8 Simple Rules For Fixing Green Lantern

[seriousfic]

1. Pick a villain.

Throughout comic book movie history, there's been one sure warning sign of impending suckiness—multiple villains. It's not so bad when, say, Magneto or Loki has some underlings to do his bidding. But once you've got characters as completely contra as Two-Face and the Riddler sharing the screen, the chances that each of these characters is necessary to tell a good story go way down. Green Lantern is no exception. The Big Bad is Parallax, a big gooey ball of fear who wants to kill everyone in the universe. But there's also Hector Hammond, a nerdy scientist whose daddy doesn't love him (as you might have gleamed from the name Hector Hammond) who gets infected by Parallax and somehow gains powers completely unrelated to Parallax's fear schtick.

The movie basically slaloms between the Green Lantern Corps and their epic fight against Parallax, and then to Hector Hammond and some EXTREMELY half-assed psychodrama between Hector, Hector's dad, Carol, Carol's dad, Hal, Hal's dad… thank god for the superhero genre's complete lack of interest in maternity or this would be an episode of The Young And The Restless. In the end, all Hector does is give Hal something to action sequence until Parallax shows up.

Really, the movie should've picked one or the other. I know it's hard to make a gooey fear entity like Parallax charismatic, but there's something to be said for simply ominous, unstoppable villains. The Borg, the Blob, the Daleks… they're all over sci-fi. And you could have plenty of action sequences of Green Lanterns fighting delaying actions against Parallax, trying to save people from it, etc.

Alternately, if Hector Hammond was the Big Bad, you could actually explore the subtext of the character instead of making him about some silly theme where he gave in to fear, which… gave him… superpowers…

In fact, there's no reason Sinestro can't be the villain. Someone has killed Abin Sur, it's a big mystery, then Hal finds out it's a traitor within the GLC and, surprise, it's his new best friend. Sinestro can even make references to serving Parallax, so we can have the Sinestro Corps in the next movie.





2. Be a space opera

For all the talk of cosmic storytelling, Green Lantern is pretty much totally earthbound. Hal pops over to Oa once in a while, but after some tutoring I won't even dignify with the hallowed eighties title of training montage, he goes back to Earth to spend thirty minutes getting a pep talk from Blake Lively.

Now, when I think space opera, I have a very specific image in my mind—a ragtag bunch of misfits flying around space in a cool ship. Firefly, Star Wars, Star Trek, Farscape… you can fudge it a little, sure… Stargate, Doctor Who… but you can't have just one guy. Yet, despite the fact that the entire appeal of the Green Lantern concept is the Green Lanterns, Hal spends the entire movie going solo.

Really, was there anything stopping Green Lantern from being about, say, Hal, Tomar Re, Kilowog, Sinestro, and the token minority Green Lantern flying around space fighting crime? Maybe visiting an alien planet? You know, a swamp world, an ice world, anywhere that doesn't look like a screensaver or a studio backlot?





3. Be a cop movie.

For a movie about space cops, Green Lantern draws little inspiration from either the space or cop genre. It's really just Top Gun, with "be a superhero" scribbled over "fly a plane" in the script. Given that the story is about a rookie learning the ropes of an elite crime-fighting unit and what amounts to a dirty cop, shouldn't there be some cop movie DNA in there somewhere?

Maybe, I don't know, Hal could be partnered up with Sinestro. The "my bestie is a supervillain!" thing has become overplayed of late, but a partnership could give them a level of intimacy that'd be enough to give their eventual rivalry some weight. Plus, it'd be more dramatic than Hal just being part of a team that's pissy with him for no reason (in the movie, Sinestro says that no one can replace Abin Sur and everyone looks at Hal like he just ripped one in church. Because it's not like any of them got their job because the last guy died… wait, that's the sole way to get a Green Lantern gig…). Hal's a greenhorn and his partner is an intergalactic Jack Bauer. You could show him being impressed with Sinestro at first, then being wary of him, then standing up to him over his fascist jerkassness… so even while they're fighting Goldface or whoever, you're laying the seeds for Sinestro's villainy in a way more effective than "But I really, really want a yellow power ring!"





4. MOVE MOVE MOVE!

If there's one thing the Green Lantern movie loves, it's Geoffrey Rush lecturing Hal Jordan like the man has a stutter. If there's two things Green Lantern loves, it's Geoffrey Rush lecturing and voiceover narration. The movie starts with a voiceover explaining who the Green Lanterns are and what Parallax is and all that. Okay. Then Hal becomes a Green Lantern and goes to Oa and gets told what a Green Lantern is, again. Then he finds out why everything is green. Then he finds out why he has a mask. Then he finds out he can fly… honestly, if I'm going to listen to this much Geoffrey Rush, he had better be a pirate lord.

