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[QUOTE=Inversed;4790983]Yes this. She fits the spirit of MJ very well, while being her own unique thing, just like Tom Holland's Peter still evokes the spirit of who Peter is, while still in a different way. She's fun and sassy, Zendaya performs her greatly, and her chemistry with the rest of the cast is great.
Like I mentioned already, people are so obsessed and insecure with comic book accuracy that they'll take every little detail and change as a personal attack to them. She IS MJ. She IS this universe's "Mary Jane". Just because she's not called "Mary Jane" doesn't change things. Anybody who truly thinks in Spider-Man 3 they're going to introduce a new character named "Mary Jane" and that alone will make everything better, I think you're only fooling yourself.[/QUOTE]
[url]https://collider.com/spider-man-homecoming-zendaya-mj-explained/[/url]
Feige -
“We never even looked at it as a big reveal necessarily but more of just a fun homage to his past adventures and his past love. [B]She’s not Mary Jane Watson. She never was Mary Jane Watson. She was always this new high school character, Michelle[/B], who we know there’s an “M” in Michelle and an “M” in Mary. [laughs] So we’re so clever and we thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be neat if her initials were MJ?’ And then I think it leaked that she would be playing MJ and then it became a whole headache for Zendaya to have to navigate. It was never a big, ‘Oh my God, it’s a big reveal!’ There are big reveals in the movie. That’s not one of them.”
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[QUOTE=Vortex85;4790986][url]https://collider.com/spider-man-homecoming-zendaya-mj-explained/[/url]
Feige -
“We never even looked at it as a big reveal necessarily but more of just a fun homage to his past adventures and his past love. [B]She’s not Mary Jane Watson. She never was Mary Jane Watson. She was always this new high school character, Michelle[/B], who we know there’s an “M” in Michelle and an “M” in Mary. [laughs] So we’re so clever and we thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be neat if her initials were MJ?’ And then I think it leaked that she would be playing MJ and then it became a whole headache for Zendaya to have to navigate. It was never a big, ‘Oh my God, it’s a big reveal!’ There are big reveals in the movie. That’s not one of them.”[/QUOTE]
Precisely. They've made it very clear that this isn't an adaptation of Mary Jane. Whether they backtrack in future installments remains to be seen. Regardless, they clearly left themselves an out to introduce a Mary Jane in future installments if they chose to.
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They never once refer to her as "Michelle" in Far From Home. The backtracking has already begun.
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1 Attachment(s)
[QUOTE=Vortex85;4790976]I am curious what you see in MCU MJ that is maintaining the spirit of comic book MJ. Let me know, thanks.[/QUOTE]
It's important to remember that we never met 616 MJ in high school. We met her in college. When people think of High School MJ, they usually think of Bendis' USM which rewrote her personality.
The actual MJ in high school was glimpsed once in ASM#259, and here she is:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]91871[/ATTACH]
MJ in high school in 616 was a class clown, socially awkward, and a little weird. She didn't become Romita Sr. charisma machine overnight. Zendaya's MJ is very much the version of MJ in that issue. The point of Defalco's story, and Roger Stern's Daydreamers before, and Parallel Lives later is that the Lee-Romita MJ which is unfortunately the template everyone has in mind for "authentic portrayal" of Mary Jane, is not in fact the real MJ. The real Mary Jane is the character from ASM#122 (Epilogue) onwards.
I remember how people pilloried, and still do, that Kirsten Dunst's MJ isn't the real MJ, and the main idea that comes down to is holding her to the standard of Lee-Romita's MJ, when in fact that's not really the character she's been since forever. Like the X-Men with Claremont, Mary Jane has been totally revised by Conway, and later Stern/Defalco and others. The Mary Jane of Bendis' Ulitmate Spider-Man, the cartoons, the video game, the Raimi movies, and so on, is the Mary Jane who loves Peter and loves Spider-Man, is the one who is his confidant and best friend. That's who the character has been. In comics, not even OMD went Pre-#259 in terms of characterization and story. Mary Jane is a hard character to adapt, just like Peter Parker, because she is one who changes and grows.
And you can't really tell that story of growth without making both of them older and wiser. So whatever problems people have with MCU Spider-Man and MJ, a large part of it is because it's teenage, because it's focused on Iron Man, and because it's not a love story.
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[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4791086]It's important to remember that we never met 616 MJ in high school. We met her in college. When people think of High School MJ, they usually think of Bendis' USM which rewrote her personality.
