One very interesting choice made for Wonder Woman was changing the time of Diana’s entry into the world of man from World War II to World War I. Writer Allan Heinberg feels like the change, made a while ago, showed foresight because of the relevance of that war to today.
Image: WB
Speaking to EW, Heinberg said, “We are in a very WWI world today with nationalism and how it would take very little to start a global conflict.” He added that WWI worked because it was a turning point in warfare, when “new horrors were unleashed every day.”
It is actually interesting to introduce Diana, who has a very strong idea of what war is and what a warrior is supposed to do, into a war that saw a lot of death for inches of gain. It was a war of disillusionment and dispiritedness, and Diana stands in direct opposition to that. She was meant to be, and is, inspiring.
Director Patty Jenkins gets close to that idea in the EW article, saying, “Even the way that it was unclear who was in the right of WWI is a really interesting parallel to this time. Then you take a god with a moral compass and a moral belief system, and you drop them into this world, there are questions about women’s rights, about a mechanised war where you don’t see who you are killing. It’s such a cool time.”
While putting Wonder Woman in WWI is interesting for thematic reasons surrounding that character, it isn’t the most obvious parallel to today. It isn’t even the most obviously relevant world war. The change means going into a war not as frequently covered by comic book movies and making more sophisticated points, but it isn’t a better choice because of relevance.