Doing It Better: Green Lantern

From GL First Flight. There's a good looking GL.

So this doing it better is a little trickier because despite the good elements of the movie, the bad ones are a little too prevalent to make the script salvageable. So rather than doing the same old bit where I just insert bits that would enhance the movie and throw out little pointless scenes, we need to start over from scratch.

In regards to the plot I’d say we can keep the “Hal learning to be a Lantern” and the “Threat of Parallax” in the film, we drop just about everything else. So really, instead of trimming the fat we’re hacking off a gangrenous limb. The Hammond, both Jr. and Sr., were largely a waste of time. They served to try to make vastly different characters foils of each other and just came across as really forced. We could keep the “Rekindling the relationship” subplot with Hal and Carol Ferris but it’d definitely be put on the back burner.

Each square needs at least 1 GL. Think about that for a sec.

For setting, we need to take this off of Earth. Don’t get me wrong, I like Earth, it’s a great planet, but Hal Jordan is GL for sector 2814 of the known universe. I believe there are roughly 3600 sectors of Lantern space. In case you didn’t know the Universe is really, really big, so sectioning it off into only 3600 parts does mean that Hal’s overall Lantern zone is pretty damn enormous. I’m not saying that Earth can’t be the all-important planet that it always seems to be in intergalactic conflicts. (Seriously, you’d think Alien invaders would try a different rock every now and then for their Universal conquest schemes.) I’m just saying part of the fun of the GL storylines is seeing the greater universe and how Hal, and his human successors, interact with the other forms of life.

I’d say the movie’s setting should be split between Oa, Earth, and two other alien worlds. If this was to be the start of the expanded DC universe, which it should have been, perhaps one of those worlds could be the ruined remains of Krypton. The idea being to show Hal, “this is what happens when Lanterns fail” or “This is what happens when Lanterns don’t get involved.” Two important lessons for any Lantern. He could fly back to Earth for a quick scene or two every now and then but Earth overall wouldn't be shown much.

Lantern Corps emotions from left to right: Life, Hate/Anger, Avarice,
Fear, Will, Hope, Compassion, Love, and Death.

As to how the rings work and the theme of fear, a screenwriter only has two viable options. One, be better at your job and don’t rely on tired, outdated messages about fear to get your theme across. Or Two, drop the fear thing all together. I know what you’re thinking, “Isn’t emotion their entire shtick Michael?” To that I answer “Yes and No.” While all variations on the GL mythos make it clear that a specific emotion or mindset fuels the power of the rings, (Green = Will/Courage, Yellow = Fear, Red = Anger and so on) they don’t always go with the alternate emotion being the Achilles Heel.

Possibly add this most exotic Lantern to the Cast List
Mogo. He's a living, sentient Planet.
He doesn't socialize much.

Let me explain. In the Green Lantern animated film “Green Lantern: First Flight” they went with another explanation as to why the Yellow power of Fear (called the Yellow Element in the movie) is so dangerous to Lanterns. In that movie it was a structural weakness. Green Light can overpower any other color in the spectrum, except Yellow. It resists Green Lantern’s constructs thus making it a very dangerous weapon in the wrong hands. It’s still fueled by Fear, Fear still weakens Will but it doesn’t so nearly as preachy when they talk about it. This was an older idea from the Comics. I believe for a while they did a bit where Hal’s constructs couldn’t stop anything yellow. To the point where if he tried to catch a falling person in a yellow shirt the yellow bits would fall right through the construct. A silly weakness to be sure at that extreme but a much better overall idea than the fear preaching.

Interactions with known Lanterns like Sinestro, Kilowag and Tomar-Re would be largely the same but their roles would be expanded. None of this show a little and hope that satisfies the fans BS. While Carol would be downgraded to a smaller role her interactions with Hal would be roughly the same. Think of the two parts of Hal’s life being inverted, Heavy on the Lantern, Light on the Human.

A glimpse of Sinestro's other costume.

The final battle scene and the choice of making and using a Yellow ring could be there as well, but I’d have a better idea. After the final battle, Kilowag, Tomar-Re, and other Lanterns fly in and save Hal from dying. Sinestro on the other hand remains behind to ensure that the creature is truly dead and gone. As he flies around the sun, or whatever they used to kill Parallax he’d find a small fragment of the creature. Something small like a bit of skin or bone, or whatever makes up Parallax. When he clutches the fragment in his had it causes his suit to fluctuate for a moment, being replaced by his Sinestro Corp uniform. He’d release it, find some means of containing it, and fly off with this new source of power in his hands. In a post credit scene we could see him begin to experiment with the fragment and an old Lantern Battery.

Is this a masterpiece? No, but I’d like to think it is worlds better than that other “piece” that the movie we were given was. As I said in the GL review, I hope that a future reboot will live up to my expectations but odds are no one will know for several more years. 

 http://www.ign.com/articles/2009/07/31/green-lantern-first-flight-blu-ray-review

 http://westkarana.com/index.php/2013/04/29/team-spode-at-the-far-side-of-the-universe/

 http://wallpoper.com/wallpaper/green-lantern-292333

 http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Mogo_%28Green_Lantern_Animated_Series%29

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinestro