Film / Aquaman (2018)

aka: Aquaman

"Atlantis always had a king. Now it needs something more."

"A war is coming to the surface whether you like it or not. And I'm bringing the wrath of the Seven Seas with me."

—King Orm Marius

Aquaman is a 2018 Superhero movie based off the DC Comics superhero of the same name, directed by James Wan. It is the sixth movie to be set in the DC Extended Universe.

Following the events of Justice League, Arthur Curry/Aquaman (Jason Momoa), the son of Queen Atlanna (Nicole Kidman) and the lighthouse keeper Thomas Curry (Temuera Morrison), claims his birthright as ruler of the underwater kingdom of Atlantis, with the help of Mera (Amber Heard) in order to prevent his half-brother king Orm (Patrick Wilson) from invading the surface. To do so, he goes on a quest to find a powerful weapon, the legendary trident of King Atlan.

The cast also includes Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Black Manta, Michael Beach as Jesse Kane, Willem Dafoe as Nuidis Vulko, Dolph Lundgren as King Nereus, Ludi Lin as Murk and Randall Park as Dr. Stephen Shin.

The film was released on December 21, 2018. A sequel titled Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom was released on December 20, 2023.

Previews: Trailer 1, Trailer 2, Final Trailer.

---

Aquaman provides examples of:

Tropes A to B

• 2-D Space: An underwater version, but justified in dialogue. Atlantis is a walled city, but not domed, with a central highway leading in and out. Arthur points out the absurdity of this highway following a bridge since a vessel can go in any direction while Mera explains the bridge was part of the original surface-level city and the entrance is also a diplomatic checkpoint, with security measures (giant cannons on the wall) in place to prevent anyone from trying to enter another way.
• Absurdly Sharp Blade: Tridents and swords made of Atlantean steel can go through ultra-dense Atlantean flesh and even Atlantean power armour like it is nothing, to say nothing of tech made by surface-dwellers.
• Achilles' Heel: Only high-born Atlanteans are capable of breathing air, so disrupting a rank-and-file Atlantean soldier's Mobile Fishbowl will suffocate them. While not taken advantage of, it's also shown several times that even those who can breathe air may need an adjustment period when separated from water suddenly; both Orm and Atlanna have to cough up the water still in their lungs before they can start breathing air.
• Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene: Arthur and his dad enjoying a quiet drink in a bar after he finishes with Black Manta's pirates.
• Actor Allusion:
  • When Atlanna eats his goldfish, Thomas offers, "I was going to make you some eggs..."
  • When Arthur wakes up on the boat that Mera "borrowed", he is lying on his back, with his hair in a tight bun and beard wet, (and appearing closely trimmed), bringing shades of Khal Drogo, even sporting a wound in the same place as the "scratch" that ultimately felled Drogo.
• Actually Pretty Funny: After Vulko orders his arrest and repeats Orm's previous line about putting him "somewhere with a view", Orm can't help but smile.
• Adaptation Amalgamation: Just like Wonder Woman, Aquaman draws inspiration from both the New 52 and Golden and Silver Age comics.
  • The story of Arthur and Orm fighting over the throne is lifted from the Throne of Atlantis storyline and its animated adaptation.
  • Arthur himself is based primarily on his "down-to-Earth hero" type interpretation as in the New 52 with a few OUTRAGEOUS! characteristics recalling his Batman: The Brave and the Bold tweaks. He wears his traditional orange and green costume, though his long hair and beard recall his Justice League incarnation.
  • Black Manta's costume has both the exaggerated proportions of his classic look and the more tactical design akin to his appearance in Young Justice.
• Adaptation Displacement: In-universe, Aquaman appears to have no idea Pinocchio was a book before it was a film (in his defense, a lot of people in Real Life aren't aware of the book either).
• Adaptation Name Change:
  • Aquaman's Atlantean name, Orin, isn't used for this setting, with him going by his birth name of Arthur Curry, which sticks even as he's crowned King of Atlantis.
  • Black Manta is given the name David Kane while in the comics his last name is Hyde.
  • Mera has Only One Name in the comics, but here she is given the full name of Y'Mera Xebella Challa.
  • The Fishermen are the comicbook Tritonians given the name of an obscure Aquaman villain from the comics.
• Advertised Extra: Ricou, the king of the Fishermen, featured in the Comic Con 2018 poster and in the first released stills of the film. He is a king so he might have some importance and thus significant screentime, right? He gets killed by Orm less than a minute after the start of his scene.
• Aliens Speaking English: Well not aliens, but still we are never shown a spoken language dedicated to the underwater worlds besides those written. All underwater beings capable of speech speak in English.
• The Alliance: This is the goal Orm is planning to achieve: unite the surviving nations of Atlantis. He mostly does this so he can have manpower to destroy the surface and is willing to do anything, down to committing regicide and invading a nation, if it means that he can gain others' loyalty. After deposing him, Arthur receives recognition from the four surviving Atlantean kingdoms, thus finally uniting Atlantis.
• Almost Kiss: Arthur and Mera lean in to kiss after discovering the last clue pointing to the location of the Trench. Then Black Manta and the Atlantean commandos he leads show up and open fire.
• Amplifier Artifact: The Trident of Atlan supercharges Arthur's ability to speak to sea creatures when he claims it allowing him to command the Karathen, the Atlantean army's own shark-mounts, and even The Trench.
• Ancestral Weapon:
  • The core mission of the movie is about Arthur finding the Trident of Atlan, the last king of Atlantis before the sinking, and which is said only the true heir to the throne can retrieve and wield.
  • It's revealed that the trident (or quindent technically, with five prongs) that Aquaman used in Justice League originally belonged to his mother, and specifically her family line. Orm duels Arthur using a different style of trident, said to belong to his father.
  • Less dramatic but no less awesome is the diving knife Jesse Kane gives to his son David, along with a story about how his father carried it in the Second World War.
• And Starring: Nicole Kidman gets the honored slot in the credits.
• Animalistic Abomination: The creatures of the Trench. Believe it or not, they are actually a branch of the original Atlanteans, but evolved in the deep seas to become... different.
• Apparently Human Merfolk: The people of Atlantis and Xebel are basically humans who adapted to underwater life, complete with lung-based waterbreathing (as shown by Atlanna and Orm having to empty the water out of their lungs when they need to switch to breathe air).
• Arbitrary Skepticism: News casters and commentators openly mock Dr. Shin's belief in Atlantis in a world that has suffered two separate alien invasions, knows there's an Amazon-goddess around, has seen the rise of metahumans and had come under attack from an evil goddess, even ignoring Shin pointing out there's an actual world-famous Atlantean living among them.
• Arranged Marriage:
  • Atlanna with King Orvax, which was the reason why she escaped to the surface many years ago. She conceived Orm from this relationship, although it's worth noting that she had him after she was forced to go home.
  • Mera is betrothed to Orm as a further incentive to seal Atlantis and Xebel's alliance. The two do not have affection for each other otherwise, and when Mera betrays him by saving Arthur from the Ring of Fire, he orders her execution.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: During the first duel between Arthur and Orm, Arthur's display describes his cons as being a surface dweller, a half breed... and a drunk.
• Artistic License – Animal Care: One of the sharks that comes to young Arthur's rescue at the aquarium is a Great White Shark. In reality it's unlikely an aquarium would hold a great white, as they have a reputation for dying extremely quickly in captivity.
• Artistic License – Geology:
  • The various instances of Lava Adds Awesome and Lethal Lava Land underwater. It doesn't quite react to water the same way as it does in reality (namely, cooling, solidifying and releasing gas much faster than in the surface).
  • There are no oceanic trenches in the Mediterranean.
• Artistic License – History: The destruction of the original Atlantean kingdom and King Atlan's self-imposed exile are shown to predate the desertification of the Sahara, placing them well over 6,000 years ago, before human recorded history. However, the statue in Sicily that figures into King Atlan's clue to find the Trident depicted Romulus, the founder of Rome, who would have lived in the 8th century BC. Perhaps, however, the clues weren't from King Atlan, but someone later who deciphered the clues, perhaps the statue makers themselves.
