Wonder Woman

[Pattern Ghost]

I say "most pro wrestlers." Good chunk of pro athletes. People do foolish things to themselves for large amounts of money.

[Hermit]

I say "most pro wrestlers." Good chunk of pro athletes. People do foolish things to themselves for large amounts of money.

You know, what I did in my youth is no one's biz and...

oh, wrestling... yeah... let's go with that

[dmjalund]

To be fair, it's been probably decades since WW did any training in earnest

[Starlord]

Last I saw Gadot went one-on-one with Doomsday trapping him with her lasso, while Gina Carano was getting her ass kicked by first Michelle Rodriguez then Colossus.

 

*drops mike and walks off*

[Ragitsu]

Last I saw Gadot went one-on-one with Doomsday trapping him with her lasso, while Gina Carano was getting her ass kicked by first Michelle Rodriguez then Colossus.

 

*drops mike and walks off*

 

Ain't movie magic great?

[Greywind]

Last I saw Gadot went one-on-one with Doomsday trapping him with her lasso, while Gina Carano was getting her ass kicked by first Michelle Rodriguez then Colossus.

 

*drops mike and walks off*

 

Did you see it when she kicked both Obi-Wan's and Magneto's asses?

[Starlord]

Ain't movie magic great?

 

Yep...its all in the performance.

[Ragitsu]

Yep...its all in the performance.

 

Moreso editing tricks in this case.

 

A good performance is a good performance. Nothing supernatural about it.

[zslane]

Well, quite frankly, I'd rather watch a hottie like Gadot over a giantess like Chyna any day. I don't care that Gadot isn't as physically intimidating as "the real Wonder Woman" (ha!). She's smokin' hot and looks great as WW. That's good enough for me.

[Ragitsu]

As they say, "any port in a storm..."

[zslane]

As long as it's hot.

[bigdamnhero]

In general I believe there are many things that Hollywood fails at regularly. I have gone on record repeatedly expressing the opinion that Hollywood writers are mostly lazy, sloppy, mediocre hacks that don't deserve to be called writers. However, there are many things which are legitimately difficult to do in the realm of filmmaking. Casting humans as superheroes is one of them.

Having met a few screenwriters and talked with a number of people in the biz, it seems like the problem is less that Hollywood writers are hacks than that filmmaking is a collaborative art form where the scriptwriter has less clout than the key grip. The original script may well have been brilliant, or at least coherent. But then the producer brings in his re-writer to make it "30% funnier." And the Director insists there has to be a Giant Spider in Act 3 so he brings in his re-writer. Then the stars come on board with their own re-writers as part of the deal. Etc etc. Not saying all screenwriters are geniuses, but the more I hear about how Hollywood works, blaming screenwriters for bad movies is akin to blaming the engineer who designed your car's engine for the bad paint job.

 

TV is of course a different situation, where writers have much more input & control. There the big enemy is just the speed of cranking out a new 60-minute script every week,

 

As for casting people who look like superheroes (ie bodybuilders), that's one of the things that made 80s superhero movies so...distinctive. Gadot may not look like my ideal picture WW, but I'll happily overlook that if she can act the part.

[zslane]

That's a fair point about film screenwriters. In that realm, I agree with you that the problem is the interference from people who imagine themselves to be far more adept at storytelling than they are, or who whole-heartedly believe in placing commercial concerns ahead of creative ones no matter how ruinous it is to the quality of the results.

 

In television, however, you have writing teams headed up by a showrunner. These teams are large because they are writing scripts in parallel to keep up with the schedule, which by the way isn't really weekly. Episodes are written in chunks, produced in chunks, and then rolled out months later on a vaguely weekly schedule (with plenty of interruptions for holidays, awards shows, sporting events, and all manner of other unexplained "hiatuses"). The only reason why the quality of writing is often so low on shows is because dramatic writing is hard (almost as hard as comedic writing), and the number of truly gifted writers who can produce on a deadline is small. The vast majority are writer wannabes, each with their own, um, interesting story as to how they got onto a writing team in the first place.

[bigdamnhero]

As I understand it, there's also a prejudice in TV that only people under 30 can write for TV, So there's also simple lack of experience at work.

[Greywind]

http://www.darkhorizons.com/news/42231/-wonder-woman-set-photos-from-italy

[Debra Winger]

Looks interesting.

