Warner Bros has inked a new Wonder Woman deal...

[steamteck]

Oh... My... #%!&&!@... GOD!!!!  What in the #@$$ are they thinking!!!?

WONDER WOMAN Goes on NBC After All
In spite of reports from a few weeks back that all networks have passed on David E. Kelley's Wonder Woman TV show, Deadline.com reported on the weekend that NBC has reversed it's decision and picked up the show after all.

The initial "rejection" was more due to an executive shuffle at the net then an lack of interest. Now that entertainment president Bob Greenblatt has settled in, he went ahead and greenlit the show.

According to Deadline, "The project is described as a reinvention of the iconic D.C. comic in which Wonder Woman -- aka Diana Prince -- is a vigilante crime fighter in L.A. but also a successful corporate executive and a modern woman trying to balance all of the elements of her extraordinary life."

And this is why Marvel kicks their butts in live action superheroes they don't try to make the character into something its not.

[Talavar]

Before anyone gets too worked up, it's only been picked as a pilot - meaning one episode will be produced and aired for network execs.  Odds are good that it won't ever see the light of day - most pilots don't.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

Yeah, but this is NBC we're talking about.

[BentonGrey]

Yep, business as usual.  An empty suit makes a decision, and this is what you get.

[BWPS]

If anyone can make sure this goes horribly, it's NBC! It's like they're the coalition of horrible decisions. Wonder Woman needs a total revamp to be the A-list character DC sometimes pretends she is, but I doubt this is it.

[daglob]

So... they are turning Wonder Woman into Batman?

[steamteck]

If anyone can make sure this goes horribly, it's NBC! It's like they're the coalition of horrible decisions. Wonder Woman needs a total revamp to be the A-list character DC sometimes pretends she is, but I doubt this is it.

I disagree. She has decades of history to cherry pick from. The  Perez era alone could be used to make something as cool as Thor or the lord of Rings. DC just needs someone smart enough to pick out the best parts and translate them preoperly to the screen like Iron Man or the DCAU.

DC just really really neeeds to have faith in their properties and do them justice when they translate them not try to make them into something else. Until they figure ths out Marvel will have the edge.

[BentonGrey]

If anyone can make sure this goes horribly, it's NBC! It's like they're the coalition of horrible decisions. Wonder Woman needs a total revamp to be the A-list character DC sometimes pretends she is, but I doubt this is it.

I disagree. She has decades of history to cherry pick from. The  Perez era alone could be used to make something as cool as Thor or the lord of Rings. DC just needs someone smart enough to pick out the best parts and translate them preoperly to the screen like Iron Man or the DCAU.

DC just really really neeeds to have faith in their properties and do them justice when they translate them not try to make them into something else. Until they figure ths out Marvel will have the edge.

Emphasis added.

Very well said there, Steamteck.  DC does need to have faith in their properties, but even more so, WB needs to have faith in them.  They have to figure out that these characters have existed and endured for half a century for a reason.  They don't have to be "fixed" to make them marketable.  There is obviously something in them that is compelling.  It is precisely that type of mindset that has crippled so many of their characters, chief among them being my favorite, Aquaman.

[Mr. Hamrick]

I hate getting involved in this debate/discussion/debacle. 

However, the term "Amazon" has a whole different meaning outside of "Wonder Woman" and "Xena" lore.  (Some positive and some not as much so depending on the context.)  To mesh that with actual Wonder Woman lore has some potential. 

That said, I don't have much hopes for this project.

On the other hand, Wonder Woman has always been one of the hardest character to connect with mainstream audiences.  I think even Aquaman would be easier to get crossed over at this point thanks to Smallville. 

[JeyNyce]

That's what they should have done.  Put Wonder Woman on Smallville and see how the people would react to it.

[Mr. Hamrick]

That's what they should have done.  Put Wonder Woman on Smallville and see how the people would react to it.

I agree.  but put her on there as an emissary from Themyscera (or however it's spelled, I'm too tired to look it up) and have her revealed at the end to be the Princess of there.

[Shogunn2517]

You know, I have an idea.

Why not have the Amazons from Themyscera discover Man's World and through a contest select the Queen's daughter Diana as the emissary.

I know it's a little different, but I think it might work.

[Mr. Hamrick]

You know, I have an idea.

Why not have the Amazons from Themyscera discover Man's World and through a contest select the Queen's daughter Diana as the emissary.

I know it's a little different, but I think it might work.

Was referring to if Diana was shown on Smallville.  No one is saying that there is anything redeeming about the NBC idea. 