• Artistic License – Marine Biology: Whales, dolphins (including orcas), and sea turtles are air breathers that can't survive too long deep underwater without coming to the surface for air. Unless those all about Atlantis had been adapted to living permanently underwater the same way the Atlanteans had been. Also, Atlantean shark mounts shown holding stationary position in water (sharks have no swim bladder or mechanism to pump water over their gills - in some species, if they stop moving forward they sink and drown) and growling (with no lungs or vocal cords, sharks can't make vocalizations of any sort). Again, unless this is a new species of shark native to Atlantis that has these peculiar characteristics and happens to look exactly like a great white.
• Artistic License – Physics:
  • Same kind of problem as the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Iron Man: being encased in a metal suit wouldn't offer David Kane/Black Manta any protection from the damage he'd take from simple inertia from his fall down a cliff. If this was real life, he would be dead.
  • In the underwater action scenes, things that are hit or thrown go flying as if the water provides no more drag than air. An object traveling through water without propulsion should decelerate very quickly.
• Ascended Meme: A longtime rebuttal to Aquaman's perceived lameness is that he could command Cthulhu if the two were in the same setting. This movie includes a Kaiju with tentacles dwelling in a lost underwater city, who ends up helping Arthur in great part because he's the only one that is able to converse with it.
• As You Know: Orm greets Nereus with a history lesson about the seven kingdoms and the height of their power and unity that Nereus should probably already know since he's a fellow king. Nereus fires back with another exposition dump about how Orm uniting at least the four kingdoms will grant him the title of "Ocean Master".
• Atlantis: Hundreds of years ago, Atlantis was a united nation. Then the place sank, forcing the survivors to adapt to the changing environment, and six additional kingdoms arose aside from Atlantis proper:
  • Xebel, who closely resemble the original Atlanteans and seem to be their close ally.
  • The Fishermen, who have evolved into merfolk.
  • The Brine, dwelling in a volcanic region and have evolved into a crustacean species.
  • The Trench, now devolved into an Always Chaotic Evil species that both Atlantis and Xebel fight against.
  • The Deserters, now extinct, and had occupied what became the Sahara when their kingdom dried up.
  • The Missing.
• Attack Its Weak Point: Though Aquaman's skin is too dense to be pierced by ordinary steel weapons, after Black Manta stabs him with an Atlantean steel blade, he then stabs him in the wound with his ancestral dagger, which is extremely painful.
• Attack of the Monster Appendage: When Arthur is first confronted to the Karathen, all we see of the monster is its titanic squid-like tentacles trying to crush him. We see the full monster later, and it's quite colossal.
• Audible Sharpness: Black Manta has one justified use of this trope in the sword he hides in his gauntlet, since said gauntlet is made of metal and plastic instead of the usual soft materials. He also plays this straight with his grandfather's knife, unsheathing and resheathing it audibly when its scabbard is made of black leather.
• Award-Bait Song: "Everything I Need".
• Awesome Moment of Crowning: Arthur gets the traditional scenario after besting Orm in combat for all of the kingdoms to see, but his true moment of crowning occurred earlier when he first grasped the Trident of Atlan, as being able to wield the weapon makes Arthur King of the Sea by providence.
• Awesome Underwater World: Luminous cities, giant seahorses, mosasaurs, mermaids — it's no wonder that when Arthur first visits Atlantis, all he can do for the first few minutes is gawk.
• Backstab Backfire: Jesse Kane tries to shoot Aquaman in the back with a grenade launcher after Aquaman decided to spare him. The hero sidesteps the shot and the explosion pins Jesse under debris in a flooding room. Since Jesse wasted the second chance he had been given, Aquaman leaves him to die.
• Badass Boast:
  • The Brine King rallying his troops before leading them into battle.
    Brine King: We will not bow to Atlantis! We'll give them a fight that they'll never forget!
  • Arthur himself has one to throw at Orm when their final Duel to the Death is about to begin.
    Orm: That trident doesn't change what you are. A half-breed bastard! Atlantis will never accept you as its king!
    Arthur/Aquaman: Well, then by bloodshed do the gods make known their will!
• Badass Normal: Black Manta is a normal human wielding some exotic weapons, and manages to hold his own reasonably against Arthur even though his weapons were inefficient. In a rematch, utilizing repurposed Atlantean armor and tech given to him specifically to hunt down Arthur, he manages to deal some real harm.
• Bait-and-Switch: When a rough-looking gang of biker dudes approach Arthur at the bar, it seems they're about to challenge him to a fight. It turns out they just want him to pose for some selfies with them.
• Bar Brawl: Subverted; a pack of bikers accost Arthur at the bar, and Arthur prepares for a fight, but they just want a picture.
• Barehanded Blade Block:
  • David attacks Aquaman with a sword. He blocks the blade with his bare hands, then breaks it.
  • Done the traditional way with a non-bladed weapon, even: part of Vulko's training of Arthur to use the quindent/polearms involved him throwing them and expecting Arthur to catch them on reflex.
• Battle in the Rain: The final duel between Arthur/Aquaman and Orm happens on the surface and in the rain.
• Beast of Battle:
  • The various factions of Atlanteans make use of giant underwater creatures like sharks, seahorses and even a tylosaurus.
  • Some weaponized animals also, there are sharks with Frickin' Laser Beams, of all things.
  • Aquaman rides the gigantic Karathen in the Final Battle to put an end to it.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished:
  • Mera is the obvious example but Arthur also qualifies. He suffers stab wounds and plasma burns, but his skin remains beautifully unmarred once they heal.
  • Atlanna spends 20 years in the trench by herself, fighting off monsters. Not only is she miraculously unhurt or scarred, she even still has her nail polish on.
• Big Bad: Orm, who seeks to go to war with the surface world.
• Big Damn Heroes: Aquaman showing up in the middle of the Final Battle, riding Karathen, and putting an end to it by controlling the creatures of the sea with the trident.
• The Big Damn Kiss: Arthur and Mera have one during the final battle. Immediately turns into an Orbital Kiss with explosions and submarine fire in the background.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: Which Black Manta wields in conjunction with a regular sword.
• Bland-Name Product: the "Boston Aquarium", where Arthur first telepathically communicates with marine life, is an Expy for the New England Aquarium (though it doesn't look anything like it).
• Blatant Lies: When Arthur and Thomas are at the bar, the news reports on the Russian submarine rescued by Aquaman. Thomas smiles at Arthur, who said "That wasn't me."
• Book Ends: The movie begins and ends with a narration from Arthur which begin with "My father was a lighthouse keeper. My mother was a queen."
• Body Wipe: Used many times during Time Skip transitions or flashbacks. Examples include the camera entering the ocean waters only to end up in the waters of an aquarium.
• Boisterous Bruiser: Arthur has this written all over him, in large letters and bold face, for much of the film, as he cracks jokes and really seems to enjoy most of his fights. Only during the most plot-critical battles does he get serious and drop this attitude. It's no coincidence that Aquaman (the cartoon version) provides the trope illustration.
• Bond One-Liner: As befits his Boisterous Bruiser style, Arthur's also fond of these. For example, after breaking into a submarine in his opening appearance:
  Arthur: Permission to come aboard?
• Boring Return Journey: We aren't shown how Arthur and Mera got out of an underground chamber hundreds of feet below the Sahara Desert and made their way to Sicily.
• Break the Haughty: Orm's ego gets bruised after Arthur not only breaks his father's trident, which had previously been undefeated, but shatters it to pieces with the Trident of Atlan using the technique Vulko taught him at the end of their duel.
• Brick Joke:
  • While running away from Orm and his men, Arthur and Mera hide inside the mouth of a whale, the former picking the idea from Pinocchio. Mera obviously has no idea what he means until they are in Italy where she finds out it is a children book, though Arthur seemingly doesn't know there's a book about it, getting the idea from the movie instead.
  • Black Manta's first test of his helmet lasers, before he has the firing mechanism down, causes him to nearly shoot himself and blows a hole in the roof. When Dr. Shin is studying the damaged suit after rescuing him from the ocean, Manta warns him about that problem, and it similarly blows a hole in Shin's roof after a near-miss.
• Bullying a Dragon: A subverted example occurs when a group of bikers at a local bar see Arthur with his father and it seems they are about to challenge the "fish boy from the TV" to a fight. However, it turns out that they just really want to take selfies with him as he's considered the local hero.

