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Spider-Man 2002 vs. Spider-Man 1992
Surly Robot writes "Do you like your Spider-Man CG or non-CG? Here's an article that I wrote for the Baltimore City Paper about the guy who made his own Spidey flick ten years ago, and what he thinks of the new movie." Another submitter sent in a link to view Green Goblin's Last Stand (Microsoft format unfortunately, but it works with Codeweavers).
He'll definitely seem cooler; however, spidey 1992 will have a significant advantage as he is 10 years younger!
42
as a man, i can definately say that the older cartoon spidey is soo much sexier than the new... oh wait, i cant write this... this is wrong, thats just a cartoon, i shouldnt feel that way about a cartoon character, letalone a Male cartoon character... oh man, this is too much. i cant take it any more.
Fantastic stories and imagination should not be contrained by mere reality, computers let creative truly push the envelope.
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
...let's see...
Mechanical webshooters versus organic...
Green Goblin costume versus Green Goblin armor...
No CGI versus CGI...
...I think 1992 looks like a better movie, actually. I mean, it sounds so much more in-tune with the comic books.
Sadly, I work off of dial-up, so I can't download it...damn hillbilly town.
If anyone wants to say how it is, drop me a line.
Kids these days. They don't know the difference between classic, and just plain old.
Tobey Maguire Got the Big Bucks, but Dan Poole Got to Spider-Man First
By Maurice Martin
Unless you've spent the last six months in an al Qaeda cave, you already know that the first blockbuster film of the blockbuster season is Spider-Man, opening May 3. This comic-book adaptation features Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker, the high-school geek who gains superpowers from a radioactive spider bite, and Willem Dafoe as the villainous Green Goblin. The trailers promise an over-the-top super-slugfest, the two foes wielding fantastic weapons thanks to computer-generated special effects. Rumor says Sony Pictures dropped nearly $140 million on the film before marketing, but it's practically money in the bank: Spider-Man has a fanatical, worldwide fan base.
One Baltimore Spider-fan is not impressed, though. "There's no excuse for that stupid raised webbing--it looks like cake frosting," Dan Poole says, referring to a detail of Maguire's costume that departs from the comic-book version. And don't get him started on those "organic web shooters"--another departure made by Spider-Man director Sam Raimi. In the comic, Spidey shoots webs from two mechanical devices of his own invention. In the movie, webs come out of his body. "It makes me want to hang somebody," Poole says.
Poole isn't alone--Spider-Man fans tend to be purists. At www.no-organic-webshooters.com, more than 5,500 fans signed an online petition trying to get Raimi to stick more closely to the comic. But Poole speaks with authority--he's not only a fan, he made his own Spider-Man movie.
In 1992, Poole played Spider-Man in The Green Goblin's Last Stand, a 50-minute video that he also wrote, produced, and directed. He even did his own stunts. For one eye-popping shot, he and his cameraperson trespassed on an abandoned high-rise at the corner of Calvert and Water streets, where Poole swung on a rope four stories off the ground, Spider-style, with no net to catch him if he fell. Poole shot his movie in and around Baltimore, using local performers and tapping friends and relatives for help with costumes, equipment, and camera-work. He estimates his total cash expenditure at less than $400.
Bad dialogue, pre-CGI special effects, and irregular production values clearly mark GGLS as an amateur effort. But the stunts make it a must-see--Poole swings, leaps along high building ledges, rides atop a speeding car, and throws himself into every sort of obstacle. GGLS also benefits from a classic plot borrowed from two 1973 issues of Amazing Spider-Man. These featured the murder of Spidey's girlfriend, Gwen Stacy, at the hands of the Green Goblin--an unusually serious topic for a mainstream comic.
Poole's adventures have earned him the respect of two communities: Spider-Man fans and independent moviemakers. The former made GGLS an underground classic. The latter honored him with two awards at this year's Nodance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, which is dedicated to first-time and digital filmmakers. In addition, Poole has been interviewed for the Independent Film Channel, FilmThreat.com and Inside magazine.
Poole, 33, loves to bust on the new movie, though he's yet to see it (he bases his comments on stills, trailers, and interviews). But GGLS actually owes its existence to it--or, more specifically, to the new film's extraordinarily long development time. Because of legal issues surrounding the film rights to the title character, Spider-Man has been in development for more than 15 years. During the early 1990s, Terminator director James Cameron took on the project. When Poole heard this, he became obsessed with doing something to capture Cameron's attention and land himself a role in the film. GGLS was that something.
To Poole's disappointment, Cameron's production company refused to screen GGLS. (Cameron eventually left the Spider-Man project.) However, others did watch it. Poole made copies and distributed them to friends and to a magazine called Hero Illustrated. People started to make copies of his copies, and GGLS spread dub-by-dub among Spider-lovers throughout the '90s.
