Controversial Spider-Man Opinions

[cyberhubbs]

That's another thing. They replaced a lot of actual relationship drama about being with Spider-Man with poor foreshadowing over Gwen dying.

I was really taken aback when Peter told Gwen he was Spider-Man. Earlier in the film, he knew her so little that he wasn't even sure she knew his name. Now he's telling her that he's Spider-Man? I get that it wanted to be the "Peter tells MJ he's Spider-Man" scene from Ultimate, but there you at least got a sense that they knew each other beforehand.

But in these movies? Gwen Stacy was essentially a perfect girl who was too good for this sinful Earth.

To be fair, that was earlier in the film. They'd gotten to know each other since the character introductions.

I don't know that she was too good for this sinful Earth. Clearly she didn't leave anyone at the altar, so there's that. She was smart and she stood up for herself and others. Terrible attributes to have.

[Kevinroc]

To be fair, that was earlier in the film. They'd gotten to know each other since the character introductions.

I don't know that she was too good for this sinful Earth. Clearly she didn't leave anyone at the altar, so there's that. She was smart and she stood up for herself and others. Terrible attributes to have.

I'm just asking where was the girl who rallied against Spider-Man up to the point that she became a tool for an anti-Spidey politician in the old comics? Where was the girl who pulled a gun on Peter when she found out he was Spider-Man in Ultimate?

As much as people like to take potshots at Raimi's MJ these days (and really, taking a potshot for the overly theatrical "MJ leaves John Jameson at the alter" from Spider-Man 2?), at least we could see who she was. She had a crappy home life and viewed fame as a means to escape said crappy home life.

I didn't recognize Gwen Stacy in the movies as Gwen Stacy. She had no negative qualities. There's a reason detractors give her the derogatory nickname "St. Gwen." And it definitely applied to these films.

[Mr. Spider-marvel]

I grew up with the Rami movies so I kinda look at them through a child's eyes and aside from 3 which well who doesn't know that movies problems. The Rami movies were good. As for ASM I did like the acting and using new villains not seen in the movies before. But the constant set up for sequels and same plot points from the previous trilogy bog it down. And while I did like Gwen in the ASM movies she did really have next to no character development.

[Kevinroc]

Supposed science genius Peter Parker needed to look up how batteries worked on Youtube.

The ASM films did not understand Spider-Man in the slightest.

[Speed Force League Unlimited]

Supposed science genius Peter Parker needed to look up how batteries worked on Youtube.

The ASM films did not understand Spider-Man in the slightest.

Actually, they understood him very well.
In the 80s he failed some tests, in the 70s he was shown taking one of Miles Warren classes a second time.
In Ultimate Spider-Man, Peter's dad was shown unable to handle a certain situation requiring what he knew, because that dad was not really Peter's dad, but an aged up clone of Peter.
Being a genius at something doesn't mean one does not require to check up on something simple, that applies to being relatable as well.

[Mr. Spider-marvel]

Actually, they understood him very well.
In the 80s he failed some tests, in the 70s he was shown taking one of Miles Warren classes a second time.
In Ultimate Spider-Man, Peter's dad was shown unable to handle a certain situation requiring what he knew, because that dad was not really Peter's dad, but an aged up clone of Peter.
Being a genius at something doesn't mean one does not require to check up on something simple, that applies to being relatable as well.

Wait what about his dad?

[Kevinroc]

Actually, they understood him very well.
In the 80s he failed some tests, in the 70s he was shown taking one of Miles Warren classes a second time.
In Ultimate Spider-Man, Peter's dad was shown unable to handle a certain situation requiring what he knew, because that dad was not really Peter's dad, but an aged up clone of Peter.
Being a genius at something doesn't mean one does not require to check up on something simple, that applies to being relatable as well.

The idea is that Peter spending time as Spider-Man comes at a great cost to his own personal life. In the ASM movies, they downplayed Peter's intelligence to boost Gwen's role in the story. Peter is never shown in these films to have any kind of problems with his grades (maybe he looked at more Youtube videos). It was all about making Gwen more important.