[Ragitsu]

Is that Donna Troy? What the hell happened to her?

[Old Man]

George Reeves had a very similar physique to early Superman. The problem isn't with Hollywood in this case, it's with the outlandish proportions modern artists use to render superheroes.

Looking forward to the live action portrayal of a Liefeld book.

[Starlord]

Looking forward to the live action portrayal of a Liefeld book.

 

So this guy will play Cable?

 

[L. Marcus]

That's the next Captain America!

[NuSoardGraphite]

Are you body shaming Gal Gadot? Absolutely not.

 

Can any woman who has ever existed play a great actress, who is 6 feet with huge breasts and has the body of an incredibly powerful fighter? NO. OBVIOUSLY.

 

Gal Gadot is fine...until she proves she cannot act.

She doesnt have to have huge breasts. That was just what Linda Carter brought to the table that comic artists picked up and ran with. She just needs to appear as the pinnacle of an Amazonian warrior princess, which Gadot simply doesnt fit to me. I thought she did fairly well with what little we saw in bvs, at this juncture, the only problem I have with her is the lack of muscle mass.

[Vondy]

She doesnt have to have huge breasts. That was just what Linda Carter brought to the table that comic artists picked up and ran with. She just needs to appear as the pinnacle of an Amazonian warrior princess, which Gadot simply doesnt fit to me. I thought she did fairly well with what little we saw in bvs, at this juncture, the only problem I have with her is the lack of muscle mass.

 

I think the issue is that while Gadot is tall, she is slim rather than athletic. She is, despite her height, a bit "waifish." Wondy should be athletic without crossing the line into "bodybuilder ripitude." Finding a woman who is tall enough, and has the right chassis and fitness level, isn't easy. Taller women tend towards slimness or thickness. Tall female athletes who aren't basket-ball players (lanky) are few. There are women out there who have the right combination of athleticism and height, but how many are actresses?

 

It would be far easier to find a female athlete standing 5'6"-5'8" who had the right overall physique, but people would complain she was too short. That's the problem with trying to cast characters of Homeric proportion: you have to find performers to meet those proportions. Wondy is a very hard bill to fill. As a result, I'm fine "settling" for an actress who is a "reasonable" approximation. For me, tall and slim, or mid-height and athletic, are both acceptable choices. And, I agree about Wondy's breasts. There was nothing wrong with Linda Carter's Wondy, but its not essential to the character.

[Starlord]

She doesnt have to have huge breasts. That was just what Linda Carter brought to the table that comic artists picked up and ran with. She just needs to appear as the pinnacle of an Amazonian warrior princess, which Gadot simply doesnt fit to me. I thought she did fairly well with what little we saw in bvs, at this juncture, the only problem I have with her is the lack of muscle mass.

 

Fair enough, I was speaking more to the fan who has completely written her off for the part and won't even give her or the movie a chance due to unrealistic expectations.  That is nonsensical to me.

[Starlord]

I think the issue is that while Gadot is tall, she is slim rather than athletic. She is, despite her height, a bit "waifish." Wondy should be athletic without crossing the line into "bodybuilder ripitude." Finding a woman who is tall enough, and has the right chassis and fitness level, isn't easy. Taller women tend towards slimness or thickness. Tall female athletes who aren't basket-ball players (lanky) are few. There are women out there who have the right combination of athleticism and height, but how many are actresses?

 

It would be far easier to find a female athlete standing 5'6"-5'8" who had the right overall physique, but people would complain she was too short. That's the problem with trying to cast characters of Homeric proportion: you have to find performers to meet those proportions. Wondy is a very hard bill to fill. As a result, I'm fine "settling" for an actress who is a "reasonable" approximation. For me, tall and slim, or mid-height and athletic, are both acceptable choices. And, I agree with the breasts comment.

 

There was nothing wrong with Linda Carter's busty Wondy, but its not strictly necessary to do the character justice.

 

Exactly.

[Twilight]

Fair enough, I was speaking more to the fan who has completely written her off for the part and won't even give her or the movie a chance due to unrealistic expectations.  That is nonsensical to me.

Ugh, I just had a conversation with such a fan a little while ago in a chatroom.  I eventually had to put him on ignore to get away from the stupid.  He lost me when he declared this casting destroyed everything Wonder Woman stood for as a character, then claimed that Wonder Woman is meant to be six foot two and two hundred thirty pounds.