Even the Spider-logo Looks Sad...

A while back I wrote an entry detailing my feelings on changes being made to comic book costumes both in books. And in film.



In the second post (about Cap's movie costume), I said that I wouldn't talk about costume changes again unless someone decided to really screw with the design. It's like both DC and Marvel read that and took it as a challenge. It wasn't, guys who designed the movie costumes for comic book films. It really wasn't. The offenders this time are Green Lantern and *sob* Spider-Man.



I've already said how I feel about the CG-costume for GL, so I won't wax on about that. Instead, I'll focus on the recently revealed picture of Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man. The one thing that I thought the Sam Raimi-directed Spidey films got right was the costume. Sure, the thing was latex instead of spandex and they added the web & texture design, but overall, it was the red and blue costume that Spidey was famous for.

While the picture isn't 100% clear and the mask isn't present, there are some changes that are notable. The spider logo on the chest has been change so that the lower four legs are stretched and the two outer legs bleed into the border of the red section. Which brings me to the red section. It appears to taper off and does not have what many call "the belt" of the Spidey suit. There is a section of red on the back right (his left, our right) that just...ends, so it could be that because the picture is of a battle-damaged suit, the belt has been torn off. That we'll have to wait for the final product to verify. It is clear that the gloves are no longer a solid piece of red, but are broken up by the blue, and it just doesn't look good.. Someone else pointed that there appears to be metallic material on the inside of the wrists, which Emma Stone has confirmed to be web-shooters.

So, yeah, somehow the makers of the reboot managed to make even the costume Emo. Congratulations. First, you cast another ugly 30-year old (yes, I know Garfield is 27, it was an exaggeration) to play a teen Peter Parker (Petey was 18 in the first film), but then you make him something straight out of Twilight (check here to see him with Robert Patterson-quaffed hair).

That was something that bugged me about the first film. Apparently, Peter Parker is smart enough to be able to fashion that latex thing with its ornate raised webbing and scaly material, but can't create webshooters. So, really, in Raimi's trilogy, Parker wasn't a genius, he was a seamstress. A master seamstress.

The argument for the new suit is that if the studio made the film exactly like the comic, then that would alienate non-comic book fans as an audience. Yeah, that argument would be valid...if the year was 1999 (when the only popular comic book film at the time was the first Blade. No, Spawn doesn't count and the Batfilms were in the toilet). But, now we have comic faithful films like the Iron Man and Batman (current franchise) films. So, yeah, that argument doesn't really fly anymore. IM blended together several storylines and Batman borrowed heavily from stories like "Year One."

The reason behind the reboot was to wipe the bad taste of Spider-Man 3 away. And what was it replaced with? Something worse. The best we could've hoped for was that Marvel made a deal to co-finance the film and allow Sony to ditribute like it did with Universal (or was that Paramount) and the Incredible Hulk and maybe, just maybe see Spidey in the Marvel-produced films. At worst, we could get something to pander to the teen Twilight crowd. I think we all know which one it's shaping up to be...

Why I've Grown To Hate Spider-Man 2

Now, this is borderline blasphemy in the circles I run with (or wished I ran with, anyway), but I don't much care for Spider-Man 2. It's a film that many of my ilk describe as "the best superhero movie EVER!!!!1!" I, however, reserve that spot as a two-way tie between Dark Knight and Iron Man (for completely different reasons).

As I have gotten into a mini-debate with Marvel scribe Dan Slott over Twitter about the cinemagraphic merits of the previous SM trilogy, I thought I'd share why I've come to loathe the second part (the third still sucks, too).

There were always parts of Spider-Man 2 that bothered me. Toby Maguire, for one. And Kirsten Dunst. I didn't mind her in the first one, but I think that's just because they kept putting her in a tank top and getting her wet. But, beyond the acting, there were story and cinematography choices that I found devestating to the films overall enjoyability.

Item the first: There were several instances of where a person (in this case women) ran screaming into the camera. Who makes a movie that way? A B-level horror film director. That's who.

Second: Spider-Man has the proportional strength of a spider. To give a real life example, he could bench press my car. If he hits Doc Ock (a normal guy who, yeah, has metal arms grafted to his abdomen, but those can't really enhance his endurance), then the ol' Roy Orbison (look it up, they used to make the reference in the comics...a lot) look alike is going down. Sure, it looks neat to have them punching and stuff as they're falling, but from a story standpoint, that doesn't make sense.

Third: Spider-Man loses his powers...because he was having a bad day! I'd hate to see what would've happened had something really bad happened to Pete...like stubbing his toe! Not only that, but then he consciously blocks out his spider powers after some out of body meeting with his dead Uncle Ben. Sure, the argument could be made that it is a psychological thing, but that wouldn't explain why his physique detiorated or that his eyesight worsened.

Fourth: The villain wasn't responsible for his actions. Because of that stupid, and hackneyed, plot device of the AI controller, Doc Ock was no longer as potent a villain as he had been in the comics. He was no longer that bad of a guy, since it was the mechanical arms he fried to his torso that were making him do all those bad things. Really? Was that necessary? And was it also necessary to stick in that awful bit of exposition about the AI control through that journalist who knew just enough to know to ask that question?

So when people lay blame to Spider-Man 3 as the downfall of the series, I say nay. Sure, it was an awful film, but there was nothing there that you couldn't have seen comin' due to SM2. Except, y'know, that they rewrote the beginning of the first film to give Spidey an emotional hook to the villain (Sandman being his Uncle's shooter was an awful decision on Raimi's part). And the jazz dance scene. No one could've seen that coming. Blame the studio heads all you want for making Raimi shoehorn Venom into the film, but it was Raimi's fault for having an already bloated script.