Reboots Are Us
Watching The Amazing Spider-man.
God, it's so slow - and I can't believe Garfield as the bullied and unpopular kid. Not the way he looks. On the other hand, the lady who plays Gwen has made her interesting for the first time in comic book history ( Read more... )
God, it's so slow - and I can't believe Garfield as the bullied and unpopular kid. Not the way he looks. On the other hand, the lady who plays Gwen has made her interesting for the first time in comic book history ( Read more... )
Whereas his main upset about Gwen's dad is that he promised her dad that he'd stop seeing Gwen. It's not really on the same scale at all.
I quite like how this Peter Parker feels more like a real person rather than a whiny geek stereotype. This and Chronicle are the only superhero movies to be released this year to contain something akin to real people.
But that's just my two cents.
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In fact, I agree with the critic who said this was meant to appeal to the Twilight crowd. It might possibly be effective as a teen romance - it is not effective as either an adventure or a superhero movie. Selling it as either of the latter is false pretenses.
Whatever it was, it sure wasn't Spider-man.
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I'll admit that the romance was one of the better elements of this movie, but Raimi's films had always been trying to be romance films too. They were just no damn good at it.
I think the main reason why this isn't really Spider-Man yet is because it's taking its time over his origins. He's making all those mistakes that he felt so guilty about in the comics. When he's wrestling over his morality in the comics, it's always because of his past. This character will actually have the dark past which makes emotionally wrestling over every issue rather more sensible (and as we both know, he hasn't made all his early mistakes yet - though actually I'd rather they DIDN'T kill off Gwen - she was great).
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Peter here is acting out of revenge, not out of guilt. It destroys what was one of the best aspects of the character from the very first appearance back in Amazing Fantasy #15 - his agonised choice to use his powers against criminals instead to make money. Here, that choice isn't made. And he doesn't even get revenge.
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Yes. He's not using his powers responsibly. That's what he always beats himself up about later, because he has to make these mistakes in order to learn from them. So the guilt comes later.
Naturally this isn't following the exact same pattern as the early comics. Even flashbacks of those comics don't always match up exactly with what actually happened. Comics have come a long way since those days and the whole wrestling thing doesn't really make a lot of sense. It's like with "X-Men". The earliest comic isn't really about being accepted in society in spite of differences, it's just about people with special powers. You immediately get the totally-evil Magneto maniacally announcing how he's the most powerful mutant in the world right from the word go. Storytelling in the movies needed to be a bit more refined than that.
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Simplistic, more like. (There are far more revenge-themed movies out there than guilt themed.) And anything more simplistic that original Lee scripts would be hard to find, but somehow they have managed it.
Admittedly, what Marvel are doing with Spider-man at the moment is a lot worse...
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If the movies ever bring us anything as cool as this, I'm pretty sure all your current annoyance will have been worth it. :)
( ... )
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SPOILERS
Peter is dead in both the 616 and Ultimate universes. (In the latter, Spider-man is now a fourteen year old kid called Miles Morales, who has an enormous number of fans, including the 616 Peter Parker who got sent there in Bendis's Spider-men mini series.)
In 616, as I understand it, Doc Ock has taken on the identities of both Peter Parker (deceased) and Spider-man and no one notices, not even MJ when he tries to seduce her...
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