The first version of the Green Lantern was created in 1940 by Martin Nodell. Alan Scott, a railroad engineer, came into possession of a magic lantern. He crafted a ring from the lantern and fought crime using its power.
In 1959, Julius Schwartz created a new Green Lantern with similar powers but a different backstory: Hal Jordan was a test pilot, who was bequeathed a power ring and lantern by an alien named Abin Sur in order to protect the Earth. He was later revealed to be part of a large corps of Green Lanterns who protect the universe from various and sundry threats.
After several attempts to make a Green Lantern film, DC finally got one into theatres in 2011 starring Ryan Reynolds.
Like most superhero comics, the Scott Lantern was popular in the 1940s, but his popularity waned after World War II, and his title was cancelled in 1949. Ten years later, the Jordan Lantern was created rather than just using the original (as DC had done with their “big three” of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman), possibly because Schwartz wanted a story with a more science fiction bent than the fantasy-tinged background of the Scott Lantern.
While Scott was a founding member of the Justice Society of America, Jordan was similarly a founding member of the Justice League of America. In much the same way that Iron Man became a mainstay of Marvel—never an A-lister, but always a regular presence—Green Lantern was the same for DC.
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The expansive Green Lantern Corps also allowed for lots of other Green Lanterns beyond Jordan, including five other humans who have possessed the ring at various times: John Stewart, a former Marine; Guy Gardner, a former football player and coach; Kyle Rayner, an artist; Simon Baz, a former criminal; and Jessica Cruz, a survivalist. There’s also lots of alien GLs who have become popular over the years, including Kilowog, Arisia, Tomar-Re, G’nort, and, my personal favorite, Mogo (who is an entire planet, first introduced in the classic story by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, “Mogo Doesn’t Socialize”).
Several attempts were made to do a Green Lantern film, with folks ranging from David Goyer to Quentin Tarantino to Kevin Smith approached. Corey Reynolds also pitched a John Stewart GL film (that would star Reynolds himself) and Robert Smigel wrote an action-comedy with Jack Black in the title role, but neither got past the script stage.
Instead, they gave the film to Greg Berlanti, later to become the mastermind behind DC’s current crop of successful live-action TV shows (Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, Black Lightning, Legends of Tomorrow). Berlanti wrote the script with Michael Green and Marc Guggenheim, but then had to back out of directing, and it was given to Martin Campbell.
Ryan Reynolds—having already played Hannibal King in Blade Trinity and Wade Wilson in X-Men Origins: Wolverine—took on the title role, with Blake Lively as his girlfriend Carol Ferris. (Reynolds and Lively started dating while filming and are still married.) The rest of the impressive cast includes Mark Strong as Sinestro (set up to be the bad guy in the not-so-inevitable sequel), Angela Bassett as Amanda Waller (the second of four people to play Waller in live action so far, preceded by the great Pam Grier on Smallville, followed by the mediocre Cynthia Addai-Robinson on Arrow and the magnificent Viola Davis in Suicide Squad), Peter Sarsgaard as Hector Hammond, Temuera Morrison as Abin Sur, Jon Tenney as Jordan’s father, Jay O. Sanders as Ferris’s father, Taika Waititi as Tom, and Tim Robbins as Senator Hammond, plus voice work provided by Michael Clarke Duncan (Kilowog), Clancy Brown (Parallax), Geoffrey Rush (Tomar-Re), and Warren Burton and Salome Jens (the Guardians).
Michael Goldenberg did a final script polish, and the film was released in 2011. DC was hoping that they could succeed with GL the way Marvel succeeded with Iron Man, casting a charismatic actor as one of their B-listers, hoping his charm and verve would lead the way to great things. At that, they were a bit less than successful…
“In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight…”
Green Lantern
Written by Greg Berlanti & Michael Green & Marc Guggenheim and Michael Goldenberg
Directed by Martin Campbell
Produced by Donald De Line and Greg Berlanti
Original release date: June 15, 2011
We open with a voiceover explaining the history of the Guardians, ancient beings who maintain order in the universe. They harnessed the green power of will into a giant generator on their constructed planet of Oa. That generator powers 3600 lanterns, which are issued to beings all over the universe who act as the Green Lantern for their sector, wearing rings powered by those lanterns.
One Guardian attempted to harness yellow power of fear, but instead was consumed by it. Called Parallax, the being was then trapped by one of the most heroic Green Lanterns, Abin Sur. However, Parallax feeds on fear, and the fright of a group of aliens who crash land on the world Sur trapped it on is enough to enable Parallax to free itself.
It consumes two inhabited worlds, also killing many Green Lanterns. Sur was on his way with a ship to evacuate the second world, but fellow Lantern Sinestro informs him that he’s too late. Parallax then attacks Sur’s ship, mortally wounding him. Sur barely gets away in an escape pod and heads toward the nearest inhabited planet: Earth.
On that planet, we meet Hal Jordan, a test pilot for Ferris Aircraft. He’s late for his latest gig, where he and the owner’s daughter, Carol Ferris (Jordan’s mostly off-again girlfriend) are going up against two robot craft, the Sabres. Ferris Aircraft wants a contract from the Air Force to sell them the Sabres, and Ferris and Jordan take F-35s out to try to mess with them.
The Sabres perform well, but then Jordan, after using Ferris as a decoy, climbs past the 50,000-foot window for the test. That high, both the Sabres and the F-35 stall out, but as they fall back to Earth, Jordan is able to fire on them. However, he’s unable to start the plane back up as he’s having flashbacks to childhood when his father, also a test pilot, died during a test run when the plane exploded. Eventually, he ejects and is safe.
