f13.net

Fuck, this looks good. (http://www.ifilm.com/presents/spiderman3)

Yeah, looks great.

"I need your help. I have to stop it."

Who was he talking to?

The trailer tries to make it seem like he's talking to MJ, but I can't help but think it's directed at Harry.  At the very least I hope they don't just kill Harry off as I didn't much care for it when they did it in the comic.  It's easy to kill off members of the supporting cast for shock value, but it's a little harder to come up with new characters to replace them.  Fuck, they had to move Spidey into the Avengers HQ to get him an actual supporting cast for the first time in years.

It also looks like the government is using Spider-Man to kill off Sandman by blaming him for the death of Ben. In the same way Stark and Fury use him in the comics.

Wow.

Looks like they might actually be doing the whole 'costume saga' thing properly without the actual Venom fanboy wank.  I have to say that I loved that trailer.  Um.

Not sure what to say to that.  Is Brock/Venom going to end up a five minutes at the end thing ?  Because all I saw was some fucking awesome Sandman goodness.

I'd like that.  I'd really, really like that.

Deconstructing a little more :

Sandman beaten at some point by the whole, "I can mix you with water and make you concrete" thing.  Awesome.

Spider Man getting totally owned mentally and physically by costume and TOTALLY fucking up Harry Osborne in a fight the poor wee lad shouldn't even have been in.  Awesome.

Brock is there and looks like a tit.  Awesome.

More 'I can mind my surroundings and use my webshooters to beat the shit out of you' stuff.  Awesome. 

Oh, and some crusty old May dispensing home wisdom about being true to oneself nonsense.  Great.

All they need is to make sure Venom appears in a five minute 'Here I am, oops, I just got killed and will never appear again ever' fight and for MJ to show a lot more of her nipples and I'll be a pleased chap.

Sigh.

You guys are in the vast minority in disliking Venom.  For them to not include him in any capacity, or a weak capacity, would be a big mistake.

In fact, I'd never heard of anyone disliking Venom until I got here.  As far as most people are concerned, he's more of an archnemesis to Spidey than the Green Goblin.

Indeed, a radio show I was listening to last night was talking about this and there was nothing but people calling in about Venom and hoping he'd either get a full part in this or they'd make a fourth movie focused on him.

That's cause the Green Goblin (the original, not the umpteen subsequent versions) died probably before you were born.

I understand that.  I'm also well aware that the trailer is probably 20 minutes of the movie and the rest of it is fanboy wanking of the worst kind.

Venom annoys me in the same manner as Wolverine.  It suddenly becomes what X-Men/Spiderman is ABOUT.  And that's wrong.  Saying "As far as most people are concerned, he's more of an archnemesis to Spidey than the Green Goblin" only serves to highlight that most people are fucking idiots that came into something halfway through and have little to no appreciation of the importance of the narrative that Spiderman was adressing every single fucking day.  Spiderman was about the opressed Geek made good.  It was about taking the hard path to overcome obstacles.  I think the film will address that fine by giving Peter a Psychological addiction to overcome with the suit (It would seem to be affecting him to be 'bad' which I think is an interesting wrinkle).  In the comic there was no such thing.  There was just some mental killer in a suit, which was a mysterious gift from a strange dimension because comic sales were slumping.

Wolverine is the same.  Suddenly it's not about race relations, it's about a really cool killer that can't be hurt and is 'the best there is at what he does', which would appear to be corny monologues.

Also bear in mind that Venom brought us quite a lot of MacFarlane's egotistical wanking, which was detracting, once again, from the story.

Venom was fine when it was just the costume saga and fine when he was 'just' Eddie Brock out for revenge.  It's what it then turned into that was horrendous and fairly offensive.  I mean, for fucks sake, Carnage came along and then he had kids and at one point I saw a 'super-team' of symbiotes.  Fuck that shite.  It's lazy and it offends your readership.  Which seems to be the new direction for Marvel.


You young folks get the fuck off my lawn.
Wankers.

Anyway.  Why'd you poke the tiger again ?

Here's a direct link to the trailer:

Spider-Man 3 HD (1280x608) QuickTime Trailer (http://a123.g.akamai.net/7/123/22372/v0001/asmstor.download.akamai.com/9177/spiderman/Spider-man_3_trailer_720p.mov)

Oh and Sony is a fucking asshole for setting some sort of "protection" flag in the video preventing it from being saved locally from within QuickTime, even though I coughed up the money for the Pro version which is supposed to let you do that forcing me to download the trailer again on my slow ass link, but you knew that already.

I'll never understand why companies don't let their PR spread itself.

Never.

I mentioned it because I don't want Venom to show up for 5 minutes, get killed, and never show up again.  That would suck.

Venom should be exactly what Peter would have been if the "power=responsibility" thing didn't get through his head.  And, given that's what the whole comic is supposed to be about, that should be a pretty significant arc.

So, er, Peter would have turned into a psychotic killer if he didn't have responsibility ?  Is that what kids think these days ?

