FLAPJACKS: The trailer for the Green Lantern movie is online.
ME: Oh good.
FLAPJACKS: That sounded sarcastic. I don’t get why you’re being sarcastic. This is a comic book movie directed by Martin Campbell starring Ryan Reynolds and Peter Sarsgaard. There is nothing in that sentence you don’t like.
ME: Probably because the word “Green Lantern” was not in that sentence. I am not particularly a fan of Green Lantern, or of things both greenish and lanterny at once. The concept has never appealed to me the way it does to some. I am fine with this. And I especially particularly do not like Hal Jordan, who is the character I hate second-most in comics.
FLAPJACKS: The first being…
ME: Beast Boy.
FLAPJACKS: Why do you hate Beast Boy?
ME: Because fuck him, that’s why.
ME: Oh, god, we’re starting out with Hal Jordan as super-stud.
FLAPJACKS: You don’t complain when Iron Man bags chicks.
ME: That’s because it doesn’t seem like desperate trying when Iron Man sleeps around. But years of DC telling us over and over again that Hal Jordan is hot shit and he totally has threeways with DC superhero ladies like all the time have poisoned the well. That they’re having him played by Ryan Reynolds just underscores the point.
FLAPJACKS: But you like Ryan Reynolds.
ME: Because he’s good at playing “douchebag bro,” whether straight or for ironic purpose. Like, consider Tony Stark again. When Tony Stark wants to bail on a woman he just nailed, he just goes downstairs and tinkers with cars while Pepper Potts and his AI butler shove the girl out the door. It’s a dick move, pure and simple, which makes him sort of admirable in a way because he doesn’t pretend it’s anything but a dick move. Hal Jordan, on the other hand, is passive aggressive. “Hey I’m totally a decent guy, One Night Stand lady, I just have to go fly a plane so I’m gonna pretend I’m not an asshole for ten seconds okay bye.”
FLAPJACKS: You think about this too much.
ME: And now comes poetry about how awesome it is to fly a plane. Nobody in the whole world likes this. Nobody wants to hear about your hobby or your job completing you and putting you at inner peace.
FLAPJACKS: Abin Sur looks kind of awesome.
ME: The spaceship isn’t bad either.
FLAPJACKS: Man they are showing a lot of Abin Sur’s spaceship. That makes me worry. When the awesomest thing they’re showing is the spaceship that blows up in the first twenty minutes it kind of makes you wonder about, you know, the rest of the movie.
ME: The wormhole looks decent.
FLAPJACKS: Oa looks decent.
ME: Sinestro looks… like a horrible CGI experiment gone wrong.
FLAPJACKS: Oh my god he looks like an extra from Delgo.
ME: And the thing is that we know that’s actually Mark Strong. What is up with that? Is this like Avatar where they motion-traced people and then did it all with computers, or is the makeup job just that bad?
FLAPJACKS: I’m not sure. I hope it’s the latter. The former sounds like a horrible idea if you don’t have James Cameron and lots of millions of dollars handy.
ME: Pieface!
FLAPJACKS: I don’t think you’re allowed to call him that anymore.
ME: I bet it’s, like, his college bro nickname. “Pieface! PieFAAAAAACE! I can call you that because of all the pussy you ate.”
FLAPJACKS: Hal seems to have self-doubt.
ME: Presumably somebody realized at some point that Hal’s standard “overconfident asshole” schtick wasn’t a great selling point as a character and decided to go a different route, which is “pretend Hal is actually Kyle Rayner so people may end up liking him.”
FLAPJACKS: You really hate this character, don’t you?
ME: Oh my yes.
FLAPJACKS: That green fist was sweet.
ME: It was.
FLAPJACKS: Oh wait never mind the self-doubt is just to pick up chicks.
ME: That’s our Hal!
FLAPJACKS: Kilowog looks cool.
ME: I wonder if he will say “poozers.”
FLAPJACKS: He had better say “poozers.” If he doesn’t say poozers thousands of angry nerds will storm Hollywood asking for a refund.
ME: Hector Hammond looks decent as well.
FLAPJACKS: You know, for a movie about Green Lantern I was kind of hoping the trailer would show me a few more Green Lantern tricks.
ME: Well, they had to show you that first thirty seconds of Hal flying planes or you wouldn’t know how awesome he totally is.
FLAPJACKS: And the pre-title flash is the “hey ladies look how ripped Ryan Reynolds is” shot.
ME: Cross-marketing!
FLAPJACKS: Oh wait they said part of the oath! Everything is all right now.
ME: Shut up.
FLAPJACKS: But we’re going to go see this, right?
ME: Probably. I think we’ve established our standards are low.
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79 users responded in this post
Always good to see someone else who doesn’t care for Hal Jordan.
all twelve G’Nort fans are protesting this movie.
The REAL question is:
Have you seen the trailer for “Your Highness”?
http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/motion-captured/posts/watch-your-highness-trailer-bad-behavior-danny-mcbride-natalie-portman-in-a-thong
I’m hoping that I can get my husband to go see this with me…
ME: Presumably somebody realized at some point that Hal’s standard “overconfident asshole” schtick wasn’t a great selling point as a character and decided to go a different route, which is “pretend Hal is actually Kyle Rayner so people may end up liking him.”
FLAPJACKS: You really hate this character, don’t you?
ME: Oh my yes.
Yup. That sums it up completely. Fuck do I hate Hal Jordan.
Grafting Hal’s origin onto Kyle just makes sense for another reason: Kyle’s origin is just preposterously bad – “little blue dude gives me this ring for no reason and then leaves.” Given how he was dropped into the title, I imagine Ron Marz had neither time nor inclination to sweat the details on that, but I wish it could have been otherwise.
That said, I always expected GL to be the first of the current wave of comics movies to suck, because it was the first one made for purely commercial reasons. Raimi, Nolan and Favreau love the characters they took up, and it shows. Martin Campbell, well, I’ve yet to hear or see anything to indicate that this is anything beyond just another job for him. Thor and Cap etc. stand a great chance of being bad, too, for the same reason.
i also hate jordan. what an asshole. and what’s with the suit?
they should have gone with kyle.
“FLAPJACKS: Why do you hate Beast Boy?
ME: Because fuck him, that’s why.”
This made me giggle like a schoolgirl.
And I am in total agreement with your appraisal of Hal Jordan. I’m waiting until the next big deconstructionist wave gets a hold of him and Barry Allen and has them finally hooking up. And then Ollie will be clearly uncomfortable about the whole thing, but his liberal strawman politics won’t let him admit it.
I have to agree that it’s a little odd that we didn’t seen that many Green Lantern tricks.
The trailer mostly just shows Hal flying around. They only showed one ring construct (the giant fist), there was very little shown of Hammond vs Hal, and there was nothing at all shown of Parallax.
Either they’re playing the cards really close to their chest here, or they simply haven’t finished that many of the CG animations yet.
Yeah, what they’ve done there is take an actor who’s strengths would lead a sensible casting director to have him play guy gardner, and have him play Hal Jordan instead.
Also: why does the greenlantern suit have veins all over it? “I can create anything I can imagine, hence my costume being made out of veiny green CGI wangs.”
Like all right-thinking individuals, I agree with the Hal Jordan hate-fest.
But I only know Beast Boy from the TITANS cartoon show, so I love that little guy.
I’m with drmedula here, on both counts.
Poozers.
I hate Ryan Reynolds. Playing “douchebag bro” ironically is too much douchery for me to handle.
I’m with Fred. Ryan should’ve been playing Guy Gardner. And you know, that might’ve been a movie I’d be excited to see. Because this one looks bad.
Kyle never acted this way either, though. He was usually too busy being neurotic, angsty, insecure, or snarky. This fits more with the smart-ass Hal of JLA: YEAR ONE and FLASH/GL: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD, and to some degree NEW FRONTIER.
The reason I think people hate Hal Jordan so much (I don’t, but I’m sure not a fan) is that there are at least three more interesting human Green Lanterns, one of whom isn’t a white guy (and who also happens to be the GL who’s most well-known to the non-comics crowd, thanks to the animated Justice League series). Yet, in both the comics and now this movie, they’ve all been sidelined for boring-ass Silver Age Generic Guy. Making him into Tony Stark Jr. isn’t helping. (And seriously, doesn’t having GL be an architect or a comic book artist make WAY more sense than a fighter pilot?) The Flash comics seem to be suffering from the same problem right now. The whole reason the original was 86ed was that he was boring and generic, why go back to that?
That said, the movie looks OK, and while I don’t care about Green Lantern comics that aren’t written by Alan Moore, I do love space opera and Martin Campbell movies, so there’s a lot of potential there.
In other news, the “Your Highness” trailer does indeed look surprisingly awesome.
I don’t care one way or another about Hal Jordan, but it’s somehow enjoyable to see people hating on the douche-bag. Keep it up please 🙂
Also: why does the greenlantern suit have veins all over it? “I can create anything I can imagine, hence my costume being made out of veiny green CGI wangs.”
Because he’s Hal Jordan, that’s why. He’s that guy. If he were a real dude, he’d be that over-muscled 40-something guy on the beach in a speedo sporting a bad haircut hitting on 16yo girls.
My biggest problem with the movie, apart from Hal Jordan being the lead because apparently they’ve tried to graft an actual personality onto him, is that Ryan Reynolds would actually have made a really good Wally West Flash, like he was pushing for for a good long time. By making Reynolds Hal… and by deciding to make a Barry Allen movie, that ship has sailed. (betcha the Flash movie will take forever in pre-production, shooting, AND post-production – Barry Allen has to be late, remember)
Wow. This is going to be baaaaaaaaaaaad.
Two things: One, Ryan Reynolds? Really? That was a studio decision, I guarantee you. Any competent casting director would NOT have gone with him. (It’s not 100%, but you can always tell a studio vs. professional pick when the lead seems somewhat miscast and everyone else is absolutely perfectly cast.)
@DistantFred: Agree 100%. Reynolds would have made a great Wally West.
And two… I’m a little worried about the lack of CGI in the trailer. That could mean they just aren’t done with it yet. It could also mean that they’re doing this on a stupidly low budget and we’re going to wind up in The Last Airbender country.
This is Green Lantern. It’s ALL ABOUT the Lantern tricks, and if you’re going with Hal (can I add a hearty ‘fuck Geoff Johns’ to the ‘fuck Hal’ chorus?) I expect them to at least bring in the BEST part of Hal, namely the Silver Age Lantern shapes stuff. I want giant green soap bubbles people ride in, giant green fists, stuff like that.
End note; that power battery? LAAAAAME.
You know, in the past most of the criticisms I’ve seen leveled at Hal were simply that he didn’t have much of a character at all.
I guess I can sort of see where the hate is coming from, but the basic premise of “Cocky, fearless fighter pilot learns humility and responsibility” doesn’t necessarily seem that bad to me. It’s a redemption/semi-coming of age story, and people eat that shit up.
It seems most of the hate is directed at all the baggage associated with the character’s comic history, but if the movie just takes the same basic character premise, without all that baggage, I don’t see why they couldn’t potentially do a good job with it.
Never been a huge fan of Hal either. Green Lanterns as a concept seem alright, but I never felt the personality. “Test pilot, no fear, balls to the wall,” over and over, thank you Geoff Johns. With Tony Stark, no matter how cool they made him, he’d always manage to seem flawed and human, and they either didn’t accomplish that with Hal or didn’t bother to try since he’s “so awesome.” Movie looks decent at least.
Murc, I think if anyone was studio-mandated, it was Blake Lively. The love interests in superhero films always reek of suits pushing too-young it girls over actresses with chops.
Garfield, Joe Johnston isn’t the greatest thing over, but he does have a genuine love of fanboy stuff, especially through the WWII lens. I don’t know if Kenneth Braunaugh is a fan of Thor, but if the movie fails, it will fall under the weight of his auterism, not being a by-the0numbers flick.
@rob-
She gets all of twenty seconds in the trailer, but she LOOKS okay in the part… I’ve lost track over the years, but isn’t Carol Ferris at the beginning of Hal’s ‘legend’ SUPPOSED to be a little bit to young for the responsibilities she’s carrying, and her companion arc to Hal’s is that she’s tough as nails and going to succeed in spite of being just a LITTLE in over her head? And looking young could help with that.
But yeah, you could be right.
Paul Wilson- I think you’ve got a typo there, you accidentally wrote “And then Ollie will be clearly uncomfortable” instead of “And then Ollie will be RAGINGLY JEALOUS.”
I have to admit, I kind of adore Hal, but it’s mostly for the “needy fuckup with daddy issues who only dates women in his chain of command” take on the character, which probably isn’t going to be making it to the movie. And seriously, guys, Hal gets the movie? Every single time I’ve heard a non-comics-fan my age say something about Green Lantern, they’ve been talking about “you know, Green Lantern, the black guy from the show when we were kids!” And they’re passing on John for the boring whitebread guy who most of the target demographic has never heard of?
By the way, the vague Seth Rogen-ness of the sidekick means more people will confuse this with Green Hornet than they were already destined to.
Ahayweh – The discomfort comes from his jealousy in part. I mean a serial womaniser like Ollie (or Hal) is clearly overcompensating, but it’s worse if Hal doesn’t want to play.
Even if its not the case, I’m just going to blame this is on just more of Geoff Johns meddling as the “creative whateverthefuck” he is.
Fuck you and your vicarious BS Johns. I’m tired of “so awesome super-stud Hal that makes out and kicks ass”.
Way back when, before the Kyle era, I *liked* Hal Jordan. Thanks a lot for ruining it for me Johns.
Now I’m probably going to hate this movie, regardless of its quality, mainly because I’ll watch it and just constantly be reminded of how much I hate the stupid take on the character.
Re Hal…he was best when he was dead..same with Barry. Barry and Hal..one who died as the ultimate hero, the other who died trying to redeem himself after having fallen, made very good iconic figures for the DCU mythos. Now…they’re just there.
re: Hal vs John. Get over it. A major studio is not going to make a major tent pole film starring a black character unless they get Will Smith to play him (and maybe not even then..his star isn’t as bright as it once was). Hell, they’d be too scared of Fox and it’s tea bagging minions picketing it for being for pushing an “obvious” Obama surrogate. (And frankly, John isn’t much better than Hal in terms of personality. He was really just black Hal for years, and then he was emo lantern/darkstar. The John of the toon is nothing like the traditional John of the comic, and Toon John was a supporting character.)
Re: Blake Lively : I agree with Rob. She’s of the studio casting decisions that gave us Katie Holmes and watshername from Superstalker Returns.
Lively was actually very good in “The Town”, so she does have chops. Those chops were certainly not on display in this trailer.
Hal is generally a boring character that gets a bit too much love from his writers, but he has been good in some stories. Mark Waid wrote a pretty entertaining Hal in JLA Year One that wouldn’t be too far off from Reynolds’s wheelhouse.
As a relatively inexperienced comics fan, I’m wondering why it’s so fun to hate on Hal.
I read (I think) two arcs involving Hal Jordan as GL and thought they were pretty ok.
OK…so…
*hate the costume (Sinestro’s looked way better), the ring design (it looks too damn cubish) and the power batter design.
*Sinestro does look pretty bad
*Blake Lively…yeah studio push and all.
-Otherwise..it doesn’t look too bad. I too despise Hal Jordan, but shit if we have to have him at least its Ryan Reynolds (who seems to be enjoying himself).
Well on the plus side I saw Tomar-Re in there!
Maybe they should do all four Green Lanterns as an action comedy?
Jordan: All right, we’ve got our rings, let’s go.
Stewart: Wait, why are YOU the leader? We didn’t agree to this.
Rayner: Yeah, that’s right. I’m an artist and he’s an architect. We’re the best at using these things. So why are you the leader?
Jordan: Well… I’m a pilot. And these rings let us fly. So… you know. Now, let’s go.
Rayner: That’s a terrible reason. I’m the best at creating, I should probably be the leader.
Stewart: Wait, what? Is there some reason I can’t be the leader?
Gardner: Screw you clowns, I’M the leader.
All this “Sinestro looks bad” stuff is just silly. He looks like nothing more or less than what Sinestro IS: a red guy with a moustache.
It’s like complaining that the Sinestro in the comics looks “fake” because he’s a drawing.
Also, Reynolds doesn’t fit Guy Gardner in the slightest. A Guy Gardner movie was what they should have been considering back when there was talk of a GL movie starring Jack Black.
I’d rather see John’s version.
But seriously, there was nothing in this trailer that ignited the comics fanboy in me, and nothing that ignited the non-DC-fan in me either. /yawn.
My reaction to the Trailer…ehhh. Its pretty but until I know more about the movie not going to care to much.
Highness…bahahhaha, I love it.
Can I weigh in and say that I’m incredibly disappointed that they went with Hal Jordan over Duck Dodgers?
I see that a lot of people are forgetting that at this point, Guy Gardner is the whitest whitebread to ever white. He was a friggin’ special ed teacher, people!
He needs brain damage, a coma, getting nearly killed by Sinestro, and Hal Jordan stealing his girlfriend while his corpse is still warm to become the wonderful jerkass we know and love today.
Garfield: Re: Kyle’s origin. You seem to be downplaying the fact that Hal’s origin was “Pink Alien gives me a ring for vague reasons and dies”.
I really want that cocky schmuck to get drunk, drive a truck into a ditch and hurt one of his cocky schmuck friends.
Every time someone else says they hate Hal Jordan, I get a little warm glow in my heart. The DC universe is full of total jerkasses, but Hal Jordan, he’s like their KING.
Garfield: Re: Kyle’s origin. You seem to be downplaying the fact that Hal’s origin was “Pink Alien gives me a ring for vague reasons and dies”.
He’s really not, though. Hal’s was “Pink Alien gives ring to Jordan, because Ring specifically sought out and chose Jordan as possessing the qualities to make an exemplary Green Lantern.” Kyle’s was “Blue Alien lands on Earth, gives ring to literally first person he sees, and explicitly says as much.” Kyle got the ring because he was in the same alley, nothing more. His suitability is a lucky coincidence.
So Hollywood’s entrenched racism is a reason to be less upset?
Parts of it looked meh and parts of it looked good and I enjoyed seeing Tomar-Re and Kilowog. And Jesus, Blake Lively was amazingly bad in her one second of acting (and agreed to whomever said she was terrific in The Town).
I’m not a Hal Jordan fan either, not that I favored an even lousier character being shoved down everyone’s throat. Don’t really know/care that much about Alan Scott, John Stewart was never better than his first appearance as Angry Black Green Lantern, and Guy Gardner was fun as comic relief, but I don’t think he can carry a whole film. I think my favorite human Green Lantern would be Jennie-Lynn.
“All this “Sinestro looks bad” stuff is just silly. He looks like nothing more or less than what Sinestro IS: a red guy with a moustache.
It’s like complaining that the Sinestro in the comics looks “fake” because he’s a drawing.”
I think the reason people are complaining is because he looks cheesy and fake, which is funny given all this CGI money has been pumped into the film, yet they can’t get something as simple as “a red guy with a moustache” across. This isn’t something that can’t inherently be done. It’s not like this is the first “a red guy with a moustache” that has ever appeared in over a century of movie-making. The CGI suit doesn’t help matters.
As a total comic book newb who has never read any Green Lantern material, does Ryan Reynolds look sort of similar to Zachary Quinto to anybody else? Because this trailer is MUCH more enjoyable to me if I imagine it as “alternate-universe Sylar as a superhero”.
FLAPJACKS: Oh wait they said part of the oath! Everything is all right now.
FJ nailed it. Burned.
I have to admit, most of my experience with Green Lanterns comes from the Justice League cartoon, and I’d have liked to see a Jon Stewart film. I don’t think Will Smith would’ve been right for the role; he did a jerk-ass superhero movie not too long ago, and in most of his roles there’s a certain childlike feeling of play when he’s on screen. Great for some roles, but it doesn’t quite fit toon-Stewart’s sense of dignity. I could see Denzel Washington handling the role quite well, though, and I’d like to.
Wow,”being a green lantern” dream. That’s a new one.
Ever fed “In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight” into Translation Party?
Second hit: “Bright day, black night, evil shall escape my sight.” That lost something in translation.
I never really thought Green Lantern was about the storyline or the characters. To me, it was always about the artists getting the freedom to roll every crazy doodle or imaginative sketch into a combat scene.
Watching GL catch an airplane using a 50′ Tall Betty Boop, or decking himself out as some kind of Cyberpunk Techno-Knight, or create his own floating sky fortress to patrol for marauding aliens (god, I loved Kingdom Come) was what drew me to the franchise.
I don’t think they’re going to pull that off in the movie. Giving the CGI crew freedom to go bonkers would have made this movie awesome. Giant green floating fist just isn’t going to cut it.
I think that it’s way too early for them to be showing us the CGI tricks. This is only the first trailer 7 months out.
Hal Jordan now sucks, but I’m with those who point out that he was an interesting character in his first ten years.
I think they should have done “Daily Show” Jon Stewart as Green Lantern.
@FeepingCreature: Yes. The final iteration (I’ve put the full back-and-forth run at (http://elibalin.livejournal.com/52516.html) was:
“As the first microscope, I pray, 1 month, 2 poor potato 2 potato in one day, the sun, one bad one day, two 2-class one in a single optical power to pray for one to avoid . Green Lantern ..!”
I want to read this Elseworlds.
I always did like Kyle better. One, he was the GL I was first introduced to, so for me Hal is the replacement, but also, he’s the guy who WORKS that damn ring. Green Lanterns, a mugger is attacking somebody in central park. You have a ring that can create ANYTHING YOU CAN IMAGINE. Anything. At all. Go.
Hal: “Glowing green fist.”
John: “Glowing green fist.”
Guy: “Glowing green fist.”
Kyle: “Glowing green giant teddy bear who hugs the mugger into submission.”
Other Lanterns: “…”
Kyle: “…What?” (wanders off in a glowing green robo-mecha-suit to play poker with glowing green cowboys.)
@Dani
Well, what do you expect? Hal is a fighter pilot. John is a Marine. Guy is Guy.
If you handed them a square peg and a round hole, 3/4 of them would just smash them together until they were dust. Not exactly the most creative dudes.
And, yes, this looks terrible. Reynolds should’ve stayed as Deadpool/Generic Rom-Com Lead/Van Wilder.
I think Hal Jordan got the nod for the movie for the same reason Geoff Johns resurrected him and dropped him back into the forefront of the comics. Because his origin is the cleanest/most dynamic of anybody’s, and therefore the most commercially viable. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if Johns saw Hal as the most movie-worthy of the Green Lanterns and that had as much influence for “Green Lantern: Rebirth” as any purported love of the character.
Thing is, I have a very strong suspicion that for as long as Hollywood is still interested in making comic book movies, we’re going to see comic book content remain in this holding pattern we’ve seen of late, with no real storytelling progress + endless chain of “event” storylines. Which means we’re stuck with Hal Jordan (and Barry Allen, and perpetually single Peter Parker, etc.) for the foreseeable future, whether we like it or not.
Now I want to see the combination Deadpool-Van Wilder movie.
As far as I’m concerned, the only good thing about Ryan Reynolds playing Green Lantern is that he got the gig instead of Chris Evans.
I don’t know why those guys keep appearing in so many comic book movies, but I’d like it to stop now please.
I’m loving the Johns backlash. The dude has gotten away with his lazy “tell, don’t show” writing style for far too long.
More people would probably like Hal Jordan if Johns wasn’t constantly beating his readers over the head with, “OMG you guys. Hal is so dreamy and awesome. He should totally be your favorite Green Lantern. He’s like Captain Kirk crossed with everything that’s cool.”
@Brian T. I heard Chris Evans and Ryan Reynolds actually have a wager to see who can play the most comic book characters on the big screen. Winner get Scarlett Johanssen. Loser gets Kevin Smith. 😉
@Greg Manuel:
“I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if Johns saw Hal as the most movie-worthy of the Green Lanterns and that had as much influence for “Green Lantern: Rebirth” as any purported love of the character.”
You’re probably right.
I’m biased toward Alan Scott, because the original guy’s pulpy origin is really intriguing and its simplicity makes it easy to adapt it however you want.
But thanks to cartoons and things, the general public is more used to the Lensman-style space cops. So going back to the guy with the purple cape and magic ring would probably just get people complaining about how they revamped Green Lantern to be more like Harry Potter and got rid of all the cool supporting characters and stuff to save money.
So… We’re kind of stuck with Hal Jordan because he’s still the “iconic” version. As opposed to, say, Guy Gardner whose first origin was basically “He was Abin Sur’s other choice, but Jordan was closer.”
AJ:
“I think the reason people are complaining is because he looks cheesy and fake, which is funny given all this CGI money has been pumped into the film, yet they can’t get something as simple as “a red guy with a moustache” across.”
Well, this reaction is silly. The fact of the matter is that “a red guy with a moustache” is going to look “cheesy and fake” no matter what. It’s not a failure of execution, it’s a case of distorted expectations on the part of fans.
T.Shock- John is, or at least was at one point, AN ARCHITECT before a marine.
Which, unless he’s designing nondescript office buildings or tenements, means he’s got to have a bit of imagination.
Ed: “Well, this reaction is silly. The fact of the matter is that “a red guy with a moustache” is going to look “cheesy and fake” no matter what. It’s not a failure of execution, it’s a case of distorted expectations on the part of fans.”
Er, no. “Red guy with a moustache” is really easy to pull off with relatively simple makeup effects. And not, you know, CGI-ing the shit out of it needlessly.
God does that CGI look bad.
The planet, the costumes, those are things that qualify as “CGI-ing the shit out of it needlessly.” His actual face is unmistakably “Sinestro, red guy with moustache” and looks just like it would be if (and may actually be)done with simple makeup. You’re projecting.
“God does that CGI look bad.”
It looks just like 99% of all SF/fantasy/etc. media of the current era.
With very few exceptions, almost all CGI looks that “bad.” I personally almost always prefer practical & model work (and not always for reasons of “realism”, which is a bullshit notion in this context anyway), but I accept that it was never going to happen that way for a new Green Lantern movie.
In any case, an inability to get past “bad” special effects is a defect on the part of the observer more than anything.
“It looks just like 99% of all SF/fantasy/etc. media of the current era.” No it doesn’t, and furthermore, that’s not en excuse. In regards to “In any case, an inability to get past ‘bad’ special effects is a defect on the part of the observer more than anything”, that absolves the filmmakers of any responsibility in regards to making the movie convincing (also, convincing =/= realistic).
In short, the CGI still looks poor, and the trailer as a whole is underwhelming.
No, in short the quality of the CGI is an irrelevancy, and the trailer looks like the trailer for a Green Lantern movie. If anything doesn’t work, then the problem lies either with the source, or with the very notion of adapting it.
I’m not a Green Lantern fan – less so now that they included all colors of the rainbow and black and white rings as well – but I’ve never seen a reason to really hate Hal Jordan. Its not really the character’s fault that Geoff Johns has such a hard on for the character and consistently writes him as the universe’s #1 man-whore.
This version of Hal Jordan, however, looks like a total douchebag. Nothing in this trailer looks promising. I’ll even hazard a guess that the green fist will probably be the highlight of GL’s green light constructs. The film will undoubtedly end with that worthless “I am a/the Green Lantern” line that so many comic book movies end with these days.
@Zenrage:
This version of Hal Jordan looks like a total douchebag, because in the current state of affairs, he IS a total douchebag.
Seriously, we can’t complain that he isn’t being adapted faithfully, because what we see in the trailer is what Jordan is right now. With some self-doubt thrown in there because, in hollywood, every single superhero needs self-doubt to help set up the climax apparently, so that was to be expected.
What we *can* complain about, however, is the reason Jordan is a total unlikable Mary Sue nowadays: Geoff Johns’ dick.
And yeah, i wouldn’t really mind if this was “Before Johns” Jordan either, but sadly, he isn’t. To DC entertainment, Jordan needs to be the “super-stud” that has every 30 year old teenager buying every issue of “Brightest Day” and “Green Lantern”. And you can’t really blame them for that.
Also, Guy Gardner is awesome. Just a reminder.
I’m convinced that anyone who doesn’t think Hal should get the movie, or doesn’t understand why Hal was brought back, doesn’t actually read Green Lantern. Quick, who’s Kyle’s arch nemesis? Nero, maybe? Yeah, he got killed off like a Z-lister. Maybe ‘whichever guy killed Kyle’s last girlfriend’? Who’s John’s main baddy? Random psycho chick. Guy? Hell, I don’t think Guy even has one. Now, backstory? Well, John and Guy are ‘the guys who temped in Hal’s job’. Yeah, that’ll fit great. Kyle’s is better, but it, you know, kind of relies on Hal. And well, a fairly large part of the GL mythos is based around Hal. You really need Hal before anyone else- but at the same time, there’s also a hell of a lot of flexibility to expand the franchise in future movies, and Hal being ‘boring ass’ actually kind of helps that.
And people defending John as GL? Name one reason you like John that isn’t ‘he’s black’ or ‘because of the cartoon’.