The actual MJ in high school was glimpsed once in ASM#259, and here she is:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]91871[/ATTACH]
MJ in high school in 616 was a class clown, socially awkward, and a little weird. She didn't become Romita Sr. charisma machine overnight. Zendaya's MJ is very much the version of MJ in that issue. The point of Defalco's story, and Roger Stern's Daydreamers before, and Parallel Lives later is that the Lee-Romita MJ which is unfortunately the template everyone has in mind for "authentic portrayal" of Mary Jane, is not in fact the real MJ. The real Mary Jane is the character from ASM#122 (Epilogue) onwards.
I remember how people pilloried, and still do, that Kirsten Dunst's MJ isn't the real MJ, and the main idea that comes down to is holding her to the standard of Lee-Romita's MJ, when in fact that's not really the character she's been since forever. Like the X-Men with Claremont, Mary Jane has been totally revised by Conway, and later Stern/Defalco and others. The Mary Jane of Bendis' Ulitmate Spider-Man, the cartoons, the video game, the Raimi movies, and so on, is the Mary Jane who loves Peter and loves Spider-Man, is the one who is his confidant and best friend. That's who the character has been. In comics, not even OMD went Pre-#259 in terms of characterization and story. Mary Jane is a hard character to adapt, just like Peter Parker, because she is one who changes and grows.
And you can't really tell that story of growth without making both of them older and wiser. So whatever problems people have with MCU Spider-Man and MJ, a large part of it is because it's teenage, because it's focused on Iron Man, and because it's not a love story.[/QUOTE]
You do realize that since its been revealed that MCU MJ is written as a new original character and not as an adaptation of Mary Jane, any perceived similarities by you or others has been purely coincidental and not intentional with any thought or planning by the writers. So even if they do decide to make Michelle into a Mary Jane going forward, the character growth is going to be accidental as part of backtracking in their original plans for her character, which to me is not ideal for a major charcter or for a proper adaptation.
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[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4791086]It's important to remember that we never met 616 MJ in high school. We met her in college. When people think of High School MJ, they usually think of Bendis' USM which rewrote her personality.
The actual MJ in high school was glimpsed once in ASM#259, and here she is:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]91871[/ATTACH]
MJ in high school in 616 was a class clown, socially awkward, and a little weird. [/QUOTE]
I assume that Mary Jane was a child in these panels based on the artwork. Parallel Lives establishes that Mary Jane was a flirt and a party girl during her high school years much in the vein of Romita's MJ.
[QUOTE=Kevinroc;4791052]They never once refer to her as "Michelle" in Far From Home. The backtracking has already begun.[/QUOTE]
Fair enough
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[QUOTE=Kevinroc;4791052]They never once refer to her as "Michelle" in Far From Home. The backtracking has already begun.[/QUOTE]
Yep exactly. Because Homecoming was primarily focusing on the Peter/Liz relationship, and they didn't know how people would react to Zendaya's character, so they waited. Majority people loved or really liked her, so they stuck with her, gave her a bigger role, and now she's just "MJ", and even ends the film cementing her and Peter as a good couple. To people who think that adding a brand new character who's name is "Mary Jane" to replace her will fix everything, is just really delusional thinking.
Like other posts mentioned, Kirsten Dunst's MJ, Insomniac MJ, and Spider-Verse MJ are all very different from their comic counterparts and each other (the latter of which isn't really a character, moreso a thematic symbol), just like Zendaya MJ is, so just changing the initials really doesn't effect things at all.
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[QUOTE=Inversed;4791133]Yep exactly. Because Homecoming was primarily focusing on the Peter/Liz relationship, and they didn't know how people would react to Zendaya's character, so they waited. Majority people loved or really liked her, so they stuck with her, gave her a bigger role, and now she's just "MJ", and even ends the film cementing her and Peter as a good couple. To people who think that adding a brand new character who's name is "Mary Jane" to replace her will fix everything, is just really delusional thinking.
Like other posts mentioned, Kirsten Dunst's MJ, Insomniac MJ, and Spider-Verse MJ are all very different from their comic counterparts and each other (the latter of which isn't really a character, moreso a thematic symbol), just like Zendaya MJ is, so just changing the initials really doesn't effect things at all.[/QUOTE]
In the words of the wise Professor X (Hickman's HOX#6), "Is what we have perfect? No, what is. But it's a start, and a good one."
