Spiderman

floydboy

Is There anybody out there?
So, I was wondering what the general public (ie not the normal reviewers from newspapers et al. and the non-crackheads that I run into on campus .... wait a sec) had to say about it.  If anyone's seen it please give some impressions and if it's worth my $6 student discount.  So far I've read a couple reviews that gave it high marks, while another one said that there were places where the movie left you feeling empty or something to that nature.

NO SPOILERS!!!  
 

Vermillion

If we do not find them soon, we shall be of no use
I havent seen Spiderman but some friends says it quite good.

I think the kid who plays spidey looks like a geek, hasnt gone through puberty yet and is way too young to be swinging from building to building.

But as for the gal, all I can say is......WOW!
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Well me and Cronus and a few friends saw it tonight. Cronus loved it, but hes a HUGE spidey fan. Im a spidey purveyour and Ive dabbled in the comics for about 8 years (not recently though). I consider myself pretty knowledgeable about the series itself, so I was confident that I would be fully displeased with a Hollywood rendition of our beloved and only "wacky" superhero; especially with the label 'MARVEL' on it, screaming at you even before the title appears.

However, I came out of the theatre a little suprised. Its not a movie that will blow you out of your seat, but it does what it set out to accomplish, and just a little bit more. Its a rather typical Summer action movie, with a lean towards nerdy fans (youll see what I mean...). And the first half hour is the worst of the film, its filled with cliche's and cringingly obvious plot points. However, the plot and the characters systematically become more enjoyable as they grow on you, and collide towards the end.

Theres a lot of controversy, or rather, was, around Blade II VS Spiderman. In my opinion? Spiderman wins hands down. However, these are two completely different films. Spidey is directed at both kids and older generations, where Blade II is purely 18-XX. That is not to say that Spiderman suffers for the leap of ditching gore and oh, I dunno... B00Bs. Spidey does it wondrously, if at times, a little juvenile. The film juggles romance, family, angst, friendship and responsibility awkwardly, but successfully. "With Great Power comes Great Responsibility" is a theme that was very well implemented in the film (I was expecting a really embarassing half ass implementation...). You will be too involved in Peter's pure strive to suceed to care about the lack of abundant mature elements, that are more accessible in movies directed at older audiences. However, I would like to see a darker Spidey film emerge from this light hearted one. We need a new "original Batman". X-Men didnt cut it...

One final issue id like to tackle is the Green Goblin. I know that Im not alone in that this seems a poor choice for an initial villian. Sure he's Spiderman's "Joker", but the way he was portrayed in the movie, the Goblin comes off more lame than scary. The audience is hardly affraid of the Goblin, they just want Spidey to kick his ass. Venom as the villian could have captured more audience attention, and just may have had them rooting for him instead ;D . Im sure theyll tackle that issue in a sequel...

Final words: If youre willing to take the plunge and hold on past the awkward 30-minute setup, Spiderman is worth the price of admission.

-Walter
 
I haven't seen Blade ][ but I really don't think they're in the same league anyway. But to me this movie is by -far- the best comic adaptation to the big screen ever done, and it easily stands beside the original Batman. I had pretty high expectations for the movie and they were all met for the most part.
A few minor details - they misspelled Osborn (should be with an E, yes, I'm a bastard), and Norman was made out to be the 'crazy' one (in the comic, Harry goes crazy and takes over the GG gig after Norman's death), and the whole switcheroo with Gwen Stacy/MJ was kinda odd, but I understood its necessity.
Some fun tidbits I caught:

-Peter mentions he was fired the other day from the University(Empire State) by Dr. Connors (aka, The Lizard) which was never brought into play, alas.
-MJ calls him tiger in one scene (her nick for him later when they're married)

JJ Jameson pretty much made the movie. No one else could have pulled off that role as well as Dafoe did. Hands DOWN the best character of the movie.

I hope this movie will spawn a sequel of sorts - with Venom as the main villain. This one had to explain the origins, but now they could some pretty cool stuff with the franchise.

Anyway, I thought the movie was well worth it, so go see it.
If you see 'The Sweetest Thing' instead, I will kill you.
 
