Spider-Man: Homecoming' anticipation thread
- Thread starter Turtletrekker
- Start date
I liked the first one better.Logo has been modified a bit
The younger Aunt May isn't just about being different, it's about demographics. Generally, the aunt of a 15-year-old boy would most likely be in her 40s or early 50s (Marisa Tomei is 52). It's not impossible that she could be in her '60s, say; my oldest uncle was 50 when I was born, since he was the oldest of four siblings and my father was the youngest. But it's unusual. And people today tend to stay healthy longer, so May would have to be really old to be as frail as she was in the original comics.
What? Dales doesn't like something from Marvel Studios? Shocked, I am. Positively shocked!
The thing is, until now we've never actually seen an actual school age Peter Parker, just a bunch of 20-somethings unconvincingly trying to pass themselves off as teenagers. So I'm glad they're embracing that as it's what originally made Spider-man distinct from all the other headliners back in the 60's. He was an audience surrogate, but unlike most of the others at the time, he was his own character, not some sidekick.
I think this works better. Classic Aunt May always seemed a little too old, almost into grandmother territory compared to a teenage Peter. Not that it's impossible for siblings to have significant age gaps of course (I can cite two comparable examples just in my immediate family) but this feels a little more plausible.
Plus of course, time has moved on and generally speaking, women in their 50's 60's these days aren't like women in their 50's & 60's were back then. Indeed, the latter would have been around for the great depression while former would have been kids the exact generation Spider-man was created for. Different breed.
So even if they were to keep May older, she really shouldn't be much like the May we got in the Rami movies. She felt a little too old fashioned in some ways.
Plus whatever was stolen/sold in the aftermath of SHIELD's fall and the various Hydra R&D cells being scattered to the four corners. From what we saw in Ant-man there's certainly a market for advanced tech in the criminal underworld.
Personally I'm wondering if there's a connection between the Vulture suit and the Falcon suit. They seem so similar it would be odd if there wasn't. Perhaps the Vulture's is based off an early DARPA prototype? The fur lines flight jacket and helmet with an oxygen supply seems to imply it's meant for high altitude flight. Maybe next gen HALO drop gear?
I think it's interesting that they seem to be making the villains in this one street level criminals armed with improvised, scavenged and innovated gear. A good counterpoint considering Peter does pretty much the same thing with old computers & DVD players and even invented his own web-shooters. I like that they're not downplaying that aspect of his character this time out.
Last edited:
Tom Holland is 20...
Although Rosemary Harris was utterly awesome as Aunt May. Which, of course, is all the more reason to go in a different direction rather than trying to compete with that.
Really? I was under the impression he was in his late teens. Though thinking about it, he have have been back when his casting was announced. Either way, still WAY more convincing than Maguire who was clearly in his mid-to-late 20's.
Ironically, both Garfield and Macguire were 28 when they first starred as Spider-Man. Crazy right?
I really enjoyed his appearance in Civil War. As someone who knows next to nothing about Spider-Man (never seen the movies or cartoon) I'm really looking forward to this!
In one of the interviews I read, they said they decided to make Peter a teenager because it was something we haven't gotten in the MCU yet.
I like the first two Raimi films the best, I guess, but I think the other three aren't as bad as their reputations. Although my feelings about ASM2 are quite mixed. It got Peter/Spidey more right than any other movie including Civil War, and it handled Gwen and Aunt May very well too, but it badly bungled everything else -- like the plot, the villains, etc.
I actually like the leads better in the Webb movies. Tobey Maguire is fine, but he wasn't really playing Peter Parker; rather, they changed Peter Parker to be more like Tobey Maguire. I feel Garfield was a better fit to the character. And though I didn't mind Kirsten Dunst's MJ (despite her having little in common with her comics counterpart), Emma Stone's Gwen was just fantastic, far more interesting than the character she was based on.
Well, that's not literally true, since both the previous film series opened with Peter in high school. I think what they meant was that it wasn't something that past movies have really focused on or embraced. Although I'm not sure that's accurate either. The first Raimi film had Peter graduate from high school mid-movie, IIRC, but Garfield's Peter didn't graduate until the start of his second film. I guess the idea is that high school life was just a background element before and they're making it a more central aspect of the character and the story now -- as indicated by the Homecoming subtitle.
But those movies weren't part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I don't think they're talking about the previous SPIDER-MAN series from Sony; they were pointing out that the MCU hasn't done anything with the high school milieu yet. Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Thor, Doctor Strange, etc. are all adults with adult lives and concerns.
The MCU didn't have a teenage hero yet, so Spidey fills that bill.
Movie looks like a lot of fun, btw. I like wise-cracking teen Spidey, and am amused that Michael Keaton has gone from Batman to Birdman to the Vulture.
Last edited:
I thought that the trailer was really good. It was entertaining, and actually had some funny moments and stuff that just made me smile. I'm still not sure of the high school stuff, my tolerance of "teen drama" isn't very high, but the trailer sold me on Holland as Spidey more then Civil War did, and I think the movie looks good.
I especially liked seeing the Vulture, I'm glad they're starting off the MCU Spider-Man with a villain that hasn't been used in the movies before. I really enjoyed the raimi movies, thought the ASM movies were mediocre (ASM 1) and just bad (ASM 2), but I'm definitely excited to see Homecoming.
I especially liked seeing the Vulture, I'm glad they're starting off the MCU Spider-Man with a villain that hasn't been used in the movies before. I really enjoyed the raimi movies, thought the ASM movies were mediocre (ASM 1) and just bad (ASM 2), but I'm definitely excited to see Homecoming.
At the time the first two Rami movies were easily among the best comic book movies to date. Neither were perfect, but they really raised the bar set by Blade & X-Men and Spider-Man 2 was just stunning.
A decade and a half later though, I'm not so sure they've aged all that well. Given the quality and depth of character we've gotten used to with the MCU, it's harder and harder to forgive some of the awkward cheesiness, the borderline nonsensical character arcs like Peter loosing and regaining his powers, the persistent under-use of Dunst as MJ as anything other than an unusually load prop rather than a character with agency all of her own.
Can't comment much on the third one as I only watched it once and didn't enjoy it at all. At this point I barely remember anything about it other than it being a mess both in terms of tone and narrative. It basically felt like all the things that were wrong with the first two movies, only without any of the charm or fun and lacking any sense of good taste. I was left with the distinct impression that nobody's heart was in this one, from the writer, to the director and on down to the principle cast.
I can say even less about the two most recent instalments as I only caught about 20 mins of the first one, got bored and changed the channel. It wasn't terrible or anything, it just felt like an inferior, less imaginative knock-off of Rami's first movie. The way they danced around the "with great power..." line was just painful.
Needless to say, between the lack of impression what little of the first one I saw made and the god awful trailers, I avoided the second movie like the plague. From most accounts, I didn't miss anything worthwhile.
Oh, I like the fact that Uncle Ben showed that principle to Peter through his actions rather than just saying the words. People get too hung up on the line itself; the words aren't as important as the idea. It wasn't even originally Uncle Ben's line -- it was the last line of the narration in the original story, summing up the lesson Peter learned from Uncle Ben's death and his failure to stop the burglar who later killed Ben. So whether or not Ben actually said the words is trivial next to that. The actual phrase itself didn't start getting repeated in the comics until the '80s, so it's not like it's some indispensable catchphrase. And it wasn't attributed to Ben in the comics until 1987, although an audio story on a record album had done so 15 years earlier: http://www.cbr.com/when-we-first-me...-with-great-power-comes-great-responsibility/
Like I said, ASM2 captured Spidey himself almost perfectly. It just put him in the wrong story.
Ever since the second Marc Webb Spider-Man film, I've noticed that it has become the in thing to put down his two films. I find this ironic, considering that the majority view of the films were a lot more positive . . . until the death of a certain character. Even more ironic is that many were expecting this character to die before the second film came out. And when that finally happened, many fans and the media reacted with "outrage". I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
Similar threads
