The Green Lantern and the Monomyth

That a superhero movie follows the monomyth is no great surprise. The interest is in how each movie treats the hero's path. The new Green Lantern movie features many of the signature elements of the hero's journey. The treatment ranges from the cliched to the surprising.

First and foremost is the apotheosis of the father. Hal Jordan is the son of a fearless test pilot. As such he must live up to those expectations. He walks in the footsteps of his father, yet never feels he is adequate. Irresponsibility stems from doubt. Since he inwardly feels unworthy he, whether consciously or unconsciously, sets himself up to fail. The culmination of these fears occurs in his stalled descent in a fighter jet. Hal misses the opportunity to control his plummeting plane because he relives the moment of his father's death. Frankly this could have been played out more efficiently. With Top Gun and the parody Hot Shots, this scenario has the mark of cliche.

The we have the encounter with the gods and the call to adventure, these two scenarios being inexorably linked in Green Lantern. With the crash and imminent death of Abin Sur, Hal Jordan is selected by the ring and brought to the injured alien. Despite the information overload of being whisked through the air and confronted by an alien spacecraft, Hal shrugs off this disorientation when he spots the injured Abin Sur. This is one of the first of the tests and trials Hal faces in order to prove his worth as a hero.

Abin Sur, as messenger of the gods, offers Hal the power of the ring. The ring here represents the magical weapon, the gift of the gods imbued with the power to fight evil provided the hero is worthy. The lightsaber from Star Wars is such a weapon as is Thor's hammer. But with the power of the ring comes the responsibility of using it wisely. Hal, who has shown up to this point a knack for irresponsible behavior, must overcome his past self to become the hero of destiny.

The call to and refusal of adventure is treated somewhat differently in Green Lantern. At first Hal is eager to accept the call. He swears an oath must further prove his mettle in the underworld, here represented by the planet, Oa. Oa is home for the Green Lantern corps. It is the source of their power. In a mythic sense it equates to Mount Olympus or Asgard. Oa houses the gods. Journeying to Oa, Hal Jordan is first prepared in a baptism of pain. His body is made pure that he may interact with the gods, i.e. the other Green Lanterns. As he explores more and more of Oa, he encounters creatures stranger than the next. Now Hal is a visitor between worlds. His gift removes him from humanity and his humanity separates him from the aliens on Oa. At this time he is the most alone and the most vulnerable.

He is aided by two aliens, other messengers of the gods, who provide him with tests of skill regarding the mind and the body. It is Sinestro, though, who tests Hal's spirit. Sinestro, played by Mark Strong, enters as Hal's rival, filling a role for a bother battle. Hal must match or surpass Sinestro in skill to be found worthy. That Hal fails in this test is the seed of his decline. He rejects the call to adventure and returns to the Earthly realm as a quitter.

It is only when his own realm is threatened that Hal reclaims his charge. All this while evil has taken root on Earth in the form of Hector. A wayward scientist, Hector is infected with evil. It claims his mind, body, and soul. Hector is Hal's shadow. They love the same women. Both have father issues. Each is crippled by self doubt. While Hector is corrupted by his feelings, Hal acknowledges and controls them. He returns to Oa only to be refused assistance. The gods turn their back on him. He confronts the gods, and Sinestro, and oversteps his place.

Hal battles evil on his own, knowing that he is outgunned. He is fully actualized. He uses the skills he has learned along the way, as well as the magic weapon, to defeat evil. In his moment of self sacrifice the gods accept him and rescue him from death.

There are several other elements at work here as well, but that is the gist of the monomyth. It's pretty straight forward. This may, in part, be the source of much outcry against this film. Much seems familiar. Some have remarked that Green Lantern is just The Last Starfighter, failing to grasp that they share the same mythic elements, not the same story and characters. However, other films have been more effective in telling the story. While the script is not as sparkling as Thor or X-Men: First Class, it is a far sight better than the new Star Trek or Tron: Legacy. In short it falls somewhere between, sharing a spot with Iron Man 2. The principle actors surpass the script to deliver a movie that is much better than it could be.

TRON! Legacy?

When Legacy came out I knew we had to see it. I had reservations. I expected very little, but being Disney and being TRON I at least expected it to be fun. It wasn't. It is not uncommon that I may sigh or roll my eyes at a film. Something can be ridiculous, yet still enjoyable. It is rare that I actually sneer at a film.

