Why do so many people hate TASM series?

[Agent Z]

This is true. Having adventures outside of New York City, in foreign countries, working with SHIELD, admiring Iron Man, using gadgets borrowed from Iron Man, fighting alongside the Avengers in outer space.

You can find examples of all of these in the Spider-Man comics, but they are peripheral, they're the exception and not the rule. In the MCU films Spider-Man has had more Avengers style stories than he has traditional Spider-Man style stories, even in his own movies. It's a massive disservice to the mythos that two classic Spider-Man villains, Vulture and Mysterio, were both motivated by getting revenge on Iron Man.

We've had two different Spider-Man film series just set in New York so trying something new is not an issue. Most of the things you're complaining about in the MCU occurred in crossovers anyway.

[Dboi2001]

No he wasn’t.

Yes he was

Well you were the one who raised comics accuracy to say that Garfield was more accurate than Maguire. In any case the fact is that there should still be overall faithfulness to some aspect of the character. Not something so much on the other end the character’s spectrum.

You argued Spider Man isn’t witty or tells jokes and I’m telling you that has always been his character. It’d like saying it’s ok for Deadpool to be serious

I am just pointing out that even outside issues of fidelity to source, tone and so on, these movies still have elements that are quite dated. Speaking as a fan of Raimi’s SM-1, even that movie has a weak homophobic line that obviously wouldn’t fly today. So I don’t see why you have an issue with me pointing that out?

Because you are making a big deal out of nothing AND making stupid and offensive claims. So what the movie shows one police officer as a good person, so what SM1 makes a gay joke why do you act like these are innately bad? Is it illegal to make gay jokes today? And you didn’t answer my question are all cops in movies suppose to be *******? Is Jim Gordon gonna be an ******* in the new Batman? Judging from just the movie alone within a vacuum George Stacy is an excellent character. But you’re bringing in the comics and real world bullshit saying it’s dated. Of course you never answered if Jefferson Davis was copaganda or the fact a black man is named after the Confederacy President but you probably don’t want to come off as a racist by insulting a black character. Literally if George Stacy was black you wouldn’t care. I don’t even know where you pulled this **** out from. So is literally every movie that depicts cops as good people outdated? I guess robocop is outdated to you

A bunch of clips from the movies is not objective proof that Garfield is a better actor than Maguire. There is no such thing.

No you said Garfield was miscast and had no range and these scenes show it

It’s about tone. A big romantic moment has to be grand and romantic. Scenes that are bridges to bigger scenes, ie the quiet character scene to scene stuff should be of a different tone and played a certain way. If you do one approach for all scenes it doesn’t work.

Good thing TASM doesn’t do one approach for every scene and no romantic scenes don’t always have to be grand.

To quote a line from a movie The Bad and the Beautiful: "I could make this scene a climax. I could make every scene in this picture a climax. If I did, I would be a bad director. And I like to think of myself as one of the best. A picture with all climaxes is like a necklace without a string. It falls apart. You must build to the big moment and sometimes, you must build slowly."

That applies to acting too. You need to build to big moments to make it work. Garfield is all intensity in every scene, mugging in every moment and getting maximum emotion in every moment and it doesn't work.

No he really isn’t. He isn’t over acting or doing too much in every scene. There is plenty of scenes where he is calm or more reserved

A throwaway scene that doesn’t stick out and is basically a glorified Easter egg. That’s not enough. In the first movie he’s a moocher.

If you watched the movie you’d understand he was trying to earn money to help Aunt May pay the bills since he sees her stressing out about it. No in the first movie he’s a regular fucking high school just like Maguire and Holland. Sorry not every high schooler works a 9-5 paying their own car and electric bills. And I’m sure you mooched off your parents far more. Like what do you think everyone under the age of 15 is a moocher? You literally sound like my grandfather

A lot of people pointed out that Garfield's Peter was quite unlikable in those movies, he played Peter as a potential school shooter in the early parts of the movie (which itself is dated and baseless) when that wasn't who Peter was in AF#15 or in USM.

I really don’t see it. You’re literally making your own version of these movies to fit your narrative. A school shooter? Why because he was quirky and a loner? You are barely comprehensible

[Agent Z]

Characters aren't always just one trait. Spider-Man in the comics is a someone who insults opponents and makes jokes and has an element of comedy, but he's also internally, as Peter Parker, someone who angsts a lot and complains and so on, with a lot of personal emotional conflict. Obviously the thing is to try and do justice to the full spectrum but even then a film-maker is going to emphasize some traits more than others. Sam Raimi chose to emphasize the serious side of Peter more than the other stuff. That's a valid interpretation and creative choice.

And I don't think Garfield's Spider-Man was witty. Sure he made some jokes and stuff in battle but they weren't especially good jokes.