Tropes C to F

• Cain and Abel: Aquaman and Ocean Master are half brothers and they come to blows. Orm is the villain and Cain of the pair. He initially states that he would rather avoid the fight, but later both fights his brother and hires a mercenary to murder Arthur, something he can't do openly because of the promise he's made to an ally. Yet when he shoots the ship with Arthur down and believes his brother dead, he is not happy about it.
• The Cameo:
  • The Brine King is voiced by John Rhys-Davies for his few lines of dialogue.
  • The Karathen is voiced by Julie Andrews.
  • The airplane pilot who takes Arthur and Mera to the Sahara is played by longtime James Wan collaborator Leigh Whannell.
• Casting Gag:
  • Michael Beach, who voiced Devil Ray (an Expy of Black Manta) in Justice League Unlimited, has been cast as Black Manta's father.
  • Jason Momoa made his acting debut as the lifeguard Jason Ioane in Baywatch Hawaii; Yahya Abdul-Mateen II — who plays Black Manta — played a cop who regularly butts heads with the lifeguards in the Baywatch movie.
• Ceiling Smash:
  • Arthur's mother, Atlanna, has a fight in a flashback sequence in which she takes out a group of mooks in her home. At one point, she stabs one of them with her quindent and slams him into the door frame above them.
  • Aquaman throws a mook into the interior ceiling of a submarine.
  • During Arthur's fight with Black Manta in Italy, he grabs Manta by the shoulders and whips him into the ceiling of the house they just crashed into.
• Celebrity Paradox: See here.
• Central Theme:
  • Don't judge a place you've never been to.
  • There's also a lot of emphasis on familial bonds, with even the villains showing that they care about their relatives.
  • The three main characters (Aquaman, Orm and Black Manta) are all dealing with the emotional fallout of a parent's premature death.
  • If you're looking for a fight you will probably find one. There is strength and nobility in making friends. Arthur's ability to communicate with sea life is directly tied to why he is the rightful king of Atlantis.
• Chandler's Law: Dialogue scenes in this movie have a tendency to get cut off by explosions, which progress the plot.
• Chekhov's Skill:
  • Vulko's spinning defensive maneuver against a regular trident/quindent attack is later employed by Aquaman himself in his final duel with Ocean Master.
  • Arthur's ability to talk to undersea creatures as shown in one of his opening scenes ends up being an almost ludicrously powerful ability when we get to see just what kind of monsters dwell in the deep, including the Trench and especially the Karathen. It even allows him to turn his enemy's mounts against them, simultaneously greatly reducing their effectiveness, while swelling his own ranks.
  • The blade-catch that Vulko taught Arthur is an inversion, as he employed it against his future arch-nemesis before we get a flashback of him learning it.
• The Chosen One: Atlanna, Mera and Vulko are certain that Arthur is the rightful king of Atlantis and inheritor of the Trident of Atlan, the first king. Arthur has no interest, but recognizes the danger posed to the surface world if he doesn't intervene. It turns out his ability to talk to sea life is the crux of why he is the chosen one, as Atlan also had that power and with the trident that ability is amplified.
• Color-Coded Armies: In the final battle, all four underwater factions have colors to tell them apart. Atlantis' is silver and blue, Xebel is copper and orange, the Fishermen are gold and green, and the Brine are black and red.
• Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: Defied hard.
  • Arthur's exploits earned him the "Aquaman" name as a folk hero epithet, which he comes to accept by the end.
  • The title of "Manta" is apparently a Red Baron earned by the Kane pirate family, which becomes David's basis for his "Black Manta" callsign.
  • Even the positively cheesy title "Ocean Master" is apparently a traditional Atlantean title anyone can claim if they have enough political and military clout, which Orm, not unjustifiably, has gained.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Aquaman helping with the defeat of Steppenwolf is mentioned by Mera early in the movie.
  • There is a newspaper article stating that Wonder Woman denied dating Aquaman on Dr. Shin/Black Manta's String Theory wall in The Stinger.
• Contrived Coincidence: A message from king Atlan to his people is lost for millennia... but an archaeological dig finds it just in time for Arthur to use to locate the Trident and dethrone Orm.
• Cool Versus Awesome: The fact that you have two underwater Atlanteans who are at war with each other commanding sharks with laser beams, mosasauruses, underwater sea monsters, and advanced near-magical technology already counts as this before you factor in the guy with a Powered Armor that has Eye Beams.
• Cosmic Horror Story: A number of the Aquaman comic stories fall into the spectrum, and the movie deals with a number of bizarre creatures of the deepest parts of the ocean that are featured in said comics. James Wan introduced his involvement with the movie with a quote by H. P. Lovecraft:
  "For ocean is more ancient than the mountains, and freighted with the memories and the dreams of time."
• Create Your Own Villain: While David Kane was already a pirate and mercenary, Arthur ignored a hypocritical plea for help to rescue his father (he already spared his life and advised him to leave, Jesse fired a wayward grenade which caused him to get trapped and fill the room with water), which turned the enmity personal and led directly to Kane becoming Black Manta dedicated to getting revenge. Arthur himself realizes this later in the movie, indicating regret given that as a reason he is not King material.
• Creation Sequence: David Kane re-engineering the Atlantean tech to create the Black Manta suit.
• Creator's Culture Carryover: European toilets don't fill the toilet bowl that high with water. Murk would have gotten his hair wet and that's about it.
• Creator Thumbprint: The camera spinning along with a character getting flipped technique that was used by James Wan in Furious 7 shows up here as well.
• Cue the Sun: At the end of the Final Battle, after Arthur subdues Orm but decides to spare him rather than finish him off, the storm stops and the sun rises just as Atlanna arrives.
• Dark Horse Sibling: Orm becomes the king of Atlantis, despite not being the first-born son of queen Atlanna, while first-born half-sibling Arthur is shunned by him and lives on the surface. However, Orm is ruthless and tries to wage war against the surface world, while Arthur succeeds in gaining the trident of Atlantis' first king, making him the true ruler of Atlantis. In the end, Arthur defeats Orm and takes his rightful place on the throne.
• Defiant to the End: The Brine King, who boldly refuses to swear allegiance to Orm even at trident-point.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Initially Mera sees Arthur as a buffoon, but warms up to him considerably as he shows Hidden Depths and especially once she finds herself touring Sicily with him.
• Delayed Reaction: The crowd attending the duel between Orm and Aquaman is reached by an underwater shockwave caused by the combatants colliding, then everyone turns at each other to process what just happened. Then they all cheer.
• Destination Defenestration: The fight scene in Italy has Black Manta kicking Aquaman out of a window on a nearby rooftop outside.
• Deus Exit Machina:
  • Vulko is repeatedly said to be capable of beating Orm by himself and easily defeats Arthur in a training spar, but spends the entirety of the movie avoiding any fights especially with Orm himself, as he knows even if he did win, it would have been natural as he was his teacher and it would have definitely prevented Arthur from being accepted as King. While he may have been willing to accompany Arthur and Mera in their quest for the Trident, being Orm's spy subsequently leaves him absent and soon enough Orm's goons and later the Trench gave them a lot of trouble that could have probably been mitigated significantly by his presence, and his refusal to fight Orm himself when Arthur is about to means that even with the Trident, Arthur had a hard time against him. Clearly indicating how he could have decided the outcome on Arthur's side a lot more quicker had he been given the chance to get involved.
  • Atlanna, yet another exceptionally strong and skilled royal Atlantean, does not even fight at all aside from when she trounces a group of soldiers in what was already a Foregone Conclusion in that she was protecting her son in the past. While she doubts she could have defeated the Karathen even if Arthur and Mera helped her, it's obvious she would have been of some great assistance against Orm and his army, yet her only role in the final battle was doing the finishing touch to Orm by talking sense into him. The fact that she naturally doesn't fight her own son does have justified reasons in that it's conceivable she would have had a strong chance to beat him in a fair fight, but it's not only because Arthur needs to do it himself, it's also because she probably would not have been able to fight properly against the son she still loves. She is not even seen kicking any of Orm's soldiers ass as she definitely could have or using her experience as a ruler and skills to talk Nereus or the other rulers out of fighting, presumably due to Ruleof Cool purposes in that she most likely could have but the final battle needed to be shown epicly and besides Mera already has what it takes to convince Nereus.
