Flash Thomson as Agent Venom was the best version of the "Good Guy Venom" concept period…. until they sent him to Space or whatever, but up till then it was good.
Marvel Movies Thread - Holy Shitballs
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It's only because it's my Bendict-sama that I'll see the second Doctor Strange. Because they said it's going to be a horror movie, and I HATE horror movies.
Wait what? Are they doing Lovecraft Doctor Strange? This is wonderful news, some of the best Doc stories are of the haunted house/creepy village variety. That whole what lies under the surface shit is a great fit for the character
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There is a ton of difference between jumpscare horror, "these horny teens are about to get violently murdered" horror and cosmic horror.
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If they do a Lovecraft variety I might be more into it.
Hmm guess I have a friend in typo hell:ninja:
Well excuse me for having the occasional typo.
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There is a ton of difference between jumpscare horror, "these horny teens are about to get violently murdered" horror and cosmic horror.
I'd still watch a Doctor Strange slasher film tho.
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Nyarlathotep throws some drunk teenagers into a sleeping bag and then smashes them against a tree.
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"these horny teens are about to get violently murdered" horror.
haha, way to describe every horror hollywood film from 1989 to nowadays.
–- Update From New Post Merge ---
@uniaka:
Not with aquaman, shazam that btw is better movie then spiderman far from home, wonder woman around.
As long as there's no Darkseid, there's no DCEU.
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I like how Scarlet Witch is supposed to play a role in the Doctor Strange sequel, I kind of wish they had met up sooner.
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It's only because it's my Benedict-sama that I'll see the second Doctor Strange. Because they said it's going to be a horror movie, and I HATE horror movies.
It'll propably be as much a horror movie as Ant Man was a "heist" movie, Winter Soldier a "spy thriller", or Homecoming a "High-school comedy", as in not all that much. Borrowing some superficial conventions and signifiers of said genres here and there sure, but ultimately filtering them safely through the standard Marvel mold.
Like, Doctor Strange 2 might have some psychedelic effects and creatures, but I'd be absolutely shocked if it opted for a straight horror tone or anything but a PG-13 rating.
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This is what i'm hoping for. Without the mid-arc artist change.
Mysterious village, deformed people, marvel appropriate elder gods.
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Ouch.
We can't stop having Tom Holland as Spidey, he's like the best yet.
I agree. He's my favorite version of Spiderman. He does a good job portraying the character in the movies.
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Yeah, I can deal with Sony producing Spidey films on their own again, even if I'd prefer him to stay in the MCU (not necessarily because of all the crossovers, but it seems like a safer bet for good quality), but I would not support them firing Tom Holland in the slightest. He has been perfect in the role so far. I think if they rebooted everything AGAIN with a new actor portraying the character, I would boycott it.
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Spider Man 2 is the best 1 so far and it had nothing to do with Disney's universe. The way that Phase 4 is mapped out, it looks like Disney was prepared for this. Of course, if the negotiations don't work out because it is said to be ongoing. All this boycotting stuff sounds weird. An entity that only cares about your dollar, can make you jump as high as they want you to. People are acting as if Disney and Sony can't survive w/o each other. Then the're using Stan Lee's name to rally the troops and even his daughter is picking sides. This all looks messy and you'd have to be a sheep to believe that there's a good guy or bad guy because this very obvious business tactic.
This is exactly why I don't "support". I pay for what I like. "Support the creatives" was created by those who take a bigger cut while the creatives have to hope something sells massively and still not get a fair share. Still… fans for music, manga, movies, etc repeat it as if it means what they're trying to convey. The creatives rarely get a fair amount of that "support". It's really "support the millionaires and billionaires that make sure the creatives get 5 times less than them".
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Spider Man 2 is the best 1 so far and it had nothing to do with Disney's universe. The way that Phase 4 is mapped out, it looks like Disney was prepared for this. Of course, if the negotiations don't work out because it is said to be ongoing. All this boycotting stuff sounds weird. An entity that only cares about your dollar, can make you jump as high as they want you to. People are acting as if Disney and Sony can't survive w/o each other. Then the're using Stan Lee's name to rally the troops and even his daughter is picking sides. This all looks messy and you'd have to be a sheep to believe that there's a good guy or bad guy because this very obvious business tactic.
This is exactly why I don't "support". I pay for what I like. "Support the creatives" was created by those who take a bigger cut while the creatives have to hope something sells massively and still not get a fair share. Still… fans for music, manga, movies, etc repeat it as if it means what they're trying to convey. The creatives rarely get a fair amount of that "support". It's really "support the millionaires and billionaires that make sure the creatives get 5 times less than them".
Respectfully disagree. The Raimi movies were way too cartoony (while 2 was the best of the Raimi movies, IMO that isn't saying much) to stack up against the MCU incarnations. They harken back to those dark Batman and Robin days of superhero films. Sony still has a long way to go for making actually decent live-action comic book film adaptations. Spider-Verse had a lot of flexibility because of the animation (nobody's going to take it completely seriously throughout even though it's got a great deal of heavy emotion just because it's animated) and multiverse angle to compensate for not having access to the wider Marvel universe. Unless they're going to go that route with the next live-action one I can't imagine them not screwing the pooch like they have with the Ghost Rider films and both previous Spider-Man franchises and, to a lesser extent, Venom (which wasn't terrible but just aggressively mediocre).
Disney is of course the soulless moneymaking machine they pretend not to be but at least the people they have working on their movies have passion for it (Kevin Feige being a true fan is instrumental in making things fit together so well). But every Sony film up to Spider-Verse has just reeked of that funk of corporate cynicism. I don't want that film equivalent of the sensation of having a stinky garbage can lid slam shut and blast me in the face with the cloud of putridness anymore.
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Respectfully disagree. The Raimi movies were way too cartoony (while 2 was the best of the Raimi movies, IMO that isn't saying much) to stack up against the MCU incarnations. They harken back to those dark Batman and Robin days of superhero films. Sony still has a long way to go for making actually decent live-action comic book film adaptations. Spider-Verse had a lot of flexibility because of the animation (nobody's going to take it completely seriously throughout even though it's got a great deal of heavy emotion just because it's animated) and multiverse angle to compensate for not having access to the wider Marvel universe. Unless they're going to go that route with the next live-action one I can't imagine them not screwing the pooch like they have with the Ghost Rider films and both previous Spider-Man franchises and, to a lesser extent, Venom (which wasn't terrible but just aggressively mediocre).
Disney is of course the soulless moneymaking machine they pretend not to be but at least the people they have working on their movies have passion for it (Kevin Feige being a true fan is instrumental in making things fit together so well). But every Sony film up to Spider-Verse has just reeked of that funk of corporate cynicism. I don't want that film equivalent of the sensation of having a stinky garbage can lid slam shut and blast me in the face with the cloud of putridness anymore.
Oh God, please don't remind me of Spidey 3 or Ghostrider.
Doc Oc's journey is the best i've seen for a villain in any Spidey movie. Vulture is the best of the Holland movies and he still doesn't hit as much as Oc did. After being a villain, there's backstory. I like student/indirect mentor dynamic with Peter and Oc over Peter and Vulture who didn't formally meet until the bulk of the movie. I like how the MCU was a great backdrop from Tony and Happy to the weapons that Vulture found from the Battle Of NY. My issue is that it relied too much on the MCU. That partially came back to bite both Disney and Sony because now fans are angry at Tony's heir possibly leaving and can't see a decent MCU less Peter as possible respectively. I went into Civil War wanting a Peter Parker film, but left wanting a Black Panther movie and it was clearly better than Homecoming.
If Sony makes a MCU less horrible 3rd solo film, I can just wait for the next superhero movie from someone else. If Disney makes a dope Spidey 3, i'm doing the same. I'm waiting for Shang-Chi and Blade, plus I didn't love Far From Home, so i'm okay w/o a Spidey flick from anyone.
