I think bought maybe all of three Wonder Woman comics as a pre-teen boy. The character had always been around, but seemed kind of hokey wearing a circus bustier and flying an "invisible jet" (reminiscent of a Lear jet configuration). Her stories were kind of plain, and so sort of gave up on them and moved on in life ... or as much as a pre-teen youth could.
I am told that Wonder Woman, as originally conceived, was a subversive attempt to satiate sexual bondage fantasies from the 1930s and 1940s. Eh, if so then I'm out of touch, but WW does tend to use a rope to get the truth out of men. And given her costume and liberal use of a rope, one is left to wonder if the social scientists writing about this comic book character don't have something there.
Which leads one to ... "wonder", what it is about Wonder Woman that keeps people coming back for more, and for the owners of the current property to keep trying to reinvent her. I mean are there really that many men out there with fantasies regarding this kind of heroine? I'm not so sure.
David Kelley writes about a woman who presents comic book superhero behavior in a real world for what it is; unlawful. But we often give a pass to vigilantes in costume because they have abilities us mere mortals do not, and gallivant in colorful circus performer costumes.
I'm not really sure what the twist on this new Wonder Woman was supposed to do, but the directorial style and overall presentation, as professional as it is, did strike me as a touch predictable. That is as a male who read comic books like a lot of other boys when he was younger, and knowing female oriented TV programming, this presentation seemed to try to break the traditional mold by breaking what otherwise might have been the suspected expectations of the audience, but in doing so, winds up being almost a kind of cliché' unto itself.
That is to say Wonder Woman is the everyday independent woman who not only trounces over-muscled male foes, but snuggles with her cat at the end of the day with a bowl of ice cream--no doubt some popular contemporary brand too. Not a bad angle to take for this attempted re-imagining of her, but I think the problem here isn't that Wonder Woman takes a lot of liberties with the law in her attempt to enforce the law, it's with the character's genesis itself. And by that I mean she was always a kind of sexual invention from the 1940s.
I mean, what do you do with that? The best you can, I suppose. I think the tone set by this production teams is okay. WW is a bit over the top in terms of how she gets people to talk (I think Linda Carter's version is a bit more true to form of the G-rated WW a lot of people expect), but is otherwise palatable.
Me, I think the series in the 70s with Linda Carter was campy, but inventive, and because it tried to stick with the character's roots, was fun in its own special way, if predictable as well. This series attempts to resuscitate a very 1940's character for a 2016 audience, and I think giving WW's character a kind of violent streak countered by her ordinary single white female private life, is perhaps the dual edged sword that was needed, but may have been over the top with two scenes. In short, I think mister Kelley misread the scale of violence WW fans were willing to accept from their favorite bondage character. It's one thing to challenge another male in personal combat, and defeat them. Every male knows this. But it's another to press your advantage against those less capable. And I think that's the only fault this show made.
Otherwise I thought it was okay and in fact entertaining. I'm not sure it's something I would watch regularly, but I think a certain male and female audience could really go for this type of show. I'm sorry it wasn't picked up and finished, and I'm sorry it didn't lead to a TV series because I think it would have been successful.
If you see a copy, give it a shot, but remember, it's not for kids.
I am told that Wonder Woman, as originally conceived, was a subversive attempt to satiate sexual bondage fantasies from the 1930s and 1940s. Eh, if so then I'm out of touch, but WW does tend to use a rope to get the truth out of men. And given her costume and liberal use of a rope, one is left to wonder if the social scientists writing about this comic book character don't have something there.
Which leads one to ... "wonder", what it is about Wonder Woman that keeps people coming back for more, and for the owners of the current property to keep trying to reinvent her. I mean are there really that many men out there with fantasies regarding this kind of heroine? I'm not so sure.
David Kelley writes about a woman who presents comic book superhero behavior in a real world for what it is; unlawful. But we often give a pass to vigilantes in costume because they have abilities us mere mortals do not, and gallivant in colorful circus performer costumes.
I'm not really sure what the twist on this new Wonder Woman was supposed to do, but the directorial style and overall presentation, as professional as it is, did strike me as a touch predictable. That is as a male who read comic books like a lot of other boys when he was younger, and knowing female oriented TV programming, this presentation seemed to try to break the traditional mold by breaking what otherwise might have been the suspected expectations of the audience, but in doing so, winds up being almost a kind of cliché' unto itself.
That is to say Wonder Woman is the everyday independent woman who not only trounces over-muscled male foes, but snuggles with her cat at the end of the day with a bowl of ice cream--no doubt some popular contemporary brand too. Not a bad angle to take for this attempted re-imagining of her, but I think the problem here isn't that Wonder Woman takes a lot of liberties with the law in her attempt to enforce the law, it's with the character's genesis itself. And by that I mean she was always a kind of sexual invention from the 1940s.
I mean, what do you do with that? The best you can, I suppose. I think the tone set by this production teams is okay. WW is a bit over the top in terms of how she gets people to talk (I think Linda Carter's version is a bit more true to form of the G-rated WW a lot of people expect), but is otherwise palatable.
Me, I think the series in the 70s with Linda Carter was campy, but inventive, and because it tried to stick with the character's roots, was fun in its own special way, if predictable as well. This series attempts to resuscitate a very 1940's character for a 2016 audience, and I think giving WW's character a kind of violent streak countered by her ordinary single white female private life, is perhaps the dual edged sword that was needed, but may have been over the top with two scenes. In short, I think mister Kelley misread the scale of violence WW fans were willing to accept from their favorite bondage character. It's one thing to challenge another male in personal combat, and defeat them. Every male knows this. But it's another to press your advantage against those less capable. And I think that's the only fault this show made.
Otherwise I thought it was okay and in fact entertaining. I'm not sure it's something I would watch regularly, but I think a certain male and female audience could really go for this type of show. I'm sorry it wasn't picked up and finished, and I'm sorry it didn't lead to a TV series because I think it would have been successful.
If you see a copy, give it a shot, but remember, it's not for kids.