And we got that in Spider-Man 1. Like right after Peter meekly listens to Jameson's insults, Spider-Man arrives and saves him from Goblin and doesn't miss a beat in webbing up Jameson's face telling him to "let mom and Dad talk". We never got a similar contrast with Garfield or Tom Holland.



You can be the best possible actor and still be unsuited for a role if the script and direction aren't up to the mark. George Clooney for instance is a good actor but he was quite unsuited for playing Batman in Batman and Robin. Andrew Garfield not being good as Spider-Man doesn't mean he's a bad actor. In fact he's quite capable in general.



No he didn't. He played both roles too intensely and wasn't really convincing.



The greatest romantic moments in Spider-Man movies are in Spider-Man 1, between Tobey and Kirsten. Not in the Garfield movies. There was never a moment in those movies like Tobey Maguire effortlessly using the tray to grab all the stuff falling from the air at once, or the upside down kiss.



Let's get one thing clear. You can't judge a character's value or worth based on how much or how little they help the hero. Nor are female characters simply "b-word or damsel" just for needing some kind of help or anything in return from the hero.

Emma Gwen in the Amazing Spider-Man series exists as an idealized transcendent female and not as a real character. She's all compassionate, all loving, all funny, all charismatic...she is the "cool girl". As Gillian Flynn said, "Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want." That applies to Gwen in these movies. She never makes demands on Peter, isn't going to call him out for something as basic as mooching off his struggling Aunt**, doesn't provide any complications to being a superhero. The only issue in their relationship is her Dad's ghost and so on, which is lame as hell, and quite inaccurate to the comics.



She's overly idealized. Her basic traits are that she's smart and she loves Peter unconditionally. She has no edges outside that. As bland as even Lee-Romita Gwen was, even whiny crying Gwen at least made real demands on Peter. Gwen's hatred for Spider-Man and blaming him for her father's death at least gave some conflict, tragedy, and pathos to their relationship. You go back to Kirsten Dunst's MJ she had to undergo a lot of character development and sort out her own issues (namely her neurosis about her abusive father which leads her to a series of deadbeat boyfriends that tend to resemble her father -- Flash, Harry) where her relationship with Peter was something that served her character as much as it did Peter's. Both of them have difficulties opening up to one another, which is one of the aspects that's actually true to the original characters (As Gerry Conway said about Peter and MJ, "Only a damaged person deserves to be in a relationship with someone as damaged as Peter" which might be a little outdated in language but he meant it in a sense of someone having personal neurosis and flaws to overcome).



Captain George Stacy in the comics was a moderate liberal policeman who often told his colleagues to stop persecuting Spider-Man and tried to be a voice of reason. If you change that character and make him into a tough cop who dislikes Spider-Man for breaking the law in a period where police were getting more militarized, then that does put you on the wrong side of history.



** Another issue with the Garfield Spider-Man movies. Where Tobey Maguire's Peter is shown getting work and living on his own away from Aunt May and trying to make something for himself...we hardly ever see Garfield Peter do anything substantial. Removing the Daily Bugle and any avenues of work, and spending most of the movie on the Gwen romance and Peter chasing the dead end of his deadbeat dad's legacy, makes him come off as a loser mooching off his poor Aunt who he lies to all the time, makes tense, and this despite the fact that he's responsible for the death of Uncle and the major breadwinner of the family. He comes across as a real s--theel far more than any other version of Peter (616, Ultimate, Raimi, even MCU where at least the Iron Man sponsorship and fanboying provides some kind of security and insurance to May).

Wasn't the "cool girl" speech said by a hypocritical villain in Flynn's book?

So the fact George Stacy turns out to be wrong about Spider-Man means nothing? If you're looking for copaganda in media, a superhero movie is not the best source. It's a miracle if you get even one cop who is both descent and somewhat helpful in such a film. And whatever issues people rightly have with the police, Spider-Man is still a vigilante and those people don't have a great historical track record either.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

You argued Spider Man isn’t witty or tells jokes

I didn't say that, what I specifically said here

Characters aren't always just one trait. Spider-Man in the comics is a someone who insults opponents and makes jokes and has an element of comedy, but he's also internally, as Peter Parker, someone who angsts a lot and complains and so on, with a lot of personal emotional conflict. Obviously the thing is to try and do justice to the full spectrum but even then a film-maker is going to emphasize some traits more than others. Sam Raimi chose to emphasize the serious side of Peter more than the other stuff. That's a valid interpretation and creative choice.

