Spider-man 3 (now including reviews so beware of possible spoilers)

[Velorath]

Fuck, this looks good.

[stray]

Yeah, looks great.

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

Who was he talking to?

[Velorath]

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.

[stray]

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.

[Ironwood]

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.

[Ironwood]

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.

[Llava]

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.

[Trippy]

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.

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

[Ironwood]

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 ?

[Trippy]

Here's a direct link to the trailer:

Spider-Man 3 HD (1280x608) QuickTime Trailer

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.

[Ironwood]

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

Never.

[Llava]

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.

[Ironwood]

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.

[Trippy]

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

[Llava]

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.

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.

[Ironwood]

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.

[Llava]

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.

[Ironwood]

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.

[HaemishM]

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.

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.

[Sky]

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 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.

As to the first, I agree. As to the second, it worked GREAT for the X-Men.

[Ironwood]

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

Hence the bell tower.

[Velorath]

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.

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?

[Llava]

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.)

[stray]

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. 

[Ironwood]

Must every Spider-man 3 thread devolve into an argument over how shitty Venom is?

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.

[SnakeCharmer]

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

[WindupAtheist]

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.

[Velorath]

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

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.

[stray]

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

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

It's not like they never change things between the comics and movies.

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

[Tannhauser]

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.

[Velorath]

Why isn't Harry wearing the GG outfit?  Bit disappointing.  I bet so we can see his manly emoting.

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

[HaemishM]

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. 

It wasn't Red October, it was Crimson Tide.

[Ironwood]

[SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER]
Teh Gay
[/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

[stray]

a signe from God.

Heh

[Mr. Right]

Teh Gay

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