SPIDER-MAN, VENOM, NON MARVEL SPIDEY DOES WHAT A SPIDER CAN IF SONY LETS HIM

[Captain Russ]

You're all on dope.

You've got that reefer madness.

[BillyG]

[Abraham Smashington]

I'm starting to have doubts now....

[Timothy225]

I'm starting to have doubts now....

Well, that was... awful.

[FilmNerdJamie]

<iframe width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Qy6OIFk-YjQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[Captain Russ]

He knows how I feel.

[FilmNerdJamie]

In another reality, he'd have been Jonah.

[Timothy225]

Genius! Pure genius!

[FilmNerdJamie]

Not that this means anything concrete but Sony has gone ahead and announced a May 2, 2014 release date for The Amazing Spider-Man sequel. I'll be 30. *Drinks nearest Jack Daniels*

[Captain Russ]

In another reality, he'd have been Jonah.

I'd like the wormhole to take me there. Now.

Somewhere that George C. Scott is alive and raging is the place I want to live.

All the more if he's playing me in my biopic. I deserve nothing less.

[Martin]

Looks like The Amazing Spiderman is gonna be the rotten vagina I called it would be. Too bad our resident Asian nerd will die from an aneurysm because of it.

[Bobby Bear]

Aside from the fact that it's the origin again, is there anything about the film that people can see as in any way inferior? I'm not getting bent out of shape about this or attacking you personally, Martin. I'm just fascinated how, of all the properties, this is the one getting hung out to dry a year before it opens. Arguably the greatest superhero of them all (well, there's no argument as far as I'm concerned, but I'm trying to be diplomatic.)

What I'm really driving at is, from a film-making standpoint, is there anything about this that appears to be inferior? I'm not talking about whether you don't want to see the zero issue again or whether you think so and so would have been better for the part. Those are moot points since it's done and there's nothing we can do anything about it. I'm talking about whether it looks like it came out of Happy Madison or what have you. Next to Zookeeper or something, where does this really seem to rank? Obviously taking into account none of us have seen the finished article.

I can understand the internet getting into a tizzy over a teaser or a photo (it's the internet) but when positive reports come back from Comic Con about actual sequences of footage as opposed to clips or pictures and you've got a lead who, by all accounts, seems genuinely excited to be where he is, it becomes a little hard to see any legitimacy to all the bashing.

[Captain Russ]

That's an odd question to even attempt to answer, since it seeks to ignore the main issue of the film, as though the fact it is a return to an origin that was already told (and told quite well) that just smacks of laziness and is by all means wholly unnecessary, can be overlooked.

But I'll at least offer this up: it sidesteps ME. All of the great ME that should be in this nickelodeon is not there. That is unacceptable. I don't care if they got Martin Sheen to be in this or how much I loved him in Wall Street; this is an egregious slight against my character that I will not soon forgive nor forget.

[Bobby Bear]

I don't think it ignores it, really. It just accepts the fact that this is the origin again and there's no sense boycotting the film or holding a grudge against it for something that can't be changed.

I recently watched Spider-Man again (as well as a lot of the special features on the original 2-disc DVD release) and it's abundantly clear that it was the product of its era. That film wasn't conceived with two more entries already more or less sketched out before the first hit. It was an "all our eggs in this basket" kind of film with the objective of making it a pretty darn cool basket in case there wasn't going to be another. They succeeded, but they weren't to know it was gonna do that well before it was released because nobody really knows how well a film will do or how good it will be until it comes out and we see it, no matter how informed we might think we are.

This is what I don't accept about all the backlash. Obviously there is a cynical aspect to taking the character back in years and the marketing potential that opens up etc. However, there's also a case that it gives the opportunity for, hopefully, a little more focus on the character's journey. So that it doesn't feel like he went conveniently from zero to hero in 90 minutes. Isn't part of what makes Spidey work how he struggles with his double life? I mean, genuinely struggles like a kid really would if he found himself in that situation? Raimi did some of that "soap opera with costumes" stuff brilliantly, but it was a tad rushed in the first film. What's to say this can't open up the door to a more measured, fleshed-out look at that aspect?

I'm just snowballing here, thinking off the top of my head. But it seems to me that not a lot of people have even bothered to think about this movie before they decided they hated it.

[Matt]

I'm just snowballing here, thinking off the top of my head. But it seems to me that not a lot of people have even bothered to think about this movie before they decided they hated it.

That's a fair statement.

All that I can do is speak for myself:
- it seems unnecessary.
- it appears to not be breaking any new ground.
- the one it's replacing is not that old, and I'm hesitant to spend $12 in the theater to see the same story AGAIN.