Any reader who knows me well will likely presume that a piece with this title would be a paean to my wife Allie. Titles can be misleading. I’ll save the many virtues of my amazing wife for later entries. No, this is about the Wonder Woman, the comic book superhero, or more precisely about the movie with that title.

A few months ago, I wrote about a dream a close friend shared with me in which she was instructed to deliver a message to me that if I would experience a movie in 3-D, it would unlock some inner source of inspiration for my writing.  Off and on over these months, I have scanned the movie listings in our local paper hoping to find just the perfect movie to perform such magic. None of the movies I saw offered in 3-D held any appeal. Studios do not release 3-D versions of dramas or comedies. 3-D is reserved for action films and animated features. The geeks who add the 3-D effects to movies thrive on scenes in which objects—missiles, asteroids and such—hurtle toward the audience so frighteningly that everyone ducks for cover.
When I saw that Wonder Woman scored 92% on Rotten Tomatoes, I thought, “It must be good—why not?” I knew that Allie would not be interested, so I planned my outing to coincide with one of her many book club meetings. Besides, this experience was predicted to be an epiphany for me, and I wanted to take no chances that someone might interfere.

My fears proved unfounded:  arriving for the 6:30 showing, I found myself the sole patron in a theater of about 200 seats. The experience was a bit unnerving. I suffered through previews for nine new movies, all of which were in the same action genre—who knew so many people loved two-hour long epic superhero battles and car/ futuristic fighter plane chases?

I found the movie itself disappointing. The writing was uninspired (not a good omen!), the plot predictable and action ho-hum as far as superhero skirmishes go. Wonder Woman herself, the Amazon Princess Diana played by Israeli actress Gal Gadot, was beautiful to look at it and all the more so in three dimensions. Watching the film in 3-D was a surprisingly pleasant experience. The glasses were comfortable, and the effect was soothing rather than jarring.

The plot is as preposterous as might be expected in a superhero fantasy of good vs. evil. Wonder Woman is introduced as a young girl on a paradisiacal island inhabited by Amazons. She is the only child and the only one who ages there. As she is nearing the completion of her warrior training, now fully a woman, a young American pilot crashes his plane in the sea after being shot down by the nasty Germans chasing him. Diana saves him, making use of extraordinary powers she was unaware she possessed.

She is intrigued by him, not surprisingly since he is the first man she has ever seen. The film’s comic highpoint comes when she surprises him as he is emerging from a pool of water. He stands before her, naked and with very mixed feelings. She asks if he is typical, you know, of men. He tells her he is “above average.” She points at him and asks, “What’s that thing?” He embarrassingly struggles to explain his genitals, but she corrects him, pointing more precisely at the thing on his arm. “It’s a watch,” he explains. “It tells time. It tells us when to get up, when to eat, when to sleep.” 

“Why,” she responds, “would you let a little thing control what you do?” Amazon warrior one, emasculated soldier zero.

Diana is appalled by their intruder’s tale of the Great War being waged away from this paradise, a war to end all wars. Of course, she must go and end it. And, of course, the young man, now the first and only male guest at a peaceful, gorgeous secret island inhabited by a tribe of ageless, beautiful women can’t wait to leave and return to combat in WW1!

The two set sail in a small boat as the sun is setting, fall asleep on deck (“Why don’t you come here and sleep with me?”—"Oh, I couldn’t, we’re not married!”), and awake to find themselves sailing among a throng of vessels along the Thames in London. After the requisite scenes showing how innocent she is of modern human ways, they eventually form a small team, race to the front lines, defeat the Germans and save the world, not from the Germans exactly, but rather from Aries, the God of War. He has incarnated himself not as the sublimely evil German general who is attempting to extend the war and frustrate the Armistice, but as a British government minister fomenting war and death and destruction on both sides. Diana vanquishes him in the inevitable, climactic 3-D battle scene, but not before he spills the beans that she is no mere Amazon Princess, but is, in fact, the daughter of Zeus himself: she is a God. Forget going Goddess here. This is all about female is innocent and good and man is, well, not.

A sequel appears similarly inevitable. We will doubtless learn how the Allies actually won WW2.

Leaving the theater two and a half hours later, I did not feel like a new man. Mostly I was hungry! This is the first thing I’ve written since that evening a few days ago. The experience doesn’t seem any different. I’ve re-read this piece a few times and find no evidence that it has gushed forth from a new deeper place within. Maybe this sort of writing is not what my friend’s dream was about. After she read my earlier post, she clarified her dreams instructions. The I’m a time of watching 3-D is not a one-time thing, but will require watching multiple such movies. I’m eager to dip back into my work on my next book, Slips. I remain hopeful and confident in the power of my friend’s dream. I will be on the watch for additional 3-D movies and waiting for the magic to begin. Stay tuned!