This is the fourth of several interviews with the cast and crew of the upcoming DC Animated Universe feature Green Lantern: First Flight. It's a bit long, but some of my essays have been longer so I suppose I'll humor WB for the sake of getting a screener of this thing when the time comes (Green Lantern: First Flight will be released on DVD and Blu Ray on July 28th). The first interview was with actor Victor Garber. The second interview was with director Lauren Montgomery. The third one was with Juliet Landau. This fourth interview is with writer Alan Burnett (who, along with pioneers Bruce Timm and Eric Radomski, is probably singlehandedly responsible for the success of the DC Animated Universe as we know it). Enjoy.
QUESTION:
What made Alan Burnett the perfect choice to write Green Lantern: First Flight?
ALAN BURNETT:
They had been going through some ideas for Green Lantern stories and none of them were quite working out and I came up with this notion that I thought would be interesting. So, I just pitched it to them in one line. “Have you ever done Green Lantern as Training Day?” with the idea of the Denzel Washington role being Sinestro. They said, “That sounds pretty good – start writing.” And that’s how it began.
QUESTION:
So this is a police story?
ALAN BURNETT:
We’re treating all the sectors of the universe as precincts and there's, I believe, about 3,600 Green Lanterns – one for every precinct. Hal Jordan covers our section. The story is essentially Hal Jordan’s first day on the beat as a cop and he's partnered with Sinestro. He's seeing the universe for the first time, and we get to look at the universe through his eyes. It’s a bizarre place, but it's also pretty recognizable.
QUESTION:
Is there a message within this film?
ALAN BURNETT:
Well, one of the messages is that I like lots of fights (he laughs). I suppose it's the old “Don’t judge a book” thing. Appearances are deceiving. Those who you think might be your greatest friend can be your greatest enemy, and those you might think are of no use to you could be the most important person in your life.
QUESTION:
Did the origin story development of Hal Jordan in Justice League: The New Frontier influence your approach to this first Green Lantern film?
ALAN BURNETT:
I’d originally treated the origin story by going back to the very first Hal Jordan/Green Lantern comic book. But ultimately, my script was about 20 minutes longer than it should’ve been. Bruce Timm came up with the idea of getting the origin done as quickly as possible, so that’s where some cuts were made. Now we get the origin story done before the opening credits, and we leap right into the adventure from there.
QUESTION;
What makes Green Lantern a great super hero?
ALAN BURNETT:
Green Lantern is sort of a unique super hero. When you’re writing his powers, they do seem a bit odd – at times, they’re very sci-fi and at other times very magical. It's like that old saying about the technology being so advanced that it looks like magic. He has a ring that allows him to construct anything he can imagine. One of the tricks to writing about those powers is that, when you come up with something he does with the ring, the audience is expecting to be amazed, but also – and this is odd to say about a comics/science fiction story – they need it to be in context, and it needs to be believable. Hal is also a very colorful character and he’s in the middle of this big soap opera in space. It’s a very involving backdrop that opens the door to telling a million stories with him. He also has one of the great costumes – that great Silver Age suit from the 1950s. He was one of the few, and maybe he was the first flying character, who didn't have a cape. So he has this sleek outfit and it’s very striking.
QUESTION:
What makes Sinestro a great villain?
ALAN BURNETT:
We play Sinestro as sort of the bad half of Hal Jordan. As I was writing them, I figured they were pretty close. They both have distaste for authority. But Sinestro is the dark side of the Green Lanterns – he wants absolute control, while Hal Jordan is more about serving the people. The other thing about Sinestro is that he doesn't think of himself as a villain. He has a plan which he thinks is going to benefit everyone, but unfortunately what this plan does is give him absolute power. And, of course, absolute power corrupts absolutely – and you can see that it's corrupting him even as he tries to wield it.
QUESTION:
When did you first fall in love with comic books?
ALAN BURNETT:
I had read comic books like “Little Lulu” when I was young, but when I was nine years old we took a vacation – and I always saved up comic books for the vacation because it was a long trip from Ohio to Florida. Into my stack that year I got the super hero comics and I particularly remember bringing Batman. Somewhere around Kentucky, I started reading my first super hero comic and it was like I lost my virginity. It was just the most amazing thing. I was suddenly in an adult world that I sort of understood and it was sort of made for me. And I was hooked. I've been hooked ever since.
QUESTION:
Did you have childhood aspirations of writing those comics and cartoons?
ALAN BURNETT:
When I was a kid reading this stuff, I never thought that I'd be writing it. But you know, it’s because I did read this stuff then that I write it now. When I started working at Hanna Barbara in 1981, they were looking for someone to take over the Super Friends show and they knew that I was a big comic book fan. Before that, I don't think the story editors or the writers cared about super heroes. So I have two degrees from college, and they don't mean as much to my career as those four or five really intense comic book reading years between the ages of 9 and 14.
QUESTION:
Who are your greatest writing influences?
ALAN BURNETT:
I have two major influences and it’s kind of strange to say them together, but those would be Alfred Hitchcock and Woody Allen. Hitchcock wasn't a writer, of course, but in a way he was because he sat down with his writers and worked his way through the script with them. I think there’s a lot of Hitchcock influence in some of the action-adventure things I’ve done. It's just little things, certain scenes or actions, that remind me of something he would’ve put in a film. I think Woody Allen has influenced the way I interject comedy into the action adventure. That’s my favorite genre: action-adventure comedy. Like North By Northwest. That’s just a beautiful, beautiful movie, and it’s as funny as it is thrilling. That's my favorite type of entertainment.
For more information, please visit the film’s official website at www.greenlanternmovie.com
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