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The Main Characters
---Hal Jordan/Green Lantern (Christopher Meloni) is a test pilot who was given a powerful ring by an alien who crashed on Earth. That alien was part of the Green Lantern Corps and that title has now been passed to Hal.
---Sinestro (Victor Garber) is one of the premiere members of the Corps although he’s really running his own agenda.
The Setting
Green Lantern’s home is in Coast City, a place I always envisioned to be near the Seattle, Washington area. That being said, this takes place almost entirely in outer space and on Oa, the home of the Guardians.
The Main Feature (1:17:27)
We waste no time in setting up the plot. The opening minutes see Abin Sur crashing on Earth and giving Hal his ring and making Hal a member of the Green Lantern Corps, an intergalactic police force that protects the universe. Hal meets some of the Corps (Sinestro, Kilowog, Tomar and Boodikka) and Sinestro gives Hal the rundown on the Guardians of the Galaxy and all that. Hal is brought to OA to meet the Guardians and after they determine he’s worthy to bear the ring Sinestro takes Hal under his wing and sets him on his first mission, getting the person who killed Abin Sur. They head to a terrible world of criminals and Sinestro has some rather interesting interrogation methods. Hal is against what he’s doing but he happens to defeat the squid-creature that killed Abin Sur and Sinestro immediately goes after Hal for going against his interrogation techniques.
Hal learns about Kanjar Ro and how he’s harnessed a yellow force, the Lantern’s only weakness. Things happen quickly for the Lanterns as they find out where Kanjar Ro is and go after him. We see that Sinestro is actually working with Ro. Ro almost makes his escape but Hal is able to keep with him, showing that his learning curve is rising exponentially. Sinestro sets up Hal by framing him for the murder of Ro and taking the yellow element for himself. Hal is stripped of his ring as a result. Hal suspects something is up and suspects Sinestro is part of what is up. Hal (with Kilowog and Boodikka) even finds Sinestro with the yellow rod in his hands. Unfortunately for Kilowog and Hal, Boodikka is on Sinestro’s side. Hal and Kilowog are attacked by Boodikka but in the fight Boodikka ends up dead.
Sinestro escapes and finds the power source and becomes a Yellow Lantern. He kills a few Lanterns (including Tomar) because he can before returning to Oa with some serious business to attend to with the Guardians. He depowers the Green Lantern with his own Yellow Lantern and all seems lost. The Corps are completely decimated until Hal resurrects the Green Lantern energy source to have his final battle with Sinestro.
Collection Review
I was never the biggest Green Lantern fan and really only know about him from the Green Lantern Chronicles Vol. 1 and Johns work on Sinestro Corps and now Blackest Night so I can’t say how true to the character of Hal this really is. I know the origin is pretty much spot on with Abin Sur giving him the ring but other than that I can’t tell you how accurate everything else is. That being said, I enjoyed the heck out of this movie. There are tons of actions and the animation is really crisp. The CGI stuff is added in here almost effortlessly and is not a huge eyesore like the Iron Man animated feature was. There were some drawbacks for me. I thought the story was watered down in some places and some key elements of Hal’s character were omitted, like his relationship with Carol, the training he would’ve received as a Lantern, and the absence of any of Sinestro’s corps but the last one was necessary so we could have the Sinestro/Hal final battle. Those few negatives aside there is a lot of great stuff here. We see the heroic essence of Hal, the evil Sinestro (and is anyone surprised he became evil? I mean his name almost spells Sinister) and a great combination that really captures the essence of the early Hal stories with the greatness of the Sinestro Corps.
DVD Features
A) Extras
---Disc One---
1) A First Look at Superman/Batman: Public Enemies (7:49)
I am looking forward to this one and I hope it is in the same vein as some of the Superman/Batman comics. It looks to be based on one of Loeb’s story that was featured in Superman/Batman. They try to imitate Ed McGuinness’ style in the books and since his work is a bit cartoony, it should translate well. The voice talent here all recorded together which isn’t usually seen in animated films these days. This looks like a lot of action and a lot of characters and should be a good romp through the DCU.
