Wonder Woman (2009) Review

Beyond good, beyond evil, beyond your wildest

imagination! What is crap? Yes, I am here. And,

yeah. For Tooncast Beyond, this will be episode

five. Did you say animation of fishnadoes, or

did you say animation of facienadoes? Sounded

like you said a face. I said a fishnadoes. Sounded

like you said a face. That's funny. Yeah, Wonder

Woman 2009. I just saw this for the first time,

like yesterday. Wow, how could you deprive yourself

for so long and I'm holding the box and it's

it's glorious Wait, which box are you holding?

The DC Universe animated original movie Wonder

Woman DVD box which box there were there was

the one disc There was the two disc edition which

box the one disc. Oh, okay. So that's the brown

background No, it's that it's actually closer

to burgundy Yes. We got the color chart out.

And this is really one of the best ones so far.

Oh, yeah. Actually, I would go as far as saying

this is the best one so far, because what I love

about it is it is less about it's less about

comic books and more about mythology and I think

that's the best way to do a Wonder Woman origin

story because you don't have to do things with

uh with super villains outright if you do things

with greek gods and greek myths to start out

with it feels right we need to do it this way

not to mention you open the movie up with a fucking

decapitation oh yeah yep Mean talk about violence.

I mean didn't they have didn't they have Artemis

like stab a guy in a chest like five times through

the first two minutes Yeah And of course you

also have You have great voice actresses in this

I mean I think they got some of the best voice

actresses in the in the industry in Any industry

to work here? I mean you had Tara strong as as

the brainy redhead Alexa Tara strong playing

a brainy redhead. I Never see that before First

time for everything I'm making a joke You had

Rosario Dawson as Artemis you had the lady from

CSI Las Vegas Mark Helgenberger as Hera Wow Virginia

Madsen as Hippolyta and of course Carrie Russell

as Princess Diana slash Wonder Woman For the

male characters, you have Nathan Fillion as Steve

Trevor, Alfred Molina as Ares, Oliver Platt as

Hades. David McCollum, again, he keeps showing

up in these movies as Zeus. I don't think David

McCollum fits the booming voice that Zeus should

be. And you also have John... DiMaggio playing

Demos. Yes. Overall, the voice cast for this

is great. Indeed is. And since Neil just saw

this like mere hours ago, I think Neil should

be the one to walk through. Go ahead. The floor

is yours, Neil. Oh, boy. Well. I'm still kind

of... Processing. Yeah. I'm thinking about the

scene of the girls splashing each other in the

pond and Steve Trevor over in the bushes, you

know, fapping away. This movie took the PG -13

rating to the extreme. Yeah, it's... But, Neil,

go ahead. I love the I love first of all I love

all the jokes with the golden lasso truth right

they wrap it around him and he says I don't have

to put up with this crap and they're like what

is crap and because he's because he's got the

lasso on him he goes it's it's a euphemism for

excrement and they disgusted with him and then

they're like you know they're like And then her

politics are like, jokingly, you know, just like,

daring him, say, do you have any other foul things

to say? And he says, your daughter's got a nice

rack. And yes, he says, rack. Oh, God. Oh, God.

I can only flash to a Steve Martin movie that

I don't remember what the title of is it. But

one of one of his kids in the movie says, Daddy,

what's a rack? It's a country, son. Oh, my God.

And yeah, I'm still processing this. So from

what I understand, a lot of this is based off

of a a screenplay that that Gail Simone wrote,

which was later rewritten to be an anime movie.

It was actually Gail Simone. From what I understand

from the story, wrote a screenplay for a live

-action Wonder Woman film. And I can definitely

see it. I can definitely see it. It's indefinitely...

One thing I can see is from a two -hour movie

to a shorter and made movie, I can see where

some trims were made. They didn't explain the

invisible plane. And I imagine... I imagine that

if this was a longer movie they would explain

that they took Steve Trevor's existing plane

and used Hephaestus to forge it into an invisible

plane. That's how I would explain it away. This

movie was just so well done. The animation on

it is great. The voice cast is great. This it

tells a very solid story and Steve Trevor as

a sexist pig is kind of cool. I Mean that guy

could not stop making horrible very sexist over

-the -top jokes. I Love that. He takes her to

a bar and tries to get her drunk and she drinks

them under the table And she's like, yeah, I

knew what you're trying to do It's like she calls

him a lightweight And then you have one of the

most badass and somewhat sexy fight scenes ever

where she's in that dress fighting the fighting

demos and yeah And they're fighting in a and

she's actually beating him up in in like in like

a waiting pool in a mall You know what I found

about Wonder Woman animation outside of New Frontier

both in the Justice League cartoon and in this

She looks a hell of a lot sexier fighting in

civilian clothes than her own uniform Well, that's

because it leaves more to the imagination and

some people's imagination goes pretty far for

them, especially yours Come on you were open

for that Ben Honestly, I think this is you know,

I really enjoyed the hill of Alfred Molina as

Ares I mean he pulled it off great Oh, he did.

