With Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker coming out in a couple weeks, all the big summer 2020 movies are starting to drop trailers which will be attached to Skywalker in theaters. It is also CCXP, the giganti-huge Brazilian comic con, which means this is the perfect time for Wonder Woman 1984 to give us a trailer. There are shoulder pads! A golden lasso! Fanny packs! Themyscira Ninja Warrior! Maybe even an invisible jet! There are also fully saturated colors and Diana smiling at another woman, so progress from Wonder Woman (still irritated Diana didn’t get to have any female friends for an entire movie). But seriously, we should talk about how Wonder Woman 1984 is basically a soft reboot for the new, revitalized DC cinematic universe. They won’t put in those exact terms, because people actually like Wonder Woman and they don’t want to disassociate it entirely, but 1984 is not a direct sequel, and Patty Jenkins was free to reinvent and reimagine any part of the character she saw fit. Like, say, giving Diana a friend and bringing Steve Trevor back from the dead.
That friend, Barbara Minerva, is played by Kristen Wiig, and she will eventually become a nemesis, but I wonder if starting Diana and Barbara as friends means the relationship might not be quite so antagonistic. There are a lot of versions of Barbara Minerva—some are messy as f-ck—so they are free to reinvent the character without treading on “sacred” fan feelings. I just really want Diana to have a friend. #LetDianaPrinceHaveFriends2020
But there is another villain on the board: Maxwell Lord, played by Pedro Pascal. It’s so nice to see his face after weeks of watching him inside the helmet on The Mandalorian! And I love the Trump-esque styling of Lord. There is deliberate friend-or-foe ambiguity with Barbara Minerva, but there is NO ambiguity with Maxwell Lord—he is a Bad Guy. He doesn’t even need to pull out the creepy crystal to convince us of that fact. The vaguely Art of the Deal styling of his character does all the work.
And of course, Steve Trevor is returning. Chris Pine in a fanny pack is an automatic entry into “Best Chris 2020” and feels like it will be hard to beat. I don’t really care about how Steve Trevor returns in the 1980s, but I bet it has something to do with Maxwell Lord’s creepy crystal. It would be hilarious if they just didn’t explain it, but I’m sure we’re in for an exposition dump about how Steve Trevor comes back in 1984. I am more interested in Steve’s opinions on modern art, though. Also, having two superhero Steves misplaced in time is NOT going to help my mom’s general confusion about which Steve is in which comic book movie.
This is a promising look at what is sure to be one of summer 2020’s biggest movies. I love the colors, the New Order needle drop, the Golden Eagle armor at the end of the trailer, the possibility of Diana having a friend, the thrill of seeing Diana confident and bold in action—into all of it. Slightly less into this coming out just one month after Black Widow, solely because you know we’re going to have to sit through a lot of Bad Takes. It doesn’t even matter which one does better—both are going to do well, and that is the only relevant point—you know the hot take machine will be in high gear, spitting out the worst sh-t about why one is better than other. Can we just not? I was SO glad we got to skip that this year with Captain Marvel, and if 2020 could miss me with this sh-t, too, I would be eternally thankful.
