"Lanterns": No, the hellfire & brimstone preaching hasn't stopped (TV brewing)

[C C]

CRITICAL DRINKER
https://youtu.be/DBdYGCBdqhk

The anti-superhero spirit that started on Amazon Prime with The Boys now continues on HBO. And another Damon Lindelof race-baiter sporting the usual left-angelical sermons and Hollywood caricatures of people in flyover country. "So, the two lads eventually get summoned to evil redneck man's house. I know he's evil because he's a white man who lives on a ranch and immediately starts talking about wanting to protect the planet from anyone who wasn't born there." Why did the working class rebel against literary intellectuals and their supporters in the upper classes of the East and West coasts? [shrug] Only Hera's hairdresser knows for sure (surely not the negative stereotypes; it's not like marginalized population groups would get similarly upset over those)...

Lanterns - A superhero show that hates superheroes ... https://youtu.be/DBdYGCBdqhk

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/DBdYGCBdqhk

[Magical Realist]

Well, it's not like rural American anti-intellectualism is some sort of snobbish made-up Hollywood trope. But the very view that this is real sort of feeds on itself, fueling even more country folk fury that they are stereotyped and depicted on film as having such views.

"Rural anti-intellectualism is a distrust of academic experts and institutional authorities rooted in place-based identity. Rather than just a lack of schooling, it reflects a psychological view of urban-centric elites as an out-group that threatens local values, traditions, and economic survival.

Core Causes

Identity and Alienation: Strong psychological attachment to a rural identity frames outside experts as urban interlopers who look down on small-town life.

Economic Neglect: The loss of local farms, banks, and industries creates resentment toward the institutional systems that allowed rural decline.

Epistemic Divides: Conflicts arise when standardized, expert-driven policies (like public health or environmental rules) clash with practical, local knowledge.

Social and Political Impacts

Populist Support: Mistrust of academic authority heavily drives populist political movements.

Science Skepticism: Communities show higher resistance to scientific consensus on topics like public health mandates and climate change.

Brain Drain: There is a consensus on platforms like Reddit that cultural friction makes it harder to retain specialized professionals like doctors and educators in rural regions."

[C C]

I may have to watch this opening episode just to sort out what's truly going on. There's no way Lindelof would have "space alien migrants" be Zionist invaders instead of victims (as speculated below). Would go against the whole tediously predictable moral message that the show is proposed to be propped up around.
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NERDROTIC DAILY
https://youtu.be/l1sVsSe1who

INTRO: Nerdrotic analyzes the premiere of the new series Lanterns, critiquing its departure from established source material and tone. The discussion covers concerns regarding character portrayals, narrative structure, and the execution of specific tropes...

VIDEO EXCERPTS: And I wasn't really grabbed or drawn in by a Hal Jordan who is an alcoholic, arrogant, scruffy loser. Who has obviously changed in the last 10 years. Something broke him. Another boring, overused trope.

So Hal Jordan says at some point in the show that the crash was coordinated because they really didn't want Earth to be part of the Green Lanterns. That this is all some kind of conspiracy blah blah blah blah whatever.

But they're trying to make it like a Taylor Sheridan show, right? They have a Taylor Sheridan villain. I wouldn't be surprised because they hate Taylor Sheridan in Hollywood. They're jealous of him. [Achieved success without going up through their protocols.] I'm speculating that I wouldn't be surprised if they take a shot at Taylor Sheridan. Did you see what the county was called? It's called Sheridan County.

And and like I'm like, "Oh my [ __ ] god, they actually did it." Because I was just joking. But they really called it Sheridan County.

They encounter -- what's the ranch owner's name? Yeah. Basically, the guy from "Army of the Dead".

[...] So, he's sitting there talking to Hal about aliens, like he knows about the aliens and he's the one who bails Hal out. And then he gets in this whole conversation about colonization as colonization. Why would you use that word? Horrible.

Because it's all an immigration allegory. Everything is just an immigration allegory.

Wouldn't you use the word conquering, instead? Like a dude from middle America just throwing out the word "colonization" conversationally would just never fly...

So he's an alien himself, or this was written by Damon Lindelof. I don't know what it is, but nobody would just start talking about "colonization". [...] He said I'm not an isolationist with my head in the sand, and then he gets into colonization. It's like you're talking about alien races conquering, not colonizing.

Like that was a red flag. How that was a Tom Kingism, because nobody brings that up in conversation unless you're an academic intellectual or we have to talk about it here on YouTube or something...

Lanterns is stupid ... https://youtu.be/l1sVsSe1who

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/l1sVsSe1who

[C C]

Meh. I watched the first episode. This show is almost a kind of buddy film action comedy. It's only "anti-superhero" in the sense that 1960s "Batman" was: a parody. Not the deep, cynical sadism of The Boys satire. And like the Supergirl movie, Jordan doesn't even wear his costume.

Oh, it's going to have serious elements in it -- it's not remotely that degree of Adam West Batman. And since the show seems to accept that some space aliens actually are dangerous -- after all, the Green Lanterns are a kind of interstellar police force -- the rancher guy is more ambiguous right now rather than portrayed as "evil". There may be no bleeding heart "migrant allegory" to it at all, though it's still possible.

Yeah, it's got the neo-Western thing to it, but not clear that it's mocking Sheridan. Could as much be emulating him.

How the show will deal with the main character being dead -- I have not a clue. Will John Stewart just imaginatively recall him the way Dexter does his stepfather? Or will it be a digital persona of Jordan stored in the ring? Or maybe Jordan even faked his death -- the body was created by the ring?

[Syne]

I assumed John Stewart was the main protagonist, with Hal Jordan just playing the mentor sending him off on his hero's journey (such as it may be).

[C C]

I assumed John Stewart was the main protagonist, with Hal Jordan just playing the mentor sending him off on his hero's journey (such as it may be).

Kyle Chandler is ranked above Aaron Pierre (Stewart) on the Lantern's cast (as well as the poster depicting them together), so he will be there the whole season. The mystery is in what form.

And at the end of this episode, it jumps ten years ahead from 2016 to 2026, when Stewart's training should have long since been completed. So that muddles things even more. The show could alternate back and forth between scenes of the present and scenes of the past.

That would sort of echo The Madison, where Kurt Russell was listed second on the cast behind Michelle Pfeiffer. He gets killed but keeps being revived throughout the season via memories.

But Lanterns revealed early on that the ring stores past versions of Hal Jordan that can appear as holograms. They surely stuck that in there for a reason, which hints that he really is dead. The #1 cast ranking and the ring's ability to even generate bogus corpses only leave a small window open that he's still alive.

The storyline could even use the simulated Jordan for the time being and then several episodes later reveal that the real Jordan is yet kicking.

[Syne]

Aaron Pierre has nine episodes to Chandler's eight. Yeah, between flashbacks and more of the ring-Hal, there's plenty of opportunities already... with Hal remaining "fridged."

Pierre seems too wooden to carry the show.