Who else watched Spider-Man on MTV?

Cafe Society
1

I’d been looking forward to this show ever since it was announce, what, a year or more ago?

I wasn’t dissapointed. I thought the two episodes shown were pretty good, if a little routine, and I the dialog was actually pretty good considering how horrible teenages come out sounding on most superhero cartoons (swearing, yay!). In that respect, I’m glad it’s on MTV.

The animation is going to take a little getting used to. A lot of the time I had the feeling that I was watching a really long video game cutscene, and some of the movements seemed very awkward. On the plus side, the character designs are good (although Harry Osbourne doesn’t look anything like James Franco or his comic book self, keeping in mind that I’ve never seen Ultimate Harry Osbourne if such a character exists) and the action sequences were really cool (particularly Spidey’s fight with the ninja lady).

2

Although the animation did take a little while to get used o, I really enjoyed it. I thought that the way it was animated made it seem more “real.” I noticed that during the first episode, while Peter was talking to himself in the apartment before running off to save the day, the way his arms move really made me realixe that it was more “lifelike.” It seems odd at first, because it’s not something to expect in a cartoon, but it IS something that would be normal IRL or in a live-action movie/TV show.

3

I’ll be watching it in just a few minutes. I didn’t know about this Spider-Man animated series on MTV, so thanks for starting this thread about it.

4

The only character who looks good is Spider-Man. The rest look like the Sims online combined with Vice City.

5

Hopefully I’m not overstepping any bounds, but here is the review I wrote for another message board I go to:

Lou’s Reviews: MTV’s new Spider-Man cartoon

Did anyone else remember this was on? I watched and taped the first TWO episodes of the CGI-animated Spidey show. And to borrow a cliche, this is not your father’s Spider-Man. This is MTV’s.

The continuity is definitely post-movie, with Peter and Harry as college roommates, and Harry still dating Mary Jane. Harry is in the most obnoxious frat on campus, and occasionally he will stop to say “I sure hate that Spider-Man, since he killed my father!” to no one in particular, even if he’s waiting in line for the keg. Peter is shown as a conscientious student who stays home to study instead of going to parties, but he isn’t at all the awkward bookworm of the movie.

In the first episode, dorky college freshman Max Dillon is humiliated at a frat party when he shows up, earnestly wanting to join, and the brothers attack him with a barrage of paintball guns. This scene was a total ripoff of the Carrie climax, but it made me wince because a friend’s brother was shot in the eye with a paintball gun during an actual “drive-by” attack in Miami in the early '90s. Anyway, Dillon ran out in tears, and proceeded to be electrocuted by a sign and struck by lightning, turning him into Electro.

Now, this is not the comic-book Electro, the green-and-yellow loser with one of the lamest masks of all time. You know it, the mask with the lightning bolts irradiating from it in different directions, like how a five-year-old draws the sun. The '90s Spidey animated series did Electro one worse, by making him the grandson and secret weapon of the Red Skull. Great, not only does he look like a dork, but he’s also a brainwashed Nazi tool! This new Electro doesn’t have a costume, but someone on a message board already described him as “Dr. Manhattan on crack.” Anyway, he shows up, completely fries the asshole frat boy who terrorized him the most, and starts hurling electricity at everyone else. Spidey shows up and they fight. Guess who gets blamed in the end?

In the second episode, an eccentric movie producer (who also happens to collect strange and endangered species of animals) hires an Asian female assassin, Shikata, to hunt down Spider-Man alive for him, to join his caged menagerie. She spouts off constantly about honor, and how it is her destiny to fight Spider-Man to the death–nah, not a stereotype at all! Anyway, they end up having to team up against the rich guy’s hired goons, then she cuts his head off off-camera, and has HER hired goons kidnap Mary Jane to force Spidey to fight her. And they do.

The animation is interesting–it is CGI, but looks “flatter” than usual. The style is unique, but looks “trendy” enough to seem to fit on MTV. I don’t play many video games, but it reminded me of the “cut scenes” that are so popular with gamers today. The best thing they did was the way they actually animated Spidey’s movements–fantastic. He actually moves like a spider–very quick, almost inhuman, sorta creepy. They nailed it much better than the movie’s CGI did.

The thing that surprised me the most is that people were killed, although blood was kept to a minimum. I guess this is what a 10 PM time slot on MTV can do for you. I honestly enjoyed it, even though everyone speaks in sound bites instead of dialogue. Brian Michael Bendis’ name appears prominently at the beginning a few times, and I hope he’s making big bucks for his contributions. Unfortunately, I hardly heard any hype at all on MTV about this show, and don’t remember seeing any promo TV spots or Internet buzz until the night it was on. It would be nice if this cartoon continues a bit longer, to give us a Spidey fix before the second movie next summer. I recommend checking it out if you’re curious.

