DC Extended Universe

KJ mentioned First Flight in this thread already and I thought that was a much better origin story for Hal Jordan.

I loved First Flight, but it was fairly bare-bones and a little too quick to leave Earth. There is no real sense of Hal getting accustomed to his powers or the new level of responsibility, how it affects his life on Earth or even building relationships with the other Lanterns besides Sinestro.

The movie had a couple of things inherently going against it. Hal is the definitive Green Lantern in the comics, with all the other Lanterns having to live up to his standard, while John Stewart has had the most general audience exposure due to Justice League. And of course there are fans of Kyle Rayner and Guy Gardner, guaranteeing someone will feel left out. Ryan Reynolds was an actor with rising clout and seen as a sure bet, while the geek community was dead set on Nathan Fillion. The first teaser was also a problem, which was because they had very little effects work done and so it came across as more of a sitcom. Later trailers with more effects work were much better at selling the movie.

Then they made a few artistic choices that would just divide audiences, like the all CGI costume. I felt that many times it looked just fine, but with so much CG required for the film anyway it ended up as overkill. Not to mention having your lead actor always in a motion capture suit with dots on his face affects how well he can perform with everyone else, unfinished deleted scenes look very awkward. And I said before that within the script Parallax was a satisfactorily big enemy to face, but the realization on screen was only marginally better than Galactus in FF: Rise of Silver Surfer. Imagine if he was more like Aku from Samurai Jack, actually shapeshifting into certain predatory animals instead of just being an amorphous cloud with a head.

" after he realizes he can't lift the hammer and after Loki tells him that Odin has basically abandoned him, he begins to be nicer to everyone else. He drinks with Selvig, has a long talk with Jane, and then brings everyone breakfast the next morning (I think). It's just that there isn't much time after this that the Warriors Three and Sif show up and then the Destroyer."

The problem is that even them, the jum rom "thor the dick" to thor the nice guy" is rather quick and not that compelling which is awfull because he drag the story to much, and again compareing that to Loki and his tragedy is clear he will take the spot.

"The problem with that is that almost everyone already knew he was supposed to be a bad guy. Giving him character development and making them a bad guy also can go hand in hand - again, see Loki. "

I think they wait to build Siniestro as fallen former friend, to something big which is not a bad idea at all, also just becaue people expect or know a chararter is a villian dosent mean they can build to that direction.

"There were similar problems with Harvey Dent in TDK and Magneto in X-Men First Class."

Wait, what? can you explain here?

"In the Iron Man trilogy, it's RDJ's performance that holds up the films;"

Actually I think Iron man 2 fail becuase they overfocus Tony arc to the rest of other chararter(and the fact they use a awfull deus ex machina dosent really help a lot)

I didn't like First Flight because I felt it shilled Hal way too much. "Meet Hal, he's nobody special, he gets the Power Ring and then suddenly BOOM, BEST LANTERN EVER."

The live-action film had a similar problem with Parallax, playing it up as this great intergalactic threat that even multiple Lanterns can't overcome only to have rookie Hal turn around and slaughter it all by himself with the power of his immeasurable human specialness.

Between the two, it's impossible to tell if I'm supposed to believe Hal is a Boring Invincible Hero, or that all other Lanterns are incompetent clods.

edited 4th May '16 8:39:38 AM by TobiasDrake

That's why Parallax isn't a good villain for a first film it needs to show up later films. In the Green Lantern Corps film I kind of want to see or at least mention other Corps.

I'm not sure whom I would have as a villain maybe Sinestro. Since the Green Lantern Corps film is rumored to have multiple Green Lanterns from Earth they can show a flashback to when Sinestro was a Green Lantern and show his friendship with Hal Jordan before they fight at the end of the movie.

I'm not a writer but they could it to work since some of the Earth Lanterns aren't rookies.

Whatever they do for GL please do not narrate the history of the corps. It was weird, fitting a fantasy realm rather than high space opera. It would probably have been more natural (and less pretentious) to cover this in a conversation with Hal Jordan (probably when he meets up with the Corps on Oa). That information was a distraction from Hal, contributing to a disjoint between what the aliens were doing and what Hal was doing over the first 30 minutes. Plus it was redundant with the two other scenes recapping the purpose and history of the GL Corps. It can't afford all the exposition if it's supposedly character driven, focussing on multiple Lanterns.

It was far less effective in the first one because I was told a whole lot about the Lantrens. When you’re introducing a character and/or organization to the audience, it'd be more effective to show insert thing in its element rather than through lengthy exposition. There were too many speeches with little action behind them. Abin Sur was a “great light” of the Lanterns, but I never saw him do anything impressive. Since the defining characteristic of the GL is supposed to be fearlessness, it’d be better to have them do something memorably courageous than to show them panicking as they faced Parallax. Fleeing isn’t the most intuitive way to establish a corps founded on bravery. Moreover, I didn't actually see much fearlessness from the Lanterns over the course of the movie.

However, much like his Man of Steel it's chalk full of abstract ideas that don't gain the substance required to impact an audience member like me. They are not only contradictory but lack evidence.

Whoever writes and directs GL must not make these mistakes.

edited 4th May '16 9:24:07 AM by FictionWriterKing

They've been playing up Hal as "The Greatest Lantern That Ever Lived" since Johns brought him back.

