Rittenhouse Archives Star Trek Beyond Trading Cards Are Better Than The Film!

The Good: Beautiful common set, Decent chase cards, Some cool autograph signers, Impressive sketches
The Bad: Poor internal/external continuity, Repetitive signers/lack of major villain actor autographs
The Basics: The Star Trek Beyond trading cards take a disappointing film and make an impressive trading card set that acts as a decent tribute to the Kelvan Universe Star Trek films!


It is hard not to feel empathy for the trials and tribulations of a trading card company that has a long history of innovating. Rittenhouse Archives certainly has a well-earned reputation for trying new things in the trading card medium and their media-based trading cards are made popular by the results they are able to deliver based upon having a positive relationship with the film studios and talent with which they interact. To make more intriguing trading cards, Rittenhouse Archives manages to get in set materials, costumes and similar materials from studios like CBS Studios, which now produces the television shows and films in the Star Trek franchise. The positive relationship does not guarantee all aspects of an ideal trading card set will come together, though. That premise is embodied well in the new Star Trek Beyond trading cards.

The Star Trek Beyond trading cards, released in December 2017 by Rittenhouse Archives - more than a year after the cinematic release of Star Trek Beyond - reveals the benefits and issues with making a great trading card set based upon a blockbuster film. Fans of the Star Trek franchise, even those who primarily enjoy the new "Kelvan Universe" films, are deeply divided on Star Trek Beyond (reviewed here!) and I definitely fall into the camp that the latest cinematic outing for Star Trek was not one of its better ones. So, when I write that Rittenhouse Archives managed to make a trading card set that was vastly superior to its source material, I am not simply saying that the trading card company made something adequate out of something that was awful; the Star Trek Beyond trading cards are a truly beautiful trading card set with a wide array of benefits for trading card collectors and Star Trek enthusiasts alike.

But even with managing to make something impressive out of something that was unimpressive, Rittenhouse Archives was limited by the access the company had and the timeliness of its production schedule. Conceptually, the Star Trek Beyond set is more like the 2014 Star Trek Movies set (reviewed here!) in that it includes content from the prior two Kelvan Universe Star Trek films, in addition to Star Trek Beyond. Indeed, the chase cards include expansion sets that continue cards from the Star Trek (2009 Movie) set (reviewed here!) and the 2014 Star Trek Movies set, which dilutes the Star Trek Beyond theme of the set. The random expansion relic cards from prior films give the set something of an assembled, almost a collection of leftovers, feel. And, despite the access Rittenhouse Archives has with CBS and many of the actors from the Star Trek franchise, the Star Trek Beyond set is noticeably lacking in an Idris Elba autograph card. In fact, for a set that includes a huge array of costume and autograph cards from all three of the Kelvan Universe films, the Star Trek Beyond trading cards are unfortunately missing any of the primary villains on autograph cards - there are no Eric Bana or Benedict Cumberbatch autographs, either (the biggest adversary featured is a Peter Weller as Admiral Marcus autograph card, which is actually pretty cool in its own right!).

With an arguably lame film as source material and inability to get access to one of the biggest international celebrities on the planet right now, Rittenhouse Archives seems to have been in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" type situation when it took on the Star Trek Beyond trading cards. Rather than harp on the addition of cards that flesh out past sets in an awkward way or the lack of an Idris Elba autograph card, Rittenhouse Archives focused its attention on giving collectors an immense amount of bang for their buck with the Star Trek Beyond trading cards . . . with so much that was good that when one looks at the assembled set, they are likely to forget there is no Idris Elba autograph and actually be dazzled by some of the new relic cards from Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness!

Basics/Set Composition

Fully assembled, the Star Trek Beyond trading card set has 346 cards, all of which is focused on the three Kelvan tangent universe films, with most of the cards relating very clearly to Star Trek Beyond! In addition to the trading cards themselves, there is an oversized binder produced by Rittenhouse Archives that comfortably holds the entire set . . . sort of. The Star Trek Beyond trading card set features four cards that do not fit into any sort of binder page I have yet found (beautiful cards, a pain in the ass to incorporate into the binder in a way that keeps the cards mint!). The set consists of 85 common cards and 261 bonus cards. The chase cards are mostly available in the packs of cards, though eleven of them were incentive or promotional cards and could not be found in any of the packs. The Star Trek Beyond trading cards were released in boxes of twenty-four packs of five cards each and it was priced to be a premium set . . . that delivered premium card quality throughout!

Common Cards

The common card set for the Star Trek Beyond trading cards consisted of eighty five trading cards and this is an important divergence from the 2014 Star Trek Movies set. The 2014 Star Trek Movies trading cards featured sets of cards for Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness that were 110 cards each. The moment the Star Trek Beyond trading cards were first introduced, most collectors assumed that Rittenhouse Archives was going to continue the same style of those cards for Star Trek Beyond. The common set illustrates brilliantly how Rittenhouse Archives made amazing lemonade out of some very bitter lemons: the writing on the Star Trek Beyond trading cards details every moment of the film. The plot summary is incredibly complete with a great attention to detail; Rittenhouse Archives made a set that utilized the entirety of the source material. The eighty-five card common set's length represents the best possible attempt to be thorough without stretching the plot to make more cards.

One of the nicest aspects of the Star Trek Beyond trading card common card set is that the cards are consistently oriented. The entire set features images in landscape orientation with a single decent-sized image on the front and a different image on the back. The Star Trek Beyond cards have the traditional UV-resistant coating which is flawlessly applied. The back of each card has a plot synopsis of the scene depicted on the front and the writing is impressive in its level of detail. The Star Trek Beyond common set accurately portrays the entire plot of Star Trek Beyond and is certainly intended for those who have seen the film, as the plot synopsis is complete. Rittenhouse Archives did an amazing job of translating the film into trading cards; this is an entirely complete and comprehensive set for relating the story of Star Trek Beyond!

Chase Cards

The 250 chase cards that can be found in packs and boxes of Star Trek Beyond are rich in material, with the Star Trek Beyond set focusing intensely on high-end insert cards, like relic, costume and autograph cards, though there are some less-expensive chase cards in the set as well. The chase sets take at least a complete case to finish, but most of the chase sets require multiple cases to have a fair shot at completion.

The first level of chase cards in the Star Trek Beyond set are the "Quotable" Star Trek Beyond cards. Each card in this subset is in landscape format and features a big image of a character (or, in some cases, multiple characters who shared the scene) and large text for a cool quote from the film Star Trek Beyond. These brightly colored cards follow the same type style as the "Quotable" cards that Rittenhouse Archives made for the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary trading cards. These "Quotable" cards find a nice balance between the images and text, which was one of the issues with some of the earliest "Quotable" cards (small text, long paragraphs with tiny or no images, etc.). The technical issues fixed, the "Quotable" Star Trek Beyond cards feature, arguably, the best thirty quotes from the film over the course of the fifteen cards. It is a little odd that the set is not some multiple of nine cards, but it seems (again) like Rittenhouse Archives did all they could with the source material!

The Star Trek Beyond set has only one parallel set, which is a refreshing change from the 2014 Star Trek Movies set. One per pack is one of the eighty-five metal parallel cards mimicking the common cards on metal trading cards, as is the current trend in parallel cards. The bright coloring of the common cards translates beautifully to the metal cards, which are easily distinguished from the common cards by their rounded edges and an individual collector's number stamped on the back of each card. There are only one hundred of each of the eighty-five Star Trek Beyond metal parallel cards and this set looks great in metal!

The rest of the chase cards in the Star Trek Beyond trading cards are comparatively high-end cards and Rittenhouse Archives delivers a set that looks amazing with their new, ambitious, concepts. One of the coolest cards that continues the metal card trend into the Star Trek Beyond trading card set are the nine movie poster cards. These metal cards replicate the movie posters created for Star Trek Beyond during the massive promotional campaign for Star Trek Beyond. All seven of the main cast, plus Jaylah and Krall had posters, which are replicated into glossy, beautiful, metal cards. The popularity and quality of these cards exceeds that of the similar metal movie poster cards Rittenhouse Archives created for the James Bond films. While not individually numbered on the back, like other metal movie poster cards, the Star Trek Beyond metal movie poster cards were quite rare, being found only two per case!

