AQUAMAN And The Lost Kingdom Ending Explained | Post Credits Scene, Drama, Lobo & DCU Setup

Welcome to the Heavy Spoilers show, I’m your host Paul, and in this video, we’re breaking down Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom.

The DCEU is now at an end, and we have a lot to talk about. Throughout this video, we’re going to be going over what happens in the movie, the drama behind the scenes, the future of the DCU, and much more. Though this movie’s predicted to sink at the box office, I think some things can be salvaged, and perhaps this isn’t Jason Momoa’s final voyage at DC.

So, come with us as we plunder the plot, but be warned, me hearties, there are heavy spoilers. Lads… lads, I’m not even a pirate, but please hit the thumbs up if you enjoy it, and make sure you subscribe for videos like this every day. With that out of the way, a huge thank you for clicking the video. Now let’s get into Aquaman 2.

Ok, so although I’ll be talking about what happened behind the scenes as we go through the movie, I mainly want to focus on the plot first. However, some of the stuff is difficult to avoid, and it’s kind of crazy what’s been going on. Now, Aquaman 2 picks up in the aftermath of the first film with Arthur Curry ruling Atlantis. However, he walks between the two worlds and, on the surface, is raising a family. This is along with his wife Mara (Amber Heard), who you can tell they cut out as much as possible.

I did have a part in the video discussing things going on, but it got hit with limited ads. Don’t know if that was because it got mass flagged or just whether it’s a touchy topic in general, but for this reupload, I’m just skipping it and diving straight in to tell you they’ve moved the focus over to Arthur and Orm.

Now, why I’m telling you this is to talk about the direction of the film, which was likely impacted by all the issues. Thus, they’ve taken the focus away from Arthur and Mera and made a buddy brother team-up with Arthur and Orm.

Whether that was always the direction they’d go… pfft, we don’t know, but it leads into what’s an adventure about family. Their mother, Arthur’s son and father, they all play a big role, with Black Manta still wanting to avenge his father too.

Now, earlier in the year, James Wan told Empire he was pulling from some retro horror to inspire the film’s look. This was mainly the 60’s movie Planet Of The Vampire, which visually this film borrows a lot from. There’s green and black, a wild vibrancy of colors, and lots of things going on visually that make the movie pop. It picks up in the aftermath of the first film in which we saw Black Manta adrift in the sea. Picked up by sailors, he was nursed back by Dr. Steven Shin, an Atlantis obsessive played by Jim From The Office.

AQUAMAN AND THE LOST KINGDOM EXPLAINED

The movie sees him wanting to avenge his father, and we see as Shin and his expeditions unearth an ancient evil. Now, the movie opens up with basically the montage from Thor Ragnarok, with Aquaman going through what life’s been like. You get a lot of flashes to the first movie and see him at home being a parent that swigs Guinness with his dad. It continues the family motif with that even being brought across to the villain.

Shin uncovers the lost kingdom, which is known as Necrus, which was led by an evil king named Cordax. Cordax was Atlan’s brother, and he used a mineral called Orichalcum to further his industries. However, this was extremely toxic, and it poisoned the oceans along with the surface.

Atlan went to him and put a curse on the kingdom, which was sealed in his blood. Now, this kind of shows a disagreement between brothers is, of course, carried across to Orm and Arthur, who are going to have to right the wrongs of the past.

Now, though Manta discovers a big monster cave… man, he still decides to go in it, and it’s here he comes across the black trident. Grabbing it, he’s somewhat possessed by Cordax and he leads him to the location of all the Macaulay Culkin. Now, five months pass, and we learn that the temperatures on earth are heating up and that there’s been a plague which swept through Atlantis.

We learn Orichalcum emits greenhouse gases, and there’s a lot of talk about global warming in the movie. The planet’s heating up, and it’s Arthur’s rule, rocky with even Poochie’d Willem Dafoe offscreen.

When one of Manta’s Culkin raids leads into him attacking Atlantis, we see just how powerful he’s become. Mera gets injured, and thus, along with his friendly octopus Tofo, Arthur heads out to rescue his brother.

Now, script-wise… the whole thing’s a bit cliché, and it’s not going to win any awards for writing. However, where I think the film really excels is in all its location and unique characters. As Arthur tries to track down Manta, we go to some brilliant locations and meet up with lots of unique and interesting creatures.

