How To Harm Your Audience - Wonder Woman 1984

you probably think. We all have our struggles, yes, have you ever been in love? Oh no, don't mind me. this is just my peak, I'm going to need it because this scene is an absolute gold mine of shitty dialogue, technically it's a nuance, but shut up, unfortunately I can't play the whole clip because the copyright id is annoying, but They basically go along, Barbara is talking about how anxious and bad she is at socializing and praising Diana and then out of nowhere Barbra says, have you ever been in love? and it feels so bad that when she says it, the

audience

instinctively recoils in disgust because it just feels like such an unnatural turn in the conversation and what really interesting here is that I know exactly how and why the writers messed up here because I am also an amateur and I am constantly struggling specifically with this topic as I never told you I was an expert at this point, I am not a good writer.

I have a long way to go before I do anything worth posting, but I'm struggling with this problem all the time and I like to call it the checklist bug, basically, every time you come in to write a thread, um. I'll have an agenda and it will look like this, okay, so I double check before I write this scene. I need to make sure the character expresses her insecurities. Establish her character arc. I need to introduce this Facebook for world building. I need to use that. joke because it's a really funny joke and then I need to foreshadow this plot point okay yeah no let's do that that's right but here's the problem I discovered with that approach because when you go into dialogue with this mentality it has a tendency to make

your

dialogue feel extremely stilted, okay so I have Asperger's, I'm pretty confident and I feel very ill-equipped to explain how humans work because I sometimes don't understand it myself, but when humans talk, I'm pretty sure that's how it's done.

It works, let's say you have two guys and you have one of them who will say oh, how is

your

wife? and then she says, oh, she bought a new TV yesterday without asking me first or checking what it was about, then they say oh, you can't do it right, that's ridiculous and then she'll talk about what makes for a good relationship with a spouse for a time and then you'll say: you know what my dad does in situations like this and then he'll smoothly transition into talking about his parents as if a real conversation is a bit like that.

I guess I'm not sure. Please don't quote me on that. I don't understand the human beings I have. I haven't talked to anyone since December 2019, please don't quote me on that, but okay, so this on the screen is what you might see in a real conversation, it's a line that moves smoothly from one point to another. and I would say that when you are writing dialogue, if you can imitate it and do it well, it will make your dialogue feel extremely realistic and if you can't imitate it, I would say that your dialogue will not be realistic at all, okay, so let's say that your characters are having a conversation about bread but here it says they need to talk about what their uncle did last night now a good writer when now a good writer writing a scene like that would make everything flow perfectly but a bad writer aka the people Who wrote Wonder Woman

1984

?

I would write it like this. You know, nothing is better than a good piece of tiger bread. the texture is so beautiful, so smooth, anyway, my uncle just sold my car to the witch down the street for a bag of beans, this is what the dialogue would look like and it's the opposite of good dialogue like, um , instead of everything flowing smoothly and naturally. He'll just keep going like this and then randomly jerk off, often off on a completely unrelated tangent into a complete segway, so they can cover that topic in the case of Wonder Woman.

What are they talking about about Barbara being a social outcast but then she says there? goes my camera bag in a

woman

's case, they have this checklist and it says right here Diana needs to talk about Steve and show that she's lonely, so it establishes an additional point in the movie, so instead of putting in blood and sweat instead of really trying, they just throw this question completely out of place: have you ever been in love? And it's horrible because, by the way, it's such unrealistic dialogue. If any of you have any similar thoughts on this, let me know because I'm struggling with this all the time in my own writing, but anyway, speaking of hand sequences that come completely out of place, let's talk about this movie, what is it, In my opinion, this movie's worst flaw, toxic morals, is okay, so more on that later.

In the video we'll have a lot of lighthearted jokes and parodies and it'll all be very, very funny, but no, I can't even try to make jokes about this one because it's kind of heavy, uh, this. It's really serious and I'm looking forward to talking about this because it's not about crafts, right? It has nothing to do with what makes a story entertaining, but at the same time I think it's the most important responsibility you have as a storyteller just because you didn't intend for there to be a message in your story doesn't mean people won't. he will see your story and then he will see that same message and this is dangerous as a writer because if you become ignorant of the morals that could form in your story purely by accident, as if you were not trying to say them, they just end up happening and one of those morals turns out to be toxic , people will see your story, people will see that message and therefore be

harm

ed by your actions, if there was ever a lesson I could teach it would be this, because if you don't pay attention to the moral that could accidentally form in your story, someday you could make a story as dangerous as Wonder Woman

1984

.

So, look at Barbara, she's one of the main characters. Look at her. What is the moral of the story behind her character? For the luckiest of you, that is, those who have not seen this movie. Barbara begins as a naive and shy social outcast. who is deeply unhappy with herself and wishes to be more like her role model, Diana, admires Diana, has enormous respect for her, and then, while daydreaming and holding the magic rock, half-wishes not to expect any of it. She is simply dreaming, she wakes up and wishes to be more like the person she most admires, then that wish is granted and it ruins her life.

Sure at first everything goes great, she becomes a confident social butterfly and becomes a more well-liked human being in general, but this gradually turns her into a monster she becomes a psychopath she loses sight of who she used to be and again barbara didn't ask for this wish knowing it was really going to happen she wasn't overly ambitious nor terribly jealous she just hated herself she had a role model and she mumbled oh my god I wish I was more like her and that is precisely what leads her down the dark path where due Because of that desire she becomes the villain of the film.