I thought out of all the human Green Lantern corps members, Guy Gardner is the most well established in terms of personality and more prone to showy displays of power? Compared to Kyle, Hal, and Jon, he has such a larger than life persona with double the varied elements of his character. It's weird to me he's not popular

edited 4th May '16 11:07:48 AM by FictionWriterKing

To be honest, the first time I watched the movie I was first thinking "what's the problem? The movie is not THAT bad...." and then all the tie-ins aso were thrown into the movie...suddenly it was stretched in way too many directions at once. And then I got what the problem was, because as a result, NONE of the stories really worked in the end. Usually with messy movies like this there is at least one element or arc which works, but in this one, everything felt rushed and unfinished.

Green Lantern was a pretty straightforward movie, not sure why you'd think there was too many things going on at once. It's weakness was not fully explaining certain plot points, like why Hal kept the ring even after apparently quitting at the halfway mark or why Hal asked for help to save Earth and ended up fighting Parallax by himself. Both were likely omitted in the studio cut, reports say that Sinestro, Kilowog and Tomar Re were supposed to show up to assist Hal when he drew Parallax back into space, rather than just show up and say "Hi" after Hal had already taken care of things.

On what I said about Harvey and Magneto, and to a lesser extent with Loki, is that trying to fit both their heroic side and face heel turn in the same story simply because it is a Foregone Conclusion means less time is spent on one or the other. The advantage of a cinematic universe is being able to build future stories and not just the most immediate one. Defying audience expectations is not something to discourage. Similarly, basing every decision solely on how positively the audience will respond tends to make a movie less innovative and more formulaic.

I believe he is well-liked by the GL fanbase but hasn't had the opportunity to really be shown in an adaptation outside of Batman Brave and the Bold iirc.

Well, as someone who was entirely unfamiliar with the material, there were a lot of characters which just seemed to be there and it felt like a lot of stuff was introduced which would have been relevant in later movies and not necessarily in this one.

Now Guy Gardner is more well-known for being Hal Jordan's man on the inside of the Red Lantern Corps.

I think people now like Guy as a Red Lantern over being a Green Lantern.

edited 4th May '16 2:15:56 PM by Halberdier17

"On what I said about Harvey and Magneto, and to a lesser extent with Loki, is that trying to fit both their heroic side and face heel turn in the same story simply because it is a Foregone Conclusion means less time is spent on one or the other"

In magneto case is more than Fox cant stop using him as villian, really how many time they have to beat his ass before he get the point? Loki was well in Thor but them regress in Avenger and Harvey was good since is clear the movie is about him.

And about Hal....so far I only know him for meme saying he is a drooling imbecile and that aparenly have sex with a 14 alien....yeah

Guy fits the loveable jerk angle WB aimed for their first GL film.

That's more so because many of the ones used weren't given space to show us their own agendas and motivations. In other words they weren't individualized, not even for a brief second. A lot were just there, which was worst on Oa.

edited 4th May '16 2:29:30 PM by FictionWriterKing

WB just made Ben Affleck an Executive Producer on Justice League

Not sure how involved E Ps are in making movies.

George Miller is also a producer on Justice League but is mainly because he was previously attached to Justice League Mortal. Somebody involved in a Superman movie that was never made wad made a producer of Man of Steel.

Not at all, really. Executive Producer is an obligatory title. It basically means you are tangentially related in some way that helps the project exist but have no serious authority. It's usually applied to people who provide the money for the film.

Actual Producers are important, but Executive Producers just get a fancy title as a way of saying thanks.

edited 6th May '16 2:26:04 PM by TobiasDrake

Hell, WB should kick Snyder out and make Affleck the actual director already.

They can't yet because Justice League Part One is already filming.

But he could be kicked out before Justice League 2 since that isn't until 2019.

Chris Terrio said he isn't even sure if he would be a writer on Justice League Part Two.

Does part 1 and part 2 mean that part one will end in a cliff hanger? And I suppose there will be the obligatory dream/vision sequence? And Batman will get captured and freed by Superman since Bruce didn't kill Clark. Like a reversal of the fable with the lion and the mouse. I have trouble picturing a mouse nearly killing a lion, though...

Some think it will be two parts of one story.

I don't think that because they are almost two years apart; Part One releases in November of 2017 and Part Two releases in June of 2019.

I think Part 1 and Part 2 are just working titles and the movie will have different subtitles when they are actually released.

If it was two parts of one story they wouldn't release four movies between them: The Flash, Aquaman, Untitled DC movie (probably Batman or Suicide Squad 2), and Shazam. They would have released them 6 months apart or a year without any movies between them.

edited 6th May '16 3:01:38 PM by Halberdier17

The subtitles will be Noon of Justice, and Evening of Justice. Or Darksied attacks and Brainiac Attacks. Or Justice League Origins and Justice League rise of Atlantis. Or...

Justice League: Brunch of Justice and Justice League: Afternoon Tea of Justice.

Sounds like a Justice League composed of hobbits. Don't forget Second Breakfast of Justice.

Someone with Ben Affleck's clout doesn't sign on to a movie without some creative control to begin with. Rumors said that he was personally rewriting parts of Dawn of Justice during filming. Being given a producers credit makes it a bit more official. He probably doesn't have unilateral control over the entire film, but because that credit is official it would make him more of an equal on the film instead of someone offering suggestions.

The titles of Executive Producer, Associate Producer and just Producer is typically just a matter of who has the best contracts. Famously, the Kudzui couple listed in every episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer as Executive Producers had no creative involvement with the show, they merely owned the rights to the original script and movie and thus had to have credit for the television show. That said, an Executive Producer credit does tend to show how much power you have. A lawyer piggybacking on their client likely won't get anything more than just producer, neither would the guy handling the catering.

George Miller is likely a producer in name only because of his prior contract working on a Justice League movie. He very well might have attended a few meetings and offered suggestions for this film, but it's unlikely he's involved with it step by step like Affleck would be.