The Big Picture: Too Many Villains

faefrost

New member
Jun 2, 2010
1,280
0
0
Thunderous Cacophony said:
I think Bob both hit and missed with his explanation. Movies with multiple villains work when they have an established hierarchy; Gruber and his henchmen, Bond villains, etc. Even Batman Begins had a secret organization, with each villain having his strings pulled by another.

Audiences can accept that two villains might team up, but not when they don't have a reason to do so. Movie antagonists tend to have one big motivation (take over the world, resurrect a loved one, etc), and when that obviously clashes with the other villain(s), we want to see the problem dealt with, either openly between the villains or through a big reveal.
I think it's a little more complex than that in a comic book movie. The number of viable villains is inversly proportionate to the amount of explanation or backstory each needs. So Die Hard is fine. You got Terrorist, Terrorist Terrorist etc. Bad guy with gun, insert funny accent and hairdo. Batman Begins is passable because once again most of the Villains stories can be quickly surmised from audience assumptions. Falcone is a throwaway mobster. Ken Watanabe is playing on audience "mentally fill in the blank" expectations. That leaves only The Scarecrow and Obi Wan needing a story. And even then it felt a bit crowded at times.

Contrast this with the classic worst offenders. Spiderman 3, each Villain had so much going on, and so much that you needed to do that it got overwelming. The movie had to show how and why each villain got to that point, on top of the hero and his supporting cast. There's a reason that most of the bad guys (and a disturbingly large amount of good guys) are simply left as one note background thugs in the better XMen movies. In XMen one you have Primary Villain Magneto, gets full story. Head Henchman Mystique, gets a little bit of more fleshed out abilities but no real story. Sabertooth and Toad are completely flat. No story. No background. Just big shreddy guy and tongue guy.

The thinner you spread the villain story, the less effective the villains get in riveting the audience. Yeah you can and should have multiples. But as you say a hierarchy helps, and at the end of the day its a factor of how much you have to put into each one to elevate them above the threshold of disbelief.
 

twosage

New member
Oct 22, 2013
61
0
0
Strain42 said:
I feel like the Garfield Spiderman definitely leans more towards dickwaffle territory.
The thing is, to me, Spider-Man is *supposed* to sound like an obnoxious prick or... eh... dickwaffle. This is probably why I liked the Garfield version so much, even though much of the "Spider-Man" side of the plot was so meh. He was the original guy that other Marvel superheroes would turn to each other and ask "does he ever shut up?".

Take, as an example, Shia Lebeouf. He's amazingly annoying and that stupid studdering motormouth act he does just grates on your nerves. But that's exactly what Spider-Man is supposedly doing to his foes while fighting them. It is irritating and infuriating and it makes you want to find some way *any way* to shut him up. YMMV on this one, I recognize I'm probably in the minority here, but the more irritating Spider-Man is while fighting, the better.
 

Quiotu

New member
Mar 7, 2008
426
0
0
Kilt 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.
Yeah, judging something before you've seen it sucks, doesn't it?

Seriously, your opinion of Bob's previous commentary on the Spiderman franchise has led you to form an opinion on this episode before you've even seen it, which is exactly what your calling out Bob for doing with ASM2.
Yep, he sure threw me a curveball, what with his subject being 'I'm certain I will hate this film, but this isn't why'. So yes, congratulations on white knighting MovieBob for basically saying 'See, I don't hate EVERYTHING about this movie, so leave me alone.'

And BTW, I still watch his stuff, I think I'd have a blast talking to the guy. I just think he's severely biased with Sony owning Spiderman, and he will refuse to outright say they made a good film. You want to bet money he won't like this next film, because I'm pretty much ready to set a wager anytime. His mind is made up, and him talking more about this film and what's 'okay' about it is him justifying his hateboner... nothing more.

It's like him and JJ Abrams. I do not listen to his opinions on anything Abrams does because he's outright admitted he HATES the man. Why in God's name would I take an opinion like that seriously? It's just mindless hatred of something he'll never let go, and he'll justify it any way he can.
 

leviadragon99

New member
Jun 17, 2010
1,055
0
0
Hmm... I guess it really does all comes down to execution, if you can have multiple comic book villains in the one movie and divvy up the screentime effectively then it can work, if not... well Spiderman 3 all over again...
 

