The Big Picture: Too Many Villains

Crimsonmonkeywar

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I actually enjoyed this video, good points, but I do find it irritating how he states something that's objective as fact "ASM was a terrible movie", maybe to you, but I like it just about as much as the original, no where near as much as two, and I absolute HATE three with a fiery passion, but NC seems to like it.

All that said, I'm usually not a fan when movies(especially with a character like Peter Parker) go the serious route. It's a bad sign imo.
 

Crimsonmonkeywar

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Kmadden2004 said:
Quiotu said:
I'm just posting here to admit I'm not even watching this one. MovieBob can argue and rant all he wants to about the Spiderman series, but he's so blatantly biased about the movies that I can't take anything he says at face value.

MovieBob, I love most of your work, but I cannot take your opinions on Spiderman seriously. Even if you're right in this case, you've been wrong enough that I'm gonna just ignore your takes on this specific IP. Sorry.
Pretty much this.

Last year we were subjected to a good six to eight months of Bob trolling the first Amazing Spider-Man film, and then when the film was released we got a whole week of videos and articles dedicated to raging over how much he hated the movie (quelle surprise!) that pretty much amounted to nothing more than fanboy raging with the typical Twilight comparisons that are fashionable for caustic critics to wheel out these days. You could tell there was a bit of a backlash to this, though, because the week after his little War on Sony/Spider-Man/Marc Webb, Bob wrote another article trying to justify his conduct.

And now, despite his claims otherwise, it looks like we're about to be subjected to all that again. Oh joy.
He even hated Peter Parker, and that's the one thing they got spot on. As someone whose apparently a big Spider-man fan, you'd think he'd at least give ASM that much.
 

MB202

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I genuinely like how this addresses the "Too Many Villains" argument and never once goes into Spider-Man 3. I don't think that would be wise for Bob to do in this context.
 

chozo_hybrid

What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets.
Jul 15, 2009
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llagrok said:
Wow, Electro really, really looks terrible....
I think they're using the Ultimates version of Electro here:

 

Cybylt

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Kmadden2004 said:
Quiotu said:
I'm just posting here to admit I'm not even watching this one. MovieBob can argue and rant all he wants to about the Spiderman series, but he's so blatantly biased about the movies that I can't take anything he says at face value.

MovieBob, I love most of your work, but I cannot take your opinions on Spiderman seriously. Even if you're right in this case, you've been wrong enough that I'm gonna just ignore your takes on this specific IP. Sorry.
Pretty much this.

Last year we were subjected to a good six to eight months of Bob trolling the first Amazing Spider-Man film, and then when the film was released we got a whole week of videos and articles dedicated to raging over how much he hated the movie (quelle surprise!) that pretty much amounted to nothing more than fanboy raging with the typical Twilight comparisons that are fashionable for caustic critics to wheel out these days. You could tell there was a bit of a backlash to this, though, because the week after his little War on Sony/Spider-Man/Marc Webb, Bob wrote another article trying to justify his conduct.

And now, despite his claims otherwise, it looks like we're about to be subjected to all that again. Oh joy.
As others have pointed out to the first guy, your ignorance of the video is funny because it's actually in defense of the subject at hand where others bash the trailers and upcoming movie for it.

The summary of it was - "If this movie is bad, it won't be because there's "too many" villains."
 

Daaaah Whoosh

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As someone who watched the Spider-man musical, I can definitely say that having too many villains is a bad idea. However, that's mostly because they only seemed to be there for one song, and all of them looked really stupid. In fact, the whole musical looked really stupid. And I felt stupid for paying money to watch it.
So I guess you're right, Bob. It's not the villains that matter. It's how you use them.
 

RJ Dalton

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Ishal said:
> implying they have any respect for the source material whatsoever.

