A new GREEN LANTERN trailer has been released that should be titled “Green Lantern Lore 101”, for it explains Oa, Guardians, rings, and …. yellow powers and all that stuff.

As someone who has never been that into Green Lantern, I learned something.

Is this trailer really being shown in MOVIE THEATERS? In front of movies? It gives me a dire feeling. It’s like…a LORD OF THE RINGS trailer that explains how in the Beginning Eru created the music of the Ainur, as is told in the Ainulindalë.

What it does not say is “this is an entertaining yarn about a cocky test pilot who gets in over his head.”

And they say Wonder Woman is too complicated!!!

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That said, the CGI looks quite impressive.

What do you think? Does this trailer make you want to go see GREEN LANTERN if you weren’t already?

31 COMMENTS

  1. Personally, I LOVED this trailer. But I’m bias as I already know all of the back story and exposition. I haven’t had the opportunity to ask anyone that I know that knows next to nothing about the “Green lantern” concept what it did for their desire to see the movie.

    Mostly I just get sucked into goofy discussions amongst people who say things like: “This SUCKS! I’ve been a Green Lantern since I could read, but I’m gonna pass on this because his gloves aren’t white.” Or nonsense to that effect.

  2. This is what happens when you put Geoff Johns in charge of selling the characters to the mass audience!!

    Hell, I’m dying to see it just to reward their audacity, but I wouldn’t at all be surprised if it flops.

  3. Green Lantern was one of my favorite heroes when I was a kid, in the 60s-early 70s, and I learned most of my Lantern lore then. Have only kept up sporadically, haven’t cared about the character in a long time.

    I was thinking “I should probably see this because it’s a comics movie.” Now I’m thinking, “I really want to see this movie, it looks like it could be awesome.”

  4. Oh man, this looks cheesy and sounds very dull. The CGi is overpowering and very obtrusive, instead of organic. And regarding the commentary, I was waiting for them to start talking about how the spice is essential to space travel.

    I fear for this film and, after Superman Returns, Jonah Hex, The Losers, Watchmen and Catwoman, the future of DC comics live-action movies as well.

  5. Neither The Losers nor Watchmen belong on that list and btw Green Lantern looks better and better the more footage that they roll out.

    They’ve done a great job with all the different trailers from the quick 30 second one to the full lenght ones.

    Speaking as a longtime GL who had doubts if it was even possible to do a GL film with all the effect and things neccesary to tell such a story. This looks to be even better than I could hope for, June 17’th cannot come fast enough for me.

  6. Hmm. The first half of that trailer is basically a voice-over guy reading out the entry from WHO’S WHO IN THE DC UNIVERSE. And it looks as though everything on Oa is CGI including all the other characters, even Sinestro – which gives it a bit of a Bedknobs & Broomsticks feel.

    I think they’re actually going for the Kyle Rayner angle (ordinary guy stumbles into cosmic fantasy world), which explains why they’re pushing the mythos so hard, but it seems to come at the expense of making the character look interesting. It’s all a bit “Coming soon – CGI fan service! Also featuring humans in a supporting role.”

    I can see why existing fans would like it – they care about the premise and the character already. For the mass audience? Not so sure.

  7. The CGI looks like it’s from the intro of a very exciting video game from 1998.

    As a longtime comics fan who’s always found the Green Lantern universe awkward and silly, I find the trailer awkward and silly, right down to the faux-woe-is-me British accent of the voiceover.

    Well. I guess we’re about to find out how a film that fully embraces the campy, kinky side of superhero comics is going to fare in the market. I’m very curious, but I think they may be in trouble, given the look of the whole thing.

  8. I’m more inclined to see the movie now than I was, simply because of the scenes on Oa where you can see Hal enjoying being a Lantern. But it still feels like the CGI could overwhelm the movie… I’m going to have to sit on the fence until some reviews come out.

  9. @Paul O’Brien & Marc-Oliver Frisch

    The voice over in the trailer is by Geoffrey Rush (The King’s Speech, Pirates of the Caribbean), who voices Tomar Re in the movie.

    The way I see Green Lantern is this- If people are interested in seeing Thor, which they are, as the box office can attest, then people will be interested in Green Lantern. Both are crazy, FX-heavy scifi fantasy films with attractive lead actors.