Next week, Mary Jane suggests a threesome between Harry and Spider-Man, and Peter feels left out! Harry is working in a lab and it blows up, causing him to lose all his hair! He blames Spider-Man for his hair loss, plus everything else! And at one point, Peter says “Bling bling”! Make mine MTV!

6

I found it so-so, but I couldn’t help but hear Spidey as Doogie Howser- just not the same.

As to the appearances, though, Mockingbird, there were a couple of shots where I thought S-M had very odd proportions; the lines of his neck and legs looked almost grotesquely unnatural.

And I agree with bouv about the un-cartoon like motion; it was almost distracting at first!

7

Well, old guy here. I thought it was awful, but not as awful as previous cartoons. I found the animation distracting and poor overall, with a few moments of true spidey coolness. I agree that people talk in sound-bites, not true dialogue and the plots seem disjointed (much like the character motions) and episodic.

The animation though really put me off. I’ve seen better cut-scenes in video games. Also, the backgrounds and characters seemed to blend together a lot making it difficult to catch detail. Plus, in many scenes things seemed to blur.

Overall a poor, poor, poor effort.

8

It is animated very much like the old Aeon Flux shorts on LiquidTV.

Most people will say the animation sucks because they have never been exposed to different types, and want it to look like Finding Nemo.

The animation is different, but it does not suck.
The music is outstanding (including a version of HeavenScent as the opening theme that I’ve never heard before)

9

I was kinda confused about MJ and Peter/Spidey’s relationship…
at the end of the movie, I thought she had figured out that Peter = Spider-man, but in the cartoon it seems like she’s just forgotten or something. What’s the deal?

PS~the cartoon Peter is much cuter than Tobey Maguire :cool:

10

Dang, I missed it.

11

I disagree, I think it did suck, and I’ve been exposed to everything from flip-books to Final Fantasy: The Movie. I thought it was poor for at least three reasons. The overall shots (background and foreground) tended to blur together, making it difficult to distiguish characters from scenery.
Second, the background lacked active detail when it was not obscurring the actual characters features.
Third, with today’s technology, the poor use of shadowing, and the overall animation of the characters were stiff and weak. It basically had the look of being done on some guys computer, with a less than stellar 3-d program. I didn’t check to see what they were using, but it takes more than one program to convincingly animate anything. No one works exclusively in Lightwave or 3-D studio Max. It looked, cheap and rushed.

And while I’m at it the writing was terrible. The soundtrack on the other hand was quite good.

12

I’m wondering if the art style is intentional though…its supposed to be like that…

look at South Park…it’s not like the creators are trying to produce great animation.

13

I liked the cel-shading. In my opinion, it looks very nice, but I thought that the “regular” people looked awkward - standing around, waving their heads back and forth so that they don’t look like statues. SM’s movements were neat, such as the kind of all-fours shuffle he does on a wall.

The objects that weren’t shaded as well like vehicles stood out and distracted from the rest.

14

It wasn’t properly promoted. When I saw it yesterday on MTV, I was surprised. Lots of people interested in Spider-Man didn’t find out about it, I’m sure. Of course, I did see those ads on MTV. It started out breaking the 4th wall with extra cheese (hey, viewer, I bet you want superpowers, huh?) and it ended in spidey saying something about “gotta finish college first”. I figured it was some kind of stay in school thing, not an ad for the series. Which probably won’t last long.

15

I really enjoyed this show. I thought the action was fresh and I like the mature edginess. The animation was excellent for a weekly series. The only thing I found to be “weird” was Mary Jane’s figure. It’s even more exaggerated than a Barbie doll.

16

I liked it, too. I wouldn’t have even known about it if I didn’t happen to read the OP just a few minutes before the show was going to air. Literally, it was less than five minutes before ten o’clock. I was scrambling over to turn on the tv and get it to the correct channel.

And you have to admit, it’s light-years better than Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends.

17

Unfortunately, I don’t think it’ll last very long, either. MTV promoted Clone High a lot more than it did Spidey, and that got screwed over, too.

18

Indeed, the promotion for this thing was pretty piss-poor. I knew about it only because I spotted the listing whilst surfing through the “onscreen guide” about twenty minutes before it aired, Friday night. I seem to recall hearing about this thing ages ago, as well, and had forgotten all about it until I spotted it.

For those who missed it, MTV’s been rerunning those first two episodes on and off since Friday night. I happened to flip past the second episode earlier tonight. I’d wager it’ll be on a half dozen more times between now and Friday 10pm.

19

IMHO I think they should have cast someone else than the actor who currently does the voice for J. Jonah Jameson in this animated series. I don’t know the actor’s name, but it seems to me that J. Jonah Jameson’s voice should be deeper.

20

I for one think the animation is outstanding. It’s cool because it’s different then anything else out there that is popular. The action sequences are well put together, and the only thing I would work on is the actual storylines. The recent stalker episode was kinda funny and didn’t really fit in with what makes spiderman a great comic.