What was the message that Jenkins was trying to give to his

audience

here? Well, it's pretty obvious that Jenkins was trying to say that if you want to get better in life, the only way to do it is to work for it because those things can't be given to you, that's clearly Jenkins' authorial intention, but it's because That is why you must always take into account the death of the author. the philosophy under consideration and what that means is that it doesn't matter what you intended, the only thing that matters is how people interpret your work because if you don't, you could end up having this message in your story and it's really

harm

ful. one, if you are not happy with who you are or want to change who you are or how you identify because you feel uncomfortable in your skin, don't do it because by just wanting to improve yourself by simply having role models you aspire to emulate only the bad. things can happen, I imagine one or two of you are saying that right now I'm grasping at straws, that I'm overlooking one or two things to come to that final conclusion and that one of you two has all the reason because that's exactly what I'm doing, but every one in 10 people who see this movie will see some variation of that kind of moral on screen and, more importantly, I'm pulling this number out of my ass here, but Every 100 people who see a story will be in a suggestible state in which they will be in a position to be impacted by the messages that that story may have and if in your story you have an accidentally toxic message, as you understand where I am going with this, this is very serious.

Okay, like I've never been more focused on the topic before my channel because I'm terrified that some poor person somewhere in the world who is in a really suggestible state and is in a really bad place in life is the kind of person who can be molded like clay. the kind of person who looks to movies for moral guidance because there is nowhere else in their life to find those things and yes, those people exist. It terrifies me that a handful of people like that have seen this movie, just imagine it as a thought. exercise, forget who you are, pretend that you are a 14 year old girl who has no sense of self-worth in life, who is not loved by anyone, not even themselves, the kind of person who craves nothing more than to be socially accepted and be a Better human being, right?

Imagine being that kind of person like someone who has no self-esteem. You see Barbara's character and so you are, you are attached to her character, you are involved in her journey because that is what the narrative does and how she is improving as she becomes socially accepted by taking off her glasses because, as you know, of course suddenly now I'm much more attractive because I don't wear glasses, we all know that's how it works, guys, they see Barbara improving as a person and being more socially accepted being more confident and for them it's the ultimate power fantasy, right, they love it, They're so attached to their character and they're just enjoying the ride and then she becomes the villain of the movie, how is that kid going to feel, but this?

It's not just about your feelings, it's about something much more serious because if a person with that suggestion watched this movie and then saw the moral that it is dangerous to have role models and aspire to improve, they might believe that it is true and it is obvious, it's so obvious that Patty Jenkins wasn't trying to say that because, let's be honest, who the hell would, but the potential it has to really hurt that person, not just in terms of their feelings but in terms of how. what they feel about themselves deep down is nothing short of terrifying.

I'm frankly surprised this movie even exists. it is the most irresponsible thing you can do as a storyteller this is an aspect of storytelling that few consider and it is quite clear that jenkins was not among those few because he executed his morality so poorly and in such a haphazard manner that he not only weakened that intended morality and watery the point that it lost its force also created space for other morals to be in the text accidentally and it just so happened that this one was actually toxic like seriously, Jenkins' authorial intent here was so poorly done that I honestly have no clue What I was really trying to say in this movie as a whole, like in the prologue, lays the groundwork for a moral that you should never cheat and you should always be honest to achieve success, which in theory is a perfectly fine message. well, but then the movie forgets about that and tells a completely different moral about how you should accept loss instead of fighting to get back what already happened with Diana and Steve and then of course Barbara's character seems to have a completely different morality and then that of Maxwell Lord.

The character again seems to have something completely different between him and his son, and because the themes and morals of the film are so confusing and inconsistent, it makes the film as a whole worse, like watching a film like Captain America from 1990, it's shit. It's a terrible movie, but it's just a terrible movie like, who cares how the movie is full of jump cuts, embarrassing dialogue, and horrible acting? Who cares about something as trivial as that when this movie is actually so bad that it could actually be influencing people? in the worst possible way, unfortunately, we will never know for sure how many people were affected by this message or if fortunately no one was, but this is why Wonder Woman 1984 is the worst superhero movie ever made and that is not hyperbole to clickbait or something not only is it a movie of astonishingly bad objective quality, not only is it filmed with a toxic moral but it is the worst superhero movie because the goal of the superhero is to give people a model of what they could aspire to To be. the fundamental reason the genre exists and because patty jenkins did a shockingly bad job of ironing out its morals, it's entirely possible that she did the exact opposite, but okay, that was pretty heavy so let's ask how they could have handled better and frankly this whole problem could have been solved with just a few tweaks; would have been requiredsome minor changes to fix it completely, so in this rewritten version the movie starts with Barbara being shy and nerdy and lacking confidence like her in the He records her coworkers having a conversation and she nervously joins in by letting a fact slip and then one of her coworkers scolds her because she's being too awkward and then she physically breaks down and sobs in her office, then Diana arrives.

She looks up to her and becomes her role model just like she does in the movie and sure enough, Barbara gets the stone and wishes to be more like Diana. I'm tired of being who I am. She says I want strength from her. Personality, I want to be her and then she basically becomes like Diana, her number one role model, she doesn't steal her body which would have been very strange, imagine if the movie did something as strange as that, I'm glad that didn't happen happened, but okay, power-wise and personality-wise, she basically becomes a clone of Wonder Woman, but after the fact. she is constantly thinking that this doesn't feel right, she is even less happy with herself, she is even less confident than before and this fits perfectly into Maxwell's magical system of I will grant you your deepest wish, but it comes at a terrible cost and in the In Barbara's case, that cost is not material, the cost is that what they gave her is the perfect opposite of what she needs, so as the movie progresses, she is like Diana, she has her manners and her sense of humor and all that still.

He feels so bad, so out of place, yes, he hates who he is now, but he hates the person he was before even more than in the scene where they are all around the table and Diana says that the only way to beat Maxwell is to undo all the wishes and put everything back as it was, this terrifies Barbara because she doesn't want to go back as if it were an idea that fills her with fear and so later in the white house just when Diana is grabbing Maxwell. Within moments of her defeating him and putting an end to her plans, Barbara intervenes and with great reluctance fights her and defeats her and then joins forces with Maxwell because that is the only way to avoid going back to how she used to be then. on the plane, just before the climax, she is not acting all confident and superior as she does in the movie, but rather she is having a nervous breakdown, she is paralyzed with anxiety because something feels very wrong and she says she has no idea Who is he supposed to be? then maxwell is all sinister and the devil on his shoulder says i know who you have to be who cares about barbara the boring old historian she was pathetic who would she want to be she i'm right and then barbara nods and then she leans forward ominously and says it's because you haven't gone far enough, so you're not happy, and then Maxwell convinces her, against her better judgement, to stray even further from the original.

