Green Lantern!

I'm a huge Green Lantern fan. At the same time, I've been frustrated by DC's handling of the concept for years. The Silver Age Green Lantern revamp was co-created by science fiction legend Alfred Bester and used E.E. "Doc" Smith's Lensmen series as a touchstone. Green Lantern is pure, intergalactic space adventure, yet DC and the writers given the assignment have time and again reverted to an Earthbound super-hero default. They've even destroyed the Green Lantern Corps on more than one occasion, which undermines a huge part of the character's identity and core concept. I've wished on more than one occasion that DC would assign the ongoing series to a veteran SF author. It doesn't even have to be me.

Which makes the fan trailer below all the more fun. This thing is amazing. The guy who did it relied mostly on creative editing of existing film clips, coupled with some creative use of CGI to create a non-existent movie I'm dying to see. Instead of making the Green Lantern universe smaller--which Hollywood adaptations invariably seem to do--he does a fantastic job of conveying the sprawling enormity of the Green Lantern milieu. We've got the blue Guardians of Oa, the Central Power Battery, Abin Sur, Kilowog, Tomar-Re and Sinestro... Wow! The list goes on and on! This person really, really knows his Green Lantern lore. Using Nathan Fillion for Hal Jordan is inspired, and shows just how perfect he'd be if cast as test pilot Hal Jordan (not that this will happen, as studios have already said they want someone younger for the role. Grr.). Watch and be amazed.



To put the awesomeness on this trailer in context, my daughters--Monkey Girl and Fairy Girl--both got excited when they saw it, and asked when the movie was coming out. Ten-year-old Monkey Girl was downright indignant when I told her it wasn't a real movie, and that Warner Brothers was making an entirely different GL film to come out in 2011. She pointed at the screen and said, "I don't want to see a different film. I want to see that film!" Even The Wife, who normally seizes every opportunity to mock my love of comics, was suitably impressed. "Hey, that's Captain Mal. He's make a good Green Lantern," she said. "Ha ha! There's a squirrel!" I informed her that the squirrel in question of Ch'p of H'lven, Green Lantern of sector 1014. "You're serious? They have a squirrel Green Lantern? They need to make this movie!"

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