Spider-Man No More
- Thread starter MovieBob
- Start date
Fantastic article! I have never read an obituary better than this one. I can only hope that the new Spideys are better than they are initially sounding and that Sam Raimi can move on to greener pastures (or at least making sure that the Evil Dead remake won't suck balls. Isn't he the producer of that project?).
Ericb said:
Because Disney bought Marvel in August. I think in order to keep the film rights Sony gave up the tv rights. This is probably another reason for the reboot. A billion dollar franchise for Sony, they want to keep it that way. They probably have a longer term vision now in what they want to do with the franchise in terms of story, characters etc. It changed their focus. Before they didn't have to worry about disney taking the rights. A younger Parker gives more room for him to grow, age etc, and for the films writers to develop longer term storylines.
WARNING! LOTS OF WORDS COMING UP!!!
I'm a big spidey fan... and I mean a BIG one. I've read every relevant comic book of him, the entire 60s and 70s and I was lighting the torches during the abortion that was "One more day". By this you can tell the spidey movies meant a lot to me.
I know us comic fanboys tend to whine a lot, but when you're so invested in something you start to feel it as a part of you, it may not be healthy but it's just the way it is.
I loved the first spidey movie. I went 6 times to the theaters to watch it, I' been waiting 6 years for it to be made and I couldn't grasp how they could make a perfect "origin story" movie and make it good considering how awful the previous hero movies had been (except for x-men, mind you). The second one blew my mind. Not only the action was 10 times better but you could actually feel for Peter and the burden that was being spider-man to him. For the first time on the big screen, having powers wasn't all about beating the bad guys, getting the girl and being generally loved (even if raimi's spidey gets a lot more support from NYC than his comic counterpart). Even the final scene with Harry was chilling.
I explain this in order to make you realize the extent of my disgust for the third movie. Its not just Venom, he barely showed up anyway. My beef with the movie is that it turned the angsty dial all the way to eleven. There were a lot of pointless dialogue scenes while the villains didn't get much development at all (save for Harry "convenient amnesiac" Osborn). Some scenes were incredibly underacted (the building accident comes to mind). If Raimi cared so much about Sandman, why did he make it a living cliche?.
Back then I felt disgusted by Emo Parker with his Tony Manero dance, but now I see it was just Raimi making fun of the concept of an alien goo costume making you evil.
Overall, to me the trilogy ended with a wimper, and I can't blame Raimi for not wanting this to repeat itself again.
As for Sony's new direction, well... what can you expect? these morons who run things won't recognize a good thing even if it gives them billions. I won't jump to conclusions about whether it will suck or not. I prefer to think last decade we got the sixties spidey, this new decade we'll get a new one. There are certainly some good things that could come out of it. Maybe some more emphasis on Peter's scientist side or the characters living in this new "shared" universe that seems to be building up.
I'm a big spidey fan... and I mean a BIG one. I've read every relevant comic book of him, the entire 60s and 70s and I was lighting the torches during the abortion that was "One more day". By this you can tell the spidey movies meant a lot to me.
I know us comic fanboys tend to whine a lot, but when you're so invested in something you start to feel it as a part of you, it may not be healthy but it's just the way it is.
I loved the first spidey movie. I went 6 times to the theaters to watch it, I' been waiting 6 years for it to be made and I couldn't grasp how they could make a perfect "origin story" movie and make it good considering how awful the previous hero movies had been (except for x-men, mind you). The second one blew my mind. Not only the action was 10 times better but you could actually feel for Peter and the burden that was being spider-man to him. For the first time on the big screen, having powers wasn't all about beating the bad guys, getting the girl and being generally loved (even if raimi's spidey gets a lot more support from NYC than his comic counterpart). Even the final scene with Harry was chilling.
I explain this in order to make you realize the extent of my disgust for the third movie. Its not just Venom, he barely showed up anyway. My beef with the movie is that it turned the angsty dial all the way to eleven. There were a lot of pointless dialogue scenes while the villains didn't get much development at all (save for Harry "convenient amnesiac" Osborn). Some scenes were incredibly underacted (the building accident comes to mind). If Raimi cared so much about Sandman, why did he make it a living cliche?.