I said that Spider-Man as a character was a mix of tones, having both a serious and joking side. If you look at Spider-Man's best stories or what's considered Spider-Man's best stories, you will find that those stories are largely on the serious side. Read ASM#31-33, the Master Planner Saga, which is entirely on the serious side and doesn't have any light moments, that I recall. That's considered the best Lee-Ditko story. "Spider-Man No More" (ASM#50-52) also a serious story. "The Death of George Stacy" (ASM#88-90) also a serious story. "The Drug Trilogy" (ASM#96-98) also a serious story. Kraven's Last Hunt has no light or comedic moments at all, also a masterpiece. "The Kid Who Collected Spider-Man" likewise. Back in Black another dark story.

Because you are making a big deal out of nothing AND making stupid and offensive claims.

It's not offensive to point out that movies have elements that are dated and out of touch from a contemporary perspective. Nor is that stupid.

No you said Garfield was miscast and had no range and these scenes show it

I took it for granted that this was my crticial opinion and my subjective position, obviously others are welcome to disagree and quibble with it. And again these scenes do not at all disprove my point. What I specificaly said was: "Andrew Garfield just isn't right for the part. He's a talented and capable actor but totally wrong for the part. He overdoes all his scenes and takes the part too seriously, lacking the proper reading of the tone that both Tobey Maguire and Tom Holland give to the part."

That doesn't mean that Garfield "has no range".

By the way, to the extent that people think Garfield is a good actor, nobody thinks these Amazing Spider-Man films are representative of his best work (same applies for all superhero movies with select exceptions). Garfield is a respected actor for his work in The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, The Social Network, Silence, Under the Silver Lake, Hacksaw Ridge. He's worked with Martin freakin' Scorsese, next to that these movies don't rate. Same with Tobey Maguire. Tobey's a respected actor for The Ice Storm, Wonder Boys, Seabiscuit, The Cider House Rules, The Great Gatsby, Brothers. So again, if you are a fan of Garfield as an actor/performer, I don't know why you want the TASM movies to be a hill to die on.

That doesn't mean of course that Garfield phoned in his performance, or that he can't be judged for how he tackled his part. My sentiment is that he took the part a little too seriously and worked too hard for a role that really depends on a natural ease as a performer.

If you watched the movie you’d understand he was trying to earn money to help Aunt May pay the bills since he sees her stressing out about it. No in the first movie he’s a regular fucking high school just like Maguire and Holland. Sorry not every high schooler works a 9-5 paying their own car and electric bills.

Firstly it's illegal for a high school kid or a minor to work for more than 20 hrs a week (varying by state). So this isn't about 9-5. And again, when your Aunt/mother has become a widow, and you are a teenage kid, I do think it's important (in life and fiction) that you do something to help her or are shown doing something about it. And more than that this was a defining element of the character in the original comics.

I really don’t see it. You’re literally making your own version of these movies to fit your narrative. A school shooter? Why because he was quirky and a loner? You are barely comprehensible

A lot of people pointed this out. Read this review here (not that I agree with everything there of course):

"The Amazing Spider-Man tries to do too much without tying it all together. I appreciate it tried to do something different at the time, and Webb does a good job with individual moments. Seeing how much Holland’s Peter and Spider-Man have been modified to fit into the MCU and modern times, The Amazing Spider-Man may even be the last time we get a classical translation of the character. An entitled loner who is resentful over a lifetime of bullying is, in 2019, basically the profile of a school shooter."

Now there are problems with that. Firstly the idea of a "Bullied kids being school shooters" is a pernicious myth based on how people misinterpreted Columbine. Everyone thought at the time (and a lot still do) that the shooters were bullied nerd outcasts but in fact they were realtively social figures who spent time on white supremacist websites (the newsmedia downplayed the white supremacy stuff in favor of the narrative that made them tragic figures) and were bullies themselves. But the fact is that Garfield plays his version of Peter with a noticable violent impulse. Like that scene where he pushes Flash against the locker room, which is played dead serious in a "he can explode" moment. And that seems based on the interpretation that Peter in AF#15 was some potential school shooter (which many others have said and ran with all based on the Columbine propaganda).

Wasn't the "cool girl" speech said by a hypocritical villain in Flynn's book?

It's not like there has never been a moment in cinema and literature where a villain says a speech that's compelling and insightful and worth citing. I mean Heath Ledger's Joker in The Dark Knight is a mass-murdering villain too but his speech to Harvey Dent about how society loses their minds over a mayor getting shot as opposed to everyday violence in a ghetto because that's according to their plan, is a cool bit of dialogue that's also valid and insightful. And in Gone Girl, the books wants us to empathize and understand the villain to some extent, obviously not to agree with her, but to at least understand a bit of where she comes from and why she does the stuff she does. Gone Girl, the book, and the movie, isn't based on the binary division of "good guys" and "bad guys".

So the fact George Stacy turns out to be wrong about Spider-Man means nothing?