The Star Trek Beyond set makes a number of conceptual callbacks to the trading card sets Rittenhouse Archives made for the classic ten Star Trek films. In some of those earlier sets, Rittenhouse Archives created patch replica cards of the patches from Star Trek The Motion Picture. In the Star Trek Beyond set, Rittenhouse Archives included manufactured patch cards for characters from Star Trek Beyond and Star Trek Into Darkness. The patch cards are well-made and intricately detailed, even if the patches in the films lack the prominent positioning of the patches in the original films (the patches Rittenhouse Archives replicated were shoulder patches as opposed to patches on character's chests). These landscape-oriented patch cards were also found only two per case.

Found only one per case are one each of the nine Anton Yelchin In Memoriam and six Leonard Nimoy In Memoriam cards. Anton Yelchin lost his life in a freak tragic accident shortly before the cinematic release of Star Trek Beyond and the Star Trek Beyond cards are the first chance Rittenhouse Archives had to produce a tribute card to the young actor. The Anton Yelchin In Memoriam cards are beautiful and include nice images from each of the three Star Trek films. The In Memoriam cards for Anton Yelchin are individually numbered up to 100 and they are consistent with the quality of the prior In Memoriam cards. The Leonard Nimoy In Memoriam expansion cards continue the In Memoriam set for Nimoy that was begun in the Star Trek The Original Series 50th Anniversary cards with images of Nimoy as Spock from his appearance in Star Trek (the 2009 film). Numbered to 125, each of the cards features images of Nimoy's penultimate performance in the Star Trek franchise beautifully rendered (it would have been virtually impossible to use a shot from Star Trek Into Darkness as Nimoy's Spock only appeared on the viewscreen in that film. The In Memoriam cards are one of the solemn gems of the Star Trek Beyond trading card set.

One per box there are one of thirty-five cards from a Relic, Uniform Relic and Pin card set. This is, arguably, the most conceptually-fragmented portion of the Star Trek Beyond trading card set, even if the results look absolutely amazing. The Relic and Pin set is a hodgepodge of relics, costume cards (inexplicably called "relics" in this set, despite being pieces of set-worn costumes) and manufactured pin cards. The thirty-five cards in this set are fractured throughout different styles, orientations and even the films, which makes for a conceptually erratic subset. Ultimately, I feel on the side of "it's far more wonderful that we collectors get these awesome relics than have to either buy an expansion set or go without them!" There are three proper subsets of actual relic cards on this Star Trek Beyond set: 2 expansion relics from the Star Trek set, four expansion "relics" (they are actually costume cards!) from Star Trek Into Darkness and two for Star Trek Into Darkness. The Star Trek expansion relics allow collectors to get a piece of a StarFleet chair and the interior of a shuttlecraft and the latter is an extremely limited thick card that is pretty cool. The Star Trek Into Darkness expansion relics fit the style made for the 2014 Star Trek Movies set flawlessly, though it seems odd that the RC13 card is unclear on whether it used material from Khan or Kirk's outfit (unless Pine and Cumberbatch shared a costume!). Rittenhouse Archives easily overcomes any trepidation on the one Relic card by having amazing variation with the Klingon Shoulder piece costume card and the scarce Admiral Pike costume piece (all of which that I found featured a piece of Pike's gold braid!). The two Star Trek Beyond relic cards are absolutely awesome. There is a piece of the Enterprise's interior and the exterior to a Swarm Ship. The Swarm Ship piece is an awesome find as each piece, like the Klingon Shoulder fabric, seems to have a different sense of coloring and texture, making each one unique!

Rittenhouse Archives manufactured uniform pin cards, which were part of the Relic and Pin set. The thick cards form a ten card subset that features full-sized metal pin badges embedded in each card. The badges replicate the metal pins worn by each of the main cast members on their uniforms (with variants for Kirk, Chekov and Spock to flesh out the set).

Rarer than the uniform pin cards are the seventeen costume relic cards, which are spread out into three subsets of the main set. Landscape-oriented, the relic costume cards feature single swatches, two swatches of fabric from a single character's costume (i.e. Kirk's shirt and pants) and single swatches from two different characters (like Kirk's shirt and Krall's armor). These cards are generally cool - the two that have costume materials from Krall are actually awesome! - though it seems a little odd that there is a Dual Character Relic of Jaylah and Chekov, when Jaylah and Scotty spent the most time together in Star Trek Beyond. That said, the various relic costume cards in the Star Trek Beyond set offer some of the most beautiful and diverse costume materials assembled for a film-based Star Trek set!

Despite being an assemblage of four different subsets, the autograph cards are pretty awesome in the Star Trek Beyond trading cards! With fifty-two different autographs, Rittenhouse Archives managed to get an impressive variety of signers, especially from the main cast of the three Kelvan Universe Star Trek films. The autographs come in four subsets - autographed relics, Star Trek (2009 Movie) full-bleed style, Classic Movies style (begin in the Complete Star Trek Movies set and continued through the other classic Star Trek movies trading card sets, and the Star Trek Into Darkness (landscape-oriented) cards. Star Trek fans will be thrilled to get autograph cards from Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Alice Eve, one of three different ones from rising international star Sofia Boutella (which is the biggest new signer in the Star Trek Beyond set and a very cool one at that!), and a scarce (less than 100 signed!) autograph card from Simon Pegg. There is even a new full-bleed Chris Pine autograph card and multiple Karl Urban autograph cards in the Star Trek Beyond set! While collectors might be underwhelmed by having three Jason Matthew Smith autographs in the Star Trek Beyond set, it's pretty cool that Rittenhouse Archives managed to get Peter Weller to sign again, as well as a new autograh card from Star Trek Beyond director Justin Lin.

For the first time in a Star Trek movies set, Rittenhouse Archives had sketch cards produced! Found one per case, the sketch cards feature subjects from all three Kelvan Universe Star Trek films rendered by one of thirty different artists. The Star Trek Beyond sketch cards were drawn by renowned artists like Kristin Allen, Carlos Cabalerio, Chris Meeks, Charles Hall, and Warren Martineck. The Star Trek Beyond set is a premium trading card set and the sketch cards bear that out; there are no duds (that I've yet seen!) in this collection of sketch cards. All of the sketch cards in this set were immaculately rendered by wonderful artists, none of whom seemed to rush their work on this set. All of the sketches look recognizable and like fine art, as opposed to having an assemblage of great artists with a few duds that make for disappointing pulls. Instead, the Star Trek Beyond sketch cards are some of the best that Rittenhouse Archives has ever released, making the implicit argument for better artists, better cards!

Non-Box/Pack Cards

The Star Trek Beyond trading card set has eleven cards not found in any of the boxes or packs. There are three promotional cards – the usual general release, an exclusive one placed in Non-Sport Update magazine, and the binder-exclusive promotional card.

The casetopper for the Star Trek Beyond trading card set is a strange one. Rather than have a movie poster card for Star Trek Beyond (there was at least one style not released in the metal movie poster set!), the casetopper for the Star Trek Beyond trading cards was an acetate movie poster card from Star Trek. The movie poster card featuring the (almost) negative image of the Enterprise at warp from the 2009 movie Star Trek translates incredibly well to the clear plastic card, though!

The Star Trek Beyond set is fleshed out with incentive cards and these follow the trend of recent Rittenhouse Archives releases! For purchasing six cases, dealers received a Zoe Saldana autographed costume card. The autograph costume card looks incredible and all of the cards I've seen have a very clear signature from Saldana, who has become quite a star in recent years, making for a coveted incentive card. The nine-case incentive card is a cool Chris Pine autographed costume card, which is rarer than the full-bleed autograph card from the set. This is an awesome addition to the Star Trek Beyond set!

