The Amazing Spider-Man Promises

They should have just made Captain Stacy tell Peter to promise he would take care for her.

 

Captain Stacy asking Peter to promise that he'd keep gwen out of it is sort of foreshadowing the Fact that peter will break the promise and it will lead to the Death Of Gwen Stacy. I look at it more as a learning experience for peter honestly.

 

very good post. and I totally agree.

TASM Peter doesn't seem to have a sense of honor. and it seems to be a pattern, not just with the promise at the end.

after all, this Peter sneaks into Oscorp under false pretense (even if that was not his original intent) by taking another kid's id badge ( and getting that kid thrown out.......for laughs ). He disobeys Gwen's explicit request to not wander off ( she doesn't want to get fired ). He then sneaks into the spider lab room, which is trespassing, and disrupts the spiders by touching the webs ( not respecting other people's property ).

so, TASM Peter seems to have a pattern of basically following his own interests, even if it means disobeying a request or breaking rules.

 

A sense of honor doesn't mean much characterwise if it's easy to keep.

The kid becomes a vigilante with a secret identity, who engages in violence to protect others. Gray areas are part of the territory, and hasn't Peter always had them?

 

yeah.....but making a promise to a dying man......then casually hinting that you're going to break it not very long after.......that's pushing it......imo.

 

We will just have to wait to find out.

 

Peter's going to wish he kept that promise

 

I like that he wasn't a goody two shoes because they aren't interesting. He's a kid, learning everything the hard way.

 

Just brought this up in another thread, but:

In Amazing Spider-Man #121, Peter still isn't the incredibly responsible hero everyone seems to think he should be. When he catches Gwen, he immediately begins patting himself on the back.

It's Peter's cockiness that gets Gwen killed, and that's what he's showing by breaking his promise to Captain Stacy. He thinks that now that he has these powers, he's strong enough to protect Gwen. He's dead wrong, and he'll pay dearly for his arrogance.

 

I agree with those who say that was deliberately in there to set up the consequences of breaking that promise. Peter still has some learning and growing up to do, after all.

 

Yup pretty much agree it's there only so he can (possibly) regret breaking it in a sequel. I guess just to add a whole new layer of guilt for Peter to deal with.

 

These posts. Y'all should read them

 

"Yeah, but those are the best ones." - Best line of the entire movie. IMO. It's that, "Awwww yeaaaaa" moment of the movie for anyone familiar with the comics. He can't stay away from Gwen, and that's what causes her inevitable death. If done correctly, this will be an emotional sequel.

 

I was actually going to post something like this this morning as I listened to Now Playing's take on this movie while doing chores. They raise a really interesting question:

Does Peter learn about responsibility or is he just as selfish by the end?

His Uncle Ben dies and instead of feeling guilty over it, he seeks vengeance. Instead of doting on Aunt May and protecting her, he keeps running off and abandoning her while simply shrugging off her pleas of what he is doing or why he isn't there. Sure, Captain Stacy shames Peter into being altruistic and he realizes he can do more than be a vigilante after the dinner and bridge scenes. But does he? Once again he is forced to make a promise by a father figure, Stacy, to stay away from his daughter because "people will get hurt." Peter listens for one day (a terrible day to do it too). But then the next he's back in school and says essentially, 'Screw it,' and ignores his promise of staying away from Gwen....which we all know seals her fate to be killed by the Green Goblin in one of the inevitable sequels.

Thus, Peter is kind of a selfish dick in this movie....At least, that's what Jakob and Stuart took away ASM.

I think after Gwen dies, if you look at this Peter over the course of two movies, it may not look the best.

 

I see both sides of this argument. But to counter this argument, if it's just about him learning Captain Stacy's lesson the hard way (i.e., by doing this you're going to endanger your loved ones into getting hurt), how will it look when he starts dating MJ after Gwen dies? In the comics, the takeaway of Gwen's death wasn't spelled out so ominously as a foregone conclusion like what Stacy said. It was a risk, one that MJ was willing to take as she knew Peter was Spidey (and the only other major girlfriend after Gwen was fellow crimefighter, risk-taker Black Cat).

In this film's series, we see him ignore Uncle Ben's lessons and Ben dies. We see him then still ignore Ben's lessons after Ben dies and go for vengeance until Captain Stacy sets him straight. He then is given an emphatic warning of the future by Stacy and promises to keep Gwen out of it, and then five minutes later in the movie breaks that promise with a smile. If Gwen inevitably dies as a result in the sequel, will Peter learn that lesson if he willingly puts Mary Jane in the exact same danger that killed Gwen after Captain Stacy warned him this is exactly what's going to happen?

I'm not attacking this film, I'm just saying they have inadvertently set the stage for Peter to look really selfish in later movies. I could see this nagging inclusion playing over time like Dunst's MJ: a little off track in the first movie from the comic counterpart and she just started straying further and further as the series went along.

Just speculating.

 

You gotta remember he's still a teenager, though. And he's been Spider-Man for, what, a week? Two? Just because this was the "origin" movie doesn't mean he's done growing as a character.

 

OMG! Finally someone understands!

 

In most Spidey incarnations he at least has the "with great power" thing down by the time Uncle Ben dies.

Even so, my point is if in this film series Stacy is basically saying, "Anyone who gets close to you will die, don't let it be my daughter," and he ignores that and...she dies....what does that say about Peter if he starts dating MJ after that in which Stacy's words would still imply to her?

I really think they should have just had Stacy say, "Make sure Gwen is safe" and leave it ambiguous. When you create this sort of dynamic that we know Peter is going to break not just with Gwen, but again after Gwen dies, it does not make Peter look great.

 

Peter breaking his promise shows that he hasn't learned yet. That is fine. It is obvious that he didn't grow up into the hero by the end of this movie and that they are going to do that over two or even three movies as opposed to SM1. That's all fine.

What I don't get is Gwen being so excited that Peter is going to break that promise after dating the guy for a week or two. How stupid is she and what a terrible daughter...

 

I like the idea that not respecting that promise leads to Gwen's death. Just like how after Ben's death he goes on a streak of beating criminals for revenge. It all ties into being, wait for it, responsible.

 

Plus it IS possible to be good/heroic/etc. and still have issues of selfishness. It's called being human and being subject to human weaknesses(in this case the need for companionship). That's why even though Gwen dies and it's Peter's fault(partly at least) he will still eventually get back into the same thing with MJ. It doesn't mean he's a jerk for doing it. Foolish, sure. But that's the lot of a human being.

 

Just because he doesn't learn responsibility over night doesn't mean the movie was bad or poorly written, I prefer it being like this. You see him develop as a person as well as a superhero

 

Exactly, character doesnt build in a week folks... I'ld like to see that the entire trilogy is him learning responsibility culminating perhaps in Gwen's death