M

Marcus

Guest
I havent seen Spiderman but some friends says it quite good.

I think the kid who plays spidey looks like a geek, hasnt gone through puberty yet and is way too young to be swinging from building to building.

But as for the gal, all I can say is......WOW!

If you've read the Spiderman series you'll notice that Peter Parker was in High School when he first became Spider-man ;)

One final issue id like to tackle is the Green Goblin. I know that Im not alone in that this seems a poor choice for an initial villian. Sure he's Spiderman's "Joker", but the way he was portrayed in the movie, the Goblin comes off more lame than scary. The audience is hardly affraid of the Goblin, they just want Spidey to kick his ass. Venom as the villian could have captured more audience attention, and just may have had them rooting for him instead . Im sure theyll tackle that issue in a sequel...

Yep yep. The symbiotes would have been better or the original Hobgoblin instead of the Green Goblin. Of course, they'd have to explain the Secret Wars for the symbiotes to be included...I wonder whats next? The Daredevil?
 

Vampire_Hunter_Bob

Cats are great
I hope this movie will spawn a sequel of sorts - with Venom as the main villain.  This one had to explain the origins, but now they could some pretty cool stuff with the franchise.

why Venom? if they put him in this movie it would be too odd and the cg would look like crap [the cg in the movie wasn't that good but decent]. if they put him in the second then yes it would be better [along with carnage].
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
why Venom? if they put him in this movie it would be too odd and the cg would look like crap [the cg in the movie wasn't that good but decent]. if they put him in the second then yes it would be better [along with carnage].
Why Venom? Hes the perfect villian for today's cinema. Look at the success of Silence of the Lambs, and its sequel Hannibal. People love to see villians as heroes. Venom is the Hannibal of Spidey :p.

Carnage? Yeargh... rip off villian, no thanks. I dont want them to pull a Batman Returns and have 3000 villians as the focus of the story. That just got awkward.
 
M

Marcus

Guest
If they did a movie on the Lethal Protector series, that would be great ;)
 

Vampire_Hunter_Bob

Cats are great
Why Venom? Hes the perfect villian for today's cinema. Look at the success of Silence of the Lambs, and its sequel Hannibal. People love to see villians as heroes. Venom is the Hannibal of Spidey  :p.

I don't think there going to make Spiderman 2 into another man hunter movie[first Hannibal movie] :p.
 

floydboy

Is There anybody out there?
Well I decided from the encouraging info here that I should indeed spend my $6 and go see the movie. And my first thought after the movie was: Well then, that was rather enjoyable.

It seems to me that I may come from a different perspective from either Cronus or Walter, since I had extremely limited knowledge of the character. In fact, all I know about him I learned from a friend whose dad owned a comic book store. So with that in mind, I still came out feeling like a good basis had been set for who the characters are. Since I have been sheltered here in my little dormatory ... I haven't seen any of the hype for this movie, and really didn't know what to expect. Would it be a let down? Would it live up to the comic book? Well I can't answer the latter, but I believe that it was indeed worth my money, which fewer and fewer films are able to stay at that level nowadays.

And I suppose the set up was indeed awkward....but it seemed to work and eventually things began to move along at a good clip. And I must say that I actually believed Kirstin? Dunce's acting .... which I haven't been able to say before. Dafoe was indeed a great choice for the villian, and Toby maguire seemed to fit the role nicely. I wasn't left in a state of stupor with my mouth hanging wide open and only being able to mutter 'wow' once in a while, but more a state of 'heh, that was cool'

Just in case you were wondering, Spidey 2 is set for release in May '04, and they are currently signed up for a third as well sometime in the summer of '06. With the success of this one (i bloody had to get the 8:40 show when i intended for the 5:30) I'm sure there'll be more. I just hope they can keep in tune with this one.
 

