I am so easy. Cheap, even.

I just saw the trailer for Spiderman 3 and, to quote an old (and kinda offensive) saying, my lips say "no," but my eyes say "yes!"

My not so inner geek is outraged.

Tobey Maguire's somewhat wooden and angsty performance aside, I've enjoyed the Spiderman movies. I wasn't wild about the organic webshooters, and I raised a geeky eyebrow over the reimagining of the girlfriend tossed from the bridge sequence, but in the face of Sam Raimi's obvious love and respect for the material, I was willing to let those things go. But this? This is an outrage not to be borne.

The Sandman did it??? Are you kidding me? Are they seriously going to throw away over 40 years of canon just because the sequel well had run dry, but they wanted to milk that cash cow one more time?

One of the driving forces behind Spiderman's actions as a superhero is the responsibility he bears for Uncle Ben's death. Although he did not fire the shot that killed him, the fact is, had Peter Parker done the right thing, his uncle never would have died that way. It's this tragedy that forms the core of Spiderman's being and informs every decision he makes. To absolve him of all responsibility simply guts a character who has already been been weakened by being spared the trauma of his other defining moment--his failure to save Gwen Stacy from that fall off of the bridge. Having already taken away one of the keys to his psyche, the decision to take away the other seems cheap at best.

And for what reason? So that they can turn the very cool alien symbiont costume costume into some lame metaphor for revenge? (I was going to rant here about The Secret Wars and how Spidey really got that black suit, but I think I've geeked out enough.)

The problem is, that costume does look awfully cool. And I was just as wowed as anyone by the webslinging sequences. I was holding firm however, until the scene of Spidey in his classic pose--hanging upside down on a thread of webbing. At that moment, my geeky heart sang.

So, much though I'm repelled by the movie, I'm also beguiled. I know that however much I rail against this movie, no matter how much I complain that this is not really Spiderman, come May I will be begging my mom to babysit and eagerly lining up to pay way too much for a ticket to this travesty and the giant bucket of popcorn in which to drown my sorrows.

I feel so dirty (and yet all atwitter with anticipation).

Comments

Wow, i totally agree w/ everything you said! i've been a comic book geek for life, all b/c my big brother was so i had to in order to be "cool" in his eyes:) i'm not too happy w/ the storyline deviations, but i'll probably still go. my bro, on the other hand, refuses to. much like i refused to see the third x-men movie in theaters. so disappointing those were. but we'll save that rant for elsewhere...

Hi! So awesome to find another True Believer!

I coped with the first 2 X-Men movies by chanting a mantra of "Alternate Universe," but I didn't see the third one either.

I did see Fantastic Four, and, while it wasn't brilliant, I didn't think they raped the source material. And I gotta confess, after seeing a preview with the Silver Surfer? I am so totally renting that.

I'm 100% in agreement with you on this one. I'm cool with reimaginings and taking new angles on things, but a change of this magnitude is just crap. It ranks up there with the decision to change Star Wars IV to portray Han shooting back in self-defense. Han shot first!

I agree with what you've said about the movies. While I do find them enjoyable, I can't help feeling a tad bit "cheated" by the consolidation of Mary Jane & Gwen Stacy in the first movie. I think that the original tale from the comics with the Green Goblin killing Gwen would have been PERFECT.

And I wholeheartedly agree with you about Sandman being the "real killer." That's just...well, it's more than sacrilige. It's just not right. That modification changes the WHOLE ESSENCE of Spider-Man.

One of the things I like very much about the movies is that then do a good job of being movies about Peter Parker (who just happens to be Spider-Man). That's why I like the comics so much. They are (or at least used to) be mostly about the person underneath the mask.