That's total rubbish. 

Green Goblin, Doc Ock, even the Vulture shows us what would have happened to Peter had he not had the sobering death of his Uncle to teach him.  All his encounter with Venom shows is that some people are mental.

Suicidal ex-reporter who was a lying sack of shit gains a costume that only increases his general nuttiness.  That's not a significant arc, that's Hannibal territory.  Not the character, the crappy book.

Minor spoiler alert:
It looks like they are preserving the symbiote's sonic weakness from the comic books.

He would have, given the influence of the black suit.  It was his willpower and steadfast understanding of right and wrong that allowed him to overcome its influence and stop himself from killing the people he brought to justice.  Keep in mind, Venom still wants to "protect innocents".  It just has a very deranged way of going about that.

What ?

That's also rubbish.  Before the Fantastic Four helped him get it off, the worst he did was pogo around the city at night while asleep.  The black suit made him TIRED in the comics.  It only started to exert evil influence once it was attached to a complete Rubber Johnny. (Brock)

Venom no more wants to protect innocents than a hole in the wall.  Sure, he uses that as a strapline, but that's only because (and this is the important bit ) He Totally Lacks One of His Own.  Venom/Brock is an empty useless shell entirely obsessed with Peter Parker and consumed by hate/love and jealousy.

It's a fucking shit character.

I'm also fairly sure that you and I aren't actually reading the same comics.  I'm not talking about Ultimate Spiderman (where, yes, the suit has some evil built right in from the start).  I'm talking old school.  Perhaps this is the problem.

I thought we were talking about what ought to be in the movie.

It's been too long since I read the original comics, I just remember in every other medium that covered the black costume it showed him becoming more and more violent toward criminals until he was ready to kill one.

Ok. 

I think the trailer looks great.  I'm sure they'll make Venom make sense.  I expect that to dissapoint those who come for Pointy Teeth, Big Tongue and general butchery.

I just wish it was all Sandman and Harry.  I like Sandman.

(http://www.spiderfan.org/characters/images/venom/venom.jpg)

From what I've heard, Sam Raimi doesn't like Venom either. He shouldn't. Venom is "weak sauce." He's a shitty shit shit shit character and always has been. The symbiote suit... cool. The suit becoming sentient and growing a GIANT FUCKING GENE SIMMONS TONGUE... FUCKING CLOWNSHOES. Venom became a character all about "teh ultraviolence" that the 90's made de rigeur. Did I mention most of the creations of the 90's like Youngblood are either gone or not done by their creators anymore? They sucked. They were overly violent shitstains on comics.

As for how they'll use Venom, I expect he'll be in 5 minutes of this movie, and be the focus of movie #4 should it get made. I'd also not be surprised if #4 gets made without Raimi.

The 90s stopped my interest in collecting comics 100%. As late as 89, I still had a half-dozen subscriptions. Even Wolverine wasn't bad because it was still pretty interesting stuff about his Japan connections. Then...McFarlane happened. It was an interesting art style at first, and I made a ton of dough selling off my McFarlane/Larson era Spideys, but I hate what happened to comics just after that era. It not only became a real art over substance style (and hey, I like art and all, but...) and that's not even getting into the whole multiple cover metal-leaf-holographic-collector's-edition massive runs of first edition garbage. When it became more about collecting. I remember some people being shocked that I read my comics and didn't buy a bagged copy for my collection. Whatever.

The original black suit from the Secret Wars was kinda cool, though the whole secret wars thing was kinda odd. The toothy, tongue-wagging moron Venom? Ecch.
As to the first, I agree. As to the second, it worked GREAT for the X-Men.

Hence the bell tower.

Us guys who have actually read comics are in the vast minority as far as the audience for the movies go.  That a lot of Spidey fans might get pissed if Venom doesn't get enough of the spotlight hardly matters in the grand scheme of things because the average person who goes to see this movie doesn't even know who the fuck Venom is (and try explaining the character's origin in the comics to someone without them rolling their eyes right around the time you get to the words "alien costume").

Must every Spider-man 3 thread devolve into an argument over how shitty Venom is?  Can anyone even name a great story arc that featured Venom?

None that you guys would agree was a great story arc, because you all hate the characters involved.

(I'm not sure if you're trying to imply that "those of us who have actually read comics" is the same as "people who don't like Venom".    If not, then yes, you're right, compared to the amount of people who will see this moviet he number of people who buy comics currently is going to be pretty small.)

I can't recall the exact quote from Hunt for Red October, but you're basically the guy who got his ass kicked for saying the Jack Kirby Silver Surfer sucks.

Or in other words, as Ironwood said: Get off our lawn.  :-)

Yes.  Tho I suspect that the film will at least make sense of him.

I think it'll be a great film, just like the other two.

Is Sandman played by the guy that was Lowell from the TV show Wings?

Sam Raimi could do a fine movie with Venom in it.  They would just have to let him redefine things.  Keep the fanboy-attracting costume and name, but let him fill it with a worthwhile character.  It's not like they never change things between the comics and movies.