I'll be honest, like the specific line I want. being a top predator is the most embarrassing phrase I've heard in recent years, it's more embarrassing than the ending of fant4stic and it's like, the thing is like wow, this is fantastic, well, are we some kind of fantastic four? it is worse. than that and I can't think of any way to make it less embarrassing, but somehow maxwell convinces barbara to become even less like the person she used to be to escape her humanity completely and that's what turns her into a cheetah and, For the record, I think the way they used Cheetah in this movie was a really dumb use of the character.

It could have been like it was done in so many better ways but we're not trying to fix the whole movie here we're just trying to fix the moral in the climax and we also said before that for Maxwell to be defeated it's not Max who needs to give up to the wish or even everyone on earth, they are simply everyone who made their wish before max did it somehow, the rule is established that if diana and barbara give up their wishes that will defeat maxwell once and for all and So this presents a really powerful opportunity to tie Barbara's character arc to the climax, so instead of Barbara just getting beaten up in a fistfight by Diana and then the movie forgets about her after that point, the Climax is resolved when Barbara faces her demons and realizes that the real problem has nothing to do with Maxwell's magic, but is because she was ashamed of who she was in the first place, she was depressed because no one .

He loved her, but how could anyone love her if she didn't love herself and gave up his desire for her and chose to be herself again? That's what defeats Maxwell and saves the world and then in the falling action we see Barbara coming back to her. old job, but instead of crying alone in her office like she did with the star, she walks confidently as if she were making friends with her coworkers and we repeat what we saw at the beginning of the movie as if her coworkers were chatting and her. she picks on some nerdy trivia and the same guy from before tries to punish her, but she just brushes them off and doesn't really care what they think because she's learned to love herself and be proud of who she really is on the inside.

That sounds a lot better immoral for this movie compared to what I actually had and what do we really have to change to get that moral of the change? A few lines of dialogue change almost no plot point, as the ease with The Moral I Just Fixed in this movie shows how easy it could have been for the creators to fix this if they were a little more aware of what they were doing, so I said before that Jenkins made the classic new writer's mistake. of not sticking to the same moral throughout his story and constantly going and throwing out various ideas and as a result the moral he was trying to convey ended up being very weak and lacking any kind of strength, the truth is that this is a writer new incredibly common. mistake, I'm sure that for those of you who watch and have written stories, you probably thought about this topic at some point in your career, couldn't decide what you wanted your story to say, and as a result, your story didn't actually say anything because I was trying to say so many things at once and this leads to a larger point because it feels bad to say that this movie is poorly written because it's just not accurate enough for diagnosis.

You know, it's saying that this movie is poorly written, it's like when you go to the doctor and then the doctor says, well, you're sick, oh chitchi, that's such an accurate diagnosis of why I'm sick, thank you more specifically, it seems like it was the anyone's first attempt at writing a script because of the sheer number and variety of amateur mistakes here and speaking of which, let's talk about tone, at the beginning of the movie there's a scene in a mall where Wonder Woman is stopping a robbery and Everything has a very familiar feeling. overall, um, the actors are giving ridiculous, over-the-top performances, the music is whimsical and, you know, with jingle bells and it's music that would fit perfectly in a family Christmas movie and like in this scene like there's a There's a kid in in the middle of a gunfight, but the way it's presented, the audience doesn't fear for the boy's life at all because it's so obvious that the boy is going to be okay because it's such a joyful, quirky feeling. this clip is from the opening scene in the mall sorry sorry okay and this clip and the next part are not a joke this is from the same movie 10 minutes later hello honey you need help no .

I'm fine, thanks, you know, it looks like you're having trouble walking on those hills, uh, okay, I wear these heels all the time, come on, let me walk you home, I'm not going home, let me go. I'm just trying to help you with what starts the movie off with borderline lazy town shenanigans. Robbie rotten could have been the guy who robbed that jewelry store and he would have been a good fit and then ten minutes later we had that, do I have to explain why? this is a bad creative decision, do you need me to tell you, oh the baffling ones, the whole plot structure, pacing and various devices, oh look, here's john truby's anatomy story, if you look at the page 396, talk about tones and you don't need me to do that I keep damaging my stuff you don't need me to do that because we can all intrinsically feel how terrible this is it's just horrible and disgusting but I think what's worth saying is when I wrote my first script, which was my first attempt at telling a story.

I made exactly this mistake. I mean, it didn't have that scene in the park or anything like that like Jesus Christ, no, no, no, no, but the script started out as kind of a light-hearted family adventure and then towards the end it became more and more bleak to the point that the actual story ended in a very dark place and the reason why there was such an inconsistent tone. It's just that I didn't know what I wanted the story to be and what I wanted to be was constantly changing while I was writing the script. This movie feels like it was written by me when I was sixteen, which if you read my writing then you'll know is the perfect opposite of a compliment.

One thing I'm going to say here is as a promise so you can hold me accountable when I reach my million subscriber mark. I'll show you my first time. some script and what's really interesting is that I filmed it and I play the protagonist as if he were the main character and I gave up after filming the first half hour because I realized how terrible and embarrassing it was, but when we got to the million subscribers, I'll show you, I promise, but anyway, complete inconsistency is a basic level writing error, for me personally it was the first lesson I learned as a writer, it was the first.

Say what you want about a movie like Batman and Robin, but at least the movie knows what it wants to be, at least it picks a tone and sticks to it throughout, and it's also a terrible idea to start the movie with that. tone of well, this is a family event show that you can bring the kids to and then in that same movie, those kids react like, what's that cat? Is there a stray cat outside? He looks like grandma. Kind of like I saw this movie when I was nine, like bits of it were pure nightmare fuel for me, like parts of it were like Pedro Pascal's face started bleeding, that's how for adults, it's well, but I imagine myself as little children.

