[Chefelf]

Spider-Man 3

While I made some of my thoughts known after seeing Spider-Man 3 yesterday (see here for more details), I feel the need to consider this movie a little more closely. Note: There are spoilers ahead. Do not read on if you do not want this movie (and the comics) spoiled for you.

Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2 had their issues. Overall I've been thoroughly entertained by all three Spider-Man films. The departures from the comic canon are largely acceptable as far as I'm concerned. Being a fan of the comic I can tend to lean towards purity but film being a different medium some changes are needed. While it was odd to see Spidey shoot the webs out of his wrists (rather than building the web-shooters as in the comic) was a little distracting. However, I could put this aside given that having him construct the web-shooters in the film may have been an unnecessary explanation. Also, it's odd to have the powers of a spider but not have the power to make webs, something the comic probably got wrong. Of course if the movie was trying to be more faithful to science they probably should have made Peter Parker crap webs out of his butt.

The second slight distraction in the original film was the obvious substitution of Mary Jane replacing Gwen Stacy as Peter Parker's girlfriend. Of course it would have been difficult to pull off the entire story arc of Gwen Stacy on film and then replace her with a new girlfriend in film three or four. However, they better option may have just been to leave her out entirely and not include her in a different form in Spider-Man 3.

Spider-Man 3 attempts to tell a vast number of stories in two hours. The stories for the most part all depart from the ones told in the comic and get a bit jumbled by being all told simultaneously.

Firstly, we have the story of Harry "I Hate Spidey" Osborn who is Green Goblin II (sorta). His character is pretty loathsome. I would say the main reason to avoid putting this story in is that it is just far too similar to the original Green Goblin story it's just less interesting and more hackneyed. Also, his Han Solo entrance in the final battle was so predictable I think I saw it coming in the opening credit sequence of Spider-Man 2.

Secondly, we have the story of the alien symbiote. This story is probably what annoys me the most being that it's a complete departure from the comic. I remember reading the comic when I was little and the story told in Secret Wars was more interesting. It would have been impossible to tell the Secret Wars story in Spider-Man 3 but had they kept the symbiote story to its own movie they could have stayed much more true to it. In the comic book Peter Parker is whisked off to that weird planet along with everybody else by Beyonder. When he gets the suit it's part of some weird machine that can somehow read his mind and give him what he wants. He gets the suit because his original suit is destroyed and it reads his mind giving him a suit that matches Spider Woman's suit specifically because Spider-Man had beein daydreaming about her. The suit also gives him the ability to shoot webs without the power of his web-shooters presumably because his web-shooters had been cannibalized to repair something on the ship. The suit could change shape, go on and off, all by Spider-Man using his mind. In the film the suit just kinda binds with an actual suit and peter actually has to put it on and take it off.

Thirdly, Gwen Stacy's personality seems to flip-flopped with Mary Jane's. It seems the better decision may have been to simply leave Gwen Stacy out of the movie all together.

Fourthly, Eddie Brock is portrayed by Topher Grace. The main problem with this is that both Peter and Eddie have the same wise-cracking personality. In the comic Eddie was a little more lunkheadish. Both do blame Spider-Man/Peter Parker for all the bad things in their life which is pretty faithful, if not entirely faithful, to the comic version.

Fifthly, Sandman is a pretty terrible Spidey villain but the movie makes him much more compelling. Still, the whole thing is lost amongst the vast volume of different stories being told. Also, having him be the person who killed uncle Ben was entirely unnecessary and kind of distracting to a fan of the comics.

Sixthly, Venom's story is way to complicated. In the comics, Spidey has the symbiote suit for years and then after ditching the suit continues to wear a cloth version for a while after because Black Cat told him it made him look sexy.

So I did enjoy the movie but my early prediction was that Green Goblin II, Venom, Eddie Brock, Alien Symbiote and Venom were way too much to cram into one movie. The end result is a fun, action-packed spectacle that is enjoyable to watch. Unfortunately it leaves a lot of the best Spider-Man stories glossed over or not done proper justice. Let's home Spider-Man 4 can focus in a little more closely on one of the great Spider-Man stories if there are any left.

[Heccubus]

See, you made good points.
Too many people have just gone "OMG TEH COMIX" and started ranting about everything they changed.
I agree with you 100%. It's not without its faults, but it's a perfectly fun movie that anyone should easily be able to enjoy.

[Slade]

Hmm... I think the old Animated Series did a cooler job with the symbiote than the comics or this movie did. I'm kinda glad I never read the Secret Wars, now. Magic costume that reads minds, pff.

