So I saw some movies

[cleolinda]

Really, really tired. I would like to discuss The Amazing Spider-Man, but I feel kind of drained. So drained that I saw it on Tuesday and still don't have the energy to say anything substantial about it. So drained that, while this entry sounds pretty bubbly, it took me an hour to write. Suffice it to say that there are a lot of good things about

Comments

[spectralbovine]

I'm glad they cut out all that shit about Peter's parents giving him spider DNA or whatever because that implication from the trailers had put me off. But it did lead to some weirdness in what did remain, which I generally loved. I would like to see your Raimi/Webb mash-up, though!

I actually forgot that the Sandman thing ever happened, and you just reminded me. THANKS A LOT.

[cleolinda]

Yeah, I know changing the idea that Peter got randomly bitten upset a lot of people--I'm not attached to the comics, so losing the "Everyman" quality doesn't bother me? In fact, it kind of works better (for me), because I like the idea of giving him a reason to be around the spiders, instead of just "random science field trip." They also imply (or maybe the cut scenes do?) that it would have ended just as badly for Peter as the lizard thing does for Connors, if he didn't have some particular connection to the experiments already. And that does make some sense to me.

[featherblade]

Were they trying to tie him into the mutant thing that the Marvel universe has going? You know, give Peter Parker a dormant x-gene that was triggered by the spider-bite type-of-thing?

I mean, I totally remember the one X-Men cartoon where Spidey goes to Professor Xavier for help and is basically told to embrace his mutation.

[evewithanapple]

I also saw Spider-man and Iiiiiii . . . really didn't like it all that much. Obviously this is WMMV (especially because I'm not a huge fan of the superhero concept in general) but I felt like Peter spent most of the movie being kind of a dick. He webshoots that one guy in the crotch after restraining him, he never really seems to reconcile with his aunt (especially after her husband died) he couldn't even show up at Captain Stacy's funeral for Gwen even though Spider-man's enemies would presumably already know at least that they were friends/went to the same school. Maybe his development was left on the cutting room floor; maybe we'll get a director's cut someday. Idk.

Go Katie go! *waves pom-poms* I've been reading up a bit on the whole Scientology deal since the news hit, and jeesus is it terrifying. Especially the interrogation of children (tw for child abuse at the link.) Also Cruise just seems like a controlling jerk in general; there was an article I landed on where he said he insisted on calling his wife Kate because "Katie is

[cleolinda]

Peter spent most of the movie being kind of a dick.

I felt like where they were going with that was Uncle Ben implying (but not actually saying!) that "with great power comes great responsibility," and, by extension, Peter needed to stop using his super powers to be a dick. After some conversation they had, you could see that he was kind of like, "...oh." Maybe also the one he had with Gwen's father about how the police actually wanted to use the car thief to get to the larger crime ring. But the second half of the movie seemed to just kind of throw its hands up in the air, and if they were trying to get that across, I'm not sure they fully did.

What's this about Harry Potter, though?

In the HP books, if a house elf's master gives him an item of clothing, it sets him free. Which happens with Dobby--Harry tricks Draco's father into giving him a sock. "Dobby is a free elf!"

[litlover12]

Oh, thank you. I was wondering the exact same thing. :-)

[evewithanapple]

Oh, I see! It's been an age and half since I read CoS, so I missed the reference. :)

Yeah, I suspect Peter's dickishness is a result of the cutting- which, now that I've read that post you linked, makes me REALLY annoyed that they chopped up the movie like that. It would have solved SO MANY PROBLEMS- from the plotholes (Hello? Mr. Ratha? Helloooo . . .?) to the bigger issues I had with it. (Peter becoming a superhero while Connors became a villain- it felt to me like they were saying "don't try to change yourself! But if you stumble into superpowers, YOU'RE AWESOME." That, and the fact that Connors becomes evil after trying to cure his disability left a reeeally bad taste in my mouth. But if Peter was modified by his dad, it would have fixed all that.)

[boomdiada]

I have been eating up this whole Holmes/Cruise divorce thing like it's a chocolate waterfall with an endless supply of dippers, I tell you what. Following every article link the Anons at WhyWeProtest have found and posted gleefully and I think I've said "Take that Scientology" and "Hell yeah, Mama Bear, you do this!" more times than I can reasonably count in the last week.

[cleolinda]

Yeah, I don't usually get into celebrity divorces or gossip, but this just seems to have much, much larger implications for an evil culty organization as a whole. Also, she seems to have pulled off this massive cloak-and-dagger escape plan with flawless victory.

[evewithanapple]

It really is delicious schadenfreude, isn't it?

[encarmencita]

Cloak-and-dagger escape plan? Whut?

[notemily]

Damn, that's too bad because when I saw the trailer before The Avengers I was really excited to see this film exploring Peter's parents and his ~mysterious origins~ and stuff, but if that's not what it is, I'll probably skip it. Sorry Garfield.

[cleolinda]

It's weird, because some of that IS there, and it starts with a prologue about his parents leaving, and then he finds his father's old papers and gets really emotional and starts wearing his glasses, and the research is how he connects with Connors, and why he starts poking around the Oscorp labs in the first place, and thennnn they kind of never resolve that. It's obvious that they want to save the answers for the next movie or two, based on the mid-credits scene. "DID YOU TELL HIM ABOUT HIS FATHER?" Well, no? Because they cut that part out? Honestly, that whole thread was my favorite aspect of the movie.

[jenncatt]

Ah, you just totally made sense of why Spidey has been bugging me so much since I saw it last night and walked out subjecting my friend to an incoherent rant along the lines of "but the screeeeeeenplaaaaaay, it made no sense!" (Which was much the same rant I had after SWATH, but... Let's not go there right now). And it being hacked to pieces makes total sense, of course - I was mostly depressed by the waste of all the awesome actors being shortchanged (Emma Stone!) And how my brain was spinning trying to make the crazy plotting fit logic, or a 3 act structure.

It did make it worse because the Raimi version was tonally and structurally so coherent and, much as I didn't want to sit there comparing them, they kept using the same plot beats (like ending with a funeral) but with a lot less elegance or meaning behind them. And yes, a mash-up of both versions is what they should have been heading for (loved Spidey one, most of two, and three We Do Not Speak Of).

[cleolinda]

Yeah, the pacing and structure of the Raimi movies is what I would want to keep, I think. Also, I wasn't fond of the "Peter discovers his powers on the subway" scene or the high school fight scene, but the Oscorp stuff at the end looked fairly cool. But I really, really liked that they started with Gwen Stacy on this one, that they set up the Green Goblin (who will not be Willem Dafoe, woe) as the overall villain, and the actors they went with.