MJ may not have had the comic attitude, but I think she had the characterization in the first movie, someone who lives a life of popularity to hide her pain of her troubled homelife. Whether you like her, doesn't mean that her characterization isn't comic accurate? MJ, even though they're having relationship troubles and she's angry at him, comes to him to try and talk to him about how he's found out about who killed Ben and doesn't want him to do something he'll regret and she knows he'll something like that and tells him that. It's not the comic scene, but Gwen doesn't die in these movies and that scene doesn't have a direct comparison.
I'd say in all Raimi movies, MJ has character arcs. In the first movie, it's about her looking for the wrong kind of love, only to be willing to accept the love of someone who she thinks loves her with seeing her as she is at the end of the movie. While I think the 2nd movie, she doesn't have a strong character arc, in 3 I think she goes through the dealing with her insecurities and issues of her troubled homelife.
We saw about one scene of MJ shaking off her parents fighting and hopping in the car. Aside from that, she was pretty much an open book. Right in the beginning of the film we have a whole scene of MJ being very open with Peter about her home troubles, despite us having very little build up to understand why she would open up to him or why they have a connection. That’s not very MJ. Mary Jane was guarded, it took Peter years for her to start opening up about that stuff.
In SM2, she’s openly mopey about Pete, something comic MJ never had the patience for. Not to mention the whole rough arc of her being really unfair to Jameson, despite him seeming like a pretty good dude.
She had none of the personality that made Mary Jane who she was in the comics. She might as well have been called someone completely different, because she had nearly nothing in common with the main personality traits that defined Mary Jane Watson in the comics.
She has 2 scenes like that. That and the one after the Peter talk. I think personality traits aren't who the character is, and those things, like being fun or guarded. Also, Peter heard her parents arguing and she knew it. For all intents and purposes we don't see her talk to Peter about her dad until SM 2. What she more talks to Peter about in that scene is what she wants to do with her life.
I think that's like saying as long as Batman is serious and brooding it's Batman, even if he doesn't have money and his parents weren't killed. I think it's the opposite. I think some traits can be interchangeable, while without the backstory, it's like a different character with the name. I think that defines the character.
By that line of thinking, Tom Holland Spider-Man isn't a good adaption, because we don't see him deal with the weight of Uncle Ben's death or even hear his name.I wouldn't argue it's a perfect adaption. But I think it's more comic accurate and more strongly written than a lot of HC's characters.
I wasn’t saying she wasn’t comic accurate because she didn’t experience the same circumstances that comic MJ did, I said she wasn’t comic accurate because she never once acted the way comic MJ does.
Mary Jane is someone who hides her issues behind a confident, cocky, take no crap demeanor. She’s also fiercely loyal to her close friends, and is naturally guarded and slow to truly let someone “in.” That’s the core of her character, that’s what’s made comic MJ who she was.
We got none of that. We got a Mary Jane who moped over Harry, who moped over Peter, who inexplicably felt more connection to a masked vigilante than the man she was engaged to, who left a good dude at the altar. We never saw her connect to Peter or why they were attracted to one another, we saw none of her independent nature.
She was MJ in name only. She wasn’t just different, she was a pale imitation of a truly great comic character.