Seriously, they're (and by they I mean all of the studios doing this comic book thing) all trying to market the movie to the general public. And the general public will think lots of the stuff found in the primary source is stupid. Not being a comic book fan, I'm one of those people. This is not to say that I don't agree with you, though.
I'm not actually a huge fan of comics either. I've always been a stickler about pacing - well, okay not always, but for all of my adult life - and comics are almost always paced poorly. They're in such a rush to get through their story in the mere 15-20 pages they're allowed that they don't take the time to really enjoy themselves. This is not always true, of course. I have read a few that do it right (Niel Gaimon's Sandman being one of them), but most just feel too rushed to me.
But I do love a lot of the ideas in comic books, the set-up of it and many of the derivative works. That said, there are ways you can update the source material of comic books in a way that people who haven't been reading comics all their life will find stupid that isn't actually just another kind of stupid. I won't complain about robot rhino from a design perspective, because, as I recall, Rhino's suit was supposed to have mech enhancements underneath the rhino skin exterior anyway, so if they want to make it more obviously mech to get that across, more power to them. I'm also one of the few people who didn't really mind the Green Goblin's suit design in the first Spider-Man movie. It's more how you portray the character that concerns me. Admittedly, I'm not enough of a comic fan to know what Rhino does in the comics (I think he was just a hired mercenary who got some unusually tech from an anonymous benefactor, probably Norman Osbourn), but I'm not as much of a stickler for that anyway.

But like I said, the tone of this is really off-putting to me. They're just trying to hard to be serious. Few things can really survive when you try to be this heavy and this serious. Like, Lord of the Rings managed to pull it off, but only because they did it in small doses spaced properly out between fun action and some genuinely good character drama. But the so-called drama in Amazing Spider-Man 1 was like an absurdist joke: laughable because it makes no sense at all, so all you've got is this hammer with the words "I are a serious movie!" etched on its handle hitting you on the head repeatedly.

Also, Peter Parker was a real douche in that movie. And his HAIR!!! D:
 

Sejborg

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This movie looks great! A very diverse and strong cast ranging from Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone, to Jamie Fox and all the way to Paul Giamatti. That is just amazing.

I can't wait to see Spiderman taking on all these villains. Some of the CGI in the first movie was a little off, but it seems like they have stepped up their game for the second one. And I like how Marc Webb used the relationship between Peter and Gwen as the high notes instead of just the action. I think Mark Webb succeeded where Raimi failed in how Peter Parker is struggling to maintain a normal life all the while being a Superhero as well.

I think that is what makes Spiderman special from other Superheroes, and that just didn't work between Kirsten Dunst and Tobey Maguire. Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone on the other hand is great. But Emma Stone in always great in my opinion.
 

Britisheagle

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I thought the trailer looked really good! And being a massive fan of the Spiderman animated TV show back in the 90's, my genuine excitement to see the sinister six on the big screen outweighs most of my sceptisism.

Bob makes a good point though, I think a film with a number of villains could be potentially interesting as it could finally show a super hero who isn't strong enough!
 

RJ Dalton

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Caostotale said:
The whole aim of 'feeling adult' is the problem with most recent entertainment franchises. From the perspective of an adult, the lot of it rather just feels like a mixture of kiddie and teenager crap, both masquerading as 'adult'. The former is taken care of by the Saturday- Morning-cartoon choreographed action scenes and the bright colors. The latter is taken care of by the weapons-grade angst that gets pumped into the story and characters at every turn.

While I wouldn't cite Spider Man 2 as a shining example of how to 'do things right' with this kind of stuff, I recall there being quite a bit of decent character development and subplots. One of the better ones was the one that had Peter figuring out how to come clean with Aunt May about his role in the uncle's murder. Others, like the Mary-Jane arc, were a bit more irritating to endure (especially that wedding scene at the end). Overall, however, that movie at least did a good job of spacing out the action set-pieces with slower character development sections.

Of all the superhero movies I've seen, the one that comes closest to adult subject matter is probably the second X-Men movie, a movie that at least portrayed humanity and its characters in largely-believable ways. This was well-illustrated in that film's many juxtapositions of young mutants and older mutants. The Nolan Batman movies posture themselves as heavily 'adult' works, but don't work for me at all because they feel too much like an Ayn Randian adolescent fantasy about the kid with the most expensive toys saving the city, etc... As well, the bottom of that 'adultness' seems to fall out when you see scenes like the final battle between Bane and Batman where, for some reason, not a single gunshot gets fired by anyone in their respective cop/criminal armies, etc... Where was all the adultness at that point?
Exactly. It's not really adult, it's a teenager's imitation of adult.

