THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN post release discussion - Page 14

Evidently she had a crush on Peter and was named.  Her character was cut.  End of story.

 

So here's a happy medium.  Maybe Spidey has organic webs, but they're broad and unfocused. Maybe have spidey make a gas powered capsule based mechanical webshooter system to help funnel and focus the webs?  I think James Cameron did something very similar to his in his draft.  It makes Peter a smart active kid, and it gives you the interesting idea of having to reload capsules and stuff, yet at the same time it doesn't make Peter an absurdly brilliant genius, just really really smart and skilled.

Edited by Freeman - 7/8/12 at 11:26pm

 

I can tell you for me personally it came down almost entirely to not enjoying the leads. It wasn't so much Maguire, who had a few moments but was largely just blandly unassuming (as opposed to the later movies, where I found him actually grating), but Kirsten Dunst was distractingly bad from the get go. Not caring about those two just made it difficult to get into the film, despite how good the other elements were. I felt like Emma Stone conjures up more charm and appeal in ten minutes than MJ manages over an entire trilogy, and Garfield does a lot with what what is honestly a pretty medicore flick. I'd love to see what a director who isn't lashed to the bow of the HMS Sony Moneyship could do with that pairing. I certainly didn't hate the original, nor the remake, but they both fall squarely into the camp of being enjoyable in the moment, but not something I'd really care to revisit.

I'm calling it now. Her name is Mary Jane, Gwen will befriend her and give her a makeover setting up a love triangle.

 

 

Also people are still talking about this film because (shock horror)  SOME PEOPLE HAVE ONLY JUST SEEN IT!!!

Haha it's amazing it's the first weekend still.  It feels like I saw this years ago.

 

My money's on Spidey Super Stories.

 

 

I can't get past the inexplicable swapping of Mary-Jane for Gwen as Peter's first girlfriend. In a retelling of the Green Goblin storyline, no less. I think that's the main reason I never bothered with Spider-Man 3. Really? NOW they bring Gwen in?

So, my take: I enjoyed this film, and more so, I think, than the 2002 version. Garfield succeeds in making the character his own (for one thing, he's properly skinny), and Stone is just magnetic anytime she's onscreen: her WTF reaction just before they kiss is a brilliant moment.

 

I like that Martin Sheen isn't forced to recite the Responsibility Line verbatim, and I'm impressed by the streamlining or recontextualizing of other elements in Webhead's traditional origin story. Special props to the luchador poster.

 

I'm not so hot on the Lizard- -I feel like we got him in this film because Sam Raimi already had him in development for whatever sequel he actually wanted to make. And poor Rhys Ifans gets some of the worst scenes in the film: first, when he has to listen to Irrfan Khan* mangle a load of potentially useful exposition, then when he's recovering from his first transformation and talking all secret-villainous and double-meaningy to Peter, and most awkwardly the bit where he's ranting at himself in ADR.

 

The biggest stumbling-block for me is the endless franchise-building; the innumerable references to plot elements that can only be played out or embellished in future films. It's kind of hilarious at the end when the filmmakers pan across Peter's bulletin-board and basically admit flat-out that they left a lot of stuff hanging. Prediction: we'll find out that Peter was genetically-engineered (cloned?) from the start and that's why he's a genius and that's why the spider bite didn't just kill him. Insane Fanwank: the prominent featuring of a Rear Window poster in Peter's room will foreshadow a series of story-specific Hitchcock posters, culminating with Vertigo as Peter, grieving for Gwen, meets a redhead also played by Emma Stone.

 

Meanwhile, what's the deal with The Man In the Shadows? I don't understand why so many people are jumping to the conclusion that it's somehow Norman Osborn, except that it's the shortest possible jump. But the character we glimpse seems to be a ghost or a hallucination, and there's specific emphasis on his fine black hat (a Homburg, I think), not something I associate with the once and future Gobby. Any hardcore comics fans know who this is actually supposed to be?

 

 

*P.S. Khan's only in this movie because of Spider-Man's unique appeal in India, right?

 

"So will there be refreshments after the meeting?"

 

ZOMG It's Jessica Jones!  (I kid, I kid)  But yeah, something must've gotten left on the cutting room floor there.

 

 

Kinda gotta blame the source material on that one.  Beyond that, most of the Spidey's non-scientist, non-misunderstood bad guys would be difficult to hang a movie on either due to silliness-factor (The Vulture) or simply being better suited to secondary villain status (The Rhino, for example).  Kraven and/or The Chameleon might work, but in general most of Spider-Man's major villains have a pretty hefty dose of pathos.

 

Though as someone else noted:  The Video Game takes this "cross species genetics" thing up several notches, and I can't help but wonder if this is the "theme" they might follow for these films, turning characters like the Rhino (who shows up in the Video Game), Vulture, etc... all into "animal crossbreeds" of some kind ala the Lizard.  Spidey's got a LOT of animal themed villains.