My 3 biggest issues with Far From Home
- The Spidey Sense issue wasn't made urgent enough til he gets slapped by a train
- I wanted yo leave when he gave up Edith so easily
- Mysterio wasn't intimidating to me. I didn't love Mysterio in the show when I was younger either, so yeah
Point is, who ever makes it or doesn't make it wouldn't drastically change things for me and going by the Blade, FF and Mutants announcements, I can't see what everyone is so up in arms about
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Doc Oc's journey is the best i've seen for a villain in any Spidey movie.
Really? I mean everyone has their own opinion, but personally I REALLY disagree. Don't get me wrong, I love the actor's performance. But here Octavius starts as a smart scientist Peter admires and grows close with, puts on a big public science experiment with no safety standards that goes horrible the first time he tries it and it kills his wife. Afterward, the tentacles themselves are the cause of his mind being fucked up along with grief which directly results in him becoming…..a bank robber. On top of readily going after Peter to get to Spider-man to appease Harry just for more of the element to complete his experiment again.
I love Spider-man 2, and the acting in it. But I've always been drawn more to Peter and Harry's stories. I always felt like Octavius in this film was more of a hill for Spider-man to climb over to really reclaim his heroics than a complete character and villain.
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Disney is of course the soulless moneymaking machine they pretend not to be but at least the people they have working on their movies have passion for it (Kevin Feige being a true fan is instrumental in making things fit together so well).
At least til they fire them for some old twitter posts in an attempt at parity. Something that I find curious that the people giving Sony shit just up and forgot about while making Marvel and by Extension Disney into some aggrieved party.
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Oh God, please don't remind me of Spidey 3 or Ghostrider.
Too bad! It's the inevitable consequence of Sony taking the lead again, so it has to be pointed out. They're 2 for 3 at failing to make a decent live-action Spider-Man franchise independently. Unless they get their Spider-Verse crew to force the screw-up division into submission, I'm not holding out hope. There's just such a radical difference between the animated and live-action universes (just look at DC, they're kicking ass with their animation and their live-action stuff is really hit-or-miss) that Sony hasn't got the clout to justify us having confidence in their ability to handle comic characters well yet.
Doc Oc's journey is the best i've seen for a villain in any Spidey movie. Vulture is the best of the Holland movies and he still doesn't hit as much as Oc did. After being a villain, there's backstory. I like student/indirect mentor dynamic with Peter and Oc over Peter and Vulture who didn't formally meet until the bulk of the movie. I like how the MCU was a great backdrop from Tony and Happy to the weapons that Vulture found from the Battle Of NY. My issue is that it relied too much on the MCU. That partially came back to bite both Disney and Sony because now fans are angry at Tony's heir possibly leaving and can't see a decent MCU less Peter as possible respectively. I went into Civil War wanting a Peter Parker film, but left wanting a Black Panther movie and it was clearly better than Homecoming.
Really? I thought it was pretty lame. The guy had nothing left to lose after his disaster and his ego was too uncontrollable to let him admit that he failed. Sure, he got a redemption at the end and died to make amends for his misdeeds but he was such a miserable turd doing all his destructive acts getting to that point it was like, 'kinda late, bro.' At least Vulture had a more human, understandable reason to do what he did and in the end when he'd also lost everything, he didn't give up Peter's identity when he could have.
If Sony makes a MCU less horrible 3rd solo film, I can just wait for the next superhero movie from someone else. If Disney makes a dope Spidey 3, i'm doing the same. I'm waiting for Shang-Chi and Blade, plus I didn't love Far From Home, so i'm okay w/o a Spidey flick from anyone.
My 3 biggest issues with Far From Home
- The Spidey Sense issue wasn't made urgent enough til he gets slapped by a train
- I wanted yo leave when he gave up Edith so easily
- Mysterio wasn't intimidating to me. I didn't love Mysterio in the show when I was younger either, so yeah
It wouldn't be a third solo film anymore then because the MCU things wouldn't be able to be used, so any continuation of the story would be all but impossible. It would just have to reboot all over again. Marvel can't do anything until Sony comes to their senses so no third film is coming out on their part. Sony's shooting themselves in the foot big time
a) by losing out on the ability to
make actual quality films that people will want to watch and spend money on because they don't know what the hell they're doing when it comes to this kind of thing
b) regardless of the reality of the negotiations failing, their PR backlash is going to make people hate them for it and will hurt their bottom line in both their film studio revenue and other avenues
c) lose access to the pool of MCU lore to enhance their own movies and limit their own film universes, which will bottleneck their profits, not to mention having to compete with another entity rather than cooperate with them is going to be costly as well (will people rather see a craptastic Spidey flick or an Avengers movie released in the same month?)I'm really on the fence about Shang Chi given the limit of what a non-powered human without a magic weapon or power armor is capable of when the antagonist is supposedly the ten-rings-wielding Mandarin. Blade, though, I'm more interested in, but the PG-13 thing worries me.
As for FFH, I agree, they turned the Spider-Sense into a joke when it should have been progressively dealing with it all the way back in Civil War. The Edith thing was not a great narrative device, they could have done without that and gone a different route. The drones they already had without it seemed to be doing a good enough job as it is for manufacturing the need for a Mysterio, and what exactly was Beck planning to do if another Avengers-level threat showed up and he had no idea how to combat it? Plus the intimidation thing wasn't really going to work given that he had such a substantial workforce of cohorts that he had to deal with. He can't intimidate them if he is so utterly dependent on them for literally everything other than his own holographic projectors to do what they're trying to do.
Point is, who ever makes it or doesn't make it wouldn't drastically change things for me and going by the Blade, FF and Mutants announcements, I can't see what everyone is so up in arms about
Well if you've read the comics that I have, and enjoyed Spider-Man's interactions with each of those aforementioned groups, you'd understand because that makes it impossible for those interactions to ever occur again if Sony is unwilling to share their favorite toy. The bromance between Peter Parker and Johnny Storm, never to be seen anywhere but the pages of the comics. Tragic. Spidey and Wolverine teaming up for a mission and their comically mismatched personalities and style of conflict resolution jeopardizing their success limited to that one or two episodes of the 90's cartoon. Unthinkable! This is why this is such a goddamn mess. Now that Marvel actually has access to their full stable of other properties, losing Spidey at this juncture is like having Deadpool's lower half grow back and then immediately getting ripped off again.
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Too bad! It's the inevitable consequence of Sony taking the lead again, so it has to be pointed out. They're 2 for 3 at failing to make a decent live-action Spider-Man franchise independently. Unless they get their Spider-Verse crew to force the screw-up division into submission, I'm not holding out hope. There's just such a radical difference between the animated and live-action universes (just look at DC, they're kicking ass with their animation and their live-action stuff is really hit-or-miss) that Sony hasn't got the clout to justify us having confidence in their ability to handle comic characters well yet.
Really? I thought it was pretty lame. The guy had nothing left to lose after his disaster and his ego was too uncontrollable to let him admit that he failed. Sure, he got a redemption at the end and died to make amends for his misdeeds but he was such a miserable turd doing all his destructive acts getting to that point it was like, 'kinda late, bro.' At least Vulture had a more human, understandable reason to do what he did and in the end when he'd also lost everything, he didn't give up Peter's identity when he could have.
It wouldn't be a third solo film anymore then because the MCU things wouldn't be able to be used, so any continuation of the story would be all but impossible. It would just have to reboot all over again. Marvel can't do anything until Sony comes to their senses so no third film is coming out on their part. Sony's shooting themselves in the foot big time
a) by losing out on the ability tomake actual quality films that people will want to watch and spend money on because they don't know what the hell they're doing when it comes to this kind of thing
b) regardless of the reality of the negotiations failing, their PR backlash is going to make people hate them for it and will hurt their bottom line in both their film studio revenue and other avenues
c) lose access to the pool of MCU lore to enhance their own movies and limit their own film universes, which will bottleneck their profits, not to mention having to compete with another entity rather than cooperate with them is going to be costly as well (will people rather see a craptastic Spidey flick or an Avengers movie released in the same month?)I'm really on the fence about Shang Chi given the limit of what a non-powered human without a magic weapon or power armor is capable of when the antagonist is supposedly the ten-rings-wielding Mandarin. Blade, though, I'm more interested in, but the PG-13 thing worries me.
