Apr 22 2009
Opinion- The State Of Spider-Man Films
I admit, I wasn’t huge into the Marvel Universe in my comic collecting days. I primarily went with the Supermans and Batmans of the world. For me, DC just wrote better stories. I did however collect two Marvel books. Punisher and Spider-Man. Now, I can’t go into a full out rant on Punisher movies because really, I don’t even want to get started. That is a whole other blog that is destined to be written. I will go into Spider-Man and how I think the series can be improved.
First let me tell you my problems with the first three films so you can better understand where I am at with this. Spider-Man 1 was a really great flick. I saw it 3 times the first week it was out in theatres. My only grievance with the movie is that they used Mary Jane too soon. See, I feel that at the climax of the movie when the Green Goblin tosses Kirsten Dunst off the bridge, that should have been Gwen Stacey. And she should have died. Just like in the funny books. And that would have solved a big problem in the series….Kirsten Dunst.
Next, Spider-Man 2. Spidey 2 is the third best superhero movie of all time. (Dark Knight is numero 1 and I will let you guess 2.) I really don’t have a problem with it. If they followed my formula from the first movie, they could have just hired another actress to play Mary Jane and introduce her in this movie. Keep everything else the same.
Fact: Spider-Man 3 was God awful. It had so much potential in the early phases, but director Sam Raimi was forced to do something he didn’t want to do. He used Venom. Raimi was publicly peeved about Marvel wanting Venom in the flick, and subsequently when he was forced to put him in, he did a horrible job. I don’t necessarily blame Raimi for everything, but if you don’t want a character in your movie, you need to man up and say no.
The Venom storyline could have been one of the greatest storylines ever told on the big screen. They just needed to do it right. They didn’t. They set up Spider-Man 3 in Spider-Man 2 but didn’t come through with the story. They introduced John Jonah Jameson’s kid in part 2 and he was clearly an astronaut. All they had to do was “say” he was in space and then show the symbiote attaching to the shuttle. Astronauts come home, Parker is there to take a photo, and just like that the symbiote is attached. They didn’t need to go all Virgin Mary and make the thing fall out of the sky all Cloverfield-like.
With they symbiote attached (It’s not a suit Marvel and Raimi….it’s an alien that forms a suit. It doesn’t stay in the dresser) It was time for Peter to be a dick. No dancing…just waking up in the middle of the night and beating the snot out of bad guys. He doesn’t want the suit….Eddie Brock is jealous of Peter Parker…that whole scene in the church…it stays. Wanna know what leaves? Sandman. He was in the movie for 10 minutes anyways. Get rid of the whole Sandman storyline and the whole emo Spidey thing, and you could have had another great movie.
Now you might have noticed a pattern here. I stayed as close as humanly possible to the source material. I am a stickler for the source material. Just do it that way and everyone will be alright. There is a reason the characters are so beloved.. It’s because everyone loves the source material.
Now, today SCI FI Wire chatted with director Sam Raimi and he had this to say:
“I hope we don’t react to these very good and sometimes bad superhero movies around us. I hope that we just [look] ever deeper into the truth of who Peter Parker really is—as a human being and the unique character, and that we celebrate that, which is a lot of the reason I want to make this next picture. I still believe I have an understanding of Peter Parker as the character that I have not quite put onto the screen yet,” he said.
Ok fine. He doesn’t want to emulate other superhero flicks like The Dark Knight and he wants to stick to his guns. Unfortunately he needs to stick to the source material more. They have been setting up Lizard as a villian for 3 movies. Go with that. I even like the rumored Morbius villian arc. As long as they stick to the source material. If they screw up Spidey 4, it will be 10 years or more until we see the franchise rebooted. We don’t want this to happen.
And that…is my opinion.