The Ferrises are pissed because he took out the Sabres—which Jordan thought was the idea—and now the Air Force doesn’t want the contract. Ferris Aircraft is going to have to lay off a lot of people, which is a problem, as they’re the main business in Coast City. They start by firing Jordan, who insists on quitting instead, though Ferris won’t let her father fire Jordan nor Jordan quit because she wants him under investigation.
Jordan goes to a birthday party for his nephew, who is hiding in his room because he was afraid that his favorite uncle was gonna die. Jordan reassures him, and they have the party.
When Jordan leaves, he’s grabbed by a green ball of energy and brought to where Sur crashed his escape pod. As he dies, he tells Jordan that the ring picked him to succeed him as a Green Lantern, and Sur gives Jordan both the lantern and the ring. Jordan calls his friend Tom to pick him up, and he tries to figure out how to make the ring work. Eventually, he touches the ring to the lantern and the Green Lantern oath suddenly core-dumps into his head and he speaks it while charging up the ring.
Ferris then comes by, interrupting his ring-testing, to make sure he’s okay. They go out for drinks and talk for a while. When he leaves, some townies beat him up for getting them laid off—but then he fights back with the ring’s power and knocks them all out. The ring then envelopes him in green energy and flies him into outer space and thence to Oa. There he meets three other Green Lanterns: Tomar-Re, who tells him all about the Green Lantern Corps; Kilowog, who trains him in how to fight, including instruction on the gravitational power of a sun; and Sinestro, who belittles him and deems him an unworthy successor to Sur. Jordan decides that Sinestro’s right, and goes back to Earth, feeling defeated.
Government agents come in the night for a xenobiologist named Hector Hammond—whose father is a senator—and bring him to a secret lab where he’s asked by Amanda Waller to do an autopsy on Sur. Hammond is fascinated, and also while exploring Sur’s fatal wounds, is infused with a bit of yellow fear energy. This brings him to the attention of Parallax, and they form a mental link. The yellow energy changes Hammond slowly, mutating him and giving him mental powers.
Ferris has managed to convince the Air Force to take the contract (by, among other things, promising to increase the altitude range of the Sabres), and the company throws a party. Senator Hammond is among the attendees, but Hector can now hear his father’s disappointment in his son in his thoughts, so he sabotages the senator’s helicopter with his newfound telekinesis. However, Jordan changes into Green Lantern and saves everyone’s lives by using the ring’s energy to make various ramps and things.
Tom comes to Jordan’s apartment and demands to know what he’s figured out, and Jordan shows off his new Green Lantern powers. Then he flies to check on Ferris, who instantly recognizes him as Jordan despite the (very flimsy) mask. He then tells her all about what has happened to him, and she is disappointed that he has given up on himself to be in the Corps.
Hector allows himself to be taken to the government facility, only this time he’s the one to be studied. However, once inside he attacks, hurting Waller and killing his father. Jordan tries to stop him, but only succeeds in driving him off.
After getting a pep talk from Ferris and Tom, Jordan flies to Oa to ask the Guardians for help. However, at Sinestro’s urging, the Guardians have a plan to create a yellow ring and fight fire with fire, as it were. Jordan thinks that’s a bad idea, and begs the Guardians to help him fight Parallax when he comes to Earth. The Guardians refuse, as Parallax is en route to Oa next, and they must make a stand there. Jordan leaves, determined to show them that he can defeat them with will power and he can overcome his own fear.
When he returns to Earth, he finds out that Hammond has kidnapped Ferris. Hammond has, in fact, had the hots for Ferris since they were all kids growing up in Coast City together. Jordan tricks Hammond by giving him the ring, thinking it’ll give him more power—but Jordan still controls it. They fight, but then Parallax shows up, disappointed in Hammond. Parallax consumes Hammond, then turns his sights on Jordan. Ferris assists Jordan by using the Sabre missiles on Parallax, and eventually Jordan is able to lure Parallax into space—though not after it kills a lot of people in Coast City.
Eventually, Jordan pulls an Icarus and lures Parallax too close to the sun, and the being is drawn in by the star’s gravity well and burned to a crisp. Jordan almost suffers a similar fate, but Sinestro, Tomar-Re, and Kilowog show up in time to rescue him.
The Green Lantern Corps accepts Jordan among their ranks. Jordan tells Ferris that his new job will have him travelling a lot. (It’s a job? Do they pay him? How do Lanterns feed and clothe themselves, anyhow?) He says he’ll be off looking for trouble, and Ferris allows as how he’s good at that.
On Oa, Sinestro decides to try the yellow ring on for size…
“…let those who worship evil’s might beware my power, Green Lantern’s light”
This movie comes in for a lot of crap, to the point that Ryan Reynolds filmed a scene of himself as a time-travelling Deadpool shooting actor Ryan Reynolds in the head while reading the script for Green Lantern to avoid having this film get made.
And yes, it’s a bad movie, but it’s not actually that bad, and it has one scene in it that makes the whole movie worthwhile in my eyes.
It’s the scene where Jordan is surprised when Ferris recognizes him in costume still being Hal Jordan, and Ferris makes the single greatest speech in the entire seventy-year history of superhero movies:
“I’ve known you my whole life! I’ve seen you naked! You don’t think I would recognize you because I can’t see your cheekbones?”