As for FFH, I agree, they turned the Spider-Sense into a joke when it should have been progressively dealing with it all the way back in Civil War. The Edith thing was not a great narrative device, they could have done without that and gone a different route. The drones they already had without it seemed to be doing a good enough job as it is for manufacturing the need for a Mysterio, and what exactly was Beck planning to do if another Avengers-level threat showed up and he had no idea how to combat it? Plus the intimidation thing wasn't really going to work given that he had such a substantial workforce of cohorts that he had to deal with. He can't intimidate them if he is so utterly dependent on them for literally everything other than his own holographic projectors to do what they're trying to do.
Well if you've read the comics that I have, and enjoyed Spider-Man's interactions with each of those aforementioned groups, you'd understand because that makes it impossible for those interactions to ever occur again if Sony is unwilling to share their favorite toy. The bromance between Peter Parker and Johnny Storm, never to be seen anywhere but the pages of the comics. Tragic. Spidey and Wolverine teaming up for a mission and their comically mismatched personalities and style of conflict resolution jeopardizing their success limited to that one or two episodes of the 90's cartoon. Unthinkable! This is why this is such a goddamn mess. Now that Marvel actually has access to their full stable of other properties, losing Spidey at this juncture is like having Deadpool's lower half grow back and then immediately getting ripped off again.
You're basically saying that Sony would be dumb to try Spider Man w/o Disney, but also saying that Disney really needs Spider Man. If they both equally need each other, they're equally at fault until proven otherwise. All we've gotten is a narrative where Disney wants it to work so bad and Sony is the big bad corporation that doesn't want to play ball. All this behind the scenes narrative manipulation feels like Disney has their hand up the consumer's backside. Just feeding them talking points. I just choose to not help either in this weird battle. It feels sheep like to choose a side here and be angry at Disney or Sony.
When it comes to Vulture, he was just a bad leader and had a weird temper where they would try to make him funny, but serious. It was weird. Dude thought he'd suspend the guy in air, but when he just killed him, he was like oh okay. Oc was consistent and was obsessed with his work. Peter in Spidey 2 went through times where his power would fail him and it was emphasized and connected to his adult affairs. Peter in Spidey 2 was just dumbed down too much. He's young and going through, but the way he gave up EDITH was laughable and rushed. The Betty/Ned relationship looked uncomfortable. Mysterio wasn't bad, but was a weak link and it's not Jake's fault because he did a great performance. At least Vulture was intimidating, despite his horrendous writing where he's supposed to be serious, but a lil funny.
Homecoming just felt like a big MCU movie where I can take any hero, have Tony be the mentor and Chitauri weapons fall into the wrong hands. The greatest parts about it have nothing to do with the MCU and more to do with Spider Man. The Holland movies rely too much on the MCU and the MCU isn't putting too much stock in Spidey. They just made it where some would feel like he wouldn't do well outside of the MCU, when Spidey 1 and 2 were just fine w/o the Avengers being mentioned every 15 minutes.
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Respectfully disagree. The Raimi movies were way too cartoony (while 2 was the best of the Raimi movies, IMO that isn't saying much) to stack up against the MCU incarnations. They harken back to those dark Batman and Robin days of superhero films. Sony still has a long way to go for making actually decent live-action comic book film adaptations. Spider-Verse had a lot of flexibility because of the animation (nobody's going to take it completely seriously throughout even though it's got a great deal of heavy emotion just because it's animated) and multiverse angle to compensate for not having access to the wider Marvel universe. Unless they're going to go that route with the next live-action one I can't imagine them not screwing the pooch like they have with the Ghost Rider films and both previous Spider-Man franchises and, to a lesser extent, Venom (which wasn't terrible but just aggressively mediocre).
Disney is of course the soulless moneymaking machine they pretend not to be but at least the people they have working on their movies have passion for it (Kevin Feige being a true fan is instrumental in making things fit together so well). But every Sony film up to Spider-Verse has just reeked of that funk of corporate cynicism. I don't want that film equivalent of the sensation of having a stinky garbage can lid slam shut and blast me in the face with the cloud of putridness anymore.
Spidey 2 is so good. It understands that it's a comic book movie, but has mature motivations and great characterizations. It also feels like a big event movie, whereas the new Spidey films feel like they could easily be condensed into a couple episodes of a cartoon. I think Holland has had the best direction for Spidey, but I don't think his acting is any better than Tobey's or Garfield, and the original trilogy had much more iconic scenes that really let us understand Spidey and Peter. The new ones have tried, like the Homecoming scene where Spidey gets from under the rubble, which matches that classic scene in the 80s Spidey comics. But the reverence Raimi had for comics and his gift for framing his films similarly to them made the original trilogy more visually spectacular. Spiderverse, which for me is the best Spidey film, is similar in its triumphs. It's like a comic book pokemon evolved into a movie pokemon, but kept 2 of the same moves and it works brilliantly. I think years from now, people will remember Holland very fondly, but won't really talk much about his films, but Spidey 2 and 1 will really stand the test of time.
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The Sam Raimi movies were somewhat campy (which I fail to see why is automatically negative, especially for a property such as this) but they were also earnest. They commited wholeheartedly to showing the (melo)drama of Spider Man, and as a result theres so much more pathos, more genuine emotion in those films than in the Tom Holland ones, let alone your average MCU movie.
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I'm on the other end of the spectrum. To me the Raimi films are the same as the old X-men films, fair for it's time, but an utter embaressment to look back at after you've seen a genuine attempt at a marvel film. And even then they still had made good ones like Blade prior to that. I revise my statement to we didn't know any better back then even if we should have. Also i always felt like punching Toby Maguires Peter Parker in the face, even as a kid
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At least Vulture had a more human, understandable reason to do what he did and in the end when he'd also lost everything, he didn't give up Peter's identity when he could have
Keaten's Vulture never committed to a specific character trait, and that's my problem with him. Was he a reluctant villain? Not really, he killed that one henchman of his by accident and then shrugged it off. So he's committed to being bad now. Fine. Does he value his family above all else? Maybe. Even when he's threatening Peter he's still got that psycho tingle in his eyes. Which is fine. But what I needed from him was a moment when he wasn't playing his character. No jokes, just a genuine expression of emotion. "Don't tell Harry." "Brilliant but lazy."
He lost everything. I've no idea if he even cares, honestly. And therefore I do not care.
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Didn't know there were that many comic book live action fans here. This is a dope discussion.
Since we're on the topic. Top 5 MCU Villains?
Also, I think they just confirmed that Kit Harington is gonna be in the MCU. That's 2 Stark boys in the MCU now
Update: Hearing he might lead his own series and it could possibly be Wolverine
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Didn't know there were that many comic book live action fans here. This is a dope discussion.
Since we're on the topic. Top 5 MCU Villains?
Also, I think they just confirmed that Kit Harington is gonna be in the MCU. That's 2 Stark boys in the MCU now
Update: Hearing he might lead his own series and it could possibly be Wolverine
Best MCU villains in order:
1. Thanos
2. Killmonger
3. Ego
4. Loki
5. Zemo -
Hot damn they are REALLY making up for the loss of the Netflix shows with the stuff they're announcing right now for Disney +
In addition to everything we learned from SDCC, we now have Ms Marvel(first a show, then she'll be involved in the films), She-Hulk, and Moon Knight shows coming.
Edit: From AgentM on Twitter:
They showed a clip of "What If?"showing an animated Peggy Carter as a super solider. Her Vibranium shield has the British flag on it. Footage also showed "Zombie Cap, Steve in a tank-like suit with Captain Carter, Bucky, a very different Star-Lord, and more"
Sharon Carter will be returning in "The Falcon and the Winter Solider".
WandaVision is said to be a mix of a sitcom, with horror and weird darkness. Darcy from Thor(Kat Dennings) and Jimmy Woo from Ant-Man and the Wasp(Randall Park) will be in it as well.
