Guess what I saw - clue "Your friendly neighborhood..." SPIDERMAN!

Cafe Society
41

A friend of mine thought the Osbourne alteration scene was amusingly dumb. Osbourne rips off his shirt, glugs the serum, dramatically smashes the bottle, lies down on the slab, gets locked in place, slid along a conveyor and slowly levered into an upright position.

Then things go wrong, and Dr. Strom opens a door and walks into the chamber. If there was a door, why did Osbourne bother with the sliding gurney arrangement? Why not just walk into the chamber as Strom did?

But I still liked the movie, even though Defoe’s Osbourne/Goblin was just silly.

42

No, I didn’t catch the “teeming millions” line. Who said it? When? Went to see it with about 20 Dopers and none of us caught it. Or maybe they did and just didn’t tell me.

43

Okay, a lot of people are already talking sequal, and with the way they make movies nowadays, I’m pretty damn sure they’ve got everyone lined up for about seven in their contracts, but who would you REALLY want to see as a villain in the next film? Personally, I’d hate for them to use the likes of Dr. Octopus or Venom, and probably about 90% of Spidey’s villains in any of the movies.

The thing with most comic book movies lately (Blade, X-Men, and even Spidey) is that they’re trying really hard, and in my opinion, successfully, to merge the fantasy world of the comic with the real world. You no longer see cities like those like Batman Forever, or Generation X where the entire city scape is nothing but neon colors and silly looking buildings. A lot of times when people make comic book movies, they always said “We want to bring the comic to life,” thus, they make everything look fake and fantastic, thus destroying any real sense of reality. These past few comic adaptations have done away with that, and I’m glad because it really makes them more enjoyable in my opinion. Unfortunately, adding a character like Dr. Octopus to a more “realistic” Spiderman seems a little silly. Green Goblin was a bit of a stretch as it was, but I feel it still was pulled off well. I don’t know why, but I just feel a guy with four huge robotic arms would look even more silly than a guy in a green suit on a glider. Maybe it’s just me. I’d rather see the likes of the Kingpin, or maybe even the Punisher in the next Spidey film, but they’re most likely going to save those for Daredevil. Anyone else have a preference?

44

I liked it, I thought it was fun. I thought it knew when to be over the top and knew when to rein it in (unlike, say, Batman, which just kept itself turned up to 11 the entire time). I didn’t really care for Dunst, but she didn’t bug me that much. I’m glad that Amazing Fantasy #15 was more or less preserved intact - it’s a great origin story.

I thought it interesting that the world of the film was one that apparently had DC comics but not Marvel comics. Severel references to Superman, and even a Captain Marvel reference, but none to Marvel characters. Not even cameo mentions of Marvel Characters.

J. Jonah Jameson was fantastic. I liked Ted Raimi’s cameo appearance, I thought Harry Osborne was pretty good. Like so many others, I felt the CGI was off a lot of the time. I really think CGI is a tool we need to work more on before letting it take center stage.

What did strike me was this. I saw it at a mid-day weekend show, so there were a lot of kids there (unfortunately this was the only convenient time to see it). And it struck me how most of them were bored. A number of kids couldn’t seem less interested in what was going on on-screen. And yeah, it’s a long movie and some parts are slow, but this was during action sequences. It kind of made me sad, because when I was their age, I would have eaten this up. I’m jaded and cynical, but I’m also over 30. To see pre-teens who feel they’ve seen it all is just crushing to me.

45

I caught that too, Bryan E, thinking, “what the hell was that?”

SPOILERS

Age-appropriate comment
Just saw it last night with two of my sons, ages 6 and 8. There were a couple of moments where I told them to cover their eyes: the ending fight where Gobbie is torturing Spidey is the worst. But they loved it and had no nightmares during the night.
My take: I loved it. Thought it was by far the best screen version of spiderman yet, and this is coming from one who lived through the various 70’s versions, both animated and live action.

Things I particularly enjoyed:
The casting: I thought Parker was perfect. Just the right tone struck between geek and genuinely nice kid.
Willem Defoe was lots of fun to watch, and I thought Unle Ben was just right.
While I do appreciate Dunst for her, um, presence (especially in a form-fitting pink, scoop neck top. Especially in the rain. Woo hoo!) THere were moments where her head looked to me alike a bloated pumpkin on a popsical stick, topped by the kind of bright red hair you used to find on those little troll dolls, know what I mean?