Chris Mason, Los Angeles-based co-founder of the fan site www.spidermanhype.com (now a part of www.superherohype.com), says his readers "have nothing but good things to say [about GGLS]. People are impressed by how insane Dan is. I mean, you can see him hanging by a rope from the side of a building. You know he's busting his balls to make a really cool Spider-Man."
In September 2000, in response to fan interest, Poole converted GGLS to streaming video and posted it on the Web at www.localorigination.com. In December 2000, when the number of GGLS downloads reached 100,000, Poole decided to make a documentary called The Real Spider-Man: The Making of The Green Goblin's Last Stand. By the time he finished it around April 2001, 1 million viewers had downloaded GGLS.
Marvel comics owns the characters, so Poole can't legally sell copies of GGLS. But he can sell a documentary about his own moviemaking efforts. Given the volume of questions about GGLS that have come his way, he hopes that the documentary will finally earn him some money. So far, the video version hasn't sold well. But in April, Poole released the DVD version of The Real Spider-Man, which includes GGLS as a free bonus track. He's hoping this will bump up sales.
The Real Spider-Man won the Best Documentary award from the Nodance Festival this January. "It's a real crowd pleaser," says Jim Boyd, Nodance founder and festival director. "It's got a vibe everybody can get behind--small film does good." Poole picked up a second Nodance award for Guerrilla Marketing, which he earned by trudging through the Park City snow in a Spider-Man vest, putting up posters for his movie.
People always remember the stunts in GGLS, and The Real Spider-Man shows just how much pain went into them, literally. Outtakes reveal Poole falling on his back and his head. He drops from the rafters of a warehouse onto a small stack of mats. He launches himself into a stack of barrels again and again and again. Like every moviemaker, Poole obsesses over getting the perfect shot. Unlike most moviemakers, he courts spinal trauma to get it. When a flip or a landing goes bad, you can hear Poole howl and curse--either from pain or artistic frustration. Or both.
The documentary also introduces some of the people who helped Poole make his movie, including friends from his home neighborhood of Hamilton and former classmates from Parkville Senior High. Eric Supensky created the Goblin mask, its hideously exaggerated, malevolent grin a faithful interpretation of the comic. Matt Holder helped with the script and later did some of the Goblin stunts. Poole's cousin Ray Schueler did a little of everything, including MacGyver-like repairs when equipment failed. Poole's mother made one of the Spider-Man costumes (though she doesn't appear in The Real Spider-Man). And he did look outside the 'hood for acting talent, casting local stage regular Jimi Kinstle as the Green Goblin and Allison Adams, at the time a Towson University student, as Gwen Stacy. (Poole says Adams was the first blond he talked to about the part who took it and the film seriously.)
Poole gives credit to his troops but claims the vision as his own. He's got strong opinions about how Spider-Man should look onscreen.
"Four colors drive the reader's eye in comic books," Poole says. In his mind, Raimi's film fails to retain that look. "Everything is just so shadowed," he says. "Spidey's face looks creepy. It's like bizarro-world Spider-Man."
GGLS has its faults, but Poole's battle royal between the red-and-blue hero and the green-and-purple villain is reverential to its source material. Berserk over Gwen's murder, Spidey gives the Goblin a savage beating. For this scene, Poole wore a torn Spidey mask. With one eye exposed, he looks like a flailing, demented cyclops. Behind the Goblin mask, you can see Kinstle's face awash in blood as he goads Spider-Man toward ultimate vengeance. Can Spider-Man kill? If he does, is he still a hero? The comic challenged readers with this question, and so does GGLS.
Ten years after finishing his movie, Poole contemplates some of the props that have been stored in his mother's garage for a decade. He holds up Spidey's shirt, its reds and blues still vibrant. He tries on Spidey's belt. "It still fits," he says. "It's just a little tighter."
Poole now works as a freelance videographer, editor, and producer. He sells The Real Spider-Man through his company's Web site, www.alphadogproductions.net. He's also working on a movie script with all-original characters--something with a superhero theme.
And he's still got the daredevil spirit. With no prompting, he climbs aboard the Goblin's flying machine as though preparing for another stunt. Another friend, Don Koch, built it to Poole's specifications using the comic as reference. It consists of a simple tube, two wings, and, when complete, a bat-shaped face. Even with a decade of grime, it retains its iconic power, like a childhood memory made real.
By contrast, the Goblin flier in the new movie is a complex, multijointed thing bristling with mysterious machinery. It looks so high-tech that Wired highlighted it in the magazine's May 2002 issue. Still, Poole will have none of it. Pointing to his flier, he says, "Don did what nobody in Hollywood will do. They're not capable of just doing this. They've got to put spikes and shit on it."
