If there was one thing that critics and comic book fans agreed on this summer it was that Green Lantern was one big let down. While there are those who may have enjoyed the experience, it’s clear that the movie did not make the splash that Iron Man, The Dark Knight had made in recent years or even Captain America or Thor made this summer. In the conversation about this year’s superhero movies, Green Lantern has all but disappeared.

This past weekend saw the premiere of Green Lantern: The Animated Series, a computer animated cartoon show that was surprisingly enjoyable and avoided a lot of the problems the film fell into. It leaves one to wonder, why does the cartoon succeed where the movie failed?

As a long time Green Lantern fan, I had high hopes for the movie and went in hoping for the best. My criticisms come from a place of love; I am hard on this movie because I recognize how great it could have been, not because I hate Green Lantern or think superheroes are silly. My goal is not to simply make fun of the movie; it’s to further investigate and better understand what went wrong. This is a movie I actively want to enjoy, but the reasons below keep me from doing so…

#1 Opening Narration

You may be familiar with the old adage of screen writing: show, don’t tell. This movie opens with a little speech from Tomar-Re, explaining what Green Lanterns are and giving back story for the events leading up to the start of the story. Whenever you see this in a movie it’s a bad sign. The fact that Green Lantern is not as well know as other superheroes is no excuse either.

Think of how perfect the opening to Richard Donner’s 1978 movie Superman is. It succinctly and gloriously re-tells the comics origin of Superman and explains the Kryptonian world he originates from and bang… we are into the story.

Going this long-winded opening narration route instantly turned me off as a viewer. Green Lantern is not off to a great start.

 

 

#2 The Movie Starts with Alien Astronauts

After the cringe inspiring monologue, we see some Aliens on a strange world. This is not easy to relate to for the audience, especially those not familiar with the Green Lantern lore. It would have been a much wiser to start off with the flashback to Hal’s father dying. That immediately pulls the audience in with the human element. It could even have been a nightmare he was having before waking up in the next scene.

Cliched maybe, but sometimes cliche is the right move, especially in a movie like Green Lantern that has so many other elements that makes the character different from others.

#3 The Main Villain

It’s just a big cloud that moves slowly through space. Riiiiiiight.

 

#4 Introducing Hal Jordan

Hal’s first scene involves him waking up from a one night stand. When Iron Man had Tony Stark do this, we’d already seen him get injured and kidnapped by terrorists, so even though he’s still somewhat of a jerk, he still has our sympathy. Hal is just a douchebag and we’re left to wonder why we should root for him, other than he’s the main character we are stuck with on this journey.

 

#5 Reckless Driving

Hal almost kills people while speeding. Why was he speeding? He was late for work. Why? He overslept after a one night stand. This behavior doesn’t make him endearing or easy to relate to;
it just makes him a terrible person. And as opposed to when Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark acts like an asshole, we haven’t got any deep reasoning for this behaviour. Shame we couldn’t change the channel in the theatre.

 

#6 Strange Editing

Hal almost crashes his car because he’s wrapping a gift for his nephew, but he’s on the way to work, NOT the party. Why not wait to wrap the present? Probably because that scene was
originally meant to happen later.

Remember, Hal risked other people’s lives with his recklessness here and it wasn’t even necessary. Great superhero material and absolutely no logic.

#7 We See Oa Before Hal Does

In most science fiction stories, when there’s an alien world or alternate dimension involved, we discover these things with the protagonist. When Luke Skywalker first sees the Millennium Falcon, we
see it for the first time with him. Sharing these experiences with the main character is what makes us relate to him. By the time Hal gets to Oa, it’s old news to us.

 

#8 If You Don’t Know It By Now… Hal Jordan Really Is A Jerk

Hal can’t handle losing to the automated jets, so he throws Carol under the bus and destroys several million dollars worth of equipment. All because he wants to win. His actions result in Ferris losing the contract and half the employees being laid off.

#9 The Flashback

As Hal’s engines fail and his jet plummets to the ground, he remembers watching his father’s plane explode. This works thematically, but the tone of the scene feels wrong. Maybe it’s just me, but it seemed unintentionally hilarious. There’s no bigger crime than a sentimental flashback that misses it’s intention.

 

#10 Hal’s Disappearing Family

Hal attends his nephew’s birthday party and gets a stern talk from his older brother. He has a touching conversation with his nephew. They are never heard from again.

