I finally sat down and watched the Arrow pilot this week, and was admittedly pretty impressed with what I saw. It’s a harder show that the CW is used to, and one that is obvious reminiscent of another past hit because of its subject matter: Smallville.
But Arrow and Smallville are two very different shows, and I think that Arrow has a lot of things on its side that could make for an interesting split from the groundwork of the similarly themed Smallville. Here’s why:
He’s Green Arrow from Day One
Smallville had it take TEN YEARS for Clark Kent to FINALLY become Superman, but Arrow is moving up the timetable quite a bit more quickly. Here, Oliver Queen becomes Green Arrow within the first episode, though he is without a mask so far. There’s no waiting around for him to acquire tight-themed costume, and he is who is out of the gate.
He Kills People
I’m tired of superheroes unwilling to kill people, even bad guys, and here we see that Arrow is closer to The Punisher rather than Batman or Superman. Arrows are sharp. They go through hearts and brains and Oliver has no problem using them to exact vengeance. It’s a brute force approach that is sorely missed among shows like this. Clark Kent would bend over backward to not kill a man responsible for the deaths of millions. Here Queen would break his neck without thinking twice.
His Alter Ego is Exciting
If I saw Clark Kent lifting another bale of hay on the Kent farm in Smallville, I was going to scream. His farmboy existence was just so damn BORING after so long, but fortunately in Arrow, Queen lives a lifestyle closer to that of Lex Luthor. Parties and hotties galore! Though to be fair, I would trade every girl on this show for just one Kristin Kreuk.
There’s Some Mystery in the Air
There was very little mystery inside most seasons of Smallville, as we know the story, know the villains and all that. Though Arrow is loosely based around the comic, there’s still much we don’t know. What happened on that island? Who are these people he’s hunting down? Why is his mom evil? Lots and lots of questions to keep up coming back for more.
There Are No Pesky Superpowers to Deal With
Clark Kent’s superpowers created a hell of a lot of plotholes in Smallville when you started asking “Why didn’t he just ____?” Arrow is just a guy who knows how to shoot a bow and is really good at parkour. No such complications, and also, no poorly CGIed superpowered fight scenes necessary. The CW team can handle slow motion arrows, right?
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Smallville was ALWAYS about Clark Kent BEFORE he became Superman, that was the entire point of the show.
Superman is all about sparing lives, it’s one of the reasons he’s arguably the greatest superhero ever, and Green Arrow is not.
Clark Kent was seen lifting hay in probably three of the 200+ episodes.
“Pesky super powers?” Because comicbook fans don’t like the super powers aspect of comicbooks? God forbid a movie full of superheroes and super powers breaks any records at the box office.
There was plenty of mystery surrounding Clark, from his best friends to the Luthors and even GREEN Arrow.
Like I’ve said before, Arrow looks like it will be a good show. The character was created to be the poor mans Batman, and now this new show is the poor mans Christopher Nolans Batman. It’s a proven process so I expect Arrow to go no less than 2 or 3 seasons.
But, as an obvious Smallville fan, it’s articles like this that are going to keep me from watching this show.
If you do your research on the Green Arrow you would realize he only has 14 confirmed kills.
http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Green_Arrow_%28Oliver_Queen%29
“Body count: Green Arrow’s struggle with the usage of lethal force has led him to killing a total of 17 people on panel, although it is implied there have been several more. 14 of these deaths happened during the brutal Cross Roads storyline.”
plus his sister is hot, very hot.
As much as i loved Smallville i have to agree with some of the OP’s points but u need to keep in mind that there’s more than 10 years between the 2 shows.
Times have changed and these days u either make a fast paced action tv show or u get booted after 5 episodes.
Back in the 2000’s filling episodes and Monster of the Week episodes were something normal and some Shows went on for years without any major plot aside the weekly ones.
Just look how Smallville’s last 4-5 seasons were completely different from the first ones.It started out as a show for teenagers and ended up as a show for everyone while Arrow started directly for a broad audience.
I just hope they keep up the good work with Arrow because at this moment there’s no decent Superhero/SciFi show on any network.
His sister’s hot? Maybe for ‘kids’. I’m 40, love this show, and the mother, while evil, is sooo hot. Damn.