Thus Green Lantern finally addresses the problem that every single live-action superhero production has had since Kirk Alyn first tried and failed to convince us that a pair of glasses would be enough of a disguise for Clark Kent in 1948. Most superhero disguises are adequate for hiding the person’s identity from the general public. But almost all superhero disguises would never for one second fool anyone who’d met both the superhero and the secret identity. It’s impossible to credit that someone who knew Barry Allen wouldn’t realize he was the Flash under that mask that still leaves his eyes, jaw, nose, and mouth exposed—especially since he has the same voice. Every once in a while you get a Christopher Reeve who is able to make it work with body language and voice work, but mostly you get the same person, and there’s just no way to believe that anyone would be fooled who met both.
And finally in Green Lantern we get exactly the right reaction from Ferris, the one we kept seeing characters not have and look incredibly stupid and unobservant for seven decades.
It’s only a pity the rest of the movie is kinda dumb.
There are actually two movies here, which is part of the problem. There’s the nifty science fiction film about a collection of space cops who have to defend the universe from a cosmic threat. And then there’s the spectacularly uninteresting story about a dick who has to overcome his fear and tendency to walk away from things when they get difficult in order to save the Earth from that same cosmic threat.
The problem is that the two parts don’t even feel like they take place in the same space-time continuum as each other. A lot of this is because the outer-space stuff is completely CGI-drenched, and is pristine and shiny, as opposed to the more textural scenes in Coast City (mostly filmed in New Orleans). They also don’t feel like they have anything to do with each other.
In addition, the Corps stuff is horribly rushed. It feels like Jordan’s only on Oa for half a day, and somehow he is trained in how to fight by Kilowog in that short a time. The whole thing is just way too rushed: “You’re a Green Lantern. Here’s what we do. Here’s how to fight. Also, you’re a failure and a dick. Okay, bye!”
Also, what’s the point of introducing 3599 other Green Lanterns if you’re not going to use them for anything but exposition? They should’ve joined Jordan at the end to fight Parallax. (Apparently that was the case in one draft of the script, but they wanted Jordan to be the hero all by himself. In that case, why even bother having the whole Corps? Just have Jordan interact with the Guardians for the exposition needs and leave it at that.)
It’s especially frustrating because Temuera Morrison, Mark Strong, Geoffrey Rush, and Michael Clarke Duncan do superlative work as the other four Lanterns we meet. The bits we get of them are considerably more compelling than Jordan’s mix of Daddy issues and relationship issues that are bog-standard and predictable and incredibly uninteresting.
In the end, Jordan drops Parallax in the sun, leaving one to wonder why Abin Sur didn’t do that the first time. I mean, there are suns all over the place. It’s kind of the universe’s light source. Real easy to find one.
The Hal Jordan of the comics is a bit of a square, a straight-arrow hero who’s straight out of the 1950s archetype of the noble fighter pilot. While I get that that particular characterization would probably need updating, this goes a little too far in the other direction, playing him as a standard early-21st-century dudebro who’s only tolerable to watch because Ryan Reynolds is a terrifically fun actor. But there’s no depth to the performance. Yes, Jordan has a journey to go on, from asshole to hero, but it doesn’t feel natural, it feels like it’s there because the screenwriters wanted to give Jordan a journey to go on.
It doesn’t help that Peter Sarsgaard is a spectacularly uninteresting villain. Clancy Brown does the best he can to make Parallax menacing, and the CGI cloud is actually moderately effective, but we don’t get enough of them, instead we get Hammond and his boring Daddy issues. (I love how Ferris, Jordan, and Hammond all have relationships of some sort with their fathers, yet no mention is ever made of any of their mothers. We don’t see them, they’re not mentioned, nothing. Just a bunch of single daddies, I guess?) Angela Bassett manages to make Amanda Waller boring, which is—something? I dunno, Waller is one of the best creations in the DC universe, and until Viola Davis came along, she was only really done right when adapted in animation (CCH Pounder was letter-perfect as her voice). And Tim Robbins is just as boring as the walking cliché of Senator Hammond.
Most of Jordan’s ring constructs are eccentric at best, impractical at worst. He keeps Rube Goldberging things and it may look cool, but it doesn’t to anything to make you believe that the ring picked the right guy. In fact, the whole theme of the movie is that the ring saw something in Jordan we didn’t, but I never saw it at any point. All we saw was him be slightly less scared and remember something Kilowog told him earlier in the film about suns.
And the tag in the credits makes no sense. Sinestro puts on the yellow ring because that’s what he does in the comics, but the movie itself has set Sinestro up as a hero. His heel-turn in the credits has no setup, no context, nothing. It’s just a cynical “hey, here’s what the sequel will be about” bit. All they had to do was have Sinestro be grumpy about Jordan being the hero in the end, have him sulk in the background while the Guardians and Tomar-Re and Kilowog sang his praises, and then it would’ve worked. As it stands, though, it’s completely out of left field. (Dr. Strange will do a much better job of this with Mordo.)
The movie has its moments, some wonderful lines, and Reynolds and Lively are both a lot of fun, as is Taika Waititi as Jordan’s best friend. The movie isn’t really a chore to get through, it blows by pretty quickly, and it has Ferris’s beautiful cheekbones comment.
But it should’ve been so much more, and it just stumbled over everything.
Next week, we dive back into the X-films, starting with another 2011 release, X-Men: First Class.
Keith R.A. DeCandido will be at Wintercon in Jamaica, Queens, New York this weekend at the Bard’s Tower table along with fellow author David Mack. We’ll be selling and signing our books, so come on over and say hi if you’re in the Big Apple this weekend!
I thought it was fine. It is a perfectly serviceable and enjoyable movie to while away a wet Sunday afternoon in front of the television. That is head and shoulders above most movies, and certainly more than all recent DCCU movies, as far as it goes. I don’t know why it is so reviled, even the much talked about animated supersuit is at least trying to do something different from a chunk of rubber with moulded muscles.
My only real gripe is they chose the wrong Green Lantern to focus on, it oughta have been John Stewart who was the GL still hot in public awareness (in as far as any Green Lantern is in the public mind) from the Justice League cartoons. I don’t know why he wasn’t picked, I suspect some sort of executive meddling.
I haven’t watched this since I saw it in the theater, but I remember turning to my wife during the massive infodump during the opening minutes and asking if there was going to be a quiz later. I can’t help wondering if it would have been somewhat improved by having the audience learn about the Green Lantern Corps and all that history at the time time Jordan learned it.
random22: Yeah, I would much rather have seen the Corey Reynolds John Stewart film than this (which I didn’t actually know about until I was researching the production of this film). And yeah, I enjoyed it more than any of the recent DC films that didn’t list Gal Gadot first in the credits, at least. But that’s damning with faint praise, truly. (We’ll get to Man of Steel and its followups in March of 2019.)
penelopecat419: Agreed, we should’ve learned about the Corps the same time Jordan did. I blame Peter Jackson for making everyone think that an infodump at the top of a movie is a good idea…….. *laughs*
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
(Of course, they really should have focused the movie on G’nort……………………)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G'nort
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I remember walking out of GL thinking that it was very similar to Thor for me (they both released in 2011) in that the “redemption” part of the main character’s story arc felt rushed and mostly unearned.
I honestly don’t think Green Lantern is as bad as its reputation. I think if it had come out 5-7 years earlier, it would’ve been seen as a flawed but decent superhero movie, certainly a damn sight better than something like Catwoman or X-Men: The Last Stand. It just had the misfortune of coming out in the same year as Thor, Captain America, and X-Men: First Class, so it paled in comparison to those greats. Mainly, the film just tries to do too much at once, to pile on too much of the mythos rather than easing the audience into it. It might’ve worked better to do the first film as an Earthbound story and bring in the larger Corps in the sequel.
I felt that Ryan Reynolds was very effective as Hal, both the comedic and dramatic sides. To the extent that the movie works, it does so largely on the back of his charisma, much like Iron Man and Downey, though not on quite the same level. Blake Lively is a fairly bland Carol by comparison, but not as bad as I initially feared. Mark Strong made a good Sinestro, and Geoffrey Rush made the best of a part that was basically Friendly Exposition Guy. There was some good character stuff, even if it was a little uncomplicated. Hal’s arc of having this great responsibility thrust on him and finding it in himself to live up to it, with a little help from his friends, was nice to watch and made him an appealing hero. I liked it that he tried to reach out to Hector and redeem him, although it’s not clear to what extent that was a ploy all along.
Granted, it has its problems. They could’ve stood to do more to show that Hal was a screwup rather than just having him assert it to his brother. They definitely shouldn’t have waited until halfway through the movie to establish that Hal, Carol, and Hector Hammond knew each other. And I think it might’ve worked better if they’d gone a route more like the original comics — started with Hal living his life, then introduced the ring and Abin Sur as a mystery and had him gradually learn about this grand story he’d stumbled into. At the same time, if they were going to use characters like Tomar-Re and Kilowog, it would’ve been nice to get more development for them. And I’m not sure why they called Angela Bassett’s character Amanda Waller when she had next to nothing in common with Amanda Waller.
My biggest gripe is probably how ineffectual a hero Hal is. Both in the party scene with the senator and the climactic Parallax attack, GL is inexplicably absent for an extended period as a bunch of people die, and then he swoops in belatedly and saves just one or two people. This is not good heroing — especially if one of the only people you bother to save is the one you want or expect to have sex with. (Keep this point in mind when we get to Man of Steel.)
With that in mind, though, I did like it that the film ended with Hal choosing to go out and fight crime and help people. Too many superhero movies focus on the heroes dealing with their own self-created problems or protecting themselves from their archfoes, rather than fulfilling what’s supposed to be their primary purpose — saving lives, protecting the innocent, doing good. Having Hal say he was going off to look for trouble, to actually do his job as Green Lantern, is a nice proactive ending for a superhero origin story. (It would’ve been great if, under the end titles, we could’ve seen a montage of Hal fighting crime and saving lives.)
Oh, as for the much-derided CGI Lantern costumes, I liked the idea of that, although the execution fell a bit short. If the costumes are created by the rings, it makes sense that they’d be constructs of green energy rather than fabric. So it was a nice idea, an attempt to make them look truly alien and advanced. But in practice, they were just too 2-dimensional. The “mask” in particular was obviously just a part of Reynolds’s face digitally painted green, rather than looking like something projected/worn on top of his skin.
I just remember pre development a genre magazine saying how GL had the elements that would make a good live action film, and likewise a friend posting the first trailer on Facebook predicting it would be the movie of the year, or something to that effect…Other than that I have almost nothing…Only saw it opening weekend, and didn’t make much an impression on me, not sure what it says that what stands out to me was the Power Ring creating the ultimate Product Placement for Hot Wheels and a (ahem) ham and cheese performance by Sarsgaard (at least his wife was in a decent DC film
Quoth Christopher: “I honestly don’t think Green Lantern is as bad as its reputation.”
It isn’t, truly, but as I found myself writing the review and the flaws just kept piling up on each other, and I realized that, while it’s not as bad as it’s rep, it’s still not actually good…….
