11 Things About Spider-Man

An Anonymous Coward writes: "This has got to be the most inane, greedy thing I have heard of yet! The owners of the billboards on Times Square are suing Sony and those involved with the production of Spider-Man 'for digitally superimposing advertisements for other companies over their billboard space in the film.' Their argument: '[the ads] do not depict the area accurately.' Oh, and a guy in spider costume swinging from the buildings does? Give me a break!" That's one thing; read below for the other 10, if you can handle some movie spoilage. Update: 04/14 21:04 GMT by T : Oh, and a 12th thing: as reader marcsiry points out, that's "Spider-Man," not "Spiderman."

CheeseburgerBlue writes with his space-saving, 10-thought mini-review.

1. "Worst opening titles sequence ever. Probably recycled out of un-used material from 'The Last Starfighter.' Truly IntelliVision-level graphics here.

2. Peter hacks himself an awesome wannabe costume at first. This is good, because nobody is so well-rounded as to be ass-kickingly fierce, unswerving moral, academically gifted *and* a knock-down seamtress to boot. (It's unheard of, aside from that mama's boy show-off Clark Kent.)

3. There is actually some credible character development. (Smacks own agape jaw in disbelief.) So much for the frickin' Batman franchise.

4. We are treated to several exciting shots of M.J.'s heaving bosom through clinging wet fabric, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

5. J. Jonas Jamieson: beautiful! This character absolutely could not have been done better. It's like a really angry Perry White mixed with Lou Grant, drunk.

6. Nice casting. Not only is Peter's pal Harry the spitting image of his screen father (Dafoe), but he also makes a passable Anakin Skywalker. (I can't wait to see what kind of a Darth sombitch Harry turns into in the sequels.)

7. Many agree that the animated Spidey flying around looks like crap in the TV spots. Luckily, in context, it works. I found that what the C.G. webslinger lacks in verisimilitude is made up for in choreography -- the sequences of Spidey swinging through Manhattan and thrilling and fun.

8. I've always counted on Spiderman to deliver some quality wise-cracks, in stark contrast to Superman's squarejawed mumbling about truth and justice. I also expect Peter Parker to have a dark side that is less cheese-gothic than Batman's silhouetted form baying at the moon. This movie delivers -- Spidey's character is perfectly true to form.

9. Great pacing. It's more than half-way through the movie before Peter really becomes Spiderman. His gradual transition to superherohood is convincing, and helps sell Peter as a real guy along the way.

10. Despite the fact the Green Goblin essentially kicks his own ass in this movie, he does duke it out pretty cool with Spidey a few times first. (The best part is when the angry New Yorkers pelt him with trash for messin' with their friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.)"

Comments

It's not unreasonable ?

[oops]

Is it ? If these companies have paid for advertising space in Times Sq., they must be factoring in the fact that Times Sq. is a well known location, and likely to feature in films/TV etc. Consequently a percentage of the ad cost would reflect this ?

Re:It's not unreasonable ?

[stevens]

<disclaimer>IANAL</disclaimer>

Is it ? If these companies have paid for advertising space in Times Sq., they must be factoring in the fact that Times Sq. is a well known location, and likely to feature in films/TV etc. Consequently a percentage of the ad cost would reflect this ?

It's totally unreasonable. While they might have paid someone more for the ability to put adverts in Times Square because they thought they'd free ride in movies &c., they sure as hell didn't contract with the Spidey movie to reproduce the ads.

The spidey movie made no contracts or promises to display the ads, so why should they? The billboard owners want something for nothing.

From the article: '"Sherwood has not authorized defendants or anyone to distort the appearance" of the area' [...]

Since when does a person taking a picture of something not allowed to futz with the image? Especially in the movies, where the whole point of taking the picture is to make the audience believe that something which isn't real actually happened.

This kind of litigiousness makes me fume.

Re:It's not unreasonable ?

[RoyBoy]

Are you insane? This is just a silly cash grab at something that is FICTIONAL! What the hell - these people (and their slimy lawyers) need to get a life! You cannot make other people advertise for you. Now, if the producers of the movie had paid for the right to shoot that location, and specifically agreed not to digitally alter any content, then this would be a passably arguably point. As it, it's nothing shy of a mindless money-grubbing cheap shot!

Re:It's not unreasonable ?

[Anonymous Coward]

they must be factoring in the fact that Times Sq. is a well known location, and likely to feature in films/TV etc. Consequently a percentage of the ad cost would reflect this

Sure, and I paid some joker $50 for the Brooklyn Bridge. I don't understand why the mayor doesn't recognize my property rights.

