I'm just gonna say it Wonder Woman 1984 was not that bad. I went in expecting something worse than
Suicide Squad based on what everyone had told me and it was okay it was kind of long and let's just
all collectively agree to pretend that the Steve Trevor body snatcher thing never happened but I've
seen worse and I know that sounds like I'm damning it with faint praise but I've seen worse I want to
talk about the action though because that is what we do here hi I'm Jill Bearup I like to pretend
to hit people in my free time and I make videos about fights in media and those action scenes
there's a wishing stone which like the monkey's paw will grant her wish but take something vital
from you. Barbara wants to be Diana but loses her kind personality and then wants to be an
and up there he is but she's progressively losing her god-like powers Max Lord turns himself into
the wishing stone but he's kind of dying and also his son you know wishes he wouldn't do that but
he had his wish already so that's not going to fly. The fight scenes and action scenes are not
great from a choreography perspective they're not terrible or anything but they feel in sharp
contrast to most of the scenes in wonder woman absolutely weightless there is no heft there no
matter how much they do with the makeup to try and make us feel like Diana is suffering and bleeding
and injured the cartoon physics undermines the gravity of the situation the original wonder
woman even though Diana was a demi-goddess even in the scenes where it's just two gods smashing
the snot out of each other managed to keep its feet on the ground to a much greater extent
we're going to say that was an intentional plan as well but the problem is not the flying the problem
is the floating and the landing my favorite action scene in the movie is actually the very first one
with the amazons and little Diana love little Diana sure we open with some Philosopher's Stone
Quidditch match levels of CGI and a lot of the gymnastics at the start of the race is a little
bit overly gravity defying but for the most part things have heft and it feels like gravity works
sure the Amazons are so powerful that they can climb ropes without their legs and perform dives
that may well be higher than the world record in the middle of their pentathlon equivalent
but that's fine we do accept that they are somewhat supernaturally empowered warriors
and we also accept that Diana the god killer is even more supernaturally empowered to the point
that she's prepubescent but she can still keep up and might even win. To keep us grounded there
are real horses there's water and they struggle through it they shoot arrows they throw spears
they climb stuff and things mostly feel like they really exist regardless of whether or not they
actually do. The mall scene directly afterwards is well. I see how you're going for the whole
campy 80s vibe i mean the whole movie is drenched in the 80s aesthetic and i love it i especially
love Diana's outfits but the physics is off in a way that makes me uncomfortable and it remains off
for most of the rest of the film there are moments of this in the scene with the amazons where the
cgi is a little bit too obvious and the gymnastics are a little bit too clean for a rough and tumble
race but here's where we really get into it it feels instinctively wrong for him to fly straight
back like this when Diana pushes him particularly as there is no roll or pitch or yaw at all he's
just like he gets pulled back like he's on a wire which is exactly what's happening but ideally you
don't want it to feel like that. The reason that the wrist cross at the end feels more realistic
than this is because the guy who tumbles out of the watchtower does so in a tumbling kind of way
he doesn't just slide back he actually falls end over end the magic god power feels more plausible
than this and i know that it's being played for comedy but there's comedy and then there's
too ridiculous and i feel like we've tipped over into too ridiculous at this point in addition to
that the pulls through the air about half the time don't feel like she weighs anything you don't get
the sense that she's supporting all of her weight on this one arm that she's holding onto the lasso
of truth with it feels like she's floating when she lets go and she lands far too lightly if i
jump in the air and land my landings are heavier than that even when i'm trying to land softly
at some point i may talk some more about star wars and the lightsaber fights in that including
Mustafar just to say I have some opinions but say what you like about their hilarious spinning when
Anakin kicks Obi-Wan and he lands regardless of how he travels through the air it feels like he
lands he doesn't daintily step out of the air like he's getting off an escalator.
When Diana jumps out of the trenches in the original wonder woman it feels like
she has actually done that even though the jump is far in excess of anything you would expect from a
human the landing is still a proportionate landing for someone who weighs as much as a human does I
know that she's going to learn to fly later in the film but I feel like if we'd had a more realistic
if you will swing and run and jump in the setup it would have felt more impactful when she actually
learned to fly properly you could argue that one either way to be honest the other thing though is
her movement is distinctly weird in places wonder woman just slides towards these two baddies like
pulling the guns out of their hands fine crushing the guns fine she is super strong we kind of
expect that but what's with the cha-cha slide? I know she's in a shopping mall but surely her
stupid wedge-heeled sandal things aren't that slippery I'm sorry I'm still not over the shoes
see also when she gets out of the car and runs that does not feel like that is how that should
have worked from a physical perspective it doesn't feel real or possibly real is not quite the right
word it doesn't feel plausible almost all of her running feels really fake actually possibly it's
the slow motion but just feels off there's also a scene where she shoves herself on a piece of metal
through a gap under a truck while it's moving twice I think and I don't think that's how that
works but you can feel free to tell me I'm wrong but I don't think the interaction with the metal
and the road would be sufficiently frictionless to make that work the way it works in the film
even if you do have super strength granted the bits with the cars mostly feel real and
plausible and weighty with some exceptions but when Steve crashes into a truck climbs out the
windscreen and somehow the car is still attached even though it's no longer accelerating and the
truck is still moving are they stuck together let's let's just assume that they're stuck
together the white house fight feels somewhat more grounded even with the peppy 80s color grade
I love the peppy 80s color grade though but there are still some moments where you're thinking
is that how ropes work though even magic ropes having Steve punching things in the background
in a somewhat more realistic manner does help also in this scene there's a giant stone pillar which
bounces like it's made of polystyrene yeah look ignore the colours the no man's land scene doesn't
feel real because everything's kind of grayish it feels real because things have actual physical
consequences even if Diana is strong enough to overcome them so this look at how messed up her
slightly too glossy wig is look at the shadows under her eyes and the blood on her is undermined
by the two of them skidding around in their giant clumping heels and nothing feels like it really
lands when we get to the final fight with cheetah and Diana's dramatic golden eagle armor entrance
she sweeps through with the wings and these two guys fly sideways um everyone has their
own level of reality bending they're prepared to accept but there comes a point where people just
stop being interested in something because even if it's not on a conscious level
some part of their brain just doesn't believe it if you don't have a language for talking about
fights then you maybe can't explain why something isn't working for you but if your brain doesn't
believe what's happening it's just not going to be enticing. If it feels fake or it feels
pointless then it just becomes boring and while a huge part of the feeling it is the setup and the
emotional beats another big part of it is making it feel like it could be real in the context of
the world that you're in if Diana can fly great but if Diana can't fly yet she shouldn't land like
she's gently stepping off a podium she shouldn't swing like she's not supporting all of her weight
on one arm she shouldn't flip a truck end over end even if it is possible for her to jump above it in
a mighty leap and not all of these problems happen 100 of the time all the way through the film there
are lots of shots where it feels like she's swinging where it feels like things have weight
where it feels like physics works correctly and it's not a terrible film it's overstuffed and
overly long and there are a couple of plot points we could probably have just done without but i
would watch it again it's just not a good example of how to shoot superhero action convincingly i
don't care that the magical lasso has decided that it can hook itself onto water vapor or
disturbed electrons that does not bother me like magic okay but i do care when it seems like the
characters don't weigh anything and while i'm not really a fan of the three-point superhero landing
i know it looks cool but it's kind of hard on the body wonder woman is functionally invulnerable at
least at the start and end of the film if anyone can slam their knee into concrete to look badass
it's her even if she is wearing those giant galumphing sandals sorry i will stop talking
about it at some point.
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