Aquaman – the Unaired Pilot (DVD review)

Director: Greg Beeman

Writers: Alfred Gough/Miles Millar (the Smallville guys)

Starring: Justin Hartley, Lou Diamond Phillips, Denise Quinones and Ving Rhames

Original Release date: June 2007 (The pilot was never aired in the States.)

Availability: iTunes and as a Special Feature on the JLA: Crisis on Two Earths BluRay.

Aquaman

Released on itunes a long time ago, I have had this pilot on my ipod for years. I wanted to wrap up my review of Superman/Doomsday before I started JLA: Crisis on Two Earths and I came upon the pilot on the special features of the BluRay, so I put it on. I didn’t expect to pay much attention to it. I certainly didn’t think I’d like it.

The origin

The pilot begins telling a re-imagining of Aquaman’s origin featuring a young Aquaman, his mom and Lou Diamond Phillips (already a winner, right?). Now as re-imaginings go, this was excellent. If you’re going to re-imagine a character, start the process with one that everyone might recognize, but only true zealots (uhm, die hard fans…) might know his origin. Probably a better idea than bastardizing the most iconic character of all time, but I digress.

You don’t need to know Aquaman’s origin to like or even get this version. And if you do know one of the few origins that are floating (pun intended) around out there in the comic jetsam (again), then there are some nice shout-outs to those in this origin as well.

The character

Aquaman is an iconic character. Who doesn’t know the scaley orange and green wetsuit? He was a Super Friend! For most people, that’s about all there is (again, not going to talk about Smallville, it would only make you hate me). But outside of a few fantastic stories here and there, Aquaman has always been a back-up character. Someone in Justice League, he swims really fast, he’s sort of strong and has some fish-telepathy. And he certainly isn’t Marvel’s Namor, the Sub-Mariner, totally different guys.

Again, this modern re-imagining does a good job capturing the essence of Aquaman and re-crafting him into a young twenty-something just coming into his destiny. The character “A.C.” (as in “Arthur Curry” for those of us in the know) is well played by Hartley, though sometimes he looks a bit older than he should.

The Story

There are two stories with a number of sub-plots introduced in the pilot. There is the mystery of Atlantis and the Bermuda Triangle, which is (understandably) designed to permeate the entire series and there is this thing about AC learning about his destiny – sort of kicking off the whole “Aquaman” thing.

Both of the storylines hold together nicely and are inter-connected. Both storylines have some conclusion, but leave enough mystery or straight out set-up to leave you wanting more. Neither leaves you wondering why there is a polar bear on the island (which you know will never be adequately explained). The Atlantis storyline has ties to a government agency investigating the strange happening in the Bermuda Triangle, in a very nice X-Files fashion. While the destiny story, is clearly the one that will drive the series.

The Supporting Cast

We get to meet five (or more) characters who are both interesting and are well introduced in the pilot: AC (of course), Tom Curry (Diamond Phillips), Lt. Rachel Torres, the mysterious FBI agent and “McCaffery” (Rhames). The senior Curry is not-exactly a new character to the Aqua-mythos,, but updated from the familiar ol’ lighthouse keeper, he is now a Coast Guard Search & Rescue Guy (I think) and “McCaffery” is very reminiscent of a Vulko, a mentor from the Aqua-Mythos canon.

The best part of these characters is that none of them (except maybe Torres) seems like they are being crammed into the show. These characters exist ergonomically in the story.

Overall

I wish I’d never turned on this pilot. It was like watching a new (Sci-Fi) genre show on Fox. You know you’re going to love it and you know they’re going to cancel it. Only this time, it never got the chance. For the record, this was a WB pilot, not Fox. But Fox will still get no apology from this blog.

The special effects were above average (maybe too much for a weekly budget), especially some of the swimming scenes: especially the jet & swimming scene.

Whether this show would have worked long term or not, we’ll never know. But if you’re looking a for a good way to spend 40-50 minutes, check out this pilot. Then file it next to Firefly, Briscoe County Jr., Dark Angel and all the other shows that died too soon.

Grade: A (Plot: A/Execution: A)