And he was business in the front and party in

the back. That was, he was rocking a pretty good

bullet. Yeah. Also, the scenes with Hades were

creepy. I mean, I've never seen Hades this creepy

before. I mean, when he was, when he was strutting

around Ares' dead son in front of him, just to

sort of see what he'd do. Yeah, that was creepy

as hell. Well, that's that's also a bit of a

you know magnificent bastard thing to do because

airy still needs them and Are you still processing

Neil? Yeah, I'm I trying to think of a way to

describe the story and I'm just kind of Going

back to the pool. Yeah, I'm going. Yeah. Yeah.

I keep getting distracted by all the Well, it's

very funny because I said earlier that this movie

took the PG -13 rating to the extreme. Apparently,

according to producer Bruce Timm during post

-production, many action scenes had to be edited

after the first cut of the film received an R

rating from the MPAA. Well, you would notice

that when they did show the decapitation, the

decapitation is always as a silhouette, and they

showed the disembodied head, but it's a close

-up shot of the head without showing the actual

cut area. That was obvious to me that they did

that, and I think it's obvious why they did that,

because they were trying to push... Yes, it's

a decapitation, we're not going to hide it, but

they had to hide something or else, because apparently

you can show decapitation, but you can't show

the wound from a decapitation. You can have Django

get his head cut off, and as long as you don't

see any blood squirt out, it's okay. Yeah, when

Boba picked up that helmet, that head should

have slipped right out onto his lap. Don't go

that would have gone a long way to describe why

to explain why Boba was so fucked up Yeah, why

he sucks and he's like, oh, okay Took the wrong

turn in that start a story and ended up in the

trash What the best jokes ever long story folks

Anyways, where do we go from there? Nice, Ben.

What I did like was the scene of Diana riding

the horse. They really animated it. This is back

when the animation still had very expressive

faces. I think that's one of the greatest things.

I always said that the Wonder Woman design in

Justice League, depending on the animation studio,

whenever they did her nose, it came out sometimes

wrong. This time, they had a team that did it

right. Yeah, but I mean, especially in the Darkheart

episode of JLU, really, who should be looking

at Wonder Woman's nose? Especially Ray Palmer,

considering where he was stuck. So what are your

feelings on Tara Strong's character, Alexa? I

liked her. But then again, I am a Tara Strong

fanboy. I like almost anything that she does.

It doesn't matter what she lends her voice to.

She always does an amazing job. I think my problem

with this movie is so much that outside of Justice

League and outside of the original Linda Carter

television series, I know nothing of Wonder Woman.

So just outside of my knowledges of both those

series in this movie, I really know nothing other

than that. The creator of Wonder Woman is a guy

who invented the lie detector machine and was

kind of a kinky fella. Well, it's obvious. I

mean, Neil can't get his mind off the pool scene.

Well, the actual guy who created Wonder Woman,

he actually had his wife and his mistress. They

both live all together, so they all... He had

them both always wear... Silver bracelets at

all times and Interesting. Yes That's even the

delight detector. Yes Good old William Marston.

Yep. Well, he made up for it by creating Wonder

Woman Yeah, and apparently the will actually

the rights for with the the rights deal with

that with him and what in DC back then national

on publishing Wonder Woman is this, they can

never not publish Wonder Woman. The month that

they don't publish a book, they lose the rights.

Wow. This version of Wonder Woman along with

the version in Justice League, along with the

original TV series, are all versions I like.

I'm very glad that As much as a as a great TV

producer and creator he is I'm very glad that

the David E Kelly pilot never got picked up and

got cancelled Yeah, there were there it was not

very good. I mean did you know the script there

were like boob jokes In a modern world that that's

not Wonder Woman and yeah, yeah, it's But back

to this movie, I love the character of Artemis

as well. Yeah, Artemis was a great characterization.

It was very awesome. What about you, Neil? You

got a favorite girl in this movie? I'm just gonna

say Wonder Woman. I mean, you got a character

who runs around in an escape -y little bathing

suit style leotard, kicks a lot of ass and seems

to enjoy doing it, so thumbs up from me. What

I did enjoy was Persephone actually states there

is a bit of a folly in the Amazonian lifestyle

of no man because eventually some of these women

are going to want something. I don't see what

the problem is. I think I know what girls do

when they want something and they're only girls

around. They splash each other in the pool? I

think that's the problem of Themyscira is that

different versions have different rules. Like

every time it's used, like in Justice League,

it was all women, no men allowed. In this, it

was pretty much the same thing, but there were

hidden exceptions to the rule. And then you go

to Apocalypse, which we'll get to much later.