2) From Graphic Novel to Original Animated Movie – Justice League: The New Frontier (10:44)
This is taken from the Superman: Doomsday DVD and what follows is from my review of that DVD: When I saw this was a Teaser Reel I thought it would be a 2 minute trailer but this clocked in at over 10-minutes! Of course this is based on the awesome Cooke mini-series. Cooke used to be a storyboard artist and worked in animation for some time. Cooke, DC biggie Paul Levitz, and many others chime in on New Frontier and what it was and its importance to DC. They talk about why they used this to make the movie and Cooke not being too close to the project at first. He was afraid the 70-minute film would lose too much of his work but he said the screenplay was awesome. They talk about not wanting to have continuity between films so a different Superman is used here, Kyle MacLachlan, and he sounds awesome. Lucy Lawless plays Wonder Woman (Bruce says this was a D’uh moment), and she really got into the character. David Boreanaz voices Hal Jordan. They don’t mention any others but I saw Neil Patrick Harris and an IMDB check sees him voices Flash. They show some animatics and footage from this film as well. Bruce Timm is just amazing in the world of DC animation and this is one area where they are just blowing Marvel out of the water. The one thing I have to ask now, what will they put as the extras on New Frontier? This was a great making of.
3) Wonder Woman: The Amazon Princess (10:25)
This was taken from the Batman: Gotham Knight DVD review and has been pasted following this sentence. They couldn’t get the movie off the ground, so we get an animated feature instead. If it is anything like Superman: D&R or New Frontier, we should be in good shape. Hey, Rosario Dawson, Alfred Molina, sweet Jesus what a cast! Mimi from the Rent movie is going to be in the Wonder Woman DVD. Rosario will play Artemis, Virginia Madsen is Hyppolyte., Keri Russell is Wonder Woman, Nathan Fillion is Steve Trevor, Alfred Molina is Ares and he jokes that American writers think the British accent is villainous. We get a look at the origin of WW with some nice storyboards of the film, which look similar to the Timm DC animation we’re used to. Looks good, and I’ll pen this into my spring 2009 DVD purchase list.
4) Batman: Gotham Knight – An Anime Evolution (10:09)
This is from the Justice League: New Frontier DVD. Again, my original thoughts are copied and pasted here. Denny O’Neill and Dan DiDio begin by talking about Batman and his origin and what drives him as a character. This DVD is 6 interlocking stories each done by different anime directors and studios. They talk about the villains of the film (Deadshot, Scarecrow and Killer Croc) I am interested in picking this up to see how it is executed. I am not a big anime fan so it should be a new experience watching different adaptations of Batman.
5) Blackest Night: Inside The DC Comics Event (8:51)
Johns talks about Blackest Night and the main premise (Black rings fly to dead DC characters and all hell breaks loose). The main characters in this epic are discussed a bit, including Martian Manhunter, Golden-Age Superman, and the Flash. All this hits on Free Comic Book Day and we see very brief scenes of that. Well I am pumped for this event as of this writing it is two issues in and kicking major ass.
6) Trailers
I didn’t watch these since none caught my interest.
---A) Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (1:52)
---B) Ben 10 Alien Force (0:32)
---C) Bakugan (0:32)
---D) Batman: Gotham Knight (1:35)
---Disc Two---
1) Green Lantern: Behind The Story with Geoff Johns (8:41)
Johns talks a bit about the core of Green Lantern and Hal Jordan (overcoming fear). Johns talks about bringing Jordan back in Rebirth, Jordan being a test pilot (and Johns saying he actually went with test pilots to research this story). Johns writes a book a week (this week is Flash week, and now this week is Green Lantern week). Geoff mentions working for Donner back when he was younger, working with Ivan Reis, Dave Gibbons, and Peter Tomasi. Geoff recites the Lantern motto at the end. I would like to hear more from current creators on DVD’s like this. What I like about Geoff is that he’s a real fan of the character and you can tell he really enjoys writing this character.
2) Duck Dodgers “The Green Loontern” (22:22)
This is quite the unique extra to be added in here. Duck Dodgers ran on Cartoon Network from August of 2003 until November of 2005 with this episode debuting on October 18th, 2003. If you don’t know about Duck Dodger it is Daffy Duck as an intergalactic super-hero with Porky Pig as his assistant. Well, this episode sees Porky giving Duck the wrong costume (a Green Lantern costume) complete with a power-ring. Kilowog and Tomari make appearances (which is really cool) as does the main villain, Sinestro. There’s a lot of cool stuff here (Duck mentioning Spider-Man and comparing one of the Guardians to Papa Smurf) that goes along with a surprisingly well-written entry into the Green Lantern mythos. The writing team (which included Paul Dini) really took all the great elements of all that is Green Lantern, made it really accessible to readers who never heard of Green Lantern and more importantly was awesome, especially that final scene.
