Re: Spider-Man 4

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Here's a pretty positive write up from AICN's most reliable writer on the Comic-Con panel; it includes detailed description of 8 minutes of footage, so obviously it contains spoilers, not that they appear to have any major plot points in them (unless you don't know who the villain is).

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/50522
"I'm like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. . . . I'm not a schemer. I just do things."

Re: Spider-Man 4

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It's...just...bizarre. I mean, it looks really good, yet so totally unnecessary that it can't have the impact it wants to have. Anyone who follows Hollywood knows Sony made this to hold onto the rights. It's like a $200 million nyah-nyah-nee-boo-boo to Marvel Studios and Paramount. That the studios have become so threadbare of ideas that they would reboot a superhero franchise a decade after an entire successful trilogy started, retell the same fucking story with a different baddie shoved in (to save the Green Goblin for the second one, natch!) is, again, just bizarre.
"I'm like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. . . . I'm not a schemer. I just do things."

Re: Spider-Man 4

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Alexhead wrote:It's...just...bizarre. I mean, it looks really good, yet so totally unnecessary that it can't have the impact it wants to have. Anyone who follows Hollywood knows Sony made this to hold onto the rights. It's like a $200 million nyah-nyah-nee-boo-boo to Marvel Studios and Paramount. That the studios have become so threadbare of ideas that they would reboot a superhero franchise a decade after an entire successful trilogy started, retell the same fucking story with a different baddie shoved in (to save the Green Goblin for the second one, natch!) is, again, just bizarre.
Very well put, sir. My thoughts exactly.

I was never a fan of any of the "old" movies and I really feel this one looks just as bad/good as they did. It even has the same look and feel. Completely bizarre.

Re: Spider-Man 4

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well, to be fair, this looks more in line with the peter parker in the comics, where he has sort of an imp-ish sense of humor, especially in the beginning. the first three pretty well lacked that. but really, that's the only difference i see, other than the girl knowing from the beginning. and the public unmasking.

but yeah, i agree. i really want to avoid this just to not support/encourage this type of behavior from hollywood. but i know i will see it, the kids will want to see it.

Re: Spider-Man 4

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saw an extended trailer today and have to say it actually looks pretty good. not sold on the main cast but the supplementary cast seems great...
amazing_spiderman_ver4_xxlg.jpg
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Spidey really wants you to like him, Marcus--here's 4 minutes of the movie:
"I'm like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. . . . I'm not a schemer. I just do things."

Re: Spider-Man 4

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saw this today...

one of the chief arguments i had against this film was "does this need to be made"? same argument many have. we just had a "successful" trilogy of spidey films ten years ago, why reboot this now? i thought the sam raimi films (well, the first two) were good, second one better than the first, and did the name justice. why make this?

when thinking about this argument, i started thinking about comic books in general. in the world of comics, writers/artists are changed often. major characters have origins retold multiple times over, have simultaneous diverging plot lines, and have decades upon decades of stories to tell. people accept this for the most part. you can't tombstone a title or a character simply because a writer/artist moves on from the title/company. if you did, we'd have a constant influx of new characters and no possibility of any kind of attachment to them. in comics, if the new guy bombs, you get almost immediate feedback and can adjust the next month if need be. it can be a work in progress.

if you're a movie studio and you make the decision that you want spider-man films to continue (at hundreds of millions each), what do you do? you can't get raimi back to continue the story with the same cast, as everyone is 10 years older now and have aged themselves out of the part. the cast was on the older side to begin with, now it would be as silly as andrea on 90210. so you have a decision to make - either quit making spider-man films, or get a new director with a new cast. now, at this point, i can accept this. but there is one more decision - do you acknowledge the previous films and attempt to continue/build off of them with the new cast or do you completely start over independently? if you make the call to attempt to continue, you immediately put yourself in the hole as you are asking the audience to put completely new faces to the established characters/history and putting the actors in a position to mimic the previous cast. it's a tough decision to make.