No it doesn't. As they say online, "Framing beats Text, always always always". The way the character is framed and presented overwhelms the story content.

[Dboi2001]

1. The problem with that is Spider Man being humorous is pretty important to his character. Take that away you get a weaker Superman. You have a character tell jokes in a serious story

2. Yes it is stupid for you to point out “dated” and “controversial” elements. In 10 years you’ll be saying Holland’s Spider Man was a bigot too. **** people are already complaining Peter wasn’t gay. There is nothing wrong with George Stacy or with Spider Man making gay jokes. Grow some thicker skin

3. I literally have no idea what you are saying. Garfield felt the most natural sounding of all of them

4. Peter slammed Flash against the lockers because his uncle was murdered literally a week ago and he assumed Flash was going to pick on him. That is the only time we see Peter have anger impulse. Again building a mountain out of nothing. Mcu Spiderman was closer to a school shooter considering he almost killed one of his classmates with drones

5. You literally have no literary sense. If someone is a hypocrite why should we listen to them? Joker claims people only care when important people are hurt yet all throughout the movie people do care Joker is hurting innocent people

6. George Stacy is framed as a good man who at first seems like a curmudgeon but later we understand his reasonable motivations for disliking Spider Man. Again Superhero movies are the last place to ask for morally gray. I guess you think the dark knight trilogy is copaganda because Gordon is noble and caring? Seriously dude get over yourself. Maybe you should join the police force instead of being a coward and complaining on the internet about how cops being depicted as good guys is propaganda.

7. In TASM Ben is still alive for most of the movie and providing. After that Peter focuses on bringing the killer to justice. And again Peter in SP1 didn’t get a job until after he moved out and started living on his own. And I still doubt you really got a job when you were young moocher

[Agent Z]

It's not like there has never been a moment in cinema and literature where a villain says a speech that's compelling and insightful and worth citing.

And some of these people are under the impression that the villain is a heroic role model and not a murderous sociopath. TASM Gwen is not a bad character just because she fits the criteria of being a certain type of woman that a villain from another work hates. There are plenty of female characters like Gwen who are beloved by audiences, women included.

No it doesn't. As they say online, "Framing beats Text, always always always". The way the character is framed and presented overwhelms the story content.

This is fast becoming a meaningless soundbite people use to push their reading of a text as the one true interpretation regardless of how well it lines up with what is actually presented on screen. At worst, George Stacy is presented in TASM as a man with a wrong impression about Peter that is quickly disproven, same as any other cop ally in a superhero story. It isn't like police brutality and institutionalized racism came into existence in the 2010s, so by your definition any positive depiction of George Stacy would qualify as copaganda.

[Frontier]

I disagree with this. Tom quips in the costume much more that Tobey did, especially in Homecoming. You got the sense that he was trying to create a distinct persona in the suit in several scenes in that movie, such as when he tries to create a Bugs Bunny like pose before interrupting the ATM robbers. Admittedly, this isn't as present in the team up movies (where he has less screen time and everyone is quippy so they emphasize him being dorky to make him stand out against the crowd) or in Far From Home, but Homecoming nailed the Spider-Man personality for me. Far From Home dropped the ball a bit with quips, but you still had the (admittedly cut out) scene where he fought the Manfredi Mob, as well as a few more quips here and there (the stealth costume not fitting, giving Happy a hard time about dating May, etc).

Tobey did quip here and there, but it wasn't consistent enough to feel like an organic character trait. It felt like fan service, like checking off a box. Spider-Man is quippy, so lets have him make two or three jokes a movie so that we technically fill the quota. Tobey was so meek and monosyllabic, especially in 2.

Tom isn't as quippy as the comic book Spider-man, but he cracks at least two jokes in pretty much every Spider-man centric scene in Homecoming.

I know we've talked about Tom on these boards before and just don't quite agree so I suppose we just read these movies differently. Cheers!

First, I apologize for making two MCU centric posts in this TASM thread! It just seems like most of the folks on here aren't big MCU Spidey fans and I feel the need to jump in and defend those movies (because I like them a lot) when I see people talk abut them on here. Not that people who dislike those movies aren't valid, but I just like to play devil's advocate I guess.

I would argue that Homecoming is very, very sympathetic to Adrian being screwed over by Stark and that the reason Peter doesn't join the Avengers at the end of that movie is because, after hearing Adrian's speech about Stark not really caring that much for the little guy, realizes that he doesn't want to be a full time Avenger. He wants to stay in New York cleaning up the streets. Sure, he still works with the Avengers in Infinity War and Endgame, but that was an end of the world situation. Far From Home shows that he didn't stay a permanent member of the team and went back to fighting street crime. Sure, the movies don't wholly condemn Stark (because we know that he is a good person who tries to do the right thing), they also don't exonerate him. He doesn't live in the same world that Peter doesn't, and he doesn't see how his actions impact regular people.

