Unearthed: Wonder Woman 1984, Part 12

Ol’ Max is revealing his secret to Barbara here, and laying out his plan: “I’ll rebuild my health, wish by wish, organ by organ…”

Why is he even deteriorating in the first place? Is that part of the deal? Are we to assume, then, that any time a wish was made on the Dreamstone, it started to fall apart? This just seems weird. There’s no story reason for this to happen. It doesn’t affect anything. And let’s not forget that Max still has to suffer a loss for his initial wish, something the movie hasn’t addressed at all, yet HAS to happen to satisfy this story’s internal logic.

Max tells Barbara she gets a free wish. Why not? She says “I wanna be number one… an apex predator.” Why? Why the hell would you want this? Why not just say you want to be successful at anything you do? This makes no sense. If the movie had shown her throughout saying she felt like a victim all the time, then you could justify this moment. But no.

So they’re flying toward this global communications scrambling site. For all the money that was put into this film you’d think they could create something that looks more grounded in reality than this matte painting.

Max tells the head communications guy he wants all the screens. He’s gonna talk to the world.

“Citizens of the world…” he says, and notice that this broadcast is appearing on computer monitors, even though it’s IMPOSSIBLE FOR A MONITOR IN THE 80S TO SHOW THIS KIND OF IMAGE.

Max is exhorting everyone in the world to make a wish, and boy, they all are.

Meanwhile, Alistair sees his dad’s broadcast too, and guess what he’s going to wish?

“I wish all you Irish bastards were sent back where you came from” says this lady, and the guy says “And I wish you were dead!” And while she’s dying from whatever, outside the cops are rounding up presumably Irish people. Seriously. This is just a throwaway scene in this stupid movie.

Who the hell is this? Why is he wishing for missiles? We’ll never know!

Meanwhile, Diana’s just lassoing lightning, ’cause it’s yet another thing that happens in this fillum. It’s not awesome, it’s just another thing that happens. I can no longer be wowed by special effects that have no grounding in story. Sorry.

She races back home and grabs Asteria’s armor, and when the big reveal comes, we’re meant to go WOW, but… well, let’s just wait for it.

Meanwhile, as the world is wishing, Max says “I take your health and your strength and your rage and your prowess…” but who the hell is he pointing to? The soldiers in the room with him? How does he know that guy has rage? How does he know that other guy has prowess? And why would he use the word ‘prowess’?

Poor Alistair is making his wish too: “I wish you were here. I wish you’d come back.” But Max doesn’t come back. So is the movie dropping the ball? Also, the rule is you need to be physically touching the Dreamstone for it to work. They’re really stretching the rules here by saying Max is “touching” everyone through his transmission.

So the soldiers are firing at something coming at them. Here comes the big moment.

Woo.

Also, if the armor can make her fly, did we really need that whole minutes-long scene of Diana learning how to ride the wind currents on her own?

Yeah, no. Not awesome. Gaudy and Trump-like. When this scene happened, the only thing I thought was “Oh, like Vultan from the Flash Gordon movie!”

Ugh. It just looks stupid to me.

And suddenly, Barbara’s there. And hey, she’s looking a little… fuzzy. Huh.

Join me on Friday for Part 13!