That the somewhat holier-than-thou notion that you are "mature enough" to point out the thing you like in a movie runs somehow contrary to our picking apart a movie is suspect. It doesn't make you immature to dislike a movie, nor does it make you mature to say "well, I thought Superman's cape was nifty, even if the plot was half-baked."

If you'll notice, the post you quoted was not me shitting all over the movie. I gave what I thought was a reasoned response to the film. I just get really tired of all the OMG SUXXORZ stuff. It really, really gets tiresome. A five-year-old could do that.

<comicnerd>

The Eddie Brock is comic accurate. In Marvel's Ultimate line(Which has no direct connections to the main comics) Eddie Brock is a small kinda nerdy guy, much like Parker.

I would have cast the guy who did Eddie Brock as Parker, BTW. I do not like Tobey Maguire one bit.

And that's the point...I'm no 5-year-old. My criticism (that you dismissed as me just not liking the movie) is as well-reasoned as yours. I do happen to know what I'm talking about. And dismissive condescension of contrary opinions is as bad a meme as that OMG SUXXORZ crap.

I wasn't directing that specfifically at you... but I don't really care. I just get tired of all the SM3 blah. I wouldn't mind at all having a discussion about the pros and cons of the film (because I don't think it was perfect), but so much of the criticism of SM3 seems to be absolute, like the movie is totally unredeemable and the worst thing ever. It's kind of a discussion killer. I understand disappointment, but let's place that in a context.

I just get tired of the majority of complaints against SM3 being ridiculous ones.

^ shorter version of what I wanted to say

OK....MH just addressed that.

hehe...double lolz

Then how's this? SM3 was overloaded with new characters with arcs that didn't really go anywhere (hello Gwen Stacy), were highly underdeveloped (Eddie Brock), or had backstories and resoultions that were completely betrayed by their completely evil actions during most of the movie (Flynt Marko). The most interesting story, IMO, was Harry's revenge plot...and that was neutered in the first act and ruined in the third act when the only person who could convince Harry of the error of his ways was the damn butler.

But, like I said, I liked most of Harry's story and wish they would've used him as a main villian instead of Venom. I liked Topher Grace as basically Peter with a shottier life. And I liked the black costume.

I would say that Gwen Stacy's role in the film was to serve as a catalyst for the split between Peter and MJ. She had no story purpose aside from that, and it would have been a waste of celluloid (and a missing of the point) to be like "gee, what happened to her after the nightclub").

I didn't have a problem with Eddie Brock, aside from the church scene. His story was told in shorthand for much of the movie, and it worked for me except at that moment. He randomly goes into a big empty church (I guess people do that in movies) and prays "God please kill Peter Parker." That to me was a bit abrupt, like I could feel the movie telling me "time to move into the next act." I definitely got how Brock would hate Parker, but to go from that to wishing death upon someone (and asking Jesus to do it, lol)... well, that seems like Underpants Gnomes logic.

My biggest problem with Venom was the character itself. He really wasn't very interesting. I think part of that was the design, part of it was the execution. I kind of expected a movie featuring a giant sand person to be able to make Venom a bit more dynamic physically.

Flint Marko is SM3's version of Doc Ock IMO. Which is something I notice a lot with criticism of SM3 -- a lot of the things that Raimi did in SM3 he did in SM2, but everybody loves SM2 so it's okay? It just seems inconsistent to me. Doc Ock begins and ends the movie as a sympathetic character, but in between he's doing everything he can to be an evil, murderous bastard. And that's all right? They're movie villains; the problem isn't them being evil but with the director trying to humanize them. It doesn't really work when you have to end up turning your bad guys into Snidely Whiplash. And that's a problem with every SM movie IMO.

I think Harry's arc was one of the best parts about the movie. But I do agree that the butler thing was too convenient. Harry had gone for a very long time believing that Spider-Man was responsible for his father's death, and I would have liked it better if Harry had been motivated more by his friendship with Peter than by him realizing that Spider-Man wasn't really responsible. Because on an emotional level that doesn't really follow, especially considering that the last time he saw Peter, he'd lobbed a grenade at him. I think it would have been better if Harry had simply *decided* to help Peter, regardless. It would have kept the emotional through-line going. As it is, it's not my favorite part of the movie.