That's terrifying, and yet so many parts of the movie are trying to convince you, hey, it's a family adventure, the movie doesn't know what it wants to be, but speaking of amateur writing mistakes, that's a transition that could have been used anywhere in this. video let's talk about the dialogue again for a second because I want to make a larger point about this movie which I'm sure includes the terrible Toby Wiseau level dialogue, it's also a much bigger point than that, okay, so if you've Having seen the trailers for this movie, you'll know that Steve Trevor is resurrected in this movie and that naturally means there will be a scene where Steve walks up to Diana and says: Hi Diana, it's me, Steve, remember when I died ago. 70 years.

That was it anyway, I just got resurrected, surprise, okay, and with what I said before in mind, the fact that this movie has outrageously bad dialogue, what do you think Steve says when he sees Diana for the first time? ? How do you think his dialogue is okay vote in the comments or something like that this is you're going to love it diana diana excuse me I don't even know you so please stop following me good night I wish we had more time that's what steve told him he says to Diana when he sees her for the first time after her resurrection, so like I said before, sometimes I have a hard time understanding humans, but even this was too much for me, okay, imagine if you died and it was a very Traumatic, it would leave a huge hole. in the lives of everyone you left behind, as often something very tragic happens and then you close your eyes, feeling cold and alone as you brace yourself and embrace the darkness and fear the nothingness that might come next, suddenly it's 2091. 70 years in the future half-life 3 is finally out cd projekt red has finally released its next game insert a joke here about game of thrones will finally have the next installment and you're back quantum leap style into another's body person and you have I have no idea how it happened like God didn't come to you and say yes God I haven't sent you a very specific mission my son daughter flash I have a very specific task for you and this is what What should you do. of that happened inexplicably, just imagine what's going to go through your head in that scenario, just imagine the truth is the arts for most of us would probably be something like oh something like that, but just imagine it like you.

You would feel like you would be terrified by new technology that is so advanced it might as well be magic and you would also feel deep melancholy and depression for all your loved ones and friends that you cared about a lot, but who are probably all dead at this point because so much has happened. years and like um, you would also feel deeply guilty because who was this guy's body thatdid you just steal? him and now he's gone so there's no one to feed them it's his girlfriend now dead from worry it's his family now touring the forest in a group because now he's gone missing and he's been legally registered as a missing person I don't label the point, but the wide variety and the volume of emotions you would feel in such a scenario would be too much for anyone, except perhaps a psychopath, to handle properly, like you would probably fall into depression quite easily, have a nervous breakdown and there is a there is a pretty good chance of that you really fall into madness because this is such an extreme scenario where your fundamental purpose in life and everything about your identity has been completely disrupted, but that's okay, all this goes through your head and then you discover that you your beloved spouse is still alive all these years later, so you rush straight towards them and then you see them, you see their face in a room full of people, how do you react?

Well obviously you would start shaking, you would stutter, you would walk nervously towards them, maybe your hands would shake and then you just grab them, you don't talk to them first, you just touch them just to check that they are real and physically there, that this is not a kind of sick hallucination and then you try to explain yourself but you stutter. and you fumble for your words because how would you explain yourself in a situation like oh hi, I'm your beloved spouse who's been dead for 70 years? You couldn't just say that, no one could actually say that it would be very, very socially awkward, you'd come across as an absolute lunatic and probably terrify your other half.

This is how a real person would react in a situation like this. Do we understand that? Do we have an accurate description of the human condition? No. Get this, I wish we had more time, I don't care if it's a reference to the first movie, the emotions Steve expresses or rather the complete and utter lack of emotions is just not realistic, that's not how a being would react. human in such a situation and then it gets even worse because in the next scene steve and diana are walking along the boardwalk and steve explains how he rose from the dead and how he brought out Jesus with the same monotone expression you might have when you come over.

Go home to your spouse and just explain your boring day at the office, that's not how human emotions work and we can all feel that on some level, even if it's just subconscious, like in Galaxy Quest, they have a good joke about something like this where Everyone goes through this immensely traumatizing thing when they are teleported through space and then investigated by these disgusting aliens, but one of those characters reacts to this whole situation in this way, it was hell. What's wrong with them? Don't know. and says that while everyone else is shaking in fear and getting nervous, it's funny because one of the characters acts incredibly calm in such an extreme scenario, while everyone else actually acts very realistically in the face of that very thing, but while searching for the galaxy. has that guy acting so calmly like a self-aware joke, Wonder Woman 1984 does the exact same thing, but isn't self-conscious about it even a little if the movie had simply explored Steve feeling guilty, just guilt for stealing the someone else's life that would have undoubtedly made him a more interesting character because of all that spicy internal conflict, but more importantly it would have also made him feel like a realistic character because he actually feels an emotion that we hope feels contrary to how it appears in the film. which is more of a soulless husk of a plot device, any real person will feel at least some guilt for stealing a man's life and the fact that Steve doesn't feel that dissonance prevents us from caring about his character because he clearly comes . like a two dimensional caricature that has as much depth to it as a piece of paper and how can anyone get involved in this narrative when the characters look like this and worst of all if you've ever seen this piece of trash I mean a movie?

Sorry, little Freudian slip right there, you'll know that Steve is resurrected in this random stranger's body. I need to watch my wording here because I don't get hit with the old demonetization hammer, but Steve makes the horizontal move with Diana at the same time. point while he possesses this guy's body, but he waits because the guy is being possessed, he can't consent to it, does that technically mean

wonder

woman

says the r word to this guy? The answer is yes, now this is obviously very, very bad and um. Many people say that this makes Diana and Steve seem like extremely despicable characters for doing something so evil.

I know Shadowverse made a video about this where they specifically talk about how this makes Diana basically look like a monster. I mean, when people say that it makes Diana and Steve seem like bad characters, like really bad human beings, it's not right to say that because it gives too much credit to the writers, if you watch Game of Thrones, for example, when Joffrey orders. needs to be executed, which makes the audience think that Joffrey is an evil person or when you look at the joker, he sticks a pencil in that guy's eye, which makes us think that he just murdered someone and used it as a punchline. for a joke from that joker.

