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Wonder Woman 1984
- Thread starter Alias
- Start date
Wonder Woman was considered by many to be a highlight in Batman v Superman. When everyone else was being as Snyder as Snyder could Snyder, she was the closest thing to a ray of hope that the movie had.
So her solo movie came out with a director that wasn't going to take corporate bullshit, and who wanted to have her vision of an iconic female hero. It was a major success (even if that final act turned into beam spam and weakened the climax a fair bit).
Justice League was going to tank, and we find out later on that unsurprisingly it wasn't just compassionate reasons that had Snyder leaving. First thing to do... add more Wonder Woman. Even though the film was a dog, no one could accuse the failure on the portrayal played by Gal Gadot.
Yes, things have gone well for DC since those times, but every time that a new movie comes out the little question pops up, "OK, but is this the time that the execs barge in and turn this string of successes into failures?" To be honest, I personally think from all that has been seen so far from the Birds of Prey movie that it will end up being that big stumble, but DC has been really trying to just make good movies.
So, with all that rant in mind, I think that this is looking completely unsurprisingly good. A working team in on the job, and I think that DC is rightfully gun shy of messing with the Wonder Woman franchise since it started the whole thing where movies are profitable, accepted by audiences, and not panned by critics. That, and they might have a tiny bit of common sense and realize that leaning on the female director to try and push more Justice League or whatnot would be very bad, so shut up and let her direct.
Though if they don't play this in the lassoing scene it will be a criminal action:
(the album came out in 1984, so it is completely thematically appropriate)
So her solo movie came out with a director that wasn't going to take corporate bullshit, and who wanted to have her vision of an iconic female hero. It was a major success (even if that final act turned into beam spam and weakened the climax a fair bit).
Justice League was going to tank, and we find out later on that unsurprisingly it wasn't just compassionate reasons that had Snyder leaving. First thing to do... add more Wonder Woman. Even though the film was a dog, no one could accuse the failure on the portrayal played by Gal Gadot.
Yes, things have gone well for DC since those times, but every time that a new movie comes out the little question pops up, "OK, but is this the time that the execs barge in and turn this string of successes into failures?" To be honest, I personally think from all that has been seen so far from the Birds of Prey movie that it will end up being that big stumble, but DC has been really trying to just make good movies.
So, with all that rant in mind, I think that this is looking completely unsurprisingly good. A working team in on the job, and I think that DC is rightfully gun shy of messing with the Wonder Woman franchise since it started the whole thing where movies are profitable, accepted by audiences, and not panned by critics. That, and they might have a tiny bit of common sense and realize that leaning on the female director to try and push more Justice League or whatnot would be very bad, so shut up and let her direct.
Though if they don't play this in the lassoing scene it will be a criminal action:
Whew! So that was optimism! So 2019.
Good news/bad news time!
After many delays, WB is going to do what they promised they were not going to do! Give WW1984 a digital release! December 25th.
Good news is that this is concurrent with the global theater release, so if you have access to theaters you can see it there.
The second, almost good, news is that people who have HBO Max in the US will be able to watch it without any extra cost to their subscriptions (for a month, because WB is incompetent and rotates what is available on their platform even when they have full control of the IP). So it is kind of like Mulan (which Disney is surprisingly saying did well on digital, and that they are looking to do it again), but without the extra 30 dollars.
The bad news is that the digital release is for the US market, and that it is on HBO Max. Worst of the streaming services, if it is available at the moment, you can watch it in non-HDR muddyvision at 1080p. Because that is the best they offer!
My concluding thoughts are that this may be alright if you live in one of those rare places where theaters are open and you don't have much to fear from the pandemic. Otherwise you should probably wait for a better digital version to come out that won't look quite so bad. If you even have access at all, while this realistically promises to be a limited release. Which WB will make minimal money on since 1) so many places don't have open theaters; 2) HBO Max is limited in global reach; 3) new subscribers will make tiny profits, and they didn't even try to get their ancient tech team to make a purchase model; and 4) so many people would rather just wait and see it in better quality.
Good news/bad news time!
After many delays, WB is going to do what they promised they were not going to do! Give WW1984 a digital release! December 25th.
Good news is that this is concurrent with the global theater release, so if you have access to theaters you can see it there.
The second, almost good, news is that people who have HBO Max in the US will be able to watch it without any extra cost to their subscriptions (for a month, because WB is incompetent and rotates what is available on their platform even when they have full control of the IP). So it is kind of like Mulan (which Disney is surprisingly saying did well on digital, and that they are looking to do it again), but without the extra 30 dollars.
The bad news is that the digital release is for the US market, and that it is on HBO Max. Worst of the streaming services, if it is available at the moment, you can watch it in non-HDR muddyvision at 1080p. Because that is the best they offer!
My concluding thoughts are that this may be alright if you live in one of those rare places where theaters are open and you don't have much to fear from the pandemic. Otherwise you should probably wait for a better digital version to come out that won't look quite so bad. If you even have access at all, while this realistically promises to be a limited release. Which WB will make minimal money on since 1) so many places don't have open theaters; 2) HBO Max is limited in global reach; 3) new subscribers will make tiny profits, and they didn't even try to get their ancient tech team to make a purchase model; and 4) so many people would rather just wait and see it in better quality.
