Wonder Woman- the Reviews are In

[Khaat]

There is room for some *pretty different history* (not that I expect it to be detailed).

Comic-based stuff isn't going to break from real world history (unless it is called out specifically to do so - like Watchmen), just as it will never address the impact these characters would have on the world at large: religion, technology, cult of personality, politics, law, etc.

[Q99]

To an extent, yea, but I mean, they specifically killed Ludendorff and Hindenburg, two key architects for what happened next...

[Elheru Aran]

To an extent, yea, but I mean, they specifically killed Ludendorff and Hindenburg, two key architects for what happened next...

And I expect that if they bother addressing it at all, they'll say something like "the Versailles Treaty happened anyway, the Weimar Republic also happened, and the Nazi Party formed as it did before, the only thing that's different is there was another old general at the head of the German state".

Comics simply don't really do alt-hist unless that's their whole thing or part of it. We -know- that the DC Universe and the Marvel Universe must have some serious changes from IRL history (did Captain America literally punch Hitler?), but they simply aren't going to go into it, because it would be a continuity nightmare.

[Broomstick]

Like comic books aren't already a continuity nightmare, right? Alt-history would just make it worse.

[Elheru Aran]

Like comic books aren't already a continuity nightmare, right? Alt-history would just make it worse.

Exactly, yeah.

I mean... in the Marvel Universe they actually mention Captain America and Namor etc. being in WWII in their history books... but it's more in light of 'they were really special, special forces' rather than 'they were superheroes who WON THE WAR for us in two weeks' like most of those 1940s' comic books liked to put it. Or, even better, the fact that they were in the war is classified (depends on the writer). And that's not even getting into how the super-tech invented by Reed Richards or Tony Stark doesn't get into the market, or how dictators like Doctor Doom can rule their little countries for decades with impunity (despite being regularly overturned by superheroes), etc...

The simple fact is that, in the comics at least-- we all know they're never going to elaborate THAT much on the movies' backgrounds because nobody wants to watch 4 hours of info-dumping-- they aren't going to alter the history of their universes too far from real-world history, the odd issue showing what REALLY happened on D-Day aside, because it's a pain in the ass to maintain continuity across who knows how many comic books, and the status quo is God. It's far easier for them to just depict Nazis without having to make up excuses for why, if WWI ended differently than it did IRL, how the hell the Nazis formed the exact same way they did IRL.

I have to give the MCU credit though-- it does give nods to the existence of superheroes in the past (mostly just Cap, granted), and they've maintained a decent continuity with all the different things that have happened in the movies (the alien attack on New York, the Sovokia incident, etc). At this point, as of Spider-Man Homecoming, the past... decade or so, has been changed a decent amount from IRL... but daily life still looks pretty much the same.

[The Romulan Republic]

This is a major problem with superheros in a world that is otherwise our world- realistically, the long-time existence of superheroes should lead to a radically different world, technologically, politically, and socially, with an entire alternate history.

I complained over in the Harry Potter fanfic thread about writers changing one or a few big things, and then having everything else, right down to very specific minor bits of dialog, follow the books? Same deal. Once you change one thing, that's going to have knock-on effects, and before long you're dealing with a whole alternate world, or seriously straining suspension of disbelief and creating the impression that the changes that do happen don't really matter.

[biostem]

I would imagine that there'd be a whole branch of Paparazzi who'd try and track down where the superheroes go after fighting. Heck, There would probably numerous subreddit-type sites, focused on trying to find out where WW came from, or trying to replicate Batman's technology...

On the Marvel side of things, given that Venko was able to recreate the arc reactor, I'm surprised that there haven't been others to do the same...

[Simon_Jester]

I have to give the MCU credit though-- it does give nods to the existence of superheroes in the past (mostly just Cap, granted), and they've maintained a decent continuity with all the different things that have happened in the movies (the alien attack on New York, the Sovokia incident, etc). At this point, as of Spider-Man Homecoming, the past... decade or so, has been changed a decent amount from IRL... but daily life still looks pretty much the same.

Well yeah- because the only thing that's changed significantly that affects "look and feel" of day to day life is the effects of Starktech, which are pretty sharply limited by Stark's efforts to maintain control of the arc reactor.

So "look and feel" is largely unaffected. There's marvelous high-end technology, but a lot of it either has no civilian applications (death rays), or has 'invisible' civilian applications (a car engine that gets 100 miles to the gallon on pure internal combustion, buildings with girders that use half the weight of real buildings, but are twice as strong).

I would imagine that there'd be a whole branch of Paparazzi who'd try and track down where the superheroes go after fighting. Heck, There would probably numerous subreddit-type sites, focused on trying to find out where WW came from, or trying to replicate Batman's technology...

Batman's known technologies aren't that far beyond the cutting edge- not much changes there. As to the rest... oh, absolutely- but we have a fair estimate of the sum total of what they were able to accomplish already. You can bet that Lex Luthor's files on the various DC Cinematic heroes contained everything that could be found about them on Reddit, for instance.

I mean, Reddit-type communities in real life don't succeed in deducing military secrets all the time, or even if they do then their correct deductions are mixed in with a huge mass of false conjectures. Just putting together a thousand like-minded enthusiasts scattered across the globe does not automatically translate to an "I WIN!" button.

Plus, a guy like Batman could probably just hire a few dozen discreet people to troll the "Who is the Batman" subreddits with fake pictures and the like, massively disrupting their efforts.

On the Marvel side of things, given that Venko was able to recreate the arc reactor, I'm surprised that there haven't been others to do the same...

