Green Lantern w/ Paul Rust (Classic)

18:24Jason Mantzoukas:Keep it warm for me. I thought not enough foreshadowing that that dad was going to die. Hal Jordan is in a spin. He's going down. He goes into this intense flashback where he... Now, I didn't even understand what that meant. Why did he... So they were trying to say he was afraid. He was freezing. He was having a flashback. That's why he froze? Yeah, he let fear in, man. Yeah, he let fear in. His fear was of his dad who blew up in a... Well, I guess he was scared that he'd turn out the same way. I guess so, guys. This movie did become a self-help book by the end of it. Every character had major daddy issues.

18:59Embrace your green. Yeah, it was all about will and fear and daddy didn't love me and daddy doesn't like me. I don't have a daddy. But just the explosion, when that happened, I maybe sound a little too old-fogish, but like our movies just like they're so brutal in their like attempts to surprise you even like a comic book movie like that's for kids like the Green Lantern you're constantly seeing like fathers explode before their child's eyes yes while they're locked in like intense eye contact with them that was the thing it looks like the dad's going to survive the plane lands and then the kid is running to the plane and the dad makes eye contact with him and then explodes

19:40Jason Mantzoukas:I had the same experience in Transformers 3 where the robots instead of just fighting, rip each other's neck and spine out. They're robot neck and spine. It's like, you don't need to do that. This is a movie for children. They're going to rip off their head and spine. Why do they have robotic analogs to our biological... Why do they have spines? Robots do not have spines. I also was like, where are the moms in this world? In the Transformers world? Well, no. In the Lantern world? The one mom who, when Hal Jordan was wrapping that gift for his nephew, who we never saw again. And who were all those men there?

20:15His brothers? There was like five different men his age there.

20:19Jason Mantzoukas:Those men were like, you crashed that plane you have to live so dangerously, Hal. What, are you trying to be just like him so much that you want to die in a plane crash, Hal? You know what, John? Why don't you relax, John? I'm going to go see my nephew and his nephew's in bed crying on his birthday. Because he's scared for his uncle, Hal. I love those one-off characters. That nephew's only there to function so we don't think this Ryan Reynolds character is like a huge asshole. Oh, he gave a piece of shit to his nephew, but then he never comes back. He gives the worst thing. He's like, he gave his nephew a birthday gift.

20:53Jason Mantzoukas:The kid opens it, and it's like a little airplane. He goes, what's this, a starfighter? No, it's a fucking airplane, dummy. Also, a pilot, this like grown man, a pilot is giving a plane to his nephew. It's like, so apparently this gift is all about you. Yeah. I'm like, your job, and you're reminding your nephew what your job is. And then he goes over to the nephew's room, takes down a plane that is hanging. Looks exactly like him. And replaces it with an identical one. He's like, take down your shitty one. I'll give you this one. This is the better one. And then he leaves. He doesn't even hang out.

21:24Oh, he's out of there.

21:25Jason Mantzoukas:He's gone. And you never see him again. He's out of there. I also love that the nerd that worked at the airplane place was only a nerd because of those glasses. Like, he's a good looking guy. Yeah. And the best part, Paul, we laugh so hard at this, when Ryan Reynolds turns into the Green Lantern in front of him. For the first time. For the first time at such a transformation, he just yells out, Green! Green! Green! Green! Was that not the craziest, weirdest sex scene? Where he's like, show me. Yes! Show it to me. The nerd guy is like, show it to me. You gotta show me. You gotta show me. And he's like, okay, you wanna see this?

22:01It was like, total. It was very strange. All of the dialogue might as well have been like, and then he's like, and then he's like, like Ryan Reynolds poses, like stands up in front of him in like a tank top of sweatpants and just posing like he's going to turn into the Green Lantern. And the guy's just watching from the couch. It is the pervious, super weirdest thing in the world.

22:22Jason Mantzoukas:I also had an issue with those sweatpants he was wearing for some reason. Walking around. They were strangely obscene. I know you're not a hero right there in that moment. I try to act like one. Put on some slack. My favorite line, I think, from that scene is, dude, you're a superhero. Yeah. Don't they always get the girl? Yeah. The guy says, don't they always get the girl? Can I say that after we went to this, I think we saw it around 8, I came back later for a midnight screening and I got mixed up. And because I thought I hadn't left, I walked back into the same Green Lantern screening. And when I walked in, it was the line, don't they usually get the girls?

23:00Jason Mantzoukas:I was like, oh, terrible. And that was the exit line. Twice in a day I have to hear this line. And that was the exit line of that scene. It was like, don't they always get the girl? Next scene. Yeah. Okay. Oh, so at one point, Hal Jordan is making amends with Blake Lively. And he makes her her necklace. He's like, I can do things like this. And she gets a little Green Lantern necklace. That's the worst gift because won't that just immediately disappear? And it does. At the end of the scene, it's gone. So, like, he could give her a gift for a second. Yeah. She's like, happy birthday. I'm sorry I forgot.

23:34And then it's gone. That's like the head of, like, you know, Chrysler, giving a Chrysler to his wife. You're like, oh, thanks, this thing that you have easy access to.

23:42Jason Mantzoukas:But also, it would be like having a Chrysler and then getting in it and driving off in it. And going, this is yours. I'll see you later. You'll never drive this car. It comes with me. Yeah. I travel in this. They fought about the same issue, broke up, and got back together, like, ten times in this movie. That was kind of the whole problem with the movie, right? It was like scenes would address the problem, and then they'd go back home, and then they'd think about, like, wait, that didn't really get resolved. They'd lie down for a little while. Maybe I should go back to Owe of the Living Planet and talk to those guys.

24:10Jason Mantzoukas:I will tell you that no matter what, through it all, Blake Lively thought his jokes were really funny. Well, they were. She was. Well, they were. You know, that was her genuinely breaking in scene. Oh, my God. I'm going to ask a question, though. I was confused about how we were using the word lanterns, because there was an actual lantern, but then also people were referred to as lanterns. Yes. So he was a lantern. Yes. It seemed like the lantern was not of, no one carried the lanterns with them. They all seemed to leave the, well, we only know from Hal Jordan. He left that lantern in his apartment and occasionally he would need to recharge, but not during any of the giant fight scenes he never needed to recharge.

24:46Just when he was showing off in front of friends. Right. Oh, that's right. So that means all those people have lanterns back at their house? Yes, I guess.

24:53Jason Mantzoukas:Like power stations. Yes, they do. Okay. So that's the thing. So they never carry the lanterns with them when they're out. It's so old-timey, too, these lanterns. It is. Isn't that such a weird? And if they went out, is there like a sort of coat check room for lanterns so you don't have to carry them around out into clubs? Well, they were, oh, when they were all on the planet, they'd go to the planet and they all have this, like, little speech. It's like, it makes a Matrix Revolution speech kind of, like, pale and conveyor. So it's like, you know, there's Sinestro standing on this big platform that is also just a big lantern signal.

25:25Jason Mantzoukas:and he's like, we are the best! We are lanterns! And everyone shoots their ring lights up and they're all shooting and then they cut to an exterior of the planet. And this is my big problem with that moment. Four, you look at the planet, you're seeing a circle and light is shooting out of four different parts. I know, yes, I knew you were going to say this. So my question is, are there four separate meetings that are going on when that's happening? Because it should only be out of one center area. I was like, what are those side meetings going on? Why couldn't they get there? Didn't they coordinate?

25:57They're on screens. They're watching Sinestro on a screen. Pay-per-view.

26:01Jason Mantzoukas:It was so bizarre. It makes no sense. They all shoot it up, and then you see the planet. It's like four. Yeah. Maybe it was like WrestleMania III when they had it in five different cities across America. And then when they go to OWA, of course, even though they're aliens and they're fish people and rock people and fly people, some of them have the black voice. They're in the black guy character. And I was like, oh, really? There's a black guy here? Great. Oh, black people are rock people. Okay, I got it. Yep, got it. Tough looking alien is the black guy. Hey, but guys, remember he helped our white character, though.

26:35So it was okay. It was okay. He taught him how to fight.

26:38Jason Mantzoukas:And when he first gets brought to Oa, he is floating naked, except for a very small underwear. It was so weird. Like, he gets brought to Oa fully clothed. Yeah. Then they rip off all of his clothes, but they leave a swatch of underwear on. Just some briefs. My mom was always hilarious growing up. We'd watch a scene where a couple, it's an action movie, and a couple gets dumped out of a boat or something into the water. She would always complain about how the women had to get down in their underwear, but we never got to see the men in their underwear. We need your mom on this podcast. She is a huge Van Wilder fan.

27:17Jason Mantzoukas:I do want to talk back to this, because we really didn't even do justice to the helicopter scene, which is, the helicopter scene is insane. So basically, Hal Jordan rejects the lanterns, and then this helicopter is about to crash. Why does he quit? A, why does he quit? And when he quits, nobody's like, well, give us the fucking most powerful ring back. And our lantern, please. He's like, I quit, and I get to keep all this power. Yeah, yeah, right? Cool. No one comes to collect him. No one, yeah. You know, it's... So he decides that he's going to get back in when the helicopter's crashing. And his solution for stopping a helicopter from crashing is to form a car around the helicopter chassis and then create a racetrack in circles all around the party.

28:08So the helicopter is racing on a car. And what would you propose? I mean, you guys just... A trampoline. But it was my favorite part of the whole movie. It was actually my favorite part. With that helicopter car on that racetrack, I had a huge smile on my face.

28:22Jason Mantzoukas:That shit made no sense. And the car was like jumping because you could create some of the things. It was like a hot rod. It was. It was like... I was like, why not just create the helicopter onto the floor? Onto the ground, rather. Just make a floor. Just make a landing pad up there. Just like, yeah, create a balloon, like a pillow for it to land on. Can you make a floor? Oh my God. Excuse me, Green Lantern, can you make a floor? But then there was other things he would make that were so abstract. Like when Blake Lively was about to get, I think, hit by the helicopter. He just put her in a blob of goo.

28:53Jason Mantzoukas:Green goo. Green goo. Green goo. And by the way, the superhero fucking comes out for the first time in front of a handful of people that he knows. That would be like me coming to you. He looks exactly like Hal George. Oh, there's no difference. Exactly. The weird thing, though, is she calls that out later on. But she's the only one who does it. Right, but she's also seen him before, too. But everyone at that party did. Tim Robbins has seen him. Everybody. He looked exactly like Hal Jordan. I was like, fuck you. Blake Levy does call it out. Like, what do you think? I don't recognize you because your cheekbones are covered up.

29:28Jason Mantzoukas:But so everyone at that party, he's the star pilot of this aeronautics facility. The small party. And where they thank him from the stage. Like, and Hal Jordan's here. All eyes were on him at one point during that night. They should know what he looks like. I've got to say, the local press, although they're covering everything else, doesn't cover the Green Lantern. No. That's what I was thinking. They never covered the Green Lantern. I'd always say that earlier. They cover the airplane crash, but they don't cover superheroes arriving on Earth. Well, hey, guys. The news media spends their whole time talking about Anthony Weiner.

30:00And there's job loss. Yeah. There's job loss at all. They're not talking about that. There you go. My indictment as if like a news network today, if there was a superhero, they wouldn't report on us. Obviously they would.

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33:08Jason Mantzoukas:Discounts not available in all states or situations. I was only hoping, there was a moment in this movie where Hal Jordan is explaining, he's appealing to the council of elders, which are just men with big heads and giant robes. They're on top of these 200-foot obelisks. And when he goes in and he tells them off, and he's been in this Green Lantern Council for a week now? A week, barely. And those guys have been there for eons. You're supposed to believe. They've never knocked him. Yeah, they've always been there. They created this world. And then he comes in and starts telling them like it is.

33:41I'm like, is he doing it with you? He goes, we have a saying on Earth. Yeah, oh. We're only human.

33:46Jason Mantzoukas:I wanted him to play the Billy Joel song at that point. I thought that would be it. My life? No. That'd be good. The Don Easter Alexa? Oh, man. Oh, but that would be like the equivalent of if you worked at a company for a week and then you just barged into the board of directors meeting. And they're like, let me tell you how to run this company. Now, Jason, I know you walked out during this movie. I did. I walked out. Is this your first how did this get made that you couldn't finish? I think you walked out of something else, too. I did walk out of something else. I can't remember what it was, though.

