Green Lantern: Rise Of The Red Lanterns: The Animated Series - Season 1 Part 1

I'm honestly horrid at reviews but I'll give it a shot, because this series is fantastic and it deserves all the praise it gets.Writing as someone who honestly had no interest in this series to begin with, despite being both a comic and a DC animated fan, let me just say that this is by far the BEST animated series I watched all year. Even if you aren't into superheroes, even if you know absolutely nothing about Green Lantern mythos, even if you aren't the "target audience," as long as you like fun, well-developed characters having adventures in an expansive sci-fi space setting, you will love this show.First, this is a kid's show that doesn't pan to the whole dumbed down, slap-stick mentality so many kid's shows seem to have. The stories are smart, there's an over-arcing crisis that ties everything together, and the characters are all three dimensional and experience substantial development even within just thirteen episodes. Even side characters, outside of the main crew, are incredibly well fleshed out. Think Avatar: the Last Airbender, in terms of plot and character development (which makes sense, as quite a few people who worked on ATLA work on this). Being only thirteen episodes, not a second is wasted, and scenes that seem one-off, or episodes that seem like stand-alone stories all come into play in the main arc in clever, well-planned ways. Nothing seems pulled out of thin air, and during a rewatch you can actually map out the progression of story and character arcs, which is something very rare in any medium.As for the animation, which I'll admit was one reason I originally didn't think to check this out, while being CGI, it is incredibly well done. The scenery is spectacular, and being set in space and on alien worlds, the animators have gone all out on the trippy, spacey designs and color palette. The character animation is also fantastic. The biggest problem with CGI is that characters can seem stiff and inhuman, but that's not the case here. While the facial expressions aren't as exaggerated as most cartoons, they're there and the subtlety of them only adds to the story, in my opinion.Again, I'm bad at reviews, because I basically just want to key-smash about how great this series is. But despite that, you should definitely check this show out if it seems like something you're even a little interested in. You won't regret it!

When I originally watched this on Cartoon Network, I wasn't too impressed. I'm glad I bought the DVDs though, as watching the entire series as a whole piece made quite an impression on me. The series is a little slow to start, and you wonder why, with all the amazing characters in the Green Lantern Corps, the producers chose to set the series in a section of space outside the normal Guardian space. Presumably they did it to reduce the focus to just a few characters, so that they could add new characters gradually -- understandably, each new character needs to be modeled in the computer, which involves an additional expense each time, so rather than have huge crowd scenes with dozens or hundreds of GLs, they chose to roll out new characters episode-by-episode.I was really impressed by the writing, and the character arcs that each of the characters (particularly Razer and Aya) go through. I absolutely fell in love with Aya, and some of her defining moments (I won't spoil it for those that haven't seen) actually brought a tear to my eye. While the storyline plays fast and loose with the comic book material established by Geoff Johns in his monumental 9-year run on the Green Lantern series, it also introduces new characters that work well for the animated series. At first I had my doubts about a Red Lantern Corps that was sanitized for Saturday morning television, but in retrospect they managed to do the concept justice.This series is SO much better than the live action movie, and even better than the direct-to-video DC Universe animated movies that preceded this series. Kudos to the team at WB animation. Since it seems that CGI is the way of the future for all cartoons, this was a great first effort and while it wasn't appreciated in its time, I think it will make new fans on DVD and on-demand. It's such a shame that the show only produced 26 episodes. Cartoon Network canned it essentially because the series failed to attract a toy tie-in deal. It's all about the merchandise (sigh).

Those of you who have watched episodes of this series on YouTube don't know what you are missing. The clarity and beauty of the DVD version truly makes this at least TWICE as good as the versions of the episodes you can watch on YouTube. You should treat those episodes as 'previews'. If you think you know what this series is all about from YouTube you only know about HALF the full story.Okay, I'll admit that it took a while for me to like this, on YouTube. The UNREALISTICALLY muscularly built characters were a real turnoff for me. The original Hal Jordan I grew up with, from the comic books, represents my idea of the perfectly built body. Superman was much too big for my tastes as well as Batman and other comic superheroes. The original Hal Jordan had the proportional body I felt all worthwhile men should strive for.So, I was initially angry that they chose to animate Green Lanterns with unrealistically built bodies. Lower bodies that would most probably collapse under the weight of the upper body, in real life. Once I got past that and chose to ignore it I became enthralled by this series. I have no intention of spoiling it for you, but this is one series you really should watch from beginning to end. If you come in somewhere in the middle you will not understand the premises of what this is all about.I will say this much: There is a very well thought out story plot that ties the first episode to the last. It will BLOW YOUR MIND if you follow it. Well, it really blew my mind and I'm so friggin 'jaded' I might as well be made of jade. If you love quality animation and enjoy the concept of a superhero who creates from his imagination you will love this animated series.

Computer aided animation can be truly awesome when it's done well, see Resident Evil - Degereration, but here its not so great. That aside its very entertaining, I'm not that familiar with the GL comics so I don't know if this is very true to them, but that aside the plot is interesting and who knew that power rings came in so many different colours.So dodgy animation aside, while this isn't as good as the GL animated films 'First Flight' and 'Emerald Knights' it is way much better than the Green Lantern film, so if you've enjoyed the other DC Universe animated films this is definitely worth a look. Just a pity that it appears that they've cancelled it after only 13 episodes, so although this is called Season One Part One, it looks like it's actually 'The Complete Series.An update, they did actually make the second half of this series, available as 'Season One Part Two - Manhinter Menace'. The animation is still a bit dodgy but it's entertaining, and does finish of the strory line quite well.

This series and the animated direct-to-video movie "First Flight" had got me to love the superhero - The Green Lantern. I had taken a peek at episode clips on YouTube just out of curiosity, and I really wanted to see the series; until I bought the DVD sets.I had watched the first thirteen episodes during the week, and I thought it was an awesome series. And it's also an awesome incarnation of DC Comics' intergalactic superhero. I love the what-I-called "The Red Lantern War" arc of Season #1, where Hal Jordan and Kilowog travel in a prototype spacecraft The Interceptor through the far reaches of space, where members of the Green Lantern Corps are being slain by Atrocitus and his Red Lantern Corps ( this DVD).You know, it was too bad that another season wasn't made. So anyway, I really love this series.

This got taken off from Netflix, so I got the dvds. Very underrated show with great character development and climactic ending. Would've taken another season or two over some other DC shows.

We love this show.

Great series, keep in mind this is only half the season as it was split into two different but connected story lines.