A four minute trailer for “Green Lantern” was recently shown at WonderCon.  Enjoy!

I’m torn. They went CGI on a lot of stuff that they didn’t have to, and that affects the overall quality of the film.  The way the Green Energy, aliens and landscapes look is just too video-gamey.  When you compare it to Star Wars, Avatar, the Matrix and other films that (whatever their flaws) use CGI so well that you’re surprised when you’re later told that some realistic-looking character or object wasn’t even there, this looks shoddy by comparison.  (And imagine how it will look in 10-20 years!)  Contrast it to well-done effects like Doctor Octopus in Spidey 2, where your mind tells you that the robot arms were all done in post but you could believe that they’re real.

More and more, I gain appreciation for Jon Favreau’s wise mix of practical effects and CGI, as displayed in the Iron Man films and Zathura.  (Zathura is an overlooked gem.  If you haven’t seen it, see it… and then watch the special features to learn Favreau’s philosophy of how to properly employ CGI.)  I wish the Green Lantern film had been done this way, with a mix of CGI aliens and animatronics and make-up.  There’s really no reason to do a CGI character that looks like a human with different colored skin.

Despite all of this… you know what my reaction was?  Hey, that’s Olapet! And I love it that they kept Tomar Re as the first GL that Hal meets.  Maybe I won’t like the graphics, maybe I hate that they used Geoff Johns’ new interpretation of Hal as a one-night-stand horndog and big-mouthed hotshot, but hey…it’s GREEN LANTERN on the big screen!  Yay!  It’s what I’ve waited to see since I was 7!

Green Lantern: big budget eyesore or fanboy’s dream?  It may be both!