Aquaman made a huge splash in our hearts when he was introduced in Justice League and now the King of the Seven Seas and Communicator of the Fishes is finally taking us to the depths of the ocean in his new solo movie. Aquaman released in U.S. theaters on December 21st and dove its way straight to the top of the box office. The film has already made $345 million worldwide and is expected to conquer the U.S. box office with a $70 million opening weekend.
However, although Aquaman is uniting the seven seas and bringing the commotion of the ocean into the box offices, movie critics and devoted DC fans may have noticed a couple of flaws in the movie. No matter how great a movie, or how distracted you are by Aquaman’s tattooed muscles, there are certain aspects and moments where things just don’t quite add up. This might be because a scene was cut during production, the film didn’t follow the source material, or because the producers sacrificed reality for comedic value.
Whatever the reason, Aquaman had its fair share of movie mistakes, continuity issues, and just plain old nonsense.
So, get ready to catch the waves and brace yourself for some fin-tastic revelations, because here are the 30 Things That Make No Sense About Aquaman.
Warning: there will be spoilers for Aquaman.
30. The Air-Breathing Atlanteans
Whenever Orm’s elite emerges into the surface world, they’re wearing helmets filled with water so that they can breathe. However, there are a handful of Atlanteans who can apparently breathe out of the water. Aquaman, Mera, Orm, King Nereus, and Queen Atlanna can all breathe in the surface world, which leads to the assumption that only Atlantean royalty has the power to traverse the two worlds.
However, Vulko comes to Maine to train Aquaman when he’s younger, and he’s not of royal blood. How is he able to breathe on the surface and why is there an exception made for him?
29. Amnesty Bay is in Massachusetts
The movie opens up with a beautiful shot of Tom Curry’s lighthouse and Queen Atlanna washing ashore in Amnesty Bay, Maine. However, if you’re a fan of the comics, you might find something wrong with that picture.
In the comics, Amnesty Bay is located in Massachusetts, not Maine. This is why you might have found it odd that young Arthur Curry went on a field trip to the Boston Aquarium if he’s living in Maine. The director probably added the Boston Aquarium as a nod to the comics, but why change Arthur’s hometown to Maine and have his field trip in Boston? It added unnecessary confusion to the story.
28. Did Queen Atlanna Really Try to Get the Trident?
Queen Atlanna says that she tried multiple times to obtain the Trident of Neptune, but did she really try? When Aquaman goes behind the waterfall and confronts the Karathen, the monster tells him that many people have tried to obtain the trident and have failed. She then points out their bones laying on the floor.
So, if Queen Atlanna really did try to take the trident, shouldn’t she be on the bottom of the ocean floor with the rest of the failed souls? Also, how did she even know that the Trident would get them out of the portal? She couldn’t talk to the Karathen, so she would’ve known nothing about escaping.
27. Vulko’s Dramatic Breakdown
During the challenge in the Ring of Fire, Vulko has a mental breakdown. He makes a whole dramatic scene about how Orm is going to execute Aquaman, which will break his promise to Atlanna to keep the child safe. However, even after his long, drawn-out scene, Vulko does absolutely nothing to help Aquaman.
Actually, when Vulko starts to throw his temper tantrum, there wasn’t even anything about the fight that would have suggested Orm was going to take out Aquaman. In fact, Aquaman wasn’t even losing at that point of the battle.
26. What Happened to the Brine King and Captain Murk?
Aquaman was Arthur Curry’s first solo movie. However, the movie seemed to focus too much on the main character and not enough on anyone else in the movie. None of the other characters had a real character arc and some of them simply disappeared from the movie completely.
Captain Murk put his head in the toilet during the fight scene in Italy, but what happened to him after that? Did he survive or is he now stuck in the toilet for the rest of his life? The Brine King was also another character that the movie failed to bring back. After his refusal to join Orm’s army, he was never seen again.
25. How is There so Much Fire Underwater?
Most of us know that fire and water don’t mix well, yet the underwater world was full of the dangerous element. There are volcanoes that erupt underwater and there is even a Ring of Fire in the Pacific Basin. However, the amount of controllable fire that is shown in Atlantis is pretty excessive and unrealistic for multiple locations in the ocean.
Fire requires oxygen to survive, which is lacking in the ocean. Therefore, there shouldn’t be so much controllable fire in the Ring of Fire and the Brine Kingdom. In fact, the final battle scene made it seem as though fire consumed the entire underwater world. It didn’t even feel like we were still in the ocean.
24. No One Read the Submarine Handbook
When the pirates infiltrate the submarine at the beginning of the movie, they go in with guns blazing. However, as pirates and seafaring looters, they should know that they shouldn’t carelessly shoot a weapon in such a pressurized area. That’s simply submarine 101.
Also, the warning that flashes on the submarine screen states that the ballast was destroyed. The ballast controls the buoyancy and balance of a vessel and therefore, it’s pretty unlikely that the submarine could have made its way to the attack on Orm and King Nereus without balance control.
23. There’s No One Around
Aquaman’s first solo movie was supposed to focus on his origins. However, the producers focused so much on him that they forgot to add anyone else to the movie. During most of the scenes, there was absolutely no one else in the background. Apparently, all the beaches in the film are closed off from the public because there was no one else there when Vulko trains Aquaman or when Orm brings Black Manta some Atlantean weapons.
There was also no one in the immediate vicinity when Aquaman and Mera put the bottle in the Sicilian statue’s hand. Shouldn’t there have been security monitoring them and scolding them for touching the ancient artifacts?
22. Queen Atlanna’s Introduction
Why did Queen Atlanna take down all of the Atlantean guards that came to get her and then just decide to go to Atlantis anyway? Why did she even fight if she was going to just leave willingly? Also, Tom Curry didn’t seem like a normal person watching the love of his life being attacked. He simply stood on the sidelines without any expressions of sadness.
The way Atlanna came to Maine also doesn’t make sense. Aquaman was only ever injured by Atlantean tech and he’s only half-Atlantean, so what injured Atlanna so badly? Also, when Tom carries her into the lighthouse, you might also notice that she can somehow still hold her trident while unconscious.
21. King Neptune’s “Old” Technology
When Vulko shows Aquaman the recording that would lead to the location of the trident, he says that it is too archaic and old to decipher. However, when Aquaman and Mera use it in the desert kingdom, a holographic image of King Neptune appears. Does that look like old technology to you?
That recording was hidden in the ruins for a very long time – since the fall of Atlantis. Was Atlantis so advanced that it had holographic technology when the rest of the world didn’t even have electricity? Also, if that’s true, it doesn’t seem like the Atlanteans have advanced much. You can see holograms throughout Atlantis, and it doesn’t seem as advanced as King Neptune’s message.
20. Where Did Aquaman Find Atlantean Coins?
Aquaman gets inspired by Mera’s exploration of Sicily and therefore gives a coin to a little girl to make a wish in the wishing fountain. However, if you take a closer look at the coin, you’ll see that it’s not a Euro.
The coin looks very similar to the currency that Black Manta refuses to take from Orm, which suggests that it is Atlantean money. How did Aquaman get Atlantean money though? He has never been to Atlantis and he didn’t stop by the bank while he was taking on the Ring of Fire. So, where did he find this underwater currency?
19. Did Everyone Know Atlanna Was Still Alive?
The biggest flaw in the movie was that we knew Queen Atlanna was alive from the very beginning.
Whenever Aquaman talked to Vulko or Mera about his mother, he would say that the Atlanteans took her to the Trench to meet her demise. However, every person that he confronted about his mother corrected his language to say she was “sacrificed.” It made no sense for every person in the movie to use the exact same phrasing, and it ultimately led to the audiences knowing that Atlanna was still alive, long before her big reveal.
18. Who Was Steering the Boat to the Trench?
When Aquaman awakens from the battle in Sicily, he has healing seaweed on his body, and he’s on a boat. He goes up to Mera and asks her if she stole a boat from the marina, but the question he should have asked was: who is steering the boat?
When they figured out the route to take to the King Neptune’s Trident, it was clear that they had to go on a certain path to get to the Trench. However, no one was steering the boat to their intended location. It just seemed like the ship took them exactly where they needed to go.
17. How did Aquaman and his Mom Recognize Each Other?
Aquaman and his mom are reunited on the island of the Earth’s Core in a long, drawn-out scene. When they see each other, it’s as if time freezes and the two instantaneously recognize each other. However, how is it possible for them to recognize each other after so much time had passed?
Aquaman was only a baby when he last saw his mother, and although he might have had photos to jog his memory, there’s no way Queen Atlanna would have been able to recognize him from her memories of him. Arthur has aged a lot since then and looks very different from the baby she left many years ago.
16. The Long Kiss in the Middle of the Battlefield
Every movie has to have that perfect romantic kiss scene. However, Aquaman’s was less than perfect. The long kiss happened in the middle of a battlefield with everything exploding and people losing their lives around Arthur and Mera. It didn’t seem like the perfect time for a kiss, let alone one that lasted that long.
In fact, Arthur and Mera’s whole relationship made no sense. Mera complained about how she couldn’t just fall in love with someone and that’s why she found it hard to be with Orm. However, she fell for Aquaman pretty instantaneously.
15. Aquaman Could Communicate With the Trench, so Why Didn’t He?
At the end of the movie, everyone is surprised that Aquaman takes command of the Trench… but, why did it take him so long to use these powers?
The Trench attacked the boat on Aquaman and Mera’s journey to find the Trident, causing them to fall into the water. However, looking back, Aquaman could have just used his powers of spoken word and convinced them to stop attacking. He also could have talked to the Trench about the whereabouts of King Neptune’s Trident and saved themselves a battle and a headache.
14. What Took Atlanna So Long to Interrupt Aquaman and Orm’s Fight
At the end of the movie, Queen Atlanna reveals herself and stops Aquaman and Orm from fighting any longer. However, when she arrives on the platform, she’s wearing a whole new set of threads. Where did she get her new clothes?
Also, what took her so long to show Atlantis that she was still alive? She could have ended the fight a lot sooner and helped Orm see the error in his ways. It seemed like she simply sat on the sidelines waiting for Aquaman to do all the work, or maybe she was shopping for new clothes before her big reveal.
13. The Karathen Eats People, But Leaves the Bones Perfectly Intact
The Karathen tells Aquaman that many people have not succeeded in obtaining King Neptune’s Trident and points to the skeletons of previous contenders. Later, she says that if Aquaman doesn’t pass the test, she won’t mind because she hasn’t feasted in a long time.
This suggests that the Karathen has been eating the fallen contenders as her mid-day snack. So, why are the skeletons on the ocean floor still perfectly intact? They don’t look like anything has been munching on them at all. Also, how has the Karathen been surviving all these years without anything to eat? She doesn’t actually seem essential to guarding King Neptune’s Trident, so why doesn’t she just go somewhere else?
12. How Can the Trench Attack Aquaman and Mera Out of the Water?
The Trench live deep beneath the ocean. So, why are they able to come up to the surface and attack a ship that’s above the water? How did they see the ship if they’re in the depths of the ocean, and how are they able to breathe out of the water? They should’ve been immediately crushed by the change in pressure.
The Trench are also scared of light, but there is light at the bottom of the ocean. Although it’s naked to the human eye, floor-dwelling marine animals are able to see it and therefore wouldn’t find light to be a foreign object. In the movie, there was also lightning on the sea floor.
11. Aquaman’s Disappearing Tattoos
One of the biggest continuity mistakes found in Justice League was the constant changing of Aquaman’s tattoos. Since the tattoos aren’t real, it seemed as though they looked different every single time Aquaman appeared on the screen.
This mistake didn’t stop at Justice League, though. Aquaman also inherited some of these tattoos issues. Although Arthur is wearing a shirt for most of the movie, there are scenes where you can either see down his shirt or around it. During some of these moments, if you look closely, you may notice that his tattoos look different than normal.
10. How Did Black Manta Know How to Rebuild Atlantean Tech?
Orm brings Black Manta some really cool Atlantean weapons, but why didn’t Orm make it ready-to-go with the specifications that Black Manta wanted or needed?
After Black Manta gets his weapons, we see a very long montage of him rebuilding and repurposing the Atlantean technology. How does Black Manta know how to use and reconstruct Atlantean technology? Why does he even need to rebuild it? Also, how does he have so much time to build new armor? Shouldn’t he have been hunting down Aquaman and Mera as soon as possible so that they didn’t get away?
9. The Bubbles Coming Out of Orm’s Mouth
You may have noticed a change in the way that Atlanteans talk in this movie versus in Justice League. In the previous DC movie, the water society needed bubbles to be able to talk to each other. However, James Wan decided he wanted to do away with that nonsense – all except for one odd moment.
When Mera interrupts the Ring of Fire and helps Aquaman escape, Orm yells “Mera!” and bubbles come out of his mouth. This is the only time in the movie where we see bubbles being used when people talk, and it’s unclear why it was added for this particular scene.
8. Why Did Aquaman Take the Armor off of a Corpse?
When Aquaman emerges from the waterfall victorious, there’s a shining moment where we see him with Neptune’s Trident and his original golden Aquaman suit. However, if you think about this scene, you might find it a little off and very disturbing.
