Okay, in a world of multiple super heroes, and in a world multiple super hero MOVIES, how does one make a movie about Green Arrow worthey enough for a live cast/big screen showing?
Ghost Rider, and Batman Forver/and Robin, have made it clear. HOAKYNESS and Cartoonish concepts DO NOT HELP.
This being so, the obvious move is to again, follow the lead of Batman begins, REALISM! Out of the many super hero concepts that CANT do that, Green Arrow is actually the closest because IT like Batman is very down to earth.
Oliver Queen Has no powers, just witts,
money, and gadgets. There in also lies the problem, he's TOO much like Batman.
Honestly, all Queen would need is a trusty Butler to be either like Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark. To do a story about a rich guy who gets seperated from civilization, finds himself in the wild, and finds purpose, and fights crime, is really playing the tune everyone's heard by now, and lets face it, compaired to Batman and Ironman Green Arrow's small potato's in coolness.
This makes it DIFFICULT, not impossible
(if only just.) Likened to Capt. Marvel and Superman, there are ENOUGH differences in the characters make it intresting.
I believe that For Green Arrow to take flight they should expound on THESE, points.
1. That even though you don't have powers, you can change things, even in the face of foes who DO have them.
(Definatly not a batman theme so far)
2.Helping the little guy DOES count.
Cause lets face it, Green Arrow is really "Little guy" minded. The woman who's asulted in an ally, the kid who's jumped for drugs, the store that got robbed.
*My two cents moment* for this movie to launch, it needs the right balance of REALISM, yet enough lightness and comicness to it to seperate it from mooching off of Batman. The movie starts off where he's RECENTLY been found by a fishing ship, and the crew talk to each other in their native tongue about what they'll do with him. He tells them who he is that dialect, and they discover he's flewent in that paticular language. He tells them that if they get him to....Wherever, he'll reward them. He's a very wealthy man. They say that he doesn't have to sell them, they're going to help him anyway.
Of course it turns out, when he reaches a land and is able to make a phone call, that he IS billionare Oliver Queen. And he ends up giving them a large amount of money later on.
He returns to Star City which is even more inslaved to the Yakuza then when he left. Plus the death by drug rate is higher then ever, but the Yakuza is supposedly hiring mid level "Super people" to muscle for them, so no one really challenges them.
Now here's where I think the concept could really originalise it, (Please dont take offence) GIVE IT AN ASIAN SPIN!
Here's what I mean. Star City has been gradually become a drug slum. However, there have been reports of various drug transactions being foiled, by a man who is incredably skilled in the martial arts and sword play. He never uses guns, although he has felled many a mid level crime boss, and flunky wiht one weapon. A green Arrow.
Obviously people think, this is somewhat Robin Hoodish. But his costume won't be likened to the Robin Hood theme
It will be slightly a cross between the smallville version, meets ALtiar from Assassin's creed.
The Yakuza have tatoo's to mark who they are. And in Japanese, Green Arrow has on his costume arm "Green Arrow." Likened to Samurai who painted their names on their armor or banners. Give him the look of an Ninja archer then a Mid evil archer.
His non-archery weapons vary from Katana short blades, to Scrima sticks, so why not go all the way? A ninja like hero against an Japanese crime based corruption.
Another way to not copy batman completly here is the fact of having there already be super people, or main antagonists present before he even assumes the mantel of GA. Instead of having the hero rise and have a bad guy say:"Get me a proffessional(__)" like Kingpin hiring Bullseye, Maroni hiring Joker, Have there already be a super foe to instill fear into the heart of Star City. A Goliath already exsist-ing for a David to rise up and fight. The Head Yakuza leader has for years bullied the city around, and stayed Prominant crime boss by means of his "Super flunkies." Deadshot being one of his deadliest, and ironicly like Green Arrow, doesn't have a power except for NEVER missing.
Now I know your thinking, "Captain Boomerang", or "Merlyn" or of course:
"Count Vertigo." The reason I don't use these is for this reason. I Green Arrow is based of an antic, a green Arrow, Captain Boomerang is based off of boomerangs, while there is comic element to this, Boomerang meets Arrow, IN A CITY, is kind of hoaky.
As for Vertigo, I like Vertigo and he'd be a great villain, but not as an intro movie villain.
Reason being is because he's to much of a main villain to be in "addition to..."
He has a plot of ransoming the worlds' ablity to walk straight and not get sick. He's not a flunky, and definatly shouldn't be in the first one, becaue he works for Queen and it would be WAY to copy catish of Tony Stark/Ironman vs. Obediah Stane/Iron Monger.
And honestly a concept like Merlyn:
"Ha ha! I will counter Green Arrow with THIS guy! Who ALSO uses arrows!" is kinda.........
ANYWAY! The reason I chose Deadshot, Brick, and Black Canary, is because they unlike him have more or less special ablities. Brick has a super
hard hide. Deadshot DOESN'T miss, and Black Canary of course has her "Canary Cry". The question should be, "What can Green Arrow do against these? All of which use guns on the side?"
Now I know right now your thinking, "WHAT THE CRAP! BLACK CANARY IS NOT A VILLAIN!!!" Believe me, I'm aware of it. And she isn't a villain, she's actually under cover it turns out, a super working with the cops to bring down the Yakuza.
