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Post by takewithfood on Jul 21, 2018 15:05:54 GMT -5
I guess there's a Comic Con going on somewhere, because we have a trailer:
Looks even worse than I expected. Surprise surprise, another DC hero's origin story starts with being bullied as a kid, and turns into a circa 2001 CGI nightmare. I don't understand why comments seem to be reacting positively to this.
EDIT: Oh, and you can see this hot mess this December 21st.
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Post by Gris on Jul 22, 2018 3:02:14 GMT -5
I want to see James Wan's: Aquaman and Mera - Ridiculous Action Flick On The Surface with all the fish out of water (ha!) tropes, but care nothing about Wakanda Atlantis and any civil war they are intending to fight with the cheapest of CGI.
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Post by takewithfood on Jul 23, 2018 17:36:35 GMT -5
The word you're looking for is "Aquakanda". This really is going to be Aquatic Black Panther, isn't it? Royal parent dies, hero inherits the throne of a hidden city with its own unique culture and hyper advanced technology, but a male relative with a claim to the throne wants to take over and lead their kingdom to war against the rest of the world, so they fight in ritual combat in a watery arena while their people look on from above, which eventually leads to a civil war involving bad CG trained war animals local to the region. Sound about right?
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Post by Ushima911 on Jul 23, 2018 17:51:01 GMT -5
The word you're looking for is "Aquakanda". Aquakanda forever!
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Post by mcr on Jul 24, 2018 19:18:33 GMT -5
Aquanda sounds catchier.
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Post by mcr on Jul 28, 2018 4:16:49 GMT -5
Rumor has it that Batman will also feature a main character whose backstory involves a young boy suffering a tragic childhood. God how unoriginal.
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Post by WildKnight on Aug 7, 2018 9:27:58 GMT -5
Look, Aquaman's father is Jango Fett. That alone is reason to see this movie!
... but seriously, I wanted this to not suck. I didn't hate Justice League like most of you did (though I wouldn't call Aquaman a strong point of that film...), and am always hoping the DCEU will finally take an upturn. Pretty clearly though, this is not it. I feel like this Wan guy directed a Fast & Furious movie(?) If not, he should, because this looks like one of the last several of those (basically everything from 3 forward).
On the bright side, with as stupid and over-the-top as this thing looks, maybe he'll summon Cthulhu for the last battle. Or Starro. Either way.
Wait... am I the only one that thinks the DCEU needs Starro?
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Post by UrbanBlue on Aug 14, 2018 16:41:18 GMT -5
I'd pay to see a good Starro movie.
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Post by takewithfood on Nov 19, 2018 12:58:45 GMT -5
Final trailer:
I do not understand the positive reaction these trailers are getting from fans. Are they just deluded DC fanboys? The CG looks awful, the story is so corny and uninspired, Jason Momoa can't act, and we already know the DCEU is basically dead. Between the bad greenscreening and the CGI suits, I'm getting heavy Green Lantern flashbacks.
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Post by mcr on Nov 19, 2018 13:47:37 GMT -5
I think the positive reaction has more to do with how bad the standalones were (not counting Wonder Woman), and the corniness of the product on its own merits. Imagine getting shit on for eight years, being told you're getting another turd, and then getting a half way decent product after all...
It looks better than Justice League (but then Justice League looked decent in trailers too...). I actually like Momoa for the part, but I imagine he'll be limited by the source material. I'd expect this to grade out at a 7.2/10, which was about where JL was for me (6.6), above Man of Steel (4.0) and BvS (2.0), and well below Wonder Woman (8.8).
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Post by takewithfood on Nov 21, 2018 12:39:16 GMT -5
There are so many comic book movies now that I've been ranking them (at least the modern, "Iron Man" era ones) by category rather than by number. My categories, with a few examples in no particular order, are:
✩✩✩✩✩: Movies that exceed or expand expectations of the genre. Examples: Civil War (2016), Logan (2017), The Dark Knight (2008)
✩✩✩✩: Ideal examples of the comic book movie genre. Examples: Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Spiderman: Homecoming (2017), Deadpool (2016)
✩✩✩: Okay movies that manage to overcome some glaring flaws. Examples: Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Ant Man (2015), Wonder Woman (2017)
✩✩: Bad films that fail to overcome their flaws. Examples: Thor: The Dark World (2013), X-Men: First Class (2011), The Amazing Spiderman (2012)
✩: What the fuck were they thinking?! Examples: Suicide Squad (2016), X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), Green Lantern (2011)
On this scale I rank the DC movies: ✩✩✩✩✩: The Dark Knight ✩✩✩✩: lol keep trying DC ✩✩✩: Batman Begins, The Dark Knight Rises, Wonder Woman ✩✩: Man of Steel, Batman v Superman ✩: Justice League, Suicide Squad, Green Lantern
And I hesitate to put the Dark Knight in the 5-star category because it's actually quite flawed. But for 2008 it's groundbreaking. Conversely, it's hard for me to put Suicide Squad at only 1 star because it's SO bad that I actually loved watching it. It's almost in that terribad category with movies like The Room, Troll 2, or the Italian Spiderman.
