Monday, April 16, 2007

Green Arrow Movie

Good discussion of the planned GA movie over on Pretty, Fizzy Paradise. Here are some of my comments there:
1. I don't watch Smallville, so have no idea who this guy is or what his Green Arrow/Ollie was like.

2. This could be either very good or really awful, depending on the script and director. There's just no way to know right now how this will end up.

3. I'm mostly trying to not think about it. I love Ollie, mostly from his O'Neill/Adams days, but I don't usually like him. I'm just too ambivalent about this right now.
I don't have problems with them doing their own thing with the character. Provided it serves the story and/or characters and the medium and enhances rather than detracts. The changes in the Birds of Prey tv show for example, made little sense. There was no reason to de-age Dinah. Another young character could've been used. That sort of thing becomes a distraction and when the writing mostly sucks, it becomes just one more negative in a long list.

Whereas a change that made sense was to change Wolverine's yellow spandex to a black outfit because Hugh Jackman in yellow on a giant movie screen would've been the distraction rather than a sexy Logan. Plus, Hugh Jackman isn't as beefy as Logan in the comics, so that was one change that came right from the start. What works in print rarely works as well on the screen especially a large screen.

Now it can be argued that you can get so far from the original material that it's hardly worth referring to the original. Why use Green Arrow at all if he won't BE Green Arrow, that sort of thing. But if it's well done and there's a sense of who and what GA is, then I'm fine with it.

I don't feel the need for a GA movie, in prison or not, but if it's made, I want it to be good because that might bring new readers to the comic. And if something's done, you want it done well. I'd like to say I'm reserving judgment or that I'm cautiously optimistic, but the truth is, I'm not thinking about it much, hardly at all. When it comes out, then I'll probably see it. And decide then if I think it should've been filmed.

2 comments:

  1. My daughter is the real Smallville fan, having a desperate crush on Tom Welling. I on the other hand, only really enjoyed it for the portrayal of Green Arrow by Justin Hartley, who really does make a very nice Ollie.

    And he has SUCH a Joe Staton jaw line!

    But yes, what is the point of a super hero movie, without costumes, or over-the-top villains or a giant mega-disaster plot? A prison movie just doesn't seem too exciting in comparison.

    Unless of course, they decided to do Emerald Dawn II. Heh heh.

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  2. Well, Hartley does look good in the pics I've seen. ;)

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