Based on “Wonder Woman” and “Book of Henry,” Shouldn’t Patty Jenkins Direct “Star Wars?”
Posted on July 5, 2017 at 5:24 pm
Jeremy Fassler is right. On Medium, he explains that based on one of the best and one of the worst movies of the year, “Wonder Woman” director Patty Jenkins is a much better choice for the next “Star Wars” movie than “Book of Henry” director Colin Trevorrow, who is currently attached to the film.
Fassler points out the difference between the way Patty Jenkins was treated after her first, low-budget film (“Monster,” with an Oscar-winning performance from Charlize Theron), and the way Trevorrow was treated after his, “Safety Not Guaranteed” — he got to do the big, big budget (but bland) “Jurassic World,” where she did outstanding work on television series.
He is astute at recognizing the qualities in “Wonder Woman” that Jenkins handled with such grace:
hat makes Wonder Woman a great movie is that it transcends its genre (superhero) by embracing other various genres and subgenres swirling within its main storyline. As an antiwar film it stands with All Quiet on the Western Front and Paths of Glory, and the scene where Diana Prince saves a small French village from destruction, only to find it destroyed later, is a great comment on the needless slaughter of the First World War. It features the best love story, between Diana and Chris Pine’s Steve Trevor, of any superhero film since Spider-Man 2. It’s a “bunch of guys (and girls) on a mission film” in the tradition of The Dirty Dozen, particularly when they get into the castle. It’s an education film, in which the protagonist moves to a higher plateau of self-knowledge by learning the rules of another world. And of course, it is an extraordinary story of female empowerment, one that is being embraced all throughout the world as young girls can finally see a hero who looks like them.
I vote for Jenkins. The recent dismissal of very successful directors in the middle of shooting the young Han Solo movie shows how protective Disney is of this franchise. Here’s hoping they see the merits in Fassler’s argument.