lmao I love movies, I don't mind a discussion. What is your opinion of the films?
Awesome! So, the first thing I'm going to get out is that they make me kind of sick. The reason I have that reaction is because I feel they misunderstand the significance of Spider-Man.
What I think is important about Spider-Man is that he has selfish tendencies, but he gets punished for them and, because of the death of Uncle Ben, actively works against those tendencies as a form of penance. This is essentially what "with great power comes great responsibility" means. If you have power, you need to use it for the good of others rather than yourself. Peter initially used it for himself and it led to Ben being killed, which changes him forever. On top of that, he has the worst luck in existence, so fun just doesn't come naturally to him.
The first movie was decent enough and I like parts of it, but I thought it really fumbled with the after effects of Uncle Ben's death and with Spidey wanting to break his promise to Captain Stacy at the end. The reworking of Uncle Ben's death was good. It kept the selfishness (wanting the chocolate milk but not getting it then not stopping the robber as revenge), then had the tragedy leading from it (that robber then kills Uncle Ben, who tried to stop him, which is extra great because it shows Ben using power responsibly, which gives that motto more significance). So, his death is super good, and Martin Sheen was fantastic as him.
It's after that that I get frustrated, because then they have Peter go on this "path of revenge" to find the killer, then they never follow through with it because it gets dropped for... I don't know why it was dropped. Studio interference?
The effect this has on the character is that he essentially didn't learn his lesson from Uncle Ben, and he's not given the opportunity to because then the Lizard comes and the new goal is to stop him. While it's good to stop the Lizard, when you don't finish out the Uncle Ben plot and have that Lizard one directly interfere with it you destroy the character arc you were building. As a result, Peter doesn't learn his lesson.
So then Captain Stacy's death comes and maybe this will be what makes him learn and he seems to when he promises to stay away from Gwen to keep her safe... but then he hints he'll break that to her in the final minutes of the movie, which throws all of that out the window too. On top of that, Captain Stacy himself chose to get involved, so that makes his death more his fault rather than Peter's responsibility, meaning he doesn't really have to learn from it because Captain Stacy got himself into it.
Basically, what this means is that we end the first film with a Spidey that hasn't learned his lesson after two people have died in front of him, and one of them he didn't even have any responsibility for, so there's no reason for him to learn.
So then AMAZING 2 happens and they realize their mistake and do a weird waffling back and forth between being together or not with Gwen and Peter, but they have all kinds of things like Spidey's quipping being a form of bullying rather than him trying to hide his nervousness (he never appears to be nervous in conflicts with villains. He's always in control, so that makes the quipping appear much more mean than it should be. On top of that, in the Times Square battle he's given an audience that cheers for him so, rather than have a Spidey who has to struggle with others' perceptions of him, he's actively rewarded and celebrated, which paints this Spidey as one where the world just automatically loves him rather than the one who had to struggle with how others saw him). Then the death of Gwen happens and, rather than having his web be what kills her, she hits the ground.
This reframes the whole situation. In the comics, Spidey webbed up Gwen to save her, but his cosmically bad luck got in the way and the force killed her. What's even better is that he was very boastful as he pulled her up, drunk on victory, but then he realized she was dead. So not only do you have Spidey's typical bad luck, but you have a resurgence of his arrogant tendencies being tempered by harsh reality. In AMAZING 2, he was just too slow, which abdicates him of responsibility for her death and makes it more the Goblin's fault rather than a shared crime between the two of them. So then he just mopes for 5 months until Gwen's speech gives him a pep talk.
This is another instance of him not learning from a major character death, and in this case it seems like the writers wanted to actively avoid it, which frustrates me because that shows they don't understand the character. It's also another case of him having no responsibility for a death which, to me, is not a Spidey thing.
On top of all of this stuff related to death, him being the only one that the Spidey formula could have worked for undermines the everyman aspect of the character, along with him standing up to Flash before having his powers. This reframes the whole character as someone whose inner awesomeness was unlocked by a power-up rather than an average, every day individual being given incredible power by fate and having to step up and learn to be a hero. It also feels very entitled to me, because rather than working to be a good person he just "is" a good person.
So in short, I don't think the AMAZING movies understand the character. I think Garfield himself does (the scene in AMAZING 2 with him helping the bullied kid was his idea, and his Comic Con speech was awesome, and there was also an awesome thing where he played basketball with some kids in New York while on set in full costume, and he does deliver the quips really well even if I think they're too mean for the character), but he's trapped in movies that don't get the character at all. The multiple deaths that he didn't learn from (2 of which he had no responsibility for), him just inherently being good (but then not matching up to that after? These movies are kind of weird), his quips being more in line with a bully than someone in over his head, and the whole world instantly loving him, make me not like his portrayal. Garfield himself is fine, but the films are clueless, and it makes me really frustrated.
So that's my whole spiel lol. I do think the movies had great Spidey costumes (I even love the ASM 1 costume), his movements in web swinging and combat were all perfect, and Uncle Ben was incredible, but I think they miss everything else. What do you think?