The story: I particularly appreciated the whole “choosing the man you are going to be” theme, and how this was developed to its finest point in Parker not as Spider-man, but as Parker, in that he does not tell her that he loves her. Yes this was predictable, but the thing about this kind of tragic-hero trope is not whether or not you know what’s going to happen, but in how satisfyingly it is played out. In this case, I found Parker’s resolve in not saying “I love you” provided a very nice contrasting parallel to the earlier moment when he did not stop the gunman. This use of inaction brought a delicate balance to all the action in the movie not found in the vast majority of such flicks.

In the same vein, I enjoyed the pacing of the story, and thought they did a good job of sincerely developing characters, as opposed to using a bare bones romantic scaffolding to prop up a string of action sequences.

Ok, so you have this very tender moment, and then go to the closing shots of Spidey swinging through the canyons of New York! What a rush! Whee! I found myself whooping and laughing with the sheer joy of motion in a way I had not felt since the first time I saw Christopher Reeve’s Superman fly. Terrific!

So, Great movie! Lots of fun! See it with kids, but be prepared to shield their eyes a few times.

46

I liked it too – my big nitpick is pretty strange, though. Why on earth was the military unsatisfied with the Goblin Glider? Forget superhuman soldiers, get fifty of those things equipped with Kevlar-wearing riders and you’ll have the edge up on the enemy.

47

the movie was decent, but nothing really seemed to happen in it. there where two love scenes that were just painful, peter and mj spouting off about love and stuff. that brindge scene looked tacked on post-9/11, for real.

the green goblin suit looked like it was made out of plastic, but i guess it probably was. spidey’s suit i didn’t like so much. give him the big, mcfarlane-style eyes, dammit! and the 3 dimensional webbing and wierd microfiber crap material looked strange to me. tobey grew on me, he did a good job, i think. i like dunst, but she didn’t look so hot in the movie. i don’t know exactly why, i remember her being a lot cuter.

the effects were good in parts bad in others. looked like a video game sometimes, but other times i got chills. when peter first figures out web slinging and perches up on that dome, that was exactly out of a comic. it looked fantastic.
oh, and harry osborne doesn’t become the hobgoblin, that’s ned leeds or someone. harry becomes green goblin 2. it;s very difficult to follow, it’s a freaking soap opera.

48

Well, did you notice how hard it was for the guy demonstrating it to fly it? He was doing all he can to keep his balance. The Green Goblin could do it fine because he had all those performance enhancers, Hell, even if he DID fall, he’d probably be fine with the enhancers AND the exosuit.

Also, it is the Goblin who said the “teeming millions” line, after he has caught Spidey and is trying to convince him to be evil. And if memory serves, he says ‘teeming masses’ though, not millions. I remember cause I heard teeming and was hoping for millions, but got masses.

And that makes sense, downbylaw (about the Harry Osborne thing.) But the way they did that at the end…it’s an invitation for Harry to be the villian in the next one…which, unless they want to pull a Batman and have multiple villians, leaves us with essentially the same villian, which makes the sequel the same as the last half of this movie.

I repeat, they NEED to do Venom. The only trouble is the backstory involved…Spidey getting the alien suit…doing whatever he does to Eddie Brock to piss him off…Spidey ditching the alien suit…Eddie getting suit…etc…That doesn’t leave much time left for Venom terrorizing Spidey. And they would probably mangle the story, or turn Venom into a typical villian that wants to terrorize all (which for those unfamiliar is NOT AT ALL like Venom…he only wants Spider-Man to die, and detests any and all suffering of innocents. He even goes out of the way in the comics to stop killing Sipdey to save people. Which is why Venom is such a cool villian! He’s more human than most! Oh well…)

49

I’m surprised nobody has mentioned yet WHO fired Peter from his “first” pre-freelance photograhy job. Dr. Conners, aka the Lizard.

Eddie Brock was mentioned, and they could do the Venom story in 2 parts. In the next movie he can find the symbiote (how, I don’t know) and use it to defeat whoever the bad guy is. This can serve as an introduction to the powers of the suit and maybe there can be some foreshadowing as to the true nature of it. It can also give the background for why Eddie Brock hates Spidey so much.

In the next movie Spidey finds out the true nature of the suit, gets rid of it, and it falls into Brock’s hands. Then Venom can be the big bad.

