Aquaman 2 : The Lost Kingdom v1.11

Bad Movies Made Less Bad Presents:
Less Kordax, but STILL a terrible movie.

Biggest criticisms about the movie -

• Only half the comedic attempts seem to connect with me, the others made me roll my eyes.

• Repeated exposition

• Overhanded "climate" message

• Slow : had little to no suspense, tried to build momentum but it didn't work.

• The villain is simply underwhelming.

Main Goals

• Cut corny jokes, removing unimportant eye-rolling moments

• Remove Kordax dialogue and AQ1 flashbacks when possible

• Move Arthur's introduction until after Black Manta finds the trident and five months later

• Dial back much of the the overall movie exposition

• Removal of giant bugs scenes

• Mild LUT update for a bit blacker blacks and more contrast, to feel more epic.

Intention:

Due to my OSD and having 11 DCEU edits, I needed to try and tackle this one as my final DCEU edit (that would chronologically come before my Flash edit)

Cut list:

• Move up Manta's scenes up to recieving trident to before Arthur's intro, add "Somewhere in Antarctica" text.

• Tightened dialogue in Antarctic with Manta and Stingray.

• New title sequence to after worker gets dragged into darkness.

• Removed shots of Kordex and Kordex dialogue from Manta's first vision, added in burning dead bodies

• Tightened pirate attack and Arthur Intro.

• Removed Arthur Jr talking to fish.

• Added in Vulko flashback dream

• Tightened Council discussion.

• Tightened Arthur and Dad scene

• Tightened Atlantis heist sequence, removed Oracalcum being volatile

• Removed Mera Radio'ing in to command Border guards and sharks having acceleration pedals and handles

• Added score right before Manta is about to execute Mera.

• Rebuilt Mission Briefing sequence

• Removed mention of there being 12 other deposits that have been attacked, keeping it more general.

• Changed Queen Atlantis calling Topo a cephalopod to calling him Topo, removed "greenhouse" and "tipping point" from her dialogue.

• Removed Arthur asking Topo if the fluid is pee.

• Removed much of the desert prison exposition. Now its "not so far away that no one would dare cross the desert" (since the ocean seems to be right there) and if the place was deserted in the first movie, there shouldn't be a different race of people who lived there, just some "fanatical" prison guards is enough.

• Tightened Prision escape, removed Castaway jokes.

• Changed Arthur drinking Orm's rescue water from "its hot up there".

• Removed final shots of Arthur, Orm and Topo being chased into the ocean.

• Removed some Arthur jokes when talking to Orm.

• Removed initial shot of Hammerhead ship arriving at Devils Deep.

• Tightened Shin and Manta discussion, removed part about monsters on the island

• Tightened the Sunken Citadel sequence, removed band singing shot.

• Removed "outlaws, aren't we all" line

• Changed dialogue to remove "footsies" work and the feet part of Kingfish's joke.

• Sped up some of the fighting shots.

• Trimmed most of Kordax's lines talking to Manta in the mirror.

• Removed rotten coconut joke.

• Removed all of the large bugs sequence.

• Updated Shin's trident vision with new shots of icebergs melting, releasing Kordax.

• Removed Orm mentioning why satellites haven't found the refinery.

• Removed Orm telling Arthur not to use the Oracalum as a weapon.

• Removed Manta line "I was gonna kill you last, but thanks for dropping by. You're making this easy."

• Reordered shots of island getting hit with rockets and Manta attacking a downed Orm.

• Trimmed Black Trident flashback to remove the "superpower", "pollution" and "going to war".

• Removed Manta talking to Arthur's dad.

• Tightened sequence of whales attacking Hammerhead ship.

• Removed Arthur and Mera jumping onto bridge column.

• Reordered shots of horde attacking.

• Removed Arthur Jr. telepathically calling his dad.

• Removed Kordex talking to Arthur through Manta about his brother.

• Removed Kordex talking to Arthur through Orm.

• Tightened final Kordex sequence, removing him speaking out loud.

• Tightened Orm's release dialogue.

• Tightened epilogue speech.