Scheduled for release in July, Green Lantern follows the origin of the character, as test pilot Hal Jordan (voiced by Law & Order: SVU’s Christopher Meloni) comes across the dying alien Abin Sur, who bequeaths to him a “power ring” with a Lantern insignia on it. What Hal quickly discovers is that Abin Sur is part of the Green Lantern Corps, a galaxy-wide fleet of “space cops” who are given the assignment of protecting their designated sectors. To fulfill their functions, they’re equipped with a power ring through which they can create virtually anything they can think of.
Fairly early on, Hal is introduced to the rest of the Corps as well as their superiors, the Guardians of the Galaxy; and he is taught by Sinestro, the “Lantern” who ultimately goes rogue, betraying the rest of the Corps.
“I’ve always liked Green Lantern,” explains writer Alan Burnett. “He’s a fun, colorful character. But the trick for me is that I like super powers that are sort of impactful. I like punches and fights and things like that. Given the nature of the Green Lantern ring, that impactful feeling as it’s being used is a bit of a trick, but it can be done and I hope that I’ve done that in this film. I didn’t want green beams to be fighting green beams. I wanted as many objects formed in those beams as I could, and the subtext behind the screenplay is that Hal Jordan is a natural with the ring, his imagination creating things that go way beyond beams. Hal is focused, but he’s very imaginative. In the script there’s a scene where he’s not doing anything, so he makes little objects in the air with his ring in the same way that someone else might doodle on a pad. What makes Hal stand out from the rest of the Corps is his ingenuity. You’re only as good as you can think, and Hal is a fast responder; he’s quick on the ring.”
For his part, Meloni had a very distinct image of Hal in mind: “I didn’t want to play him too heroic, because he’s really a human caught in a different world. They gave me a lot of great snappy lines to play off, and every once in a while they gave me the kind of heroic line that I had to summon up from my belly. But for the most part, I just kind of kept it real.”
SCIFI HERO Producer Bruce Timm, who has been involved in nearly all of the Warner Bros. superhero animated series and films since the 1990s (including the recent wave of DVD films, among them Superman: Doomsday, Justice League: New Frontier and Batman: Gotham Knight), credits character designer Jose Lopez for capturing the sci-fi look he was going for with this film.
“Jose has a completely different design sensibility than I’ve been used to working with,” explains Timm. “He’s a little bit anime flavored, but his style is not just specifically anime. We brought Jose in to do some designs on Green Lantern, and he ended up being pretty much our entire character design department. He ended up designing not just Green Lantern and most of the major characters, but zillions of background aliens and zillions of Green Lantern Corps characters. He brought a very unique design sensibility to the movie.
“This is a total science fiction film,” he continues. “We spend maybe 10 minutes on earth in the beginning of the movie, and then the rest of it all takes place in outer space and in several different alien environments. Jose designed hundreds of unique aliens and species for all of these different polyglot worlds. And they are all really cool — some of the designs are just really out there.”
Adds director Lauren Montgomery, who most recently helmed the animated Wonder Woman DVD film, “Hal Jordan is not necessarily superhero Green Lantern. It’s not like he’s got this moral mission. He’s this guy who happened to come across this ring and he’s basically become a space cop. I think when he’s in space and working directly for the Green Lantern Corps, he has to go by their rules. He’s not necessarily allowed to make up his own rules – even though Hal Jordan kind of does that anyway. If he feels it’s right and what the Guardians are telling him is wrong, he’s probably going to do what he thinks is right. I think maybe when he’s on earth, more of the superhero aspect comes out.
“We didn’t want to focus purely on an origin story, but we also didn’t want to skip on an origin story being that this was the first Green Lantern solo movie,” she elaborates. “So we tried to get it out of the way right in the beginning so that the rest of the movie focuses on him with the Green Lantern Corps and kind of learning how to interact with them and proving himself to them. It’s kind of like the Denzel Washington movie Training Day when it comes to the relationship between Hal and Sinestro.”
The appeal of Green Lantern for Meloni, and the thing that he believes will touch the audience, is the overall power of the script.
“What most impressed me was how fast it read,” he says. “How far it delved and the quickness with which it got into everything. It didn’t get bogged down, it just kept moving. There was a clear thread in the story of how this human got the ring, was introduced to the characters, brought into this universe, how he’s not accepted, how he’s brought in deeper into his new role in life, the challenges that arise, the betrayals, etc. It was very adult and it just kept pushing the story forward. That’s what a page-turner is: it keeps you engaged so you don’t want to stop or slow down. That was the most impressive thing to me – the economy with which they told the story.”