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Helpful hint: If the guy’s name is “Sinestro”, maybe think twice about inducting him into your league of universal guardians.
One thing that kind of threw me out of the movie was when he was using the ring to create things like actual WWII anti-aircraft-style flak cannon. I admit that I’m not super familiar with the comics, but is it kosher for him to be creating those kinds of complex mechanisms out of green energy?
hoopmanjh: Why discriminate against a guy just because he’s left-handed?????
And yes, the ring can create things that complex. The only limit is imagination, and the color yellow (later retconned into an inability to affect things with fear energy).
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I actually like this movie. I didn’t know a bunch about the comics, but I loved the scifi aspect to it all. I always figured they could make the out of place ‘Sinestro puts on Yellow Ring’ scene work in a sequel kind of like The Bourne Ultimatum did (revealing that the final scene in The Bourne Supremacy took place in the middle of the following movie). That would have allowed them to actually build up to it rather than just shove it in there.
Fun story. A few months ago, my boys (10 & 8) were playing a lot of ‘Injustice: Gods Among Us’ and they were using Green Lantern quite a bit. I told them about the movie and they were pumped to see it. They loved it and immediately wanted to go to the local comic shop and buy some Green Lantern comics. It may not be a great movie, but it can still get kids into the source material.
@krad: John Stewart is a former marine (and that’s a retcon) but also an architect, and that’s important, because it showed a college educated black man, something that was not common in comics back then. Also, it’s “Temuera” Morrison.
As for the film, I enjoyed it, as a Green Lantern fan, but it’s mediocre, starting with the fact that casting Ryan Reynold as Hal Jordan was very wrong. I’m glad Berlanti has redeemed himself.
HOLY SHIT, WHAT?! THAT WAS TAIKA WAITITI AS TOM KALMAKU?!?!?!? OF COURSE!!!
@1 – random22: The animated costume was a good idea, it was the odd “muscle fiber ribbing” they gave it that threw me off.
@9 – hoopmanj: Yes, the rings can do anything the wearer imagines. Usually, however, Jordan stuck to basbeball bats and gloves, boxing gloves, etc; and only recently have they drawn into his test pilot background (the guy has to know a lot just more than pilot) and he creates fighter planes, missiles, etc. John Stewart, with his background in architecture, is usually shown creating complicated machinery, Kyle Rayner (an artist) draws fantastic creatures or giant robots, etc.
@11 – Jason: Glad your kids got into GL.
MaGnUs: Yipe! Thanks for catching the screwup of Morrison’s first name. It’s fixed.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Bah! You would have turned down Prince Evillo for Legion of Superheros’ membership.
@12/MaGnUs: Since the energy-costumes were meant to be alien constructs, they should look odd to human eyes. Although that sort of conflicts with the comics’ idea that the costumes are created by the ringbearers’ imaginations, suggesting that Hal should’ve created something more terrestrial-looking. Although I guess you could say his imagination was emulating Abin Sur’s costume.
In the DC Animated Universe, since their John Stewart was a Marine instead of an architect, he tended to favor simple, efficient constructs, beams of light and force fields rather than anything more elaborate. The other DCAU GL, Kyle Rayner, was a comic-book artist, and so he created more whimsical constructs when he was introduced on Superman: The Animated Series.
There’s odd-looking and there’s shitty. :) And cartoon John probably did simpler constructs because they were easier to animate.
Yeah, I guess what exposure I had was mostly to Lanterns making big boxing gloves or force beams or whatever.
@9,
Its just like Dr. Doom. If your name is Victor Von Doom, you’re doomed to be a bad guy. I blame the parents. You gotta know naming the kid Victor is a straight path to evil. Name the kid Chandler. Chandler Von Doom is a dentist.
@16/MaGnUs: No, it was a deliberate character-based choice by the writers. Remember, Rayner’s appearance in S:TAS was years earlier, and they had no trouble animating elaborate constructs for him.
@18/ragnar: As I mentioned in the comments to the rewatch of the 2005 Fantastic Four movie, “Doom” is apparently an Anglo-Saxon surname related to dun (hill), or a Dutch surname related to “Adam” or “Thomas.”
But Kyle Rayner was a guest in a single episode of S:TAS, while Stewart was a main character in Justice League.
I was pleasantly surprised that the rewatch of this movie wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I’m in agreement with Christopher (#6) on that, and my memory as well had it suffering in comparison to the other movies released that year.
That being said, the villains, ghods the villains.
I normally like Peter Sarsgaard, but his Hector was a cartoon villain with inflatable facial prosthetics which immobilized his face and his ability to emote with it.
And my biggest problem with Parallax is that while we get Clancy Brown’s amazing voice, but otherwise it’s a washed out Mars Attacks head and a cloud of constantly failing pixilation for a villain. I kept waiting/wanting that to resolve itself into a picture.
The turn around on Sinestro in the credits… well, any comic book fan knows that Sinestro is a bad guy discharged from the Green Lantern Corps due to abusing his powers so having him in a place of leadership and in fact speaking for the Guardians on the Guardian’s world in GLC was off-putting.
I’m in agreement with Keith on placement of Sinestro’s acquisition of the a yellow ring. That should have happened right after the Guardians agreed that that was the course to take – so he shouldn’t have been available to help save Hal Jordan. It should have been Tomar-Re and Kilowog and perhaps a few other unnamed Green Lanterns helping Hal. Sinestro should have shown up in the last scene, WITH a yellow ring that we can see, and not giving the speech at all (even though–Mark Strong’s voice…mmmm.)
.
