
BY DAN TABOR FILM CRITIC Wonder Woman has always been a feminist icon, but director Patty Jenkins resurrected the fearless and Amazon just when the world needed her most. The first film hit in 2017 and establishing this new take on the character while the seeds of Trumpism were just starting to take root in America. Now three years later, Jenkins has brought Diana back and transported her to the go-go 1980s where she does battle with Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal), an Art of the Deal pyramid scheming business tycoon, complete with a blonde cowlick. Maxwell Lord’s superpower is bending the very fabric of reality through deception, which eventually lands him in the Whitehouse. Stop me if you’ve heard this before.
I’ve been excited about Wonder Woman 1984 since I first caught this trailer that celebrated all things ‘80s to the tune of New Order’s “Blue Monday.” Given our current sociopoliticaI mood I thought the ‘80s would be a rich playground for Diana Prince and her no nonsense brand of feminism and having seen it, I’m here to tell you I was not mistaken. A few weeks ago I got the opportunity to virtually sit down with Patty Jenkins and Gal Gadot for a few moments on Zoom in advance of the film’s HBOMAX release.Enjoy.
PHAWKER: Patty, first of all, congratulations. Thank you so much for giving people this film that is so full of hope, just when we needed it the most.
PATTY JENKINS: Thank you so much. Thank you for those kind words. It feels really great to finally share something with the world and to have something to share with the world in this time. So I appreciate that.
PHAWKER: So, where did you start with writing this film? Was this already in your head as to where Diana’s journey would go?
PATTY JENKINS: It was kind of interesting. We were finishing the first film, or, you know, maybe a little earlier than that. We were having such a great time as friends making the film that I found myself thinking, ‘wow, I would think I would be exhausted and sick of this, but actually I’m only frustrated by what I didn’t get to do with Wonder Woman and this whole great group of people’. And so really we spent the entire first film creating Wonder Woman. She’s only Wonder Woman in the last scene of the movie. So I found myself really craving doing a movie about full-blown Wonder Woman and then I started reflecting on what was going on in our world and what Wonder Woman would want to say to the world. And the story came out of that.
PHAWKER: Was there something that given the reaction to the film you wanted to make sure was represented in this film?
PATTY JENKINS:Yeah, definitely. I think the first film, like I said, it was about the birth of Wonder Woman. I think what Wonder Woman goes on to stand for in the world, which is that she’s trying to teach everyone she encounters how to be their better self, and trying to like help mankind to be better.
So, the last one was her discovery of humanity. Now, how does she live with humanity? And by the way, she’s not perfect either. So her own struggles and journey to do the right thing, which is so universal, (like) all of us. Like being a hero is not an easy thing, it’s actually a super difficult thing. So that I was really interested in too, like, what does it feel like?
PHAWKER: With Wonder Woman 1984, we catch up with Diana in the eighties. Was her life up until then something you and Patty discussed in depth, like where Diana’s head would be at when we catch up with her?
GAL GADOT: First of all, I’m very grateful to have such an amazing director to work with and yes, you know, we discussed a lot about the history of Diana and how her life had been since we last saw her in 1918, all the way to the 1980s. You know, she lost all of her team members. She’s been very lonely. She doesn’t really want to engage and make new friends because then they’re going to realize she doesn’t age and they’re going to die and she has to let go. So, she kind of isolated herself from the world, and her only goal is just to help and better mankind and be there for them and guide them and try to do good.
PHAWKER: So Gal, Wonder Woman sends an incredibly powerful message to young girls showing them that they already have the strength they need to be the heroes of their own lives. What would it have meant to you as a young girl to see Wonder Woman on the big screen growing up?
GAL GADOT: Well, I wasn’t lucky enough to see so many Wonder Women type of characters when I was growing up. I got to say that when I watched the movie for the first time and I’m, you know, I’m the star of the movie, I’ve read all the drafts and I was, I thought that I was ready to see anything. But then when I saw the opening sequence (Young Diana in WW84) it was certainly something, the reaction I had, I just didn’t expect to have. I just, I got so emotional and for the first time, I didn’t feel like I was Gal, the actress, Gal, the woman, Gal, I felt like Gal the eight year old – watching another eight year old, doing something out of worldly and being so good at it and she is doing it in her way. It’s her own and it moved me so deeply and so much that I just, I got emotional, but then I realized, like the power of these movies
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