I'd rather have many versions of MJ, as long as it's a role that gives her memorable elements and if it's a good adaptation and story, then no MJ and especially bad versions of MJ in weak adaptations.
Because we had no MJ in the Garfield Spidey movies, and during the runup of that, producers and others for reasons of marketing insulted MJ in favor of Gwen. Like Emma Stone on a SNL sketch (which she later apologized for) [URL="https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/videos-emma-stone-hosts-snl-calls-mary-jane-watson-a-skank"]called her a skank even[/URL]. Which was pretty annoying because Emma Stone's Gwen was obviously modeled on 616 and Ultimate Mary Jane and has absolutely nothing in common with the original or ultimate versions of Gwen.
In the comics, MJ was out of the books for a long time after OMD and then when she came back she was underused terribly. We have no MJ in the wretched Disney cartoon that will soon go off-hair. And MJ had a very marginal role in that ridiculous Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon.
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I will say that, despite Feige's initial protestations, most general audience members probably see Zendaya's character as being another version of Mary Jane. If anything (unless the films themselves confirm Michelle and Mary Jane to be separate entities) it adds to Mary Jane's legacy as the most iconic Spider-Man love interest.
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[QUOTE=Spider-Tiger;4791191]I will say that, despite Feige's initial protestations, most general audience members probably see Zendaya's character as being another version of Mary Jane. If anything (unless the films themselves confirm Michelle and Mary Jane to be separate entities) it adds to Mary Jane's legacy as the most iconic Spider-Man love interest.[/QUOTE]
Feige is just playing cards close to his vest. And ultimately it wasn't his call. Remember that as far as casting goes, the Sony-MCU movies are largely on Sony's ends. And the movies were made very quickly and rushed in. The time in terms of pre-production and long-term vision wasn't very large. The main idea was "not like Raimi, not like Garfield, but new/different/young" so they made Peter into Whiteboy Miles, made the cast more diverse, and tripled down on high school Spider-Man.
And in any case she is MJ. I mean Far From Home has one scene where the number 143 is in the background where they kiss, and that's based on the Conway-Andru issue where they had their first kiss.
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At least Zendaya's MJ isn't a reporter (yet) :p.
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[QUOTE=Frontier;4791215]At least Zendaya's MJ isn't a reporter (yet) :p.[/QUOTE]
Isn't reporter MJ better than Spider-Gwen's Emm-Jay?
;)
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[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4791223]Isn't reporter MJ better than Spider-Gwen's Emm-Jay?
;)[/QUOTE]
All of them pale in comparison to classic MJ :).
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[QUOTE=Vortex85;4790636]HM, that's a pretty healthy way to view it. I like that. I need to print that out and read it to myself whenever I start to get depressed about MCU Spider-Man. I just really hope your right about that last part about... "there being more in the future" and I hope I'm around long enough to see it done in a satisfactory way.[/QUOTE]
Thanks. Glad if you liked that.
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[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4791162]In the words of the wise Professor X (Hickman's HOX#6), "Is what we have perfect? No, what is. But it's a start, and a good one."
I'd rather have many versions of MJ, as long as it's a role that gives her memorable elements and if it's a good adaptation and story, then no MJ and especially bad versions of MJ in weak adaptations.
Because we had no MJ in the Garfield Spidey movies, and during the runup of that, producers and others for reasons of marketing insulted MJ in favor of Gwen. Like Emma Stone on a SNL sketch (which she later apologized for) [URL="https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/videos-emma-stone-hosts-snl-calls-mary-jane-watson-a-skank"]called her a skank even[/URL]. Which was pretty annoying because Emma Stone's Gwen was obviously modeled on 616 and Ultimate Mary Jane and has absolutely nothing in common with the original or ultimate versions of Gwen.
In the comics, MJ was out of the books for a long time after OMD and then when she came back she was underused terribly. We have no MJ in the wretched Disney cartoon that will soon go off-hair. [B]And MJ had a very marginal role in that ridiculous Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon.[/B][/QUOTE]
Until the final season, where she reemerged as the final host of the Carnage symbiote, which she ultimately retained to become the Ultimate Spider-Woman, joining Peter and the rest of the Web Warriors in crimefighting. That said, she was definitely marginalized after the first season, to the point that the only time she appeared in Season 3 was an A/U version, from the reality of Spider-Man Noir, and that one got killed offscreen in Season 4's Spider-Verse arc, which was a damned shame.