Ok ... so how would YOU lay out a compelling Wonder Woman storyline for a movie?

Pretty much keep the basic first story arc Perez did, with some changes.

  • Air Force pilot Steve Trevor falls into an island invisible to any normal means of detection: turns out it’s a mythical island of immortal Amazon warriors. Perez made him older and took away his role as romantic interest, but let’s get him back as a possible suitor and make him young enough. He was also originally forced by Ares to try to bomb the island, but let’s not overcomplicate it and leave it as a coincidence, or Athena’s hand or whatever.

-Since men are forbidden from setting foot there, the Amazons try to execute him, but Hippolyta’s daughter, Diana, convinces them that it’s time to stop being dicks about the regular humans, to spare him and to send an envoy to the Patriarch’s world. Her backstory is pretty much the same: Hippolyta just made her out of clay and the breath of the female goddesses.

-There’s the standard gladiatorial fight to decide who Wonder Woman is, Diana goes there in disguise and wins, and so on.

-Diana and Trevor go to the United States, there’s all sorts of media frenzy and interest about the new race of mythological creatures, and Diana’s wide eyed innocence discovers the world. You know, the usual.

-They both uncover a complex plan from Ares to bring destruction to the planet. Since it’s not the 80’s any more, instead of nuclear plants let’s use terrorism. She convinces the god of war that so much destruction would effectively end war alongside mankind, and Ares recoils. She can fight Ares’ kids (Deimos and Phobos mainly) during the climax.
-And for the sequel, of course, Circe.

There is no compelling arc for Wonder Woman. That is why there will never be a successful movie with her as the star. Supporting character maybe, although I doubt that as well.

Sounds a little like the kernel of the 2009 animated Wonder Woman movie, which I think could make a decent live-action transition if you could cast several hundred “armored supermodels” (as one character describes them) as the Amazons.

The 2009 WW movie was pretty cool. I’m guessing if nothing else its fight scenes will be better than any live action attempt. The main problem though was the best story elements didn’t involve WW – I liked the two sisters and the traitor Amazon’s interaction with Hippolyta more, and Steve had all the good lines. Save a couple scenes, WW was mostly kinda stiff and not very charismatic.

I don’t know about the comics because I’m a nerd pleb on that front, but what I liked about WW’s personality in the JLU and the animated movies is she seemed to have a bit of a temper. Superman and Batman were always worried about killing someone, WW doesn’t seem overly concerned.

Is there a fan controversy about whether she should fly like Superman or be ground bound? The jet thing always seemed kinda goofy, but I dunno.

Not sure of a story, but it should NOT be an origin piece. I’d structure it much like the current series *Arrow *- set it in the present day, open it there, give Diana a good 15-20 minutes and few scenes to show her stuff, then use a few carefully-selected flashbacks to establish who she is and why. No more flashbacks after the main plot development, most especially not The Big Secret Reveal just before she “magically” (in the derisive sense) defeats the Big Bad.

I’d push for a Thor-like justification; Diana and the Amazons are human, but augmented through other-world intervention 3,000 years ago. That opens a nice door to explain why only women benefited from the intervention.

And, frankly, if Diana isn’t at least six foot, maybe a bit over… fugeddabout it. She should also be built like a goddess, not a runway model… more great fodder to shit on idiotic modern ideals of womanhood. (“I *am *twice the woman you are!”)

I nominate Robyn Lawley, if she can pack on some serious muscle and learn how to hurl a javelin.

Assuming I were tapped to pen a Wonder Woman, I would also expect that it was intended to work inside the universe that Man of Steel began. Given that, I think there’s a perfect way to keep the essence of the character true while updating it to work in a somewhat more realistic world and with a more modern perspective.

I’d adjust her origins slightly. In Man of Steel, they show an open capsule on the Kryptonian space ship. In the prequel comic, it’s revealed that Kara Zor-El was the captain of that ship, survived the crash, that was her capsule, and she walks off into the distance some thousands of years ago. So I say, pick up from there, have her run into a primitive tribe, be seen as a goddess, and her off-spring as gods. This could both lead credence as to how the Greek mythology started in this universe, how they have powers, etc. I would ditch the whole pure women thing, but having Kara as the ancestor, it would be easy to see them as a matriarchal society.

From there, Themyscira is an island hidden using some ancient Kryptonian technology because Kara was wary of interfering too much with the rest of humanity, and the Amazons are just the decendents of the “gods” so they have some of the Kryptonian powers, but not all of them, which could explain Diana’s powers, and the rest could be explained with some other Kryptonian technologies, whose secrets were lost to the primitive society, and so they’re perceived as magical items, like her bracers.
Wonder Woman needs some origin story, it cannot be skipped because, while people know who she is, I don’t think many people know it well enough, and those that do, know how much magic and mythology is involved. They need to explain how it fits in with the more realistic universe that they’ve started. So, I would do it sort of like Man of Steel, give some basic background to start and fill in the rest as it’s relevant to the story.

And as for the basics of the story, I think that the best way to do it would be to have the Amazons as still fairly isolated and have them feel they need to intervene when the entire world is in danger. This was why, I think, she originally got involved in WW2. Her character should be a little like a fish out of water, not feminist per se, but more just caught off-guard that modern society isn’t matriarchal like her society.

As for her obstacle, stick with a villain. Because she’s based on Greek mythology, using Ares or Hades gives a villain that can be immediately recognizable, and if they have some of the Kryptonian powers and/or technology, given that he’d be a “god” he may still have some understanding of it, and pose a real threat. His motivation could be something fairly simple like the idea that the Greek pantheon were Kara’s progeny, much like the Amazons, but they didn’t have interest in being isolated, left out to rule over the inferior humans, were eventually captured and imprisoned, and the events of Man of Steel or something else like that led to their release and he sets about to either rule humanity or exact revenge and that’s why Wonder Woman has to stop him.

And please, don’t give her a ridiculously skimpy costume, please make it look like something an Amazon warrior might actually wear. And definitely don’t hook her up with Superman, I’d rather see her be wary of him trying to help her, seeing that he has powers not unlike the “gods”. I also wouldn’t want to see him save her nor do I want to see the cliche opposite of her saving him, at most he should help her in some way, perhaps helping prevent whatever cataclysmic event the villain puts in motion and saving lives and he’s left to help minimize that damage while she fights the villain. They can directly team up or save eachother in Justice League, but if it’s her film, she needs to be the badass.

Heck, have “Hera” be a corrupted version of “Kara”, for that matter.

I would limit Superman’s involvement to a cameo by Clark Kent. Have Hercules figure in a big way in the early part of the film.

Absolutely, if for no other reason than to clear up 50+ years of varying presentations (some pretty nonsensical) and give the audience a firm handle on who she is and what she represents. But that can be put in something less than a half hour of screen time. Please, Gods Above, not an entire origin movie. We’ve established the modern superhero well enough that we can skip every trite, obvious step of the process.

Messing with the traditional elements: Have Hercules be the father of all the Amazons, but he gets tricked by the gods… he’ll have the children he desires but (heh heh heh) only the women will inherit his physical abilities.

Sorry…I’ve given a bit more thought…

Hercules is the main villain. Introduced early, defeated though what happens to him isn’t seen…the main storyline runs (No idea) then late in the film we see either:

  1. Hercules has been behind the scenes of the main storyline OR

  2. The main storyline is resolved and we think the film is almost over when it is revealed that Hercules has been living among mankind, amnesiac, this whole time. His memory returns and we get a smashbang fight wherein…get this…in the middle of the fight:

Hercules stands towering over a nearly defeated Wonder Woman when a flash of blue and red lands in front of her:

SUPERMAN: “Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to hit a…”

BLAM! SUPERMAN IS BITCH-SLAPPED BY HERCULES ACROSS THE HORIZON.

HERCULES: “No. She didn’t. (To Wonder Woman who is regaining her feet) What. Was that?”

WW: “I…have no idea.”

Fight re-ensues.

very end of film, WW stands over a groggy Superman, she extends a hand, the sun lensflaring off her armor.

WW: “Need a hand…Super (slight giggle) ‘Man’ was it?”

I would give it to Amy Poehler and Tina Fey and let them do whatever they want with the movie.
One could be Diana and the other Etta Candy. I’m sure they can find a piece of eye candy to play Steve Trevor for their damsel in distress.
Amy Poehler with dark hair, now that’s something to ponder.
It wouldn’t fit in with the rest of the current D.C. cinematic universe, but with what we’ve gotten so far, why would you want it to?

That’s probably their plan, and another reason to hate that movie.

I’m all for a Kryptonian origin (like Blaster’s) but I’d have the island being a secret location where someone/thing (which presents itself as Athena) has been running a millenia-long breeding/genetic manipulation program via artificial insemination/parthenogenesis to create humans who have the power set of a Kryptonian but are loyal to it. Diana is the culmination of that superhuman breeding program and has some of the Kryptonian powers (flight, strength, invulnerability, speed) but not all (no laser vision/x-ray-vision/etc).

Have Diana conduct a mission for “Athena” that involves traveling to the outside world (maybe to recover some particular Kryptonian tech left after the invasion by Zod?) and have subsequent conflict happen there.

Have Diana discover at the climax that “Athena” isn’t really “Athena” but instead a super-intelligent abberant Kryptonian AI that escaped to Earth ages ago - yes, Brainiac - and has been plotting revenge. HAve her defeat it.

Cue the Superman cameo in the credits and the stinger revelation that this Brainiac was just one node of several.

So…take one of the most well-known and iconic superheroes in DC and make her a knock-off of Superman by eliminating anything different about her origin? Hey, Cap’s Super-Soldier serum is descended from Asgard!

Well, the Super Soldier serum actually does tie into Hulk’s origin in Marvel’s movieverse. He becomes the Hulk by trying to create a better version. And SHIELD in general ties into most of their origins, unlike their comic book versions.

Marvel goes for ‘real world grounded’ just as much as DC. So ‘explaining’ where all these super people are coming from requires some unifying story element.

So having ancient aliens as a unifying factor in DC’s movies isn’t a farfetched idea. As long as it’s played down and not up, I don’t see it stripping anyone’s individuality.

Well, that’s true about Hulk and Cap, it was a bad analogy. I just feel like taking the magic and mythology out of Wonder Woman makes the character less special. Do I have a great idea for WW? No, but then I’m a fan of Aquaman, so Wonder Woman would be a much less steep hill to climb for a film.

You mean king of the underwater Krypto-descendants?

How about just for once, instead of wasting the first hour of screen time explaining who Wonder Woman is and where she came from, just jump in and do a rip-roaring adventure that assumes she exists in the world, has certain abilities, and her backstory doesn’t matter. Because it doesn’t!

That would be original.

Hancock is the only superhero movie I can think of off the top of my head where the hero’s main antagonist was himself.

It’s how Homer started the Iliad, so prolly a good idea.