Justice League: The New Frontier

goldenboy

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This is the 1st DVD comic movie I've actually gotten kinda psyched up about. I love Darwyn Cooke's DC: The New Frontier graphic novel.

New Frontier - Video Preview





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“How I met your Mother’s” Neil Patrick Harris (who once voiced Spider-Man) has been tapped to voice Barry Allen–aka The Flash–in the upcoming direct-to-video movie “Justice League: The New Frontier.”

[Joining him in the cast are] David Boreanaz (”Angel” & “Bones”) will portray Hal Jordan’s Green Lantern, along with Lucy Lawless (”Xena”) as Wonder Woman, Brooke Shields (”Brenda Starr”) as Carol Ferris, Phil Morris (”Smallville’s” J’onn J’onzz) as King Faraday, and Kyle Maclachlan (”Twin Peaks”) as Superman.

Written by Stan Berkowitz, “New Frontier” is an adaptation of Darwyn Cooke’s award-winning six-issue graphic novel, ‘DC: The New Frontier’, which is set in the 1950’s and serves as a bridge between the DC Universe’s Golden and Silver Ages of Comics.

The film will be released on DVD January 28, 2008.


http://www.searchingbones.com/2007/...-green-lantern-will-be-out-on-dvd-in-january/





CCI: You worked in animation for a number of years including at Warner Bros. Animation. What's it like going full circle and coming back to work on New Frontier?
Darwyn: It was pretty weird, in a good way. It's been probably seven years since I worked with the guys at Warners' and I still have a lot of friends there. My time there was great and I got to know so many of the guys who ended up working on The New Frontier, so it was like old home week. It was a lot of fun.

CCI: New Frontier is an epic work. How much of it will we see translated to the movie version and how difficult was it to let some of the story go?
Darwyn: It's like a lot of things: it feels a lot worse than it is at first. We were all pretty daunted by trying to compress this material down to a 70-minute video. But Stan Berkowitz did a great job of objectively going through the story and finding out what needed to stay and what could go. The screenplay he pulled together did a very good job of that, so it was just a matter of us playing with it a bit more. It was really kind of difficult and hard to let go, but in the end we were all pretty amazed at how much of the story actually made it into the video and how much does feel like the book.


CCI: New Frontier is very much of a particular era, the late 1940s through the 50s. Is that maintained in the movie?
Darwyn: We certainly did our best and there were some hilarious moments when the prop designers were designing things like pink telephones from 1959. So yeah, we had notes for them (laughs) but all in all the entire crew really embraced the challenge of trying to put that together. And our partners overseas will let us know if we've succeeded or not, but what we tried to do with it is not to use any techniques that will make it clear that this was made after 1955. We want it to feel like it was made with the resources and technology available at the time. Granted we are using digital to support what we're doing everywhere we can, but we want it to look traditional.

So in everything from the color palette on down, I think we've done pretty good in scoring it. I did design most of the characters so I was able to control the wardrobe and things like that. I think we got it. I mean, until you see the footage you just don't know.

CCI: New Frontier included a lot of history and social issues. Will we see that transferred to the movie?
Darwyn: Again, we were in a tough spot because we had to cut so much material. But its incredible how much we've managed to maintain. It's in short bursts, but we're using devices like Batman looking through an old style microfilm catalogue, so we get these slides that roll by with Rosa Parks, or the Russians, and all this kind of material that we've used as much as we can for backstory. And I really think it all comes through pretty clearly.

CCI: The new DVD films are not beholden to the continuity that's on, say, the Justice League TV series.
Darwyn: If they had been adapting this in the "Adventures" style that would have been great. But the fact that this was going to get to stand alone is what made it really exciting, and that they wanted it to look like the book is like, "Wow, what a great opportunity."


http://www.comic-con.org/wc/wc08_jltnf_cooke.shtml
 
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Sounds like it's got some fun extras. Looking forward to those interviews too.
 
after seeing a little more of the movie I'm really hyped about seeing it now. If it shapes up nicely the DVD will definitely be a must buy.
 
Harry Knowles likes it..

Folks… the absolute best comic film has been accomplished. THE NEW FRONTIER is everything I hoped for. There are missing pieces from the comic – mainly due to a need to economize the story given the time constraints of animated stories. However, everything lost is alluded to or acknowledged by broadcasts, newspaper headlines and dialogue. Yes, I would have loved to have had lengthy combat on Dinosaur Island, to have a long time with the Challengers of the Unknown and well… the point is, Darwyn Cooke adapted his original comic with Stan Berkowitz and the result is stunning.

It is an accomplished, serious and adult adaptation that keeps every ounce of the original story’s brilliance. What we have here is a serious adult superhero story straight out of the Silver Age, but with the weight of the best of modern age storytelling.

The actual animation is nothing short of breathtaking. Everything is magnificently detailed and drawn. The character designs are stunning – SUPERMAN hasn’t looked this good since the days of the Fleischers. And dude… fucking Hal Jordan… I can’t believe it. To see Hal get the ring, When you see how he finally transforms into Green Lantern… you’re gonna squeal....
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/35478
 
Has anyone seen this yet?

It's good. Not great, but quite good. The graphic novel is better (of course). It just feels a bit rushed and superficial cos there's so much they had to edit out to condense it down to 75 minutes. It has a fantastic animated opening sequence. I was surprised at how much of the violence and blood they kept from the book.

But yeah, it's fun. Boreanaz was surprisingly good as Hal Jordan. I think Kyle Maclaughlin was my fave (as Superman).

The Deluxe DVD has a 40 minute doc on the origin, history of the Justice Society/Justice League, going back to the 1930s. Bruce Timm's interviewed, Darwyne Cooke, and even Stan Lee. Another doc on DC supervillains, that was cool.

If you're a DC fan, I bet you'd get a kick out of it.
 
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I saw this movie really good. I never seen the original TPB New Frontier but this movie inspired me to get it. Favorite part easy Batman changing his mask scaring criminals not children. :)
 
That was good. And Bats' comment that all he needs to take out J'onn Jonzz is a book of matches :)

You're gonna dig the graphic novel BK. You understand some of the characaters' motivations better. There's a little more backstory on Hal. Themes that were just barely hinted at make more sense in the book.
 
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