Redd the Sock

New member
Apr 14, 2010
1,088
0
0
The multiple villain angle was the first thing that really got me interested in this thing. Others have said it, but I'll agree that Spidey might have a large and thanks to the old cartoon show, well known bad guy list, but so many are one dimensional, goofy, and devoid of any history of coolness. The best villain moments of Norman Osborn could fill a sizable trade. the best of Electro or Rhino wouldn't fill a single issue. You can either try and make the lame cool, which while not the only problem with the last movie, a better bad guy might have made us ignore the other faults, or you can leave them as fancy cannon fodder for the mastermind of Osborn (or Octavius if they want to pull a reversal).
 

Cybylt

New member
Aug 13, 2009
284
0
0
Strain42 said:
Cybylt said:
On a more personal level, the hairstyle bugs me and not because of the "Oh they made him look like Twilight" nonsense. But because he looks like Jean Ralphio from Parks and Rec.

I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO UNSEE THAT!!!

That did make laugh though. I might even say it was Hi-laaa-rrriiii-ouuusssss.

My biggest problem with Peter Parker in ASM (and admittedly even the Raimi films had a fair amount of this problem) it's just...it's REALLY hard to write Spiderman as the witty funny character that he is...without also making him come across as a cocky dickwaffle, and I feel like the Garfield Spiderman definitely leans more towards dickwaffle territory.

Many characters suffer from this problem as well, like a lot of people who try to write Sherlock Holmes.

But now, that...couple with Jean Ralphio...yeah, I can't unsee that.
And now Spider Man is a sleazy manchild who co-owns a club.
 

Kilt'd

New member
Feb 19, 2013
32
0
0
Quiotu said:
Kilt 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.
Yeah, judging something before you've seen it sucks, doesn't it?

Seriously, your opinion of Bob's previous commentary on the Spiderman franchise has led you to form an opinion on this episode before you've even seen it, which is exactly what your calling out Bob for doing with ASM2.
Yep, he sure threw me a curveball, what with his subject being 'I'm certain I will hate this film, but this isn't why'. So yes, congratulations on white knighting MovieBob for basically saying 'See, I don't hate EVERYTHING about this movie, so leave me alone.'

And BTW, I still watch his stuff, I think I'd have a blast talking to the guy. I just think he's severely biased with Sony owning Spiderman, and he will refuse to outright say they made a good film. You want to bet money he won't like this next film, because I'm pretty much ready to set a wager anytime. His mind is made up, and him talking more about this film and what's 'okay' about it is him justifying his hateboner... nothing more.

It's like him and JJ Abrams. I do not listen to his opinions on anything Abrams does because he's outright admitted he HATES the man. Why in God's name would I take an opinion like that seriously? It's just mindless hatred of something he'll never let go, and he'll justify it any way he can.
I'm not 'white knighting' for MovieBob, I think the point you were trying to make contradicted your own post. If you watched the video and still feel the same way then your opinion was obviously justified, but I feel it would have been stronger if you had done that in the first place.

For what it's worth I disagree with some of MovieBob's criticism of the Spiderman reboot and I admit that some of his opinions, like most people, come from a mixture of facts and personal experience. Personally I think ASM had some problems, but I generally enjoyed it when I watched it even though I don't consider it a great film.
 

TheCorpseMan99

New member
Apr 16, 2010
25
0
0
They could be doing a "Sinister Six" thing. All the bad guys presented (or hinted at) in the trailer have all been members at some point, so maybe the shady guy is the sixth member?
 

tzimize

New member
Mar 1, 2010
2,391
0
0
Desert Punk said:
tzimize said:
So. Who is to blame if this movie is shit? (which it will be). Sony? Marvel (Disney?)? Who? I need someone to hate. My instinct says Disney, because the stars in this movie just reminds me of high school musical. And that makes me want to kill myself. Or Sony. Or Disney. WHOSE FAULT IS THIS MESS?
You cant really blame Disney on this one, the movie rights to Spiderman and his group of villians, just like X-men and their group of villians, were given to studios well before there were plans to make serious superhero movies like the Avengers.

