In Search of the "of the": Social Thread v8.0

Ahhhh, crap. I kinda liked Green Lantern. Somebody slap me and tell me why I'm an idiot.


EDIT: Oh hey, Top O' the Page. First time. Yes, yes, I'm a virgin in that regard.

 

I've tried a Hackintosh myself and failed a few times.

 

It's cuz the Lantern action scenes are fairly decent, Reynolds holds up his poorly-written role well and Blake Lively is totally gorgeous in a Jennifer Connelly in Hulk kind of way, despite having to play one of the most two-dimensional love interests I've ever seen. Their scenes together when he saves her from the helicopter and visits her balcony almost gives me a wave of serial-hero nostalgia, but it's like they knew what scenes you *have* to do, but didn't know how to properly set them up so that the movie still flows.
The part I hate the worst is the intercutting of Hector Hammond being infected during Hal's off-to-Oa scene. Short of Parallax killing Abin Sur, there is nothing built up in this movie to suggest these two characters are connected so closely that their origins need to happen simultaneously. Pretty much every scene with Hammond had me groaning, because they were just stupid scenes. It's unfortunate, because Peter Saarsgard did an amazing job.
So basically, for the entire main cast I bought the performance, but not the character.

They almost had me. It reminds me of X3; the two films also have pacing problems so similar I had to double-check this wasn't directed by Brett Ratner. This would've been a much better movie at the beginning of the hero rush, but after a decade of origin stories, it's just far too derivative. We've seen every scene in this movie before. I was mentally referencing every parallel moment in superhero films of the last decade as I watched. I'm tempted to make a list.
If you sit passively in front of it you could almost mistake it for a decent flick, but if you're paying attention at all you realize nothing anyone does in this movie makes any sense. The outfit's growing on me though and I like the main cast well enough. If it makes it to sequel and they get a better writer, spend more time on the effects, desaturate the set design a little bit, they could definitely have a good movie on their hands.

 

A chromatic explosion!
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Oooooh. Chromatic aberraaaaaaation.

 

You asked for it, I'm sorry but here is a list for you:
* Movie should have been call Ryan Reynolds Floating Head
* Tim Robbins worse performance since Antitrust.
* Hextor Hammond looks more like the Elephant Man than the enlarged egg-head he was in the comic books - that said Peter Sarsgaard played it well.
* Every single main character had daddy issues. Ok, this generally a problem in most super hero mythos (superman, luke skywalker, batman) -- Carol's dad doesn't even show any concern for his daughter getting pancaked by lights. Hextor's main motivation is hating his dad for not understanding him. Hal's dad blows up.
* Ryan Reynolds has a smoking hot body. Google him, look up those pretty pretty abs. And we are given a CG suit and CG package (puns!). A waste of good technology. I love special effects, I love the impossible being possible, but why... oh why do we need a cgi suit? Why do motion capture? Why put a floating head on screen? Oh wait... I already cover this on the first line.
* The Big Bad guy of the movie is fear itself. Hal is very boring in how and what he fears. It is down right cliche. He's like every guy I've ever dated, afraid to commit. Afraid of succeeding...etc. blah.
* I'm tired of the damn damsel in distress in comic book movies (I'll forgive Marvel for making my favourite female supervillain into a whiny teen with body issues because she wasn't a damsel in distress, yup, forgiven). Two minutes before the movie started, the theatre showed a little clip of Blake Lively (who is hot btw) interviewed as taking the roll because she was strong female character and not the same old damsel in distress. GUESS WHAT, YOU LIED BLAKE. I wish there was more Princess Leia's out there sometimes.
* The score, the bloody score. Every two minutes or so, I'd hear a little homage to SUPERMAN. And go "that was a better movie. why are you remind us this." Blllah.
* Super hero movie, you are guaranteed action. You know, usually within 2 minutes. We don't get any real Green Lantern action until oh about an hour in.
* GL corps, OA, centre of the universe. Thor did this better. See Thor. But that aside, OA is more interesting than Hal on earth. But then we get introduced to a Green Lantern, who isn't all that Green Lantern like. WHO in fact says "No, I'm not going to help you save your punny little world call Earth. I will stay here, and wait for the evil yellow evil to be made, while you go do the hero thing." Ok, maybe not those words exactly... but it is COMPLETE OUT OF CHARACTER FOR ANY GREEN LANTERN TO TURN DOWN A PLEA FOR HELP.
* Editing. Its not that hard. Why is this an issue? Take the opening sequence; Hal wakes up with blonde in bed. Late for something. Cut to Hal is driving crazy like, while wrapping a gift (lets assume birthday party, since its a gift! but of course not). Cut to Hal and Carol (the DiD and love interest to Hal... ignore the blonde at the beginning, she is not important, never seen again, this happens a lot, things that aren't important never to be seen again) scene, then flying scene. And then... we get the kids birthday party. Stop. ... I can handle a few these edits, but it happens ... thru out the whole bloody movie.
* The ending. The big bad guy of fear is tossed into the sun, the end of him, no more bad guy. Rewind to the beginning, where our purple alien trapped the big bad guy... the assumption at the beginning is he is a big bad guy, that can't be easily killed so it is easier to just trap them in green ice in the middle of no where so no one can accident fall on them. BUT nooooooo.... the big bad guy can be destroyed by a tiny star and its gravity, just toss him in. Why didn't they do that in the first place? .... No, they'll make a yellow ring

