Spoilers Aquaman - Grading and Discussion

Discussion in 'Science Fiction & Fantasy' started by dahj, Dec 11, 2018.

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Grade the Movie

  1. A+

    7.8%
  2. A

    25.0%
  3. A-

    20.3%
  4. B+

    14.1%
  5. B

    9.4%
  6. B-

    9.4%
  7. C+

    6.3%
  8. C

    6.3%
  9. C-

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  10. D+

    1.6%
  11. D

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  12. D-

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  13. F

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  1. Skipper

    Skipper Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Yep, in the comics. But we are not talking about the Superman/Lois relationship which is well know to not-comics readers too. I watched this movie with people who barely knew that a character named "Aquaman" existed and none of them had ever heard the name "Mera".
     
    Last edited: Jan 4, 2019
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  2. Skipper

    Skipper Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I can't find that article, but this is the gist of it.

    Making an oversimplification, for Hollywood people, the movie audience is divided in four segments: young males, old males, young females and old females. A movie has to attire at least two of these demographics (of course I'm talking about commercial movies, not art-house flicks). This is the reason why in most action movies you have a romantic subplot and why in most romantic comedies there is a subplot where the male protagonist has to struggle with something not totally related with the (romantic) main plot.

    Titanic, from this point of of view, is considered the perfect movie because it made an high score with all the four demographics.

    Prior to the success of the superheroistic film genre, one of the reasons why Hollywood producers were reluctant to make superhero movies was because they believed it was a genre that would appeal especially to young males. And they weren't totally wrong, because, in its essence, the supehero myth is the quintessential adolescent male fantasy: revenging on wrongs suffered using kicks and punches, while everyone is cheering for you.

    This is the reason why virtually every superhero movies has the mandatory romantic subplot. Because Hollywood producers believe that not a lot of female movie goers would pay just to watch some dude convinced that he can solve every world problem with fists and testosterone.
     
    Last edited: Jan 4, 2019
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  3. Skipper

    Skipper Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    By the way, I love superhero movies.
     
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  4. The Realist

    The Realist Vice Admiral Admiral

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    FWIW, it's not only women. I enjoy the romantic elements, too. And if nothing else, it adds a female presence and sensibility to movies that would otherwise be pure sausagefests. Better still when it's a character like Mera, who brings a lot more to the narrative table than just "the girlfriend."
     
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  5. Kane_Steel

    Kane_Steel Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    6/10.

    Agree with the critics. Terrible script, but good spectacle and direction.

    If those Transformers films could do a billion each several years back, no reason why this film can't. Big, loud and dumb popcorn flick. Nothing more. Smart whoever decided to open this in China first and go big with the marketing there.
     
  6. Leo Star Dragon 1

    Leo Star Dragon 1 Lieutenant Junior Grade Red Shirt

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    Greetings! An URL?! Really? I just want to upload a picture directly to here without having to do it elsewhere first. Ugh. Oh well. Now in random order.

    #00: Wow! Enough time has gone by that there are now enough young people that weren't around yet, when "Titanic" came out! Sigh. In "Entertainment Tonight" and "Entertainment Weekly", et al, there was a lot of speculation about how that movie did so well at the box office, despite the length. It amazed a lot of show business people.

    Eventually enough time elapsed that a proper analysis could be made. So ever since then, "The Titanic Formula", has been a business model to emulate. Some have been better at it than others, of course. Mixing genres has been more difficult to accept for some, than for others, but hey, that applies to a lot of other stuff too. Especially food!

    #01: "Kiss the girl!" Hey, in Real Life, it happens. You get to a moment where you realize that the opportunity may not ever happen again. So if you don't do it when you can, it might be a lost opportunity, forever lost. Like one of you is moving away forever, and you may never see each other again. Or hey, one or both of you could die at any moment, because of the battle around you!

    People that are used to seeing men only, engaged in combat, in which there isn't expected to be such a scene, tend to overreact when they see romantic moments, because they either haven't adapted yet, or are not used to them yet, from lack of experience. (They don't see enough movies, et cetera, to see the pattern and how normal it has become.)

    When they kissed in the field of battle, and there were explosions near them, some may have thought that was a reason to not kiss, because they were in danger! So they don't see the artistic license in play, of replacing fireworks from nowhere that sometimes happens during a kiss scene, with explosions that suddenly resemble a fireworks show, as battle conditions are taken advantage of to do so.

    #02: Genre identity. Hmm. Superman, was given an official, "Vulnerability: Magic", aspect, as a part of recognizing that as an SF character, he is at odd a with Fantasy characters. They deferred to Magic rather than Science. However, what they didn't think of at the time of that writing, is that yes indeed, Science-Fiction elements can exist in a Fantasy story, but Fantasy elements can't exist in a Science-Fiction story, as it becomes by default a, Fantasy story. They wanted to keep their various characters labeled with their intended genre label, yet still allow them to mingle. Hence the compromise terms, already referred to in the forum.

    #03: Okay. I've seen enough movies now, to see a pattern or trend concerning, Tax Credits! You do not have to make a part of your movie or series in a country to get such financial relief from them anymore. It seems to be the same ones too. New Zealand, Canada, and.... Australia? The movie was made there anyway, so that's "throwing me off", as they say. At least there wasn't a logo from Georgia involved!

    #04: Digital sets! Okay, the random observations finally clicked into place for me. As I try to read the end credits, it is easier to notice the bits about location filming. When they leave out a place, I wonder if it means stock footage was used, in which a stock company gets thanked for providing it, or is it a location pretending to be another. (Like in that last movie about Wolverine, some places in New Mexico, stood in for "Remington Park" that is in Oklahoma City. But the movie didn't show any of the park signage.) Well, now I see that digital sets are common place now.

    I saw scenes of them acting on a green screen set, before I saw the movie. Then when I saw the movie, my subconscious was filling in the blanks for me until my conscious realised what had happened. So unless they have a replica of a Sicilian village at an Australian movie studio lot, they digitally replicated that location! No need to travel to the actual village, if there is such a place. Hmm.

    #05: "CGI"? The way that some of you use that term, it seems odd to me. It like being aware of old-fashion model work, matte backgrounds, stunt people, et al, and then constantly referring to such, during descriptions of a battle. Okay it lets us know that you are sophisticated enough to know how they made a movie, but you don't need to remind us in every sentence, that you, "didn't fall for it, you knew it wasn't real!", as if you fear that.

    That aspect versus, simply reviewing the visuals, and letting others know if you liked them or not. The problem is when both contexts seem to be in play. Hmm.

    I'm reminded though, of the very first movie made about the, Titanic Disaster. It was a silent movie. A model of the ship and the iceberg, was placed in a wash tub, to film that aspect of the story. That's what their level is sophistication was at the time. An old lady that survived the real tragedy was invited. Afterwards, she was asked what she thought of it. She was mad and sad about it. She wondered why the film crew didn't set down their cameras long enough to help the poor people! So there is something to be said about knowing what's going on.
     
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  7. Leo Star Dragon 1

    Leo Star Dragon 1 Lieutenant Junior Grade Red Shirt

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    Dec 28, 2018
    Damn! I get it now. The software can change your intended words, without you noticing! Ahem. "...level of sophistication..."! If only I could edit my own post, I wouldn't be doing this now!
     
  8. Skipper

    Skipper Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Was anyone thinking during the movie that Orm wasn't totally wrong..? I mean, try to imagine if someone was doing to your country what we are doing to the oceans...
     
  9. FPAlpha

    FPAlpha Vice Admiral Premium Member

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    Location:
    Mannheim, Germany
    I can understand this and when i saw Rogue One at the movies i fully expected a romantic subplot because it had two young, attractive main cast members. I was so excited when the movie ended without them getting together or having the clichee last kiss before they died and it is why, to me, Rogue One is by far the best of the new Star Wars movies for this and some other reasons.