Waste of breath

[lothix]

Ads have been edited into movies for a while now but in this case the real question is, "Will movies have to pay for every piece of private property put on film?" Could I be possibly sued of taking a picture of a city, applying filters to it and putting it on the web? Sounds ridiculous!

Virtual Times Square

[EddydaSquige]

I know the guy who was the production manager for most of the NY production crew, he had told me (after I asked what kind of a pain in the ass shooting in TS is) that most of the TS stuff was shot on a set in LA. Most of what wasn't on the set was done digitally. So if the TS that we see in the movie isn't the real TS, then what claim do advertisers have to claims of authenticity?

Nuisance Lawsuits...

[bje2]

We really need some good nuisance lawsuit laws so that defendants don't have their money wasted and the courts don't have their time wasted...this kind of thing is a joke...people are too quick to sue on another anymore, and all they have is visions of dollar signs dancing in their eyes...there needs to be sticter penalties, if perhaps the judge decides that the plaintiff is guilty of a nuisance lawsuits...it would make people think twice before bringing idiotic things like this to the courts...

also, i can't wait to see Kirsten Dunst in the wet t-shirt either...

Time dependency?

[QuodEratDemonstratum]

What would happen if they had computer generated Times Square instead of filming it live.

What ads would they have to place there?

• displayed at the time the location was being written.?
• The ones displayed when it was being rendered?
• When the file was being shown?
• etc.

A photograph or film has a longer lifetime than an advertisment ... the owners of the billboards cannot expect the film to always accurately represent the location, so taking to the argument further, why should they expect it to ever accurately represent the location?

Tobey Maguire + skin-tight outfit = yum

[PastaQueen]

I was about to complain about this being a sexist comment, but then I remembered half the movie will feature a buff Tobey Maguire in a skin-tight uniform, or at least a buff stunt man.

I think the female of the species are definitely getting the better deal here :P

Why Not?

[toupsie]

The movie is using Times Square as a prop in the movie. Instead of the fictional Gotham City's town square, we get the real New York City landmark, Times Square, being presented in the movie as "present day". A tangible, real thing. Nothing of fantasy.

SONY should be allowed to disagree with content portrayed on their property. Its their property and the message presented on it reflects upon them. Think of parallels.

My made-up example?

What about a Julia Roberts, tear jerking movie that pits her as a courageous pro-choice activist against an evil cabal of extreme right-wing, slack jawed, anti-choice, church going, white men. As a part of the movie, Roberts attends a church of open minded, pro-choice parishioners...most likely Lutherans. Since the civil rights crusading producer wants to really stick it to the closed minded, white men and their abused, subservient wives in our society and make a real deep, societal impact on the minds of uniformed Americans, he CGIs the church sign of a real, mean, anti-choice, anti-gay, born-again Christian church in Mississippi, to be this warm, fuzzy, cuddly, pro-choice, Julia Roberts kind of church with a feminine Reverend. So all establishment shots of the Julia Roberts kind of church in the movie feature this real anti-choice church but with the Hollywood magic sign. The church was filmed on the road legally. It is a landmark in the town as most churches are. Most of the viewers of the film would never know what was on the sign before seeing the movie as they do not live near the sign, but the audience local to the landmark would. The sign is nothing more than the advertising of religious faith -- a somewhat commercial activity, as money is exchanged between parishioner and church and visa-versa from time to time.

Think the church would have a right to complain by having their sign's content in the blockbuster Julia Roberts film being altered to reflect a message with which they disagree? I would think so. And you are more likely to know about the advertising in Times Square than would you this church in Mississippi. Hate to stick up for a multinational corporation but they do have a right to have messages on their property correctly reflect their desires. It is not up to you and I to decide for SONY what their message is.

Offtopic: Anyone hear that Standard Oil of New York conspiracy before?

Disclaimer: I live in NYC and I don't like Julia Roberts tear jerking movies but I am forced to watch them. I will back any legislation on Digital Rights Management that contains a rider that will make Oxygen, Lifetime, and Women's Entertainment (We) illegal to broadcast within the United States.

Re:Why Not?

[mcc]

I think this is the least coherent thing i've ever read on slashdot. I have no idea what you are trying to say, but i'm going to attempt to respond to what vaguely seems to be your point:

Spider-man is something called "art". They aren't selling you the property of times square. They are selling you pictures of it, with a fictional story and some sounds overlaid.