i was skeptical of this, very. when i walked out of this, i have to say that i found myself thinking that the stills and trailers don't really do justice to what this is. to my amazement, i found that i was thinking that making the decision to go back to high school and start there was perfect and exactly what needed to be done if you were going to continue spidey films. the cast - the entire cast - was spot-on. the story was a great one to pic. they took some liberties with canon here and there but made some very appropriate calls back to the traditional storyline as well. it was all very tastefully done. the action was very impressive. the visuals were very well done, and as promised, more practical swinging and less CGI-looking... well, everything.

given how recent the raimi films were, it's impossible not to make direct comparisons. this spidey is, amazingly, much less emo than the previous (even though the casting would have you believe otherwise). he's more sarcastic in a pleasant way and not so bitter. it's very much like the comics i grew up with. sheen and field are simply perfect as uncle ben and aunt may. leary is perfect as well. stone had me worried in the stills and trailer, but when you see her on screen she is well-cast. her eyes are so large, they are distracting at times - she is almost anime-looking - but the chemistry works. connors is also well cast with ifans. these characters are all much less one-dimensional and wooden than the previous films were, admittedly.

i really liked this, kind of to my dismay. both of my kids say it was the best spider-man film so far. full disclosure, spider-man was always in my top two comic titles. i love the character. as i said above with comics, you have to either make the decision to tombstone the character or "forgive" the occasional re-telling/conflicting histories. while you can (easily) make the argument that such reboots - and comic/video game films in general - indicate that hollywood is truly out of ideas (with which i would agree), i also feel that the film world is a better place with spidey stories/films in it than with simply letting it die because a couple of the many, many, MANY stories that exist in that world have been told before. this is not going to be the batman films that you carry with you, that give you deep things to think about, it's a true entertainment film and if rumors are to be believed the first of at least five more.

this only strengthens marvel's film portfolio and promises to encourage more risk from them, which i welcome.

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also have to say that the obligatory stan lee cameo wasn't shoe-horned in like some others have been, where you are immediately taken out of the film when you see him. in this, it fit and was hilarious.

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I guess this is everyone pick on Andrea day. :) Isn't the guy who plays Parker almost 30? Seems a bit old for a high school student.

Don't even get me started on the comic reboot. Joe Quesada still deserves a kick in the balls for undoing all of Straczynski work.

As for the film, it's not on my highly anticipated list but I'm sure I'll see it. I'm open to a reboot if done well.
Just cut them up like regular chickens

Re: Spider-Man 4

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I'll probably take the kids to see it at some point. As I'm sure I've said before I always found Daredevil to be a lot cooler than "Spidey" so I never read that title. DD and the X-Men did it for me.
"I'm like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. . . . I'm not a schemer. I just do things."

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darkness wrote:I guess this is everyone pick on Andrea day. :) Isn't the guy who plays Parker almost 30? Seems a bit old for a high school student.
yeah, but he's so boyish he could play 14 and be convincing.
darkness wrote:Don't even get me started on the comic reboot. Joe Quesada still deserves a kick in the balls for undoing all of Straczynski work.
noooooooooooooooo shit.

Re: Spider-Man 4

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Took the kids to the buck theater and caught this yesterday. Pretty underwhelmed. Again, it feels too soon. Also has pacing issues in the first half, although the second half rounds out with some nice action setpieces. Really pulls you into compare and contrast mode when Uncle Ben gets it; not that they do a bad job here, but yet again with too soon to see the same stuff tweaked and done with different actors. There's some pretty good plotting going on throughout but I'm not sure Mark Webb was the guy to bring it all together, at times the direction is pretty flat. Garfield doesn't quite stick the landing on being charming; half the time he just seems like he forgot his dialogue lines. You can clearly see they're trying to set up your standard 3 flick arc with the backstory stuff, which is fine and story-wise they've set up a fairly organic way to move into the Green Goblin...just can't bring myself to care all that much though. Part of that is superhero movie fatigue, part is not ever being the hugest Spidey fan, but I think the biggest part is it just seems unnecessary. I get TC's argument about the multiple stories and origins in comic books, but I don't know how well that translates into rebooting multimilliondollar movie franchise characters every 10 years.
"I'm like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. . . . I'm not a schemer. I just do things."