Spider-Man reboot: less emo dancing, more emo everything else?

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Just saw that they cast the new spiderman Andrew Garfield. I haven't seen any of the actors work yet...but I'm going to netflix it. As for the director, Marc Webb, I did enjoy (500) Days of Summer, but I wasn't watching it from a "director tryout for Spiderman" point of view so I'll probably have to re-watch that and anything else he has directed(mostly music videos since all his movies haven't come out yet.). I think he hopefully has fresh perspectives that will be a nice change, being able to put so much story into so little is always a good exercise for a director, so maybe we could get really lucky. Thus far he has any action back ground but again....may we'll get lucky.

What we stive for
IMAGE(http://comicsmedia.ign.com/comics/image/article/713/713070/spider-man-20060616035035835.jpg)

What we are getting
IMAGE(http://nymag.com/images/2/daily/entertainment/08/05/02_garfield_lgl.jpg)

I'm feeling pretty lukewarm about Spidey at this point. Maybe we could luck out a la Dark Knight reboot?

He was apparently "Frank" in that two parter Dr Who episode in depression era manhattan. Can't remember who Frank was though myself. Looks like he was also in Red Riding, which by all accounts was pretty awesome (3 parter serial killer/corrupt copper drama set in the '70's) but I never got around to watching.

Looks a good match for that version of Spidey though, and let's face it - after Spiderman 3 the only way is up, really.

stevenmack wrote:

Looks a good match for that version of Spidey though, and let's face it - after Spiderman 3 the only way is up, really.

Never say that again. That was my thought after Batman Forever.

Somebody call me when Fox is done bending Spider-Man over a barrel and finally gives up and lets the license lapse and revert back to Marvel. Till then they get none of my theater going dollars.

stevenmack wrote:

Looks a good match for that version of Spidey though, and let's face it - after Spiderman 3 the only way is up, really.

Still don't get the hyperbolic hate for this movie. The "Angry Videogame Nerd" has a video up about "TOP 10 SEQUELS THAT AREN’T AS BAD AS EVERYONE SAYS," and his take on Spider-Man 3 pretty much sums up my own.

http://www.spike.com/video/cinemassa...

For me Spiderman 1 & 2 were rare examples of a comic book movie done right. They were respectful of the source material while standing on their own as movies.

Spideman 3, in contrast to the first two was pretty weak. The introduction of the symbiote could have been the chance to really explore the character of Peter Parker, instead he dressed up like a member of My Chemical Romance and did a funny dance.

It isn't as bad as people like to make out, it was better than Fantastic Four after all. But compared to the first two it was very disappointing.

MrDeVil909 wrote:

For me Spiderman 1 & 2 were rare examples of a comic book movie done right. They were respectful of the source material while standing on their own as movies.

Spideman 3, in contrast to the first two was pretty weak. The introduction of the symbiote could have been the chance to really explore the character of Peter Parker, instead he dressed up like a member of My Chemical Romance and did a funny dance.

It isn't as bad as people like to make out, it was better than Fantastic Four after all. But compared to the first two it was very disappointing.

For me, Spider-Man 1 was pretty weak-- nearly any "origin story" movie tends to be boring, as it rehashes the same old stuff we all know. SM2 was great, though, and yes, SM3 was worse than SM2. Still, it's by no means the mitigated disaster that many internet wags would have you believe.

SommerMatt wrote:

For me, Spider-Man 1 was pretty weak-- nearly any "origin story" movie tends to be boring, as it rehashes the same old stuff we all know. SM2 was great, though, and yes, SM3 was worse than SM2. Still, it's by no means the mitigated disaster that many internet wags would have you believe.

Yeah, origin stories are always going to be tough, Spiderman 1 did it better than most, IMO.

Spiderman 3 though, I actually went in thinking that it could not possibly be as bad as I'd heard, the internet is the home of hyperbole after all. It wasn't, but it was pretty f*cking terrible.

It was mostly the crying, and the dance scene.

Not Donald Glover? Not interested. He'd have ruled.

I'm not watching this unless there's sparkles.... there just has to be sparkles... Otherwise, who will watch it?

Bah, it is waaay too early to make a Spiderman reboot. You should wait at least 15 years or so, that way you can pretend that you are remaking it for a different generation instead of just trying to sell the same movie to the same people again.

SommerMatt wrote:

For me, Spider-Man 1 was pretty weak-- nearly any "origin story" movie tends to be boring, as it rehashes the same old stuff we all know. SM2 was great, though, and yes, SM3 was worse than SM2. Still, it's by no means the mitigated disaster that many internet wags would have you believe.

Really? I agree that SM2 was great - that's about the only thing, though. SM1 was only weak from a plot point of view, and that's because, as you said, we have to get through the origin stuff. Still well presented, if you ask me, and neatly adapted to a more modern mythos. I still don't like Kirsten Dunst as Mary-Jane, but she was far and away the worst part of the movie for me.