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Best MCU villains in order:
1. Thanos
2. Killmonger
3. Ego
4. Loki
5. ZemoI rarely ever see Zemo on anyone's list.
5. Alexander Pierce
4. Hela
3. Thanos
2. Killmonger
1. ZemoAlso, update #2
Disney+ has added 3 series to it's TV show aspect of Phase 4
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I really hope the budget covers up for a good cgi on She-Hulk.
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Yes!!! She-Hulk and Ms. Marvel are part of the MCU now!
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Kit Harrington had joined the MCU.
Welp, with Tom Hardy as Venom, there was really no one else around for Welvorine I guess.
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She Hulk and Moon Knight are pretty hype! I haven't read Ms. Marvel, but I'm sure her inclusion will make a lot of people happy.
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I've ALWAYS disliked the Raimi films. Hated the costumes, felt it was TOO campy, . (And I'm an evil dead/Xena/Bruce Campbell fan fan) steeped in immediate post 9/11 New York love fest, and never ever liked Toby in the role. I kind of liked the second one at the time, but repeats have taken it apart.
But I've always really hated the first one, since its release, that wasn't an opinion I came to later on repeats or thinking about it, I just hated it the first time I saw it. . I think if they had been the second or third go at SPiderman they wouldn't be as fondly remembered, but since it was the first one and it hit all the basic beats and people grew up on it its more beloved than it maybe should be. It went through all the proper beats, no major misteps, there wasn't anything to compare it to at the time, and the upside down rain kiss is the one truly iconic scene to come from it… but overall... eh. Basically any scene with the Goblin everything falls apart because that costume is just so bad and you can't see any emotng. (And they hadn't started CG-ing Spidey's eyes so no emoting from him either.) Cripes, that scene where Spidey and Goblin are on the roof and both wearing their masks and talking is just, ugh, so poorly done.
Though I'm not really in love with any of the spiderman films, none of them have gotten it quite right. Raimi was too campy, Amazing was trying too hard to not be Raimi and rush a universe, and the new ones are too Iron Man. The Spectacular SPiderman cartoon though... THAT nailed it.
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– A 6-picture deal with Tom Holland, with an option for a 7th.
– There are three more Spider-Man films after Spider-Man 3, which will be a new trilogy.
– The second trilogy will focus on Peter Parker’s college years including plans for Peter to meet up and team up with Firestar and Ice Man of the X-Men (based in part on the old Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends cartoon).
– The other three movies are two Avengers films in which Spider-Man will have a larger role and become friends with Johnny Storm (Human Torch from the Fantastic Four).
– Marvel Studios will helm and co-finance all Spider-Man related movies for 30% of the full profits (Disney previously wanted 50%, but Sony said no, which led to the talks falling apart).
– Sony would distribute, but Disney will acquire exclusive digital and online rights for Disney Plus and affiliated TV networks.
– Marvel Studios will helm and co-finance SpiderVerse live-action spinoffs under the same terms.
– Venom will relocate into the MCU.
– Sony will be given permission for TV live-action programs based on SpiderVerse properties (Sony only has film rights to Spider-Man, but needs permission from Disney for TV rights)
– Disney wants the deal to be done before Saturday’s Marvel panel at D23 Expo.
– Spider-Man is also said to be a part of a D23 Expo panel.
In addition to this if another company purchases Sony such as Apple, the full rights of Spider-man will go back to disney.
I dunno how I feel about Firestar and iceman stuff, that's just… why hold so tightly to that randomness from the 70s when that grouping was just... whatever? Though its hard confirmation that the X-Men adn Fantastic Four will be integrated. WHich we knew was of course going to happen but not how, especially since they weren't slated at all for phase 4. Maybe they'll go the Black Panther route and introduce those elements and get the origins out of the way in films that aren't theirs. SLowly introducing one or two mutants at a time might help alleviate the "and suddenly theres a million of them" issue... and allow them to spotlight someone other than Wolverine, who I'm sure they're in no hurry to recast.
But it looks like it also means Sony's films (at least Venom) will also get to play in the MCU and have access to that material,. If that holds for Morbius and Kraven and SIlver Sable, or if Sony even wants to waste time on those now remains to be see.
And live action Spiderverse tv shows? I suppose giving Miles and Gwen a tv show is one way to get around the fact they want to have Peter be SPiderman for basically forever.
Also, this means Tom Holland is going to be Spiderman for basically forever, he'll be near impossible to replace when he finally decides he's done. He claims he wants to do it forever and maybe he will play SPidey for the next 30 years, but I have to imagine 11+ films prominently in the role might be enough for anyone. (And as a lead holding down the films no less, not a secondary like Nick Fury or Hawkeye)
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I dunno how I feel about Firestar and iceman stuff, that's just… why hold so tightly to that randomness from the 70s when that grouping was just... whatever?
Nostalgia which was the same reason why it was one of the many universes that wound up on the chopping block in the Spider-Verse comics.
Except I don't think this is going to involve people crying about their childhood being ruined…...hopefully.
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I kinda wished they'd replace fire star with Human Torch, I loved watching spidey iceman and human torch hanging out and trying to get girls with each other in the ultimate comics
Though I guess Iceman is gay now in the comics so that probably won't happen either
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You're basically saying that Sony would be dumb to try Spider Man w/o Disney, but also saying that Disney really needs Spider Man. If they both equally need each other, they're equally at fault until proven otherwise. All we've gotten is a narrative where Disney wants it to work so bad and Sony is the big bad corporation that doesn't want to play ball. All this behind the scenes narrative manipulation feels like Disney has their hand up the consumer's backside. Just feeding them talking points. I just choose to not help either in this weird battle. It feels sheep like to choose a side here and be angry at Disney or Sony.
When it comes to Vulture, he was just a bad leader and had a weird temper where they would try to make him funny, but serious. It was weird. Dude thought he'd suspend the guy in air, but when he just killed him, he was like oh okay. Oc was consistent and was obsessed with his work. Peter in Spidey 2 went through times where his power would fail him and it was emphasized and connected to his adult affairs. Peter in Spidey 2 was just dumbed down too much. He's young and going through, but the way he gave up EDITH was laughable and rushed. The Betty/Ned relationship looked uncomfortable. Mysterio wasn't bad, but was a weak link and it's not Jake's fault because he did a great performance. At least Vulture was intimidating, despite his horrendous writing where he's supposed to be serious, but a lil funny.
Homecoming just felt like a big MCU movie where I can take any hero, have Tony be the mentor and Chitauri weapons fall into the wrong hands. The greatest parts about it have nothing to do with the MCU and more to do with Spider Man. The Holland movies rely too much on the MCU and the MCU isn't putting too much stock in Spidey. They just made it where some would feel like he wouldn't do well outside of the MCU, when Spidey 1 and 2 were just fine w/o the Avengers being mentioned every 15 minutes.
I'm basically saying the first bit, yes, but nothing about Disney needing Spider-Man; I'm talking about them being the ones in whose hands he's able to be handled more capably and will be the ones who can deliver what the fans want to see by sharing their universe with him. Sony WAY disparately needs Disney more to make their product not suck and they're the ones who turned to Marvel for help in the first place so they're being the ones that are biting the hand that is feeding them and they should be grateful for Disney not demanding more. At the same time Disney might be too greedy in this negotiation for their own good but at the end of the day it's not them losing anything they needed, Sony is the one walking away with a broken toy. Spider-Man to Disney was just icing on the 2.8-billion layer cake.
