Hacker Cinema
Aquaman
2018 · Film · 143 min
Directed by James Wan
Half-human, half-Atlantean Arthur Curry is taken on the journey of his lifetime to discover if he is worth of being a king.
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9 comments on Hacker News
Did you actually try your cinema prompt recently? I just asked my pixel phone "tell me showtimes for aquaman in Berlin" and it immediately opened an overview of cinemas with showtimes for the Aquaman movie today with options to buy the ticket.
Same for the weather prompt someone else posted above and contrary to their experience it showed me exactly what I expected.
I'm a bit confused if those examples are something that didn't work in the past or if it's something that somehow doesn't work properly in the US right now.
> while those Marvel effects are, well, boring by now. They have no wow effect (we see them in almost every single modern day movie), the convey no emotion (difficult to properly act, I think, when you are in front of a green screen and everything just plays out in your imagination) not do those effects actually drive the "story" forward.
I think this is the crux of it, moreso than the CGI Orgy (great term btw). You can have movies with visibly apparent CGI, or even straight up animated movies, but the action is great and still drives the plot and pulls on your heart strings. I know every beat of The Matrix by heart, but there's still a ton of suspense in every action shot, because each encounter adds some new angle to the power scaling. At the start, squad of mooks > 1 freedom fighter > several mooks, but even 1 agent is better than several FFs. Then that balance shifts.
Contrast that with the Smiths fight in the later films, and it's totally Conservation of Ninjutsu at play. Adding more baddies just divides the power of a single baddie, because we already know the outcome, so we know 1 Neo = N Smiths.
Watched Aquaman recently, same thing. Completely unprincipled power scaling. No reference frame, and it just scales up and up until it's CGI Army 1 vs CGI Army 2. That spectacle might work if I had more reference for the power levels, plus emotional investment, but I don't.
I think so much of what made The Thing great is what they couldn't show because of their limitations, not because of their great special effects. It's a thing that the great digital effect artists have realized and integrated into their movies.
When you look at movies like The Arrival, which is not considered a great special effects film because they're understated and get out of the way of the story, the effects artists plop a digital ship into the middle of a field and leave it there. Understated digital effects, in conjunction with practical effects, are often the most effective and least appreciated.
Villeneuve has a tendency to direct movies that do this well (and I apologize for being a bit of a fan boy), and I hope that more movies take this direction.
I enjoyed the Marvel films, but at times they looked a bit like digital vomit on screen and became hard to follow. I couldn't even finish Aquaman, TBH, as it was just over the top with the amount of digital noise. Though, Justice League attempted to do better than this, the Darkside fight was a bit nauseating =(
Again, though, I think the Villeneuve films will stand the test of time, where as the blockbuster comic films will go the way of films like Predator. I enjoyed it at the time, but it doesn't really hold up.
Sometimes really bizzare elements get carried over to movies.
Like Black Manta suit in Aquaman movie. It felt like something from power rangers.
It's not typically how these things go, but Amber Heard was abusing Johnny Depp and holding him hostage. There are lengthy audio recordings where she admits to hitting him, threatening that the public will never believe his story.
She dragged his name through the mud in the court of public opinion, and it turned out she was actually an abuser. It ruined his reputation and cost him a lot of money.
https://globalnews.ca/news/6499297/amber-heard-johnny-depp-recording/
Jonny Depp lost work throughout the publicized drama, while Heard continued to get bigger roles. Now that the audio is public, Heard has been let go from her contracts on Aquaman and other films.
There's an ongoing lawsuit, and it's probably best to withhold judgment as to Depp's guilt until it's concluded. The only evidence we have is of Amber's behavior. We have no evidence Depp did anything wrong.
Needless to say, the whole situation is a mess.
Ken Loach said this of superhero films: "They're made as commodities like hamburgers, and it's not about communicating, and it's not about sharing our imagination."
Superhero films are just a genre, like any other. It's a constraint that lets you better express other themes or ideas.
Think about the best superhero films vs the worst ones. The good ones were all about something, not just people running around in costumes. And all the bad ones were just people running around in costumes.
Nolan Batman: does power make right? (all) who has the right the enforce justice? (bb and dkr) does peace by force breed a worse evil? (dk) how far can you push people before they embrace their darker haves? (dk and dkr)
Captain America: what is patriotism? (all) can you trust authority? (WS) the risks of concentrating power (WS) is rehabilitation viable (WS and CW) is safety more important than liberty? (CW)
Wonder Woman: is it better to be a part of society or apart from it? is the world worth saving? do woman have the power to shape the world?
Captain Marvel: can a woman succeed in a hero role without a male romantic/sexual interest to feminize her? also, the power of propaganda to literally shape how we view others (and especially, "The Other")
Black Panther: can black culture be identified with modernity and success? what is the role of tradition and culture in modern society? does our true power come from external sources or from within?
Spiderman (HC, FFH, IS): how much would the events of the Avengers films actually affect daily life? (HC, FFH) what are the consequences of casual implementation of government policy? (HC) what does it mean to be a superhero? (IS) what is identity (IS) how much of life is driven by deception (FFH)?
X-Men: what does it mean to be an outsider/The Other? (1, 2) can The Other become part of society (2, FC, DOFP)? Contrast with the universally derided 3, Apocalypse, and DP, which don't appear to have any driving themes.
Aquaman: can man and nature exist together in a non-destructive state? can mankind save itself?
Joker: what is sanity? how thin is the line between thought and action? does inequality justify class-based warfare? does abuse justify retribution?
Contrast with the DC Justice League ensemble films, which don't have any themes. They just have people in costumes stand around a fight CGI villains. Snyder's Superman films have a concept (what if Superman killed?) but no themes (since they backed away from actually exploring any of the religious themes likening Superman to Jesus).
For those of you who haven't had to suffer through Ken Loach's works: they're all pretentious, insufferable dramas that claim to be about something. But they're trying so hard that they have to hit you over the head over and over and over again so that you know that they're supposed to be about something. Because if his works didn't explicitly tell you they were about something you wouldn't know from the play/show/movie that it was anything deeper than the poorly directed, poorly acted crap in front of you.
You can just go visit China and see for yourself. Beijing / Shanghai at least, but better yet outside the top tier cities (if you can get a proper Visa for that).
I found it almost funny that you just cannot say anything negative about anything Han-related. Few months ago I was having lunch with somebody considered educated & globalized (went to school in the UK, works in a Canadian VC firm in Beijing). The minute I said that my air quality monitor[1] is reading PM10 100+[2] in Beijing so I need to wear a mask, she said I was exaggerating and that the monitor firmware was modified by American propaganda machine.
Then this other guy went on a rant of Aquaman (movie) being a great Chinese achievement because it's directed by James Wan (Wan is a common Han last name). The guy is Malaysian-born Australian who made a career in LA.
I don't particularly care if that's how people prefer to live their life (if it works for them that's fine). I just find it funny and weird every time I go there.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DJ1WCVP
[2] https://www.who.int/airpollution/data/en/
Have you seen Aquaman yet? Studios are already starting to replace popular actors in the movies with younger/better looking CGI versions of themselves. As the tech gets cheaper, you should expect a lot more of this in future blockbuster movies.
Wow... an Aquaman movie that I might actually watch...