The U.S. legal system has an idea built in called "freedom of expression". This implies that if you are creating a piece of art, you have a right to do anything in it that you like that corresponds to promoting your artistic vision, and that no man or government has the right to restrict that because freedom of speech and expression is a basic, universal, human right.

OK?

There is the question of slander-- i.e., if you took a public figure of some sort, which would include a church of some sort, and represented them publicly in a light they disapprove of, then they could go after you for slander. You could say that this is an exception to the "there should be no legal limits on art" rule. However, this only applies when you step outside the realm of artistic expression and into journalism-- i.e., when you are actively stating that the portrayal of things that you are offering in your product is *true*, as opposed to simply offering an artistic portrayal of the universe. The new york times has an obligation to not print things like "Newt Gingrinch is an Alien" when they have no proof of such. The makers of the movie "Men in black" are under no such obligation. I think it's pretty safe to say no one could be misled to believe that the movie "Spider-man" is meant to be an accurate portrayal of New York City.

There's also the question of copyright and image reuse-- i.e., do you have the legal right to use someone/something's image if you can consider the image you are reusing an artistic product that someone else "owns". I would say that that doesn't apply here becuase the image of Times Square is just a part of our culture, and has become something that the owners of the physical property Times Square no longer have control over.

Would you imply that someone doing an impressionist, blurry painting of times square has a legal obligation to preseve the clarity of the advertisements there?

You'd probably argue that that example is different, because in that case, the altering of the nature of the buildings and advertisements is required by the nature of the artistic decisions made by the painter; whereas in the case of Spider-man, the advertisements were altered out of sheer greed.

That argument would be invalid for one simple reason: no matter what the law says currently, neither the government nor the courts have the right to determine what is a valid artistic decision and what is greed. That is simply not their business; the supreme court has said again and again that the government has no right to discriminate a legal difference between "good art" and "bad art"; there is only the question "is it art", and if so, you have to treat it legally in a manner consistent with the way you treat all other art..

Re:Oh for god's sake...

[kypper]

So close your eyes during that part of movie; don't ruin it for the rest of us

seamtress?

[autopr0n]

academically gifted *and* a knock-down seamtress to boot

Shouldn't that be 'taylor' or something? I mean, 'seamstress' isn't really a term you'd use for a guy.

I actually hope the times square people win

[Edmund Blackadder]

It is getting really annoying when movies do their own add placement. If i pay $10.00 for a movie i do not want to see adds.

Of course there may be things that look like adds in the movie, but as long as they are not payed for it is ok.

To put it more clearly i think movies should represent either reality or the unobstructed vision of the makers, and not advertising agreements.

So i guess in the times square case it is ok to keep the original adds because they represent reality.

You can say my rule is arbitrary: "whats the diff between an nbc add and a usa today add?" Well there is a difference, because when some one pays for an add they usually put conditions on how it will be shown in the movie and those conditions, usually having to do with adds being clearly shown close to the main heroine's tits or something silly like that, make movies suck.

Re:I actually hope the times square people win

[kubrick]

It is getting really annoying when movies do their own add placement. If i pay $10.00 for a movie i do not want to see adds.

If you don't want to see advertisements in movies, then don't see the sorts of movies that have ads scattered through them like this.

There are a number of directors and creative teams who make movies where commercial decisions do not totally dominate the content of the film...

e.g. in Pulp Fiction Tarantino invented 'Red Apple' cigarettes, not wanting to give screen time to any pre-existing brand.

Re:I am a professional news photographer...

[NaturePhotog]

I am a news videographer (and granted, that is a different designation than commercial photographers) but there is no need to sign a release form for me to shoot a building.

This is precisely why it is different -- news vs. commerical. I could shoot all the pictures I want of private property (as long as I didn't trespass or otherwise break the law to do it), but as soon as I want to sell one of those pictures for anything besides news (e.g., to sell a product or as fine art to hang on a wall), a release is needed.

And as noted in my post, I agree that taking this to court is absurd.

Re:I'll dignify this to you although I shouldn't..

[Hard_Code]

Media and culture are sickly twisted. Nobody can claim to be an "objective reporter" just "reporting the news". These days the media IS the news. The medium IS the reality. Society of the spectacle, life through proxy, etc. etc.

I'm sure there are tons of authentic and genuine people in centralized media, but there is no denying that you are part of the big hairy beast for good or bad. Which is why indiemedia is so exciting.