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#137. The Substandard on Aquaman and Shazam!
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Dudes Chatting — DC's Comic-Con trailers: A micro-episode devoted entirely to the just-released Aquaman and Shazam! trailers. JVL is harshly dismissive of Aquaman, arguing the CGI looks like the Gungans from The Phantom Menace, Jason Momoa projects no charisma, and Amber Heard's red hair reads as a desperate attempt to evoke Ariel from The Little Mermaid. Sonny agrees the trailer looks bad but finds Shazam! more promising — it reads as lighter and more Marvel-like in tone. Vic's lone positive note on Aquaman is Black Manta's costume. JVL predicts DC has nothing viable left after these two films except Wonder Woman, while Sonny speculatively projects $700–800 million worldwide for Shazam!.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00Billy Batts, I choose you as champion. Hello? Say my name so my powers may flow through you. But I don't know your name, sir. Shazam. Are you for real? Say it, okay?
Vic00:00:30Hello, and welcome to another micro-episode of The Substandard, sponsored by The Black Tux. Wedding season is upon us. You're going to be doing it big and going out to all of your buddies' weddings. When you're bringing a date, you want to look fresh, but it has to be convenient. That's where TheBlackTux.com comes in. The Black Tux has awesome suits and tuxedos in all kinds of styles, and you rent them online. To get $20 off your purchase, visit TheBlackTux.com slash substandard. That's TheBlackTux.com. That's TheBlackTux.com slash substandard for $20 off your purchase. I'm Victor Matus, along with Sonny Bunch and Jonathan V. Last. Just a quick reminder that full episodes of The Substandard are available every Thursday at 11 a.m. Well, it's Comic-Con insanity, right? Comic-Con. Comic-Con. And is this when trailers are being dropped right now in the middle to excite the fans?
Sonny00:01:26Yeah, it's definitely—I think we've reached the point. On Comic-Con, where it is little more than a trailer debut service. Like, all of these movies have been planned out years in advance. Like, you have entire universes that are ready to go. And they don't do the big debuts anymore, right? It used to be like there would be actual surprises, like, oh, we've got big announcements to make. But now it's just like, okay, here's the new trailer. Let's all watch it and, you know, clap. Johnny Depp will show up as Grindelwald.
Vic00:01:54He has to. He has to. Because he's got to find a way to make money. And there were two trailers. In particular.
Sonny00:02:00Yeah, well, JVL was extremely excited about the Shazam and Aquaman trailers, right, JVL?
JVL00:02:10I can't even.
Sonny00:02:13Question mark?
JVL00:02:14Question mark? So, I watched Aquaman first. Same. And I thought that that looked like one of the worst trailers I've ever seen for a big budget movie. This isn't to say the movie itself will be bad. Spoiler. The movie itself will be terrible. But that the trailer, qua trailer, is very bad.
Sonny00:02:36Just as a piece of marketing.
JVL00:02:38Right.
Vic00:02:38What got you first? The effects? Is that an issue? The fish?
JVL00:02:42Do you remember the Gungans? Yes.
Vic00:02:45Yeah, of course. From Phantom Menace?
JVL00:02:47Because Atlantis looks like the Gungan world.
Sonny00:02:50Yeah, the underwater sea world.
Vic00:02:52That was 15 years ago. There also seems to be prehistoric creatures in there or something. Yeah, there's like Megalodon.
JVL00:03:00The Atlanteans are all dude bros. Yeah. Arthur Curry himself seems to have like no charisma. Mrs. Elon Musk is checked out on screen.
Sonny00:03:13What's the deal with Amber Heard's hair in this movie? It's the most unnatural shade of red I think I've ever seen. It's like Little Mermaid red. I mean, it's like Jessica Rabbit red. I mean, it's like...
JVL00:03:22It's not good. Now, they do have Black Manta for you, Vic.
Vic00:03:26I do. I saw that. I was about to give the whole thing a total thumbs down. And then I saw the Black Manta. I love me some Black Manta.
Sonny00:03:33Why do you like Black Manta? Do you just like it so you can make Black Manta jokes? I don't... Are you racist? When I... Because it's racism.
Vic00:03:42If it was racist, I'd say I hate Black Manta. But I love Black Manta. And when I was a kid watching the Super Friends on ABC. The Legion of Doom, right? Justice League versus Legion of Doom. Black Manta was definitely in the higher group of villains, along with Bizarro.
JVL00:04:03Now, that version of Black Manta, of course, was not human because his head was shaped like a saucer. It wasn't just a mask, right?
Vic00:04:09But he did have, like, tubes coming out because he needs to breathe. So I'm not sure. Maybe he had a small neck. What was he? Maybe he had a big head and a small neck, which was like me as a... That's why I related, because that was me when I was eight. Makes a lot of... It's all coming together.
