'Aquaman' Concept Art Shows Arthur Riding the Karathen

Aquaman has been delighting audiences for over a month now, but fans can now find out how one of [...]

By Jenna Anderson

Aquaman has been delighting audiences for over a month now, but fans can now find out how one of the film's most epic moments came to life.

Several pieces of concept art from the DC Extended Universe film have made their way online, which come from one of the film's concept artists, Sebastian Meyer. The first imagines Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa) riding the Karathen (Julie Andrews) into the film's final battle, while the second showcases one idea for the hidden kingdom that the Karathen hails from.

The Karathen's role in the film ended up being a pretty epic one, both with regards to the film's plot and with Andrews being brought on to voice the role.

"We wanted the Karathen to have the voice of a classic British actress, albeit somewhat digitally altered," Aquaman producer Peter Safran explained when Andrews' casting was announced. "And when we found out Julie was interested and available and excited to do it, casting her was a no-brainer."

And with Arthur channeling the Karathen and the creatures of the Trench kingdom in the final battle against Orm (Patrick Wilson), it's safe to say that a lot was riding on that sequence.

"It was a combination of a lot, a lot of efforts from a lot of people," director James Wan told ComicBook.com. "You know, whenever we have the actors, obviously, they're there on wires and on rigs, and they have to do what they have to do, and big stunts obviously with the actors riding their creatures, and jumping, and hacking and slashing their way through the sequence. And then ultimately just a lot of many iterations of visual effects on all the shots. Just keep working on the shots, keep tweaking it, and trying to get the animation looking right. Trying to make sure to design the action in such a way where even though there's a lot of visual effects happening, a lot of CG happening, I want the audience to kind of know where they are, and then on top of that, just wanted to just keep breaking grounds. You know, breaking visual grounds that we haven't seen before, and just really push the envelope."

"I really want this movie, decades from now, for people to still say, 'Holy crap. This movie holds up,'" Wan continued. "Or even if the visual effects don't hold up 10 years from now, at least they can look at it and just go, 'Wow, they went for it in a big, big way.'"

Aquaman is in theaters now. Upcoming DC films include Shazam on April 5, 2019, Joker on October 10, 2019, Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) on February 7, 2020, and Wonder Woman 1984 on June 5, 2020.

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