Say hi to Todd McFarlane.
Now, of course she doesn't need to look like this, but when you think about it, wasn't she created with the idea to give readers the notion that she was out of Peter's league? Her looks are, for better or worse, an integral part of her character. Like I said, Dunst looked fine, so did Woodley, and if Z is playing her, I'm totally cool with her, but while some fans tend to go overboard in their "MJ has to be hot" argument, I don't think it's right to just boil it down to a disgusting pig attitude. Stan Lee deliberately created the character to look and act that way.
To an extent. Mary Jane was meant to be Ann-Margret good looking (She was actually modeled after her) who was the 60s equivalent of Lindsay Lohan or Emma Stone. The spunky sexy redhead. I think both Kirsten and Woodley were good looking
enough to portray that type of character. But that's been taken to an extreme by a certain sector of the fandom (not necessarily everyone), where every actress must be able to reach some unreasonable level of playboy model hotness, otherwise no good. Maybe it has to do with those 90s illustrations where they overemphasized the hotness of the character (as with everyone) to the point of Jessica Rabbit caricature or the brief stints as a supermodel (also terrible imo)
^ That was the worst version of Mary Jane in the comics. Not only did Todd McFarlane get rid of her trademark straight hair and bangs, but with this curly hair she had she looked like a completely different character. It's like Peter hired a hooker for a while to pass the time away.
Agreed. McFarlane has said it was his attempt to make MJ's style more contemporary (since he thought her previous look was outdated), but imo it's ridiculously over the top and trashy. Compare Mcfarlane and Larson MJ to how MJ was drawn just a few years earlier and it's like night and day.
Even in the first movie, she just played it too serious and intense, which is a completely misguided approach for the role. Granted, the writing/directing didn't do her any favors but I never thought she was right for MJ.
You need an actress who has that spark. She should effortlessly be able to play all of MJ's facets. She has to be charming and charismatic but also sweet and funny. The most important thing is she needs to be a FUN character, who STANDS OUT in the film. If the audience doesn't fall in love with her, than why would we believe Peter would either?
If you think about it, the Raimi films are good adaptations of early Spider-man, with Mary Jane acting as a substitute for Liz Allen, Gwen Stacy, Betty Brant (all of which were much more serious, viable love interests for Peter in the Silver Age, whereas Mary Jane was predominantly used for comic relief during that period of time). This was clearly done for the sake of story simplicity. But, yes, as an adaptation of Mary Jane, it falters.
Agreed. Mary Jane was a popular character when she first debuted because she was fun, witty, and a little zany. Hopefully, they capture those aspects of the character in the script.
It really burns me out that MJ won't be in this movie. it's been almost a decade since we last saw her, so I don't buy the argument that it's "too soon"
And I would've took Z as MJ too, but definitly not the way she is in these set photos we've seen.
Has it been confirmed that Mary Jane won't be making an appearance? I'm still holding out hope that she'll be Peter's blind date to the dance.