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cimoreneWe saw Aquaman yesterday. I was expecting a good time with cheesy special effects and... honestly I was expecting it to be a bit bad, really. Like, fun and bad. But I was pleasantly surprised, and then kind of... a bit shocked? It was actually good. I think it was actually kind of... great?
Now, my expectations were not totally wrong. Much of the plot and a striking amount of the dialogue seemed like part of a Disney animated classic, a (good quality) animated kids' cartoon with superheroes, or a comic (but, like, one written on a kid level). So, yeah, a plot like that can't exist without some silliness, but they knew what they were making and they really leaned in to the silliness, to the genre, and to the things that go into it: cheesy quips and banter, corny dialogue moments, unabashed ogling, dramatic posing, candy-colored costumes... the directing was stylized in a way that helped. I wondered in the middle if the director had a history in music videos, but he didn't - just some genre stuff and tv and Furious 7.
They clearly had some trouble cutting it down as far as they did. There were several places I noticed where normal editing conventions would have left some breathing space - a few seconds of silence or some visual storytelling that got cramped to move to the next point. There were also a number of dangling plot threads that turned out to go nowhere, enough of them that I'm fairly confident they were working from either a much longer script, or an original outline/story that lost some of its meat along the way. The plot that was left didn't really have any holes in it, though - it was coherent, though not exactly concise.
So while it doesn't guarantee that the longer version of the story, whatever it was, had tied up all those loose ends perfectly, I can definitely see how plenty of people in fandom could use that extra space to elevate it significantly by not only tying up the loose ends but clarifying and strengthening the themes of racial division, leadership, and self confidence with some more foils and parallels.
Now, my expectations were not totally wrong. Much of the plot and a striking amount of the dialogue seemed like part of a Disney animated classic, a (good quality) animated kids' cartoon with superheroes, or a comic (but, like, one written on a kid level). So, yeah, a plot like that can't exist without some silliness, but they knew what they were making and they really leaned in to the silliness, to the genre, and to the things that go into it: cheesy quips and banter, corny dialogue moments, unabashed ogling, dramatic posing, candy-colored costumes... the directing was stylized in a way that helped. I wondered in the middle if the director had a history in music videos, but he didn't - just some genre stuff and tv and Furious 7.
They clearly had some trouble cutting it down as far as they did. There were several places I noticed where normal editing conventions would have left some breathing space - a few seconds of silence or some visual storytelling that got cramped to move to the next point. There were also a number of dangling plot threads that turned out to go nowhere, enough of them that I'm fairly confident they were working from either a much longer script, or an original outline/story that lost some of its meat along the way. The plot that was left didn't really have any holes in it, though - it was coherent, though not exactly concise.
So while it doesn't guarantee that the longer version of the story, whatever it was, had tied up all those loose ends perfectly, I can definitely see how plenty of people in fandom could use that extra space to elevate it significantly by not only tying up the loose ends but clarifying and strengthening the themes of racial division, leadership, and self confidence with some more foils and parallels.
(no subject)
Date: 24 Dec 2018 11:56 am (UTC)p.s. This should get a Special Oscar for Best Hair in Water.
(no subject)
Date: 24 Dec 2018 08:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 24 Dec 2018 10:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 24 Dec 2018 11:07 pm (UTC)