] type='image/vnd.microsoft.icon'/>

Monday, February 02, 2015

The Fire and Water Podcast, Episode 115

sgTHE FIRE AND WATER PODCAST: Episode 115
The official podcast of THE AQUAMAN SHRINE and FIRESTORM FAN

Episode 115 - Throne of Atlantis/F.I.R.E.S.T.O.R.M.

This week Shag and I discuss Firestorm and Aquaman's big appearances in other media: Firestorm on THE FLASH and Aquaman in JUSTICE LEAGUE: THRONE OF ATLANTIS!

Have a question or comment? Looking for more great content?
THE AQUAMAN SHRINE - http://www.aquamanshrine.net
FIRESTORM FAN - http://firestormfan.com
THE FIRE & WATER TUMBLR - http://fireandwaterpodcast.tumblr.com
E-MAIL: firewaterpodcast@comcast.net

This episode brought to you by InStockTrades - http://instocktrades.com

Opening Theme, "The Time Is Now" by Michael Kohler. Closing music by Daniel Adams and Ashton Burge of The Bad Mamma Jammas! http://www.facebook.com/BadMammaJammas

ALL back episodes of THE FIRE AND WATER PODCAST available on The Fire and Water Podcast blog: http://fireandwaterpodcast.blogspot.com

Thanks for listening! Fan the Flame and Ride the Wave!



1 comment:

Darrin said...

As a generally positive person, sharing my thoughts on this movie is quite difficult since I wanted to love the movie, and expected to love the movie, but definitely did not love the movie. Aquaman has frequently been treated badly in animation since the days of the Super Friends and that trend continues here.

The source material for this movie was the best Justice League story in years, yet the film managed to turn the excellent comic into a mediocre and mundane movie.

Once again, the world of animation shows they don’t think Aquaman can do anything other than talk to fish. This is established from the opening scene and continues throughout the movie. Aquaman seems incapable of defeating anyone or getting out of any scrape without calling for help from his finny friends.

I thought the movie was going to surprise us near the end when Orm defeated most of the members of the Justice League. I thought we were going to see Aquaman take Orm down and show he could defeat an enemy the other members could not. However, in the end Orm completely overpowered Aquaman until Cyborg distracted Orm with his video confession allowing Aquaman to get in a sucker punch.

Beyond his heroic strengths or lack thereof, Arthur the man was treated as badly as Aquaman. He spent the entire first third of the movie either drunk or hungover. That was a terrible introduction to the character given the excellent introduction of Aquaman in the New 52 comics that the animation team had to work with.

Like the two of you, I didn’t watch Justice League: War. I was upset over Aquaman being left out as a founding member of the Justice League once again only to be replaced by Shazam the way he was replaced by Hawkgirl in the animated television series. So, this was my first exposure to the rest of the new animated Justice League and I must say several of them were treated as badly as Aquaman.

Shazam and Green Lantern were particularly irritating. Every time they were on screen I cringed at the dialogue and the action. This completely surprised me since I’m a fan of Sean Astin from The Lord of the Rings and Nathan Fillion from Firefly and Castle. Plus the continued insistence on making Batman excessively dark and brooding resulted in a one-dimensional monotonous character. So, it wasn’t just Aquaman, this movie managed to make most of these iconic characters bland and boring.

In this movie we get Ocean Master, Black Manta, and the Trench. It seemed as though the producers threw in villain after villain to avoid spending any more time with Aquaman than was necessary. Used in this way, the Trench were neither mysterious nor scary. They were merely another army for Orm thus wasting the potential for a great introduction movie with them in the future.

So, did the movie get anything right? I will say that I thought Mera was treated quite well in the movie. She was more powerful and more levelheaded than Aquaman or most any other member of the Justice League for that matter. When the invitation to join was extended to Aquaman at the end of the movie, I couldn’t understand why the League didn’t invite Mera to join instead of him. Judging from this movie alone, she is stronger and smarter than most of them.

Like Rob, I did like the closing credit sequence. It provided a sense of promise that the movie never fulfilled, but actually left me feeling more positive toward the movie than when the story initially wrapped up.

I agree completely that as Aquman fans, we need to support this movie in any way possible to keep Aquaman in the movies going forward. It isn’t a terrible movie. The most appropriate word I can think of is underwhelming since the movie manages to make these interesting characters bland and this exciting story boring.

I am retweeting any positive reviews I find in the hopes of getting those points of view out there. In addition, I purchased five copies of the movie. One for us and four others to give as gifts. I’m hoping that more casual fans will find it easier to enjoy the film than I did.