Toaster's Ramblings... Amazing Spider-man edition

So Jonny Prophet and I have uncovered a problem. Jonny was remarking how Marvel Comics only had two movies this year… Ghost Rider 2 and The Avengers. I had to remind him that The Amazing Spider-man, the new reboot to the franchise, is also coming out. He had completely forgotten… and that isn’t a good sign.

I also tend to forget about The Amazing Spider-man. When discussing the movies we are most looking forward to this summer, lots of names come up like The Avengers (which was freakin’ awesome!), Prometheus, Pixar’s Brave, Ted and of course The Dark Knight Rises. Occasionally we remember the sequels to GI Joe and The Expendables (which is less looking forward to and more having nothing better to do). But for some reason we keep forgetting about the Spider-man reboot.

What’s the problem here? We are both geeks, we love comics, comic book movies and Spider-man. The only thing I can come up with is that we just aren’t excited about this rebooted Spider-man franchise.  But why? We both think Andrew Garfield is a fantastic actor, we like Emma Stone (especially portraying Gwen Stacy) and Denis Leary is like icing on the cake. So what’s the problem?

For starters, I think that we still haven’t gotten the taste of Spider-man 3 out of our mouths. It wasn’t terrible, but it was a far cry from the first two films. Jonny and I have discussed various ideas as to how we would have improved the movie. Ultimately, though, the previous Spider-man franchise still had some potential. You had the introduction of Gwen Stacy, unused Spider-man villains like Electro and Mysterio and the possible return of Venom (though I distinctly remember seeing his skeleton get fried by the pumpkin bomb when I saw it in the theater. Apparently that was changed for the DVD release.) I personally don’t think the movie was bad enough to kill the franchise. Compared to previous franchise killers Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, Batman & Robin and X-Men 3; Spider-man 3 really wasn’t that bad. It was just a mess of too many stories in one movie. Oh, and Peter Parker strutting. (For note, when I am feeling evil I too have been known to mess up my hair and let it fall wildly onto my forehead.)

Another reason I am not really excited for the movie is it feels like more of the same. We really have to do his origin again? Really? Everyone knows it. Oh, but now it involves Peter Parker’s parents. Sorry, I still don’t care. Part of the reason Spider-man 2 was so great was that we could focus on other stories. For this reboot, we have to trudge through the spider bite yet again. Plus, now we have to sit and wait for each major villain like Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus and Venom to be reinvented for the big screen yet again. This was fine for the newer Batman franchise as Christopher Nolan has a great vision to recreate these classic characters for his films. I really don’t have the same faith in this reboot. Maybe the rebooted villains will be improved. Maybe the Green Goblin won’t look like a Power Ranger villain. Maybe Venom won’t have Eric Foreman as a host. But it would still be cool to see some new ground covered with bad guys like Hobgoblin, Kraven, Hydro-man and possibly Carnage.

And what is with this new “emo” Peter Parker? He was a nerd who got bullied. Fine, many including myself can relate. But now Parker is some misunderstood tortured soul? The greatness of Peter Parker was that he changed his perspective to rise up and become the man he needed to be. Can you say the same for a depressed, whiney, self-involved emo kid? I honestly hope so. I swear to God if the reboot Peter Parker starts cutting himself I am throwing things at the screen. 

Another issue I have is the choice of villain… the Lizard. Can a Doctor Jeckyl & Mr. Hyde archetype who turns into a man-sized reptile really carry a film? Now I have heard this version of the Lizard will maintain Dr. Conners’ genius intelligence. This creates a whole new problem. It’s not the Lizard, then. The Lizard was a sympathetic villain, a cautionary tale, where you could feel bad for Dr. Conners and his desperation to be whole again by regrowing his arm. The Lizard was a mindless beast that had to be stopped, but Parker couldn’t bring himself to harm his mentor. By the sounds of it, the reboot Lizard is just a power hungry bad guy. The previous franchise had great villains that I was excited to see on screen. I am not excited to see the Lizard… at all.

I’m also going to make another point that is contributing to my indifference toward the Amazing Spider-man. The whole reason for this reboot is that Columbia doesn’t want to lose the license to make Spider-man films. If they didn’t make a new film within a certain window the film rights would revert back to Marvel and by extension Disney. Why does this bug me? Because of The Avengers.

We just got The Avengers, an awesome culmination of several films each establishing characters that allowed them to be merged into one super super-hero movie. But not everyone in the Marvel universe can join this mega franchise. The X-men and Fantastic Four are made by 20^th Century Fox. Ghost Rider is also produced by Columbia. These are major characters with important supporting cast like Silver Surfer that may never be available to team up with Cap, Thor and Iron Man. It would have been so cool to have Spider-man join the team, since he is an Avenger in the comics. But no, we have to wait for contracts to expire and by then the Avengers franchise may be long gone. It’s kind of depressing to me. This is where DC Comics has a huge advantage over Marvel. If they can ever get there shit together and make movies on par with Marvel (that don’t involve Christian Bale), Warner Brothers has the entire catalogue of DC characters at their disposal. You want Justice League? You can have it. Teen Titans? Sure! Doom Patrol? Why the hell not. However, Marvel can’t do that as easily since their properties have been divided like the Seven Kingdoms after King Robert’s death. (There’s a little Game of Thrones reference for you. You’re welcome.)

Jonny Prophet and I will inevitably see The Amazing Spider-man. Otherwise we would lose our comic geek ‘street cred.’ Maybe it will be a pleasant surprise like last year’s X-men: First Class. Or maybe we will keep asking each other “How long until The Dark Knight Rises?” much to the chagrin of the movie goers seated around us. At least we can be assured one thing… Andrew Garfield’s performance is bound to be better than Tobey Maguire’s glassy-eyed, spaced-out, mumbling Peter Parker. 

And hopefully he keeps the mask on when he’s in costume. I swear Maguire might have had that mask on for a whole five minutes in Spider-man 3! People have cameras in their cell phones these days, Pete! One of them might take a picture of a guy crawling on a building or swinging from skyscraper to skyscraper!