Here's the NEW Wonder Woman!

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GeorgeC

Here's the NEW Wonder Woman!

Post by GeorgeC » February 17th, 2011, 10:00 pm

As Jay Sherman would say, "Hachi machi!"

Image
Adrianne Palicki

Darn, she's easy on the eyes!

Here she is as a brunette.
Image

5' 11" guys... You know you want to get caught in her lasso!

This is the best part of the Wonder Woman pilot. She looks the part!

Too bad the script is pooh... [no Winnie]

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Re: Here's the NEW Wonder Woman!

Post by Dacey » February 17th, 2011, 10:56 pm

So happy that the new series is finally coming together! I just kinda wish that they were making a movie instead. Still, this is better than nothing. :)
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Post by Randall » February 17th, 2011, 10:57 pm

The actress is stunning to be sure; but the plot sounds far removed from the comics. (Of course, the current comics seem far from the original comics, too.) Time will tell...

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Re: Here's the NEW Wonder Woman!

Post by EricJ » February 18th, 2011, 1:37 am

GeorgeC wrote: Too bad the script is pooh... [no Winnie]
To wit, accdg to rumor:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and- ... ys-script/

(I'm getting serious chick-audience empowerment-fantasy "And they call us guys geeks... :roll: " vibes from this one, ala "Bionic Woman". And at least Bionic Woman had an excuse to be made up of old female-demographic network cliche's out of the blue.
And not to sink too far in to George's world :P , I'd blame David E. Kelley for this one more than I'd blame Warner/DC--But seeing as this one may have been picked up on the rebound from Warner deciding to drop the Justice League movie and leave Lantern and WW projects to their fate, to paraphrase the MST3K-ism, they, uh....just don't care anymore. :( )

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Post by Ben » February 21st, 2011, 3:10 pm

As a blonde she reminded me of Rebecca Romjin in that top image, though she looks better suited as a brunette anyway, so a good (and not "obvious") choice for the amazing Amazon.

Hollywood Reporter had a good shot where she could almost be Diana Prince (it was an awards bash image by the looks of it) and, like with the recent Henry "Superman" Cavill casting news, I immediately thought "yep, they've nailed that".

I don't know what the changes are from the comics, but you know, I'm kind of happy to see a new take on a comic book hero (or heroine!) from time to time, to keep things fresh and interesting.

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Post by Randall » February 21st, 2011, 3:28 pm


GeorgeC

Re: Here's the NEW Wonder Woman!

Post by GeorgeC » February 21st, 2011, 4:28 pm

Ben wrote: I don't know what the changes are from the comics, but you know, I'm kind of happy to see a new take on a comic book hero (or heroine!) from time to time, to keep things fresh and interesting.

Oh, David E. Kelley's ideas are really bad...

Wonder Woman is admittedly not a favorite character of mine -- I like several female characters much better than her -- BUT I've had a long enough experience with comics (including reading three runs of Wonder Woman -- fifty issues, tops) and remember the Lynda Carter series. What David E. Kelley is proposing is Alley McBeal as Wonder Woman and that just won't fly.

At best a series like this might last half a season, maybe a full year before the plug is pulled. Sort of like the scrambled up Birds of Prey. That show was a huge mess in spite of casting the excellent Dina Meyer as the main lead. It was just convoluted and started off on a bad premise that turned off most fans of those characters. Not so good to see that the same mistake is being made with the new Wonder Woman series.

Diana Prince as an Amazon double-agent/US intelligence analyst/spy makes a lot more sense than her acting as an "American gal" who has hang ups and happens to be CEO of a major company. There's at least plausible motivation for the secret agent angle -- she's a fish out of water and needs to be sure Man's World/the great powers aren't a threat to her homeland/island.

It's a darn shame. They got an actress who certainly can look the part -- although the question remains about her charisma which her predecessor Carter definitely had in spades -- and they're putting her into something that's not sounding like a career booster at the moment.

The fact that WB/NBC picked this pilot up means there's little chance the background story will rewritten unless a miracle occurs and a second pilot with changes is commissioned.

That hasn't happened much since Star Trek.

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Post by Ben » February 21st, 2011, 4:35 pm

Interesting (though a warning to some for a use of adult language in a script excerpt in Rand's link above).

The top paragraph suggesting the "goofy" tone, etc, was immediately off-putting, though as they went through and described it, it started to sound more intriguing and not, basically, crummy. Not crazy about the radio-friendly pop, but as much as she sounds like she's going to be a superwoman, she also sounds like she is/trying to be the "average girl".

What could kill it are the multiple attempts to be contemporary, again where contemporary is mistaken for being satirical, which might or might not work here. It'll be a tonal thing that either unbalances the show and makes it all a camp joke, or a light touch that just keeps the non-crime fighting drama angle bright...though it'll be tricky and I can't say I'm not entirely sure they'll nail it.