The archive box for the Star Trek Beyond trading card set features four premiums not found in any other packs or boxes of the cards. There is a Classic Movies style autograph card for director Justin Lin, a variant badge pin card for Chekov, and an ambitious multi-costume card that features fabric swatches from all seven of the main crew members from the Star Trek films. The bridge crew costume card is a concept that seems iffy, but Rittenhouse Archives executed it incredibly well. The picture on the card features the whole cast and the layout of the fabric swatches is artistically done, making for an immaculate collection of costume pieces and an amazing trading card! The Archive Box is fleshed out with a four-card set of printing plates for one of the common cards in the set. Those are pretty cool and a nice addition to the Archive Box and the completed set.

The final chase card of the Star Trek Beyond set is the Rittenhouse Reward card. The Rittenhouse Rewards cards is a variant costume card for Chekov. The SR8a card is essentially the same as the SR8, but with Chekov's image facing the opposite direction as the main release card. It's hard to complain about another Chekov card and the SR8a card is an nice added incentive for collectors!

Overall

The Star Trek Beyond set ends up as an impressive collection that takes an lot of materials from all three Kelvan Universe Star Trek films and makes a great tribute to Star Trek Beyond that is far better than the last film alone!

This set culls images from the Star Trek films Star Trek (reviewed here!), Star Trek Into Darkness (reviewed here!), and Star Trek Beyond!

These cards are available in my online store! Please check them out here: Star Trek Beyond Trading Card Current Inventory!

For other Star Trek franchise trading card reviews, please check out my reviews of:
Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary
Star Trek Aliens
2013 Star Trek Into Darkness Preview Set

8/10

For other card reviews, please visit my Card Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2018 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Why Wonder Woman Will Age Poorly (A More Thorough Analysis).

| | | The Basics: The more one considers the 2017 cinematic rendition of Wonder Woman, the more troubling the film becomes, especially for fans of the iconic character.


I waited about thirty-seven years for the film Wonder Woman (I'm assuming I was not necessarily a fan for the first couple years of my life). I have been a lifelong fan of the character Wonder Woman and in the last decade, I have actually become much more educated about the character of Princess Diana Of Themyscira. This weekend, I have found myself in an incredibly odd position, though. I rushed right out to see Wonder Woman (and reviewed it here!) on opening day on the biggest screen I could reasonably get to and in the days since, I have read the chatter and tried to interact with people about the film, but I've discovered that the hype machine for the film is still alive and well.

I have been feeling out-of-sorts about the film Wonder Woman because the more I think about the film, the less I liked it. This is a confession I anticipate more people will articulate in the days and weeks ahead and I am pleased, for once, to be well ahead of the curve. When I saw Alien Covenant (reviewed here!), for example, it seemed like people in the audience knew they had just watched a terrible film. When the screening was over, the fans who had rushed out to the earliest possible screening on the 70 ft. tall screen were silent; there was no chatter in the audience and people filed out of the screening like they were leaving a funeral. By contrast, when Wonder Woman ended, people were enthusiastically talking and I left in kind of a daze and felt compelled to ask one viewer, "Did you like that?" Rather than argue, I simply listened to her answer; she was impressed that Patty Jenkins managed to get a movie of that scope made and she was excited about going to see it again.

So, when I came home, I began looking at other people's responses to Wonder Woman and the more conversations I saw about the film, the more I came to believe that people were seeing what they wanted to in the movie, as opposed to what was on the screen. I also came to recognize that there was a strong divide between the people who were fans of the source material - Wonder Woman comic books - and the generic idea of Wonder Woman. But, on every major front - Themyscira as a matriarchal society, Patty Jenkins's direction, Ares as an adversary, and the heroic nature of Wonder Woman - Wonder Woman is not only a disappointment, but a betrayal of the ideas for which the character stands.

It is worth noting, before I delve into each of these aspects, that this article is intended to speak frankly about aspects of the film Wonder Woman and it is intended for people who have seen the film. If one enjoys the way a film unfolds and surprises within it, this is not the article for you who have not seen Wonder Woman. That said . . .

Themyscira

Themyscira is the island of the Amazon warriors and to be fair to writer Allan Heinberg and director Patty Jenkins, the island is fairly well-characterized in Wonder Woman. The Amazons are a mostly warrior culture, though Wonder Woman takes time to pull out a book and have Hippolyta reading to a young Diana.  Viewers see the effects of a Themysciran education later in the film when Diana flawlessly speaks many languages with Sameer. So, Themyscira is a place of military training and education (though, seriously, my next viewing I'm going to be scouring the background for a single Amazon sitting somewhere actually reading a book!), set aside from the world by Zeus to keep it safe from the Ares-corrupted world of mankind.

The problem with Themyscira in Wonder Woman is that the hook is a cheap one and the environment quickly becomes indistinct from the world it is supposed to be separate from.

Themyscira is a matriarchal society that is supposed to be different from the World Of Man. Great. It is populated by women entirely and people there seem generally happy. But, outside of the lack of a Y chromosome on the island, what makes Themyscira different from the rest of the world? The citizens are immortal, there is that. But beyond that . . .

Themyscira is governed by corrupt liars. Themyscira is populated by people motivated by fear who lie to one another to advance their own agendas.

Allow me to clarify those assertions. Themyscira is governed by a corrupt liar. Hippolyta is a liar. She spends decades or centuries lying to Diana both directly and through omission. Hippolyta shares information with Diana about the nature of Themyscira, including the fact that it is the repository of the God Killer. The child Diana assumes that the God Killer is the name of the sword kept in the Amazon's vault of precious things, when Hippolyta and every other Amazon knows that the God Killer is Diana herself. Hippoltya is an authoritarian leader in Wonder Woman; she orders Antiope not to train Diana and viewers are forced to assume that at some point Hippolyta ordered her people not to tell Diana her true nature. None of the women of Themyscira contradict Hippolyta's lie of omission when others know the truth about Diana's true nature. The Amazons lie to Diana.

The other well-developed Amazon in Wonder Woman is Robin Wright's Antiope. Wright does an amazing job of portraying Antiope, but the character only helps to reinforce that Themyscira is fundamentally no different than the world it has been isolated from. Hippolyta orders Antiope not to train Diana in the defensive arts. Antiope does it anyway, under the cover of night and behind Hippolyta's back for (presumably) decades, if not centuries (how immortals age is not clearly chronicled in the film). Antiope wants to be prepared because she wants the Amazons to be able to defend Themsycira for the time when Ares inevitably finds the hidden island. Antiope is afraid of the world and wants to be prepared, so she lies to her government and prepares the God Killer.

So, Themyscira is not actually different from Man's World in Wonder Woman and while there is the valid feminist argument to be made of "here we illustrate that women are no different from men," there is something incredibly unsatisfying about that view being applied to Wonder Woman. First, as a place segregated by the gods, it stands to reason that there ought to be something fundamentally different about Themyscira. Second, embodying Themyscira as "just the same as Man's World" robs the film of the ability to laud the benefits that could be created by a matriarchal society - a lack of prudishness, marriage that does not need a government to enforce it, honest dialogue between the citizens, etc. (all of which are lacking in the film). Finally, from a storytelling perspective, Themyscira being just the same as Man's World undermines the potential to tell Princess Diana's story in a more compelling way. Instead of setting up a reversal where Diana is the last person to get to the realization that she is the God Killer, if she had been raised knowing she was the God Killer, it would give her a strong sense of destiny and purpose in leaving Themyscira. That is the difference between the character being self-motivated and plot-motivated (Diana leaves the island as a reaction to Steve Trevor, regardless, but she would have had greater moral authority in leaving to slay Ares had she been armed with the information of her true nature in advance).

Patty Jenkins's Direction

As I write this, news is breaking that Wonder Woman is now the film that has the highest-grossing box office debut for a film by a female director and, despite my issues with the film, I could not be more thrilled about that. I was especially happy because that meant that Fifty Shades Of Grey no longer has that honor. But, in reading people's thoughts on Wonder Woman, it got me thinking about directors who happen to be female, whose work I enjoyed. Last night, I asked myself "What female directors do you like?" and I was very happy that I instantly was able to name Roxann Dawson and I've been very aware of Robin Wright's episodes of House Of Cards when she directs. But, when I went through my video library, for films - despite having many in my collection that have strong female characters or tell vital stories about women - I discovered I only had The Incredibly True Adventure Of Two Girls In Love (reviewed here!) and Waitress (reviewed here!) that were directed by women. Both of those films are much smaller films than Wonder Woman in terms of scope.