Why sneer? Because I hold something in contempt. Because the film insults my intelligence. Because I see past the spoken word to see the poorly written script seeping through. There are many reasons to deride the film. Granted I hated Legacy less than Transformers 2 or Armageddon, but far more than Twilight. I hold it about even with the Star Trek reboot. Thinking about it, both movies are a kind of re-imagining for a new and younger audience. Story and structure is less important than pretty people and shiny special effects.

I had my doubts when TRON Legacy opened with a number of TRON action figures on a boy's shelf. Hang on a tick. Did Flynn come out with his adventures? Did he market his story to Disney? Is everyone aware of his misadventures in the system or did he fictionalize his account? I was confused and a little dismayed. Flynn tells the story of TRON to his son, then disappears. This is where the film lost me. A montage of TV news reports informs us of the events that take place after Flynn's disappearance. Besides being a clumsy way to present exposition, the clips take place on TV screens in some nebulous space. Where are these televisions? Are they in the system that, as far as I know, has no connection to the web? It's a poor choice by the film makers that took me out of the film completely.

Then we meet our hero in earnest, a rebellious, tech savvy, twenty-something with more hair gel than soul. We have seen the archetype of the angsty heir before and we've seen it better. Sam cannot compare to Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark. So Sam breaks into the Encom building after recklessly driving his motorcycle and avoiding cops. In this sequence we see the amazing Cillian Murphy which lifted my hopes only to dash them. Murphy is just a cameo, when his presence as a villain or foil would have added considerable gravitas to the film. Sam hacks into Encom's system and makes the new OS they worked on open source.

We discover later that Sam is the major share holder and could have avoided flagrant lawbreaking just by attending the meeting. And what's with Encom? The offices are bathed in an electric blue light with chrome and glass everywhere. What happened to the natural wood? The warm, subdued lighting? The system breathes with more life than Encom which only narrows the distinction between these two worlds.

When our reluctant hero finally enters the system we find that he really isn't all that heroic at all. Constantly he is being saved, or lead, or captured. Everything Sam does is passive. Things happen to him. He doesn't really do anything for most of the film. The rare exercise of will does not contribute to the story. Sam is bland and has no chemistry with his father.

And the system itself is a far cry from the TRON we know from 1982. The world of the system then had charm, with it's minimal graphics. It looked like an electronic world. The system of TRON Legacy is hyper real. It looks more like a futuristic society than an electronic dimension. The grid of old has been replaced by what looks like granite or asphalt. The shimmering, latex suits of old appear to be more natural fabrics now. It rains. Moreover, the world seems to be populated by supermodels and EBM band members. The whole experience is more style than substance.

The action itself is highly stylized. Programs don't just throw disks, they have to do some kind of extreme martial arts 900 spinning backflip before doing so. Somehow the modernized representation lacks the charm of TRON 1982. The light cycle sequence, though beautiful, doesn't follow the sharp 90 degree turns of the original film. The sense of a video game world is lost.

And then there is CLU. We see a digitally younger Jeff Daniels. CLU has the same surfer-dude mannerisms of Flynn, yet has this fascist perspective. The lazy posture and the rigid attitude conflict in such a way that I have difficulty fusing the two.

The story is convoluted and mostly involves flashbacks. Flynn creates CLU. They discover the spontaneously generated programs. CLU destroys them. TRON gets reprogrammed. And what is with TRON? How can you in good conscience call a film after a character that features mostly as a foil. And when TRON finally breaks from his spell there is absolutely no consequence. For the most part Legacy follows the basic action of the first movie. Man gets zapped into the system. He has to play games. He escapes. He makes his way back to the portal to get back to the real world. Legacy features a few more action sequences, namely the entirely unnecessary club scene. The added action doesn't move the story, making Legacy the equivalent of The Matrix: Reloaded. Nevertheless, there remains the dull dinner sequence and the light boat scenes that dragged much like the scene by the pond in TRON.

Much has been said regarding the soundtrack by Daft Punk. I felt the music too much in the foreground, the aforementioned club scene being just one account. The music is good, but distracting or, rather, too on the nose. It's presence turns the film into an extended music video. There were many options for electronic artists. I'm left wondering what a Bill Leeb or a Gary Numan may have done with the same opportunity.

TRON Legacy was a film that needn't have been made. Disney showed some speculative shots of light cycles during a technology demonstration. When they heard the response the executive saw with dollar signs for eyes. But in the end, Sam fails. He does not return with his father, suggesting a third movie. I'm not invested enough in this franchise to want a third film. TRON did not warrant a sequel in the first place.

If I were Flynn and nearly died in a computer system would I willingly go back? They have mice and keyboards for a reason, you know.