by Convotron » Fri Sep 04, 2009 2:49 pm
- Motto: "When in doubt, transform and roll out!"
- Weapon: Saber Blade
I've just watched this movie and to sum up my 2 cents in a word: Great!
I'm not a big GL fan. I've read some of the various comics throughout the character's history since the Silver Age(I've also briefly read reprints of the Golden Age GL, Alan Scott). But I'm not very knowledgeable about the character. I know more about Superman and Batman. Even so, this movie has made me feel like getting caught up on the GL series.
Now I wasn't really impressed by Wonder Woman or Superman: Doomsday. They both had their moments but felt like they didn't live up to the potential of the characters. GL: First Flight was a great self contained movie. As the thread title warns that spoilers may be contained, I'm going to continue on with more depth in my thoughts of the movie so spoilers away!
Negative Point:
I'll get this out of the way first because it's my one and only major criticism of the movie: Little to no plot surrounding Hal Jordan. He's chosen by Abin Sur's ring. That's all we get for an explanation of why he's the hero of the story. There's no establishment of the character's background or basically anything that would explain why he is apparently a prodigy by the way he excels in overcoming every challenge the character faces in the movie. We know from the opening that he's a test pilot and that he's a bit of a risk taker. That's it. He has a rebelious spirit as shown by his attitude when first meeting the Guardians. Aside from those few bits of insight of Hal Jordan's character, the plot heavily relies upon the audience to basically invest in Hal Jordan with no explanation.
At least Batman generally gets a montage explaining his childhood trauma of the murder of his parents and his years training abroad to perfect body and mind. Superman gets the "strange visitor from another world raised by good and honest mid-western folk" treatment. Hal Jordan is not even one dimensional in GL:FF. His Silver Age incarnation didn't have exactly the most in depth origin either but it is better than this. Darwyn Cooke's DC: The New Frontier and its animated adaptation, Justice League: The New Frontier, both did a great job of using Hal Jordan's basic origin and fleshing it out by adding an element of his point of view as an airforce pilot during the Korean War. Doing something similar for GL:FF wouldn't have taken up a lot of time, a simple 3-5 minute flashback montage to his younger days to establish his fearlessness and unusual strength of will would have sufficed.
This lack of substantial establishment of the quality and characteristics of Hal Jordan was really evident when he somehow fixed/healed/chipped the Green Element crystal. I still don't get how he brought it back to life. I'm assuming his "willpower" gave it a jumpstart.
Positive Points:
Alright, here's the good stuff!
First of all, the animation.
Top notch quality in my opinion. The work here builds upon what has already been done in previous DCAU work but takes a nice deviation from the Timm style. I love BT's style but you know what? A bit of change is good from time to time. I loved how Darwyn Cooke's style was adapted to JL:TNF. For GL:FF, the more modern muscular people in spandex look was suiting as the overall feeling from the movie was that it was a contemporary look at the origin of the Silver Age Green Lantern.
Second point, the character design.
Hal Jordan was a bit of a dud. Nothing spectacular, even more milquetoast than Superman who at least has an iconic look. I think it's because, to me, the green and black uniform with white gloves of the classic Hal Jordan GL is iconic to me. The more slick black and green look of the movie made him look generic amongst the other GLs. However, the models for Abin Sur, Sinestro, Kilowog, Cuch, Kanjar Ro, and the Guardians were really nifty to me.
Next point, the action sequences.
This is one of the possibly overlooked aspects of the movie. It's too often that we see poorly composed or poorly placed and paced action sequences. It's easy to be derisive of action scenes, especially when one is more preferential to drama and story heavy movies but a good action sequence is the same as any other narrative tool. It's there to help tell the story, to move the story along, and to also provide a glimpse into subtext.
On the more basic level, you can look at the portrayal of Sinestro's Power Ring manipulatino as opposed to Hal Jordan's. Where the former's manifestation of energy is largely sharp, angular, and narrow forms, the latter's is composed of rounded forms and often take the shape of mundane Earthly objects(ie. fly swatter). On a more advanced level, you could look at the way that the action handled in the movie like the dynamic movement during flight such as the use of unusual angles of perspective when Sinestro is chasing Cuch. There's a great sense of substantial mass when HJ is first fending off the GLs who come to retrieve him and when Kilowog and Boodika fight near the end of the movie.
As for pacing and placing of the action, this is where GL:FF really shines for me. The climatic action sequence was broken up, interspaced with moments of drama like the revelation of the deaths of numerous GLs offworld from Oa as their Power Rings return. There's a great dramatic weight to it when you see how powerful Sinestro and the Yellow Power Battery are. When the final battle happens and you see the struggle between the GL Corps and Sinestro, it's exciting, compelling, and most importantly has a reason for happening, which I'll get into when I touch upon my thoughts on the plot.
I also liked the portrayal of the power of the Yellow Element as the GLs could affect Sinestro. Nothing simply bounced off him and significant displays of force was shown to be necessary to break through the energy of the Green Power Rings. Even with the Yellow Element's power, the Green Element wasn't shown to be impotent.
Final point, the plot and performances.
This is where I have the most trepidation when hearing news of new animated features and series. There are a lot of great looking animated works out there but not a lot of great stories in those animated works. I felt that despite HJ's poor characterization, everything else was very well done. Boodikka, Kilowog, Ch'p, and the Guardians get minimal time but are well done.
I'll say this right now, Victor Garber's "Sinestro" stole the show. His acting was nuanced and subtle with the right amount of passion at the needed moments. Touching back on the animation momentarily, the animators really helped sell Sinestro because while Garber's vocals were amazing, the subtle performance of the visuals in the animation was spot on.
This Sinestro is the greatest animated villain in DCAU so far in my opinion. He, like most villains I adore, is not a campy, moustache twirling, scenery chewing, cliche. GL:FF's Sinestro is true to the origin being a person who desires order in a universe sown with chaos. At first, the character's motivation seem well intentioned but as the story progresses, we see that what first was the intent to make the universe a better place has become a thirst for absolute control. When Sinestro brutally interrogates Labella, you see the ruthlessness that defines this character. He truly appears apathetic, which is a very dangerous trait in one who wields power like the Power Ring.
Garber's performance combined with the script results in a smooth and cunning character, the kind of villain that deserves a better hero than GL:FF's HJ.
Moving on to HJ, despite my criticism of the character, I like Christopher Meloni's performance. His smooth voice with an underbite of roughness along with the smirk you can hear in his voice was great for the character. As little characterization it has, HJ was taken up a level thanks to Melon's acting. I'd really like him to reprise the role in future animated features and hopefully the script will give him more to work with.
The overall plot of the movie is decent. Sinestro's motivation and role really does make things more interesting in what would otherwise be a fairly routine "shaking up the establishment" story. I like the way that the GL Corps is portrayed as a police force and includes Abin Sur's undercover time. It reminds me of Star Wars: Clone Wars where Obi-Wan takes up a sort of detective role for a good portion of the film, which I enjoyed.
Final thoughts:
This is a great animated movie. Fans of comics in general should check this out for sure. The negatives are far outweighed by the positives and I only hope that future DCAU projects takes the ball and runs with it.
I've never read a single issue with Ch'p, and the only reason I knew he existed is cause of a pic in the DC Encyclopedia. But he's a Chipmunk/Squirrel Green Lantern, how is that not awsome?(Rhetorical question 
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