Wonder Woman lore and Greek Mythology

I love the Wonder Woman movie, faithfulness doesn't equal good, and unfaithful doesn't equal bad.  This analysis of how Wonder Woman comics and their adaptations handle Greek Mythology should in no way be seen as a criticism of the film or the comics.  I simply like talking about these things as a Nerd of both Mythology and Western Comics.

The first change in how Wonder Woman lore uses Greece Mythology is in basically treating the Amazons as Greeks, when the Greeks saw them as the ultimate antithesis to the Greek way of life.  I'm the kind of person who does want to believe real Amazons actually existed, and on my Revised Chronology blog I've recently speculated some on that very topic.

For a long time Wonder Woman lore at least depicted the Amazons as favoring female deities, even if which ones they got wrong (ironically in Greek Mythology Aphrodite was an enemy of the Amazons more often then Ares was).  It's the New 52 trend of making Diana another offspring of Zeus that has caused this to change.  And now the Wonder Woman movie never even mentioned any Goddess by name, it was only Zeus and Ares.

Wonder Woman Comics have at least never been guilty of what TVTropes calls the Hijacked By Jesus trope.  The movie however seems to have fallen into that area.  Is it because an Israeli actress is playing Diana? who knows.

 "But Mithrandir, didn't you just argue the Amazons were Israelites on that other blog"  yes, Danites after they fell into Idolatry and became devotes of Anath, so still not Monotheists or even particularity Henothesitic.

However I can say as a positive, making Ares the Lucifer figure fits far better then Hades.  The Ancient Greeks did tend to view Ares as a necessary evil at best (Ironically the Amazons were often depicted as Daughters of Ares, though I think that came from them being daughters of Anath).  It was their greatest contrast to Greece that Rome viewed Mars as their patron deity.  And the Roman cult of Mars continues today in America, commemorated on Memorial Day and the Fourth of July.

The movie arguably makes Wonder Woman herself Jesus.  And having a female as the Messianic Archetype is interesting to me, with my arguing a Biblical Example of it in the Song of Solomon itself.  And was part of my recent praise of Nausicaa of the Valley of The Wind.

There is a point in the film's backstory where the Amazons seemed effectively like Tolkienian Elves, with the biggest difference being the Elves are usually older then Humankind.

The gods all being dead now feels like a huge waste.  But I have a hunch we may learn in the Justice League film, or it's sequel, that the New Genesis gods are basically the Olympians reincarnated.

Some people are upset that Ares doesn't look how he usually looks in Wonder Woman Comics, or the 2009 Animated Movie which I hated.  I for one hate that look for Ares, the Greeks took great pride in that their gods looked human.  Olympians being British always works for me.

I have posted before on The Titans of Myth, how on the Titans at least DC Comics is better then other modern depictions of Greek Mythology.  The main thing that is off about the DC Titans is they pair all of them together into 6 pairs while in actual Mythology only 8 of them were paired up.  Kronos&Rhea, Oceanus&Tethys, Hyperion&Theia and Phoebe&Coeus.  Iapetos wasn't married to Themis but rather a daughter(s) of Oceanus and Tethys.  Krios married a daughter of the primordial sea gods.  Themis and Menemosyne either never mated or were among the mothers of Zeus's many demigods.

If the Wonder Woman solo sequel focuses on non Mythological Wonder Woman antagonists like Cheetah or Dr. Psycho, it might work out, but would feel like a step down in scale.  However nothing in the movie rules out Circe or The Titans still being around.  But the Titans I like best in Teen Titans stories.  I would love it if Troian Bellisario got to be Donna Troy.

My personal favorite Indiana Jones movie is Kingdom of The Crystal Skull

Saying my "personal favorite" is not the same as saying the best.  The best is probably still Raiders of The Lost Ark.

It being my favorite may just be because it's closer to being made for my generation, same year as my absolute favorite movie The Dark Knight.  And I'm also a well known Star Wars Prequel fan.

But a major factor is that in general it feels like the only Indy film that actually researched it's subject matter.  It's fringe history research mainstream historians and archeologists don't take seriously, but the 80s Indy films didn't even really do that.

Maybe it's simply because in 2008 with the Internet it was harder to get away with slacking on the research.  But the fact is if you were looking into real theories about the Crystal Skulls and related topics during the build up to the film, that effort felt like it paid off.  And it's the only movie where the character of Indiana Jones actually seemed to me like a well read educated collage professor and not just a dumb action hero.

For The Ark they just went with the most boring theory, Shishak took it, Shishak is assumed to be the 22nd Dynasty Shoshenq so it winds up in the Egyptian city with a Libyan name, Tanis.  Only Lucas and Spielberg could have made such a great film out of such boring starting premises.

Temple of Doom isn't based on a real mystery at all, other then Colonial fear mongering about Thugges (who probably didn't even really exist).  It's the worst Indy film for a multitude of reasons.  In fact the absolute worst film either Lucas or Spielberg were ever involved with.

But it's with The Last Crusade that this issue really caused disappointment for the 2017 version of me.

The Last Crusade was once my personal favorite Indy film, way back before KOTCS existed, and before I was very informed on actual Grail Lore.  But now I've written on that topic extensively on this blog and elsewhere.