Emma Stone even said "(Peter)'s the muscle, (Gwen)'s the brains." (http://spidermannews.com/2014/01/04/...-spider-man-2/)

Gwen was the magical girlfriend in these films who solved all of the problems Peter should have been able to solve himself. The "brilliant but lazy" thing people said about Peter in the Raimi films did not apply to the ASM films going by the narrative.

[Kevinroc]

Also, any time someone claims the ASM films understand Spider-Man, I am obligated to point out that in the narrative of those films, Richard Parker was more important than Aunt May.

That is not Spider-Man.

[Keeper of the Crows]

The idea is that Peter spending time as Spider-Man comes at a great cost to his own personal life. In the ASM movies, they downplayed Peter's intelligence to boost Gwen's role in the story. Peter is never shown in these films to have any kind of problems with his grades (maybe he looked at more Youtube videos). It was all about making Gwen more important.

Emma Stone even said "(Peter)'s the muscle, (Gwen)'s the brains." (http://spidermannews.com/2014/01/04/...-spider-man-2/)

Gwen was the magical girlfriend in these films who solved all of the problems Peter should have been able to solve himself. The "brilliant but lazy" thing people said about Peter in the Raimi films did not apply to the ASM films going by the narrative.

I think it was born out of a (perhaps misguided) attempt to reverse course from MJ being the damsel in distress in all three Rami films. (I love and prefer those movies, but that's one criticism I totally get.) The trouble was, they took it too far. Gwen was elevated to the indispensable sidekick; in both climaxes, Peter couldn't have won without her help. (I think that's true for ASM1--it's been a while since I've seen it.) In fact, you could argue that with Peter as the brawn, he could be accused of serving as the sidekick.

I think the solution is pretty simple: the love interest does not have to be involved in every single climactic battle, whether in the role of victim or heroine. Sometimes it's okay for the hero to fight the bad guy on their own.

Sidenote: Just like the hero shouldn't always have to be connected to the villain in his personal life. It always bothered me about the movies that of all the millions of people in New York, nearly 100% of the people who become super-powered villains just happen to be personally connected to Peter Parker in some way or another.

[Scott Taylor]

I was really taken aback when Peter told Gwen he was Spider-Man. Earlier in the film, he knew her so little that he wasn't even sure she knew his name. Now he's telling her that he's Spider-Man? I get that it wanted to be the "Peter tells MJ he's Spider-Man" scene from Ultimate, but there you at least got a sense that they knew each other beforehand.

When this happened in the films, I viewed it as Peter trying to impress Gwen. He was basically stalking her (the Gwen photo wall, etc.) and its reasonable to think that if you are a weirdo stalker, then when you get awesome Spider powers the first instinct is to show it off to a girl you are stalking.

I'm more disturbed by the fact that he was stalking her in the first place.

The movies were all about Gwen and Peter's relationship, setting it up in the early stages, having it grow in the middle stages, and then having them be so in love as to be inseparable in the later stages (ASM2). Thats part of the problem with them - Spider-Man was a subplot in his own movie.

Spider-Man 3 was about Spider-Man's continuing story. MJ and Peter's relationship was there, but the movie was about tying up the relationship with Green Goblin, absolving Peter of the Spider-Man-related guilt he had at Uncle Ben's death, and giving Spider-Man several moral dilemmas related to his villains. It tried to do way too much, and gets panned for it, but the movie had its heart in the right place for a Spider-Man film.

[Speed Force League Unlimited]

Wait what about his dad?

In the Ultimate Clone Saga, Ock cloned Peter, one of the clones is an aged up Peter made to look like his dad.

[cyberhubbs]

I'm just asking where was the girl who rallied against Spider-Man up to the point that she became a tool for an anti-Spidey politician in the old comics? Where was the girl who pulled a gun on Peter when she found out he was Spider-Man in Ultimate?

