Of course Uncle Ben is just "one guy", that's exactly what he is. Uncle Ben is just another one of the countless people who have died from an unfortunate murder. Part of being responsible is being able to recognize when what you are doing is too insignificant compared to what else you could be doing and doing that instead, regardless of the personal investment involved in whatever it was you were doing before. I've said it before and I'll say it again, THE ENTIRE PLOT of the movie is Peter slowly coming to realize that using his powers for petty vengeance isn't what he should be doing with them and to forgo that to use those powers for the benefit of many. It's a "protagonist's journey to hero" story, not a "some guy gets killed and the protagonist is suddenly the perfect hero" story like you seem to expect.JimB said:That you would dismiss his uncle, the only father figure he has any clear memories of, as "one guy;" that you would diminish the personal loss and the visible pain his mother-figure endures because of his own selfishness, as being irrelevant toward teaching a lesson about responsibility, makes me think you and I may be too far apart to have any common ground here. The thought of someone being devoted to an ideological position without giving weight to immediate and personal expressions of it, like a feminist not caring about a woman she knows getting sexually harassed, is just bizarre to me.
That's what YOU are saying. What you are asking for is Uncle Ben dies by an action that's only barely related to anything Peter did and for Peter to suddenly decide to use his powers intelligently and responsibly right off the bat, despite that he has little to no reason to do so at that point. That's not how any good character development or plot works, or how people in reality work.Are...are you arguing that watching your father-substitute die in the street because of your actions and learning a lesson from that is being responsible "right out of the box?" Is that what you're saying?
I did not tell you how Peter didn't fit that definition you gave, I told you how he did. You provide me with the definition of the word, and I tell you how Peter grows to become just that. I said that, whatever Peter did and whatever consequences he has to deal with, it is irresponsible of him to continue chasing Uncle Ben's killer when he could be doing so much more and he realizes this, the Lizard's appearance being the main catalyst that got it into his head. Also, responsibility is about more than simply "owning the consequences of your actions," it's also to ensure your future actions are positive or at least neutral results to the best of your abilities, which is what Peter is doing by the end of the movie.I said, "Responsibility is owning the consequences of your actions." You said, "Peter refuses to own the consequences of his action." I provide you with a definition of the word, and you tell me how Peter does not fit that definition.
Besides, tell me how Peter could honestly "own the consequences" of the crime of simply not wanting to get involved to catch that guy? Bring his uncle back to life? Tell everybody that he could have stopped the random crook before the fact who by unbelievable coincidence ended up killing his uncle? Go to the cops and tell them he was the vigilante swinging around catching blond crooks and end up in jail as a result? Peter doesn't HAVE any reasonable way to "owning the consequences of his actions", and if he did it would only result in hurting everyone around him further, make him suffer unnecessarily, and further impede his ability to use his powers for good, so doing so would be no less if not more irresponsible. Catching his uncle's killer is in fact the closest Peter can reasonably come to "owning the consequences" of refusing to catch the guy before, making sure he doesn't hurt anyone else. However, by the last third or so of the movie Peter has more important things to worry about.
What do you want me to do, describe the entire plot of the Amazing Spider-Man verbatim? I say this because everything you've been saying about it is so drastically divorced from EVERYTHING that happened in the movie I'd end up having to do just that. The only reasonable conclusion that can be made is either you didn't watch the movie and are whining about it anyway or barely paid any attention when you did. How else can you get things so blatantly obviously wrong?God damn it, stop that. I have already once explicitly invited you to tell me where I am mistaken if you think I am, so please don't just give me some glib crap about me having watched another movie and then tell me, "No, you're wrong because it happened." Tell me when and where it happened; tell me what scenes I either didn't see or have forgotten.
Watch the movie and pay actual attention this time, that's the only advice I'm going to give you. There is no point in me sitting here telling you every scene in the movie and how every one shows how you are mistaken, especially since you probably wouldn't get it anyway even if I wanted to bother to do that.
Wrong. A writer's duty is provide stories the readers enjoy, and if they can't then the comics will not be purchased. A big part of that is being faithful and consistent with the characters involved and sensible and just as consistent with the plotlines. Ironically we've been talking about responsibility this entire time, and it is the writer's responsibility or rather the lack of it that's the issue here.Leaving aside that you have not illustrated or demonstrated how anyone has "stamped all over the character," you are factually incorrect here. The people who own the character have an absolute and unassailable right to do with their fictional character whatever they want, and the writers of the comics have as much of that rights as the owners grant them. Anything that is published is published with the owners' permission; therefore, the writers had the right to write what was published.
The entire Clone Saga, Civil War, One More Day, Brand New Day, killing Peter off and replacing him with his greatest antagonist... I could go on for weeks. If you don't already know why they've "stamped all over the character" I'm not going to bother to describe the plots of dozens and dozens of comics, read them yourself. If you've done that and can't can't see how this "stamped all over the character" despite how readily apparent that is, then I can't help you see it no matter what I do.