But . . .

. . . visually, they aren't truly twenty years behind Patty Jenkins's Wonder Woman. Obviously, the special effects in Wonder Woman are better than films from the late-90s and early 00s, but the direction of Patty Jenkins was one of the ways I felt most isolated in discussing Wonder Woman. Many people seem to be generically lauding the scope of Wonder Woman and praising Patty Jenkins for that. I saw something very different in Wonder Woman: Patty Jenkins seemed very cautious in using the scale, seemed outright terrified in dwelling on key moments and created an entirely derivative battle sequence.

I saw Wonder Woman on big screen and I was very excited about that. It did not take long into Wonder Woman, though, before I started to become troubled by how scale was being misused. How places within the environments of Wonder Woman fit together is very problematic and are not very well presented. Take, for example, the first big encounter in Wonder Woman. Many, if not most, Amazons are watching Diana show off her military training for Hippolyta. Diana inadvertently wounds Antiope and runs away to the cliff where she sees Steve Trevor's plane fall into the sea. That leads the Germans into the waters of Themyscira and the beachfront battle. How those locations fit together is not made clear by Patty Jenkins; we do not get wide shots and clear trails and that leads to a problematic suspension of disbelief.

Are we supposed to believe that no one followed Diana? Is she truly so friendless that none of the Amazons saw her go over the cliff into the water and saw the Germans piercing the veil around Themyscira? If so, why did it take the Amazons so long to get to the beachfront when they were pretty much all in the same place to begin with?! The failure to show the scale and how pieces of the whole fit together is problematic for the storytelling and is not great filmmaking. The best battle sequences hold up because the relation of places for the battle are established and make sense and the Themyscira beach battle is one that crumbles under the most basic scrutiny. Sure, it looks good to have the horses thundering across a beach, but why didn't the Amazons stay on top of the cliff and shoot down the Germans from high above? And, based on the way the battle was filmed, if the Germans had tried to infiltrate the city from the beach, any survivors who tried would have been easily cut down by the attempt as Patty Jenkins showed viewers only one clear way from the beach to the city! In other words, the direction undermines the themes as the Amazons, who have been training for centuries to protect their homeland and have multiple home field advantages, utilize a military strategy that is reckless and invites casualties.

But that problem carries on throughout the film. Jenkins frames rooms so their size, shape, and the relationship between people within the environment is not clear until Diana enters that room or setting. One of the key scenes that has magnitude that is undermined by having such a myopic view of scale is when Diana enters No Man's Land at the front. Diana takes a stand and it is not clear until she starts her stride just how much terrain she must cross or how much weaponry might come to bear upon her. The magnitude of her act is undermined because the potential consequence of it is not made clear in advance. Furthermore, the moment Diana starts taking serious fire, Jenkins is forced to continue cutting back to Steve Trevor and Sameer following and trying to cross No Man's Land as well. This, sadly, becomes almost worthy of parody in that - because the scale of the trenches, No Man's Land and the Front are not made clear - the men who follow Wonder Woman are not cut down by what should be a slew of other guns that could not possibly have been aimed at her along the same vector.

Patty Jenkins also makes a lot of very quick shots that gut the emotional significance of key moments within Wonder Woman. When I think of the two films I have in my collection directed by women, one of the aspects that differentiates them from many of the other films I have is how the directors linger on faces to capture emotions, emotional transitions and actual reactions between characters. Sure, art house films are often more willing to capture clunky human emotions than blockbuster films, but it is hard to see how Patty Jenkins would have taken a hit as a director for attempting to show genuine emotional consequences for the actions within the film. Themyscira is an environment populated by immortals where that has been no evidence of violent death for centuries (since the island was segregated by Zeus). Early in Wonder Woman, at least ten women are killed (albeit some utterly ridiculously like a bullet to the gut that kills an armored woman instantly). How do the Amazon's react? One background Amazon runs forward, screaming in anguish to fall by Antiope's side and lift her head up. I'm pretty sure that before her first tear can actually fall, the shot has changed to Diana and Steve Trevor again. Regardless, that one Amazon's anguish is filmed in a wide shot, so it is part of a much larger tableau. By contrast - even if it was not initially clear and had to be seen many times to understand - when Legolas sees a fellow elf die in The Two Towers (reviewed here!), Peter Jackson lingers on Orlando Bloom's expression of shock, sorrow, and confusion. Jenkins guts almost every major moment of emotional resonance in Wonder Woman by cutting away from characters who are having reactions to the next moment of action.

Finally, there are the battles in Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman is a particularly bloodless film, which is nice in that one finally gets a film without anyone getting their throat slashed. But, just as cutting away from emotional moments undermines them, the impact of warfare is completely gutted by making everything bloodless. Diana pins a human to a roof by running him through with her sword, then stands in a room below the sword and there is no blood dripping from it. Really?! So, war is horrible and bad, but people don't really bleed in it, including a woman who is shot such that we see the bullet pierce her and her limp body swinging afterward for several seconds.

The final battle of Wonder Woman is one that seems to be garnering a lot of praise from fans and that has left me especially baffled. I've started playing video games over the last two years and that has truly opened me up to the idea that special effects are truly only special when they are rendered in a way that can be comprehended. I don't like playing video games with other players because I actually derive joy from exploring the virtual environments, walking around and seeing the nooks and crannies that programmers have bothered to develop. So, when the final battle of Wonder Woman is a daring nighttime raid, I felt cheated on two significant fronts. The first is that nighttime battles afford the special effects departments a number of opportunities to absolutely cheat on the special effects. There are numerous moments in the final battle of Wonder Woman where there is a clear light source presented - high light, building on fire, etc. - that allows for the bulk of the screen to be filled with shadow. In other words, detail is lost and the magnitude of the battle gets lost in darkness. That can work exceptionally well to create mood, especially in horror films. In action adventure sequences, it just obscures.

The second disappointing aspect of the final battle of Wonder Woman was very easy to define. It's a daring nighttime raid and a big special effects-driven sequence. When was the last time I saw that in a film based on comic book source material? Oh yeah, the last DC Comics film. Once the home video version is available, I fully expect that someone will do a comparative analysis between the battles from Batman V. Superman: Dawn Of Justice (reviewed here!) and Wonder Woman. But, for those who are inclined to praise it excessively, I would ask, what is the virtue in Patty Jenkins simply replicating a Zack Snyder battle sequence?

The Problematic Nature Of Ares As A Villain

From a storytelling perspective, I was put on-guard the moment Ares was mentioned in Wonder Woman. To be clear, I love the use of Ares as a villain in Wonder Woman graphic novels. The God Of War is a great foil character for Princess Diana. In the books, some of the best, most complicated thematic work has been done by writers who are willing to differentiate Diana from Ares.

Ares, however, is a terrible choice for a villain for Wonder Woman and an atrocious adversary for a period piece.

Handled with adeptness and philosophy, Ares is not a bad Wonder Woman villain, but by the time Ares is mentioned in Wonder Woman, it is pretty clear that the movie is not That Type Of Film. Ares creates two huge problems within Wonder Woman, both of which are borne out in the worst possible way. The first problem is the suspension of disbelief aspect Ares forces into the narrative and how it affects the protagonists, the second problem is the historical aspect of Ares and his influence.

Adding gods to the narrative for what is intended to be a "real world" film creates a true challenge for writers. Wonder Woman is, in many ways, a fish-out-of-water story in which the Fantastic Element (in this case Diana Of Themyscira) is thrust into the entirely recognizable real world. Diana enters the world outside Themyscira with a core belief that Ares is directly responsible for World War I. This sets Diana up to either have the epiphany that she is wrong and Ares is not directly responsible for the war or puts the burden on showing how Ares is orchestrating and feeding off the war.

Wonder Woman falls down because it tries to do both.