Again, sorry to sound like a raving MCU fanboy .

I think there was more of an attempt in Homecoming compared to other films but it was easily overshadowed by everything else and Peter not making as much of an effort with a Spider-Man persona as he could. At least with Tobey's trilogy there was a steady use of quips within each film even if spread out and Tobey's delivery wasn't always on-point.

The reason Peter isn't an Avenger in Far From Home is because there was no standing Avenger team after Endgame.

I do like how much stock they were trying to put into Spider-Man's world and the characters in it, not even really doing more than lipservice having certain characters around sure, but I like the world being populated by Spider-Man characters and Spider-Man himself being important rather than the MCU Spidey movies which feel more like lighthearted not-really-important adventures like Ant-Man movies, and his world is so intertwined with others he starts to lose his autonomy as a character.

One thing I think both the Raimi and Webb films did well was building up and establishing Spider-Man as this mythic and iconic hero figure in New York who everyone recognizes and acknowledges, which doesn't feel as pronounced in the MCU where he feels overshadowed by The Avengers and coming in as a hero so late in the serialized story of that universe. At times his presence feels more like a youtube star who's popular with kids then a staple and major figure in New York.

Like in the Webb films they established there was an impact on New York when Peter stopped being Spider-Man for months after Gwen's death. I don't feel like there would be much of an impact if Holland's Peter had done the same.

We've had two different Spider-Man film series just set in New York so trying something new is not an issue. Most of the things you're complaining about in the MCU occurred in crossovers anyway.

I think trying to do so much new while initially introducing a new film incarnation of Spider-Man is an issue.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

1. The problem with that is Spider Man being humorous is pretty important to his character. Take that away you get a weaker Superman.

Superman himself actually is a character with a longer history of being a purely humorous character than Spider-Man. During the 50s, Superman comics were almost exclusively humor comics. To be honest, the usual complaint with Superman is that they make him too serious.

In TASM Ben is still alive for most of the movie and providing. After that Peter focuses on bringing the killer to justice.

Now that you mention it, there's another issue with TASM. Peter's motivation changing from guilt and contrition to revenge. The fact that Peter didn't catch the burglar and continues investigating and chasing him down out of revenge and so on is pretty bad and ridiculous as a storytelling choice and a betrayal of the source material.

On the whole it's good for fans of the Garfield movies that the TASM movies have been forgotten because there are so many bad and weird counterintuitive choices that stray from the source that it's near comparison is Zack Snyder's DC movies, differing in that Snyder, unlike Webb, has a distinct visual style so his movies are actually memorable no matter how bad they are.

Yes it is stupid for you to point out “dated” and “controversial” elements. In 10 years you’ll be saying Holland’s Spider Man was a bigot too.

Not ten years. Within weeks people had issues with a white teenage Spider-Man blatantly appropriating story elements introduced in Miles Morales feeling that it came off as an old character vampirically feeding off a young trendy legacy character (similar to complaints about how Barry Allen has come to appropriate elements of the Flash mythos first introduced in Wally West's comic but obviously having a political context with Holland Peter and Miles). The MCU Spider-Man movies are also criticized, as you briefly mentioned, for being quite pro-corporate at a time when the real life figures who inspired the archetype that Tony Stark embodies (Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos) are a public disgrace and real-life DCAU Luthor respectively (Bezos looks and dresses like Clancy Brown's Luthor). Nobody likes the fact that Holland Peter is basically Tony Stark's house-elf spending all his time going "bad Dobby" for not following his master (or mentor which means the same thing in this case).

All the movie Spider-Man have problematic elements to them.
-- Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 1 suffers from a dated homophobic joke, just one but that's one too many. The movies also have issues with portrayal of female characters like making MJ a damsel a few too many times and not realy concieving of a proper role for her in the movies.
-- Garfield's movies are a little too pro-cop, a little two Twilight-esque in Peter's fixation on Gwen, and Gwen is an overly idealized "cool girl".
-- Holland's movie is too pro-corporate, appropriates elements from an African-American legacy character.

Them being good movies over and outside that is what counts ultimately. Of the lot, I'd say Sam Raimi's movies pass muster.

Grow some thicker skin

Not sure if I'm the one who needs a thicker skin here. I just point out some rather clear issues in TASM and in response there's huffing and puffing against the brick house.

Garfield felt the most natural sounding of all of them

A) This is a comic character and we have no idea what Peter's voice is actually like. So having 'the most natural sounding voice' is moot in his case.

