Comments on: Step on Spider! Rebooting the Spider-Man Movie Franchise.

By: Kris Johnson

Kris Johnson — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 03:16:32 +0000

@Gaston — I can't say I'm surprised.

By: Kris Johnson

Kris Johnson — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 03:15:51 +0000

@BradyDale — Thanks for the comment. I thought Spider-Man 2 definitely had a better villain and more well-executed action sequences than its predecessor, but almost everything in between those action sequences was worse. Every time Peter talks to someone, they wind up giving him a lecture and the drama is slopped on so thick it drips. I've seen Spider-Man 2 only one time, and that was in the theater. I bought the DVD and watched all the extras, but couldn't bring myself to sit through the preach-fest again; it doesn't even hold a position on my Top 10 Superhero Movies of All Time OMG EVAR List. Maybe I'll give it a second chance this weekend. As to the matter of origin stories, all three Spider-Man flicks had 'em. The first movie had two: Spidey's and the Green Goblin's. The second just dealt with the origin of Doc Ock, and the third...well, we'll not speak of that. The trick is keeping the origin interesting enough that the audience forgets that all they really want is to see your hero put that costume on for the first time and start kicking somebody's butt. I think Iron Man handled that pretty well, as did Hellboy. I say: show me the spider bite!

By: Gaston

Gaston — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 17:58:19 +0000

Wow… My internal geek-cred just went down substantially, as I had to Google “Nicholas Hammond.” Sorry, folks.

By: BradyDale

BradyDale — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 17:44:08 +0000

Oh man, this is sad. I’m totally with you on most points in here but I still think abandoning the current Spidey team is a mistake. S3 was a stinker, but I can’t help but think that that was more the studio’s fault than Raimi’s. It really felt like a movie that had been heavily meddled with.

S2, on the other hand, is still probably best-of-genre. IRON MAN may be a little better, but I don’t know. S2 is truly sublime, and there are no directorial moments of sheer breathlessness in IRON MAN like the moment where Peter saves everyone on the train.

Man.

Anyway, the real reason I’m commenting is just to register this viewpoint: I will not watch another SPIDER-MAN ORIGIN movie. I hate origin retellings. They drive me batty. I’ve read that story so many times… forget it.

If they must do a re-boot, I hope they will draw a lesson from the HULK reboot and do flashbacks to a fake movie in the opening to cover the origin nonsense and then start an original story. I hate, hate, hate origin movies.

P.S. S1 was pretty banal. yes. Lots of close-ups. Lots of doggy eyes. Nonsense. But S2 leaves the average of the 3 still pretty high.