Diana fails to identify the mundane personality of Ares correctly, which is fine. But then, of course, Ares is revealed and it turns out he is responsible for World War I. So, we get both actions - Diana has the moment of horror where she believes she is wrong when her first kill does not end the fighting and then Ares is revealed and it turns out he is trying to prolong the war. Wonder Woman then takes a horrible turn that clearly differentiates between those who love the source material and the johnnies-come-lately to the film: Wonder Woman fights Ares. In the books, Wonder Woman realizes in her very first battle that she cannot defeat Ares utilizing a physical confrontation. That makes absolute sense; you can't defeat warfare or the concept of warfare by beating the shit out of it. How did no one in the creative process for the film get to that philosophical truth? The critical fault of using Ares as a villain in a "kill the villain" action adventure film is that the climactic fight ends up being philosophically stupid. But, Allan Heinberg and Patty Jenkins go for it - Wonder Woman slays Ares and we see a German soldier losing the impetus to fight and embrace one of Diana's allies.

That leads to the critical problem of using Ares as a villain for a period piece: If Ares was defeated to end World War I, how the hell did World War II, the Korean War, The Vietnam War, genocides in Africa and Cambodia, and every other military conflict that followed ever happen? Did Wonder Woman just get lazy? Was Wonder Woman unable to find the reincarnation or reconstitution of Ares before those conflicts reached their boiling point? There is a simple fix for Wonder Woman - that Ares acts as a virus that slaying him does not fix, that he has infected the hearts and minds of Men such that even after he is killed his influence lives on - but it is not within the film and utilizing it would force major changes to the DC Comics Cinematic Universe. But, within Wonder Woman, the premise is that Themyscira was segregated from the World Of Mankind to keep it safe from Ares's influence and wars sprung up outside Themyscira because Ares could influence everywhere else. Ares started World War I, Ludendorff and Dr. Maru leap on that, but Ares needs war to continue beyond the initiatives they take, which leads to the climactic battle.

In a contemporary piece, where the consequence of a climactic battle could actually be used to entirely reshape the reality of the cinematic universe, Ares could be a great villain. Wonder Woman could have shepherded humankind into a more enlightened era after destroying Ares. But, alas, making Wonder Woman a World War I period piece puts a burden on the film that makes Ares a virtually impossible adversary to use well.

How Wonder Woman Became Second Fiddle In Her Own Film

Wonder Woman is being hailed by a lot of people as a great example of a strong female character and reading and hearing those arguments has made me wonder what film those people were watching. Diana is headstrong and she has some moments where she stands up to do both her own thing and acts independently of anyone else's wishes. Chief among the actions Princess Diana takes is taking a moral stance to the civilian bombing of the village of Veld by running directly through No Man's Land to decimate the German forces in the area.

But, objectively viewed, Wonder Woman is far more problematic. Steve Trevor has a great role in Wonder Woman and it is easy to see exactly why Chris Pine was excited about the project. While people might want to laud Wonder Woman as a great feminist story wherein an icon steps up to solve problems, that is not what actually happens for the bulk of Wonder Woman. The majority of incidents in Wonder Woman feature Princess Diana haplessly rushing into situations in blind defiance of others or being pulled out of a place by Steve Trevor, who then solves her problems.

Princess Diana speaks many languages, but otherwise she is presented with surprisingly little intelligence. As a fish-out-of-water story, Diana is expected to be ignorant and lacking in assets, that makes sense. But in Wonder Woman, Diana is presented without being particularly resourceful, smart, or articulate. Before Diana ever leaves Themyscira, she takes it upon herself to steal the sword she thinks is the God Killer and run away with Steve Trevor. Wonder Woman features a scene where Hippolyta exerts authoritarian control over the Amazons when she tells her people and Steve Trevor not to leave Themyscira to fight Ares's influence. A character who is ethical, articulate, smart and resourceful would debate the issue. Seriously, why doesn't Diana argue her point and try to persuade any other Amazons to accompany her?

In London, Diana is told "no" more often than anything else. Rather than take the initiative to build her own coalition that she leads, which she reasonably could have done by starting with Etta Candy, she is dragged along through most of the narrative by Steve Trevor. The thing is, Wonder Woman rewards initiative with disaster. Steve Trevor, a tactically-minded spy, attempts to use his skill and intelligence to defeat Ludendorff and Dr. Maru. To do that, Trevor has to infiltrate a German party and all he asks of Diana is for her to stay outside so he can do his job. Diana, "taking the initiative," knocks out a woman in a stunning dress, poorly infiltrates the party (drawing a lot of attention to herself) and sets the Germans off such that the cover is blown for Trevor and the Germans wipe out Veld. Wonder Woman is not so much about a smart character solving problems as a woman forcing herself into situations because she arrogantly believes she knows best at the cost of many people's lives. What kind of message is that?!

But, backtracking, Steve Trevor is given most of the heroic moments of Wonder Woman. Trevor has Dr. Maru's notebook, which is fine and makes sense. But after the set-up, Wonder Woman misses all sorts of opportunities to raise Diana's heroic stature. Diana is literally asleep when Trevor gets the pair to London. Diana starts to assert herself with the British government and military leaders when Trevor extracts them and persuades her to do their own thing. Diana does not leave rooms because she realizes that the men there are bull-headed idiots who aren't actually listening to her, but because Trevor pulls her out, tells her to fight the right battles and tells her the conclusion she didn't get to on her own.

While Steve Trevor has the resources - maps, situational knowledge, and personnel (Sameer, Charlie, and The Chief) - within Man's World and that makes sense, Wonder Woman continues to elevate Trevor at the expense of Diana. In the battle for Veld, for example, Steve Trevor (who witnessed the maneuver once!) moves everyone to the fallen door to launch Diana up to take out the sniper. The difference here is all the difference; here Diana has a moment where she is in the exact same position with all of the same knowledge, tactical experience and observational skills as Steve Trevor and the moment is given to Trevor. Diana has the opportunity to lead and command in a way that will lead to the desired outcome instead of disaster, but instead it is Trevor who once again asserts authority successfully.

Wonder Woman is one of those films that becomes more and more insulting to women the more one deconstructs it. Steve Trevor makes the heroic sacrifice that inspires Diana to take action as a reaction to the most banal form of love (Diana kicks Ares's ass after Trevor sacrifices himself and she has flashbacks to her experiences with Trevor as opposed to, for example, her decades of love for Antiope, who risked everything to train her as an act of love, against her mother's wishes). Even the set-up of Wonder Woman is an insulting form of mansplaining. How? Diana is given the photograph she has (apparently) coveted for almost a century by Bruce Wayne. But why? In Wonder Woman, World War I ends with Diana in Germany mere miles from Veld, the place where the photograph was taken. Everyone in Veld is dead, Diana is in mourning for the just-killed Trevor, and the photograph was taken maybe a day prior? Why wouldn't Diana just go and get the picture?  But, instead of Diana going back to Veld and finding the photograph, she has to delay her gratification until Bruce Wayne provides it almost a hundred years later?! Talk about women being put in positions where they have to be given what they want or deserve instead of being able to take it on their own. This is suppression of women to an almost hyperbolic extent!

Conclusion

Wonder Woman is an amazing character and a great feminist icon; almost none of her complexity, grandeur or intellect transferred to Patty Jenkins's Wonder Woman, regardless of the hype or how much Wonder Woman fans and women in general would want to argue otherwise.

For other movie articles, please check out my Film Review Index Page!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Why Is It So Hard For Movie Studios To Do Wonder Woman Right?

The Good: Decent acting, Moments of character, Most of the writing in the first half, Use of humor/fish out of water elements, Good use of computer effects for characters in battle scenes
The Bad: Used a terrible adversary for the story, Set up defies suspension of disbelief, Mediocre direction and editing, Forced romantic subplot, Obvious reversals
The Basics: Wonder Woman is painfully average . . . when it could have been so much more.


