Wonder Woman 1984 Trailer and Analysis

The DC Extended Cinematic Universe will grow with the latest Wonder Woman film, due out on June 5, 2020.

The first Wonder Woman movie was set in World War One, but now we move forward in time to 1984, a year when Ronald Reagan was in the White House, Bruce Springsteen, Van Halen, and Prince dominated the music charts, and movie fans flocked to theaters to see Ghostbusters, Terminator, The Karate Kid, Beverly Hills Cop, and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.

Wonder Woman 1984 introduces two all-new villains for Wonder Woman to face: Max Lord and The Cheetah.  The character of Maxwell Lord first appeared in DC Comics in Justice League #1 (May 1987) as a wealthy businessman who seeks dominance over the Justice League. The character also appeared in the Supergirl television show. Cheetah is one of the oldest DC Comics villains, having been created in the 1940s as Wonder Woman’s archfoe. The original Cheetah was created by psychologist William Moulton Marston (who also created Wonder Woman) as an allegory of the folly of abnormal emotions such as jealousy.  Cheetah originally appeared in Wonder Woman #6 (cover dated: Autumn 1943. There have been several versions of Cheetah in the Wonder Woman and DC mythos, and the one that is in the new Wonder Woman movie is the character of  Dr. Barbara Ann Minerva, whose version of Cheetah first appeared in Wonder Woman (vol. 2) #7 (August 1987).

It should also be noted that this year, DC Comics is publishing the 750th issue of Wonder Woman comics, with many variant covers that look at Wonder Woman through the decades.

The trailer for Wonder Woman 1984 shows a lot of action, some very 1980s scenes (of course they have to be in a shopping mall), and it appears that Wonder Woman’s lover from World War One, Steve Trevor somehow appears in the 1980s.  We see scenes with Maxwell Lord appearing diabolical, and Dr. Minerva appearing rather pathetic…We do not, however, see Minerva as the powerful Cheetah. Perhaps in the next Wonder Woman trailer?

Director Patty Jenkins, who directed the first WW movie returns to lead actress Gal Gadot as she dons the now iconic Wonder Woman costume and wield the Lasso of Truth.   The new film also stars Chris Pine (Captain Kirk in the newer Star Trek films) as Steve Trevor, Kristen Wiig (Saturday Night Live) as The Cheetah, Pedro Pascal (The Mandalorian) as Max Lord, Robin Wright (House of Cards, Wonder Woman) as Antiope.

Since the original Wonder Woman film from 2017 was by far the best of the DCEU movies to date, we expect Wonder Woman 1984 to be at least the second best of the DCEU movies.  Gal Gadot IS Wonder Woman!