Wonder Woman
Summary
The DCU’sWonder Womanis perfectly set to fix the original movie’s ending complaint.
The 2017Wonder Womanis among the more highly-regarded superhero movies, with its Rotten Tomatoes scores in 2023 still being a 93% critical score, and a 83% audience score respectively.
This strong showing is a good part of the reason there are ongoing debates about whether Gal Gadot’s Diana Prince will be the definitive DCU edition, especially in light of theconfusion surroundingWonder Woman 3and whether it will continue directly on from the storyline the originalWonder Womanset in place.
However, while the firstWonder Womanmovie is one of the more universally loved DCEU installments, it was not one that went entirely without criticism.
Indeed, the main criticisms of the film were dedicated to theWonder Womanendingand primarily surrounded Ares' death, both in terms of its pacing, and how the death of the God of War felt somewhat anticlimactic and affected the lore.
However, the DCU can now address these complaints through its reboot, whatever decision is ultimately made about the character’s future and casting.
The DCU’s Reboot Can Fix The Original Wonder Woman’s Ending Complaints
Given the DCU is set to at least partially reboot the entire franchise, it would make sense to bring Ares back from the dead for the new era of the DC’s movie endeavors.
While it would likely be wise to avoid rehashing the original Wonder Woman’s plot with Ares - as this would risk simply repeating the original movie - this decision would abate the idea that all the Greek gods were basically finished with and dead by the end of the first movie of the Wonder Woman series, which thus prevented a lot of her comic lore from being used.
Similarly, resetting the roster of gods would allow for the impendingParadise Lostshow to explore more around the DC movie world and specifically get more into Wonder Woman’s lore without requiring a huge amount of exposition within the Wonder Woman movies themselves.
This could effectively streamline pacing for the actual DCUWonder Womanmovies by encouraging a solid foundation of world-building to be set in place, ensuring that the first installment - be thatWonder Woman 3or not - doesn’t have to establish Themyscira and its factions from scratch.
Why The DCU Can Fix Wonder Woman’s Ending Complaints However They Reboot The DCEU
There are several ways the DCU could approach rebooting the DCEU - and many would have drastically different effects on how the franchise progressed from there on.
However, none of these prevent changes being made to fix thecontroversialWonder Womanending, especially with theParadise Lostprequel being prime real estate to flesh out what has changed in the new cinematic universe.
For example, because of Ares' status as a Greek god, he could viably return even if the DCU kept the DCEUWonder Womanmythos canon going forward.
This could be explained either via the idea that death doesn’t affect the embodiment of war the same, or simply because Greek gods have died and come back to life in their own mythology, and thus it would be justified here.
Having Ares back alive because the entire franchise rebooted would of course be simpler, but what decision is right ultimately depends on what the overarching approach the DCU takes when it comes to forging its own new path.
