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Wow...that looks...terrible. I like his casting, but they just continue to miss the mark otherwise.

It really does look poor. Aquaman is already difficult to take seriously, and a live-action film would need to strike a delicate balance that ideally involved less obvious CGI and less "school of fish/marine life"-type shots. Then the poster was released and it evokes...Finding Nemo, and now WB have released an overstuffed trailer that has far too much bad CGI, and seems to be telling a story like Black Panther, but without the intrigue of a place like Wakanda. The only reason I might be interested in this is Nicole Kidman, but it doesn't seem like she'll have a substantial role with Amber Heard and so many others shoved in there. I do like the look of the Black Manta character, but that's about the only thing that looks impressive.

Unfortunately for DC, this trailer looks a lot like what I would have expected to see if I thought the goal was to carry on in the same vein as Justice League. I see very little in it to suggest that they have changed tactics, and even though James Wan is directing, I suspect this movie was largely made by committee at WB. After all, surely Wan knows how to make franchise films from what happened with Saw and working on Furious 7, and I expect he was hired mainly to be a team player, but also because genre fans recognize his name and probably believe he would be given the kind of creative authority over the project he has seen with smaller horror films. It doesn't seem like that is the case, based on that trailer.

Aquaman looks like a "finished" version of that shelved film bankrolled by a chinese billionaire (Empires of the Deep is it called?) In fact I'm hoping that man tries to sue DC for ripping off the trailer for the film. But really all that cgi is really poor and just uninspired. It really does look like a kid's movie and reminds me of another thing: that zany sea creature chase from Phantom Menace

black&huge wrote: Sun Jul 22, 2018 8:02 amIt really does look like a kid's movie and reminds me of another thing: that zany sea creature chase from Phantom Menace

The first thing I thought of was Sharkboy and Lavagirl.

McCrutchy wrote:It really does look poor. Aquaman is already difficult to take seriously, and a live-action film would need to strike a delicate balance that ideally involved less obvious CGI and less "school of fish/marine life"-type shots. Then the poster was released and it evokes...Finding Nemo, and now WB have released an overstuffed trailer that has far too much bad CGI, and seems to be telling a story like Black Panther, but without the intrigue of a place like Wakanda. The only reason I might be interested in this is Nicole Kidman, but it doesn't seem like she'll have a substantial role with Amber Heard and so many others shoved in there. I do like the look of the Black Manta character, but that's about the only thing that looks impressive.

Unfortunately for DC, this trailer looks a lot like what I would have expected to see if I thought the goal was to carry on in the same vein as Justice League. I see very little in it to suggest that they have changed tactics, and even though James Wan is directing, I suspect this movie was largely made by committee at WB. After all, surely Wan knows how to make franchise films from what happened with Saw and working on Furious 7, and I expect he was hired mainly to be a team player, but also because genre fans recognize his name and probably believe he would be given the kind of creative authority over the project he has seen with smaller horror films. It doesn't seem like that is the case, based on that trailer.

A particular shame, as the whole culture of Atlantis should be really cool. I do like Momoa though. DC needs someone like Kevin Feige who can oversee all the projects and keep things as a cohesive whole. I think that’s what they hoping Geoff Johns will do, but he just doesn’t seem up to it. And even then, it took Marvel several years to get things off the ground. DC are trying to rush, not to mention putting way too many eggs in the Zach Snyder basket. I think they hoped he’d be their Joss Whedon, but majorly miscalculated. Even with a few flaws, Wonder Woman both broke new ground and was frankly, by and large, just a solid movie. It also the one that had the least tying in to do with he whole overall universe, which is very telling.

I KNOW that DC are better than this and can be. The Greg Berlanti TV shows, though by no means without their flaws, are lots of fun and do a way better job of casting and world-building. And DC’s animation division back in the 90s and 00s under Bruce Timm, the DCAU, is still the bar to clear. I wish they could apply the same level of quality and care to their live-action features.

The other thing that bothers me about the Aquaman film is that Djimon Hounsou’s "Fisherman King" looks a hell of a lot like someone else (apologies for the low-res GIF, which I put in a spoiler):

Spoiler

(This is, of course, Jim Carrey in The Mask, but it's hard to find a picture or GIF that shows him along with a clear image of the mask not "activated".)

Worse still, there doesn't appear to be a completely corresponding character in the Aquaman comics. There is a character called "The Fisher King", but he apparently only made a few appearances, and he looks completely human:

Looks suspiciously like Marvel’s Triton, though.

No sign of Dolph Lundgren...