Could his harsh opinion of the film be a case of sour grapes? "I would get behind them if I thought it was good. Believe me," Poole says. "I would be bitter either way that I wasn't part of it, but I don't want it to suck." But, sight unseen, he contends the Hollywood version lacks the integrity true Spidey fans want to see on the big screen.
"It's all CGI," he laments. "It's got no heart."
Saying your OS is the best because more people use it is like saying MacDonalds make the best food
"Green Goblin's Last Stand" works just fine with MPlayer, provided you download the .asf file from its actual URL first.
-- If no truths are spoken then no lies can hide --
I'm sure many will disagree, but I don't mind when movie directors change small things about a character like Spiderman if it adds to the story. In the article written by the submitter, the guy who made the original movie complains that Spiderman2002 will shoot webs from his own mutated body rather than contraptions made by Parker's own engineering. Personally, I prefer that as it makes him able to sling webs anytime(not just when he's suited up) and it doesn't require as much an explanation. If they made this movie with him inventing a web-slinging device, we'd all be arguing about the feasability this weekend!
Just my opinion.
42
in the new film the webbing is supposed to come from his wrists.
if he's like a spider, isn't the webbing supposed to come out his poop shoot?
so..can he poop from his wrists too?
i won tickets to see spidey on wednesday at the premier in des moines thanks to lazer 103.3!! having seen both movies, i really liked the new one a lot more. spending half of the movie on charecter development gave me a much better feel for who peter parker was, not just how much ass spidey can kick.....being a comic fan-boy, i really like peter parker's persona, and don't forget, spidey kicks ass!
--fetch daddy's blue fright wig, i must be handsome when i release my rage
either way... just saw the movie... still make me dizzy...
Jackie Chan Spider-Man!
"The Crystal Wind is the Storm, and the Storm is Data, and the Data is Life"
At this very moment, Microsoft's legal team is preparing a lawsuit seeking to enjoin further showings of either film because they claim that the hero's facilitiy with spinning silk webs infringes on Microsoft's trademark of ".Net"
Steve Ballmer's supporting affidavit reads, in part: "Web, net. Same thing. Please see $100,000 in cash, attached hereto as Exhibit 1."
Spider-Man 2002 vs. Spider-man 1992?? They can't compare to the sheer coolness of Spider-man 2099. I'd love to see a movie based on THAT series.
"To lead the people, you must walk behind them"
Sure, you can always tell what is CG and what is not, but this movie has been what I have been dreaming of since I was a kid, I'll take a little "fakeness" to the CGI if it remains true to the comic . . . Spiderman doing crazy ass stuff swinging all around the city. You just can't do Spiderman without some insane special effects without being true to the comic, it will just come off looking like the mess that was the TV show.
I haven't seen the movie yet, but from the previews it looks like they have done an amazing job with the portrayal of Spiderman. This movie is going to be HUGE.
On one hand, I side with the purists. But they have to admit that exposure like this swells their ranks. And, in this case, it likely makes the creators boatloads of moneys, which also indirectly benefits them.
Jack Valenti and the MPAA are to technology as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone
The new version has enough light to see the charaters, and enough sound quality to hear them talk.
Dan Poole comes across as having a bad case of sour grapes. Sure, it's great to see some guy hanging it all out there one the edge, risking his life, etc., but it doesn't necessarily make for a better movie. There are other factors involved such as story, acting, etc.
Since Poole makes his comments without having seen the newest version, I tend to disqualify his commentary as having any validity.
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
But hey, I was a fifth grader. I caught every episode.
Miko O'Sullivan
You know, we have to put this stuff in perspective. They're doing movies based upon comic books. The way I see it, there are two options: make something that doesn't make much sense which won't sell as well (like Dick Tracy), or completely alter the mood and how everything works (like TMNT, Incredible Hulk, Batman) to suit the time and place.
Comic books are rather like books: they can be timeless. Movies have a much harder time with that because your imagination can't fill in details that make the characters seem to fit in your present time - things like how they walk, what their clothing would look like if they where real, how they sound, etc.
Have you seen any spidey movies from the seventies? They are...VERY 70's. You almost expect Shaft to bust in and help Spidey out with the bad guys.
One final note: Organic web shooters? Raimi's on crack. Spiderman was Marvel's answer to Batman: a character who used his mind to figure out how to defeat his enemies. Nowhere is there a better reminder of that than in the fact that the webshooters where an invention.
Plus, I could totally see that going awry: Peter gets all hot 'n bothered by MJ, and, completely distracted, he shoots webbing all over the place, random-like. Of course, I've always thought that Wolverine would have similar problems with his lovers, except instead of accidentally getting everything sticky, he'd probably destroy everything. Comics creators and movie directors just don't think much about those kinds of things...
