Wonder Woman trailer: 21 mysteries, clues, and secret references

The second trailer for Wonder Woman has just dropped, and it leaves fans with plenty to dissect and discuss. From hints about the new villains, to subtle references to classic DC films, and out-of-focus Batman clues, this new footage from the Patty Jenkins-directed film (out June 9) is overflowing with secrets. Let’s throw the Lasso of Truth around it and wring out some answers…

The trailer opens in the present day, with Gal Gadot as Diana Prince at the Louvre, apparently doing some research into her own history. In Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, she was eager to steal back from Lex Luthor a certain glass photographic plate depicting herself in battle a century ago. Now she has it, and in the background beside her left hand is a blurry strip of paper – a note, whose writing can’t be deciphered, although the Wayne Financial logo at the top is unmistakable. Batman has given her a present.

The movie then flashes back more than 100 years, with Diana standing on a cliff overlooking the sea surrounding her mystical island of Themyscira. She’s watching a streak of smoke cut across the sky and then skip across the waves. This is the classic origin story that brings U.S. intelligence officer Steve Trevor (played by Chris Pine) into Wonder Woman’s world. And with him, he brings the warfare and bloodshed of “man’s world” to their paradise island.

Soon after, we see soldiers jumping of a troop skiff into Themyscira’s cobalt waters. It goes by in a flash, but the name on the boat is “Schwaben,” a region in southwestern German. This being World War I, the Kaiser’s troops have staged an invasion of the island. A beachside clash ensues, matching the modern military machine against the hand-to-hand combat of the Amazons.

Diana and Steve Trevor watch a rifle shot pass by in slow motion, on its way to apparently killing one of her fellow warriors, who has swung down from the bluffs using an impressive rope and arrow trick.  That raises a question: Can Amazons die? It seems so – although clearly Diana comes to possess extraordinary superhuman powers.

It looks like the Kaiser’s forces are defeated, but the Amazons are shaken. Here, Diana and her mother, Queen Hippolyta (Gladiator’s Connie Nielsen), listen as Steve Trevor describes “the war to end all wars.” That sounds like a fight worth joining. 

The menace is bigger than they realize. The true life chemical warfare of World War I was a horror beyond description, but in this fictionalized version of the story an even poison is being developed that can literally dissolve gas masks. Finally, we have a hint about who one of the new villains may be …

Is this Doctor Poison? Elena Enaya’s character, who wears a disturbing half-mask to shield what must be severe scarring to her face, has remained a mystery for months. But the revelation of devastating toxins in this story suggest she may be the villain known as Doctor Poison, who was created in 1942 by Wonder Woman originator William Moulton Marston. Back then, her plot was to destroy the U.S. military by poisoning its water supply with a drug that will make soldiers become unhinged and defiant. This time… her goal isn’t exactly clear. If it is her.

The exact nature of Danny Huston’s German general is another mystery. He could be just another monstrous military man, but fans have been wondering if he might be playing Ares, the god of war and a longtime foe of the Amazons. That could explain why he was keen to send his forces to attack their island.

Huston’s character was revealed stalking through this same bunker that Elena Enaya’s masked character later hits with a grenade. It’s difficult to know if they are working together — or if Wonder Woman’s enemies are enemies themselves.

The trailer suggests Doctor Poison has set off this whitish blue blast, which takes out this military installation. It looks like the kind of bomb tower the scientists at Los Alamos used to develop nuclear warheads, so maybe that’s an editing trick. Later in the trailer, we see the tower intact as Wonder Woman flips up into the air and over its fortifications. 

In Wonder Woman’s origin story, she agrees to leave the island to join Trevor and fight for the forces of good in the larger world, hoping to protect her island and its Amazons from the growing threat of the mechanized world beyond. Here, however, it doesn’t appear that Diana has permission to leave, as she assembles a number of relics, like her shield and the Sword of Athena, under cover of darkness. At the end, she discovers red and blue armor – an apparent gift from her mother, by way of secret blessing?

One nice homage (and reversal) of a classic DC movie is this scene with Trevor and Diana in London, confronted by a group of armed men in an alleyway. In 1978’s Superman, Christopher Reeve’s cowardly Clark Kent quietly catches a bullet meant for Margot Kidder’s Lois Lane when they are also ambushed in an alley. Gadot’s character is even dressed like him as Wonder Woman reaches from behind to deflect the blast with her bracelet.

The #WonderWoman trailer has a nice homage/reversal to Christopher Reeve's Superman blocking the bullet from hitting Lois Lane: pic.twitter.com/aOu9xx1YGb

— Anthony Breznican (@Breznican) November 3, 2016

In another shot, we see Wonder Woman climb out of a battlefield trench and strut out into the crossfire of No Man’s Land, the blighted, burned out fields between the enemy forces. Her male colleagues are agog, but she remains calm and collected as a sniper bullet zeroes in and is casually deflected by her mystical wristbands.

Along with her bracelets, the glowing, golden Lasso of Truth gets a workout in this shot, thrashing a German officer into the air and then down against the ground. That’s one way to get him to talk. But chances are, he’s done talking — one way or another.

In one of the final shots, a large chunk of a destroyed structure rises into the air. Is Wonder Woman … flying above it? In the comics, she developed the power to soar on wind currents, ostensibly zooming through the air like Superman, but it’s difficult to tell if that’s what is happening here. It’s also possible she has simply been thrown skyward by one of the blasts. But if she’s hovering, her powers in the film are greater than we’ve guessed.

In one of the closing shots, Wonder Woman crosses her bracelets to deflect not a bullet but a blast of electricity. Fans of the comics know that lightning is a power that can be called down by the sorcerer Circe, another longtime villain from the series.

At first glance, I thought this shot of London was showing devastation, the smoldering remains of a bombed out city. But a closer look shows that these plumes of smoke and ash are not rising from demolished buildings but from chimneys and smokestacks. It’s a grim, polluted world that Wonder Woman has ventured into. 

… Quite a contrast from the sun-dappled, golden architecture of Themyscira.

Finally, we get some comic relief via Etta Candy (The Office’s Lucy Davis) who is fielding complaints from Diana Prince about the heavily draped women’s wear of her world. “How can a woman possibly fight in this?” Etta response actual echoes one of the key tenets of Wonder Woman’s origin — that she stands for good, not for strictly for fighting. “We use our principles,” Etta says. “Although, I am not opposed to engaging in a bit of fisticuffs should the occasion arise.” It’s played as a laugh, with Etta striking a combat pose, but this is actually Wonder Woman’s philosophy.

While there’s much to consider in the new footage, a number of questions remain: Which character is being played by David Thewlis (the Harry Potter films’ Professor Lupin)? And who exactly is Saïd Taghmaoui playing, beyond being one of her fellow soldiers in the old-time photo? There is much more to answer as Wonder Woman crashes superhero glass ceilings — and windows.