You'd be surprised.  I'm not really I huge fan of Vermin or Kraven, and I've never even bought Spider-man comics on a regular basis, but I loved Kraven's Last Hunt.  I don't doubt that somewhere along the line a good writer could have actually done a good story with Venom in it.  I can't say I've ever heard anybody mention one though.

Yes, he somehow turned into an Oscar nominated actor (Sideways). He'll be great, I think.


I think it's hilarious that they left in Sandman's traditional green/black shirt. Seems out of place, but I like it.

Love the Sandman traditional striped shirt, nice reference!  Looks like he will be better than I was thinking.
Why isn't Harry wearing the GG outfit?  Bit disappointing.  I bet so we can see his manly emoting.
I don't get the Venom worship either.  My guess is that he arrived during the McFarlane era and looked spectacular.  If you delve into the Brock character, you find pretty shallow going.

What can I say, I'm an old-schooler. Where the hell is my Vulture and Shocker?  I'm worried that they are trying to please everyone with this movie and will satisfy no one.
1. Sandman for the old skoolers
2. Venom for the wee lads
3. Gwen Stacy/GG storyline which was one of the most definitive Spidey arcs. 

Lets hope for a good film.

It's probably because most people thought the GG outfit looked kinda crappy.

It wasn't Red October, it was Crimson Tide (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112740/).

[SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER]
Teh Gay (http://www.nathantsui.com/anigif/?entry=./Other/venom.gif)
[/SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER]

I tried to stop being negative, but I JUST CAN'T.  I'm waiting for an intervention or a signe from God.

Edit by Trippy: added spoiler tags

Heh

c00l.  Sweet teeth, his tongue is a bit short tough.

Spoiler Tags ?  Really ??

Um.  Ok.

Yeah it probably doesn't deserve the spoiler tag -- they showed Venom's face (well more like mouth) in the preview they showed during the Spider-Man 2 broadcast on FOX so it's not a secret anymore. It should've been more like a "don't watch if you don't want your soul crushed" tag. I still don't know where they got that clip from though.

Well, I think I got it from SA and I believe one of the goons there has an 'insider mate'.

Which is usually the way.  I actually had an insider mate for Batman Begins which is why I wasn't freaking out about the Batmobile like most fanbois.  I knew the film was going to be awesome.

For approximately the next 24 hours, you can see a 7 min, 20ish second trailer over at NBC.com.

It's not bad, but the stuff with Peter vs. Harry looks a bit goofy.  Harry (who I thought was either Green Goblin/Hobgoblin) has similar, but not the same junk as his dad.  His little flying device is a snowboard, which looks rather meh.

Also, sorry Ironwood, but there's definitely Venom in this one.

So yeah, hurry up to view the meh.

At this point I've already seen too much in the way of previews.

Not even bothering with it. A nice trailer is very much welcomed -- But 7 minutes? Too much for me.

It looks more like Spy-Kids than Spiderman.  They CGI'd the fuck out of this movie.

There is a big upside to all this venom nonsense.

Raimi will likely destroy Venom in an irrevocable manner, preventing future hack directors making a venom film without restarting the continuity.

Holy Fuck. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LKsdU_nKO8)

Seriously, don't click that link.  It's too fucking awesome.

:(

That trailer was awesome.  They had it up for 24 hours or something and I caught it then.

Damn - May 4th I might be sick.

Final trailer released today can be found here. (http://www.spiderman3oncomcast.com/) Lots of parts you've seen in other trailers except for the end. Full shots of Venom, albeit quick ones. He looks pretty "meh" but I expected worse.

3 villians?
I get the impression this is going to be a 2-parter.

I doubt it.

You've pretty much seen what happens to one of them, I'd guess.  The other will be there for a smack about and 'main plot device'.

As for venom, I suspect it'll be a 10 minute gratuitous fan wank right at the end when no-one cares.

I'm so there.

Is the Spiderman franchise now the greatest superhero movie franchise of all time?

Discuss.


My vote=yes

Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Spider-man 3 isn't even out yet.

I refuse to watch these trailers. This movie is getting spoiled a little too much, in my opinion.

I'd agree with that.

EDIT: Booched.

With the movies out so far, sure I'd put the Spider-man franchise at the top currently. Probably wouldn't be that way without the turds of some of the Batmans though. I loved the X-Men movies as a whole but it does not compare to how I feel when I sit down to watch a Spider-man.

Well, what franchises are there.. let's see.

Batman, Superman, X-men, then Spiderman.  That's it, right?  Spidey's been the most consistent of them.  The benefit of having the same director for all, I suppose.  Nothing crazy falling in that 3rd movie, because the first director decided he didn't want to persue it anymore.   Actual critique beyond that will need to wait until it's seen.  X3 looked good in trailers, too. 

wow wtf...peter didn't even get a single bruise...i mean he's got spider strength and all...but that's pushing it...even Wolverine bleeds.