The guy sure doesn't value human life at all, as both examples are great because they convey an aspect of what the characters are like deep down, wait, hello, hello, hello, oh, this is my dog, by the way, for some reason right, he has the exact same name as Daniel Green's dog by complete coincidence in the cosmic scheme of things, I have no idea how, but his nickname is the closest dog, so yes, I know he's very fluffy. Hey, I have to make videos. make videos hey, go on, come down, go, oh hi, it's my other dog, oh no, no, no, I'm recording your damn stray dogs, go, go, go, eat your bones, okay, where was I? , uh, I completely forgot.

Both examples are great. because they convey aspects of the character in who they are deep down, it is essentially an exposition and it is a good quality exposition about who that character is in Diana's background, doing the horizontal with Steve is an infinitely worse fiction because it is an accidental characterization, is giving exposure. about an aspect of her character that isn't actually there, Diana isn't really that evil, it's just that the directors completely overlooked it and as a result the immersion is broken in this way, it's so egregious because it doesn't work when I saw it well.

It didn't make me think, wow, Diana and Steve really are horrible human beings, but it made me think, wow, the person who wrote this movie really didn't think this through one bit and that's the problem, this is really horrible storytelling. because the writers. I didn't take into account such an obvious implication in what they were doing. This doesn't make Diana's character look bad. I don't like it when people say that because it gives the writers too much credit, instead it makes the writers look bad for how damn negligent they are. were when they wrote this script um also as we continue to examine this raging dumpster fire as another good example of how this movie just fails to understand humanity at the most basic level is when everyone gives up their wish at the climax, it's okay, so Maxwell Lord goes up. to the entire human race and ask everyone to make one wish each and then as far as I can tell almost everyone on the planet makes some kind of wish and then Diana with her lasso of truth tells the human race to give up to his wish and go back to the way things were and everyone on earth gives up their wish and that saves the day, the problem is that if this movie actually took place in the real world that wouldn't happen and it would look a little more Solo look like this, eyes, okay, I wish my wife didn't have cancer 12 seconds later, oh, that's what you wish for the end of world hunger.

I mean, it's a good wish, don't get me wrong, but for me, this is the best day. of my life as if my children were going to grow up without a mother as if the person I loved most in the world was going to die but that already happened, it's not going to happen and I can spend the rest of my life with that person What I love most In the world it is like that, wait, where is that music that comes from this world? It was a beautiful place just the way it was. No, it wasn't my wife.

She had a terminal illness. You can only have the truth and the truth is enough, oh. In reality, some people who are in poverty, like those who couldn't afford food or shelter and their children were starving, like all those people who simply made their wish and finally came out of misery for the first time in their lives. people who you say endure and become miserable again because the truth is enough, what does that mean? the truth is enough the truth is beautiful what gave up your wish no, yes, yes, about that, uh, the world is about to end, in a way I need you to utter that wish right now I don't care, it's not happening what then are you saying that you love your wife so much that you are willing to let millions die just when you have the chance to live yes, well, no yes This movie took place in the real world, this would be how it ended Wonder Woman 1984 is a movie of such depressingly low quality that it does such an outrageously poor job of capturing the human condition that, while it may not be the worst work of art ever created. certainly on par with stories that come out of random story generators because the AI ​​writing those stories and the creative team behind this movie seem to have as good an understanding of humanity as each other and that's the core of people.

For me, a movie that has really bad pacing and a poorly done story structure and just incomplete character arcs or boring-as-hell world building, because a movie that has all of those flaws but also has realistic characters at the same time same time would do a much better job of achieving it. its audience invested in its narrative through a film that treats its characters as reprehensibly as this film does. This is the kind of movie where the audience holds their breath waiting for a strong gust of wind to come and knock the characters off their feet. and finally revealing that they were cardboard cutouts all along because they had felt so two-dimensional from start to finish.

Well, the next point is a little political and I don't like being on this channel, but at the same time it's very important that this movie gets it wrong, so I have to talk about it. You know, sometimes a man writes a book or directs a movie and gives this completely incorrect, reductionist description of what women are really like because he just doesn't understand them. on a fundamental level, like maybe or all women love makeup and high heels and knitting and all that, they can't stand the sight of blood and every last woman is fawning over men by dreaming as if she could look like something like that. that when that happens, the audience crucifies the creator and rightly so because he is distorting reality, hurting his audience's feelings, and perpetuating incorrect stereotypes Wonder Woman 1984 is exactly the other way around instead of a male director misrepresenting women. she is a director who misrepresents men, which is equally bad, it shouldn't be controversial to say all the men in this movie with the two exceptions of steve and a homeless man who has about three lines of dialogue for each male character.

This movie is absolutely disgusting. I need to watch my language carefully because you already know about YouTube demonetization, etc., but instead of just explaining and giving examples, I'll play a bunch of clips and let the movie speak for itself. Let me know. If you think this is misrepresenting what the average man is like, do you have everything he ever wanted? Sorry, I didn't see you there. Hey, we can share it if you want. No, thanks. Hi honey, you need help. No. I'm fine, thank you, let's go with me. I'm just trying to help you. I don't have a television.

Well, I have a great relationship with Sears. I can get you a new TV at the end of the day. 19 inches without conditions. attached hey, how are you? Hey, they're beautiful, no, thank you, excuse me, oh Diana, waiting to see you, uh, listen, I've been eyeing you for some time now, so if you ever need it now, there are men as evil as this. Of course it does, no one denies that there are undeniably a group of asshole guys in the world who see the other gender as nothing more than objects to gorecat and use for their own purposes, sadly, it's unfortunate that people like that actually exist. but if the movie had a handful of people like that, there would be nothing wrong with that because it's true to life, but making every character, every last one of them, a monster is a misrepresentation that is just insulting at best. in some cases and truly harmful in the worst.