34:22There was something else I didn't finish. I just wanted to know if it was so terrible.

34:26Jason Mantzoukas:Oh, I think the Sandra Bullock movie, I don't think you finished, right? Oh, All About Steve. I did not finish All About Steve. So if Ryan Reynolds... It is Ryan Reynolds! Oh, no, no. If two people have exchanged fluids, you can't watch them. Can't deal with it. The smoke monster, the angry cloud, Parallax, eats an entire city. No one seems fazed by that after the conclusion of it. Basically, Hal Jordan throws the cloud into the sun. Case closed. Movie's over. But yet, he ate an entire city. By the way, I don't even know what city. They didn't really ever label the city. Never label. It was a city that had swamps and also had a downtown.

35:06I was imagining when those people were running away from the smokebots, they were screaming, What city is this? Why am I identifying where we are? Before I go, I need to know.

35:17Jason Mantzoukas:And they all get eaten. Everyone's totally fine with that. And also, did this movie look like it was shot on soap opera sets? Yes. Like every scene was so flat. Completely. Like all of the Blake Lively's office, his apartment, Sarsgaard's apartment, it all looked like shitty sets from a TV show. Oh, my God. They're like, great news, guys. We have a couple of extra sets that Grey's Anatomy isn't using this week. We can shoot our scenes there. And days. Days of our lives. The last line of the movie, pretty great last line for a superhero movie. What are you going to do? I'm going to look for trouble.

35:57Jason Mantzoukas:I'm going to look for some trouble. After, and she goes, what are you going to do? Save a cat in downtown Milky Way? I got a new job. That's me. I got to do a lot of traveling, though. You're just like egg-rate all of us right now. It's such a stupid, stupid character. he's the worst and he's much better, the character's much better yeah, he's like a really what's his motivation though to save things because that I thought was a big problem in the movie I didn't know is he looking for trouble? does he genuinely want to help people? I don't read Green Lantern now and now it's like mired in a lot of this Green Lantern core kind of like all these other lanterns there's good lanterns and bad lanterns it's like a very dense book now Like my familiarity with it is from years ago.

36:49So I don't know. But no, that was the problem for me. You know, essentially. His great dilemma in this was like, I guess Blake Lively sort of put it where she was like, just makes me so sad. You've been given so much and you haven't used any of it. And I'm like, that's who I'm supposed to care about? Like that'd be like a rich kid who doesn't know what to invest in. Yeah. A rich kid who just kind of angry. He joined a frat that he didn't like their rules. Yes. So he left for a few days. It's Van Wilder. Wait, are you kidding me? Van Wilder. You're pitching us Van Wilder.

37:18Jason Mantzoukas:National Lampoon's Green Lantern. I also want to say that the suit looks terrible. Suit is all CGI. All of the CGI looked terrible. It was fucking awful looking. It's a metaphor for the movie, right? Yeah. There's nothing to hold on to. And just to be clear, you are a lantern and you also hold a lantern. Correct. Okay, got it. And lanterns can easily be killed too or they can't. I didn't find any power. The lantern, if you shoot a lantern, if he doesn't deflect it, he'll die. Correct. I mean, that's okay. Yeah. That's bullshit, too. We asked this question last night. So, Jason, how much? The movie cost$200 million.

37:58Jason Mantzoukas:Okay. How much has it made worldwide, do you think? $200 million. And then greenlit a sequel. Yeah, I think it's made close to$100 million. You're right. $139 million. But that's not a lot. Not so green, Lance. That's not, that's worldwide. No, no, that's not great. This movie is a failure, and they're Green Lantern in the sequel. Now, what you missed at the end was the post-credit sequence. Oh, yeah, I didn't see this. Do you want to know? You're going back to see it. Well, I'll see it again, of course. Of course. What happens is... Because my Green Lantern Corps and I, I'm part of a Green Lantern Corps, and we're all going together.

38:32I'm going to Sinestro.