The reason they are making these spiderman movies is the "use it or lose it" clause of the contract, IE they have to turn out spidey movies within X years of eachother otherwise they lose the rights and they revert back to Marvel (Disney)
And we have to suffer for it. Fucking lawyers and their shit.
 

Endocrom

New member
Apr 6, 2009
1,242
0
0
This is honestly the first time I've heard that Paul Giamatti was in this and as Rhino to boot. Doesn't look very fast though. [http://teamcoco.com/content/paul-giamatti-reveals-spider-man-villain-he-longs-play]
 
Apr 17, 2009
1,751
0
0
I don't know, one of the things I disliked about the first one was that it seriously failed on the villain front. Seriously, the hell was the Lizard's motivation? One minute he's just a test gone wrong following feral instincts, then he's clever and wants to destroy the world, then he thinks its legitimately better of all the world were lizards, then he's got his vendetta on against Spidey, then he's got a split personality or voices in his head or something, then he's a good guy again...jeez it was like different people were writing him in each scene and none of them had shared their notes. So I'm a little wary when this one tries to triple its load.

On the other hand, maybe this could be exactly what the movie needs. By splitting the movie's time up between three villains it forces them to simplify and condense. So they won't tack on various muddled motivations and conflicting characterisations on Rhino, he'll just smash stuff up. Great! Exactly what I want to see from Rhino!
 

Bruce

New member
Jun 15, 2013
276
0
0
The reason why multiple villains tends not to work in comic book movies tends to be because the movies tend to try and provide their origin stories.

Which means essentially you end up having to cram a lot of stuff into two hours.

With action movies normally, you don't have that same issue For example. Hans Gruber and his merry men were already pretty deep into their villain careers, they didn't particularly need to be established that way.

This is also why the the first two Nolan Batman movies managed to pull off having multiple villains, and why the third didn't. For the first two, the only real villainous origin story was Two Face. In the third we got filled in on Bane, Talia and really Ras.
 

twosage

New member
Oct 22, 2013
61
0
0
tzimize said:
Desert Punk said:
The reason they are making these spiderman movies is the "use it or lose it" clause of the contract, IE they have to turn out spidey movies within X years of eachother otherwise they lose the rights and they revert back to Marvel (Disney)
And we have to suffer for it. Fucking lawyers and their shit.
"Suffer" by having a minimum of 1 movie per 5 years made about our favorite pop culture icons?

Kids today don't know how good they've got it. Try being a comic book fan in the 1980's or 1990's. In the "good old days", all we had was rumors about movies that never got made and abandoned script treatments and occasional screen tests and concept art. The few comic book movies that were being made were either low-budget schlockfests or Batman (which was pretty much a big-budget schlockfest).

One day the Hollywood "comic book boom" will fade, and WB executives will decide to put their characters on ice for a while out of fear they are overexposed (except maybe Batman). Maybe Disney will fold up Marvel Studios because "we can always turn to Bruckheimer if we want to do superheroes". But Sony and Fox will still have a vested interest in trying to keep comic book movies alive, out of fear they will lose the rights.

Do you really think we would have gotten 4 Spider-Man movies (at least 7 or more if the planning holds), 6 X-Men movies (9 or more if the planning holds), 3 Blade movies, 2 Punisher movies, 2 Hulk movies, 2 Fantastic Four movies (3 or more if the planning holds), a Daredevil movie, an Elektra movie (and probably a few I'm forgetting) if all of those properties had stayed exclusively with Marvel? What has DC done with their consolidated control over their stable in the same 15 years? 3 Batman movies, a Superman movie (2 if planning holds), Green Lantern, Jonah Hex, and a prospective Justice League movie maybe.