I think you raised some very good points, but I cannot understand this sentence, since you are apparently trying to say opposite things in it: "While it was odd to see Spidey shoot the webs out of his wrists (rather than building the web-shooters as in the comic) was a little distracting."

[Spoon Poetic]

I think he means, originally, Spidey built the web-shooting contraptions. In the movie, he discovers the webs just come out of a hole on his wrists. So it was odd and distracting. Maybe?

[TheOrator]

I think is his problem is the same as mine, it says (without the parenthetical) "While it was odd to see Spidey shoot the webs out of his wrists was a little distracting," which has something wrong grammatically, but I don't know what exactly it is called. He's go two sentences together where he shouldn't have. He's got two verbs and only one subject and no comma. Or something.

[Jen]

I think he means, originally, Spidey built the web-shooting contraptions. In the movie, he discovers the webs just come out of a hole on his wrists. So it was odd and distracting. Maybe?

Yes, that was exactly what I was referring to.

As for the weird sentence thing... sorry about that. I'm famous for not reading anything I write before i post it.

[Chefelf]

Yeah... uh, that was me. Jen's usually reminding me of the point that I unknowingly posted with her account.

[SeanJ1]

K1NGWARREN & I checked out SP3 last weekend. Awesome, that's all I can say. I was a little worried about part on my childhood being crushed by Hollywood's take on a classic I used to read, (like The Hulk) but I was relieved how they captured Venoms voice as I always heard it in my head. Yup, I always envisioned him sounding like Eric Foreman.

You know what would be a great storyline for Hollywood to do; since they have made Spiderman, Xmen, Ghostrider, Daredevil, Blade, Punisher, Hulk, Fantastic Four and a lesser known to the masses Nick Fury agent of S.H.E.I.L.D. (Played by David Hasselholf) and Capt. America movies and the soon to be made Iron Man? The Inferno storyline. You could make a Trilogy right there. One of the best storylines of all time.

Come to think of it, where is The Avengers movie?

This post has been edited by SeanJ1: 16 May 2007 - 10:21 PM

[Spoon Poetic]

What about Wonder Woman? The Green Lantern? Oooh or The Tick? Don't they all deserve movies?

[Chefelf]

K1NGWARREN & I checked out SP3 last weekend. Awesome, that's all I can say. I was a little worried about part on my childhood being crushed by Hollywood's take on a classic I used to read, (like The Hulk) but I was relieved how they captured Venoms voice as I always heard it in my head. Yup, I always envisioned him sounding like Eric Foreman.

I respectfully disagree. However, it doesn't upset me the way the new Star Wars movies do. I think it's because in this case the movies are not the canon whereas the comic books are. While I was annoyed with the storytelling in the movie it's not the real story. It doesn't annoy me any more than those lousy storybooks of the Star Wars movies I had as a kid. They weren't accurate. They left out a lot of detail. But they were just supplements, something to read when you couldn't get at the movies.

I feel the same way about the Spidey movies. They're fun to watch when you don't have time to read 800+ comic books.

In a way they remind me of anime movies, more specifically movies made from anime TV shows. Generally they suck. They suck really bad. In fact I can safely say that every movie I've seen based on an anime TV show has been awful. For some reason they don't do anything to advance any plot. They simply ignore the show and take all the characters (sometimes staying true to the character relationships) and make some new lame story using them. In fact, they're a lot like fan fiction.

Except in the case of anime TV show movies I think fan fiction would likely be better.

[barend]

the real question about the web slinging, is why if bitten by a spider and obtaining its genetic attributes one would suddenly gain the ability to to project web from ones wrists and not from ones ass?

[Lefty]

I can't wait until the 4th Spider Man movie or X-Men movies - they're obviously increasing the number of plotlines exponentially (Movie 1: 2 plots, Movie 2: 4 plots, Movie 3: 9 plots), thus the 4th movie in the series should have 16 different plots! Just imagine how much attention to detail that will allow!

Perhaps they'll just start showing you flash-cards ("Spidey meets Spider Woman in a paralell dimension") and have 3 lines of dialogue, then cut to the next scene & it's flash-card...that way they could get the movie over with in under 4 hours. It makes me think of reason 2. Weee are the champions..

[Bond]

I absolutely HATED Spider-Man 3. As soon as that first battle started, it was as if Sam Raimi had fallen ill and the studio had brought in Joel Schumacher.