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
For those of you are hardcore non-cgi Spidey fans, there is always the 2 part movie from 1977 starring Nicholas Hammond. Check out this pic of the movie's cover art.
Yeah. Nice to see how far we've come in movies since then ;)
Mr Poole is evidently a die-hard fan of the spiderman comic books. But he must realize that if a commercial movie was made to be 100% faithful to the comic books it would probably fail and only appeal to those few die-hards. Marvel comic books written in the 50's,60's and 70's are all tainted with issues and a view of the world of those years. It was just after the discovery of atomic powers, so half of the super-heroes just needed to have some contact with radiation to get super powers. Now most people know that if they did get in contact with radiation they'd get super-burns or super-cancer, not super-powers.
Today's world preoccupations have changed, and if you want those old stories to have an effect on people you need to adapt them to the present. This is something that Mr Raimi understands but Mr Poole seems oblivious to. X-men would have been a huge flop if they had spandex costumes and just took a plot line straight from the comic books with no adaptation.
So in the end you should just respect the artistical and technical choice of the film makers and try to enjoy the movie. It's not like they re-wrote the holy bible...
Plus, I could totally see that going awry: Peter gets all hot 'n bothered by MJ, and, completely distracted, he shoots webbing all over the place, random-like. Of course, I've always thought that Wolverine would have similar problems with his lovers, except instead of accidentally getting everything sticky, he'd probably destroy everything.
Uh, why would some nerdy geek need the ability to shoot webbing to accidently get everything sticky when getting it on with a chick like Mary Jane?
I suspect that happens to most Slashdotters now...
When Spidey had the alien symbiote (sp?), he didn't need the mechanical web-shooters.
The costume just shot out a little bit of itself and grew back the rest really quickly.
So there is precedent for the organic webshooter.
"stunk", as in "my typing stunk". :-)
Miko O'Sullivan
This being a geek site, we should know better. Spider silk comes out through spinneret spigots, not through the anus.
..but worthy of slash? Hardly. To keep it on topic, I think they did a credible job with the new movie. Haven't seen the old, don't care.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
...I'd have more respect for this guy if he had actually *seen* the new movie before making comments like "It's all CGI, it's got no heart."
There are plenty of things about the new movie to attack (I like his comment about the cake-frosting suit), but making a critical judgement about the overall quality of a movie "based on stills, trailers, and interviews" is just stupid.
Cheers
-b
It seems the movie studio's are more interested in packing more special effects into a movie rather than to trust the story. This is a sad excuse to bastardize a comic legend that would still be a movie chart buster with half the effects! Sometimes staying true to the character is more appealing than blowing it out of proportion with a lot of over done special effects.
The sum of our knowledge today becomes the reference point of our ignorance tomorrow.
The best spider-man was on The Electric Company. Stopping the Yeti from sitting on people's ice cream cones - classic. That is the spidy I remember, not some wanna-be 1992 homegrown.
...do we hate the MPAA this week or not? Or are we taking the whole summer off? Please advise.
I loved Sam Raimi's previous movies, and will most likely go out to see this one this afternoon. Army of Darkness was one hilarious movie, as were the Evil Deads.
I've read some pretty good reviews of this one so far, so count me in.
IMHO, has always been his foes. At least until the dawn of Venom. His arch-ememies (mainly the Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, etc.) are incredibly lame. I mean c'mon, a guy riding a hoverscooter flinging exploding pumkins?! Lame. A guy with big, thick glasses, a Moe haircut, and big metal arms coming out of his sides, that apparently grow indefinately? Lame.
I sure hope that the sequel starts with the introduction of the living, black spidersuit. At least there you'd have a reason for the intense CGI - the suit being very fluid.
Granted Spiderman was revolutionary in that it started to show the human level of young "superhero's" and their angst, the introduction of real foes is what saved the comic from an early death.
There are 01 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and me.
Never happened before, huh?
Anyway, the article doesn't focus on the CG/non-CG aspects of it. It's more of an interview with a guy who made an, apparently, good and popular live action movie ten years ago.
It's not that he wouldn't support a good CG movie, it just that he doesn't think this movie will be all that good. It deviates from the standards set in the comic book. It focuses more on Poole as a purist, and someone who really honors and respects Spider-Man's long and impressive history.
As we've seen, however, this means nothing. Lots of superhero movies and TV shows go against their comic's grain. Superman was a much more serious comic (in the past 10-20 years) than the good-for-a-season Lois and Clark. X-Men didn't stick true to everything in the comic, but it was still a good movie, with memorable lines like "What else would we wear? Yellow spandex?" (Wolverine).