Aquaman took that suit off of a rotting corpse. Before we see it on Aquaman’s body, we see it behind the waterfall, on King Neptune’s deceased body. So, that means Aquaman took his clothes off after he got the Trident, removed the clothes from Neptune’s corpse, and put it on his own body.
7. Why Does Queen Atlanna Eat Fish?
At the beginning of the movie, we see an interesting and funny series of clips showing Queen Atlanna’s adjustment to the surface world. In one particular scene, where she wakes up for the first time in Tom Curry’s home, we see that she tries to eat one of his fish.
Do Atlanteans eat fish? Sometimes in the comics, Aquaman follows the mantra that fish are friends, not food. So, why does Atlanna eat fish here? In fact, we don’t learn a lot about the Atlanteans throughout the film. We never see them eat or see them in an indoor environment. The only thing we ever see them doing is aimlessly rallying behind the king of the moment.
6. Why Were The Atlantean Weapons Aimed at Destroying Atlanteans and Not Humans?
The Atlanteans have had enough with the surface world and want to wage war to show them that they can’t pollute the waters and throw their unwanted items into the ocean. However, it seems as though the weapons they created weren’t meant to destroy humans. Instead, they’re all designed to take down Atlanteans.
You need water to make their weapons work, so if you’re attacking the surface world, doesn’t that sound like a major flaw? Also, why does each sea kingdom have such a large standing army? It seems as though they have been at peace for many years, yet they all have armies, armor, weapons, and warfaring technology.
5. How Did Aquaman and Mera Escape the Desert Kingdom and the Earth’s Core?
Aquaman and Mera found the desert kingdom because Arthur simply fell into the ruins. As they were falling, the rest of the sand caved in and it seemed as though there was no way out.
So, how did Aquaman and Mera get out of the kingdom? One moment they’re receiving King Neptune’s message and the next they’re in Sicily. We also never see how the two get out of the Earth’s Core with Queen Atlanna. Apparently Aquaman needed the Trident to help everyone return home; however, we never actually see him using the weapon to escape.
4. Orm’s Master Plan
In the beginning, Orm said he wanted to destroy the surface world because they were destroying Atlanteans. However, Orm actually took out more Atlanteans than the surface world during his pursuit of the seven kingdoms. His goals also changed a lot throughout the movie. He kept flip-flopping from wanting to gain power to avenging his mother to taking revenge on the surface world for their pollution.
It was also really hard to follow his relationship with his mother. He seemed to despise her only when it was convenient for the continuation of the plot. Other times, he loved her and blamed Aquaman for her disappearance.
3. Why Do Atlanteans Need Underwater Ships?
For a world that lives underwater, they sure do use underwater ships and submarine-like vehicles a lot. Humans use these types of vehicles because they can’t breathe underwater. It provides a source of oxygen in a world void of it. So, why do Atlanteans need underwater ships so much?
When Mera first takes Aquaman to Atlantis, she tells them that they have to take the ship to get there, but why is that? There is a bridge that takes them right to the city, so there was absolutely no need for the vehicle.
2. If Orm Can Breathe on Land, Why Did He Need Black Manta?
Black Manta does all of Orm’s bidding in the surface world. Throughout the movie, it’s assumed that Orm needed the villain to be his muscle in the world because Orm can’t travel there himself. This is why he visits Black Manta through holographic projections.
However, later on, we learn that Orm can actually breathe out of the water. So, why did he need Black Manta? It’s understandable that he needed to villain to attack Atlantis in the beginning of the movie so that the kingdom would be more willing to go to war. However, from that moment on, there was no need for Black Manta since Orm and his elite army could travel on land.
1. The Timeline
Besides one comment that Mera makes about Aquaman defeating Steppenwolf, there’s absolutely no mention about the events of Justice League or the DC timeline. This ultimately made Aquaman feel out of place in the grand scheme of the DCEU and also destroyed his link to the Justice League.
Why didn’t Aquaman call for help from his new friends? Wouldn’t they have wanted to stop a world war against the underwater world? Also, where was Orm when Steppenwolf attacked Atlantis in Justice League? Shouldn’t he have been there to protect his kingdom? It looks like James Wan wanted to distance himself from the previous DC movies. However, doing so left a lot of unanswered questions.
Are there any other things about the Aquaman movie that didn’t make sense? Let us know in the comments!