And there you have it, the next 2 Spiderman movies, with potential for a Venom spinoff movie. Maybe Venom could be darker, rated R even and have Carnage in it. They shouldn’t bother with Carnage in a pg-13 movie, he was just too out there. If they neutered him to meet a pg-13 rating, he would be ridiculous.

50

Now for my movie review.

I thought it was a great movie. Absoloutely awesome. J. Jonah Jameson was perfect, whoever casted him did a great job. Tobey was perfect (unlike others, i always thought he was perfect) and i liked Kirsten Dunst, but i can see how others wouldn’t.

The special effects were pretty good, at times it was obviously CGI but i’d rather have that than a some cheesy blue-screen work.

It was fun, I mean, what else do you want? It wasn’t particularly thought provoking, but it did have a good overall theme. Peter’s growing into an adult and he has to choose what kind of man he wants to be. I can relate, i just graduated from university and i feel like now is the time that i TRULY grow into a man.

And how cool was the part when he was fighting Flash Thompson in school? At that point I wished i was Spiderman so i could do neat stuff like that. BTW in the comics, Flash becomes the Green Goblin in a future iteration (or maybe it was Hobgoblin, not sure).

There was alot of foreshadowing and potential tie-ins for the future, which i thought was clever. Tony Stark testing the suit, Dr. Connors firing Peter from his job. Eddie Brock’s incompetance was emntioned, Harry Osbourne has vowed revenge.

The movie has laid the groundwork for sequels and tie-ins, which is better than the Batman approach of shoving a new bad guy (or set of bad guys :rolleyes: ) into every new movie.

51

I loved it; I found it had more character development than I expected, which was refreshing. I particularly liked watching Peter Parker learn how to use his new powers. The first time he went web-slinging, it looked really, really hard. Which made the later sequences even more impressive. He not only got thes powers, he learned how to use them.

The only thing that was off for me was: where were Spidey’s jokes? He was the first superhero with a sense of humor, cracking bad jokes at every opportunity. I missed that in the movie. I hope they don’t go down the “dark and brooding superhero” route with the sequels, as it’s been done to death. I’d much prefer to have a hero who enjoys being a hero.

52

Hmm…I must have missed something…where was Dr.Conner (aka The Lizard)? He fired Peter? I don’t recall that al all…

53

wow…just checked imdb, and the sequel is ALREADY annouced. Production will start in early 2003, so expect it out for summer of 2004.

54

Hmm, must not have been paying enough attention. Even so, it was small and had a hell of a lot of ordinance – since you could control it remotely, too, I think the military would still want some. Also, it looked much more ready to go than the stupid exoskeleton!

55

there was no actual scene of him getting fired. Peter just said something along the lines of “Dr. Conner fired me from the lab.” It was when Norman Osbourne went to the apartment to check on the boys. After Peter said that Norman offered him a job, but Peter refused.

56

He had several!

As he dropped MJ on the roof of the building after rescuing her from the balcony:

“Beats taking the train”
“Don’t worry she’s just here to take the elevator”

Later, when the Green Goblin busts into JJ’s office and Spiderman zips JJ’s trap with webbing, “Quiet kids, let mom and dad talk!”

57

yeah, i don’t know how they could work venom in with the original comicbook origin. it’s not like they can just say, “well spidey’s hanging out on beyonder’s planet back during this big secret-wars thing, gets a new costume from this outer space textile producing thingamajig, and happens to notice that it’s actually alive…”

they’ll have to totally retool the story if they want to get venom in on the next movie.

58

My original comments in this thread were after veiwing the movie on Friday night.

I saw it again last night.

It was pretty much the same.

59

MINOR SPOILERS…

…

…

Did anyone catch the references to two of Spidey’s villains?

They mention getting “Eddie” on the job getting pictures of Spider-man, a pretty obvious allusion to Venom.

And then, later, Peter tells Harry that he’s been fired by “Dr. Connors”. The Lizard, anyone?

.:Nichol:.

60

I’d be a little skittish about any future appearance of Venom, let alone Carnage. A film version that was even one-tenth as violent as the comics would qualify as a slasher movie. You could kiss those PG revenues goodbye.

The movie referred to nanotechnology so I can imagine a version of the Sandman, though it would be extremely expensive to film.

I was a little surprised the attractive but glacial secretary who cashes Peter’s photo voucher wasn’t named, since she’s obviously a film version of Betty Brant.

J.K. Simmonds was very well cast as J. Jonah, though. I wonder if he’ll suggest burning a swastika into Peter’s ass at some point?