In fact, some of the better movies and series don't succeed. Same goes for comics. I, personally, thought that the Flash TV series was very good. It didn't deal with many very serious issues, but it was a dark and serious show, in many cases darker than the comic.
When you translate something from the little pages to the big screen, you have to expcet things to get changed or cut. It sucks that they do it, but they often don't have the time/resources/etc.. I don't like that they do it either. It doen't mean we can't enjoy the new story though.
Think about Lord of the Rings. Honestly, it was an amazing film (and Oscar Nominee), but a lot was left out from the books. Some of the things in were changed. Like, say, 17 years that instead take, what, a few weeks, months maybe in the movie? It doesn't hurt to hear what someone else thinks of a story.
Before any of you read the story, how many knew that Spidey, in the comic, made the web-shooters, and that they weren't standard with the spiderbite? I'd guess that it was about even. The only reason I knew is because they mentioned it in the old Spider-Man cartoon show.
Anyway, I'm done.
The_Shadows[LTH], out.
and it was good. peter parker couldn't act his way out of a paper bag-- every scene with him and his family or that nipply chick ground the movie to a halt. there he is, crying, looking like he's trying not to laugh. but the story was good, the action was good, the pacing was good, smooth, and deliberate, not rushed, and jameson stole the show with only a couple short scenes. i'm a computer geek, not a comic geek, so I don't know how 'true' it was to the whole thing, blah blah blah, but overall, it was good. now if you'll excuse me, I've gotta go stand in line for ep2.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
This subject was covered in Spider-Man 2099. That Spider-Man had organic web shooters and at one point he remarks, "At least it's not shooting out butt."
Lasers Controlled Games!
Stan Lee, creater of Spider-Man, has already stated, "The film not only does the comic justice, but it's really better than the comic--and I don't say that lightly." If the movie is alright by the Old Man, it's good enough for me.
That said, when I saw the Star Wars special edition, I was amazed that the big lizard that the stormtroopers were riding on looked "real", Jabba the Hutt looked "real", but the stormtroopers looked CGI. I wrote it off at the time to the human brain's ability to detect human-like movement and physics, whereas the movement of a giant lizard and a Hutt were foreign and slipped by. But, IANAP or BS (physicist or brain surgeon)
This is a perfect example of fan fiction, and what lucas is trying to stop (regarding starwars).
He has that contest that was noted on slashdot a day or two ago, where he is only allowing paradies or something like that. And everybody on slashdot was getting bent out of shape over lucas preventing proper fan fiction.
Well the fact of the matter is we don't need his permission to do fan fiction. He can control the contest, but if I want to write a story about starwars characters, and taking place in the starwars universe, nobody can stop me. It's called a "derivative" work.
Actually selling it gets on shady ground legally, but I am pretty sure it isn't illegal in all cases.
Slashdot has a enough jon katz bozo's walking around... it'd be nice if we had some actual lawyers wandering around slashdot--although I suppose their sigs would be some horribly long disclaimer.
--Scott
I'd rather have dead and injured stuntmen because my entertainment is that damn important.
.smell my feet.
I think you guys are going to be pleasantly surprised. The CGI is about the only fault I could find with the movie. It explores morals in a much more interesting way than any comic book movie I can remember, except perhaps Batman.
I really liked it. I may not be a die-hard Spidey fan, but I thought the film was intelligent and well done.
My $.02.
To everyone complaining about the organic web shooters or other devotions from the original comic book I ask you this.
Would you really want to see a scene where the green goblin is sitting in his house painting grenades to look like pumpkins?
Comics are a very different medium then film and any film that sticks to the original will never be an enjoyable movie.
When punk rock is outlawed, only outlaws will have punk rock.
I dunno, a mad scientist (intelligence +14) with four arms (attacks +4), each of which has a reach three times longer than your own arms (range +3) and the strength of ten men (str +16) doesn't seem like a pushover to me. Give him a Kevlar body suit and he could be a major menace to the cops.
What about the Sandman? He was the T-1000 before James Cameron dreamed up the T-1000.
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
The original article quotes Poole as saying that the new movie is "[...]all CGI. It's got no heart."
I had no idea Peter Parker was a web developer. Well look here, Poole, we web builders do have hearts. At least our bodies don't look like rubber.
Oh, that's CG...
blog
I don't care WTF kind of CGI you've loaded on - sheeeee-it I don't care if it's a three dimensional hologram that personally tosses the popcorn in my mouth in the movie house. It's a fucking chick flick/date movie. And Toby??? Hey man either get ON or OFF drugs, whatever the fuck it is you need.
Giving him organic webshooters emphasises the "Spider" over the "Man". Peter Parker is supposed to be a genius, _before_ he got his powers. So, if it weren't for his intellect in the first place, he would have no webbing, losing much of what is Spider-Man in the first place.
