Spider-Man 4 (reboot thread) -- aka The Amazing Spider-Man

sure, but right now without the movies in front of me to reference I can't remember a scene that felt like it was shoehorned in from a completely different movie operating under a completely different reality

― I see you, Pineapple Teef (DJP), Tuesday, 3 July 2012 18:23 (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this seems a really weird thing to say - spider-man 2 seemed like peter was mooching around between two or three different movies a lot of the time. like in addition to the emo superhero movie and the light-hearted superhero movie he'd occasionally pop into a newspaper comedy and some kind of indie flick about his weird neighbours. the difference between the raimi movies seems like, those were made for people who had seen a lot of movies, this seems to have been made for people who had not seen any movies ever.

like, the new one has a scene where peter can't convince the police chief that curt connors has transformed into a lizard, and after peter is thrown out the chief goes over to an aide and says GET ME EVERYTHING YOU CAN ON CURT CONNORS. or n.b. that after (x) dies there's a shot of him in the rain yelling NOOOOOO, with an echo on it, slightly slowed down.

You know that comment was a comparison of Raimi 3 to 1 & 2 and I hadn't seen the new one yet when I said that, right?

i think thomp's saying it's a weird thing to say since spider-man 2 was schizy as well.

yeah, sorry. segueing awkwardly.

should read "the difference between the raimi movies and this new one seems like:"

Raimi 2 didn't feel MPD* to me at the time, which is why I said "I should go back and revisit the movies but here is the impression I had"; you can merge genres together in a haphazard way or in a more seamless way, and the tone transitions in Raimi 2 did not feel as off to me as the tone transitions in Raimi 3.

* yes I am a "schizophrenic doesn't mean that" pedant

i def will admit that the dance sequence in 3 was a step beyond the tone jumps in the previous spideys, though i think it was still within the sensibility (which admittedly a lot of superhero fans clearly don't share) and i'm more of a "AND he gave me a dance sequence!" kinda guy then a "WHY did he give me a dance sequence?" guy anyway, most of my favorite directors could be lumped into "for people who have seen a lot of movies"

also the dance sequence in and of itself was smooth and hilarious, it wasn't some joel schumacher thing where the director was blundering through some nonsense

love that it seems the big sticking point between sony and raimi is that the dude was dead-set on the next villain being john malkovich with wings - i can't blame a corporate monolith for deciding they'd better off spending $150m on this than $300m on that.

Aw man, that would have been AWESOME.

i'm still bummed venom wasn't a single-movie storyline, that it got cramped out by the shitty sandman villain. i know this pushes us further into dance scene/the amazing foibles of peter parker territory but the maguire films were v well suited to that i think.

my real beef with Spideydance was that it didn't look like this:

http://crash.ihug.co.nz/~g-b-dix/ani_gifs/dancing-spiderman.gif

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lzvb69OIgi1r9k1jlo4_r1_250.gif
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lzvb69OIgi1r9k1jlo2_250.gif

DEAL WITH IT.

his verging-on-spitcurl is the funniest fucking thing

I have never understood that hairdo at all, on him or on any other emo doofus.

I really liked a lot of the differences between the different movies in Spiderman 2 - the classic pull back from kiss to reveal car being thrown at them is definitely a "Oh yeah, this is a Sam Raimi movie!" moment.

the library portion of the school fight in Amazing was the point where I felt like I could have been watching a Raimi movie

best thing about the Spideydance sequence is everyone on the street recoiling in terror

Saw this the other night. Okay entertainment for an evening in a boring town with not much else to do. Hadn't seen a 3D movie before and found it really distracting and not at all helpful, so maybe that colored my impressions, but there was an awful of jarring, jumpy stuff that took me out of the movie. Really felt like it was missing the heart that the Raimi films had, and in any given scene, would bend hell and earth to get the appropriate payoff/punchline for that scene, regardless of what that did to the overall tone or flow or whatever. One of my friends said it felt much more like it was made for teenagers than the other ones, which is striking 'cause Raimi 1 and 2 were huge with teenagers, it was just that you didn't feel weird watching them as an adult.