I'm expecting Aquaman to be somewhere between one and two stars, with the faintest possibility of three stars if it turns out the trailers are misleadingly cut and the special effects in them are not the final, polished versions. But yikes.
I really like Jason Momoa, but he's not a leading man in a good film. A fun one, maybe, and I think this movie could have the potential to be fun if the script and dialogue aren't as phoned in/typical as the trailer suggests. It's ten years since Iron Man and The Dark Knight, and DC is still trying to give us this bland, unoriginal crap with a C-list cast. This is what they spent $160M and a huge ad budget on. Yikers.
For the record, I think Shazam LOOKS like it's going to be in the 1-2 star range, maybe 3 stars, but it has this faint potential to be as much as 5 stars. Like, say, Deadpool, it might be taking some big chances, which could seriously pay off if they nail it. Or, it could just be cringey crap. We'll see.
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Post by takewithfood on Dec 22, 2018 2:17:24 GMT -5
Has anyone seen it yet? I'm skipping it, but the reviews look about as expected: dumb, borderline "fresh", but fun. I hope this completes the lesson for DC: that if they drop the grimdark Randroid bullshit they can actually make some entertaining movies. They'll never beat the MCU as a whole - they're 10 years too late and can't catch up - but they can still make a buck or two while introducing a new generation to their IP if they just get back to basics.
EDIT: Forgot to mention that Aquaman is specifically CRUSHING the foreign market. In just under one week it has already raked in over $180 M in China; compare that to the final totals of, say, Thor: Ragnarok ($112 M), Black Panther ($105 M), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 ($100 M), or Wonder Woman ($90 M). I say again, Aquaman has outgrossed these movies in under a week. That is a huge victory for DC in a major foreign market that can be quite unpredictable. It basically paid for itself before it even opened in the US, so you can expect sequels. Hiring a Chinese-born director might have been a pretty savvy move!
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Post by Gris on Dec 22, 2018 5:56:13 GMT -5
Went to watch it last night in fact. And it's both dumb and fun indeed. The plot is trite, the characters are paper thin and the acting leaves much to be desired, but it's still an amusing adventure romp that could still use some trimming. The most worrying aspect of the movie is that it's probably my fave shared DCU movie, but that speaks louder about how dull and ill conceived I find the DCU to be more than Aquaman being an actually solid movie.
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Post by takewithfood on Dec 23, 2018 14:23:19 GMT -5
So in contrast to its performance in China, Aquaman is projected to open to only $70M domestically. That's really, really bad. Compare it to the opening weekends of: Infinity War: $257M Black Panther: $202M Batman v Superman: $166M Guardians Vol 2: $146M Thor Ragnarok: $123M Man of Steel: $116M Wonder Woman: $103M and even Justice League: $94M You can usually expect a movie to roughly triple its opening weekend by the end of a standard run, depending on reviews. With tepid reviews, but little competition on the market this year, my guess is it brings in somewhere around $200M in NA. That only barely covers its budget. Yikers. Still, factoring in the huge foreign market success, it will probably look like $800M internationally, which would put it on par with Wonder Woman. Overall I'd say this feels like good news for the upcoming Flash movie, Flashpoint. If Aquaman had flopped entirely I would have expected them to pull the plug on Flashpoint; I don't think they even have a finished script or a final cast yet, and they aren't expected to film until at least March. They would have plenty of time to halt production if they wanted, but I imagine they're getting a tentative thumbs-up at this point. Cyborg's film will probably sit in limbo for a while, though. The pressure is on Shazam, now, to keep DC in people's minds until Flashpoint and the Wonder Woman sequel (WW84) come out in 2020. Poor Shazam will have to compete with Captain Marvel, Spiderman: Far From Home, and goddamn Avengers: Endgame, though, so good luck with that! Even so, I expect Shazam to do okay, and if so, I think there's still a potential future for the DCEU. The most worrying aspect of the movie is that it's probably my fave shared DCU movie, but that speaks louder about how dull and ill conceived I find the DCU to be more than Aquaman being an actually solid movie. You preferred it to Wonder Woman?
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Post by Ushima911 on Dec 23, 2018 15:34:02 GMT -5
I saw it Friday, and had to say it was entertaining, but dumb. But entertaining nonetheless. I would definitely recommend not seeing it in theaters and waiting for it on Netflix. Unless you're extremely bored, then I'd recommend watching the Spiderman Movie again before seeing this. Wonder Woman of course will be the golden child of the DCU for awhile, at least with these recent films. I am actually very much looking forward to Shazam. It's a definite breath of relief to see them going away from their "dark and edgy" approach to things, and bring a more light hearted comedy. I am looking forward to see how the DCU handles this approach to a film I guess is what I'm saying.
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