Amazing Spider-Man : July 3rd, 2012 (1 Viewer)

[Sam Favate]

Originally Posted by Simon Massey /t/254830/spider-man-4-july-3rd-2012/540#post_3946294
I have the feeling they are going to repeat the Dark Knight here and eventually kill Gwen off which may not be a good thing but we will see.

If they really wanted to be bold, they could set up the circumstances preceding her death as readers know, and then, have her survive. It would change everything we know about the character and could avoid yet another grim revenge superhero tale. Also, Emma Stone's character is a good deal more well-rounded than the comic book character, who, while appealing, spent a good deal of time sobbing over misunderstandings between her and Peter. The writers killed her off because they didn't know what else to do with her - a cheap way out in any story.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Originally Posted by Simon Massey /t/254830/spider-man-4-july-3rd-2012/540#post_3946294
Wasnt aiming the comment specifically at you Colin just a general reading of negative reviews seem to bring the origin up a lot.
But as to the tone I'm not sure why it being different from the comics is a bad thing. I have never read the comics so I guess I come from a different perspective but it sounds like most feel Raimi got the tone of the comics ? So in that respect a different approach IS a better thing IMO. Repeating the same tone would have left even more thinking why bother. I guess you can feel the influence of the Nolan films in that everyone thinks they should make their superheroes "dark" or "grounded" but I don't think this film goes too far in the direction - the romance between Stacy and Parker helps to balance that and I found Garfield to be much more engaging than Maguire. I also much preferred Rhys Ifans here than Dafoe as for me the Green Goblin was too over the top (I suppose that's why I liked the second one since they got the villain right with Dr Octopus). I have the feeling they are going to repeat the Dark Knight here and eventually kill Gwen off which may not be a good thing but we will see.
Personally I think the main issue for me is they are looking at this as part of a larger arc but they forgot to make this film completely stand on its own too as they left too many major plot or character points unresolved. I suppose further films will help this but they should have still made this stand as a single film. Raimi's first film at least did this.

Tone is a difficult issue. While I'm fine with alterations to a character's mythology, changes in tone are tougher because I think they affect the property to the core.

If I see a Spider-Man movie, I want it to still FEEL like Spider-Man. The movie doesn't need to slavishly adhere to everything about the source, but it still needs to feel like it's a match with the source in terms of tone - or it needs to have a really good reason to change.

If you change too much, then what's the point? Alteration in tone CAN work but it's really tough, especially with such a well-established world like Spider-Man. Look how hated the Schumacher Batman movies tend to be. Why? Because they took a serious character and went silly/campy.

Part of the reason I loved the Raimi series was because it really felt like Spider-Man - it was a rare comic book movie that got the spirit right. I'm cool with changes to mythology - for instance, I was 100% on-board with the way the movies altered the Peter/Mary Jane backstory - but I do want the movies to fit the established tone of the series.

I don't think "Amazing" does that, and I think the change hurts it...

 

[Simon Massey]

Interesting to hear Stacy does die in the comics - wasn't aware of that. Somehow I doubt the filmmakers will not do this now - Rachel's death in the Dark Knight was done so well that now everyone thinks they have to copy it
Sorry you didn't feel it matched the tone of the comics Colin. Partly I think this is due to the writers wanting to shape Peter's character to how he has dealt with the disappearance of his parents but then they probably didn't deal with this enough in the film to warrant that change as they never moved the character forward within the film itself or allowed him to discover anything new. That for me is the film's main flaw though I still enjoyed it a lot. I guess that's an advantage in a way of only knowing the characters through the films. Not comic book related but I remember when the film The Kite Runner came out and I was appalled at how badly the film had been done partly because it was one of my favourite books at the time.

 

[TravisR]

I see what Colin is saying about the comic book and movie's tones not matching but I hadn't really thought of it before he mentioned it. The movie is more serious than the tone of the comics (which are usually fun) but not enough that I would say that they made a major error or huge deviation from the comics.