B) Garfield is British (as is Holland) so while we can praise him for mimicking a New York accent, that would not qualify as "natural sounding" in any technical sense. You can say you like it, you can praise it, and feel that it's most appropriate and so on, but again that's just an accent. Whereas Tobey Maguire is American and what he might not make up in sounding like stereotypical New York-sounding accent from the movies, he makes up for in other respects such as a more natural effortless performance, somewhat closer to classic Hollywood styles (which was a major reference for Sam Raimi in those movies).

C) Again this is a subjective opinion. If you find Garfield natural sounding, and if you like him that's fine. Great for you.

You started this thread asking people what their problems are with the TASM movies, so we are giving you our more-than-two-cents. Then slowly you started escalating and attacking other Spider-Man movies, any criticism becomes whataboutism arguments, which are slowly going off-topic. I'm going to avoid discussing anything with you for the rest of the thread. Don't think I have anything else to say.

To reiterate, if you like these movies, if this was your introduction to Spider-Man, it's fine to like it and you shouldn't feel bad about it either. At the same time, there's always an understandable reason why some versions and takes on the character didn't click and you should find some way to accept that. For instance, I happen to think that Batman Returns is the best Batman movie, but in the year of its release it was criticized for being too dark and violent, for focusing more on Catwoman than Batman (She indeed has far more screentime than Batman/Bruce does) and most people today would rate it today in the middle rung of the Batman movies. I don't go on Batman boars and attack people for disagreeing with me. Likewise I think that Joel Schumacher's Batman Forever is in parts a pretty striking and interesting movie (with a great soundtrack) but many people disliked that movie and its follow-up (which is truly bad don't get me wrong).

[Dboi2001]

Something else you need to understand about Spiderman in the Lee Ditko era was that Ditko drew a lot from his teenage years when making spider man. Ditko grew up during the Great Depression so it makes sense why he would give Peter a job despite the economy in the 60s obviously being better than it was in the 40s. He probably had to get a job to help support his family but that was during an extreme economic depression. Most teens today don’t even have jobs so deemphasizing Peter as a working man is just part of modernizing the character

[Revolutionary_Jack]

And some of these people are under the impression that the villain is a heroic role model and not a murderous sociopath.

Just because a few people don't get the memo, doesn't mean that the point in question is wrong or not worth quoting. Fact is writers go to a great effort to make villains cool, interesting, and memorable, there's no reason to do that and not want the audience to identify and like the villain on some level. Next you will say that there should never be stories to explore stuff from a villain's perspective.

TASM Gwen is not a bad character just because she fits the criteria of being a certain type of woman that a villain from another work hates. There are plenty of female characters like Gwen who are beloved by audiences, women included.

That's fair. I find it interesting that in practical terms that Emma Gwen's influence has led to takes on the character, like Ghost Spider, where she's a hero in her own right and no longer Peter's love interest. That does point out that the problem with Gwen's character in the TASM movies is that she's too perfect and good for Peter, more interesting than him and so on. That actually speaks to the weaknesses of the film and its portrayal of the relationship more than its strength.

I think trying to do so much new while initially introducing a new film incarnation of Spider-Man is an issue.

Exactly. Perfectly put.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Ditko grew up during the Great Depression so it makes sense why he would give Peter a job despite the economy in the 60s obviously being better than it was in the 40s. He probably had to get a job to help support his family but that was during an extreme economic depression.

More than 50% of teenagers were working from the 60s to the 2000s. More teenagers were working during the '60s than the '40s. I mean the word "teenager" was invented in the 1940s so the concept wasn't even applied before then. Sure Lee and Ditko's portrayal of high school in the original run wasn't particularly realistic or intended to be a deep lasting thing, and had some anachronistic touches, but Peter working to support his Aunt wasn't one of them. Nobody had issues with that.

Most teens today don’t even have jobs so deemphasizing Peter as a working man is just part of modernizing the character

No it isn't. The number of teenagers in the workforce has dropped down but it's stll 35% which in US population of teenagers is a large number and a significant group. And those teenagers who work tend to be low-income kids. Which is the bracket that Peter is supposed to belong to.

[Dboi2001]

Superman himself actually is a character with a longer history of being a purely humorous character than Spider-Man. During the 50s, Superman comics were almost exclusively humor comics. To be honest, the usual complaint with Superman is that they make him too serious.

Superman was never “Humorous”. He had silly stories and goofy villains but every hero went through those phases even big bad brooding Batman. Dc and marvel comic heroes have always been reflections of the time period. But Superman even at his goofiest was never “funny.” Maybe a few one liners but he wasn’t exactly quippy. Like the Christopher reeves movies are campy and silly but they’re not exactly humorous or comedic. Campy doesn’t mean funny. Tobey Spider Man was very campy but he wasn’t very funny

Now that you mention it, there's another issue with TASM. Peter's motivation changing from guilt and contrition to revenge. The fact that Peter didn't catch the burglar and continues investigating and chasing him down out of revenge and so on is pretty bad and ridiculous as a storytelling choice and a betrayal of the source material.

