The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - May 2014

[sean]

I think the first time he goes webswinging and is shouting "WAHOOOO" at the top of his lungs, he seems to be enjoying himself.

[LpF]

With (again) the exception of the wrestling match, that's all he EVER does.  He has a very dynamic range for expressing enjoyment, that Parker.  And even the "wahoo" and "hoo" and other variations thereof go away pretty quickly.

[sean]

And even the "wahoo" and "hoo" and other variations thereof go away pretty quickly.

So, you don't like it, but you wish there were more of them?  I'm not sure what you're even disagreeing with; you agree that it happens early on, the first time he goes webswinging -- that's what I'm talking about, not the whole franchise.  It seems like the teaser is going for that same feel, where it's uber-sad and not fun and then "WAHOOOOO!"

[Dobbin]

So, you don't like it, but you wish there were more of them?  I'm not sure what you're even disagreeing with; you agree that it happens early on, the first time he goes webswinging -- that's what I'm talking about, not the whole franchise.  It seems like the teaser is going for that same feel, where it's uber-sad and not fun and then "WAHOOOOO!"

That's Spider-Man, though isn't it?



and

[sean]

That's Spider-Man, though isn't it?

Yes it is; I think Raimi nailed it (at least the once), and I don't think the teaser does, that's all I mean.

I kind of love the two choices you made there.

[Dobbin]

Raimi's Spider-Man, to me, anyway, seemed to take a lot of visual inspiration from Japanese Super-Sentai conventions. This was most evident in the Goblin's design, but I thought it was like that in Spider-Man's design, too. They have a long history of making colorful costume battles; I thought it was all a little stiff, when not CGI. that was my biggest problem; if you've got a costume where ANYBODY can stunt-double without the audience knowing and without having to fake it with no-face-shots-camera angles, why not make sure the costumed action was amazing?

I was never a giant Raimi fan; I don't get the whole EVIL DEAD/ARMY OF DARKNESS love in the geek community. They're not fun or funny to me. Then again, I don't like the Three Stooges, either, so that's got to play into it. I liked DARKMAN, but overall, I don't get why he's so beloved.

I welcome a non-Maguire Peter Parker, in any case.

[Neri]

I'm gonna guess that we're not going to get any Spidey-wisecracks in this one?

I actually thought the POV stuff looked cool, especially the shot at the very end.  Kind of strange how not-fun it comes across, though.  I don't mind his world being dark and messed up but HE as a person shouldn't be dark and messed up (although his origin, not stopping the robber that kills Uncle Ben is REALLY dark when you get down to it).  Peter Parker has always been kind of a mess, but he's also intelligent and buoyant and he bounces back.  This trailer seems to push the troubled youth thing, which feels somewhat off.  Obviously, we're only seeing a little piece, as this is a teaser, but that's the vibe I got.

[sean]

if you've got a costume where ANYBODY can stunt-double without the audience knowing and without having to fake it with no-face-shots-camera angles, why not make sure the costumed action was amazing? 

From what I understand, Raimi actually made sure it was the actors in costume as much as possible.  From what he said at the time, he could tell the difference between Maguire-in-costume and a stunt double.

I was never a giant Raimi fan; I don't get the whole EVIL DEAD/ARMY OF DARKNESS love in the geek community. They're not fun or funny to me. Then again, I don't like the Three Stooges, either, so that's got to play into it. I liked DARKMAN, but overall, I don't get why he's so beloved.

That's strange to me.  I dig 'Darkman' [best helicopter chase ever], but it feels like Raimi-lite.  "Pay five bucks to see the dancing freak" is such a Bruce Campbell moment.

But, for whatever it's worth, the thing I will always give Raimi credit for is that he pushes his movies to incredible pacing through largely (sometimes entirely) his own camerawork.  The stories and scripts are pretty much never "good" (except 'A Simple Plan').  He knows how to take a movie and say, "Okay, this is all the stuff you want from this movie idea."  His failure tends to be in trying to connect those things together into a coherent whole.  Not that 'Quick and The Dead' is any good, but that's the one where I watched it and finally was able to look past the movies and figure out why I liked them, what he was actually doing as a director.

I kind of feel like if Joe Dante could use the camera the way Raimi was, we'd have one brilliant "cartoon" director instead of two kind of half-baked ones who, at their heights, have done great work.

