The Green Lantern movie; just talking about it gets some of us fanboys (and girls) in such a rage that we can barely see straight. The movie had its flaws, that much is for certain, but what I also saw in the film was potential. Warner Brothers is shifting in to overdrive trying to get a Justice League movie off the ground, and there have been some rumblings that they are thinking about rebooting Green Lantern since it performed so poorly. To me this is the wrong choice for WB/DC. Continue reading for a few of my thoughts on why they should stick with the Green Lantern they have already established as opposed to rebooting the franchise altogether.
Ryan Reynolds wasn’t a bad Hal Jordan.
I have seen people on both sides of the fence about this, but in my honest opinion Ryan Reynolds was not a bad choice for the role of Hal Jordan. There were moments in the film that got me excited because he embodied what I thought Hal should be on the big screen. What Reynolds lacked in the movie was proper direction. There were times when he ceased to be Hal Jordan and was just……himself. That is where Martian Campbell needed to step in and tell him, “Try it again, only not so much like….you.” With Reynolds you save the hassle of going through the casting process again, and have a familiar face for the audience in a Justice League movie.
There is an awesome villain set up for a sequel.
Part of what bothered me most about Green Lantern was that Parallax and Hector Hammond were both just terribly portrayed. Hammond was a creepy weirdo that seemed to scream more than he talked and with Parallax there is just too much wrong to go into detail. What they do have though, is Mark Strong as Sinestro. Strong gave a brilliant performance in the film as the pink skinned alien from Korugar, and they should capitalize on that in the next film. In the end credits scene we were treated with Sinestro being curious as to what the Yellow Power has to offer and slipping the ring on. He also seems to have been taken over by the Yellow power, leading us to believe that he has no intentions of taking it off. This is what Green Lantern fans want to see, a battle between Hal and his greatest rival, the Yellow Ring powered Sinestro. With a reboot we would have wait even longer to see these two square off.
The major flaws can be fixed.
The major flaws in the first film were the writing and editing. The story just didn’t make sense at times. Throw on top of that the terrible way the film was pieced together and you are in store for one big head ache. For writing the next film, get someone that understands the character and what he is about. Geoff Johns was a special producer on the first film and needed to step in and tell them what was wrong with the script. He knows the character inside and out and just seemed like he didn’t want to step on any toes. Another flaw of the film was directing. Like I said earlier the problems with Reynolds could have been fixed if Campbell would have stepped up to the plate and gave him some proper direction. In his defense the scenes on Oa were great; there just weren’t nearly enough of them.
These are just a few of the ideas I had on this specific topic (unfortunately I don’t think if they go this way they will recast Blake Lively). What I am curious about though, is what do you the readers feel should be done. If you disagree leave me a little blurb in the boxes below and tell me either what you would do differently with a sequel, or whether you think rebooting is the way to go. Either way here is hoping that whether they give us a sequel or reboot it, they do it the proper way that will wash the taste of the previous film out of our mouths.