Just introduce them. People always say the "general audience" or the "casual viewer" won't understand things. And I don't think so. I believe introspection is the quickest and most honest way to learn about people around you. Besides simply listening to them, of course.
And if something makes me happy, I don't care if it makes sense or not. It just has to be good enough to make up for the amount of sense it doesn't make.
And on the other side, if something doesn't make me happy, I don't care how much sense it makes. No amount of context, sense or continuity is going to make up for something that wasn't any good.
When is the last time you've seen a movie that you loved watching, but then you thought...
but it just didn't make any sense because of this and that?
That's just not how we think about things. Probably if you find yourself complaining about this and that, there was something even deeper that you didn't like about it. So it's not an argument that people are actually wrong about what they like or dislike. Just that they aren't really understanding why.
Anways... here's what I would do...
Movie opens to the lobby of a kind of cheap run down apartment building in Los Angeles. We see some guy approaching the door from the street. Puts his keys in and enters. We see for a second his face go all shivery and blurred, and there's like a flash of death over it and a split second sound of flesh and bone being smashed really hard. His face snaps back like normal, and we see he's really just some guy..and he's tired and he's walking towards the stairwell.
Suddenly we hear a "Hey..." like kinda whispered and low, he turns around and there is our Green Lantern. He is dressed in ill fitting jeans and a t-shirt with the arms cut off. Green Lantern is anxious and is bobbing back and forth a little, shuffling his feet in place and just acting a little sketchy in general.
Green Lantern waves this guy who just walked in over. And as he waves we see this big ass ring on his finger.
The guy makes a mouse face at him.
GREEN LANTERN: "hey. dude... hey! come over here. no. yeah, dude.. come over here."
Guy walks up hesitantly,
Green Lantern leans in...
GREEN LANTERN: "Ok, look. listen... You know that lady on the 3rd floor right? Redhead, drives the Volvo, English accent, pretty hot, right?
ok, look...
(and then he whispers) She's a Yellow Lantern...
(pauses to let this sink in)
I saw it, man. She was using it.
it was like in her head where her face was, but she could be holding it and going like this...
(moves his hands around, broadly and wildly)
weird, see?
and that was her face too...it was in there,
and it was YELLOW. [frick]ing weird. really not good, dude. totally [frick]ing YELLOW...
cuz look...
look at me.
(Green Lantern looks at the guy's face intently)
and i know you...You [frick]ing live on the second floor, three doors down from me, and I know you've seen her too. This is really important, right now.
and listen...
we gotta find out where she keeps it, it's like blackest night. and [frick], they keep talking about that. cuz I'm sittin there all the time. and then dude's all 'Blackest Night' , 'Blackest Night'
And i know it, I live right under her. I can hear it. or it's something, but it's gotta be up there.
and she's up there,
but it's weird.
i think she has someone up there...
(he pauses and looks around again)
dude... i'm a GREEN LANTERN, ok? i'm serious. i [frick]ing know you."
so that's all Green Lantern needs to establish how goddam insane he is. and how much of a Green Lantern he is, whatever that means.
and then you do something like he goes "Ahhhhhhhh!!!"
and curls up in pain. and keeps going "AHHHHH!" and beating his head off and on. and the guy's looking at him, and he doesn't know what to do really...
and Green Lantern grabs him by the shoulders and gets all in his face and goes "Flash!" and then he makes a frog face and stares at the guy.
Then he makes an even harder frog face and stares at harder at him.
and then his eyes water up like he's about to cry and he shoves the guy, who falls back a little into the mailboxes. and just looks down as Green Lantern is curled up on the ground now, shaking around and just keeps saying "AAHHHHH" and punching his head. and he's slowly moving his hand to reach for something in his jacket.
then there's a deep yellow flash and...
Flash is sitting at a truckstop diner.
Like one of those Flying J's and he's in the diner part, slouched at this table with his head in his hands like he's tired or has got a headache.
The waitress walks up and stands there until he looks up. She's pretty but like in that Van Halen Hot For Teacher stereotype, when the teacher is still a teacher.
It cuts to the highway directly outside, and there's a little happy rabbit hopping in the middle of the road. moving it's nose around and being happy.
Back to the diner, now...Flash realizes she's there, looks up and she goes "whatcha want?" and smiles at him.
and it would cut to the highway again... to the road and there's our rabbit, and we hear a not so distant rush of something coming.
Back inside and Flash says... "cherry coke" "oh and eggs. scrambled and with a side of fresh fruit." and he smiles at her and pushes the menu over for her to take.
but after he says that, Flash would twitch a little and you'd see he noticed something outside.
And then cut back to the rabbit
and the noise is getting louder and it's too loud and the rabbit is looking in horror at something as it comes, paralyzed like rabbits get.
and it cuts back to the diner and the waitress walking away with the menu in her arms, and then he'd get up all in Flash mode and run outside and save that rabbit and put it down next to a cactus and pat it on the head and tickle it's chin.
and then pat it on the head again. And then he'd run back towards the diner.
but he'd stop in the window and lick his hand and fix his hair, straighten his jacket collar.
and then last thing he'd do is go to the jukebox, drop in a quarter and pick a Janet Jackson song... Nasty.
and then he'd zip back down to his seat and the waitress would only be like a foot more away than before. and we'd see the huge truck hurtling by as the rabbit safely watches it pass and hops back into the middle of the road, looking happy and moving it's nose again.
and Flash would say.. "oh, and miss..."
and she'd turn around but her glasses would fall off and she'd drop the menu.
She'd be all shocked like looking at him and all of a sudden a lot prettier too, cuz her hair would've come out a little bit too. and she'd be biting her lip and about to bust out of her shirt a little. And looking at Flash like she wanted to jump him right that second...
and then you'd hear the jukebox needle hit the vinyl and a little hiss and skips of the single starting.
and then Flash would say... "and could ya gimme a beat...
a nasty beat?"
with this smile on his face. and then he'd wink at her.
and then it'd launch into the theme music. Nasty, of course, by Janet Jackson. but right into the song, not her saying gimme a beat too.
that's what they need to open the movie with.
and then later, of course Green Lantern tracks down Flash, and get him to help him investigate this woman upstairs. And it would be where Green Lantern, no matter how insane he came off to everyone... he'd always be right. like everything he was saying would be completely true. it would just sound completely crazy. cuz the guy in the apartment lobby would turn out to have something to do with Flash later.
but all that is what would tell you more about Yellow Lanterns and their insidious mind messing ways. and about how Flash and Green Lantern work. what do u need any more to worry about?
Just do it, everyone will figure it out.