Aquaman Will Probably Suck

San Diego Comic Con happened recently, and we had plenty of big releases to talk about. Arguably one of the biggest is Aquaman, DC Comics’ next attempt at a good movie. Hopefully this one pays off, unlike the others, save Wonder Woman. However, I took one look at the newly unveiled Aquaman poster and cringed in horror.

This poster is terrible. I’m so sorry to say it, because I grew up on DC. Yes, today Marvel movies have taken over my life, but the DC shows were what I actually watched as a kid. I never knew Iron Man or Black Widow, but I could give you detailed descriptions on all the Batman villains, and I thought the Justice League cartoon was amazing. So I want to preface everything with saying that I so desperately want DC to succeed. I really want them to compete with Marvel, but Dear God they just stumble every step of the way.

I genuinely can’t believe someone let this be the final poster, and it comes down to one element that encapsulates everything wrong with it. Look at that shark to the right of Aquaman. It’s the great white shark that’s kind of turning with his tail out to the side. That was the first thing I noticed in the poster. The second I saw it, I recognized it. This is a stock great white shark image. It’s so basic, it’s one of the more popular ones taken of the famous shark. I was so taken aback by this I googled “great white shark stock image” and this came up five rows down. I did maybe half a scroll with my mouse and there it was, just as I knew it would be.

My issue with this is how lazy it is. This is lazy. DC can make some of the most expensive movies ever, get big name directors and talent, and yet this is what they come up with. I shouldn’t be thinking of easy to come by Photoshop images when I think of Aquaman and the epic seascape of his home. What’s worse, this is the only real shark they used. The other great white sharks are so obviously digital, they look like they belong on the Sci-Fi channel. Their skin looks rubbery and computer generated. The kicker? The two great whites on the lower half of the poster, about level with Aquaman’s arms, are the same shark with the image flipped.

The hammerhead on his other side is real, because that’s another picture I’ve seen on the internet. I’m a bit of a shark enthusiast, sorry. Then there are the digital orcas. It’s all so fake. So obviously fake. That’s what boggles my mind. How can I get excited for Aquaman when the CGI on his poster looks worse than the entirety of Justice League?

The problem that I see with this is it feels rushed. Throw Jason Momoa in front of a fake background and paste the biggest and most recognizable sea predators at random throughout the poster. Brilliant! Lazy and rushed is the theme with DC right now, and it shows.

What that one lazy copy and pasted shark shows me is that DC doesn’t care about putting out quality. They want Jason Momoa to look cool and sexy, and that’s about it. I like him, don’t get me wrong, but it’s so obvious that the character of Aquaman isn’t really Aquaman. He’s Jason Momoa underwater. If you look at what we’ve already seen of him in Justice League, he’s just funny in some moments. If you cut him out of that film, it would be the exact same as it is now. He changed nothing. How does that excite me for his solo movie?

I just can’t believe this shark has totally ruined Aquaman for me right now.

But wait, you say, there was a trailer too! The trailer was cool, right! I mean…sure. I’ve seen lots of people reacting positively to the trailer, so I watched it.

Damn. I don’t mean that in a good way.

I should say that maybe this is one of my pet peeves, but I still think it’s lazy: Narration. Narration at the beginning of movies has become so normal, and when trailers do it, it annoys the hell out of me. This doesn’t feel like dialogue from the movie. This is Aquaman telling us his history with his parents. I hate that. Imagine how much better that would be without narration, and the first thing we get from him isn’t lifeless narration, but a young Arthur learning he can communicate with sharks at an aquarium. Fake as hell looking sharks aside, that would at least be better.

And then, God save us, comes Mera’s lines. Again, these are straight up exposition. It’s like they don’t trust the movie to speak for itself. It has to spoon-feed plot points to the audience. It’s such a run of the mill, bland trailer.

We know already walking in about Arthur not wanting to be king, about Mera insisting he come back, the fight with his brother, Atlantis vs the surface world, blah blah blah. The effects don’t help much either. There’s a dock scene that looks fake and oversaturated. A scene of Mera jumping on a rock looks rubbery. Actually all the jumping looks fake. Again, the sea creatures look fake.

Here’s the thing: I know there are no underwater people riding sharks and mosasaur-looking creatures in real life. Then again, there are no dinosaurs, and Spielberg at least did some practical effects and made them look real. The dragons in Game of Thrones look better as well. Though both of those probably had big budgets too, this is just inexcusable for a company that owns Batman and Superman. It’s so clear how heavily they’ll rely on Momoa’s likeability and carefree attitude. It didn’t work for Justice League, and it probably won’t translate well to a full length film. I hope it does, but I’m so pessimistic. They haven’t given me anything to prove that this will be a good story. You can have all the charismatic actors in the world in your corner, but without some kind of story, it’s meaningless. I hope Aquaman has a good story, even though I already think we all know how it ends: He takes responsibility and becomes King, or he takes responsibility and stops running from his problems. Either way, we know how he will grow already, thanks to the narration of the trailer.

That infuriates me.

If we look at a similar film, Thor: Ragnarok, we also get narration about the plot with some jokes. However, Thor doesn’t telegraph to us the character arc he takes over. He becomes king, as Aquaman probably will, but what the trailers don’t show is how Thor learns to cope with losing everything and having to fight with just himself. His father is gone, his hammer is gone, and he wins not just with brute strength, but by outsmarting his sister and even Loki. Thor goes from a funny hothead dependent on external lifelines to someone who can more readily control his powers and be a leader. His conversations with Loki show his growth. He isn’t fooled anymore, he doesn’t think he can change his brother. Instead he tells Loki that he knows Loki will always be a schemer and that they should accept each other’s separate paths. Even Loki doesn’t quite get this at first, but in doing nothing, Thor ends up changing Loki anyway. His brother returns once Thor has mentally surpassed him. Then there is Hela, his sister, the big villain of the film. Thor discovers he has even stronger lightning powers than he thought before, but that doesn’t beat her. He beats her by unleashing the greater and more powerful Surtur and destroying his home. It’s a tough decision, but he makes it without having to lift a finger to defeat her.

For me, those character developments stick out and make it Thor’s strongest appearance in the MCU. None of that was in the trailer. They put the fun banter and cool visuals in, sure, but none of the real heart of the story was spoiled.

I’m scared Aquaman has spoiled whatever heart they have. It practically tells us in a Nicholas Sparks-esque scene that he’ll fall in love with Mera. Aquaman will have a tough battle at the end, and then he’ll learn to be a king. Basic stuff, really. I hope I’m wrong. Maybe they cut the trailer in a way to make it seem simpler than it is. However, with DC copy and pastes sharks from Google onto their posters, I’m not sure how complex of a film they can make.