I need Wonder Woman to be good. I want every movie I see to be good, but if they’re not, I shrug off the disappointment and go about my business. But the stakes for Wonder Woman are so much higher. While there have been a couple of female-led superhero movies (Catwoman and Elektra), neither was good, and neither character was all that popular to begin with. Wonder Woman is an icon, and there’s no bigger female superhero in the genre. She’s been around for over 75 years, and she was always intended as a feminist hero, able to show strength and love in equal measure. I need the movie to do justice to that legacy and the ideals she’s carried in her best stories. I need the movie to do well so that Hollywood knows that there’s an audience for superhero stories led by women.

In February 2016, some fellow journalists and I visited the set of Patty JenkinsWonder Woman in London. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice hadn’t come out yet, so all we knew of the character was what we had seen in the trailers. When we arrived on set, we were walked through basically the entire plot of the film, which I won’t divulge here or any other spoilers about the film.

Here are over 50 things to know about Wonder Woman:

The Story

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Image via Warner Bros.

- The story is framed by the modern day with Diana Prince/Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) flashing back to her origin story.

- The film will show Diana as a child growing up on the island of Themiscyra.

- Within this flashback, there will be a story told to young Diana about the creation of the Amazons, their relationship to Zeus and Ares, and why they’ve decided to remain hidden from mankind.

- Diana’s mother, Queen Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen), originally doesn’t want Diana to be a warrior, but Diana trains in secret with her aunt, General Antiope (Robin Wright), and Hippolyta eventually accepts her daughter’s goals.

- When American intelligence officer Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) crash lands on Themiscyra, Wonder Woman rescues him, but the first big battle scene comes with German soldiers, who have followed Trevor to the island, square off against the Amazons.

- After the battle, Trevor tells of the Great War, and that he has recovered secret plans that intend to ruin the armistice. When he goes to sail to London, Diana decides to go with him because she believes that Ares is behind World War I.

- She grabs her armor, bracelets, sword, and shield from Themiscyra before leaving with Trevor.

- Once in London, the film becomes a bit of a fish out of water story as Diana, who is naïve and hopeful, is fascinated by the “modern” world (the film takes place in 1918).

- The main human villains are the rogue German general Ludendorff (Danny Huston) and the scarred scientist Dr. Maru (Elena Anaya), who devises various poisons. There’s also the specter of the god of war Ares’ involvement in the larger scheme of things.

- David Thewlis plays Assemblyman Sir Patrick Morton, a British politician advocating for peace.

- Overall, the film looks like a bit of a combination between Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger. The stuff in Themiscyra is Thor (a god who has never known the human world) and the stuff in World War I is Captain America (a superhero in the middle of a worldwide, mechanized war), and audiences, having accepted both those movies, should have no trouble investing in the tone Jenkins’ is going for.

The Filming

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Image via Warner Bros.

- The film is being shot in 35mm, not IMAX

- On the day we visited, we saw Gadot running on a treadmill in front of a green screen and “deflecting” bullets with her magical gauntlets.

- Even from afar, the costume looks badass.

- Jenkins is shouting out, “Bang! Block!” as Gadot deflects the non-existent bullets headed her way.

- There’s more of Gadot on the treadmill, we go to lunch, come back, there’s more treadmill but from a different camera angle. Then we get to talk to Gadot.

Gal Gadot

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Image via Warner Bros.

- The best thing about playing Wonder Woman is this is exactly the kind of role she wanted to play when she started acting eight years ago—a strong, independent woman.

- She loves everything about Diana. “She has a heart of a human being, powers of goddess and a very wise brain,” says Gadot.

- Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor balance each other out. He understands the dark side of human nature, and she’s an idealist, so he helps inform her worldview, and she brings hope back into his life.

- While the Wonder Woman we see in Batman v Superman is a more mature woman, the one we see in this origin story is a bit more naïve and positive.

- Wonder Woman doesn’t really see a difference between men and women in terms of social mores or abilities.

- She’s glad this movie is being made because it will give young girls like her daughter a figure to look up to like boys have had with Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man.

- When she was first cast as Wonder Woman, she went back and watched some reruns of the Lynda Carter Wonder Woman from the 70s.

- Wonder Woman’s fighting style is a mix of martial arts that Gadot calls, “WonderFu”.

For the full interview with Gadot, click here.

After the interview, we moved on to the costume department.

Costumes

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Image via Warner Bros.

- Costume Designer Lindy Hemming (The Dark Knight) walked us through some of the designs and oufits.

- She says that the Wonder Woman armor for Wonder Woman only has some minor changes from what we saw in Batman v Superman.

- Unsurprisingly, she looked to Greek influences when designing the armor for the Amazons.

- This is one of the most design-heavy jobs she’s had to do because of the different eras and settings.

- It was important for Jenkins that the Amazons not be just one race or body type.

- There are 8 different versions of the Wonder Woman costume, and they’ll probably have to make around 20 to 30 for the various stunt people and stand-ins.

- The challenge has been to merge the unreality of Wonder Woman’s world with the reality of World War I, and then trying to get those realistic costumes right.