I'm not arguing Vulture is a good villain (not that the MCU has spectacular ones in general anyway) but compared to Doc Ock, at least I could identify with him more as a normal person. There's an arc, if not much of one, and he chooses not to descend even further into evil when he has the chance. Not quite as one-note as some of the others but not top tier either. Way better than Beck's resolution in the end, a true putz even in death. But the biggest problem is this incarnation, built up over 5 movies now, is so tied in to the MCU that extricating him now will make it impossible to continue without them and nobody wants yet ANOTHER reboot even if they're going to build up a universe with Venom and all that set apart from the MCU. I know a few people have described the Raimi films as 'campy' and that's probably the best adjective for them, and nobody in my circle of geeks feels like any of those were 'just fine'. Throw in how badly they mishandled the Ghost Rider and not-so-Amazing Spidey duologies, and, well…
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!It's just sad that it's so transparent that neither company actually cares enough about the fans to not let crap like this happen. They already know from DC what happens when they don't show either the source material or the audience the proper respect. It's just astonishing how they don't fear a turning tide if they give us reason to shun them for this when we're the ones really getting thrown under the bus.
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Looks like a MCU fanboy's wish list. Would be hilarious if this was a tactic by Disney just to make a D23 announcement
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This would be like the best post-credits ever:
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Is Nick Furry going to be play by Samuel L. Catson:ninja:?
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Wait, you all are talking about how older Spider-Man movies stack up today? Oh, I know D23 announced a bunch of potentially cool shows, but I NEED to get in on this discussion. Sorry for my longass comment but I rewatched all of the films last month to prepare for Far from Home and I haven't found an opportunity to express my thoughts until now.
Didn't know there were that many comic book live action fans here. This is a dope discussion.
Since we're on the topic. Top 5 MCU Villains?
1. Vulture
2. Mysterio
3. Loki
4. Killmonger
5. Thanos (I think Thanos' portrayal is mostly lame but he is still better than most bland MCU villains by default)
Honorable Mentions: Justin Hammer is hilarious and both Crossbones in Civil War and Ghost because they're the only few MCU villains that wears a damn costume.Nobody else is worth remembering. And I do not like Ego. Or most of Guardians 2. So much of the humor and drama, while good on paper, is executed poorly with really juvenile writing and emotional tonal clashes.
I am very critical towards the MCU, but one thing I will credit the MCU Spider-Man films for is having the best cinematic Spider-Man villains. I love Vulture's design, motivations, and twists. Having Mysterio be a movie crew team led by an angry director is such a fun way to realize a character themed around special effects illusions, and the final fight between Spider-Man and Mysterio is probably the best finale fight in any Spider-Man film including Spider-Verse. Although Mysterio's plan makes zero sense in the long run when a legitimate supervillain threat arrives or he has to fist bump a flying superhero like Captain Marvel.
@Daz:
The Sam Raimi movies were somewhat campy (which I fail to see why is automatically negative, especially for a property such as this) but they were also earnest. They commited wholeheartedly to showing the (melo)drama of Spider Man, and as a result theres so much more pathos, more genuine emotion in those films than in the Tom Holland ones, let alone your average MCU movie.
As someone who recently watched all seven live-action Spider-Man movies in a row at during the last couple weeks of July, I completely agree with this and want to add that even the Amazing Spider-Man movies, despite how Sony tried to rush a cinematic universe and the dumb Parker parent conspiracy plotline, did a great job of committing to emotional/pathos moments
I see a lot of people commenting that the Raimi movies are campy, and there are few cheesy campy moments here and there (and Sam Raimi really likes annoying cliche horror movie villain woman screaming for some reason). But there's a lot more mature emotional gravitas than you expect too with Uncle Ben's death and legacy throughout the trilogy, Peter's relationship with Aunt May (whereas MCU Aunt May is just used as a "wow, she's so hot" punchline most of the time"), and Peter's trouble balancing all of his life's obligations while making hard compromises with big consequences.
Although Peter and MJ's romance in the Raimi films is complete trash in spite of being the biggest ongoing emotional focal point of the whole trilogy. Both the Amazing and MCU films have better romantic chemistry and likable love interests. Probably the only time I liked Peter and MJ's relationship was the first time they argue about MJ's actress career flopping in Spider-Man 3 because that was the first time they felt like human beings that weren't acting immaturely wishy washy (Amazing Spider-Man 2 also has a bunch of wishy washy romance drama, but it gets solved quicker and it's for better reasons and the acting romantic chemistry redeems a lot of it), making petty jabs at each other for attention, or saying really cheesy cliche romantic dialogue that would sound creepily unnatural if you turned the music off. The only reason people might think of that relationship fondly is because Elfman's soundtracks and Raimi's camera shots make their scenes feel more romantic than they actually are.
And despite whatever critiques I have for any Spider-Man film, the one aspect I can easily credit ALL of the Raimi and Amazing films for that the MCU films will never match up to is the action choreography. It is so bombastic and makes use of Spider-Man's acrobatics so cleverly while the MCU Spider-Man movies just do the bare minimum. And did you know that Doc Ock's arms in Spider-Man 2 mostly used practical effects and made actual tentacles staff people puppeteered?
The only times the MCU Spidey movie action impressed me was with the final Vulture and Mysterio fights and that Mysterio illusion scene, and those weren't due to the choreography being great so much as how unique the situations were like fighting on a plane against a flying supervillain or hopping around a swarm of illusion projection robots to find the real puppet master.
It's easy to think the MCU action is fine, but when you watch these movies or just their fights scenes back-to-back, good god Homecoming and Far from Home are so underwhelming to sit through. Feel free to bash the earlier Spider-Man movies as much as you want because there is more than enough to criticize for sure, but I dare anyone to try convincing me the action sequences in MCU Spider-Man movies are anywhere as ambitious as any of the other films besides maybe Spider-Man 1's dated CGI.
! I like this whole sequence, but 2:47-3:30 is the most essential if you need to skip and just beautiful.
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!But I've always really hated the first one, since its release, that wasn't an opinion I came to later on repeats or thinking about it, I just hated it the first time I saw it. I think if they had been the second or third go at SPiderman they wouldn't be as fondly remembered, but since it was the first one and it hit all the basic beats and people grew up on it its more beloved than it maybe should be.
I actually prefer Amazing Spider-Man 1 as a Spidey origin story over Raimi's Spider-Man 1, aside from the confused way it dodged saying the great power, great responsibility line lol.
The first act has a bunch of rough edges like Peter fighting random people on a subway train when he awakens his powers and that random weird Tony Hawk skateboarding montage. But once the night Uncle Ben dies starts, the movie's pretty solid aside from how bland the Lizard is. And even then at least the Lizard has a wacky comic booky plan to turn New Yorkers into lizards while Dafoe's Gobby has… no plans whatsoever besides punking Spider-Man.
It was a daring change to have Peter be so revenge-obsessed by hunting down criminals to find Uncle Ben's killer, but I'm cool with it and think it fits his character. And it makes his decision to start saving people, how he makes his costume/web shooters, and truly being responsible much more impactful and organic than how it just suddenly happens in Spider-Man 1 after confronting Uncle Ben's killer all much more impactful. Even the way Uncle Ben dies, how Peter refused to help a douchey store clerk from being robbed, works better because Peter doesn't know the burglar has a gun which makes Peter more innocent and grounded than how he was expected to stop a gun-totting robber in Spider-Man 1 just because he manhandles a wrestler. Peter's refusal to help being even more innocuous makes Ben's death all the more tragic and emphasizes the power/responsibility all the more effectively.
I hadn't rewatched the Raimi films in over a decade until last month and had become more cynical towards their quality over time before recently rewatching them. And Spider-Man 1 is definitely dated in a bunch of ways. ESPECIALLY Dafoe's hammy Green Goblin performance, good Lord. He doesn't even have a plan after killing his old bosses who fired him at the Macy's parade, he just antagonizes Spider-Man and loosely hints that he wants to take over New York without explaining how because he's crazy and why not I guess? I like his mask, but the full green Power Ranger body suit is hideous (better than SM3 New Goblin and ASM2 Gobby, but that's not saying much at all). And does not deserve to be put on a pedestal like it often is. I like the final fight/ending and the action is decent although has some dated looking CGI, but that's really all I can praise the movie for.
Also, nobody remembers this from the first Raimi film but... Peter murders Uncle Ben's killer. No, seriously. I know how weird that might sound.