They didn't seem to have as massive of an ad budget as some of the other DC movies, but conventional wisdom turns the $220M gross into a $75M net, not counting ads and such. With an $85M budget it might have broken even on later digital sales, but probably not on the theater run. Can't really call it a Covid problem, since it came out while things were still mostly under control.
My thought are that it was... OK. Entertaining, but not the kind of movie that I would watch over and over again. Not as deep as it pretended to be, which was a trend with the movie in general.
Part of the losses likely came from the whacky and confusing title. Most people don't know the Birds of Prey, so they instead made it a Harley Quinn movie. But instead of calling it Harley Quinn they just tacked her into the tail end of the title. Which then made people wonder if the trailers were lying, and it was just showing the Harley parts in a movie about people they don't know.
These kind of confusing decisions lost them sales, guaranteed. Eventually they tried to do damage control and renamed it in theaters Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey, but by then the potential sales had already been lost.
Which should mean a lot. Social media and reviewers were really whoring themselves out for the movie, declaring it to be one of the best things ever. That should have boosted sales, but WB's marketing and the strange title countered that influence. Then again, I think some people just avoided the movie because of the over-the-top enthusiasm from annoying fans.
The movie was fine. Not bad, not great, but fine.
Some good news for people who are in the US who already subscribe to the substandard HBO Max!
Everything else will still be muddy color and low resolution, and you will only have access to the content as long as the service supports streaming of their own exclusive intellectual property, but at least this one time you won't feel cheated. Congratulations!
Everything else will still be muddy color and low resolution, and you will only have access to the content as long as the service supports streaming of their own exclusive intellectual property, but at least this one time you won't feel cheated. Congratulations!
OK, so maybe I have been a little harsh.
Sure, HBO Max is in the US only, and it discontinues its own properties for no reason. And maybe they do currently offer only low resolution video with poor color. But I guess they can change.
As one person sagely stated, HBO will actually become America's Home Box Office. For a month. After that, who knows if or when it will show up again.
The new releases will also be available in 4K HDR, and apparently they are trying to roll out the feature to more of their library, so they are sort of taking this partially seriously. Not "we will expand beyond the US" seriously, but... baby steps.
Wonder Woman 1984 will be the point of this spear (that's why I'm keeping these comments in this thread). If people subscribe to watch the movie and have a good experience, they might be convinced to stay for the upcoming big box office releases. And then, like all streaming services, they will hope that people will just forget to unsubscribe if/when they lose interest.
Sure, HBO Max is in the US only, and it discontinues its own properties for no reason. And maybe they do currently offer only low resolution video with poor color. But I guess they can change.
As one person sagely stated, HBO will actually become America's Home Box Office. For a month. After that, who knows if or when it will show up again.
The new releases will also be available in 4K HDR, and apparently they are trying to roll out the feature to more of their library, so they are sort of taking this partially seriously. Not "we will expand beyond the US" seriously, but... baby steps.
Wonder Woman 1984 will be the point of this spear (that's why I'm keeping these comments in this thread). If people subscribe to watch the movie and have a good experience, they might be convinced to stay for the upcoming big box office releases. And then, like all streaming services, they will hope that people will just forget to unsubscribe if/when they lose interest.
Damar
Active member
So the movie is getting rated lower than the 'worst' MCU movie(I personally like Thor: Dark World more than Ragnarok) due to a number of reasons like being 2.5 hours long with very little action and what there is not very memorable, and it made the formerly idealistic hero seem like a bad person for essentially raping a guy due to her lover Steve's soul possessing his mind and body after making a Monkey Paw wish, and for the majority of the movie seriously intending to let Steve keep the body thus effectively killing the former occupant.
While they announced a third movie, I have doubts at the moment if it will be made anytime soon.
While they announced a third movie, I have doubts at the moment if it will be made anytime soon.
Was it better than the first Wonder Woman movie? No.
Was it just as good as the first movie? No.
Was it a bad movie? No.
Was it just kind of OK? Yes.
Will I watch it again? I don't know. Maybe someday. If there ever comes a day where I am finally all caught up on every piece of entertainment. OK, so maybe not.
Was it just as good as the first movie? No.
Was it a bad movie? No.
Was it just kind of OK? Yes.
Will I watch it again? I don't know. Maybe someday. If there ever comes a day where I am finally all caught up on every piece of entertainment. OK, so maybe not.
Mr Wumbo
Well-known member
Wow, this is a really wacky movie. Max Lord is a really fun "villain" and the whole escalating wish thing with the world crashing down comes across as somewhat hilarious to me because of how everything just happening in rapid successions, like I expect yakety sax to just start blaring during the scene of chaos. I mean yeah it's 2.5 hours long, but despite of that the movie still feels... cramped, like the writers honestly didn't do a very good job with compressing the story, although I'm not in the opinion that the film feels boring, I think the pacing is pretty decent.