Patty Jenkins revealed that Warner Bros. wanted to cut one of Wonder Woman 1984's opening scenes. The film, which released on HBO Max on Christmas day, has two distinct sequences that take up a decent chunk of the beginning of the film. First, viewers see a young Diana Prince on Themyscira, competing in athletic games against her fellow Amazonians. Jenkins has already said that revisiting Themyscira wasn't originally in the cards for the sequel.
The second scene finds Diana in the year the bulk of the film takes place in. Wonder Woman is seen stopping a jewelry heist at a local mall, the perfect way to introduce the 1980s in the film. From the fashion of the background extras to the stores and design of the mall, it is all very 80s. The scene also ties into the overarching plot, with the jewelry heist being where the Dreamstone is found. Both scenes are vital to the film, but Jenkins says one was almost cut.
The director revealed in a new interview with JoBlo that Warner Bros. wanted one of the scenes gone. She says that Themyscira was not always in the script, but that she realized it was important for newcomers to the franchise to see Diana's origins. Still, she says she did not want to jam the scenes in the film for fear of it being too long. Ultimately, Jenkins decided to include both scenes to lay the groundwork for the rest of the film.
[The scene on Themyscira] was not always written in. It was the success of the first film, but it was also something else. I wouldn’t of jammed it in there because of the success of the film, because it actually made the movie too long. We have two openings in our movie and we would talk about it with the studio all the time and they would say, you’ve got to cut the mall and the Eighties, or you’ve got to cut the Amazon. I was like, we can’t, we can’t cut either. The reason that I ended up realizing that you need the Amazon is because I suddenly, you do that thing where you’re like, wait, you have to remember all the people that haven’t seen the first Wonder Woman who watch this on a plane. And suddenly it’s like, oh, it’s super hard to understand who Diana is and what’s going on without touching base there. I love the fact that you hear all of the ‘being a great hero takes your whole life,’ you know? So there was this wisdom there that they were trying to tell her which is not about being the strongest or the fastest, it’s about these complex observations you have to make during life in order to become a true hero. I love that she doesn’t understand that until that final speech.
Seeing as Warner Bros. also pushed for the final scene of 2017's Wonder Woman to be changed, a scene that became a source of criticism, Jenkins' instincts seem to be correct. Wonder Woman 1984 would be an entirely different film without both scenes. The events on Themyscira set up Diana's arc in the film well, teaching young Diana a lesson that she remembers all the way at the end of the film.
Similarly, the scene that finds Wonder Woman stopping a jewelry heist at the mall sets the film up perfectly. It reintroduces Diana Prince and her crimefighting style while simultaneously giving viewers enough 80s nostalgia to remind them of what era the film is set in, if 1984 being in the title wasn't enough. Still, much of the criticism leveled at the sequel says the film is overstuffed, something that Jenkins' quote acknowledges. With the movie losing its Certified Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, it seems as if Jenkins' original concerns were correct. Still, Wonder Woman 1984 is less about satisfying critics than making fans happy, something both scenes surely do.
Source: JoBlo
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