    This trailer was a lot of fun for me (I’m not a GL fan, btw, but I’ve come to know much about him), but the marketing plan for this film has been perplexing. I already know Hector Hammond’s entire plot line throughout the film. They’ve shown us his involvement with Aben Sur’s body, which has a little bit of Legion WHOOPS I mean Parallax in him or something, which infects Hammond. Hammond gets a big head. Legion WHOOPS I mean Parallax makes it to Earth, absorbs Hammond into it. Bye bye Hammond.

    From the trailer I’d even wager that they’re going to tie Legion WHOOPS I mean Parallax’s origin in with the Guardians, seeing as how at the beginning of the trailer it shows one of the Guardians tall seats is broken, then later when they show Parallax glowing in yellow his bone structure looks similar to the Guardians’.

    All of this is fine, btw. If they want to spell out the entire film with their trailers they have every right to. A lot of people have no idea what GL is, so to show them EXACTLY what this film will be, including how graphic the demise of the villains will be (absorbed into Parallax, Parallax contained in a giant ring prison by the Guardians for Sinestro to use in the next movie?), is WB’s prerogative.

  10. GL’s ring really isn’t so complicated, as I recall. It primarily enables a user to create energy constructs, acting as an amplifier of his will power. The ring, as written by comic book writers, has a lot of secondary attributes which have changed over time, but a look at the Wikipedia entry on the power ring indicates that all the complications have resulted from writers trying to come up with new plot twists for stories. Changing how the ring functions was the easiest approach.

    The movie shouldn’t have to deal with all the secondary attributes, or even very many. Showing GL using his will power in intense and imaginative ways should be sufficient. My exposure to the GL comic books consists of reading Rnglehart’s GLC issues and skimming through the “Sinestro War” issues. I hope the movie does well, for the sake of DC, but I have no urge to see it.

    SRS

  11. I sure hope movie-goers will care for all of that convoluted back-story to go with this hero’s magic wishing ring. Personally, I prefer Aladdin.

  12. I sure hope movie-goers will care for all of that convoluted back-story to go with this hero’s magic wishing ring.

    Well, one way of rationalizing super powers so that they can be handled systematically is to posit that they’re all the result of psychic powers. If I recall correctly, Byrne suggested that as a way of explaining Superman’s powers decades ago. That’s my preferred explanation for Magneto’s power: a self-limited form of telekinesis. If the best way to explain super powers generally were to treat them as expressions of psionic energy modulated in various ways — that’s not a bad thing.

    SRS

  13. I can see why Green Lantern fans are overjoyed about this. There’s a lot of elements they know and love and it’s a thrill to see them in a movie. I get all that.

    But as a non-superhero fan, this looks cheesey and dull. The CGI looks plastic and fake. Compare the way this movie looks to Avatar, because that’s what people will be doing. I don’t have much hope for this doing well.

  14. Every trailer released makes me less and less interested in this movie. After watching all the trailers, and there have been too many, I feel like I’ve seen the movie, and it’s a bad one at that. I like Green Lantern, but this has not looked good from day one. I’ll probably watch it on Netflix because I am in no hurry to see it on the big screen.

  15. ” I prefer Aladdin.”

    KET, I’m sure you realize that the Golden Age Green Lantern is essentially a spin on the Aladdin myth.

    Magic (train) Lantern found by Alan Ladd (kinda sounds like Aladin, huh?) that makes his wishes reality. Of course his name was later changed to Alan Scott since the actor Alan Ladd was coming to prominence.

  16. “KET, I’m sure you realize that the Golden Age Green Lantern is essentially a spin on the Aladdin myth.”

    Maybe back in the Golden Age, but not according to this trailer.

  17. I was very skeptical after the first trailer and costume reveal last year but I’ve become more excited with each new trailer. The CGI is unavoidable in a movie like this but the true trick is how the use of the rings and green energy is shown and these trailers satisfy me in that regard.

    For the average audience member unfamiliar with the comic books, it’s an unknown character and property so the trailers really have to spoon-feed it to them rather than just rely on movie posters or billboards showing Ryan Reynolds in the green suit. For the fans, the trailers are reassurance that they are being faithful to the source material.

    Like the first Iron Man movie, which also relied on a relatively unknown property, the initial draw for most audience members will be the main actor involved (in IM’s case, Robert Downey Jr.) and seeing how Ryan Reynolds handles his first major solo superhero movie. Subsequent viewings will then rely on whether there is good word of mouth about the actual plot, script, special effects, etc., again just as was the case with the first Iron Man movie.