And yeah, Spider-Man 2 has it's flaws (and I usually do skip that wedding scene myself), but what it did right, it did right. I like to describe it as "enjoyable, despite its flaws." The Nolan Batman movies I enjoyed at first, but as time has gone on, I find it easier to find problems in them. Oh, they're viscerally entertaining and it is one of the few settings where that kind of dark tone is actually really appropriate, but in the end, the series, though entertaining, really doesn't have all that much to say. And never is it more apparent that the series doesn't have anything to say than in its third film. I could look past Spider-Man 2's flaws because I liked what it had to say, but Batman is empty and therefore its flaws stand out more and make the third film damn near unwatchable.

Been so long since I saw X2 that I don't even remember what it was about, though, so no comment there. I definitely remember that X3 was a clusterfuck of everything you could do wrong for a series conclusion, but since that is pretty much everybody's opinion at this point, I don't get points for it.
 

Lee Jd

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Looks good. I am VERY excited about the prospect of having a crapload of ACTION in a superhero movie! Freakin' finally!!

Has no one besides me been wondering why there's been so little action in these things?? It's a SUPERHERO movie!!!

And this is Spider-Man we're talking about. People, Spider-Man has the most action-packed comic series in the mainstream world! More than the Avengers, more than Thor. More than the freakin' Hulk! He FIGHTS. All the time! And he often fights more than one enemy. Anyone ever hear about the Sinister Six? They're not called that for no reason. (Please note: I cannot account for anything that's taken place after The Slott)

I DO worry they won't go into the history of the characters, though. The film will have to strike the right balance between writing and action to come up with a story that we care about, here.

But I was pleasantly surprised by the last film. I have hope the next one will do just as well.
 

Kmadden2004

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Cybylt said:
Kmadden2004 said:
Quiotu said:
I'm just posting here to admit I'm not even watching this one. MovieBob can argue and rant all he wants to about the Spiderman series, but he's so blatantly biased about the movies that I can't take anything he says at face value.

MovieBob, I love most of your work, but I cannot take your opinions on Spiderman seriously. Even if you're right in this case, you've been wrong enough that I'm gonna just ignore your takes on this specific IP. Sorry.
Pretty much this.

Last year we were subjected to a good six to eight months of Bob trolling the first Amazing Spider-Man film, and then when the film was released we got a whole week of videos and articles dedicated to raging over how much he hated the movie (quelle surprise!) that pretty much amounted to nothing more than fanboy raging with the typical Twilight comparisons that are fashionable for caustic critics to wheel out these days. You could tell there was a bit of a backlash to this, though, because the week after his little War on Sony/Spider-Man/Marc Webb, Bob wrote another article trying to justify his conduct.

And now, despite his claims otherwise, it looks like we're about to be subjected to all that again. Oh joy.
As others have pointed out to the first guy, your ignorance of the video is funny because it's actually in defense of the subject at hand where others bash the trailers and upcoming movie for it.

The summary of it was - "If this movie is bad, it won't be because there's "too many" villains."
Actually, I did watch the video before making my original post, thanks.
 

shadowstriker86

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Couple things...

1) Did anyone besides me end up with that godawful hour long beiber ad before this vid started? seriously escapist, thats just...wrong.

2) the first AMS sucked, this one will too most likely for reasons we can already guess, and everyone besides marvel is playing the catch-up game instead of....you know...actually producing things worth seeing but regarding the too many villains issue? as Bob said, hit or miss. In the case of AMS2, sony couldn't hit the broad side of a barn.
 

KazeAizen

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xaszatm said:
Quiotu said:
I'm just posting here to admit I'm not even watching this one. MovieBob can argue and rant all he wants to about the Spiderman series, but he's so blatantly biased about the movies that I can't take anything he says at face value.

MovieBob, I love most of your work, but I cannot take your opinions on Spiderman seriously. Even if you're right in this case, you've been wrong enough that I'm gonna just ignore your takes on this specific IP. Sorry.
...well, then you missed an entire video of him SUPPORTING something in the trailer. He is still biased against the movie, but he says that the notion of ASM2 being bad because of its many villains is a weak argument at best. If it does suck, he argues that the fact that there are 3 villains won't be the reason.