 

 

Heck, Gwen wasn't Peter's first girlfriend, either.  Arguably she might have been his first "true love" but Peter's original girlfriend was Betty Brant.  They gave a bit of an easter-egg nod to this in the Raimi films (where she was played by Elizabeth Banks) when they had Betty and Peter sort-of-flirting a bit.

 

But yes, the whole bit with MJ as the "girl next door" that Peter had known his whole life was a relatively recent thing, mostly used in the Ultimate Spider-Man series, which both Raimi/Maguire and Webb/Garfield borrowed from in different ways.

Freeman, One of the things I dislike about Raimi's Trilogy was that his Parker internally produced his own web fluid, rather than be the scientific genius of the comics.  I also prefer the web shooters and didn't like hearing Sam Raimi disparage them.  Peter being able to use his scientific genius applies to more than his web shooters.  The ability to come up with tech or a cure that a layman couldn't is part of what I always liked about Peter Parker.  In Raimi's films he is smart, and he could end up that big a brain, but he is shown as still learning.  In the comics he was already super intelligent in high school.  Also Emma Stone's Gwen Stacy is a...Huge improvement over Kirsten Dunst's MJ.  A big part of the problem with Dunst was how MJ was written.  Instead of the happy go lucky gal from the comics, she was overwroght and self centered and weepy.  The Goblin Armor wasn't great, but it is far better than Raimi's Sandman and Doc Ock, not being anywhere as...EEEEEvil as in the comics.  I think that Flash Thompson is better in AS-M, than in Raimi's as well. Finally, in The Amazing Spider-Man, our hero uses quips and puns while fighting villains.  Sure, there could have been more of them, but at least it was an improvement over Raimi's une...QUIPped Parker.

Any sequel to this should use bits of the clone storyline. Andrew Garfield needs to actually be Ben Reilly. That way the Dafoe Goblin can return as the mastermind of the whole thing.

The most grating aspect of this film is that it covers the exact same ground as the first Sam Raimi film, including identical moments that have been "reimagined" simply for the sake of reimagining them (Peter comes home after the spider bite and Aunt May and Uncle Ben thinks he's acting comically strange; the city of New York unites behind Spidey in a "fist pump" scene, etc. etc. et al. ad infinitum). It wasn't just a question of retelling the origin: it became a retelling of Raimi's film, and things specific to it besides the obvious contents of Amazing Fantasy #15.

 

The thing I love about Koepp's screenplay for Spider-Man is how, post credits, we receive everything we need to know about the characters in ten compact minutes. We meet Peter and see that he's an outcast in love with The Popular Girl who dates the School Douchebag/Bully; we meet Harry, see his (shitty) relationship with his father, with the seeds of Norman's mentor role to Peter established; we learn that Peter is a science geek who's also making a go at photography; and then, of course, the spider bite, along with a succinct explanation and rationale for each of the powers Peter will inherit based upon the genetic recombination of the test spiders. Boom. It's all there. From this point we go straight into Uncle Ben and Aunt May, Oscorp, and the development of Peter's powers; but EVERYTHING WE NEED TO KNOW IS CONVEYED IN TEN MINUTES.

 

Amazing Spider-Man, conversely, drags. And drags. And drags. It takes the long way around everything and commits the unforgiveable act of being a boring film. The tone is wrong, the cast is wrong, the score is wrong, and it shamelessly robs Raimi at every turn; but for all its many problems, it's just a dead, bloted, lifeless mess that coasts on goodwill for the characters and previous films. Soulless, opportunistic studio garbage.

 

Speaking only for myself, I felt like the first one was less a Raimi film than a Sony film. Not that I necessarily wanted Sam to make Evil Dead films for the rest of his life, but his three films previous to Spider-Man (A Simple Plan, The Gift, and especially For Love of the Game) had just been such conscious submersions of everything that had made Raimi special to me — his visual wit and flair, his goofiness and embrace of melodrama. (For the record, my favorite Raimi is probably Darkman.) The only thing that felt to me like pure Raimi in the first one, other than some great mu-ha-ha moments from Dafoe, was J.K. Simmons' pitch-perfect JJJ.

 

Spider-Man felt like one he did for the studio (to paraphrase Pauline Kael on David Lynch's Dune, he was being a good boy, a dutiful director); Spider-Man 2 felt like one he did for himself, and I enjoyed the hell out of it. It felt like he'd gotten some confidence and bravura back. He'd proven he could make an insanely successful Spider-Man film, so he'd earned the right to make a sequel that pushed farther and harder and geekier, and had more personality. I'm sure Sony still got up his ass, but it doesn't show; not nearly as much as it does in the third one, anyway. (Which I also enjoyed, for the reasons the Serious Fanboys hated it: the goofiness, the jazz, the dancing.)

