The Amazing Spider-Man So now we've seen both, which was the best? - Part 1

[Picard Sisko]

Wowsers. Been a while since I was on here.

(A belated new years to everyone)

For those of you who had ever followed or read my Spider-movie series, I've just put up the very last entry on my blog

http://fenskeland.blogspot.ca/2013/01/spider-movie-epilogue-final-spider-word.html

It's mostly a mish-mash of all the final little points I've wanted to make about the film, but couldn't work into any of my previous posts.

I doubt I'll be changing anyone's mind (for those of you who prefer Raimi's offerings) at this point in the game, but I thought I'd put it up here for posterity.

 

[pr0xyt0xin]

I've said it before. This guy says what I am thinking. And I'm not just saying "Yeah! ASM FTW w00t!" I actually mean, whenever I say "I like ASM" or "I prefer Webb's to Raimi's" its for the reasons Fenske goes on for so many pages about.

So, yeah. To each his own, but Fenske speaks the truth.

 

[chaseter]

Truth?

 

[pr0xyt0xin]

Sure. In the entirety of his analysis what did he say that was completely false? Considering most was opinion I doubt you can come up with more than a couple things.

 

[pr0xyt0xin]

That is, if you even read it all.

 

[chaseter]

Opinion is neither true nor false...was my point. You said to each his own but the dude is speaking the truth..so those that disagree must not be able to see the truth???

 

[pr0xyt0xin]

Its the truth that it's both his opinion and my opinion. That's a fact.

Not to mention MANY (if not all) of his points of analysis are near irrefutable. Because his explanations are so thorough. Like that the film was made as the first part of a whole trilogy, for instance. It's quite clear, and a logical, factual argument in favor of ASM that the story was made to be concluded in a sequel. Thus allowing more time for character development and a more visceral beginning middle and end.

Or the fact that Flash was a dynamic character. While you may prefer him as a static throwaway caricature of a plot piece, most would agree that having him grow and change like an actual human is much more interesting.

I could go on...

 

[chaseter]

Please go on.

 

[pr0xyt0xin]

Could... but have better things to do. Maybe later.

 

[Fox]

Opinion is neither true nor false...was my point. You said to each his own but the dude is speaking the truth..so those that disagree must not be able to see the truth???

Mostly, I think he was just very strongly agreeing with me, and thus feels my opinions are 'truth'.

That said, I suppose you could always read what I have to say and decide for yourself whether or not my arguments are merely opinions, or (perhaps) arguments that contain 'truth' upon which I based my opinions.

To that end I certainly never lied or intentionally said anything untrue in my posts. So I suppose it would be accurate to say that I speak the truth. Yes.

 

[Picard Sisko]

Mostly, I think he was just very strongly agreeing with me, and thus feels my opinions are 'truth'.

That said, I suppose you could always read what I have to say and decide for yourself whether or not my arguments are merely opinions, or (perhaps) arguments that contain 'truth' upon which I based my opinions.

To that end I certainly never lied or intentionally said anything untrue in my posts. So I suppose it would be accurate to say that I speak the truth. Yes.

 

[BlackFox]

Raimi's by far but maybe things will improve in ASM2.

 

[Senator Pleasury]

Other than being really faithful to the comics origin, TASM is better than Raimi's SM in almost every aspect, acting, dialogue, character development. Raimi's version basically moved over caricatures and kid-friendly dialogues and situations.

Green Goblin was also acted like a Disney witch and, other than killing a bunch of people - which he did right away, turning people into colorful skeletons much like in "Mars Attacks!" - he had no further purpose in life but... becoming Spider-man best friend??? He wants to beat Spider-man, but when he had him dozed off for hours he didn't even think of removing his mask. Even so, later on in the movie, he understands that Spider-man's identity was crucial. Then he conceives this idea of having the hero decide between two people while they're falling, which must have turned 100 years old back in 2002.

TASM made Peter a believable nerd, heroic, made Flash Thompson a mutable character, made Gwen an intelligent woman (opposite to the selfish cheaty MJ) and the villain had at least a villanous purpose.

What TASM got wrong that Raimi got great was the suit.

 

[Green Goblin]

Re-open the poll please, I want to vote for TASM...

 

[Green Goblin]

The suit was a nice change... like something a kid could make.

 

[NewYorkSpider]

Spider-Man - 7/10
The Amazing Spider-Man - 8/10


Still gonna be hard to beat Raimi's Spider-Man 2.

 

[Green Goblin]

On this board I think SM2 will be the best spidey for sometime

 

[NewYorkSpider]

I have faith that Webb will give us a good movie. They have great actors on board for this film.

 

[Picard Sisko]

Spider-Man - 7/10
The Amazing Spider-Man - 8/10


Still gonna be hard to beat Raimi's Spider-Man 2.

I agree, considering SM2 is my personal favorite Spider-Man & comic book film of all time. Though I do believe that TASM2 has the chance to give SM2 a run for its money.

 

[UltimateWebhead]

It will be tough to out-do SM2 but I think it's very attainable and I sincerely hope that it happens. I only want to see Spidey get the best possible films.

