Spider-Man movie (casting, rumors, pix till release)

Frankly, if people are going to insist on doing origin stories, why don't they just invent their own character?

 

I love Hollywood's definition of "hip"

Stick a "Ramones" T-shirt on the lead actor














Or a "The Strokes" t-shirt.

 

Origin story complains again? Sigh.

 

No one would care about Robin as the lead charcter if Batman was in the same movie.

 

If one does a Robin solo film (which I doubt would ever happen) they should adapt the excellent Robin: Year One which was written by Chuck Dixon (a writer whom I'm not a big fan of but think he did a really good job). Perhaps you could include the origin that was introduced in "Batman: Dark Victory".

 

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=iv&src_vid=XiZuvJ48MZ0&annotation_id=annotation_594699&v=QQyfQ7RMOXs[/yt]

 

^ It is things like that which make me glad fanboys aren't in charge of real movies.

 

I don't think it's laziness, I think it's more that as these different directors and people come in they want to put their own stamp on the character, and to most people the best way to do that is by telling their own version of the origin story. I think it's also their way of letting people know that this new series will be completely unrelated to past stories. They might be afraid that if they just jump into a story with the character already established, people will jassume it's just a continuation of the previous series.

 

^ Yep. Comic characters have always been called modern myth...and like classic myth...it is only natural for filmmakers and story tellers to want to tell their own take on these great characters. Just as we fans do.

 

Yeah, because people are that stupid.

 

I wouldn't say stupid, but, obviously if you don't tell the audience a new Origin story, the general Audience is going to assume everything they know from the last incarnation is still in play. Those of us who post on BBS are privvy to so much information the General audience knows nothing about, so we have a tendency to forget, that although we know on xx/xx/xxxx the Latest Producer said "it's a soft reboot that retains the previous Origin story, but, movies 2-4 are being ignored", the General Audience isn't going to be out looking for that information, and isn't likely to even be aware of it.

Heck, I've seen all the Batman movies, but, I couldn't even go into detail (Or arrange in a lineup by movie) of the differences between the suits from 1 movie to another (Though many here could write a book on the evolution of the Batman suits in the movies) Problem is, we expect the General Audience is that well informed, but, they're not.

 

Some people still thought Begins was a continuation from B&R despite the new origin. It was just old enough yet came around when prequels were still kinda new that some thought it was just another Bruce Wayne change. Assuming Clooney didn't want back in or what have you.

 

There were some that were also confused at why Joker was in TDR when he got killed off in the first Batman.

 

^ Yeah, Begins was frequently described as a prequel to the other movies, as was Casino Royale to the rest of the Bond series.

I agree with the suggestion of taking a (pre-Casino) Bond approach to comic book movies - a light reboot every few years, which may or may not be consistent with the previous entries in the series. But really, as long as this movie is good, I can forgive seeing the origin again.

 

The problem is trying to turn these movies into a series at all. James Bond does it right; you don't need to have seen any of them in order to understand the next one. You can watch them completely at random and still have them make sense.

Spiderman's origin doesn't change. He's a guy who gets bit by a radioactive spider and turns into a superhero.

Superman's origin doesn't change. He's a guy who came here as a baby after his planet blew up. He can fly and shoot laser beams out of his eyes and is more or less invincible.

Batman's origin doesn't change. He's a guy whose parents get murdered outside after leaving a theater. He dresses as a bat and fights crime.

The details are unimportant. As long as you know the basics, you can make a movie about any of these characters, and it shouldn't matter what movies were made before.

 

Exactly. Honestly, I've always liked the Dick Grayson character, and I like his origin story. As long as you make it obvious that the movie is about Robin (call it "Robin," for example) and make him the focus of the previews, nobody should be disappointed by Batman as a supporting character.

I think it could be awesome, actually, if done right.

 

But...why?

Let's take Batman as an example. Neither the Adam West TV show nor the Dini/Timm one started out with an origin. Yet, both were very successful and both put forth a unique and popular version of the character.

And, in the case of West, they NEVER showed the origin. There was only a reference made by Bruce, in the first couple minutes of the pilot, that he started the Wayne foundation because his parents had been murdered by a mugger. That was all the audience needed to figure things out.

And, of course, no one thought Dini/Timm was a continuation of West...or a direct continuation of Burton's film for that matter.

So...if those guys can do it, why assume that a film director can't?

As for Spiderman, so far, other than a need to write out Mary Jane and recast the leads, there's nothing about this current Spidey film that I've seen that couldn't have done as sequel or a soft reboot...except for the origin itself.

Gwen was in III. Connors was in at least two of Raimi's films. But for the origin (again), there's nothing I see here that couldn't have been done in Spidey IV even with a new director and a new tone.

If a director could do "Live and Let Die" after "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (and, yes, I'm ignoring "Diamonds") or "The Living Daylights after "View to a Kill," changing the cast and tone of the Bond flicks (and casting a younger Bond in the case of Dalton) without a reboot there's no reason Webb couldn't have done the same thing with this film.

 

^ Different times, I suppose. When Connery was replaced by Lazenby and then Moore, the Bond movies were only shown every few years on tv and there was no tv or DVD. Even when Dalton was cast, there was no DVD and videos were rented, rarely purchased. As such, people didn't watch and re-watch movies and note continuity errors, changed premises, etc, etc the way we do now.

Can you imagine the outcry there'd be today if a villain was played by three different actors in three totally different ways, in three successive movies, as Blofeld was in YOLT, OHMSS and DAF?

I agree with your basic point, but I suppose now people are almost too cinematically-literate or aware to be as casual

 

They recast Batman twice during the last film series (1989-1997) without any outcry. Not to mention Harvey Dent going from Billy Dee Williams to Tommy Lee Jones.