For as long as I can remember, I have been a fan of Wonder Woman. While my siblings were into Superman and Batman, I remember having a Pop-Up Book of Wonder Woman and it's such a distinctive memory that I can actually remember various pages of the book so many decades later. I'm a big fan of Wonder Woman, to the extent that in my writing career, one of the first big movie scripts I wrote was one for Wonder Woman. I advocated Anne Hathaway for the lead in Wonder Woman (in the article here!) and wrote the full script and treatment for the sequels for the film I envisioned with her as the lead. I even got the script within an inch of the hands of the man who could have made the film happen (Warner Bros. has lawyers who have trained their executives exceptionally well; the executive was enthusiastically reaching for the script after a very nice, albeit abstract, conversation and when he saw the title on the script, he physically recoiled!). So, when Wonder Woman was announced, I was both excited and apprehensive.

I was excited because I have waited my whole life for a live-action Wonder Woman that might follow on the progressive aspects of the television series Wonder Woman (reviewed here!), but with a more modern sensibility for dialogue (and costuming), I was apprehensive about Wonder Woman because none of the credited writers for the film were women (I know, Wonder Woman was created by a man), which suggested to me that the film would end up devolving into a mindless action-adventure film instead of being philosophically complex and banking on the character's intelligence and reason instead of big special effects-driven battles. I was apprehensive when Gal Gadot was cast because the casting seemed to suggest an actress who could handle the physical aspects of the role instead of long passages of dialogue. I was apprehensive because, despite Diana and Wonder Woman being a bright spot in Batman V. Superman: Dawn Of Justice (reviewed here!), that film was a dismal mess that lived down to the worst expectations of what a film based upon a comic book source material could be.

Despite the concerns I had, I rushed out to the earliest possible screening of Wonder Woman that I could. And the latest big screen Wonder Woman was not worth driving 90 miles each way to the giant screen. Actually, that became surprisingly relevant as the direction and editing were disappointing. I drove ninety miles each way for the screen that is the closest to an IMAX in my area and it did not take long into Wonder Woman before I began to notice that the film's scale was being used incredibly poorly. Director Patty Jenkins utilized a number of very large sets and locations in Wonder Woman, but the shots are often framed to show a small area within the location, a quick shot of the full location, then Diana enters with the camera focused fairly tightly on her while she moves through the location. In other words, the full magnitude of the scope or how the elements and characters within that environment are not clearly related using the visual medium in order to make the story flow organically. In comic books that problem exists when the artwork does not create large environments; in Wonder Woman, virtually every room seems tiny until Diana starts kicking ass in it. Even in the first big battle, the scope is erratically rendered to undermine the flow and undersell the setting.

Usually, I do two paragraphs on the film's plot, but with Wonder Woman, the plot is so simple it does not warrant it. Themyscira is an island occupied by Zeus's chosen Amazons, women who once warred Ares to a standstill when Ares slew the other gods and exerted his influence over mankind. Princess Diana grows up on Themyscira wanting only to learn combat, despite her mother's express wishes. On the day that Diana defeats the greatest Amazon warrior, Steve Trevor's plane crashes in the waters off Themyscira. Trevor, an American spy working for the British government, unwittingly leads the Germans to Themyscira. The Amazons thwart the Germans and in the aftermath, Trevor tells the Amazons about the war going on. Convinced that Ares is influencing the world of man and he must be stopped, Diana and Trevor leave Themyscira and head toward the Front to find a weapon's lab and Ares in their attempt to end World War I.

Wonder Woman is told in flashback and it did not take long for that set-up to wear thin with me. First, Diana is in Paris when she receives a package from Bruce Wayne. The package is the photograph Bruce Wayne found online when he was investigating Diana in Batman V. Superman: Dawn Of Justice. Seeing the photograph causes Diana to remember her childhood and the circumstances that led to and followed the taking of the photograph. It does not take long in the flashback before the narrative goes into alternative storytelling - Hippolyta telling the story if Themyscira and flashbacks within the flashback, like Steve Trevor telling the story of what he was doing before his crash. The conceit that sets up the flashback story turns into absurd by the film's end; Diana had unfettered access to the photograph near the film's end and good cause (from a character point of view) to go find it. Why she had to wait for Bruce Wayne to track it down almost a century later becomes a real headscratcher.

Wonder Woman peaks very early on the aspects that work. In the first half of the film, the movie has some funny lines and is very high on charm, though it is mystifying that Steve Trevor seems unable to say the word "penis." The character of Antiope is wonderful and well-played by Robin Wright. Ironically, Wright is underused as she has proven time and time again she can handle long monologues about ethics and machinations, but she is used almost exclusively in an incredibly physical performance as Antiope. Robin Wright almost makes it possible to ignore the problematic aspects of Themyscira her performance is so good in Wonder Woman.

Themyscira is troublingly rendered in Wonder Woman. In the first season of Star Trek The Next Generation, there was a terrible episode called "Angel One" (reviewed here!). "Angel One" was pretty lousy because the whole gimmick of the episode was that the Enterprise visits a planet that is a matriarchal society. The episode is disappointing on two fronts: 1. Women being in charge of a planet hardly seems novel or interesting (it's a planet being run by women, not by cats or fungi . . . of course women can run a government!) and 2. The matriarchal society is just as corrupt and petty as a male-dominated government. While I can get that there might be a statement being made that women are just as corruptible as men when put in power, it makes it somewhat pointless to bother with making a matriarchal society in film for the purpose of a statement. In Wonder Woman, Themyscira is presented in a similarly problematic way.

Themyscira is ruled by Hippolyta and most of the Amazons spend their time training constantly for the potential of a military incursion. Themyscira, however, is both cloaked from the outside world and features women who Zeus himself segregated as a different type of person from mankind. The set-up for Themyscira would have been great, if only the film had managed to maintain that idea for more than two minutes. Diana wants to train with Antiope to learn to fight, Hippolyta tells both the child and Antiope that Diana is not to be trained and when Diana sneaks out, Antiope spends years lying to Hippolyta by training Diana. So, the Amazons are just as much liars as the men of the world.

Worse than that is that Hippolyta's story about how Themyscira was formed climaxes with the Queen of the Amazons telling Diana that Zeus housed powerful artifacts upon the island, most significantly the God Killer. The God Killer is presented as the weapon that can be used to defeat Ares. Sadly, Patty Jenkins adequately captures facial expressions from Connie Nielsen's Hippolyta, Robin Wright's Antiope, and all sorts of background Amazons to indicate that Diana is wrong when she leaps to the conclusion that a prized sword on the island is the God Killer. Right away, Wonder Woman sets up a painfully forced reversal by seeding early the idea that Diana is the God Killer and in that way, the film feels like DC is yet again chasing Marvel; Diana being seeded early as the God Killer feels virtually identical to Elektra being the Black Sky in the second season of Daredevil (reviewed here!). As well, because Jenkins captures the right expressions and Antiope makes a pretty clear declaration, Wonder Woman is entirely undermined in its climax when the primary villain of the film makes it explicit to Diana that she, not the sword, is the God Killer.

So, the Amazons are a bunch of liars. Great. The thing is, if Wonder Woman were written better, the idea of Diana being the God Killer is not an inherently bad one. Instead of setting up a ridiculously artificial reversal, a far more compelling story would have been Diana growing up knowing she is the God Killer and training for it; leaving Themyscira ultimately because she feels it is her destiny and purpose to save mankind from Ares . . . instead of her sneaking out like a thief in the night.

The Themyscira section of Wonder Woman is also set up with a criminal level of suspension of disbelief required for the level of coincidence it presents. The Amazons are immortal and Diana has been training with Antiope and the other Amazon warriors for a considerable amount of time when she has the chance to show off for Hippolyta. That day, while Diana desperately searches for approval from her mother, Antiope goes all-out in her training and unleashes Diana's full potential. Antiope is wounded when she attacks Diana and Diana deflects with her bracelets. The shockwave caused by the attack leaves Antiope shaken and represents the first time Diana actually hurts her mentor. That plot conceit leaves Diana feeling isolated and concerned, which is how she is standing by herself on a cliff when Steve Trevor's plane goes down and pierces the veil around Themyscira. I kept waiting for there to be a causal link between the two events; like the shockwave actually hit Trevor's plane and knocked it out of the sky. No such luck for those who like sensible storytelling. Instead, out of all of the days of Diana's life, the day she finally defeats Antiope in public combat happens to be right after Steve Trevor robs Dr. Maru's lab and is persued by Germans into Themyscira's bubble. Really?!

