Gwen

The Green Lanterns DO "interview" for their rings. The Guardians did it by examining the ability to overcome great fear through willpower. Later, Mogo did that for them. The rings themselves, however, do the fine-tuning and select between qualified persons in a given area. Hal, Guy, and John were all in roughly the same place -- on Earth -- but when Abin Sur crash landed there, he landed closest to Hal Jordan. His ring did the final examination, and decided that Hal Jordan would be a powerful Green Lantern, based upon his ability to overcome great fear and his exceptional willpower.

Guy Gardner would have been a good choice, too, as would John Stewart. But they were FURTHER AWAY than Hal Jordan. Thus, Hal got Abin Sur's ring. Whenever a Green Lantern dies, and there isn't a candidate in close range, the ring goes in search of one. The Guardians and Mogo help by telling them where a candidate might be found, but the ring does the final interview where pay is discussed and benefits disclosed. Hiring at that point is immediate and complete when the candidate accepts the ring.

At least the Green Lantern rings aren't as...insistent...as the red rings of Ysmault, or Sinestro's yellow rings. If Hal had, for some strange reason, refused the ring, it simply would have flown off to Guy Gardner. If Gardner had refused, it would have flown off to John Stewart. If none of them had accepted, and no one else was ready, such as Jessica Cruz or Simon Baz, then Oa would have suggested another region to look in, or Mogo would have, if he was then in charge of directing the rings' search.

It ultimately should be shown that Hal is not, and never was, the arbiter deciding whether or not John got a ring. I think it's a test for HAL. Is Hal ready to retire? If so, he can give his ring to John and let the responsibility go. But I think this series will show that Hal isn't quite ready to retire to the Villages in Florida. He'll die a Green Lantern. John will get a different ring.

Oh, a Sci-Fi TV series couldn't POSSIBLY extend beyond the original source material! They HAVE to wait until the authors write more!

coughcoughGameofThronescoughcough...

I really wish they hadn't called this first installment "Gods and Monsters". The DC Animated feature by that name is a standalone masterpiece, and unless it's that story -- which it clearly isn't -- that reduces the power of both works, if only to go to the effort of explaining why they're both called by the same name...and why that hasn't been fixed yet.

Watch the animated "Gods and Monsters". It's worth the time.

As is "Justice League: The New Frontier". An excellent work!

I still giggle my tuchis off when I think of how the new Doctor needed the sonic screwdriver redesigned to not look so much like a gun (it didn't look all that much like a gun) has a first name pronounced "Shooty".

I know it's not well thought-of, but I absolutely adore Hudson Hawk. So long as you think of it as "action farce", or even "action absurdist", and don't take it too seriously, it's delightfully funny running all over and throughout the spectacular action. And the singing to synchronize timing is just precious as can be!

Following that would have to be The Fifth Element. That film is similar to Hudson Hawk insomuch as it is a massively actioned SF war intrigue film, there's still this thread of silly that pops up, like Deadpool breaking the 4th wall.

I didn't care for The Sixth Sense. M. Night Shamalamadingdong thinks he's got "such a twist!", but I figured it out in the first ten minutes. The scene with his widow having dinner, and seems to ignore him, as his ghost sits across the table, trying to get her to talk to him cemented it in my mind. After that, it just wasn't even intriguing. I couldn't understand how so many people were surprised when it was revealed that Bruce's character was a ghost. That's why the kid is the only person to talk to him.

The Die Hard franchise was one that cut it's losses when the makers realized it wasn't working. If only those people had been the ones doing the Star Wars sequel trilogy...le sigh...

See if Charlie Stross is interested in a crossover with his Laundry Files and Marvel. The series was based on a heretofore unknown thesis by Alan Turing, that proved magic is a form of mathematics, one branch of which is Computational Demonology. The Laundry Files boffins were typical British civil servants, but armed with technological devices that were the sine qua non of magical tools, to keep knowledge of magic out of the hands of the general public, and to prepare for when unspeakable alien horrors from beyond space-time were going to come and eat our brains, and the stars will come right Real Soon Now.

It could also rope in the American counterpart to the Laundry, the Black Chamber, aka the Operational Phenomenology Agency, that held the United States under a black and wormy thumb. That the agents of the Black Chamber were also known not very complimentary as the Nazgûl, is one of Stross' bits of gallows humor that runs throughout the series.

Engrave nanoscale copies of a Sigil of Thoth on all of Tony's armor parts, and spells will shed from it like water off a brand new Lexus. Power the armor with a gibbering horror from the Dungeon Dimensions, crammed into a mathematical Klein bottle in the chest of the armor. Then have the moment when the armor is activated, and the faintest hint of poly-and-antiphonic screams emanate from what used to be an arc reactor, and is now a tiny house for a captive demon. Jarvis could even live again, summoned from the quantum foam of the Platonic universe and enlivened by a command from The Eater of Souls to serve Tony faithfully, geased to behave himself and work for Tony's success and safety, or he'll wish Cthulhu would eat him LAST.

Who knows? Charlie might go for it. After all, his Laundry Files book "The Annihilation Score" is all about a sudden superfluity of "underwear perverts" -- superheroes, now that we can say that without the Big Two suing us.