(Warning: There are some tremendous enormous spoilers for “Wonder Woman 1984” beneath)
It was not a secret that Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) would pop up in “Wonder Woman 1984” though he died on the finish of the final film. Dude was a key a part of the movie’s advertising and marketing, showing carrying a monitor swimsuit and a fanny pack — we simply didn’t know why he’d be again, or by what means. But the course that Patty Jenkins and co. went with was fairly shocking.
Now that we’ve seen “Wonder Woman 1984” and know the way Steve got here again to life, we’ve got an entire bunch of latest questions. Most of them are about the truth that Wonder Woman by no means thought-about the immense moral downside of getting Steve steal some random man’s physique ceaselessly.
Let’s recap the fundamentals. Steve is introduced again to life by the Dreamstone, which is a magic rock that grants needs, “Monkey’s paw”-style. That is, it offers you what you requested for, but additionally takes one thing away. So Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) needs that Steve can be alive once more, and it really works! But over the course of the movie, the magic of the stone slowly saps away her Amazonian superpowers.
Steve’s resurrection is a bit more difficult than we’re used to in these kinds of conditions in films and TV reveals. His bodily physique isn’t revived. He isn’t merely conjured into being. No, it’s simply his soul that has returned — in one other man’s physique.
Eventually, Wonder Woman is pressured to resign her want as a way to get her powers again and save the world. And when she does and Steve leaves once more, I suppose this man regains his consciousness proper in the course of the chaos of the climax of the movie, having no concept what’s occurring.
“Wonder Woman 1984” by no means stops to ponder the weirdness of that scenario. It really glosses over it by having us take a look at Chris Pine’s face the entire time as an alternative of that of Kristoffer Polaha, the actor who performs the individual whose physique Steve is possessing.
But this actually awkward. For a number of days, this unnamed man loses management of his physique whereas Steve and Diana have their harrowing adventures. He wakes up with, at minimal, a bunch of additional scrapes and bruises. Diana had intercourse with him at the least as soon as with out his consent. The entire film they had been risking this man’s life, with out letting him select to become involved.
Steve didn’t have any alternative right here both, at the least with regard to dwelling on this man’s physique. But Diana did. And when she ultimately did resign her want within the third act, it’s not due to any concern for that man, however as a result of she knew she needed to as a way to save the world. If the world hadn’t spiraled into chaos, she would have been comfortable to have Steve simply take over that man’s existence till he died.
It’s irritating that “Wonder Woman 1984” isn’t actually involved about any of that, {that a} character who’s form of the shining star and the beating coronary heart of the DCEU would utterly ignore the numerous moral problems of Steve’s return from the grave.
The bizarre factor about this entire scenario is that they may have simply had Steve manifest in a brand new physique as an alternative of doing this possession factor. You would assume that your entire purpose they’d do it this fashion can be to ask the ethics dialog I’m having right here. The Dreamstone is simply magic, and it doesn’t have any guidelines besides these set by the writers.
I’m assuming, then, that sooner or later there was a model of this movie the place Wonder Woman does ponder the moral ramifications of Steve possessing this random dude. It could also be that this complicating consider Steve’s resurrection was supposed to be the results of the Dreamstone’s perversion of needs. Like a “you can have him back, but in a way that will be ethically untenable for a true superhero” type of factor.
That, to me, is rather more fascinating than “you can have Steve back but you’ll lose your powers.” This would have been an precise moral dilemma, with none international stakes. Diana…