Good thing Peter does learn revenge isn’t the answer and doesn’t make him a hero. It’s called character development. He was still feeling guilty about letting his uncle die (arguably more so since Ben only went out to look for him) and he thought bringing the killer to justice was his contrition. But he realized there is more to being a hero

Not ten years. Within weeks people had issues with a white teenage Spider-Man blatantly appropriating story elements introduced in Miles Morales feeling that it came off as an old character vampirically feeding off a young trendy legacy character (similar to complaints about how Barry Allen has come to appropriate elements of the Flash mythos first introduced in Wally West's comic but obviously having a political context with Holland Peter and Miles). The MCU Spider-Man movies are also criticized, as you briefly mentioned, for being quite pro-corporate at a time when the real life figures who inspired the archetype that Tony Stark embodies (Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos) are a public disgrace and real-life DCAU Luthor respectively (Bezos looks and dresses like Clancy Brown's Luthor). Nobody likes the fact that Holland Peter is basically Tony Stark's house-elf spending all his time going "bad Dobby" for not following his master (or mentor which means the same thing in this case).

I think it was people more upset we didn’t get a more accurate Peter Parker than anything else. I guess I can understand why some people may be a little annoyed they went with the classic white Peter Parker instead of the black Miles Morales but I don’t think that is “dated”. The real issue is the mcu going half and half to please everyone. They want to use the classic Spider Man but realize classic Peter Parker has been done to death so they did thins differently. Likewise I feel they changed MJ’s name to Michelle Jones as a way to have MJ without actually having MJ and race bending her

Every Spider Man is a conglomeration of different versions of the characters so it’s a stupid complaint

All the movie Spider-Man have problematic elements to them.
-- Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 1 suffers from a dated homophobic joke, just one but that's one too many. The movies also have issues with portrayal of female characters like making MJ a damsel a few too many times and not realy concieving of a proper role for her in the movies.
-- Garfield's movies are a little too pro-cop, a little two Twilight-esque in Peter's fixation on Gwen, and Gwen is an overly idealized "cool girl".
-- Holland's movie is too pro-corporate, appropriates elements from an African-American legacy character.

So answer my damn question. Is the dark knight trilogy too pro cop? You act like police violence is only NOW an issue. It’s been an issue since the 40s. But again if you’re looking for a deconstruction on police superhero movies aren’t for you. Superhero movies show morality as black and white in very unsubtle ways. Seriously grow up

The romance is important to TASM since you know Gwen dies and it was really well done. A lot better than MJ in the Raimi movies or mcu

And wow who’d a thought that a movie made by one of the biggest corporation would be pro corporation

Them being good movies over and outside that is what counts ultimately. Of the lot, I'd say Sam Raimi's movies pass muster.

I agree. I admit TASM2 was not very good but I do think Garfield was wasted on a shitty franchise

Not sure if I'm the one who needs a thicker skin here. I just point out some rather clear issues in TASM and in response there's huffing and puffing against the brick house. [/QUOTE]

I’m not the one being triggered by a ‘homophobic’ joke. Again learn to take a joke. Also if you’ve seen a gay pride parade Peter asking if Bonesaw’s costume was made by his husband makes sense

https://www.dw.com/image/49318672_403.jpg

A) This is a comic character and we have no idea what Peter's voice is actually like. So having 'the most natural sounding voice' is moot in his case.

I mean he acts like how a person would really act. Like I said Tobey was just too stiff like he was trying to be witty. He just doesn’t sound like he is having fun when the character clearly is suppose to be in some scenes.

B) Garfield is British (as is Holland) so while we can praise him for mimicking a New York accent, that would not qualify as "natural sounding" in any technical sense. You can say you like it, you can praise it, and feel that it's most appropriate and so on, but again that's just an accent. Whereas Tobey Maguire is American and what he might not make up in sounding like stereotypical New York-sounding accent from the movies, he makes up for in other respects such as a more natural effortless performance, somewhat closer to classic Hollywood styles (which was a major reference for Sam Raimi in those movies).

C) Again this is a subjective opinion. If you find Garfield natural sounding, and if you like him that's fine. Great for you.

There is subjective things but objectively speaking Garfield just had a much better direction than Tobey. I really don’t know how to get this to you so you can disagree. But someone can have the subjective opinion that Ashton Kutcher is a better actor than Daniel Day-Lewis. There is still objectivity in it. Tobey just sounded too stiff and awkward when he was spider man.

