The Official Green Lantern Review Thread - Part 4

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Poni Boy,

But the majority of the audience are not going to pick up the Green Lantern comic to figure out more about Sinestro. They're going to wait for the next flick to give them that answer...and that's how it should be.

Fans are fans. They'll see anything they love. But these films in this genre don't do the numbers they do without the general audience who have no idea except for some name recognition about these characters are about, except for the MAJOR ONES.

This is why I still stand behind the reasoning that focusing solely on Hal Jordan for this introductory film was the right call, despite the fact that the more interesting mythology with this character comes later. We didn't need a big, epic space adventure for this first outing.
If the focus was Hal, then it should've stayed that way. Why blow a crucial character moment for a 30 second fanboy lip service? Yeah, I get it, you liked it, but I think that was the absolute height of a slap in the face. Should've just leave it be. As is, you're average layman is baffled by that moment. It's out-of-character and utterly contrived.
 
I could've done without it, sure. But, I didn't think it was left field considering how I interpreted Strong's performance.

That's all I can really say on it. My wife has no knowledge of anything Lantern and she even understood the scene. It didn't seem odd to her.

I'm sure we're a minority. But, it doesn't matter anyway.

You technically don't even have to watch the scene anyway. It's three minutes deep into the credits. Most people left in both of my screenings.
 
Is there any reason why they didn't just use Sinestro as the main villain in this movie?
 
Poni Boy,

But the majority of the audience are not going to pick up the Green Lantern comic to figure out more about Sinestro. They're going to wait for the next flick to give them that answer...and that's how it should be.

That's not the point I was trying to make. Sure, audiences may see more of Sinestro in the next film (if there is one) but they will see a skewed version of the character from what he was supposed to be. For, what? 10 seconds of fan service? They changed who he is for absolutely no reason in the film's storyline. It doesn't matter what they do now.

And, yes, you reading about Sinestro on Wikipedia gives you a pretty clear idea of where he going in the comics. Plenty of people didn't do that, and that's why plenty of people were scratching their heads after that scene.

If, like you say, it wasn't a big deal, then why do most of the critiques of the film (from fans and general movie analysts alike) focus on it being one of it's missteps?
 
Is there any reason why they didn't just use Sinestro as the main villain in this movie?

To set him up as the villian in the next one.
 
If, like you say, it wasn't a big deal, then why do most of the critiques of the film (from fans and general movie analysts alike) focus on it being one of it's missteps?

Well....in my opinion, they were just looking for things to complain about.
 
That's not the point I was trying to make. Sure, audiences may see more of Sinestro in the next film (if there is one) but they will see a skewed version of the character from what he was supposed to be. For, what? 10 seconds of fan service? They changed who he is for absolutely no reason in the film's storyline. It doesn't matter what they do now.

And, yes, you reading about Sinestro on Wikipedia gives you a pretty clear idea of where he going in the comics. Plenty of people didn't do that, and that's why plenty of people were scratching their heads after that scene.

If, like you say, it wasn't a big deal, then why do most of the critiques of the film (from fans and general movie analysts alike) focus on it being one of it's missteps?

I don't know too much about plenty of people. It seems like most of them gave the film a B according to Cinemascore. I think it was more like the critics that were doing the head shaking (or maybe they were smooching on their girlfriends instead of watching the film).
 
I don't know too much about plenty of people. It seems like most of them gave the film a B according to Cinemascore. I think it was more like the critics that were doing the head shaking (or maybe they were smooching on their girlfriends instead of watching the film).

Again with this debate. Go check the BO thread to see the difference between CinemaScore and other poll outlets. You want the most general, unbiased audience opinion:

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/green_lantern/

60 % liked it
Average Rating: 3.5/5
User Ratings: 76,055



That's a C to a C+ rating. CinemaScore never polls anywhere close to that many people.


And I wasn't speaking about the film in general, just the context of that scene. Saying "you didn't get cause you weren't paying attention" doesn't cut it when the reality of that scene is that it doesn't play off of the character they built up for the film. He was a hero, he never had a problem with the Guardians after they explained Parallax to him and made the ring like HE wanted them to. His only problem was his Hal, and that was resolved at the end of the film when he congratulated him.

You can read into the scene 1000 different ways, but what was presented can only logically be explained two ways: A) It doesn't make sense or B) He was curious about the ring... neither fit the context of the character; ergo, it was an unnecessary change.

