Justice League

If they do make a movie with him, they have to make it a Film Noir. After all, J'onn J'onzz is a detective first and foremost. He's the Martian Manhunter. "I am Mars' sole survivor. There is a reason for that."

Geoff Johns is currently writing a Green Lantern Corps movie, which is a Buddy Cop Film IN SPACE!!

...SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!

Seriously, though, that sounds like an awesome idea for a Green Lantern movie. Aside from the fact it'd give the opportunity to give the spotlight to more than one Green Lantern (possibly including an alien one), it's reminding me a bit of the animated series. I can only approve personally.

Renegade Cut is right about Aquaman. The only way to enjoy the movie is not to think about it.

I don't know, I did think about it and I still enjoyed it. It's frankly a bit unfair.

I found it more comprehensible and linear than the average comic book blockbuster, and that includes character complexity and motivations. Some of the puzzle solving riddles were nonsense (Atlantis fell long before any Roman emperor took power, but even that only gave them a direction not a destination), but I love how effortlessly the movie explored the various underwater kingdoms and am still amazed at how efficient Black Manta's story arc was (he's only in six scenes including The Stinger).

Sure. but it isn't more than that. It is pretty much an early 2000s style Superhero movie with better effects.

Is there a source for that?

Regarding Aquaman, while I agree with RC on the political aspect, I don't on the visuals. I found the camera work remarkably seamless and I never lost track of the action.

^^ Seriously, how so? I would describe Aquaman as a mixture between Lord of the Rings, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Superman The Movie, so it certainly has a classical element to it. The early 2000's comic book movies were X-Men, Spider-Man, Blade, Daredevil, Hulk, which were mostly about real world locations, urban vigilantes, social melodrama, coconut superpowers and freak lab accidents, most of which is non-existent in Aquaman. Aquaman has more of a fantasy epic look and feel, the budget is almost always on the screen, and in terms of a sympathetic villain who is not killed at the end (and two parents who are alive) makes it an extremely modern comic book movie.

Hal Jordan being the maverick/takes no orders cop while John Stewart being the by the book cop would make a dope movie.

Kyle Raynor is more a newbie type guy & would maybe do better in sequel installments though he could also function as an Audience Surrogate.

It doesn't really have any overreaching team and a lot seems just to be there because it is "cool". It also has those "okay, now it is time for the romance" moments.

That's awfully vague and disingenuous. For one, there are no action sequences that are not foreshadowed or irrelevant to the greater story (even the submarine sequence was part of Orm's plan). Two, Arthur's ability to talk to fish is literally what makes him The Chosen One, his ability to make friends, see himself critically for making enemies and reject the warmongering of Atlantis is all tied into that.

Aquaman is two leads with negative chemistry to the point it drags the movie down going through of the pacces of some terrible romantic comedy (seriously the sequence in the Sahara is unbearable), whilst suffering through some absolutely horribly clunky exposition that infects the whole film. Some the action suffers from crippling Synderitis. The final battle is also a bit of a unholy mess easy to get lost into.

As a rule of thumb, for me, whenever the film was outside of the water, it floundered (hah!). When it actually stuck to observing the underwater kingdoms, it had its moments, like The Trench sequence is by far the movie's strongest. The actual underwater realms are fairly interesting and visually stunning and that's what drew me in.

It's the type of film that provides a flawed but promosing prototype to be fixed by a sequel, allá Ant-Man and Ant-Man 2.

If they include the Martian Manhunter, I'd rather they not go with the "last of my kind" route because Superman is right there. Have Mars not be extinct but have J'onn be stranded on Earth because our technology hasn't advance that far yet.

Hey, I enjoyed the movie well enough. Doesn't change the fact that it is narratively a mess - there is the love story of Arthur's parents, there is the revenge story of Manta, there is the whole battle for the throne, there is the triton and there is the whole environmental theme - and little of that ties even remotely together. The only reason why it doesn't get clocked for constantly having characters sprouting exposition is because each of those speeches ends in some huge explosion to distract the audience. May I also point out the terrible song choices?

I mean, the whole battle is just so over the top that it is fun, and there are isolated scenes and ideas in it which I enjoyed. But they don't really result in a meaningful narrative.

It is kind of like Batman Returns, but with a more fun tone.

Batman Returns's Penguin alone would eat Aquaman for breakfast.

I argue because I find the narrative in Aquaman to be far superior than the norm. Exposition is heavy but that means all important plot points are repeated and come back to be important to the story (Orm's monologue about the seven kingdoms is especially thick, but since it makes a point to give each kingdom a location title card it becomes very relevant). The conflict is set up early and the macguffin clearly established, so we aren't wondering for 3/4ths of the movie what has to happen for the story to be over, and the characters don't get distracted from that goal for long. Both the script and direction makes it so that the story is driven by action and always moving, rather than being the reward for sitting through a static dialogue scene. The interactions between Mera and Arthur are not generic romantic banter but character driven (Mera explaining her societal role in an arranged marriage, Arthur trying to convince her the surface world has its virtues), the flirting is kept rather brief until the Big Damn Kiss, and then they go over-the-top so it at least isn't boring.

I mean in terms of narrative. Though Batman Returns did better with having at least some sort of underlying theme.

There are good and bad expositions. Like, the whole sequence when Steve meets Sam is ALL exposition but it doesn't feel the way. Aquaman has a lot of those awkward scenes in which characters tell each other what hey already know.

Edited by Swanpride on Jun 1st 2019 at 7:27:49 AM

Some of that is direction and not script/narrative (and like I said Aquaman gets points for never being dull about it), but a lot of exposition ends up being "fill in the blank" backstory while good use of exposition in a script/narrative sense should be offering a road map of information that will guide the audience on the rest of the story. Why does Orm talk about the seven kingdoms? His goal is to unite them and we end up visiting most of them in the course of the story. Why does Vulko explain the trident? It's an Ancestral Weapon that will earn Arthur the throne, it's an ancient story that will take them to ancient cities and eventually collide with his ability to talk to fish. Much of the time exposition is just backstory for its own sake and an attempt at character development.

Here

David Goyer and Justin Rhodes

Apparently, the movie was set to come out in July 24, 2020, but it's probably been delayed since there has been no director or cast announcements. I think Johns probably finished his script, though, as he's now the working as the showrunner, I believe, on the Stargirl streaming show on DC Universe. (Something he will probably be great at, considering he not only created the character, but based her on his own sister, who died in 1996).

Christopher McQuarrie says he still never heard from WB about Man of Steel 2 and never will. Yeah, this project sounds dead in the water.

At this point I won't be surprised if they just use Supergirl to introduce a new Superman actor in a Soft Reboot.

Well, damn. I really was hoping for a new Superman movie.

A little late but:

That really sounds more like a Supergirl movie. I mean, Kara was the one who grew up on Krypton, the one who knew people their, and had to deal with the grief of loosing them all. I mean, Clark is the one who use his human name as his default, whilst Kara sticks with her Kryptonian name almost all of the time.

In fact, I tend to think that a lot when read/watching Superman stories that deal with Krypton, that it would have been better as a Supergirl story.

If they're benching Superman for now and focusing on Supergirl, that may have been part of the reason why they didn't go for it. I don't know what the timeline is though. But it sounds like they officially shifted gears to Supergirl after those contract negotiations with Cavill broke down.

Yeah. Same.

We all were.