Search This Blog

Translate This Page

Total Pageviews

Showing posts with label DC Comics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DC Comics. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Film Comment: Green Lantern

Green Lantern (2011) is a superhero movie based on the on the long time comic book series produced by DC Comics.  The film was long considered to be unfilmable until computer generated imagery was perfected.

The plot of the film is well known to long time comic book readers.  After an alien spacecraft crash lands on Earth, the ring worn by Abin Sur, the dying alien pilot, searches the planet for a worthy successor to its prior owner.  The ring is not supernatural, but is instead, the product of a greatly advanced technology.  It chooses a seemingly undeserving recipient, Hal Jordan, an immature and self-absorbed daredevil test pilot.

Jordan discovers that he is now the Green Lantern of his sector of outer space, even if he does not wish to be.  He is told that the ring does not make errors and that he is now a member of the Green Lantern Corps, one of the 3600 super-powered beings who serve as a sort of intergalactic police force.  Of course, he must confront a being who has misused the ring technology and, as a result of his adventures, Hal Jordan becomes the greatest of the Green Lanterns.  This is standard epic fantasy/science fiction.

Many viewers of Green Lantern have noticed the heavy occultic symbolism in this film.  A Green Lantern's power ring converts his/her thoughts into material reality.  As students of comparative religion will know, the essence and the aim of "magick" is the ability of the will to alter and control reality.

The symbolism in this film is quite heavy.  When they are using their power, a Green Lantern's eyes glow green.  Images of the Masonic symbol known as the All Seeing Eye , an eye within a pyramid, occur repeatedly within the film.

The Green Lanterns take their oath of service on their Power Lanterns, from which they recharge their power rings.  The lantern symbols on the rings and on the superheroes chests are identical to the Masonic symbol 101 (the point within the circle ) turned on its side.

There is a strong undercurrent in the film of a secret government involvement in some sort of conspiracy.  One commenter notes that a sign in a bar scene includes the word "harp" and relates this to the HAARP project, a real life scientific research station in Alaska which many conspiracy theorists believe is being developed as a secret government weapon to cause earthquakes and control the weather.

The Green Lantern Corps is, in effect a secret society.  The Corp has initiation ceremonies, secret knowledge, and its existence is not revealed to the public at large.

Tomar Re , the bird-like Xudarian alien Green Lantern who is the first mentor to Hal Jordan, has what one commenter calls "Baphomet legs."  Baphomet is an occult symbol of Satan represented as a human-goat hybrid with legs whose knees bend backwards.

The green "uniform" of the Lanterns is not actually clothing.  It is an integral part of their being, it is who they really are, like their skin.  This is consistent with the occult/New Age idea that our true inner being is divine (our True Self, our Inner Christ) and that enlightenment comes when we realize that we are God.

One commenter claims that when Hal Jordan transforms from his human self to his Green Lantern self that there is a brief burst of light from his wrists and ankles, reminiscent of Christ's wounds.  This occurs at 2:05 of the first official trailer for the film.  What actually occurs at this point is that Jordan's power ring begins to glow, making the back of his hand appear to glow.

Most people who watch this film will not notice or understand the heavy symbolism and many who do, will not care.  That the symbolism is there is so obvious that it must be intentional on the part of the film's makers.  Without falling into the trap of becoming totally paranoid conspiracy theorists, Christians must be alert to the messages being sent out by the world's media.  We really are at war.

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Christ Figures in Films

On of the recurring images in film is that of the Christ Figure, a character who in some ways resembles Jesus Christ as he is depicted in the Bible.  This is often an entirely conscious technique used to create a "heroic" character or to create a character who seems "familiar."  The creators of the characters are quite often not Christians, but they use Christian symbolism.  Many are atheists or agnostics.  They use the religious symbolism for the emotional effect it will produce in their viewers.

The Christ Figure usually exhibits several of the characteristics associated with Jesus, though he is not always a hero.  Sometimes he is an antihero, even a villain.  Sometimes he is a woman.  Sometimes he is an animal.  Sometimes he is a machine.

The characteristics of the Christ Figure may include: mysterious or obscure beginnings, followers surround him,  he teaches, he redeems situations and people, he rights some sort of wrong, attempts are made on his life while he is a child, he is perceived as "normal" until his mission begins, he performs miracles, he confronts authority figures, he is seen as alien or as divine, blood is in some way involved, he questions his mission, he searches for his true identity, he is killed or punished by the authorities, he returns from death (or from banishment, a long absence, etc), he heals, he forgives, he is guided by his father or a father figure, and he (or his ideals) are triumphant in the end.  Not all filmic Christ Figures exhibit all of the these attributes and some film characters can be classified as Christ Figures only by a very elastic use of the term.  None of these characters are the real Christ; instead they are side flashes, faint after-images, flittering glitter, echoes, imitations, and sometimes, exact opposites, like photographic negatives.