    I believe it is this conditioning that your friend is a "victim" of.. expecting that people always have to get together to satisfy their need for romantic scenes. I can understand that but the movie is not about this.. it's not even about relationships in the slightest but people coming together from all walks of life fighting for something more than themselves and making the ultimate sacrifice for a noble ideal and i think this was very well done in Rogue movie so a romantic subplot is completely out of place in such a movie and i'm glad they didn't try to shoehorn one in at all cost like some other movies do.

    Yes and had they stuck to that he would have been a much better villain but then he has to go and do cliché villanous things like staging a fake attack, killing the leader of another sea nation just because. Had he convinced everybody just on the basis of the actual current events, that humans poison the seas recklessly and united all the sea nations into one unstoppable force to get humans under control (or even wipe them out) then it would have been much harder (and much more interesting) to get Arthur Curry to be the hero and find a compelling reason to fight Orm for control of the sea nations.

    As it is they took the easy way out and it made the movie a little less interesting but i don't expect Oscar level writing from such movies so i don't complain too much.
     
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  10. theenglish

    theenglish Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I have the same problem with Orm as I did with Killmonger. Orm totally has a point and the environmental message is there, but rather than having a nuanced approach that would have made for a more complex and interesting plot instead we get the mustache twirling villain.

    In the comics, Aquaman has been an environmental hero since at least the seventies and it would have been more interesting to see him actually focused on this a little more in this movie. It is his motivation to travel to Atlantis but then it is hardly touched upon again.
     
  11. JD

    JD Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Location:
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    When it comes to the Arthur/Mera relationship, it is a big part of the comics, so I think it makes perfect sense that they would include it in the movie.
    Pretty much all of the comics spend quite a bit of time on the characters' relationships, so I can see why they would include it in them in the movies too.
     
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  12. DigificWriter

    DigificWriter Vice Admiral Admiral

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    In order to get the most out of the last few days of my one-week free trial of DC Universe, I decided to watch the DC Spotlight documentary on Aquaman that was produced for the service, and it made me want to see the movie again, which is unusual because I don't see movies - even ones that I really enjoyed - in a theater more than once.

    I don't know if I will end up seeing it again in a theater, but the fact that I would even consider doing so is a major testament to the film itself.
     
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  13. Skipper

    Skipper Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    By the way, does anyone else think that the Dolph Lundgren' character knew that the submarine's attack was a ruse but it was ok with it because even he wanted to wage war on land people and that was a perfect excuse..?
     
  14. Kai "the spy"

    Kai "the spy" Admiral Admiral

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    It was confirmed on-screen that he at least suspected a false flag attack by Orm.
     
  15. Janeway’s Girl

    Janeway’s Girl Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    It was pretty good. Way too long though! I loved all the underwater scenes! So cool!
     
  16. Jax

    Jax Admiral Admiral

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    $940 million Worldwide gross now...

    * Aquaman will pass the $300 million domestic milestone sometime this month.

    * Aquaman will past $1billion worldwide by the end of next weekend.

    Who would of thought that the movie to crack $1billion, something the WB were desperate to achieve in the DCEU AKA Worlds of DC (DC Worlds sounds better btw) franchise and Aquaman is the one to do it :lol:
     
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  17. crookeddy

    crookeddy Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I'm usually rather decent at this, but I'm eating some serious crow about my prediction that Aquaman would be a flop.
     
  18. DigificWriter

    DigificWriter Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Given the current social climate we live in, I'm not sure Aquaman's success can be attributed solely to its quality; the film, for whatever reason, didn't suffer from "pre-release bias" the way that the other films have, and so it hasn't had to fight an "uphill battle" to get good word-of-mouth.
     
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  19. Scout101

    Scout101 Admiral Admiral

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    Thought it was pretty solid fun overall, enjoyed it. Could have done without the big dumb battle at the end, though. Blew the CGI budget and didn't add much for me, just wanted it to be over.
     
  20. Jax

    Jax Admiral Admiral

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    Christmas with no Star Wars clearly helped. Mary Poppins Returns has failed to be a threat and Disney must really wished they had put Solo at Christmas instead (Now they have 1 flop and 1 under performer). I thought at best $500-$600 million, so I'm happy to be wrong and hope this is the start of better things to come both Critically and Commercially from WB.
     
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