Wonder Woman 1984 has key characters Diana Prince, Maxwell Lord, and Barbara Minerva facing some of their greatest losses in the wake of wishing on the Dreamstone. The Dreamstone is a mythical, god-made stone that grants wishes in exchange for a hefty price. It's the quintessential "monkey's paw" of the film and seeks to exploit an individual's avarice and deepest desires. What the characters do not realize is how much the Dreamstone affects them personally and life on a global scale.
Several decades after the first Wonder Woman film, Diana (Gal Gadot) is a part-time undercover crime-fighter in D.C. and works at the Smithsonian as a cultural anthropologist. When the FBI confiscates items from a botched robbery and gives them to the museum to identify, Diana discovers the Dreamstone among their findings. She and newcomer gemologist, geologist, and cryptozoologist Barbara Minerva (Kristen Wiig) realize there's something odd about it when their coworker touches it and wishes for coffee. Seconds later, another coworker offers him coffee. Diana also finds out it was already been purchased by seedy businessman and TV personality Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal), who is set on finally taking it for his own. Maxwell has his own devious designs for the Dreamstone, having researched and tracked it down for quite a while.
Much like in other features where characters uncover an artifact whose infinite power they do not yet realize, Wonder Woman 1984 spends a large part of the film exploring how Diana, Barbara, and Maxwell interact with the stone and grapple with their wishes coming to fruition. Diana gets her lover Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) back, Barbara becomes like Diana in attractiveness, attitude, and superhuman abilities, and Maxwell Lord powers up and literally becomes the Dreamstone, which in and of itself spells disaster for the rest of the world. It's not long after their wishes are granted that they begin to feel the consequences. Here's a breakdown of what each character loses when they make a wish on the Dreamstone.
After Diana wishes for Steve Trevor to return, her powers start to weaken considerably. She has difficulty breaking a lock into Maxwell Lord's building and loses her grip on her trusty lasso in Egypt. As a result, she and the two children she's attempting to save are nearly mowed down by Maxwell's newly attained security team. She's also no longer impervious to injury, suffering from multiple wounds as seen in the Middle Eastern car chase scene and the battle in the White House. Barbara Minerva proves to be a worthy adversary, easily crashing Diana into pillars and rendering her unable to defend herself. For a time, Diana denies her wish is what's stolen her abilities in order to keep Steve by her side. She refuses to renounce her wish, believing she cannot live with the heartbreak of losing him again.
Wonder Woman losing her powers to her wish for Steve's return is the beginning of her temporary downfall. It's implied she's been pining for him ever since his death: She goes to dinner alone, watches planes with longing, and keeps his watch by a picture of herself at his family ranch. By wishing for him, she surrenders an essential part of herself in the process. Steve eventually persuades her to let him go and helps her realize that her duty to protect mankind is more important than him. Diana loses Steve a second time but regains her powers just in time to save the world and finally gets closure to move on with her life.
After wishing to become the Dreamstone in Wonder Woman 1984, Maxwell Lord suffers a great deal of mental, emotional, and physical duress. Soon after becoming the stone, he appears unhinged and unwell. His left eye pops a blood vessel, he can't stop coughing, veins appear on his temples, his health seeming to deteriorate as turning into the Dreamstone takes his vitality. Maxwell sought out the stone in order to attain infinite success and help his failing business but the influence of the Dreamstone drains his energy.
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His obsession with regaining his health by granting more and more wishes almost costs him his son, as well. His plan comes to fruition at a secret government communications base, where Maxwell broadcasts live and touches people using particle technology. In this way, he is able to heal himself and become stronger by granting wishes and siphoning a bit of the wish maker's health in return. He intends to rebuild himself "organ by organ," with no regard to human life. Because Maxwell becomes so power-hungry and possessed by the need for more, he neglects his son Alastair, the one person he wanted to do right by and make proud. In the chaos Lord creates, Alistair gets lost and is almost hurt before Lord finds him and shows remorse for his actions.
After her wish to become more like Diana, Barbara Minerva suffers the loss of her formerly warm and compassionate personality. Barbara is introduced early on as an insecure scientist trying to build human connections. She is largely ignored by the staff of the Smithsonian because of her awkward nature. When Maxwell Lord shows an interest in her, even though his motivation is based solely on stealing the Dreamstone, Barbara is instantly smitten. She and Diana bond over their shared outsider status, though Barbara can hardly believe Diana chooses that lifestyle. To Barbara, Diana represents everything she can never be, thus, Barbara wishes on the Dreamstone for all of Diana's attributes. Little does she expect that this also comes with Diana's superhuman strength.
The most obvious changes come in how Barbara dresses and conducts herself – part of her transformation includes no longer tripping in heels. But she also becomes increasingly cold and embittered toward Diana, especially during their White House showdown. Diana remarks that Barbara is willing to take down innocent people and that she's no longer the warm and funny person Diana just met. Indeed, Barbara's overconfidence, compromised morals, and resistance to Diana's initial perception of her only grow. When Barbara expresses her desire to be an "apex predator," Maxwell seems to telepathically transfer someone's anger and expertise over to her, thereby completing her metamorphosis into Wonder Woman nemesis, Cheetah. Though Barbara is last seen back in human form, it's unclear whether she, too, renounced her wish.
Although Diana, Maxwell, and Barbara all experience their own losses at the will of the Dreamstone, the Arab oil baron Emir Said Bin Abydos and the President of the United States' losses are also worth mentioning, since both of their wishes contribute to the ensuing global chaos. Emir wishes for his ancestral land of the Bialyan Dynasty to be back in his family, so Maxwell causes a giant to spring up around the area his ancestors once owned. This essentially cuts the established city in two, keeping people from reaching their only source of water. The results of Emir's wish causing an even greater rift and global upheaval. Shortly thereafter, the President, assumed to be Ronald Reagan, wishes for more nuclear weapons to fight the USSR. The Soviet Union perceives this as a threat and launches missiles in response.
Ultimately, Diana saves the day and the world reverses its wishes. But it's important to remember how close the Dreamstone was to ending modern society in Wonder Woman 1984, as it was shown to have ended several other ancient civilizations. The loss of the world would certainly be greater than anything the characters had to give up when agreeing to reverse their wishes, no matter how desperately they may have wanted them.
Next: Wonder Woman 1984 Ending Explained (In Detail)
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