    My prediction: the movie will do moderately well – probably opening in the $50k-$60k range – but it won’t be blockbuster material like the first Iron Man.

  18. Long trailer. Explains the back story, but now, Green Lantern reminds me of Superman. Or a Green Hornet who can fly.

    So the ring chose a special human who lives without fear: meaning a white male sociopath?

    These thoughts, combined with popcorn will make for a flashy summer movie adventure.

  19. I just can’t seem to muster up any feelings about this movie other than apathy and indifference. :/

  20. As silly as this looks, I can still take it more seriously than Wonder Woman and her shiny blue panties and WWF belt buckle.

  21. >>>>The CGI looks like it’s from the intro of a very exciting video game from 1998.

    As a longtime comics fan who’s always found the Green Lantern universe awkward and silly, I find the trailer awkward and silly, right down to the faux-woe-is-me British accent of the voiceover.>>>>

    AND ONCE AGAIN that raging anti-DC bias from the man who brings us… the monthly RAGiNG ANTI-DC bias sales report, where having 7 of the top 10 books is nothing more than (insert adjective akin to “failure” here.)

  22. I was very excited to see the film, then the first pics of the suit came out and I thought it looked like bad bodypaint. The first trailer was worse.

    Now I’m starting to get excited again, but this trailer is just a mess.

    If the film opens with a big voice over explaining the history… well, i’ll stay and watch it, but you know it’s not going to be a good sign.

  23. @Steve: I agree that the casual audience aren’t familiar with the character but it doesn’t follow that the trailer needs to lay out the back story. The key points that the trailer needed to hit are (1) this is a film about a guy who gets a magic ring and goes off to fight in a crazy alien war, and (2) it’s going to be awesome. The details of the back story don’t matter at this stage.

    @Karl: You’re right that it ought to be possible to make a Green Lantern movie which appeals to the same audience that went to see Thor. The question is whether that’s the movie they’ve made, and whether the trailer sells it effectively. Granted, with Thor, there’s the advantage that literally everyone knows the character, even if they don’t know Marvel’s version. But the Thor trailers don’t mess about explaining the concept. They go straight for the story hook: Thor cast out of Asgard. The hook with Green Lantern should be “guy finds a ring and is sucked into an alien war”, but they do it the other way round in the trailer.

  24. Maybe Warner should try staging those DC Comics Universe films as ballets, so as to provide a better and more natural outlet for the more effeminate and womanly quality of its characters, such as the Green Lantern or Batman, as opposed to the manliness of the Marvel Universe heroes, such as Thor. (Who beat Superman that one time, with his old Viking hammer.)

    All told, those DC characters strike me as very weak in terms of their general constitution. I mean, why does Hal Jordan need a ring? Did Tony Stark need a ring?

    Just saying.

  25. Did Tony Stark need a ring?

    No, he needed a suit of armor, which is what a 98 pound weakling would use. Then there’s the classic stupid Hulk, who would destroy what was around him in fits of rage and sometimes, accidentally, beat villains while doing so. The intelligent Hulk is an impossible version of the “hulk out” fantasy, from that perspective. Should he ever have existed?

    Unless a superhero is solidly based in SF, he’s a power fantasy, and power fantasies all resemble each other.

    SRS

  26. But Hulk is strong, and Batman is weak. Hulk would smash Batman in a minute, I’ve always thought. I often find myself imagining Hulk and Thor, in fact, smashing and smiting those weak, weak DC Comics Universes superheroes such as Superman as they go.

  27. What superheroes are there, aside from obvious ones like the Vision and Dr. Strange, that wouldn’t be considered power fantasies? Wolverine and other mutants certainly are fantasies, Wolverine to the point that he could be considered an ongoing parody of a heroic fantasy.

    SRS

  28. “Maybe Warner should try staging those DC Comics Universe films as ballets, so as to provide a better and more natural outlet for the more effeminate and womanly quality of its characters, such as the Green Lantern or Batman, as opposed to the manliness of the Marvel Universe heroes, such as Thor.”

    Marc-Oliver, in the name of all that is good, just, and right in this world I beg you to do your next DC sales chart analysis in this style. I will send you a cash bribe, if necessary.

  29. “What it does not say is “this is an entertaining yarn about a cocky test pilot who gets in over his head.”

    That’s what the first trailer was for. I give them credit for making a nerdier one in addition.

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