In July 1983, at the age of 12, I bought my first comic book: Green Lantern #166.
It was a great introduction to comics for me. Earth’s Green Lantern was summoned to combat three renegade lanterns: equal vs. equal. The same year, Flash vs. Reverse Flash and Batman vs. Manbat were going on in other issues (and I read/bought those), but there was something about that issue of the Green Lantern and the story arc within that just hooked me.
Today, nearly thirty years later, the Green Lantern finally comes to the big screen. And on Father’s Day, I’ll be going with my son to see it.
We’ve shared many passing on the torch of fandom moments, some of which I’ve written about here. But this one is a bit different. Unlike Godzilla, which is appealing to us both in the same way, or Star Wars, which I resigned from the beginning to him being a prequel-brainwashed fan, Green Lantern is something which may not appeal to him at all. I’m hearing early buzz that the movie is a disappointment (I’ve been suspecting as much for a while, but I’m hoping everyone is just being negative). And, the things I love about Green Lantern may not be captured in this film. There may not be a Green Lantern vs. his equal (Sinestro? another rogue lantern?), and it may be more of just a bland origin story with a non-iconic villain setting the stage for later films. This may result in my boy giving it a “meh.” Rating.
On the other hand, I could be pleasantly surprised. I panicked at the start of Thor, as they laid out all of the backstory necessary for the film. I feared that the 15-minutes or so of prologue would lose my son’s interest, but he hung in there and loved the film. It may be that he gives Green Lantern a blindly loyal shot and comes out liking it. We will see.
But for me, it’s another chapter in fatherhood. Another interest shared, fingers crossed that it will take with him (probably not so much my daughter, but I’ll give her the opportunity as well.)
Susan
on Jun 17th, 2011
@ 6:27 pm:
My husband just saw it with our son (age 10) and they both liked it a lot. My husband said they did a good job at explaining the origin story.
androidative
on Jun 20th, 2011
@ 11:35 am:
All I can say is that I was extremely amazed with this film. Based on the trailers, I was expecting this film to be sub-par, I was wrong. In my opinion, for a superhero film to work, it all narrows down to special effects and the acting. For this film, both of them are great. This movie may possibly not have been as good as X-men: First Class or The Dark Knight, but it is an above average superhero movie. Ryan Reynolds is good as always and Mark Strong delivered a strong performance as well. This film is heavy on special effects and they are Stunning. The dialogue is nothing new but don’t expect it to be excellent given the fact that its a superhero movie. Overall, this movie was very well done and I liked it a whole lot more than I thought it would. I hope this may be the first of many Green Lantern movies as this has the potential to become a great movie franchise.