Peter twists Uncle Ben's killer's wrist, lets him fall out a window at least three stories high, and doesn't catch him before he hits the ground. I think I vaguely remember cops saying that he survived the fall, but that's a total morally convenient copout. For all intents and purposes, Peter lets him die and never feels any guilt or conviction about killing someone. It's not DCEU Superman or Batman levels of defying the no killing rule, but I'm surprised that no one has ever criticized that scene. I'm not even against this since it's human and understandable, but this scene is never addressed as Peter then decides to become a non-lethal superhero with a new costume until the third film. It contrasts with every other depiction of this confrontation, including Amazing where Peter never finds Uncle Ben's killer for closure and finds a better use for his gifts by saing people instead, and Spectacular Spider-Man where the scene plays almost exactly the same as Spidey 1 but Peter catches the burglar at the last moment because he knows Uncle Ben wouldn't approve.
And while I'm on the topic of the Raimi Spider-Man films, Spider-Man 3 is still a dumpster fire but I can enjoy it ironically and actually found a couple small things I can appreciate about what it tried to do conceptually.
I actually, no exaggeration, think it has the best depiction of Peter's corruption from the Symbiote. Just to get the obvious out of the way, Tobey's Peter is so dorky that I can actually see him doing that whole cringeworthy dance montage if he was filled with unwavering self-confidence (which is the point of the scene, to show how much of an narcissistic idiot he looks like while also showing how he doesn't care what people think about him). It's still totally fair to dislike that sequence because of being too cringeworthy regardless of intent, but I've grown to love it both ironically for memes and unironically for character.
But more than that, Peter's moral corruption feels like a natural extension of already existent flaws in combination with coping with new pressure from his relationships, jobs, and superhero work. This portrayal is less the Symbiote is making Peter becoming evil but instead it enabling Peter's relatable/moderated but potentially harmful traits like being a crowdpleasing showoff (remember that this was the first thing he did with his powers before Uncle Ben's death) and aggressively barking back or downright bullying the people in his life that always push him around like his landlord and Eddie Brock being his rival at the Daily Bugle. Honestly, you can take the Symbiote out of the movie and I can still see Peter doing most of the stuff he does in that movie. Every other interpretation has Peter simply become an uncharacteristic asshole in an unnatural way and then when he takes the suit off he magically stops being an asshole. It's boring and it makes his misdeeds look more like he was a victim of the Symbiote than a properly written drug/power addiction allegory. Rather than realizing that he has problems he needs to work on even after he takes the Symbiote off, sort of like an actual cold turkey drug withdrawal period.
The second dance scene in the club, Peter purposefully putting his hair down to look edgier, and Peter reuniting with MJ at the end of the movie despite him accidentally hitting her because he's violent prone are still super stupid though, and the writing can certainly still be much better and less cheesy all around. Spider-Man 3 is still, like I said, hot garbage. Especially Sandman and Venom (but I still prefer this Eddie Brock over Venom movie Eddie. Anything is better than that movie). But I like to acknowledge any positive aspects of movies to I see to learn storytelling possibilities and judge fairly no matter how awful most of it might be.
Though I'm not really in love with any of the spiderman films, none of them have gotten it quite right. Raimi was too campy, Amazing was trying too hard to not be Raimi and rush a universe, and the new ones are too Iron Man. The Spectacular SPiderman cartoon though… THAT nailed it.
I love Spectacular Spider-Man and think it is easily the best Spider-Man adaptation aside from Spider-Man PS4. But one thing I can criticize it for upon multiple marathon viewings and seeing other adaptations like the movies and PS4 game is wishing that it didn't stick so closely to the original Lee/Ditko stories and mostly having a episodic villain format for its first season.
As great as the writing is, that show covered several minor Spider-Man villains, Green Goblin, the Sinister Six, the Symbiote Spider-Man arc, Venom, AND Kingpin (Tombstone, but that would've Kingpin if FOX didn't own exclusive Daredevil rights at the time) in its first season alone. I think Doc Ock suffers the worst for not feeling as important/climactic as the show's other big villains and his first Sinister Six team being punching bags for Symbiote Spidey to look lethal and cool. Despite getting cancelled so prematurely, that show would have really benefitted from reinventing certain Spider-Man villains to make them more interesting multi-faceted characters like the MCU movies do having more slow burn arcs instead of so many one and done episode villain schemes. After a mere two thirteen-episode seasons the rogues gallery was only missing Scorpion, Hobgoblin, Jackal (I wouldn't want a new Clone Saga though), Hydro-Man (he isn't that needed but if they did freaking Molten Man, there's no excuse to skip Hydro-Man besides early cancellation), and (ugh) Carnage.
But that's just me explaining how I think a great 2000's cartoon without the benefit of hindsight from future adaptations could have become a perfect timeless cartoon. It's still so good and I will always recommend it for any superhero genre fan.
Spidey 2 is so good. It understands that it's a comic book movie, but has mature motivations and great characterizations. It also feels like a big event movie, whereas the new Spidey films feel like they could easily be condensed into a couple episodes of a cartoon. The new ones have tried, like the Homecoming scene where Spidey gets from under the rubble, which matches that classic scene in the 80s Spidey comics.
When I rewatched Spider-Man 2, fully expecting myself to think the film is as badly dated as Spider-Man 1, I ended up witnessing that it's still good. Really good. Great, even. Most of the drama points still hit, the cinematography is spectacular, the acting is good, Aunt May is freaking awesome in that movie (which only makes me depressed about how underutilized she is in the MCU films), and most surprisingly…
My most favorite aspect of Spider-Man 2 is how freaking hilarious it is. It easily cracks me up more than any MCU film I've ever seen besides maybe Guardians 1. I've always remembered a bunch of moments from this movie since seeing it as a kid, but I completely forgot or never realized how humorous it is. Because it's a master class at slapstick and visual humor that's not even campy, just plain clever, simple, grounded, and funny. And more than that, the humor isn't just there for laughs but actually helps characterize Peter's awkwardness and New York as a living breathing population reacting to his existence while making him an endearing underdog enduring adversity and trying his best in a world that loves to shit on his existence. This is the one superhero film that actually knows how to balance both lighthearted humor and dark emotional moments where they complement each other's effectiveness instead of those two sides tainting/inhibiting each other like the average MCU film.
! Start at 2:49
! Start at 2:29
Then you have MCU Spidey where apartment neighbors scream at him for setting off car alarms while catching a car thief, can't stop bank robbers from lasering a bodega in half (but the people inside conveniently survive without a scratch), wrecks people's backyards chasing after villains because he can't web swing well in suburbs, knocks his head against a bell at least two or three times while webbing up Hydro-Man's collateral damage, Tony Stark/restaurant employees/Happy Hogan trying to hit on Aunt May, Peter's best friend openly declaring during phys ed that Peter knows Spider-Man and can show up to Liz's party, accidentally summoning a drone to attack a rival competing for MJ's affection during a bus ride, and everyone close to Peter finding out his secret identity with little-to-no repercussions for comedic effect until the end of Far from Home.
These gags are fine on their own, on paper at least since execution can still be better. Except the last two things, those are irredeemably idiotic writing. But when these types of scenes keep happening one after another, it makes Tom Holland's Peter's heroic attempts (and sometimes his supporting cast) look incompetent at best and straight-up annoying at worst. And I know that's the whole point of Peter's arcs in Homecoming and Far from Home, for Peter to acknowledge his flaws and that he can't live up to certain expectations so he should stick to his own style. But the movies do so little for me to actually like Peter, root for him to save the day, and prove his critics wrong; and only feel like authentic Spider-Man stories during their third acts.
Not just that, an maybe this is just me although I think Daz agrees from his comment, but it also feels nastily cynical towards Spider-Man being a street-level hero? It makes his street level heroics like the butt of the joke to subvert what you expect from a Spider-Man story, and tackling an Avengers threats while toying around with advanced tech and multiple suits is what's REALLY cool and hip about being a superhero. Instead of, you know, just helping and saving people. And I don't mean as just a short cute first act montage to set up the status quo. I remember when Tony tells Peter that stopping the alien weapon trafficking ring is "a bit below the Avengers' paygrade", which I understand (yet also don't because Tony is partying in another country and is sending one Avengers or two to deal with that asking for too much), but that juxtaposed with the whole movie feels so dismissive of authentic Spider-Man street-level stories.
It's ironic how I bashed Homecoming marketing Iron Man's inclusion so much, only for him and Vulture to end up being some of the only things I like about that movie. Partially because Tony's interactions with Peter are actually funny, but more than that I actually agree with him that Peter needs to stop being going after supervillains because he sucks and has no relatable competency growth like Miles does in Spider-Verse. Actually, Spider-Verse as a whole is basically Spider-Man: Homecoming done right in terms of having an unexperienced Spider-Man learn from a mentor hero and come to grips with their incompetence. You can have Peter's life suck while Spider-Man succeeds and Spider-Man's heroics come short while Peter's life is awesome, but when they're both awful for most of a two hour film (in smaller bursts it can be fine and very tragic/sympathetic) there's little that's endearing for me to latch onto.
I go into these films feeling like an excited Spider-Man fan that relates to Peter Parker and walk out feeling like J. Jonah Jameson or Flash Thompson. I don't like that feeling.
But the reverence Raimi had for comics and his gift for framing his films similarly to them made the original trilogy more visually spectacular. Spiderverse, which for me is the best Spidey film, is similar in its triumphs. It's like a comic book pokemon evolved into a movie pokemon, but kept 2 of the same moves and it works brilliantly. I think years from now, people will remember Holland very fondly, but won't really talk much about his films, but Spidey 2 and 1 will really stand the test of time.
To this day, the cinematography for several Raimi scenes (the upside down rain kiss, Doc Ock throwing the van at Peter and MJ, every Doc Ock fight, Spidey saving the train, etc.) and just how Spider-Man web swings with so much weight, speed, and bounciness in those movies has never been matched, let alone surpassed. It's honestly gotten worse with each series, although I think the Amazing films had a neat thing going on with its first-person perspective web-swinging shots.
I think Holland has had the best direction for Spidey, but I don't think his acting is any better than Tobey's or Garfield, and the original trilogy had much more iconic scenes that really let us understand Spidey and Peter.
Garfield is actually my favorite Spider-Man and Peter Parker. I like Peter's Tobey because he's such an adorkable geek (mostly in 2 and 3, because without 2's endearing humor and 3's goofy Symbiote antics, Tobey in 1 is just unfunny and sometimes even creepy) but his Spider-Man, while having the best cinematography/action, has the worst personality. Barely cracks quips, and the few times he does they're campy and not funny/clever at all. Spider-Man 1 even had a dated homophobic joke during the wrestling match.
Garfield's Spidey has the best quips and helps civilians/kids out in an endearing way, and while he has Garfield technically has the least traditional Peter, I actually like how awkward he is at first and him growing confidence as he gets powers like standing up to Flash instead of acting passive like usual, and he's the most sciencey geek of all the Peter's by making his own tech and experiments. And he has great romantic chemistry with Emma Stone's Gwen Stacy.
Holland's Spidey… I'd put his Spidey above Tobey's solely because he makes tolerable jokes more often, but that is not a high bar at all. Not his Peter Parker though, that aspect is pretty eh all around. The awkward geek moments are cringeworthy and he's sort of both popular and bullied at the same time? Only Flash picks on him but nobody else takes Flash seriously and thinks Peter is a valuable smart person, and Peter is crushed on by two girls. And his main character traits are knowing science but not doing as much with it as Garfield Spidey, geeking out over Iron Man and quoting pop culture stuff, having surface level crushes on girls that him and the audience have barely gotten to know or see much from, and panicking when he messes up badly enough to die. I do think Tom Holland is a good actor, specifically during his emotional scenes during the third acts of Homecoming, Infinity War, and Far from Home where he's in life or death situations. But the MCU's story and dialogue writing holds him back a lot from me actually liking most of his humor and character interactions.
Spider-Verse Miles is the best though. And both Chris Pine and Jake Johnson's Peter Parkers are great, especially when you count the songs in that adorable corporate sellout Christmas album.
Really? I mean everyone has their own opinion, but personally I REALLY disagree.I love Spider-man 2, and the acting in it. But I've always been drawn more to Peter and Harry's stories. I always felt like Octavius in this film was more of a hill for Spider-man to climb over to really reclaim his heroics than a complete character and villain.
Despite my praise for Spider-Man 2, I completely agree with Martin here. The only real critiques I have for Spider-Man 2 is Tobey's Spider-Man not being funny enough, his relationship with Mary Jane having zero chemistry whatsoever (which goes for all the Raimi films though) and MJ in particular being immaturely spiteful and petty trying to make Peter jealous of her marriage (which taints Peter's whole superpower depression arc because it's his rocky relationship with Mary Jane that is the main catalyst before those moments, rather than more important stuff like almost flunking a college class and not paying his rent on time), and Doc Ock as not just an antagonist but as a character.
And I say this as someone who loves Doc Ock's action scenes, Alfred Molina's acting (especially when he threatens Peter by saying he'll peel the flesh off of MJ's bones), and his updated look (although he really needs a shirt and the PS4 game proved that you can pull off the classic goggles and green spandex suit in a cool way).
But man, I could care less about this guy as a character. The tentacles poisoning Ock's mind is lame and makes him more of a victim than someone I can hate by removing how autonomous his intentions are in favor of sympathy. But even on that end, while his wife dying is sad I wasn't that invested in their relationship or the experiment. And while his interaction with Peter and life advice was cool, they still only have one conversation together. Only one before Otto breaks bad. They hardly felt like they were close as mentor/student, let alone friends. In contrast, the PS4 video game does this wonderfully by having Peter work with Otto and the latter being Peter's main inspiration for becoming a scientist since childhood.
And then there is how as a supervillain, Doc Ock is only a bank robber and Harry Osborn's bounty hunter. It works decently enough in the film for the plotlines to interweave and function, but if you see Doc Ock in literally any other interpretation, such petty crimes are way WAY too mundane for someone of Doc Ock's caliber and ambition. And because his relationship with Peter isn't developed enough, his redemption in the finale with Peter's encouragement feels hollow and you can replace with Otto with practically any other low level supervillain in Spidey's rogues gallery like Shocker, Vulture, Rhino, or Sandman and the plot will still proceed the exact same way until the final fight, where they can either get arrested or accidentally kill themselves like every other Raimi villain for some reason.
What Raimi misunderstood about Doc Ock is that it's not his tentacles that make him special. It's his intellect. Doc Ock is a criminal mastermind first and a physical opponent for Spider-Man second. The tentacles mostly exist to help Doc Ock with whatever he schemes.
And the Doc's motivations tend to be simple ones like gaining power either socially or technologically, getting revenge against someone who wronged him, and/or, and this is the most fun aspect about him, ego validation. Here's a list of examples of how his schemes his usually go:
! In Spectacular Spider-Man, he kidnaps Gwen Stacy to extort her father Captain Stacy into getting him access to an NY police HQ server mainframe that will connect his cybernetic network to a satellite that will give him control over all the world's technology. He also wants to become the biggest crime lord so that he can toy with New York like his own science experiment.
! In Spider-Man PS4, spoiler tags for those who want to play the game
! he breaks supervillains out of jail to form the Sinister Six, releases a toxic chemical gas, and puts New York City on a government lockdown from the chaos all so that he can kidnap Norman Osborn to make him admit on a live recording his crimes and he ruined Otto's scientific career.
! In the Spider-Man comics, he cures Spider-Man from being from poisoned to death by another villain only to try killing him right afterwards because he wants the world to know that Doctor Octopus was the one to kill Spider-Man.
