Wonder Woman has now landed in theatres everywhere and is being met with acclaim from the vast majority of critics and fans. As those who’ve seen it will know, one of the standout sequences in the movie comes when Diana rises from the trenches on the western front and marches through No Man’s Land. Even if you haven’t seen the film yet, you’re probably still familiar with the moment in question as it’s been heavily featured in the trailers and has become an instantly iconic scene of the superhero movie genre.
It’s pretty surprising to learn, then, that the scene was apparently almost cut. When speaking with Fandango, director Patty Jenkins revealed that some of the execs at Warner Bros. were not so keen on the sequence being included in the final version.
“It’s my favorite scene in the movie and it’s the most important scene in the movie. It’s also the scene that made the least sense to other people going in, which is why it’s a wonderful victory for me.
I think that in superhero movies, they fight other people, they fight villains. So when I started to really hunker in on the significance of No Man’s Land, there were a couple people who were deeply confused, wondering, like, ‘Well, what is she going to do? How many bullets can she fight?’ And I kept saying, ‘It’s not about that. This is a different scene than that. This is a scene about her becoming Wonder Woman.’”
Jenkins went on to explain that she managed to convince the higher-ups of the scene’s importance and effectiveness by storyboarding the sequence herself.
“You have wonderful storyboard artists and a great second unit director and different people that you collaborate with, but in this case I just said, ‘I’m going to treat this like I would a very simple drama and let me paint you a picture of what it is that I’m trying to do before we move on to working on it in this other way.’”
Thankfully, Jenkins fought for the scene’s inclusion. As the director explains, it’s a hugely important moment for Diana’s character as it’s when she properly becomes Wonder Woman. Likewise, it shines on a visual and symbolic level, too. In short, we totally agree with Jenkins in that it’s the best scene in the whole movie and the film would really be missing something without it.
Starring Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Connie Nielsen, Robin Wright, David Thewlis, Danny Huston and many others, Wonder Woman can now be seen in cinemas worldwide.
