I didn’t see the most recent Hulk movie, and I probably won’t see this, either. It’s hard to get excited about a reboot so soon after the previous iteration.
Eh, it might be good but I agree that looking at that trailer with Hoodie Peter Parker and the parents leaving and all sure make it look like emo Spider-Man.
On the thought of rebooting, it has different actors and director so I can see why they want to do it that way. The thing about that is that Spider-Man’s origin has been done so many times and I don’t think it’s really needed to explain where Spidey comes from. Just about everyone knows that Peter Parker is bitten by a radioactive spider and that could easily be shown in a teaser before the real movie begins. The only reason to show the origin is so we grow to like the chacracter and feel for him when he’s this unliked, smart nerdy student. You can do that after the powers – you can even show him holding back against a bully or something. The cartoons do this often, not that the movie should be like one of the cartoons, but you know where I’m going here.
I’m not getting the “emo” complaints. Peter Parker has always been “emo.” That was a big part of the initial appeal of the character. For the first time in comics, here is a teenager who acts like a real teenager, who has the same angst as any other teenager…and then he puts on his costume and goes to do battle with super-villains.
We don’t really see any combat footage in this trailer. If the movie is true to the comics, Peter Parker will be “emo” as Peter Parker, and then a puckish hero when in costume. The test for me will be whether he gets off some good wisecracks while he’s battling the villain du jour.
I have a question for the masses: have Peter Parker’s parents ever been discussed in any detail in the comics? I quit reading Spider-Man long ago, but I don’t remember the subject ever coming up. Anybody?
Peter’s parents are alternately secret agents or scientists who develop the living symbiote that later becomes Venom.
Hear, hear.
Pete’s parents were spies, IIRC. There are various stories in the comics. They have their own wiki page that’s details
I thought that the Venom symbiote came from the Secret Wars planetWas that a different continuity?
Yes. That’s in the main continuity. In the Ultimate continuity, Peter’s parents make it in a lab.
Emo != teenage angst. The latter can be compelling on screen when done well - and for the record, I thought Spider-man 2 did a splendid job of showing Peter Parker’s emotional upheaval and inner conflict without devolving into overbearing whininess.
Quick and admittedly imperfect comparison: Teenage angst = Luke Skywalker. Emo = Anakin Skywalker. The former was relatable - his impatience, impetuosity, and loneliness rang true to the audience. The latter was just insufferable. Similarly, I felt like Maguire (again, ignoring S3) nailed that awkward-but-relatable dork feel that Peter Parker is supposed to display. He’s not supposed to be a brooding, dark figure wallowing in self-pity because of the immense tragedy of his upbringing.
Huge Star Wars fan. Luke was “relatable” when I was eight, but objectively, they made Anakin exactly like him as a teen - they just dwelt on it too long, and we are old enough to be really annoyed by it now.
That’s the problem, isn’t it? To make people want to watch this movie, the trailer has to convince us that they get Spider-man.
This is just an early sneak peek, though. It’s too early to expect battle footage (where we would see the puckish side of the character). The CGI stuff is the last bit that gets finished.
There’s nothing about this preview that says to me they don’t “get” the character. Peter Parker is “emo”? Well yeah, Peter Parker is supposed to be emo.
That hasn’t been my experience. I’ve introduced Star Wars to a number of my friends in their twenties, and got a pretty universal sentiment that Luke was a likeable and relatable hero, only venturing into annoying territory once or twice (“But I was gonna go to Toesche Station to pick up some power converteerrrrrrs!!!”), while Anakin is pretty much repulsive from the moment he appears, and only getting worse from there.
You could have said the exact same thing about “Batman Begins”.
I dont have high hopes for this one but Raimi wasnt the man anymore to direct Spider Man, and while the second one was good, it’s already not aging very well. That said, I am thrilled to see the Lizard, one of my fav Spidey villains (now, if they can only get Stegron :). Or the Vulture).
No, you couldn’t.
I agree that while I want to see another Spiderman movie, a reboot at this point doesn’t hold much appeal for me. While I’m not convinced that Toby McGuire couldn’t have done one more turn in the Spideysuit (Does Spiderman have to be a perpetual teenager? He got married and became a teacher in the comics.) I also don’t see why they couldn’t have cast a new actor, even hired a new director, but kept the same continuity.
Joel Schumacher’s Batman & Robin is widely seen as one of the worst moves ever, but Batman Forever, while not terribly good, was seen at the time as a successful continuation of the Tim Burton series, even though it had a different cast, director, and artistic vision. Despite what Schumacher later did to the series, I think it did show that it is possible to continue a series that way without having to go back to a reboot and have the audience accept it. (To say nothing of the James Bond franchise, which successfully had a very long series of leads, directors, and artistic styles under one continuity–such as it was–before finally going the reboot route.)
That gives me an idea - instead of the origin story, just have McGuire sell his marriage to the devil for eternal youth at the start of the film, then replace him with a younger actor. What could possibly go wrong?
That does it. The next time we reboot this universe, I’m making sure you were never born. 
Maybe so, but this guy doesn’t look like he’s capable of cracking a smile, much less cracking a joke. And if they’re focusing so much on angsty moping, I’m not confident that they’re even interested in the quipping and the snark.
I was ambivalent about this whole reboot plan. I was never sold on Tobey Maguire as Peter, and I thought that Kirsten Dunst was terribly miscast as Mary Jane. But this just looks dull.
Well Peter Parker may be mopey, but I am an optimist. I believe it will be a good film.
My feeling on why a reboot is not unreasonable: the interaction of a super-hero with a villain is about half a movie. It’s very difficult to sustain audience interest in one hero vs one villain for a full movie. Thus, the first movie in the super-hero series includes a large section devoted to origin, and then introduces major villian and battle.
But the second movie needs to do SOMETHING else to fill the time, so commonly either a romance story (like in SUPERMAN II or SPIDER-MAN II) or a second villian (like in BATMAN RETURNS or THE DARK KNIGHT.) The third movie in the series then is almost always two or more villains, and the plots start to get confusing, the stories are not as interesting, boredom ensues and the audience drops (see BATMAN FOREVER, SPIDER-MAN III, etc.) The series thus peters out.
It’s therefore not unreasonable to do a re-boot after a decade or so; that way, they only need one villian, a simpler plotline, etc.