Aquaman — The Choice That Saved A Movie | Film Perfection

it was forged by the greatest weapon masters in history crafted from Poseidon steel legend says the Trident was imbued with the power to command the seeketh findeth pride and pride and Poseidon you seem a very private command to see the silent private command to see those of you who have seen my earlier videos dissecting the core issues of the more recent DCU movies might have noticed one common overarching problem in them the problem of inconsistency a movie about Batman vs Superman becomes a movie about Batman and Superman and Wonder Woman vs. some random CGI monstrosity a movie about internal conflict becomes a movie about external conflict a movie about some of the greatest comic book heroes ever created becomes this after Man of Steel the DC EU films have never properly consistently functioned from beginning to end until now after five long years of excruciating reading is Aquaman the movie we've all been waiting for is Aquaman that one long-lost masterpiece that finally lifts DC films to a level where DC films deserve to be I'm sure we all have differing opinions about that some of them positive some of them negative and all of them justifiable I know I have opinions about this movie but for right now those opinions are irrelevant because today we will be focusing exclusively on the topic of how Aquaman did something none of the other DCU movies after Man of Steel have been able to do from the opening image all the way to the ending credits it remains properly consistently functional Aquaman is a big movie and it does go all over the place in locations in genre etc etc sometimes it's a light-hearted action romantic comedy other times it's straight-up gory horror and since it does go all over the place like so you would think that it's yet another case of mindless Hollywood blockbuster mess but know throughout the whole thing it stays consistent and in case you're wondering how that's possible wonder no more it's because of the way it chooses to set up its three main characters the hero and the two villains if you allow me one statement of opinion I would use it to say that Aquaman has one of the strongest first acts in the DC EU and I say that because it chooses to dedicate it almost entirely on its three main characters in fact this choice is well made and executed that no matter how big or how muddled the movie might become it always remains consistent and functional and in my eyes this excellent character work that it pulls off is a pretty simple but highly important 3-step process here's what we're gonna do let's dive into the world of Aquaman and this three-step process it uses to build up its main characters and at the same time see how the earlier DCU movies fail at these steps let's see how Aquaman builds up its three main characters in a way that ensures that the film from start to finish always stays consistently functional plus at the end let's look at one other main Aquaman character that doesn't follow these steps and consequently becomes one of the most planned and forgettable comic book movie main characters in history in my Wonder Woman video I presented the argument that the film doesn't work all the way to the end because of character goals the main hero goal of the movie is for Diana to accept that humankind is both evil and good and thus worth saving the main villain goal driven by the doctor and the German general is in direct conflict with this hero goal because their human inclination for evil makes it harder for Diana to view humankind worthy of her help so far so good but then at the end the movie suddenly switches out both human villains in exchange for one truly evil non-human villain whose only goal is to destroy humanity not only is this new villain goal not in conflict with Diana's hero goal it actually supports it because now it's much easier for Diana to accept humankind as worth saving because here we have this non-human bad guy partially responsible for the evil that humanity commits and so the initial goals and conflict go unresolved as in the movie builds itself up to be one thing only to then become something entirely else very much to the audience's confusion as in the movie isn't consistent like I said Aquaman is a big movie it's full to the brim with stuff to the point where it can at times even become a bit fusing as to what is currently happening one moment were in some secret Atlantis hideout in the desert then we have a non Atlantean human somehow modifying Atlantean weaponry and then were in avatar land and there are dinosaurs there too but regardless even if you do get confused as to what you're currently seeing it doesn't matter because you know for sure until what all of this is about and where it's going and you know it because of the main hero and villain goals when we meet our villain King orme his objective and purpose is instantly made very clear he wants to become the undisputed Emperor of the oceans in order to attack humanity and take over their lands while the threat of bravas grows undeniable is always plagued deserves we have been hiding long enough the time has come for Atlantis to rise again aqua van on the other hand is established as a sort of protector of humanity and so his objective is now to find the Trident of his ancient ancestor so that he can dethrone or as the new king of Atlantis and save both humanity as well as the sea world very clearly the goals of Aquaman and king arm are in direct conflict so much so that they cannot go unresolved and because of it even those members of the audience who aren't paying as much attention as the others are aware of the primary direction that the movie is heading in the clash between arm and Aquaman for the fate of land and sea above all else that's what this movie is about and everyone can see that same with black manta at the beginning of the movie it's clearly established that his objective is to take revenge on Aquaman by killing him an Aquaman skull here in turn obviously is to stay alive it's not the most original goal but it is unmistakable and in direct conflict with black mantas and thus you know the purpose that black manta in this story serves and that we are headed towards a personal fight between him and Aquaman which must be resolved if you want your movie to be consistent from beginning to end you need to make the audience know what it's about and the best way to accomplish this as Aquaman shows is to give your main heroes and villains clear goals and perp says that are in direct conflict with one another so much so that they cannot be swapped out or be left unresolved even if the filmmakers wanted them to plus that way even if the audience is momentarily confused by some smaller details like why Willem Dafoe's character ages but Nicole Kidman's does not they are never lost in Batman V Superman the main goals of the two lead characters is to fight each other and this conflict does get resolved the problem is that resolution ultimately isn't very impactful or satisfying because the motivations of the characters at the end aren't strong enough Batman is initially built up to have motivations to kill Superman but ultimately they turn out to be weak enough for him to abandon them Superman is initially built up to have motivations to defeat Batman only for them to be completely tossed aside in favor of him being commanded by Lex Luthor and so even though motivations are built up they ultimately are not honored which makes the final product feel very inconsistent this brings us to the second character building technique that Aquaman uses to boost the impact of the conflicted character goals the technique is to make the motivations of the characters so strong that they cannot be abandoned or tossed aside take Black Manta for example even though this character ultimately turns out to be nothing but shameless equal bait I would still rank him as one of the stronger villains in