Green Lantern : The Problem and The Solution

Green Lantern : The Problem and The Solution

My thoughts on the pros and cons of the film and solutions on how all comic book films should be approached.

Editorial Opinion
By Redhood2k10 - Oct 15, 2011 10:10 AM EST
Filed Under: Green Lantern

As someone aspiring to become a director and as a fan of cbm's I thought I'd check out the Green Lantern blu ray for it's special features. It was quite fascinating to see how the movie was developed mostly from a directing stand point, seeing how the director interacts with the cast and crew is great. Now we all now Green Lantern has it's faults but there was still potential in it and that can be seen from the amazing development art that you can see on the disc. My first time watching the blu ray and third time watching the film I became very aware of the problems in the film and I want to list them as well as possible solutions.

Problems:

1. Lack of vision: To me it seems that GL was made for the sake of being made, it seemed nobody had a real grasp on what the franchise could be.

2. Martin Campbell: Wasn't the man for the job, I see campbell handling Green Arrow, but after this I don't want him near another cbm.

3. Script: Again lack of vision led to a poorly written script in my opinion. Four writers is stupid. QUALITY OVER QUANTITY. I would rather have 1 or 2 writers who knew what they were doing.

4. Villains: The Parallax/ Legion/ Krona/ Galactus/ Dust Bunny hybrid was a terrible idea for a villain. It should have been Krona or Manhunters or Star Sapphire and was way to early to introduce Parallax to an audience.

5. To much Ryan not much Hal: I feel the writers tried to make Hal fit Ryan instead of Ryan fit Hal which was a disgrace, but I still feel Ryan is the best Hal.

6. Not enough Oa, space scenes: To put it goody you compared the film to Star Wars but didn't deliver Star Wars.

Solutions:

1. Believe in the source material: To much was crammed into the first film, over the course of three or four films everything could be explained. K.I.S.S. comes to mind.

2. Better writing: Someone who understands the stories and mythology of the Green Lantern universe should handle writing even if it's just one or two writers.

3. Director: The director should have more faith in the project then anyone. The director's "PASSION" should be unequaled by anyone to film an amazing epic in my opinion.

4. Do not follow but lead: Green Lantern stories have been popular in comics because I believe they go where no other hero can go. Lantern stories have the unique ability of capturing the imagination because of the Star Wars meets Superhero mash up.



I want to know what other fans think. Am I right in my assumptions or am I far off the deep end?
Sound off and let me hear your thoughts.

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ballstothewall
ballstothewall - 10/15/2011, 11:51 AM
I AGREE. You are Right.
Oxion
Oxion - 10/15/2011, 12:13 PM
Makes sense. Takin a step back to analyze instead of bash. Nice work.
MoonDoggyX
MoonDoggyX - 10/15/2011, 12:23 PM
Great points all! Another problem, WB are control freaks, interfered way too much. They want to make all of the decisions, but unfortunately they only have a passion for making money.

Solution, find someone that they can trust like they trust nolan with Batman and let him bring the character to life. Even if the person isn't necessarily a GL fan, at least get someone passionate about sci-fi and superheroes... Martin Cambell was neither...
Redhood2k10
Redhood2k10 - 10/15/2011, 12:45 PM
Thanks, I love any cbm because I support the genre, even though i'm more a DC fan I still enjoy Marvel movies, like many I felt Lantern was a bit of a let down only because I had sky high anticipations but Lantern was nowhere near as bad as people make it out to be.
golden123
golden123 - 10/15/2011, 7:10 PM
@Ironman53: WB isn't as stupid as you think. They see how successful these comic book superhero movies are. Just because Green Lantern didn't do as planned in the box office doesn't mean they're just going to stop trying. Not when their is money to be made. The success of Marvel movies like Captain America and Thor will keep WB in the cycle for superhero films.
golden123
golden123 - 10/15/2011, 7:37 PM
You should have expanded upon wha you had. Editorials aren't meant to be short, sweet, and to the point. I'm not necessarily disagreeing with each point, but let me put my two bits in.
1. How many different reasons are there for adapting a comic book superhero into a movie. The "sake of being made" is a large category. A category that would include such films as The Dark Knight, Spider-Man 2, X2, and Ironman. If you disagree with that statement then how so. I don't know what you mean by "the sake of being made", but any film that they make mainly for legal reasons (The Man of Steel, Fantastic Four '94) are the only ones excluded from the "sake of being made" category, in my mind.
2. I loved the way you explained how Martin Campbell's direction was bad.
3. I expect an Ironman editorial and a Thor editorial on there problems shortly after this since they both had five writers. You never prove why the multiple writers negatively affected the script.
4. Why was this villain hybrid a terrible idea for a film, and why was it too early to introduce Parallax? Why would the manhunters, Krona, or Star Sapphire make a better villain?
5. I truely don't know what you're trying to say here.
6. Each individual Star Wars film doesn't have that many space scenes. Over 90% of each Star Wars film is set on a planet (or the Death Star which really can't be counted as being in space since it has it's own gravitational pull). I don't think it needed many space scenes at all to be good.
golden123
golden123 - 10/15/2011, 7:45 PM
cont...
1. I'm confused. You're saying the movie makers should have beleived in the source material, but at the same time, they shouldn't have crammed so much into the movie. Sounds contradictary to me.
2. This ones kind of generic. A little to generic.
3. Generic again! Do you have any suggestions for directors or writers (not to turn this into a fan-fic) or something? What do you mean by passion, anyways? Passion is just an emotion. somebody can have all the passion in the world. but it doesn't mean the product of what they do will be good. If that mad anu sense.
4. So how did the last film "follow" and how would you say a movie "leads"?
chilipot
chilipot - 10/15/2011, 8:42 PM
I would be more than willing to direct the next movie. We will just switch over to Guy before the coma and while he is still coaching in high school.
golden123
golden123 - 10/16/2011, 7:09 AM
@chilipot: Guy? Guy's annoying and the least liked Green Lantern.
Redhood2k10
Redhood2k10 - 10/16/2011, 8:31 AM
@ golden apologizes this was my first real attempt at an editorial but I will remember that for the future. Please leg me clarify.