Sonny00:04:22One serious thought, though. You mentioned how terrible the underwater city looks. Is this proof that James Cameron is right to have waited 15 years to film Avatar, which he says is going to take place largely underwater? The next one is going to be, like, under the seas of Pandora. That's what it was called. I was going to say, like, Avatar-tornia. Avatarnia. Avatarnia. But, like, it's a... This is, like, a real thing. It looks bad. Filming underwater always looks bad because you can't do it for real.
JVL00:04:52Maybe. I don't know. Do you trust the people who made Justice League, Dawn of Justice? Mm-hmm. To be able to do anything with special effects in a competent manner? Uh, no.
Sonny00:05:05No, it does look bad. Right. I mean, this is... I mean, it looks... It just looks bad.
JVL00:05:07This is like saying, like, you know, you can't have a character standing on the Statue of Liberty with a green screen behind them and not have it look bad. Mm-hmm. You can. You can do it. You can do that.
Sonny00:05:18That's a thing we can do.
JVL00:05:18You can do it on YouTube for probably $500 all by yourself
Vic00:05:22if you want to do. You have... When you're doing something that takes place underwater, you have to make a decision, which is either you go and it's kind of lame because everything is slow and sluggish and murky, like any James Bond scene in the Roger Moore years where it takes place underwater, you know, you can't hear anything, there's lots of bubbles everywhere, and everything is going slow unless you have a machine with a propeller, or you decide to ignore it altogether and you have people talking normal, moving normal.
JVL00:05:50Which is funny because in Justice League, when we have the completely extraneous Aquaman scene, they create a bubble of some sort around them so that they can talk, do you remember this?
Vic00:06:01That's the way out, okay.
JVL00:06:02But in the trailer for this, there's a lot of talking with no bubbles. No bubbles, and they're waving around
Vic00:06:07but they seem to talk normal. Just talking.
Sonny00:06:09Like, I don't know if we really want to get into breaking down the technical issues with the half-fish people.
Vic00:06:14I'm just saying. The half-fish people look weird. You have to just give up and do what, you know, the kids' cartoon, I think it's called Bubble Guppies, and the whole thing takes place underwater but you forget it because they just ignore it altogether and they're moving around and talking, everything is normal.
JVL00:06:27Now is this, does this, does this look like we have essentially the plot of Black Panther but with white guys and fish? It seems pretty similar, yeah.
Vic00:06:38And it's like, and our homeland is a secret land that's about to be discovered kind of a thing?
JVL00:06:43Right. But we're super advanced and super powerful
Sonny00:06:46and I gotta claim
JVL00:06:48my rightful place to the throne right now.
Sonny00:06:51Yeah. Well, except that, kind of, except that the Arthur Treacher character is basically Killmonger.
Vic00:06:59Arthur Treacher.
Sonny00:06:59Isn't that his name? Isn't that Arthur... Arthur Treacher has deficient chips. Oh, Arthur Treacher has deficient chips. I love Arthur Treacher. It's Arthur what? I don't know. Who are you talking about? Aquaman? Aquaman. What's his name? It's Arthur Dent, maybe? I don't know.
Vic00:07:14Arthur Dent's where I first had my first corndog. Bucky Dent? Harvey Dent. Harvey Dent. Harvey Dent. Okay, the Dent cinematic universe is pretty impressive. Question. Yeah. Was Aquaman already in production when Justice League bombed? Yes.
Sonny00:07:30At the very least, it was in pre-production, but I'm pretty sure it was already almost done filming. So they couldn't stop it. Yeah, yeah. They couldn't stop it. They couldn't stop it. But they could not stop it. Your theory, JBL, is that they are going to have to just put the kibosh on the whole DC universe after this and Shazam, which we'll get to in a second, right?
JVL00:07:51I believe that after the next two movies, Warner Brothers will be faced with the reality that nothing they own, in the DC Cinematic Universe, is a viable property. With the exception of Wonder Woman. With the exception of Wonder Woman. The question is, will they then talk themselves into, well, Wonder Woman 2 was a hit, so, you know, hey, look, everybody goes two for seven. Just keep going, or will they stop?
Sonny00:08:20Well, I'm going to throw this out there. I do think that Shazam will actually be pretty successful. I think that looks like a movie that will at the very least appeal to people, even if it's not particularly successful.
Vic00:08:29Let's talk about the Shazam trailer. We all saw that. Superman, but big. What did you think, JVL, of Shazam, the trailer?
JVL00:08:37Shazam with the exclamation mark.
Sonny00:08:39Okay. Shazam! Sure.
JVL00:08:40I do not like Captain Marvel as a hero. I have never liked Captain Marvel as a hero. I especially don't like Captain Marvel as part of the DC Cinematic Universe, because the DC Cinematic Universe, what is the grounding principle of it, Sonny?
Sonny00:08:57Grimdark.
JVL00:08:58No, it's... What if Superman was real?
