Wonder

Via Charlie Anders at Other Magazine, I learn that Joss Whedon isn't doing the Wonder Woman film after all. Mr Whedon informs us that after famously struggling with the script ...

I'm no longer slated to make Wonder Woman. What? But how? My chest... so tight! Okay, stay calm and I'll explain as best I can. It's pretty complicated, so bear with me. I had a take on the film that, well, nobody liked.

Hey, not that complicated.

So it's turned out to be a Great Lost Film. In a way, I'm relieved; it's not Joss Whedon's destiny to make features, he was put on this Earth to be a TV showrunner.

While I'm on the subject, I'd like to nod to Charlie Jane Anders' excellent run of Wonder Woman blogging, including a discussion of the oddness of loving the character but few of the actual comics ...

Wonder Woman should be the most fun comic book character ever. Instead, she’s the most boring. Why is this?

... and of the importance of Nazis as villains in her origin ...

The problem with Wonder Woman is this whole idea that she came to our world to teach us about peace and niceness and caring.

She didn’t. She came here to fight Nazis. That’s all.

... further elaborating ...

Which is that it makes no sense that the Amazons, after hundreds (thousands?) of years of isolation, suddenly decide to send one of their own off into the outside world as an ambassador. Why now? What makes them think the rest of the world is suddenly worth engaging with?

That’s where the Nazis come in. Because the Amazons see the rise of fascism, and the development of more and more horrendous means of mass slaughter, and it freaks them out a bit.

It's just hard to make Wonder Woman work, and it was difficult for me to imagine how Whedon was going to do it. I had faith in his ability to crack the problem, because that improbable sounding “western with spaceships” thing came together well.

I wish good fortune on whoever takes the project next. They're gonna need it.