[sean]

I don't mind his world being dark and messed up but HE as a person shouldn't be dark and messed up (although his origin, not stopping the robber that kills Uncle Ben is REALLY dark when you get down to it).  Peter Parker has always been kind of a mess, but he's also intelligent and buoyant and he bounces back. 

Yeah, I think the thing is that Parker *is* dark for a little while.  Especially between Ben being shot and the robber being unmasked.  Within the comics that's, what, two pages?  The longer that is spent on the origin (especially delving into why, specifically, he was orphaned), the less time he's actually the Spider-Man that Spider-Man is supposed to be.

It's not just the origin, though; the biggest missteps in the comics have *always* been tied to pushing Parker to be darker and more morose.  Like robot-Richard and Mary coming back, that drove him over the edge for a while (I think that was one of the times MJ left him, but it might've been when she was so stressed out she started smoking).  Or like the clone saga, when he got so stressed out that he slapped his pregnant wife.  I mean, the dark can work in short doses -- Gwen Stacy dies, he's upset for an issue and kills the Goblin, and then he bounces back.  It still haunts him, and some people write it off as "Spider-Man just uses his humor so he doesn't have to deal with feeling depressed", but that's Spidey.  I think.

I'm not sure of any of that, I just know I agree that that teaser is surprisingly un-fun.  I hope it doesn't reflect the movie, but it's just the only footage that was done enough to put in a teaser.  Looking forward to an actual trailer with whoever the villains are (Lizard and somebody else, right?).

[LpF]

I'm gonna guess that we're not going to get any Spidey-wisecracks in this one?

That's hardly a change from the first series, is it?  Wrestling match (for the third time) notwithstanding, Tobey's Spidey wasn't exactly quick with the quips.

So, you don't like it, but you wish there were more of them?

Yes.  I don't really like the wahoos, as I would prefer wisecracks, but if they'd continued that would at least be something.

  I'm not sure what you're even disagreeing with; you agree that it happens early on, the first time he goes webswinging -- that's what I'm talking about, not the whole franchise.  It seems like the teaser is going for that same feel, where it's uber-sad and not fun and then "WAHOOOOO!"

Oh, I see now.

[Rev Danny]

I don't really get the gripes about re-doing the origin. It seems pretty blatant that his parents will be a factor in the larger plot, what with Peter finding his dad's satchel(?) and the line about "the secrets kept from us" over the shot of him opening said satchel.

Not to mention his crush/girlfriend being Gwen Stacey instead of Mary Jane and having to swt up their relationship prior to Pete becoming Spidey.

Lots of crazy talk.

[sean]

I don't really get the gripes about re-doing the origin.

For me, origin stories in general are the excuse used to tell good stories, rather than good stories in and of themselves.  Marvel origins tend to be the most boring, because DC's origins are mostly totally crazy fantasy stuff*, whereas, with Marvel, that's pretty much only Thor.

But, specifically here, I think additional nerd rage stems from the idea that the origin was captured on film within the last ten years.  The first film is newer than any film you've seen of the World Trade Center.  A child born the day the first one came out would not yet be old enough to see this movie.  In a Bradbury sense, you're barely a completely different person than when that movie came out.  So it suggests -- fairly or not -- a lack of imagination on the project in general to go back and tell that story again.  (And, although the tide is apparently swiftly turning against all the Raimi films, there still seems to be a general [albeit shrinking] consensus that they got the origin right the first time.)

* = obviously, that's not including Batman, but the thought sort of extends to Batman too; Marvel is very grounded, not only all taking place in a shared space, but that space is a "real" location, New York City.  Gotham itself is the crazy fantasy element in Batman.

[sean]

I have a random question, prompted by responses on Donnacha's FB feed -- have they *ever* done a story where Uncle Ben was brought back to life somehow?  I mean, presumably, not the *real* Uncle Ben, but you know what I mean.  I know they did with his parents, I know they did with the various Osborns, and I know they even skirted that line with a Gwen Stacy clone or two, but what about Uncle Ben?  It seems like such an obvious thing to try, I can't believe nobody did that in the '90's, but I can't remember any example of it.  Anybody?

The closest thing I can think of was an anniversary story in the '80's; I don't remember the details, but I remember that Peter essentially hallucinated a conversation with Uncle Ben, but it wasn't as if he thought Ben was actually alive again.

[nate.3.0]

I have a random question, prompted by responses on Donnacha's FB feed -- have they *ever* done a story where Uncle Ben was brought back to life somehow? 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Ben#Notability

[sean]

well, I guess we know Peter David is a 'Dr. Who' fan, then.