 

#11 Insincerity

When trying to activate the lantern, Hal makes several pop culture references, i.e. “by the power of Grayskull!” It totally removes any severity from the scene. Later, Carol recognizes him through the mask, shattering an age old superhero convention. This would be great if they were deconstructing elements of the super power genre, but instead they’re just mocking the idea. It says, “That mask is silly, right? We find it hard to take seriously so we’ll make fun of it!”

That’s not clever; it’s fear. A movie that is all about overcoming fear is afraid to take itself seriously, similar to Hal himself. Can you imagine if in Batman Begins, Bruce Wayne did the same thing and everyone laughed at his costume?

 

#12 Tom Who?

Tom is a pointless character. The only thing he really does is pick up Hal from the crash site. Anything else he does is incidental to the plot. Hal does later show off his costume to Tom in his apartment, but that entire scene could’ve been cut in favor of fleshing out Hal, Hector and Carol’s supposed friendships.

 

#13 No CSI?

It’s obvious that someone found the crashed space ship before the government did, but nobody seems to pay this much attention. There would be a manhunt for whoever this person was and Hal and Tom would have had way more trouble driving away. The tire treads, footprints, fingerprints – they would all point to Hal and Tom and they definitely would have some G-Men investigating them, at the very least. More likely they’d be arrested and held indefinitely without trial.

#14 Dancing at the Bar

Carol allows Hal to dance with her even though earlier that day he almost destroyed her company. I’ve destroyed three women’s careers and when I asked them to dance after they wouldn’t even talk to me. Carol is kind of a moron.

#15 Blake Lively

She is way too young to be believable as head of a company like Ferris Aircraft and is no where near as talented an actress (or to be fair, given the same strong character) to be taken as seriously as Hayley Atwell in Captain America: The First Avenger. Shoddy casting.

 

#16 Poor Attempts at Juxtaposition

Hal and the Earth based baddie Hector both interact with the same alien, but their fates are extremely different. At two separate points, the film makes it a point to cross cut between them. But, we don’t find out that Hal and Hector know each other until after this, so it falls flat. If anything, it interrupts the forward motion of Hal’s story.

#17 Hal’s First Show of Force

The first use of the ring is putting people whose jobs he jeopardized in the hospital. Tony Stark’s first use of Iron Man was punishing terrorists and trying to save his friend’s life. Hal punched someone through a brick wall. That probably shattered the guy’s spine and cause extreme internal bleeding. I’d venture to say that he may have killed at least one of them. That was the first thing he ever did with the ring. Very wise and heroic.

#18 Sinestro’s Strike Force

The Green Lantern Corps is made up of 3600 officers, but Sinestro confronts Parallax with a handful of them. Why? The film makers needed to show how strong Parallax is by easily disposing of multiple Lanterns? Of course not! It’s because…um…hmmm. I’ll get back to you on that one.

#19 The Costume Special Effects

When the first trailer was released, a lot of people said the costume looked stupid. The filmmakers defended themselves by saying the special effects were not finished, but I’m pretty sure that was a lie. Why release the footage if it wasn’t complete?

So, since they’d been made fun of and were SCARED, they poured a whole lot more money into the CGI and made a bunch of superfluous additions to the costumes. Do they need to be pulsating with light at all times? Do we need to see little lightning bolts in Hal’s mask? Of course not. It doesn’t add anything of value to the movie. In fact, it’s distracting.

#20 Ring Buzzing

When danger is present, a Green Lantern ring will start flashing and vibrating. In the comics, GL rings can speak to their wearers, informing them exactly of what is approaching. The way it’s presented in the movie is the least effective method of warning someone.

It’s pretty much the reason Abin Sur dies. His ring goes crazy, but he doesn’t know where Parallax is going to attack him from, so he ends up taking it right to the chest.

#21 Hal’s Mask

Tomar Re tells Hal his mask will appear when protection of his identity is needed. Green Lanterns are supposed to be a well recognized peace keeping organization. Humans don’t know about them, but that’s because Earth is the boondocks of the universe. One would be proud to be a Green Lantern. Why would they program the ring to hide an officer’s identity automatically? It just doesn’t make any
sense. Hal could just as easily have decided to make the mask himself.

Why make it a preset feature?

#22 The Rally

The scene with all of the Green Lanterns standing around makes no sense and was only added so fans could spot their favorites. Clearly the film makers were scared that fans would be upset that they didn’t spot Bzzd or Salaak. Shameless pandering. They have that big meeting but there’s no epic march to battle afterwards. It’s pointless. Plus, blasting energy into space is not only a waste of the ring’s charge but pretty dangerous. I hope no spaceships were flying by.

