Comments on: Rebooting The Spiderman Franchise – Hollywood Laziness In Extremes

By: Steve D

Steve D — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 19:57:50 +0000

Many of the points in the article seem to be the invalid woes of an overly-cynical movie buff, whose concerns truly show that they know little to nothing about the subject matter they are trashing. The Amazing Spider-Man is not a remake. It does not seek to recapture or imitate anything from Sam Raimi’s original trilogy, quite the contrary in fact. What I see in these words above is someone who has made their decision on this film long before seeing the trailers, and someone who isn’t paying attention to what they are seeing. This film is different in almost every way that it can be, and even with that, still being more true to the comic book character than Raimi’s trilogy ever was. It’s true that we are seeing the origin story again, but while it hits the core necessary elements to make the origin true to itself, nearly every detail about it is completely different. There is nothing lazy about this REBOOT (as stated above, it’s not a remake by any means).if you want laziness in story and dialogue, look no further than the original Spider-Man trilogy which had characters with little to no depth, with a Peter Parker that never truly grows and changes from the start, hordes of unbelievable dialogue, and Twilight angst (as many like to put it – ie pointless/weightless/incessant drama that never changes). This new film puts extreme emphasis of character depth, while setting a much more realistic contemporary feel, with dialogue that feels real and has weight, all the while capturing the personality of the title character more true than we’ve ever seen on the silver screen. Please don’t be so blinded by your pre-conceived notions that you fail to see the many great things this film is doing. Although if you truly think the Edward Norton Hulk is a lazy and horrible remake of Ang Lee’s personally quite unbearable Hulk, then perhaps these movies aren’t for you in the first place.

By: anon

anon — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 18:06:25 +0000

“a new Teen angst version of Spiderman” spiderman was also a teen angst version, in the comics anyways.
This isn’t treading on the same territory as the previous spiderman for the simple fact that it is following closer to some of the comic-lore, not to mention the fact the web is from shooters (as it bloody well should be!) rather than from his own body.
What i’m saying is; they seem to have the superhero formula down now (compare recent comic book blockbusters like the Avengers, Batman and captain america to less recent turds like catwoman and daredevil).
I’m fairly confident this will be a vast improvement from Raimi’s.

By: Alta Rica

Alta Rica — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 09:38:16 +0000

…Only, Spiderman was bought by Disney so understandably they wanted to ‘play with their new toys’. Why buy a franchise and not make money from it? Besides, as you touch on it in the article, re-telling the same old stories is something that has been done for thousands of years, expect more of it as technology allows us to achieve things we couldnt before. ‘Hollywood laziness’ is partly in response to our own viewing habits anyway, and its not even a new thing (see also: any buddy movie, cinderella story, romeo and juliet stories etc etc. ad nauseum). Rejecting modern hollywood for this is pointless elitism anyway – not all films can be high art, because if they were then we’d never appreciate the great blockbusters. Sure there should be more investment into realising truly different, good, stories, but then we wouldnt have popcorn entertainment. Amazing Spiderman will be fun and most likely better than the Sam Raimi ones. Total Recall, RoboCop, Dredd, Akira, Mad Max, Starship Troopers and countless others rumoured , i look forward to seeing how they are re-imagined. The old ones still have their place though eg the Commando remake they always talk about – you could never compare whatever they create to the 80s Arnie flick! but it might still be fun. P.S. until they release a Flash movie MARVEL FTW!!!

By: Dave Lee

Dave Lee — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 09:38:09 +0000

While I agree with much of this piece I have to say that in the case of Batman and Spider-man I think the quick remakes are a good thing (I know the Batman films were quite a way after the Burton versions but they came relatively quickly).

The Nolan Batman films have created a template for Hollywood to make superhero films which are more dynamic and as ‘realistic’ as possible (within the parameters of making a moving comic book, obviously).

It would appear that the same aesthetics have been applied to the new Spider-man and I think it looks like it could be truer to the original comics and much better than the fairly awful Raimi films.

For once, Hollywood exploitation may be a good thing.