 

[Citizen87645]

I know there's an understood and accepted tone to Spider-Man comics, established from the beginning by Stan Lee. But since the character has been around so long, and re-interpreted at various times, I can accept some deviation from the "classic" presentation. Batman comics have probably had more obvious changes to the character over the years, going from lighthearted to quite dark.

 

[TheBat]

Interesting to hear Stacy does die in the comics - wasn't aware of that. Somehow I doubt the filmmakers will not do this now - Rachel's death in the Dark Knight was done so well that now everyone thinks they have to copy it
.

i was thinking the same thing. once people learn that the character died in the comics. it will make more sense.
Jacob

 

[Greg.K]

Saw this last night, it was a lot better than I expected. I think overall it was better than the first Raimi Spider-Man, although it had its absurd coincidences and the silly scene with the crane operators lining them up for Spidey to get to Oscorp just made me roll my eyes.
Kirstin Dunst has a slight edge over Emma Watson in my eyes as well. But both were fine.

 

[DaveF]

Saw this last night, it was a lot better than I expected. I think overall it was better than the first Raimi Spider-Man, although it had its absurd coincidences and the silly scene with the crane operators lining them up for Spidey to get to Oscorp just made me roll my eyes.
Kirstin Dunst has a slight edge over Emma Watson in my eyes as well. But both were fine.

The crane scene was emotionally manipulative, but I fell for it. I didn't want to, cut I liked it. There was the same sort of scene with the average joes helping spidey out the bus on the second or third movie. I was wondering if it's a spiderman theme.

 

[Sean Bryan]

Yep, I loved the crane scene.
And yes, it was reminiscent of the "You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us" scene on the bridge in the first Spider-Man.

 

[TonyD]

The crane scene didn't do anything for me.
It was pointless actually. These cranes weren't any higher then the tops of other building around here and wold have been just as easy for SM to
Web onto the building to get to Oscorp .

 

[Sean Bryan]

Well, the "why" is a bit of a head scratcher.
Certainly they could have done a better job at showing why, but it was shown that his gunshot wound to the leg was preventing him from traversing the way he needed to. Maybe because he hadn't yet quite mastered swinging and may have needed better use of his legs. After all, webs on the tops of buildings swing you toward the building and the overhead cranes lets him swing in a straight line down the street. So maybe the injury to his leg made him less confident he could handle a bounce/run off the side of a building (as Spider-Man IS often shown doing) if needed and the cranes simply provided a straight swinging path where he wouldn't have to deal with the "side to side" building swings. That's basically the way I read it.
Nevertheless, I loved the emotional impact of the scene, nerd arguments notwithstanding.

 

[DaveF]

I took it as a clear the way, fastest approach, and he's hurt thing. As the showed, withy the hurt leg he didn't make the first crane. Implied, he'd never have made it by 'normal' web-slinging.
As for need annoyance: Oz corp has a room full of spiders that hold the solution to the stable transgenic problem, and everyone's wasting their time failing with lizard DNA?!?
It's like in Spiderman 2, where there absolutely amazing breakthrough of direct neural controlled arms is ignored as they invent solar fusion.

 

[Carlo_M]

Kind of like Dr. Evil wanting to hold the world ransom for a million dollars when Virtucon alone makes 9 billion dollars annually?

 

[Malcolm R]

I didn't really care for this version of Spider-Man. I didn't like Garfield in the role; I was annoyed by the repeated awkward, "meet cute" scenes between Peter and Gwen; didn't think the villain was really that strong; and Sally Field was OK, but she's no Rosemary Harris. The design of the Lizard was also kind of odd, as he pretty much completely transformed into a non-human form (tail, talons, reverse-jointed legs) but his face was basically just human with scales.
If this series continues with current cast/crew, the next film will have to have some really great word of mouth to get me into the theater.

 

[TravisR]

Nevertheless, I loved the emotional impact of the scene, nerd arguments notwithstanding.

I like the idea of people helping each other to overcome obstacles (rather than the prevelant attitude today where people will not only actively root for others to fail but they also want to laugh at them as they fail) so that scene worked for me too.