fletch

Treading trodden trails for a long, long time.
the next one, according to kirsten dunst, will probably involve "doctor octopus and some lizard thing." it makes me sad that the actress knows that little of the character, but at least m.j.'s not that hard to play, as she evidenced in the spidey movie. so yeah, doc oc & the lizard. brock was mentioned by jameson while he was on the phone with somebody in the movie, so a good bet would be venom in spidey 3 (dunst & maguire have already signed for 2 more movies, at least, as floydboy mentioned). personally i think this is a good choice. i agree that venom is probably the best villan ever in the spidey universe, but they just can't make it work with jumping right into the story. venom is the spidey symbote, & hates him for more reasons than you can cram into one 2 hour flick that also introduces all the other characters. with any luck, they'll start the set-up in the next film, since all the important, main character into stuff has been taken care of. however, since they're doing 2 villans in the next one, i'd expect a pattern & say that green goblin 2 (harry) & venom will be in the 3rd movie. *spoiler sentence, sorta* i mean, they really did go out of their way to set up harry's hatred of spidey, & it'd be a waste if they didn't do something with that.

seeing as how they can't cover the secret wars, though, any idea as to how they could possibly introduce the symbiote? they did mention nanotechnology & human performance boosters in the movie as the source of the green goblin power. i *guess* they could do something with harry making a similar suit for spider hunting, with all spidey's powers etc., but how brock would get it, or how it would first bond with spidey (i always thought that part was pretty important to the whole character, that the suit hates spidey because it feels rejected. rather touching, really. not to mention funny as hell.).

and yeah, the movie was definately the best comic adaptation i've seen since the first 2 batman movies.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
One of my friends I was talking to after the movie mentioned that in the Spiderman animated series they used a meteor crashing to earth as a vessel for the symbiote. Sure its a little less cool than the Secret Wars (wait a minute... did I just say less cool than a Marvel crossover series.. oh god bless.....) but it seems one of the only feasible means.
 
M

Marcus

Guest
Sure they could do that too :p I hoped they'd follow the comic series and not the animated series since the comics has a much more powerful story. All the sorrow that Peter goes through, etc.. (Reminds me of Berserk..)
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Im not saying theyre going to follow the animated series strictly, but they can use plot elements like a meteor to substitute the Secret Wars.
 

CnC

Ad Oculos
well i saw it last night and it was great...

...what i liked is that they didn't take the story "TOO" seriously... sure there was alot of drama and some great action, but there was also some good comedy in there.  What else would you expect from the "evil dead" and "army of darkness" director?
In terms of acting... Defoe carried the whole thing IMO, Kirsten Dunst (i think thats how thats spelled) sucked and whasisname who played peter parker/spiderman was "ok".

also gonna throw out there the fact that Dr. Octopus sucks... Lizardman had "some" drama involved... but not nearly as cool as Venom
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Ive really never understood the appeal of Dr.Octopus. Hes one of the most typical villians ever. Motivated to MAKE TEH MONIES, so he uses science to make 4 extra arms.... yippe fucking kiyaee.

Although, if theyre going to make 3 movies, Id actually like them to do Venom in the third, that way we can have some character buildup in the 2nd to play out in teh third. Sure its wishful thinking... but hey im a fan.
 

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
***SPOILERS!!***

Here’s an exclusive picture of the Venom costume we'll see in Spiderman 2…

AB103.jpg

"My mouth may not move, but I'm going to eat your brain, web-head!"​

Vin Diesel is going to play Eddie Brock, with Anthony Hopkin’s voice duel tracked with his during the Venom scenes. Cletus Kasady is going to be portrayed by Carrot Top, but you'll have to wait until Spidey 3 to see that.

