GoG shouldn't really have gotten a movie, no one prior to the movie's announcement outside of the comic circle have ever heard of them, me included.
I will never, for the life of me, understand the attitude that there's something wrong with making a movie about characters nobody has heard of. Nobody had ever heard of Luke Skywalker before 1977. Nobody had ever heard of Ellen Ripley before
Alien came out. Nobody had ever heard of Charles Foster Kane before
Citizen Kane came out.
And from what I've seen it look dreadful, looks a cheap rip off from Star Wars...
And
Star Wars was itself one big pastiche of elements from dozens of earlier movies, books, and serials. It didn't invent the tropes of space opera, not by a very, very long shot.
Not even Black Panther or Doctor Strange first, they picked GoG for some bizarre reason. I'd be surprised if it does that well.
To the general public that makes up 90-odd percent of the moviegoing audience, Black Panther and Doctor Strange are every bit as obscure as the Guardians. For that matter, so were Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor before their movies came out. Again, it makes no sense to think that prior familiarity with a concept is necessary for making a worthwhile movie about it.
Nothing, but when she takes up too much screen time with too much romance and flirting, that's when something becomes wrong. This is a superhero film, people like action in superhero films. A bit of romance, yes but the majority of the film was about Peter and Gwen messing around with romance. Yes, it is good for female fans to have their role models, but just because they're female doesn't meant their role model of the film should be female, why couldn't they just have Spider-Man himself as the main role model?
"Yes, it is good for male fans to have their role models, but just because they're male doesn't mean their role model of the film should be male, why couldn't they just have Gwen herself as the main role model?"
The problem is that generations have
defaulted to male role models, and that creates a culture of exclusion toward women that is still very, very much a problem in the entertainment industry and elsewhere. And complacent BS like you just spouted is what keeps the imbalance from being corrected. I'm very thankful that the makers of the movie cared enough to move things in the right direction.
They should make some more female superhero films instead, but in a Spider-Man film I want to see Spider-Man.
Then you don't understand Spider-Man at all. Peter Parker has always been defined by his relationships, and romance has always been a huge part of his story. What made Marvel Comics so revolutionary in the 1960s was that they
weren't merely the one-dimensional action stories that DC and other publishers were doing at the time. Timely/Marvel creators like Lee, Kirby, and Ditko had been specializing for years in doing romance comics, horror comics, mystery comics, and the like, and thus, when the company shifted its focus back to superheroes, the creators brought those same sensibilities into them -- the shocking twists, the monstrous heroes alienated from society, the teen angst and soap opera, the serialized narratives, all of it.
Spider-Man comics have always been unapologetically soap-operatic in their preoccupation on Peter Parker's relationship angst and romantic travails. You can't have a Spider-Man story without relationships being at the core of it, because that's who Spidey is -- someone who cares deeply about other people, who defines himself by his relationships with them and his obligations to them. He fights crime because of his guilt at letting Uncle Ben down. He triumphs over the worst obstacles by reminding himself of his obligation to Aunt May or Mary Jane or his other friends. His worst enemies always seem to be people close to Peter Parker or to the people he cares about. It's always personal, and very soapy.
Early on in the film I was glad they included her more and I really liked the character, but she almost felt like the main character. I wouldn't have included her as much near the end of the film as they did, in the comics Spider-Man never got help from his girlfriend in most of the comics, especially in situations like that. While heroic of her, I felt it irresponsible of Peter have not stopped her going enough, in a dangerous situation like that you wouldn't bring the love of your life there. And think about the children watching it, would they rather have the majority of the film with Spidey moping about Gwen or do they want action and him to kick butt more? I think the latter. Yes, story is good, more character driven plots are good, that's where The Avengers went wrong, but this film was too slow going.
