Spider-Man The Official "I Loved Raimi's Spider-Man' Thread - Part 1 of 99 Luft - - - - Part 13

[BaelaTargaryen]

 

[Spidey_62]

I skimmed the David Koepp original SM2 script, it was enjoyable! Interesting getting a peek as far back as 2 months after the first movie came out for what they were thinking early on for the next one. I remember when the internet heard the working title was The Amazing Spider-Man, so it's cool seeing this because this was that script.

There's some dialogue and situations in there that made it into the movie in some way, some directly, but other scenes that would be used in later movies like a dinner scene with the Stacy family and Captain Stacy and Peter disagreeing about Spider-Man.

Captain Stacy has a few scenes and dies like he does in the comics during a battle with Spidey and Doc Ock, his final words to Peter are also pretty much lifted right from the comics. Spidey is a wanted criminal after that also like in the comics, and Harry additionally offers a $10 million bounty on Spidey through the Daily Bugle.

Mary Jane is constantly verbally hinting to Peter about his other life and he can't admit it to her in this version, and Peter ends up with Gwen at the end while Mary Jane is seeing some random guy.

Doc Ock is pretty much just straight up a villain the whole time with no redeeming qualities, I find the whole parent plot unnecessary and cutting that was a smart choice. "Doc Ock killed my parents" is dumb, but I do like his evil plans here. Ock survives and is hauled off to jail, he doesn't directly see Peter is Spider-Man like the majority of Spidey movies end up doing with villains but he can put two and two together pretty easily still.

There's some fun drama stuff in there, with MJ, Gwen, and Harry. More Norman scenes, Harry being more of a side villain scheming behind the scenes while he's also wrestling with his relationship with Peter after finding out the truth here (just by following Peter down an alley, I'd think Peter's senses would alert him), him being the one getting married to a random supermodel and Doc Ock crashes the wedding. There's a lot of pieces in play and new characters introduced, even Doc Connors wife shows up, along with Eddie Brock. I can see where the setup might be that David Koepp was recently talking about envisioning a trilogy of Spidey movies by him regarding Gwen and all that, it's more elegant than what Sony would try to do with the actual Amazing franchise.

I'd give it a 7/10 from what I read, it's fun imagining what might have been because this does feel somewhat more akin to later comic book movies in terms of how many pieces are on the table and setting up more of the franchise but I think the end product is a much tighter and personal story for all the characters and it trims away the unnecessary stuff.

 

[Herofan]

With the ending of Spider-Man 3, why would Spider-Man or the viewer believe Sandman wouldn't go on committing crimes?

 

[DawnWarrior]

I guess we're supposed to believe Sandman felt sorry for his crimes. But besides that, yeah, not much.

 

[Arachnerd]

They left it kind of open-ended, which always made me wonder if he was ever going to return had Spider-Man 4 not been cancelled and we got 5 and 6 afterwards.

 

[Spidey_62]

I wish we would have gotten the extra scenes with Sandman's family/him going to the doctor. I feel like the ending with Captain Stacy letting Flint's family up to reason with him would have made more sense. Otherwise just with that one scene of the family in the movie it sometimes feels like it's just an easy excuse for Sandman to be committing all these crimes and have us feel sympathy without really having any follow-through on it.

Him stopping fighting due to his family telling him there's nothing he can do with all the money in the world to save his daughter would have been a heavier hitting moment because it would've made it more clear that all of Sandman's efforts aren't going to do anything and all his crime throughout the movie is just Sandman understandably refusing to accept the inevitable until the end where he finally accepts. I never was a big fan of how the final version of the movie handled Sandman's resolution, I like that he lived but it felt like his whole motivation doing all of this for his daughter had no payoff.

 

[Dominate426]

I wish we would have gotten the extra scenes with Sandman's family/him going to the doctor. I feel like the ending with Captain Stacy letting Flint's family up to reason with him would have made more sense. Otherwise just with that one scene of the family in the movie it sometimes feels like it's just an easy excuse for Sandman to be committing all these crimes and have us feel sympathy without really having any follow-through on it.

