Green Lantern: Emerald Knights Review

 [Music] hi and welcome to the dynamic duel podcast the weekly show where we review superhero films and debate the superiority between marvel and dc by comparing their characters and stat based battle simulations i'm johnny dc and i'm his twin brother marvelous joe and as a tie into our last episode which was a duel between kilowog and beta ray bill this episode we are doing a review of the 2011 animated dc film green lantern emerald knights yeah it's one that i've never seen before it came out around the same time as the live-action green lantern film starring ryan reynolds yeah it did seem like there was supposed to be a sequel to this animated film but of course the poor reception to the live-action film kind of soured the studio on the character so it's unfortunate because i actually really did like this movie i really like this i liked it a lot more than i thought i would i also saw it for the first time this past week and we'll get into our thoughts on it later on in this episode before that we're gonna break down the comic book movie news from the past week including two trailers one for black widow and a new suicide squad trailer that's not red band they called it the rebellion trailer we're also going to talk about how venom has been pushed back once again is that film ever coming out i feel like we just did the story exactly and we're going to wrap up the news by talking about how new gods and the trench have been canceled at warner brothers as always we list our segment times in our episode description so feel free to check out the show notes if you want to skip ahead to a particular topic real quick if you guys have been listening to us for a while and you want to support the show there are a number of ways you can do that first off you can follow the show on instagram facebook or twitter and share it with your marvel and dc loving friends and family if you could follow or share us on instagram in particular that would be a huge help we're actually looking to get to 1 000 followers there at which point we have a big surprise for you guys yeah you could also help us out by rating us or reviewing us on your platform of choice including apple podcasts or podchaser.com and finally you can join us on patreon where you can chat with us on discord listen to blooper reel of the show every month as well as more awesome perks including the ability to become an executive producer of this show yeah thanks to everyone who lends us their support we truly appreciate everyone who has done that and everyone who will do that uh just a heads up be sure to go listen to the blast from our past podcast with hosts adam spees and john spees they're great friends of the show if you guys have listened to this show for a while you've probably heard us mention them before i did a guest spot with them where the three of us counted down our top 10 favorite marvel comic book story lines from all time it was a lot of fun recording with those guys and if you don't already follow the blast from our past podcast definitely do that because they have a great show yeah yeah they also have a top 10 dc stories episode um i was not a part of that um my feelings weren't hurt not not that much it's fine but yeah check them out and with that out of the way quick to the no prize a no prize is an award marvel used to give out up until the 90s to fans our version the dynamic duel no prize is a digital award that we post on social media that jonathan draws for those who we feel gave the best answer to our question of the week last week's question tied into the news that helen mirren was cast as an original character in the film shazam fury of gods so we asked who is your favorite original character to appear in a marvel or dc film that did not previously appear in the comics and the key word there was film because that was the question and we decided to give honorable mentions and the win to people who chose characters from films right original characters that were introduced in television shows could be an entirely different question that we'll probably ask later down the line at some point so before we announce the winner of this week's no prize we want to go through a few honorable mentions including this answer from jon spees hey guys john from blast from our past here i'm gonna go with the character of jared nomak from blade two blade two is my favorite of the trilogy and i really think that uh the characters that they created for that particular one were just really cool and interesting and in my opinion the most interesting out of any of the blade movie villains yeah i loved the reapers from blade 2. they were crazy disgusting yeah the way their jaws would open up and they'd have those like weird mutant fangs yeah nomak was a villain that was never from the comics he was introduced in that movie and he seemed particularly well fleshed out for an original character yeah yeah he had a lot of depth and the actor who played him gave a fantastic performance so really great answer and if you guys haven't listened to our review of blade 2 which we did a few years ago definitely check that out also check out the blast from our past podcast john spees is a co-host make sure you listen to them and also give them crap for not having me on the show our next honorable mention goes to michael hagerty who said hello guys michael hagerty here my answer for this question would have to be bob the goon from the batman 1989 film he was a one-hit wonder but he is forever in our hearts bob the goon deserved better now what do you know about this bob character he was particularly memorable in the 89 batman movie as the joker's right-hand man right but i i did hear a rumor that bob was like the best friend of jack nicholson or something that he just brought onto the movie yeah he was played by tracy walter he's an actor he's been in a few other projects but he was really good friends with jack nicholson and that's how he got the role okay yeah it was a memorable performance and i can't put my finger on why maybe it was because he was done such an injustice when the joker shot him it was just so shocking i don't know he was done dirty especially considering he was his number one guy throughout the whole movie exactly and then you know just so callous the way the joker shot him joker's just crazy like that our final honorable mention goes to travis bailey who said travis bailey long time listener loved the show all right so i'm gonna go with 89 punishers lady tanaka because i mean it's lady tanaka you don't take that one i'ma go with whistler from 1998's blade and if y'all acting funny yeah i don't take that one then i'm gonna go with louise from uh ant-man but yeah love the show keep it up now travis went for the shotgun approach with his answers here and that was a risky move but it played off for him well because all three of those were great answers in their own right but lady tanaka was the villain of the punisher 89 movie she was pretty fascinating i liked her character whistler was also a really great original character introduced by david goyer who wrote the script for blade and he was popular too like so popular they couldn't get rid of him in the blade franchise he had to keep coming back even though he died in the films yeah and they put him in the comics too for a bit and then luis of course everybody loves luis he gives the best exposition out of any character in the entire mcu yeah i'm not quite sure what phase marvel is in right now but if they ever want to do like recaps of their phases for people coming on board for the first time just have luis explain everything to them yeah the marvel legends show that's on disney plus should just be of luis exactly the stories that would be amazing luis's legends yes that'd be great now before we get into the no prize winner we want to thank everybody who reached out to us and took the time to leave us a voicemail on our website dynamicdull.com including marquis high ken johnson john swarovski zack hepburn and maggie madingian you guys all gave great answers some of you very hilarious answers but the winner of this week's no prize is tim brown a long time listener and he said tim brown here and my favorite character to appear in the films that previously was not in any comic is phil coulson he was a fun character they had a couple one shots at least with him in it that i thought were pretty cool and so he goes down as my choice of a character that was not previously in a comic but to first appear in a movie thanks and of course the ultimate original film character is phil coulson great answer phil was so beloved as the face of shield in the first iron man movie that they brought him back for iron man 2 and the avengers the agents of shield show after the avengers movie the guy just took his secondary original character status and just pushed it as far as it could possibly go yeah it was a role that spanned longer than a decade yeah that's insane when you think about it so great answer tim brown congratulations you win this week's no prize if you the listener want a shot at winning your own no prize stay tuned to later on this episode when we'll be asking another question of the week and now that that's done on to the news all right so in last week's episode we discussed that the black widow film will be coming out on july  on disney plus premiere access the film first got pushed back at the last moment and it had already pretty much run through its entire marketing campaign yeah so we haven't seen anything from this film since then and it was a pretty big shock to get a trailer this past week considering that we still have like three months to go before this movie comes out i was a little hesitant to watch this because i'm already sold on the movie from the last trailers they showed a lot of amazing clips in these previews and i didn't want to see more of the movie spoiled right luckily this trailer called the new trailer managed to circumvent a lot of that spoiler territory by showing us a lot of clips from the avengers movies yeah they sort of pulled like an avengers end game type marketing approach with this yeah just really nostalgia focused like they want to remind you everything that's happened with the characters so far yeah i think for a lot of marvel fans it works i think it totally does it did a good job of reminding us why we care about this character so much how we've grown with this character through the years since 2010 and how important she's been to a lot of these stories because out of sight out of mind you know you go a year without being reminded of black widow and you kind of forget you know what's going on there yeah exactly the trailer is pretty basic it hits a lot of the same beats as the previous trailers but we were fortunate enough to get a few new shots of natasha's andy lena's past yeah marvel is really fortunate in that they could sell a film to its fans while still being enigmatic because we've had how many trailers for this and i still really don't have a good idea of what the central conflict is or anything yeah it's a big mystery we know that the story involves the russian red room and taskmaster and natasha and yelena's former surrogate family it really appears from this trailer that they were embedded as a sleeper spy unit so they were acting as a family right yeah you got that same impression but elena and natasha were just girls at that time and yelena gives a kind of touching line in this preview where she's like it was real to me like that was her family they did choose a pretty spot-on look-alike actress for young natasha yeah so it looks like the film will be delving heavily into the themes of family and the old family compared to natasha's new family with the avengers and things like that yeah yeah she does call the avengers her family in this trailer we didn't see too much more of taskmaster but we did get this really cool action shot where he freaking ricochets an explosive arrow underneath natasha's escape vehicle that was badass that was one of the coolest trick shots that we've seen out of all the marvel movies and i really feel bad for hawkeye because he should be doing those type of trick shots like non-stop so the fact that they gave probably the most impressive trick shot to task master is a little disappointing i'm sure hawkeye will have plenty of time to shine in his own television series he better that's all i'm saying ross what square up what i don't know oh my god we're dumb but anyway it was really interesting how that ricochet shot exploded black widow's car so high that she ended up in the sky like skydiving that was a great cut actually it was an interesting transition it did kind of have a bit of a spoiler and that you saw black widow snatch a parachute so now we know how she survives that whole fall perhaps i mean she does lose it at some point so i think that the whole midair struggle will be between her and taskmaster not only trying to kill each other but also trying to get that parachute i think it's gonna be an amazing action scene it should be it's been teased in every single trailer yeah at the end of this preview we got this cool new black widow title card with this like russian choir singing the avengers theme in the background that was pretty cool they did play the avengers theme heavily throughout this trailer but i really like the black widow theme yeah where it sounds like a guitar slide almost yes yeah i want to hear more of that but again this trailer's job was to remind you hey remember the avengers she is a part of them check this movie out yeah and we will yeah i mean we'll all see black widow but i think the movie we're really looking forward to is the suicide squad because this new trailer so good totally sold me why do we need another new trailer is what i'm wondering didn't we just get a trailer and why this one why is it so different this is like two trailers at once they're gonna shoot all their shots before the movie comes out well this was the theatrical trailer this is the one that came before godzilla versus kong in theaters because they can't show the red band trailer before that it's not rated r yeah but they could do an edited version of the redband trailer that trailer wasn't as well received as it was on this podcast so i'm not surprised they went with an alternate version as much as i liked that last trailer because of all like the witty james gun dialogue this trailer which they're calling the rebellion trailer had a lot more action and i really think that's gonna help sell the film it starts off with black guard and javelin in some kind of plane and we see harley quinn with him which is actually the first time we see harley quinn with these two characters because typically when you see blackguard and javelin they're with savant and captain boomerang tdk and stuff like that they're not with peacemaker or rat catcher or polkadot man or that small team so it's almost like there are two teams yeah yeah i feel like the first team like dies pretty early on that's just a guess and the other team has to go in to clean up their mess or rescue them or something like that all in all that's what you want though because this is the suicide squad and these characters are supposed to be disposable there's a voice over early on in the trailer i'm not sure who it's coming from i think it might be the thinker but he's essentially calling out the suicide squad team members as being a joke a punch line you know they're just being used by amanda waller and he says all it would take is one you know active rebellion to regain their honor essentially i wonder if this is like a telepathic message that he's delivering to one specific team member it may well be like he's trying to sew discord among the group yeah he's trying to start a rebellion perhaps the voice over happens during like a really cool shot where there's slo-mo walking in the rain and that was a nice juxtaposition with what we see next which is them like cleaning tables and stuff like that what were those little creatures that were swimming in the aquarium that king shark is looking at i was wondering the same thing like are they aliens is this what starro comes from does this like south american dictator grow aliens in his aquarium or something like that i have no idea they look really cool though and i think that angle sort of makes king shark a really viable asset for the team considering that these are underwater creatures the vibe of this trailer is a little bit like quentin tarantino which it should be which is awesome i think in part because it has like a western musical track to it this time and again there's just a ton of action it looks great it seems like we get a lot more character shots from polka dot man throwing his polka dots to rat catcher using that like little acceptor thing she has to summon rats we get to see captain boomerang throw a boomerang right right finally it looks real shiny and it looks like it's gonna go into someone's head we didn't get any of that in the first film james gunn knows how to use these characters better and it's evident just from these trailers there's a joke in this trailer from john cena's peacemaker about how he's willing to kill any man woman and child for peace i did like it more than the whole eating dicks on a beach joke that they had from the last one yeah this one explained the character a little bit more exactly and i love seeing tdk who is pretty evidently the detachable kid by this point i love seeing his display powers and harley quinn's reaction to it it was just like what the f and then they cut her i don't get what i'm looking at when i see his powers he can detach his limbs but only barely so and he still has control over them so what does that do does that give him like just extra reach while he punches things or what i was under the impression that they could go a lot farther like he could just control his arm sailing through the air kind of thing okay i could be wrong interesting the trailer ends with bloodsport you know firing off some ramps from like this really high-tech looking spinning gun and that was unique like i don't see deadshot doing that although i hope he misses and harley goes geez you really aren't dead shot or something like that yeah i really do like his gun it seems very futuristic very high tech with some kind of weird weapons technology yeah again anything they could do to separate him from the deadshot character the better i think yeah all in all this trailer has me much more pumped for the film than the previous one i think they honestly should have just released this one because of the better character moments yeah exactly i don't know i think i still kind of preferred the red band trailer honestly really yeah because i think it was actually true we're in tone to what we're actually gonna get that may be true and i would still enjoy that and that brings us to our question of the week we want to know which trailer from the suicide squad film did you prefer redband or rebellion trailer and why record your answer at dynamicduel.com by clicking on the red microphone button in the bottom right hand corner which will prompt you to leave us a voicemail your message can be up to 30 seconds long and don't forget to leave your name in case we include you on the podcast we'll pick our favorite answer and draw that person at dynamic duel no prize that we'll post to social media be sure to answer before april 12th in other marvel news we learned that venom has been pushed back yet again this time by only one week and i have no idea why but it's been moved from september 17th to september  this thing is getting more release dates than wonder woman 1984. i know right it's strange because the only competition it had on the previous day was the boss baby sequel which i think was prime counter programming to that yeah i imagine very little demographic overlap between those two films right exactly and now with its new release date dune just comes out a week later on september 31st really that was a horrible decision why did they push this film i don't know because a week after that the new james bond movie comes out after that so those two films are just going to cannibalize venom's audience i feel like it's a horrible decision i can't figure out why they did it maybe it was to put some distance between it and the chongqi movie that marvel's putting out just a few weeks prior that could be it maybe marvel asked them to do it i mean it's possible who knows i think studios really just put the films out you know if godzilla versus kong's success recently has been any indicator i think a lot of people are eager for new content yeah they just want to see movies you know i guess it's hard because sony doesn't have its own platform to release these films on right so they have to do it in theaters so they have to be a little bit more careful i don't think sony's gonna last much longer as a studio really well that's a bold statement well because they don't have their own streaming service sony does kind of have its own streaming service in the playstation network what if this film became like a playstation exclusive as along with theaters would that make you buy a playstation no i would not buy a playstation just to see this movie i mean sony does own blu-ray so if they really wanted to make a lot of money they would just make all their new releases direct to video wait sony owns blu-ray yes what that's huge i did not know that releasing the movie straight to blu-ray may like violate some contracts and things like that but i do think that's the biggest card that sony has in their hand and that's probably the biggest reason why they haven't even tried to approach streaming is because streaming would kill blu-ray right exactly but i am still really looking forward to this movie the thing that intrigues me the most is seeing andy circus's direction yeah yeah i hope you get a new trailer for this soon yeah we should probably be getting it within the next few months or so in our last bit of news dc films has shelved eva duvernay's new gods filmed along with james wands the trench and i'm like thank god yeah more so about the trench than the new gods film but i know that audiences kind of soured on ava duvernay after her wrinkle in time movie yeah i was a big fan of a wrinkle in time the book when i was a kid i didn't really care for her adaptation of it and so i really wasn't looking forward to her take on the new gods personally everyone on twitter apparently though thought that this film somehow tied into zack snyder's justice league so they were up in arms but it didn't though no no it wasn't i think there was just some confusion with us seeing the new gods characters so recently in zack snyder's justice league yeah i think that was one of the reasons why they left those characters out of the theatrical cut so that ava duvernay had the freedom to do whatever she wanted within her own film at the time but i could see why people would be upset if they wanted to see zack snyder's version of darkseid in subsequent films right and there's no saying that his version of darkseid would have been ava's dark side in fact i'm pretty sure they would have been very different i was intrigued about that project when they announced that tom king would be writing it with her because i was a really big fan of his run on mr miracle that is a fantastic eisner award-winning comic book but the new gods themselves are kind of a hard pill to swallow they're very unique characters and i think the best introduction you could have had for them is through exactly what zack snyder did with darkseid yeah set him up in a previous movie and then explore that later i've seen a ton of hate for warner brothers online because of this move but again i think it was the right call to make especially regarding the trench because no one asked for that as talented as james wan is and as great as aquaman was you didn't need to make a film based on such minor characters from the comic and the movie they were in the movie for like not even five minutes i think so why give them a feature-length film yeah yeah you want to make movies that people are excited to see you hear that warner brothers do that we want a new man of steel film we want ben affleck's batman film we want zack snyder's wonder woman we want a new justice league film we want a justice league dark film green lantern corps throw that on there there's so many other things we want before the trench so good job mixing that project they finally made a good decision for once but that is true though this was the right call do you have more faith in wb's decisions now that they've done things like released the snyder cut and announced the blue beetle movie and brought on jj abrams is this the best time to be a dc fan i think i'm excited for most things coming up except for maybe the superman reboot but i could be wrong again i was wrong about the joker so we'll see and it's always the best time to be a dc fan eh what are you talking about i don't know i don't know about that but i think that does it for all the news for this episode so let's go ahead and get into our main event where we review the 2011 animated dc film green lantern emerald knights [Music] okay green lantern emerald knights is a  animated quasi-successor to 2009's animated film green lantern first flight now emerald knights isn't so much a sequel to that as an in between but you don't need to have seen first flight to appreciate this film because emerald knights does a pretty good job of going into the mythology of the green lantern corps so emerald tonight's was in between first flight and what the end of first flight oh what yeah because by the end of first flight sinestro has already become a yellow lantern okay so the emerald knights animated film takes place within the same continuity as the first flight animated film but also during the events of that film itself it seems that way because they use the same character designs but the voice cast was different really yeah i don't know what it is all i know is that it was really good and i liked it i watched this film for the first time this past week and i was pleasantly surprised i wouldn't call it an anthology but it is anthological in that the film is a collection of framed stories within an overarching narrative which i loved i thought that was really cool i was not expecting that i knew that the movie was going to touch upon other green lantern characters within the core outside of hal jordan and i knew that we'd get to learn about like kilowog and mogo and things like that but i didn't know that it was going to feel somewhat like a dc showcase film yeah yeah and i love those yes we've reviewed past dc showcase films which is a collection of short films before on this podcast including superman shazam the return of black adam and batman a death in the family those are really fun they're great and so is this film especially if you're a fan of the green lantern corps oh yeah if you like green lantern as a character this is such an enjoyable experience because it puts green lantern in the setting that he works the best i think for films which is in space put the [ __ ] character in space exactly yeah and keep him there and show us freaking green lanterns doing a bunch of crazy [ __ ] against giant spaceships and things like that that's what i want to see from a green lantern film exactly and green lantern he's kind of an obscure character i mean i know he's had his own film and everything by now but a lot of people i feel like don't know what the core is and i was fortunate enough to watch this film with people who weren't as familiar with the green lantern corps as i was and they really liked it you know the green lantern corps is a collection of thousands of aliens from across the universe each with its own unique history and it's fascinating to experience some of those stories in this film so don't spoil it for yourself if you haven't seen the movie yet i definitely recommend watching it the film is pretty simple but it has great animation great action and great lessons it's definitely in the top three dc animated films for me personally yeah and it's easy to watch if you have hbo max so if you have that definitely check that out if you haven't already before you listen to this review because it's a spoiler review right so longtime listeners of this show will know that i wasn't always a dc fan i used to be a marvel fan i call those the good old days i call those the dark ages before i saw the light now i knew about characters like superman batman wonder woman and the flash but i didn't realize that they were part of a dc brand i had never known of a character named green lantern until i first started reading dc comics and even then it took me a while to learn about the green lantern core because it wasn't really around in the mid 90s to early 2000s back when i started reading dc comics there was only one green lantern and that was kyle rainer yeah because oh had been destroyed by that point exactly it wasn't until i started reading some of the older comics and especially during the green lantern rebirth storyline that i began getting really interested in the green lantern corps and its broadcast of unique characters to read a green lantern story is to literally explore the universe of dc and experience all the interesting life throughout it and the mythology and history of green lantern feels so much bigger than any of the other dc characters and i think this film emerald knights is a great introduction to that mythology you know you get to learn about the guardians of the universe the first green lanterns about owa about lantern training and about some of the core's more prominent members including hal jordan the green lantern of earth's sector 2814 but also sinestro kilowag lyra mogo and more all through the lens of a young new green lantern recruit named ariza i mentioned her briefly in our last episode though i think i pronounced her name erisia i also called mogo mojo so i've obviously been reading these names wrong the whole time i mean it's alien pronunciations it could be difficult now rija was voiced by elizabeth moss who by the time this film came out had started receiving accolades for her work in mad men so this was a good get and she did a great job in the role portraying ariza's innocence and quote unquote greenness as it were in the film arija has only been a member of the green lantern corps for a few days studying under hal jordan during that time when an ancient adversary of the guardians named krona slowly begins to re-emerge from the anti-matter universe through the owens sun the very center of the dc universe and as the guardians prepared oh for an apocalypse the lanterns are tasked with monitoring the sun for further signs of crona and during this preparation hal jordan who was voiced by nathan fillion recounts several stories of other green lanterns to euresia nathan fillion to me essentially is hal jordan his voice is just perfect for the character cocky but not too serious i wish he'd play a live-action version of the character but i guess that's probably no longer an option now that he'll be the detachable kid in the suicide squad film yeah cool but also feels like a missed opportunity i don't know in emerald nights hell's stories are parables each with their own lesson for euresia the stories don't really tie into the greater plot and the lessons don't aid arisa and the final act in any kind of obvious way but the stories themselves are still interesting and somewhat timeless thematically absolutely there's kind of like a big thematic lesson to be learned within each tale and i appreciated each one for being not only interesting but also heartfelt and also full of action it's always great to see a green lantern in action it's so unlike any other hero out there what i specifically like most about this though is that while this movie portrayed green lanterns as very powerful beings they weren't all powerful they were also still vulnerable in many ways so like potentially in theory a green lantern could have like god level power but that never really plays out in practice yeah they're not gods they're still like flawed alien creatures that are learning the same lessons that regis is learning by hearing these stories now hell tells arija the first story as they wait in line to charge their power rings on oh essential power battery in preparation for corona and his army of shadow demons the whole situation is a bit overwhelming for aurisha and she has a moment of self doubt wondering why her ring chose someone like her in response hell recites to her a passage from the core's sacred text the book of owa about confidence and courage he tells the story of avrah the first green lantern who initially was the lowly scribe of the guardians when they built the first power rings that was a cool little scene i was not expecting that they have some amazing character design in this movie they do yeah the aliens it's always fascinating to see how creative they could get with these alien designs yeah something that just looks so non-humanoid but ava was slightly humanoid he was kind of a cute little design something meek that you wouldn't expect to wield awesome power right with the green lantern ring but you know he was able to wield unlike any of the other warriors that got the first strings exactly yeah after being chosen as one of the first four beings to bear a ring avro was thrust into the middle of an intergalactic war and the enemy aliens were dominators right yeah yeah that's what they looked like that was pretty cool yeah after one of the first four green lanterns died in battle the others hid and wanted to retreat because they didn't trust that the rings the guardians gave them were capable of getting them through their mission alive but despite avraha not being as war savvy as the other warriors since this was his first battle ever had faith in the guardians and trusted that they could channel their willpower from their rings to will themselves into surviving and overcoming the odds it was such a great moment underdog moments like that get me choked up in films every time it never fails yeah same here i was like you go little guy believe in yourself right right i wanted him to succeed and not only did he succeed he [ __ ] kicked ass dude when he first manifested the sword the very first green lantern construct and the way he just like grew it to chop an entire spaceship in half that was hardcore classic iconic green lantern moment for sure for sure and the whole moment carried a great lesson in that when we fear the unknown courage itself is a form of faith whether in ourselves or our tools like a green lantern ring so that we can face the unknown and yeah the inexperienced abra did rise to the occasion then he and those other lanterns straight up murdered those other spaceships like it was nothing yeah i really like how he led by example and the other two lanterns started creating constructs as well but every lantern creates constructs in their own way it's like art everybody paints with their own unique style avra was very object oriented the weird squishy jelly pillow alien she was making these like weird drill constructs and then you had like the ox looking guy he shut out this like very kind of abstract dragon like form yeah exactly evers were really simple the purple pillow was like really intricate and the ox guys it was almost like a weird kind of sketch yeah and i loved the depictions of the constructs in the film hal explained how more power rings were made and how avrah helped train others in creating energy constructs they did a brief montage showing how average ring was passed down from lantern to lantern and it looks like hell is his direct successor which was pretty cool and it's a nice way of showing newcomers a glimpse of when hal got his first ring you almost don't need to see first flight to appreciate this film yeah i think what this movie did a good job of showing is that every lantern has a story sure hal jordan has his own origin story but it's not necessarily any more or less interesting than all the other green lanterns out there exactly yeah just because he's human and the others are aliens doesn't mean he's any more special or unique than the others as hal finishes his first story ariza runs into kilawog the cora's drill sergeant who manages their boot camp kilawog was voiced by henry rowlands the lead singer for black flag who did a good job here though i'd say i prefer michael matson's voice in first flight yeah kilowog's voice here was a little bit too normal sounding i think it could have used some kind of like monster effect or sounded deeper or something like that i think michael madsen could totally play a live-action version of kilawog i mean michael clark duncan did a pretty good job with his voice in in the ryan reynolds film but i really liked michael matson's performance previously now rija is intimidated by kilowog's gruff look and demeanor but as she and hell fly off to a solar watchtower hell tells her a story about kilawock thematically this story was mostly about not rushing into judgment of others as kilowog had to learn the same lesson during his green lantern training as well if you remember my profile on kilowog in our last episode you probably recognized that this story came almost entirely from the comic pages though they changed kilowog's sergeant's name from herme to deegan in this movie and deegan was an ugly [ __ ] yeah yeah he looked like an angry version of one of those mexican hairless dogs with like the massive underbite yeah that combined with like a hard-boiled egg yeah that's okay that works deegan insulted kilowog and the other trainees by calling them posers and putting them through these impossible and dangerous training exercises they were pretty ridiculous but that was kind of the point because another theme of this story was about testing your limits and recognizing that you can push yourself farther than you realize it's about finding out who you are when you're pushed that far as a green lantern you know these guys go through the worst that the universe has to throw at him and they have to be ready for that so even though it seemed like deegan was being a hard ass it all served a purpose and he basically told him that he was like i don't have to explain myself to you maybe if you grow old in this core you'll understand why i'm doing this that being said growing gold in the core is a privilege right because so a few lanterns get to grow old yeah mortality played a huge role within all the stories and the overarching narrative the fact that the rings always choose their successor when one lantern falls another one will rise it's kind of poignant and sad knowing that once you get that ring your destiny is to die yeah your life is no longer your own that's explicitly what deegan says you're in service to the civilians of the universe you die so that they don't have to it's crazy it means so much to be a lantern and a soldier in general i think yeah whether in the real world or in the fictional world of dc universe there are people who die for you and it's a really sobering thing to think about absolutely nikilog proves himself to be the most capable within deegan's trials but eventually he gets sick of it and stands up to deegan when the two come to blows it's another example of how you shouldn't judge a book by its cover because even though kilowog is clearly the more physically imposing lantern and got a few good blows in deacon basically kicked his ass yeah it's kind of funny he was wiry for sure i think kilowaga and deegan surprised each other in a way when deegan got the distress call and gave the other recruits their rings but dropped kilowogs before he could grab it i was like damn that was cold-blooded totally from his character design to the way he was written you're clearly not supposed to like deegan which is what makes his sacrifice so interesting because he was clearly a lantern of honor and duty and that's respectable oh yeah i definitely felt for him when he was about to die you know he scolded them earlier and told them that their lives were not their own he lived by that too he absolutely was not like a hypocrite and that's what inspired kilawock to tackle the same situation that got deegan killed albeit he was a little bit more creative about it in generating what i think was a massive emp energy blast i will totally admit sometimes it could be a little frustrating reading or watching a green lantern story because it's really easy to yell at the characters and be like no ugh you should have created this construct instead yeah but that's also part of the fun because sometimes writers come up with far more creative and impressive solutions than you could have come up with too yeah in that sense green lantern stories sometimes feel a little deus ex machina-e because it's like well why didn't deegan just do the emp nuclear explosion thing that killawak did you know he wasn't creative enough i guess i guess but it always just seems like the constructs just serviced the story you could argue that but i think you could also again argue that these characters are their own beings and sometimes they're not going to come up with the right solution and again that's part of why the green lantern's power can be so interesting it seems to me like the best green lanterns would be the ones that were best at improvisation yeah totally i think that's a big part of it i was really touched by deegan's death and the heart to heart that he had with kilowog telling him like you know i was never gonna let you guys get hurt you could tell that they both actually cared for each other yeah yeah deegan was clearly impressed with kilowog you know he even drew that green lantern symbol on kilowog's chest in his own blood right his own blood so moving it's kind of like the disney pixar shorts it's amazing at how much your emotions can be manipulated in such a short time span like think of like the opening to up or something like oh yeah totally barely knew deegan yeah and like towards the end i was like oh god hold on deegan stay away from the light yeah the act of him drawing on the green lantern symbol it made kilawog a true green lantern with the authority to take charge and he's sort of been in charge ever since adopting deegan's gruff demeter and you know calling everyone posers and stuff like that it was nice to see deegan's legacy continue in kiliwog now eurasia and hal make it to one of the solar watch towers where they meet some of the other core members including the enigmatic lyra who explains to aurija that to be a lantern is to face the unknown though she warns that facing the familiar can be even more harrowing now lyra was voiced by kelly who who's done a lot of work for dc's animated films most recently as lady shiva in batman soul of the dragon and she does great work she's probably most famous though for playing lady deathstrike in the second x-men movie oh yeah she's great in everything she does i didn't really like the lyric character though when we first saw her i was like okay who's this chick just acting all mysterious and stuff it's like that seems unnecessary but then through the story you actually get to know her and see where she's coming from and it made a lot more sense her story was actually probably my most favorite it's either this one or kilowog story i think but they're both great yeah they're both really good lyra's lesson is explicitly one of preparedness and expecting the unexpected which is fitting considering they're in a watchtower preparing for doomsday thematically however the story hell tells of lyra is also one of honor now the story begins with lyra's first trip back to her sector after her training as a green lantern through the course of the story we learned that she's royalty the princess of an empire known as the golden dragon that doesn't recognize the authority of the green lantern corps that in itself sets up a really interesting conflict and harkens to the sayings about a prophet not being appreciated in their own land when someone you grew up with turns out to almost randomly become this great and authoritative figure you're going to be a little skeptical but not only does lyra run into that but her story also has this pretty fascinating and complex conflict regarding the politics and dysfunction of her royal family lyra was sent to her homeworld jade on a mission from the guardians to quell the unprovoked attacks by the golden dragon there on another race of aliens the kundians and amidst their floating corpses in space lyra meets her stepmother ryu lyra basically calls her stepmother a floozy and ryu says lyra's dead mother was weak and the two battle those are some fighting words yeah on both of their accounts i thought so too i liked their whole dialogue about how ryu said that lyra had no honor for going against her family in the golden dragon and lyra was like like you even know what honor is i'm a green lantern i will cut a [ __ ] exactly and then she does she totally does yeah i really like that fight i really like the aesthetic of the golden dragon people it's almost like a very ancient chinese look but futuristic yeah and you get to see more of it when they actually like crash land on the planet after lyra proves to be the victor in the battle against her stepmother yeah and then she fights with her brother that was actually a really cool fight i really like what lyra chooses to manifest with her constructs in that they're all weapons because that's her background exactly yeah she's trained with all the weapons of the golden dragon and she's really good with them too yeah she like had this like long broad halberd axe kind of thing that she like to turn into a hammer to slam her brother down back to the ground when they're up in the air it was really cool i liked the animation on this so much yeah the fighting in this story is so epic it's probably among the best fight scenes i've ever seen in animation and that includes soul of the dragon the fight between her and her brother or her and her father both honestly but i guess the fight between her and her father lasted longer so yeah yeah after the fight with her brother lyra finds her father cantor sitting in her old bedroom with kinter holding his daughter's doll and based on all the holograms of happy memories we see it seems like lyra and her father had a good relationship and they deeply cared for one another one of my favorite parts of the entire film and one of the more tragic parts was the juxtaposition of those happy moments in the holograms with the battle going on behind them between lyra and her father yeah where they're trying to kill each other yeah it just showed how horrible everything had deteriorated on jade and how far apart the two had grown since being away from each other and their fight actually was my favorite that may be i think the best one-on-one fight scene in any dc animated film it was so fluid and well choreographed and the way the camera moved with them without cutting yeah i wish something like that could be replicated in live action i've yet to see it well characters can always pull off more impressive feats when they're animated because they're not beholden to things like gravity you know physics and physics but it was really impressive for sure ultimately cantor's behavior was shown to be motivated by humiliation and jealousy and he felt like he lost his honor when he was defeated by the kundians in the past and he felt cheated out of the green lantern ring that ended up going to his daughter when kantor ran lyra through with his spear and stole her ring he was shown how lyra really was holding back this whole time and that he wasn't any kind of a match for her yeah because she just blasted off his armor using the ring that was on his hand right and she just wiped the floor with him yeah kenzra thought he knew his daughter but he realized upon his defeat that she was much more than he realized shamed he commits seppaku and dies in her arms expressing his pride and how lyra could be a greater protector of their people than he ever could do you think that he would have had that change of heart if he didn't just get his ass kicked though no no he wouldn't have no absolutely not kind of a [ __ ] and yet that last moment was a really kind of touching and unexpected moment like when kantor picked up his spear tip i totally thought he was going to stab lyra with it but instead he just ran it through himself i think he was a coward i think he couldn't live with the fact that he just got beaten by his daughter and even though he respected her for it it was still out of pride in a way he was kind of doing her job you know she was sent there to take care of him and he did it for her maybe because of how proud he was maybe because he was a coward it's complex it's complicated and i think that's part of what makes it so interesting yeah definitely as lyra cried holding her father you can see that she learned the same lesson she gave aurisia that surprise can come from anywhere and as a lantern arija will face surprises as we all will in life say la vie more and more lanterns begin arriving at the watchtowers surrounding the sun as they prepare for armageddon it's explained that every lantern from across the universe has been called in to help everyone except for mogo as he doesn't quote unquote socialize ariza doesn't know who mogo is so as they leave the watchtower to take a closer patrol near the sun hell tells her the story of a warrior named bulfunga the unrelenting who wanted to prove he was the greatest warrior in the galaxy after defeating anyone who would fight him bulfunga learns of a green lantern named mogo who was undefeated bolfanga travels to the planet where mogo was supposed to be searching for months only to learn the hard way that mogo was the planet that's right there is a green lantern that is a living planet the planet is a living organism into itself kind of like ego from the marvel universe exactly yeah and he wields a power ring the story was kind of a gag but it was good especially if you're clued into the punchline beforehand the story was almost beat for b a story from the comics that was written by alan moore who's the creator of mogo the whole thing is a lesson in humility but also again like the previous stories about being prepared for the unexpected this was actually my least favorite story primarily because it went on a little bit too long especially if you already knew that mogo was a planet you were just like okay get to it get to bullfunga's discovery already yeah i could see that it probably could have been trimmed down a bit are we gonna get ego and mogo in a fight here sometime yes i want to see that fight as hell finishes the story a squadron of shadow demons attack the corps fights back and sinestro saves arija from a shadow demon with a giant exploding bullet the explosion it causes knocks lyra unconscious and she awakens in a med bay with sinestro watching over her can i just say that the shadow demons were scary as hell because they were anti-matter they would immediately dissolve anything that they came into contact with and they themselves would dissolve they were like kamikazes oh yeah but like when they would touch the green lantern constructs they would just dissolve the constructs so the green lanterns couldn't really protect themselves and when they touched the green lanterns they would just get dismembered it was horrific yeah the opening scene when you saw that green lantern get dismembered except for like her hand i was like holy [ __ ] that's crazy yeah seeing what a small group of anti-matter demons could do death really raises the stakes yeah these lanterns could legit die which kind of ties into the whole mortality theme of the entire story these characters are facing their deaths now going back to sinestro he was voiced by jason isaacs probably best known for his role as lucius malfoy in the harry potter series now mark strong played a good sinestro in the live-action green lantern film but i've always thought that if they were to reboot the live-action franchise which they are on hbo max jason isaacs would totally make a good sinestro well i kind of want him to be the new professor x though in the marvel x-men reboot not too bad he's mine he has a long history of working for warner brothers he was in the electra film oh he was in the emerald nights film with all the kiosks going on sinestro remembers his friend hal jordan's predecessor abin sur and his belief in the prophecies from the book of oahu about krona's return and owa's destruction sinestro then tells arija about the time he saved eben sure from a prophetic terrorist and fugitive named atrocitus after atrocitus defeat sinestro reveals to aben that atrocitus is mentioned in the book of owa eben and sinestro debate over whether destiny was a real thing essentially discussing fate versus free will the former of which sinestro does not believe in though admin does it was an interesting discussion that kind of ended in agree to disagree yeah yeah essentially it was a little bit weak uh but this whole story in general was not one of my favorites i don't think yeah same here now ebon returns atrocitus to the hellish prison planet of yasmalt where atrocities prophesied to abhin about abbin's death and sinestro's future betrayal of the core evan unable to accept that his friend sinestro would ever betray the green lanterns dismisses atrocitus's warnings when original points out that admin died the way atrocities foretold sinestro and his story with an ominous lesson about how everyone dies just before the big final fight now why would sinestro tell ariza a story about his own future betrayal that doesn't seem smart it doesn't it's like hey guys did you hear that one story about how i'm gonna betray all of you and kill you guys yeah it's weird who would do that it's like okay cool story bro give me your ring this story doesn't provide any meaningful lesson for aurejia or contribute to the larger narrative other than alluding to sinestro's arc and teasing how the animated green lantern franchise could explore the sinestro core war and blackest knight storylines in a future sequels that ultimately never happened yeah that last story was definitely trying to set up a green lantern franchise and could have been removed from the film and i think would have actually made the film almost perfect yeah i i think that's a fair criticism the film ends with a giant corona emerging from the sun with legions upon legions of shadow demons it was a great final fight i think so many green lanterns died despite kronos being a villain with not too much setup except for like some exposition that the guardians gave at the beginning he was still a formidable and imposing figure now krona is a guardian though he didn't look like a guardian in this movie no he didn't which was a weird change for the film to make he does look sort of like what he looks like in this film in the comic but i think that they should have established him as a guardian made him look a little bit more like that i forgive it because he looked badass yeah he had a cool look to him for sure with the green lanterns unable to withstand krona's attacks the corps retreated to owa with a plan for marija to collide the evacuated planet with krona's anti-matter form destroying both the entire core including mogo manages to fend off the shadow demons and defeat krona after which they set up a new base on mogo and arija is honored with her own story written in the book of owa about how a rookie like her had the ingenuity to defeat the greatest threat the core had ever faced in a way that sinestro comments on actually fulfilled the prophecy of owe's destruction teaching him as it were to expect the unexpected and and that destiny might be in fact real which means he knew about his betrayal the whole time i was like i'm gonna do it now oh [ __ ] i really love how this ending scene emphasized how the core's greatest strength is in its diversity between eurisia and mogo the core is always able to succeed as a unit because everybody brings something unique to the table yeah it was a great message for a great film overall though the narrative of this film was a bit unconventional i actually liked it for that very reason yeah definitely like i went in expecting to get one story but instead i got like six yeah yeah and getting to explore all of the fascinating stories behind some of those core members was really cool and i really hope this anthological approach is adopted by the upcoming live-action green lantern television series for hbo max that would be so cool like i want an anthology green lantern series where every episode we get to visit a new green lantern and see their adventures on a new planet in space yeah and maybe like all of it can lead up to like one larger overarching story like this too it can almost be like the foundation trilogy if any of our listeners are familiar with that you know it just tells a bunch of different separate stories that all kind of like piece together towards the end that would be ideal yeah for sure not only was the animation here some of the best dc has ever produced but the action was also exemplary and the themes and stories were really touching i think this film would appeal to anyone personally not just green lantern fans but especially them and honestly it's hard to imagine a more perfect green lantern film so i'm giving this four and a half stars yeah i think it's just shy of a five-star film because some of the stories aren't as relevant as the others but yeah this movie has everything you would want to see as a green lantern fan and it really serves to highlight what makes the character so special i'm actually kind of surprised we're giving it this hybrid rating considering when this film came out critics didn't really care for it but i'm gonna chalk that up to again them just being sour on green lantern as a character in general because of the live-action film because this film was great and yeah maybe it did catch a few people off guard with its narrative structure true yeah but to me that was a non-issue yeah i mean this came out before anthologies were kind of becoming more popular with like black mirror and american horror story so maybe if it came out today people would like it more but that does it for this review let us know what you thought about the movie by writing to us at dynamicduelpodcast gmail.com or by visiting us on facebook instagram or twitter you can find links to all of our accounts by visiting our website dynamicduel.com and on our site you can also find links to all of our social media accounts including our instagram account which you guys should check out because you can see jonathan's no prize drawings there and you can get updates on what episodes are upcoming and stuff like that in our next episode we will be reviewing the mcu film iron man 2 which is a lead up to the duel episode that will follow between rick flagg and nick fury yeah it's gonna be rick versus nick and that is gonna lead up into our 225th episode actually 226 because we're gonna review falcon in the winter soldier after that and then we're gonna do suicide squad versus the defenders it's going to be a big team duel match up kind of like our jsa versus fantastic four x-men versus titans and justice league versus avengers episodes so look forward to that we have some great episodes coming down the pike for you guys we want to remind everyone again to please subscribe to our show if you haven't or please leave us a rating or review on your platform of choice again sharing this show on social media or in person is also a big help for us but that does it for this episode we want to give a big thanks to our executive producers ken johnson jace krump john straurowski john spees zachary hepburn and john betchinina for helping make this podcast possible and we'll talk to you guys next week up up and away true believers you