• Drives Like Crazy: Mera displays some "creative" driving while escaping the Atlantean capital, evading fire from pursuing ships and the perimeter hydrocannons in such a way that Arthur freaks out for the first time in the movie.
• Digital De-Aging: Nicole Kidman, Temuera Morrison, and Willem Dafoe were all digitally deaged in the flashback sequences.
• Do a Barrel Roll: When Mera fights her way to her father in the final battle, her killer whale mount and the camera both do this.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Arthur's mother is Atlantean (who look like white humans), his father Maori. It's probably not coincidence that the prejudice toward their relationship (and him, as a "half breed") mirrors real dislike of interracial relationships or people born from them.
• Doomed Predecessors: The cave in which King Atlan's trident can be found is littered with the skeletal remains of those who were foolish enough to come there — they were all killed by Karathen. Then Arthur came in, and earns the trident by proving his worth to Karathen.
• The Dragon: Captain Murk is this to Orm as the commander of his elite guard.
• Dynamic Entry: The Atlantean Elite Mooks can't seem to make an entrance without Stuff Blowing Up.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Arthur becomes the ruler of Atlantis, with Mera at his side, and is revered by the seven nations as not only a king, but also a hero. Having regained the lost Trident of Atlan, he now commands the loyalty of every being of the sea. He is also able to save Atlanna from the Hidden Sea and arranges for her reunion with Thomas.
• Eldritch Ocean Abyss: The Always Chaotic Evil creatures who reside in the Trench are all horrific monsters. They actually evolved from original Atlanteans into what they are because of the natural environment of trenches.
• Elite Mook: The red armored Atlantean soldiers, mentioned as Orm's Praetorian Guard but end up closer to this trope with the number of times they're out in the field.
• Entitled Bastard: David Kane demands Arthur to rescue his father from drowning, completely ignoring that his father had performed a Backstab Backfire on Arthur after the latter tried to spare him. Arthur shuts him up for this, saying that they deserve no mercy after they massacred a bunch of innocent Russian sailors.
• Epic Tracking Shot: Black Manta and his mooks chase Arthur and Mera across rooftops, bursting through walls and blasting structures in their attempts to kill them.
• Establishing Character Moment: At a bar drinking with his father, Arthur is approached by rough-looking characters seeming to mock him as "fish boy". Ready for a fight, they instead ask him for a selfie. He begrudgingly agrees, and a series of further selfies show that they partied together the rest of the day. Arthur is rough around the edges, but he means well and knows how to make friends.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Orm loved his mother, Atlanna, dearly. Her execution for leaving her arranged engagement to Orm's father and having a relationship with a surface-dweller, Thomas Curry, devastated and haunted him to the present day. This is the main reason why he despises his half-brother, Arthur, as he sees him as a reminder of the cause of her death. All it takes is Atlanna interfering with his second fight against Arthur to make him surrender gracefully instead of begging for death.
• Evil-Detecting Dog: Tom and Atlanna’s dog starts barking just before the Atlanteans invade their home in the prologue.
• Excalibur in the Rust: Played with. The MacGuffin of the film, the Trident of Atlan, is indeed kept and exposed to the marine elements for millennia — together with the armor of King Atlan which is still worn by his corpse. Curiously enough, the moment Arthur finally takes the Trident for himself, it's still looking as pristine as ever. It is the armor, however, which has visibly been weathered. And yet, the moment he finally steps out and having taken the power of Atlan for himself, even the armor looks newly-minted.
• Expecting Someone Taller:
  • A location variant. After being told about the Ring of Fire, Arthur assumes that the tiny room with a ring of lava will be where he and Orm fight and chuckles accordingly. Turns out the room is actually a kind of ready room for the real Ring of Fire: a giant stadium with hundreds of spectators coming to watch Orm kick his half-breed brother's ass.
    Arthur: [realizing what he just got himself into] Shit.
  • It turns out that this partially comes into effect with the crowd as well. They came expecting to see a clear cut execution. But once they realize that Arthur is no push-over, they are on their feet. Granted, they were cheering for Orm, but still. They got far more than the advertised price of admission.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: Mera is trying to convince Nereus that Ormn faked the submarine attack to get him to go to war and as she's pointing out he's not naive enough to believe the False Flag Operation she realizes that no, no he isn't. He's going along with Orm because he wanted an excuse to attack the surface as well.
• Exploding Fish Tanks: Subverted. On a field trip to an aquarium, two of Arthur's classmates start picking on him while he's standing next to an enormous "habitat" type tank. It brings a reaction from inside the tank: an angry great white shark that rams the tank wall hard. The tank wall starts to crack, but Arthur uses his telepathy to stop the shark before it can deliver the final blow.
• Expressive Mask: Orm's starfish-styled helmet matches his expressions.
• False Flag Operation: Orm secretly bought David Kane's services and instructed him to attack the Council of the Kings during his meeting with King Nereus, which he accomplished with an empty remote-controlled military submarine, thus instigating their alliance. Ultimately subverted as Nereus saw right through the ruse, but pretended to have fallen for it as he also wanted to attack the surface world.
• Fantastic Racism: Despite being descendants of surface humans, many Atlanteans (especially the main kingdom and the Xebel Kingdom) regard the humans of the surface with blatant disdain, seeing them as inferior and unworthy of respect or discourse. This view is only bolstered by the massively increased pollution from the surface world over the course of the last century, though rather than reaching out to let other humans know they are being harmed (or to share whatever technology allows Atlanteans to be so eco-friendly), the Atlanteans instead decide that the surface humans must "learn their place" (despite most of humanity not even knowing the Atlanteans exist). Possibly averted with the Fishermen Kingdom, whose king at least seemed open to talking with and educating the surface humans, though only when his people decide it is time to do so.
• Fiery Redhead: Mera is certainly spirited and determined. Quote Arthur after she jumps out of a plane, that was still in flight, over a desert: "Redheads, gotta love 'em."
• Final Battle: Interestingly, the film's main hero doesn't take part in it on the ground alongside a particular side, and rather comes in to end it. More specifically, Aquaman shows up riding Karathen. Karathen's arrival surely does some damage to the Brine army, but Aquaman has no specific connection to them and primarily attacks Orm's army with creatures of the sea to stop his folly.
• Fish People: When the original Atlantis fell, the Atlanteans had to adapt to the harsh environment of the sea. While the inhabitants of the new Atlantis and Xebel merely became Apparently Human Merfolk, others, like the Fishermen and the Brine, evolved into more fish or crustacean-like forms. With the exception of the Trench folk, however, they can still speak coherently.
• Foe Romance Subtext: Black Manta's obsession over killing Aquaman leans a bit into this, especially as he's crafting his iconic suit to Depeche Mode's "It's No Good" — which is often interpreted as an obsessive love song.
• Foreshadowing:
  • On Thomas' Living-Room table is a paperback entitled The Dunwich Horror written by one H. P. Lovecraft, infamous for writing Cosmic Horror pulp fiction about hordes of hideous flesh-eating Fish-Men and Skyscraper-Sized Giant Demon Gods rising out the ocean depths writhing with tentacles... and sure enough, Arthur meets both on his epic quest to find Atlan's trident. However, even more relevant to the plot of the film is that the main focus of The Dunwich Horror is tale of two brothers with strange parents, one of whom is trying to unlock ancient occult secrets.
  • You'll notice that Atlanna vomits up water once she comes to in Thomas's house, foreshadowing Mera incapacitating Orm by sticking him into an air bubble and also forcing him to expunge water from his lungs.
  • Thomas, being a lighthouse keeper (with a broken television) has time to be well read. He likens Atlanna's story to King Arthur and chooses that name for his son. He also sees that Arthur gets education from the land beyond what is taught in school. This foreshadows both the Pinocchio thing and his knowledge of ancient Roman kings.
  • Arthur's ability to talk to sea creatures appears to be a rare ability even among Atlantean as Mera has never heard of anyone doing it before. According to legend, the only other person who had such ability was King Atlan himself, meaning only those with this ability are able to wield the Trident to its fullest potential.
• Forging Scene: A flashback scene shows King Atlan's trident being forged millennia before the events of the film.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: The "tale of the tape"-style stats on Arthur and Orm before their Circle of Fire duel go by too fast to read completely, but include amusing tidbits, such as saying that Arthur is "a drunk".

Tropes G to L

• Gaia's Vengeance: During the final battle, Arthur's power to command with marine life is enhanced by Atlan's trident and he uses it to command all aquatic life in the vicinity (including the Trench) to attack the Atlantean army.
• Genre-Busting: It's not easy tacking a genre on this movie outside of the broad descriptors of "superhero" / "comic book movie". It takes influence from classic adventure movies, fantasy, science fiction and sea stories, all rolled into one.
• Genre Throwback:
  • To the old school adventure films James Wan is a fan of, with Raiders of the Lost Ark and Romancing the Stone being two frequent comparisons; the middle stretch of the film is where this influence is most strong felt, with the two bickering heroes going on a globetrotting trip, hunting clues and digging through ancient artifacts while fighting pirates and sea monsters in an attempt to get to an old treasure.
  • More broadly, the story is basically The Hero's Journey invoking the Arthurian Legend with the trident of Atlan in place of the sword in the stone.
• Genuine Human Hide: The rare good guy example, Queen Atlanna fought her way through the Trench and into a lost world where she was marooned for 20 years. To survive she used what she could get her hands on, including the skin of a Trench.
• Giant Enemy Crab: The Brine keep a giant crab as part of their military arsenal.
• Good is Not Nice: Arthur is a folk hero to some but doesn't always make the best impression.
• Good Parents:
  • Both Atlanna and Thomas love each other and Arthur deeply, even if the world is doing their best to separate them.
  • Nereus specifically asks Orm's clemency to spare Mera after she betrayed them. In the climax, despite initially being on opposite sides, they are clearly on speaking terms.
  • A villainous example, Jesse and David Kane have a deep bond as a father and son. When the former dies, the latter goes into full Roaring Rampage of Revenge mode.
  • Atlanna also loves Orm as much as she does Arthur and did not want to see one kill the other. Orm's better qualities are likely the result of her influence, and her disappearance clearly devastated him even now.
• Graceful in Their Element: Arthur is at a severe disadvantage when fighting underwater, having received most of his combat training on land. The reverse is true for Atlanteans.
• Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: While Mera is no slouch when it comes to hand-to-hand combat, Aquaman tends to take on most of his fights head on while Mera specializes in her water-based powers.
• Hailfire Peaks: The Brine is located in what looks to be an underwater volcanic region.
• Half-Breed Discrimination: Everyone in Atlantis, with the exception of Vulko and, of course, Atlanna, look down on Arthur for his half-human heritage, although Mera eventually gets better after spending enough time with him on the surface.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Arthur is the son of an Atlantean mother and human father.
• Heart Is an Awesome Power: Arthur Curry can talk to fish, an ability oft-mocked on a meta level and in-universe by Batman. In a case of Ascended Meme, this ability is required to overcome the Karathen, and earn its loyalty.
• Hell Is That Noise: Black Manta's every appearance in armor is accompanied by an ominous metallic buzzing noise, aptly titled "The Black Manta" on the soundtrack.
• Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Played with. Helmeted Atlanteans (especially the commandos), for the most part, are definitely antagonistic compared to Arthur and Mera. Black Manta himself adheres to this trope closely. However, even Arthur wears a helmet during his ritualistic duel with Orm, and even Orm could be read as a quite a Well-Intentioned Extremist at first. It's not until he wears his iconic Ocean Master helm that his megalomania becomes plain to see. A minor justification is that only Atlantean high-borns are capable of breathing both water and air - regular Atlanteans need a helmet to survive in air and humans need a helmet to survive underwater.
• Heroic Bastard: Orm at several points calls Arthur a bastard (he is the hero, and was born due to his mother Atlanna's relationship with Thomas-she'd already married King Orvax).
• Hero Stole My Bike: After their encounter with Black Manta, Mera steals a boat from the marina, thinking that it was for civilian use. Presumably this boat had its keys available for stealing by accident.
• Heroes Prefer Swords:
  • Parodied. When being trained as a boy Arthur asks if he can get a sword instead of his mother's trident. Vulko tells him that the trident is the traditional weapon of Atlantean royalty, so that's what he's getting, period.
  • And inverted. Pirate or supervillain, David Kane prefers his swords and blades when in combat.
• Hidden Depths: For his gruff and boisterous exterior, Arthur has a surprisingly-cosmopolitan understanding of the world and other things—including, of all things, Roman history. Which actually becomes a useful thing later on his quest.
• Hidden Elf Village: Atlantis from the perspective of the surface.
• The High King: A king who controls all kingdoms of the seven seas (save for the Trench) will hold the title "Ocean Master". Orm (briefly) holds the title by the final battle, before being upstaged by Arthur, who commands authority over the seas, including the previously untouchable Trench and Karathen.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Mostly the Kanes when dealing with Aquaman.
  • Jesse Kane fights Arthur with an assault rifle fitted with an under-barrel grenade launcher. Not the best choice of weapon inside a submarine, as Jesse finds out when Arthur dodges a grenade and it instead blows a hole in the sub's pressure hull. The explosion causes Jesse to get pinned by a torpedo he can't lift while the submarine sinks. His son tries to beg the super-strong Arthur to save him, but Arthur isn't inclined to rescue the man who killed numerous submariners and just tried to shoot him.
  • Black Manta's targeting system gets damaged in his fight against Arthur in Sicily, and when Arthur throws two spherical concrete stumps and the chain barrier connecting them at him like bolas, those entangle around his neck and helmet as he's about to shoot and the plasma beam backfires in his face.
• Hollow World: Arthur and Mera are forced to travel through the Kingdom of the Trench in order to find the Hidden Sea, which is said in subtitles to be at the Earth's core. From what is depicted, there are surface-level conditions resembling a lagoon, with glowing crystal providing light similar to the sun, but past a waterfall is another space where the Trident of Atlan resides along with the Karathen guarding it.
• Hollywood Healing: Arthur is hurt rather badly in his second fight with Black Manta, with several stab wounds and his forearms burned from a plasma cannon, and he collapses in Mera's arms. He wakes some time later with what looks like seaweed bandages completely healed (even his tattoos are untouched). It's not expressly stated that he has a Healing Factor, but it could have helped.
• Homage: Arthur's journey visibly takes a lot of cues from his namesake King Arthur.
  • Aquaman's status as a half-breed harkens King Arthur's parentage from opposing warbands. In fact, it was stated Thomas Curry gave him his name as a reference to Atlanna's status as royal exile.
  • In the middle of the film, Arthur experiencing massive injuries from a fight with Black Manta (a villain he had a hand in creating) is near-similar to King Arthur's Mutual Kill with Mordred. His final battle with his half-brother Orm for the throne also mirrors the Mordred battle.
  • He recuperates while being cared for by Mera on a boat going to the Hidden Seas — much like the dead King Arthur's body being led to Avalon.
  • The Trident of Atlan is Excalibur's equivalent, with the Karathen acting as The Lady of the Lake, a powerful aquatic entity guarding the weapon, and being the one who gives Arthur the chance to try and use it.
  • Finally, the "hour of greatest need" prophecy was accomplished when Aquaman, newly-possessed of the Trident of Atlan, breaks up the Atlantean Civil War instigated by Orm/Ocean Master. Subtlety is thrown overboard when Mera, presenting him to the assembled Atlantean host, does not address him by any Atlantean name (like his original comics name Orin), but King Arthur.
• Homefield Advantage: Arthur and Orm's two fights against each other show this. When they fight each other underwater, Orm completely dominates Arthur thanks to being accustomed to aquatic combat, unlike Arthur. When Arthur brings the fight out of the ocean in the finale he gets the upper hand against Orm, who isn't used to fighting on the surface.
• Horse of a Different Color: The Atlanteans commonly ride many types of sea creatures, including sharks, seahorses, some even ride prehistoric sea monsters. Mera is seen riding an orca in battle.
• Humans Are Bastards:
  • Orm wants war on humanity as retribution for polluting the oceans. Not just Orm, in fact; most Atlanteans, including Mera at first, do not have a positive view on humans because they perceive their habit of polluting as a threat to both worlds.
  • Mera lists a myriad of ways humans have messed up their world, from cities that create "mountains of trash", right down to smoking factories. Arthur insists they're not all like that, and Mera warms up to humans when in Sicily, eventually.
• Hypocrite: Arthur tells Mera that she shouldn't judge the surface before she's actually seen it, but as she points out:
  Mera: You judged Atlantis on far less.
• I Have No Daughter!: Mera tells Arthur that her betrayal of Orm will lead to even her father rejecting her, because she committed treason. Subverted, though: when Orm sends troops after her and Arthur, Nereus insists on her not being killed, because she's still his daughter.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: The last of the Atlantean mooks attacking Thomas and Atlanna in the opening gets pinned to the wall by Atlanna's quindent.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: The Atlantean mooks that invade Thomas and Atlanna's home can't seem to land a shot on Atlanna, even when she's standing still.
• Improvised Weapon: Both Arthur and Mera use one during the fight with Black Manta and his soldiers.
  • Arthur rips out two spherical concrete stumps and the chain barrier connecting them and uses it as a killer bolas against Black Manta.
  • Mera uses her power over water to turn the wine in the wine shop into improvised spears, and kills two Atlantean soldiers with them.
• Interspecies Romance: Atlantean Atlanna was swept from the sea and rescued by human Thomas. They fell in love and had a child together, Arthur (or Aquaman), the titular protagonist.
• Ironic Echo:
  • Orm insists that Arthur can never live in Atlantis, let alone become its king, because he is not a full Atlantean by blood. Arthur flips this on its head after he defeats Orm, refusing the latter's plea for him to mercy kill him, as an Atlantean would. He would not do it, because he is not a full Atlantean.
  • Orm orders his soldiers to hold Vulko captive in his ship, so he can watch him conquer the seven seas and launch the assault against the surface on front seats. After he is defeated, Vulko tells the same soldiers to hold Orm captive in the same spot, so he can watch Arthur's coronation on front seats. Orm gives a sardonic smile at that, apparently appreciating the irony.
• Irony: During the final battle, Arthur and Mera have an Orbital Kiss complete with weapons fire and over two dozen explosions in the background like fireworks that illuminate the passion of their kiss. Therefore it's quite ironic that this moment was immediately preceded by Mera rushing toward Arthur exclaiming, "There are too many casualties. We have to stop the fighting now!"
• I Will Wait for You: Ever since Atlanna left for Atlantis, promising to meet him at the docks at sunrise, Thomas Curry has been doing just that: going to the docks at sunrise every day, waiting for Atlanna. She left him more than 20 years earlier. His patience finally pays off in the ending.
• Jerkass Has a Point: The title card for the first fight between Orm and Arthur is horrendously biased against Arthur, but it's not wrong when it lists "drunk" as a weakness.
• Join or Die: To expand his armies in order to invade the surface-dwelling world, Orm threatens the Fishermen then the Brine into submission. Ricou, the Fisherman king, refuses, then gets killed, and his daughter ends up cooperating. The Brine outright refuse, and to Orm, This Means War!.
• Jump Scare: When Arthur and Mera are on the boat heading for the hidden sea to find the trident they're forced to go through the Kingdom of Trench... and while on the boat, Mera turns around during the storm and as the camera pans with her we see one right in her face.
• Keep the Reward: David Kane becomes so obsessed with avenging his Father that he refuses Orm's reward money for delivering him the (damaged) Russian submarine, declaring that Aquaman's death is his reward. When Orm hires him again with the purpose of killing Aquaman and Mera, David readily agrees, again stating that Aquaman's death is payment enough.
• Kraken and Leviathan: Exaggerated with Karathen. Literally "Kraken + Leviathan", with generous lashings of crustacean thrown in.
• Lava Adds Awesome: The various scenes with seabed lava (and the Artistic License – Geology that comes with it). The Ring of Fire arena has lava dripping from pipes and stands above a magma seabed. The Brine themselves live on a magma seabed and weaponize the lava with catapults.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Young Arthur is mocked for supposedly talking to fish, only for Mike and Matt to get scared shitless when it turns out that being able to talk to fish means you can get sharks to fight for you.
• Legendary Weapon: The Trident of Atlan was forged by ancient Atlantis's best weaponsmiths using steel given to them by Poseidon. King Atlan himself used it in the experiment that sunk Atlantis. This weapon is so legendary and sacred that the wielder is guaranteed to be crowned the true king.
• Lighter and Softer:
  • To James Wan's other works. He's known as a mastermind of the horror genre who helped reintroduce it to the new millennium, and arguably popularized the Torture Porn genre with his Saw series. Then there's other super dark horror like Dead Silence, Insidious, and The Conjuring. While he does have at least one lighter movie to his credit, Aquaman was something he only agreed to take on if it was lighter by his own effort. It does have some horror to it (specifically with the Trench), but it's just another aspect of the movie than the main focus.
  • It is also this to the greater DCEU, with only two named characters dying, and those are very minor characters at that.
• Living Dinosaurs: The Hidden Sea at the Earth's core is populated by prehistoric beasts. Orm also has a mosasaur that he rides into battle.
• Lost Colony: The Deserters and the Trench among the tribes that made up the original Atlantis. The Deserters were devastated when the Sahara turned into a desert and left no survivors, only structures buried deep beneath the sand. The Trench technically still exist, but no-one prior to Arthur wants to deal with them for obvious reasons.
• Lost World: Just to complete the references at Jules Verne, the Trident of Atlan is revealed to be located in the Hidden Sea, a world existing in the Earth's core. It is very Cretaceous-like and houses many fantastic (well, more fantastic) animals, including what appears to be pterosaurs.
• Lovecraft Country: Thomas Curry is from Maine, implying that his interest in Lovecraft, if the copy of The Dunwich Horror is anything to go by, came from this. He also struck a relationship with Atlanna, who would easily be considered an otherworldly person to everyone else.
• Lovecraft Lite: There are many nods to the cosmic horror aspects of Lovecraft's works from the marine environment, sea people, and sea monsters. However, unlike the typical Lovecraftian story, this movie is more idealistic with Arthur triumphing by reconciling and understanding both the surface and underwater world. Most notably, Arthur manages to befriend Karathen just by communicating with it and empathizing with its loneliness.

