How to detect Wonder Woman's villain in his first scene

 

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I'm discussing the identity of the villain of Wonder Woman, so spoilers.

 

Back when I was was watching Wonder Woman with my wife for the first time and Sir Patrick came on screen for the first time, I said aloud "He's the bad guy." My wife, who had watched the movie in cinema, was incredulous. "How do you know?" Today, I want to share the magical powers of ruining a movie with you. 

 

The short version: It's got all to do with structure. 

 

The long version: 

 

1) It's the setting. If you set a movie in WWI that doesn't need to be there - a Wonder Woman story can be told in ANY time period - you doing it in spite of, not because of the setting constraints. Telling engaging stories in WWI is difficult with the trenches and whatnot. So, if someone sets its story there and not in WWII, they want something out of it. What story does almost every movie set in WWI tell? The futility of war, and that there are no good guys and bad guys. Not something you should do in WWII settings. 

 

This means that when the "God of War" is the villain, his role isn't what the movie wants you to think - help the "evil" side win, in the person of Ludendorff (although it's GREAT that this particular piece of shit is the secondary villain) - but to further war, period. And when you do WWI movies, the enemy is structural, which means: bureaucrats, politicians and military, whereas the soldiers suffer. That's just the way it is. 

 

2) The casting. The villain obviously needs to be a bigger name actor, because that's just how films are made. This means since the German side has only one recognizable actor who we've established can't be it, it must be someone on the allied side - where, apart from Captain Kirk, we only have Sir Patrick. 

 

3) Screen time. A variant of point 2), the villain must have screen time before he is revealed, else it would be stupid. The rules of 2) apply again: only Sir Patrick CAN be revealed to be the bad guy.

 

4) Expectations. I was fairly confident from the way the movie was constructed and the huge hint from the setting that they would reserve themselves a surprise. That meant that Ares wasn't a hulking 300-type warrior, but rather a sinister, scheming presence. Again, Sir Patrick telegraphed this from the get-go. 

 

5) Story structure. If Sir Patrick is a good guy, there is no opportunity for a reversal that does not include the Germans and Ludendorff simply getting one better than Wonder Woman. The movie would play incredibly straight, and from 4), I did not have the feeling that it would, because that would have been pretty boring. Solid, yes, but boring. And the criticism of the prior DC movies had been that they were too much about punching evil stuff, so again, expectations led to assume that they would go a different, more complex route with this one, trying to make it about something. Sir Patrick again. 

 

In conclusion, he didn't need to open his mouth. It was not a mistake by the filmmakers. It was entirely meta on my part. And that's the way you can ruin all the excitement yourself. Happy to help!