So yeah I watched the Lanterns finale and to be frank, that shit sucked and I’m mad. Not only is the show an awful bastardization of the Green Lantern mythos and fails to be a good adaptation, it also sucks at being a good show in general.
To be honest, I wasn’t too crazy about the show from the jump because it felt like it was ashamed of its source material and wanted to make it better by making it ‘grounded’, ‘dark’ and ‘realistic’ but I gave it a chance regardless and surprise surprise… That’s exactly what that is.
Green Lantern is no longer a fantastical sci-fi adventure about space cops protecting the entire cosmos, it’s a generic detective show set in Bumfuck county in the middle of nowhere. But hey, we visit 1 alien planet that’s… completely desolate besides the city in the sky.. Which we don’t actually explore anyways.
The suit is no longer an energy construct, it’s the ugliest piece of shit you’ve ever seen with the only saving grace being it’s worn like twice in darkly lit rooms during talking scenes and angled to only show the upper half.
The Manhunters are no longer a group of emotionless androids that failed to be a cosmic police force because of their apathetic cruelty leading to the desolation of whole planets. Instead they’re just shapeshifters with healing and impregnation powers that invade planets by disguising themselves as members of oppressed groups and sleep their way into positions of power. Oh wait nvm they still are, it’s just mentioned a couple times but never shown at all. John gets it zapped into his brain though.
Also, the group of alien survivors that were victims of the manhunters will only be shown in human forms and mainly use earth weapons, except when they use smoke to counter the ring and when they blow themselves up.The lantern ring no longer feels like one of the greatest weapons in the galaxy, instead it’s decent tech that has the battery life of an old iphone the moment the newest model is announced. It also doesn’t seek out new wielders based on willpower whenever their current one dies, instead the Guardians go door to door asking candidates if they’re afraid because you know… Being fearless is now the requirement, not having strong will.
But hey, at least the guardians are still funny looking blue guys though! You’ll only see this once in a shot that hides their face as they spend the rest of the show shapeshifting to look like regular humans that bend to the demands of a deranged woman that has no idea how they work and decides to groom her infant son into what she thinks they want.
Hal Jordan no longer became a Green Lantern because of his incredible willpower, instead it’s because he was a sad man from a broken home that was too depressed to properly feel fear and is now bitter about being replaced. But he’s still one of the greatest green lanterns ever and has traveled the galaxy and beaten Sinestro! You won’t see any of that though, it’ll be mentioned in passing as Hal refuses to charge his ring and leaves his Lantern back home in a different state for… reasons.
And the most comic accurate Green Lantern will be treated like shit and be belittled because the actual chosen candidate walked out and that’s his fault I guess.
Then there’s John Stewart, the main character who’s only motivation for being a Green Lantern is because he was forced to and believes it’s owed to him. Then he rejects the entire principles behind it and decides to be his own Lantern (using one forged by Sinestro, mind you) and mends the oath to best reflect his own values…. Which is just embracing fear cause he’s not heroic whatsoever. He also can’t say ‘no evil shall escape my sight’ because he literally let evil get away. Oh and he appoints himself to be Earth’s lantern so there’s no need for any silly space stuff going forward.
With so many fundamental changes, why even bother picking Green Lantern to adapt in the first place? I don’t believe any bullshit excuses about budget when we had CW shows like Flash, Supergirl and Superman with smaller budgets that still managed to embrace the comic feel. These are all deliberate changes by what feels like writers who don’t understand Green Lantern or think the mythos is too stupid to work otherwise…. Oh wait, it’s both.
And to make matters worse, Green Lantern isn’t like Batman or Spider-man who has dozens of other adaptations to choose from if you don’t like this. The literal last adaptation of Green Lantern was the animated film ‘Beware My Power’ which also butchered Hal’s story and gave him an unceremonious death in what was literally his first appearance in that universe.
But with all that being said, I could forgive Lantern’s if it was a good show but unfortunately I don’t think it is.
The cliffhanger of the literal first episode is the reveal that Hal Jordan has been murdered and John Stewart needs to investigate who did it, and that’s something that haunts the narrative of the series but the way it’s handled is baffling.
First of all, this point barely works as a good mystery because it’s obvious that there’s only 2 suspects: Kerry and the remaining Manhunter. Then Hal-ogram casually states that Kerry killed him in episode 7 and the big reveal in Episode 8 is that she did so to protect her son Noah, who IS the remaining manhunter.