In Raimi's version, any schmuck could have been bitten by the spider, gotten built-in webs, and be Spider-Man. Raimi lost sight of what made Peter Parker special.
A sentence you'll never see on an Internet discussion board: "You know what? You're right."
Granted, I'm a fan of comic books and comic book movies. This movie is better than X-men or any of the recent Batman movies. It could be the best superhero movie to date. I'm wondering if some of the commercials don't have the final CG renderings from the movie. I also had the feeling from the commercials that some of the CG was lifeless. I didn't have that feeling in the movie. Either they improved the CG before the movie's release, or the movie is good enough for me to forget about the CG. You will want to see this movie this weekend. It will have a huge opening. Unfortunately (for Spiderman, not us) there are many HUGE movies lined up this summer and this may get pushed back when Star Wars comes out. Make no mistake about it. This movie is stellar. I will own it DVD.
Was probably the best line in any theme song ever. And the stationary "animated" dance scenes where nobody is moving but the camera pans across... Brilliant!
There was another great Spiderman on the Electric Company (PBS late-seventies kids show) that was speechless except for "Waaa-WAAAoooh".
Way back when the Hulk was on prime-time TV (Bill Bixby), Captain America was a failing live action saturday afternoon sitcom, and we all wondered who the hell The Greatest American Hero was supposed to be.
Of course, none of these featured Kirstun Dunst's pert nipples.
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
Rotten Tomato has Spiderman cleaning up good reviews.
"haven't seen it but it sux."
Well, last night I loaded up the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles NES game just to see how it played. I still have the cart, but don't have an NES, and had never been able to beat Shredder. For all the cheesy gfx/sfx, it was a great game, and just goes to show that in games as in movies, plot/gameplay matter, and true classics don't rely on splashy CGI to be memorable--see Zelda for NES/SNES, Ninja Gaiden, Blaster Master, etc. as well as movies such as Blade Runner, Alien & the original SW Trilogy.
Even modern story-driven PSX games like Metal Gear Solid, or the lesser known but even more excellent Vagrant Story have aged much more gracefully than their Hollywood film contemporaries.
There are a gazillion Star Wars fan fiction films going around, and they haven't been shut down by Lucasfilm. Just go the theforce.net for some of them.
I think Lucas only had a problem with the so called "Phantom Edit" and I can understand why he wouldn't like people editing his film in such a manner.
- sigs are for wimps.
You know if Raimi wanted to be more relistic to a genetic change or mutation, then he should have had Spider-man spin web's just like a real spider... out his ASS!!!!!
Wise men speak because they have something to say, Fools because they have to say something!!!!
...on the Star Wars thing. I watched The Empire Strikes Back on TV the other night, and I have to admit that a lot of the effects used there looked, well, pretty bad. Of course, that's easy to say now that we have today's standards as a frame of reference.
The cool thing is that you can watch a movie like that, and even though some things may look cheesy or fake now, you can still appreciate it for what it is and enjoy it just as much as you ever did.
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
funny, I thought the CGI was amazing...besides, it is ILM ... and they have probably the best people in the industry when it comes to that kind of thing.
-Mark
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain.
why do people keep talking about Perl in the movies? I knew it could do everything, but still...
;)
Ok guys, I'm gonna go out on a limb here. But first, I need you to set aside your preconceptions.
Work with me here, because I'm suggesting that maybe Peter Parker doesn't have to caucasian. I myself am, and the comic book (and all the movies) have portrayed him as such. But the truth is, there is only one man capable of doing what Spiderman is capable of.
Jackie Chan.
Yes, that's right, Jackie Chan. So his accent is a little strong. Certainly they could afford some decent voice coaching. But other than that, what is wrong with him? That's right, nothing.
What's right with him? A man who can run up walls, without CG effects. His reaction speed is simply incredible. Gymnastics. And he's not even a bad actor, he has that whole comedic side to him. Hell, I wouldn't be shocked, if during the credits they'd show him swinging from 100 story buildings and having bloopers.
You could practically do away with the whole special effects budget.
So tell me, what, other than prejudice and Hollywood's predisposition to heap stinky garbage on us, kept this from happening?
THe VFX for Spider-Man are being provided by Imageworks. The supervisor is John Dykstra who was the original Star Wars Supervisor.
Thanks for the link! That's a great site.
Miko O'Sullivan
Looking at the 1992 film, I can't help but notice how dumb, ugly, poorly acted and generally embarrassing it is. Faithful representation on $500? Yeah, and for this alone I applaud him. But I don't want to see a cheap faithful representation. Because back when the original script was written, comics had horrid color, no real depth and hackneyed stories. Much as I hate to say it, true believers, I vastly prefer the digitally coloured, dolled up Bendis/Bagley Ultimate Spiderman series that Marvel introduced back in 2000 to the silver age original. Just as I preferred the 1988 "Spiderman" series as drawn by the megalomaniacal Todd McFarlane to its precursors. I want to see "Ultimate Spiderman" on the screen, not "Peter Parker, My Dad's College Roommate." I want to see him face the pressures of modern life, not of stylzed 1950s existance.