“Because of the cartoon” is a pretty damn good reason, actually…
From a strictly movie-goer based point of view:
http://www.cracked.com/blog/why-new-green-lantern-movie-looks-so-familiar/
“No, in short the quality of the CGI is an irrelevancy…”
It’s part of the movie’s aesthetic. If it’s done poorly, then it affects the quality of the movie.
“I’m convinced that anyone who doesn’t think Hal should get the movie, or doesn’t understand why Hal was brought back, doesn’t actually read Green Lantern. Quick, who’s Kyle’s arch nemesis?…etc.”
I think that one of the biggest mistakes people make when talking about adaptations is the assumption that everything has to be the same. Why CAN’T Sinestro be Kyle’s nemesis? Dictator vs. artist? That’s classic. Why CAN’T he be John’s nemesis? John’s an architect, while pre-exile Sinestro thinks of himself as designing and maintaining his civilization, right? Good, interesting conflict there. Why CAN’T he be Guy’s nemesis? He plans, Guy doesn’t. He’s cold, Guy’s overheated. They both think they’re always in the right – opposing Sinestro could give Guy a stronger self-awareness.
For that matter, why CAN’T Guy or John or Kyle get Hal’s origin? Why CAN’T the ring seek one of them out? This isn’t the comics. It’s a totally new franchise. It didn’t need Hal. You think the audience is going for Hal Jordan? You think the studio’s doing it to make Hal Jordan a franchise? No. They’re making Green Lantern a franchise and trying to make Ryan Reynolds a marquee name. Hal could’ve been any of them. He could’ve been a new character, even.
By the way, here’s a reason to like John – he’s mature and thoughtful. Why do we have to have another movie hero who acts like a teenage boy? Why not have one that makes the teenage boys in the audience want to be better? John as the Obama era/Rally to Restore Sanity superhero works.
*high-fives Joel* All very fine points, good sir!
I think the important thing to remember here is, Geoff Johns sucks.
I read the screenplay and it’s almost 50% Hal whining about his dead dad.
I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Alan Moore created Geoff Johns using ancient Middle Eastern magic to take DC down from within.
I can’t explain the completely illogical success of things like Infinite Crisis, his Hawkman reboot where he gave Carter Hall a bunch of silly power upgrades or “ladykiller” Hal Jordan. It’s not like he got better at writing after Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. got cancelled.
My default theory for his “fan favorite” status is that he made a deal with Satan, much like Alec Baldwin’s character in Shortcut to Happiness. I find it hard to believe that it’s really because most people who still buy DC comics enjoy the crap he’s been doing since 2001.
Hector Hammond before getting his powers looks exactly like a live-action William Murderface.
@Abyss Nice points. This is a franchise property, and its always iffy to get too far away from the books you want people to buy.
Hal is the original straight man in the GL world. John, Guy, and Kyle all were rebellions from that archetype. They work best that way. Kyle just isn’t as interesting if he doesn’t start as a kid who has to fight, all alone, the guy who everyone used to admire but went Evil. You can make a whole movie out of each of them. Trying to just jump ahead would make the mistake the Daredevil movie had. You need to judge this movie based on its own merits and story, not “I hate this movie because it isn’t Hero B.” Or Avatar.
That said, my favorite Hal is dumb beefcake, so I’m still looking forward to it.
Just a note for all the people pushing Stewart on the basis of ‘Hal’s a dick’:
John Stewart’s comics characterization for -decades- was ‘he’s a dick and also a fuckup’. For years, he was a very standard, generic Angry Black Man, only with a Power Ring. One of his character-defining moments was getting an -entire planet- blown into stardust in a fit of arrogance and douchebaggery: namely stating that he was an all-powerful GL while his ally was underpowered and worthless in space and thus not worth listening to, and flying off without him to take care of the bomb himself, which did not turn out well and destroyed an entire inhabited planet and millions of lives(side note: this underpowered and worthless ally was the freaking MARTIAN MANHUNTER). That whole bit in the cartoon where it was a frameup and John didn’t really do it? Total copout.
Not if your primary selection criterion is the ability to overcome fear, rather than the ability to visualise crazy constructs. “Guy whose job is all about risking death on a daily basis” ranks higher there than “Guy whose job is drawing things.”
And the bit in the cartoon where it was a frameup isn’t about Xanshi, Guy, but rather an adaptation of a Justice League story that was originally about Hal Jordan.