Fucking FanBoys

Why Green Lantern Movie won't work.

You know what I hate? Comic book fans.

Let me elaborate. I just read at the above link a guy wining about the upcoming Green Lantern Movie, and why it will fail. He starts off explaining that he has been a life long Green Lantern fan.

There's your first reason to ignore the guy right there.

Now yeah, I am a comic book fan. And I'm very passionate about my fandom for the 4 colour sequential world. I also have lots of friends who share my passion. The big difference is that we are not HARD CORE fans. We're not fan boys.

What's the difference? Simple. I'm willing to give change a chance. Fanboy's aren't.

Case in point. My Ex is a huge X-men fan. She knows The histories, the interactions, all that. Personally, I hate the X-men. But I loved the movie. She, on the other hand, was pissed off by that film. Why? Because Wolverine and Rouge hate each other. That's it! In the comics, those two don't get along. So she would quite often launch into some diatribe about the films needing to be completely re shot, in accordance with the history established in the comics.

Now, movies and comics are two completely mediums. Yes, they highly influence each other. But one is not the other. So, things that work in comics, wouldn't necessarily work on film. There needs to be a certain level of translation. Same with books, or plays, or anything like that. It just seems that comics get the more insane fans. You know, I even heard people complaining that Wolverine should have been wearing the yellow spandex in the film. Who the hell wants to see that! For comics to be translated to film, you have to accept a level of adaption. You have to strip the story right back down to it's original idea and inspiration, and then re build up from there. I get this. Annoyingly though, most Fanboy's don't.

Which leads me to this above idiot. I couldn't even finish reading this fucking thing. He was trying to explain why Green Lantern won't work. All his explanations hark back to him being a comic fan. How can you do this story without all this back story and history from the comics? How can you explore this character without including all this continuity from the comics? How can you have this character without the last 50 fucking years of comic book stories? Simple. YOU DON'T!!!!

I learnt a very important lesson while watching the Watchmen movie. I really liked that movie. I think it was an excellent translation of the Graphic Novel, it was probably the closest and most faithful adaption of the work that will ever be made. But on my first viewing, sitting there in the theatre, less than a minute into the film, something dawned on me. I knew how that film was going to end. I knew and loved that story so much, that that film really didn't hold any surprises for me. (Not counting the sex scene in the Owlship. Woah.)

The point is, what's the point of telling the exact same story that has already been told? Tell your own fucking story, don't just repeat someone else's! And that's what a translation from comic to film should be! The character has been around for 40 or 50 years because there's been 40 or 50 years of new story tellers telling new stories. If you told the same story again and again, no one would keep reading it, and it wouldn't have had the impact and the staying power that the character seems to have had.

Fuck, I hope I'm making sense.

Green Lantern is a sci-fi action adventure story, with a little bit of a cop mystery story thrown in. They stick with that, they should be fine. I have my own ideas on how the movie should run, mostly just some key scenes. Ask me around a able one day and I'll recite them. But I'm leaving this in the hands of the film makers, and I'm going to reserve judgment until I've seen it.

And for all the Fanboys out there. You're entitled to your opinion. But that doesn't mean I'm not entitled to mine.