Hey guys how's it going

I would've been banned for a week because I lost the bet but I was banned from the site before that for three months anyway lol.

Now ain't that some shit?

...dayum, three months? How come (if you don't mind me asking, that is)?

Edit: the forum automatically turns "d a m n" into "dick fuck!"? Wow.

Now I'm tempted to experiment with other pseudo swear words.

I was in an argument with someone in Serious Discussion, it got flame-y, and Bravo got pissed and went Super Saiyan on both of our asses, lulz.

I'm alright with it, though; we deserved it, but my only regret is that I wasn't able to say (To my opponent) "IF I GO DOWN I'M TAKING YOU WITH ME."

I missed your rants

Speaking of rants, when you guys are unbanned or whatever, can one of you quote my review of the Green Lantern in the Green Lantern Hype Thread on ZU? I'd greatly appreciate it.

The Green Lantern's script is, well, bad. The dialogue lacks the charm and wit of Iron Man and its competitor, X-Men: First Class, and it is without the elegance that bolstered Christopher Nolan's Batman films. This is, not counting the film's complete lack of atmosphere, Green Lantern's biggest flaw. A bad script alone can't ruin a movie, though: sometimes, actors put enough care and personality into their roles to make you forget how poorly written a film IS. Take the classic Star Wars trilogy, for example; the films are excellent (They're among my personal favorite films, and I don't think I'd be far off assuming that they're some of the favorites of most of the people reading this, as well), but the raw writing behind those films isn't anything special. What Hamill, Ford and the rest were able to do, however, was create a memorable experience through their raw acting talent. Is this the case with the Green Lantern? Well, no, it isn't. The film's still a pretty forgettable experience, but the cast and their efforts did save the film from being a COMPLETE dud.

First and foremost, Peter Sarsgaard is the best thing about the movie. His Hammond isn't spectacular compared to some of the other great movie villains out there, but it's still quirky, campy fun. Mostly because he gives the character a hilariously emotional (Yet creepy) personality. Most of the film's scenes that did not take place in space (Which comprised a much higher percentage of the film's content than I would've liked) were garbage, but the ones featuring Sarsgaard were delightfully (Or weirdly) entertaining in a "I do enjoy myself some good ham" sorta way. Speaking of villains, Sinestro on film probably couldn't get much better than Mark Strong's Sinestro. If there is one character to translate flawlessly (Not in terms of plot faithfulness, but in terms of the character's general "image" and "feel") from the comics to the screen for this picture, it's Sinestro. As for Reynolds, I honestly think, with a better script (And a director who actually, you know, DIRECTS (In a way that demonstrates care for the project and respect for the source material)) would make a great Hal Jordan. In this film, he's relatively entertaining, but he never makes you think that he IS the Green Lantern (But rather, Ryan Reynolds being Ryan Reynolds in a CG suit). The computer-generated aliens of the Green Lantern Corps, for what little screentime they got, all made the jump to the big screen intact, and were fun to watch and listen to. The only real flaws I see in the cast were Blake Lively's emotionless, robotic performance as Carol Ferris and Angela Basset's performance as Amanda Waller.

In the end, the cast was pretty great, and was able to alleviate some of the sour taste of the script. The script, however, wasn't the only writing-related problem with the film; the plot as a whole didn't quite work out. First and foremost, a villain such as Parallax (The fear entity), really has no place as the primary villain of an origin film. Originally, the film was going to follow the Emerald Dawn mini-series and feature Legion as the big baddie (Who was later retconned out of the comics continuity by Green Lantern: Secret Origin). From what I've gathered about the development of the film, I'm assuming the decision to replace Legion with Parallax happened when Geoff Johns got involved with the project (He was apparently an advisor of sorts for the film), and this can say one of two things about Johns (Who, by the way, is a wonderful comic writer who was responsible for revitalizing the Green Lantern character and penning some of the greatest Green Lantern tales ever told): either he didn't have all that big of an advisory role in the project (It may have just been a few name changes here and there and/or some technical stuff), or that even though he's great at writing comics doesn't mean he should be getting involved with film. Anywho, Parallax works in the comics because he has a personal connection to Hal Jordan, which started back when Hal almost blew up the universe as the villain of the same name in the comics and continues to this day where the Geoff-conned Parallax is a giant parasitic yellow space cockroach fear entity (Who has since come to possess more folks than just Hal). The film's portrayal of the fear-entity Parallax (Who differs from the comics immensely in that he isn't a cosmic space parasite that existed since the beginning of time but rather a corrupted Guardian) lacks any sort of personal significance for Hal, and instead comes off as Generic Ultimate Evil #9001. What they SHOULD HAVE done was save Parallax for a sequel, because you honestly can't do justice to a villain of that magnitude in an origin story.

