WONDER WOMAN 1984
*CUT TO THE CHASE*NOTE: This spoiler was submitted by Jeremy
The film opens in Themyscira where a young Diana (Lilly Aspell) enters an Amazon athletic event. She rides her horse through the course as her aunt Antiope (Robin Wright) and Queen Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen) watch. Although Diana performs well at first, she is knocked off her horse midway and starts to fall behind. She attempts a shortcut and catches up with the horse to be among the first to ride back into the arena. Before she can hurl her spear for the winning shot, Antiope stops her since she cheated. Despite Diana’s protests, her aunt and mother lecture her on knowing when she is ready to win.
Jump to 1984 where a quartet of thieves is attempting to rob a mall jewelry store due to what is believed to be a front for a black market operation. The plan is botched when it seems that their cover is blown, and one of the thieves grabs a little girl, dangling her over a ledge in a desperate attempt to avoid prison. In comes Wonder Woman (now played by Gal Gadot) to rescue the girl and take her to safety. Using her gauntlet and lasso, she fights against the thieves and apprehends them before leaving them for the cops. Wonder Woman flees the scene before onlookers can determine who this mysterious heroine is.
Diana lives alone while still performing heroics as Wonder Woman. She keeps mementos of friends like Etta Candy, but she still deeply misses Steve Trevor (Chris Pine). Diana also works at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC as senior anthropologist. There, she meets the newly hired zoologist/gemologist Dr. Barbara Minerva (Kristen Wiig), who is timid and ignored by her peers. Diana is kind to her, and they check out a large piece of mineral, the Dreamstone, known for granting wishes.
Diana has dinner with Barbara, where they discuss falling in love, and Diana reminisces about Steve, with her own personal wish being that he may return. Later, Barbara is walking home when a drunk man harasses her. When he gets physical, Diana intervenes and knocks the man away from Barbara. Barbara returns to the office where she holds the Dreamstone and wishes she would be as beautiful, strong, and confident as Diana.
The next morning, Barbara develops quicker reflexes and starts to gain attention from her male peers. The Institute is visited by Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal), CEO of Black Gold Cooperative, a fledgling oil company. He is known for his flashy TV ads, as Barbara is something of a fan. He invites Diana and Barbara to a gala he is hosting for the museum, although he is most interested when he sees the Dreamstone in Barbara’s office. Max returns to his company, which is devoid of employees save for a secretary, Raquel (Gabriella Wilde), trying to answer phones on her own. He finds that he must take care of his son Alistair (Lucian Perez) just before meeting Simon Stagg (Oliver Cotton), a potential investor. He calls Max a con artist and doesn’t have faith in his skills as a businessman. Max vows to Alistair that he will prove to everyone that they need him.
Barbara gets ready for the gala and stuns everyone with her appearance. Diana also shows up and draws attention from men, but she ignores all of them, until one man in particular calls to her and tells her that he wishes they had more time. This makes her stop in her tracks, and the man approaches her to tell her the last words Steve said to her – “I can save today, but you can save the world.” To Diana, this man appears to her to really be Steve, despite it being his spirit inhabiting this man’s body. Diana is elated and kisses Steve for the first time in decades. Meanwhile, Max seduces Barbara and goes into her office just to swipe the Dreamstone from her desk. He brings it back to his office and wishes to be the Dreamstone, causing it to disintegrate as he absorbs its power.
Diana follows Steve back to the apartment of the man he’s possessing. After spending the night, she takes him on a personal tour of Washington to see the world as it is now, including a trip to the Smithsonian.
Max tests his powers by going to Stagg’s company and tricking him into wishing that their businesses would do better, which allows Max to seize control of Stagg’s assets and “magically” removes him from the picture by having the FBI come to arrest Stagg for tax purposes. Max goes back to his office to find Raquel struggling to answer phones as calls from investors are pouring in. He gets her to wish for help, bringing more employees in as Max starts to expand Black Gold.
Diana and Steve go to Barbara to investigate the Dreamstone, only to learn that she let Max “borrow” it, despite not knowing how dangerous it could be. They break into Black Gold to find the bracelet left behind from the stone, which is written in Latin and recognized by Diana as the language of the gods, but of a god with a dark purpose. They see that Max is heading to Cairo, so they steal a jet from the Smithsonian to fly there. Steve flies for the first time in decades, but they are spotted by authorities as they try to clear the runway. Diana uses her powers to cloak the jet from sight, thereby creating…THE INVISIBLE JET. Steve takes to the skies as they pass through a fireworks display, both of them watching in awe.
Barbara leaves her office and continues to test her newfound strength and abilities. She runs into the same drunk man from before, and he attempts to assault her again. Barbara uses Diana’s technique and violently kicks the man into the street until he’s unconscious.
In Cairo, Max meets with Emir Said Ben Abydos (Amr Waked), tricking him into wishing that his ancestral land be returned to him and anyone deemed inferior to be kept out. This lets Max take control of Emir’s oil reserves and his guards as he now loses public support when a wall keeping citizens out of the city is magically erected. As Max and his team drive away, Diana and Steve spot them on the road and catch up to them. Diana jumps in as Wonder Woman to fight off Max’s henchmen and try to apprehend the man himself. Steve also manages to help keep the villains off Diana’s back as she tries to reach Max. When she demands the stone from him, he tells her “You’re looking at it.” In the chaos, Wonder Woman has to use the Lasso of Truth to swing in and save two children in the road as the trucks drive toward them. However, Diana slips and falls onto the road, just narrowly avoiding having the vehicles hit them. She manages to get them to safety, but Max has gotten away.
Diana learns from Barbara’s research that the stone has been passed through civilizations that have long since crumbled. The three visit a lead, a man passing himself off as a shaman called Babajide (Ravi Patel), where he provides them with a book containing inscriptions similar to that found on the stone. Diana reacts in horror to learn that it is the work of Dolos, a god that granted wishes but took something most valuable from those who made the wish, much like a Monkey’s Paw. This explains why Diana’s wish to bring Steve back is draining her of her powers. After realizing Max contains the stone’s powers, Steve proposes to either destroy Max or find a way to get everyone involved to renounce their wishes. Both Diana and Barbara are conflicted, because Diana would lose Steve and Barbara would lose her powers.
The magic granting the wishes from the stone is causing physical damage to Max. As he tries to maintain control of the business, he snaps when he learns that he has to take care of Alistair again, causing the boy to run off. Max then meets with other business owners and leaders to grant wishes as he gains more power from it. He faces more of a problem as an angry crowd protests him outside the company since his acquisition of many oil reserves are now leading to conflicts between nations. Max then uses his driver to see the President of the United States (Stuart Milligan). The effects of Max’s wishes then begin to have catastrophic consequences around the city. When Max meets with POTUS, he learns of a satellite that can transmit a signal around the globe, and he uses the POTUS’s wish to gain access to it to grant a ton of wishes.
Diana explains to Steve why stopping Max is harder than it seems to be. She tells him the story of Asteria, a legendary Amazon warrior who sacrificed herself to protect her people. Diana had come into possession of her armor. After seeing the chaos on the streets, she and Steve gain access into the White House just as Max has met with POTUS. Wonder Woman comes in to fight off security and Max’s goons. Barbara steps in to defend Max, not wanting to give up her powers. She fights Wonder Woman and proves to be a strong force, severely weakening her. She notes to Barbara that she is losing her humanity and kindness because of her wish.
Max and Barbara take off together, and Diana runs back into the streets. Knowing there is no other way to stop the villains, Steve tells her he can accept his fate to give up his second chance at life so that she can save the world. Diana tearfully says goodbye to him one last time and vows to never love again, but Steve tells her that she eventually will. Diana leaves him and tearfully renounces her wish, granting her her powers back and allowing her to take to the skies with her lasso as she appears to learn how to fly, allowing her to catch up to Max’s chopper. Meanwhile, Barbara asks for one more wish from Max, which is to become an apex predator like the world has never seen before.
Max reaches the facility where he will transmit his signal. Diana reaches the place as well in Asteria’s golden eagle armor, fighting off several adversaries before making it to Max. She encounters Barbara, who has transformed into The Cheetah. The two fight as Barbara’s powers have now increased exponentially. Their fight leads a nearby electrical tower to collapse as they fall into the nearby lake. Diana pleads with Cheetah to renounce her wish, but she refuses, leading Diana to pull her underwater as a loose wire hits it, electrocuting Cheetah. Diana pulls the weakened villain to safety as she rushes to Max.
Max has now sent his broadcast throughout the world, which causes many people to actually ask for wishes that immediately come true, bringing him more untold power. It also leads Alistair to get caught in the ongoing chaos as the United States and the Middle East are appearing to go to war. Diana comes in and tries to get Max to renounce his wish, but he has gone full power mad by this point. She uses her Lasso to communicate with the world to convince them to renounce their wishes. Max sees visions of his past, including his childhood with his abusive father, ridicule from American kids when he moved to the U.S., and his humble beginnings in starting the company. Max then becomes overwhelmed when he starts to think of Alistair and tries to find him. He finally renounces his wish, leading to the rest of the world to do the same, magically undoing all the devastation that had started. It also causes Cheetah to revert to Barbara. Max then goes into the streets and reunites with Alistair. He admits that he’s a terrible person who was always trying to make his son proud, but Alistair says he has always loved his father.
Sometime later around Christmas, Diana wanders by herself again. She encounters the man Steve had been inhabiting, and they exchange friendly small talk. She then observes the scene around her, with children playing and people enjoying the time together, and it brings Diana a sense of hope. She once again takes to the skies as Wonder Woman as she continues to protect the people.
Midway through the credits, a slight tremor occurs and a pillar is knocked over, but a mysterious woman catches it. A mother approaches the woman to thank her for saving her daughter. She turns around to reveal herself as Artesia (Lynda Carter – AKA the original Wonder Woman), who says she has been doing this for a long time.
Diana Prince/Wonder Woman now lives in 1984 working in the Smithsonian in Washington DC. After meeting shy Dr. Barbara Minerva, they come across the Dreamstone, which grants the holder any wish, but at a personal cost. Barbara wishes to be as strong, beautiful, and confident as Diana, while Diana wishes to see her former love Steve Trevor. Meanwhile, aspiring oil baron Maxwell Lord wants the Dreamstone for more sinister purposes.
Diana's wish is granted when Steve's spirit inhabits the body of another man. Barbara also achieves greater strength and agility while also taking on a more confident appearance. Max steals the Dreamstone from her and wishes to possess its power, allowing him to grant wishes to others. It gives him more power but also takes a toll on him physically, yet his company grows and he profits from it.
Diana and Steve try to stop Max but learn that they have to stop him by having him and everyone else renounce their wishes, even if it means Diana loses Steve and Barbara loses her powers. Barbara joins Max and is granted superhuman abilities, turning her into The Cheetah. Max gains access to a satellite that allows him to broadcast a signal across the globe to grant wishes to everyone. After realizing her wish has been draining her of her powers, Diana must say goodbye to Steve for the last time and renounce her wish.
Diana fights Cheetah and defeats her before getting to Max. She uses the Lasso of Truth to get everyone around the world affected by his powers to renounce their wish, and Max sees his son Alistair caught in the chaos he has caused. He renounces his wish and gives up his powers to reunite with Alistair.
Diana continues to be on her own but now has a stronger sense of hope for the future of mankind, and she continues to devote her life to protecting people.