The problem with Wonder Woman is that the "Really?!" moments stack up ridiculously quickly. The Germans invade the beach of Themyscira and are not nearly shocked enough at seeing both an island suddenly and bright sunlight when they were lost in fog seconds before. But then, the Germans start shooting at the Amazons and in making a PG-13 film, Patty Jenkins makes Wonder Woman ridiculous. The first Amazon casualty is a warrior, wearing leather armor, who is shot fairly squarely in the stomach. In addition to being bloodless, it is absurd that a World War I German rifle would penetrate the leather armor and layer of muscles and leave the warrior instantly dead.

Patty Jenkins seems particularly afraid to dwell on big moments in Wonder Woman. Regardless of the practicality of the Germans actually managing to take out the highly-organized, prepared and competent Amazons, Jenkins completely guts the aftermath of the attack by pushing the plot forward with Diana defending Steve Trevor and the introduction of the Lasso Of Hestia (the magical lasso that forces those ensnared in it to tell the complete truth). Here is a society of immortals who has not had a military conflict for thousands of years and now there are multiple deaths, including one of the most beloved Amazons. And the women of Themyscira are not particularly shaken, they leap right into learning about the war that Trevor has accidentally made them aware of.

Right before Wonder Woman enters its most charming phase, it introduces its most problematic aspect: its villain. The primary villain in the cinematic Wonder Woman is Ares, God Of War. Ares is a frequent adversary in Wonder Woman comics and some of the best stories involve Ares and Diana interacting. But in Wonder Woman, Ares is particularly troubling as an enemy. Wonder Woman is set during the last days of World War I and Diana's belief is that Ares, God Of War, is directly responsible for the German's military initiative. Her theory is that if she can kill Ares, whom she believes has manifested in German military leader Ludendorff, who is directly overseeing Dr. Maru's work, the war will end. Using Ares sets up Diana to either haplessly follow a ridiculous lead to a poor conclusion or creates a storytelling problem that will make Ares an asinine villain. Wonder Woman creates a head-slapping moment when the film's writers manage to do both. In considering the film, the second problematic aspect of Ares being used as the villain in Wonder Woman shines more brightly. As a conflict looms between Diana and Ares, viewers are forced to wrestle with a key problem of history; if Ares is the architect of World War I, how the hell can there be a World War II in the DC Comics Cinematic Universe?! The books manage to avoid conundrums like this - both by being set in modern times and - by having Wonder Woman resolve conflicts with Ares by conversations, not outright physical conflicts. Wonder Woman, alas, is nowhere near as sensible.

Despite all this, I did not hate Wonder Woman. The set-ups and suspensions of disbelief made a mockery of much of the character and setting of Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman, in this incarnation, is just another generic action hero in yet another "kill the villain" style super hero flick. But Chris Pine, despite not seeing the penis joke through by actually saying the word before getting corrected, is actually wonderful as Steve Trevor. Trevor is funny and Pine plays of Gal Gadot expertly. Some of the best moments in Wonder Woman are the fish-out-of-water moments when Steve Trevor tries to explain the world of man to Diana. Trevor trying to explain marriage (huge missed opportunity for Diana to either reference the lesbian marriages on Themyscira or differentiate how the women of Paradise Island can have love and fidelity without The State or Church codifying them), sleeping together, time and his adequacy as a man are very funny. In fact, Chris Pine does not seem like he is playing Steve Trevor as Captain Kirk . . . until the damn motorcycle comes out!

Lucy Davis is hilarious as Etta, though she is underused. Said Taghmaoui is good as Sameer and Ewen Bremner offers one of the most diverse performances of the film as the shell-shocked Charlie. Charlie affords Diana a great opportunity to showcase compassion for a man and Gal Gadot plays that relationship in a decent fashion. I was skeptical about Connie Nielsen playing Hippolyta (Lynda Carter seemed like the obvious choice for casting for Hippolyta), but Nielsen does fine in the role. Danny Huston and David Thewlis don't show viewers anything new in Wonder Woman (they aren't bad, but they have such long, distinctive careers, it is unsurprising they have both played characters much like the ones they play in Wonder Woman before).

Gal Gadot is fine in Wonder Woman, though much of the material she is given is not particularly cerebral or does not require Gadot for the big Diana moments. Chief among the problematic aspects of Diana is the forced romantic subplot between Diana and Steve Trevor. Diana knows Steve Trevor for, perhaps, a few weeks in Wonder Woman. (Without spoiling) At the climax of the film, Diana comes to believe that the way to save humanity is love and she conjures mental images of Trevor. Diana does not think about Hippolyta, Antiope, or Themyscira, which she wants to keep safe from the hatred of Ares . . . Wonder Woman turns to the most banal and forced concept of romantic love for the character epiphany. This is not the fault of Gadot. Gadot gets through all of the big physical moments and Wonder Woman affords her one or two chances for marginally decent philosophical speeches, but almost all of the big moments of philosophy are ended by Steve Trevor pulling Diana out of a room or Diana's high-minded dialogue ending in a fight. Gadot does fine with the material she is given.

As I drove the ninety miles home from the theater, I kept trying to figure out if I actually liked Wonder Woman or not. Early on in the film, I kept thinking of lines I enjoyed and I truly was impressed by Robin Wright and I was thinking 7/10. But then I just kept rolling my eyes and as I drove home, I most easily recalled the problems with the film (didn't we just see Wonder Woman in a climactic battle at night in the last film, seriously, they couldn't pull it off as a daytime battle this time?!). When I returned home and started describing Wonder Woman, my wife managed to phrase perfectly what I had not managed to articulate: Wonder Woman is entirely average. I was hoping for greatness, I was dreading, but prepared for, awful, but Wonder Woman is neither. The plot has massive problems and the adversary is dead-wrong for the film, the direction and editing fails to linger and capture scope, but the battles are solid, most of the performances are wonderful for the material given and when the writers tried to have fun, it shows with some clever and funny lines, so the movie just averages out.

For other movies currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
Alien: Covenant
Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2
Colossal

5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Growing On Me Over The Years, The 2014 Star Trek Movies Trading Cards Deliver A Lot!

The Good: Generally good orientation, Fairly collectible, Some awesome autograph cards, Good writing
The Bad: Surprisingly few bonus cards, Lame parallels, Odd autographs
The Basics: The 2014 Star Trek Movies trading cards are a very cool collection of trading cards . . . even if the process of collecting them is very erratic.


One of the interesting aspects of trading card manufacturing is that the speed with which trading card manufacturers get material does not always allow them to generate great trading card sets during the window which the material is viable. Back when J.J. Abrams revitalized the Star Trek film franchise, trading card manufacturer Rittenhouse Archives created a trading card set based upon it that was released in the days before the film hit screens. It did not take long for trading card fans to realize, though, that the Star Trek (2009 Movie) set (reviewed here!) had a common set that was based almost entirely upon material from the film's trailer. Sadly, Rittenhouse Archives was not able to get in material from the entire film in order to make a comprehensive set for the film.

Clearly, Rittenhouse Archives learned from their mistake, when Star Trek Into Darkness was released theatrically. Rather than rush to market a substandard set, Rittenhouse Archives waited and instead manufactured a much more comprehensive set in the form of the 2014 Star Trek Movies trading cards. The 2014 Star Trek Movies trading cards are a fairly well-organized set that looks good, accurately embodies the subject and is decent when viewed as a complete set. It is, however, a set that continues the trend in trading card collecting that makes trading cards harder to collect and leaves fans with a profound excess of common card sets needed to amass the master set.

Basics/Set Composition

Fully assembled, the 2014 Star Trek Movies trading card set has 748 cards and is essentially six sets in one. As well, there is an oversized binder produced by Rittenhouse Archives that barely manages to hold the entire set. The set consists of 110 common cards and 638 bonus cards. The chase cards are mostly available in the packs of cards, though eight of them were incentive or promotional cards and could not be found in any of the packs. The 2014 Star Trek Movies trading cards were released in boxes of twenty-four packs of six cards each.