You started this thread asking people what their problems are with the TASM movies, so we are giving you our more-than-two-cents. Then slowly you started escalating and attacking other Spider-Man movies, any criticism becomes whataboutism arguments, which are slowly going off-topic. I'm going to avoid discussing anything with you for the rest of the thread. Don't think I have anything else to say.

I have avoided that. The issue is you’re making up bullshit arguments or are being intentionally obtuse to what I’m saying. Maybe I should’ve called the thread why do people hate Andrew Garfield as Spider Man but regardless I disagree so we will leave it as that

[Spider-Tiger]

Let's get one thing clear. You can't judge a character's value or worth based on how much or how little they help the hero. Nor are female characters simply "b-word or damsel" just for needing some kind of help or anything in return from the hero.

This is the society we live in. Women aren't allowed to have flaws, or insecurities, or to be assertive, or make mistakes without being labeled a B. Only when they have ridiculous non-flaws like "risking your life to help your boyfriend save the day despite him telling you no" are they given a pass. So people trash Raimi MJ for being a damsel in distress (and yeah that trope was definitely overused in the Raimi films , but that doesn't make the entirety of her character null and void), while singing the praises of what is also a problematic portrayal in TASM's Gwen.

As far as cop propaganda in TASM, I never thought of TASM's Captain Stacy as a character that audiences were meant to admire or root for. On the contrary, he was given a somewhat antagonistic role to generate conflict between Peter and Gwen because:
A.) Gwen as a character was entirely devoid of any psychology.
B.) Any conflict that would have been generated by Peter's secret identity was immediately resolved.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

This is the society we live in. Women aren't allowed to have flaws, or insecurities, or to be assertive, or make mistakes without being labeled a B.

Which feels so counter to the comics. Mary Jane retained her popularity among comics readers for multiple generations despite being written to be deliberately unlikable multiple times. The Spider-Man comics surprisingly enough have been more progressive than the movies in terms of a spectrum of characterization in female roles. In fact, I actually think that's true for other Marvel adaptations. Like the X-Men in comics are famous for boasting a great range of female characters, with Storm being the Marvel female character with most appearances (and three other X-Ladies in the top 10 - Emma, Jean, Kitty) but the movies make it a story of three old white dudes (Logan, Xavier, Magneto). As bad and weak as Susan Storm was in the Lee-Kirby days, I think the Fantastic Four movies are even worse, like Tim Story's Fantastic Four with Jessica Alba kept making jokes about how hot she was (which I found odd because I first came to know Jessica Alba from the Dark Angel TV show produced by James Cameron where she was more or less a X-23 type, she actually could have played a more advanced version of Susan). The MCU movies are better in some ways and improved more recently but it's still a far cry.

Only when they have ridiculous non-flaws like "risking your life to help your boyfriend save the day despite him telling you no" are they given a pass.

Exactly. I found Emma Stone's Gwen unbelievable. In the comics, even the Lee-Romita era made her neurotic (accidentally since they intended the character to be a nice girl but didn't execute it well), like she had an obvious oedipus complex being very close to her father and falling for a boy who is so much like her father and constantly trying to mould Peter to be even more like her dad, all the while not entirely aware of the full spectrum of character both her father and Peter had.

As far as cop propaganda in TASM, I never thought of TASM's Captain Stacy as a character that audiences were meant to admire or root for.

Well he's still presented as an impressive force of authority which isn't to be questioned. Like we are meant to assume on face value in that dinner scene that the cops knew what they were doing when Spider-Man barged in on what turned to be a "sting operation", and likewise at the end, George Stacy's final moment is intervening and using force to stop the Lizard from killing Spider-Man. George Stacy presents a figure of authority and masculinity whose approval is worthy of earning in the movie. It matters in the movie that the cops of NYPD come around to Spider-Man. When that's quite different from the comics where Captain George wasn't such a big macho figure and a pretty compassionate voice all around.

[Dboi2001]

wow you seriously don’t watch any of these movies. Yeah because it’s not like Storm became the head mistress of Xavier’s school after he died. but yeah focus on just the white dudes while listing white characters.

George Stacy is still an antagonist for most of the movie. And presented as a figure of masculinity? wtf are you on? How abstract can you possibly get? Seriously the Lizard came off as more sympathetic than Stacy and he is the villain. Stacy has authority because he is the chief of police. The point of the dinner scene was Peter realizing he wasn’t acting heroic and showing why Stacy hated Spider Man so much. And his approval is worthy of earning? The only way i can see that is if you mean Peter trying to impress his girlfriends dad. only after Stacy changes his views on Peter and Spider Man does he come off as heroic. Seriously stop being such a coward and stop hating on police officers

So i the dark knight trilogy Batman propaganda or even the new Spider-man PS4 game?

there is no fucking pleasing you. a female character is a damsel in distress you complain a female character is great and compelling you still complain