The Amazing Spider-Man The Lizard - How does he compare with Spidey's other onscreen adversaries?

[Baneis8feettall]

There are movies like "Fly" which handled similar situation much better. I hoped they'll focus on his being family man,mentor to Parker,ambitious for helping others like him and missing his arm. It was more like he was there for being a link between Peter's father and Osborn and just become Lizard.

As Lizard, he wasn't scary enough. There was no tention during his scenes. Other than that i wish they had better looking Lizard. It was little bit too CGI looking. Dinosaurs in Jurassic Park looking more real almost 20 years ago.

 

[WarriorDreamer]

I somewhat think that The Lizard had to be a certain way in order for him to be the 'first villain' if you get what I mean.

I think they can do crazier or more complex or interesting thing things with later villains but I always think the first villains in film or TV is normally the bog-standard, moustash twirling full blooded- evil type character. It doesn't matter how 'complex' the villain may be or how much they 'try' to make him, in the first film of a series or the first episode of a season your first villain must be a standard bad guy, for the hero to be established at the start.

I always think that had Spider-Man 4 had been made and Doc Conners became the Lizard we may have seen him be more sympathetic or complex, granted they had another 'evil thug' type villain as well.

I think the Lizard was definitely formidable and I ended up liking him more than I thought I would. I thought I would hate the fact he has no snout and doesn't look like traditional Lizard but then I thought that perhaps people wouldn't take him seriously as the sole villain if he looked like that.

 

[Episode29]

Lizard sinks the film. A one-note adversary that doesn't belong in the film's quasi-realistic universe.

1) Dr. Octopus
2) Green Goblin
3) Sandman
4) New Goblin
5) Venom
6) Lizard

 

[DACrowe]

Visually Venom and especially Sandman were more dynamic in SM3 than what Webb did with Lizard. However, the Lizard was a larger threat and more menacing than SAndman or Venom. He felt more like a threat. I think it's just the screenplay didn't give the character enough to do and his action scenes (besides the short but sweet sequence in the high school) were not amazing. Still, I think he stayed with me after it ended more than sad sack Sandman and *****ey doppleganger Venom. Granted, they looked cooler on screen in that movie.

 

[terry78]

With Lizard it kind of felt like Spidey fighting Hulk in a sense, only on a slightly smaller scale.

 

[Scarilian]

Basically felt like mind of Doc Ock put into the body of a dinosaur.

The Lizard didnt look right to me, the CGI was semi-fine with me however it just didnt feel threatening enough. The scene with the Swat lizards would have made his threat more real but i wasnt feeling it when they were`nt fully transformed. The Death of Ratha should have also been shown as the Lizard`s motivation and lack of finishing off the Ratha chase bugged me.

 

[Moony_Girl13]

Wow really? Now I appreciate the video game even more just for that. I have a feeling that in one of the deleted scenes on the DVD/Blu-Ray, we will either get a mention of his family or just a quick shot of them. Either way, they were made insignificant since the Lizard didn't care to go after them or even think of them.

I'm hoping for at least the deleted scene the kid who was supposed to play Billy mentioned in an interview with Martha and Billy visiting Curt in the mental institution at least. Would have been good closure for the character if none of the future films so much as touch on Connors again (though given how they tied him to Peter's father and past, idk), and I'm guessing it was cut out partly because it'd be out of left field if the family was gone entirely from the film short of the wedding ring and some blurry family photographs in the background and partly because they went with the mid-credits scene that we got.

Also, now that I've seen the film for a second time, what gets to me about this is that fathers and father figures, and abandonment in some way or another by those figures, is one of the film's major themes. I know some people have complained that the Lizard felt kind of tacked on as a villain in the second half and didn't tie in well with everything else, and I can't help thinking how things could be a bit more cohesive thematically if, say, Peter was also partially motivated to save Connors because he could empathise with Billy being in a similar situation he was of losing a father -- to shady Oscorp business again, no less. Or if we tie Martha in -- Peter's just seen Aunt May lose her husband, so he could hardly stand to let that happen to someone else. But instead, the extra father-son story we get in the film is the construction worker and his kid?

idk I know I shouldn't really bring this up when we're talking about two completely different creative teams here, but it kind of saddens me that in the original trilogy, they threw in a wife for Doc Ock and both a wife and Littlest Cancer Patient daughter in for Sandman to make them more sympathetic -- and then when we finally get the Lizard, they get rid of his family in a way that makes him less so, even though it's his thing in the comics

 

[Schlosser85]

I thought visually he was cool and I liked the fight scenes, but his "master plan" was ridiculous (turn everyone into lizard men?) and personality-wise he was too much like Doc Ock.

I'd put him ahead of SM3's mangled version of Venom/Carnage but behind everyone else.

 

[TheGuy]

1. Doc Ock
2. GG
3. Lizard
4-6. NG, Sandman, Venom

The Lizard could have topped GG had his family been shown. That would have made for a more tragic event.

 

[TheWallCrawler]

I don't know why, but I really like this concept

 

[PSYLENTGuardian]

With that concept, it feels like the face is out there a little too much.

Concept designs always seem to frighten me more so than what's on-screen. Maybe that's just CGI doing magic tricks.

 

[Slushy]

As Lizard, he wasn't scary enough. There was no tention during his scenes. Other than that i wish they had better looking Lizard.