OT: Interesting theory. Another good movie with multiple bad guys: Scott Pilgrim.
Multiple bad guys really isn't the problem. Spider-man 3 was not bad because it had too many villains in it. It was bad because the studio, from what I'm aware of, forced Venom onto Raimi. Which that was probably done way after the original script for the film was finished. A two villain movie with a Goblin Jr. Harry and Sandman could actually be a good movie. Now I still don't think Spider-man 3 is the god awful piece of trash people claim it to be. I rather enjoy it. I'm surprised he made it work as good as he did given the circumstances. The Amazing Spider-man series is going to have to do a lot to be better then the originals. I enjoyed the first one on a superficial level when I saw it the first time around. Seeing it a second time a part from Spider-man himself, Gwen Stacy, and a few comic moments with the powers I really don't like the film anymore. Then again I'm not the guy who's berating Man of Steel over and over again so take from that what you will.

If this ultimately does become the slow motion train wreck people are thinking it is then maybe one day Marvel can get the rights to Spider-man back and do something with him after Avengers 2. I mean seriously Marvel is working with their B-D listers and making a shitillion dollars. Imagine what they could do if they got Spider-man, X-men, and Fantastic Four back.
 

Zenron

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May 11, 2010
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About the Mary Jane thing. I think it's really weird that they were able to just cut out an entire character out of the movie. How do you cut Mary Jane out of a spiderman story and still have it work? It just doesn't make any sense to me. Are scripts generally that versatile? I was actually looking forward to that bit of the film because I remember Shailene Woodley being really good in The Descendants.

Ah well, I didn't really care for the first one and I'm probably not going to care about this one. Maybe I'm just disappointed in it because I loved the Sam Raimi films and these ones are so soulless and lacking in comparison. It still isn't good when taken on its own but when it's up against Spiderman 2? No chance.

Also Jamie Foxx looks ridiculous.
 

Kmadden2004

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Feb 13, 2010
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Crimsonmonkeywar said:
Kmadden2004 said:
Quiotu said:
I'm just posting here to admit I'm not even watching this one. MovieBob can argue and rant all he wants to about the Spiderman series, but he's so blatantly biased about the movies that I can't take anything he says at face value.

MovieBob, I love most of your work, but I cannot take your opinions on Spiderman seriously. Even if you're right in this case, you've been wrong enough that I'm gonna just ignore your takes on this specific IP. Sorry.
Pretty much this.

Last year we were subjected to a good six to eight months of Bob trolling the first Amazing Spider-Man film, and then when the film was released we got a whole week of videos and articles dedicated to raging over how much he hated the movie (quelle surprise!) that pretty much amounted to nothing more than fanboy raging with the typical Twilight comparisons that are fashionable for caustic critics to wheel out these days. You could tell there was a bit of a backlash to this, though, because the week after his little War on Sony/Spider-Man/Marc Webb, Bob wrote another article trying to justify his conduct.

And now, despite his claims otherwise, it looks like we're about to be subjected to all that again. Oh joy.
He even hated Peter Parker, and that's the one thing they got spot on. As someone whose apparently a big Spider-man fan, you'd think he'd at least give ASM that much.
I think Bob's problem is that he's really only knowledgeable (and a fan) of a certain type of 'Spider-Man' and seems either ignorant, indifferent or indignant toward the various other (and perfectly valid) takes on the character that have been circulating over the decades.

Take his comments about the Rhino being a mech suit, or his dismissive attitude toward Spidey's villains being the result of Oscorp practically running a super villain production line, both story elements from the Ultimate books and Spectacular animated series. It seems to be okay in Bob's eyes for Marvel Studios to amalgamate the 616 and Ultimate universes to make a decent film universe, but not when Sony does it for Spidey, which just feels like 'bitching for the sake of bitching' to me.

It's almost as if Bob just wants the Spider-Man films to stay in the silver-age trend of Peter being the spectacled science nerd in a cardigan instead of trying to be something a little more - dare I say it? - modern...