Green Lantern: First Flight Review

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This is a DynaMic Network podcast.

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Dynamic duel Podcast, a weekly show where we review superhero films and debate the superiority between Marvel and DC by comparing their characters in stat-based battle simulations. I'm Johnny DC. And I'm his twin brother, Marvelous Joe. And in this episode, we were supposed to be reviewing Hulk vs. but Marvel sucks and that's impossible to find on any streaming platform. So we're changing it up. Instead, we will be doing a review of Green Lantern.

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first flight a probably superior film even though I've never seen Hulk vs. Well, yeah, I was so surprised that I couldn't find Hulk vs. anywhere to stream that wasn't like a skeezy torrent or streaming site. You know, the only way you can watch Hulk vs. right now legally is by buying the Blu-ray or DVD, which I'm not going to do because I no longer have a Blu-ray or DVD player streaming all the way. Same here, but that's probably toward detriment in cases like this. But it's also not like, you know,

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The Hulk vs DVD is easy to buy, you just can't go to a store, you have to like order it from Amazon or something and have it delivered. I guarantee you it's in the DVD bin of my local Dollar General. I guarantee you, no one cares that much about it. Our executive producers cared, but I think Green Lantern First Flight is an appropriate substitute considering next week's episode is going to be Juggernaut vs Atrocitus. Atrocitus is a Green Lantern villain, so this episode ties into that. Yeah, that's going to be a fun episode.

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This film is actually pretty fun and we'll talk all about it later on in this episode. Before that we're gonna break down the comic comic movie news from the past week of which it's all DC news because Marvel's not doing shit right now. Oh we got Deadpool and Wolverine coming up in a few weeks so yeah we got a lot going on. We're gonna talk about Guy Gardner and Hawkgirl being revealed in Superman set photos. We're gonna be talking about the Batman Ninja vs Yakuza League teaser trailer and we're gonna be talking about the Kite Man Hell Yeah official trailer.

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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. Our artificially intelligent duel simulator AJ9K has a quick message for our listeners, so listen up. Why, hello there. Do you want even more from this podcast? Then become a part of the Dynamic duel community on Patreon, where you can choose from three tiers. The Dynamic Duo tier gives you access to our Discord chat server.

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The Fantastic Four tier gives you two bonus episodes each month, and the X-Force tier makes you an executive producer of this show. Lastly, the Diner Mike Podcast Network tier lets you create your own podcast using this Monte Carlo simulator. Johnny and Joe will help you develop your show, provide graphic support and consultation, and get you simulation results. Pitch the twins your ideas via email at dyna Check it out at patreon.com slash dynamicduel. Pip pip cheerio.

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Thanks AJ9K, and thanks to everyone who supports the podcast. Be sure guys to tune into the other shows on the DynaMic Podcast Network this week, including Max Destruction, which pits your favorite action heroes from film and television against each other. This week, hosts Ken and Scottie are pitting Schwarzenegger's Conan the Barbarian against King Leonidas from 300. Yeah, that's going to be epic! Also tune into the Send Your World podcast, where host Zachary Hepburn speculates on fights between fan favorite anime and manga characters.

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The show is still on its season hiatus, but it's coming back soon. So this is the perfect time to catch up on its 40 episode library. And finally, on the console combat podcast hosts, John and Dean find out who would win in fights between popular video game characters. In yesterday's episode, they reviewed the 90s Mortal Kombat movie. So if you have nostalgia for that, definitely check that out. Visit dynamic podcasts dot com or click the link in our show notes to listen to all of the shows.

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in the DynaMic Podcast Network. But with that out of the way, quick to the No Prize! A No Prize is an award Marvel used to give out to fans. Our version, the Dynamic duel No Prize, is a digital award we post on Instagram for the person that we feel gave the best answer to our question of the week. Last week, we asked you guys, who do you think is the mysterious man in black in the Superman set photos and why?

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And this is coming off of the Superman movie that's currently filming, and we got a look at a mysterious character all dressed in black, and thought it would be fun for you guys to speculate on who it might be. Yeah, we got quite a few answers. We're going to break down this week's honorable mentions before revealing the no-prize winner. Our first honorable mention goes to Alex Albro, who said, Hey guys, it's Alex. I think the mysterious man in black on the Superman set is really just the character of Neil Quinn, aka Ulythes, who has some energy transference powers.

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Something about the last son of Earth and it's a whole big metaphor for Superman being the last son of Krypton and they're gonna fight. And he's just one of seemingly three enemies Superman's gonna have to face in this film. Thanks. Bye. Yeah, so Ulysses is a fairly recent character in the Superman comics. He gets his powers from the fourth dimension and he essentially has the same powers as Superman. What makes this answer possible is that he, like the character that was seen in the set photos, has a U on his costume.

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Yeah, and it's a black costume in the comics too. So this could be it. I don't know much about the character. I would be kind of surprised if they were to introduce a character that obscure into the Superman film, but you never know. The guy is wearing a mask. It could literally be anybody. And this is as good a guess as any. So great answer, Alex. Our next honorable mention goes to Buster Barnes. Who said? Hi guys, Buster Barnes here. Hope you're doing well.

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I think the villain in the black outfit is going to be called Ultraman, however not the usual iteration that we expect. Instead, I think it's going to be more like Superman from the Red Sun movie where he is a clone created by Lex Luthor and or the government in which he's going to be sent out to take down or potentially frame Superman. And then he is going to eventually deteriorate into a bizarro-like villain for Superman's fight. Take care, guys. Love the show. Right. So Buster is saying that the U probably stands for Ultraman.