Which is why U.S. (the comic) is so great. Marvel's "Ultimates" series is a new "world" that reorigins some of their most popular characters --so that modern fans, like my twelve year old brother, don't have to buy and read through thousands of issues of backstory to get the low down on the characters and their relationships. They've made minor changes to the original stories as well as changed the pacing to more of a serialized "Dawson's Creek" soap opera with action and plot development. Updates such as making Peter Parker the DailyBugle.com's webmaster (and not a teenage photgrapher, which is silly) or making Thor a eco-warrior hippy are minor and do nothing to destroy the mood of characters. This is exactly what comics needs to draw in new readers -- a way to relate them to people of today, not a reminder of the silver age of rehashing pulp novels by dressing middleaged guys in spandex, giving them bad parted haircuts and calling them "teen-agers".
The Spider-man movie is a natural extension of this idea -- bring readers to the comics that are most like the film, and from there move them into the "harder stuff." Hey, it worked for me -- Tim Burton's Batman sold me hard on Frank Miller's Dark Knight stuff and I've had a sub ever since.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
It's called progress get over it. This feels like someone saying that the old Commodore 64 games were better than PS2 games. Yeah I liked it better when I had 8 megs of RAM too... GEE!!!!
A couple thoughts from a longtime, die-hard Spider-man fan, after seeing the midnight showing last night...
- The organic web shooters are not a distraction at all. Granted, I knew about this "departure from canon" in advance, so I didn't have to reconcile it all when it was first revealed in the movie, allowing me to just soak in the new interpretation. And it didn't take any getting used to at all, it felt right.
- I "like" the CGI. I "like" that it doesn't look complete realistic. I'm of the school of thought that comic books don't translate well to live-action and should be left to animation to preserve the high-energy dynamics and fantasy. The best parts of the movie are watching him jump and swing around the city. It just looks fun!
- I didn't like the Mary Jane movie character. She was an over-simplified, movie cliche, unbelievable love interest. How exactly does she transition from barely knowing Peter to being madly in love with him? You won't know by watching the movie. You'll just have to accept that a lot happens between them that you never see in the film. That the 1 or 2 "nice-guy" things Peter does are supposed to represent the basis of a deep, caring relationship.
- It was too violent. Sure, its quite tame compared to the majority of movies out there now, but even the small amount of really brutal fighting and blood is unnessary. I was really hoping to be able to take my 6 year old nephew to this movie (I'm brainwashing him into being a Spider-man freak like his uncle). But the final battle between Spidey and the Green Goblin is just too much for a young viewer to enjoy, which is a shame. Of course it needs "some" violence, Spidey has to beat up the bad guys. And he does, he beats up plenty of criminals in this movie, and in a tastefully tame way, without resorting to blood and guts. I wish they could have stuck with that style throughout, which I believe would have allowed a PG rating.
- The Green Goblin costume does look a little awkward at first, but I got used to it, and it began to feel right.
- The "Hulk" teaser played before the movie is such a TEASE!!! I got really excited when I figured out what it was (its not immediately obvious), only to have it cut away right at the payoff moment! AAAHGH!
- Spider-man is a fun movie. It has its flaws, but its much closer in quality to "X-Men" than the bombs that Marvel has put out in the past. I'd go see it again, but I'm not in a hurry to do so, if that makes any sense. Spidey fans who enjoy the character, and don't get hung up on some strict interpretation (apparently there are fans out there that can't even handle the Ultimate Spider-man line because of its departures... one of the best comics in years!!), will enjoy this movie.
Then why should we?
Excelsior!
"For a successful technology, honesty must take precedence over public relations for nature cannot be fooled." -Feynman
Spider-man, the Animated Series.
PS - If you really want to be True Believers, then the plot has to move slowly.
At that glacier rate, the movie would take,.... um.... about 27 years.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
Ok, first off, I see your point: Jackie Chan could certainly kick ass as Spider-Man (though voice coaching would be required for it to make a mainstream version, the success of the Rush Hour films not withstanding).
But for the love of God, don't you think the guy deserves a break? I mean, he's not as young as he used to be you know. I remember an interview with him a few years ago where he was saying that he really didn't want to keep doing all the stunts, but since that's what his career was built on he really couldn't stop.
Behold the Power of Cheese!
