Why Wonder Woman Captured Our Hearts

Steve: This is no man’s land, Diana! It means no man can cross it, alright? On the other side are the Germans pointing machine guns at every square inch of this place. This is not something you can cross. It’s not possible.

Diana: So… what? So we do nothing?

Steve: No, we are doing something! We are! We just… we can’t save everyone in this war. This is not what we came here to do.

Diana: No. But it is what I am going to do.

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When Id first heard of Wonder Woman hitting the theatres, i must shamefully admit i wasnt too thrilled. Being more of a Marvel fan, the name ‘Wonder Woman’ itself reeked of unscathing feminism that i wasnt too enthusiastic about.

But circumstances made me go and watch the film, and as i came out of the theatre 2 hours and 23 minutes later, i was absolutely in love.

Wonder Woman had taken over my heart.

The film begins with Wonder Woman, aka Diana Prince in the modern world. She questions whether humanity is even worth saving. To regain her faith in the world of Man, she looks back into her past, where majority of the film is based upon.

We are then introduced to the hidden island of Themyscira, home of the immortal female warriors, the Amazons. Diana was the daughter of the Queen of the Amazons, who supposedly created Diana from clay. A little Diana is told from her childhood of how Ares, the God of War corrupted Man and killed all the Gods, and how it cost Zeus his life to strike him down with the lightning bolt. Before dying, Zeus presented Hippolyta with a secret weapon that could finally kill the God Of War when he rises again.

Diana has now grown, and has been trained in the Amazon ways to become a warrior. When she meets Steve Trevor who crash landed on the island from the War, their fates are entwined forever. She learns from Trevor about the ‘War to end all wars’ and attributes it to Ares. When the Amazons do nothing to interfere, Diana leaves on her own with Steve to find Ares and kill him and end this horror war, which was World War 1 in reality.

From the begining of the movie itself one could see how Diana was of pure heart, and how she truly believed Man was all good. The little jokes from the movie were perfect, like the scene from the boat where she concludes that men arent needed when it comes to pleasurising oneself, and the one where Trevor mistakes her asking about his junk when she was asking about his watch nearby. These jokes further highlited the Amazon princess’s innocence and made us gradually fall in love with her character.

Diana: What is that?

Steve: That is a watch.

Diana: What does it do?

Steve: It tells the time. It tells you when to sleep, to eat…

Diana: That tiny thing tells you what to do?

Steve: ….. Yeah.

A few parts from the movie particularly caught my eye, starting from her entry into London, where a lot of the humour lied in her alienated behaviour in the War-ridden city.

Not to mention the scenes where she tries out new outfits to try and blend in just made us fall in love with Diana even more, and made a point on just how beautiful Gal Gadot actually is in real life. And the ice-cream scene too, no words. Watching an immortal Warrior-princess freak out about icecream highlighted on just how different Wonder Woman was from other DC installations.

But the scene which reaffirmed my love for the Amazonian Princess was a totally different one, a scene which still gives me the goosebumps everytime i watch it.

Wonder Woman is on her way with Steve to ‘find Ares’, and they are traversing through the battlefield into Germany. She is horrified by the inflictions of war, watching Horses being whipped brutally, men returning from the battlefield without limbs- losing their speech and soldiers dying but unable to help. The scene is intensified when they heave onto one of the war trenches and is shocked to see the death and destruction around her. Clearly she cannot believe that Man could do something like this, and when she tries to help an injured man, Steve stops her; telling her that it was not possible to save everyone in War, and this is not what they came here to do.

To which she responds to:

“That is what i am going to do.”

What follows is one of the most iconic moments in DCEU history. She takes off her cape to reveal the age old battle-armor within, and proceeds to climb the ladder into the battlefield.

Goosebumps erupted all over my skin, and combined with the incredibly beautiful background music score, this scene was inexorably powerful. This was the moment when Wonder Woman decided to change the course of human history; and combined with her compassion for humanity and all that was good, she was a living embodiment of the goodness and hope that still persevered in Man.

She fights her way through No Man’s Land, and almost singlehandedly frees the town from the German terror.

Then they spend the night in the rescured village. That is where the immortal princess experiences something more commonly associated with mortals: love. But her love for Steve soon turns into fury when he delays her from jeapordising their plan to stop the Germans, which inadvertedly results in the mass gassing and killing of the entire town in which they’d spent the night in.

She doesnt realise that in war, there is never the right or wrong; just the Greater Good. She is still living in the delusion that Ares is the one controlling the War, instead of thinking for one second if Man himself had a part to play too. This is brought to the spotlight when she kills German General Ludendorf, whom she believes is the embodiment of Ares, but sees no difference in the level of destruction taking place around her. She cannot understand this, and Steve struggles to make it clear to her.

“Maybe we are all to blame.”

In other words, it is the flesh, not just the devil at work in human evil.

Diana cannot believe that the world of Men is inherently evil and yearns for destruction, so she refuses to help in saving humanity anymore, abandoning Steve’s pleas for help.

And then she meets the real Ares(not mentioning who it is), who reinforces in her that Man is weak and evil, saying that he has never had to control them, but merely whisper to reignite the embers of evil within Man, and just sit back and watch as humanity destroy themselves and receive their due penalty.

But when Steve sacrifices himself to save the World from falling prey to the German weapons, she almost loses her control in grief. And in those moments of grievances, she recalls when Steve briefly meets up with Diana during the fight and tells her of what he’s going to do, also adding that he loves her, and while he is saving today, she will be saving the World.

In those moments of pain, loss and love, Diana finally sees past Ares’s version of humanity and realizes that in between all the tragedies that are inflicted by Man, there was still the element of Humanity, the element of Sacrifice, the element of Love.

Before she’d left the island, her mother tells Diana that humanity doesnt deserve her. But Diana realized that it was not about what they deserved, it was about what she believed in. If humanity is going to be saved, it cannot be a matter of merit. And she chose to believe in Humanity, she chose to believe in Love.

Now powered by her compassion towards humanity, she unleashes the power of the Gods, for she is indeed the daughter of Zeus- she was the secret weapon destined to destroy Ares. And she drives him to the depths of Tartarus him for once and for all.

As the film ends its run, the modern day Diana pledges her service to humanity, seeing past their faults and accepting the human in Man.

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As i proceeded to walk out the theater, i tried to think of the last time I’d gotten so many chills in so many parts of any film. Be it the beautiful music which captured the essence of every scene, or the powerful message endowed in Wonder Woman, or the critically acclaimed performances from Gal Gadot and Chris Pine, the movie was a masterpiece from start to finish.

From her humble origins in the 1940’s comics to the 2017 film adaptation, Wonder Woman has found herself a new admirer.