 

Note all the "felt" used above. These are my subjective feelings; your mileage may and most likely will vary. But you asked.

Yeah, the first one felt to me like you could sense Raimi not really wanting to tell the origin, but having to.  He's fully invested in the second one because he's relieved of having to explain things.

Have we really become so anti-origin story that now we're saying things like you could (Spidey) sense that Raimi didn't want to tell his origin in the first film?  Outside of Superman, it's probably the most iconic origin story, and wasn't some perfunctory thing Raimi rushed through.

 

Dude, he only had, like, two quips in the entirety of Amazing Spiderman--the main one being the "not the knives" bit.

I don't know, there's just a sense of ... restraint, maybe?  It doesn't feel perfunctory, but more that Raimi is holding back from being Raimi, trying to be the good soldier, as Blank put it.  There's nothing as gloriously unhinged as the operating room scene from 2 in the first film.

 

Speaking of 2, if we want to bring up silly little nitpicks:  wouldn't the creation of mechanical limbs capable of being connected to and controlled by the human nervous system be worth billions of dollars in their own right?  Why dick around with trying to contain a fusion reaction?  Of course, that's classic Marvel, the scientist casually tossing off minor miracles without a thought in pursuit of the GREAT BIG MIRACLE, so it works.

Mechanical webshooters.  Any scene where he runs out mid fight/swing?

Not really. He gets them crushed by the Lizard in the end fight though.

"No!  Out of webbing???  NOT NOW!!!"

 

I kept expecting that moment.  It never happened!!!

Having watched both Spider-Man and ASM recently, I think Raimi's version had higher highs and lower lows.  ASM never had a really great moment to me where as Raimi's had a few (Green Goblin yelling "We'll meet again Spider-man!" as he's flying away was pure comic-book movie gold).  On the other hand, Raimi did have some truly terrible moments (Green Goblin talking to Spider-man on the roof where he's just leaning casually - that whole scene seems like it came from a made for TV movie and was just piss-poor).  Garfield and Stone are much much better. 

 

ASM reminds me of the first X-men movie - solid and enjoyable but not great (they even had the same hackeyed villan plot and set-up).  I do think that ASM 2 has the potential to be very special though (similar to X2) as the characters are established.

While there's nothing as "in your face Raimi" in the first film as that scene, there's more than a few thematic and/or visual references to some of his earlier work (Spidey smashing the carjacker's head through glass is a direct nod to Peyton Westlake's murder and Osborn talking to himself in the mirror is straight out of Evil Dead 2, to name only two)

 

 

 

Wow, they missed out on a incredibly obvious way of inducing tension in a scene.  That is strangly disappointing.

It happened all the time in the FOX animated series from the 90s.  Always hilarious. 

95 Spidey: "I'm coming for you Smyth--oh, shit, out of webbing. Well, back to Aunt May's"

(FOX KIDS WILL BE RIGHT BACK)

 

13-year-old Justin: "OH FOR FUCKS SAKE, PETER, GET A FUCKING UTILITY BELT"

 

There is the moment when Spidey is underwater in the sewers, tries to shoot out webbing and sees it only weakly come out.  I really liked how that scene was shot and animated, so I was hoping that the idea of his webbing being ineffective underwater would be developed more in a longer confrontation.

 

Oof, forgot about Betty. Bad me. Where was she in this film?

 

She's not.  No Bugle at all.

Because of all the critical details that this film leaves out, I think people like it as a cover version, because I don't think it would work without the Raimi films. Yeah, it doesn't say "great power, great responsibility" but it wants you to think it.

 

We do see copies of the Bugle, and apparently they have a cable channel too. Didn't spot any names though.

 

Which critical details were you looking for? I haven't re-watched the Raimis since they were released, and it didn't feel like anything was skipped over here. Obscured by new arc-plot elements maybe.

 

 

And maybe this is why I liked the film, because I love musical covers. Listening to a band but their spin on a famous song is something I have always enjoyed. The AV Club's covers have been awesome. I hear that Hootie and the Blowfish concerts were filled with covers of other people's songs and were great.  I have liked artists covering themselves, like Lionel Ritchie's country duet album, Tuscaloosa.

 

So, that being said, I am okay with comic book movies doing "covers" of each other. Some cry a lack of creativity in movie studios, but comics have done it for years, constantly retelling the same stories. I liked the Martin Sheen moral imperative, in part because it seemed like a West Wing Martin Sheen was peeking out, and you always listen to Jed Bartlett.

Ska Oreo, I did post that there should have been...More Puns and Quips.  Still...2 is more than in Raimi's films.  I hope there are are a...Spectacular number of...Sensational Puns and Quips in the sequel.