#23 Oa Training Sequence

After attending the rally, Hal begins training with Kilowog. The montage does not show any progression in Hal’s abilities. We don’t see Hal learn; we just see him fail. There’s no indication that he’s actually acquiring skills: he has skills, but they don’t measure up. The whole thing was only filmed to be able to put in commercials to make geeks feel the movie would be better than it is.

 

#24 Terrible Soundtrack

What is the Green Lantern theme? The Superman movie has a theme. The Batman movie has a theme. This is what makes them iconic. Green Lantern not only lacks a theme, but the music choices are very often questionable and call attention to the fact that you are indeed watching a movie.

Good background music is invisible; it doesn’t call attention to itself. When Kilowog shows up for the training there’s this guitar piece that plays and it’s like “See, he’s a bad ass! Guitars!”

 

#25 Hal’s Learning Curve

We see Hal having problems imitating the construct that Tomar-Re had shown him. Then in the next cut, he’s able to make things very well. Such things include a brick wall, swords and fully functioning Gatling gun. As with the Training Sequence, his ability to fight Sinestro (even though he gets his ass kicked) is just way too advanced for the amount of time he’s been using the ring. If he’d been on Oa for days it would be believable, but I’m pretty sure he’s only there for the span of one night. Either way, the movie doesn’t tell us how long he’s gone, so we don’t know.

 

#26 Hal Quits, but Keeps the Ring

So Hal gets tired of Sinestro insulting him, so he refuses to continue training and goes home (very mature). However, they let him leave with the ring and use it as he sees fit when he’s back on Earth. That’s like quitting the police academy with the pistol you used for target practice.

 

#27 Hector’s Daddy Issues

Senator Hammond thinks to himself that his son is a disappointment. He was on a short list of people to perform an autopsy on an ALIEN. Is that disappointing? I’d say that’s a lot more impressive than being a senator or a jet pilot. Hector’s father is just a macho idiot who only respects physical power, “thinkers vs. doers.” He should’ve given up trying to get validation from this man years ago. And yes, his father was mad at him at the cocktail party, but HE HAD JUST TOLD CAROL ABOUT HIS ALIEN AUTOPSY. I think it’s reasonable for his dad to be a little miffed.

 

#28 You Guys Know Each Other?

Hal, Hector and Carol know each other, apparently. It’s too bad we find this out an hour into the movie; it probably would’ve put some things into context if we knew about it earlier.

 

#29 It Takes Over an Hour for Hal to Use the Ring to Save People

Prior to that, the only things Hal uses the ring for are beating up his co-workers and under-performing in his training.

Boooooring.

 

#30 Parallax Coming to Earth Makes No Sense

He decides to go to Earth because he detects Hector, or something, it’s not very clear. He says he wants to take revenge on the guy who has Abin Sur’s ring, despite the fact that he already killed Abin Sur
and no longer has a reason to hold a grudge.

 

#31 Parallax Asks for Hector’s Help

He instructs Hector to kill Hal, but he’s already taken out multiple Green Lanterns. Why does he need Hector at all?

 

#32 Too Many Villains

Hector Hammond is a great enemy for Hal. They’re both earthlings who receive powers from aliens and they both love Carol. Hal’s father loved him, but died. Hector’s father lived, but he despises his son. They have similarities and differences that make them opposed to each other on a fundamental level.

Parallax is a big cloud who wants to kill Hal for what his predecessor did. Hal has no connection to that enemy whatsoever. Why set up a great villain but only use him as a side character? Slavish adherence to comic book canon to keep fanboys happy? Is that more fear from the film makers showing?

 

#33 It All Worked Out

Carol fixes the problems caused by Hal off screen, so he never really has to accept responsibility OR the consequences of his actions during the flight test, which would have been a great lesson to learn since he finds out about this after walking away from his training, which also goes unpunished. Everything just works out for him without any character growth.

#34 Memory Lane

Why did we need to see Amanda Waller’s backstory? Oh, wait. We didn’t.

#35 Did Amanda Waller Survive?

Hal saves her by catching her with water and just kind of pushing her out of the room. Did she drown? It’s possible because we never hear from her again.

Did anyone understand this character?

And yes we have just used the same image twice.

 

#36 Hal’s Nonexistent Character Development

Hal gets a pep talk from Carol and then decides to risk his life to save the planet. There’s no progression of his character; he goes from saying he’s afraid to “sign me up for martyrdom.”

