A possible explanation as to why "Green Lantern" sucked.

[thehefner]

Why did the Green Lantern movie suck so much? The answer, according to one source, may be exactly as I feared:


One thing I feel needs mentioning: this is not Martin Campbell’s cut of the film, but the studio’s. I live in New Orleans where it was shot, I read the shooting script, all of which was painstakingly filmed with intense research, and all of that was left on the cutting room floor — a sort of combination of what happened to Daredevil and Watchmen, respectively — character development sacrificed for CG, scenes made irrelevant by removing their setup. The movie in the theater starts with an explanation of mythos that is made redundant by the more natural, scripted questions from Hal when he gets the ring. Ten minutes of childhood Hal, Carol, and Hector that sets up Hal’s first ring construct is reduced to an awkwardly placed flashback in the middle of another scene. The training with the ring is almost completely excised except for one minor scene. Most appallingly, the ending completely deletes the fact that Kilowog, Sinestro, and Toma-Re arrive at the end and help Hal defeat Parallax. Not to mention Parallax was supposed to be a 3rd act reveal after we spend the film worried about Hammond going evil, not the main villain for the entire film. I sincerely hope we get a director’s cut or at least all the deleted scenes on the video release.


Very interesting. Even if we do get a director's cut, I wonder how much of this bittersweetly-hilarious list will still hold true.

I don't know to what extent the source is to be believed, but it certainly jives with the finished product we saw on the screen. It sounds like Daredevil all over again, where a studio hacks apart of decent enough film and turns it into a franchise-kneecapping disaster unloved by audiences and critics alike. The Daredevil: Director's Cut is a far more watchable and enjoyable film, just shy of the first Spider-Man film in terms of quality, but the was already done. Put it another way, I still haven't watched the director's cut of Kingdom of Heaven, which was also hacked apart by the studio, because I just don't care enough. Who'll care enough about the director's cut of GL when it's so universally panned and has actively pissed off fandom?

I fear that the character of Hal Jordan--already one of the most controversial and LOATHED characters in fandom--will never recover from this. The only thing keeping him going will be the stubbornness of Geoff Johns and DC who refuse to believe that anyone couldn't dislike the character. It hurts a vital part of me deep inside to admit that even I no longer like Hal Jordan. Not as he is. Maybe not even as he ever actually was, but rather just the version I always WANTED him to be back when he was replaced by Kyle "Poochie Parker" Rayner. This is a very distressing thing to consider as a fan.

Looks like my only hope left for a quality GL adaptation rests entirely where I least expected it:

Much as I dislike CGI shows, I have to remind myself that Bruce Timm is producing. Maybe it won't suck. Maybe maybe maybe.

Comments

[tompurdue.livejournal.com]

Didn't see the movie, and wasn't planning to. I think that summary did a better job of telling the story anyway. It sounds pretty cut-and-dried. Or maybe just cut-and-paste from other intro-superhero films.

Thing is, I really like origin stories. They're often the most interesting bit to me, where the human has to cope with being powerful, rather than focusing on the power.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Problem is, GL is more of a mythology than a single superhero's story. The only way one could even come close to trying to tackle the GLC is doing it as a show with an ensemble cast of aliens. At its best, it has Star Wars style action and Campbellian hero's journey arcs by way of Star Trek's scope, ideas, themes, characters, etc, thereby pretty much being able to *combine* Sci-Fi as "The Genre of Ideas" with Sci-Fi as "The Genre of Spectacle."

That's what really hurt the GL film. Imagine if someone adapted all of Trek to just "Captain Kirk whines for two hours, then everyone applauds him at the end" plus lots of CGI. It really tried to have both the mythos and the origin story, along with a love story AND an entire villain subplot, and failed on all counts.

[tompurdue.livejournal.com]

That seems to be a common problem with first movies: too much story to tell all at once. Comic book readers appear to be prepared to be in something for the long haul.

It's actually a bit of economics I never quite got. A comic book issue is what, $3-$4? And if a story takes up a dozen issues, that's $30-$50, the price of a video game and twice the price of a movie. Not the most expensive hobby in the world, of course, but pretty pricey.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

I imagine it's not too different from following serialized novels like Harry Potter and whatnot, if you take into account that most superhero comics tell story arcs that can be collected in trade and read as single volumes in sequence... or at least, that's the idea, if DC actually cared to number their volumes anymore. I think DC should just invest more talent into stand-alone, out-of-continuity stories and sell them as graphic novels. Treat them like an actual novel series.

[tompurdue.livejournal.com]

I think that would be a great use of the art form.

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

I USED to love origin stories, but they've become so overdone by now that, even when they're done WELL, I'd rather see a superhero story "begin" media in res.

It's one of the cases in which another trope I harbor deeply mixed feelings about — the POV exposition-prompt character — would serve a legitimate purpose:

"Who the fuck are you, and what the fuck is going on?"
"I'm so-and-so and this is my fight with these other guys. Try and keep up."
*Action explodes around them*

Even with a relatively new hero, this could be played in an endearingly cocky way, to help short-circuit the emo to which so many wangsty pseduo-introspective origin stories seem to descend:

"You know what you're doing, right?"
"Um, sure, yeah, no problem!"
"How many times have you done this before?"
"Counting this time? Um ... one?"

That being said, if you MUST do an origin story, there are better ways of doing it.