Ever seen a spider bleed?
Ever seen a spider with a bruise?

Didn't think so.

He has the proportionate invisible wounds of a spider.

Spiders have two modes: completely healthy, and crushed.  It follows that Spider-Man would only have the same two modes.

So Sandman needs to stop with the fists and form a giant shoe is that what you're saying?

Exactly.

Or newspaper.

Ironic that Spider-Man's civilian identity works to produce one of the few things that can kill his alter ego.

He makes clownshoes?

Here's a site with a bunch of new clips.  Some spoilers in them.

http://tinyurl.com/26f3tl

I still think it looks like Spy Kids.

I blame Tannhauser if spiderman 3 turns out to be as bad as the reviews so far are suggesting.

Last one I saw started comparing this film with Return of the bloody Jedi.

So it is roughly 2/3rds satisfying? (Jedi had a cool space battle and the Luke/Vader showdown. And those damn Ewoks.)

I can just never shake the intuition that too many fucking villains is a recipe for disaster.  I am thinking about the homoerotic ice theater that was Batman and Robin here. 

I agree.  Even Batman Returns felt a bit forced, as you had Walkin, Pengin and Catwoman to work around.  Things got muddled.

I'd say Jedi was more 3/4 satisfying.  You had the Jabba's escape scenes as well, pointing out what a badass Luke had become.  Oh, and of course the gold bikini.

Well, I just got called to come into work tonight and build a couple prints (and watch one).  I'll give my impressions sometime tomorrow.

Ok, very minor spoilers here.  Nothing important (especially given how much of the movie has already been given away in trailers the past few months), but if you've kept yourself free of watching trailers and all that stuff you might as well skip this too:






First off I enjoyed the first two Spider-man movies for the most part.  They have their flaws, sure.  Peter and MJ have no chemistry most of the time.  In fact the scene with Peter and MJ talking while visiting Aunt May in the hospital in the first movie gets more and more painful for me to watch every time I see it (and when I show the movie to people who haven't seen Spider-man I become almost apologetic to the people watching when it comes to that scene and the scene between them at the end).  Spider-man 2 wasn't as bad in that respect (although with MJ having been with Flash, Harry, Peter, and John Jameson within the span of 2 movies, including leaving John at the alter at the end, she doesn't become any more likeable of a character).

The other issue I had with the first two movies is that while a lot of the special effects looked great, there are also some that just have that obvious CG look to them.  There's usually just one or two moments in almost every big action sequence where things just don't look right.  This obviously is the kind of thing that people may or may not notice.  For me it's a little irritating but not a huge deal.

The reason I mention all this is because for the most part these were the same issues that I had with Spider-man 3, and I'd rather get most of the bad stuff out of the way first.  The drama between Peter and MJ is as annoying to me as always.  Not only is she whiny due to her failures as an actress (plus she sings this time around too at the opening and closing of the movie), but she's jealous of Peter's success as Spider-man.  When the relationship runs into problems, the saddest part is knowing that they'll end up working things out eventually rather than take the opportunity to write MJ out of the series and hook Peter up with Gwen or Ursula (the landlords quirky daughter who also showed up in the last movie).

And again, in just about every major battle in the movie, there are some special effects that just aren't up to par with everything else.  Not a huge deal.  There's obviously a lot of effects work that has to be done in this movie and not everything is going to end up perfect.  A movie with Sandman and Venom in it could obviously have ended up looking a thousand times worse, so I'll accept the occasional odd looking moment.

There is one other major issue I had in this movie, that I'm sure a lot of people will comment on.  I'm not going to give anything away, but there's a scene with Harry's butler near the end of the movie that may make you want to yell at the screen, "why the fuck didn't you say something two movies back, jackass!" or something to that effect.  If there's one part of this movie that deserves ridicule (other than the aforementioned scenes of MJ singing) it's this.  I'm sure comments will also be made about the coincidence of the symbiote crashing to Earth not far from Peter, and the fact that neither he nor MJ hear the impact (they seem to be away from any noise at the time, it's not like it happens in the middle of the city).

So with all that out of the way, let me go a little bit into what I liked.  First and foremost, there are a lot of good scenes with Peter under the influence of the black costume.  It actually reminded me quite a bit of the episode of Highlander where Duncan MacLeod turns evil for a while.  A lot of it is played for laughs, but the end results (as most people have likely seen in the trailers, which is a shame because it would have had a lot more impact coming as a shock to the viewer) do a good job showing why Peter really needs to ditch the symbiote.  The second fight scene between Peter and Harry was actually probably my favorite to watch as they've both gone so far down the wrong path at that point that there are times during the fight where they're both clearly enjoying themselves.

With Sandman, again the problem is that if you've seen even a couple of the trailers, you've seen the majority of his scenes.  They try to make him pretty sympathetic, but it doesn't always ring true with some of the things he does here.  You want to believe he's a guy doing bad things for good reasons, and then he goes and throws cops through windshields and that kind of thing.  Unless you use G.I. Joe type logic and just assume that in all the violence nobody ever actually dies, it's just really hard to feel as sorry for the guy as they'd like us to.  The special effects they did with Sandman though I think was some of the most impressive work they've done through all three movies.

Venom... well like many people, I was afraid he could possibly ruin the movie.  He didn't do that, so that was a plus.  For those curious, he shows up in about the last 25 or so minutes of the movie.  He's fairly unique in the Spidey movies in that he's the one bad guy that you don't really feel the least bit sorry for.  Even Norman Osborn had his good points.  Eddie Brock on the other hand is pretty much just a self-centered dick, which I guess is a welcome change from the reluctant bad-guy all the other villains have been.

Harry gets a number of good moments here.  We've pretty much all seen the costume by now (the mask he wears is almost rarely on, as it retracts, revealing his face most of the time we see him in costume).  His character arc was probably the most satisfying one in this movie (of course I can forgive even his bitchiest moments in the movies just for the bitch slaps he gave Peter in number 2), and when he's at his worst it's enjoyable to watch.  Franco isn't the best actor in the world (I saw Flyboys), but he does good job kind of going back and forth between extremes here.

I'm not really going to say much about the plot.  Either you can already pretty much piece it together, or if you can't, you'd likely rather be surprised (although if that's the case you likely aren't reading this anyway).  What I will say is that I'd rather they not do a fourth movie.  I'm sure greed will get Sony to do one, even if everyone else walks away, but there's a reason I don't really follow Spidey comics.  His character is defined largely by the fact that he's always going through a lot of shit.  People can identify with that.  The problem is, you can only really take watching so much of it.  Another movie with Peter and MJ working through their relationship problems would just be too much.  Beyond that, the only story I can think of that I'd like to see more or less adapted would be Kraven's Last Hunt, and that might be a little to dark for viewers going to see a Spider-man movie as he spends half the story buried alive.

Regardless of where they go with the series though, they have a solid trilogy right now.  Fans of the first two movies will likely enjoy this one.  People hoping for this one to crash and burn like Batman and Robin, will be disappointed I suppose.

MJ was ALWAYS a self-centered flighty bitch, IMO.  I'd say the movies have been pretty spot-on there.. but then the majority of my exposure to Spidey was the daily comic, rather than the books.

Yes, though, they should write KD out of the series.  On the interview circuit for Spiderman2 she'd pretty much indicated she didn't want to be involved more than 3 movies, and also had some horribly daffy ideas about where the series should go that just shouldn't even have been vocalized.

The whole Mary Jane Watson thing was fucked from the start since it should've been Gwen Stacy as his first love interest and not Mary jane. And the casting of Kirsten Dunst as MJ was just a horrible horrible mistake.

Minor Spoilers:



Went and saw it at the local theater a few nights ago.  Overall, I liked it, but I would have to say I liked the first 2 better.  It was  just marred by having some horrendously corny scenes and dialog at points.  The story also felt a bit rushed, with them trying to jam in so many plot points.  I also didn't really like the implementation of black suit.  Peter pretty much gained absolutely no power by using it.  It just felt good, and made him evil.  It didn't have any of the advantages it had in the comic, which makes you wonder why he kept bothering to put it on (they also treated it just like a suit he took on and off like his normal.....).

I think they did a good job with venom's look, though they left out the tongue.  The character was kind of shallow with this incarnation, because they didn't really explain exactly why it became venom when Brock got covered by the suit, or any of the other back story to it.  He is just mad at peter, gets covered by the ooze, and now has lots of teeth and is violent....

Having said all that, it was still entertaining, and the action sequences were really well done.  I felt this one did an excellent job of really showing the type of fighting spiderman can do.

That's always been my problem with Spider-Man as well. He's never sure of himself, never stops whining about his problems, even during the middle of the fight. It irritates me. I can handle it in the movies because it's 2 hours, but in the comics it's every month and I just lose interest.

I've had no problems with Dunst as MJ, though I'd have liked to have seen the Gwen Stacy arc too. But you know, it never would have worked in a movie, because Gwen would have died at the beginning of the first one and that's a shitload more grim than the ending they had with "I can't be with MJ."

Three movies really seems to be about the point where most movie franchises should stop. If you need more than that, do a TV show.

Some random points.

First, I dressed up as Spider-Man for halloween in 5th grade.

Second, for me Spider-Man jumped the shark when he got married. MJ has always been a drag on the storyline when used in large doses. Because Spider-Man is largely about his personal issues, they had to give her a prominent role once married, but they neve had anything for her to do. Her storylines were always lame - she is getting stalked or threatened or abducted, blah blah blah. Married life just ain't that interesting.

They should have had Spider-Man and MJ just divorce after a couple of years. We love each other but being married to a Super-Hero just sucks too much. It's like shows like Moonlighting and Lois and Clark - once the tension is over and the couple hooks up for real it is all downhill.

