Page 11 of 37 FirstFirst ... 78910111213141521 ... LastLast
Results 151 to 165 of 546
  1. #151
    Really Feeling It! Kevinroc's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2014
    Location
    California
    Posts
    13,253

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    And they f--ked it big time by missing the entire point of it. I'd rather they do their own thing and not futz around with comics moments and make a mess of things.
    It's too late for that. They've already made a mess of things.

    There are so many million great MJ moments to choose from, and likewise great moments that the Raimi films brought in ("isn't it time someone saved your life?") and other versions. It's like saying you want a shot-by-shot adaptation of AF#15.
    I think seeing Uncle Ben die twice in film (and done worse the second time) was plenty.


    Short answer is comics are comics, films are films.

    Long answer:
    -- In the comics, Peter met Mary Jane Watson face-to-face 42 issues into the series. And Mary Jane ultimately became the second most important character in the story. In a movie, every film is going to condense material. You talk of 8 Spider-Man movies in various continuities, well there are more than 1000 comics of Spider-Man in 616 alone (ASM+Spectacular+other Satellites). The Raimi movies at best cover proportionately a comics era between 1962 to the mid-80s around the time of Venom's introduction, and that's three films, and that still covers a bigger chunk of comics history than any other Spider-Man we have had onscreen. Only one of them shows Spider-Man as a married man (ITSV). You can't delay introducing the second most important character in the story just for the sake of continuity. So you have to introduce MJ early. At best you can have a first movie in a trilogy cover the Lee-Ditko era and end with Peter graduating and his break-up with Betty Brant, and meeting Gwen in college and the final scene has to end with Peter seeing MJ for the first time. That might work. But now you have the issue of casting.
    -- Remember the movie Troy in 2004. Well a big issue with that film is they cast an actress (Diane Kruger) as Helen of Troy, who's the most beautiful woman in mythology, "the face that launched a thousand ships" and instead people complained that she's not hot enough. Because ultimately the introduction with MJ is the same moment. It's that moment where Peter opened a door and saw the most beautiful woman in comics at that time. And the reason for that effect is that you shifted from Ditko and Ditko-drawn characters (like Gwen) to a pure Romita image of beauty. In the comics, MJ had to compare to Kirby-drawn women (Susan Storm, Jane Foster, Janet van Dyne) which nothing against them but Kirby doesn't always draw women with idealized beauty and with Ditko dames (Betty, Liz, Gwen, Clea). So that's why she was able to pull off that dynamite introduction because she looked like nothing like any woman in Marvel at that time. In other words, it's a moment that truly works in comics, specifically serialized monthly comics and it works for reasons that have nothing to do with storytelling, so it's impossible to adapt and would probably not contribute much if one attempted to do it. But in movies, Hollywood actresses tend to be dolled up, and unless you cast people around Peter as somewhat "ugly" and plain (which well is bad optics and not something that would fly today). If you do a movie where Betty Brant is the main romantic lead, you need to cast a proper actress but then she'd be fairly pretty for the romantic story (since you as an audience do need to feel for Peter-Betty in any hypothetical scenario) and then at the end of the movie you need to convince the audience that the new hot actress behind the door is the way to go, and it won't work. It would be hard to pull off and ultimately detrimental.
    -- In the case of MJ, the serialized way her and Peter found each other, grew up and dated when both of them matured which is how Weissman wanted to do it, wouldn't work well without resorting to some kind of sitcom chicanery. What that means is you would need to cast the actors in such a way that the actress who plays Gwen gets upstaged by the actress who plays MJ. And that's incredibly hard for one thing, but also something movie agents are incredibly alert about and would be vary about casting any of their clients in such kind of roles. In the Andrew Garfield movies, it was suggested that Shailene Woodleigh be MJ to Emma Gwen and that would never have worked, not because of any fault in the actress and so on, but simply at the time Woodleigh wasn't as big a star as Emma Stone (and she still isn't). It would have hurt MJ's status as IP had they gone ahead with that and it's a good thing that MJ didn't show up in those TASM movies. You can get away with that in sitcoms. Take FRIENDS (not a great show by any means, not one that's grown well) but Ross and Rachel are obviously set up to be the main romance...that means that every relationship or romance either character has along the way has to be a false-lead and usually Friends make that by essentially making the false-lead character normal-at-first before making them bizarre. So if you do that with MJ and Gwen it wouldn't work. Weissman's Spectacular played with this by making Peter and Gwen annoying in the Ross-and-Rachel sense, i.e. this irritating non-functional couple who pine for one another while flirting and dating others, so that eventually the audience would buy that Peter would be better off with MJ who's more stable and honest.