The King Fish… he’s like a Jabba the Hutt-style gangster that leads Orm and Arthur to a place known as Devil’s Deep. This is a vast jungle filled with giant grasshoppers and a mechanical, almost Resident Evil 4 style, island at the heart of it.

All of this keeps the movie interesting and engaging, with Wan also really getting to flex his horror muscles. Now, I do think that recently the DCEU went a bit too much on the demon behind the scenes thing controlling it all, and this has been seen in a number of films. The first Shazam did it, Black Adam did it too, and these are used as a way to empower the villain.

Still, though, Sauron… sorry, Cordax, is easily the best one, and I think that’s down to how good Wan is with horror. To be fair, Sandberg is too, and yeah… it’s nice to see elements like this in the film. Who really steals the show, though, is Patrick Wilson, with him becoming the MVP of the movie. Man goes on a great arc we’ll get into, and his back-and-forth with Arthur makes the movie really soar.

Now, after things go haywire at Devil’s Breath, we learn a bit more about the curse put on Cordax.

This was something that was sealed with blood and thus only the descendants of Atlan are able to lift it.

This puts Arthur’s new son in the crosshair, and he rushes back home to find it destroyed. Now, though the trailers made it look like Manta killed Tommy, they manage to save him by putting him on life support. I was kind of thinking it might be a dad for a dad, but in the end, they don’t go that route.

However, what they do is storm Necrus, where Manta’s about to sacrifice Junior.

Shin ends up saving him, and Mera’s able to grab the kid, but at this point, Manta throws the trident. Caught by Orm, he then becomes possessed with the allure of the throne becoming too much. You have to remember he’s pretty much like Cordax was in that he should’ve been ruler but was cast out by his brother. Thus, he and Arthur end up having a fight, but Arthur’s managed to do the old… the old… look inside of you.

Now, though that kind of stuff can be really cliché, they actually do something great and build off the first film.

That saw Arthur below the arena, saying how he would’ve liked to have been a brother to him. That line gets played up here again, and in the end, it breaks the hold. Unfortunately, though, Arthur’s smacked off the altar, and his blood spills, unleashing Cordax.

Still, though, he manages to destroy him and the trident in one blow by throwing his through the center of Cordax’s.

It’s a Cordax moment, and in the end, the planet is saved, with Atlanna deciding to reveal itself to the world.

It’s kinda like when Wakanda did it, and Aquaman ends things by saying, “I am Aquaman.” Still, though, it brings the message that we should all work together, which is very much what the movie’s about. Orm is given another chance as they go with the story that he died in the battle. Man gets to go out and just live his life now and no longer be an Orm in the side.

Now, that takes us into the post-credits scene, which builds off the back of a joke from earlier in the movie. In it, we see Orm eating a delicious, delicious burger. This ties back to a line from the movie in which Orm talked about how he’d never tried one because there are no burgers in Atlantis.

AQUAMAN AND THE LOST KINGDOM ENDING SCENE

He also eats a cockroach because that was set up earlier too, and yeah, that’s it.

So, the final scene, the final scene in the DCEU of all time… is Orm eating a burger.

Now, the people who’ve seen this… as you can guess… it’s DC… they’re in a bloody uproar, and it’s kinda disappointing that the DCEU goes out on a lame joke. Kinda sums up how it was run, though, but I was kinda surprised at how they decided to go out with it. I actually thought that they might close out with something thanking the fans for the past ten years. You know, Man of Steel was released in 2013, and for everyone who stuck with the universe for the last decade… I thought we might get something more.

Endgame closes out with the cast names all on a big thing with all the actors’ signatures, a silhouette, and clips from their appearances. For this, yeah, it’s kind of weird, and at the very least, I was expecting some kind of acknowledgment.

It kind of reminds me a bit of the poem “The Hollow Men” by T.S. Eliot.

In case you don’t know, it closes out with the following:

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

That’s what I kind of feel with the way the DCEU has ended, and it closes out with a whimper instead of a bang. It’s sad.