Third, Venom's whole doesn't harm innocents thing just sort of appeared one day without explanation. It began as sort of tongue-in-cheek, the first time he used the line was right after he killed a cop by suffocating him with his suit IIRC. But then somehow it became a serious part of the character.

Fourth, the interesting thing about Venom is really the suit itself. It has a sort of love/hate relationship with Peter. It is essentially a jilted lover - hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Eddie Brock may have wanted to kill Peter but the suit just wanted to be taken back.

The irony being that it couldn't have him back, both metaphorically and literally.

Jilted indeed.

See, when it was about the suit, Venom wasn't that bad.  It's when it became about the overused fanboy wank that it got awful.  And having 6 fucking symbiontes running around in some kind of evil power team was just dreadful.

I just came back from a sweet snuff film.

Sam Raimi just put a bullet in the head of one of the most beloved movie series of all time.

The cock of the walk strut was kinda funny for the first minute.  Christ, they dragged that scene on forever.  The lounge bar scene was just painful.  And Raimi needs to stop giving Bruce Campbell cameos; he upstages everyone else in seconds.

Sandman killing Ben was stupid.  Venom didn't ruin shit (as expected), but there was no meat to him/it either.  The rest of it was par for the course for Spider-Man movies.  The only scene that grabbed me a little was when they were in the sewers and Spiderman was climbing on top of the ceiling stalking sandman.  It had that dark, Kraven's Last Hunt vibe that I dug.

Care to elaborate on why you thought so?

Too much camp and comical presentation rearing it's ugly head.  See Batman Forever/Batman and Robin for examples.  They should have quit at Spider-Man 2 if this was the best they could do.

You have seen the other two movies in the series right?

For both, yes.  If you were being snarky and saying Batman and Batman Returns were both too campy and comical, I have no idea how to retort.  If you were saying Spider-Man 1 and 2 were also campy and comical, to that I say: there is a fine line and I feel Spider-Man 3 crossed too far over that line too many times to make it work like the previous two (may) have.

EDIT: Don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed the movie and by no means am I wanting to see it crash and burn like Batman and Robin, but I feel like it really fell short of the marks 1 & 2 hit, which is depressing because all the same talent is here except for maybe Elfman's score.

I was referring to Spider-man.  I don't think 3 crossed any further over than the first two movies did.  Dafoe's performance as the Green Goblin in the first movie was almost pure camp (I enjoyed it, don't get me wrong).  The whole "raindrops keep fallin on my head" sequence in number 2 was about as long as the scenes with evil Peter strutting down the sidewalk in 3 and I don't think was any more disruptive to the movie (most people seem to enjoy that part for whatever that's worth).  Other than that, I don't recall too much in the way of camp or comedy in 3 (and mind you, as a Spider-man movie, a character who is supposed to be one of the most humorous in comics, I don't think that they even put enough focus on comedy).

Don't really know what to say beyond "different strokes" and all that.  Maybe it's a factor of too many villains and whatnot, I don't know...

Oh, and I loved Dafoe's performance apart from that one effing line in the bridge fight.  Molina was great too.

This has been my growing problem with Raimi across these movies. There were a mere handful of scenes in 1 that I'd need to fast forward through if I saw it more than once or twice a year. There are a whole bunch more in 2 that I can't sit through even now, years after I first watched it. There were a fucking lot of stretches in movie I saw four hours ago I didn't even bother sitting through the first time seeing it. The action sequences were good, the flitting-around-city stuff the usual CGI tripe, and the underlying story sorta ok. I always like the misunderstood villain thing. But what killed this movie for me, as in I'll-never-bother-watching-again sorta way is the emotional crap.

He doesn't do emotional sequences well. I think it hurts that Toby and Kirsten have zero chemistry. But ya only need to look so far as Peter talking to amnesiac-Harry, or Aunt May, or his Uncle talking to the two different forms Sandman's character took (pre-Sandman) to realize the root cause is the Directing. These are laborious boring sequences that someone good at this sort of thing would handle so much better. I think about love-interest/triangle stuff and/or emotional scenes from other comic/action movies striving for appreciable depth, like Batman Begins, or X-men 1/2, and so on. THEY handle it well by maximizing the message delivered in as little time as possible.

Spiderman 2 could have been 30 minutes shorter. 3 could have been at LEAST that too. It's almost like when SW Ep 3 came out and my buddy and I realized we could take the entire series, edit it down to a single 2 hour movie, and even as rank amateurs produce a better story. Speaking of which, James Franco as Anakin would have been soooo much better. I've felt that since Spider 1. He seems to have more range even when not adequately directed.

What Sam needs to do is what GL should have done: sub out the direction of parts they just aren't good at handling.

No, I'm not a professional critic. No, I couldn't make one better myself. Yes, I'm paying for it though and I'll be avoiding the next Spiderman movie if Raimi is doing it.

The whining and constant day-to-day problems are why Spider-Man is such a popular character,  and one that I still have fond memories of reading years after I've stopped following comics.

