Sunday, April 29, 2018

Why the "Venom" Movie Trailer is Bad


            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...
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