As much as people like to take potshots at Raimi's MJ these days (and really, taking a potshot for the overly theatrical "MJ leaves John Jameson at the alter" from Spider-Man 2?), at least we could see who she was. She had a crappy home life and viewed fame as a means to escape said crappy home life.

I didn't recognize Gwen Stacy in the movies as Gwen Stacy. She had no negative qualities. There's a reason detractors give her the derogatory nickname "St. Gwen." And it definitely applied to these films.

It's sad when just being a good, smart person makes you a saint to be made fun of. But I do agree that MJ had faults. It's just...she left someone at the altar. That's not the kinda thing you can overlook. It's certainly not murder, don't get me wrong, but maybe that's a fault you shoulda kept tucked away somewhere.

Now, in fairness, that fault didn't bother me. Mainly because I didn't care for MJ in the Raimi films. That's nothing against MJ outside of the movieverse, of course. I just didn't like the actress in the role, so that made me not care about the character she played.

[Spider-Tiger]

It's sad when just being a good, smart person makes you a saint to be made fun of. But I do agree that MJ had faults. It's just...she left someone at the altar. That's not the kinda thing you can overlook. It's certainly not murder, don't get me wrong, but maybe that's a fault you shoulda kept tucked away somewhere.

I don't think anyone is making fun of the character for being good and smart--just the ridiculous extremes that the ASM team went with the character to have her appeal to the audience. Spectacular did a better job of revising Gwen and making her good, smart, and likable without turning her into perfection personified.

I can sort of understand the logic. When you have only two films to build the relationship, showing lots of internal conflict between Peter and Gwen like the comics could potentially deemphasize the tragedy of her death. Raimi MJ has also been criticized for being a damsel so they listened to audience feedback and chose to go in the opposite direction with Gwen. Unfortunately (or fortunately if you're happy about Spider-Man being in the MCU), the execution was atrocious.

[Kevinroc]

It's sad when just being a good, smart person makes you a saint to be made fun of. But I do agree that MJ had faults. It's just...she left someone at the altar. That's not the kinda thing you can overlook. It's certainly not murder, don't get me wrong, but maybe that's a fault you shoulda kept tucked away somewhere.

Now, in fairness, that fault didn't bother me. Mainly because I didn't care for MJ in the Raimi films. That's nothing against MJ outside of the movieverse, of course. I just didn't like the actress in the role, so that made me not care about the character she played.

It's really more how the narrative did a terrible job with the character. For such an important character, we know almost nothing about Gwen beyond "she's a good, smart person."

Why is she interested in science? We don't know.

What does she want out of life beyond being with Peter and going to Oxford?

What are her hopes? What are her dreams?

The closest we get to actually knowing her in these films is when she said she worried about her dad every time he went to work.

It's a problem in the source material as well (this is what happens when a character gets killed off in an era before they started really developing characters as such. It wasn't like MJ, Harry, and Flash had been fleshed out a whole lot by this point in time).

Raimi MJ had other problems (really, guys, you're trying to make the stakes personal by putting MJ at risk yet again for the big climax?!), but we at least kind of saw what they were going for with her. We knew why she wanted fame (she viewed it as an escape from her crappy home life).

I totally get why people focus on the "damsel in distress" thing, because that's not really MJ. I couldn't see Raimi-MJ beating up The Chameleon or The Swarm.

Although I find myself a bit confused by going after the "she left John Jameson at the altar" bit from Spider-Man 2. The Runaway Bride thing is a pretty iconic movie trope. It's an overly melodramatic scene from a movie based on a comic book where such scenes are the bread and butter of the source material. (****** way to break up in real life, but these movies aren't real life. Unless your point is that it was a ****** trope that they shouldn't have played into.)

[Scott Taylor]

The scene leaving John Jameson at the alter fitted right in to those movies, with their comic-booky sensibilities.

It also didn't feel very sad to me, because John Jameson was so underdeveloped. His only purpose in the movie was to be left at the altar!