They're actually allowing men on the island.

when i saw apocalypse will get this later obviously

i'm jumping ahead of myself but when i saw that

i was like wait that's not right why isn't anybody

banning them uh... uh... the moderators are sleeping

in the forum was full of trolls uh... no one

of my one of my favorite uh... episodes of justice

league was the one where they uh... uh... were

the virus they had the virus that was affecting

all the bad and uh... fury part one and part

two yeah i love that episode is it really it

really uh... experimented with that uh... with

that whole thing about men not being allowed

on the island it was pretty good episode yeah

it was alright so as far as what this movie made

uh... compared to the other ones we've covered

so far in the spotlight this one made seven million

three hundred twenty one thousand dollars and

it sold four hundred and seventy And change units

So I would say it made its money and a lot of

people just like us a lot of people love this

movie and obviously who wouldn't coming off the

heels of Gotham Matrix You know men with no dicks

Oh so Fez from that 70s show I thought you were

mentioning another Fez. I heard you say Fez.

You don't even know Fez, Mike. I'm talking about

the guy from that 70's show. Like I said, the

only people who would hate this are men with

no dicks. So what do we... Well, before we get

into the rating, this movie started the trend

of when they would do store exclusives, where

DC approached Mattel of doing little mini statue

figures that they would include in the Best Buy

special editions. I actually have one of these

from the Public Enemies DVD set. It's okay. It's

a statue. I mean, that's it. It's a little mini

statue. I mean, it's not even really an action

figure. So but that was a good way to promote

the movie, I think. But one little note is this

movie is the one that actually, you know, from

what I've read, this movie is the one that killed

the Marv Wolfman, you know, Teen Titans, the

Judas Contract project, because the initial returns.

were way below what DC was expecting, and they

decided to access and focus more on Batman and

Superman related projects only. Which, it doesn't

really surprise me. I mean, you know, as much

as I love a lot of the stuff that Marv Wolfman

has done in his career, I'm not a fan of Teen

Titans at all. Well, you should read original

comics. Well... There's nothing like the cartoon

series. Let me just put that right right here

right now. Okay? Well, that's what I meant I'm

not a fan of the animated series and what the

hell is that noise who's unwrapping candy? Nobody

but What I'm but no the Judas Contract project

was not related to the cartoon series at all

It was gonna be an original animated feature.

It was going to use it Wolfman it's good. It

was gonna use a Perez esque art style. It was

It was gonna be it was gonna try to be a very

faithful adaptation of a comic book arc Yes So

as the IGN replacement crew zero through four,

what do we give this? Neil for Ben I can't say

for hard enough Yes, and I also give it a four

He says with a sigh. No, no. I can't really follow

those jokes up. And it is on DVD. It's on OneDisc,

TwoDisc, and I believe it's also on Blu -ray.

The TwoDisc edition, I think, has a couple of

Wonder Woman episodes from Justice League. I

can't be for sure. I don't have the DVD in front

of me. I'm not too sure about that. So I guess

we're gonna take a quick break. We're gonna go

to some really wacky ads and we will come back

with our final thoughts. Hopefully Neil can compose

himself. The Webcast Beacon Network has been

covering and promoting creativity and the creative

process since 2007, starting with the Web Comic

Beacon, a topical webcomics podcast with a jovial

bunch of misfits like your local morning radio

show. Also, the Web Comic Beacon Newscast recaps

reviews and discussions of community and industry

news relative to comic creators, especially of

digital distribution. Also, the Tropcast, the

ever -tangential discussion of literary and visual

memes. And finally, web fiction world. Before

webcomics, there was independent and self -published

web release written fiction and literature. Find

this all at webcastbeacon .com. Be sure to grab

a master RSS feed or master iTunes feed and not

miss a thing. Hey, I'm Gary. I'm Greg. I'm Chuck.

I'm Justin. Join the four of us every week on

the internet's number one G .I. Joe podcast,

What's On, Joe Mine. That's right! It's Joe news,

reviews, and special guests like you've never

heard them before delivered right to your mp3

player. Think of it as Joe Talk meets Sports

Talk, and we make fun of Chuck. Right, please,

hey! We're just kidding, Chuck. Kinda. Yeah,

sometimes Chuck makes fun of himself. Right,

please, hey! It's What's On, Joe Mine, every

week on the Geekcast Radio Network. InsidePulse

.com. Stitch your smart radio and iTunes. Download

and listen today. Can I say something about Transformers?