My favorite scene is the one where Peter excitedly tells Aunt May that Spider-Man killed Marko, and she's shocked, and the look on Peter's face as he's trying to reconcile her reaction with his and everything... that I liked. Also I did really like Harry's amnesia because it allowed him to reconnect with Peter as a friend and remember why they had been friends in the first place. (Which again would have been more significant if Harry had decided to go help Peter at the end without being told about glider weapons.)

I haven't seen the movie. So this is just brain farting but...

I'd have been hesitant to do Venom in the movie verse at all.

But if I did... I think that having 2 goblins in a trilogy (as opposed to 50 years of comics) is lame and skipped Brock altogether by making Harry Venom.

Yeah, I thought The Punisher movie was bad ass. I hate Travolta, which was the reason it took me so long to watch the movie. Thomas Jane was 120% ass kicking through that whole movie. I'm also pissed that Jane isn't in this other one.

But see, Doc Ock had a positive relationship with Peter to begin with and paid for his sins at the end of SM2 by saving the world and, you know, dying. Marko was a criminal who was partly responsible for Uncle Ben's death (but only 'cause he had a sick daughter, so its ok), and Spider-Man let him go mere minutes after he was was punding the hell outta everything in sight as a giant. Making him sympathetic was forced and felt like a rip-off to me. It was like they saw what worked in SM2 and put a different spin on it, which is why we got another sympathetic villian and musical number. And it didn't work for me the second time around.

I'll agree with that.

The only superhero movies I've seen that are completely beyond redemption are Batman and Robin, and Superman Returns. Never once said Spiderman 3 sucked or was unwatchable. It's just badly flawed

Spiderman 1, and 2 set the bar pretty high for the third film and I think that's where a lot of the angst is stemming from. Everything in the first two films made sense, and were pulled together convincingly. Spiderman 3 just meanders from one idea to the next. The main focus was tying up Parker's relationship with Mary Jane and his rivalry with Harry over the death of his father. Sandman and Venom really had nothing all that much to do with the story Rami was telling and that's proved even further in how little time he takes to convincingly introduce them. Marco Flint basically escapes in time to fall into some unknown/underground facility where there manipulating sand for whatever reason and becomes Sandman. Venom for whatever reason falls out of the sky at the one spot on the entire planet where Parker is at that moment. Say what you will about the Venom sega but IMO it was written much better than that. And yes I've seen it since being a kid, I have it on dvd and watched it not too long ago. Campy with some atrocious one liners but still better approached and more true to the original concept than Rami's vision of what Venom is.

Anamaniacs was great but so were BMTAS, SMTAS, JL, and Gargoyles. All better than anything the 80s or most of what passes for animation now had to offer.

he does a better acting job in the Punisher game, I've found. He toned himself down a bit, IIRC. It's been years since I've seen/played both.

The Punisher game isn't connected to the movie other than the use of Thomas Jane, BTW.

He forgave him, is what he did. Which is the alternative to revenge. Though I don't think you could really say that Marko was responsible for Ben's death -- they even make it clear in the flashback that he didn't mean to pull the trigger. The driver guy didn't intend for it to happen either. And I think that's important. It was just some fucked-up thing that happened, and Peter needed to accept it. Ultimately the entire story was about the decisions Peter makes... everything else served that.

(And the fact that Doc Ock had a positive relationship with Peter at the beginning of SM2 makes his character swing even more dramatic than Marko's.)


I thought that *was* the original concept.

But I just don't think that Venom is that interesting of a character... what makes it interesting is seeing what the symbiote does to Parker. Once he gives up the black suit, there's like no dramatic anything left.

I think Marko all of a sudden saying "I didn't mean for this to happen" right after beating the everliving fuck out of Spidey is the WTF moment for me.

It's one thing for Spidey to forgive him. It's another when Marko all of a sudden decides not to pound on him.

For my money they could have made 3 Spiderman Vs. Doc Ock movies.

What the hell's with your sig?

Replacing Jane for whatever reason was stupid.

Liked him the first time around though it would have been nice if he would have been allowed to act like the Punisher from the "Old" days.

Stone cold and robotic doesn't make for a very entertaining character opposed to the Punisher who went into a full fit of rage each time he entered a gun battle.

See's Warzone being more Punisher Max than the first film.