All this aside, here's how it will go, The movie, agian, will begin with him being found by the fisher guys. When he's in this...(African, Caribean, Asian, South American) Village, he witnesses mercinaries taking a villages suplies and women. He asks the people who they call to stop this? They reply this always happens, and there is no one to stop them cause they ARE the law.
The next scene the soldiers, have set up camp and have the women folk "Tied up for later."
Suddenly one of the guards is owned by an arrow. A row begins in the camp, Oliver, begins shooting the men from tree top to tree top. He has a flash back of how he had to think strategicly to out manuver Pecery's that wanted to eat him, waiting for him to come down out of trees, and how he was able to shoot them from the cover of the tree's.
It turns out too, that he is very good in hand to hand when he finally kills the leader. Now it may have been the fact that most of them were drunk but, he killed them. After returning the girls to their village, and being praised for his valor, the call he made the first day comes through and a hellocopter comes for him.
As he returns home he realises that Star City had fallen into more depression then he'd left it. He goes to a cemitary and has more flash backs
where we realise that he had once been a pretty self absorbed guy, on concered with hanging with Good o'l buds, and the LADIES. He had championed in various Archery and Martial arts tournements growing up, and wasn't very concerned with what people thought of his private life. All this comes to a stand still when his life long friend,(Possibly Roy Harper), and his girl friend, Amanda are victoms of drug over dosage. They were the only ones he thought made him feel like he meant something even when he knew himself he wasn't any good. And this POISON stole them from him. He imediatly began throwing money into charity organizations and rehab funds (Ones that really care.) and even poloticians who wanted to drive drug runs out of Star City. He was warned by one of them that people who do this step into a larger world, where like there are people like THEM that want to help, there are people out there who want to MAKE SURE you don't help because its bad for buisness. Very foolishly he decides to buy a really good lawyer to take a case to put away Yakuza crime Lord Rushi Teiou(Which means, royal or king). The case goes through and he's put away for a few months, tops. Queen on the other hand, has become a primary target. While he was out on his yacht shooting targets with his bow, he was shot by an unknown person from another boat. THe shot isn't a bullet, but a dart so that there will be no conection to his death, and will look like he fell over board in the storm that was near and coming. He does not die out in sea, or even in the storm, but washes up on shore where he is at naught for what to do. He has no way of contacting anyone back home and the Island was deserted. All he could do was hope to survive till someone found him, or built a raft. Knwoing how a bow and Arrow works, he constructed his own used it to shoot his food and defend himself predators, including the pecery's(Flesh eating pigs). To keep himself sane, he practiced the karate moves he'd learned all those years in his youth,(winning black belts and such) and of course, his archery skills were PERFECTED. A few months later, the fishermen that picked him up passed his Island in the distance, but it was to dark for them to see him. So he using one of his last lights, he set one of his arrows on fire and shot it in the air. This got their attention.
And there in, the Green Arrow's origin is taken care of. Now we understand how he fights so well against those troops, and has an afinaty for using a bow.
Now Maito Teiou wants this..."Green Arrow’s head on a pike for making a fool of his crime family. So he decides to send most of his super "people" after him. Deadshot begs for him to let HIM take on this Green Archer, because of his ego issue about being the best shot EVER. And tells him what his father Rushi Teiou told him when he was working for him: “Its what someone makes of themselves that makes the person, not what they can do."
Maito dismisses this and says:"Yeah, well that got him killed later. BY ME I might add. Besides, this is an age of Super beings, like the titans of old. Which ever god wielded the most of them was the more dominant. I will be that god.
A trap is set by destroying one of the rehab centers; Green Arrow arrives to be confronted by Brick, Black Canary, and Onomatopoeia. Deadshot waits in the wings, assigned to gun down any trying to aid him, so that the city can see their hero fall. Green Arrow defeats the three with some difficulty; the last person standing besides himself is the Canary. Suddenly he is shot by Deadshot who can’t take it anymore.
Back at Maito's condo, Maito asks Deadshot what he was thinking? Why didn't he shoot him through the head if he was obviously winning? Deadshot answers "Because he was assigned to guard duty right? Besides, where I shot him, he won't survive if he wasn't given medical attention in literally the next few MINUTES. Plenty of time for your guys working as paramedics to pick him up."
Maito demands: “Then why did my paramedics find NO body at the scene?!"
Deadshot:"WHAT!"
Black Canary had taken him some where for his wound to be dealt with. It is reveled that she is working under cover with the police to get at Maito.
Her father, a cop, had taught her how to handle herself even without her ability.
He was killed later by Rushi Teiou. She free lanced as a bounty hunter, in hopes of getting into his employ and killing him. Rushi was killed by his son Maito before that. While she was still working for the Teiou family, she was contacted by Star City PD to be a mole for them and find out when their runs are and such. That night was one of the runs that would be made with Maito present, and she was going to help bring them down. Green Arrow demands to help when it is discovered that the death of his buy Roy was no over dosage, and that he was really going to his girlfriends' house to tell her to get off the drugs, and caught her with the Yakuza. They killed them both and made it look like an overdose.
Star City PD makes a deal that they made with Canary, that they WONT arrest or hold charges against him if he doesn't KILL Maito.
The Main battle of the movie will be Green Arrow facing off against Deadshot.
The never missing Arrow meets the never missing bullet.