Back then I felt disgusted by Emo Parker with his Tony Manero dance, but now I see it was just Raimi making fun of the concept of an alien goo costume making you evil.
Overall, to me the trilogy ended with a wimper, and I can't blame Raimi for not wanting this to repeat itself again.
As for Sony's new direction, well... what can you expect? these morons who run things won't recognize a good thing even if it gives them billions. I won't jump to conclusions about whether it will suck or not. I prefer to think last decade we got the sixties spidey, this new decade we'll get a new one. There are certainly some good things that could come out of it. Maybe some more emphasis on Peter's scientist side or the characters living in this new "shared" universe that seems to be building up.
Look, I agree with you and everything, but I still can't believe that there are people out there who think all three films are terrible. Here you are, saying all this great stuff about the Spider-Man trilogy, and yet people say stuff like this:
http://nintenkingdom64.com/forum/index.php?topic=8654.15
People think the exact opposite about Tobey Macguire, that he was terrible as Spider-Man, and that all the plots in each movie were stupid and didn't make sense. And yet they'll turn around and say the new Star Trek movie was fucking awesome! It's just baffling...
Whatever, point is, I agree with you, I loved the original three Spider-Man movies (including the third one), and think the reboot was the stupidest idea of the decade... Which is ironic, considering it just started.
http://nintenkingdom64.com/forum/index.php?topic=8654.15
People think the exact opposite about Tobey Macguire, that he was terrible as Spider-Man, and that all the plots in each movie were stupid and didn't make sense. And yet they'll turn around and say the new Star Trek movie was fucking awesome! It's just baffling...
Whatever, point is, I agree with you, I loved the original three Spider-Man movies (including the third one), and think the reboot was the stupidest idea of the decade... Which is ironic, considering it just started.
I think by and large most people think the first two Spider-Man films are great, and the last one wasn't so good (to me it sucked which is why I like the reboot). I can appreciate people digging the first two as they are very high quality in that they achieved what Sam Raimi concieved them to be. An homage to the comics and it's fans first and foremost. Sam Raimi is anything but subtle as a director. His style creates strong reactions from people, both negative and positive. In the case of the Spider-man films, much more positive, but the negative critics are vocal. Tim Burton I find provokes the same kind of strong reactions. People who dislike Raimi's style find it over the top, cartoony, melodramatic, etc. The ones who like him do so for those exact same reasons, but also love his humor, the slapstick gags, the melting pot of genres his films often are. His style and approach is very unique(like Burton) and the ones who are distracted by it (or put off) are the ones who are going to be more vocal. As for the plots in the first two films, I didn't have a problem in terms of thinking they were stupid, they just could have been much more. I don't think you'll find too many people who didn't think Tobey was great for the part of Peter Parker.
There are plenty of people who think Raiders of the Lost Ark, Avatar, Dark Knight and Lord of the rings, Spider-Man suck etc. Whether its what they truly believe, or it's jealousy or stupidity, backlash, is anyone's guess. Everyone I talk too can't stand Avatar, yet I loved it and seem to be in the majority on that one. Say what you will about box office, the word of mouth on all these films was crazy good. The majority seems to have spoken in this case, other wise they wouldn't have had the legs they do. Star trek was good, but second viewing revealed it as nothing special. JJ abrams came off like an overzealous film student with his over use of flares and television style camera movement.
There are plenty of people who think Raiders of the Lost Ark, Avatar, Dark Knight and Lord of the rings, Spider-Man suck etc. Whether its what they truly believe, or it's jealousy or stupidity, backlash, is anyone's guess. Everyone I talk too can't stand Avatar, yet I loved it and seem to be in the majority on that one. Say what you will about box office, the word of mouth on all these films was crazy good. The majority seems to have spoken in this case, other wise they wouldn't have had the legs they do. Star trek was good, but second viewing revealed it as nothing special. JJ abrams came off like an overzealous film student with his over use of flares and television style camera movement.
Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane?Heathrow said:
What?
Personally, the only thing I find advantageous about all of this is that Spider-Man might get an actor who can actually deliver awesome one-liners at baddies.
Also, it was funny reading Spider-Man swear in Yiddish.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed Tobey Maguire, as Peter Parker.
As Spidey, not quite so much. He could have been more enthusiastic, in my opinion.
It sickens me to even think about this, but one of the rumors of a recast of Spidey includes the albin,o bushy eyebrowed, sparkly vampire, Robert Pattinson. Whoever makes these rumors must have a heart made of blackened, decayed fruit to even suggest something as god awful as that.
You can't add too much to a character before he becomes something entirely different. The one attempt Marvel had at making him deeper flopped too.wallcrawler said:
Venom has just as much (or just as little) potential as any other comic book characters who's central axis is 'You punched me, so I'm gonna punch you back!'.
That's the first(/last) place I looked and it told me nothing interesting. And that's why I'm wondering how Raimi thought he could base a movie on him.theultimateend said:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandman_%28Marvel_Comics%29DragonWright said:
There you go. I'd tell you all that but then I'd not be working smarter instead of harder.
'ell, he had to stick him to Ben's murder to give him any story relevance.
Well,I for one am glad Raimi's gone. Don't get me wrong; the Evil Dead trilogy is one of my all-time favorite movies. But I'm sorry, I didn't like ANY of the Spider-Man movies. Granted, most of my exposure to Spider-Man came from TV; whether it was the 1960's cartoon, the 1970's live action show with Nicholas Hammond, Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends in the 80's, the Fox show in the 90's, and even the short-lived MTV series by Mainframe and now Spectacular Spider-Man. I've been told by comic book elitists that it's not the same as having read the actual comic books, but I'm familiar with the character's history in them, and what Spider-Man comics I have read weren't too far off the mark from the way he was portrayed on most of the TV shows I saw. The whole thing about Spider-Man, no matter what version, is that while as Peter Parker he's beset with everyday problems, but when he becomes Spider-Man, he's a wisecracking superhero who enjoys what he does.
And that's the biggest problem I had with Raimi's version as he completely missed that aspect of the character. That whole element of Spider-Man was missing. Tobey Magure was all wrong for the part. Sure, Peter Parker's supposed to have problems. But Maguire's Parker always struck me as a whiny little ***** ("Why can't I have what I want?" he whined in Spider-Man 2. I just wanted to slap him and say, "You're fucking Spider-Man! Go out and get it!") And don't even get me started on how it annoyed me that that he kept having Maguire take the mask off every chance he got. I kept thinking what was the point of even having it on, then?
Except for JJJ (J.K. Simmons spot-on portrayal will really be the only thing I'll miss), Raimi totally misunderstood ALL the characters. It's been said before that his Green Goblin looked too much like a Power Ranger, but his takes on Doc Ock and Sandman as sympathetic villains also didn't ring true. Ock was never a nice guy, ever. In the comics, he tried to marry Aunt May just for her money. And Sandman was just rotten through-and-through (unless you count that one time he became a good guy). He couldn't even re-create Mary Jane's classic, "Face it tiger, you've hit the jackpot!" scene when he had a clear chance to do it in Spider-Man 2. So don't go around telling me he was accurate to the comics, because he wasn't. I dare say Spectacular Spider-Man does a much better job of adapting the character than Raimi's movies did.
I take the opposite attitude with the reboot. Maybe we'll get a director who understands the character better, and we'll get a Spider-Man who's more of a wisecracker and less of a whiner. And I don't think Sony would be stupid to devote yet another movie to Spidey's origin story. Everybody and their grandmother now knows it at this point, having been retold almost as much as Superman's. At this point they can gloss over it. Hopefully it means we can also ditch the organic webshooters that everyone hated (can we just fess up and admit this now?) and make them mechanical again. And maybe we'll get a better actor to play Peter Parker. Ten years ago I would have thought Jake Gyllenhaal or even Nicholas Brendan would have been much better Peter Parkers, but I think Anton Yelchin wouldn't be a bad choice right now.
At any rate, Sam's gone and I say goodbye and good riddance. And if it means he'll be directing the World of WarCraft movie, then so much the better. Somehow I have a feeling I'll enjoy that a lot more than his Spider-Man films.
And that's the biggest problem I had with Raimi's version as he completely missed that aspect of the character. That whole element of Spider-Man was missing. Tobey Magure was all wrong for the part. Sure, Peter Parker's supposed to have problems. But Maguire's Parker always struck me as a whiny little ***** ("Why can't I have what I want?" he whined in Spider-Man 2. I just wanted to slap him and say, "You're fucking Spider-Man! Go out and get it!") And don't even get me started on how it annoyed me that that he kept having Maguire take the mask off every chance he got. I kept thinking what was the point of even having it on, then?
Except for JJJ (J.K. Simmons spot-on portrayal will really be the only thing I'll miss), Raimi totally misunderstood ALL the characters. It's been said before that his Green Goblin looked too much like a Power Ranger, but his takes on Doc Ock and Sandman as sympathetic villains also didn't ring true. Ock was never a nice guy, ever. In the comics, he tried to marry Aunt May just for her money. And Sandman was just rotten through-and-through (unless you count that one time he became a good guy). He couldn't even re-create Mary Jane's classic, "Face it tiger, you've hit the jackpot!" scene when he had a clear chance to do it in Spider-Man 2. So don't go around telling me he was accurate to the comics, because he wasn't. I dare say Spectacular Spider-Man does a much better job of adapting the character than Raimi's movies did.
I take the opposite attitude with the reboot. Maybe we'll get a director who understands the character better, and we'll get a Spider-Man who's more of a wisecracker and less of a whiner. And I don't think Sony would be stupid to devote yet another movie to Spidey's origin story. Everybody and their grandmother now knows it at this point, having been retold almost as much as Superman's. At this point they can gloss over it. Hopefully it means we can also ditch the organic webshooters that everyone hated (can we just fess up and admit this now?) and make them mechanical again. And maybe we'll get a better actor to play Peter Parker. Ten years ago I would have thought Jake Gyllenhaal or even Nicholas Brendan would have been much better Peter Parkers, but I think Anton Yelchin wouldn't be a bad choice right now.
At any rate, Sam's gone and I say goodbye and good riddance. And if it means he'll be directing the World of WarCraft movie, then so much the better. Somehow I have a feeling I'll enjoy that a lot more than his Spider-Man films.
I heard it was going to be set in high school and a little bit of me died. I was 21 when the first Spideman movie came out, so I was okay with Peter Parker being a youngen but now I'm almost 30 and I was looking forward to an older, more mature, Spiderman who had taken his knocks and grew into the super hero from the comics.
I guess I'll have to be happy with Iron Man, Batman, the gay icon (Thor), and the really not international friendly dude (Captain America... ugg... sorry the name just really turns me off, he's an okay character but the name... dude... the name...).
Oh well at least Rami might be able to make something out of WoW, if the studios and owners of the product leave him the hell alone, a great movie makes more money in the long run by being great then a movie trying to cash in on everything currently "trendy"
I guess I'll have to be happy with Iron Man, Batman, the gay icon (Thor), and the really not international friendly dude (Captain America... ugg... sorry the name just really turns me off, he's an okay character but the name... dude... the name...).
Oh well at least Rami might be able to make something out of WoW, if the studios and owners of the product leave him the hell alone, a great movie makes more money in the long run by being great then a movie trying to cash in on everything currently "trendy"
Of the many "fanboy nitpicks" I've been able to agree with my fellow... well, for lack of a better word, "fanboys" about regarding even the first two Spidey movies (MJ too prominent and too early - ANOTHER thing forced on Raimi by the studio, btw, he wanted Gwen Stacy first - Dunst miscast, mask off too often, biological webshooters kinda lame) the lack of Spider-Man rehearsing his standup act during fistfights never bothered me - hell, it never even OCCURED to to me while watching #1 the first time.