 

[Atharun]

I like TASM much more than I do the Raimi films. in fact I would go so far as to say that TASM is my favorite Superhero/Comic film. Mainly due to SM being my favorite Superhero character. That being said, and bias aside, the things that make me dislike the Raimi trilogy is the look and feel. What I mean by that is the Raimi trilogy, especially the 1st movie, felt very stylized. Every time I see that ending fight between SM and GG, in the building where GG gets impaled, it reminds me of the 89' Batman film where Bats fights Joker in the clock tower. I felt Raimi was going for the "stylized" version of the city. The Parade scene with the balcony over looking the city and all that just reminded me of Burton's Batman movies. I admit I enjoyed Batman 89 and batman Returns as a kid but SM is different and the new movie made me feel like it was NYC.

I also loved the coloring of the TASM. As dumb as it may sound, color are huge to me. An example would be Avatar. While the movie's story is ok and the movie itself is ok, the visuals of the movie are very nice. The vibrant colors and what not...the Raimi films felt like everything was yellowish to it. TASM felt much more colorful especially the later half. one thing that stands out is that slow mo scene where you see Pete's hands only and he is looking down on the city.

Casting was another big area. I know peeps love Tobey but to me, while a good actor, was not right for Pete or Spider-Man. Interestingly enough a few weeks before they announced Andrew I had the pleasure of watching Boy A and though that if he could do an American accent he would prob make a great Pete and then to my surprise they announced and I nearly fell out of my chair. I think he has the look and wit compared to Tobey. Dunst as MJ was a disaster IMO and Franco as Harry just fell flat. Now Molina as Ock, that was a great performance.

Finally, I think the writing hurt the Raimi movies (except for #2). Singing Spider-Man.

Anyway just my .02

 

[AnneFan]

It will be hard to top Spider-Man 2, but as Webb said, with the origin out of the way they can now let loose and explore new areas.

 

[Filmfreak]

I really liked them both but Raimi for me all the way. He nailed the style and the whole atmosphere of the early Stan Lee-Steve Ditko Spider-Man era. Even if it was a bit more cartoony it definitely felt more of a Spider-Man adaptation to me. Better action scenes, better direction, far better music score and I think it was a better production for the early '00s standards. I mean the Lizard in the Amazing Spider-Man kind of sucked for a 230 million dollars budget. The Spidey movement looked a little bit fake too.

On the other hand it does have a better male and female lead, a better romance chemistry between Gwen and Peter and probably better acting overall. Plus a much better Spidey attitude.

But then again Peter Parker was a little off to me in both films. In Webb's version he was way too cool and in fact a little bit of a jackass at from time to time. On Raimi's I felt Maguire's acting was weak so again I wasn't thrilled by his portrayal.

But the main problem with the Webb version is that it was a reboot that didn't really justify its existence. They spend half the movie to redo the origin in a very similar way instead of dealing with Peter's parents which is one of the very few interesting additions but they only scratch the surface, the tone of the movie is different but not really that different to stand out and basically things that looked silly in the previous one look even more silly in this one. Because there the whole setting was more comic book-ish. The Amazing Spider-Man has a more grounded and slightly more realistic approach so some things seriously contradict with the whole way everything's presented.

 

[OcStat]

This movie's need for existence is just as questionable as a Spider-Man 4 would have been. But we know there is money to be made, and I think a reboot has left the film makers with way more options to continue the franchise than we would have had once the credits for SM4 started to roll. I don't think that's an adequete complaint against the film. Every superhero franchise is going to get the reboot at some point, just a matter of time. In the case of Spider-Man, some may think 4 years was too soon. But SM3 demanded a better film to follow it, and in that respect Amazing delivered. Maybe the originally planned SM4 would have been better than 3 (Though I doubt it now), can you imagine a more positive vision for the films that would have followed than what we have for this new series?

 

[Filmfreak]

I'm not the biggest fan of having countless sequels and based on Spider-Man 3 I wouldn't be thrilled for a fourth one but I hate reboots even more. It's a current trend I don't particularly like or understand in terms of creativity. For the studio surely a profitable franchise is the easy solution that earns them certain amount of money but as an audience member I have to be convinced that it's really worth doing it again. And for that to happen I need something completely different. A whole new version that really offers something fresh. Just like how each Batman movie version looks and feels completely different to the previous one despite which one anyone prefers or how different Man of Steel is to Donner's Superman. And I didn't feel that with The Amazing Spider-Man. It was slightly different in ways but not enough to justify its existence. This what I actually meant. And they focused on an origin that we've seen again instead of going more with the parents' story which was a completely new aspect. The could've done the Incredible Hulk thing and summarize the origin in the opening credits not spend another full hour on Peter discovering his powers.

So generally I'd rather see another sequel that continues the already established story and fate of the main characters than having to start all over again like this never happened. And yes Spider-Man 3 pretty much failed but that doesn't mean that whenever something doesn't have a positive reception from the general audience they have to wipe it out of existence and start from scratch. Also I think they should have waited for a couple of more years if they eventually "had to" reboot it. Five years is just too short of a time period. I feel even worse with WB who are rebooting Batman in 2015. The previous ones are still fresh in people's memories. And let's take a look at the long term of things. In like 50 years we'll end up with 10-20 different versions of the same character? And in 100 years? Personally I have no interest in seeing the same things over and over again. Comic books is one thing, movies based on comic books is another and especially fans should understand this.