Forget sequels, films need to stand strong on their own nowadays before they deserve them. Green Lantern proved that.
 
I could've done without it, sure. But, I didn't think it was left field considering how I interpreted Strong's performance.

That's all I can really say on it. My wife has no knowledge of anything Lantern and she even understood the scene. It didn't seem odd to her.

I'm sure we're a minority. But, it doesn't matter anyway.

You technically don't even have to watch the scene anyway. It's three minutes deep into the credits. Most people left in both of my screenings.

But I did watch it. It was there. It exists. It is part of the movie. I'm not trying to be a jerk here, but saying "just pretend it didn't happen" is about the weakest excuse I've heard yet.
 
Sure. It's not our fault there was so much to critique negatively

I've been not only here at the Hype for a long time...but here on the Earth a good bit longer than 99% of the posters......and I see this as good old bandwagon movie. People started looking for things to complain about since it was announced. Now, am I saying it's a perfect movie with no room for improvement....nope. But if people want to nitpick and complain about a movie...no matter what the movie is you will find hundreds of things to complain about.

To me, the complaints that Sinestro changed in the end credits is just petty. Many are saying you didn't get to see a big build up to it...that it was wasted. Well, it didn't bother me that they did it the way they did (they showed he was pretty arrogant, he had argued for the formation of the yellow ring, you could feel that the idea that a petty human had bested him in some way irked him, so there was no problem seeing him thinking he could control the yellow with no problems)....and I can also concieve of how they can make the beginning third of the next movie the explanation of this event. EXAMPLE - The second BOURNE movie (The Bourne Supremacy) ended with the scene of Bourne with a sniper rifle pointed at Landy as she tells him his real name, and he goes off to see where that leads. The third BOURNE movie (The Bourne Ultimatum) started 3 months before that event and explained how he got to that point.
 
I've been not only here at the Hype for a long time...but here on the Earth a good bit longer than 99% of the posters......and I see this as good old bandwagon movie. People started looking for things to complain about since it was announced. Now, am I saying it's a perfect movie with no room for improvement....nope. But if people want to nitpick and complain about a movie...no matter what the movie is you will find hundreds of things to complain about.

Ugh, more of this "you didn't actually dislike the movie, you were fooled by critics and yourself into disliking it" nonsense.

Have I mention how insulting I find that?
 
I've been not only here at the Hype for a long time...but here on the Earth a good bit longer than 99% of the posters......and I see this as good old bandwagon movie. People started looking for things to complain about since it was announced. Now, am I saying it's a perfect movie with no room for improvement....nope. But if people want to nitpick and complain about a movie...no matter what the movie is you will find hundreds of things to complain about.

To me, the complaints that Sinestro changed in the end credits is just petty. Many are saying you didn't get to see a big build up to it...that it was wasted. Well, it didn't bother me that they did it the way they did (they showed he was pretty arrogant, he had argued for the formation of the yellow ring, you could feel that the idea that a petty human had bested him in some way irked him, so there was no problem seeing him thinking he could control the yellow with no problems)....and I can also concieve of how they can make the beginning third of the next movie the explanation of this event. EXAMPLE - The second BOURNE movie (The Bourne Supremacy) ended with the scene of Bourne with a sniper rifle pointed at Landy as she tells him his real name, and he goes off to see where that leads. The third BOURNE movie (The Bourne Ultimatum) started 3 months before that event and explained how he got to that point.

Now, THAT would definitely be the best way to happen the exposition. Unfortunately, I just can't see it. It's not that I have little imagination or a drive to see the franchise flourish (if it was worthwhile). It's because I can only judge a movie based on what is presented to me as it's final product. There are so many things about this film that can be explained by speculation of what was implied or can be changed in the future, but I don't really see the point of it when that isn't what was presented. To audiences. In theaters.

I'm frustrated. I know the potential this film had. I doubt any WB outsider had information about this film that I did. I (inadvertently) put my self in a position that the studio kept in a constant loop with it just so that I wouldn't post more info/images/video before it was released. I SAW where they were going with it. I PRAISED the hell out of this film to everyone and anyone I could. In the end, it was a disappointment and I have absolutely no reason to make excuses for the production team. They had all the right elements and ingredients in place to make brownies but they ended up with oatmeal cookies. Nothing wrong with oatmeal cookies, but that's not what they set out to make.

EDIT: And I understand that you are a moderator here. It's your backyard, I'm just playing in it. But really there's no need to condescend. I'm only 28 years old but I have two Bachelors degrees to accompany my 10 years in both the US Army and US Air Force. I've visited more countries than most Americans can identify on a map. I also own and operate a movie news website that, although very new, is growing exponentially. I'm not a child, and I don't get influenced by SHH forum masses. I can critique and find faults in a film all on my own, thank you. Implying that my opinions are only correlated to a mass movement is insulting.
 
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EDIT: And I understand that you are a moderator here. It's your backyard, I'm just playing in it. But really there's no need to condescend. I'm only 28 years old but I have two Bachelors degrees to accompany my 10 years in both the US Army and US Air Force. I've visited more countries than most Americans can identify on a map. I also own and operate a movie news website that, although very new, is growing exponentially. I'm not a child, and I don't get influenced by SHH forum masses. I can critique and find faults in a film all on my own, thank you. Implying that my opinions are only correlated to a mass movement is insulting.

*applauds*
 
Ugh, more of this "you didn't actually dislike the movie, you were fooled by critics and yourself into disliking it" nonsense.

Have I mention how insulting I find that?

No, you haven't mentioned that....just how insulted are you about people expressing opions that differ from yours?

If you will read my post again....you will see that I nowhere say that this is the way for 100% of the people. There are people who don't like the movie for thier own personal reasons. There are people who like the movie for thier own personal reasons. And there are people who jump on whichever way the bandwagon is heading.
 
C.Lee is just stating it like it is. I read a lot of bad reviews, some good ones, and some which clearly came from people who were obviously repeating what they had heard from others or gleamed off negative reviews - the aforementioned bandwagon. Yet when I saw the film for myself, I had no major issues with it. It's not a classic by any means, but as an entertaining and fairly faithful summer superhero popcorn flick (whew!)? Fine.

It was certainly better (in my opinion) than the online scores implied it would be.
 
EDIT: And I understand that you are a moderator here. It's your backyard, I'm just playing in it. But really there's no need to condescend. I'm only 28 years old but I have two Bachelors degrees to accompany my 10 years in both the US Army and US Air Force. I've visited more countries than most Americans can identify on a map. I also own and operate a movie news website that, although very new, is growing exponentially. I'm not a child, and I don't get influenced by SHH forum masses. I can critique and find faults in a film all on my own, thank you. Implying that my opinions are only correlated to a mass movement is insulting.

I didn't say that I was talking only or specificly about you. Yours was the most recent post I saw when reading the thread and used it to post a reply that was directed towards everyone. I'm glad to hear you're older and succesful....but many people read these posts, and very many are teenagers that jump on every bandwagon that comes along so that they feel accepted.
 
EDIT: And I understand that you are a moderator here. It's your backyard, I'm just playing in it. But really there's no need to condescend...I can critique and find faults in a film all on my own, thank you. Implying that my opinions are only correlated to a mass movement is insulting.

:up:

I mean IM only 19 and going into my 2nd year in college. I dont hop on the bandwagon. It's not a teenager thing to hop on a bandwagon, grown ass men do it too. I dont see why fanboys have a disdain for everything teenager related
 
60 % liked it
Average Rating: 3.5/5
User Ratings: 76,055

That's a C to a C+ rating. CinemaScore never polls anywhere close to that many people.

Uh, no. If you've ever followed any kind of movie criticism you should know that 3.5 stars out of 5 is considered a thumbs up, positive review. It should be self evident from what you pasted which shows most people like it (hence that cannot translate to a below average grade). 3.5/5 is the same as 7 on a scale of 0 to 10, where 10 is perfect, 0 is completely bad and 5 is average. There's no direct translation to letter grades but 3.5 is probably a B or B+ so about the same as Cinemascore here.

If you have a 5-star scale and the only movies you consider good are 4 to 5, then it would be an incredibly stupid scale. No one needs that many gradations for bad movies. The standard breakdown if you look at film (or other type of) critic's definition is something like this:

5 - great
4 - very good
3 - good
2 - fair
1 - poor
0 - painful and repugnant, I think
 
I read a lot of bad reviews, some good ones, and some which clearly came from people who were obviously repeating what they had heard from others or gleamed off negative reviews - the aforementioned bandwagon. Yet when I saw the film for myself, I had no major issues with it. It's not a classic by any means, but as an entertaining and fairly faithful summer superhero popcorn flick (whew!)? Fine.

It was certainly better (in my opinion) than the online scores implied it would be.

That's the way it was for me too. I had stayed out of the GL boards as much as I could to keep from being spoiled. Being a moderator, I have to read some things (and another unfortunate side effect of the internet is the creation of people who think it is thier duty in life to spoil everything for others) and had started to hear bad reviews. The day it opened, I had an opertunity to go see it (I rarely get to go opening day to movies anymore) and was hearing all kinds of terrible things about it. But I like comic book movie and went to see it. I was pleasantly sirprised. It wasn't the best movie I ever saw, but it certainly wasn't the satan's spawn that many made it out to be. I'm not running around calling people delusional and saying it's the best comic book movie ever made.....I'm just telling people to step back, take a breath, and think about it.

I've been here a long time (poni-boy, you say that you are 28....consider this fact, I've been a moderator at this site for 1/3 of your life...so I may actually know something about trends on a message board too)....and I have seen this a lot. There are many many people who love or hate something because others do (not because they have actually made the decision for themselves).
 
No, you haven't mentioned that....just how insulted are you about people expressing opions that differ from yours?

I have no problem with that. Did I even mention that?

I do have a problem with someone implying that I'm just being trendy ("I've been not only here at the Hype for a long time...but here on the Earth a good bit longer than 99% of the posters......and I see this as good old bandwagon movie. People started looking for things to complain about since it was announced. Now, am I saying it's a perfect movie with no room for improvement....nope. But if people want to nitpick and complain about a movie...no matter what the movie is you will find hundreds of things to complain about. " Sounds pretty broadly aimed to me. I don't see any exceptions included in there). Yeah, you can have that opinion about people who didn't like it if you want, but don't be surprised if someone doesn't take well to it. I can do without the "listen here, son" condescension too.

C.Lee is just stating it like it is. I read a lot of bad reviews, some good ones, and some which clearly came from people who were obviously repeating what they had heard from others or gleamed off negative reviews - the aforementioned bandwagon. Yet when I saw the film for myself, I had no major issues with it. It's not a classic by any means, but as an entertaining and fairly faithful summer superhero popcorn flick (whew!)? Fine.

That goes for you to.

Do you see me accusing people who liked it of jumping on a band wagon, or, going against it for the hell of it, or, not actually liking it? No. I don't accuse people of things like that, one way or the other, no matter the movie. I genuinely believe these people like it. When I discuss it with other users, I'm doing so in the interest of talk (this is a message board after all). Where are you coming from? Why did it work for you and not for me? The only reason I'll give anyone flack is for how they argue, not because I don't believe them when they say they liked it, and I try to do it as respectfully as possible.

For example, when I bring up the baggage a viewer might or not bring to the movie, I'm not trying to prove that they fooled themselves. I recognize baggage in myself. I probably wouldn't have reacted as strongly as I did to Avatar were I not a James Cameron fanatic for most of my life who obsessed over the treatment and every tidbit of news for literal years. I brought personal history to it. But that doesn't mean I didn't genuinely like it. When I mention baggage in the context of Green Lantern, that's exactly how I mean it. I'm just trying to figure it out and I'm not accusing anyone of being disingenuous when I bring it up. There's a fine line, and I'm doing my damnedest not to cross it.

So yeah, when I see someone broadly accusing others of being bandwagon jumpers, it irks me. Yeah, it's probably true in certain cases (and you really didn't make an effort to point that out. What you said was pretty blanket statement) but I'm just gonna go ahead and give people that benefit of a doubt.
 
I have no problem with that. Did I even mention that?
I have no idea if you have ever actually said that in the past. Other than the couple of posts in this thread, I have no idea if I have ever read anything you posted before. That was the way i took your post.

I do have a problem with someone implying that I'm just being trendy
Again...I didn't specificly say I was referring to you (as a matter of fact, this discussion started by me replying to someone other than you).

Sounds pretty broadly aimed to me. I don't see any exceptions included in there.
I wasn't writing a tort for the supreme court...I was making a post here at the Hype.

Yeah, you can have that opinion about people who didn't like it if you want, but don't be surprised if someone doesn't take well to it.
I'm never surprised that someone on here takes exception to anything than anyone writes about anything. It's the nature of the beast.

I can do without the "listen here, son" condescension too.
You see it as condescension...I saw it as explaining my years of experience in something that may be a tad bit longer than yours.
 
I dont see why the fact that a person is older needed to be brought up in this conversation
 
I have a driver's license...in two states!
 
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