The movie does jump from one character beat to another very very quickly, at least when it comes to the villains. I don't know why they put so many of those things in the movie (symbiote literally falling out of the sky, Sandman stumbling upon a particle accelerator thingy, Brock getting all murderous regarding Parker, Venom and Sandman teaming up, Harry's butler-driven reversal, etc.) but it did make the villains' story seem kind of unimportant. But the thing about that is, ultimately the villains' stories *are* kind of unimportant. The movie's called "Spider-Man" and that's the character we're supposed to care about. So while yes, I agree that these are flaws in the storytelling, to me they're not critical flaws because they don't impact the main character -- the villains would have ended up making these decisions anyway. It's just that they took shortcuts to get them there.

Marko's moment was the deal breaker for me. Everything else I was fine with(And I'm sure you recall me being one of the few who defended the movie back last year), but the sudden drop of his aggression towards Peter was... just nuts. That's all I can say about it really.

I think that moment was consistent with his character -- like how for instance, the first time they met, Marko was like "leave me alone" and Spidey kept after him, so he was like "all right" and started fighting him. The inconsistency for me was the Giant Sandman Pounding Spidey To Death part. I don't think he would/should have ever done that. Self-defense? Okay. Getting Spidey to fuck off and stop bothering him? Okay. Smashing him to bits as he's being held to a steel girder? No.

I think that it should have been *Venom* beating the fuck out of Spidey (and perhaps establishing Venom as more of a threat, as a bonus), because that kind of amoral "fuck you I'm killing you" stuff is much more a Venom-y thing to do.

But then it presents a problem -- what do you do with Sandman in the third act? If I had written it, I would have had Sandman going along with Venom at first (he is kind of a dope, isn't he), but when he sees what Venom is really all about, he would turn on him and try to help Spidey. I think that would also have worked the Venom-As-Evil-Spidey metaphor more effectively.

OH, OH I didn't know we were dragging SP2 into this... For the record I thought Doc Oct. have a f'cking epiphany at the end was the most gheyest f'cking thing about that movie.

Doc: Die Spider-Man...*wat* Peter?...Die Peter Parker!
SM: New York is going to go bye-bye because of you *gasp*
Doc: Wat, wat?!?
Arms: Clink, Clink
Doc: STFU you mind controlling arms, we're doing this my way!!!
*rain drops keep falling on my head...*

SP3 f'ckd Venom over and hopefully his own movie will do him justice vengance.

For the record, I thought the "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" montage -- especially the freeze frame at the end -- was worth the price of admission alone.

^ I agree. That and Saturday Night Fever Spidey were totally the best parts of the movie.

I actually like that part very much.

A better focus would've been to lose Sandman altogether. If you are looking to have someone be redeemed, you've got Harry. So you stretch Harry's reign of terror out, don't give him amnesia, and have Spidey use his symbiote anger to beat the hell out of Harry, incapacitating him. You have Peter remorseful for what he's done and shed the symbiote, which then gets passed on to Eddie Brock, who then goes after Spider-Man. For the final showdown, Venom takes on Spidey. Harry has a change of heart that's not butler-induced, and he comes to Spidey's rescue. They take out Venom, Harry dies, is redeemed, movie's over. There's really no need for Sandman.

I won't argue against "less Sandman." He worked inasmuch as he was a focal point for Peter's symbiote angst, but beyond that?

I get the sense that Raimi was trying to make SM3 a *smaller* movie, actually... focusing as much as he did on Peter/MJ/Harry. Anytime it was their story, I was glued to the screen. But I have a bias toward character-driven stuff, so that stood out to me. I think I just tuned out the more spectacular elements of the movie because they're ultimately not that important to me. Like how in SM2 that whole subway fight only really mattered to me when Spidey was on the floor and everyone was like "he's just a kid." The rest of the sequence was cool, but I can see "cool" in just about any CG-laden action movie.

I think that's why I come away from SM3 having a net positive reaction to it. I do think that the villain stuff was poorly handled to a degree, but again I can't really get that uppity about it because I don't really care about it all that much. I think Raimi did the right things with his main characters, so that makes it worthwhile to me.

I have to disagree with some thing here - something that i think all this "story talk" is missing.
Neither venom nor Harry could be the villain of SM3 - the reason being, that film is a visual medium and Nu-goblin and Nu-Spiderman - are both redundant.

To that end I think Sandman was the best choice as a visual element to contribute to the series. BUT i also agree with many of the complaints that the story was weak and cluttered had too many shortcuts.

That makes so much sense that I think the universe is going explode.

