When news broke that a Green Lantern movie was coming to the silver screen, the on-line casting couch targeted actor Nathan Fillion as someone who might make a good candidate for the lead role. One enterprising fan even went so far to create a trailer with Fillion as Hal Jordan.
Alas, it wasn’t to be and Warner Brothers and DC cast Ryan Reynolds instead.
Warner Brothers animation stepped up to the plate and decided to give fans a glimpse of what might have been with Green Lantern: Emerald Knights, casting Fillion as the voice of the Hal Jordan Lantern for the feature length animated feature. Released as a tie-in to the big-screen release of Lantern later this week, Emerald Knights has a solid voice cast and is visually stunning.
It’s just a shame that the overall concept of linked stories of the Lantern corp never fully gels. Told as flashbacks by the Hal Jordan Lantern to a young recruit, the animated feature looks at several pivotal moments in the history of the Lanterns. These segments may serve a greater purpose in helping flesh out things there weren’t time to get to in the upcoming feature film, but here they feel a bit disjointed and many fail to sustain their ten or so minute running time. The linking story of a threat to all of the Lanterns is interesting enough, but the pieces aren’t all enough to hold Emerald Knights together.
Warner Animation has attempted these short films to flesh out a universe before with the same limited success. Batman: Gotham Knights hit DVD before Dark Knight hit theaters and was supposed to fill in the gaps between that movie and Batman Begins. Comparing the two, it strikes me that Emerald Knights would have been better served to come between the first Lantern installment and its sequel, giving audiences a chance to be introduced to the characters shown here and have greater investment in them and their storylines.
But as with all Warner animated releases, it’s not just the feature that should draw in fans. This release is packed full of extras on the making of this animated feature and if you’re a Lantern fan, you’ll probably be delighted. As a relative new comer to the Lantern universe, I found them interesting enough but was far more compelled and intrigued the first look at the upcoming Batman: Year One feature. While we don’t see any footage from the highly anticipated animated release, we do get some hints of how this pivotal storyline will come to life in animated form later this year.
Slice of SciFi Rating: 2.0 out of 5.0
Actors: Nathan Fillion, Elizabeth Moss
Number of discs: 1
Studio: Warner Home Video
DVD Release Date: June 9, 2011
Run Time: 84 Minutes
Disjointed wasn’t my thought. I sometimes dislike anthology features and was not really looking forward to EMERALD KNIGHTS because I knew that was the format. However, being an intermediate reader of the GL universe, I found the plots and features on the other Lanterns to be fascinating. Hal Jordan already had his feature animation for the DCAU a few years ago in FIRST FLIGHT, so it makes sense to flesh out what is probably the most immense standalone continuity in the DCU. It helps that the feature more or less ties in with an actual GL comic arc titled SECRET ORIGINS. This story was not made up on the fly for an absolute tie-in with the upcoming film. It takes advantage of timing, but this is very much a release that should please actual DCU GL fans.
I think comic fans in general should like EMERALD KNIGHTS, and any GL fan should adore it. 2/5 seems like an insanely low rating for such a well voice-acted, animated, and presented affair – not to mention the ace extras. A quick and probably not accurate assumption is that the reviewer for EMERALD KNIGHTS here is only familiar with Jordan and Stewart and the Earth-centric tie-ins from the GL universe. If you like the Lanterns for being the Lanterns, or the Lantern universe for being as bizarre and expansive as it is, then I think you should give EMERALD KNIGHTS a chance.
A review from the perspective of someone who knows the Lantern Universe can be found here: http://www.popbunker.net/2011/06/review-green-lantern-emerald-knights/
Dale. You’re correct that I’m a novice when it comes to Green Lantern. My only real exposure to the character was the previous DC Animated feature and seeing him on SuperFriends back in the day.
I reviewed the Blu-Ray as a novice to the universe and found it wasn’t up to the standards of most other DC Animated features. It was OK, but not great.
Fair enough! I really liked it, but I can see where the disconnect might be – especially with the anthology style narrative.
Unfortunately it and FIRST FLIGHT might be the best we get. Reviews for the live action movie so far are not good. I really think the ball was dropped in casting. Ryan Reynolds is nothing like Hal Jordan – nor do I believe he can act like Hal Jordan.
Thanks for the reply!