Green Lantern: Emerald Knights is a 2011 direct to DVD Movie out of
DC's DVD Movie line.An anthology much like
Batman Gotham Knight, framed as Hal Jordan telling tales of the
Green Lantern Corps to the newly recruited Arisia as they prepare to fight an attack from the Antimatter Universe.
Features
Nathan Fillion as Hal Jordan,
Jason Isaacs as Sinestro and
Elisabeth Moss as Arisia, as well as Eddie Berganza, Alan Burnett, Todd Casey, Dave Gibbons, Michael Green, Marc Guggenheim, Geoff Johns and Peter Tomasi as writers and Chris Berkeley, Lauren Montgomery and Jay Oliva as directors.
While something of a tie-in to the
Live Action Film it's not in the same continuity, and shares the drawing style with
Green Lantern First Flight, though it's not a sequel to that either.
The anthology, with a framing story that is loosely based on the first
Tales of The Green Lantern Corps. Comic Book miniseries, contains the following stories, which are mostly adapted from comic storylines going from the Eighties to the current volume, of:
- The First Lantern,
- Kilowog, based upon the story "New Blood"
- Laira, based upon the story "What Price Honor?"
- Mogo Doesn't Socialize, based upon the Alan Moore story of the same name.
- Abin Sur, based upon "Tygers", also by Alan Moore.
This film provides examples of:
- Alien Blood: Deegan bleeds green. Jaydians bleed blue.
- Animesque: Laira's face goes there sometimes. She also gets a Transformation Sequence.
- Arisia also has a moment when the Big Bad looms behind her and she does the "raise shoulders, wide eyes, gritted teeth, body shiver" number.
- Animated Adaptation: Most stories come from the comics and some are done by the original authors.
- Art Shift: "The First Lantern" and "Kilowog" have a decidedly more cartoony style and proportions compared to the other shorts, which may be because those are the ones that focus the least on human-like aliens. The stories of both aren't Lighter and Softer though, they match up pretty well to the rest of the film and it isn't as dramatic a shift as similar DTV movies have done.
- An Axe to Grind: Bolphunga wields an electrified one.
- Badass: Deegan.
Deegan: "In Brightest Day, in Blackest Night, no evil shall escape my sight...YOU FREAKIN' BASTARDS!!
- Bad Future: Atrocitus tells of a future where Sinestro and his Corps destroy the GLC and conquer the universe.
- Berserk Button: Mogo seemed pretty content to let Bolphunga rampage across his surface cutting things. After all, what's a few trees to an entire planet? Then Bolphunga tried to firebomb the entire surface, so Mogo stopped screwing around.
- BFS: Avra makes one as the first construct ever created from a Green Lantern ring. He then cuts a starship in half.
- Big Bad: Krona, of the framing story.
- Big Damn Heroes:
- Sinestro, Kilowog and Laira blast in to save Arisia from a Shadow Demon.
- Mogo in the final battle, single-handedly killing Krona's entire Shadow Demon army and pushing the planet into him when he was previously holding it at bay.
- Big Entrance: Mogo's Big Damn Heroes moment. Arisia sums it up: "He may not socialize, but he sure does know how to make an entrance."
- Blood Knight: Bolphunga, his hunger for battle only matched by his hunger for food.
- Chekhov's Skill: Arisia says that she was taking physics classes before she became a Green Lantern. Guess who's the one to point out the best way to destroy anti-matter.
- The Chosen Many: And these are their stories.
- Close-Call Haircut: Laira gets this in the fight with her father.
- Conspicuous CGI: Bolphunga's spacecraft.
- Continuity Nod: Laira's transformation sequence when she first puts on the ring is the same as Hal's from First Flight.
- Couldn't Find a Pen: Deegan draws the GL symbol on Kilowog with his own green blood.
- Creator Cameo: Bruce Timm as Galius Zed which is also a Death by Cameo.