Problem:

1. Sake of being made: What I mean is that it feels a little like Green Lantern was made so WB could have a hero on the screen and not miss out on the opportunity going against Marvel.

2. To many writers: When I get together with people to begin writing as both a writer and director I have a vision for what I think will make a good movie, but with four writers there was some opposing ideas and headbutting along the way through out the process because it happens. I would rather have someone that has a clear cut vision that's so strong he could make someone believe in his vision because it was that great.

3. Villains: I'll let it be said that I don't really know enough of the Legion character to comments about him, but their interpretations of both Parallax and Krona was terrible. I believe in remaining as faithful to the source as possible, however not all things in comics to translate to the big screen but neither Parallax or Krona needed to be changed as drastically as they were but someone could disagree with me.

4. To much Ryan not enough Hal: I found alot of behavior in this movie I thought was more Ryan Reynolds then Hal Jordan. From Geoff's run Hal is a pretty serious fella though he has his wisecracking moments it seemed they let Ryan play Ryan in a Green Lantern suit instead of playing Hal.

5. Star Wars: My star wars comments is simply referring to the amount of time spent on Earth instead of space. I would have loved if we got to explore planets like Korugar, Ysmault, Odym, Okaara, and Zamaron the way Star Wars exploded its universe.

Solutions

1. Cramming so much: I think they tried to pit to much info into film one. Over the course of lets say four films they could have explored the emotional spectrum, the rise of other corps and hell they could have even led the film to Blackest Night if done right, but it should have been paced alot better.

2. Better writing: Really the same thing I said about having to many writers. Lantern's do things in comics the film can be mindblowing. Any one who says Lantern's concept is too farfetched is insane. It's just as far fetched as a radioactive spider, surviving gamma rays, being an alien survivor of another world or being a naked silver guy on a surfboard. Lantern can still be a major player in cam's lets not forget Batman Begins only made like $300 mil and its sequel grossed over a Billion.

3. Passion: This is tricky but when I think this concept Zack Snyder comes to mind. He has informed us numerous times of his love for Superman and now he is directing MOS. I have so much faith in this project it exceeds my combined excitement for Lantern and Dark Knight. Zack seems to believe in the character and what it's capable of. By passion I mean this. You have to believe in both your own talent and the material you have, if a director does this then we now he will deliver the best product he can, but again someone can feel differently then me.

4. Follow not lead: Thanks to Dark Knight cbm's are evolving for the better. Lantern seemed to follow the formula of cbm's pre-Dark Knight. Lantern comics do things no other character can. Sinestro Corps War, Blackest Night, War of the Green Lanterns were epic. If SCW or BN happened in any other comic the outcome would have been different. Lantern is the perfect Star Wars meets Superhero mashup. Lantern should have been 90% Star Wars and 10% Superhero, I can guarantee that if Lantern was approached this way people would have been mind blown and Lantern would have been way more successful.