 

^You're totally right about Bassett, Robbins and Sarsgaard.
Well, almost the entire cast really. What a complete and total waste. I really wanted to like Blake Lively, but there's no way anyone would ever let the character as she played her into a cockpit that wasn't located on Fraternity Drive. The only characters that were working for me were the Lanterns, though Sinestro and the Guardians did push the limits.

I'm suddenly afraid for the Spider-Man reboot beyond just the costume design. After Thor, I thought we were entering a new wave were all the great actors would be in superhero movies too... but not like this. Not like this.

EDIT: Looking at the writers' resumes, the quality does suddenly make a lot more sense. This would have made a fantastic comic book.

 

- I think you have just established the main problem with this movie. Four writers for the screenplay.

 

No idea why anyone was suppressed about how GL turned out. I called it on the first trailer.

?You know that one part in the trailer that bugged me? Yeah that's 3/4 of the movie, apparently."

I?m not even cynical anymore, I?m just awful tired now. Dog tired.

 

It's not surprise. It's disappointment.

Oh well.
Next year is TDKR and Zack Snyder's Superman!

 

And Spiderman.

 

Thanks Penitio and Vapes. This was quite a struggle for me. But your explanations helped.

I am excited about TDKR. But really, could they have not come up with a better title?

 

It's okay, Nolan never shows the title at the beginning of the movie anyway. When you go to the box office, just tell them you're there for "Batman". They'll know what to do.


On a separate note, I (finally) completed a videography reel last night featuring my work from a couple of my fanfilms and independent projects, including Laszlo's Abstract Messiah.
Check it out! Hire me!

 

Don't forget Avengers.

And I dearly hope the rebooted Spiderman isn't Twilight with webs.

 

Well now that you said it.

 

That's precisely what I've been thinking I'm gonna do ever since I heard the title.

"One for, uh, Batman."

 

Are those DC films intended to wash the sour apple taste of Green Lantern? I think not.
Try to keep up, guys.

 

To use your metaphor, wasn't Green Lantern supposed to wash out Jonah Hex, and Jonah Hex was suppose to clean up after Watchmen and Watchmen to make us forget Superman Returns, and Superman Returns to make use forgive Halle Berry's Catwoman?

 

I can't agree/disagree with that because I like two of those movies.

 

So, the film I worked on last year "A Lonely Place for Dying" was released today on VODO. They are releasing the film in 5 parts, with Part One, the first half hour, being online now.

As most of my visual effects work in the film happens in the first half hour, I thought I'd like you guys know if you want to take a look. It is by no means a VFX movie, mostly story driven, but I worked on the bombing raid shots and the Washington DC matte painting shots and Cromwell greenscreen composites.

Download links...

http://vo.do/alpfd

 

Awesome work... The Washington D.C. stuff was my favorite part of it.

 

beafet

 

I basically do one thing.

 

It shows.






Just kidding, cool reel dude. I like the car-tracking/running-as-things-explode shot. Not perfect tracking, but it looks pretty slick.

 

This one's for Spiff: http://io9.com/5820602/what-if-calvin--hobbes-was-rebooted-as-a-hardboiled-pulp-thriller

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