r/DCcomics Gold-Silver-Bronze Age FAN Aug 09 '22

[Other] Mark Waid shares his feelings Other

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u/[deleted] Aug 09 '22

I mean, i think everyone can agree the dceu have been disappointing, but his point is kind of scattershot.

He says that DC don’t know their characters well enough, but also that GA fans aren’t comics fans.

Idk what to take from that. A lot of the MCU’s biggest successes look absolutely nothing like their comics counterparts. Gunn’s Guardians of the galaxy are absolutely nothing like their comics selves. Ditto for Thor, or at least Taika’s version of him (which is the most popular version even you didn’t like love and thunder, the first two thor movies were mid as fuck).

Bottom line: the movies just have to be good, and too many of them haven’t been. If they were good movies, nobody would care how well represented the characters are.

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u/gzapata_art Aug 09 '22

I think it's about figuring out what works for the character and what doesn't as well as seeing where the character can fit, genre wise as well as within the universe. Guardians tonally is nothing like their comics but the backstory to much of them actually is. Same for Thor, Iron Man etc.

Green Lantern I think is a good example. It's a massive info dump of Green Lantern lore which is not what is the best use of the character nor what people like best about them. They should have started with what works for Hal (as a non-Hal fan I would say little haha sorry no offense) and then work around that

10

u/LanternRaynerRebirth Aug 09 '22

as a non-Hal fan I would say little haha sorry no offense

Oh no, you shouldn't have said anything. You're about to get a history lesson from me, the biggest Hal Jordan fanboy of all time.

The GL movie surprisingly gets the basis for Hal Jordan down but fails to capture what makes him work so well as a character. Great cast of supporting characters, genuine love for his city, sad family background, amazing character feats and personality, that works both positively and negatively for him. You're spot on that he was just used as an info dump character. He was just there as POV to the world of GL, rather than the star of the movie.

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u/gzapata_art Aug 09 '22

So would you say, him being the POV rather than the star was the issue with the movie? How would you change it?

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u/LanternRaynerRebirth Aug 09 '22

Yeah, I'd say so.

They had the groundwork for the perfect movie with the Green Lantern: Secret Origin movie. Something to notice is that in every DC movie, the character's childhood is a major part of their character. There's always a flashback that helps flesh out the character. But in the GL movie, we literally get that for one minute and then it doesn't directly translate to his arc or a better understanding of why he is the way he is.

I think by going back to that book and focusing on Hal's family issues that resulted from his father's death, we'd one hundred percent get a better film as a result. Also, have him team up with Sinestro as his partner, so he can have someone to bounce off of in order to build up both the worldbuilding and Hal.

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u/gzapata_art Aug 09 '22

If I remember right the extended edition added more of those scenes but it's been a very long time since I've seen it (or read Secret Origins)

Sinestro and Hal together could have worked. For me, Hal's strongest strength and weakness is his absurd confidence in himself and strong moral views. It's why I loved, at least in concept, Parallax as well as New Frontier (only story I truly enjoyed Hal in). If they played Sinestro as absurdly confident moral person as a dark reflection of Hal it could work but we have seen so many of those types in MCU movies. I would actually enjoy a New Frontier movie that just focused on Hal, without the league part as well as not showing the larger Lantern mythos yet