Green Lantern (2011)

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Bunches of clips from the movie are here:

http://www.traileraddict.com/tags/green-lantern/1

One clip is Hal and Carol test-flying against some advanced robotic planes. Hal's codename is, as established in the comics, is "Highball."

Carol's is - oh dear -

Spoiler: Carol's nickname

"Saphire"

I really like Lively in the extended clip of her dressing Jordan down for showing up late.

 

[I Grok Spock]

There was a GL trailer infront of POTC this weekend - and it seemed to be primarily (or entirely) the original one that focused on humorous Earth scenes. I thought it was interesting that they would circle back to that one, but it may have been the one that just happened to be on the theater's harddrive.

The Cap trailer was great, the Conan trailer cheesy, and the Transformers one as nonsensical as ever.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I really want to see Captain America, and my attitude toward the character in the comics has always been rather indifferent. The cast and the way it's being done as a period piece are really intriguing.

 

[Dream]

It's amazing how little they are showing Blake Lively in the trailers. She must be really bad in this.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Not at all. She's featured in one of the eight extended clips now online, and she's quite good - as anyone familiar with her previous work would expect. The woman's going to be a big star (though certainly not as a result of appearing in a big summer actioner).

Here's something a bit unexpected, from a Deadline/Hollywood article about Super 8:

Days from [Super 8's] Friday opening, rivals say that tracking numbers are soft and would be considerably stronger among young moviegoers had Abrams and the studio given up a glimpse of the creature and playing up that plot line....They say the conservative campaign has left Super 8 lagging in key tracking categories behind Green Lantern and Cars 2, films that open in subsequent weeks.
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If Super 8 doesn't open strong, next week will be even tougher because awareness on Green Lantern is tracking through the roof and both films need the young male audience to succeed."

 

[Thestral]

Kind of a shame, I'd like to see Super 8 succeed. Mostly because I feel like Kyle Chandler deserves more public acclaim.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Well, this is all handicapping - and of course rival studios are going to be dubious about the likelihood of a marketing gamble succeeding - if most people thought daring was a great idea, it wouldn't be daring. Super 8 may well succeed.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

By way of comparison, last Friday X-Men: First Class, which opened to $55.1 million this weekend, enjoyed 90 percent total awareness, and about half (49 percent) of those surveyed expressed “definite interest." Even more alarmingly, Ryan Reynolds's Green Lantern, which comes out on June 17, already has 86 percent total awareness and 45 percent “definite interest.” Green Lantern is also the first choice of 12 percent of respondents, compared with just 7 percent for Super 8.

Link

They don't say how far in advance the FC tracking was - they're comparing it to one week out for Super 8 and two weeks out for GL, so there's just a little bit of noise in there - but I'd guess that if Warners can get an opening in the vicinity of FC for this one, they should take it and breathe a sigh of relief.

 

[davejames]

Not at all. She's featured in one of the eight extended clips now online, and she's quite good - as anyone familiar with her previous work would expect. The woman's going to be a big star (though certainly not as a result of appearing in a big summer actioner).

Agreed. She was really good in The Town (and a lot more believable than Ben Affleck I thought).

I think people just mistake that deep, husky voice for her being wooden and monotone.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Well, out of context her delivery on that one line in the trailer did come across as flat. Within the scene, she and Reynolds really work well together.

 

[Anbaric Amber]

I just can't buy Ryan Reynolds in the role. I mean, maybe I'll feel different after I see it. I thought he was pretty okay in Amytiville Horror remake. But I've mostly just seen him acting ass in his movies so I know Hal Jordon was supposed to kind of be like that in the comics but I really only know Green Lantern as the John Stewart version from Justice League.

Also from all the clips and trailers it just looks fakey fake to me. Like a cartoon. Like Star Wars Prequel fake. I mean, obviously it IS fake and seeing a crazy world would look fake anyway. I saw the tsunami footage in Japan and that looked like special effects too so go figure.

I'm going in with like low expectations like I did with Thor and X-Men: First Time Ya'll so hopefully I'll be just as surprised.

