Most every superhero film is challenged with the task of making ridiculous, impossible outfits exist in the real world. The Dark Knight steeped its suit in reality and technology, while the X-Men films did away with them almost entirely. The men Spider and Iron both wear suits in their films that are ripped right from the comic pages, using huge budgets and modern tech to realize seemingly impossible wardrobe needs. According to a report from /Film, the Green Lantern film will be dispensing will all of that bullshit and computer generating the suit!
Using an approach that presumably resembles the process used to create Doctor Manhattan for Watchmen, Ryan Reynolds will be trotting around town and kicking ass in a boring, gadget-covered sweat suit that will be topped with a computer generated suit. The report mentions a “grey tracking motion/performance capture suit with led lights” as well as white LEDs used for motion tracking (rather than a practical light source, like Manhattan’s TRON-like blue glow). If it’s anything like Manhattan’s suit, it may also be coated with advanced tracking bar codes- we’ll see on the featurettes I guess*.
What is this complicated process helping to achieve though? Well, Green Lantern’s suit is a physical manifestation of will- a result of the energy coming from his ring. This process may allow them to create a suit that is appropriately ephemeral. Differing opinions on the film itself aside, most agree that Warner Bro’s visually implemented Doc Manhattan well and applying it to Green Lantern (who has the same transient relationship with his suit as Manhattan had with size) makes some sense, theoretically. With powerful VFX resources at her disposal, Oscar-winning costume designer Ngila Dickson may well be able to pull of something interesting.
/Film also has a few rumorish details about other costumes (Abin Sur’s head isn’t that big, Sarsgaard has crazy hair) if you care to read the full piece.
We’ll see something more when Warner Brothers decides to bless us with a render of the costume, or set photos show up with Reynolds in silly spandex.
*Here’s a link to one of the old production diaries for Watchmen, if you’re not familiar with the process they used.