NBC passed on David E. Kelley’s “Wonder Woman” show. Now you can watch a clip and see why…
http://cdn.springboard.gorillanation.com/storage/xplayer/yo033.swf
I dunno about you, but seeing the pitch-perfect recreation of nighttime/orange-interior/blue-exterior/generic-location TV action shooting like this on “Eagleheart” has pretty-much ruined my ability to take it seriously. Pallicki certainly looks stunning, but the outfit still looks like a Halloween costume and she’s not really selling the “I’m a badass” thing (dig the lazy floppy arm-swing business after she opens the door, like she’s halfheartedly opening up a mall security door for her morning shift.)
MOVIEBOB CENTRAL 
It really makes me wonder why the big studios treat the Marvel characters better than the DC ones.
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Poor Diana…
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Lotta beefcake in this episode…were these supposed to be mercenaries or something?
Surprised to see her in the briefs and not those long shiny pants. And I know little about Wonder Woman so I wouldn't be the best person to ask on how she should be portrayed but I'm still guessing this ain't it. It looks like she's going for the “super sex-kitten” persona.
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I can see where they were trying to go with it. I was actually reminded of Batman Begins with the sequence:
“It's not likely she gets past security, but if she does –” (bang off screen).
Following from that, it's safe to say that they were definitely going for a more “realistic” rendering of WW, but, to this layman, it seems generic and boring. I don't know anything about Wonder Woman, and I can't find anything that would set this apart from any other generic action-oriented tv show (keeping in mind that this is a 35 second clip, of course).
The arm-flop, to me, exudes attempted “confidence”, ie. “Oh yeah, I do this all the time, it's no big deal for me.” and seems like an attempt at a level of sex-appeal. It makes the character seem like any typical feminine figure in tight spandex…nothing I haven't seen a dozen times before. I wouldn't use the word “badass” to describe her at all.
I also wonder why it seems like DC characters get the short end of the comic-book-adaptation stick, but, then again, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and Watchmen are my three favourite comic-book movies and they're all based on books by DC. Ah well.
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Am I the only one who gets the sense I'm watching the intro to a porno when that clip rolls?
The beefcake, the tacky costume, the cardboard acting (his immediate reaction to the noisy makes him seem a lot more jumpy than he was a second ago), and the somewhat silly-sounding script…I'm just waiting for one of them to snatch her lasso, throw it on her, and the bow-chica wow-ow to start playing.
On a more serious note, if it was fun, and it was self-aware, I guess I'd watch it. It's really hard to do the dc superheroes justice since they're supposed to be so endlessly comitted, so I'd be happy with a show that didn't pretend to be perfect, just fun. Cast her as buffy the vampire slayer, only as an amazon and with cartoon villains instead of vampires.
On that note, I watched the first couple of seasons of smallville, and the last couple of seasons too (which were many times better than the first)…and that show was campy as hell, stuffed with male underwear models and daytime-tv stars. And the cameos, oh, the cameos…but I still found myself itching to see the latest episode as soon as it'd aired. This would just need to hit the same spot.
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On the subject of studios not treating properties correctly, I'm no Whedonite, but I know Joss has wanted to make a Wonder Woman film for a while now. He's directing The Avengers, and if that turns out to get a lot of positive reaction I can't see why anyone would be against a Joss Whedon based Wonder Woman film.
I mean, if there's any geek set up to write and work on a film about a female super hero, it's definitely Joss Whedon in all his “I fantasize about women kicking my ass all day” glory.
Plus, again, if The Avengers does well, then you can open a trailer with “From the Director of The Avengers” as opposed to the creator of niche television shows like Firefly, or Angel, or Buffy, or Dollhouse. Or God forbid, from the writer of Alien: Resurrection (heh, “from the writer of”. That never happens).
Of course, this is mostly wishful thinking in a sense. Personally I kind of like the idea of a major comic property being a television show for adults, and if handed an actual brand then maybe Joss Whedon could make a TV show that actually lasts post-Buffy. But I'm pretty sure Joss has no interest in doing another TV show but rather create entertainment on the Internet (turns out Dr. Horrible was a much greater success than Dollhouse!), and I'm pretty sure he already has a post-Avengers project lined up.
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@ Chris.
I would be. I saw bits of his wonder woman and it was wonder woman in name only. He essentially dumped all of the mythology and turned her into a legacy character.And she would have been finghting a human villain not from the comics.
I don't want a wonder woman movie NOT to see my favourite characters.
As it stands, the keri russel/natha fillion one from DCU is the best we'll get.
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i don't think there's really enough to comment on based on this incredibley brief clip. Maybe it would've been an alright Alias-ish show, or like Heroes with just one person, or something more like teh old Hulk show. Can't descern quality from such a simple clip, particularly since WW doesn't even speak.
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I think I have a different concept of the word “extended.”
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I know its a totally nerdy complaint but i have it in the back of my mind when i watch anything comic related from DC. DC character (JLA especially) are just crazy powerful. whether its the flash being slowed from light speed to just over 300 miles an hour to this thing where wonder woman is basically she hulk reskinned. Wonderwoman is almost as strong as superman she has powers bestowed by gods she could really tear that entire hanging appart if she wanted to having her fight muscly thugs just shows how much of the comics are gonna be in this.
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Other studios don't make DC properties, really. Warner Brothers owns DC and has for a long time, now. Warner doesn't know how to translate DC. Unless Bruce Timm is involved. The reason the in-house Marvel adaptations are so good is because they don't fuck around with it. They may stream line, but they don't try to reinvent it. Warner seems to think DC characters aren't good enough to exist outside of comics, on their own merits.
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I think the producers of Wonder Woman would have done a lot better if they had watched and used a lot of stuff from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqIiTlZ2ttQ
Especially in the example above when Glory was the main bad of the season. It was a great example of how to do a super powered female character convincingly without making it look goofy.
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I remember watching the glory season of buffy and not really thinking it looked particularly goofy.
I watch that clip now, and I don't feel that way. In fact, I think it does look pretty goofy.
It's probably about having the fights within the context of the episode itself…but buffy was campy as hell. I thought it was awesome when they had a season dedicated to constructing the ultimate super soldier by merging robot, human and demon parts.
Didn't think the fights were particularly well done, but the conceptualisation and costume design was awesome for this teenager.
If you want a female superhero kicking ass and looking awesome, watchmen did it pretty well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWfCZgCRcVM
She's not supposed to be superpowered, but in the end, it's about creating the illusion that those moves have weight behind them. That they hurt. In a sense, the cinematrography needs to revel in the violence.
Buffy the campire slayer did that fairly well, but that was because there was time to build up this illusion. It didn't all have to be done in a single fight sequence.
Of course, if we could pick and choose a director to do this, go with Zack Snyder. Sucker punch had the best fight scenes ever.
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Wonderwoman is almost as strong as superman she has powers bestowed by gods she could really tear that entire hanging appart
TV budget, dude. You have to accept that they're building this around a TV budget (and, probably, a major lack of understanding of the comic character).
I saw bits of his wonder woman and it was wonder woman in name only.
He had bits of a Wonder Woman?
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then there's the fact that wonder womans abilities are widely different from supermans, and saying as strong as superman can be enough to lift a large passenger plane, or enough to move a planet, depending on which superman….
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