Posts
Another new
trailer dropped for the “Venom” movie has dropped. And the half second of Venom being Venom looks…
like Venom.
The first trailer (which was admittedly
worse) just showed Tom Hardy flipping out and precisely none of the Venom
character fully realized. It was
crap. That being said it left its
audience with some hope that Venom would be cool once they worked everything
out. I have no idea what the line of
reasoning was there. Probably, “we
haven’t worked out any of the visual effects yet,” but that is all speculation.
This latest trailer dispels 90% of
those hopes. While I think that the final
image of the character LOOKS fine… The rest is rather garbage. The CGI tendrils look shoddy at best, the
liquid effects are stiff, and most of what makes the character interesting (and
oh boy am I being charitable with the word “interesting”) those traits are
gone.
Rather than
talk about the trailer exclusively, let’s talk a bit about the character of
Venom, and why it is inexplicable that he is as popular as he is.
Venom: The Character
Venom was
created by Todd
MacFarlane during his tenure on Spiderman, years prior to his creation of
the character “SPAWN” and completely unveiling how much of an asshole he really
was, this was done along with writer David Michelinie,
who as far as I can tell is a perfectly nice guy.
The basic premise of Venom is that
Eddie Brock, a coworker and rival of Peter Parker at the Daily Bugle comes in
contact with an alien creature called a symbiote, which was used and then cast
off by Spider-Man when he stimulated the hero to be more and more violent.
The symbiote bonds with a host granting a telepathic link between them and
granting the host a slew of powers. This
gestalt being needs to ingest certain proteins to remain functional and thrives
off of negative emotions which acts as a drug. Eating people is a good source for both of these
things.
Initially, Eddie and the Symbiote
came together and targeted Spider-Man because he was the enemy of both Eddie (via
Peter) and the alien (via not wanting to bond with it thru greater acts of
violence). Eddie, not realizing the emotional
high of violence and the desire to “Eat Spider-Man’s brains” were coming from
the symbiote allowed himself to be taken in by it.
Being seduced to give into your
petty bullshit by a demonic blackness that lives inside of you is pretty good
symbolism.
Venom: The Appeal
Venom is a fascinating case in that he
is a garbage human being. Eddie Brock is
a muscle head and bully who blames others for his short comings and sees the
success of others like Peter Parker as not just an affront to his masculinity,
but a cheat. Thinking something to the
effect of, “Peter can’t possibly be better at his job than I am, he must be
sabotaging me”.
What is more, Eddie is uncreative. His whole plan for fighting Spiderman is to
mimic the look, behavior, and powers of his enemy, BUT EVIL! That is lame.
In the long tradition of villains being a dark reflection of the hero
(Joker, Red Skull, Lex Luthor, Doctor Doom) Venom is a shell. He hates Spider-Man not because of a
philosophical reason, he hates him out of pure petty ego and… gluttony on the
part of the alien monster. His look is JUST
a dark reflection, he himself is not a reflection of anything on a conscious
level. And for the reader, Eddie is the
jock, Peter is the nerd. Wow. Such a dichotomy.
That is lame. Venom is lame.
Why the hell is this character so
popular? I am sure it has something to
do with the same surface level appreciation that allows “Ghost Rider” to keep
appearing on t-shirts, but really the concept KIND OF works.
 |
| There are a lot of shirts of this guy. LOTS! |
If you take for granted that Eddie
Brock is an uncreative, stupid, petty, insecure, and intemperate dipshit then
you can kind of see a good metaphor for the suit. He is a petulant asshole who dresses up like
an evil version of Spiderman to act out against people who haven’t done
anything to him, but he never the less sees as a threat to his
masculinity. He is physically what every
loser “Men’s Rights Activist” with a superhero web handle is online.
It rings deeper still. That the violence is a drug that fills in his
emotional weakness, and that the monster fills the emptiness in him, he is not
lonely or judged as a thug and fool by people he looks down on as not being his
macho ideal. The monster goo doesn’t judge
him, it loves him for who he is. As a
violent jerkoff.
Venom: The Adaptation
So, why does this movie look like
shit? I mean, aside from the bad special
effects I am hoping they will fix in post.
Because in this movie Eddie isn’t a brain-dead asshole, he is a
crusading reporter fighting for the little guy.
What is more, there is no Spider-Man to be seen. The core concepts of the character are gone,
and the motivation to look the way he does is gone. What is left?
 |
| I have already seen "Wassup"parodies in memes |
The image of Venom presented is that
of a big monster, and a guy bonding with that monster to fight for what’s “right”
except that isn’t true either. We are
now in a situation where the monster is just compelling a good guy to do bad
and the good guy is trying to aim the monster to do “good”. Eddie isn’t (ostensibly) slaved to any sort
of drive like loneliness or drug abuse that the symbiote can help with, he is
not getting anything out of interacting with the monster except powers that are
completely out of his control, “Why did we do that” is a line in the trailer. Eddie is just a victim of circumstance and
anyone could wear the monster skin, which potato peels off another slice of
characterization.
You have, with this movie, taken the
Venom out of Venom on all but the MOST superficial level. You don’t need those elements by the way. The idea of some guy getting infected with a lovecraftian
ooze monster that gives him a sense of belonging and emotional fullness while
at the same time compelling him to hurt people is… Basically the mythology of
werewolves where you get down to it. Or
for a recent example, “Split”.
As a merging of elements from Spiderman’s
life as a superhero and his life as a reporter, Venom served as a potentially
great badguy. Much like Lizard, Doctor
Octopus, and Green Goblin, Venom was a person who had a personal report with Peter
beyond being a bank robber with some gadgets or an animal theme. Venom could become greyer in the black and
white morality of the world. People can
change, Eddie could change.
Venom: The Conclusion
All they have done by calling this
movie “Venom” is invite unflattering comparisons. But maybe I am being too harsh. Tom Hardy is a good actor who has to put some
thought into the parts he chooses to play. What other instance can you think of where a
popular actor did a superhero movie divorced from its core mythology while
bearing (at best) a superficial resemblance to the character?
 |
| Oh... Yeah... |
_____________________________
