Marvel Gets It Does Sony? (Part 2)

Tweet In part one I mainly talked about the cancellation of the spectacular spider-man cartoon.  In part 2 I elaborate on why the movie series had to be re-booted.

No need for introductions, that was covered in part one.  In this part I will list what the problems were with the movies and throw in a suggestion about what could have been done differently.  Before I get into it, I would like to say that I am a fan of the first 2 movies, they were really good; but they worked better as stand-alone movies, not a series (which is why 3 sucked).  The criticisms you are about to read are directed towards how Sony screwed up basic concepts which would have enabled them to continue the story of spider-man, rather than re-boot it. Here we go.

*note: the order that I list the problems in does not matter.  you can flip the list and the basics will be the same.

Villain choice

The Green Goblin is Spidey's greatest villain.  He tormented him, turned his friends against him, blackmailed him, and killed his first love (Gwen Stacy).  If you want to make a spider-man trilogy (or whatever you call a series with more than three movies), the Green Goblin would have to be involved at one point.  The first movie should not be that point.  The Green Goblin should have been developed (as Norman Osborn) for at least one movie before assuming the green goblin role.  Saving the goblin for the second movie would have enabled more focus on the origin story, given us more scenes of Peter discovering his powers (who doesn't like these scenes?) and allowed for a lesser villain to be featured first.  Ideally, this villain would be someone like the lizard.  A character that can actually be developed in a movie due to his being Dr. Connors.  The Dark Knight (the best super hero movie ever made) was the second of the series.  The first focused on Batman's origin, and featured him fighting lesser villains, somehow I do not think that the series would have been as good overall if the Joker was the main villain of movie #1.  Its just too difficult to fit in such key details about a character (origin and greatest villain) in one movie; allowing each element to have its own movie to develop makes for a more polished story.  Just imagine that the first spider-man did not have the Green goblin as a villain.  Now imagine that the movie has ended and you read somewhere that there is a scene after the credits.  This scene turns out to be Norman Osborn donning the Goblin mask.  How cool would that have been?  But I digress.  A-list villains like the Green Goblin, Hobgoblin, Dock-Ock, and Venom should not be featured with other villains in the same movie.  B-list guys (Vulture, Rhino, Mysterio, Chamelion etc.) can be featured two-at-a time. Ideally you want to build up villains so that they can join forces in later movies.  A classic example being the 'sinister six', where 6 of spidey's villains team up to take him down (this would sort of work like current Marvel movies building up to the Avengers).  Here is how I would have done the movie villains:

Movie 1: Origin Story + B-list Villain (for arguments sake lets use the Lizard)
Movie 2: Green Goblin
Movie 3: Vulture + Rhino
Movie 4: Scorpion + Mysterio
Movie 5: Sinister 6 (5 previous B-list guys with the 6th introduced in the movie-Electro?)



If people are still watching the 'Saw' series, they sure as hell would keep watching spider-man.  They could even throw in the kingpin recruiting the villains (maybe even Doc-Ock!) at the end of each movie in bonus scenes and I don't think anyone would complain.  Admittedly, the villain choice was the least of Sony's problems.

Characters

The omission of several key characters from the comics was, in my opinion a poor one.  I understand that developing too many characters in one movie would be a disaster, but I am under the impression that this is an ongoing SERIES, meaning that you can slowly develop characters without hindering the plot.  The characters of Captain George Stacy and his daughter Gwen, as well as Flash Thompson and several Bugle employees are very important in Spidey's early history.  Furthermore, it is the deaths of the Stacy's that impact spider-man at critical moments which shape the character as a tragic hero beautifully.  Without these characters Peter can only care about his Aunt, Mary Jane (who we will discuss more later), and Harry.  After the third movie killed Harry off there are few others that we can feel emotionally attached to as an audience.  This is a big deal, particularly in scenes where there is no action.  Characters drive the story, not the other way around; and when there are few characters the story will suffer.

Mary Jane

The only problem I have with the Mary Jane character is timing.  She should not have been in the first movie.  Gwen Stacy would drive Peter's romantic interest until the time was right for Mary Jane to be the one.  The very best scenario would have been to introduce MJ at the end of the first movie, then have Gwen be killed by the Green Goblin in the second.  Now we have two movies down and the entire Peter-MJ relationship to explore as we move on. In the grand scheme of things, this is ideal if we want to make an ongoing series! (I realize that I am being repetitive with this, but it was so easy, and Sony still dropped the ball).

Setting

We are not even halfway through the first movie before Peter graduates High School.  In the movies this made sense.  If we were going to omit several key figures, we may as well forgo Peters high School years.  Except that we leave behind some excellent chances for storytelling about Peter as a high-school student.  At the very least he should have graduated at the end of the first movie, not near the start of it.  What is often forgotten is how young Peter actually was when he became spider-man, he was 16!  Now all of a sudden life is not so simple for him and he struggles with it, coping with a lot more than any teenager would.  This leads me into the next problem.

Cast, Character Development, and Death

Tobey Maguire was good, so was Kirsten Dunst.  But can we really show a character maturing and growing when the people portraying them are already mature and grown?  If you read the Super 8 review that Jovan wrote, you will recall him praising a young cast.  You're telling me that we could not (in all of Hollywood) find anyone under the age of 27 to play Peter Parker, when we can find children who are great?  Lastly, no characters were developed except Peter, Mary Jane, and Harry.  How about exploring why J.J.J. hates spider-man so much?  How Aunt May is coping with the loss of her husband?  How...o wait a second that's all the characters!  Another big problem was the insistence on having the bad guy die at the end.  The villains were introduced, developed, and killed all in one movie!  You really don't think that if Eddie Brock was there from movie one that Venom (arguably the fan favorite of spider-man villains) would not have appeared for more than a grand total of 7 minutes?  The best part?  He dies!  By killing off the villains, Sony ensured that there would be no 'Sinister Six'-like movie, or decent character development among villains.  It is actually amazing that the first 2 movies were so good.

 See the Picture above?  Impossible with what Sony was doing.

I am not saying that it is easy to make a good super hero movie.  What I am saying is that if you have the right people put the right input into the project, you can maximize your chances.  Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight was that good because he made us care about the characters and the story.  If the Dark Knight got re-booted how do you think people would have reacted?  Yet, no one batted an eyelash when the Spider-man re-boot was announced.  Marvel Studios (Iron Man 1 + 2, Hulk remake, X-men first class, and Thor) is doing a really good job in putting out super hero movies.  They are getting good actors, developing them, and carefully linking each movie so that when the Avengers does come out it has all the makings to be great.  Not all is lost for spider-man however.  Despite the fact that Sony still owns the sole right to make spider-man movies, it at least appears that they are taking notes from Marvel.  The re-boot will feature the lizard, be set in high school, wont have Mary Jane, will have Gwen Stacy and Captain George Stacy, and is alleged to be a darker and grittier version (anyone else hate when people use these words to describe movies now?).  Andrew Garfield (the new Peter Parker) is still 27...ok, at least they have all the other stuff down.  All that is left to do now is execute, and knowing Sony, that may not happen.  If the re-boot is a success then the character is saved, if not then it might be time for Marvel to step in and work its magic.  Again.

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