Sonny00:09:02Uh-huh.
JVL00:09:03Right? Sure. So you could have a real Superman, because it's an alien from another planet whose physiology... Magic.
Sonny00:09:09But Wonder Woman is already... Wizard in a cave. But Wonder Woman is already that. No, not in a different race of people. No, Wonder Woman is already... They're literally... She's literally the creation of a Greek god. This is different. This is just a continuation of that.
Vic00:09:24Great Hera. Sorry.
Sonny00:09:26This is different.
JVL00:09:28And this... Wizard in a cave. I gotta say, this thing looks... Now, maybe... Again, we're only judging the trailer. Maybe the movie will work tonally. Tonally, this does not look very enticing. Do you disagree? I disagree.
Sonny00:09:45I actually disagree. I do think that it looks like the sort of thing that... I mean, it looks like a Marvel movie. It looks like a Marvel movie.
Vic00:09:54Speaking of which, is Shazam supposed to be Ant-Man in Sensibility? Kind of. Is Zachary Lee... Levi supposed to be, like, Paul Rudd?
Sonny00:10:02Or, like, Spider-Man, or, like, kind of... You know, you've got a kid who is trying to figure out how his powers work. It looks like, basically...
Vic00:10:11But there's, like, a Tom Hanks big element, because... His powers are just Superman minus Kryptonite.
Sonny00:10:15Yes. I know. I agree with you that Captain Marvel is a terrible, terrible comic book hero. He's just boring. And the only good use of him ever was in Kingdom Come. I think we can all agree on that.
JVL00:10:27I would agree with that.
Sonny00:10:28You know what I got? Do we get... Mr. Mind?
JVL00:10:30Do you remember Mr. Mind, Victorino? From the cartoon? But I don't remember...
Vic00:10:33From the comic book. No, I didn't read... He's a worm. I didn't read... Okay, no. I didn't do DC comic books. Captain Marvel has three enemies.
JVL00:10:41Black Adam, who's the exact same thing as him. Except Black Atom. But also...
Sonny00:10:47But with a receding hairline. But also, what about the Rock Black Adam movie?
JVL00:10:51Savannah, who's this, like, nerdy scientist guy, and then Mr. Mind, who is a worm. A man named Savannah? Yes. Savannah. Oh, okay. Savannah. Savannah. Please, welcome on the stage, Savannah. Do you remember the Marvel family? Because that's the other thing. You cannot disentangle Captain Marvel from the Marvel family in the way that you can take Superman away from Superboy and Supergirl and all that stuff. Because the Marvel family wasn't just Captain Marvel Jr. and Mary Marvel.
Sonny00:11:21Was there a dog?
JVL00:11:22There was Uncle Marvel, who is fat. Do you remember this? I saw you tweet that.
Sonny00:11:28An old fat man. You're talking- With his gut lapping out over his- I was never really a-
Vic00:11:33That was part of it. This is comedy gold. This is going to be big. This is going to be a big movie.
Sonny00:11:37I think you could do it like the Klump style, with Zachary Levi doing all the different characters.
JVL00:11:45I got to think that we are reaching the end of the DC stuff. Do you disagree? No, no.
Vic00:11:50I was going to ask you. You know what I got the sense of, and you'll remember this from your time, I got the sense that they were going for, besides Ant-Man, they're going for a greatest American hero feel for Shazam. Is this what you're saying? Is this what's happening? Greatest American hero. That's literally, yeah. Yeah. With William Cacks. Terrible. Or Hancock. Or Hancock.
Sonny00:12:05Well, no, but Hancock was different, because Hancock was like a drunken, angry superhero, and this is like- Hancock meets big. Yeah. Well, Superman meets big.
JVL00:12:14I mean, the costume looks terrible.
Vic00:12:17Intentionally, though. It's intentionally supposed to be funny and funny, right? And he's intentionally supposed to be goofy. I like Zachary Levi and Chuck. It looks intentionally goofy. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Which is different from Aquaman, which looks bad. It's just like the CGI looks bad. Right. He's got, Zachary Levi's got the funny hair. He's got the whole thing going. Who is he? Who is Zachary Levi? Chuck, from NBC. He's the guy from Chuck. Which I liked until he finally- The show that some people liked. Yeah. I used to watch until he finally got together with the girl. As always, that ends the show.
Sonny00:12:43Yeah. You know?
Vic00:12:44But- Speaking of ending the show- Speaking of ending the show, I will say this. No matter what happens, it will probably not be as good as the original Shazam movie starring Shaquille O'Neal.
JVL00:12:55Can I say the other? So we have Dark DC.
Vic00:12:59Oh, that was Kazam. Sorry.
JVL00:13:02Veering towards Shazam. And then we have Ryan Reynolds at Comic-Con saying that he really wants to explore Deadpool's bisexuality in the next film. Oh, I'm sure that's fine.
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