@20/MaGnUs: Look — it was a character choice. In the Justice League episode “In Blackest Night,” Katma Tui overtly teased John about how simple his constructs were compared to most other Green Lanterns. It was right there in the onscreen dialogue. And other GLs who appeared in the show were given more elaborate constructs. After all, we’re talking about one of the best-made animated superhero shows of all time. Of course they were capable of animating more elaborate ring constructs, but that didn’t fit the personality of their version of John Stewart.
They shouldn’t have cast Reynolds to play Hal Jordan, he should have been Kyle Rayner; sure, it’s a minor thing that wouldn’t have changed anything, but the geek in me had a problem with it.
And Paralax is a terrible enemy for a first movie, that should have been a later villain; he’s too big and powerful of a concept for the origin story.
I didn’t hate the movie, but it was really weak.
@23/BonHed: It’s not unheard of for screen adaptations of legacy superheroes to combine aspects of multiple holders of the title. The DCAU’s Kyle Rayner looked like Hal and wore his costume. Earlier, Batman: The Animated Series‘s Dick Grayson wore Tim Drake’s Robin costume and had Tim’s computer skills, and when they later introduced a DCAU version of Tim Drake, he was basically Jason Todd in all but name. All three live-action incarnations of the Flash (John Wesley Shipp, Grant Gustin, Ezra Miller) have been named Barry Allen but have had aspects in common with Wally West, such as being partnered with STAR Labs, needing to eat a great deal, or having a joking personality (and Gustin’s Flash uses the “My name is ___ and I am the Fastest Man Alive” intro that was Wally’s trademark in the comics). The MCU’s Peter Parker/Spider-Man has several attributes in common with Miles Morales, notably his friend Ned who’s based on Miles’s friend Ganke.
It’s the nature of an adaptation of a long-running series that you distill the best bits accumulated over decades. And when it comes to legacy heroes, those best bits can be spread out across multiple characters, so that encourages the creation of composite characters.
I like the Oa and the GL Corps parts of the film. The rest is pretty bland.
I laughed and laughed at this.
https://www.toplessrobot.com/2011/06/topless_robot_presents_the_best_scenes_from_the_gr.php
I feel like Doctor Strange did the exact same thing with Mordo, if not worse. It goes immediately from “he dusapproves of Strange’s methods because he finds them too risky and morally ambiguous” to “suddenly he’s willing to kill people despite being a good person for the whole movie”. It’s possibly the worst sacrifice of character to plot in the whole MCU.
When Green Lantern originally came out, I saw it in the theater and then promptly wrote up an analysis over two posts of all the plot and character related ways the movie fell short. Your summary here did a great job of exposing many of those same problems, so it’s interesting to see how time didn’t change my opinion. ;)
I always liked the character in the comics, and liked Ryan Reynolds, so I went in with high hopes. Reynolds and the other actors were fine, but the script didn’t hang together well, and the CGI was not well executed. The CGI suit didn’t work, and the energy constructs the ring created were terrible, poorly thought out and poorly done. My son’s best friend is a Green Lantern fan and he was just crushed; there is nothing worse than seeing them make a terrible movie using your favorite character.
felix77: I’m so glad I didn’t read that until after this rewatch went live, but holy fuck, is it funny. Thank you. (“Christ, what an asshole.”)
KatherineMW: I remember Dr. Strange as getting Mordo’s shift right, but it’s been a while. We’ll see how I feel about it when I get to it next year…..
JamiGold: those are two very good analyses. Bravo, and thank you for sharing.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
26/KatherineMW: As I recall, Mordo in Doctor Strange was consistently portrayed as someone who was willing to kill if necessary to achieve his goals, in contrast to Strange’s desire to preserve life at all costs. Mordo had a rigid sense of morality and believed in doing right, but he believed that sometimes required killing for the greater good. So there was no contradiction. His journey from ally to enemy was very credible, because the same consistent motivations and beliefs drove him throughout. The only thing that changed is that he discovered that the Ancient One, and then Strange, had broken the rules that he held sacred and betrayed his trust in them, so in his mind they were the villains who had to be fought by whatever means necessary. It’s a fascinating character journey for a movie villain, and Sinestro’s abrupt and unmotivated heel turn here is hardly comparable.
Good review. Everyone I know loathes this movie, and I didn’t think it was THAT bad. It helps that GL has been my favorite superhero since DC rebooted him in 1959 (Iron Man didn’t even make the long list) so I really, really wanted to like it.
Green Lantern, specifically Hal Jordan, is my favorite superhero, based largely on Geoff John’s run. The movie isn’t good. But I enjoy (most) of it all the same. There are a number of flaws, but I remain convinced that with a better writer, the same cast could have made a stand out film. They just chose to change things for seemingly arbitrary reasons. Making Amanda Waller a scientist rather than a Big Brother (or Sister) government presence was ridiculous. Neither she, nor Hector Hammond should have even been in the film. Then, the biggest problem was Parallax. Because what we see in that film isn’t Parallax. Everything about the character and his backstory is from the character Krona in the comics, who has used Parallax, but was a completely separate character. And way to big a villain for the first film in a franchise. I maintain that the first film should have been Hal training with Sinestro and slowly realizing that the dude has crossed to the dark side. Basically the plot of the First Flight animated film, but more nuanced.
krad hits the nail on the head about this film with the comment about there being two movies here: the film makes the mistake of including two much in one movie and shortchanges a lot of otherwise-good stuff in the process. The note in the intro pointing out how the GL Corps and Guardians were introduced a bit into the original run of Hal Jordan makes a key point about setting up the character before throwing too much more in the soup. So often folks debate the issue of films trying to set up a sequel (as we see here) and then leaving all the story for that, but this film jammed the logical Hal on Earth vs. Hector origin film and Hal on Oa vs. Parallax sequel film into one cramped package. It’s a pity because, as mentioned, there were a lot of great moments and great performances, just not enough space to let them be
@32/blairb: I believe the intent behind Angela Bassett’s Waller was that she’d be the Nick Fury equivalent in the shared universe that was supposed to grow out of Green Lantern, the crossover character that tied the films together. I guess they made her a scientist because that made her someone who could be involved with investigating all the DCU’s superscience-based and alien heroes.
