Wonder Woman Trailer Analysis

We’ve finally had time to digest the first trailer for Wonder Woman, and we’ve spotted a bunch of DC references and easter eggs to dig into. But before we do that, in case you’re one of two people left on the internet who hasn’t seen the trailer, watch it in all of its awesome superheroic glory below:

Ahem.

The movie looks pretty good! I’m not sure how well Steve Trevor is going to map to World War I, but it’s certainly an interesting choice to have Wonder Woman come to the world of man in the midst of a convoluted global quagmire. But it looks like she was pushed that way.

Let’s go to the tape:

We see Diana in the outfit she was in in the EW article, helping Steve Trevor back to consciousness on the beaches of (presumably) Themyscira. Diana’s discovery of a distressed Steve Trevor is a crucial piece of her history, and comes right out of the original comics.

And we see Hippolyta, played by Connie Nielsen, talking to Diana. Everything in this trailer is super blue, it’s like they forgot all the other filters. The headpiece is very neat looking.

As Hippolyta tells Diana to be careful and that “they do not deserve [her],” Danny Huston reaches behind his back for something while dressed like a Russian military officer.

I am 100% convinced that he’s Ares, the God of War who spends most of Diana’s post-Crisis on Infinite Earths time trying to cause horrible wars on Earth.

Diana, wearing a sword no one notices in her mostly backless dress, walks towards someone (probably Ares), ready for a fight.

And we see this woman, played by Elena Anaya and probably a Gorgon, glaring ominously at someone. Medusa is the most famous Gorgon, and she has appeared in Wonder Woman comics for eons.

Then we jump to some beachside badassery:

That looks like a World War I invasion force storming the beaches of Themyscira. What’s notable is that all the Amazons are fighting with iron age weapons while the armies of man have guns, but it’s not a massacre. Also, there is no delivery mechanism for those armies. I bet they’re teleported there. More on my theory at the end.

We get a slow pan of Diana climbing out of a trench and batting away a mortar shell with her shield. This sequence gives us a little quality time with her outfit, which is fairly colorful but a little clanky in an Injustice sort of way. Then there are generic action sequences.

The only scene that stands out is this one – is the person all the way on the left Etta Candy?

Then we get Steve and Diana fighting their way through a few soldiers with the Lasso of Truth fully engaged. At first the glowing lasso was a little distracting, but the more I see it the more it grows on me.

And finally the trailer closes with our first good look at Shaun of the Dead’s Lucy Davis as Etta Candy, and she’s maybe the best part of the trailer. She’s bright and fun and not at all dreary like some other movies in this series.

Now for my theory. I’m betting this leans on George Perez’s Gods and Mortals pretty heavily: Ares is fomenting war on Earth to increase his power and eventually rule, with the Amazons and Diana being the only ones who can stop him. That fits Steve’s appearance on Themyscira (he crashed there in 1986 in Perez’s version), and the World War I setting is vague enough so that it wouldn’t be insensitive if it turns out a Greek god secretly killed Franz Ferdinand, while also allowing the discord he sows to grow his power.

I bet Anaya is Medusa (or some variation of her) and functioning like Phobos or Deimos was in Perez’s story. And the lasso is critical – it’s fighting without fighting.

We’ll see what this is all about on June 2, 2017 when Wonder Woman is released in theaters. For more information on the movie, be sure to check out Den of Geek’s Wonder Woman hub.