    There are so many great MJ moments I'd prefer to see instead:
    -- Parallel Lives flashback for instance.
    -- MJ telling Peter about her family in ASM#259.
    -- Them getting married.
    -- The Airport Kiss.
    -- Fractions' To Have and to Hold.
    To name a few.
    This is a massive wall of text, and I did read it all. But I still think you're wrong. If you're going to pull a "Peter doesn't know MJ when the story starts", you should be pushing for the "face it, tiger" moment. Even the airport kiss that you mentioned is absolutely built on her introduction ("Why do you always call me tiger?" "I call you tiger 'cause you're not").

  2. #152
    Really Feeling It! Kevinroc's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2014
    Location
    California
    Posts
    13,253

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    The fact is that Mary Jane wasn't introduced or intended by Stan Lee to be the ultimate leading lady of the story (Ditko...maybe but we don't know?). Over time she came to occupy that role and once you do that, the personality that Lee introduced her with in ASM#42 would just not be appropriate for her to play the role effectively, and when you consider the majority of comics and stories she's part of, from the perspective of adaptation you can't simply follow and trace the serialized manner in which she originated.

    Again Conway's MJ has completely overwritten Stan's take on the character and a good thing that it did too. Here's the thing MJ learned Peter's identity in ASM#257 (in publication order) and there's never been any walkback with that. The character has changed and she stayed changed. And that's led to other versions as with Bendis' USM and so on.
    Greg Weisman absolutely thought "face it, tiger" was essential for her introduction in Spectacular Spider-Man when people pushed back on it.



    (Starts at 1:29.)

  3. #153

    Default

    I still wanna see Mary Jane as Jackpot. Go big Sony! Don't let Spider-Gwen have all the fun. .

  4. #154
    BANNED
    Join Date
    Dec 2018
    Posts
    9,358

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Kevinroc View Post
    If you're going to pull a "Peter doesn't know MJ when the story starts", you should be pushing for the "face it, tiger" moment.
    Then the entire thing becomes about the actress' looks. Remember how people complained that Kirsten Dunst's Mary Jane wasn't pretty enough(!). How people complained that Diane Kruger wasn't pretty enough to play Helen of Troy (!). People in some quarters are upset about Zendaya's casting as MJ can you imagine how people would react if they did the doorway introduction rather than the way they do it. Just imagine the internet comments. If you were to stage it in film it would come off as sexist and it would make the entire debate about the actress' looks. In the comics, it's about art-style and so on, so the entire thing is dodged. Producers and agents don't want to be in a position where they are defending and insisting "Our actress is truly hot and the fans are wrong" or you know say stuff like "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" which would be even worse.

    Much better off casting the character she becomes and avoid the issue of the character's looks.

    Ideally, all things being equal, you need to cast someone who has dynamite star power and charisma, great acting ability, and gorgeous looks. And that's rare. Margot Robbie for instance, and she was discovered by Martin Scorsese, a guy who wouldn't be interested in superhero stories, and Robbie herself would much rather play Harley Quinn than Mary Jane anyway mostly because she gets to do stuff. In the same way that Ryan Reynolds is my "greatest Peter Parker that never was", Robbie is the "Greatest MJ that never was"...she has great comic timing and charm and she can do dramatic stuff, because first and foremost, MJ is funny and you need to cast a comedian in that part who's also super-gorgeous, and Robbie is hilarious. So short of discovering essentially the next Marilyn Monroe i.e. a great new movie star in the rough, it's hard to do it.