Him stopping fighting due to his family telling him there's nothing he can do with all the money in the world to save his daughter would have been a heavier hitting moment because it would've made it more clear that all of Sandman's efforts aren't going to do anything and all his crime throughout the movie is just Sandman understandably refusing to accept the inevitable until the end where he finally accepts. I never was a big fan of how the final version of the movie handled Sandman's resolution, I like that he lived but it felt like his whole motivation doing all of this for his daughter had no payoff.

The reason those scenes were cut is because they slowed the climax down. That scene with Spider-Man, Sandman and his family was supposed to happen before the final battle with Venom and Harry's death. That's also the reason why the Editor's Cut didn't have them either.

 

[Spidey_62]

The reason those scenes were cut is because they slowed the climax down. That scene with Spider-Man, Sandman and his family was supposed to happen before the final battle with Venom and Harry's death. That's also the reason why the Editor's Cut didn't have them either.

I can understand that, I'm not really sure where else you can fit a thing like that with all those components happening during the final battle. Just cuts more to the core about the issues of the movie having too much to juggle properly, I think.

 

[Arachnerd]

The reason those scenes were cut is because they slowed the climax down. That scene with Spider-Man, Sandman and his family was supposed to happen before the final battle with Venom and Harry's death. That's also the reason why the Editor's Cut didn't have them either.

That's not really an excuse for how unfinished his storyline felt though.

 

[Doc Bat Spider]

www.geocities.ws/orumcekfilm/resim1.htm

 

[Arachnerd]

Hadn't seen this before.

 

[Doc Bat Spider]

 

[Batmannerism]

I enjoyed the HISHE clip - of course the one ending they can't show is a massive cloud of superheated steam rising from the river to wipe out most of Manhattan and the surrounding boroughs, because 2 supposed scientists thought it was a good idea to chuck a miniature sun into a large body of water.

Honestly, of all the Raimi films SM2 is my least favourite and IMO the most overrated. The whole " should I be Spider Man or shouldn't I" was tiresome, particularly when he gets a bunch of sanctimonious mixed messages from Uncle Ben's ghost, Aunt May, MJ, a doctor and Life in general. I don't blame the guy for wanting to quit, if the central message from his family is "Your life is supposed to suck, just get on with it."

Now I realise that many people revere this film, and some of them will feel compelled to leap to its defence- "Don't you like seeing your heroes make tough choices?" Fair point, but I don't need to see them agonize about them while being confused by the people around them.

Yeah, don't feel the need to stick up for this film. If you liked it, that's awesome and I respect your opinion.

As for myself I distinctly remember sitting in the cinema back in the day and thinking " OFFS!" A couple of times ( the ending especially).

I did like the train scene- although in the spirit of HiSHE, what should have happened is that a bunch of those NYC commuters would have pulled out firearms and capped off a few rounds in Doc Ock's face, or completely unprotected body.

Those punches from Spider Man should have KO'd him in a single hit ( or more likely killed him).

I don't expect Cbms to be realistic but they have to have some kind of internal logical consistency- and Spider Man 2 really doesn't.

I'll finish by stating that overall I liked Maguire as Peter, Franco as Harry, Dafoe as Osborn and thought it was a solid cbm trilogy, especially for the times. IMO the first film is the best and there are some great ( and hilarious) bits in SM 3.

 

[Arachnerd]

So you have a problem with people thinking this movie is good just because you don't, because of a scientific innaccuracy in a comic book movie? Yet still stating that you respect other's opinions.

Yeah, that's not confusing at all.

 

[Spider-Fan]

Yeah, I don't agree with that take on SM2 at all. So because he got different advice from people, it's bad? So, that means any cartoon with an angel and a devil trying to persuade you to do right and wrong must also suck. Since in a movie you can't get conflicting points of view or have internal conflict externalized by other characters, I guess.

Man, The Dark Knight was garbage. Remember when Batman tried convincing Dent that the Joker was using him and was corrupting the man he was after Joker tried to persuade Dent his world view was wrong? How dare the movie offer other points of view!

 

[Herofan]

I completely loved that Peter went to and got advice, that was taken seriously, from a doctor, I thought that was very true to the classic comics and also fit with the films and contemporary setting generally.

 

[The Joker]

That was one of the elements of SM-2 that made it so compelling to me. That conflict coming from all angles on Peter for what he should do for the best. Even when he tried to do the right thing, e.g. saving the child from the burning building and then he finds out someone else died in there anyway. It was like damned if he did, damned if he didn't. It was great stuff and a very realistic take that even heroes can't save everyone. Not even Spider-Man.

Plus they managed to make the connection between hero and villain work on a conceptual level rather than having the villain personally linked like be his best friend, or his best friend's dad, or his girlfriend's father, or the villain killed someone Peter cares about etc. Their character arcs were mirror images. Peter was being irresponsible by giving up being Spider-Man in order to live his dream of a normal life. Doc Ock was being irresponsible by doing evil things in order to make his dream succeed. That final scene between them where Peter was able to repeat the same words to Ock that Aunt May had said to him. In the end they both came full circle and took responsibility.

I loved all that. Spidey movies love to make Peter personally linked to his villains. That was one of the cases where they did it well without it being contrived.

 

[Nardz937]

Tobey was cast as Spidey 20 years ago today! The press release from this very site.

 

[Arachnerd]

Man, the early hype days for this and Spider-Man 2 must have been wild.

 

[terry78]

Tobey was on fire at that time. A lot of acclaimed work.

 

[The Joker]

Man, the early hype days for this and Spider-Man 2 must have been wild.

That's what brought me to these forums. I joined the day the first trailer dropped in December 2003.

 

[UltimateWebhead]

While I don't agree with a couple of the choices the creative team made in terms of character, SM2 is still the best live action version of Spider-Man. And it's exactly because of the different points of view that the film offers.

No live action movie has come close to SM2 in presenting the duality of Peter and Spider-Man. There's a constant push/pull dynamic. This is what made those early stories so great was the idea that Ditko/Lee had for the character...what if being a hero not only doesn't make your life better, what if it actually makes it worse? And SM2 does such an excellent job of it. In the beginning of the movie every facet of Peter's life is being affected negatively, his job(s), his relationships with his friends and family, his school, his health, even his crappy little apartment is in jeopardy. But after that long day of getting dirt kicked in his face, feeling tired and maybe even overwhelmed, Peter sits down in his bed and flips on the police scanner.

He's such a well defined character. We know his wants, needs and fears. There's drama, tension, conflict and resolution. There's actual consequences for either his action or lack thereof. And receiving different view points from other characters in the movie as well as Peter's own conflicted self is meant to provide the audience with that. We're meant feel all these different influences so that we understand how difficult it is to have to make this choice that Peter must come to terms with. And yes, sometimes, maybe even most of the time, doing the right thing, being responsible, means that your life will be difficult. That it may actually suck. But it's that struggle, that makes life's good moments all the better for it.

SM2 is a beautifully written, shot and scored. Are there times where we need some suspension of disbelief? Sure. But those things are inconsequential to what the film represents.

 

[Doc Bat Spider]

 

[Daltonio]

The Vulture post above made me think of a question, what did you guys think about the way they handled the villains in this trilogy? I remember there being a little backlash about how they killed off every single villain. It never really bothered me back then because this didn't seem like the type of series that would re-use villains but thinking back on it, it is pretty crazy that out of all the villains we saw, Sandman is the only one who lived to see another day.

 

[Spider-Fan]

The killing of villains never bothered me. The series was never going for like a Sinister Six type angle. So ultimately it doesn't matter.