Wonder Woman dispatches folks pretty handily throughout the movie and never bats an eye, if you haven’t seen it yet.

For all of things you describe, Xena was still a television program with no restrictions on it from being broadcast during daylight hours. My intention was not to shortchange Xena’s violence in an average episode, but touch on the story based levels of violence (Xena) versus what I would consider gratuitous violence or romanticizing violence for the sake of “kewl” (see: The Matrix). If you watched Xena and her tendency to stab a lot of people or hit them with her super-frisbee, then there’s a level of comparison there which TV standards and practices felt was okie dokey while our reviewer found the violence excessive in the review.

I was never an avid Xena watcher, but I caught enough episodes. Obviously not the huge Xena fan you might be, but if it were a Saturday afternoon and it was on, I’d watch.

Uh, how much of Xena exactly did you really watch?

Xena kills people in combat without blinking, there was no shortage of wounds and blood shown afterward, she was crucified twice (once tied to the cross with rope and had her legs broken, the other nailed) she use to pillage and burn villages down, stuck dead soldiers heads on spikes (and victims in villages on similar circular spikes left out to die) and in the finale she was shot with several arrows and later decapitated. I’d say that’s pretty violent.

I disagree whole heartedly with the reviewer. I found the movie neither crass nor pandering. Honestly, there is something for everyone. If this wasn’t your cup of tea, they do have DVDs of the Superfriends. I think those harken back to a time when comics and cartoons weren’t as violent and appealed to kids. Personally I’d take this version of Wonder Woman now as an adult.

If we’re going to complain about the violence, the sexism, whatever… then lets hold it to the same standard as other films, live action or animated. I can buy the idea that tolerance for crassness exists on a sliding scale with context. But I’m less forgiving on the complaints of violence. If we believe the violence is extreme because we feel its extreme for our understanding of the character… that’s a completely separate conversation.

I do admit, of the other things I should have mentioned the movie could have used more of, I agree with Boston. The movie touched not at all one the original reason why Diana was sent to “Man’s World” in the first place, on a mission of peace. Maybe in a sequel? But with 80 minutes of run-time, there just wasn’t time to build a storyline that wasn’t going anywhere if they wanted their Big Fight at the end.

There are a couple of inaccuracies in the review above.

1. Steve refers to Diana’s “rack” once (while bound in the Lasso of Truth), not constantly.
2. Hippolyta never says anything about sharing the same bedroom nor about Ares’s penis-size. She says she hopes he shows more skill on the battlefield than in the proverbial bedroom. Further, she says he forced their son on her like a curse, alluding to his raping her. The film is not vague on this point, as the reviewer suggests. It is stated outright… twice.

At a discussion panel with the director and producer, I learned that a lot of blood was cut from the movie. The first cut received an R rating. The irony of the review is that I think this movie sublimated Wonder Woman’s peaceful compassionate roots and expanded the warrior idea to appeal to the general public. Wonder Woman fans tend to like a more Dali Lama-esque character who can also juggle 747s. The uber-violence is for the action fans, not the Wondie fans.

I’ve watched the movie five times now, once with the director/writer commentary. It’s a terrific ride, and lots of fun. The sexual innuendo is really funny, but I would trade the beheadings for bondage and impalings for spankings if I could. Just sayin.

Pretty clearly, comic fans have demonstrated no lack of taste for violence in their comics or comic inspired films in everything from Dark Knight to The Matrix to any other of a few hundred adaptations or homages, but when “the girl” does it (even in the well established manner of the post Crisis on Infinite Earths Wonder Woman as Amazon/ Warrior), then suddenly its an issue. This was, really, Xena level of violence at best.

The movie does take too many shortcuts in its very brief running time, from a lack of development between Trevor and Wonder Woman to a completely baffling lack of explanation regarding the Invisible Jet (a plot hole the Titanic could have sailed through sideways).

No, I’d not suggest that this level of violence or sexual innuendo is appropriate for a young child, but it fits in neatly with the exact same kind of thing you see every week in the pages of the comics you’re picking up. Condemning this movie for violence seems a bit disingenuous if you’re buying newer titles.

Director Lauren Montgomery is a veteran of the Timm Animated DCU, but this is her debut effort as a director, and perhaps some of these things might have been corrected by Montgomery on Round 2 in the director’s chair.

Was anyone this concerned about “getting ‘em while they’re young” with the recent Gotham Knight release, which was less kid friendly than this? Or even Superman/ Doomsday? Which featured Lex in a bizarrely homo-erotic/ sadomasochistic beat down with a Superman clone?

I recommend picking up the Perez, Jimenez, Rucka and Simone runs on Wonder Woman to see how closely this fits to the general tone of the comics. Plus, they’re a good read.

There’s neither a Return of the Dark Knight or a John Byrne run equivalent or even an Emerald Twilight, so I think that the filmmakers went for something that could fit the basic things we know about WW and added a sort of romantic comedy, not really big departures from the original concept. I think the animated version it’s way better than expected, and probably more than we could’ve hoped with a live action version.

And you failed to say something important: WHERE DID THE INVISIBLE JET COME FROM?