The first full trailer for Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is here, and it’s flooded with new characters, new weapons, and old grudges. So let’s break down the dam and let flow everything you need to know about the next big DC movie starring Jason Mamoa (Aquaman/Arthur Curry), Patrick Wilson (Orm/Ocean Master), Amber Heard (Mera), Nicole Kidman (Queen Atlanna), and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (David Kane/Black Manta).
And be sure to check out everything we learned about the trailer during our Q&A with director James Wan:
- 'Really Cool Stuff' Intended for Cancelled Black Manta Spin-Off Made Its Way Into Aquaman 2
- Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom Director Teases Aquaman 3
- Aquaman 2 Director Learned All About Family From The Fast and The Furious Movies
If you haven't already, watch the new trailer for Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom below:
You can view our breakdown as a slideshow by flipping through the gallery below, or keep scrolling to read it as an article.
Aquababy
We pick up nine months after the events of the first movie, and we all know what takes nine months to make… an Aquababy! That’s right, Aquaman is now an Aquadad, presumably with Mera as the mother. Longtime DC fans may be triggered by the word “Aquababy” because there’s an infamous comic from the ‘70s where little Arthur Curry Jr. is kidnapped and murdered by Black Manta, who suffocated him with oxygen due to his aquatic physiology.
Luckily, it seems like movie-Aquababy is amphibious and won’t suffer that exact fate, but this film is all about Black Manta’s quest for revenge against Aquaman, so don’t be surprised if he winds up in some sort of peril.
King of Atlantis
On top of being a father, Aquaman is now king of Atlantis, after defeating his half-brother Orm at the end of the first movie and taking the throne. We see him defending Atlantis from what looks like a mechanical water serpent or perhaps just a runaway Atlantean train. They do say a good king makes the trains swim on time.
The People of Atlantis
We take a tour of Arthur’s new kingdom, seeing the people of Atlantis go about their lives and watching an underwater sporting event? (Our guess is water polo.) But, as Arthur says, not everyone is a big fan of his.
Black Manta Returns
Inside this menacing hammerhead submarine is none other than David Kane, aka Black Manta.
He wants to destroy Aquaman and everything he holds dear because he blames him for the death of his father, as seen in the first movie. Black Manta was a side villain the first time around, but now he’s the main villain of the sequel. The last time we saw him, his suit was destroyed and he got his butt kicked by Aquaman, and in the post-credits scene he was rescued by Dr. Stephen Shin. Manta promises to share the secrets of Atlantean technology with him in exchange for help finding Aquaman. He had a facial wound bandaged up in that scene, and now we see the resulting gnarly scar across his face.
Revenge on Aquaman
Manta says he wants to murder Aquaman’s family and burn his kingdom to ash, and we see his ship attacking Atlantis and going after Queen Atlanna, and up on the surface Arthur finds his father’s home destroyed and on fire. That’s the last place we saw his dad and his child, so Manta seems to be making good on his word.
We then see Manta using his giant helmet lasers to blow up some poor fish people who were just in their fish cars trying to get to work in the morning. He’s hitting Arthur everywhere it hurts, from all angles.
Black Manta's New Powers and the Black Trident
IGN attended a Q&A with director James Wan, and he said, quote, “In [Black Manta’s] search to try and fix the power suit that he had in the first movie that was all banged up and destroyed, he stumbles across something much bigger.” That something is this mysterious Black Trident, and we can see Manta is infused with its magic, giving him glowing green eyes (sorry, he's not a Green Lantern). He was just a normal dude in the first movie, but now he has superpowers that will let him go fin to fin with Aquaman. We don’t know what larger threat he’ll pose to the world, but Atlanna warns he must be stopped or global meltdown is imminent. Could she be talking about a literal meltdown, as in melting the ice caps?
To that point, Wan said this time around he wants to use the film to say something important about the environment and how society treats the planet. “We do have something important to say. This was one of the hottest summers we've ever experienced, right? Not just in the U.S., but everywhere around the world. We really do lean into that. The environment is shifting very much in this movie. Arthur needs to be able to work with his brother to try and stop this from spiraling into a complete catastrophe. We don't want it to be too preachy, but we're definitely not shy about it. I think that's something that we need to talk about, even in the context of a fun adventure movie,” Wan said.
Enemy of My Enemy
Arthur needs help to defeat this newly empowered Manta and decides the person best suited to the task is his brother, so he sneaks into the Atlantean desert prison with the help of a fancy new camouflage suit, which is pulled from a 1986 Aquaman comic mini-series.
Arthur breaks his brother Orm out of prison. Wan told us that watching the two brothers attempt to work together, despite the antagonism between them, is what drives the whole film. He said the first movie was a romance with Arthur and Mera, and now this movie is a bromance with Arthur and Orm. Wan describes Orm as more of an anti-hero because he believes he was doing the right thing for his people in the first movie, and Arthur respects that. Arthur has the desire to build a relationship with his brother, and now he’ll get the chance, even though Orm clearly does not want any part of it.
Entering The Lost Kingdom
We see the two brothers go on a journey, and they appear to arrive in the titular Lost Kingdom, which is a wondrous jungle filled with bizarre sights like giant blue flowers and volcanoes with green smoke. In the first movie we learned there was a seventh kingdom of Atlantis that was lost, but now it has been found.
The Origin of the Black Trident
We get a few details on the origin of Black Manta’s fancy new weapon, the Black Trident.
Orm tells how the weapon came from the time of King Atlan, the first ruler of Atlantis, and the Black Trident was a curse upon the seven kingdoms.
The trident appears to give the owner control over a horde of undead, mer-zombies with glowing green eyes.
But who was the original owner? It appears to be some sort of undead king, which sounds a lot like the Dead King from the New 52 Aquaman comic storyline titled “Death of a King.”
In that comic, the evil Dead King is actually King Atlan, and he didn’t have a Black Trident but a magic staff that controlled the monsters of the Trench, those terrifying sea creatures from the first film.
So how does all this translate to this movie? Well, our theory is this mystery villain is a new version of the Dead King who is obviously not King Atlan like in the comics (because Atlan is standing right there across from him), and instead of him waking up in the present from an ancient slumber like in the comics, his power and control over his army is inherited by Black Manta by way of this new Black Trident, which was created just for the film. Basically, they’re taking all of the cool stuff from the Dead King story, remixing it, and giving it to Black Manta to make him a more formidable foe for Arthur.
Another piece of evidence that supports this theory is the fact that the Dead King has icy powers, which would explain all the ice that cracks and falls from the movie logo.
Mera In Peril
Next, there’s a flurry of action shots, one showing Mera angrily trying to punch her way through a glass window. How much do you wanna bet Aquababy is on the other side and Black Manta is about to kidnap him?
Aquaman's Trusty Sea-Companions
Aquaman jumps out of the water riding his trusty seahorse named Storm, who first appeared in a comic in the ‘60s. Hanging on with all eight arms is Topo, the fan-favorite drumming octopus from the first film. Wan said that the character’s popularity prompted them to make Topo a bigger character in the sequel. Yes, give the people what they want!
And on that note, we’ll wrap up our breakdown of the first look at Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. Let us know anything cool that you spotted in the comments.