- Deadpan Snarker:
Arisia: Where is everyone?
Sinestro: Patrolling the Sun. Things are starting to get hot out there.
- Death by Adaptation: In the original story, Bolphunga flies away, and Mogo may not even have noticed his visit.
- Dramatic Irony: A bunch of holograms show happy moments from Laira and her father's lives as they fight.
- As usual, references to Sinestro being a good guy who'd never betray the Corps are played for as much of this as possible.
- Drill Sergeant Nasty: Deegan. And Kilowog, obviously.
Kilowog: "First combat?"
Arisia: "...Yes."
Kilowog: "Don't worry, Rookie.
This ain't gonna be half as bad as boot camp."
- Earth-Shattering Kaboom: Oa. After it has been shoved into Krona's face. And thrown in the sun.
- Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Laira's homeworld, Jayd, to Asian cultures, as in the comics.
- Foreshadowing: Back to back of all things.
- Green Lantern Ring
- Though the story of the first Lantern shows that the Guardians didn't think of using the rings for constructs, meaning they just thought it would be a powerful force field/laser beam, and not the all purpose device it is.
- Generic Doomsday Villain: Krona. The anthology format doesn't have time to make him anything else, but it's particularly noticeable since Kilowog's and Laira's stories were able to carry the emotional weight that Krona's lacks completely.
- Genius Loci: Mogo doesn't socialize.
- Heroic Willpower: In addition to literally powering the Corps, Avra gets this when things seem hopeless for the recruits.
- Hurl It into the Sun: After hitting it with a planet.
- Kamehamehadoken: Avra shoots one during a training scene.
- Kirby Dots: When Krona appears.
- Knight Templar: The king of Jayd.
- Lavender Skinned Space Babe: Laira.
- Midquel: Possibly to Green Lantern First Flight, if not an altered new continuity templated on the aforementioned film
- Mythology Gag: Mogo doesn't socialize.
- Hal Jordan alludes to Ch'p, an alien squirrel-like Lantern, though he is unnamed but briefly seen. (In First Flight he does have a few lines.)
- New Meat: Arisia
- Noodle Incident: Hal ends the movie with one.
Hal: C'mon, I'll tell you about the time I took on an army of Manhunters, and my only backup was this squirrel...
- Oh Crap: Deegan when the Khunds go for Tank Goodness.
- And Bolphunga when he realizes exactly how screwed he is, when Mogo finally reveals himself.
- One Lantern Army: The first four Lanterns against an Armada.
- Prophecy Twist: Oa was said to be destroyed in the battle. It was. Not in a good way for the bad guys, though.
- Recursive Ammo: Kundians are fond of these.
- R-Rated Opening: Shadow Demons ripping a Lantern apart.
- Scenery Porn: The long panning shot of Mogo's surface.
- Screw Destiny: Sinestro's viewpoint, contrasting his friend Abin Sur.
- Seppuku: Laira's father commits a PG version of this.
- Shout Out:
- Space Police
- Super Hero Origin: The first story is about the first four Lanterns and their first mission, showing the origin of the Corps.
- This Is a Drill: Seen as a ring construct during "The First Lantern" story.
- Unperson: Though he wrote two of the stories that are retold here, Alan Moore's name is conspicuously absent from the credits. This is probably at his insistence; he looks very poorly on adaptations of his work.
- Villainous Breakdown: Bolphunga spends weeks on a planet searching in vain for Mogo, slowly being driven insane from chasing endless reports of green lantern energy from his recon drones that lead to nothing. So he tries to firebomb the surface, which is completely undone in seconds while a giant Lantern symbol materializes. Finally he realizes what Mogo is. He doesn't take it well.
- Wolverine Claws: Laira's brother.
- World-Healing Wave: Mogo does this to himself when Bolphunga tries to bomb the entire surface, reversing the damage in a few seconds before forming a giant GL logo on his surface to show Bolphunga that he's messed with the wrong planet.
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