We find out about Parallax's origins when Sinestro (for some reason being a much more active protagonist than Hal Jordan, who at that point in the movie is, I don't know, going to a petting zoo) asks the Guardians about him and they tell him. In a long flashback. With voiceover narration.

Now, compare that to some other superhero movies. In X-Men: First Class, we find out about Erik's motivation by seeing Sebastian Shaw kill his mother. In Thor, we find out Loki's backstory in a scene of him screaming at his father, Odin wracked with guilt, Loki crying with shame. In Green Lantern, one of the immortals who Sinestro has sworn to serve has turned out to be the guy who killed his oldest friend… and who cares?

Another problem with the movie is a total lack of urgency, despite Parallax apparently popping solar systems like they were cheddar goldfish, and a stultifying subplot involving Hal questioning if he's really any good at being Green Lantern (something comic fans will really only accept if it involves homoeroticism a road trip with Green Arrow). And while Hal and his incredibly powerful weapon are waiting around for his buck up, little camper speech, the greatest threat the Green Lantern Corps has ever known is gearing up to knock on their door and they have no idea if the entire combined force of the Green Lanterns will be enough to stop it.

What's wrong with this picture?

There should be tension. Tension up the wazoo. A Green Lantern just got murdered, civilizations are dying, Yellow Space Satan is on the loose! Hal shouldn't time for leisurely Q&A sessions, much less a choice. He should be drafted. There should be an investigation. Hal should have to get with his on-the-job training or die trying. "Abin Sur's dead; he used to be the Green Lantern, now it's on you. We're headed for Oa, I'll explain on the way. Don't make me repeat myself—if you don't get this, your entire world's done for."

Hal could still be a reluctant hero, but now we sympathize with him because he has to do this shit, and by grin-and-bearing it, we see what a hero he is. Probably the best sequence in the movie is when Sinestro is training Hal to use his power ring and explaining how fear is will's opposite number. We can see the point he's making, backed up in an interesting, visual way. It's like when Yoda showed Luke the power of the Force by lifting his X-Wing. You didn't get Yoda narrating a long sequence about Midi-chlorians, because that wouldn't be interesting.

The entire movie should be that, building Hal and Sinestro's relationship at the same time the audience is learning about the Green Lantern universe. It also wouldn't hurt if the writing were clever. Maybe, I don't know, the hero being played by an acclaimed comedic actor could make some jokes about this stuff and Sinestro, being famously snarky, could do some mocking, and through their bantering, we'd absorb all this nonsense about yellow fear energy instead of having it wash over us like bukkake.





5. Ditch Hal's fear

For a guy who's supposedly without fear, Hal spends a lot of time metaphorically shitting himself, so much so that the movie has to spell out that it's not that Hal is without fear, it's that he can overcome great fear. Well. Isn't that special?

Shouldn't it be the other way around? I don't know about you, but when I think "a cocky flyboy test pilot played by Ryan Reynolds," I think that his biggest problem would be too little fear. As in he's so courageous and confident that he rushes headlong into situations where he should be afraid, or just cautious. Almost as if he's a rookie Green Lantern or something.

Maybe he could eventually see how pants-shitteningly scary this stuff is and have a crisis of faith, but that should come late in the movie, it shouldn't be the movie. A good rule of thumb is that if you have to drastically alter a character to make him interesting to an audience (like making Superman terrified of using his powers after he almost killed a rapist as a child… hi, J.J. Abrams!), maybe you shouldn't be making a movie about that character in the first place.





6. If the power-rings are the point of the movie, maybe they should be… engaging?

Here's a question—what's the quickest way to leech all the drama out of a movie? The answer: Every time a life or death situation comes up, have the hero respond to it with inexplicably cartoonish CGI like the special effects guys never got the memo that Jack Black isn't playing the hero anymore. I know Hal is immature, but would his first and only response to a crashing helicopter really be "Hot Wheels track"?

Now, given that the rings manifest whatever the user is thinking, maybe that could give us an insight into what a character is thinking? Like if Sinestro is a proto-fascist, maybe his ring constructs could be ominous in some way? Tomar Re's could be fastidious, Kilowog's could be crudely effective. And if Hal is dealing with emotional issues, maybe his constructs could reflect that? Or he could call up things that have emotional resonance to him? That seems like really basic screenwriting, and it would keep the action sequences from devolving into a tiring series of "My CGI can beat up your CGI!"

