What I found distracting about Black Panther's score is that T'Challa's leitmotif sounded exactly like the refrain to the orchestral version of "Take on Me" in the Ready Player One trailer they showed before the movie.
Sony Spider-Verse discussion thread
- Thread starter Turtletrekker
- Start date
Today's trip to the rumor mill tells us that Woody Harrelson may bre playing Carnage in Venom.
https://www.mpaa.org/2018/04/is-woody-harrelson-playing-carnage-in-venom/
https://www.mpaa.org/2018/04/is-woody-harrelson-playing-carnage-in-venom/
Last edited:
I'd be down with that. I wasn't a big fan of his Cheers days, but he's really had a renaissance in his career in since True Detective and The Hunger Games, among others. I'm surprised how much of a fan of his I am now.
Last edited:
New Venom trailer tomorrow.
The first trailer came out just in time to be seen with Black Panther, and now this one comes down just in time for Infinity War.
The first trailer came out just in time to be seen with Black Panther, and now this one comes down just in time for Infinity War.
Leaked footage of trailer debuting tomorrow
Wow, that looks kinda dumb in live action. But then, it looked kinda dumb on the page too.
Weird to see Eddie Brock presented as a hero type. It kind of takes away the core idea behind Venom, that what makes the monster is not just the symbiote, but the fusion of the symbiote's raw aggression and power with a host who's driven by hate and vengeance. The adaptations ever since the 1994 animated series have treated the symbiote as something that heightened its host's aggression and turned them toward evil, but in the original comic, it was basically just draining its host's life energy, and its own pain at being rejected by Spider-Man combined with Brock's obsessive hatred for Spider-Man to create Venom. So arguably Brock corrupted it more than the reverse.
Now, I'm usually the one saying that there's nothing wrong with changing a concept from its source, but the question is whether the change results in something as interesting as the original, or more so. And having Brock just be a typical good-guy reporter who gets possessed by a predatory monster and tries to control it doesn't seem as interesting, and doesn't seem to capture the essence of the character, the part that's worth keeping. It just keeps the outward look and physicality of the character, which is not the important part.
Now, I'm usually the one saying that there's nothing wrong with changing a concept from its source, but the question is whether the change results in something as interesting as the original, or more so. And having Brock just be a typical good-guy reporter who gets possessed by a predatory monster and tries to control it doesn't seem as interesting, and doesn't seem to capture the essence of the character, the part that's worth keeping. It just keeps the outward look and physicality of the character, which is not the important part.
I'm guessing that's Hardy voicing Venom, too, but modulated?
I'm somewhat indifferent to the film. I've never cared for the character and I still don't see how he works without Spider-Man. The only reason I'm even mildly interested is because of Tom Hardy and Riz Ahmed. This is probably going to be a "wait and see what the critics think" film for me.
I'm somewhat indifferent to the film. I've never cared for the character and I still don't see how he works without Spider-Man. The only reason I'm even mildly interested is because of Tom Hardy and Riz Ahmed. This is probably going to be a "wait and see what the critics think" film for me.
It reminds me of the Spawn movie somehow. It looks like it could be a solid actioner but it's hard to see it being really stellar or transcendent. It is unusual to see such a blue-collar looking protagonist in these movies though which gives it a different feel from most of the superhero stuff out there, the grittiness might help set it apart some and may be refreshing after so many slick movies.
I must say I've never given a damn about the Venom character and am not that familiar with the comic stories so making Eddie an anti-hero makes sense especially in lieu of the usual Spidey origin.
I must say I've never given a damn about the Venom character and am not that familiar with the comic stories so making Eddie an anti-hero makes sense especially in lieu of the usual Spidey origin.
Looks like fun. And I say this as someone with zero knowledge of the character outside of Spider-Man 3. It looks like a fun Tom Hardy antihero/superhero movie.
I don't really see anything in the trailer that makes Eddie an antihero, other than flashing the word "ANTIHERO" onscreen. He seems like a pretty decent guy pre-symbiote. An antihero is someone who's got bad or villainous qualities but that the audience is meant to root for, e.g. a criminal who's not as bad as the other criminals trying to kill him, or an assassin who ends up caring for an innocent and trying to do the right thing for a change, or whatever. The comics' Venom/Brock is an antihero (later on) because he's a semi-reformed villain -- like Dexter, he's a serial killer who decides to limit his murders to bad guys. There's an echo of that in the trailer, but it doesn't come about in the same way. It looks like Brock's morality is consistent and he's just trying to rein in the deadly force that's possessed him.
Now, it could be that the trailer is just giving an incomplete sense of the story. Maybe there's a character in the film who takes the place of Spider-Man -- an earlier symbiote host that Brock develops a deep resentment for and that rejects the symbiote that then bonds with Brock, so that both Brock and the symbiote are motivated by revenge against that character, but ultimately try to grow beyond revenge. But if so, none of that is coming through in what we're seeing. Which would be an odd trailer-editing choice, because it's the core element of the character in the comics.
I said Eddie there but I probably should've said the gestalt. Hero, anti-hero, I don't know, I'm just saying making the character more of an evil villain part might not work when the character is not presented as the foe of a righteous hero. In the comics, how do they present the shift to an anti-hero/hero character?
There are lots of movies whose protagonists are essentially bad guys themselves, but who are sympathetic because they're going up against worse villains or because they go on a redemptive journey. A large part of the film noir genre is like that, gangster movies and the like. There's a whole subgenre of films whose protagonists are professional assassins. I already mentioned Dexter, a show whose "hero" was a serial killer, as an analogy. Heck, even James Bond is a pretty nasty piece of work in the original books, a misogynistic hit man who just happens to be working for the "right" side.
The thing is, comics-based movies are mature enough by now that they shouldn't all have to play to the same formula. They don't all need to be about heroes vs. villains. Fox is doing The New Mutants as a straight-up horror movie; it would make perfect sense to do the same with Venom.
There were definitely hints in the trailer that he's going to kill "bad people." I'd also argue that it's Venom, not Brock who would be the antihero depending on your definition of that term.