Why ‘Aquaman’ Feels Like a Fresh Approach for DC

Author: Richard Newby / Source: The Hollywood Reporter

What could be greater than a trailer? A five-minute footage reel. That’s exactly what Warner Bros. released Friday morning for James Wan’s Aquaman. The extended look gives viewers a greater glimpse at the scope and tone of the first cinematic adaptation of DC’s most underrated hero.

While DC’s cinematic universe, outside of Wonder Woman (2017) has divided fans and critics, Aquaman looks unlike anything else superhero films have offered before. Let’s dive in.

The footage opens on a snowglobe, resting on top of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Dunwich Horror. While it may seem like simple set dressing, the two objects hint at the film’s tone and influences, suggesting both otherworldly fantasy and beauty, alongside extradimensional horror with far-reaching consequences. But before the footage takes us down those paths, it establishes the love story between Queen Atlanna (Nicole Kidman) and lighthouse keeper Tom Curry (Temuera Morrison). Over the decades, Aquaman’s origins have gone through numerous iterations.

When the character debuted in More Fun Comics No. 73 (1941), he was the son of human parents, whose widowed father, a scientist, taught him how to survive underwater while studying Atlantis. In the late ’50s, Aquaman’s heritage was rewritten and he became the son of a lighthouse keeper and an outcast from Atlantis. 1989’s The Legend of Aquaman Special, rewrote his Aquaman’s origins yet again, making him the son of Queen Atlanna and the wizard Atlan who was abandoned and then found by the aging lighthouse keeper Arthur Curry who gave the child his name.

21^st century comics have blended these origins together, and the result is the one we see established for the film. Arthur Curry/Aquaman (Jason Momoa) as “a product of love that never should have been” opens up interesting avenues for the character, both as a man of two worlds, and one who feels abandoned by a mother and kingdom he never truly got to know. For all the spectacle that’s shown here, the opening scenes serve as a reminder that Aquaman’s story is one of abandonment and inheritance and the reconciliation of the two.

The new footage not only does more to establish Arthur Curry’s place in the world, but also Mera’s (Amber Heard). Don’t mistake her as simply Aquaman’s girlfriend destined to be a damsel in distress. Mera is…

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