 

There are three Spidey wisecracks from SPIDER-MAN. The husband line delivered to Bonesaw, the line delivered to JJJ when the Goblin attacks the Bugle -- "Hey kiddo, let mom and dad talk" (the best and most Spidey-like quip in ANY of the movies IMO) and "Your'e out Gobby...out of your mind." Are they a little corny? Yes, but they're there.

 

My point is that claiming that ASM ups the Spidey-quips in any considerable way is a total fallacy. If anything, you could say that in ASM he more bullies and taunts than "quips."

 

It's totally fine if you prefer THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN to SPIDER-MAN but lets get the facts straight at least.

To be clear, I think Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield are both great actors who have given two very different but compelling versions of the same character.

But I think it's more the fact that the quips always sounded forced coming out of Tobey Maguire since his version of Peter Parker didn't have that humor to his character to begin with. Andrew Garfield's Peter Parker already had that playfulness (stealing the identity pass at OsCorp, skateboarding, flirting with Gwen) that his quips (even playing a game on his cellphone as he waits in the sewer) came out as more natural for HIS Peter Parker since he showed humor outside of the suit to begin with.

As "serious" as Garfield's Parker was, Maguire's lacked a sense of humor.

Peter playing on the cellphone as he waits in the sewer is one of my favorite little moments in any of the films.  My theater absolutely loved it.

 

From the start of the movie until he starts bagging thugs is very solid but, outside of that, I find the movie to be pretty boring/cheesy.

 

Also, Aunt May's moaning in the hospital during her "HORRIBLE YELLOW EYES" speech makes me uncomfortable because I now know what Rosemary Harris sounds like when she orgasms.

 

Not true. Her orgasm sound is more of a high-pitched squeal.

Ska Oreo, Sorry. To me Andrew Garfield is playing a more...Agressive Peter Parker.  I do not see his pointed quips as Bullying, because all he is doing is beating up punks or criminals while using his quips.   In the comics Spider-Man could be just as agressive.

SHAME ON YOU!

 

(whacks ya'll with an old lady umbrella... on a sunny day)

 

I agree with this. The wise-cracking sounded more natural coming from Garfield. I think Garfield made for a great Spider-Man and really look forward to what he could do in a better movie.

I doubt any of Aunt May's lines from this movie will get sampled in a rap song like ol' Rosemary's! 

 

 

Argument OVER.

Not to harp on about my experience with this film, but I can't be the only one to notice that the film seemed to barely take place in New York, can I? It would seem to be a really important part of his character, but it might as well have taken place in "Midtown, New Jersey"

Speaking as someone that's never been to New York City, it seemed "New York-y" enough to me.  Certainly no less so (again, in my opinion) than the Raimi films, or virtually any other film that takes place in "Faux York."

 

It may play completely differently to someone that actually knows the city well, though.

Other than a few yellow cabs, there were no landmarks, no identifiers. Raimi used the city as a character, made the Daily Bugle a well known building, used Columbia university, the tram bridge, Osborne's apartment, Ben even dies outside the library.

 

I don't think there was even a shot of lady liberty, or the chrysler building in The Amazing Spider-Man. I understand they don't want to replicate the imagery of the previous films, but it's a big city and plenty of stuff hasn't been covered. I find that kind of surprising considering it's such a famous and well known city. If you're in NY, make it look goddamn cinematic.

From the standpoint of parallel franchises, I can see soft-pedaling the NYC landmarks. No point raising questions about whether you can see the Baxter Building from Stark Tower, or if they've rebuilt Grand Central Station yet.

While Raimi's films were shot in New York, wasn't this one shot in LA (or at least the bulk of it)?

Most was shot on LA stages, but some key exteriors in NYC.  The Parker's home in Queens was actually shot in Brooklyn and some under-the-bridge swinging stuff is said to have been shot up in Harlem.  http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/amazing-spider-man-brings-big-apple-big-screen-broadway-brooklyn-article-1.1106583

 

But I agree: Raimi's use of NYC is far stronger.  Just as in GHOSTBUSTERS and MEN IN BLACK, New York was just as much a character in Raimi's SPIDER-MAN films as any of the actors.  When I first started visiting New York regularly, some of my first stops were filming locations for the above films.  (I miss you so, Moondance Diner.)

 

 

As a life-long fan of New York City, there are a few spots around the city I'd love to see Peter hanging out or Spider-Man doing battle in.  South Street Seaport, Chinatown during the New Year Parade, the Tick-Tock Diner, Madison Square Garden, Coney Island, Shake Shack in Madison Square Park, Rockefeller Center, Grand Central's main hall and the platforms underneath (Carlito's Way style).  Come on, Sony, don't be shy.  Let's New York this thing up a little.

Edited by Engineer - 7/9/12 at 7:25pm

Speaking of which:

 

New York as seen through 50 years of Spider-Man covers

 

I kept expecting a scene where she slit her wrists to Harry Nilsson's "Without You."