No! Do you like retro shows? Did you grow up

in either the 80s or the 90s? Then tune in to

Telecast, GeekcastRadio .com's newest podcast.

Join us here on the Telecast as we revisit some

of your favorite shows, such as Clarissa Explains

It All, Salute Your Shorts, Saved By The Bell,

and much, much more, only on GeekCastRadio .com.

Soundwave, jam that transmission! Rumble frenzy,

ravage ratbat, eject, operation interference.

No, there will be no operation interference.

I am TFG1 Mike and you should be listening to

my very first podcast, the TFG1 podcast. 24 episodes

covering the entire US run of the 1984 Transformers

cartoon. I also have a few supplemental episodes

and an interview with Stan Bush. I bring in guest

hosts who will be full -time co -hosts in Steve

Megatron and fan of the show now co -host Pecan

Court Michael. So check out the TFG1 podcast.

You can find it on iTunes and the web at www

.geekcastradio .com. Transform and roll out!

You can now hear the Keycast Radio network while

on the go with Stitcher Smart Radio. Stitcher

is a free use and talk mobile app available for

your smartphone. And when you download Stitcher

to hear Keycast Radio, you'll have a chance to

win money. Downloading is quick and easy, just

find Stitcher in the App Store. During registration,

hit the promo code box and enter Keycast Radio

all one word to get automatically entered to

win $100. The latest episodes of the shows will

be waiting for you in your favorites. You'll

get access to lots of other amazing shows too.

Always available to you on demand. No sinking.

It's Stitcher Smart Radio. Don't forget to enter

promo code KEYCASTRADIO when you register. And

if you disagree with us, you could be a guest

on a future show available on iTunes the zoom

market and animation aficionados calm So we are

back and What's that up in the sky? It's the

invisible plane. Oh, we can't see it. We screwed

up that joke The invisible jet. Yeah, it just

kind of came out of nowhere in this film It it

does have a much better explanation in a later

film and I'm not gonna say which one it is But

I think you guys know Yeah, and the way it's

done in that film is like you don't realize that

it's the invisible jet until the very end. It's

very clever One of the scenes I wanted to bring

up that I thought was kind of cool is one where

There's this giant bat who has Wonder Woman is

in its claw and Steve He was on the back and

he's like he's like walking up the thing spine

and he throws a grenade into the things a mouth

and it explodes and that was I Think that was

like my one favorite action shot the whole movie

That was a good action shot. All right. Yeah

So Ben final thoughts on Wonder Woman 2009 this

really is one of the best projects that the DC

animated original movie team has done. This really

is. It just is near perfect with how the animation

style is, the animation consistency, the character

designs, the voice acting, the clever humor,

the running gag of crap. I mean, the part where

Ares grows big and is about to smash Wonder Woman

and Wonder Woman just looks up and says, ah,

crap. Come on everybody laughs when they saw

that right that was wonderful You know this movie

up to now probably would be my number one pick

out of all the ones that we've reviewed so far

Justice League new frontier is like a close tithe

with this but this one You know just as Ben said

with the way the story is told with the way the

animation is much prefer it when they do full

-on beginning middle end stories no more of that

breaking up different animation bullshit this

really this really is one of my favorites and

yeah I I don't always buy DVDs but what I do

is to sell those rankings but in Wonder Woman

So thank you for joining us here on the Tooncast

Beyond Animation Aficionados crossover. There

are some ways for you to get in contact with

us. Visit the websites geekcastradio .com and

animationaficionados .com. You can comment on

each of the episode posts. Leave the show's feedback

in iTunes. Please do this. As far as I know with

Tooncast Beyond, we're still having issues getting

it into iTunes, but we will put directions on

how to get it in there somewhere. uh... follow

us on twitter the show names are tuned cast beyond

and a aficionados minus two if you and mike uh...

ben protects his twitter like a mother protects

her hand uh... and neil just doesn't give a shit

uh... you know that is the honey badger of twitters

uh... it is neil soma and by the way i did uh...

hell heffner added me after we did that so apparently

it does like somebody did care enough to here

with me Become a fan of Facebook go to Facebook

.com slash geek cast radio network for us and

Facebook .com slash animation aficionados for

them Call our voicemail line 502 -526 -5821 tell

us the show you're leaving the message for and

your name We hope you enjoyed this episode of

Tooncast Beyond an animation aficionados crossover

Wish you'll join us next time when we will be

continuing the DC Universe animated original

movie spotlight with Green Lantern First Flight

where Steve Megatron will be joining us for the

rest of the spotlight. For now, I am TFU and

Mike with Geeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

It has chosen you. Take it. You are now one of

the protectors of the universe.