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If you've listened to the podcast a few months ago, we did a duel episode between Ultraman and Hyperion, so you'll know all about him. Yeah, and if you've read the Red Sun miniseries or watched the Red Sun animated movie adaptation, you'll know that there is a character in that story that's kind of like an amalgam of Ultraman and Bizarro. Basically a clone that Lex Luthor created to go up against the Russian version of Superman. So of course the speculation is that the masked figure with the U on his chest

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is an evil version of Superman, which could make sense because Lex Luthor is the one who created Superior Man in the comics, and he also created Bizarro in the comics as well. And since Lex Luthor is in the movie, why not have him create an evil Superman clone, who he would call Ultraman? Great answer Buster, our final honorable mention goes to Jacob Foster, who said, What if it's unknown soldier? I mean,

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He was based back out in World War II, Creature Commandos were back in World War II. James Gunn even said Creature Commandos was the start of the DC, of his universe at least. Rick Clark Sr. is in Creature Commandos, Rick Clark Sr. is in Superman. I wanna say that it's a re-adaptation kind of of the Unknown Soldier, like just a little bit of a costume change.

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The Unknown Soldier is a character in DC Comics who was essentially a World War II veteran who suffers from amnesia and no longer remembers who he is. He does wear a full face mask and is a master of disguise. Of course all of the set photos that we've seen this mysterious figure in has him associated with the military, which could mean that yeah, maybe he's the Unknown Soldier. Just like a modern take on the character. Yeah, I'm not sure I follow Jacob's line of reasoning that just because Rick Flagg

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is in the creature commandos and this movie. That means that this guy could be unknown soldier because he was also in World War two with the creature commandos. But why not? Sure. It could all work out that way. We want to give a quick shout out to Brandon Estregard and Daniel Alonso, who also called in with their answers. Thank you guys so much for taking the time to do that. Daniel, your suggestion that it was Night Monkey is, I think, spot on. But the winner of this week's no prize is

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Hey what's up guys it's Miggy and I think the guy in the stuff photos isn't Ultraman or Ulysses like people are thinking because it's kind of weird to have another reverse Superman and Gunn has said that it's not a big spoiler that he's been filming out in public so I think it's an Ultramarine core, a super obscure character just another like military henchman type. Also pretty excited about the terrifics in the first look of Hawkgirl and Guy Gardner. Thanks guys.

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So the Ultramarine Corps was actually a super team, not a specific character within DC Comics that was put together by General Wade Eiling. Although I think Miggy's suggesting that instead of being a ragtag team of C-list characters, the Ultramarine Corps could be just generic super soldier types. And this figure dressed in black is just one of those. Yeah, I could totally see that being the case.

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I don't think the figure needs to be some superpowered individuel. I just think it needs to be an elite soldier of sorts that maybe in this film was not put together by Wade Eiland, but maybe by Lois Lane's father, Sam Lane in conjunction with Lex Corp or something like that. Yeah, yeah, it's possible. I don't think it's anyone special when it comes down to it. I don't really want it to be any kind of Superman knockoff character because I really want to focus on Lex Luther as the villain. And that's why Miggie gets the win.

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So great answer, Miggy, 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 in this episode when we will be asking another Question of the Week. And now that that's done, onto the news.

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Okay, so these past two weeks we have been fortunate enough to receive a ton of set photos from the outdoor filming of the upcoming Superman film directed by James Gunn. In our last episode we talked about the first look of the full suits for Superman and Mr. Terrific. This week we got our first looks at the suits for Guy Gardner, the Green Lantern played by Nathan Fillion and Hawk Girl played by Isabella Merced. Now right off the bat, pretty much everyone noticed

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that both Hawkeye Girl and Guy Garner were wearing uniforms very similar to that worn by Mr. Terrific. And it looks like these are uniforms worn by a super team sponsored by Maxwell Lord and his business known as Lord Tech. Which is really interesting. It definitely leans more towards like a Justice League international team from the comics, which was sponsored by Maxwell Lord. Now, I don't know if they're going to be referred to as the Justice League in this film or maybe the Terrifics.

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which was a team from the comic books led by Mr. Terrific. But I do think it's interesting that they're going this sort of corporate sponsored route. Well, it provides a nice contrast for the type of hero that Superman is. You know, Superman being a guy who does what's right for the sake of what's good and right. Right, yeah, he has a sense of duty as compared to a corporate sponsored team, which may be doing it maybe somewhat for the duty, but also maybe for, you know, the money and perks.

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Now a lot of people are dishing out a lot of flack for these outfits considering the fact that they're not entirely comics accurate. Guy Garner definitely doesn't have a lot of green on his costume and Hawkgirl traditionally wears armor. Yeah, the CW did it better for her costume, gotta say. Maybe. I do like her helmet. And Guy Garner's, you know, bowl cut is definitely in keeping with the ridiculousness of the character's look in the comics. And while I do wish that both he and Hawkgirl were...

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more comics accurate in regards to their looks. I also don't hate the idea story wise of a team that wears the same uniform, almost sort of like the X-Men in the first X-Men movie, how they wore all black leather. This at least is a little bit more colorful and it still has like their brand logo insignias on their uniforms. I mean, story reasoning aside, I think the costume choices here were made to the detriment of character recognition.

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I mean, this is the first look that we're ever going to get at the Green Lantern core within James Gunn's new DCU. And I don't think it quite services Green Lantern well enough. Same thing with Hawk Girl. I think you're going to run into like a brand issue at that point almost, because most people are going to associate the characters within this new universe with this new look. Well, I mean, in regards to Guy Gardner's look specifically, he wears a jacket in the comics. So I think, you know, just a color swap on his pants and the jacket.

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would make him fit right into the upcoming Lantern show. If all of them wore leather uniforms, I also wouldn't hate that. It's kind of like Guardians of the Galaxy, like the Nova Corps in a way. I don't think they need to be CG energy costumes like they were in the Ryan Reynolds film. You mentioned the X-Men earlier. I think that's a fair comparison. And we've seen what happens when you don't put the characters in the proper costumes right away. And sometimes you have to wait 20 plus years to finally see them in their comics accurate outfit.

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Oh, you mean like Wolverine? Yeah. Yeah, you know, that's a fair criticism. But I also think that if this team is going up against Superman in this movie, the team is probably going to disband by the end of it. And I think it's probably fair that they'll probably have more comics accurate looks the next time we see them on screen. That's just wishful thinking. Yeah. Of course, the one character that we know is in this film that has not been seen in the set photos, who is also a member of the terrific in the comics.

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is Metamorpho, who we know is going to be played by Anthony Carrigan. There was a guy in a blue motion capture suit spotted on set, so that may have been him. He might be an all CGI character, which would make sense for the character, since, you know, he's made up of gases and minerals and stuff like that. I don't know if that's a motion capture suit or just like a blue screen suit to make the character invisible later on. It could be a reference point. I have no idea how special effects work, but of all of the characters to not be in uniform.

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he kind of makes the most sense. But yeah, that's really it. I thought the looks were pretty interesting and I can't wait to see more official looks, maybe something that includes Hawker Girls wings around Comic-Con, I imagine, which is just in a few weeks. In other DC news, we got our first 30 second teaser trailer for the sequel to the animated film, Batman Ninja. This time it's called Batman Ninja versus Yakuza League, which looks like it's gonna be Jessica Cruz, the Green Lantern, the Flash, Aquaman,

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and Wonder Woman so far. I would be really surprised if Superman didn't make his way in there somehow. But so far from what we've seen of these Justice League characters in these feudal Japanese designs, I cannot wait for this movie because it looks like it's gonna be really fun to watch. Yeah, well, part of the appeal of the first Batman Ninja movie was to see a bunch of Batman's rogues gallery.

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reinterpreted in these feudal Japanese designs. And it's cool to see that carried over to the Justice League for this film. It appears that maybe Batman's actions in the past influenced present day Japan because it looks like this movie is taking place in modern Tokyo, although with a very heavy feudal Japanese approach. Yeah, which is kind of awesome. I think that's a really cool setting and approach to a sequel. I love the looks for Green Lantern, Aquaman and Wonder Woman. I think they look really cool. The one I don't love though is the flash.

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The hat just doesn't make sense to me. You know, if you're running, the thing's gonna fly off. But I'm really curious to see Superman and any other Justice Leagueers that make an appearance. It does look like Damien Wayne is going to be his sidekick for this movie as Robin, and he was in the first movie as well. Although I do miss the lone wolf and cub inspired haircut for him. Well, it's present day Japan now, so you gotta modernize it.

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That's fair. Another thing I love the design of is the logo for this film. It's the word ninja and the shape of the Batman logo. I want to get that tattooed on my face. I'm wondering though, since Batman's going up against the Yakuza League, does that mean that the Justice League are evil? Yeah, I think that's a fair assumption here. They're organized crime. And they're going to be turned good by the end, maybe? It's weird to see the characters as villains. That's a good question. Yeah, maybe he has to go back in time.

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to fix whatever got messed up in the past and the league follows him. I have no idea. We don't have a release date for this film just yet. We just know that it's coming out soon and I can't wait to learn more about it. Again, hopefully during Comic-Con. I expect all of my answers to all of my questions to be revealed at Comic-Con. That never happens. I know. I just realized now that I'm visiting the official Batman Ninja website. You know what they're going for with the Flash's hat?

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They're going for a Jay Garrick's helmet homage. Oh, OK. I see. I was thinking Raiden for some reason. I don't know what the lightning. No, because the hat definitely has wings on it. You know, got you. Makes sense. I loved the first movie. I can't wait for this movie. I love the concept. And that brings us to our question of the week.

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What other Marvel or DC character would you like to see get a cultural reimagining for a one-off special? Right, similar to Spider-Man India or like, I don't know, the upcoming Aztec Batman, things like that. What culture, what hero? Describe your reimagining. Record your answer at dynamicduel.com by clicking on the red microphone button in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen, which will prompt you to leave us a voicemail.

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Your message could 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 award that person a dynamic duel note prize that we'll post to Instagram. Be sure to answer before July 13th. In our final bit of DC news, we got an official trailer for the upcoming Kite Man Hell Yeah animated series. Of course, this is a spin off of the Harley Quinn animated series, and a lot of characters are seemingly making a return.

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for this one. Which makes me wonder why this couldn't just be a subplot for the upcoming season of Harley Quinn, but I hope it's just as funny as the Harley Quinn show. I mean, this is the series that no one asked for, right? No one asked for a Kite Man series. I don't know what they're doing. I know that we have to review this, but I'll say that I'm not looking forward to it despite the fact that yeah, Harley Quinn is hilarious, Kite Man the character is hilarious. I just think there's no demand and nobody's gonna really watch this in my opinion.

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Dude, no one asked for Kite Man as a character to exist in the comics to begin with. You're right, this should not exist in any shape or form, but it does and I'm kind of here for it. Because it looks like they're really, you know, gonna bring out the lovable loser trope that is Kite Man. It looks like he has really horrible luck, his dad hates him, he's trying to run a bar with his new girlfriend, Golden Glider, who's just killing everybody. I guess the concept does lend itself to a situational comedy sitcom of sorts.

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I don't want to sound like a hater because you look at a show like Modok, which also nobody asks for, but I truly loved that show. So I'm hoping for something like that, I guess. I do hope that this show is much more episodic than Harley Quinn. Let that have an overarching narrative throughout the season, but let this one be more like Cheers. I think that would be perfect. Absolutely. Yeah. The show is being released on July 18th. I'm hoping that we could squeeze in a Kite Man duel around that time.

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The executive producers were kicking around the idea of pitting Stiltman against Kiteman, which I think is so perfect. Hopefully we can get that in. Yeah, that'll be a lot of fun. Once I heard the idea, I can't un-hear it, and it definitely needs to happen.

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So that's it for all the news this week, now let's move on to the main event, where we review the 2009 animated film Green Lantern First Flight.

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Green Lantern First Flight is a standalone animated direct-to-video film released in 2009. It was directed by Lauren Montgomery, a former storyboard artist for the Justice League Unlimited animated series, who went on to direct some of DC's most celebrated animated films, including Wonder Woman, Batman Year One, Superman Doomsday, Justice League Doom, just to name a few. She's also worked on projects for Marvel and Nickelodeon's Avatar franchise,

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Basically, she's a badass in the animation industry, so it should come as no surprise that one of Green Lantern's most badass films, live action or otherwise, would be one she directed. Namely, this movie. Now since the movie is a decade and a half old by this point, I'm guessing if you wanted to see the movie by now, you would have. But here's your warning that if you want to avoid spoilers, I'd probably skip this review until you see the film, which has awesome action, a stellar voice cast,

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and really is a film made for fans of the source material. Now, First Flight was released two years before the live action Green Lantern film that starred Ryan Reynolds, and it's a shame they didn't take more inspiration from this film because while it admittedly isn't the best origin story when it comes to Hell Jordan, it does a surprisingly decent job at explaining the cosmic lore behind the Green Lantern stories and a phenomenal job.

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with its villain. Sinestro in this film is hands down the best villain in any Green Lantern film to date, of which there aren't many, but yeah, this film set the standard right out the gate with its corrupt law enforcer mentoring the rookie training day-esque approach to the story. Yeah, one of the best things that this movie did with the origin was make it primarily in space. The 2011 live action Green Lantern movie had its main conflict back on Earth.

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But I think the unique thing about Green Lantern is that he's one of DC's few cosmic heroes. You know, you have the core, you have the new gods and a handful of others. But unlike Marvel's cosmic side, DC doesn't have a whole lot of popular franchises set in outer space. That's fair. Now, I would definitely agree with you that the decision to keep the film in outer space kind of helped the narrative in that you were learning about the universe along with the main character.

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as opposed to him being on Earth and aliens having to learn about us. It was kind of backwards for the way I think a Green Lantern film should be. As I mentioned, the film isn't a great origin story for its main character, Halt Jordan, who's very much along for the ride and very reactionary in the film, in much the same way Ethan Hawke's character was in Training Day. And for some reason, that works. The rookie thrown into the deep end framing of the story

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helps, I think, with all of the lore and exposition that's thrown at the audience. The film wastes no time, like zero. Hal Jordan is literally wearing the Green Lantern suit less than four minutes into the film. It doesn't bother explaining Hal Jordan's history or relationship or goals. We don't know why he was chosen to wear the ring. The Earth scenes are just prologue, essentially, to the story's massive stakes.

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of who will control the dominant power in the universe. The thing is though, that the film is only 77 minutes long, almost 15 minutes shy of a standard 90 minute film. Like 90 minutes is the minimum length a film should be. And there was a lot of backstory for Hell that they could have squeezed into that remaining time. So that kind of sucks, and it really makes it seem like they knew the audience watching this film would be fans of the comics and not-

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need all of that extra information maybe? Though I'd argue that's probably a lazy and dangerous approach and it shows in this film's current Rotten Tomatoes scores as the audience score is fresh while the critics score is rotten. Though who knows with my review that may change. Yeah the movie definitely does no favors for newcomers to the franchise.

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You had mentioned that it seems the filmmakers here knew that their audience would be fans of the character most likely, but it also seems more like an admission that casual viewers aren't going to watch their film. Yeah. Which is not a good thing. You know, especially for an origin story, you want things to be accessible. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, there are a lot of comics characters with really dense lores, but a good writer can fix that in a way, because not everything needs to be adapted.

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one for one from comics to the screen because you have decades worth of history to back you up in the comics, whereas you don't have that when you're trying to reach an audience for the first time. I could have easily done with a good 15 minutes or more of this film because I did enjoy it. The current runtime, I think signifies there was a budget issue and maybe that's why they couldn't squeeze in more of that pertinent character building. Yeah, I was guessing the same thing. They probably didn't have the money to do more story, which is a shame.

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Now, I will admit that one of the reasons the film does a decent job with the Green Lantern lore is because it wisely chose to ignore comic writer Jeff Johns' introduction of the emotional electromagnetic spectrum and the embodiments of the emotions within it such as the entity of Parallax, who we were introduced to in the Green Lantern Rebirth comic storyline a few years prior. Parallax, of course, was the villain in the live-action film and rewatching this film

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All I could think about was how much of a mistake that was. Yeah. Can I say my favorite thing about this movie is the lack of emotional spectrum. When you start talking about colors as emotions, it all becomes just a little bit too conceptual and maybe cheesy. I like their approach of just saying this is the green energy that they were able to harness from the green element and it's weak to the yellow element. And that's really all you need to know. I completely agree. It's way too.

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convoluted. Even in the comics, it's too much in my opinion. Yeah, I mean it makes everything just too emotional, which sounds like a shitty thing to say because it's not a bad thing to be emotional, but you really paint your characters into a corner and it's hard for them to be multifaceted and have multiple emotions when you know they're represented by things like anger for the red lanterns or avarice for the orange lanterns, fear for the yellow lanterns. Everything is just kind of pigeonholed character-wise.

27:34
Yeah, it makes the characters more one-dimensional. I completely agree with you. Going back to Hal Jordan's lack of character development, the main reason I think it's easy to gloss over that is the action. I think the animated action of this film is actually its main draw, and anticipating what ingenious way Hal Jordan was going to use his ring's power to get out of various conflicts was really fun to watch, like in a MacGyver kind of way. With all the prejudice the alien characters had,

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for the human Hal Jordan, it was satisfying to see him outthink them in a way that it never really was for the live action film, at least for me personally. Yeah, I mean Green Lantern's power set is so visual, it's always fun to watch. Absolutely. The guy can literally create anything, so what is he going to create next? Let's find out. I mean, there is a severe lack of imagination among the Green Lantern Corps in general. They kind of seem to keep their constructs limited to the six simple machines, but it's still fun to watch that too.

28:34
In terms of the animation, I tend to knock the Bruce Timm style for its overuse, but this is among the best works in that style I would say, like hands down. It almost, like almost, edges into kinetic anime style in moments when characters' body structures become exaggerated, but I wouldn't go as far as to say this is anywhere close to being as good as anime animation.

28:57
Yeah, it's a step up, I think, from a lot of what we got in the DC animated movie universe. Even though, you know, that whole run of films was incredible, the animation was slightly lacking during that run. Here, it was fantastic. Yeah, of course, this film was not in that run. It wasn't a part of that. This, of course, was its own standalone film. I think even Green Lanterns Emerald Nights is only considered a quasi sequel, with only some of the voice cast returning for that movie.

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I did mention that the voice cast here is stellar and we see some pretty big names including Michael Madsen of Reservoir Dogs fame as Killawog, Kurtwood Smith from That 70s Show as Kanjar Rowe, and Trisha Helfer from Battlestar Galactica as Budica. They spent way more money on the casting budget for this film than they have in recent DC animated fare and that's probably why they could only reach 77 minutes. But let's talk about the two main characters.

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and the actors who voiced them in our character breakdown. Now Hal Jordan was voiced by Christopher Maloney, who's most well known for playing Detective Stabler on Law and Order SVU, but is also a known face from other films such as 12 Monkeys and Man of Steel, where he played Colonel Hardy. I still remember rumors that he was going to be Hal Jordan when his casting was announced for Man of Steel way back when, because of his work in this Green Lantern film.

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Now, my favorite voice actor for Hal Jordan is actually Nathan Fillion, but probably only because Maloney doesn't have a whole lot to work with in this film. Like I've said, Hal's a very reactionary character. So a lot of his lines in the movie are relegated to things like, OK, and what the hell? It's not the best writing. Yeah, he doesn't get a lot of monologues or anything like that. Definitely not. The most he speaks is when he's like talking to the guardians.

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or when he's talking to Budoka and Killawag in his cell. Now regarding Hal's character arc, it's clear from the opening scene that Hal is something of a troublemaker who's probably too skilled to test flight simulators and he's pretty bored. That of course all changes when he gains the Green Lantern Ring and is whisked off across the universe on an adventure with universal stakes. But that's pretty much it. Like he's kind of the universe's luckiest guy.

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and that he often just finds himself in the right place at the right time, whether it's being chosen for the ring or noticing invisible aliens in a spaceport or even being near the central power battery at the end of the film. Yeah, I noticed that a lot of the plot was driven by Hal just being lucky. Like, of course, he fell into the sewer right before the bad guy fell into the sewer. You know, right? Yeah.

31:39
I just managed to run into Kush. Yeah, it's again, not an example of the best writing. You don't want your character to just be lucky. You want there to be reasons for that, typically. You shouldn't be able to get away with something like that in screenwriting, but they kind of did in this film. Yeah, just barely enough where the audience didn't question it too much. I do think that this movie probably deserved a sequel and that it set up really well why Hal Jordan would be regarded as one of the best among the core.

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which is always kind of hard to believe considering how massive the court is. You know, everyone's always talking about how great Hal Jordan is. But this movie showed that, you know, he definitely has something unique going for him. Yeah, we may not know why he's special, but the film does a good job of establishing the fact that he is. I think they definitely could have taken that in different directions for a sequel. Also special is Sinestro, who in this film was voiced by Victor Garber, the Tony and Emmy award winning actor.

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known for his work in films like Titanic and Argo and shows like Alias. He was Martin Stein in the CW's Arrowverse shows, you know, one half of Firestorm. The guy's just an amazing actor and he was great as Sinestro, like flawlessly capturing the characters cold cunning to boiling rage. Sinestro is easily the most interesting character in this film. You know, he's a bad cop who's disdained for chaos and crime in the universe.

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which he attributes to a failure in leadership on behalf of the Guardians, leads to him abusing his power. He believes it's better to be feared and respected rather than being compassionate, and his extreme methods have proven results that garner him influence within the core. His utilitarian philosophy, that his means are justified by his end goal of instilling order in the universe, is comparable to other villains like Thanos,

33:33
or Ozymandias from Watchmen. It's wrong, but it's easy to see how good intentions could lead there. And the crazy thing is that if it wasn't for one guy from one backwater planet, he would have been successful. Like he killed so many good guys in this film, more than a lot of other villains in a lot of other movies.

33:56
Like you mentioned, I would have loved to have seen a direct sequel to this film where Sinestro goes on to create the Sinestro Corps. That sequel will never happen, but I hope that Sinestro is as good in the upcoming Lanterns television series as he was in this film. For sure. Yeah, he was fantastic in this movie. I was blown away. His motivations were so clear. You could totally see where he was coming from, where he truly believed that any action he took, no matter how seemingly immoral or evil.

34:25
were rationalized by the fact that he likely would produce results. But as Hal Jordan shows, there are multiple ways to achieve order in the universe, and not all of them mean you have to be a dick. Or specifically a dictator, you know? Right. Which is exactly what Sinestro wanted to be, and he wanted to amass power to essentially control everyone and everything in the universe, taking away their freedoms. And that's sort of what sets him apart from someone like Thanos or Ozymandias.

34:53
They weren't really trying to control people in the same way that Sinestro is, and I think that makes him a little bit even more sinister, perhaps. For sure. I was actually surprised by the body count in this movie. Like, so many dead green lanterns. The stakes were massive, and the movie definitely didn't shy away from showing us that. Yeah, no. Like, we saw some popular lanterns go down, like Tomar Ray, Boudicca, Green Man. Too many. Too many. Oh, I didn't know Charlie Day was in this movie.

35:23
What?

35:31
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35:54
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36:17
Moving on to the story highlights, during an exercise in a flight simulator for aeronautics company Ferris Air, Hell Jordan is abducted by the dying alien Aben Suur, a protector of the universe known as a Green Lantern, whose spacecraft crash landed in the American desert. His power ring chooses Hell to be Aben's successor, and after donning the ring, the spacecraft explodes, destroying any evidence of it or the alien.

36:47
Like you said, lightning quick. The origin happened so fast in this movie, I was actually kind of confused that I maybe skipped over some important establishing scene or something. Yeah, actually I thought the same thing. It's been a while since I'd last seen this film. So yeah, I rewound it and watched it a couple of times actually.

37:04
Now, one thing they did in this film that was brilliant was have the spacecraft explode and destroy the alien body, destroying all evidence, essentially, because then you don't even need to worry about that. Like what they did in the Green Lantern live action film. It's like, oh, all of a sudden we have this alien cadaver that we need to, you know, run tests on and stuff like that. Get that out of the way. Get into space. Does that mean the Evans or ship had some kind of self-destruct sequence built into it or something like that? I guess I don't even know why the ship exploded.

37:33
Oh, yeah, that's fair. The reasoning is because we need to move the story along. All right. We need to get to the opening credits. That doesn't seem very efficient in terms of Green Lantern detective work when one of the core members goes down. You would think that the ring itself would at least serve as a black box sort of log for that type of situation, but seems that's not the case. Oh, that's true. I didn't even think about that. It should.

38:01
It probably would in the comics, but I guess not for this film. Now after returning the simulator back to Ferris Air Base, Hal Jordan informs his love interest and supervisor, Carol Ferris, that he'll be taking a week off of work, just before he's ambushed and interrogated by four other alien members of the Green Lantern Corps, who questioned what happened to Abbasur and inform Hal that they'll be taking him to their homeworld, Oa, at the center of the universe, for approval from their superiors.

38:30
beings known as the Guardians. The Guardians initially express disdain at the idea of an Earthling bearing a Green Lantern power ring, but after Hal stands up for himself against the Guardians, a senior Green Lantern named Sinestro offers to train and test Hal to see if he's worthy of the ring. Sinestro takes Hal to the central power battery that energizes their rings so that Hal can download all of the known information of Universal Sector 1215.

38:58
a process that Hal surprisingly survives. The two travel to Kadmindo, a planet within Sector 1215, where Sinestro believes they can find Kutch. The alien Sinestro believes is responsible for Abin Sur's death. When Sinestro tortures Kutch's love interest, Labela, for information, Hal tries to stop him just before Kutch attacks the Green Lanterns, then attempts to flee.

39:28
but upon delivering him to Sinestro, HAL has physically reprimanded for his earlier defiance, learning of Sinestro's uncompromising disdain for the crime and chaos in the universe, and that the Guardians have been inadequate in preventing. Other Green Lanterns arrive, and they take Kutch back to Oa for interrogation. Another thing that the script kind of skips over is why Kutch was a lead for the Corps. They mention his name kind of out of the blue, and all of a sudden we're following this guy.

39:58
Well, somehow Sinestro knew that Kutch was the one who killed Abin Sur. We never learned how he learned that information, but possibly he learned it from Kanjar Rowe, which begs the question, why didn't a Sinestro just go straight to Kanjar Rowe? That's a great question. And you would think that maybe Hal Jordan would have questions about what they were doing and why. Possibly. You know, Hal Jordan is not a detective on Earth, so maybe he wouldn't have thought of that. That's the only explanation I could think of.

40:26
The moon ball scene where Sinestro was torturing Labella was hard to watch, I found. Yeah, because of the context that this moon ball was a drug. So the analog to Earthbound Drugs was like watching him make her inject herself with heroin repeatedly or something like that. Right. Yeah, that's crazy. This is actually the scene that made me think of Training Day specifically, you know, just the whole drug tie in. And I was like, oh man, this is kind of brilliant. Yeah.

40:56
Now on Oa, Hal is befriended by Budica despite his discrimination from other lanterns. Budica explains the history of the Green Lantern Corps and how it's currently being threatened by the emergence of the Yellow Element, an energy source recently stolen by an alien smuggler named Kanjar Rho that rivals the Green Element within the Central Power Battery. Kutch, Hal learns, fatally wounded Abin Sur when Abin Sur went undercover to find the Yellow Element.

41:25
just before Abin crash landed on Earth. After torturing and killing Kutch for information, Sinestro debriefs the core as to Kanjar Rose whereabouts in preparation for a mission to get him, just before being scolded by the Guardians for his extreme measures. The scene between Budica and Hal is actually pretty crucial I would say for the movie because there's a lot of exposition there.

41:49
and they do it in a pretty efficient way through essentially a mind reading of each other. Yeah, it was the exchange of information through the rings, which is a pretty cool concept. This used so much foreshadow how Sinistra uses his own ring to read the dying mind of Kenjaro later in the film. Yeah, but it doesn't explain how he was able to reanimate Kenjaro's body. Like, I didn't know the Green Lantern ring could bring back the dead. Well, he was saying that he was reconnecting his dead synapses in his brain.

42:18
Something like that. That's bullshit. It's bullshit. I agree. When a team of lanterns arrive at the Cadian space terminal to find Kanjaro, Hel is assigned to watch the outer perimeter. Kanjaro, meanwhile, learns the lanterns are looking for him and meets with Sinestro telepathically, revealing that the two are secretly working together to turn the yellow element into a weapon. Though Sinestro tries to focus the lantern's attention away from Kanjaro,

42:48
so that he could escape, Hal notices suspicious activity on the loading dock area and discovers Kanjar Rho and his soldiers. A battle and chase ensue, but thanks to Hal's ingenuity and competence, he manages to reach Kanjar before the others, only to be knocked unconscious. When Sinestro arrives second, he kills Kanjar knowing Hal would get the blame. That action scene that happens through the space warp tunnel is so damn cool.

43:17
I really liked how that all played out. It had a lot of momentum. Yeah, all the action scenes in this had a lot of momentum and again, a lot of stakes because you actually see lanterns fall during the battle. So it's like, oh, shit. You know, what's going to happen to these characters that we've kind of come to know. And the way that Held Jordan manages to succeed where the others don't. Again, one of the highlights of watching this film, like him using that grapple to latch onto the spaceship as it emerged from that wormhole thing.

43:46
It's like, why didn't the others think of that? Because that was brilliant. Exactly. I also really liked the whole plot of Sinestro framing Hal Jordan for murder. Again, it's another tie to the Training Day film. If you guys haven't seen Training Day, watch that movie. I think that would be a perfect setup for a Green Lantern film. And I really hope that's used as inspiration or basis for the upcoming HBO Max Lantern show.

44:11
Back on Oa, Hel is put on trial for the death of Kanjar and stripped of his power rink and placed in custody for deportation back to Earth. Confiding in his fellow lanterns Budica and Kilowog that he suspects Sinestro was responsible for killing Kanjar and stealing his energy rod, they take a detour to the morgue where Hel's suspicions are confirmed as they find Sinestro using Kanjar's energy rod to telepathically deduce that the yellow element is with the weaponers on the planet.

44:41
Quard. When Killawag tries to arrest Sinestro, Budica reveals herself to be in league with Sinestro and knocks Killawag out. As Sinestro leaves Oa for Quard, Budica attempts to kill Hal only for Killawag to awaken. Hal manages to outsmart Budica who accidentally kills herself in an explosion from Kandar's energy rod. Budica's betrayal totally caught me by surprise. I did not see that coming. It was a legitimate twist.

45:09
Yeah, and kudos to the animators for making all of her like previous worrisome glances have like this double meaning when you watch the film for the second time. Like she's worried Hal is catching on, not that she's worried about Hal in general. Her death scene was hardcore. It was violent. I was like, what rating is this? Holy shit. Yeah, it's like, why isn't the blood blue? When Sinistro arrives on cord, the weaponers reveal that they have made a second power battery using the yellow element.

45:38
and gift him with a yellow ring to control it before departing back to their home dimension. When a squad of green lanterns arrive on Kord, having learned of Sinestro's whereabouts, Sinestro kills them, sending their rings back to Oa. Sinestro arrives on Oa soon after with his power battery and decimates the planet along with any lantern that tries to stop him. When the yellow power battery overloads the green one, lanterns across the universe are

46:07
with many of them dying in space. As the Guardians prepare to surrender to Sinestro, HAL manages to harness the green element directly while within the destroyed central power battery. Full of green energy, HAL battles Sinestro, managing to destroy the yellow power battery with two moons of Oa in the process. Using up the last of his energy to blast Sinestro to the surface of Oa from space,

46:36
destroy Sinestro's reign before flying up to rescue Hal from his fall. Is the movie implying that green energy is not necessarily weak to yellow energy if there's a sufficient quantity of the green energy? For some reason Hal was able to withstand the yellow attacks. Was it because he had a whole lot of green energy? I think so. That's convenient is all I'll say. But I guess it makes sense.

47:03
I mean, why wouldn't it? Hal was charged directly from the green element, whereas other green lanterns, you know, they're not as close to that power source, so they wouldn't have had as much energy to battle Sinestra with. Right. Hal was like glowing with so much green energy. The way I kind of chose to think of it is, yes, ice is weak to fire. But if you have a whole lot of ice, it's going to be harder for the fire to defeat the ice, to put it in Pokemon terms, I guess. Yeah.

47:32
One thing I thought about was the scene prior where Sinistro forces Hal Jordan to put his fist into the power battery. It's almost like a proximity to the green element made it more effective or more powerful. And for some reason, Hal Jordan was able to absorb that energy in a way that other aliens had not been able to or even died trying to attempt that. Yeah, my assumption is that no other alien had attempted to access the green element directly.

48:02
Right, yeah exactly. I did think it was really badass when he took the two moons and used it to crush the yellow central power battery. That was a feat unlike any other. That was the most badass thing I think I've ever seen a Green Lantern do. That was awesome. In the final scene of the film, the Guardians recognized their discrimination against Hal was unwarranted, and they hold a ceremony to honor him and the fallen lanterns. After leading the core in the oath of the Green Lanterns,

48:31
Hell flies into space to return to Earth. That's the end of the film. No, we never saw the oath recited previously, right? No, it wasn't used as a mechanism to charge the ring in this film. It was simply their pledge, sort of like the Pledge of Allegiance, which works for me, because I always thought the oath was kind of a silly way to charge your ring. Like just hold it up to the lantern, you're good. That's true. I think in addition to several...

48:57
establishing scenes in the beginning of this movie, it would have been nice to have an ending scene having him return to Earth and see how the experience changed him and his relationship somewhat. Absolutely, yeah. The film should have been longer. It was dense and they could have spread that out over a little bit more time pretty easily, you would think. Yeah. Overall, the film was dense, but with fun action and cosmic lore,

49:23
It's unapologetically intended for fans of the source material, though I would say it struggles as an effective origin tale. The voice cast was phenomenal, the animation was great, but ultimately I would say the film is inaccessible to probably most audience members. And because of that, I'm giving this 3.5 out of 5 stars. Still a fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, though.

49:50
Yeah, I mean the movie has its faults, especially with story and character development, but I think that the pros outweigh the cons, especially in terms of spectacle, you know, what you come to see a Green Lantern movie for, the action and stuff, you know? And there was plenty of it and I would definitely recommend the movie to Green Lantern fans, absolutely. I will say though that I didn't like it quite as much as Green Lantern Beware My Power or Green Lantern Emerald Nights, but it goes to show that the character has some solid animated movies under his belt. If not, you know, the live action movie.

50:20
Yeah, I definitely hope they use this movie and probably Emerald Nights, which I also really liked as a basis for the upcoming series. Beware, my power is also good, though I would like to see the show focus more on Green Lanterns, whereas beware, my power focuses, you know, on a whole bunch of different alien races like the Raniens, the Thanagarians. That may be important for a show set out in outer space, but I'm not sure if Lanterns is going to do that. It better if it knows what's good for it. I agree. I agree.

50:49
But that does it for this review, AJ9K, help us close out.

50:55
Thanks for listening to Dynamic duel. Visit the show's website at dynamicduel.com and follow us on Instagram at dynamicduelpodcast. You can support the show on Patreon at patreon.com slash dynamicduel and joining a tier that works for you or by rating and reviewing Dynamic duel on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Podchaser, or on our website. Don't forget to listen to the other shows in the DynaMic podcast network, including Max Destruction, Senjo World, and Console Combat.

51:24
In our next episode, as we mentioned earlier, we're going to find out who'd win in a fight between Atrocitus, the Red Lantern, versus Juggernaut, the X-Men villain. It's the Red Power Ring versus the Crimson Bands of Scytorek. Yeah, of course, that is in lead up to our review of Deadpool and Wolverine, since Juggernaut was a major player in the second Deadpool movie. So look forward to that next week. That does it for this episode. We want to give a big thanks to our executive producers.

51:52
Ken Johnson, John Sturawski, Zachary Hepburn, Dustin Belcombe, Mickey Montagnon, Brandon Essargard, Nathaniel Wagner, Levi Yatin, Austin Wasylowski, AJ Dunkerley, Scott Camacho, Gil Camacho, Adam Spies, Andrew Schunk, Dean Maleski, Devin Davis, and Joseph Kirsting for helping make this podcast possible. And we'll talk to you guys next week. Up up and away, true believers. In plainest grey, in pale taupe, No simulation is outside my scope. Let those who just can't seem to cope, Beware my power.

52:21
because I am dope.