He's worried about making rent,  his job, has realistic lady troubles, he's conflicted.  Peter sacrifices so much to put on the costume.  It adds a huge amount of reality,  and really grounds the character.

I could never get too far into most other hero books because,  mostly,  it was just one ridiculous thing on top of another.  There was nothing to identify with on a personal level.  Look at the Xmen, for instance.  No money or "real world" troubles.  Outrageous plots (oh, Wolvering has to kill a clan of ninjas who may or may not have trained him at one point?  ummm...  The US government secretly creates hugely powerful robots on a mission of genocide, instead of deploying them against the USSR or it's proxies? huh? Wierdo timeline shit again?)

The only other book I have very fond memories of is Silver Surfer,  but that's because it was soooo wacked out.  The Surfer also was a depressed romantic/idealist type who kept getting run against problems,  which made it fun.

By the way,  I think Lowell (I refuse to learn his real name) made the Sandman character.  Sandman had few scenes and fewer lines,  and could have been an entirely one note throwaway.  Instead he really projected the air of an unlucky blue collar guy making bad choice after bad choice,  and not really sure how he got so far from his original intentions.

The Sandman cgi was overdone.

I'd love to see Marvel take the Sandman into his own movie, with a redemption plot line....

Schild said it best.

I found myself actually vocalizing, "Oh god this is awful." During that horrible, "I'm the man" series of scenes.  I've no real desire to see it again, and I kept thinking, "When is this going to be over so I can piss."

The movie really tried to do way too much, as I feared.  Too much was happening without any real depth or urgency.  The plot holes/ unexplained crap that was all over the place didn't help, either.  Like... Spidey can lift trucks, but can't break Venom's webbing - when said webbing was already shown not being able to support a taxi on its own.

Harry.. why did you run in front of Venom, then stand there like a fruit loop. You had no problems smacking Pete out of the air so how about a flying tackle instead, hay?

And yes, I wanted to bitch slap the butler.


Darniaq - Funny you mentioned that about Franco as Anakin. I was thinking the exact same thing as I watched him. I think he could have even pulled off the same bullshit lines that Church got without turning into whiny bitch-boy.

Saw it last night and I pretty well concur with most of the reviews here.  It was OK but it tried to do too much and there were some incredibly corny bits.

Did this movie REALLY need a dance nunber?

I wanted to gag when their idea of 'evil' Peter included an emo hairdo.

It wasn't codpieces and nipples, but I fear the direction this franchise has headed.

Just saw it.  Jesus, I thought I was fucking KIDDING when I made the Batman and Robin reference a few days ago in this thread.  I never used to believethe fundamentalist conspiracy about Hollywood being dominated by the gay agenda, but wtf is with the tendency for superhero sequels to turn to self-referential camp?   

A profundly medicre movie with a really shitty middle.  Turning Peter into a clown to get some cheep laughs, I guess Hollywood can't help but turn gold into to shit.

Saw it today, to a packed house.  Good movie with some lame moments.  They tried to pack too much stuff in but it kept my interest.  Doesn't beat Spidey 2, they need to get that writer back for S4.  Poor Dunst looks like a bag of antlers compared to DBH as Gwen Stacy. Me rikey!

Raimi has got Jackson Disease. the inability to edit a movie down and avoid the big budget bloat.

It was the least of the three movies, but it was still okay.

As for 'spiderman's too conflicted and whiny', Straczynski has thankfully been writing that out of him lately.  After Civil War ended, Peter got good and pissed off and didn't bother with even wearing a costume while throwing jeeps into second-story windows and beating the shit out of people.  The justification for his wearing the (non-Venom) black costume again is that he's mildly displeased with the world's treatment of him and decided to crack bones rather than whine.  Of course, that's just in the good writing.  Bendis still has him bouncing around like a retard and spewing stupid one-liners like nothing happened.

God I hate Bendis so much.

I wanted to read Spiderman again after Civil War (Only to find out how the 'not secret anymore' shit impacted) but I actually can't bring myself to read anything Marvel after Civil War.   It was that bad.

Believe me, I agree with you.  Straczynski is doing a good job of keeping the torch burning, however.  Whedon is doing a great job with X-Men and Runaways, and Ennis is doing a fucking fantastic Punisher that's as gritty and dark as Castle deserves to be.  Planet Hulk was good, and if they somehow grow the balls to kill Stark, I'll buy the World War Hulk line just to have that comic.  Everything else Marvel is crap.

But long story short, Peter wound up running into a lot of trouble thanks to the 'not a secret' thing, at which point he got angry enough to start behaving like a man who can bench-press cars ought to be behaving when people give him a lot of shit.

At least, in his own comic.  The one by Straczynski.  In the other two Spider-Man comics as well as the rest of the Marvel universe, he's still a giant pussy.  Apparently one of the other Spider-Man comics has him running into a clone of Uncle Ben from the future.  A clone.  Of Uncle Ben.  From the future.