And in my experience, you can often find more nuance in animated film and TV than you’ll find in live-action feature films.
@@@@@ ChristopherLBennett (way up top):
“They definitely shouldn’t have waited until halfway through the movie to establish that Hal, Carol, and Hector Hammond knew each other.”
In the extended cut of the film (available on home video), they don’t. Most of the additional footage consists of a lengthy prologue featuring the three characters as children.
And I’ll join others here in saying the movie isn’t nearly as bad as its rep. In fact, I quite enjoyed it.
@34/ChristopherLBennett If that was there intent with Waller, then making her a scientist was an even worse idea, because she was clearly an underling to Tim Robbins’ Senator. Maybe killing him would have left her in charge of the “program?” Because even if she continued to pop up as someone studying the alien stuff, she wouldn’t be in charge like Fury was.
And I agree about the animated movies. Overall, DC’s slate of animated films is fantastic, and I like First Flight. The aspect of the film that I thought lacked nuance was Sinestro. He and Hal worked together long enough in the comics to become friends, which is why Sinestro showed him what he was doing on Korugar, using his power to force peace at the expense of freedom, which Hal couldn’t overlook. But Sinestro’s motivations have always been noble, just corrupted by his own ego- he wants peace, and he cares about innocent life, even if he’s willing to sacrifice some for a “greater good.” I felt like First Flight dehumanized him into a boiler plate corrupt cop, and failed to build that rapport that makes him such a personal villain for Hal.
@9, @14, @18:
I noticed that in the film, Sinestro’s name was consistently pronounced with the stress on the second syllable (si-NE-stro), rather than on the first syllable, in what I assumed was an attempt to make its meaning less immediately obvious.
(My impression, which may be incorrect, is that Obvious Villain Names of this sort are less common these days, or at least writers are more self-aware in dealing with them. I recall that Marvel’s Jessica Jones TV show lampshaded the fact that the villain’s last name was Killgrave.)
@38 Barring movies that are built on “clever” wordplay, like The Incredibles and TI2. I twigged to Evelyn Deavor immediately.
Like others have said, this isn’t a classic, it’s not one that will ever be in Top 10 Superhero Movie lists, but it really doesn’t deserve its reputation. And I agree with krad that the scene of Carol instantly recognising Green Lantern as Hal once she gets a good look at him is excellent. It’s made even better by the fact that he’s pretty much doing an impression of Christopher Reeve’s Superman up to that point, with the overly polite, Boy Scout-ish “Just wanted to check up on you, miss. Happy to be of service.”
I also think they made the right choice with the Green Lantern Corps. Okay, it’s world-building for an assumed sequel, which is something I often criticise. But if you’re making a film about a hero, then he needs to be the hero, not part of an ensemble of thousands. The film says “All this exists but this film is about this guy.” Hal needs to be the one to save the day, but the Corps show up at the end to save him, showing that he’s not alone in this and they accept him.
I admit the villains are a bit forgettable. Parallax is effective as a kind of force of nature but I pretty much forgot Hammond was even in it. I also completely failed to recognise Blake Lively when I first saw it. I remember when Channel 5 finally gave the movie its terrestial premiere, about five years after it was made, I saw the trailers and was like “Hang on, that was her?” It does have a few moments that stick in the mind though, like Hal’s “I’m only human” speech to the Corps and his determinedly reciting the code while confronting Parallax. I used to do that a lot. (Not when confronting Parallax, obviously.)
Sinestro putting on the ring at the end…I kind of buy it. He was going to put the ring on earlier, he saw it as the only solution…I guess his rationale was that even with Parallax gone, there’d still be threats like that out there, and he thought he was the only one capable of handling the power.
@36/blairb: I didn’t mean to suggest that the Fury analogy was exact, right down to Waller being “in charge.” I merely meant that she would be the recurring character bridging the different movies. Perhaps a better analogy is Claire Temple, Rosario Dawson’s nurse character who’s appeared in all of Netflix’s Marvel superhero shows (except The Punisher).
@37/tinsoldier: I’m pretty sure that every screen adaptation has pronounced “Sinestro” with the stress on the second syllable, going back to Challenge of the Super Friends in 1978, his earliest screen appearance. (Here’s a sample clip.) I can’t recall ever hearing it stressed on the first syllable.
And you’re right about the trend away from obvious villain names. Jessica Jones even changed the spelling of Killgrave’s name to the more conventional “Kilgrave.” Although they take it too far sometimes. Netflix’s Daredevil was very reluctant to use the “Kingpin” monicker for Wilson Fisk, never uttering it until season 3, even though it’s a perfectly legitimate and commonplace term for the head of a criminal organization. And the villain in season 3 is never even once called Bullseye onscreen, even though that’s a natural enough nickname for someone with his preternatural aim.
The biggest problem with this movie was casting Ryan Reynolds. He just can’t pull off the gravitas that Hal requires. If they do another Hal Jordan movie, just reboot it and do Emerald Dawn, which hits all the beats.
