if we consider the original simian wish fulfiller,
some of "Wonder Woman's" problems reveal themselves.
In the story, the father's wish is granted
at the literal expense of his son's death,
thus punishing him for wishing for anything
in the first place.
His son dies, he earns 200 bucks.
Wish granted, you dummy.
And next time, don't (beep) with fate.
The monkey's paw often works best
when it uses narrative events to show the character
that the thing they want, i.e. wish for,
is not the thing they need, i.e. lose.
- I lost (crying) my greed.
I deserved it.
- Now, that's fitting because a key screenwriting rule
is to establish your character's want versus their need.
Your poor character spends the whole movie
pursuing their want only to learn at the end
that the conflicting need is more important.
Like how in the 1988 Tom Hanks classic "Big"
he wants to grow up.
- I wish I were big.
- [Helen] But needs to learn to appreciate his childhood.
Monkey's paws are a supernatural vehicle to get characters
to realize, sometimes tragically, what they really need
instead of what they originally want.
And this brings us to the thing about "Wonder Woman"
that kind of bums us out.
That's because the movie has very little
of the cause and effect
that can make monkey's paws stories compelling.
The Bilalian King of Crude's dilemma
is probably the closest we get
to a real monkey's paw situation.
He asks to get his land back.
This results in a wall being built.
- I wish for things one cannot attain.
- Like what?
(dramatic instrumental music)
- All of my land to be returned.
- Wish granted but that wall cuts tons of people off
from their homes and water supply
and makes them want to kill him.
We get real narrative consequences of his actions,
a real careful what you wish for
with some extra poetic justice.
But even that's a little sloppy.
The movie slaps on the additional consequence
of Max stealing his security team.
Diana's trade-off is a little more nonsensical.
It seems like the filmmakers wanted to say,
"Diana wants her lover back,
"but she needs to accept the truth
"and not cheat at anything ever.
"And I swear to god, Diana,
"if you even think about hustling men at bars
"with arm wrestling challenges,
"the universe will take away your power so fast."
If bringing back your dead lover
and consequently losing your powers seems a little random,
well, it is.
The idea is basically just lazily shoe horning the story
into the classic superhero dilemma
of how do you get laid more than once every 50 years
and also successfully saving the world?
Now, this dilemma is perfectly embodied in the narrative
of Tobey Maguire-era "Spider-Man,"
which puts superheroing into inherent conflict
with being with Mary Jane.
- [Peter] She looks at me every day, Mary Jane Watson.
Oh boy.
If she only knew how I felt about her,
but she can never know.
- [Helen] But in this film, it doesn't actually develop.
Diana's wish doesn't cause a chain of events
that happen to take away her powers.
It's just a magical trade-off we have to kind of accept.
And so, when Diana ugly cries over giving up Steve
and instantly becoming strong, it feels kind of meh.
(sweeping instrumental music) - I can't say goodbye.
- For the film's main characters,
the monkey's paw functions less as
a be careful what you wish for because it might come true
and much more of a haphazard trading one good thing
for one random (beep) thing.
This is pretty clear in Barbara's trajectory.
Now early on, her character is depicted as a pathetic loser
who magically becomes hot, likable,
and able to walk in heels.
But for wishing to be like Diana,
the monkey's paw takes its payment
in the form of stealing her humanity,
aka turning her into a stone cold, violent asshole.
But what's her sin in the first place?
Accidentally wishing to be an immortal superhero?
See, her initial wish,
unlike asking for a nuclear arsenal or free money,
seems so much less problematic.
- I do you know what I'd wish for.
To be like Diana.
- She doesn't want to be suddenly famous.
She just wants to be strong, sexy,
and liked by her coworkers,
not even in a "Black Mirror"-esque,
obsessed with your social score way.
Just like a normal human way.
Her powers are completely accidental to the wish.
So what really is the message?
That she needs to just accept being sad, lonely Barbara
about whom the office bros needlessly talk shit?
Now maybe the message is that Barbara needs to learn
self-confidence the hard way,
by scrolling through the social skills Reddit
or going to an out-of-network therapist once a week.
But the film doesn't say that.
Instead, Diana is all-
- 'Cause you're not the only one
who imagined a world were everything is different.