And one of my friends wonders why all the kids seem to be flocking to manga and ignoring US comics nowadays.  Answer: Stupid shit like this and such horrible editors that a character can be going through massive life changes in a comic but show no hint of it having happened in the others.

If you ignore the two arcs he did (or three if you want to include The Other) that were some of the shittiest stories in Spider-man history.

Egad.

For every good story you get dumb shit like this that drags everything down.

Actually, I thought they couldn't do worse than the original Clone saga, until I read the Ultimate SM Clone Saga.

OMG.  New meaning to the word 'useless'.

Yes. I haven't actually like much of any of the JMS Spidey stuff. He's done one good thing with Spidey, he's gotten me to not hate Aunt May. Everything else about his Spidey run I could just as soon forget. He seemed to be going for way too much of the Spidey as Elemental Avatar shit that ruined the Firestorm character years ago. The Civil War shit just interrupted all that, which in turn made it seem like all that stuff was just throwaway bullshit, and now we're into dark and brooding black costume Spidey, which just NEVER WORKS. And let's not forget he gave us the "GWEN STACY FUCKED NORMAN OSBORN AND HAD HIS LOVE CHILDREN" shit that seriously should have gotten JMS slapped with a herring.

Also, Spidey's rogue's gallery after 1982 BLOWS MONKEY ASS.

Whenever Straczynski has done something godawful, it's been because the Marvel higher-ups told him to do it, or at least that's what I've heard.  They made him give Spidey the stupid metal suit, made him have Peter think it was a good idea to take off the mask, made him have Gwen's children be from Osborn instead of Peter.  You can't really blame the writer for the editors being a pack of retards.

In exchange, JMS has made Mary Jane and Aunt May not suck, a first.  I enjoyed his attempts to inch Spider-Man more towards a mystical origin than a scientific one, though it would've been nicer if he'd had the time to glean some actual, tangible results from it instead of the occasional astral journey.  I wasn't even unhappy about the whole dying and coming back thing, though again, the ramifications of that never had the chance to be explored.

It seems that superhero stuff often falls into the too many characters trap in later ventures.

Batman, X-Men, the Super-Man and Justice League cartoons, etc. I understand the desire to include more and more comic-book world stuff in these things but it an be too much for the audience.

I enjoyed it, though like most I think it was the least of the 3 movies. In particular I enjoyed seeing Harry's story arc concluded though I wish they could have done it without the butler exposition. My preference would have been to have the "ghost" Norman have the butler's words in some non-cheesy way.

My gut feeling tells me that since they thought it was the last they wanted to bring everyone's arcs to a close and throw in as many nods to the comic as they could and they ended up putting too much stuff in. Honestly, they should have dropped the Sandman and made Harry the primary villain until the end of the movie.

I would just like to tell the Hollywood writers and producers to RELAX.  Spidey has about 50 years of stories, no need to cram them in all in.  Just pick a villain.  ONE.  And tell his story along with Spidey's.  S2 was good for one reason because Doc Ock was so well detailed and he dove-tailed into Peter's life so nicely.  If they are indeed gonna make 3 more movies I hope they get great writers and tell interesting, powerful stories mixed in with superhero hijinx.

Just no Spidey-nipples I beg you.  :roll:

The rest of these were just kind of amusing but this one was pretty funny (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q_taep3ElI).

Heh.  Yeah, that puts it in context.

Sometimes it's hard to feel sorry for Peter.


(http://www.devildollmedia.com/lj/mj1.jpg)


Very tasteful Marvel.

Wow, what a bunch of wankers.

I like it. If I were into buying figures, that is.

Not just for the g-string though. I just like artwork that tries to capture a sense of movement or something about the character. Generic poses are boring.

I like it for the same reasons Stray does.

Well, partially those.

Mostly the doggystyle position.

Okay, entirely that. Nothing of what Stray said crossed my mind when I looked at it.

Hey I like it for that too!  :-P

The part of me that would like to take a model/actress from behind while she happily does my laundry can appreciate what they were going for here.  On the other hand I realize that it's just a tad demeaning to women and I'm not sure that this kind of merchandise is a good fit for Spider-man.  They should have had the White Queen cleaning the blood of Cyclops' costume after his hopefully imminent death.

Classy.

Not.

Mary Jane has always been like that to some extent.

Maybe you're thinking of Aunt May. ;)

Yes, she was even a swimsuit model at one point in her life. Another reason why the casting of Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane was one of the most horrible decisions in movie history.

Sex sells to horny, lonely teenage boys who are still the major buyer demographic, yes?  Makes sense to me.

Classy?  No.  But again; horny, lonely teenage boys.

(http://cache.defamer.com/assets/resources/2007/05/maryjane-2.jpg)

You're a bad man.

that's tame compared to the japanese anime stuff my neighbour has. you just gotta browse some catalogue sites to get the general idea of the target market.

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v23/blazeomatic/mymacros/runtyeyebleach.jpg)