    ​Even the airport kiss that you mentioned is absolutely built on her introduction ("Why do you always call me tiger?" "I call you tiger 'cause you're not").
    It's built around the relationship the characters have had, the friendship becoming something more, they've shared since ASM#122. Don't be disingenuous.

    Quote Originally Posted by Kevinroc View Post
    Greg Weisman absolutely thought "face it, tiger" was essential for her introduction in Spectacular Spider-Man when people pushed back on it.



    (Starts at 1:29.)
    Also an animated cartoon. Easier to make it work there.

    And ultimately it got canceled in Season 2, so hey!

  5. #155
    Really Feeling It! Kevinroc's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2014
    Location
    California
    Posts
    13,253

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    Then the entire thing becomes about the actress' looks. Remember how people complained that Kirsten Dunst's Mary Jane wasn't pretty enough(!). How people complained that Diane Kruger wasn't pretty enough to play Helen of Troy (!). People in some quarters are upset about Zendaya's casting as MJ can you imagine how people would react if they did the doorway introduction rather than the way they do it. Just imagine the internet comments. If you were to stage it in film it would come off as sexist and it would make the entire debate about the actress' looks. In the comics, it's about art-style and so on, so the entire thing is dodged. Producers and agents don't want to be in a position where they are defending and insisting "Our actress is truly hot and the fans are wrong" or you know say stuff like "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" which would be even worse.

    Much better off casting the character she becomes and avoid the issue of the character's looks.
    I think you're overthinking this. What they should go for is an actress who can project confidence and is very charismatic. I'm not very attuned to Hollywood so I have no specific younger actress to suggest at this point. (Zendaya could have nailed it if they had gone there.)

    Ideally, all things being equal, you need to cast someone who has dynamite star power and charisma, great acting ability, and gorgeous looks. And that's rare. Margot Robbie for instance, and she was discovered by Martin Scorsese, a guy who wouldn't be interested in superhero stories, and Robbie herself would much rather play Harley Quinn than Mary Jane anyway mostly because she gets to do stuff. In the same way that Ryan Reynolds is my "greatest Peter Parker that never was", Robbie is the "Greatest MJ that never was"...she has great comic timing and charm and she can do dramatic stuff, because first and foremost, MJ is funny and you need to cast a comedian in that part who's also super-gorgeous, and Robbie is hilarious. So short of discovering essentially the next Marilyn Monroe i.e. a great new movie star in the rough, it's hard to do it.
    Karen Gillan (and then they cast her as Nebula) would have been my "Greatest MJ that never was".

    If I had a time machine, I'd have said Ann-Margret, lol.

    It's built around the relationship the characters have had, the friendship becoming something more, they've shared since ASM#122. Don't be disingenuous.
    I'm not being disingenuous. Conway clearly thought the long lead up to MJ's introduction and her iconic first appearance meant she was supposed to be more significant than Stan saw her. Conway's MJ doesn't exist without the work Lee, Ditko, and Romita did before.

    Also an animated cartoon. Easier to make it work there.

    And ultimately it got canceled in Season 2, so hey!
    That's irrelevant.

  6. #156
    Mighty Member
    Join Date
    Dec 2014
    Posts
    1,339

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    Then the entire thing becomes about the actress' looks. Remember how people complained that Kirsten Dunst's Mary Jane wasn't pretty enough(!). How people complained that Diane Kruger wasn't pretty enough to play Helen of Troy (!). People in some quarters are upset about Zendaya's casting as MJ can you imagine how people would react if they did the doorway introduction rather than the way they do it. Just imagine the internet comments. If you were to stage it in film it would come off as sexist and it would make the entire debate about the actress' looks. In the comics, it's about art-style and so on, so the entire thing is dodged. Producers and agents don't want to be in a position where they are defending and insisting "Our actress is truly hot and the fans are wrong" or you know say stuff like "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" which would be even worse.