Aside from the poor script and plot, the film lacked atmosphere; for a newcomer to the Green Lantern mythos, he/she probably isn't going to walk away from the movie viewing the Green Lantern as anything more than a generic action hero. This is unlike the Batman films (Both Nolan's AND Burton's), in which striking imagery and sounds accompany thoughts about those movies. Say what you will about Tron: Legacy (I enjoyed it, by the way), but it's hard to deny that the film has a very strong atmosphere, due to the striking imagery and the fitting soundtrack. Here's what I expected of a Green Lantern movie's atmosphere (And here's how to make any future Green Lantern film have a memorable atmosphere): I expected most of it to be in space (The Green Lantern should have a very distinct sci-fi/space opera feel; it should not shy away from the cosmic (Which is probably one of the reasons why Geoff Johns's run on the comic is so great)), and I expected an identifiable/striking color scheme (Note how the lighting in Batman Begins was very dark throughout the majority of it, and note the oranges and blues of Tron: Legacy; Green Lantern could've played up the whole "Green vs. Yellow" thing, but it was barely noticeable). In addition, I expected a science-fictiony soundtrack to accompany all of it; what we got sounded like generic action movie garbage. If all of this was present in a sequel (Or reboot), viewers would walk away from the film with a stronger image of the Green Lantern character and universe than just Ryan Reynolds being Ryan Reynolds in a CG suit for two hours.

One more thing: the cinematography wasn't all too great. Scene transitions often didn't make much sense, and there wasn't much in the way of quality camera angles (These flaws are best seen when Hal is training with Kilowog and Sinestro on Oa). The 3D was also mediocre; I'm of the opinion that 3D CAN enhance the viewing experience of some films if handled correctly, but it really didn't seem noticeable at all save for the opening moments of the film.

-So yeah, the film wasn't very good, and it did not do justice to the Green Lantern mythos (Hopefully we'll someday see a TRUE Green Lantern experience on the big screen), but it had redeeming qualities, saving it from being among the absolute worst the sci-fi/action genre has to offer.

Pros:

It had a great cast with a fair amount of personality.
The special effects were (Mostly) pretty good.
The action scenes were, on average, entertaining.

Cons:

It had a terribly-written script with poor dialogue.

The plot was poorly pieced together.
A lack of atmosphere.
The soundtrack was god-awful.
Bad cinematography.

All-in-all, a generic (If not mediocre) film. It's in the same tier of quality as X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but it doesn't fall quite as low as Fantastic Four and Ghost Rider. Here's something to take away from this; or, in other words, how to do a future Green Lantern film right:

Get a better director. A strict one, too.
Get a better writer.
Improve the music. Alot.
Get better art direction.


If the filmmakers were to do this, the Green Lantern would be a true film force to be reckoned with.

tl;dr

Speaking of not reading walls of text, if any of you are still here, could you let Lord Zero know that I wasn't referring to the dialogue being "cheesy" when I said it was terrible (It's just terrible, not even in a cheesy way, but in a dull, unexciting way (And I do enjoy good cheese; for example, in the review, I praised Sarsgaard's performance precisely because of how campy it was)) and that by "A strict director" I was speaking in terms of actual direction/coaching of actors in the film (Which has little to do with the actual plot in film development, which is where such an accusation would rest) and that nowhere did I imply that the film sucked because they changed it. Also let him know that even though Campbell directed some good films that doesn't mean he's an OVERALL great director (Even though he did great things for Bond, he's also responsible for ho-hum films such as the Legend of Zorro). Also the film had poor cinematography; there's no getting around the weird editing and dull camera work (For example, on Oa, there were some weird scene transitions that felt kinda jarring and entertainment-hindering).

I mean, there's a reason there's all that stuff before the little list of nitpicks at the end of the review, lol. Don't get me wrong, though; it's not terrible, and there's certainly the fanboy joy of seeing the GLC on the glorious big screen for the first time ever, but the Green Lantern deserved better, and it's nowhere near as good as many of the other contemporary superhero/action/sci-fi films (I really wanted to say "lol Marvel, DC wins this summer" with the debut of the film, but sadly, X-Men takes the cake (So far) for this summer's selection of superhero movies).

I'm lazy so i'll just qoute that entire post.

Thank you, good sir.

totally not banned yet but I figured I get here early to warm my seat up all nice.