In Your Face Jam - May 7, 2014

[malreyn]

Gwen Stacy is a function of Peter Parker's story...

I have to disagree with this conclusion. I'm not against killing someone (in a story, not for real! come on!) but the poster's stated reason for her existence is taken away by her being killed with no one currently left to fill that role. It also does not force enormous character development. It is a possible path to furthering character development, but a lifetime of watching movies tells me that nothing can force any kind of character development, whether it should or not. The purpose her death serves is already served by Uncle Ben's death. Her death would serve to advance that purpose where he hasn't had much loss or a recent reminder of his original lesson, allowing him to begin finding contentment and to think that the original lesson maybe isn't his driving force anymore only to be harshly reminded. It could also serve a purpose in giving him a new lesson. In this second movie, he is still somewhat freshly dealing with the lessons taught by the first. In a series of two movies it may be unnecessary to have two deaths that serve a similar purpose for the character. It simply may be "too soon." Further, as is pointed out in the article, in this instance the death is seemingly used to show that his purpose is to live and fight alone and that a confident and smart woman needs to listen to her love interest, suppress her own call to action and heroic urges or face death.

I'm not arguing for or against the death itself. I'm arguing that the motivation for including the death the way it was and the overall themes and messages of the story may not be entirely compatible in this instance.

[Old Bull Lee]

So much for pop culture escapism. Must everything be viewed through the lens of politics? Particularly a 40-year-old comic story?

I should correct myself. It's not politics that's being shoehorned into the site so much as race and gender issues. I remember Steven Grant's CBR columns had quite a bit of political commentary (and I'm glad to see it gone, though I did enjoy the non-political parts), but at least it was one section of one column.

[hypkin]

if it were a spider-woman movie and this was her boyfriend we'd all think "hell yeah he died a heroic death".

not that he was proven wrong. not that everything that happened in the movie was suddenly inverted.

just a heroic death.


so lets see it that way with gwen too.

she did what she thought was best, stayed true to herself, safed the live of dozens of people and died a heroic death.

[Confuzzled]

The author needs to address the real problem in comic book movies, Parents in Refrigerators!

You mean Parents in Alleyways?

[DynaMike]

Just going to throw this out there.

Gwen first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #31, and died in The Amazing Spider-Man #121. That's 90 issues, or roughly seven and a half years, where Peter [and the audience] knew and loved her. Why not have the movies keep her alive for at least seven and a half years? Real-time, movie-time, whatever. She was around long enough in the comics. It's stupid to just throw her away after two movies, especially given Emma Stone's stellar performance.

On top of that, what annoyed me with this movie [well, one of many things that annoyed me, but I don't want to go off on a tangent] was how Gwen's graduation speech at the beginning was essentially her announcement to the movie audience that she will, indeed, die at the end of the movie. Just... ugh, really, Sony? And Peter wasn't there to hear the speech so he promised to listen to it later at the end of the movie when he needs a reason to continue being Spider-Man? That's been done to death [no pun intended].

[PinnyPed]

[QUOTE=vaf2675;52015]"At one point in "The Amazing Spider-Man 2," the film could have wildly deviated from the source material and explored something truly unique and progressive; Spider-Man decides to move to London with Gwen Stacy so she can go to Oxford. Spider-Man in London?! What a movie! And a super hero making a personal sacrifice for the woman he loves instead of the other way around? Holy original concepts, Spider-Man! Where's that movie?"[QUOTE]


Actually, didn't Thor just give up the throne of Asgard so he could live with Jane Foster in Thor 2? There's that movie!