AA

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Like Star Wars Prequel fake. I mean, obviously it IS fake and seeing a crazy world would look fake anyway.

Exactly so.

If the visual aspects of this movie receive anywhere near the level of acceptance that the SW prequels did, Warners is in great shape. I think this is going to take a little more suspension of disbelieve than Lucas's movies did.

I'm not very familiar with Reynolds, but there's nothing I've seen of his "Hal Jordan" so far that isn't spot-on for the character from the comics - just a little more endearing than on the printed page.

 

[Kegg]

I mean, obviously it IS fake and seeing a crazy world would look fake anyway.

This is probably the kernel of why sci-fi geek hostility to CGI so thoroughly flummoxes me.

Don't we want crazy-ass weird planets? Doesn't CGI provide for pure flight of fantasy in a more total sense than any kind of special effects prior to it?

For me the planet is one of Green Lantern's biggest selling points. Go the cinema, marvel at weird alien landscape. Worked with me as far as the prequels went, yes, and worked even better in James Cameron's Avatar.

 

[flemm]

Don't we want crazy-ass weird planets? Doesn't CGI provide for pure flight of fantasy in a more total sense than any kind of special effects prior to it?

I don't necessarily disagree, but I think the charm of non-CGI fantasy worlds, and even special effects in general (prior to CGI), has to do with marveling, not only at what is created, but how a compelling fantasy world is created using models, sets, sleight-of-hand, optical illusion, etc.

With CGI effects that sense of amazement can be lost, due to the fact that the audience knows it is just a green screen situation where everything is done with computers after filming.

In that sense, I guess you could say that movies like this are closer to animated films or video game trailers, where the audience is evaluating the quality of the technical wizardry, but is unlikely to say to themselves; "Wow, how did they manage to do that?"

 

[Kegg]

In that sense movies like this are closer to animated films, where the audience is going to be more impressed with the art style than with the "effects."

Well I'll just confess to always feeling that way. Sure, I'm astounded by the special effects in, for example, Metropolis, but the strong Art Deco look is a big part of that.

While the story of how they did the trick for the Moloch Machine is interesting of itself, that story not why I'm impressed with the Moloch machine. It just looks bloody great and it's an intense moment.

 

[flemm]

^ To elaborate a bit further, I think what separates the audience's perception of, for example, an animated fantasy world and a live-action fantasy world is the interaction between the real and the imaginary in the latter case: there are actual living, breathing people in one, but not in the other.

This makes the illusion more impressive because it is harder to pull off. At least it was. With CGI that line is blurred.

That can be good and that can be bad. The good is, as you say, that virtually anything can be rendered in "live-action," including many things that would previously have been impossible to render convincingly.

The bad, though, is that seeing these fantastical elements rendered in a supposedly live-action film can start to seem as banal as in an animated film.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Everything is good in its own way and in its own context. There'd be a lot less to admire about 2001 without all the models, but Avatar (I loved it, BMNPF) would be impossible with that CG kinda thang.

For me the planet is one of Green Lantern's biggest selling points. Go the cinema, marvel at weird alien landscape. Worked with me as far as the prequels went, yes, and worked even better in James Cameron's Avatar.

Yep - Avatar is the film that leaps to mind when I watch the Oa clips. Now, this isn't nearly as persuasive or as beautiful visually as that movie, but that's a level no other movie has achieved so far. To the extent that people look at the ads and think this may be similar to Cameron's movie, though, Green Lantern is in great shape.

Some positive word from AICN. Now, Nordling seems to be one of the gushier reporters over there - and that's really saying something - but he seems to be right as far as the Twitter response to yesterday's screening. And there are embedded clips:

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/49932

 

[Kegg]

The comments are pretty incendiary though.

My personal favourite:

"The first alien" Wow, what a missed opportunity. Should have mentioned Superman there dummies
by the green gargantua

Because if there's one thing all these movies need, it's to take place in the same continuity.

 

[Thestral]

Didn't read the comments.

Clips look great though!

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

The comments are pretty incendiary though.

AICN Talkbacks are the absolute dregs - doesn't matter what the movie or topic is.