38:35Jason Mantzoukas:Sinestro, the whole movie, he's the main guy. Mark Strong. Basically, and all the actors in this are pretty great, like across the board. Not in this movie and other things that they have done. Great. Sinestro the whole time is a good guy, like really funny guy, like awesome. Not funny. Really nice guy. Arguably funny. Yeah, arguably funny. And, you know, he's basically at the end of the movie, he's like, hey, he saves Ryan Reynolds at the end. He's like, you know what? You're impulsive. You're crazy. Just like Abin Sir, the guy who gave him the ring. It's basically him going like, I was arbitrarily mean to you at the beginning.

39:08Now I'm going to be arbitrarily nice to you.

39:10Jason Mantzoukas:And then he walks off. And then the post-credit scene is he puts on the evil ring. He becomes evil. Yeah. It's such a... So then you know that from the books? Yeah. Sinestro is a bad guy. He is? Yeah. I mean, like, that's part of... Boom. Can I ask one more question? Yes. How did Peter Sarsgaard get... Like, if that other guy was a Green Lantern, why did he have any fear in him? He had the fear... Or yellow stuff in him. The fear that Parallax had shot him with. Remember? Tina Turner Tina Turner says we found a different alien blood in the body of the and you've been exposed I see I didn't like any of this and then he smashed her face into glass and she stuck on it she stuck on that glass Angela Bassett is an amazing actor why was she doing that everyone Tim Robbins Peter Sarsgaard those superhero movies now are like the last vestige for actors who were like respected 20 because I think it's a mutually beneficial relationship where superhero movies, they get prestige.

40:12Yeah, it lends credit to that. It's like, oh, I buy into this because Tim Robbins is doing something. And I think that all of them do it,

40:17Jason Mantzoukas:and they say it because they don't know what they're saying. So everyone's like, some kids will buy this bullshit. Like, you know, it's sort of like why, like, you know, like Sean Connery, well, when he did a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, he's like, yeah, yeah, these dummies will eat this up. No, it's still, it's a shitty movie. Yeah, it is. They just assume, ah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, in the movie, the Green Lantern has a little poem that he has to say to get him in. So this is the poem in the movie. Brightest day and blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight. Let those who worship evil's might beware my power.

40:57Jason Mantzoukas:Green Lantern's life. I just want to say. Yes. I have to say it's not a poem. It's an oath. Okay. Just for the nerds in the audience, Pat Bear is listening and he's out there going insane, losing his mind that you've called it a poem and not an oath. Well, what I did was... It's a manly poem. That's what an oath is. In our mini episode, we asked you to come up with your own oath. So let's hear your best selections. Here we go. This one is from Katie Dupree. In cliche-ridden dialogue, in sequel-threatening epilogue, Beware the mind-crippling abyss That sucks you in when watching this That's pretty good Here's the next one This is from Blake Hunt Roses are red Green lanterns are not During this movie I asked to be shot Okay This one's from Ed Cole There once was a movie that bore It was of the Green Lantern core It had CG effects that were bad And a ridiculous Hot Wheels ad Oh, I'm sorry.

42:03And a ridiculous Hot Wheels ad, I hope they don't make any more.

42:06Jason Mantzoukas:All right, and here's the final one. I didn't do a great job reading that. From Jay Kane. It's a cold read. Right? That's the one I'm doing? Jay Kane? No matinee nor movie night. No price is worth this sight. Let those who tell me the green lantern was tight beware the power of my incoming right. Pretty good. These are good poems. There's a good selection. Got some of the Shakespeare's. Bad. That was the most creative of the submissions. As always, you can follow myself on Twitter. I'm at Paul Scheer. Paul, where are you at? I'm at Paul Rust. I'm at Miss June Diane. Jason, still not on Twitter.

42:42Jason Mantzoukas:Not on Twitter. Not on Twitter. But you want to plug anybody? I will continue to plug Bob Dukas Twitter. Bob Dukas Twitter. Real good. And coming up next week on Adult Swim, following Children's Hospital, a show that Jason is a producer on and has been on and written on, is a show that June and I are in, and it's called NTSF SD SUV. Yeah. So check that out. July 21st, 1215 p.m., right after Children's Hospital. A lot of crazy good guests on there. So we'll see you next time on How Did This Get Made? How Did This Get Made? This episode is brought to you by SoFi, the everything app for smarter money.

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