Now there were also other scenes that were supposed to be in the movie involving two different versions of Batman. That’s because the release date of this changed, which also meant the Batman in the movie was a different actor. Now in one version, we had Ben Affleck returning, which was leaked due to his name being spotted on a Warner Bros tour. Once the news got out, Jason Momoa embraced the publicity and posted an image of him and Ben together. This was going to tease the return of the actor and that he was going to come back as Batman in some form or another. However, they also shot one involving Michael Keaton, which was going to tie into the Flash’s original ending. In case you don’t know, that movie was supposed to culminate with Keaton stepping out of the limo and then Supergirl arriving on the scene. In the end, they changed this to Clooney so once again they could end on a joke. The Aquaman tease was then shot to explain why this film’s still connected to it, so we’re not wondering why he wasn’t wiped out during the Flash.

If anyone cares.

However, the execs said that they didn’t want to tease a universe that might not be coming and thus both versions of the film had their Batman scenes removed. When I say both versions there, I mean one film had Affleck in and the other version had Keaton in. Either way, we know that people like Blue Beetle are said to be the first hero in the DCU but Superman is the first movie in the DCU. Yeah, it’s a bit weird, but either way, that’s why they kept things like the post-credits scene in that.

In all honesty, I feel like they know they messed up by announcing that none of the films this year were really going to matter. I don’t know why they didn’t hold off until 2024 because there was no need to shout this was getting scrapped before the films had released.

It’s been clear that they’ve just lost all faith in this stuff, and the studio didn’t even have a red carpet premiere. A sequel to a billion-dollar superhero movie not getting that… that’s kind of wild to me. It’s crazy how much the landscape has changed the last year, and I think it’s just a case of oversaturation. We’ve had so many middling superhero movies at this point that more often than not, they’re disappointing in some way, so people just seem to be switched off. That’s abundant in the DCEU too, which sucks because I do wish this film the best. I kind of feel in general that comic movies have become like comic books themselves, in which even the avid readers aren’t that interested in the spin-off stuff.

Now what I mean by that is like… look, I’m a massive reader, got loads of graphic novels, but when I go into a comic shop, I don’t pick up every single issue out there. What I tend to pick up is the stuff I’m interested in, and that’s what I tend to read. Now when there’s a massive crossover event involving lots of characters, I’ll pick up every book from all that. For example, I’ve got all the stuff from Civil War, but I don’t think that I’d necessarily pick up all those characters if they weren’t connected.

That’s kind of what I feel these shared universes were too, and stuff you wouldn’t normally check out, you ended up doing because it was all connected. Now though, these universes, people just don’t have the interest, and though they go see the big stuff, they’re not there for every film and TV show.

Either way, that’s how we close out the DCEU, with it not teasing anything at all and being a full stop.

Now as for my thoughts on the movie. It’s kind of a weird one, as I realized when I was in the cinema that this was going to be the last time that I watched a DCEU film in cinemas. It’s been 10 years since it was kick-started with Man of Steel in 2013, and I’ve spent a third of my life following this franchise. It’s

kind of sad that it’s gone out like this, as I think had this been released before Black Adam, Shazam, and The Flash, that the conversation would be a bit different.

The script is a bit all over the place, and you can spot the reshoots a mile away, but at its core, I think this is an enjoyable film. I think the horror elements work really well, and there’s a real sense of wonder that happens throughout. I know the CGI is getting criticized as being a bit flat, but compared to the green screening in Quantumania… it slaps MODOK’s cheeks completely. Momoa is just having a blast, and when he’s going back and forth with Orm, it really works. I would’ve loved to have seen something later with them down the line, but I think at this point, the writing’s on the wall.

All of the main three feel like they’ve really evolved past the first film, and Manta even builds off it too. Loved seeing him at the end refuse to take Arthur’s hand, and it brings things full circle from when he let his dad die in the first movie. Still, though, I don’t think this would’ve been enough to save the DCEU, and like all movies, it isn’t perfect. You kind of don’t know where things are going at some points, and why some places are appearing and not others. There’s also some plots that have clearly been cut down, like the stuff with the council that gets brushed to the side. The global warming thing keeps popping up, but it’s never really the main thing.

Also, they did my man Willem Dafoe dirty, and I doubt he’s gonna be da friend to the Warner Brothers in the future.

Still, though, I enjoyed this way more than I thought I would, and I think that it’s better than the first film. That had that Pitbull song which… pfft, killed it for me, but nah, I liked that, and this was a nice step beyond it.