Common Cards

The common card set for the 2014 Star Trek Movies trading cards consisted of one hundred ten modern-looking trading cards. The entire common set recaps the plot of Star Trek Into Darkness (reviewed here!). One of the nicest aspects of the 2014 Star Trek Movies trading card common card set is that the cards are consistently oriented. The entire set features images in landscape orientation with a single decent-sized image on the front and a different image on the back.

The 2014 Star Trek Movies cards have the traditional UV-resistant coating which is flawlessly applied. The back of each card has a plot synopsis of the scene depicted on the front and the writing is decent. The 2014 Star Trek Movies common set accurately portrays the entire plot of Star Trek Into Darkness. No matter what one thinks of Star Trek Into Darkness, Rittenhouse Archives actually did a pretty awesome job of translating the film into trading card form. This is a very complete and comprehensive set for relating the story of Star Trek Into Darkness!

Chase Cards

The 629 chase cards that can be found in packs and boxes of 2014 Star Trek Movies essentially create an additional common set (of sorts, disguised as a chase set by its rarity) and four bonus parallel sets, in addition to more traditional Star Trek chase cards based upon some of the new films.

The 2014 Star Trek Movies trading card set features multiple bonus sets that require multiple cases to complete, starting with the most basic chase set. The 2014 Star Trek Movies set features a 110 chase card set that essentially replaces the previously-released Star Trek set. The 110 card Star Trek (2009 Movie) trading card chase set replicates the common card set in quality and substance, with the 2009 film Star Trek as a subject. The orange-colored backs easily help collectors differentiate the Star Trek (2009 Movie) chase set from the common cards . . . for those who might not recognize the images from the different films right away.

The 2014 Star Trek Movies set is bloated with parallel cards. The parallel cards are somewhat unremarkable as they replicate the common and Star Trek (2009 Movie) chase sets with minor foil accents. Two per box there are silver foil parallel cards and one per box there are gold parallel cards for the Star Trek Into Darkness and Star Trek (2009 Movies) sets. The silver parallel sets are limited to 200 cards - individually foil-stamped with the collector's number on the back - and replicate the two other sets with minor foil accents; a bar and the name of the film in silver foil on the front. The gold parallel sets are essentially the same thing, with gold foil accents on the front. The gold foil parallel cards from the two sets are each limited to 100 of each card. Given that each of the four parallel sets is comprised of 110 cards, collecting the parallels - which are comparatively unremarkable - the parallels are decent, but difficult to collect relative to the coolness of the cards.

The 2014 Star Trek Movies have remarkably few chase cards outside the parallels. In fact, at one-per-box, the Star Trek Into Darkness Foldout cards are the only set that can be complete with the purchase of a whole case. The nine Star Trek Into Darkness Foldout cards are essentially double-tall cards that feature all of the main cast of the Enterprise from the J.J. Abrams Star Trek films, plus Khan and Dr. Marcus. The foldout cards are similar to paper dolls and feature the characters in publicity shots. In fact, these seem to be the same artwork as the cardboard standees produced by another company, just with a background colored to match the character's uniform color. Unlike the common and other parallel sets, the foldout cards are portrait-oriented, not landscape oriented.

Rittenhouse Archives manufactured badge cards, which were found one in every three boxes. The over-thick cards form a twenty-four card subset that features full-sized metal pin badges embedded in each card. The badges, rank pins and insignia pins are neat and it is cool for fans to get them in trading card form. That said, the film's uniforms are not so iconic as to make the badge pins seem indispensable or instantly recognizable. Like the foldout cards, the badge cards are portrait-oriented.

Even more rare are the twelve costume cards. Found one in every four boxes, the costume cards are landscape-oriented and feature costume swatches from all of the main cast, Dr. Marcus and multiple costumes from Spock, Kirk and Uhura. These costume cards are individually-numbered on the back and all but the last three are colorful cards that look amazing and are very collectible.

Then there are the inevitable autograph cards. The 2014 Star Trek Movies set of trading cards features thirty-four autograph cards, devoted to the characters from Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness. Main cast actors like Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Simon Pegg and Leonard Nimoy all signed for the 2014 Star Trek Movies trading card set. The set is enhanced by autograph cards from Alice Eve, Peter Weller and Deep Roy, who have a lot of name recognition outside the Star Trek films and were not incredibly rare. In fact, there is something odd in the fact that Ben Cross (Sarek in Star Trek) signed as few autograph cards as the (late) Leonard Nimoy. The 2014 Star Trek Movies set is notable for being the only trading card set (to date) to feature an autograph card from Spock Prime from the J.J. Abrams Star Trek films. Genre fans are likely to be psyched that Noel Clarke of Doctor Who fame signed a card for the 2014 Star Trek Movies.

Unfortunately, the bulk of the autograph cards in the 2014 Star Trek Movies are unremarkable filler signers. Rittenhouse Archives was unable to get Tyler Perry or Winona Ryder to sign autograph cards for the set, though they did get Jennifer Morrison and Rachel Nichols to sign for the 2014 Star Trek Movies set, managing to fill two big gaps from the Star Trek (2009 Movies) set. But performers like Reggie Lee, Scottie Thompson, and Sonita Henry (among others) had such minor parts spread among the two films as to make their autograph cards virtually unchaseable. Also odd is the fact that the 2014 Star Trek Movies trading card set has 34 autograph cards and 32 of them are full-bleed, portrait-oriented autograph cards. The other two autograph cards are a landscape-oriented Star Trek Into Darkness autograph cards. The obscure format features a single image of a character and a heavy border that also has the future version of London in the background over which the actor has signed. The variant autograph card format is not inherently bad, but given that there are only two cards in this style and the performers who signed the cards are Joseph Gatt and Nick Tarabay, they are much more rare than they are at all remarkable or worthwhile.

Non-Box/Pack Cards

The 2014 Star Trek Movies trading card set has eight cards not found in any of the boxes or packs. There are three promotional cards – the usual general release, an exclusive one placed in Non-Sport Update magazine, and the binder-exclusive promotional card.

The casetoppers for the 2014 Star Trek Movies trading card set are unfortunately bland. The two casetopper cards feature the U.S.S. Enterprise from Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness with the monologue to Star Trek written on the back. The casetopper cards are not individually numbered, foil or even sealed into their toploaders with anything other than a very simple plastic seal (unlike the standard Rittenhouse gold foil seal)!

Then there are the incentive cards and these follow the trend of recent Rittenhouse Archives releases! For purchasing six cases, dealers received a Simon Pegg autographed costume card. The autograph costume card looks incredible and all of the cards I've seen have a very clear signature from Pegg. The nine-case incentive card brings Benedict Cumberbatch's autograph to Star Trek fans. Unfortunately, Cumberbatch signed a Star Trek Into Darkness format autograph card for the incentive card and that is a bit of a letdown considering how cool the full-bleed autograph style is. But, it is still impressive that Rittenhouse Archives managed to get Cumberbatch to sign. It is unfortunate that the superlative card of the set is one that is so very hard to find!

The final chase card of the 2014 Star Trek Movies set is the Rittenhouse Reward card. The Rittenhouse Rewards cards is a tenth Star Trek Into Darkness foldout card. The additional foldout card features Chekov in his red outfit for the brief time he was Chief Engineer of the Enterprise in Star Trek Into Darkness. While arguably unnecessary, the Rittenhouse Rewards card at least features Chekov for how he appeared for the majority of Star Trek Into Darkness.

Overall

The 2014 Star Trek Movies set manages to commemorate well the J.J. Abrams Star Trek films even if there is a great disparity in the quality of the autograph signers and the parallel sets seem redundant given that the more common sets are actually pretty extraordinary.

This set culls images from the Star Trek films Star Trek (reviewed here!) and Star Trek Into Darkness!

These cards are available in my online store! Please check them out here: 2014 Star Trek Movies Trading Card Current Inventory!

For other trading card reviews, please check out my reviews of:
Star Trek Aliens
Star Trek 50 Years 50 Artists trading cards
Star Trek Classic Movies Heroes & Villains

7/10

For other card reviews, please visit my Card Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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