Tropes M to R

• MacGuffin Guardian: Everything about the Trident of Atlan is true, including the existence of its guardian, Karathen. Before he can take it, Arthur has to prove himself a worthy king by talking it down. When he succeeds, not only is he allowed to take the trident, he gains the Karathen's allegiance and rides it for the battle against Orm.
• Making a Splash: Atlanteans appear to have a natural control over water, which appears to be how they are able to swim so quickly. On the surface this doesn't amount to too much (both Arthur and Vulko can create a defensive water shield using a trident) but Mera, as per tradition, is abnormally powerful and is shown holding back tidal waves and creating underwater air voids. It even works on wine.
• Maligned Mixed Marriage: Atlanteans mostly dislike Atlanna having had a relationship with a human, Thomas.
• Manly Tears: Love is a strong enough force to bring men to tears.
  • Despite his rage, David sheds a tear of grief over his father's death.
  • Arthur sheds tears in his youth when Vulko tells him Atlanna was executed. He cries openly again when he finds her alive and well in the Hidden Sea.
  • Orm sheds no tears when he orders Mera executed despite promising to spare her... But he does when Atlanna, believed long dead, arrives to declare the battle between her sons over.
  • Finally, Tom Curry cries when after 20 years of waiting, Atlanna returns exactly as she promised him she would, and the time has done nothing to diminish their love.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": Everyone during the Final Battle when Karathen emerges from the ground.
• Medieval Stasis: Averted with Atlantis. They had Steampunk tech when it sank and now have spaceship-like submarines and energy weapons in contemporary times. They found ways to power it all with water way beyond what humanity can do with it.
• Mêlée à Trois: The final battle between Orm's Atlantean forces and the Brine Kingdom is interrupted by a third party, Arthur riding Karathen with a horde of Trench behind him.
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: Averted. All of Arthur's senior figures have a run-in with death at some point in the movie, but they all come out unscathed by the end of it. Arthur's father, Thomas, is almost drowned by the tsunami at the start, but Mera saves him. His mentor, Vulko, is outed as a traitor by Orm before the climax and will probably be sentenced to death after the war, but Arthur deposes Orm, so he is saved. Hell, his mother, who is explicitly stated to have been executed many years before, turns up alive in the Hidden Sea. Arthur gets the distinction of being one of the few (if not the only) DCEU superheroes to have both of his parents, adopted or not, alive, well, and be there for him to the end.
• Mermanity Ensues: Atlantis and all of its spinoff civilizations came about as a result of King Atlan making a very foolish effort to command the trident in a way it was never meant to be used. Doing so sinks their entire civilization to the bottom of the ocean, where its inhabitants became water breathers to survive. Some evolved further to become merfolk, others into crab creatures, and a few into the infamous Trench.
• A Minor Kidroduction: The opening shows how Arthur's parents met, conceived him, and eventually separated. We get to see the young Arthur in an aquarium and later in the film through flashbacks.
• Mirrored Confrontation Shot: The promotional picture◊ that gave a first look at Orm/Ocean Master has him facing Aquaman this way.
• Missing Mom:
  • Atlanna to Arthur and Orm. She is among the few things that bound them together, and her execution impacted them deeply. Until the third act, where it is revealed that she is still alive.
  • While Mera's father, Nereus, has an important role, her mother is never mentioned.
• Moral Myopia: David Kane, a.k.a. Black Manta, pursues Arthur throughout the film to take revenge for Arthur for letting his father Jesse die. The reason Arthur acted so ruthlessly was because David and Jesse were pirates who just took over a nuclear submarine and murdered half the crew in cold blood, then attempted to shoot Arthur in the back literally seconds after he initially spared them — a crime which David never acknowledges.
• The Morlocks: The feral creatures living in the Trenches were originally Atlanteans who evolved into what they are because of the natural environment of the Trenches.
• Mugging the Monster: Arthur's classmates do not know that he's half-Atlantean, and when he appears to be talking to the fishes, Mike and Matt antagonize him and call him a freak causing him to radiate his fear telepathically. As a result, the fish in the tank quickly come to his aid, including a huge shark who smashes into the glass hard enough to crack the glass and cause Mike, Matt and the rest of the class to back away in shock.
• Mythology Gag: See here.
• Neck Lift: Atlanna does this to Tom Curry when she first wakes up, being frightened and confused at finding herself on dry land.
• No Mercy for Murderers: After Arthur defeats both David and Jesse Kane to rescue the hostages, Jesse pulls a Backstab Backfire as Arthur is walking away, causing himself to get trapped underneath a torpedo. When David begs Arthur to rescue his father from drowning, Arthur responds, "You killed innocent people! You ask the sea for mercy!"
• No-One Could Have Survived That: The Kanes look on in awed horror as Aquaman gets back up after taking an impact grenade right to the chest, acting as if all it did was knock the wind out of him.
• No-Sell: Aquaman's extremely tough skin might as well be solid metal when trying to stab him with surface weapons, as David Kane discovers during their first fight.
• Now What?: Arthur and Mera's Big Damn Kiss is directly followed by Arthur completely forgetting what he was doing there and asking what the plan to defeat Orm was again. After his Awesome Moment of Crowning, Arthur once again asks Mera what he's supposed to do now that he's been crowned.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Though well trained by Vulko, and in non-martial means by Thomas, Arthur is a hard drinking brawler who allows people to underestimate him. Once Mera tries to downplay his threat level by calling him an imbecile, he runs with it until in a situation where he has to display his smarts in order to complete his mission with her.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Atlanna successfully fought her way through the Trench, alone, and presumably without even the small advantage the flares gave Arthur and Mera. Her dialogue also indicates she faced the Karathen multiple times trying to get Atlan's Trident before giving it up as pointless. Although she failed, it still means she survived the kaiju-sized guardian, and more than once.
• Older Is Better: In terms of trident/pole weapons, it seems nothing can beat the Trident of Atlan in melee combat, as seen when the recently-proven superior trident of King Orvax (which Orm/Ocean Master uses) gets wrecked during Orm and Arthur's rematch.
• The Oner: The fight scene between Atlanna and Atlantean mooks that have invaded Thomas's lighthouse.
• Only the Chosen May Wield: The Trident of Atlan is only something that could be handled by the rightful heir to his line. Its guardian, the Karathen, boasts to Arthur how many have tried to gain it and failed — with their skeletons literally surrounding Atlan's long-dead corpse. Curiously enough, even his own mother, Atlanna, technically belongs to this line, but she never managed to get even with the Karathen — not even after decades of exile. Arthur's ability to speak to marine life, which was not seen to be utilized by anyone else, is implied to be one of the qualities needed.
• Our Hippocamps Are Different: The people of Xebel use hippocampi as mounts, although they are never named in the movie, and the concept art calls them "Sea Dragons".
• Pacifism Is Cowardice: Orm and Nereus both consider the Fisherman cowards because they don't believe that war with the surface is inevitable, and think that if they reveal themselves to the surface world it should be to educate them.
• Palate Propping: Aquaman blocks the jaws of Orm's tylosaurus mount with the Trident of Atlan during the Final Battle.
• Le Parkour: In Sicily, Aquaman and Mera are chased by Black Manta and his Atlantean henchmen who wear powered armors. They run on the roofs of a Sicily town parkour-like, while the henchmen crash through walls to chase them.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: Arthur frequently makes references to the surface's pop culture that Mera understandably finds completely baffling and never gets. She eventually finds out who Pinocchio is, though.
• Post-Kiss Catatonia: Played with. Arthur seems to momentarily completely forget there's a war and a throne at stake once Mera kisses him, and asks her to remind him what the plan was again.
• Princeling Rivalry: Arthur and Orm are half-brothers who fight for the throne of Atlantis. Arthur, the older one, is larger, less sophisticated, more laid-back and heroic, while Orm, the younger one is more wiry (but by no means less strong), elitist, stern and villainous. Orm wins their first duel, but is defeated in the end.
• Prongs of Poseidon: Tridents are a traditional weapon of royalty in Atlantis, and they come in various shapes and forms. Any royal worth his salt is expected to master tridents and fight with them.
  • Atlanna's quindent (five prongs), which Arthur inherited in his youth and used in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Zack Snyder's Justice League. In his youth, Arthur is shown to be reluctant to learn using such an impractical-looking weapon and asks for a sword, but by his adulthood, Vulko has taught him how to wield tridents. It eventually gets wrecked in Arthur's first duel with Orm, as Arthur wasn't as extensively trained for underwater trident combat as Orm.
  • Orm inherited his trident from his father, King Orvax. It gets wrecked in the final duel against Arthur.
  • King Atlan's trident grants great powers over the oceans. Specifically, its wielder can command over the sea life. It serves as the MacGuffin of the movie, and ends up in Arthur/Aquaman's possession. Poseidon himself provided the metal it is made of.
• The Quest: Aquaman and Mera set out to find the most powerful Atlantean trident ever forged to protect both Atlantis and the surface world from Orm's nefarious plans.
• Race Lift: A given considering Momoa's casting, but this has had an interesting side-effect concerning the casting of the rest of the characters. Dafoe, Heard, Wilson, Kidman and Lundgren are all very Caucasian and more closely resemble their comic book characters. Morrison is a natural fit as Momoa's father with Kidman playing his mother, creating Half-Breed Discrimination undertones right from the start.
• Real Men Wear Pink: After reuniting with his father for drinks, a group of intimidating-looking bar patrons approach Arthur, their tone suggesting they're after a fight... only for it to turn out they just wanted to ask him if they could take a few pictures, as they and their kids are fans. The leader of the group pulls out a pink smartphone to take said pictures.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Vulko gives one of these to Orm after his relationship with Arthur is outed, stating that the latter is twice the king Orm is even before he gained the title.
• Reconstruction:
  • The film mixes Reimagining the Artifact with moving away from Arthur's gruffer portrayal in Zack Snyder's Justice League and utilises elements that Aquaman is regularly mocked for to its favour. Those silly supervillain names? Titles. The orange and green costume? An ancient king's armor (made golden at that). Talking to fish? Pretty useful when it can control both an army's shark cavalry and bloodthirsty seafaring humanoid beasts, converse with a sea Kaiju, and create an army of fishes in an instant.
  • Black Manta's classic bubble-head deep sea diver design has been a difficult thing to process in the modern era, coming across as a silly, impractical top heavy look. This film shows Kane building the suit from scratch, adapting Atlantean weaponry alongside his own high tech armor designs, and specifically making the helmet huge so that it could fire a BFG plasma blast without frying his own head. When he finally shows up he is almost a Walking Tank, believably fighting Arthur on even footing.
• Recycled In Space: King Arthur UNDERWATER!
• Reimagining the Artifact:
  • As seen on the poster above, Arthur still wears the iconic "orange shirt with green tights" outfit from the comics, but here it's depicted as a suit of fish-scale armor with a more chain-mail like texture (and a more golden look).
  • The film avoids Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames by finding justifiable reasons to have them used. Ocean Master, probably the most over-the-top one used, is reimagined from just Orm's flashy nickname to an official Atlantean military title.
• Rent-a-Zilla: Karathen, whom Arthur uses as his steed during the final battle. It's the biggest creature seen in the DC Extended Universe so far, big enough to easily destroy the largest Atlantean crafts in a single bite.
• Required Secondary Powers: The film explicitly spells out that Atlanteans have these, as their ability to live underwater demands a high resistance to extreme cold and tremendous pressures, as well as the ability to see with the slightest light. Several of the powers the Atlanteans have developed mirror the Kryptonians' in Man of Steel, including superior strength, enhanced vision and resistance to surface (Earth) weapons. The non-royals, who can only breathe water, even mirror the results of having their environment suits compromised.
• Rescue Romance: Thomas Curry is shown to have found Queen Atlanna washed up on the shore unconscious and carried her back to the lighthouse. After that, they had a relationship and conceived a son together.
• Retcon:
  • Partly due to Zack Snyder's non-involvement in the film and departure from the DCEU, and to James Wan having nigh-carte blanche, elements first introduced in Batman v Superman and Justice League are abandoned, superseded and/or disregarded in this film, with very little of the characterization of Aquaman or other Atlanteans held from their previous rendition under Snyder. Aside from the change of Arthur from a gruff Good is Not Nice loner to a more sarcastic, down-to-earth character, various other elements shift to the point that the only ones really kept are the fact that Arthur helped fight against Steppenwolf and the fact that Earth at large knows that Aquaman exists.
  • The circumstances implied behind Atlanna's disappearance from Arthur and Thomas's lives has been changed here. Justice League has Arthur be completely disrespectful of Atlanna and presumably hate her for "leaving [him] on [his] father's doorstep." Aquaman shows that Atlanna has been part of Arthur's life for his first three years (long enough to even have a picture of them as a family taken) and teenage Arthur is shown to be genuinely upset when Vulko reveals she's been sacrificed to the Trench for her marriage to Thomas. Overall, Arthur's disdain has been shifted from his mother to Atlantis.
  • The unnamed King of Atlantis in the flashback of Justice League may have been intended by Zack Snyder to be Atlan (and some reports said as much) while Atlan is established here with a new costume which later becomes Aquaman's own. Similarly, Aquaman's quindent in the Snyder films is revealed not to be "the" trident, but rather his mother's weapon, and it's replaced by Atlan's trident. Aquaman's Justice League armor is also unaccounted for, but shown not to be "the" Aquaman suit, which is established as Atlan's old armor.
• Rightful King Returns: Arthur sets out to claim the throne of Atlantis with the support of Vulko and Mera in order to prevent Orm from invading the surface.
• Rock Beats Laser:
  • The concrete bollards Aquaman uses like bolas against Black Manta, whose Powered Armor is made of cutting edge Atlantean tech he reverse-engineered.
  • Aquaman uses marine lifeforms to overwhelm the Atlantean army during the final battle (including the lifeforms they were using as mounts).
• Royalty Super Power: Only highborn Atlanteans can breathe air and water, as well Orm, Arthur and Mera seem to be far mightier than even ordinary Atlanteans with Arthur tanking plasma beams and lifting submarines. Finally Mera can control water while Arthur can communicate with sea life — an ability even Mera never heard of, and is so rare that it marks him as the Chosen One by the Karathen, who had not conversed with any challengers since the time of Atlan himself.
• Rule of Cool: Pick a scene, any scene — whatever is the most outrageously awesome idea the writers could have had, nine times out of ten it's the one they go with. This movie has more in common with classic adventure movies and Saturday morning cartoons than it does with the rest of the DCEU. Ocean Master attacking the surface with tsunamis? Black Manta sword-fighting Aquaman instead of using a gun? Giant underwater armies of sea monster cavalry? Black Manta rebuilding the plasma cannon that Orm gave him into a helmet that shoots lasers from its eyes? Why not?
• Rule of Seven: The ancient location called Council of the Kings has statues representing the original kings of the Seven Kingdoms.
• Runaway Bride: Both Atlanna and Mera try to run away from the arranged marriages imposed on them. Mera succeeds. Atlanna at first lost, but with Orvax's death, she was free again.
• Running Gag: People quietly discussing something suddenly interrupted by a blast of fire. It happens to Atlanna and Thomas at the start, then Arthur, Mera, and Vulko in a shipwreck, and finally, Arthur and Mera while they're about to kiss in Sicily.
• Ruthless Modern Pirates: Jesse Kane and his son David (Black Manta) are described are modern-day Submarine Pirates.

Tropes S to Y

• Scenery Porn: Atlantis is a sight of beauty; the city is luminescent beneath the seas, combining marine lifeforms and unique architecture that's composed of corals over old ruins.
• Screw You, Elves!: The main plot is Aquaman trying to prevent his brother Orm from starting a war with the humans to stop their pollution of the seas - which, in classic elf fashion, the Atlanteans hadn't been helping to prevent despite the advanced technology and information they had available. Throughout the story Aquaman expresses contempt for Atlantis for preventing his parents from being together and for executing his mother.
• Seahorse Steed: Xebellians ride giant "seahorses", which is made less ridiculous in that the creatures are quite different in shape and movement from real seahorses, with four large fins and a heavily dragon-inspired design. Aquaman himself gets to ride one during the Final Battle.
• Second-Person Attack: Arthur gets knocked out with a slug to the face this way.
• Self-Imposed Exile: King Atlan went into exile after his experiments caused the sinking of Atlantis.
• Sequel Hook: In The Stinger, Black Manta is ready to seek vengeance against Aquaman, and gets the help of Dr. Stephen Shin.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: Downplayed thanks to her form-fitting suit and Beauty Is Never Tarnished. When Mera wears a formal dress more befitting of her title as a princess, Arthur is visibly stunned by how she looks.
• Shooting the Swarm: A variant with "skewering the swarm". During the Final Battle, Orm rides his Tylosaurus through the massive swarm of Trenches that were summoned by Arthur and ragingly skewers as much of them as he can with his trident. There are thousands of them so it doesn't make a dent in said swarm, which doesn't attack him anyway.
• Shout-Out:
  • The show playing on Thomas' TV (before Atlanna destroys it) is Stingray, Gerry Anderson's aquatic precursor to Thunderbirds — which even featured a woman from an underwater civilization who was the lead hero's romantic interest.
  • In one scene, Arthur calls Vulko "Cobra Kai".
  • The Annabelle doll from director James Wan's The Conjuring Universe makes a cameo.
  • In Thomas Curry's house, on the table is a H. P. Lovecraft novel, The Dunwich Horror. Lovecraft was a horror writer pioneer, whose Cthulhu novels involved man-eating fish people and tentacle creatures deep under the ocean. Lovecraft's best known work, The Call of Cthulhu, is quoted by Black Manta in his first scene.
  • Arthur mentions Pinocchio as something he picked up hiding inside a whale from. When Mera is given the original book to read by a civilian, she calls Arthur out on it, only for him to clarify that he was referring to the movie. Given that the non-Disney variants were all overshadowed by the Disney version, it's probably safe to assume which one he saw.
  • King Ricou of the Fishermen is named in tribute to stuntman Ricou Browning.
• Shown Their Work: Jesse Kane gifts his son David a custom dagger with a manta ray engraving and describes its history with David’s grandfather as his dive knife during World War II. It’s a real knife. Specifically, a British Royal Navy diving knife designed by Siebe Gorman. It’s even correctly depicted with corrosion damage from decades of exposure to salt water, a common issue with older knives that had different metallurgical makeups than modern “stainless” steel.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: After Arthur defeats both David and Jesse Kane to rescue the hostages, Jesse pulls a Backstab Backfire as Arthur is walking away, causing himself to get trapped underneath a torpedo. When David begs Arthur to rescue his father from drowning, Arthur just blows him off by saying they'll "have to ask the sea for mercy" for killing innocent civilians and trying to stab him in the back before leaving them to their inevitable doom.
  David: Wait! Help me, he's trapped! You can't leave him like this! Please!
  Arthur: You killed innocent people! You ask the sea for mercy!
• Sibling Rivalry: Orm Marius, the Ocean Master, is Arthur/Aquaman's half-brother and rival for the throne.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: For both Atlanna and Mera. Both of them are of royal blood and are expected to wed other members of royalty. However, both of them instead opt to follow their hearts and find true love with men who aren't perfect or even high class but are kind, decent, and caring people. Atlanna falls for Thomas Curry because he rescued her and was probably one of the few people in her life that cared for her as a person and not as connection to the throne. Mera was a bit put off by Arthur at first but once he opened up to her, showed that he was a passionate man with a kind heart that cared deeply for his love ones. Arthur also had a lot of Hidden Depths being classically educated, wordly, and fun to be with.
• Signature Move:
  • Arthur slams enemies into the ceiling in several action sequences. Notably, Atlanna did the same when Atlantean soldiers came to retrieve her when he was a child.
  • Orm uses his trident to grip either lava or deck plating to use as a projectile.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Arthur's parents are usually dead before he begins his superhero career depending on the continuity. They are both shown to have survive and even get their own happy ending! Orm himself is often killed or presumed dead in similar versions of Throne of Atlantis, while here he ends up surrendering and taken into custody at the end.
• Spin to Deflect Stuff: An ability that Vulko shows Arthur, and which he uses in the final battle. Somewhat more justified in that the spinning is augmented by a hydrokinetic shield.
• Stab the Picture: In The Stinger, David Kane/Black Manta asks Dr. Shin where Aquaman is so he can kill him, and throws his knife at a newspaper on the wall showing Aquaman's silhouette.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: Atlanna, who is an Atlantean Queen, with Thomas Curry, an ordinary lighthouse keeper from Maine. Their relationship only lasted for a few years or so before Atlanna was forced to go back home, and then after giving birth to Orm, she was executed by being thrown into the Trench. Despite this, Thomas continues to go to the docks at sunrise everyday, hoping that some miracle will eventually reunite him and Atlanna again. Fortunately, they do.
• Steampunk: The flashback to Atlantis's golden age shows bipedal vehicles that seem to be of this aesthetic, helped by the fact that they seem to bellow out steam.
• The Stinger: David Kane survives and is working together with Dr. Shin to find and kill Aquaman.
• Stock Sound Effects: The sound effect that plays when the submarine crashes after attacking the Council of the Kings is identical to the Tyrannosaurus rex roar from The Land Unknown (more familiar in the modern day from Duke Nukem 3D, as the Battlelord's air-splitting roar).
• Story-Breaker Power:
  • The Trident of Atlantis serves as one. The weapon was once wielded by King Atlan, the first ruler of Atlantis, with the power to control all sea creatures. His attempt to experiment with its power resulted in the entire Atlantis sinking under the sea. When Arthur gets his hand on it, he uses it to singlehandlely turn the tide of the battle between the Brine and Orm's army by using the Trident to turn sea mounts against their masters, control the nigh-invulnerable kaiju-sized monster Karathen and even the Always Chaotic Evil Trench people to brutal efficiency. If not for Mera convincing him to take a more pacifist approach by dueling Orm, Arthur would still be able to wipe the floor against Orm's army with ease.
  • Nuidis Vulko, as the best warrior in Atlantis who's personally trained Arthur and Orm in much, if not all, of their great fighting skills, only gets one fighting scene where he trains Arthur and utterly destroys him. He spends the rest of the movie playing advisor to Arthur and Mera, while also pretending to advise Orm and seeking a peaceful way to end things, not fighting back even when pushed. Since he's regarded by Mera to be the only one who could certainly beat Orm, and even Orm has guards ready to back him up if Vulko tries to resist his arrest, it's clear this is to prevent him from stopping Orm by himself as he clearly could. Not to mention how Vulko avoids fighting Orm himself — not because he isn't confident he could beat him, but because he knows him defeating Orm for Arthur would prevent the latter from being accepted as King of Atlantis. He seems ready to take the gloves off and attack Orm to save Arthur when Orm is beating him, until Mera decides to save him herself, so Vulko could still be their man in the inside.
• Superhero Origin: Although the film takes place after the events of Justice League, in which Aquaman's powers and status were established, this film chronicles how he was born and how he eventually becomes the king of Atlantis. According to Jason Momoa:
  "Justice League was only a weekend in Arthur Curry's life. This is a totally different beast. In Aquaman, you see when his parents met and what happened to them. Then the little boy being raised and finding his powers and going through that and never being accepted on either side. And then becoming this man who puts up all these walls. You just slowly see this man harden up and be completely reluctant wanting to be king and not knowing what to do with these powers he has."
• Superman Stays Out of Gotham: Orm wants to wage war against the surface world. Arthur/Aquaman has a bunch of powerful friends by now in the surface world, but they aren't shown to respond to Orm's initial move of dumping all warships and trash back into the beaches, or even contacting Aquaman to ask what is going on.