I still believe SM3 was an unmitigated disaster, both in what they did and in what they failed to do. My big issues:

1- Why did Spidey lose his powers? Why did they come back? Where is any sort of explanation for that? Random power loss is a crutch, and a weak one at that.
2- The whole emo thing. Let's leave it at that.
3- Suffering unnecessarily from Too Many Bad Guys syndrome.
4- Criminal misuse of the symbiote-as-separate-entity-and-influence. By misuse, I mean almost total non-use. (Note that that may be partly due to them using, at least partially, the Ultimate storyline, with which I am not as familiar.) The whole "greater power corrupting" theme was almost non-existent, and the fact of the symbiote as an entity wasn't every mentioned, IIRC. Also, getting rid of the symbiote should have been a Thing; it didn't come across as one in the movie.
5- Heinous and criminal misuse of Venom as a character and as a plot device. Let us delve into this one a bit deeper, as it's the biggest offender.

Venom is a kickass character in the comics. He has a moderately interesting backstory, good powers, and should, by all rights, kick the living sh*t out of Spiderman, which makes him interesting. In the comics, Eddie Brock hates Peter Parker after Parker gets him fired, and the symbiote hates Parker/Spidey for getting rid of it. Venom, therefore, has a serious hate on for Parker/Spidey. As far as I remember, none of that really came out in the movie.

I don't remember if the symbiote's avoidance of Spider-sense came up in the movie, but I don't think it did, and it certainly wasn't explained if it was.

The Venom arc is long and interesting enough that to make it less than a third of one movie is ridiculous. I've said it before and I'll say it again; correct handling of Venom would have greatly improved SM3 and opened the door for a good, solid SM4. To wit:

SM3: Introduce the symbiote. Have Parker losing control. The Sandman is the external representation of the internal struggle; at the beginning of the movie, Spidey fights him and probably loses - though narrowly. By the end of the 2nd act, Spidey should beat the holy hell out of Sandman, which begins the arc of the 3rd act; namely, getting rid of the symbiote. The movie is about Parker's struggle with himself and his own power, not about some second-string bad guy. It ends with Parker getting rid of the symbiote. We see the symbiote drop onto Eddie Brock, and the camera cuts. The last scene of the movie - maybe even post-credits, but I don't think so - is a black tentacle flailing out of an alleyway and grabbing a pedestrian: cut to black.

SM4 then becomes the battle between Spidey and Venom. We don't need anything else in there; there's enough meat between those two, with Venom playing cat to Spiderman's mouse. It is both physical and psychological; Venom can toy with Spiderman when the fight, then f*ck with him by, say, having Eddie Brock show up to Aunt May's house. (None of this is mine; it's all cadged from comics.) It's a solid arc, and can be a fine movie in it's own right.

Venom deserved his own movie. To add the sh*t cherry to the sundae, Venom was pretty crappy in the movie. He should have been cool; instead he was Topher Grace in mediocre CGI.

To sum up: SM3 was an absolute disaster, from start to finish.

Not that I have strong opinions about it...

Chumpy_McChump wrote:

Not that I have strong opinions about it... :)

I've been a comic fan since the early 80s, and all I can say is that none of what you talked about above mattered to me as a movie goer. The Joel Schumaker BATMAN films were pieces of cinematic sh*t. SM3 was flawed but enjoyable... certainly moreso than most of Marvel's other movie properties.

I went into the film about a month after release, having heard the constant bashing pretty much continually. Maybe I went in with lowered expectations, but as I said, I thought it was "good enough."

stevenmack wrote:

If memory serves, Venom was the whole problem with SM3. Ramie Can't stand the character and was forced to shoehorn him into the film to please the fanboys.

Please what fanboys?

Since when do fanboys decide what or what doesn't go into movies?

Pressure from the studio is about the only thing that makes directors change anything.

If memory serves, Venom was the whole problem with SM3. Ramie didn't like the character and was forced (sorry, 'convinced') by Avi Arad to shoehorn him into the film to please the fanboys.

Avi Arad, in this case.

Sam Raimi on the Decision to Include Venom in Spider-Man 3: “Avi Arad, who’s really got his pulse on all the Marvel fans better than any head of the corporation has ever understood those people that are interested in the corporation’s product - he really knows what those kids want - he said, ‘You’ve had two Spider-Man pictures. This third one - there’s so many kids, so many fans of Spider-Man want to see Venom. Even if you didn’t grow up with him, they want to see him. You’ve got the Sandman, that’s one of your favorite villains. Why don’t you bring Venom in also and make those kids, the fans of Venom, happy?’ So I thought that’s what we should do.”
Chumpy_McChump wrote:

Not that I have strong opinions about it... :)

You forgot about the whole "son of green goblin" thing.

Chumpy_McChump wrote:

I don't remember if the symbiote's avoidance of Spider-sense came up in the movie, but I don't think it did, and it certainly wasn't explained if it was.