Obviously, the social media embargo lifting the day the movie releases as well is a bit weird, and I know lots of people saw it and were then asked not to talk about it online until today. There were also rumors that this tested lower than Batgirl, and we all know what happened too. So that was weird, the embargo made people think it’s damage control, but in all honesty… it’s better than most superhero movies that we’ve had recently. Sure, not all the jokes land, but Arthur and Orm get a great arc, and visually it’s striking.

AQUAMAN AND THE LOST RATING AND JASON MOMOA’S DCU RETURN

So in the end, though I’m sad that the whole thing’s over, I’m ready to let go and see where we go next. Unfortunately, the DCEU will always feel like wasted potential to me, but I can take solace in the fact we got that Snyder trilogy at least and some solid movies along the way. I will talk about where things are going to go next in just a bit, but as for this, it gets a…

7/10

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Now, as for the future of DC, we know that James Gunn is currently working on his upcoming film Superman Legacy. The cast is stacked, and things are really ramping up with it kickstarting his first phase titled Gods and Monsters. You may have also seen the reports that there’s a 60% chance that Warner Brothers could go bankrupt, and thus it seems like the focus is solely on that. Though they have other films announced, I don’t actually think productions on them have started. Thus, I think that they’re going to see if that movie’s a success first and then roll into the others shortly after. Perhaps they’ll get the dailies back and go from there, but I think that they’re probably holding off for a while. All the DC films this year have underperformed, and from a business point of view, that makes the most sense.

Normally when you get these universes, they put the cart before the horse and start making films before they even know if the first one’s a hit. So I think being patient’s a smart thing to do, especially with the financial pressure resting on its shoulders. In the meantime, we have sequels to The Batman and Joker, so it’s not like we’re going to be starved for content.

There’s also the Penguin show and Matt Reeves’ Arkham one, which has been said to be part of the DCU. Creature Commandos is coming as well, with Superman Legacy being the big kickoff point. So they can really wait to see how that performs and then decide if they wanna bet the house on Gunn.

There are also rumors that Warner Bros might even be getting sold to Universal, which I hope not, mate… because they’re a nightmare when it comes to copyright strikes.

Either way, though, it seems fine on the surface; it’s clear behind the scenes that there’s a lot of pressure. I think Gunn can definitely pull it off, though, and so far, he’s made a great DC movie, a great DC series, and obviously a great trilogy at Marvel Studios.

Now, in the run-up to this, Jason Momoa also said that when it comes to Aquaman, it’s not looking good.

Now, earlier in the year, when actors were making public statements about the future, you might remember Momoa did one too. He said that he’d spoken to Gunn about making his dream project and seemed ecstatic that that was going down.

Now, because of this, many have suspected he’ll return for the DCU, but he’ll be playing someone DC-new.

That is Lobo.

So, you’re telling me, right, this guy isn’t Lobo after that comment and the dream projects one. It’s obvious, isn’t it, mate, bloody obvious, and yeah, I’d love to see him in that role too.

In case you don’t know, Lobo is a bounty hunter that travels the stars, cracking up bastiches… es.

He’s got a cool bike, is super strong and powerful, and would be the kind of character Gunn’s already adept at writing. Lobo also had a really interesting arc, and when he first came out, he was seen as a villain. Man was arrogant and self-centered and the last of his kind after wiping them all out for fun.

Still, though, we’ve watched him develop as a character and change his ways, which would be something cool they could do in the films.

There are lots of ways I think he could take him, and once the fan art starts, that’s it. I think if this film flops, it won’t be down to him either, and with him saying DC’s his home, I’d love to see him do it. Again… I don’t think that he can be blamed if this flops, and I think at the moment, there’s just a lack of interest in movies in general. Everything’s kind of been done, and we’ve seen a lot of bombs over the last year. You’ve kind of hit a point where almost every kind of comic book movie’s been done, and we’ve got way more content of that than we’ve ever had before. So, people are more selective over what they watch, with comic book movies not being the guaranteed success that they once were. Still, though, I wish Jason all the best, and he genuinely seems like a really cool dude. Guy’s been going around doing the press and giving back to the fans, so I hope we see him return in some form or another.

Anyway, that wraps up the video, and a huge thank you for checking it out.

With that out of the way, a huge thank you for sitting through the video, I’ve been your host, and I’ll see you next time. Take care, Peace.