! He also beats Iron Man in their first fight and during an encounter years later, Doc Ock's body is gradually dying from his injuries against other superpowered people over the years despite having no powers of his own. So he announces to New York that he placed a bomb in the city and gets Iron Man to come to his floating base. Ock extorts Iron Man by telling him that he has to create a cure for his condition in 24 hours and Otto will disarm the bomb, or else New York is destroyed and Doc Ock "proves" Tony Stark is not the most brilliant scientist. Tony can't come up with a solution and before the countdown, he begs on his knees for Otto to stop the bomb and says that Doc Ock is smarter than him to fuel his ego. Only for Otto to play back a recording of what Tony just said on a monitor and reveal that the bomb was fake and this entire scheme was concocted so Tony would admit Otto was better than him on tape for ego satisfaction before he dies.
! And a bit later than that, Otto's last scheme before he dies in the Ends of the Earth storyline is reforming the Sinister Six, defeating the Avengers with years of plot device preparation, and releases satellites around Earth's orbit that magnify global warming to an extreme burning heat wave on command so that he can extort the world's governments into complying with their demands, one of which is to create a university named after Otto Octavius. And then towards the end of the story, Otto tells Spider-Man that he's going to kill most of the Earth's population anyways so that the remaining humans will always remember Otto infamously as the worst mass murderer of all time. Solely because any important publicity for Doc Ock is good publicity to him.Doc Ock is usually one of the most stupidly fun supervillains of all time with his over the top schemes with petty narcissistic insecure motivations. But what about any of these things makes someone go "yeah, he should rob banks!"? Let alone as one of the only crimes he commits during the movie besides hunting Spider-Man, kidnapping a woman, and accidentally almost blowing everyone up. Wanting to restart an experiment he failed even though it might blow up the city kind of fits him, but the circumstances for how and why this occurs are very lackluster.
I know that a lot of this material came out after Spider-Man 2, but they were all inspired by decades of high-concept Doc Ock mastermind schemes in the comics and shows how dated Raimi's portrayal is. Even if he had to rob a bank, Doc Ock would hire someone else to do it because doing it himself is beneath him. The same kind of goes for hunting him down in all honesty, especially by working for someone else (let alone Harry Osborn of all people). Being reduced to so little is as embarrassing as going back to the Michael Keaton Batman movies and seeing Bats killing people all over the place. I don't mind changing characters for adaptations like what the MCU did with Vulture and Mysterio, but not at the cost of making them more generic/bland compared to how unique they are in their source material.
I still rank Spider-Man 2 as my favorite live-action Spider-Man movie though. And the MCU films despite having my favorite villains and technically better written plots than Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man 3, are at the bottom. Because I am still more entertained watching those heavily flawed panned movies than how underwhelmingly mediocre MCU Spider-Man films are.
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That was a doozy of a comment… and I read all of it besides the Spidey PS4 spoilers, since I haven't played it yet. I need to get on that for sure!
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@Count:
I love Spectacular Spider-Man and think it is easily the best Spider-Man adaptation aside from Spider-Man PS4. But one thing I can criticize it for upon multiple marathon viewings and seeing other adaptations like the movies and PS4 game is wishing that it didn't stick so closely to the original Lee/Ditko stories and mostly having a episodic villain format for its first season.
The lack of any major takes over the whole story arcs is what i loved most about it. Also nothing can have too much Ditko. Maybe too much Stan Lee, but unless they start going - oh you were playing possum and narrating themselves in detail that too is doubtful
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I want Beetle to be the next spider man villain so we can start setting up a Thunderbolts movie
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The lack of any major takes over the whole story arcs is what i loved most about it. Also nothing can have too much Ditko. Maybe too much Stan Lee, but unless they start going - oh you were playing possum and narrating themselves in detail that too is doubtful
I don't mind an episodic superhero story, especially for Spider-Man. But that show tried to make each episode's main gimmick its villain, one of Peter's loved ones being in danger, and occasionally love triangle/square/pentagon drama. And without interesting character or story development, or each new villain scheme being as or more interesting than last time, the villains get a bit old unless they get a new fun dynamic like Electro always kissing Doc Ock's ass when the Sinister Six gets formed.
And when you try to have so many big villains in one season, you can't give them all the big stories they deserve from their comics that changed up the status-quo in such a short back-to-back period. Which is what made the Sinister Six, a supervillain team, suffer the most because they barely did much in the show besides get beat up by Spider-Man. Which is technically authentic to the first Lee/Ditko Sinister Six story, but that story didn't realize the potential of Spidey and New York as a whole having to deal with a whole supervillain team. Meanwhile latter comics and Spider-Man PS4 have the Sinister Six be a huge climactic moment that drastically raises the stakes, challenges Spider-Man to his limits, and puts the whole city in danger.
The only Spider-Man villain that got to have an actual character arc in that show if you don't count the Green Goblin identity mystery are Eddie before he becomes Venom and Sandman. And I don't like Venom because Eddie's understandable reasons for hating Peter become invalidated when he starts trying to kill or hold Peter's loved ones hostage.
Although Tombstone is weird because in season one he threatens Spider-Man by saying that he'll make more supervillains to distract Spider-Man from stopping his powerless crime empire minions. Then when Spider-Man refuses Tombstone's offer to work for him a second twice, he just… stops making supervillains even though his plan still gives him the upper hand on Spider-Man. And he doesn't show up for two thirds of season 2 until the big gang war showdown where he gets arrested. Additionally, is decision to also make Venom kill Spider-Man to prove his worth instead of hiring Venom on the spot or testing him another way was also really stupid and could have had the chance to make Venom an actually interesting villain by having him be an evil Spider-Man for hire.
But to the show's credit, no other adaptation has tried to straight-up adapt the Ditko stories. They always tend to do their own thing or pull from the Ultimate comics. So it helped make Spectacular standout and show how some aspects of the Lee/Ditko stories still stand the test of time.
The only Ditko story I need to see be adapted is the golf kart race between Spider-Man and Shocker where the latter yells "DON'T MOCK THE SHOCKER". Anything else besides Spider-Man sucking Sandman into a vacuum cleaner or Doc Ock smacking Spider-Man is meaningless to me.
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I guess that's why i'm such an oldtimer. I never felt that Spidey needed high stakes. At my ideal it is a small scale high school soap opera with a sprinkle of colorful more or less street level villains. Maybe that's why i so enjoyed Shocker-tana from spectacular so much, exactly the right level of ambition needed for a spiderman villain. Maybe if you are really ambitious you want to take over the mob and thats it. No world conquest, just making some small-time crime and cockblocking a hero is good enough for us spidey villains y'know
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I guess that's why i'm such an oldtimer. I never felt that Spidey needed high stakes.
I actually prefer Spider-Man being low stakes most of the time too. I like him best as a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man guy. But I like high stakes once in a long while though, and I feel like that is what a team like the Sinister Six should do. Because, well, how do you make a Sinister Six story stand out from a normal individual Spider-Man story about a bank robbery or something low scale like that? Spider-Man stories should not be like that all of the time though, definitely not.
And Spectacular Spider-Man's Shocker with a southern accent and being a hired enforcer is great. Electro and Sandman could be huge villains that threaten the whole city, but they are too petty and stupid to do that unless someone like Doc Ock is leading them. Doc Ock, Green Goblin, and Kingpin are the ones that think bigger. Sometimes Kraven or Mysterio when they get tired of being pushed around or get crazier over time. But mostly it's fun or grounded stories about Spider-Man helping/inspiring/bonding with people around New York, and trying to keep his pitiful underdog life in order just barely.
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Well, that adds to my Phase 4 theory now. They just confirmed that Kit Harrington will be Black Knight (Dane/the nephew).
Also, Gemma Chan from Captain Marvel will play Sersei in the Eternals
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Well, that adds to my Phase 4 theory now. They just confirmed that Kit Harrington will be Black Knight (Dane/the nephew).
Also, Gemma Chan from Captain Marvel will play Sersei in the Eternals
I really wish I had any interest in the Eternals. I'm hoping it turns out like Guardians, where I wasn't interested going in, but the word of mouth made it unavoidable and I ended up loving it.
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Welp, that little crisis is over.
Wait has that actually been confirmed? I looked for other news on this and it seems like this site is the only one reporting about this apparent deal. Seems more like a rumor to me atm.