Just a few of the characters who are universally recognized as film Christ Figures:
Uncle Tom, in Uncle Tom's Cabin (1927)
Freder Frederson, in Metropolis (1927)
Jean d'Arc, in The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
Sydney Carton, in A Tale of Two Cities (1935)
Jim Casy, in The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
Bambi, in Bambi (1942)
Klaatu, in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
Luke Jackson, in Cool Hand Luke (1967)
Ben, in Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Ben Richards, in The Immortal (1969)
Alex DeLarge, in A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Randle Patrick McMurphy, in One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest (1975)
Claude, in Hair (1979)
E.T., in E.T. the Extraterrestrial (1982)
Kevin Flynn, in Tron (1982)
Mr. Spock, in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)
Glenn, in The Next One (1984)
John Connor, in Terminator (1984)
Paul Muad 'Dib Atreides, in Dune (1984)
Alex Murphy/Robocop, in Robocop (1987)
Preston Tucker, in Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988)
Virgil "Bud" Brigman, in The Abyss (1989)
Ellen Ripley, in Aliens 3 (1992)
Kenshiro, in Fist of the North Star (1995)
William Wallace, in Braveheart (1995)
Babe the Pig, in Babe (1995)
Thomas A. Anderson (Neo), in The Matrix (1999)
Frodo Baggins, in The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001, 2002, 2003)
Nameless, in Hero (2002)
Joshua, in Joshua (2002)
T-800, in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines ( 2003)
Peter Parker, in Spiderman 2 (2004)
Optimus Prime, in Transformers (2007)
Aslan the Lion, in The Chronicles of Narnia Series (2005,2008,2010)
Sam Flynn, in Tron: Legacy (2010)

A case can be made that Dexter Morgan, the serial killer of the 2006-2011 cable television series, Dexter, is an extremely (very, very extremely) twisted and dark form of the filmic tradition of the Christ Figure.  You do not need to have seen this series to know that there is nothing of the true Christ in Dexter Morgan.  He is better described as an Anti-Christ Figure.

The most overt instance of the Christ Figure in literature and film is Superman.  The character was created in 1932 by two Jewish men, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, and sold to Detective Comics Incorporated (the modern DC Comics) in 1938.  Superman (born as the Kryptonian Kal-el) is of extraterrestrial origin and was sent to Earth by his father, Jor-el. "El" just happens to be the Hebrew word for "God."  At the end of a word, it means "of God." Kal-el means something like "voice of God."

The 2006 film, Superman Returns, is overt in its religious symbolism.  The film, Superman: The Movie , is even more explicit.  Superman's Kryptonian scientist father, Jor-el, declares, "Even though you've been raised as a human being you are not one of them ... They can be a great people, Kal-el; they wish to be.  They only lack the light to show them the way.  For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you, my only son."

Thursday, October 14, 2010

We Live in a Bizarro World

His, or its, name is Bizarro, an imperfect clone of Superman, who lives on a square planet he created when he realized he could never fit on our strange world. Bizarro World is populated by imperfect copies of Earth's inhabitants and its culture is based on chaos and disorder, failure is celebrated, and stupidity is highly respected. To a Bizarro, ugliness is beautiful.

The character is used in the Superman comic book universe to make statements about us and our illogicalities and absurdities. We live in a Bizarro World where the popular culture is more interested in parties, or in mixed drinks, or in getting as much unencumbered sex as possible, and in casual drug use, than it is in what is happening in Darfur, or in Colombia, or in the international sex slave trade. More people know about the latest happenings in the lives of Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton than can name a single person in U.S President Barack Obama's cabinet.

In the DC Comics compilation trade paperback, Superman: Escape from Bizarro World, one of the stories is the 1984 tale, "The Mark of Bizarro."  Bizarro Superman grows weary of fighting his Bizarro clones of Earth's superheroes (the Bizarro Justice League) and decides to create a supervillain.  Bizarro Flash tells him, "Hah!  You beat us all up again, Bizarro Number One ... so naturally, you lose!"

Bizarro creates Bizarro-Amazo, a clone of a villain who almost defeated the real Justice League by stealing their superpowers.  In true Bizarro fashion, Bizarro-Amazo returns his stolen superpowers to the members of the Bizarro Justice League.  This makes him the greatest super-villain: having no superpowers.  When Bizarro Number One reminds him that Bizarro-Joker and Bizarro-Luther also have no superpowers, Bizarro-Amazo decides to one-up them all and turns himself off.

The citizens of Bizarro World erect a glass case (cracked of course) in which they place the body of Bizarro-Amazo.  The last frame of the story has Bizarro Lois Lane looking admiringly at the encased body and saying, "No wonder everyone admire him!  Us merely think stupid ... him not think at all!"

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Two Minutes in Hell

"Take it from me, two minutes in Hell is a lifetime." John Constantine in Constantine (2006).

John Constantine is a DC Comics character.

Friday, May 7, 2010

A Quote from Constantine (2006)

In the comic book based movie, Constantine (2006), the angel Gabriel is filled with resentment and is trying to "fix" things. He (?)/she (?)/it (?) (Tilda Swinton as an androgynous angel) thinks that mankind is unworthy of God's grace and is trying to bring about an apocalypse on Earth from which worthy, tested survivors will emerge. John Constantine, cancer victim, demon hunter, etc. goes to Hell and back (literally) to stop Gabriel's plan.

Gabriel explains,
"You're handed this precious gift and, right, each of you granted redemption from the Creator. Murderers, rapists and molesters, all of you, you just have to repent and God takes you into His bosom. In all the worlds, in all the universes, no other creature can make such a boast, save man. It's not fair! Your sweet, sweet God loves you so."