Conflict drives storytelling, and the antagonist provides the conflict. Botch the antagonist, and the whole movie suffers, far more so than if the protagonist was botched instead. That, and I couldn’t help but feel like pushing Parallax front-and-center immediately was a choice by Geoff Johns designed to push his retcons rather than for the sake of the story.
I could well be wrong, but I don’t really remember “the ability to overcome great fear” as a key part of the GL Corp, nor do I remember Hal as “the man without fear” (isn’t that Daredevil?). It just feels like it suddenly appeared during Rebirth, and everyone now treats it like a long-established part of the mythos (like Barry’s mother’s death), but I don’t remember it.
The whole thing felt very rushed, with clunky, unfinished CGI.
I remember taking my nephew to see it. He was surprised (and not pleasantly so) that Green Lantern was white. To him, Green Lantern was John Stewart from Justice League/JLU.
I didn’t know much about Green Lantern when I saw it. I liked the movie enough that I asked my boyfriend (a big GL fan) a bunch of questions and dove into that part of the DCU. Now Hal and Carol are some of my favorite DC characters.
The suit didn’t bother me. I thought the concepts of the Corps and light color/emotional power schemes were interesting. Sinestro was really cool… I’m disappointed we likely won’t see more of that iteration. I liked how quickly Carol recognized Hal. I thought the end was a bit of a let down with only a handful of lanterns showing up and the monster just being sucked in by a sun.
in all honesty, being a big GL fan, I didn’t get a chance to see it until the blu ray Extended Edition came out. I liked it. the only real issue I had with it was that Parallax was a smoke monster instead of a big yellow insectoid looking creature. Smoke monsters are garbage that are the least inspired designs for CG baddies that can be. Parallax looks cool in the comics, so why not in the movie?
for the most part, I tend to hear less actual criticism of the movie, and more just trash talk on it. Almost as if the majority of people talking about how bad it supposedly is never even watched it. Not uncommon for DC films.
To add to that, Johns’ run added that the yellow impurity only existed for those that had not mastered overcoming fear. So once they were able to overcome fear, they were able to use the ring essentially against anything.
I enjoyed the movie, but was disappointed because it could have been so much better. On the plus side, the entire cast was great from Reynolds, to Lively, to Strong and on. The script should have been tighter and a lot of money was wasted on unnecessary CGI (costumes, Guardians, OA) that should have been practical effects, makeup and costumes. If they had the guts, they could have just went to a sequel with another director, forget the stuff that didn’t work and go full-on Sinestro.
Thats one thing i do like about The Green Lantern, If you could have care about the Character such as Hal Jordan, You must care and be more invested into Green Lantern Hal Jordan
I think it was Siskel who had a problem with Free Willy because you couldn’t see both eyes at one time. Even the best critics have some terrible critiques, but I agree with the need to get behind a character…
I think, for me at least, a big factor was the expectations I had for a DC film after the Nolan trilogy. I thought we had hit a point where these characters were being taken seriously and handled with care. When I saw the movie and it was just a simplistic, formulaic and generic “superhero film” I was severely disappointed. Their method was “old fashioned” by that point.
Watching it now, it is no better or worse than the original Iron-man or Spider-man. As a GL fan, that just wasnt good enough for me.
@JEREMY_of_218 because it was so horrible that in Deadpool two they let him go back in time and one of the first things he did was kill a Green Lantern script-reading Ryan Reynolds before he could make the movie, and Deadpool isn’t even DC
From jump I never thought the movie was terrible. Better than the current DCEU OMG! But I also have always acknowledged that the villain was lame. It most definitely woulda been better if they did a rendition of the story from First Flight.
I have always enjoyed this movie and feel it gets an unfair rap.
Is it perfect? No. largely the biggest problem is that they introduce too many Big Bads at once. Hammond, Sinestro, Parallax… This is basically a four or five movie arc scrunched into a single film.
What they should have done is make Hammond more of a threat on his own. keep what empowered him, a secret. Not start with the whole preamble about Parallax, the Lost sector etc until much later.
Build up Hal’s Silver Age elements more.
Show him going it alone though.
Let him operate as an Earth hero with only a vague voice coming from the ring and the Lantern.
Hammond was a mental villain … let his power include making Hal feel fear rather than just bringing Hal’s own fears up.
Let Hal’s ability to overcome that fear be a true example of his fearlessness.
In later movies we can have things like a formal “training Day” where Hal goes from being the cocky hero who’s already made a name for himself on Earth, to being a rookie who gets outclassed on his first day.
Make him work through training while a bigger threat looms on the horizon (manhunters perhaps?)
Show a little of Sinestro’s despotic tendencies on his own world or in the field to hint at what’s to come while actually forging a bond between him and Hal based on Hal proving himself in the training and field ops.
Let Hal and Carol’s relationship get rocky leading to her own emergence as a hero or a threat.
I mean there was so much potential in the Green Lantern movie that could have been the start of a major franchise! (certainly one that would have allowed Hal to appear in Justice League)
Warners was actually hoping that Green lantern would be the franchise that would replace the ending Harry Potter movies. (too bad they rushed it.)
@ashleywilbanks I thought the GL movie was pretty good. I think they could have had another actor play Hal Jordan because Hal Jordan is more of a serious character with what could be perceived as a death wish. I will say the CGI suit sucked they should have had a real suit but make it appear on him through CGI . That’s my opinion.
It’s a missed opportunity more than anything. A movie that had more money allocated to marketing(on an obnoxious scale almost), and a director and writing team that clearly didn’t understand the source material.