Maybe this year's Bionic Woman? :?

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Post by GeorgeC » February 21st, 2011, 11:47 pm

Yeah, "Bionic Woman" is the general feeling now...

There just haven't been a lot of good genre shows (action/adventure) with female leads that have gone anywhere.

Too bad because there's two audiences frustrated by this. First the girls, since they haven't had a true Supergirl hit. Second, the guys because although it's easy to cast a good-looking gal, getting someone with brains and talent to boot in a well-written show is next-to-impossible in the current entertainment climate. There are producers and executives that Hollywood is literally NOT in the game for telling stories any more.... Stories are needed to survive on TV!

With the first Wonder Woman series, it was weird. It originally debuted on ABC as a TV movie after two failed previous attempts, last a season set in World War II, was cancelled, and revived quickly by CBS in the "modern era" where is stayed on the air until 1979.

I've got the Lynda Carter Wonder Woman TV pilot film as an extra on one of my DCUA Blu ray discs. It's not great by any stretch of the imagination and Carter was new to the acting game at the time but she really filled the role well.

Luck struck again for DC a few years later when Christopher Reeve hits screens as Superman.

It's been tough trying to find actors to fill their large shoes let alone get anything decent on television or in theaters. Frankly, the track record for animated adaptations is much better than the live-action versions aside from the first two Superman films with Christopher Reeve. Even that's been revived with the recent DVD/BD releases and the new Director's Cut of Superman II that's pretty much replaced the theatrical version as the cut licensed to play on TV now.

Yeah, I really don't feel any of the live-action Batman adaptations since the late 1980s... Too dark (literally -- bad cinematography), bad choices of directors, and the latest version feeling more like Bond set in Chicago. No sir, I don't care for it!

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Re:

Post by EricJ » February 22nd, 2011, 12:10 am

Ben wrote:IMaybe this year's Bionic Woman? :?
Bionic Woman (we are talking about the goofy Lifetime-pandering 00's version, right?) had one thing going against it:
The rights to the original 70's series's source--Martin Caidin's "Cyborg" novel--was still tied up at another studio while they tried to fit it to a Jim Carrey movie...All NBC had left was what wasn't covered in the novel: A title, a name, and a concept, and the rest they could let their lil' wild network-executive imaginations do the rest.
And what they wanted to do was...what they saw Fox doing with Sarah Connor on another network. To pander to as many empowerment/feminist-martyr fantasies as possible.
GeorgeC wrote:With the first Wonder Woman series, it was weird. It originally debuted on ABC as a TV movie after two failed previous attempts, last a season set in World War II, was cancelled, and revived quickly by CBS in the "modern era" where is stayed on the air until 1979.
The 70's Wonder Woman started out with the right idea:
It was still another few years till Christopher Reeve, so Adam West icon-kitsch was still coin of the realm for comic-book adaptation.
The WWII setting was played for Golden Age camp, with comic borders, stock-40's characters and Nazi villains, but what caught on was what every young generation eventually discovers for the first time every decade or so: Superheroes are cool. :mrgreen:

When Reeve and the Hulk showed that kids were watching, they dropped their "excuse" for a comic-book show and gave us a normal superheroine. And as Gloria Steinem pointed out, it's been the one we remembered ever since.
GeorgeC wrote: At best a series like this might last half a season, maybe a full year before the plug is pulled. Sort of like the scrambled up Birds of Prey.
Oh, lord, was Birds of Prey a mess of bad demographic ideas:
Try to sell DC to the chick audience (because girls watch more WB than guys), which, in misogynist execs' minds, means sell the "sisterhood" and guy-bashing as much as possible...And then try to get the guys to watch, by selling the outfits and the Batman angle.
You can do one or the other....but you CAN'T DO BOTH.

(In the end, the one thing you can do to keep one of the two audiences is to try and get the more faithful one, by sticking to serious canon, and here, Kelley took the other route.
Obviously on the "She's a female superhero!" angle, which is not the particular reason that WW has male fans. For that reason, watch the DCU animateds.)

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Post by Ben » February 25th, 2011, 2:53 pm

Shame that the DC edition of Superman II is the default version for US TV now: at least over here the original theatrical (Lester) edition still plays.

While I loved to see what the Donner film could have been, the result really is a DVD extra and should never replace what was originally released. Things went the way they did and Superman II '80 was the result and should be what is seen.

I truly liked the alterations that Donner was able to restore, but they're not feature quality: the opening uses on-set, non-ADR sound, while the stand-ins and VFX are lacking in a non-video quality. The overuse of some music cues shows some stretching, and the severe cutting of the Lester material right down to nothing but to provide narrative structure makes for a choppy film.

The original reveal of Superman to Lois is much better, but it's a badly cut audition scene where Reeve really hasn't found the character (Kidder is excellent and clear to see how she got the role), and the final re-use of turning the world backward is a cop-out that they would have fixed if Donner stayed on the movie (and I still reckon the super-kiss is a way they might have gone with it).