So this is the Internet, naturally someone will disagree with me right now in the comments, so let's talk to those people. I imagine some people are saying that Jenkins was trying to say that women can persevere against any obstacle they face.look in life and it just happens that sometimes those obstacles are men, in theory, it's an admirable message, but for the people trying to defend Jenkins here they shouldn't be given the time of day because even if Jenkins conveyed that moral of effectively, that couldn't be an excuse. for misrepresenting men because there is no such thing as a justification for misrepresentation a justified misrepresentation is a non-sequitur that is simply not the case those are two words that cannot work together if someone wanted to convey a moral in some way but to do so That is, they had to misrepresent a sexual orientation or a religion or members of an ethnicity, which is not okay because misrepresentation is always harmful as far as I'm concerned and the good karma that comes from giving that positive moral whatever the Hell, the moral is that it will be far outweighed by the much greater negative karma of misrepresenting a group, hurting their feelings, and perpetuating incorrect stereotypes.

This is the main problem with misrepresenting any group of people because stereotypes exist and it's a weird day. that they are accurate and one day even more rare that they are not harmful and what this movie does instead of doing what it should have done instead of breaking stereotypes and giving an accurate depiction of what reality is, instead reinforces them and Credit the opinions of people who view such groups incorrectly, but to give Patty Jenkins some credit, I'm guessing she's probably not an evil person. It seems like this comes from a point of ignorance about actual malice which, frankly, most of the time is exactly how the misrepresentation actually occurs, of course that's not a justification, it's actually an explanation for how she's screwed.

If you can't immerse yourself in the perspective of someone who isn't you because of some differences you have between them, maybe you're a devout atheist but they're a Christian, maybe you're fine eating meat but you're writing as a vegetarian if you can't immerse yourself in the mind of that person, really understand it and give an authentic description of who they are, if you can't do that, you're a bad writer now I'm not calling you a bad writer, but you get what I mean, a failure to do that equals a bad narration and

wonder

woman 1984 turns out to have that failure in swords um and speaking of swords, swords are used to digging holes and plots have holes and that's okay I have no idea how to connect that can you just pretend that in a good transition is spoken of at such a poor pace?

What is the most common criticism of this film when you are creating a huge 50+ hour film? A game like The Witcher 3 or a big, thick novel like Stormlight, this isn't as hard or fast and may come a little later, but with scripts you have to be, I don't want to say formulaic, but you have to be ruthlessly efficient. your plot, the general consensus in screenwriting circles is that you want your goading instance to happen about 12 minutes into your movie, about 20 minutes is when it starts to go too far, like you could probably get away with that, but I think 20 minutes is a bit much and ideally you want it to come a little early, but in the case of this movie the inciting incident is when Pedro Pascal's character grabs the wishing stone and basically wishes for unlimited wishes, that's right when the plot begins.

So with that in mind, the fact that the general consensus is that you want the inciting incident to happen about 12 minutes into the movie, guess how much time passes in this movie and until Maxwell gets the stone, just guess they are 50 minutes. It means that the audience is watching for almost a full hour before things really start to happen, the plot really starts to move and, sure, after Maxwell gets hold of the stone, the plot starts to get a little more interesting. from that moment on, but as before that point. The film is a real slog to finish, it's unbearably slow.

If the Wonder Woman 1984 script landed on a film producer's desk in the form of an unsolicited spec script, it would be guaranteed to be scrapped based on this issue alone. alone and rightly so, so to break this movie's balls, let's compare it to The Dark Knight, a movie that most video essays can't fit into a video without referencing, including me, but it's a movie that is praised for many reasons and is love for many reasons. and I think the most impressive thing the movie does is how it's practically perfectly paced, so to figure out where the dark knight is so well paced, let's look at the dinner scene where Bruce meets Harvey, it only lasts a few minutes. , is quite short, but this scene accomplishes many things for the story: firstly, it fleshes out the character of Harvey, as well as Bruce's relationship with him, it also introduces a central theme of the film: either you die a hero. or you live long enough to become the villain, and it also ends with bruce promising to host a fundraiser for harvey, which sets up a later scene in the next scene, after this the joker meets the mob bosses and this scene is so much like developing the joker's character that it introduces the fact that the mob is desperate.

Because batman and harvey are doing a good job fighting them, he introduces the chinese banker and says how he's running away to hong kong and that sets the stage for the later scenes where batman comes after him, sets up the joker plot and the mafia works together to eliminate batman, it also introduces the rivalry between the joker and the game where he offers him a reward and thus sets up a later scene where the joker comes after the game and frankly i don't want to label the point like giving more examples but you get the idea but the reason the dark knight is basically perfectly paced is because each and every scene does so much for the overall narrative nothing is redundant even a little bit and that , if you ask me, it's the bread and butter of good pacing and this right here is one of the things that makes a great writer great because it's hard to write a standalone scene that's entertaining in itself, it's exponentially harder to write one Sequence entertaining scenes and have them all intertwine into one grander scene. connected story, the ability to do that is one of the things that makes a great storyteller great, and if you can do that, you're most of the way to writing truly brilliant fiction, but now we've seen a movie with fantastic stories. pace, let's look at Wonder Woman 1984, so the first scene is Diana competing in an Amazonian triathlon.

It's 11 minutes long, an extremely long sequence, and what purpose does it serve in the narrative? It does nothing for the story or establishes Diana's character arc. or any plot element like this, half lays the foundation for what could have been the theme of this story, as we discussed earlier, if you want to win, you must do it honestly, as cheating never pays, but this theme is never take advantage of this at any time. A movie like this scene does nothing for the greater story, okay? And the next scene after this is at the mall where she arrests the robbery at the jewelry store.

