That's pretty rough- I've just been reading through ye olde message boards and various reviews about the Green Lantern movie- I should really write my own thoughts here BEFORE I go reading elsewhere. The greater cyber writing populace has pretty much covered all the bases- I liked the one guy that mentions he had a blast watching it with his 7 year old son who loved it. What more can you ask for? Maybe the movie was made for that little boy, so it was all worth it, bravo.
Especially worth it if that boy happens to pay $300 million for his movie ticket.
Sorry, I couldn't resist riffing off the Simpsons episode with Lisa creating a Malibu Stacy/Barbie style doll to inspire kids with good role models. Wait, there's no reason for me to explain that episode- everyone knows that episode, right?
Anyways, let me finish a thought from last time even though it's been better expressed elsewhere fifty times already.
To quote from my part 1:
"So (immediately following Crisis on Infinite Earths) was a reboot/relaunch (of the comic stories/characters), right?
It's treated as such, and it's easiest to describe it as such, but that's not really true. Much of the characters histories remained intact, with consequences still being felt in future comics from the events of countdown AND previous single stories. The NEW Flash after Crisis on Infinite Earths was a character ever intertwined with his pre-crisis predecessor. Certain characters even specifically mention the previous universe (the Psycho Pirate- one of the best named characters ever). As much as certain creators and editors wanted a fresh start, all the stories still existed on a continuum.
This editorial assertion is important, because it keeps popping back up."
This editorial assertion is like playing action figures with someone else when you were little.
"BWOOSH AND NOW YOU'RE DEAD!"
"Nuh-uh! It didn't even hit me! I dodged!"
"NO YOU DIDN'T!"
"Yes I did!"
"NO!"
"Yes!"
Until the two kids, in frustration, just hit each others toys together in a dastardly plot to hurt the other kid in his pride. And fingers.
Oh, right, what I'm saying is (I may have kind of failed at analogy just now. It's fine enough, but I could have skipped the whole thing I guess. Ah, what fun is that?)that by asserting that a certain story "starts everything over" they're trying to force the public to accept that there's a new start that everyone can go buy, and no one need ever be confused by previous stories, so just buy the new stuff. And that's an idea completely at odds with the reality of how word of mouth happens, and how people will introduce these characters to new people. Exactly as people discussed comic stuff after Crisis, explaining the complicated mess of Crisis, people will discuss the complicated mess of "random relaunch" but it's even MORE complicated because we're still explaining "Crisis", and now we'll be explaining this relaunch as well, because it doesn't all go away, it gets filed away. For later explaining.
And then we get the odd looks for taking forever talking about this stuff.
I'm really behind on my blog entries this month. I'll have to do a bunch soon. But that's all right, I've got little things I could talk about. I usually do.
And then sometimes I end up writing way more, for way longer than I expected, and it works out just fine. On account of seeing a higher word count makes me happier.
That's a good point, does this site supply me with a word count somewhere?
And you know I could probably set up a "hit counter" so I could see how often I visit my site! (That'd be lame)
I could ALSO probably do one of those things that tell me whenever a comment has been made, because as it stands I usually just scan down my last few posts after publishing, and that has on occasion revealed a really nice post reply that I would have missed.
Ah well. I wish they weren't making my comic stories into mere trial zones for new movie material... and then getting that material wrong when I would like to see the movie (Green Lantern).
Don't get me wrong, when I say "getting that material wrong" I'm not talking about cosmetic changes or various things they change for the films. I have no problem with collapsing redundant characters or story together for a film, for instance. My problem is when you have a perfectly good comic in front of you, a proven script and storyboard, and you can't make a good story appear onscreen.
Then again, there are plenty of bad comics that you wouldn't want to use as a blue print for your movie... where are the principles of "show don't tell"? Economy of information? The flow of the piece, the CRESCENDO at the end??
-There's so much exposition in Green Lantern it should be a crime.
-The comic book Parallax is a legitimately scary space bug thing, ala Men In Black. Why wasn't a godzilla sized space bug in this movie, crashing through buildings and stuff? Instead it was a generic cloudy thing that oozed around buildings (we don't have the budget to actually CGI destroy buildings...)
-The one villain, Hector Hammond, just screamed ALL the time. Like, five minutes after he was dead, he was still screaming.
-The Senator guy that was supposed to be Hammonds father just gave a bad performance. He sucked.
-Thematically it was all over the place. If they had to have Carol Ferris' father in the movie, then it's hard to get away from all this father talk- which opened the weekend of father's day this year- man, and then there was that review about the father and son seeing it together? Yeah, it'd have been awesome/better if they'd tightened up on the story, focusing on that aspect. Make it a character piece examining the different effects of the fathers of the main cast: Hal Jordan, Carol Ferris, and Hector Hammond. Add in Abin Sur as a sort of surrogate father figure, or in fact any of the alien Green Lanterns that train Hal.
Heh, then they could have used Marlon Brando's Father/Son Superman speech again. They'd sure be getting their money's worth out of Brando.
I've definitely got to stop sucking and do some fiction work of my own, so I can stop complaining about other people doing terrible work. And maybe get a taste of my own critical medicine.
Well, that's good for now anyways.
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