-Griffith
 

CnC

Ad Oculos
seeing a CG Venom would be just plain beautiful... especially if they get the drool right :)

As for the power-ranger... wanna bet thats what the Dr. Octupus guy's gonna look like... only with more arms
 
the next one, according to kirsten dunst, will probably involve "doctor octopus and some lizard thing."
Yeah, the original script called for Green Goblin and Ock. But that script is well over two years old now. I guess at the time it would've been too hard to pull both of those villains off. From what I read on msg boards a while back when James Cameron was set to direct it, almost 10 different possible villain/script combos were written...Scorpion, Rhino(WHY?!), Hobgoblin(YES!!), Puma(that would be sweet), even Kraven, and a host of others.
I never was a big fan of The Lizard...but if you read the 'Torment' series that started the McFarlane series spinoff, you kind of gain some respect at how badass he can be.
brock was mentioned by jameson while he was on the phone with somebody in the movie, so a good bet would be venom in spidey 3
What the hell?! I completely missed that! Shit!
i agree that venom is probably the best villan ever in the spidey universe, but they just can't make it work with jumping right into the story. venom is the spidey symbote, & hates him for more reasons than you can cram into one 2 hour flick that also introduces all the other characters. with any luck, they'll start the set-up in the next film, since all the important, main character into stuff has been taken care of. however, since they're doing 2 villans in the next one, i'd expect a pattern & say that green goblin 2 (harry) & venom will be in the 3rd movie.  *spoiler sentence, sorta* i mean, they really did go out of their way to set up harry's hatred of spidey, & it'd be a waste if they didn't do something with that.
Yeah, no kidding. I'm still kinda peeved about the switcheroo with Norm and Harry...Norman was much more badass than Harry was...he was a fuckup after Norm's death.
they did mention nanotechnology & human performance boosters in the movie as the source of the green goblin power.
THEY RIPPED OFF DEUS EX! THOSE BASTIDS!! :p
but how brock would get it, or how it would first bond with spidey (i always thought that part was pretty important to the whole character, that the suit hates spidey because it feels rejected. rather touching, really. not to mention funny as hell.)
I agree and it also worries me. The whole bell tower scene, the rivalry between Pete and Eddie, all that would have to be covered and subsequently reach a climax within two hours...it could happen but it'd be an exceptionally fast paced movie. But like its been said before, if the second movie sets it up good enough, it may not be a problem.
and yeah, the movie was definately the best comic adaptation i've seen since the first 2 batman movies.
I'll say the *first* Batman, myself ;)
 
M

Marcus

Guest
I wonder if they'll do the Hulk next.. That be hilarious!! :D Imagine the dialogue.

X: <insert boring speech here about lab equipment.>
Hulk: "Hulk SMASH!!"
*explosion*
X: Oh no!
Hulk: "Hulk SMASH!!"

Ahhh... I crack myself up :p But really I wouldn't mind a Batman, Daredevil, or umm.. Wolverine movie ;D Although they need to redo the X-men movie (PLEASE!)
 

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
I wonder if they'll do the Hulk next.. That be hilarious!! :D Imagine the dialogue.

X: <insert boring speech here about lab equipment.>
Hulk: "Hulk SMASH!!"
*explosion*
X: Oh no!
Hulk: "Hulk SMASH!!"

Ahhh... I crack myself up :p But really I wouldn't mind a Batman, Daredevil, or umm.. Wolverine movie ;D Although they need to redo the X-men movie (PLEASE!)

You're funny. ;)

http://www.apple.com/trailers/universal/the_hulk/large.html

Daredevil is also filming as we speak.

Anyway, I’m writing a comparison of the Spider-Man movie to the comics for the school newspaper. It’s not a review of the film per se, but a commentary on the differences and I guess what I think of ‘em. It’s already been discussed here to an extent, but if you have anything you felt was really significant and want it addressed, go ahead and share it (I can’t remember everything and I’m not about to tamper with my mint condition comics =). Right now I’m mainly going to Focus on the changes made to Goblin’s character, the “coolness” of his costume in the movie (I felt like I was ordering a cheeseburger during the close ups), and the crux of the whole thing will of course be Gwen Stacy *tears up just a bit*. It’s not going to be negative by any means, but I will have fun playing the critical, pseudo-intellectual fanboy . ;D

-Griffith

P.S. And Don’t worry anyone, I’ll mention web cartridges, but I’m not making a big deal of it since I don’t even care myself.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Daredevil is also filming as we speak.
If they're smart they'll base it off of Frank Miller and John Romita Jr.'s "Man without Fear" mini-series. That was amazing. It's the best place to start anyway...
 
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