I think Spider-Man should have been the villain in SM3.

But I know what you're saying.

I really want to see Mysterio or Electro in a Spidy movie....
Not that I have any idea what a Mysterio movie would look like or what purpose Electro has other than shooting lightning.

I Would have liked it if the movie were broken in to two parts. The first movie deals with Peter under influence of the symbiote. In the second act of the film he kills Sandman (do we really have to have Sandman for another film?) and he likes the "rush." During the second act, he has his big showdown with Harry and is all "You used to be my friend, but guess what, you want to kill me so I'm going to tear your fucking head off!" The climax is all the final showdown and right as Peter is going to kill Harry he realizes what he is about to do and flees into the night thinking "OMG, what am I doing?" Roll credits.

Then SM4 could have been about redemption. Peter's redemption after acting like an anti-hero, Harry's redemption of his friendship with Peter, Eddie Brock's failure to let go of his vengeance, which turns him into Venom which ultimately becomes his undoing. At the hands of Peter and Harry (Harry does not die.) Roll credits.


I think Mysterio would suck. "Ooooh, I'm a special effects artist with a fishbowl on my head. Check out my mighty powers of levitation. Don't pay any attention to the wires that are holding me off the ground."

Kingpin needs to be a villain in a Spidey movie. Spidey needs to take on organized crime.

Don't forget, they've had the Lizard cooking at Peter's college for a couple movies now.

Careful, don't start breaking the villains down too much

"Please tell us your name and your powers."

"I'm 'Sandman'."

"What do you do?"

"I, um, turn into sand."

"Next."

I think the lizard would be nice, but how manyvillains can they do where he's a friend of Peter's, then he goes bad and then gets redeemed (If they hold true to the Lizard's comic persona.)

EDIT: Well, sympathetic villains, I should say
Goblin
Dock Ock
Nu Goblin
Sandman

Goblin never redeemed or was sypathetic and that was a great thing.

The only two that should fit that bill are Sandman and the Lizard.

@ LMH don't start that sh!t about Spider-Man fighting himself. F'ck the clone saga.

*knows nothing of this Clone Saga*

I just meant that the whole Evil Spider-Man thing would have been enough for a movie.

Sure he was a sympathetic character. He was Peter's best friend's dad. He offered to help Peter find a job just because he was Harry's friend. When he died he snapped out of his insanity enough to tell Peter "Don't tell Harry." Which was supposed to make us go "awww, now I feel bad that I wanted him to buy it."

Anyway, just like what is generally considered the best villain in the movie series, Doc Ock, he had a friendly relationship with Peter, he had something go horribly wrong to make him a bad guy, and only at the end of the film does he "come around."

I think you really have to distinguish between the villain and his alter ego. Raimi does a great job with his villains when they're not in Villain Mode. Put the costumes on and it's another matter.

I liked Doc Ock's villain-ness.

What, you didn't like the Green Goblin?



*actual picture taken from Wikipedia's article on SM1

No, I liked Gobby too.

My only complaint about GG was his costume. I'd have done a more basic looking powered armor with a "scary" mask that got slighty F'd up when Osborn stole it, so he tossed a ragged purple hood/cape number over it to make it look more EEEVILLL!!!

Green Goblin is a tough villain to put onscreen, no question.

I think where they failed is making the connection between Osbourne's (convenient) mask fetish and him using one as Green Goblin. He just sort of showed up with the costume, and I was like "oh okay..."

I'm cool with the military-esque uniform and all that -- why not, I accepted that the military would be designing an armored Lamborghini with monster truck tires. But as much as I hate to copy hater comments, the mask really did have a Power Rangers vibe.

Great, now I'll never be able to watch SP1 again without thinking "Ninja Mega Falconzord - Double Dive-Bomb Punch!" Thanks.

I really try to ignore the movie GG costume, but I can't help but think it looks goofy. Okay, the old comic book costume was kind of goofy, but at least the mask allowed for facial expressions. And if it had to be different, the Ultimate Green Goblin is the example to follow.

I have a daughter and I know what kind of madness goes through your head when her safety is in jeopardy. I had no trouble believing any of that stuff.

No way



BTW the "Oh no! the unshielded glass inhibitor chip on the back of my exposed neck shattered!" mcguffin is still gheyer to me than anything in SM3.

Wow, I'd forgotten that. Yeah.