Wonder Woman 1984 review

The COVID virus caused a change in the the world in ways we were not prepared for in 2020.  This was felt all across the world in so many ways as we had to cope with the new normal.  Travel was restricted, we could not gather in groups of more than 10, and we had to wear masks at all times.  We were socially distancing ourselves to prevent the spread of the dreaded virus.  This of course, applied to many things we usually take for granted.  We were no longer allowed to gather in any public places to partake in activities we would usually with mass crowds (professional sports events, restaurants, attending church, etc.) without temperature recordings, excessively washing hands, and disinfecting everything in sight.  I think that since the advent of contact lens solution and hand sanitizer the oceans of the world have gone down about two feet since, but that's another story.  One of the things, of course, that took its toll on business and the entertainment world was the fact that we could not go and see movies in movie theaters anymore.  This was disappointing to me in particular as I was looking forward to quite a few summer blockbusters, not for their cinematic quality but for their escapism and indulging in the munchies at my local drive-in theater.  With these changes, one had to make do with their social lives and the Hollywood studios had to put things on pause for their new releases.  A rather unique opportunity presented itself on Christmas Day of this year.  Movie theaters are/were trying to open again with the outlined public health precautions, and HBOMax offered a streaming of Wonder Woman 1984 for those who wished to see the movie in the safe confines of their home.  My plans for the day were thwarted (to have two guy friends over for Chinese food and to view the movie together) thanks to a snowstorm, making travel to and from rather rough, so we rain checked but I decided to view it myself.

Please note that this will contain spoilers, even though this is not a review of the movie itself it is necessary to reveal details of the storyline...

Wonder Woman 1984 takes place in, like the title suggests, 1984.  It is a sequel to the 2017 movie, in which we have fast forwarded about 70 years (as the events of the first movie took place during World War I) where Diana Prince aka Wonder Woman is living in Washington, DC and working for the Smithsonian Institute as a senior anthropologist specializing in the cultures of ancient Mediterranean civilizations.  She maintains this alter ego / alias during the day while she continues to fight crime at night as Wonder Woman, like all superheroes.  I will skip over the series of circumstances that lead to her confronting one of two villians in this movie, the second is Maxwell Lord.  He is somewhat of a Lex Luthor lite - an evil businessman bent on world domination using somewhat supernatural and practical methods.  He has coveted the Dreamstone, a gemstone which has the supernatural power to make others' dreams come true.  Maxwell Lord uses this power to make people's wishes / dreams come true in order to gain his own power and control over world economy and business.  Diana unknowingly makes a wish and he makes her deepest wish come true, which is to bring back her lover, Steve Trevor, back from the dead.  He then returns in the body of another man and Diana is overjoyed.

This made me think of the love of my life who I lost.  To protect his right to privacy as well as mine, I do not reveal his name either in this forum or in private conversation.  I call him Ralph to others, although some of my friends who I have known for a long time have met and remember him.  It's hard to believe that it was so long ago now, as so much has happened since and I am a different person now.  The year was 2001 when we met, long story short we were in love and I was happier than I had ever been and didn't think I could be.  There were many issues on his part moreso than mine, one of which was that he had never been in a long term relationship before.  As we all know by now, the first 6-10 months in which you are with someone is not love, it's infatuation.  Endorphins eventually wear off when the infatuation period is over with, and when it does, you better like that person.  Not love, just like them, because if you don't you're in trouble.  And he didn't know what to do with himself when it did wear off.  Another issue was the fact that he didn't know his father and he used that as his main reason / excuse as to how / why he had the values and opinions he did, which was somewhat true.  His father was also someone of note in rock history who has since passed away, which was somewhat of a factor as well.  But his reactions to things were that of a stereotypical commitment phobe and he refused to believe that he was anything but stereotypical, which made him even crazier.  I am not perfect nor blameless in my own actions, if anything I am one of the most socially awkward people in the world and I think I have finally gotten it under control, but I was, as we all are, a work in progress.  

I tried very hard to make it work.  Why?  Because I loved him, and I loved him more than anyone or anything.  I was fighting a loosing battle, the rational part of my brain knew that I was, but it was making me go slowly insane.  I was in a horrific place physically and mentally.  He broke it off just before Christmas of 2001 but came back, in June of 2002 he broke it off again.  For the next two and a half / three years, however, I was in a state of denial thinking that maybe someday somehow he would come back.  But he did not.  In the fall of 2005 he moved away, and he was gone.  I would find him on Facebook a few years later and he would explain some of his actions to me - he chose not to contact me after he moved away because he needed to severe the ties and he was being self centered the entire time.  Many would call it cowardice on his part (which it was, I will not argue that fact), but I also realize it was the right thing to do as well.  But he said I would always have a place in his heart.  One day in 2012 I got a phone call from him out of the blue.  He was in town and he wanted to see me, I said no.  I lashed out at him, he blocked me, and that was that.  The old saying is, as we all know, true : If you can't be lovers, you can't be friends.  And that was really the end.

Don't think that I continued down the downward spiral after his departure in 2005, because I got better.  In 2006, my Jesus year, I changed completely.  I would drop my misery weight and got back down to my high school weight, a grand total of 40 lbs came off of me.  My old career had completely bottomed out and the scraps that are/were leftover from it all but kicked me out of the industry a year or so later.  I had to change myself, and I did.  Also, I did not stop looking for another man to fill the void that he had left, because there were others of course, from flashes in the pan to a long term, two year relationship.  However, none of them were what Ralph was to me.  Ralph, unfortunately for him, made his decisions in haste and without considering certain things as most commitment phobes will.  He didn't anticipate how difficult it would be to find someone else or just automatically assumed that he was going to be able to duplicate what we had.  And as we all know, we can't duplicate it because that person before you isn't the one you are/were comparing them to.  Not that I would ever say to the man in question "You aren't Ralph" because that's certainly the case, and that's just plain cruel to say that to someone.  Because what else can you say to them except "No, you're not". 

And on Christmas Day 2020, on the eve of my 46th birthday, I would see Wonder Woman 1984, and all these emotions would come back to me again.  Because if Lord were to grant me my wish, it would not be for Mr. Right to come along, but for Ralph again.  And if he came back to me, I would love him just as much and even more than I did way back when.  In the plot of the movie, Diana had to relinquish her wish for Steve in order to defeat Lord.  She refused at first and tried to find an alternative, but realized that she must.  She embraces Steve and said "I love you, I'll never love another."  He said "I love you too".  And she leaves, and he vanishes.

All these years later, I am still here.  Stand up, be proud of who you are and what you have accomplished, be brave not bitter, you're stronger than all of them put together.  And if you are ever ridiculed for being odd or crazy or whatever else, tell them to go fuck themselves.  Be all that you can be, truth is hard, but you were meant to be a metahuman like Wonder Woman.  Life is hard, tragic even, but you'll survive.  You are marvelous, the gods wait to delight in you.