Agreed. Unfortunately, even if Raimi had stuck around, we would've probably still gotten Ditko's design.

 

[Spider-Fan]

I would rank them as such:

Doc Ock
Green Goblin
New Goblin
Lizard
Sandman
Venom

Hated his overall design, his plan was hard to take seriously in the confines of the movie, and they didn't make me feel sympathy for him, nor really care about his struggle before he becomes the Lizard. It just kind of happens, and then he is evil.

 

[Galactus123]

The Lizard was too big and I didn't like his voice. It didn't sound like reptilian at all. He felt like just some cgi monster. He would be better if he was smaller and would wear lab coat more.

I wanted something like this

But I got this

 

[TheWallCrawler]

we got a broken picture? well that doesn't look like a lizard at all!

 

[AF3619]

they wanted the actor to talk and blah, but yeah it could´ve work just as a rage beast and Doc Connors trap inside of him, actually they could´ve done like the 90´s animated series but i actually didn´t mind him , actually when he takes the camera of Peter in the movie for one sec it looked just abomination from TIH

 

[ALP]

Lizard started out good enough but soon fizzled into the same 'gas the city' plot that we've already seen for the past 25 years in comic book movies. But at the same time, he was way better than the villains in Spider-Man 3.

Doc Ock remains the best. Dafoe was brilliant but sometimes he didn't have the best material to work with. I'll put Lizzy behind those two.

 

[conan69]

As much as people complained about the Goblin we got onscreen, I think Lizard was worse.

 

[roach]

As much as people complained about the Goblin we got onscreen, I think Lizard was worse.

my only complaint with Goblin is the costume....other than that I thought Dafoe did an awesome job...the mirror scene is beyond awesome

 

[Drummerdude7]

my only complaint with Goblin is the costume....other than that I thought Dafoe did an awesome job...the mirror scene is beyond awesome

 

[The Guard]

I never really even had an issue with the costume.

I mean, this is his original look:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/66/Green_goblin2.jpg/250px-Green_goblin2.jpg

They made the suit an extension of his glidertech, which made sense to me. The helmet is great, and the basic image is there. The POWER RANGERS comparisons always felt silly to me. The suit is far more intricate than the POWER RANGERS suits ever were.

 

[Drummerdude7]

I never really even had an issue with the costume.

I mean, this is his original look:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/66/Green_goblin2.jpg/250px-Green_goblin2.jpg

They made the suit an extension of his glidertech, which made sense to me. The helmet is great, and the basic image is there. The POWER RANGERS comparisons always felt silly to me. The suit is far more intricate than the POWER RANGERS suits ever were.

Honestly, for me, I got the power rangers vibe from how he moved moreso than how he looked. There were a couple fight scenes where his punching/kicking/reactions looked like a power rangers fight scene. I did like the helmet, but I always was disappointed that they put an expressive face like Dafoe's behind a mask....which is why the mirror scene is still so awesome to me....the way it shifts between Goblin and Norman is just great acting.

 

[conan69]

Yea guys I was talking about the suit, not Dafoes portrayal.

Even if they were going for something like the Lizards original design, I think they missed.

Bodywise they seemed to be going for the more modern Raptor lizard, while going for the old style head/face. IMHO he just isnt "Lizard" enough.

 

[The Slang]

I'm not very happy with how the Lizard turned out. Why was Connor's lizard form a body builder? Too muscular, and just too big in general to the point that it looks silly. Those gigantic hands busting through the windows of the car in the bridge scene look terrible.
The face and the skin/scale detail are actually good, just not good enough to have him standing fully in frame, naked in brightly lit areas. The labcoat could've done so much to conceal the cgi and add to the complexity of his appearance.

Why didn't this happen?:

Aside from his appearance, I don't like how the Connors/Lizard relationship was handled. Originally Connors turned himself into a Lizard by mistake and remained that way until he was cured by Spider-man, at which point he returns to his 'good' human persona.
By making Connors repeatedly and intentionally turn himself into the Lizard during the movie, aswell as creating his evil plan while in human form, you make Connors evil rather than just the Lizard. So why does Connors suddenly turn 'good' at the end of the movie after he returns to human form, when he had already returned to human form multiple times? I guess the antidote made his mind revert back to the time before the first injection or something...
Also, why exactly did he chase after Dr Ratha when he transforms the first time?

Rather than make the 'Lizard serum' effects temporary, I think I would've preferred if he transformed once, made his master plan then gets cured. It would've created a much more defined barrier between the two personas, and allowed us (aswell as Spider-man) to sympathize more with Connors and his family. Then it would've been acceptable for Spider-man to let Connors go free, which I think would be better.

On the plus side I was happy with the master plan, as well as the scenes with actual lizards crawling around. I saw this as a nice reference to the comic Lizard's ability to manipulate reptiles.

 

[Nathan]

I liked Lizard in the Movie. I was fine without the snout, the size made the little Spidey appear more like an annoying bug that just needs to be squashed and I thought the voice was fine as well. And I thought Rhys Ifans was just fantastic as Dr. Connors. I don't get when people say he wasn't sympathetic enough. I thought he came across as a really likable person, with a passion for science and a solid moral code.

I was disappointed by the too obvious CGI model, the fact that he went into Evil mastermind too quickly and that they completely ignored his family.