And since you are so keen on that, should the Amazons be most male haters the way Amazons are traditionally portrayed and the way most of the Themyscera Amazons were portrayed early on?  (With Diana being somewhat of an exception, she was simply distrustful.)

[Talavar]

I don't think the NBC adaptation sounds like a good idea, but...

I don't think a faithful take on Wonder Woman works seriously outside of comics.  It's too hard of a sell to a mainstream audience - even one now familiar with a lot of comic book tropes - and there are too many weird, seemingly unrelated elements that must be accepted.  I mean, Wonder Woman is the daughter, moulded from clay and brought to life by the Greek gods, of the queen of a secret race of super-powered Amazons who also have advanced technology and live in secret civilization, who has extra super-powers on top of those of the other Amazons and goes to "Man's World" to fight crime dressed like a beauty pageant contestant.

Did the old Wonder Woman show from the '70s deal with all of that stuff?  Even if it did, it was fairly camp from what I remember.  Even Justice League did their best to avoid Wonder Woman's origin, not really explaining it fully until the last season.

[BlueBard]

If they did it right, there's no reason why they would have to do a full reveal of her origins in the very first episode.  They could work into it more gradually.  To start with, the only thing they would really need is Diana Prince showing up, trying to fit in, and becoming Wonder Woman when she needed to.

But since they're already not doing it right, there's not a whole lot of reason to worry about it.

[steamteck]

I don't think the NBC adaptation sounds like a good idea, but...

I don't think a faithful take on Wonder Woman works seriously outside of comics.  It's too hard of a sell to a mainstream audience -

I disagree again. Classic reason to not go ahead with stuff before someone does it right and its a hit. You don't need to go into every little detail to make an amazon and basically herself.

[Shogunn2517]

Smallville is in it's 10th season, which I think makes it one of the two longest running series on the CW/WB and it's a show about an alien, that features martians, survivors from fictional, civilizations and dimensions, and beings of unimaginable abilities.  

ABC's television lineup has shows about a family with super powers and an alien invasion of earth.  One of the network's most successful shows was about a hodge-podge of supernatural situations not tied to reality.

People may think that a general public won't accept a non-realistic take on a fictional character, but that's what the character is.  I mean this is not Night Man or Manimal.  It's Wonder Woman.  She is literally a literary icon.  The fact that Smallville has gone on for 10 seasons isn't because the writing is great or the acting is Emmy winning.  The engine that drives that is the character Superman.  Granted, Wonder Woman is no Superman, but like Superman, she has a name she already has a built in following and a wealth of stories to tell.

Now, I can understand tweaking stories to make them more realistic and less fantastic.  But I don't fully accept that audiences will completely reject a premise that's not based in a reality they're only familiar with.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

People have no trouble accepting the fantastic if presented well enough.  The classic amazon princess would work if done well.

As for the old series, I do remember seeing the relaunch episode which takes place on Themiscira, which was portrayed as an all female Amazon society rules by Dianna's mother.  They didn't go into the details of her origin and the island and the invisible plane were both mostly forgotten about afterwords, but both were at least shown.

[Talavar]

Smallville is in it's 10th season, which I think makes it one of the two longest running series on the CW/WB and it's a show about an alien, that features martians, survivors from fictional, civilizations and dimensions, and beings of unimaginable abilities.  

ABC's television lineup has shows about a family with super powers and an alien invasion of earth.  One of the network's most successful shows was about a hodge-podge of supernatural situations not tied to reality.

People may think that a general public won't accept a non-realistic take on a fictional character, but that's what the character is.  I mean this is not Night Man or Manimal.  It's Wonder Woman.  She is literally a literary icon.  The fact that Smallville has gone on for 10 seasons isn't because the writing is great or the acting is Emmy winning.  The engine that drives that is the character Superman.  Granted, Wonder Woman is no Superman, but like Superman, she has a name she already has a built in following and a wealth of stories to tell.

Now, I can understand tweaking stories to make them more realistic and less fantastic.  But I don't fully accept that audiences will completely reject a premise that's not based in a reality they're only familiar with.

It's not about realism or familiarity - it's about verisimilitude and the suspension of disbelief; the non-realistic aspects of a work of fiction should seem true within their setting, and doing so makes them less likely to break the audience's suspension of disbelief. 

Smallville is about Superman, and Superman is an alien.  Everything else builds from that - he has powers because he's an alien, he was sent here because his home planet was destroyed, chunks of his homeworld are dangerous to him, and Smallville ran with the idea that those radioactive chunks could also effect humans to give young Superman weekly antagonists.  Eventually (the part Smallville's had trouble with) he decides to use his alien powers to prevent anything bad happening to his adoptive home, like what happened to his homeworld.  His costume and symbol are ties to his alien heritage.  Superman's core concept is internally consistent in a way that Wonder Woman's is not.