It was in there, when Peter was on the cab of the taxi stuck in the tar web venom came at him from behind. Peter had no idea he was there until Mary Jane screamed, and there wasn't nearly enough time to get out of the way.

Unless you already knew that spider-sense didn't work on Venom though, there is no way that you would surmise that from that half second. There is a good chance that you may not even catch that that was the only time in any of the movies that spidy was caught by surprise like that.

SommerMatt wrote:

I've been a comic fan since the early 80s, and all I can say is that none of what you talked about above mattered to me as a movie goer.

I'm surprised that the first couple of things didn't bother you 'as a movie goer'. I've always found that sloppy pacing, unexplained (but apparently important) events, and overly busy subplots really subtracted from my enjoyment of a movie.

For all that I think they should have done much better things with the franchise, I thought that they could have done much better things with the movie as well.

I basically get the idea that people who really hated SM3 were just mad that Venom didn't kick as much ass as they'd hoped. Which considering my only real problem with the movie is they should've just removed all the Venom stuff that was added at the last minute to placate Venom fans, I think they'd done everyone a service if they'd just dropped Venom from the movie completely and just made a good Spider-Man movie out of the Sandman and the Green Goblin, which is what Raimi originally wanted to do.

Yeah SM3 for me was just way to overloaded, they didn't have the time they needed to devote to any one character because they had to cover so much ground. always remember KISS...Keep It Simple Stupid.

Just keep James Franco's craziness as far away from it as possible and find a natural redhead to play Mary Jane (or use the original version of Gwen Stacy) and it'll be an improvement.

Holla wrote:

Yeah SM3 for me was just way to overloaded, they didn't have the time they needed to devote to any one character because they had to cover so much ground. always remember KISS...Keep It Simple Stupid.

The other KISS might have helped the movie too, to be honest.

stevenmack wrote:

Avi Arad, in this case.

Sam Raimi on the Decision to Include Venom in Spider-Man 3: “Avi Arad, who’s really got his pulse on all the Marvel fans better than any head of the corporation has ever understood those people that are interested in the corporation’s product - he really knows what those kids want - he said, ‘You’ve had two Spider-Man pictures. This third one - there’s so many kids, so many fans of Spider-Man want to see Venom. Even if you didn’t grow up with him, they want to see him. You’ve got the Sandman, that’s one of your favorite villains. Why don’t you bring Venom in also and make those kids, the fans of Venom, happy?’ So I thought that’s what we should do.”

In other words, the head of Marvel's film department made him do it. It's not like they had to listen to the "fans"! Likely the "fans" were just an excuse for Marvel to make more money on merchandizing by including a popular villain.

Chumpy_McChump wrote:

I'm surprised that the first couple of things didn't bother you 'as a movie goer'. I've always found that sloppy pacing, unexplained (but apparently important) events, and overly busy subplots really subtracted from my enjoyment of a movie.

Honestly, I don't even remember the losing powers plot (haven't seen it since release). As for the "emo" thing, I think it's just blown out of proportion. How long do those scenes last, anyway? A few minutes? In the comics Peter Parker, while wearing the symbiote costume, had a gradual "shift" into darker territory. Being a movie already crammed with plot, I guess they figured those scenes were a good enough short-hand in the film. Again, I wish I could feel the hate on this one (because that's kind of my thing), but for whatever reason I just didn't mind this movie.

*Shrug*

Nosferatu wrote:
Holla wrote:

Yeah SM3 for me was just way to overloaded, they didn't have the time they needed to devote to any one character because they had to cover so much ground. always remember KISS...Keep It Simple Stupid.

The other KISS might have helped the movie too, to be honest.

Gene Simmons as Venom, FTW.

If they approach it with an Ultimate Spiderman kind of feel, then it could certainly breath life into it. I just found that Rami made decisions that I didn't agree with such as getting rid of web shooters, putting Willem Dafoe in a helmet, and having the Sandman kill Uncle Ben (really wtf). I had read that Rami really wanted the Condor in the next installment, in which case I'm glad someone pulled the plug before real embarrassment ensued.

The losing powers plot was in Spider-Man 2.

The horrible dancing and sidewalk strut were definitely in SM3.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

The horrible dancing and sidewalk strut were definitely in SM3.

Yup...just returned this very evening from a get-together at a friend's house, at which his kids were watching it. I'd forgotten how silly the sidewalk scene was.

Mytch wrote:
Nosferatu wrote:
Holla wrote:

Yeah SM3 for me was just way to overloaded, they didn't have the time they needed to devote to any one character because they had to cover so much ground. always remember KISS...Keep It Simple Stupid.

The other KISS might have helped the movie too, to be honest.

Gene Simmons as Venom, FTW.

I'd watch that a few times.

CelestialNavigation wrote:

I had read that Rami really wanted the Vulture in the next installment, in which case I'm glad someone pulled the plug before real embarrassment ensued.

Fixed, but you're correct that he was mentioned several times before they started filming and and I agree it likely would have been an even worse disaster.

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