Green Lantern Movie News Discussion Thread

[Lantern A-train Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Lantern A-train]

So I hear Mark Millar said this was the worst comic book movie ever.

[Space Cop The Dandy Find all posts View Profile Close Space Cop]

Ah well. If it bombs it bombs. At least we got one halfway decent movie, if not the be all end all superhero movies with a ton of sequels. Sometimes it's just nice to get one. I like my Rocketeer, The Shadow, and The Phantom movies, and the world didn't end for me when they didn't get to carry on with the franchises.

It would be kind of nice if the movie got tightened up a bit for the dvd/br release like Rob Zombie did with his Halloween 2. That movie was the drizzling shits in it's theatrical release, but ended up passable by the time he tweaked it for dvd.

Well Fantastic Four and Punisher got sequels. I still hope.

[Tommy Boy Hal's Understudy Find all posts View Profile Close Tommy Boy]

Anyone else pissed at how they did the story of Martin Jordan?

He's taking off, then BLAM. Your dad's dead, kid.

No display whatsoever of his overcoming the fear of certain doom to steer the plane away from the crowd, sacrificing himself to save others. That seems like the most CLASSIC example of an explanation of why Hal has what he has inside. That innate ability to overcome fear. Because he got it from his old man.

[Darth_Primus Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Darth_Primus]

Who said anything about a conspiracy?

You did. At the very least, you inferred it when you said:

What made Green Lantern above any other summer movie the easy target that it's become, why has an ok movie like Thor gotten so much good press as opposed to GL?.

Saying that Greeen Lantern was a "target" means there was a plan to assassinate it. Although you don't know the causes or reasons of the plan, you feel a plan took place nonetheless.

[crash91 Kilowog's Recruit Find all posts View Profile Close crash91]

Saw the movie yesterday, for Father's Day, and really enjoyed it. My wife, who had a lot of trepidation about it, since I have been talking about it for a year now, completely enjoyed it, and my 2 boys and their friends loved it! Was it the best comic book movie ever... no. Was it the worst... HELL NO! Probably middle of the pack, when you look back at comic book movies and how far they have come. Definitely liked it better than several Marvel movies and plan to see it again, and I am a bigger Marvel fan than DC. Definitley not perfect but really good and I am recommending it to everyone I know. Also think it deserves a sequel, especially if movies like the Fantastic Four get sequels.

[Medphyll Guy's Drinking Buddy Find all posts View Profile Close Medphyll]

ok have joined this forum to drown my sorrows - is there any hope for DC movies after this? ....

I hope not. Some of them are fun but this genre just does not translate well to the big screen. It works remarkably well in a little-known medium called sequential art, if anyone here has ever heard of it. Also, and I know this is utterly unbelievable, but panel-to-panel cartoons also work well when animated as cartoons! Extraordinary, I know.

I'm really voting against the post-post-post-modern "franchise wars," branding, cross-platform intellectual property development blah blah and all related evils. It's time for this cynical crap to die the death of a bad idea. Maybe it will make room for new & original stories! Gasp!!

Comics are a very vulnerable medium. The last inane cultural meme to completely ruin them was the so-called "collectors market", then it was Reboot Mania, now it's all this crap about branding & franchises, like fast food and sneakers manufactured in third world sweat shops. And what do we have next for DC? Rebbot Mania 2!!!

So, glad that the GL movie is decent.
Relieved that it didn't storm the world. Hal gets to keep his shamrock spandex clean of all this junk culture. Hosanna!

The fact that this, the only GL BB I know of, did not invite the presence of a single Troll is evidence that for the general public GL did not penetrate the consciousness. Good. Maybe after this DCU Reboot madness is over, we can get back to telling good GL stories...

Rant over.

[Superlantern mmmm Beer! Find all posts View Profile Close Superlantern]

Yes, we are comparing The Phantom Menace to Green Lantern. How many Green Lantern fans have been longing to see a live action flick? And how long has that anticipation lingered? Most hardcore GL fans say they been fans since they were a little kid.

How many hardcore star wars fans are there compared to gl? Do they have green lantern weekends at Disney? Do they have green lantern celebrations that draw people worldwide into one location? I hate to say it but we are minuscule in numbers when compared to star wars or lotr fans.
Basically saying we don't have enough hardcore fans to carry a poorly reviewed movie the same way star wars fan did .

[SmurfLantern Sinestro's Sparring Partner Find all posts View Profile Close SmurfLantern]

Oops sorry ment to send that to my buddy as a personal text......embarrassing!

[Spectremjm Corps Honor Guard Find all posts View Profile Close Spectremjm]

The reality is Star Wars has huge importance in pop culture and has since 1977. Any new movie in the series would be automatically set to succeed financially even if it wasn't good, like Phantom Menace. Phantom Menace was pretty much reviewed as a so-so movie, not great, but not horrible. Anticipation, plus the fact that it was guaranteed to play in a certain number of theatres for a certain amount of time guaranteed even more money and limited the options those theatres had to play other competing movies.

Green Lantern has no built in fan base of that size and Green Lantern even in the DC universe has only gotten big in the past 7 years. So it could never muster a huge opening without positive reviews.

I still think the marketing did have a lot to do with the how the movie performed. The approach clearly didn't work, since even before the reviews slammed a torpedo into the movie, it was still being projected to do under 60. Great reviews would have helped it, no doubt and the negative did hurt it some, but it still didn't fall too far from the original projections. And that is part of the problem, that despite all that marketing at the last minute, it wasn't tracking higher.

[General grievous Star Sapphire's Love Slave Find all posts View Profile Close General grievous]

Hmm, 26 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

I always thought once they had a rating it stayed the same.

GL keeps rising. Small rising, but still rising, as more positive reviews keep coming in.

[InterestingJohn Alpha-Lantern Find all posts View Profile Close InterestingJohn]

Hmm, 26 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

I always thought once they had a rating it stayed the same.

GL keeps rising. Small rising, but still rising, as more positive reviews keep coming in.

It'll fluctuate until all of the reviews are in.

[PowerRing Corpse Trainee Find all posts View Profile Close PowerRing]

I loved the movie. Sure it has its flaws, but every movie has them. The only thing that irritates me the most was then he recharged his ring to show Tom his costume. He didn't recite the oath. WTF!!!!!

[Darth_Primus Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Darth_Primus]

How many hardcore star wars fans are there compared to gl? Do they have green lantern weekends at Disney? Do they have green lantern celebrations that draw people worldwide into one location? I hate to say it but we are minuscule in numbers when compared to star wars or lotr fans.
Basically saying we don't have enough hardcore fans to carry a poorly reviewed movie the same way star wars fan did .

Thanks for that because it brings us back to my original point on why the Green Lantern wasn't impressive at the box office over the weekend. As I said previously here:

The ugly truth might be that Green Lantern is still a second tier super hero by the general public. I mean, the average joe could probably tell you about the Joker and Lex Luthor and not much about Hal Jordon and his arch nemesis.

This movie was suppose to be the vehicle to launch Green Lantern from second tier to "A List" level. The general concensus is the film is "decent;" meaning "not that bad," but "not that great." Therefore the film failed to rise Green Lantern above the second tier label. This movie was suppose to be a franchise maker/starter, but now even some of the members of this board are reduced to being hopeful that a sequel gets the "Green Light."

Again, I believe the fundamental flaw caused this to be.


Moreover, your admission the Green Lantern fanbase is not that quite large attributed to the box office ticket sales. So, perhaps that was also a major factor on ticket sales than negative opinions.

[Marvelous Iggy God Of Turtles Find all posts View Profile Close Marvelous Iggy]

Thanks for that because it brings us back to my original point on why the Green Lantern wasn't impressive at the box office over the weekend. As I said previously here:



This movie was suppose to be the vehicle to launch Green Lantern from second tier to "A List" level. The general concensus is the film is "decent;" meaning "not that bad," but "not that great." Therefore the film failed to rise Green Lantern above the second tier label.

Again, I believe the fundamental flaw caused this to be.


Moreover, your admission the Green Lantern fanbase is not that quite large attributed to the box office ticket sales. So, perhaps that was also a major factor on ticket sales than negative opinions.

But see, Iron Man was seen as second list for years. Yet now he is considered A-List. It the fact that the movie was average at best, is the reason of it's flop.

[mars396 Major Force's Dinner Date Find all posts View Profile Close mars396]

I am not a comics fanyboy, nor am I a movie critic. That being said, I loved the HELL out of this movie !!


First and foremost, I went into this whole Green Lantern: The Movie obsession 18 months ago with the presumption that it will be, in essence, “Green Lantern Begins”.

What that means to me is: this will be an origins movie, heavily focused on the character of Bruce Wayne/Tony Stark/Hal Jordan, and his transformation from a self absorbed jerk into a Superhero. The villain will be a lesser villain, not terribly interesting, but setting the stage, ie putting the parts in place, for an EPIC sequel.

Batman Begins, Iron Man, and now Green Lantern all fit this description.


spoilers ahead:
Yes, Hector Hammond is an arch villain in the comics. But here he was just an average nerdy loser who got beat up by the cool, good-looking jock, who also got the girl. (Kind of the opposite message in movies of recent memory. But I digress…) as I said, I am not a comic book fanboy, so I consider what happens on screen as “canon” and am not bound by “it happened in the comic book, so it must be this way on screen” line of thinking. This is now the story of Hector Hammond. I personally would have left him alive to be incarcerated, having his head grow to ridiculous size as he evolves to menace the universe from his imprisonment. But I thought the story of THIS Hector Hammond was interesting and important to establish this new GL universe. Parallax was a bit much for a rookie to face in his first action, but his IMPRISONMENT (note I did not say DEFEAT) by Hal Jordan of Earth was important to establish Humanity’s place in the Green Lantern Corps. And SHOULD be a great way to establish Sinestro’s resentment and jealousy for the sequel(s), if God willing, we get them.

Now onto more unfair criticisms that have been thrown at this movie. I liked the story and the acting. Reynolds WAS Hal Jordan to me. Blake was not a cardboard cutout at all. The scene where she makes fun of Hal’s little mask was a defining moment of her character and this new series. I even liked Tom, the goofy sidekick/best friend. I fail to see how that part could have been played any differently.

I fully expected to be disappointed by the short length and quick editing of this film. I was not. It was paced briskly, cutting back and forth between concurrent stories in a satisfying way. Again, I fail to see how these simultaneous events could have been portrayed any better.

I also fully expected to feel short-changed by the length of time spent on Oa and with other Lanterns. I even went so far as to say I will want to see a “Green Lantern Corps” movie instead of a Hal Jordan tale. I was way off here. The time spent on Oa was perfectly appropriate (save one problem I have, to be discussed later). This is Hal’s story, and any more talking GLs would have just muddied up the movie, and would have only been in there for fan service, not to tell THIS story. My only problem with this movie is Kilowog. There was nowhere near enough time for “Ring Slingin’ 101”. Then at the end, he has the GAUL to say “can I train ‘em or what ?” WTH did Kilowog have to do with Hal defeating Parallax ??!?!? One sentence ??!?? “the bigger they are the faster they burn” THAT’s why he asks “can I train ‘em or what ?” Terrible, awful writing. That “can I train ‘em” line should be removed from every copy of this movie.


Now to Sinestro. Brilliant performance. Perfect in every way. Kicks Hal’s ass, and sends him home crying. A great moment in Comic Book movies.

If Hal quit the Corps, why was he allowed to keep his ring ? Wouldn’t he have been escorted back to his homeworld, and stripped of all his powers ? That part I don’t understand.

But I digress again. I am seriously looking forward to the Sinestro movie. I hope it takes place all over the Universe, NOT on Earth again. Qward, Oa, whatever. NOT anywhere near Earth. Sinestro is the Joker of the GL Universe, and the next film (God Willing!!!!) MUST be the Dark Knight of this series.
But why when he took off his Green Lantern ring, did his Green Lantern suit not instantly dematerialize ?