Aquaman launched in China two weeks ahead of the US premiere, to the tune of $94 million over the opening weekend. Has any other recent blockbuster done this?

Yes. At the moment, twenty other recent films have made more, but none of them are WB films.

None of those opened early in China, though, which is what I was asking (though the question was kind of vague as to what "this" was, I admit). Is that trend, that of opening an international blockbuster early in China, something that other movies have done?

Never Cursed wrote: Wed Dec 12, 2018 5:14 am None of those opened early in China, though, which is what I was asking (though the question was kind of vague as to what "this" was, I admit). Is that trend, that of opening an international blockbuster early in China, something that other movies have done?

Yes. It's also true of places like Brazil. I have good friends there and they often can see things before I can if it's a Marvel release or something.

Looking on IMDB, it seems like it was just a specific premiere, but Justice League had a Beijing premiere on Oct 26 2017, while the US one was on Nov 16 and the general release on Nov 17. About the same happened with Batman v Superman. For both, the Beijing premiere was the first showing.

Went to see Aquaman last night, and it's definitely one of the best recent DC films. Knowingly silly at times but moves along at such a pace it's lack of much of a plot doesn't seem to matter. There's nothing quite as good as the No Man's Land sequence from Wonder Woman, but a set piece in Sicily comes close. We saw it in 3D, which is ok during the under water sequences but occasionally terrible onshore. On the whole a lot closer to the MCU films than what Zack Snyder seemed to want to go for, but also owes at least as much to Flash Gordon and epic fantasy.

We are in agreement about Aquaman being one of the best DCEU films, however I liked the Sicily sequence much better than Wonder Woman’s No Man’s Land scene. I also really enjoyed the Trench sequence with the Trench creatures swarming after Aquaman and Mera on the boat and then following them into the ocean.

While, Aquaman didn’t break any sort of new ground in superhero or action films,

Spoiler

Aquaman taking responsibility for the creation of Black Manta

was a relatively novel touch. As was the film’s conclusion,

Spoiler

as Ocean Master is being taken away for imprisonment, his older, victorious brother Aquaman opens the lines of communication and tells Ocean Master that when he’s ready the two of them should have a sit-down discussion.

To me it felt strangely optimistic for a superhero film. Traditionally, supervillains in these films are rarely, if ever, given a chance to become good.

Sounds a bit like what MCU has done with Loki though.

knives wrote: Mon Dec 17, 2018 1:26 am Sounds a bit like what MCU has done with Loki though.

He'd always straddled good and bad, hadn't he? Moving back and forth at whim. I think only the first Avengers had him be fully bad from start to finish.

That sounds about right. Though that was my introduction to him which might be the cause of viewing him as originally a bad guy without grey.

Went to see this only because my husband was keen on it: I liked the cast and to some extent the Sicily sequence but beyond that, I just felt a complete disconnect to what was going on. There is so much CGI that whenever there was a rare sight of a real location it almost felt jarring. This and most other films like it make me feel like, if what I'm looking at resembles a video game for the most part, I'd rather be playing it than looking at it passively. And the dialogue almost makes me weep in frustration at the fact that a script like this nets the writer hundreds of thousands of dollars if not millions while scripts with more nuance go for a pittance by comparison. Next time I might just say to my other half, I'm sorry I can't sit through stuff like this anymore, I'll either stay home or go see another film instead (I might just have done it if Beale St had played at the same time!).

I finally watched Aquaman over the weekend. I can safely say it's one of the worst movies I've ever seen and not even comparing to other DC movies but blockbusters in general...

Spoiler

there's quite literally too much stuff in this movie. From all the undersea empires and creatures/races to overblown action and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull quality CGI. There was a new location introduced every 10 or 15 minutes and within that new characters or creatures or things like mechs that make it odd because it's not even that difficult too keep up with most of it but it's just too goddamn many things on screen. The fight scenes were so over-conceptualized. We get it. You want the faux one-take approach. When the camera follows the henchmen going through that apartment building during the Sicily fight what was the point? Oh yeah: "there's no cuts!" but that illusion barely lasts when it wore out its gimmick in the opening fight scene. By the end I had no idea where anything was coming from all of a sudden Aquaman and his brother are fighting on top of a giant ship in the water and I could be wrong but I think I saw mechanical tentacles and I have no idea where it was all originating. People say a movie is a mess for a wide variety of reasons this movie basically places every different type of dish on a tablecloth and doesn't even attempt to make a clean pull at it.

black&huge wrote: Thu Jan 31, 2019 12:17 am this movie basically places every different type of dish on a tablecloth and doesn't even attempt to make a clean pull at it.

I just had to