In fact, Hector Hammond has psychic powers—shouldn't he be able to go into Hal's mind and control his ring? Sounds like something that would take a lot of WILLPOWER to beat.





7. If you're going to build a DC movieverse, maybe you should build a DC movieverse?

The idea behind Green Lantern is pretty close to Iron Man (read, identical). Use a charismatic but grounded hero to introduce audiences to a larger world of superheroes, who can then be tied together to get the audience to watch even more movies. Of course, the problem there being they went from zero to shitty-CGI-costumes in five seconds, instead of starting out with something comparatively simple like the Flash or Blue Beetle.

But as controversial as the continuity porn has been in Marvel movies, it's even worse in Green Lantern—they do it, but in such a half-assed way that they actively hurt your desire to see those other DC movies.

First off, Amanda Waller shows up. I take it she's meant to be a Nick Fury figure, someone who can show up to screw with Superman or the Flash. Unoriginal, but the fact that the character is pretty openly villainous could be made interesting. Instead, Waller is written entirely as a scientist who's sweet and cordial to Hector (which seems extra out of character, given that the movie then makes a point out of Hector being unqualified for his position… so why does "the Wall" put up with this schlub taking charge of humanity's first contact with extraterrestrial life?).

Hey, maybe if the villain is motivated by bitterness and a general inferiority complex, Waller could talk down to him, thus setting her up as a bitch and him as a guy with villainy-causing issues?

Now, there are hundreds of scientist characters in the DCU who could be used to the same end—say, Dr. Emil Hamilton or Ryan Choi. They show up, they look a little like the character they're playing, they introduce themselves… cheap fangasm. Instead, we get the equivalent of the Joker showing up and saying how much he hates violence.

The second "cookie" is Sinestro putting on a yellow power ring. Yes, the guy who looks like gay Satan and is named Sinestro and is played by this generation's Gary Oldman is evil. I'll wait for you to get over your shock.

Now, not to be that fan, but it would be really, really easy to create a simple, effective teaser for more DC movies. Say at the very end, Hal gets a message like "Welcome to the club" from a mysterious source, signed only by the iconic Oracle mask. Fans would get it—"Holy shit, ORACLE JLA CROSSOVER!"—and non-fans would get the idea that there are other superheroes out there and Hal will be working with them.

Or, I don't know, one of Hal's fellow Green Lanterns dies in battle and we get a sad shot of his ring flying away. Then, at the very end of the movie, we see a human hand picking it up. There's going to be another Green Lantern in the next movie? Will it be John? Kyle? Guy? You have to see the next movie to find out!

Or, hell, in the script, the power ring briefly considers making Clark Kent a Green Lantern… and we're gearing up for a Superman movie. Couldn't they put Henry Cavil in a suit and glasses for five minutes and film him in the middle of a newsroom? There, a really cheap and easy way to get buzz going for Superman.





8. Perhaps don't cast Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, and Peter Sarsgaard as characters who are all the same age?

Just a thought.

Comments

[colonel-green.livejournal.com]

Actually, I don't think they are trying to build a greater DCU. At least, in the case of Superman, Nolan has said he wants to keep everything in its own world.

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

That's what Nolan wants. Considering that he has one more Batman movie left, what he wants is kind of irrelevant, because by the time this larger cinematic DCU would have been set up (if GL was intended to start doing that, and if it had actually been successful), we'd be well past him before it'd be time to recruit Batman into the JLA.

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

Ack, misread "Superman" as "Batman."

[mcity.livejournal.com]

>Hammond [...] gave in to fear, which… gave him… superpowers…

Wow. It's almost like they took the concept of the Sinestro Corps, and got it exactly wrong.

>Really, was there anything stopping Green Lantern from being about [GLs] flying around space fighting crime?

Yes. The fact that they already more or less did that in First Flight, which was, from all accounts, much better, though I never saw the ending.

>Maybe, I don't know, Hal could be partnered up with Sinestro.

Again, First Flight.

>Hal's a greenhorn and his partner is an intergalactic Jack Bauer.

Do I even have to say it? I swear, they shot their wad on that cartoon.

Funny thing is, the MIB-style dynamic was suggested by Wizard magazine, except with Hal and Kyle. Yes, Wizard can come up with a better story than whoever was in charge of this.

[pendown.livejournal.com]

Not seen it yet, but I disagree with point 1. Two villains can work as long as they are made to mesh. Two Face and the Riddler might have been a flop but that's because they were trying to double up. On the other hand Two Face and the Joker worked nicely, as did Ra's and Scarecrow. The rest... you've just ensured that I won't watch this film.