- When it came to the armor, Hemming also had to deal with the challenge of creating armor that was both sturdy enough to look like it could take a beating, but also allowed the actors to move and do their stunts.

- Gadot’s main input was trying to look for comfort where possible given the stuntwork and external elements like weather, but Hemming unfortunately “couldn’t help her very much.”

Second Unit Filming

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Image via Warner Bros.

- We then moved on to a World War I set and the details are amazing. Production Designer Aline Bonetto has put together some really impressive production design for the bombed out city of Veld. Everything from the storefronts to the advertisements looks absolutely on point.

- In this scene, Diana, Trevor, and their fellow fighters Charlie (Ewen Bremner), Sameer (Saïd Taghmaoui), and Chief (Eugene Brave Rock) are making their way to the front.

- They’re shooting with the Phantom Red, which has the advantage of being able to really speed up the number of frames per second thus allowing for highly-detailed slow-motion.

- In the scene, Trevor (what we saw on the day was being handled by Chris Pine’s stunt double) is laying down some shotgun action as he takes down some German soldiers.

- The only sunny days they’ve had were in Veld when they didn’t need the sun.

- We then moved on to some trenches, which were appropriately grim. It’s a bit jarring to be on the set of a superhero film and then go to a recreation of a gruesome war zone that’s meant to evoke where countless men suffered and died in battle.

- We then moved on to the Throne Room set, which wasn’t being used at that time. While there was a bit of whiplash for me personally having just walked through World War I trenches, I doubt there will be for an audience that has seen a variety of superhero movies. Also, it’s not like the trench scene precedes the throne room scene in the film.

Director Patty Jenkins

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Image via Warner Bros.

- Our set visit in London ended after checking out the trenches and the throne room, but we weren’t done yet. We didn’t get a chance to interview Jenkins while on set because she was so busy, but thankfully, Warner Bros. brought us back to London a year later to do an edit bay visit with Jenkins. We saw some scenes and then spoke to Jenkins about the film.

- While she’s aware of the politics of the moment, she hopes that people will see Wonder Woman as a universal character; while there are comments on sexism, it’s not a “woman” movie. It’s a Wonder Woman movie intended to be on par with any other superhero origin film.

- Richard Donner’s Superman had a huge effect on her when she was a kid, even more than Star Wars.

- She thinks that Wonder Woman stands apart from heroes like Batman and Superman because she’s guided by an almost religious-like belief system that demands she behave in a certain way. “She believes in love, and she believes in truth.” Jenkins goes on to describe Wonder Woman’s worldview as, “I believe in the betterment of you, and I believe in you, and I believe in truth. And I believe that you all can be better, and I will fight to protect you. But I also believe in better than that.”

- She also believes that Wonder Woman fights not because she wants to, but because she has to for the betterment of mankind.

- The film won’t delve too much into Dr. Maru’s backstory, but her driving motivation is that she’s someone who has suffered a lot of pain, and now delights in seeing that kind of pain inflicted on others to prove that they’re not as strong as her.

- While at first she was a bit bummed that she didn’t get to cast Wonder Woman, once she met Gadot, all her fears were put to rest.

- What made her want to do the movie was being on the same page as the studio in wanting to tell Wonder Woman’s origin story.

- She didn’t even see Batman v Superman until she was halfway done making Wonder Woman.

- The studio always supported her vision (while this may sound like director-speak, I will say that they walked us through the plot on set and then again in the edit bay for people who weren’t on the set visit; the two plots match up, so there haven’t been any major changes).

- There was never any pressure to try and tie the story to the present day, and while Jenkins did hint that the ending will probably connect in some way to Justice League, this is first and foremost an origin story for Wonder Woman.

- Jenkins doesn’t believe Wonder Woman’s origin story is more complicated than any other superhero’s; it’s just that those superheroes have gotten movies to popularize those origin stories. She notes that most people probably didn’t know Superman’s history until Richard Donner’s film. That’s what they’re hoping to do with Wonder Woman.

- It was important to nail the tone and make sure that they could hit that “small pocket” of not making the World War I stuff look too much like a BBC documentary, but also not being campy by having a person in a superhero costume walking through a battlefield.

- There are “hundreds of things” Jenkins would like to do with Wonder Woman beyond the character’s origin story.

- Jenkins wanted to make sure that humor was a part of the story because she felt that was honest to life.

- There was no mandate on the tone of her movie.

For the full interview with Jenkins, click here.

Final Thoughts

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Image via Warner Bros.

I know that with each passing film, DC movies become a tougher sell. Believe me, after the one-two punch of Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad, I’m as skeptical as anybody. But that being said, I think they’ve got it right with Wonder Woman. They know the story they want to tell, and they understand the character.  Everything I saw on set, the clips they showed us at the edit bay visit, and the interviews all point towards a film with a clear vision and a story worth telling.

I need Wonder Woman to be good, and I truly think it will be.

For more on Wonder Woman, click on the links below:

Wonder Woman opens June 2nd.