The trailer is here and the hype is real as we all prepare for the release of Wonder Woman 1984 on June 5, 2020. It looks like we will get to see the Diana we all know and love from the first film interact with the eccentric and stylized ’80s culture a few people are old enough to remember.
From the trailer, it looks like Chris Pine’s Steve Trevor is the one who is really confused about the new look the world has taken on, but we’re excited to see his confusion and the hysterics that will also include. Here are just a few things from the ’80s (both the culture itself and the comics of the era) we hope to see on screen this summer.
Shopping Malls
As Stranger Things already highlighted in its most recent season, the mall was the place to be in the ’80s and we hope Diana and Steve get to take in some of those sights as well.
Show us those neon lights and cheap fountains. We want escalators, bright tile floors, and arcades. Throw in ice cream and a soft pretzel just because. Maybe we’ll get a fabulous shopping montage. This time it will be Diana teaching Steve how to dress in this new world, rather than the other way around.
The Colors
If the mall is where Diana will take Steve on his shopping trip we want to see more than just the fabulous fanny pack that debuted in the trailer. We want to see the fluorescent stylings that only the 1980s are known for.
Have Steve try some baggy pants and acid-washed jeans. This is for fun, make this Wonder Woman’s version of the Ragnorak movie. Make us laugh. What about shoulder pads or windbreakers? The movie is set in the ’80s very deliberately, we hope they take full advantage of the decade and the opportunities.
Pop Music
The 80’s are remembered for the new use of digital recording, synthesizers, and dance, and we hope that’s what they use on Wonder Woman’s soundtrack.
We hope Steve also gets to comment on the noise blaring from the mall speakers. 1984 specifically included such hits as Let’s Hear It for the Boy, Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, What’s Love Got to do With It?, and Dancing in the Dark. Mixtapes were the rage, and this movie should certainly set out to create its own.
The Hair
The hair of the 1980s goes beyond even the clothes, there has never been anything like it. Maybe Diana is too wise to get sucked in by any of the passing trends (she’s been around long enough to know some are better ignored) but we’d still like to see those enormous hair sprayed heads bopping along around her.
Mohawks were also a big thing and the mullet. The 80s were the decade of the mullet, let us never forget. Think of the craziness of Madonna and Cyndi Lauper, we want that on the big screen.
Diana as An Ambassador and Teacher
Wonder Woman herself was enjoying a new vogue in the 1980s in her comic stories. Writer George Perez introduced a more nuanced Diana who worked as an ambassador and a teacher during the day. We hope these same layers are added to the character we already love on screen.
Diana has had time to adjust to her life away from Themyscira, let us see what she’s done during that period, who she has built herself to be. 1980 comic book Wonder Woman was different from her 1940’s counterpart, the same should be true on-screen.
Flying
Fun story, in the comic books of the 1980s, Wonder Woman gained the more regular ability to fly. While she’s jumped and soared a lot in the past, it was the stories of the 1980s that fully developed Wonder Woman’s abilities in flight.
It might be fun, especially with the regular air traffic and travel of the 1980s, to see Wonder Woman spend a little more time in the sky. That will be quite the shock to trained pilot, Steve Trevor. We like the idea of shocking Steve Trevor all the time.
Female Friendships
The first Wonder Woman movie was epic. It was adored by fans and critics across the globe. But, after leaving Themyscira far behind, Diana is forced to live in a world of men. It’s amazing when she tells Steve, in No Man’s Land, “No, but it’s what I’m going to do.” But this time around, let’s see more women.
It doesn’t have to be a group of all-male traveling companions in 1984. Just as Myndi Mayer, Wonder Woman’s publicist, was introduced in the comics of the 1980s, let’s have some other ladies introduced in the movie.
The Mac
The 1980s are a whole decade, but 1984 is a particular year, and not one that should go unmarked in a movie that includes it in the very title. Do you know what was specifically introduced in 1984? The first Mac computer.
It would very cool to see a little shout out to the oldest version of the computer this film will probably be edited on. Just as Steve Trevor could never have imagined what the future he has been thrown into would look like, how could those looking at the first Mac computer ever have considered where that personal computer would lead us.
Sony and Philips CD Player
While the mixtape will forever be a symbol of the 1980s overall, 1984 saw the release of the first portable CD player. Like the first Mac computer (mentioned above) that’s another major technological advance that would only mark the beginning of a very long journey in how people consumed music.
Again, 1984 was picked specifically for this film and it would make a lot of sense to embrace the year in all its wonder and developments.
The Book 1984
The same way sci-fi fans counted down to 2019 anticipating the date mentioned in classic cyberpunk film, Blade Runner, there’s no doubt that the George Orwell dystopian novel, 1984, held special sway over the imagination as the world finally reached, surpassed, and survived the year of Orwell’s dark prophetic vision.
It would be very cool to see a copy of the book appear somewhere in a movie that has borrowed the use of that year once again to represent a very different vision of the world we live in.
