the vynsane asylum

since it seems no one noticed my facebox post about it, copied and pasted:

"The Amazing Spider-man" definitely lived up to its adjective. The only issues I have with it are the re-hashing of his origin, the paraphrasing of "With great power comes great responsibility" and the fact that the only thing SONY/Columbia Pictures liked from the Raimi trilogy was the way Peter apparently made the Spidey costume out of used red and blue basketballs.

It was filmed in 3-D, not converted, so it's worth the extra scratch if you care. Especially for the first-person webslining shots.

I also forgot one other sticking point - Peter Parker was just a little too cool. Peter doesn't get yelled at by the principal for skateboarding in the school hallways - he only gets yelled at for missing and/or sleeping in class because he spends all night getting the crap kicked out of him by animal-themed crooks.

ultimately, it could have easily been a continuation of the raimi series as opposed to a reboot. new directors, new writers, recasting - it happens all the time. if they had handled it the right way it could have been injected as an 'untold tale' of peter's high school days after 'the bite'.

which brings me to the re-hashing the origin thing again. it was unnecessary to show 'the bite' in 'real time' again. it could have been handled in a flashback, sort of like how the 'spectacular spider-man' animated series started with peter's first summer vacation from high school after the bite. we still get flashbacks to it, but we're already in the action, he's already spider-man.

as for paraphrasing "with great power comes great responsibility" - i don't know why it was modified. it was paraphrased well, but it stuck in my craw because it just wasn't right. not as bad as uncle ben saying "rise above" in the godawful musical, but still... maybe they thought it was hokey?

the costume pattern design didn't bother me as much as it initially did. it looks 'correct' enough, even if there are some extra red stripes and some odd parts that shouldn't be blue. but the texture... it's annoying for two reasons - one, because it's basically just a more extreme version of the first costume, with raised webbing (thankfully not metallic) and bumpy cellular structure. like i said, it looks like it was made out of used basketballs. second, the fact that the same technique has been used on EVERY FUCKING SUPERHERO MOVIE since the first spidey. if it's not leather or body armor, it's bumpy rubber with some sort of cellular structure motif. enough already, come up with something new. i mean they did the same thing in 'superman returns' (as well as the forthcoming 'man of steel'), 'fantastic four' and 'green lantern'.

as for peter being a little too cool, it was really that one scene where he's skateboarding in the hallway for a second and a half before being yelled at - but it's early in the movie and is basically a character-establishing shot. then there's a handful of scenes where he's teased/picked on. for the most part andrew garfield hits the right tone of 'socially awkward' but there were a few instances where he swam dangerously close to "high functioning asperger's".

I'm goin to see it next Tuesday.

LOL at the basketball quip.

Okay, I just got back. It was very enjoyable. It doesn't beat Avengers as best Comic Movie of the year, but it was damn good.

I didn't even realize that was C. Thomas Howell in his first scene on the bridge. And when you see him later on, I was like "Damn, that looks like C. Thomas Howell except he's really old." Then I saw his name in the credits.

My son brought over a DVD of the Spectacular Spidey cartoon from a couple years ago. Which got me looking at wiki for all the different Spidey cartoons over the years. I don't think I watched a single episode of the 90s series. I fondly remember Amazing Friends, and I found the MTV 2003 series cheap once sonive seen all those.

But the most intersting thing I read was that Sony bartered the TV rights to Spider-Man back to Marvel for some extra film rights of some kind. That means both animated AND live action TV.

And it hit me. Marvel could totally do a Spider-Man live action series SET IN The Avengers movie-verse! It'd be a like a mortar to the films bricks. Spidey has so many supporting characters, you could run with a series forever. And you could introduce tons of street level characters like Luke Cage and Moon Knight and spin them off into their own films.

i thoroughly enjoyed 'spectacular spider-man'. the design was quite different from everything else out there, and the animation was pretty dynamic. they also got the 'feel' of the comic it shares a title with, which i always felt had a bit more of an edge to it than amazing.

the prospect of a live-action TV series is interesting, but they seem content to continue throwing animated series' at the wall and seeing what sticks. they're really banking on ultimate spider-man right now - even the upcoming LEGO marvel superheroes sets include one based on the USM animated series.

Sony announced, TWO YEARS before the sequel comes out, that they're killing off Gwen Stacy.
I don't have a problem with them offing her (although having a character built up over ten years in the comics isn't the same as one having a few minutes of screen time in one film. Killing off movie-Gwen is kinda anticlimactic).

But why would you announce it in the Industry Trades? It's as if the movie itself has become secondary to Hyping the movie.
Maybe they can start hyping the next Reboot while they're at it. 2020 is right around the corner, after all.

I haven't watched anything Spiderman since the late 70's. The amazing Spiderman starring Nicholas Hammond. I avoided the Toby McGuire movies as he annoys me no end. I've just 'obtained' a copy of the latest movie and will peruse that. Andrew Garfield has been ok in everything I've seen him in up to now. Rhys Ifans irritates me so I'll be fine hating him in his villainous role.

pic of jamie foxx as electro looks really cool...

I thought so, too. We don't seem to share the majority opinion here, though.

I'm not a fan of that version of the character.

Is it wrong to paint a black actor up in whiteface? Okay, silver face?

I appreciate the fact that, even though they rebooted the franchise, they're still making an effort to introduce fresh villains rather than going back to Goblin/Ock well. And apart from the fiasco of SM3, not saturate each film with multiple villains.

RoIIo Tomassi wrote:Is it wrong to paint a black actor up in whiteface? Okay, silver face?

i can't wait to think what the silveries start saying about that pic...

Tom Foolery wrote:I appreciate the fact that, even though they rebooted the franchise, they're still making an effort to introduce fresh villains rather than going back to Goblin/Ock well.

very good point, though they're leading up to a goblin story for the third one, no doubt. still, while they rehashed the origin, at least we're seeing different villains so far, as you've said, so it makes the raimi trilogy unique.

I just thought of a hilarious prank Marc Webb could play.

Have Jamie Foxx dressed up in the original green and yellow Electro costume, complete with the big lighting bolt face mask. And have him running down the street chasing Garfield in the Spidey suit, making "Pew Pew" noises like he's shooting lightning bolts at him. And do this in full view of those fans that try and take pics to post at AICN and shit. Knowing full well the pics would 'leak' online in a day or two.

Then just sit back and watch the fireworks erupt. I'd be pissing myself with laughter.

Tom Foolery wrote:I appreciate the fact that, even though they rebooted the franchise, they're still making an effort to introduce fresh villains rather than going back to Goblin/Ock well. And apart from the fiasco of SM3, not saturate each film with multiple villains.

Gawd, I take that last part back. They've gone from one villain to like FIVE. Electro, Rhino, Vulture, Black Cat, and Osborn. So many villains that MJ got cut out of the movie entirely.