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Spiderman
has to be in the top 10 of most recognizable figures in Western
Civilization. He is at the center of an
incredibly profitable movie franchise at the beginning of the 21st century that
was along with "X-Men" the dueling efforts to have the best Superhero
merchandising opportunities.
Strangely
"X-Men" and "Spiderman" chose to stick with an abandon the
comic stories they were based on in different ways. Spiderman was unquestionably faithful in a
lot of ways, with a spot on J. Jonah Jameson, the best rendition of a
super-costume prior to "Iron Man", and a large number of the
supporting cast being thrown in and developed to different degrees. However, much like "X-Men" (and the
90's "Batman" franchise) the drive to sell action figures pushed the
creative team to over stuff the 3rd film with too many characters, causing the
story structure to get completely butt fucked.
"Spiderman 3" was a bad movie that betrayed or undercut a lot
of "Spiderman" and "Spiderman 2" retroactively. The franchise was then taken out back and shot.
However
both "X-Men" and "Spiderman" are really potent properties,
properties that were not owned by Marvel Studios. The reason Spiderman was not in "The
Avengers" is because he is currently owned by Sony, who also own
"Ghostrider" (which Sony has no clue what to do with). In order to hold on to those movie rights
Sony has to produce a movie every so many years, so last year we got "The
Amazing Spiderman" and this year we will get "The Amazing Spiderman
2". I'm so far fine with this. Mostly.
When you
are trying to make something that is not original, but is instead a new
installment of something else the wisest thing a person can do is take the
elements that are core (in this case Spiderman, Mad Science, and New York) and
then take them in a new direction.
Spiderman has a big cast of characters to draw from, love interests,
allies, villains, and supporting characters.
What is more the story line is pretty much pre-written and doesn't
require much effort. Almost without fail
a Spiderman story revolves around someone who was trying to use mad science for
profit and nefarious purposes getting turned into a monster and Spiderman
having to stop them.
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| Not going to lie, if you study lizards for a living I kind of assume you are one lab accident away from super villainy at any minute, regardless of monstrous super power acquisition. |
"The
Amazing Spiderman" does this new direction thing not nearly enough. It keeps inviting comparisons to the old
franchise. While new casting was
necessary and the actors were always going to have to deal with being compared,
there really was no reason to exacerbate the problem by having that layered
over the old story. They re-tell the
origin of Spiderman, a story everyone already knows and has seen on film in the
last 10 years. Then they invite it again
with having Oscorp exist, the company headed by the Green Goblin, who will be
appearing in "The Amazing Spiderman 2". WHY?
As I said,
Spiderman has a big universe.
"Amazing" does use a new love interest, Gwen Stacy (played by
Emma Stone) and I think she's great, she isn't just a damsel in distress but
also uses her abilities to contribute to the ultimate success of saving the
city from a mass poisoning. Unlike Mary
Jane (played by Kirsten Dunst) who just seemed like a constant put upon victim
objectified by Peter in the original movies.
And it has nothing to do with the actresses, I like Kirsten Dunst, I
like Emma Stone, it was the material that they were given to work with that set
them apart.
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| And when they reboot it again in 2018 they'll probably have the Black Cat to work with. |
Now why
couldn't they Gwen Stacy the rest of the world?
Instead of Oscorp, why not use Roxxon?
Roxxon is a lesser known entity in Marvel comics, they are less defined
but still concretely evil, selling tainted medicine to the third world,
irresponsible building practices, and employing mercenaries like Silver Sable
to do dirty work for them. They would
actually free up the creative teams a bit to have more mad scientists and
programs without being compared to the previous Goblin Industry.
And why use
the Lizard as a bad guy? Doctor Kurt
Connors appeared in "Spiderman 2" and "Spiderman 3" played
by a different actor as one of Peter's Professors at NYU, a role he fills in
the comics and cartoons. The bad guy in
this movie, a mutant genius with aims to turn everyone in the city into him
with vague connections to Peter's past should have been one of two villains
that no one has ever heard of, either Smyth the inventor of the Spider-Slayer
giant robots, or the Jackal, who created a legion of Spiderman clones to take
over the world. Hell, the Jackal even
has a cinematic theme to run with, wanting to create a flawed copy of the
original, much as this series will inevitably be called by critics.
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| A small army of goofy killer robots called Spider Slayers would do a lot to lighten the tone of the movies. |
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| This is Jackel. One of his primary character drives in the comic was his stalker obsession with Gwen Stacey, to the point where he cloned himself a copy of her to have. |
The sequel
actually seems to have this problem in spades, bringing back Mary Jane and both
Harry and Norman Osborn. And the bad
guy they chose has some odd casting too.
They cast Jamie Foxx (great actor) as Electro, and he looks nothing like
the character. Electro is a silly
looking character so change is appreciated, but if you are going to use a prominent
black actor why not use a black character?
Like Cardiac? Cardiac is a black
character, he has electricity based powers and he is an industrial terrorist,
fighting against Roxxon, the villainous corporation they should have used from
the start. Cardiac even has a fully body
blue costume that actually resembles what Jamie Foxx has been shown to look like
in the new movie.
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| Albeit, more hoody and less shoulder armor. |
"The
Amazing Spiderman" does have a lot going for it, the costume looks cool
(though they could have made it look really different to further differentiate
the movies), the action is just better because special effects and the
competitive one upping of superhero movies has compelled action to be more
dynamic, and overall the casting is stronger, Andrew Garfield is a better actor
than Tobey MaGuire, Martin Sheen is a better Uncle Ben than... That old guy who
played him before, Denis Leary plays cops and first responders as well as
anyone, and Sally Field is a great actress (though she gets to do next to
nothing). My complaints are not about
the execution really, just that it doesn't do enough to stand apart.
Look at
"X-Men: First Class". Fox
Studios owns the rights to "X-Men" the same way Sony owns
"Spiderman" and they made "First Class" to meet a
deadline. However they go so far away
from the third X-Men movie so as to actually contradict it in places. They are in a different era, they use
characters that almost no one knows off hand, the costumes are totally
different, and it really, REALLY worked.
It is hard to compare "First Class" to any of the other movies
and it shines because of that. It is its
own thing.
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| Though I guess the sequel's job is to erase that distinctiveness and drag in all the old actors for a comparison. |
The reason
I decided to write this is because I saw the new "Man of Steel"
trailer and they are having some problems with differentiating themselves
too. But they are trying to work against
that. Krypton looks different, they are
using new music, they have altered the costume a lot (and I think it looks
really cool) and they have really good actors in every part because if they
can't avoid comparison, they might as well try to vault it.
This issue
is going to come up more and more because actors get expensive and do not want
to play a part forever, as of yet only "Doctor Who" has gotten around that problem entirely, and only James Bond has gotten away with ignoring it entirely (something they won't be able to do in the new era).