What does this scene do for the overall narrative it establishes in the magical mcguffin in which the plot takes place? spin because these guys were trying to steal it, that's it, it has a purpose and then the next scene after this wonder woman is depressed and goes out to dinner alone, what does this do? He tells us that Wonder Woman still misses Steve. and he's alone and again that's it, this does one thing for the narrative, like at this point in the movie, we're 20 minutes in, there's no inciting incident in sight and so far this movie has only done two things for the narrative that is established. that Diana is lonely and has introduced the mcguffin that's a purpose every 10 minutes this is outrageously bad pacing because very little happens narratively speaking in such a large amount of time as going back to the dark knight that scene with the joker and the mafia Meets five things to the overall narrative and that scene is only four and a half minutes long, like when you compare it to Wonder Woman 1984.

It's almost funny how the difference between day and night is like what's really bad here is like a lot of the movies. problems that would have been very easy to fix as it wouldn't have been very difficult to adjust this aperture at all for a thermoskira aperture as it was without a doubt the scene in the movie that I enjoyed the most in terms of entertainment. I think it's the best scene in the movie and, all that being said, it should have been cut exactly the same goes for the many scenes where Steve wanders around looking at the world with all sorts of things like, yeah, it's fun to watch him gape. this museum has really good entertainment value and should have been cut, despite being one of the best moments in the movie, this is all because it does nothing to reinforce the overall narrative, why couldn't they take the scene in the mall and the one where she's depressed feeling lonely at the restaurant and just merge them together so the movie starts with that montage of Maxwell's voice, then we see Diana sitting alone at a table in the mall and feeling lonely, but Then the store is robbed and he quickly puts on his armor and goes to fight them.

Now, the inciting incident occurs roughly 35 minutes into the movie's release instead of 50. That's still pretty awful, but it's so much better. This all comes back to what I As I said earlier, great fiction is not about writing individual scenes that are entertaining, but rather about writing a sequence of scenes that weave into a larger narrative, obviously the only exception to this is if you're writing short stories or something, but sometimes as a writer. you need to have the discipline to do this now this is the best scene I've ever written the characters are snappy the dialogue is witty oh I just love it but he doesn't weave into the narrative as well as he could I guess I'll have to delete it and again, this is One of those key skills that makes a truly great novelist or screenwriter is the ability to write a scene that is truly a joy to read or watch something that you are so proud of because it's really entertaining but have the discipline to knock it out anyway because it doesn't intertwine with the overall story as well as you might know the whole phrase kill your darlings i think stephen king coined it um it's basically a cliché at this point when it comes to writing advice, but this is exactly that and if the creators of Wonder Woman 1984 had they had the discipline to kill their beloved scenes, it would have made the pacing of this movie much better for you writers, like a really quick tip, this is something I do and it's actually very useful once Once you've written your story, write a list of the scenes in chronological order and then, right next to each scene, the purpose it gives to the overall narrative, if you can, if it has like three or four cool things, if it's just one thing or God forbid, see if you can't delete that scene or merge it with another scene so you can basically condense your story a little more.

If you can do it, I promise it will speed up your pace quite a bit. okay, we're getting close to the end, but for the final part of this video let's talk about the utter incompetence with which this movie uses its magic systems, so when it comes to the fantasy genre there's a very common complaint and of course true, this movie falls into the fantasy genre because it has magic and the complaint is this: I don't like fantasy because when magic is involved it can solve any problem at any time and in any way when it kills it gets involved instead of the writer solves it. conflicts in a satisfying way, the magic will suddenly develop a new quirk that will be used to resolve said thing, so it becomes an unsatisfying fic, that's a complaint I've heard from many people over the years and my Dad literally says it every time I.

Have you ever talked about fantasy, if a book or movie does this, it's a perfectly valid reason to dislike that story, but the problem with this complaint is that too often people don't mention specific books that do this, They imply that the entire genre falls into the trap. this problem and that is wrong and here's why if a magic system suddenly develops new quirks and those quirks are then used to solve a problem that is not just any old magic system that is a poorly written magic system, now this whole issue is a little complicated. pandora's box so I can't fully explore it, but the essence of how to do this is to solve problems only using aspects of magic that have already been demonstrated and that the audience already fully understands the first law of magic by brandon sanderson according to the author's.

The ability to resolve in a satisfactory manner with magic is directly proportional to how wellthe reader understands said magic. Also before he forgets. Praise our lord and savior Brando Sandow. Praise be. Praise be. He once tweeted me saying that he liked my video on how to do fight scenes. I'm very happy about that. I still smile every time I think about it. Come in, come in, I'm sorry, I'm not being very professional now, am I? But getting back to that, it's unfair to say. that using magic in a story inherently results in deus ex machinas and unsatisfying resolutions because magic only does that if it's poorly written, speaking of poorly written magic systems, let's look at Wonder Woman 1984.

So, looking at the first Wonder Woman and Batman movie vs Superman. and justice league, what are the powers of wonder woman's lasso? What can she do? It forces people to tell the truth. That's all. It's the only thing it can do if you have it on you. You can't lie and it will force you to tell your darkest secrets that's how the bond works and that's the only thing it can do or rather used to do, so leave out the doctor who with your sonic screwdriver whose powers change from one to the other. season to season because a new magic item has taken the crown of Suddenly, he pulls random abilities out of his ass and does whatever the writer feels he can do at the moment.

Do you hand out exposition dumps where anyone who sees it hallucinates and then sees visions? Sure why not? Acts as Thor's hammer. he can spin it and then it propels you towards the sky, sure to throw it there too. It clings to lightning the same way Spider-Man's webs cling to buildings and thus propels it through the sky, it just throws it there like well you've already invented a bunch of other powers let's add some more when you touch someone, does it make him see the truth, not to speak his truth out loud, it doesn't force him to never lie, but it makes him see the inner truth when you touch him, sure why not, he never could do that before , but let's throw it in anyway, like yeah, I know a lot of those powers come from the comics, but that's not a good excuse, look at Thor's hammer for example in the mcu from the beginning. you can only do four things, you can only wield it if you're worthy, it allows you to summon lightning, you can spin it and make yourself go to the sky and you can also summon it from a distance, like from the beginning the mcu has been really consistent with how mjolnir works, like In Thor 3, the hammer doesn't suddenly develop the ability to give Thor psychic powers, and rightly so, because if it did. it would have just come out of nowhere and a very similar problem would have been really unpleasant when dealing with magic.