So the other day I watched The Last Crusade again, and It's still a very good movie, very fun, it stands the test of time in all of those ways.  But it's use of Grail Lore feels like such a major missed opportunity.

The key exposition scene early on name drops Arthur, but the history for the Grail it goes on to build actually totally precludes Arthur or any contemporaries of his from having anything to do with it.  Instead we get this completely made up story of Three Brothers.

It's such a missed opportunity because I feel they could easily have used real Grail Lore in a way that kept the same basic sequence of events for the main 1938 narrative of the film.

The valley of the Crescent Moon, filmed at Petra, but implied to be located in or near the Republic of Hatay, 1938-1939 (that part of modern Turkey that looks like it should be part of Syria), they could have called Sarras.  And instead of this lame Three Brothers story that Knight guarding the Grail could have been Sir Galahad.  And then the Tomb with the Shield and the other returning Knight could have been Sir Bors and Perceval.  Then you'd have a fun modern Adventure film that also works as a sequel to Medieval Grail Romances.

It doesn't make the movie bad, but it makes me feel like they could have done better.  KOTCS feels like the best version of that story they could have told on every level.

The Wonder Woman movie was Great!!!

I decided to not say much right after watching it, cause sometimes my opinion on a DC film will not remain as enthusiastic after a few days of thinking about it.

But now that over half a week as passed, I can securely say Wonder Woman remains as great as I thought it was initially.

So everyone see this movie, please, it is important.

The only complaints I've really seen are some people were disappointed slightly by Ares.  But I wasn't, I have no attachment to how DC Comics usually depicts Ares.  What this movie did was much better.

I give a 10 out of 10.

Pretty Little Liars has it's spark back

Janel Parrish singing Jail House Rock.  Need I say more?

And Nolan North is still great as Peter Hastings.  These closing episodes will be fun.

Zombie Anime 2: Moe Boogaloo

Last November I discussed the first well known Zombie Anime.  And for context talked about my relationship with the Zombie genre in general.  Last night I watched the other more recent one, School Live.

School Live is not a major offender in the Anime Fanservice department.  And in general more fits my taste in Anime by being Cute Girls doing Cute Things, with plenty of Yuri subtext.

But also compared to other Zombie fiction.  While HOTD repeats one of my issues with the Dawn of the Dead remake.  School Live is more like the appeal of the original Dawn of The Dead, these characters make the School their Castle.

My favorite character is probably Kurumi, she's the muscle of the group, distinguishing it further from HOTD where everyone happens to be a Bad@$$.

That's about all I can say without spoiling it.  Well it technically spoiled the first episode to reveal it's a Zombie show up front, but that effect only existed on it's actual debut day, if ever.

I gave it a 9 out of 10 on MAL.  And I definitely like it more then High School of The Dead.

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind

I've seen my second Miyazaki film now, and first Gibli film.

I watched the Dub, because I am an unapologetic Dub Scrub.  This Dub was dubbed by Disney so it doesn't have your typical Anime Dub cast.  Instead it has Patrick Stewart, always a treat, coincidentally I watched Logan on Thursday.

I just gave the movie a 10 out of 10 on MAL.

So during the scene where they explained the Prophecy of their expected Messiah the first thought I had about him being associated with the Color Blue was "kind of like Vishnu and his Avatars in Hinduism".  A few minutes latter I noticed "hmmm, our title character seems to be wearing Blue a lot".  Then I thought "why didn't that occur to me immediately, I'm a failure as a Feminist".

I was watching this movie because I was hoping for a Messianic Archetype with a female character type of story.  But I'm so used to being disappointed by stuff I hope will do well by it's female characters, that as soon as the people in the story assumed the Gender of their Messiah my brain got distracted for a little bit.

Now even if I watched a Sub I would probably have still needed to ask this.  But I'm wondering about the wording of the Prophecy, does the Japanese use more gender neutral pronouns here?

This movie has clearly been very influential.  It's influence on future Anime I'm sure has been talked about endlessly.  So I want to comment on other things.

First is Video Games.  I believe I'd seen this mentioned as an influence on the Final Fantasy franchise before.  The air ships, Talmecia rhymes with Palmecia, the environmental theme in general. There were even proto Chocobos. Since Breath of the Wild is still a current hot topic in Gaming, the Valley of The Wind itself looks kinda like a city visited in BotW.  And I'm pretty sure that little Fox like animal was a direct inspiration for Evee, a first generation Pokemon.

But what really took me by surprise, was when we finally saw the fully formed Giant Warrior.  First good look at it's face I went "The Anitmonitor, that's the Frakking Anti-Monitor, Marv Wolfman and Geroge Perez were while writing the single most historic Storyline in all of Western Comics, influenced by a Japanese Cartoon."  That is Awesome.

So, It's a movie I recommend.

It's been a Feminist Friday for me

I saw Wonder Woman which was awesome, I highly recommend it.  Best DC film since 2015.  It's almost as good as Anime.

And speaking of Anime I watched the new episode of Twin Angel, the current Magical Girl show.  I still it's the best Anime this season.

I may also latter today finally watch Nauska and the Valley of the Wind.

I may have more in depth thoughts on Wonder Woman in time.  But for now I'm speechless.