So there’s a pretty interesting theory that’s popped up, about the approach to Wonder Woman’s origin for the Man of Steel/Batman vs. Superman film…
To boil it down for you, basically what was speculated is that Wonder Woman, and all the the Amazonian’s, would be descendants of ancient Kryptonians who attempted to set up bases for Krypton all throughout the universe thousands of years ago and the one here on (or around) Earth would have eventually seen the Amazonians emerge after the Kryptonians mated with humans(?).
Source: The rumor about Wonder Woman’s movie debut will make your head explode
There is no proven truth to this whatsoever. It was merely a speculation of another writer. But… it’s pretty damn good to be honest. I really like that theory and think it makes a lot of sense for how to introduce the character into the DC Cinematic Universe in a very logical way. Some people are opposed to the alteration of an origin however, and would most certainly NOT approve of this change.
The first obvious issue here is that, for some people, this seems like too easy of an explanation of why Wonder Woman exists. “Why does this chick have superpowers? She’s Superman’s DISTANT relative. Oh OK, that’s good enough for me.” Another problem I foresee here is that many people will feel like it’s a chauvinistic direction. “How do we make Wonder Woman work on screen? Make her more like Superman? Oh OK, that’s good enough for me.” (Warner Bros executives aren’t very deep thinkers.)
I personally don’t feel that this will really damage the character’s impact anymore than it would other characters, because there are many factors that go into screwing up comic characters in movies. Jennifer Garner is a good actress, but Electra was not successful and just wasn’t good. Mainly because Jennifer Garner, as good as she is, is not a the right person for the role. It has nothing to do with the back story or the characters origin. In fact, the Daredevil and Electra films stayed fairly close to Electra’s true back story and still screwed things up. Electra was portrayed as a tough-as-nails girl with some minor revenge motivations, instead of as a cold, hard badass with no remorse and no hesitation to do what needs to be done. Electra is an unapologetic killer, and she was played like a hopelessly romantic martial arts enthusiast. Had the right actress been given that role, and played it closer to cannon, then those films would have gotten a little more respect.
Origin changes do have an effect on comic book films (Ang Lee’s HULK, Catwoman) but that’s never the only thing that’s wrong (Ang Lee’s HULK, Catwoman). Many comic book films suffer from poorly written scripts (Jonah Hex) and bad, lazy, or ignorant directing. By “ignorant” I mean that the director just isn’t very familiar with the source material and the resulting film reflects that (Green Lantern). I love the Green Lantern movie personally, but I feel like if they had brought in a director that had a passion for the character, the way Jon Favreau did for Iron Man, then the film would have turned out much less chaotic and more condensed. The character seems to get pulled in several different directions as a result the film is somewhat convoluted.
How about when an origin change goes right? Bane’s origin is COMPLETELY altered in The Dark Knight Rises and it worked great. It made sense for the character to not be a skinny twerp who bulked up due to a serum pumping into his veins from a thousand tubes in his body. The universe that they were functioning in, that Christopher Nolan created, couldn’t have hosted the original version of the character. It wouldn’t have made any sense.
But how about that potentially chauvinistic issue? Why does Wonder Woman have to be more like Superman to be relevant? The correct answer is “She doesn’t”, but also I don’t think that’s what’s really going on here. The whole Greek mythology back story is cool and all, and it works in the comics, but in the cinematic universe that DC and WB are building I think they’re trying to avoid “deities”. I mean, you’re already in Thor-territory here (Thoritory?) with the whole Kryptonians-existing-thousands-of-years-before-humans thing so it’s already got the possibility of seeming unoriginal. Why try to cram mythology where it doesn’t belong? Gods don’t exist in this universe. These characters ARE the gods. It actually makes sense to alter the character’s back story to make her MORE relevant and powerful. You’re not *taking* her unique origin away from her… you’re giving her a reason to exist in THIS universe. You think “Aliens did it” is a cop-out? “Gods did it” is an even bigger cop-out. Rather than the scientific possibility of evolution and adaptation, you’d be saying, “Oh it was the Gods. They put the Amazonian’s here.” That doesn’t necessarily make less sense than Kryptonians being responsible for the Amazonians, but it doesn’t make more sense either.
One last example: The Amazing Spider-Man. Aside from people complaining that Peter was more emo than they would have liked (not me though, I love that movie) the character’s abilities are not less prevalent just because there was an alteration to his origin. Now, granted, we don’t know how significantly his origin has changed yet because they were very cryptic and left us with some questions that I hope the sequels will answer, but there seems to be this idea that there was something inside of Pete’s DNA that was mearly “activated” by the radioactive spider bite. And while people had their gripes with Peter, Spider-Man was… well, AMAZING in that movie.
I suppose my point here is that we don’t know enough yet to get anxious, and there are plenty of successes and failures for us to look back and asses that there’s truly no perfect formula for creating a comic book movie. I like Gal Gadot. She seems like a solid choice for Wonder Woman, regardless of what her origin is in the films. I feel like they chose her because she’ll capture the genuine strength and power of the character in a way that hasn’t been done before. Yes, the script needs to be right, and the directors vision for the character is crucial, but the performance that the artist gives is what we’ll remember most. I know that Gal hasn’t done a lot but inexperience doesn’t equate to incompetence.
If you had any doubts about her I’ll leave you with this which I believe will squash them…