- [Helen] Basically, the message feels like
Barbara should have just been content with her lot.
Again, just kind of weird and even a little mean.
And what, only Amazonians get to be popular?
It's worth noting that the monkey's paw mechanics
at the end of the film are a little bit better.
People want unearned stuff with no regards
for the consequences and, en masse,
this narratively launches the world into a nuclear war.
- Soviets' early detection system have picked up
our new nukes.
- [Woman] What new nukes?
- 100 warheads just went online ready to launch.
They're taking this as an act of war,
prepping to return fire.
- So greed is bad. Yay.
But perhaps the strangest thing of all,
there actually is a pretty interesting
monkey's paw situation for Diana
that's baked right into the plot.
Now, we're not typically in the business
of suggesting punch ups, but indulge us this once.
The screenwriter's choice to bring Steve back to life
in another man's body has confounded the internet
and made us a little existentially concerned.
Is this guy still alive while this stone cold hottie lives,
breathes, and sexes in his body?
Is he stuck in the white man's sunken place?
It's never explained and Wonder Woman,
despite supposedly being the greatest,
most moralist person in the world,
seriously doesn't seem to give a (beep)
about romantically borrowing the body of a dude
who is, for all intents and purposes,
spiritually blackout drunk.
But it actually really easily could have been explained.
The real monkey's paw consequence all along
could have been that Steve possessing another man's body
was the careful what you wish for.
That is to say Diana's real struggle could have been
whether or not she could possibly live with herself
if she brought Steve back to life at the expense of a,
by all accounts, perfectly nice seeming engineer
with a messy apartment.
She wants her boyfriend back,
but she needs to abide by her moral code
of not doing a "Get Out."
- I want your eye, man.
- But the most interesting consequence
of bringing Steve back to life is entirely
and very awkwardly ignored.
Instead, the stakes are incongruently
just about Diana losing her powers
and convincing everyone in the world to accept their lot
because messing with fate can ruin your body,
mind, soul, et cetera.
And for everyone else's wants and needs,
Barbara wants to be cool but learns that she needs to accept
being a nerd because the alternative is being a huge (beep).
Steve wants to be with Diana, but he needs to be dead.
Max Gold wants a ton of wealth
but learns that he needs his health?
Oh, and also on top of that,
he seems to randomly realize
that he also super needs his son,
a revelation that is basically mandated
by Diana's lasso of truth.
So not exactly the most exciting character growth.
While the film has been hailed in some reviews
as being hopeful and optimistic about human nature,
all we're really seeing is a superhero film
in which the superhero makes the world a better place
by magically convincing all humans to stop being greedy
over the span of a mediocre speech
that sounds like a yoga teacher's Instagram caption.
I mean, if your suspension of disbelief
wasn't already broken, it surely was now.
We're not saying that every superhero film
needs to be cranky about human nature in the end,
but this movie puts a rose-colored lens
over an ultimately kind of,
no, actually very cynical worldview,
which is that we should accept the (beep) of our given lives
because as Diana puts it.
- And you cannot have it all.
You can only have the truth.
And the truth is enough.
- [Helen] The film wants to put forward a critique
of American avarice, get rich quick schemes,
and the hucksters that run them,
but it needs to figure out how to do that
so that wishing to be likable isn't a cardinal sin.
What's more, Diana's speech just feels kind of off.
The truth in this imaginary 1984 world
certainly doesn't seem beautiful.
The president is a doddering fool who just wants more nukes.
- What is there to wish for but more?
More nuclear weapons, more than they have.
Closer to them.
If I just had that in place
then they would to have to listen to us.
- [Helen] The Middle East is a very simplistically rendered
(beep) show and there's plenty of domestic violence
for good measure.
The world may be pretty beautiful
if you're a hot superhero Amazonian,
but expecting everyone else to agree feels like-
- Even now, you're patronizing me.
- Did "Wonder Woman 1984" miss the proverbial mark?
And if so, was it because of the bizarre
monkey's paw plot line?
Or are we just grumpy because of the (beep) vaccine rollout?
Let us know in the comments.
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And as always, thanks for watching.
Peace.
(upbeat instrumental music)