The web stuff was a goo invented by Parket. In one comic, he even tries to solve his perennial money problems by selling the formula to a chemical company for glue. Problem is, the stuff dissolves after a few minutes, so it has no commercial value, and it would take months for Peter to rework the formula to be more persistent. Poor Peter Parker! The story of his life! :)
Serving your airship needs since 1995.
the transport provided is mms:// but you can just use http://. The downloaded file is a plain old .asf file that mplayer can
handle.
I remember seeing the screenshots of the pixelated demons, then reading the reviews written by blind people raving about how it looked indistinguishable from reality and going "huh?". I always wanted to see their version of the game. It may have been state of the art at the time, but it was plainly clear that the art was pretty blocky. Even todays games, I can tell it's just that, a game, and not some television replay, despite the reviewers claiming otherwise.
Charlies Angels versus The Matrix is merely a side effect of the both films having the same martial arts trainers and choreographers. It's more of a regional style than "just a Matrix thing".
Although, anyone looking for realism in Charlie's Angels needs to seriously get a grip.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Don't forget Larry Niven's classic essay of Superman's sex life.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Wait until you see it. I got my first Spidey comic when I was about 6 (27 years ago), and have been a fan my whole life. Going into the movie, I was sure there was no way it could live up to my hopes/expectations. I was bummed about the whole organic webshooters versus mechanical.
I watched the movie this afternoon. I had some little nits to pick here and there, but overall as a whole, the movie was way better than I expected.
They did so many things right. The bit with "the burglar that changed his life" was done perfectly, and that's what I most expected them to do poorly. That whole section of the movie, as he was figuring out who he was and what he could do, was very well done. There were some scenes you could tell were computer-generated, but the for the most part, the excitement of the movie made it easier to tolerate. And the movie would have been worse without those scenes, or if they had tried to do them physically with stuntmen.
The main characterization I felt was missing was that it would have been nice to have seen more background of the relation between Spidey and his Uncle Ben. Although I guess even in the original comics, we never really got that (although we heard about it plenty over the years).
Anyway, I loved it. I can't wait for the DVD. I'll probably bring my dad to watch it this weekend, since he used to be a bit of a Spidey fan too.
I think Jim Henson's Creature Shop is an amazing outfit. They combine CG, animatronics and traditional (as it is) puppetry, and it usually ends up in a show or movie with actual plots.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
Okay. I am not a die hard comic book reader. Infact the closest comic book I had to spiderman was spiderham. I can say this. I don't give a damn if they are organic webshooters or ropes strategically tied to buildings. The movie looks damn good and I am gonna go see it tomorrow. If you mean to tell me that the movie has to exactly follow the comics then don't go see the movie. If you are gonna complain about the stupidest little details then don't bother seeing the movie. I don't care if spiderman could make himself slippery or not. It is so minor to the over all comic it is pathetic. I seriously doubt Stan Lee, then man, dedicated a whole comic to explaining the whole slippery effect. He doesn't seem that cheesy. Besides, I read he liked it. He wrote the fucking comic so if he likes it then why shouldn't you? It was his idea along with a few others I am sure. It is his story you read so get over it. Please people... it is just a movie. A mere form of entertainment which will be rentable in 6 months.
As for Poole. He is a whiner. He seems upset that he never made it as an actor and the fact that 10 years after his movie that he worked so hard on they made another and he didn't get a part upset him. It happens... I mean, maybe he is just a shitty actor. I don't know. I am gonna go view the GGLS after I am done. He just needs to get over it. Hollywood does this and makes good money off it. Fuck him.
I still think Edward Norton and Julianne Moore would have made a better Peter Parker and Mary Jane. That or John Cusak. After all he has been doing Kickboxing since he did the film "Say Anything."
~Admrlnxn
"I got your mom in my trunk"
This movie will suck, as will Episode II. But I'll see it if only for the first half which looks more interesting, when he is learning about his skills. But I think this year as a whole has worse movies overall than recent years. I'd take an animated version of Spiderman any day though, for example the Batman cartoon series vs. the crappy Batman movies. Or this Scooby Doo movie coming out, case closed.
Not necessarily will no movie ever be made like that again. Just look at any episode of Farscape to see that most of the time they use real honest-to-goodness "puppets" (if that's still a politically correct term) in lieu of CG. Granted, the puppetry can get a bit cheesy, but it's good work fitting of being made by the company Jim Henson created. And yes, it's not a movie but it still shows that CG isn't taking over completely.
On the other hand, I'm still a huge fan of a good CG scene now and then, though. In order to save posts, shame on whoever posted and commented on entirely CG movies and didn't mention Final Fantasy. If we all can try not to slam it for a second, I still think it was a spectacular use of the software available and all in all did come very close in places to looking real.
- Relativistic? That's barely Newtonian!
Spoonnn. enough about CGI
TIME is the Aether...