The other show's you've referenced are 'No Ordinary Family,' the remake of 'V,' and I'm not sure about the third.  Still, V and No Ordinary Family have some attempt at verisimilitude: V is about an alien invasion - everything else builds around that concept - and No Ordinary Family uses the commonest superhero tropes - an accident grants the family their powers through exaggerated science, which is also used to give other, more antagonistic characters their powers.

Wonder Woman, despite being a very old character, doesn't use common superhero tropes.  Her superpowers come from a mishmash of inherent Amazon abilities, her origin as a divinely-blessed clay sculpture, and her equipment, both magical and super high tech.  What is her motivation to be a superhero?  To serve as an ambassador from her secret high tech/mythological society.  Her outfit comes from a weird mix of American patriotic imagery, and comic book artists liking to draw women as close to naked as possible.  She's the result of a hodgepodge of ideas that have no unifying force or theme, lacking internal consistency or verisimilitude.

It's not that audiences won't accept the fantastic - that's easy enough to disprove - it's that the fantastic is harder to swallow if it isn't presented in a manner that is consistent with the setting's internal logic, and that that logic seems plausible to the audience.  Wonder Woman's package of contradictory elements is about as internally consistent as Harry Potter finally defeating Voldemort with a hand phaser.

[Tawodi Osdi]

There are somethings you could use to tie some of Wondy's more diverse elements.  If the Amazon's can see into man's world either by magic, if Diana is being sent as an emissary, and the USA is the first place Diana will be sent, they would probably use devises that would when America's attention the quickest.  It would be easy for an other-worldly spy to assume that Americans respond quickly to patriotic imagery and female flesh.  Maybe, if she were to go to Britain, France, or somewhere else, she would where their patriotic colors and dress to their sensibilities, or the Amazon's could send different emissaries to those nations and have them dress appropriately.  It's a little lame, but I think it's workable.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

I think the simplest way to do it would be for the Amazons to be guarding some of sort of mythological creature, which escapes their custody into man's world, forcing them to send a champion to reclaim it in order to regain their honor.  In the course of doing so, Diana realizes that such creature are on the rise and that the world is ill equiped to dealing with them, causing the Amazons to appoint her to remain and help them.  Add Steve Trevor as the member or possibly leader of a special task force, either military, or maybe FPI, created to deal with these sorts of supernatural creatures, who ends up working with WW.

The series as a whole would be based heavily on greek/roman mythological elements, probably even more so than the comics.

[Tawodi Osdi]

The Greco/Roman was one of the appeals that WW had on me as a kid.  That and the idea of an island inhabited by nothing but women.

[Glitch Girl]

http://spinoff.comicbookresources.com/2011/02/02/kelleys-wonder-woman-longs-for-steve-trevor-loves-pop-music/

[facedesk]

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

So basically they're inventing a whole new character, pasting on a few familiar names and calling that Wonder Woman?  Expect an outright rebellion from fans if this actually makes series.

Now if they just change all the names around again to make it a whole new character, I will give it a shot.

[Glitch Girl]

Kind of what I was thinking Cat.  I mean, what's the point of using the name "Wonder Woman" when it has nothing to do with her?  If you want to use this concept, come up with an original character, don't try to sell this as "Wonder Woman". 

[sigh]

[Panther_Gunn]

*tastes bile*

[Tawodi Osdi]

As a stand alone character, this latest rendition would be rather interesting.  It seems they are only cashing in on the name, but Wonder Woman is one of those interesting characters that is hard to get right.  Maybe, a complete reboot could help the character past its image problems, but how are they going to work in her super strength if she is technological industrialist and how did she find a magic lasso?  Sounds like yet another attempt at fixing things by breaking them.

[daglob]

Maybe the writer grew up on "The New Wonder Woman", from WW #178 to #203. Give her an Asian mentor, and they get around all those nasty super-powers and cuts the budget per episode to something manageble. Lots of chic new clothes (no costume, doncha know), play it up in the media as "Wonder Woman for the 21st Century". Bring in a whole new audience, since any old time Wonder Woman fans are too old to have the kind of disposable income to spend on all the merchandies they will be showing each week.

Sounds like a gold mine.

The Lost Dutchman Mine.

[BentonGrey]

Ughhhh.....*shudder*

[BWPS]

No. Stop. This is stupid. Make a good show instead.