Green Lantern Explained! Quantum Of Solace Clips! The Spirit Poster!

Spoilers not only beautify your car, they expand your outlook. Today, we have some more comments from Marc Guggenheim about exactly where the new Green Lantern movie's storyline is coming from. A couple of Quantum Of Solace clips do absolutely nothing to resolve our "is it scifi" confusion, but show that James Bond keeps brooding. A new poster for The Spirit gives a clue as to the tone of Frank Miller's new movie. There's a small but significant Lost spoiler. Plus videos, pics and revelations for Heroes, Life On Mars, Eleventh Hour, Clone Wars and Stargate Atlantis. Spoilers are decorative, but also functional.

Green Lantern:

Co-writer Marc Guggenheim revealed some of the comics that influenced the script for the new movie about the ring-wielding space cop. He says they started with the classic origin retelling "Emerald Dawn," but also took in all the early issues via the Showcase reprint compilations. And they borrowed a lot of characterization from the Denny O'Neil/Neal Adams Green Lantern/Green Arrow comics, which portrayed GL as "the man" in order to explore issues like race, drugs, crime, etc.

Guggenheim adds that his formative issues of Green Lantern were the early 80s ones drawn by Dave Gibbons, where Hal Jordan quits. (I have all of those.) He's particularly interested in the relationship between Hal and Carol Ferris in those issues. And of course, the screenwriters have been paying attention to Geoff Johns' run on the title. They'd just finished a draft when Johns' "Secret Origins" arc came out, so it was interested to see how Johns solved some of the same problems. Like, for example, why is Abin Sur in a spaceship when he can fly through space unaided? [MTV]

The Spirit:

A new poster for The Spirit reveals that our cryogenically preserved hero will be in the shadows, with half his face covered by a dark shroud of righteousness. Or something. [BadTaste via CinemaBlend]

Quantum Of Solace:

Still on the fence as to whether this James Bond film is science fiction or not. But here are a couple of clips that just turned up online, which don't really help settle the question.

Lost:

In addition to the Dharma station in Ayers Rock, Australia, there's also one near Portland Oregon, at the 45th parallel, halfway between the Equator and the North Pole. [SpoilersLost]

Heroes:

Here's a new promo for Monday's episode, which has more scenes with the villains and Peter in action. [TestOnly46]

Eleventh Hour:

Sci Fi Wire has a new featurette about the making of this show. Stuff I learned from it: Jacob Hood (Rufus Sewell) isn't the sort of guy to eat a sandwich over a corpse; he's deeply affected by the stuff he sees, and new to all this. He comes from a "closeted" environment. (Carefully avoiding cheap joke here.) And his bodyguard (Marley Shelton) looks like she's hooking up with Riley from Buffy soon. Oh, and does anyone else think it's weird how Sewell keeps insisting the show isn't science fiction? (It's just fiction about science.) [Sci Fi Wire]

And here's a new trailer for the tonight's episode. Sorry about picture quality:

Life On Mars:

In tonight's episode, it'll be even clearer that Annie is Sam's "solace in a land of savages," but don't expect the two of them to do the Hustle together any time soon. There's a "roadblock" keeping them from being together that gets exposed by the end of the episode, and she has a great mystery in her past. We'll learn more about her, romantically and otherwise, in the next dozen episodes. (But she's not romantically connected to any of the other guys on the show.) So they'll just be friends for now. As Sam comes to realize his situation is "real," he'll have to let go of Maya, his love back in 2008.

And yeah, tonight's episode is still quite close to the second episode of the BBC version, with Sam and Gene clashing over police methods. The first season will be all about Sam trying to win the approval of his new colleagues. And yet, the show's "mythology" helps him solve this week's case, thanks to the weird dispatches and messages he keeps getting from the universe. Another difference in tonight's episode: it's the first appearance of a (non-human) visitor who's connected to Sam's situation, delivering messenges about what's happening to Sam. That's not in the British version. [Zap2It]

And here's Entertainment Tonight's visit to the set. [SpoilerTV]

Star Wars: Clone Wars:

In Friday's episode, General Grievous takes Padmé Amidala and C-3PO hostage, and it's up to Anakin and Obi-Wan to rescue them and complete the destruction of the Malevolence. But Padmé isn't a damsel in distress. She's intrepid and daring, and just happens to get captured a lot. Also, this is the first time Anakin and Padmé are together in the new Clone Wars series, and fighting side-by-side is like their version of a date. [Lucasfilm]

Stargate Atlantis:

Here are some promo images from season five episode 18, "Identity." Jimmy gets a photo of a red-and-blue blur, and Lois vows to get to the bottom of the mystery, and... whoops. Wrong upcoming episode called "Identity." Anyway, McKay's facial expression in the pic with the hot babe is somewhat unfortunate. [SpoilerTV]