For me, this was always one of those "storytelling devices that don't translate" - like Daredevil describing what his non-sight senses are doing to himself. The thing is, "joking-while-fighting" Spidey works on the page because you're "only" reading it, so there's no issue of volume or lip-sync. In a movie, I don' even know how you'd do it without making a mess of the action scenes - you'd have to dial down the sound effects, which are a huge part of making hits "feel" real, just to hear him speak... to say nothing of all the extra close-ups and reaction-shots you'd need to communicate the idea that a character with no visible mouth is speaking out loud so that it doesn't seem like Peter Parker is doing a DVD commentary of his day's workout.
I dunno, just something that never bothered me.
Incidentally because "development history" stuff fascinates me, here's two things you may or may not know about this franchise:
- James Cameron was trying to make a Spider-Man movie for a good deal of the 90s, and he wrote a bunch of scripts. In the most widely-distributed one, Spider-Man and Mary-Jane have a mid-air sex scene during which he "binds her" (it's EXACTLY like you're thinking) with webbing while "sensuously" describing the manner in which various species of spider "do it." I am not making that up. The bad guys in this one, BTW, were Electro and Sandman (later versions had Doc Ock and switched-out MJ for Liz Allen.)
- In the draft of the script that Sony Pictures was still "working from" when Raimi was hired, Spider-Man didn't get his "real" costume until the last big action scene. Before that, he's just been wearing variations on the cheezy home-made one he wore to the wrestling match. a running gag throughout the movie has costume stores selling "knockoff" Spidey-costumes that are waaaay nicer than the one he actually wears, and when Peter finds himself costume-deprived at the start of the big final battle he just runs into a store and BUYS ONE - finally looking like the "real" Spider-Man. Other than that, this script was basically the same as the one that ended up in the final movie save for one major detail: In this early version, Doctor Octopus was there in addition to the Green Goblin.
For me, this was always one of those "storytelling devices that don't translate" - like Daredevil describing what his non-sight senses are doing to himself. The thing is, "joking-while-fighting" Spidey works on the page because you're "only" reading it, so there's no issue of volume or lip-sync. In a movie, I don' even know how you'd do it without making a mess of the action scenes - you'd have to dial down the sound effects, which are a huge part of making hits "feel" real, just to hear him speak... to say nothing of all the extra close-ups and reaction-shots you'd need to communicate the idea that a character with no visible mouth is speaking out loud so that it doesn't seem like Peter Parker is doing a DVD commentary of his day's workout.
I dunno, just something that never bothered me.
Incidentally because "development history" stuff fascinates me, here's two things you may or may not know about this franchise:
- James Cameron was trying to make a Spider-Man movie for a good deal of the 90s, and he wrote a bunch of scripts. In the most widely-distributed one, Spider-Man and Mary-Jane have a mid-air sex scene during which he "binds her" (it's EXACTLY like you're thinking) with webbing while "sensuously" describing the manner in which various species of spider "do it." I am not making that up. The bad guys in this one, BTW, were Electro and Sandman (later versions had Doc Ock and switched-out MJ for Liz Allen.)
- In the draft of the script that Sony Pictures was still "working from" when Raimi was hired, Spider-Man didn't get his "real" costume until the last big action scene. Before that, he's just been wearing variations on the cheezy home-made one he wore to the wrestling match. a running gag throughout the movie has costume stores selling "knockoff" Spidey-costumes that are waaaay nicer than the one he actually wears, and when Peter finds himself costume-deprived at the start of the big final battle he just runs into a store and BUYS ONE - finally looking like the "real" Spider-Man. Other than that, this script was basically the same as the one that ended up in the final movie save for one major detail: In this early version, Doctor Octopus was there in addition to the Green Goblin.