Saturday, March 14, 2009

It's No Wonder, Woman!

It's No Wonder, Woman!

It's Saturday night and what would any self respecting nerd be doing other than watching some made for Sci-fi movie of the week, right? Not this night, my lack of friend! Tonight it's time to get your nerd on in the best way possible, COMIC BOOKS! Well, Comic book films.

DC comics has really been on top of their game lately with their animated features and they decided to release another one that takes torch and runs with it. Just recently they released a new Wonder Woman animated film onto DVD and Bluray.


What's that ol' Jessica Rabbit quote about being drawn that way?

If there ever was anything to show that cartoons are not only just for kids, it's this film. Within the first few minutes of the film you see a head being removed from its body in a tasteful manner that you could show your child... be it in a PG-13 manner. This leads the door to be wide open to all sorts of story telling that doesn't pander to the kids in the audience and adults can follow along.

This may be a straight to DVD but don't let that fool you. It has some great names doing voices here. Keri Russel brings Wonder Woman to life, Virginia Madsen plays her mother, Queen Hippolyta; Rosario Dawson is Wonder Woman's Amazon rival Artemis and Alfred Molina is Ares, the god of war. Which means he's been an Octopus like villain and a god. What are the odds. How could I forget the best voice in the cast, Nathan Fillion plays Steve Trevor. And may I say that he plays him very well.


Hal Jordan... Ooooh yeah.

When New Frontier came out on DVD I loved it. Not only did it translate a great Darwyn Cooke book, but David Boreanaz was the voice of Hal Jordan. I love me some Green Lantern. Superman can do anything but he'll always be an alien. Batman is awesome in every way, but he's no Hal Jordan.To have a guy I actually worked with and riffed on a set with voicing Hal Jordan... not only that but voicing him really good. That was a neat little piece of my nerd lyfe, yo! It also continues the line of Whedonverse persons taking part of the DC universe cartoons since Captain Mal is playing another Captain in this movie. What is it with Superheroes and fighter pilots?

Nathan Fillion in this role is perfect. Then again, he just plays himself through it. So it's nice to see captain tight-pants jump into the air again and have everything in the 'verse fall into place again. The story does feature some adult situation related humor in the mix and Fillion's delivery is spot on in how you would expect to hear it making it extremely comical in every possible. way. So those who grew up in the 70's on the show can also enjoy it with their little ones.


Ah, my childhood returns

Seeing Wonder Woman on the boob tube in animated form makes me think about her in live action again. Gee, it sure would be nice if Warner Brothers got off its ass and got a live action Wonder Woman production finally off the ground and rolling. They have all these franchise pictures under the same roof and can easily do a team up series and yet do nothing with it other than another Batman or Superman film.

Joss Whedon was attached on the project for a long time till he got shit canned. During that time there was a lot of rumors going around on who he would have cast as Buff... I mean wonder Woman. Being in the industry that I'm in it was funny to get my issue of Wizard, which is by all regards the worst nerd magazine possible, and see that it had wild speculations on who would be Wonder Woman. Being that I was able to cross paths with him I showed him the magazine and had a good laugh with about it with him. Ah, good times.


"Uh.... No. (But you're all very nice.) -Joss Whedon"

It's just a matter of time now before we get a good live action Wonder Woman film. It can be done. Linda Carter made an amazing Diana but it seems that she's more than willing and able to pass the torch on to whoever is next in wearing that outfit and bullet deflecting bracelets. As it seems she's more than happy to give that blessing since Linda Carter Approves of Dushku as Wonder Woman.

LYNDA CARTER has officially passed the WONDER WOMAN baton to actress ELIZA DUSHKU, insisting she'd make a great comic book heroine.

Carter, who played the iconic character on TV in the 1970s, insists the world needs a new Wonder Woman - and if reports suggesting director Joss Whedon is set to launch

a new franchise with Dushku are correct, the original star would be thrilled.

She tells WENN, "I've always liked Joss, and Eliza would make a great Wonder Woman." Carter has even offered her services to help groom the next Wonder Woman.

She adds, "People worry about, 'I really helped with this movie and I didn't get paid,' which I could care less about. People don't usually contact the original people to find things out because they're afraid of being sued claiming it was their idea. I hope if they make the movie it makes a bajillion (millions) dollars, which means they'll continue to make them."
While I wasn't alive when it first came out, Television of the day was constantly reairing itself and I recall seeing a lot of Linda Carter growing up. Hell, I own the DVDs. They were all sorts of cheesy. While not as campy as the Batman show, it was still funny to see her do the twirl to change costumes. And what a costume it was.

I'm not going to say I liked Wonder Woman simply because of a very revealing costume with all the right support, but it was easy on the eyes. Let me get this one thing out in the open. I don't like Wonder Woman because she's wearing next to nothing and has cleavage hanging out. That and a rope that hints on a little subtle S&M thing going on. No, that's not the only reason.


Like them... um... eyes. Yeah

I found Wonder Woman attractive more so because of her eyes. I think that's where the seeds were planted for my thing for eyes. You get someone who has Wonder Woman like eyes.. oh man, I'll melt... or just stare into them for a really long time in a creepy way... Yeah. I'm sure I don't mean to stare that close but I can't help it when I see really nice eyes.

Oh yes, and that costume.. can't forget to mention the costume. again.

So Linda gives the blessings to have Dollhouse actress and Buffy's Faith a chance? I guess she did do all that redemption stuff in Angel. But does she have the look to carry the Amazon Princess title? You tell me:

Her as Wonder Woman? I guess...

I'd say it's a good start. But then there's that jaded part of me already. Even though Wonder Woman hasn't graced the television screens besides TV Land for a couple of decades, we're still seeing the costume on the boob tube. While Eliza gets the blessing of Linda Carter, I think we've already seen the better replacement on Bones. Oddly enough, this Fox show has a Joss Whedon/DC Comics connection in it already. As mentioned earlier that Green Lantern was voiced by David Boreanaz, he was also Angel on... you guessed it, Angel.

But it's not him we're looking at for the outfit. That'll be strange and alarming. No, we're looking at Emily Deschanel, and really, did you need an excuse to? In the Halloween episode of the series she comes out sporting the Wonder Woman gear and she wears it well.


Her as Wonder Woman? YES PLEASE!

When asked about the costume and the episode on what it was like doing dramatic scenes while standing in a Wonder Woman costume she just said "You kind of forgets it. You kind of forget it after awhile, so it's not that weird. I'm used to being on sets with costume - this is just a different costume, you know? It's easy to forget what you look like but then you pass a mirror and you catch yourself. You shock yourself."

Oh what a trooper. She took one for the team on that one. Besides, have you've seen Eliza act? While her stint on Buffy was ok being the wild card Faith, she doesn't have that much range in acting. Emily has some range. Sure, it's rooted in being an emotionless robotic anthropologist. But she can act.Oh yeah, she has really nice eyes as well.




So while I sit here and expect to see Wonder Woman again on a Saturday night, I can only recommend it so much before I insist that you view it. It's a great movie and while it does have a lot of adult humor in it, along with some serious fits of violence and zombie action, it's still a good story that should be fun for young and old.

Not to mention that Wonder Woman is the ultimate sign of feminism. Yup, that's right. A woman stuck on an island full of women and the first chance she has on the mainland, she's already complaining about the male gaze. Don't listen to me go on about how that outfit as well as Batgirl's costume is just something that... well... Ok, I said enough...



I'll just enjoy my Saturday night, thank you kindly! This movie, Emily's WW costume and Linda Carter get a thumbs up here. Eliza... well, we'll give her another couple of episodes of Dollhouse to make up our mind...

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