Vanko was working from his father's notes, and Vanko Senior collaborated with Howard Stark to build the arc reactor in the first place. Nobody else is in nearly as a good position to replicate that technology. I wouldn't be surprised if it's happening anyway, but it's probably involving much more gradual miniaturization of the gigantic arc reactors we find out about in the first movie. Not just skipping ahead 50-100 years of technological progress to the point where you can power a small town off a reactor the size of a grapefruit.

[Q99]

And I expect that if they bother addressing it at all, they'll say something like "the Versailles Treaty happened anyway, the Weimar Republic also happened, and the Nazi Party formed as it did before, the only thing that's different is there was another old general at the head of the German state".

Comics simply don't really do alt-hist unless that's their whole thing or part of it. We -know- that the DC Universe and the Marvel Universe must have some serious changes from IRL history (did Captain America literally punch Hitler?), but they simply aren't going to go into it, because it would be a continuity nightmare.

Still, if they decide to purposefully avoid addressing it, then I can keep my headcanon ^^

[The Romulan Republic]

Plus, a guy like Batman could probably just hire a few dozen discreet people to troll the "Who is the Batman" subreddits with fake pictures and the like, massively disrupting their efforts.

Have to be people he could trust, though, or people might start asking why Bruce Wayne is paying so much money to spread disinformation about Batman.

And now I have this hilarious image of Oracle spending half her time online just trolling web forums, spreading disinformation.

[Joun_Lord]

Have to be people he could trust, though, or people might start asking why Bruce Wayne is paying so much money to spread disinformation about Batman.

Surely Bats has a way of hiding his finances so anything like that would not be found by the IRS or Wayne Enterprises financial people. Already he's have to worry about them wondering why Bruce Wayne is spending millions on rubber suits, custom Bat shaped masks, custom Bat shaped pieces of metal, high tech car parts, miniguns, shark repellent, and a super computer. Being a rich playboy can excuse alot of thats, rubber suits and animal masks can be explained easy, but maybe not so much the super computer and firepower.

Presumably he was some way of transfering money without it being noticed to some accounts that don't tie to him. Maybe he confiscates some criminal money to use as untraceable cash.

The thought of Batman and Co having to fight a cyberwar on trolls and even supervillains is definitely a funny thought. Well maybe not so funny as I'm sure a hacker Joker would actually find a way to blow peoples computers up.

[Q99]

Also ideally, he should present the job as if it was someone who *honestly thought X* was Batman and hiring them to get the info out.

[The Romulan Republic]

Have to be people he could trust, though, or people might start asking why Bruce Wayne is paying so much money to spread disinformation about Batman.

Surely Bats has a way of hiding his finances so anything like that would not be found by the IRS or Wayne Enterprises financial people. Already he's have to worry about them wondering why Bruce Wayne is spending millions on rubber suits, custom Bat shaped masks, custom Bat shaped pieces of metal, high tech car parts, miniguns, shark repellent, and a super computer. Being a rich playboy can excuse alot of thats, rubber suits and animal masks can be explained easy, but maybe not so much the super computer and firepower.

Presumably he was some way of transfering money without it being noticed to some accounts that don't tie to him. Maybe he confiscates some criminal money to use as untraceable cash.

The thought of Batman and Co having to fight a cyberwar on trolls and even supervillains is definitely a funny thought. Well maybe not so funny as I'm sure a hacker Joker would actually find a way to blow peoples computers up.

Joker hacker is a scary thought.

Also ideally, he should present the job as if it was someone who *honestly thought X* was Batman and hiring them to get the info out.

Yeah, maybe, but the fewer ways their are for people to tie him to Batman, the better, right?

[Elheru Aran]

Presumably Oracle is capable of creating bots by the dozen for disinformation purposes. But we don't know if Oracle exists in the new DCCU, and it appears that Batman in the DCCU is a bit of a different animal. The past Robin aside, he seems to work strictly on his own, and has more or less vigilante-justice-terrorized Gotham over the past few years in his own right. Well, at least up till BvS and the JL movie, anyway...

[Simon_Jester]

Have to be people he could trust, though, or people might start asking why Bruce Wayne is paying so much money to spread disinformation about Batman.

I'm sure this could be arranged through cutouts. Compared to all the other things Batman has to be able to cover up, covering up a modest flow of cash to a bunch of trolls is child's play. You probably wouldn't even have to pay them very much; trolling speculative forums with misinformation is something some people will already do for free. We're not talking "enough money to feed your family," we're talking "few hundred dollar a month stipend."

And now I have this hilarious image of Oracle spending half her time online just trolling web forums, spreading disinformation.

[Q99]

Wonder Woman continues to exceed box office expectations with smallest Friday drop yet

It's passed Deadpool and Iron Man, and is on the way to outdoing Spider-Man (the first one).

It's going to have a bigger ninth weekend (around $3.6 million) and a smaller weekend drop (-22%, its smallest drop yet) than the Sam Raimi blockbuster, although its 59-day total (around $395.5m) may be just under Spider-Man's $395.8m cume back in the day. Inflation and 3D bumps notwithstanding, next week should be when it A) starts outpacing Spider-Man for good and B) crosses the $400m mark in North America.

If that continues, then we're looking at a domestic total of at least $404 million with an outside chance that the film tops the (unadjusted) domestic totals of Captain America: Civil War ($408m), Iron Man 3 ($409m) and The Hunger Games ($408m in 2D). This is obviously an if/when situation, but if the film holds onto theaters and continues these insane weekend drops and/or makes it into the Oscar race, a total above the $415m of Toy Story 3 isn't completely out of the question.

Dang that's impressive.

[Q99]

My mom finally got to see it and liked it ^^