Sure, many of those Marvel-by-other-studio movies weren't great, but at least they exist. There is a limit to how much money and effort one studio can spend on blockbusters. If Marvel had retained all of their character rights, they would still likely be comfortable with a two-movie-per-year schedule, and that means we would never get something like Guardians of the Galaxy or Ant-Man, and maybe not even Thor or Captain America franchises (Wolverine and Spider-Man would be more reliable quantities at the box office), and most likely we'd never see anything done with Fantastic Four at all. Call it "suffering" if you want, but you're living in a golden age for nerd culture in Hollywood. I, for one, appreciate that.
 

Stabby Joe

New member
Jul 30, 2008
1,545
0
0
My first thought to attempting keeping up with the Avengers-verse was DC's sad attempt recently with Wonder Woman but this and the first time hearing about it here with the X-Men, I see the Avengers has been both a blessing and a curse. I just hope this needless saturation doesn't turn people off super hero movies period, especially since I want to see the end of the Avengers phase 3.

With Bob and his automatic prejudice against this run of Spider films, it doesn't matter when the review comes around, even if it turns out to be really good for all we know.

As a small side, why did you flash up an image of a retro style wind up robot toy when you said "boring"? I would relish a boxy design amid all the pills of twisted scape metal these days.
 

tzimize

New member
Mar 1, 2010
2,391
0
0
twosage said:
Alright, you got me there. Dont get me wrong, I AM thrilled beyond measure to see my childhood heroes jumping about on the silver screen as something more than a garbage b-movie.

I still just cant help feeling a bit miffed when we actually get movies like Thor, Avengers, Batman Begins/TDN or Iron Man...and then still get garbage like the amazing Spider Man. If you're gonna make a movie to keep whatever paper-rights you're sitting on, why not make a bit more of an effort?
 

WhiteFangofWhoa

New member
Jan 11, 2008
2,548
0
0
Props for bringing up how well Begins handled its various villains. I don't see how this one can do that though, since they're all big-name costumed baddies given enough trailer time that they will require background established to go with it.

Or maybe not, since many of Spidey's rogues have never really had as much detail or consistent background (Electro's had at least 3 wildly different origins) as others to begin with. They can just go full Sinister Six (or rather someone deliberately creating them one by one) and develop the more popular ones more later on. Spectacular Spider Man sort of did it that way, with 3 of the 6 being engineered from vengeful ex-cons that Spidey arrested. When Dr. Octopus takes the helm, he changes their overall objective from distracting/destroying Spider-Man to placing all of New York under the dominion of freaks/super-criminals... with himself at the head of course.

Not saying I'm hugely looking forward to this after the first Amazing Spider Man, but it would be interesting to see it go down that way, particularly if the Six fell apart the same way they usually do in the comics- clashing personalities between members leading to them fighting each other.
 

Something Amyss

Aswyng and Amyss
Dec 3, 2008
24,759
0
0
RJ Dalton said:
While it's a very sad truth that absolute turds can still be financial successes in this world where critical thinking is not only not a survival skill, but not considered overly valuable in general . . .

I'm sorry, I'm now too sad to remember how I was going to finish that sentence. :(
I dunno, but you lost me at calling the first ASM an absolute turd.

Sorry, that level of hate towards a perfectly adequate movie strikes me as hyperbole almost to the point of histrionics.

KazeAizen said:
Yeah I know and I think at this point studios have at least figured out how to avoid that level of a mess up. I mean Origins and X3 weren't good at all but they weren't a complete divergence from the series original style like Forever and Robin were and if Fox can survive that I'm sure they and Sony can survive anything so long as it isn't over the top stupid. I feel like an awful person for saying this but I do hope both studios run into that problem so Marvel can get their toys back. If nothing else can be said about the X-men movies at least they have a pretty legit cast. Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, and Ian McAllen (spell) are the only people who can play Wolverine, Prof. X, and Magneto in their "old" forms anyway.
I bet if they did put out a B&R level movie, millions of hipsters would make it successful by watching it "ironically."

But yeah, there have been a decent number of mediocre movies, but nothing quite so bad as to tank the franchise involved.

I dislike Jackman as Wolverine, but I mean, yeah, I take your point. It's especially going to be hard to do Xavier without Picard. Err...Patrick Stewart.

I really would like Marvel to get their rights back, though. I think we'll get better movies from ALL these franchises if they do. Plus, think of the team-up possibilities.