    Much better off casting the character she becomes and avoid the issue of the character's looks.
    Depends how it's framed, but I think the phrase is also a statement of the character's confidence (just like how she asserts that she IS an actress rather than a wannabe actress in her second issue), and I could totally buy Zendaya pulling it off (had she played Mary Jane.) Perhaps Kirsten could have as well, but the tone of her MJ was played very dramatically and her MJ was also pretty overtly insecure so it wouldn't have made sense.

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post

    Ideally, all things being equal, you need to cast someone who has dynamite star power and charisma, great acting ability, and gorgeous looks. And that's rare. Margot Robbie for instance, and she was discovered by Martin Scorsese, a guy who wouldn't be interested in superhero stories, and Robbie herself would much rather play Harley Quinn than Mary Jane anyway mostly because she gets to do stuff. In the same way that Ryan Reynolds is my "greatest Peter Parker that never was", Robbie is the "Greatest MJ that never was"...she has great comic timing and charm and she can do dramatic stuff, because first and foremost, MJ is funny and you need to cast a comedian in that part who's also super-gorgeous, and Robbie is hilarious. So short of discovering essentially the next Marilyn Monroe i.e. a great new movie star in the rough, it's hard to do it.
    I'd say more of an Ann-Margret than a Marilyn Monroe

    They essentially had that with Emma Stone and to some degree with Zendaya. Two gorgeous massively popular actresses who are proficient at comedy and drama. But Emma was cast as Gwen and Zendaya as an MJ in nickname only.

  7. #157
    Moderator Frontier's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2014
    Posts
    115,047

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    Also an animated cartoon. Easier to make it work there.

    And ultimately it got canceled in Season 2, so hey!
    It's as much a visual medium as movies are, so I don't see that much of a difference. It all comes down to characterization and execution.

    And c'mon, we both know better about Spec .

  8. #158
    BANNED
    Join Date
    Dec 2018
    Posts
    9,358

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Kevinroc View Post
    I think you're overthinking this.
    Making movies is a job that requires people overthinking stuff at a given. The fact that it looks simple and direct on-screen doesn't mean that a great deal of thought didn't go into making the movies that ultimately got made.

    If I had a time machine, I'd have said Ann-Margret, lol.
    Ann-Margret wasn't a capable enough actress to be a real leading lady. She looked great in those Elvis movies but she was a flash-in-the-pan in the '60s and today people know of her via connection to MJ more than her own fame.

    I'm not being disingenuous. Conway clearly thought the long lead up to MJ's introduction and her iconic first appearance meant she was supposed to be more significant than Stan saw her. Conway's MJ doesn't exist without the work Lee, Ditko, and Romita did before.
    Conway specifically said that he dropped reading ASM after Lee-Romita had him hook up with Gwen and that he felt that the story had set MJ up as the lead and promised a big role for her that she only got to play when Conway took over. It was Conway who established Mary Jane as the second most important character in the story and he beefed up her role and defined her.

    Quote Originally Posted by Spider-Tiger View Post
    Depends how it's framed, but I think the phrase is also a statement of the character's confidence (just like how she asserts that she IS an actress rather than a wannabe actress in her second issue), and I could totally buy Zendaya pulling it off (had she played Mary Jane.) Perhaps Kirsten could have as well, but the tone of her MJ was played very dramatically and her MJ was also pretty overtly insecure so it wouldn't have made sense.
    Kirsten Dunst's MJ had to work with Tobey Maguire's Peter, both of them were actors who got on the scene doing quirky independent movies. Kirsten Dunst had been in The Virgin Suicides by Sofia Coppola, Tobey had done The Ice Storm among others. Raimi didn't really cast Hollywood (or Hollywood-for-its-time). Willem Dafoe for instance hadn't appeared in a big mainstream movie for a decade (the one exception was Speed 2, which...poor guy). JK Simmons was some unknown character actor.

    So again casting determines the interpretation of the character, and Dunst's MJ captured the essence of the character and she was brilliant even if she didn't get good material.

    I'd say more of an Ann-Margret than a Marilyn Monroe
    Acting is more than hair-color you know. For one thing Marilyn Monroe was a brunette and not a true blonde (neither is Margot Robbie, and actually nor Emma Stone either). Marilyn was also a working-class girl born in a poor home who ran away and tried to make it big and she was a great actress with a powerful screen presence and brilliant at comedy, and almost everyone who knew her said that she was one of the nicest persons in the business.

    Whereas Ann-Margret was a wonderful presence in those Elvis movies but generally not an interesting actress.

    Remember comics are comics and movies are movies, and you shouldn't cast for visual appearance alone. That way is dumb.

  9. #159
    Really Feeling It! Kevinroc's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2014
    Location
    California
    Posts
    13,253

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    Making movies is a job that requires people overthinking stuff at a given. The fact that it looks simple and direct on-screen doesn't mean that a great deal of thought didn't go into making the movies that ultimately got made.
    They say that, but considering the quality of certain movies, and even certain Spider-Man movies in particular, we know this isn't completely true.

    Ann-Margret wasn't a capable enough actress to be a real leading lady. She looked great in those Elvis movies but she was a flash-in-the-pan in the '60s and today people know of her via connection to MJ more than her own fame.
    I think it should go without saying that the Ann-Margret comment was a joke. I even put an "lol" to emphasize this.

    Conway specifically said that he dropped reading ASM after Lee-Romita had him hook up with Gwen and that he felt that the story had set MJ up as the lead and promised a big role for her that she only got to play when Conway took over. It was Conway who established Mary Jane as the second most important character in the story and he beefed up her role and defined her.
    I think we're both essentially saying similar things here. That Conway thought MJ should have had a bigger role based on the lead-up to her iconic introduction.

  10. #160
    BANNED
    Join Date
    Dec 2018
    Posts
    9,358

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Kevinroc View Post
    They say that, but considering the quality of certain movies, and even certain Spider-Man movies in particular, we know this isn't completely true.
    People work hard on bad movies too, you know? And ultimately a great deal of thought happening behind the making of a movie doesn't mean the best ideas show on screen.

    I think we're both essentially saying similar things here. That Conway thought MJ should have had a bigger role based on the lead-up to her iconic introduction.
    Right, but that only happened because of Conway and his contribution. It wasn't inevitable that it would have happened without him.

  11. #161
    Mighty Member
    Join Date
    Dec 2014
    Posts
    1,339

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    Acting is more than hair-color you know. For one thing Marilyn Monroe was a brunette and not a true blonde (neither is Margot Robbie, and actually nor Emma Stone either). Marilyn was also a working-class girl born in a poor home who ran away and tried to make it big and she was a great actress with a powerful screen presence and brilliant at comedy, and almost everyone who knew her said that she was one of the nicest persons in the business.

    Whereas Ann-Margret was a wonderful presence in those Elvis movies but generally not an interesting actress.

    Remember comics are comics and movies are movies, and you shouldn't cast for visual appearance alone. That way is dumb.
    I was mostly joking, but I also thought you were referring to the type of actress that should be cast rather than the parallels between MJ and Marilyn's tragic backstories.

    Marilyn was a great comedic actress, but never really turned out a great dramatic performance (mostly because no one in the business took her seriously enough to cast her in such roles.)