• Super-Toughness: Aquaman is functionally immune to conventional surface-dweller weapons; taking an M203 grenade to the chest is painful but he remains mostly unharmed. Black Manta modifies Atlantean technology and weapons to create a new Powered Armor in order to fight him on even ground in a rematch, and even manages to stab him with explicitly Atlantean steel.
• Swirlie: Played for Laughs when Man-O-War sticks his head in a toilet to breathe easily after Mera ruptures his helmet.
• Sword Drag: Aquaman drags King Atlan's trident behind him before his final duel with Orm starts.
• Sympathetic Adulterer: Atlanna was already married to King Orxav when she escaped to the surface then had a relationship with a human who rescued her, which resulted in them having a son. This is sympathetic though as the marriage was arranged against her will.
• This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself: This is the primary reason why Vulko, who as the teacher of both Arthur and Orm is repeatedly stated to be able to beat Orm by himself, does not stop Orm himself and in fact avoids fighting a fight he knows he would win. Even if he did defeat Orm, it wouldn't automatically solve all of Arthur's problems in rising to his birthright. Every Atlanteans knows Vulko trained Orm and they clearly figured out from Arthur's performance against Orm that he also trained Arthur, so they would have seen it as Arthur not having what it takes to become King and just relying on Vulko to help him rise. Not only that, Arthur is half Atlantean and while he is the first-born son of Queen Atlanna, he is still looked down by other Atlanteans. Had Vulko defeated Orm for Arthur and declared him as the rightful king of Atlantis on a whim, none of the kingdoms would have taken that and they would have either abandoned the union at best or rebelled against Arthur at worst. The only way for Arthur's ascencion to be legitimate is for him to prove that half-breed as he may be, he still has the ability to become King by defeating Orm. He even says those Exact Words.
  Vulko: We can't! Look. The people must bear witness.
• This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: Aquaman's ability to talk to fish is what helps him gain the trident and form an allegiance with the Karathen.
• Time-Shifted Actor: Child actors Kaan Guldur and Otis Dhanji play Arthur at ages 9 and 13 respectively.
• Today, X. Tomorrow, the World!:
  Orm: Today we unite our kingdoms. Tomorrow we scorch the surface!
• Toilet Humor:
  • When told that a dried up piece of Atlantean technology in the Sahara Desert needs water on it to function, Arthur states that he "could have just peed on it".
  • Taken literally during the fight in Sicily, when Man-O-War gets his Mobile Fishbowl ruptured by Mera. Suffocating out in open air, he dunks his head in an actual toilet to breathe easily again.
• Trailers Always Spoil: The previews that showed a white-haired Atlanna talking to an adult Arthur make clear she's Not Quite Dead.
• Trampled Underfoot: The framed photo of Tom, Atlanna, and Baby Arthur as a happy family meets this fate when Orvax sends his soldiers to collect Atlanna.
• Treacherous Advisor: Vulko is a heroic version. He stands beside Orm and offers just enough genuine assistance to not be dismissed from his service, but he approached and trained Arthur how to use his powers and Atlantean weapons, specifically because he knew Orm would be a problematic king and would need another to take the throne eventually. Orm reveals later on he knew of it, and had Vulko imprisoned for the climax of the film.
• Try Not to Die: Aquaman asks Mera what her plan is for the final battle. Her answer is "Not getting killed".
• Underwater Kiss: Aquaman and Mera kiss during the final underwater battle. Doubles as an Orbital Kiss.
• Unknown Rival: David Kane talks up his first confrontation with Aquaman as destiny given their professions, but Aquaman just shrugs him off as a pirate and dismissively tells him not to make such meetings a habit.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Arthur has been extensively trained in underwater combat and weapon fighting but he spends half his time on the surface, leaving him literally "out of his element" when fighting in water and giving him a disadvantage among elite Atlanteans like Orm who spent all their time fighting underwater and with Atlantean weapons. Downplayed as he is still able to fight with great skill in the sea and can handle multiple soldiers and Trench beasts on his own right, but it's there with how he struggles against them more than he would against normal opponents despite being much stronger than them, and fighting the equally strong and more well-trained Orm ends in his defeat and his mother's trident broken. Even when they fight in the surface, despite Arthur's Trident of Atlantis being much stronger than Orm's, Orm's superior skill still made him a hell of a tough challenge and the only reason Arthur beats him is by revealing a technique he alone knew and then using the Trident to shatter Orm's.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: The old woman whose apartment Arthur and Black Manta crash into and duke it out in looks more annoyed than anything.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: The late King Orvax, as he was responsible for separating Atlanna from Thomas and Arthur and giving her the death sentence. He also shaped Orm into the man he is now. Despite being dead and unseen (without even a flashback), the consequences of his actions still resonate within Atlantis and Earth.
• Video Credits: As part of the Creative Closing Credits, the names of the main actors appear next to statues representing their characters.
• Violence is the Only Option: The crustacean Brine don't bow down to any other power, so subjugating them by force is the way to go for any would-be Ocean Master. Orm doesn't even bother to diplomatically try gaining them as allies and attacks them immediately after press-ganging the Fishermen in his ranks.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Regular Atlanteans need water to breathe, which Mera and Arthur use to their advantage by busting the water supply of the armoured elite soldiers, with Murk even needing to dunk his head in a toilet to survive. Even the Highborn Atlanteans who can breathe water can be caught unprepared by the sudden change, which Mera uses to disorient Orm by suddenly sticking him in a water bubble so he'll be forced to switch, then immediately making him switch back seconds later.
• Weapon Twirling: Vulko teaches Arthur how to do this with his trident. Combined with some sort of hydrokinesis in the weapon itself, it forms an impenetrable shield.
• What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: Arthur learns early that he has the ability to communicate with sea life. This is later revealed to be such a rare trait that even Mera did not know of it, and even though they were able to avoid capture by hiding inside a whale she was perturbed by how he used it. When confronting the Karathen, it gives a long speech about how no prior being was able to overcome it and take the trident. Arthur responds with his own speech, at which point the Karathen is surprised that he can understand it and allows him to take it, the implication being that the ability to communicate is what it meant by uniting the oceans and is exactly what makes him the true heir to the throne. It has its advantages.
• What Measure Is a Mook?: Arthur expresses regret over his part in Jesse Kane's death, and ultimately spares Orm, but has no problem killing dozens (if not hundreds) of nameless Atlantean mooks while controlling the Karathen. The movie somewhat acknowledges this, when Mera says the battle is taking too many casualties and they split up to convince her father to stand down and defeat his brother, respectively, so the battle will end. That being said, Aquaman subsequently sics the Trench on the soldiers to get to Orm.
• The World Is Not Ready: This is why King Ricou refuses to join Ocean Master. He believes that the surface world is not yet ready to learn that there are sentient people who live in the ocean. He also believes that when the world IS ready to learn that there is sentient life beneath the ocean, it is the duty of Atlantians to educate the surface dwellers, not rule over them. Sadly, this gets him killed.
• Wrecked Weapon:
  • Arthur snaps one of David's blades during their first fight. David trades it in for Atlantean steel when he upgrades to his Black Manta armor.
  • Orm breaks Arthur's quindent during their duel for the throne.
  • Arthur ends up breaking Orm's own trident with King Atlan's trident, defeating him.
• Xenomorph Xerox: The Trench are jet-black seemingly-eyeless humanoid monsters with fangs and claws, are emaciated to the point their ribs are showing, and possess elongated heads; effectively being a mix of the Xenomorphs from the Alien franchise and the Deep Ones of the Cthulhu Mythos.
• You Are Not Alone: Arthur admits to Orm that he was once overjoyed to know that somewhere out there, he had a little brother and hoped to one day meet him to assure him that he wasn't alone. Unfortunately, Orm turned out to be "a dick."
• You Can't Go Home Again: Evoked by Mera when she sides with Arthur and helps him escape Orm and Atlantis guards. Arthur assumes that being royalty she could return and they would be lenient, but she asserts that they are not that forgiving. Her only hope now is to help Arthur find the Trident.
• You Killed My Father:
  • Once the King of Atlantis discovered Atlanna had a kid on the surface, she was thrown to the beasts in the Trench. This death is resented by both of her sons, Arthur (who blames Atlantis's prejudice) and Orm (who blames his half-brother for having caused it). Fortunately, it turns out Atlanna is still alive.
  • David Kane's motivation throughout the movie is revenge for the death of his father, which he blames on Arthur.

---

Born on the wrong side of the ocean
With all the tides against you
You never thought you'd be much good for anyone
But that's so far from the truth