Ok, I have been asked enough about my opinion on Spiderman 3 that I will do a full up post about it (as opposed to the one I did a while back). So, a little back story on my spider fandom. I Love Spiderman. I was into photography and science when I was in school, I was the geeky kid and every time I tried to Microwave a spider and get it to bite me it only ended in a messy microwave. With the exception of a few years of black out, I have been collecting Spiderman comics for a long while and I am fascinated with the Black suit. I loved it when he got it, I loved it when Felicia gave him a new version of it that wasn’t all angsty. I even followed the 3-4 Different origins of the costume through the different media forms. (Cartoon, Video games, Movies, Etc.) I actually own 1 Spiderman Costume and will have another one shortly.
When it comes to the movies, I realize that, for a movie, you have to alter a few things. Some story lines need to be condensed or changed so they fit in the confines of the script. The first movie was good. They established the characters, the origin was very close to the comics (comics=Radioactive spider, Movie=Genetically enhanced spider. Back in the day radio activity was a big thing with the cold war and such), and they paved the way for some great story lines. Green Goblin was a great choice as a starter villain since he was around at the beginning and could lead into many different storylines. Unfortunately they fell into the standard movie pratfall and killed off the villain. I don’t know why they feel the need to do this! They never kill the villain in the comics. At least, not in a way that they can’t come back. They did it in Batman, in Spiderman, etc.
Spiderman 2 was amazing. They already established the characters, so there was no really awkward introductions. They brought in Doc Oc, who is another great villain. Even approached the idea of Spidey having issues with his powers. You really felt was he was going through and saw the pressures of the costume. The side story of Harry having father issues was a tad distracting but forgivable. (In the comics, since Goblin didn’t die, he was in jail, everyone knew who he was and Harry knew he was a bad guy). One scene I wasn’t fond of was the subway thing where Peters mask was off and everyone did the whole “We won’t tell” thing. BS. There would be about 30 Cell phone camera flashes going off and J.J. would have front page stories for a month! And, of course, they kill off the bad guy, again.
We saw Spiderman 3 on Opening night, not the midnight show but I was still excited to see it. THERE WILL BE SPOILERS HERE, If you haven’t seen the movie yet, stop here! So, lets start with the good. Sandman! The unsung villain. Victim of circumstance, forced to do what he has to for the betterment of his family. Hard luck case that just happened to be in the wrong place at the right time. Everything involving Sandman was great (ok, the flying thing was a little weird, but I’ll allow it). If the movie focused on Sandman and only had very minor side plots it would have been a truly Amazing Spectacular movie!! But the exec’s forced Sam Rami to add in Venom, and that meant a whole new story line involving the black suit. Meanwhile we still have a brooding Harry Osborn who is all kinds of Linkin Park about loosing his dad and Peter being the reason. Never mind the fact that for the last few months/years The fracking butler knew the whole time what had happened. I wanted to smack him for not saying something earlier and maybe sparing Harry the trouble of having to fight Peter. So for the whole New Goblin thing…..Could have been a cool new Movie based HERO character without the whole being a bad guy first. (Still think there is no way he would have snatched peter off his scooter….HELLO! Spidey Sense!!! )
The black suit. This is where I am a little touchy. I realize that we can’t do the whole Secret Wars thing for the movie so an asteroid as an origin is fine, they even used it in the cartoon. The look and feel of the symboite was even good. I loved how it mimicked his old costume even! But that would be where the good stopped. One of the benefits of the black suit was that it could mimic clothing. ANY clothing. Peter would just think of something and bam, that’s what he was wearing. No need for new clothes, no need to duck in somewhere and change! This way he was always wearing the suit and it could bond with him. The symboite LOVED Peter, it loved being (the goddamn) Spiderman. It gave Peter the extra strength and made him a little extra angry. It didn’t turn him into the lead singer of My Chemical Romance! (The shot of him pulling the hair down into his face made me groan)
A perfect opportunity was lost here as well. In the comics, Peter went to see Reed Richards, of the Fantastic Four, to have him examine the suit. So here we have two HUGE comic book movies, from the same publisher, where the comic versions actually intertwine. WHY NOT HAVE AN APPEARANCE??? It would have been a great primer for the new FF movie! Simply replace Doc Connors with Richards and you are good to go! Very poor planning on their part. It’s not that I don’t like Doc Connors. He is another hard luck Villain that deserves some screen time, but it didn’t fit with the story!
Now, Venoms origin was dead on! Eddie Brock hated Peter (and wasn’t all that fond of Spidey) and the whole bell tower church thing was pulled right from the comics. Topher Grace even did a pretty good job of portraying Eddies arrogance and attitude! I am willing to forgive some of the relationship between Peter and the Symboite being left out because of time. When I say that the black suit loved Peter, I meant it. It was a bond. Like that of a girlfriend you had been dating for a very long time. Those feeling don’t go away even if that person was slowly trying to kill you/drive you crazy. In the comics, Peter went to the bell tower because he knew that the sonics of the bells would drive the suit away……at the cost of his own life. The bells of deafening, and the sound was also killing Peter. When the suit leaves him, it realizes this and drags Peter to safety BEFORE bonding with Brock. But that’s ok, time constraints kept that out. The reason that this is important is that it becomes leverage in the future fights with Venom where Peter uses this love to Defeat Brock. In the comics Peter actually invites the suit to come back to him and it causes inner turmoil in Venom because it had already fully bonded with Brock. But I digress.
Venom looked weird in the movie. I think this is because of the way Venom has always been drawn. He is HUGE, very bulky, and his head and jaw are grossly proportioned. This isn’t something you can do in the movies and easily switch between actor and CG. So it just looked weird. Also, as I mentioned in the last post, it’s WE. The Symboite talks to Brock in his head. They are of two minds, they are of two voices. They both hate Spiderman, They want Peter dead. It’s not I, it’s We. This is very important! It was just brushed over. The other thing that drove me batty was the over abundance of mask off shots. Spiderman doesn’t take off his mask. This is why it was such a HUGE deal in the Civil War comics. If he is wearing the suit, he wears the whole suit. The shots of him looking over the city (with a huge crowd of people) with no Mask on were annoying. Same goes for Venom! The strands of the suit clinging to his face was just distracting. And WAY overdone. I realize that this was all done because they wanted the actors to have “face” time, but really, if you are playing Spiderman, resign yourself to the fact that you are wearing a mask!
Last point of criticism, Gwen Stacy. WHY OH WHY WAS SHE IN THE MOVIE???? Gwen was one of Peters first girl friends. She falls in the timeline while Pete was still in school. He was on again off again with Mary Jane and started seeing Gwen while MJ was with Harry. They were quite serious. Green Goblin kidnapped her and threw her off a building.
She Died!
Green Goblin Killed Her!
She was dead BEFORE Peter started dating MJ seriously.
So really, why bring her in. if you wanted a love interest for Pete, there is always Betty Brant! She was in the movie, and there was even a spark with her and Peter. There was no reason to have this completely meaningless storyline. She was long gone before Eddie Brock, they never dated.
So, the rest of the good? The graphics were awesome! The depth of the characters were very good. There were times that you really felt for the different characters. The fight scenes were amazing. It was a great movie from all of these stand points and is a great addition to the Spidey Trilogy. But if they fixed all the above points, it would have been the best one. As it stands now, it was good, I’ll be getting in on DVD to add to the rest, but for the most part it was like Return of the Jedi. It continued the story, wrapped up some loose ends and the writing and story made you go WTF??
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