3) In Brightest Day, In Blackest Night: The Green Lantern Corps
---A) Sinestro (4:01)
This talks about Sinestro the character becoming a renegade Lantern who was banished and who discovered the yellow power. He formed his own corps and the GLC fought back by enabling lethal force, playing right into Sinestro’s hands. This is just for those who don’t know Sinestro’s role in the comics right now.
---B) The Guardians of the Universe (3:39)
The Guardians are the little blue guys. Again, this just talks about their current role in the books while adding just a touch of their history.
6) Bruce Timm’s Top Picks: Green Lantern
---A) Once And Future Thing Part One (23:00)
This Justice League Unlimited episode first aired on January 22nd, 2005. A man has created a time-travel suit and uses it to get away from his nagging wife. He ends up in the JLA tower and when he tries to escape Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and Batman jump into the timestream. I thought that when I saw these episodes I assumed it would be the Hal Jordan Green Lantern and not the John Stewart one. Oh, this was written by Dwayne McDuffie. They end up in the Old West, 1879. Couldn’t John just call the Corps? I mean they’ve been around since forever and I’m sure they could help out. So the JLU run into a cowboy (Bat Lash) and they find the time-master who had his suit stolen by a local tough guy (Tobias Manning) who has taken over the town. We see some of the great DC Western characters like Jonah Hex. The JLU restore order and get the Old West back to being the Old West before the time-master flies off to the future. Guess who follows? They end up in the Batman Beyond universe (which I am not too familiar with). I love how JLU would always throw in these great characters into each episode.
---B) Once And Future Thing Part Two (23:00)
The conclusion to this JLU two-parter aired on January 29th, 2005. So Green Lantern, Wonder Woman and Batman end up in the future and meet Static, Hawkman (John’s son) and Batman Beyond, as well as future Bruce Wayne. Chronos has a bunch of clown villains working for him. The JLU need to stop the time-master and they need to hurry, since history is changing before their eyes (like Wonder Woman disappearing). They go after one of Chronos’ weaknesses, his wife. While capturing her John Stewart becomes Hal Jordan. Well now what I wrote before in the previous episode looks foolish. Oh wait, it’s back to John. The timeline gets restored and all is back to normal for the JLU.
B) Audio/Video
This is a Dolby Digital/Widescreen presentation. I have to say it sounds great, especially the surrounds and the colors just leap off the screen. A great job by the DC guys.
C) Packaging / Liner Notes
This comes in a really cool slip-case that is really shiny. I guess I’m like a little kid and shiny things catch my eye. Other than that there’s no liner notes. You get a slip of paper with the Digital Disc code and all the extras are printed on the back of the DVD case.
D) Easter Eggs
Nothing on here, folks!
Overall Review
We start with some previews. We see previews for DC’s Wonder Woman DVD and Smallville (1:43). This is quite an awesome collection. Sure, some of the extras have been repeated on other DC DVD’s and it’s something I noticed with the Wonder Woman DVD as well. It’s actually not a bad idea to do that so that people buying the Green Lantern DVD could see some of the other great animated movies DC has released. Personally I don’t watch them because I’d already seen them once before. As long as DC keeps putting new great extras on here I don’t have a problem with 30 minutes of repeats. The other extras are all top-notch, including the stuff with Geoff Johns and the always enjoyable JLU episodes on here. DC is really showing they can really pump out awesome animated DVDs featuring just about any one of their heroes. Now I hope they stray from something related to Superman, Batman or any of the mainstream JLA and try something a little out of the box.
Overall Rating
9.0
10.0 Perfect
9.0-9.5 Near Perfect, Highly Recommended
8.0-8.5 Really good disc, Recommended
7.0-7.5 Good DVD, Mildly recommended
6.0-6.5 Above Average DVD. Mildest of mild recommendations
5.0-5.5 Decent all around disc, but catch it on TV
4.0-4.5 Great Movie but horrible DVD
3.0-3.5 Horrible movie but great DVD
2.0-2.5 There’s at least some merit to this DVD, but not much.
1.0-1.5 Horrible DVD, don’t even bother
0.0-0.5 Worst DVD ever
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