The first thing you should do with it is be consistent because the moment you stop being consistent you sacrifice your ability to resolve conflicts to satisfy ways with this as our lord and savior brando sando said crazy our lord and savior brando sando but look at the lasso's ability to make people see the truth, it is an item ability that has never been shown before and is the first time it is shown The moment it is used to resolve the climax in this movie, it envelops Maxwell and makes everyone see the truth through him, but this is a textbook example of how not to use magic because this magic is used to resolve the main plot in exactly the right way.

At the same moment it is presented for the first time as if it were a deeply unsatisfying moment in the story, but what makes it even worse is that this is not the only time this movie shows this moment where the plane is being stolen, but Then they say oh no, but what about the radar? It's presented as a big deal, but then Wonder Woman says oh silly, I forgot to mention this before. I can turn things invisible from time to time they turn the plane invisible. What's interesting about this example is how it's yet another example of a classic amateur writing mistake, so all too often as a writer what will happen is that you're progressing through your story when suddenly your characters run into a problem and You have no idea how to get over it. what you've established in the story, then what you're going to do then is pull something out of nothing, suddenly the magic system can do something that's never been shown before or one of the characters has an item that they use to solve it. the plot and it's an object that's never been shown before in the entire story, like this is something that happens all the time in early drafts and it's perfectly fine to do this because what will happen is you use this completely unforeseen thing and then you take your notebook and just write a note in it to yourself, you remember to foreshadow this much earlier in the story in a later draft and that's all well and good because it adheres to the magic of Sanderson's first lord.

I appreciate the lord and savior Brandon, that whole thing with Wonder Woman 1984 It feels like they did exactly that, they took out their note and wrote all their notes on it about what they were supposed to foreshadow and all that, but then they lost it, they must have made it invisible like Diana did it with that damn mug. she mentioned because a lot of these problems would have been easy to fix, a really very easy example, when Diana turns that plane invisible, all you had to do was play a 10 second clip somewhere earlier in the movie of her just practicing to turn something invisible, like just show her practicing and almost get it right, but if it fails, you spend just 10 seconds of the movie a bit on a montage, I don't know somewhere that would have helped fix this problem and what does the magic. in this movie it's much worse that he breaks his own rules, he makes rules about how things work and then he breaks them, no, you wish you had an audience with the president today, of course, wait a minute if I ask you. your wish from the day before yesterday a bad take the movie goes out of its way to establish the one wish per person rule is a limit of the magic system that even maxwell has to deal with, but later in the movie when max and barbara are on On the plane this happens but you only get one wish, but I could grant wishes so I take what I want in return.

Barbara already made her wish and Maxwell basically says oh oh no, it's okay, really, as if he's always had the ability to grant it. multiple wishes per person as i have always had that ability just let me know what you want and i will grant you a second wish it's really no big deal it's one wish per person or unlimited wishes per person what the movie is you can't decide and this is just the overwhelming Lack of care that went into crafting this story is downright depressing and what makes it even worse is that it's a really easy problem to fix, but all you need to do is change it. a line from maxwell so when barbara says but you only get one wish maxwell then says but you didn't do it through me you did it through the stone do i look like a stone to you as far as i'm concerned?

I haven't granted your wish yet, so let me know what you personally want now. I'd be really embarrassed to have something like that in my own story, but at least it's an explanation, you know, it makes some sense compared to the whole story. A silly explanation the movie actually gave us and don't get me started on Wonder Woman suddenly learning to fly, how did she do that? The only basis for the explanation is that she learned a lesson as a person that she learned to let go. steve and gave up his wish, he learned to let go of the past, he just learned a lesson in his mind and it gave him additional superpowers, how is it and also what makes it even worse is that in Batman vs Superman we see Diana on a commercial plane .

That means she can't fly currently, so how did she lose her ability to fly between 1984 and Batman v Superman? We don't know, I don't think we'll ever get an answer to how she got it. powers first of all, this is the kind of thing you'd expect to see written by a 15 year old on fanfiction.net, it really is, this is just oh my god, and like me, I had a completely different section of this video planned . which I just had to cut for my own sanity, but it was basically like outlining all the plot holes in this movie and I saw a bunch of them that I don't think anyone else has mentioned and they are completely immersion breaking for me, um , I can't, I'm not going to do the whole section, but I'll tell you my favorite, right?

My favorite is so close to the beginning that the relic is almost stolen, so the FBI gives it to the museum. because they want an expert's opinion on it, but then Diana likes, like half an hour later in the movie, she takes the lid off, takes the hay out of the bottom of this box and there's this fucking receipt that says Maxwell Lord and the name of your company. that's what you're telling me you're telling me patty jenkins pat patty dear patty patty patty piper fat jenkins I'm going crazy you're telling me that the FBI found this relic at a crime scene right and at a crime scene and clearly they cared a lot because they wanted an expert's opinion they didn't like this they thought it was very important you're telling me that they took it from the crime scene and they didn't actually look inside because if they had looked inside this box, if they would have spent the three seconds necessary to pay attention to it , they would have found a receipt linking this stolen item to Maxwell Lord, then they would have had concrete evidence that he had committed crimes and bought things illegally. and then he would have been arrested and the movie wouldn't have happened the plot would have been resolved how does that work as a checkmate atheists like it and they like it what I really mean here is this in terms of I like the videos that have been the most traumatic for me mentally, this is not the worst, the worst I have ever done was survive in metal gear.

I made a video on another channel, like a second channel, I called it ruski, I abandoned it. the channel at this point, but if you want to see me having a real mental breakdown after analyzing something like really breaking it as a person on screen and how terrible the thing is, go watch my thing, it's called like metal day. the team died or something, it's whatever, I have to stop now for my own sanity, uh, but anyway, uh, like the subscribe, follow the like button, there's the pattern. Tweet me on patreon. I'm going to collapse now, cheers. knee