    Whereas Ann-Margret has proven herself to be a proficient dramatic and comedic actress (Carnal Knowledge and Tommy come to mind) and was extremely popular in her day. I wouldn't just dismiss her as that actress in those Elvis Presley movies.

    Marilyn has more of a legacy than Ann because of her tragic life, untimely death, and iconic bombshell image (which garnered a lot of controversy in the 50s.)

    Btw, Ann-Margret is also not a natural redhead. She is a brunette.

    Edit: And that comment about people today knowing her for MJ is absolute rubbish. That's a little known factoid only talked about by diehard fans in comic book circles. Many actresses from Nicole Kidman to Lindsay Lohan were billed as being the "next" Ann-Margret. She's known for being an Emmy winning, Golden Globe winning, and Academy Award nominated actress.
    Last edited by Spider-Tiger; 04-09-2021 at 07:05 PM.

  12. #162
    Moderator Frontier's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2014
    Posts
    115,047

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    Right, but that only happened because of Conway and his contribution. It wasn't inevitable that it would have happened without him.
    So isn't it great that the Face it Tiger moment had such an impact on him ?

  13. #163
    Astonishing Member
    Join Date
    Feb 2019
    Posts
    2,462

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Spider-Tiger View Post
    I was mostly joking, but I also thought you were referring to the type of actress that should be cast rather than the parallels between MJ and Marilyn's tragic backstories.

    Marilyn was a great comedic actress, but never really turned out a great dramatic performance (mostly because no one in the business took her seriously enough to cast her in such roles.)

    Whereas Ann-Margret has proven herself to be a proficient dramatic and comedic actress (Carnal Knowledge and Tommy come to mind) and was extremely popular in her day. I wouldn't just dismiss her as that actress in those Elvis Presley movies.

    Marilyn has more of a legacy than Ann because of her tragic life, untimely death, and iconic bombshell image (which garnered a lot of controversy in the 50s.)

    Btw, Ann-Margret is also not a natural redhead. She is a brunette.

    Edit: And that comment about people today knowing her for MJ is absolute rubbish. That's a little known factoid only talked about by diehard fans in comic book circles. Many actresses from Nicole Kidman to Lindsay Lohan were billed as being the "next" Ann-Margret. She's known for being an Emmy winning, Golden Globe winning, and Academy Award nominated actress.
    If I rank my all time favorite actresses: Marilyn is right there with Salma Hayak as being number one, so I know her movies quite well. Marilyn was a better dramatic actress then you realize. The Misfits, Bus Stop, River Of No Return, Niagara being a few examples of this. Ann-Margaret is actually a better person then actress. She did USO tours in Vietnam and they had a piece on her on 60 Minutes how she made a fan for life by sending free tickets to a small child and his family to see her in concert in Iowa. One more thing about Ann-Margaret: She is one of the few sex symbols you never heard one bit of negative comments about her from co-workers: Always praised for her professionalism on and off the set.

  14. #164
    Mighty Member
    Join Date
    Dec 2014
    Posts
    1,339

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by NC_Yankee View Post
    If I rank my all time favorite actresses: Marilyn is right there with Salma Hayak as being number one, so I know her movies quite well. Marilyn was a better dramatic actress then you realize. The Misfits, Bus Stop, River Of No Return, Niagara being a few examples of this. Ann-Margaret is actually a better person then actress. She did USO tours in Vietnam and they had a piece on her on 60 Minutes how she made a fan for life by sending free tickets to a small child and his family to see her in concert in Iowa. One more thing about Ann-Margaret: She is one of the few sex symbols you never heard one bit of negative comments about her from co-workers: Always praised for her professionalism on and off the set.
    That's fair. I think Marilyn had potential to be a great rounded actress, but was unfortunately subject to typecasting by studio execs. Time will tell, but I don't think any actress has reached her level in terms of sheer charisma and iconography.

    Anyway, I think Ann-Margret has more talent than she was afforded in the initial post and that was the intention of my post. She received accolades in the first two decades of her career that the only actress to play Mary Jane has not, and so I found the assertion that she wasn't talented enough to be a bit silly and unnecessary.

    Didn't mean to derail the thread. The initial comment was meant to be a joke as Ann-Margret's look inspired MJ's design
    Last edited by Spider-Tiger; 04-09-2021 at 09:15 PM.

  15. #165
    BANNED
    Join Date
    Dec 2018
    Posts
    9,358

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Spider-Tiger View Post
    She received accolades in the first two decades of her career that the only actress to play Mary Jane has not, and so I found the assertion that she wasn't talented enough to be a bit silly and unnecessary.
    If you mean Kirsten Dunst, she's long been a respected actress. Appearing in a number of cool and interesting films as a child star (like Small Soldiers by Joe Dante), before breaking out with The Virgin Suicides by Sofia Coppola, a movie that put both of them on the map. After breaking it big as Spider-Man, she appeared in a number of films (working with Sofia Coppola a few times) and won a prize at Cannes for Melancholia.

    So it's ridiculous to claim Ann Margret has won more accolades than Kirsten Dunst. Sure she appeared in Carnal Knowledge, which is a fairly minor film of '70s American cinema (granted, even minor '70s films are probably more interesting than major films made today) but it's certainly not a great film, or among Jack Nicholson's best, nor was she ranked among the defining actresses of '70s Hollywood (Faye Dunaway, Julie Christie, Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton to name a few). As for Tommy, it's a cult movie at best, and not among Russell's best (THE DEVILS).

    Marilyn was a great comedic actress, but never really turned out a great dramatic performance (mostly because no one in the business took her seriously enough to cast her in such roles.)
    The Misfits? River of No Return? Bus Stop? Or what about her supporting turns in The Asphalt Jungle and All About Eve? The real problem with Monroe was actually her desire to be "taken seriously", she fell under the spell of Strasberg (who completely misinterpreted the Method and made things worse) and second guessed her performances and that led to overwork and reliance on sleeping pills, and well y'know. She'd have been better off, and lived longer had she done the comedies and it's a pity nobody valued that. But in either case she certainly proved her talent several times over.

    Quote Originally Posted by Spider-Tiger View Post
    I was mostly joking, but I also thought you were referring to the type of actress that should be cast rather than the parallels between MJ and Marilyn's tragic backstories.
    A bit of both. It's not the worst idea in the world to cast an actor with life experiences similar to the character. That's why Robert Downey Jr. was cast as Iron Man after all. A story about a 40 year old dude in a mid-life crisis who had a notorious media reputation...cast a 40-year old actor in a mid-life crisis who had a notorious media reputation. I am speaking of course platonically, not literally. The fact is that it's extremely difficult to cast a comics character in live-action. In the case of Iron Man, by casting Downey Jr he totally changed the character and updated someone who was originally a Howard Hughes/Errol Flynn mashup. The original choices for Iron Man - Tom Cruise, Jude Law - reflect the Hughes/Flynn lineage better. It's still good casting but it's not the character in the comics.

    Casting any part is hard but for a comics character you have to cast a character who's essentially visualized and realized and dramatized fully in art. If you do the "jackpot" moment in movies to do it right, you need to do a character entrance as immediately iconic and transcendent as say, Han Solo in A NEW HOPE in the Mos Eisley Cantina, or Darth Vader at the start of ANH or Harry Lime in "The Third Man". And you can't recreate the comics in movies and expect that to have the same effect.

    There's basically two perfect castings in the entire history of comic book movies:
    -- Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl in Robert Altman's POPEYE. Altman struck gold when he cast an actress who looked like Olive Oyl (both comics and cartoons), moved like Olive Oyl and who could imitate the voice. It's almost criminally accurate in terms of casting. You literally can't do it better.
    -- J. K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson. The opening scene in the mid-point of Spider-Man 1 where you saw Jameson hold court in the Bugle Editorial was electric because vocally, visually, and performatively, you went "That's the guy". It's uncanny.**

    And it's extremely hard to get that kind of casting for Peter Parker or Mary Jane Watson because those characters evolved over the long run.
    -- In the case of Peter Parker, you would ideally need to cast someone who looks like Ditko Peter but who midway becomes Romita Peter, a bit like how the actor who played Neville Longbottom in the HP movies looked scrawny and scared in the first movie appropriate to how he was introduced but the child actor had a growth spurt and became more charismatic and handsome. The Spider-Movies we have essentially make one or two choices rather than cast with an eye to evolve. So Tobey Maguire is visually Ditko Peter (boxy-headed) but he's cast in a character who's supposed to grow and evolve across the first film (midway he graduates high school). Garfield was cast as Romita!Peter and that makes sense, his face has the angular lines and the longer hair of the college-era except they cast him in high school and situate it there and not pick it up when he's older. So they make the backwards-ass decision. Tom Holland is again Ditko!Peter and this time he's the youngest actor but then you run into the Daniel Radcliffe problem where basically the young kid actor you cast as franchise lead doesn't actually have the charisma and presence to be a real leading man (something that Radcliffe is aware of and has such used his considerable wealth to basically be a character actor as a form of amusing hobby) and Tom Holland's Peter simply can't carry a film the way that both Tobey and Andrew could. You have many scenes in the Raimi and Webb movies where you have Peter by himself and the drama is interesting because the actors are able to engage the audience, but Holland is a chattering box all the time and always in two-handers with someone or some-voice because he's better as a character actor.

    -- In the case of Mary Jane, you need to cast a young actress who is essentially making her film debut (i.e. someone without previous movie or media experience to build associations) and then when you see her, she's suddenly the biggest thing ever. You need to discover the next Marilyn Monroe to get that effect. The closest in recent cinema was Margot Robbie in The Wolf of Wall Street, where overnight you had a brand new star. Robbie had appeared in some Australian TV shows but was a total unknown. Then she worked in a major movie with the greatest living American director and the biggest male star and more than held her own. And again that's a very tall ask for basically a single panel-effect. Ultimately if you focus on the character that ultimately developed in the comics -- a girl from a broken home struggling to find her place, you can work with that, and that's how they portrayed Kirsten Dunst's Mary Jane. In the case of Zendaya's MJ, you have someone with a more contemporary affect for the weird energy that MJ had in the early comics (where she was Stan Lee's attempt at writing a hippie...i.e badly) into someone interested in activism and trolling people for amusement. Zendaya's MJ gets that the character is supposed to be funny and light-spirited (albeit with dramatic moments as well).

    Generally, I find Zendaya's MJ better casting than Tom Holland as Peter, but on the whole the entire conception of the film just doesn't serve the characters. The MCU Spider-Man is essentially sexless and fixated on male daddy figures. That's a total disservice to Peter aka the most heterosexual man in comics. It doesn't foreground the love story and romance. At heart the story of Spider-Man is the love story of Peter and Mary Jane, that's the throughline that connects the entire continuity and the Raimi films got that. I get that the story being about teenagers in high school might make Disney weird about tackling that but the solution is age up the characters, after all Peter met MJ when they were in college and not high school.

    ** To elaborate on JK Simmons and Jameson. Perfect casting doesn't always lead to a fully rounded and accurate portrayal of the character. As great as Simmons is as Jameson, the Raimi movies generally don't give him much to do after the first film and he's basically there as comic relief after that. Great scenes but the Jameson of the comics is a complex, gray, and deeply fascinating character with a lot of nuance, and ultimately it's a pity that Raimi and the writers didn't allow Simmons' Jameson any avenue to grow. So sometimes perfect casting doesn't lead to perfect characterization.
    Last edited by Revolutionary_Jack; 04-09-2021 at 11:09 PM.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •