Green Lantern: The Early Reviews Are Bad. Really Bad.
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Acemace,
Posted on: 2011-06-16 04:32 in Comic and Hero-Villain Culture
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Regarding the yellow weakness, for the most part it was eliminated in the movie and as in GL:Rebirth it was shown that yellow is fear and fear corrupts willpower, UNLESS the user of willpower focuses their willpower, then willpower can trump fear. |
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
It actually felt like a streamlined Emerald Dawn to me also in many ways. The main differences: they eliminated the ring's yellow weakness, replaced Legion with pseudo-Parralax, and set the climax on Earth instead of Oa. All three changes would have probably been necessary even if they attempted to translate Emerald Dawn directly to the screen. Emerald Dawn also has too many things going on in it for a single movie.
I liked Emerald Dawn myself, but no way does Emerald Dawn make it to this or any other movie screen without major alteration. |
To be honest I like how the yellow weakness is in the comics nowadays as I never liked the old "Due to a necessary impurity the power ring is useless against anything yellow". It always felt like the dumbest weakness in comics history to me.
well ill think about seeing it hopefully when i come out im 
not 
or 
ive honestly been a lot more of a wonder woman fan seriously make a movie about her dc universe and pick a confident beautiful actress please dont u guys think so i mean really wonder woman would get like 5 stars
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Although the yellow weakness did allow one of the greatest character deaths in comic books to occur when the Green Lantern Ch'p (a sentient squirrel with a power ring) got run over by a school bus.
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Originally Posted by Nericus
To be honest I like how the yellow weakness is in the comics nowadays as I never liked the old "Due to a necessary impurity the power ring is useless against anything yellow". It always felt like the dumbest weakness in comics history to me. |
Arc# 92382 -- "The S.P.I.D.E.R. and the Tyrant" -- Ninjas! Robots! Praetorians! It's totally epic! Play it now!
Arc # 316340 -- "Husk" -- Azuria loses something, a young woman harbors a dark secret, and the fate of the world is in your hands.
Still works. I mean what would be one of the hardest fearful things for a sentient squirrel to overcome other than a school bus. School buses are the only know natural predators for sentient squirrels.
And I just remembered...it was a yellow construction vehicle, but the point remains the same.
Arc# 92382 -- "The S.P.I.D.E.R. and the Tyrant" -- Ninjas! Robots! Praetorians! It's totally epic! Play it now!
Arc # 316340 -- "Husk" -- Azuria loses something, a young woman harbors a dark secret, and the fate of the world is in your hands.
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It was yellow and Ch'p was undoubtedly afraid. Ergo his power couldn't protect him.
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Originally Posted by Defenestrator
And I just remembered...it was a yellow construction vehicle, but the point remains the same.
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My wife and I went to see GL this week, and we both loved it. Everyone seems to want every comic movie to be The Dark Knight, but that doesn't need to be the case. I saw DK in the theater, purchased it, and never watched it. The DK is too deep to be a fun movie, where as GL was just a fun movie. I wanted to have fun when I went to see it, not be emotionally challenged and leave in a deep funk. The movie was fun, that was all it needed to be.
My wife and I had a great time, and left talking about how fun the movie was. That was not the case when we went to see DK, that night we just left depressed.
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Went to it again and saw it in 2D this time. There was nothing gained by watching it in 3D.
However...I realized that Blake Lively would look most excellent in a Star Sapphire outfit. Especially the Ame-Comi version of SS. 
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I liked that her call sign was Sapphire when she was in the air and I think I saw a sapphire pn her flight helmet too. |
Originally Posted by Dark One
Went to it again and saw it in 2D this time. There was nothing gained by watching it in 3D.
However...I realized that Blake Lively would look most excellent in a Star Sapphire outfit. Especially the Ame-Comi version of SS. |
Yes she would look quite...excellent....as Star Sapphire.
I saw it today, I loved this movie. I hated the romance scenes but I felt that Ryan was a decent Green Lantern. I might be able to see this one twice.
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And one of the newspaper articles called her, "Rising Star". I mean, come on, could they get much more blatant? |
Originally Posted by Nericus
I liked that her call sign was Sapphire when she was in the air and I think I saw a sapphire pn her flight helmet too.
Yes she would look quite...excellent....as Star Sapphire. |
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Yes. Transformers 3 proves you can be much more blatant about things within the first 10 minutes when they introduce the megan fox replacement...
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Originally Posted by Dark One
And one of the newspaper articles called her, "Rising Star". I mean, come on, could they get much more blatant?
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I thought that it was a decent movie . . . not great, but much better than the hate that I have seen posted about it. Reynolds was pretty good, but I still would have liked Nathan Fillion better. Reynolds seems like he is never quite serious enough -- he would have made a great Flash and will make a great Deadpool if that movie is ever made. Fillion can throw out wisecracks, but can be quite intense when needed.
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Originally Posted by Residentx10
I saw it today, I loved this movie. I hated the romance scenes but I felt that Ryan was a decent Green Lantern. I might be able to see this one twice.
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LOCAL MAN! The most famous hero of all. There are more newspaper stories about me than anyone else. "Local Man wins Medal of Honor." "Local Man opens Animal Shelter." "Local Man Charged with..." (Um, forget about that one.)
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Originally Posted by Local_Man
I thought that it was a decent movie . . . not great, but much better than the hate that I have seen posted about it. Reynolds was pretty good, but I still would have liked Nathan Fillion better. Reynolds seems like he is never quite serious enough -- he would have made a great Flash and will make a great Deadpool if that movie is ever made. Fillion can throw out wisecracks, but can be quite intense when needed.
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Ryan Reynolds did a great starting GL. He comes off the same way in JL New Frontier movie, and in GL first flight. He is a cocky test pilot. Watch the movie The Right Stuff, and you will see the same caviler attitude in the first astronauts.
Also, if I listened to critics for my movie choices, I would never see anything good.
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Alight, but some of the special effects were appaling.
In 3D atleast, the Helicopter crash scene was cringe worthy, the angles used looked horrid, that nobody was showing being decapitated when clearly they should have been was absurd, and it just stank of a bluescreened giant monster B-Movie where the extras are told to look around and run in horror, without actually knowing what they were even running from.
Infact, I think that sums up my main problem with the movie, Ryan reynolds, good actor, astoundingly attractive, I'd watch 90 minutes of him standing in his unders not talking, so theres some of that.
But the extras in every scene ruined it, and how much the sfx stuck out like a sore thumb painted bright green...
I'll watch it again in 2D at some point, maybe hal the problem with it was the 3D being poor, but it seems like they payed the big bucks for RR, and couldn't afford much else.
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Originally Posted by VoodooGirl
[*]Watching out for the Spinning Disco Portal of D00M!*
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I saw it in 2D because 3d gives my wife massive head aches. This may be why I left feeling like the FX were great. They looked like energy projections, I am not sure how "real" they should look.
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Actually its more the actual 'physical' objects I was refering to that carried the bad FX, Helicopter scene the actual helicopter and the lab fight, the lab equipment. The stuff he makes, actually looked pretty decent.
Although I have a feeling they set out with "In any given situation what peopel think he should come up with, he should come up with something wackier"
And i'm not enough of a Green Lantern buff to know whether or not flamethrowers/machine guns and combustion engine jets in space are in keeping with the lore or not, but those were the only things he made I didn't like.
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Originally Posted by VoodooGirl
[*]Watching out for the Spinning Disco Portal of D00M!*
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Originally Posted by CaptainFoamerang
For those of you wanting a review from a Green Lantern fan, here I go:
The film was okay. But just okay. After seeing it, you have to wonder when you're handling an intellectual property revolving around creativity and imagination, why wasn't more of that injected into the project? Was the director just not up to properly conveying just how large-scale this movie could be? Should have they have just threw a bunch of money at Geoff Johns to write the movie instead of getting a bunch of guys together to see if they could imitate what he's done to make Green Lantern so popular over the last several years? Did they not have to budget to do what they should have, which was to break from the superhero staple of a love interest and set this movie almost entirely in space as Hal learns to sling the green? I'm sure the answers to these questions are known to some already or will come out following the film's release, but for whatever reason, I find it hard to imagine a GL fan would say this movie lives up to its potential. Here are some of the reasons why the film missed the mark:
It's certainly disappointing if you're a GL fan and if you realize how much better it could have been if they'd gone a different way with it or gotten the money and creative team to take pride in the movie rather than simply throw a DC superhero movie out there just to show they're making an effort (albeit minimal) in the comic book big screen battle. |
This encapsulates most of what I felt on seeing the flim, also as a GL fan. I went in to this movie really wanting it to be good and the start of a franchise and based on what I saw I really do not see that happening.
LOTS OF SPOILERS BELOW, BE WARNED
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Specifically, I feel the movie failed (or, to be charitable, "could have done better") on two broad levels. Firstly, as a GL movie for GL fans, it fails in that it does not adequately explore the core of the character and what it means to be a Green Lantern. The script boils it down to 'green space cop' and leaves it at that. While that can work as a basic job description, the core of what it takes to be a Green Lantern - the strength of will and ability to master fear - is not well-handled in my opinion. It seems all that Hal Jordan needs is a brief pep talk from his girlfriend and he has all the will he needs to defeat a threat that has the entire corps shaking in their collective boots. I also felt (to detour briefly into nerd country) that the essential mashing of the villains of Krona and Parallax into one character was baffling and needless, since it reduces the available rogues gallery for future films and, at least in my view, just plain doesn't work.
On the other hand, as a summer blockbuster movie made to appeal to non-fans - something that it was also necessary that this movie at least attempt to do - I also feel the movie failed. Perhaps someone without much foreknowledge of GL or comics in general could gainsay me here, as I readily confess I have a biased view, but there it is. As a film in its own right, I don't feel that the film adequately sets up who the Corps are as a group and why they exist. I think we needed more time with the other Lanterns (especially Sinestro) since we get very little character development for any of them to understand why it is such an honor that Hal be included among them. In fact all we really see is them talking and them failing time after time - the movie could have used some good action scenes involving Lanterns other than Hal. This isn't to say the focus had to move away from Hal entirely, but him coming in and immediately being the savior of the Corps, after more or less washing out of boot camp, rang false to me.
There is also pretty much no build-up whatsoever to Sinestro taking the ring at the conclusion of the film. Going strictly on the plot of the film, he is a proud and dedicated member of the Corps who is the obvious field general and leader and clearly has the confidence and trust of the Guardians. He requests the yellow ring be made specifically as a last resort weapon to combat the imminent threat that Parrallax represents. In this context, his taking the yellow ring makes no sense whatsoever - the danger is past, so why would he do this? As a GL fans we know about his excessive measures on his homeworld and his expulsion from the Corps as a result, all of which contributes to his decision to become the first Yellow Lantern, but there's only the barest hint of that here and most of that only because of the high caliber of actor playing the role rather than anything in the script.
Overall, I walked out of the film still wanting to like it but unable to honestly say that it was a good film. It was a mess that seemed to be trying to be everything to everyone and mash together so many plot points and elements that it ended up accomplishing none of them. Yes, it had a few moments here and there that worked, but not enough to carry the film for me. This was a disappointment.
It reminded me of nothing so much as the stories I myself would make up as a child in which absolutely everything would happen in the space of ten pages, because all I cared about were the action beats, the 'cool stuff'. It's as if some studio executive asked for a short list of all the major characters and events in the decades-long history of the character and then said "Let's film that."
This was probably worth a single viewing, but certainly not repeat screenings, and the 3D (in fact, the CGI in general) was fair to poor. The climactic battle in particular stood out to me as poor in the CGI department, which I would think would be the LAST thing you would want in your movie when you are at least in theory supposed to be invested in the stakes and the action. It completely took me out of the moment. Why they didn't spend the bulk of their money there I can't imagine... unless that was the buik of their budget, in which case I have no words.
Well, that's probably more than enough from me. YMMV.
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END SPOILERS
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Yeah, I was wondering about the complex construct stuff myself, but it seems like the constructs aren't bound by normal rules anyway so jets in space might make sense in that regard, also if for some reason the constructs are supposed to operate under normal rules maybe the film maker chose the jets both because it was something Hal was familier with and if he had say whipped up something unfamiliar to the audience they might not have had a good point of reference. |
Originally Posted by Mega_Jamie
Actually its more the actual 'physical' objects I was refering to that carried the bad FX, Helicopter scene the actual helicopter and the lab fight, the lab equipment. The stuff he makes, actually looked pretty decent.
Although I have a feeling they set out with "In any given situation what peopel think he should come up with, he should come up with something wackier" And i'm not enough of a Green Lantern buff to know whether or not flamethrowers/machine guns and combustion engine jets in space are in keeping with the lore or not, but those were the only things he made I didn't like. |
Most people might not be able to gauge how powerful a jet really is, but they know that they represent something really powerful (defintely not escape the sun's gravity well powerful but powerful none the less)
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It was an entertaining romp.
It was no batman, though.
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It turns out they also had some footage of a modern Keystone Kops remake sitting around and just turned it into Green Lantern footage with the magic of CGI.
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Originally Posted by Justaris
I think we needed more time with the other Lanterns (especially Sinestro) since we get very little character development for any of them to understand why it is such an honor that Hal be included among them. In fact all we really see is them talking and them failing time after time
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Having Vengeance and Fallout slotted for recharge means never having to say you're sorry.
Now having Legion from Emerald Dawn as the enemy instead of Parallax would have been cool, and we could have saved Sinestro as the enemy and Parallax for the sequel.
Also Sinestro's comment to Hal at the end of this movie about how Hal is arrogant, outspoken, headstrong, brash, etc etc....and that Abin Sur found one just like him to replace him.......that was what the Guardians said about Hal at the end of Emerald Dawn.
Hal suddenly being whisked away from Earth by the ring to Oa and the first alien GL he meets is Tomar-Re is also from Emerald Dawn. Tomar giving Hal some basic instruction and history of the GLC and the Guardians is from Emerald Dawn. Kilowog being Hal's drill sargeant/trainer is also from Emerald Dawn.
To me this movie borrowed a bit heavily from Emerald Dawn and just cut/pasted Parallax from the whole GL:Rebirth and current GL series into it.
The GL animated movie First Flight also had a nice Emerald Dawn tribute in it: when Hal entered the deactivated CPB and chipped away some of the yellow from the green crystal and then basically became one with the power itself, everyone sees the release of the power on the horizon......like an Emerald Dawn.....
I liked Emerald Dawn myself, but no way does Emerald Dawn make it to this or any other movie screen without major alteration.
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