P.s I would love to direct GL. I would use John instead of Guy though and set up SCENE, the franchise is still salvageable. This may sound bad but I kinda hope they don't make another one until after I'm done with school so I can make it lol.
manymade1
manymade1 - 10/16/2011, 11:53 AM
I especially agree with #5, that was my biggest problem with the film. Though I have to disagree with 4, Parallax is the whole concept of the Sinestro Corps and he had to be introduced before Sinestro put the ring on. Now what was wrong their was adding the Krona turns into Parallax garbage.
Redhood2k10
Redhood2k10 - 10/16/2011, 12:05 PM
I believe if was to early for Parallax. Ion wasn't introduced, it was only discovered in John's run that parallax was the fear entity. Sinestro had the yellow ring before he found parallax which wasn't until he was imprisoned in the central battery. Tomar could have said something like this " Every sentient species feeds a different emotion in the emotional spectrum. Each light source can be harnessed and forged into rings just as the guardians did for the light of will". They could have had Krona be responsible for harnessing the yellow light and making the power ring. It could have been explained in Green Lantern 2 that each emotion has a physical embodiment. But this is just my opinion and I respect yours.
Redhood2k10
Redhood2k10 - 10/16/2011, 12:07 PM
Sorry for the misspelled words, stupid iPhone tries to correct everything.
chilipot
chilipot - 10/16/2011, 12:43 PM
@golden123

Kyle is the least liked Green Lantern I think Guy comes in Third. But Guy was not so disliked until after the head trauma and coma. He thought Hal was sleeping with his girl during this time and became what he is today. Lets be honest he is much better than he was in the late 80's and 90's. Is he a jerk and to the point to being rude while being a sexist pig. Yeah but that's Guy now. Not the Guy that he was when he first got the ring.
One2three
One2three - 10/16/2011, 3:00 PM
I wonder if the parallax cloud and galactus cloud are buddies??
golden123
golden123 - 10/16/2011, 5:11 PM
@chilipot: Kyle's probably the least disliked, but that doesn't mean he's the most liked because Kyle isn't the most liked. The dislike probably goes something like this...

Least disliked-Second Least liked-Kyle-He hasn't done much to piss off the audience except replace Hal, but people have gotten over that, for the most part. His personality as the young "Golden Boy" of sector 2814 fits fine with the readers. Has his fair share of fans although alot of them were '90s readers that may have quit reading comics by now.

Second least disliked-Most Liked-Hal-Alot of people don't think he deserves to be the center of attention. Only a few actually hate him for that, though. Most of the haters are Kyle fans. Many non-GL fans don't like him because of the movie and being unfamilarized with him, but I'm excluding them from my analysis. Some people also think he''s a bit of a douch, but not as much as people think about Guy.

Second most disliked-Second most liked-John-He's become really popular since the Justice League tv show. Many modern comic book readers watched that successful show. He does get fandom's wraith for existing just because he's black, and some critics say his personality is just him being black (whatever that means). He is kind of a relief to some for being the only fully serious human Green Lantern of Sector 2814.

Most disliked-Least liked-Guy-He's an arrogant, cocky, anger ridden, spoiled brat to many. There's alot of people who can't stand him being in a comic since he represents everything people don't like in a real life non-criminal person. Some think he's cool and badass, but many comic fans can't get past his personality.
WorldsGreatestdetective
WorldsGreatestdetective - 10/16/2011, 7:53 PM
I know this is sometimes a cliche but It should of been more of a fish out of water movie with it being much more space oriented. It would have been much more interesting to see more comments on how the different species react to having a human in the corp and how Hal is so unaccustomed to the galactic community instead of the earth bound stuff of having a poorly developed hector Hammond and other underplayed and far too spread thin human characters they had in the story.
Trapdinsteel
Trapdinsteel - 10/17/2011, 7:49 AM
I was going to make a similar editorial about what I would change in "Green Lantern" to make it better but here are a few main points in addition to what Redhood2k10 said.
-Keep Krona separate from "Parallax" and the story the same that he was a former Guardian who chose to prove the rest of the Guardians wrong with fear as his weapon of choice. Change his look from the fart cloud to a Guardian on steroids so he is someone the GL's could go toe to toe with.
-Stop Hal from being a wishy washy cry baby who keeps quitting the corp.
-Instead of quitting his training, Sinestro asks him to help with some others defeat Krona on some random planet. Hal starts the journey with them but gets alerted by his ring that Carol is in danger from Hector (move that hangar scene up to this section) so he leaves the group to deal with that, which pisses off Sinestro.
-Hal deals with Hector and traps him in some type of holding facility on OA (instead of him getting killed)
-Meanwhile Sinestro gets his ass handed to him by Krona (This is a better reason why he wants a yellow ring made, because he is furious to be beaten and that the yellow color could be stronger than what he possesses)
-Krona can still turn into the fart cloud right before he is about to take over a planet but then reverts back to normal mode when he moves on.
-Kilowog and Toma Re escape with Sinestro as the planet is being decimated to fight another day.
-Same scene with Sinestro in front of the guardians pleading to make a yellow ring and Hal saying not to that they can all take him down if they join together.
-Hal and Krona (normal mode) battle it out and it looks like Hal almost has the upper hand when Krona turns into the fart cloud to regain the lead in the fight and the rest of the movie plays out as it did.
Iphro78
Iphro78 - 10/30/2011, 11:16 PM
I agree 100%!
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