Superman II: Donner Cut is an excellent attempt to restore what might have been, but it's an unfinished film. I actually prefer it over the original theatrical version, but only because I have seen that original version. Though I usually choose to watch the Donner cut, it's not because I want to replace the theatrical, which is still how I "remember" Superman II.

Whatever the history, the truth is that it has its own problems and shouldn't now be the defacto standard for the title. :(

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Post by GeorgeC » February 25th, 2011, 3:40 pm

I think I was stretching it saying that they DON'T play the theatrical cut of Superman II on TV anymore. It's justthat I've noticed the DC is what's played recently.

Frankly, I still like the DC better than the theatrical version (the only time this has ever been the case for me!) than the theatrical cut. Takes away all the goofy $#@! that Lester got stuck on in the three Superman films he was involved with and I liked the DC better --- warts and all. More mature film, IMHO. The computer graphics and lo-res didn't bother me that much. It's not as if the SFX in the theatrical cuts of any of those films have aged well. I remember those films because of Reeve, Kidder, Stamp, and Hackman.

I sort of think Donner was the only guy out of all the directors and producers of live-action Superman in the past 35 years that really understood the basics. When you have a producer that suggests a professional boxer for the role of Superman OR doing a film not much different than Gene Roddenberry's lamest ideas, you've got problems!

Seeing what happened with the last two Reeve films, Superman Returns, and the little I bothered to watch of Smallville, I'm glad at least two films and an animated TV series got it right. The rest just isn't very pretty...

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Post by Ben » February 25th, 2011, 4:01 pm

For me, it's just Superman: The Movie that is p-e-r-f-e-c-t. The theatrical II and the Donner restored II reach close, but fall short for the problems you mentioned from Lester's comic touch in the theatrical and the quality issues of the restoration.

Lester was only involved on two films, by the way (II and III) but there are even parts in III that I really like, such as the Lana Lang relationship, which plays really well after the Smallville scene in The Movie, and of course the Bad Superman Vs. Good Clark moment. But agreed on all the rest, but I would say that for all the right intentions, I'd go for Superman IV over the turgid Returns any day.

Basically, Superman: The Movie got it all right. But since then, a variety of problems has screwed with getting another decent (and properly fully-formed) Man Of Steel movie onto our screens.

GeorgeC

Post by GeorgeC » February 25th, 2011, 9:32 pm

Yeah...

... and DC Comics can't leave the Superman origin story alone, either.

They revamp and revise the story every 3 years now!

I kid you not ---!

The problem's not the origin, DC, the problem is that nobody has any incentive to do anything really new with the characters and that the existing audience for 32-page monthlies is dying off or getting bored like I did.

There's no attempt made any more to get kids interested in this stuff. It's a dying medium that's going to be gone like the passenger pigeon within a few decades if ithe publishers don't wise up.

I love these characters still but I HATE the 32-page format with a passion and I don't care for the revamps and directions most comics go in now.

I don't even bother expecting the live-action adaptations to be good anymore.
The good stuff really comes out in the animated TV series.
The quality of the direct-to-video stuff has been mostly so-so for a while...

Won't even get into the issues Marvel Comics has.
Iron Man was a fluke. Not much good amongst the other things...

At least I've got hardcover collections and trade reprints to remind me that there used to be a pool of editors and writers who knew how to handle these characters--!

Now that the companies expect to make so much more money from licensing and movie adaptations the quality has fallen off the table in terms of the actual comics themselves. You know, the format that actually generated the best ideas in the first place?


Gee, where have I heard that before... Oh yeah, when the geniuses in Hollywood decided 2-D hand-drawn was a dead genre and that everything had to be computerized. They laid off a lot of good people and lost the ability to generate anything "old-fashioned" for the theme parks to boot.

Lovely to see that short-sighted thinking hasn't lost its luster in corporate multimedia!

GeorgeC

Post by GeorgeC » March 18th, 2011, 4:54 pm

Here's the first photo of Adrianne Palicki in the proposed new Wonder Woman TV series (pilot) costume...

Image


I wish they'd stuck closer to the classic comic outfit (hate this Straczynski outfit -- it's too "Urban Outfitters") but boy does she fill it well!

(Won't go further than that to avoid getting into more trouble from the hypersensitive, PTA readers of this site. You know, the "you should have no opinion or we hate you for having strong opinions" and "saying darn is potty-mouthed" crowd. They privately attack you through the mods but don't have the guts to at least PM you! I think I dislike these guys and gals almost as much as the absolutist people...)

Again, this is a publicity still for the pilot movie. There is an option to pick-up for a TV series. The final decision may not be known until May 16th.

"Hachi machi!" is right-on!

Urban Dictionary is your friend... => http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.p ... hi%20Machi!

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