Damon Lindelof wrote a heartfelt open letter on Instagram to the Green Lantern fandom community in the wake of a comment he made on a podcast getting some backlash.
Our story yesterday gave the detailed version of the (kind of silly) controversy surrounding the Emmy winner’s upcoming HBO series Lanterns, which takes a grounded approach to adapting the Green Lantern Corps comics into a prestige TV show.
But basically: Lindelof was on a podcast a year ago where he explained why the show wasn’t called Green Lantern, and joked, “It’s called Lanterns, because we all agreed that the ‘Green’ was stupid, so now it’s just Lanterns.” Then the show’s teaser trailer was released, which contained a downright scandalous lack of green in its color palette. In fact, it’s rather sordidly beige. Lindelof’s comment was recirculated with some fans growing suspicious that the show wouldn’t be faithful to its source material.
Then, on Sunday, acclaimed Green Lantern comic book writer Grant Morrison weighed in, writing on Substack: “TV writer/producer Damon Lindelof’s comments notwithstanding, the ‘Green’ in ‘Green Lantern(s)’ is not ‘stupid.’ Why does a writer attach himself to this kind of narrative if he thinks it’s fundamentally ‘stupid’? … What is this jockish dismissal of superhero conventions intended to prove anyway? … The only people who give a fuck about theLanternsTV series are Green Lantern fans. Why alienate them at the start?Thatfeels more like ‘stupid.’”
At this point, Lindelof — who, again, has plenty of experience with receiving online love (Lost,The Leftovers, Watchmen) and online backlash (Prometheus,Lostagain) — decided it was best to say something.
Lindelof posted a photo of himself (below) from his first Comic-Con appearance wearing a very green Green Lantern T-shirt, and wrote: “I have upset Grant Morrison, which means I have now pissed off MOST of the brilliant British/Scottish comics writers that I grew up idolizing. To quote the bard (Otis Redding), this is nobody’s fault but mine.”
Continued Lindelof: “I made a dumb joke on a comedy podcast. I’m not going to bob and weave about context, the joke was dumb, the fandom is not. I owe them an explanation and a genuine reflection of my actual feelings.
“The very first time I appeared on a ComicCon panel was for the Lost pilot, back in the summer of 2004. I wore my favorite T-shirt as I had long grown out of my favorite underoos, those being the uniform of Hal Jordan, Green Lantern of Sector 2814. For a quiet, uncoordinated kid, there was nothing cooler than a hero whose superpower was his imagination. And green is not stupid, it is my lifelong favorite color and I have a questionnaire that I filled out in third grade to prove it. Green is fucking awesome.
“More importantly, it would be a betrayal to everyone I worked for and alongside to say anything other than I was absolutely honored to be a part of the team that manifested the incredible construct that is Lanterns … because it was. I was sloppy and careless with my words, ironic considering I care so much about Hal, John and the entire Corps. I can and will do better to be worthy of the oath … until then, I’ll let the show speak for itself and I can’t wait for you all to hear what it has to say.”
So there you have it: Lindelof loves the Green Lantern. He loves the color green. The show will have green in it. At some point, a new trailer will be released for Lanterns, which you can bet will also have some splashes of green (probably with a vibe that feels a bit like, “Here’s your damn green, OK?!”).
Lanterns is released in August.