the DC EU and that solely because he is set up with such incredibly strong personal motivation we already established that his purpose for existing is to kill Aquaman but why is that because Aquaman is directly responsible for the death of the only person that he has in his life well you can later like that you killed innocent people you asked to see for mercy [Music] not only does Aquaman's refusal to help cause black mantas father to die it also forces Black Manta to purposefully turn his back on his own father and leave him for death this is pretty similar to the way kill mongers motivation was set up in black panther only one step further or maybe even two steps further because Black Manta is also fueled by guilt and self-hatred because he is also partly responsible for what happened which adds in yet another layer of emotion the only way the setup could have been even more impactful in my eyes is if Black Manta was actually the one who got his dad trapped instead of his dad doing it to himself but even as is the motivations of Black Manta are strong enough in fact they are so strong and so personal that even without Aquaman having any personal motivations in the conflict between them the conflict still easily passes what I like to call the martha test meaning the motivations of Black Manta are so powerful that their battle becomes inevitable either he kills Aquaman or Aquaman completely incapacitate him one or the other no compromises or middle grounds exist and that's what makes this character and his conflict with Aquaman so impactful same story with King or only here Aquaman as well has strong personal motivations Aquaman has to get the Trident and the throne or because arms invasion would kill masses of humans like Aquaman's father or on the other hand wants to invade humanity because he has had enough of humans dumping their crap in the water because for a century we have polluted our waters and poisoned our children now the skies turn in our oceans boil if you were paying attention to what I just said you might have noticed that with orme I used the word want instead of has to which usually means that the motivation isn't strong enough and even though more motivations could have been improved a bit recently became King and is now desperate to prove himself some secret personal vendetta against humans maybe human neglect has now gotten worse not just the same as a century ago luckily the movie also adds another layer of personal motivations into this conflict or blames Aquaman for the death of their mother because in his mind Aquaman is the reason she was killed Aquaman blames orme for the same because arm is the child of the now dead previous king who made the decision to kill their mother once again it's a case of one or the other either Aquaman dethrones arm or arm kills him and even though the relationship seems to be fairly impersonal at first it's clear that no compromises or magical martha like words exist and that is what makes the motivations not only consistent but also highly impactful but i do not want to kill you Arthur I'm going to give you one chance a war is coming to the surface whether you like it or not you know I came with that I know now I'm not going to act like Justice League has just one core problem it has an infinite amount of problems but because we have a sort of a thing going on here where we talked about one earlier DCU movie in connection to each point let's just stick to it besides I would argue that the biggest issue with Justice League is that the villain sucks and the biggest reason the villain sucks is because his cause and motivation suck and the biggest reason his goals and motivation suck is because he has no proper basis for them as in instead of actually believing in what he's doing the villain in Justice League is very much like a snobby little rich kid who thinks he's entitled to something just because of who he is [Music] my right as we already discussed the way you can make your movie remain consistent from beginning to end is by making your character goals and motivations remain consistent from beginning to end from inception to resolution and according to the third and final character building point Aquaman teaches us the very best way to ensure that this is the case is to make all of them correct in other words every main character has to believe that their goals and their motivations are in the right not right as in birth rights but right as in this is the right thing to do I've talked about this topic in my earlier perfect villain video but as Aquaman shows it doesn't apply only to villains it applies to everyone villains and heroes and all in between look at Aquaman's chose to leave black mantas father for dead in his eyes he's not responsible because the guy did this to himself not to mention that if he did help that would probably lead to more innocent people dying like was the case here and in that way he's absolutely right but then again look at the same situation from black mantas eyes your father is trapped and about to die and there's a super-powered hero right in front of you who could save your father without any effort at all yet this hero just walks away and leaves him for dead which in many ways is the same as him killing your father because what gives him the right to choose who lives and who dies so of course in that sense it's only fair that you take revenge look at the relationship between Aquaman and orme both of them come from different worlds which allows both of them to think of their actions as them helping their own people plus the case of their mother arm obviously views Aquaman as the reason their mother was killed because he literally is the reason their mother was killed but from Aquaman side arm represents the people who actually killed her again both sides understandably and justifiably viewed themselves as the one in the right and consequently neither side will back down or compromise until the conflict is properly resolved compare this to the character of Mara does she believe what she's doing is right well hard to say because we don't really know what she's doing or why she's doing it as in she doesn't have a clear goal or motivations I guess you could assume that she just wants what's best for her people but we still have no clue as to why we know Willem Dafoe does things because he's loyal to Aquaman's mother but as to Mira who apparently is a main protagonist in this movie not so much why is she so concerned for her people and if she really is so concerned for people why does she have no problem with dismembering and executing her own people nothing about her is clear nothing about her is consistent and as a result she rises up to be one of the most bland and forgettable comic book movie main characters in existence if you plan to make your movie function properly and consistently from the opening image to the ending credits take note from Aquaman and build your main characters like it does not like this but like this give your characters clear goals that are in such direct conflict with one another that they cannot go unresolved make their motivation so strong and so personal that these conflicts carry the maximum impact and leslie boost and secured the effect of both the goals and the motivations by making the characters believe that what they are doing is the right thing to do [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

Channel: Filmento

Views: 2,650,686

Keywords: aquaman, aquaman trench scene, aquaman fight scene, dceu, batman, wonder woman, superman, aquaman ending, filmento, film perfection, aquaman sequel, aquaman 2, aquaman clip, aquaman full movie, jason momoa, mistakes, review, ending explained, aquaman battle scene, aquaman mera, aquaman amber heard, gal gadot, aquaman vs black manta, aquaman vs orm, black manta, aquaman after credits

Id: L8_h0Fhr0LA

Length: 17min 1sec (1021 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 15 2019