 

[SugarSunset]

I didn't really care for this version of Spider-Man. I didn't like Garfield in the role; I was annoyed by the repeated awkward, "meet cute" scenes between Peter and Gwen; didn't think the villain was really that strong; and Sally Field was OK, but she's no Rosemary Harris. The design of the Lizard was also kind of odd, as he pretty much completely transformed into a non-human form (tail, talons, reverse-jointed legs) but his face was basically just human with scales.
If this series continues with current cast/crew, the next film will have to have some really great word of mouth to get me into the theater.

Agreed. Garfield in this role gave Parker a cool nerdy look, which isn't what Parker is supposed to be about.
Although my main concern was that they replicated most of the scenes at the beginning of the film from the first film and then put new stuff into it, (probably) claiming 'Hey, look, aren't we clever? We injected new stuff into something old! What genius! This is going to be amazing!'. Um, no, that's not how it works :f
I found the Lizard to be quite weird, but I felt he was better than the villain from the first film, The Green Goblin, who looked like he was a villain from a child's film.

 

[Sean Bryan]

Rami's films played up the wholesome, "ah shucks", aspect of Peter Parker and didn't really emphasize his intelligence. Certainly he was portrayed as smart and interested in science, but that was definitely downplayed in those films.
In Webb's film, the "genius" of Peter Parker was definitely more apparent. This is a Parker that I could see potentially holding his own with Reed Richards and Bruce Banner (after more education, of course). I'm not sure I could say the same for Rami's Parker (which I also really liked as a character).

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Originally Posted by Sean Bryan /t/254830/spider-man-4-july-3rd-2012/570#post_3950502
Rami's films played up the wholesome, "ah shucks", aspect of Peter Parker and didn't really emphasize his intelligence. Certainly he was portrayed as smart and interested in science, but that was definitely downplayed in those films.
In Webb's film, the "genius" of Peter Parker was definitely more apparent. This is a Parker that I could see potentially holding his own with Reed Richards and Bruce Banner (after more education, of course). I'm not sure I could say the same for Rami's Parker (which I also really liked as a character).

Don't agree that Peter's intelligence was downplayed. Remember how he got to know Octavius in "Spidey 2"?

 

[SugarSunset]

It was obvious that Parker's intelligence in the reboot is more apparent - I mean, normally the webs come out of his wrists, but like in the original comics, he builds little pods that they come out of. Plus, we get a better look at his room, his computer, his research. He wears glasses quite frequently as well. We don't get to see such a huge background behind Parker in the first film, so he doesn't really have the chance to portray his intelligence and save the world at the same time.
Either that or I haven't seen Spider-Man 2 for a long time

 

[Sean Bryan]

Yep. As I said, he was still shown as intelligent and interested in science (capable of having read scientific papers and understanding concepts that scientists are working on, understanding the risks of things getting out of control, etc...) in the Rami films. But as far as the character goes, he never really "did anything" with that intelligence that affected himself or the story in any significant way. Unless I'm forgetting something, he understood what Octavian was working on and was capable of discussing the science with him. But he didn't help Octavian develop any of that science or use science to help him augment what he was capable of doing as Spider-Man, right? If you were to ask someone who wasn't familiar with Peter Parker from the comics and only knew him through his portrayal in the Rami films if they thought he was a "genius", I think the answer would likely be no. "A really smart guy, sure. But genius? Hadn't considered it."
In The Amazing Spider-Man, he used his intelligence to develop the mechanical web shooters and adapt the Oscorp webbing for his own use, work with Dr. Connors on his father's formula until they got it working (seemingly), and direct Gwen on how to go about formulating the antidote. His intelligence was much more front and center and played more of a role in his character and the film's story. So, If you were to ask someone who wasn't familiar with Peter Parker from the comics and only knew him through his portrayal in Webb's film if they thought he was a "genius", I think the answer would more likely be yes. "Yeah, he actually made those web shooters himself and helped the doctor develop the cross species genetics treatment. Sure, he could be a genius."