When all is said and done, Green Lantern isn’t necessarily an ‘awful” movie, just a very by-the-numbers and uninspired one. It’s not quite as bad as it’s reputation suggests but it’s definitely not the movie the Green Lantern book deserved or needed (Geoff Johns apparently served as a creative consultant but most of his advice was ignored). I put much of this movies failure on the writing which features Marc Guggenheim AKA the man who ruined Arrow.
@42/spencer-malley: It’s unlikely that Guggenheim had that much impact on the final film. He, Greg Berlanti, and Michael Green wrote several drafts of the script while Berlanti was attached to direct, but after Berlanti departed the project, the script was rewritten by Michael Goldenberg and Guggenheim had no further involvement.
As a rule, writers in feature films can almost never be held accountable for their end product, because the feature industry treats writers as disposable contractors, generally bringing in a large number of different writers (most of them uncredited) to do varying drafts or work as a committee following the marching orders of the director and producers, who decide which bits of which drafts to use, so that the end product can contain only a fragment of what any given writer contributed to the process. The only writers with any control over the end result are the ones who are producing and/or directing the films themselves.
Otherwise, I agree with you — by pre-2008 standards, Green Lantern would’ve been an average superhero movie at worst — not brilliant but watchable, about on the level of Rise of the Silver Surfer, say. It just had the bad luck to come out in the same year as three superb Marvel movies, so it looked worse by contrast than it would have in a different context.
@42/ChristopherLBennett Well whoever it was to blame, It’s still a shame it didn’t turn out better than it did, given the richness of the Green Lantern source material.
I wouldn’t exactly call Thor or First Avenger “superb” but they were certainly better than this to say nothing of X-Men First Class.
I agree that this is two different movies. I really liked the first half, with Hal getting introduced to the cosmic weirdness of the Corps. I actually like the unsettling CGI costume, and the designs for the movie Lanterns are the best-looking character designs most of them have ever had (especially my boy Chaselon the Space-Nerd). Then Hal returns to Earth and it becomes a completely different movie based around a forgettable minor villain and a big yellow retcon that I’ve always hated in the first place.
“Parallax” was originally just Hal Jordan after suffering a PTSD-driven psychotic break after the destruction of Coast City. The yellow fear-demon was only introduced later, to “redeem” Hal by making him not responsible for the one interesting thing he’s ever done.
A better movie would’ve been to focus only on Hal getting the ring, with Sinestro appearing ostensibly to investigate Abin Sur’s mysterious death (at the hands of whatever appears to be the film’s big bad) and taking Jordan under his wing (only revealed at the end is that Sinestro orchestrated Abin Sur’s death to get his hands on an unattended ring, which would then be delivered to his fellow conspirators to turn yellow). The potential sequel could’ve focused on Sinestro’s betrayal and backstory.
The film suffers from being too fannish and loyal to the source material. Instead of sticking with the basics like most superhero origin movies, it tries to cram elements accreted over 50 years of comics continuity into an hour and 45 minutes. We’re just lucky they didn’t try to toss in all that convoluted “emotional spectrum” stuff too. I guess it was still too recent an invention in the comics.
Unfortunately, Green Lantern’s very name is not understandable without fifty years of comics continuity. Batman is a guy in a bat suit, Spider Man a guy in a spider suit, Superman and Wonder Woman beings with superhuman powers, The Flash is fast … but Green Lantern? Why a lantern? Well, there was this original Green Lantern character who used a real lantern, but this guy doesn’t, it’s actually a battery, and … what?
I really didn’t think it was ever a BAD film. Is it flawed? Certainly. But I enjoyed it more than Doctor Strange, the film that constantly reminded me of the Green Lantern movie, despite its polar opposite theme.
KatherineMW@26:
We can discuss it more when Krad gets to it, but Mordo’s “about face” is because his entire worldview was predicated upon the Ancient One’s teaching. Her betrayal (as he saw it) completely deconstructed the morality he had built for himself around her teachings. Mordo wasn’t real. Mordo was a self-construct built around absolute faith and belief in a fallible human being.
I found it incredibly realistic, not the least bit because I’ve watched it play out more than once with people I’ve known. Including within my own family. Its ultimately about not taking responsibility for one’s self and one’s actions. You make the mentor/leader ultimately responsible for what you do and who you are, and when their inevitable failures come to the surface, you feel betrayed, and reject everything they taught you. It leaves you adrift, and searching for another absolute truth. For some people (Mordo, obviously) nihilism is the end result.
tinsoldier@37:
I think this is an understandable precaution.
My daughter and I are listening to The Wheel of Time audiobooks, and there is a villain character who isn’t introduced as a villain, and his name is Mordeth.
My daughter is fairly genre-savvy for a 12 year old, and she was screaming in the car “oh, c’mon! Don’t trust that guy! His name is literally ‘MORE DEATH!’” So I can see writers not wanting to tip their hands quite that obviously anymore.
@50/Anthony: Hmm. When I look at “Mordeth,” my first thought is to notice the resemblance to the Latin or French word for “death” (mors/mort) and to similar names like Mordred and Mordor, and of course Baron Mordo (and Voldemort, though that has the justification of being an assumed name in-universe). In my head, the stress naturally falls on the first syllable, so I didn’t even connect it to the English word “death.”
@51:
You’re not wrong. Its pronounced MOR-deth on the audiobook, and I’m sure the author’s intention was to invoke the latin “mort”, but it works as a pun as well, however unintentional. I just thought her reaction was funny.