 

#37 Climax Occurs on Earth

The final battle should have taken place on Oa. The whole story was leading up to that conclusion, but since we, the audience, live on Earth, the plot has to jump through hoops to make everything happen on Earth. You’ll see this in a lot of Science Fiction films. A good example is the recent Star Trek remake where Nero attacks our home planet for no reason.

It actually makes the story worse to have the climax on Earth because we know our planet won’t be destroyed. It’s possible that Oa could be destroyed, but there’s no way a superhero movie will involve Earth being destroyed. It eliminates all of the drama everytime a screenwriter types this into his PDF file.

 

#38 Sinestro Is An Idiot

Immediately after hearing how the yellow light of fear corrupted a Guardian and made him into Parallax, Sinestro decides to do the exact same thing because THIS time it’s sure to work.

 

#39 Hal’s Great Idea

Parallax has defeated experienced Lanterns very easily, including Abin Sur: their “finest warrior.” Hal returns to Oa, after quitting his TRAINING, and says he’s going to take on Parallax all by himself. Nobody points out that not only is he a rookie, but he hasn’t even made it through GL 101. He is literally the worst choice for this task as far as they’re concerned. They must be aware that he’s the main character of the story.

#40 Hal Jordan is an Idiot

Hal gives Hector the ring in exchange for Carol, but he doesn’t wait until he’s sure she’s safe before doing so. She was still floating in the air with a syringe to her neck. Hector could just say “Thanks, moron!” and poison her anyway. Hal may be courageous but he’s not too bright.

#41 Parallax is an Idiot

Parallax says Hector failed him, but when he says this Hector has the ring and Hal is powerless. Killing Hector actually makes it easier for Hal to get the ring back. Parallax may be an ominously powerful creature made of pure fear but he’s not too bright.

#42 Ferris Brand Missiles Are Awesome

Parallax can take down Green Lanterns, but Carol fires missiles at him and he retreats. That makes a lot of sense.

 

#43 Force Fields Suck

Hal gets hit by a rock while in space and gets injured despite the fact that his force field protects him from the vacuum of space. How useful is a force field if flying into an asteroid results in a big scratch on your shoulder?

#44 Hal Doesn’t Understand Physics

Hal says “the bigger you are, the faster you burn.” Try this yourself. Set a scrap of 1 inch by 1 inch paper on fire, then try it with an entire newspaper. Tell me which
burns faster in the comments.

#45 Throw It into the Sun

Parallax is defeated by being thrown into the sun. Remember when everyone complained about Superman doing that in Superman Returns? This is the same thing. It’s not a satisfying resolution at all.

#46 The Climax is Over Too Quickly

Hal uses a handful of constructs on Earth and a couple when the fight moves to space. He gets knocked into a couple of cars and gets a love tap to the shoulder; there’s no sense that this is a really hard battle. This is most likely because it’s almost impossible to make fight a giant cloud exciting.

#47 Thanks, Guys

Sinestro, Kilowog and Tomar Re save Hal from falling into the sun after throwing Parallax in, so they were just watching the whole time without helping.

 

#48 Gravity Does Not Work That Way

As soon as Parallax goes into the sun the gravity seems to have been shut off and all four Lanterns float there comfortably.

#49 Crappy Dialogue

Carol’s second to last line in the film is “That’s really cool.” Great writing.

#50 Sinestro’s Corruption

After the first bit of credits, we see Sinestro put on the yellow ring for no reason. Was he consumed by the power of fear? Did he actively decide to put it on or could he not help himself? It’s unclear because it comes out of nowhere and nothing about the story makes it seem like a reasonable outcome. It was shoehorned in just for fanboy
recognition. Need I go on about how the people who made this movie were afraid of the backlash of fanboys?

Bonus Reason: No Alan Scott

Alan Scott was the original Green Lantern created in the 1940s. His powers came from a magc talking green lamp, a piece of which was carved into a ring. There were no Guardians or other Green Lanterns wandering around; just him. He was a founding member of the Justice Society of America (the precursor to the Justice League) and just generally awesome, but his comics were eventually cancelled after World War II.

In the late ‘50s, DC Comics revamped the idea with Hal Jordan, making him a space policeman instead of a vigilante. Alan Scott was a much better character than Hal; he was a lot tougher and
generally hit his head a lot less often. The irony of the failure of the Green Lantern movie is that it was all caused by fear, fear from the film makers whose aversion to risk was obvious. Green Lantern was defeated by fear; even though it’s sad, you have to admit it’s at least fitting.

Want to write about this topic and have your work read by thousands every day? Click here to become a contributor to WhatCulture.

Topics: