[ALL CAPS]

www.slashfilm.com/2010/01/11/spider-man-4-scrapped-raimi-and-maguire-gone-sony-plans-franchise-reboot-for-2012/

Thank CHRIST. This series was obviously getting crushed under the weight of its own mismanaged production. Now, I like Spider Man 1 & 2 just fine, but I've been a champion of the idea that someone else is gonna come a long a few years from now (looks like it'll be earlier, which I think might be a mistake) and make these Spider Man movies look the same way the Nolan Batman movies made the Burton movies look. Good, but not really as "nailed" as they seemed at first.

I'd love to see a more confident, less angsty and tumultuous Parker and a more cocky, quippy Spider Man... you know, like he IS. I want to love SPIDER MAN this time around, I don't want to feel like he's just been thrown in to give me a break from the Peter Parker sorrow-fest.

Anyway, reboot away!

[Lucky]

Isn't Parker ALWAYS whiny and angsty? I mean, don't get me wrong, they laid it on super thick with the movies and I agree that they never quite nailed Spidey's witty banter nature. But Peter's story has always been "Spider-Man makes my life fucking suck so much. Gwen's dead, Aunt May had a heart attack and hates Spidey, MJ thinks I'm a flake and a fool because I lie to her all the time, and Harry wants to kill me. But I can't stop being Spider-Man or use it to my advantage because then I'd be betraying the memory of Uncle Ben who I let die because I was a selfish teenager. Man, my life blows."

But Raimi and McGuire definitely could have stood to do a little less whining and a little more fighting/wittiness.

[Stu]

If they give it more of an Ultimate Spider-man feel, count me in.
I hope one thing they do differently from the Raimi films is KEEP. THE VILLAINS. ALIVE.
There's usually little reason to kill off supervillains in comic movies most of the time, but I really think they could have avoided killing Doc Ock altogether if they'd just not had Peter reveal his identity to him. Though the rather odd "the villain should be sympathetic" approach Raimi went for with a lot of them also lead to Ock sacrificing himself as a form of redemption, which I never really liked as it's not who the character is from what I've read. And having them just locked up allows for Sinister Six and other possibilities in the series.

[ALL CAPS]

Lucky, I'll be perfectly honest, I haven't read a whole lot of the "youthful" Spider Man stories. I really didn't pick it up until after he'd gotten the girl and had been Spidey for a long time. It's kind of like the difference between the Caped Crusader and The Dark Knight... to continue to use the Batman parallels. At the same time, I might have just caught Spider Man at a particularly confident stage in his character arc, so I might be way off. So while I do understand the anguish and reflection required for the origin of Spider Man, I'd like to see them take a different approach with the sequels of a reboot. As you said, by the third movie it had been laid on SO thick by Raimi, that I actually hated Parker AND Spider Man. No greater travesty had been performed since the pussification of Han Solo in RotJ. There's a lot there to explore and one of Raimi's greatest failings was in keeping the Spider Man journey so one-note.

[salmonjunkie]

I still think that Raimi phoned in Spider-Man 3. I mean, he publicly stated he never wanted to use Venom. I'm convinced he made Venom look like a fag because he hated him, but Sony made him put it in.

Still no excuse for making Peter an emo fag in 3, and no FUCKING excuse for the nightclub scene, quite possibly one of the worst scenes in a movie EVER.

[Deleted]

I think I'm the only one who liked the nightclub scene, but in a "so fucking awful I can't believe they're actually killing the character this way, so this rocks" kinda way.

I started up in comics around the introduction of Venom in Amazing Spidey. The Spidey from that period (through the Spider Slayers, Carnage, etc.) is the Spidey I really love. Confident. Cocky. Witty. But still the "underdog". Let's hope they focus more on the "underdog" side of things than the "my life is shit" side.

[ALL CAPS]

Exactly. Raimi's Parker got annoying as fuck. I wanted him to lose. Lose his fights. Lose the girl. Lose his life. Just get the fuck out. Emo fag.

[OpTard]

what is this spider-man 3 you speak of? i have no memory of this. nope. only 2 spider-man movies. no spider-man 3 at all.

but that willam defoe painting rocked.

[Lucky]

I'll grant you, angst, 3 was terrible and Peter was irredeemably terrible by the end of it. I guess I agree with you. I think the problem is that the comics kept the emo stuff as a major part but it was balanced by the cocky, happy Spidey stuff. It was peaks and valleys. Peter hates his life... Spider does cool shit and he feels awesome... Aunt May says Spidey is evil and he's depressed... Spidey saves the day and he feels like a hero... his friends and girl think he's a loser because he's never around when he says he'll be... Spidey meets the Fantastic Four who respect him... Harry wants him dead... Captain America wants him in the Avengers...

Raimi never let him get high enough to crash down. It was just "My life sucks... here's an ok distraction but my life sucks so fucking much!"

[ALL CAPS]

Yeah. I guess that was my problem. There never felt like there was any balance. And if I wanted anything to overshadow the other, it was the superhero stuff over the woe-is-me emo garbage. I know it's important to the character, but a more clear juxtaposition would have been nice. As the movies stand now, it's all like... hey my life's a dragOHSHIT! I gotta fight a villain... that sucked, my aunt is dying and Mary Jane still hateOHFUCK! I gotta fight some dudes now and swing around a lot... whew, made it to brunch just in time to get my heart trampled on, guess I'll go sulk on the top of a building for a whilOHCRAP! a police chase! Hope MJ knows how much I love her... BLAH BLAH BLAH.

[Stu]

Well film 3 had him getting successful and loved by the public, but they couldn't just leave it at that,and instead had to make him into an arrogant prick about it due to the symbiote (not that MJ wasn't acting like more of a selfish cow at times).

[Deleted]

[Stu]

Maybe Raimi made the venom stuff bad deliberately in the hopes that it would make the film bomb and he'd get the freedom to do what he wanted again, only that backfired when the film made record breaking box office? Not that Venom was the only badly handled villain. Hayden Church was pretty good as Sandman I thought, but the story with him being motivated by a sick daughter and being allowed to get away with his crimes because he said "Sorry I shot your uncle, I didn't mean it". Also, all the ordinary criminals and hoods in the films really just get dropped in there with no real connection to the bigger threats (MJ gets cornered in an alley just so Spidey can save her and do the upside down kiss, gunmen running from the cops in a convertible just so Peter will be late for the theater), as opposed to making them the minions of someone else who Spidey can quip at while taking out in humiliating fashion before interrogating.