What’s Up Wednesday: Spider-Man

 

 

This guy, Christopher Daniel Barnes, was the voice for Peter Parker/Spider-man in the animated series. You owe me- I know you’ve always wanted to know!

 

 

 

Sometime this week I watched “Spider-Man 2” and realized that when I first saw it I thought this movie was rockin’. But after watching it this time, I found a lot of things that I hope- nigh- PRAY the reboot takes into account.  For one:

The Villains’ Shortcomings: Why does Hollywood think that killing off all of the bad guys is the way to do it?  Green Goblin/Norman Osbourne doesn’t die, in fact, lives on FAR into the Marvel future. So killing him kind of pissed me off; Doc Ock- one of Spider-Man’s greatest foes and granted there is a moment where Octavius dies, he comes back to life to battle Spidey over and over- and it’s awesome! Their battles are often the best because of the challenge facing Spider-Man, considering Doc Ock’s menacing tentacles.

So long story short: Don’t kill off the next villain. Just like Batman (of the DC Universe), Spider-Man doesn’t kill- he subdues.

Peter Parker:  Stop being such a wuss. Tobey Maguire showed way too much emotion for Spider-Man. I understand that he’s got a lot of pressure on his shoulders, I mean, he has to juggle women, super-villains, and public relations. That would be a ton of pressure for anyone, but that gives him no excuse to cry. None at all. Peter Parker should not and if everything goes right, will not cry in the reboot.

Spider-Man: More, more, MORE smart-ass quips. It might sound odd, but it accentuates the essence of Peter Parker/Spider-Man’s age and personality.  As a youth, he’s cocky, naïve, and completely driven to be kick-ass. The last 3 films have left a LOT to be desired with the quips and there needs to be more. 

I know it’s difficult to do right with having a legitimate human being in the role, but Spider-Man needs to be even more acrobatic and nimble in his movements and his action scenes. There really wasn’t enough of this fluidity in the last films, and with an even scrawnier looking Spider-Man this go around [Andrew Garfield], it could be done!

Finally, let’s get back to what makes Spider-Man and Peter Parker so freaking awesome: his intelligence. Everyone knows that Spider-Man did not develop shooters from the spider-bite, but rather invented them as transportation, tools, and weapons. The best part is Spider-Man develops and creates new web formulas for different baddies and different situations, it’s not a generic goop that shoots out of his wrist. Parker’s intelligence is one of the most intriguing aspects of Spider-Man because he’s not a dimwitted, muscle-head; he’s hella smart, and they need to play on that more in the reboot. Raimi attempted that in the Spider-Man 2 but missed the mark because Maguire’s character only spat off random, out-of-context remarks on science that “fulfilled” the intelligent remarks quota set out by Columbia. For the record, I don’t think this was an actual quota, but seeing as how they went about tossing in said remarks makes me think they wanted enough to please us comic geeks; they didn’t.

So long story short: Marc Webb, please, please, PLEASE do your research: read our blogs, be a fan of Spider-Man already, and for the love of GOD, make this one right. Currently DC comics is kicking the Marvel’s ass  in the box office –the Batman reboot, primarily, but Green Lantern is cropping up to be a pretty damn good film- and Marvel needs a solid box office take over- Iron Man can’t hold up the franchise himself; Hulk was a bust, though Edward Norton’s take was better; and Thor should help, but he’s not here yet.

For the readers of this blog, I’ll keep you up to date as the film progresses. Until then, check this out: Every Wednesday Marvel streams the Spider-Man Animated Series! Click it to check it out!