Books about what goes on backstage of film productions are often fascinating–at least, for those who don't mind seeing the magician reveal his secrets. Constructing Green Lantern covers the design work that went into the creating the look of the 2011 summer blockbuster Green Lantern. It's a very pretty to look at book with lots of illustrations of how the various props, costumes, and CGI characters evolved, though one does come away with the impression that filmmakers with very big budgets sometimes over think their creations to a ludicrous degree. Do we really need to have a specially designed employee badge that we'll never see? Must we give a name to a CGI alien who we never meet?
The only major flaw of the book is that it's obviously a market tie-in with the release of the film, so on one level it acts as an advertisement for Green Lantern. As such, it's highly unlikely that the entire story is there or that the reader will see much of what hurdles had to be overcome or what could and did go wrong. Me? I'm waiting for the 25th anniversary DVD re-release commentaries when the cast and crew no longer feel obligated to stay in promotion mode.
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