Lot of sloppy plotting too...like, an awful lot of buildup on Peter being a really crappy kid to May and Ben, and then the payoff is...he brings the eggs? Like, three weeks late? And it's all good? And what was the point of having him make that whole promise at the end, and then renege on it in, seriously, about eight minutes of screen time? Just clutter IMO.

Lizard kind of a cool choice for a starter villain...since he's another guy that gets mixed up with an animal it makes sense that he could be worked into the origin story without it feeling like a weird join between an origin story and another story with a villain in it. But he's a bad choice for a villain in general for the general reason that Jekyll is a lot more interesting than Hyde, or rather, what's interesting about Jekyll is that he'd harbor the desire to be Hyde. Once he's Hyde, he can't do much besides growl, climb things, and prepare to set off the painfully forshadowed Genesis Device (or whatever).

What was the point of the webbing being technological? In the comics it sorta works, since it has to do with Peter being super brainy - - but this version of Peter's not an outcast for his smarts, it's more for being the kinda artsy photo-taking guy. (And he doesn't seem that unpopular really!) So the techno-webbing just adds screen time and troublesome questions: what happens when he runs out of the webbing he stole? Isn't stealing wrong? Does he invent mechanical contraptions all the time, or just the one pointless one for his door that can be converted into a web shooter? Felt like maybe a few bits of different drafts getting jumbled together.

Wouldn't watch it again, especially if Raimi 1/2 were at hand, but again, ehh, entertaining.

peter's room is the most interesting space in the film -- that he's built a whole next-level security-arrangement thing to lock an interior door to some entirely trustworthy seeming guardian figures is a fascinating detail (yes, i'm sure that's not why they did it) -- and then there's this poster pointing you at a totally different totally freudian film about a guy who uses a camera in a voyeuristic way

One of my favorite Marvel themes, which for obvious legal reasons will not be explored on-screen, has been the occasional latent prejudice of Spider-man toward the X-Men. That is, Spider-man, too, is essentially a mutant - bitten by a radioactive spider and all that - yet he doesn't consider himself a mutant like the X-Men, and therefore thinks of himself as relatively cootie-free compared to the burden they carry from birth. Don't know if Hulk or Captain America or Daredevil or other genetically mutated characters distinguish themselves this way. Maybe a comics stan can expand.

Spider-Man is not a mutant though, at least not as defined by the Marvel universe. The entire prejudice arises from people who treat him like one and his objections, not on the grounds that it's wrong to treat people that way, but because he isn't actually a mutant.

Marvel mutant = you are a human being who was either born with powers or had them manifest around puberty with no outside influence
Marvel superpowered being = you are an alien, or you are a magician, or you use advanced technology, or you had an event happen to you that gave you powers

presumably petey's kid would have a high chance of being a mutant, by comic logic

there was a Spider-Girl comic about Peter's daughter

And a really bad alternate-future comic where Peter's radioactive ejaculate had eventually given Mary Jane cancer. :-/

have they ever acknowledged that you should consult a doctor if you regularly experience tingling sensations

on a somewhat related note, i stumbled across this blog recently that documents medical inaccuracies in comic books. Weirdly engrossing
http://www.politedissent.com/

But he has literally been mutated, no? Via radioactive catalyst?

'literally'

It's ok they have a term for it

Mutate is a term used to refer to superhumans who acquired their superpowers by exposure to some mutagenic compound or energy (either accidentally or deliberately). Unlike Marvel's Mutants, Marvel's Mutates require external stimuli to acquire their powers (e.g. they weren't born with the potential to manifest powers)

Pretty sure that was a rare instance of using "literally" correctly?

So does the premise of the first X-Men movie, with Magneto building a mutating ray, not jibe with the Marvel mythos? 'Cause those people he mutates are not technically mutants but, um, mutates?

'technically'

'thomp'

Caught Spider-Man 2 yesterday and got sucked in immediately - was really struck by how much more effective the tone and approach were, versus the new one. I mean, yeah, there's a lot of oddball stuff (the landlord's daughter character is baffling) but it still feels of a piece, and lend the movie more heart so that when Spider-Man has to do something difficult you really feel for the guy. Also love all the little touches that make it feel like it was made by an actual, specific directorial sensibility - - - like when there's a panning shot whizzing by alongside one of Ock's tentacle heads in super close-up, that's total Raimi in horror mode stuff. The movie has a personality to it. Or how when Doc Ock robs a bank and starts slamming Spidey with bags of money - you can tell someone was thinking about ways to play up the movie's themes. So, yeah, it's ironic that the money Peter Parker desperately needs from the bank is something dangerous to Spidey, but beyond the gag, it also points up the Big Idea: the things Peter Parker and Spider-Man want aren't necessarily the same. And it's allowed to pass by without comment or neon signs, but it enhances the film. Lots of stuff like that going on. New one seems so much more by-the-books and Smallville by comparison.

Also, J. Jonah Jameson.

Will concede, though, that the CGI does look a little dated now, which surprises me 'cause when these came out I really thought of them, especially 2, as looking really convincing and real, without obvious seams.

oh I totally thought 1 looked like a videogame, I just didn't care because it was a videogame I wanted to play

(eventually I did get to play that videogame but it was called Arkham City)

LOL at Oscorp security:
* Not having the interns' pictures on their badges
* Letting the interns pick up their badges without having to show ID
* Using an observable code (as opposed to something biometric) to access the spider cage, or whatever they call it.

didn't understand why Martin Sheen was wearing false teeth

he's old?

sheen's had that telltale dentures hiss going on for a while now

Trailer for the new one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbp3Ra3Yp74

Some of the fight scenes look pretty cool, but the stuff with Harry is gonna be a chore AGAIN.

Some seriously unfinished CGI in that trailer unless they want things to look like PS3 cutscenes.

http://www.travisprange.com/blog/images/sonycantdesignanewfontdr0.jpg

This is the kind of movie where the bad guy asks a question and then whistles the “Jeopardy” theme, right after he says, “My, oh my, how the tables have turned!” Where Foxx’s villain, dubbed Electro after he turns into a human Taser, says, “It’s time to meet your destiny.”

Then, preparing to spray high voltage all over Times Square, “It’s my birthday, now it’s time for me to light my candles!” Which is not the only reason Electro reminded me of Schwarzenegger’s Mr. Freeze. Alex, Rob: At the banquet of Hollywood, you’re the Cheez Whiz.This is the kind of movie where the bad guy asks a question and then whistles the “Jeopardy” theme, right after he says, “My, oh my, how the tables have turned!” Where Foxx’s villain, dubbed Electro after he turns into a human Taser, says, “It’s time to meet your destiny.”

Then, preparing to spray high voltage all over Times Square, “It’s my birthday, now it’s time for me to light my candles!” Which is not the only reason Electro reminded me of Schwarzenegger’s Mr. Freeze. Alex, Rob: At the banquet of Hollywood, you’re the Cheez Whiz.

http://nypost.com/2014/04/25/the-amazing-spider-man-2-fails-to-impress/

Woah sorry bout that weird double post.

both of these movies baffle me in that there are usually a handful of really good choices (in part 2, the casting of Dane DeHaan, and some well directed rhythmic creativity to some of the action scenes, a decent reimagining for Gwen's exit) surrounded by a ton of terrible choices (script and pacing were terrible like part 1, origin story pt. 2 with dad Parker totally unnecessary, romance elements weaker that the first one, underdeveloped relationship between Peter and Harry, terrible, terirble villains - why did they even cast Paul Giametti? This movie somehow manages to waste Colm Feore - and oh god nerdy old Electro was just awful in every way)

tbf i don't know if there's anyway to ever put the Green Goblin on screen without it just looking awful, DeHaan probably the closest to getting the freakish psychotic nature of the villain. and i liked that they largely ditched the evil executive angle of Norman for the younger version, though I guess we'll never get our film version of Harry terrifying his wife and kids at the dinner table

Just ten minutes in, watching the first of these reboots, and its fucking godawful.

Seriously does it get better? That whole high school section at the start was embarassing.

no, stop now, there are so many good movies you could be watching instead

that was bad

The thing was, it didn't bring anything to the table that the Maguire/Dunst version didn't. And nothing was really improved upon.

I'm going to watch Tootsie now