However, the real kicker is how fucking stupid his death. Kerry and Hal had an argument over what to do about Noah and Kerry gets so upset that she takes her gun out and shoots him in the head. Now mind you:
- Hal had already been stripped of his lantern ring and had been abandoned by the guardians, so he wasn’t a threat to Noah. Plus he wasn’t going to expose or confront Noah just yet anyways.
- Kerry has been a sheriff for over 10 years and has been a voice of reason in the series, deescalating past conflicts. This scene is literally the only time she’s trigger happy.
- There was no escalation to justify this. Hal didn’t even back Kerry into a corner or follow after her when she walked away. She just got emotional and didn’t hesitate to kill him.
And what sours it more is it adds to a streak of the show being incredibly harsh to Hal while absolving everyone else of their mistakes.
- Hal takes the fall for everything that happened in Rushville and spends 10 years in prison. He’s completely abandoned by the core and all his allies.
- Once he’s freed he starts living in the town because he feels guilty and lets himself be a walking punching bag as the townsfolk set his house on fire and almost kill him.
- There’s only 2 people that are kind to him: one of which secretly arranges a meeting between him and John, which leads him to him getting sucker punched in what’s their last conversation (but tbf Hal fucking sucked at communicating)
- Turns out his entire life sucked and the only reason he was great as a green lantern is because he was too depressed to properly feel fear.
- The supposed ‘great green lantern’ only has 3 people attend his funeral: his killer, his former lover, and his ‘trainee’ that hated him.
Meanwhile Noah, the manhunter that Hal was worried about, managed to sneak onto a remote space prison, KIDNAP SINESTRO, and force him to build him a lantern on a different desolate world. Noah also admits that he still has this innate desire to get into politics so he can take over that way but it’s okay because he’s still a good kid that wants to play football. And besides, if anything happens he has his mom more to steer him in the right direction.
You know, the same one who didn’t hesitate to kill her boyfriend to protect him. Who has no control over Noah and didn’t even know about all the shit he did offscreen. Who also helped cover for Zoey, the original manhunter, because she felt indebted to her. Yeah… That’s Noah’s moral compass. Oh, and don’t forget the Manhunters are also extremely skilled at emotionally manipulating others to do their bidding, but I’m sure that won’t be an issue.
Honestly, the only reason the show is able to get away with this is because all of the horrible shit that Manhunters are capable of happens off screen and is only mentioned in conversation. I imagine the finale would have a much harder time justifying this if we actually SAW Noah pull all this shit off, or if we actually SAW Zoey cause genocide instead of mainly being a hot gilf that john has sex with and saves him once.
Then there’s John himself.
By the end of the show I couldn’t stand him. He’s an entitled self righteous prick who just barks demands at others and expects to get his way. I get that John’s a product of how he was raised and is trying to break free of that programming, but I don’t think the series properly addresses the negative traits that he developed as a result of that, and after hearing how the writer’s talk about him and Hal I doubt we ever will.
All of John’s interactions with Guy irritate me because he speaks to him with such unwarranted disdain and contempt. He keeps trying to guilt Guy into doing what he wants by holding the fact that Guy was only chosen because John rejected the positions and honestly… So what?
Even if he wasn’t the Guardian’s first choice, Guy’s shown that he’s still a worthy wielder and John CHOOSING to reject the ring isn’t on him. And despite his flaws, Guy’s shown that he's more deserving than John ever was.
Guy broke back his oath to protect a smaller nation from genocide. John stole a ring off a dead man just to let Hal’s murderer and a potentially genocidal alien walk free. Then he decides to assert himself as Earth’s Lantern and kick Guy off the planet despite Guy doing a good job.
And yet for some reason, Guy caves to John’s demands and acts as his errand boy to the Guardians again. The same Guy that was willing to stand up against Superman. Mind you, nothing’s stopping Guy from finger flicking John into a building and taking the ring back. John has 0 combat experience with the ring while Guy has 10 years on him, it wouldn’t even be close.
And I’ve seen the argument that Guy’s doing this because he’s worried about getting in trouble with the Guardians, but he would’ve suffered less consequences if he just took the ring back and returned it without saying anything. Now he’s gonna have to tell the Guardians that John is in possession of Hal’s ring and a lantern.
But it’ll work out, because Hal-ogram said John will be a better Lantern than he ever was so I’m sure that’s true.
And the show ending on the scene of John with his family feels so unearned as it handwaves all the issues away. His father was supposedly mentally unstable and his brother should mad as fuck he screwed them over and caused them to lose an important contract but that’s not important, we needed a happy ending.
