The Topher Grace/ Eddie Brock Thread

[Spider-ManHero12]

I don't understand why some people didn't like Topher as Venom. Not only was Topher funny, but he also played being serious and depressed very well. As for the size, I have said this before and I will say it again, I would rather have him play the role greatly instead of him being big and muscular. He put on a few mounds for Spidey3, which is a good thing IMO.

 

[Lantern Venom]

I don't understand why some people didn't like Topher as Venom. Not only was Topher funny, but he also played being serious and depressed very well. As for the size, I have said this before and I will say it again, I would rather have him play the role greatly instead of him being big and muscular. He put on a few mounds for Spidey3, which is a good thing IMO.

I've said it before, there shouldn't have been a choice between an intimidating looking actor and a capable one. Brock should have been both. Blowpher was neither.

And "putting on a few pounds"?? LOL!!! Maybe if he grows a little more, Blowpher can finally stop shopping in the juniors' section.

 

[Uber Venom]

I don't understand why some people didn't like Topher as Venom. Not only was Topher funny, but he also played being serious and depressed very well. As for the size, I have said this before and I will say it again, I would rather have him play the role greatly instead of him being big and muscular. He put on a few mounds for Spidey3, which is a good thing IMO.

His portrayal of being "depressed" was pretty laughable, IMO.

 

[Spider-ManHero12]

His portrayal of being "depressed" was pretty laughable, IMO.

How? I found it to be very interesting and enjoyable to watch.

Another thing I liked was how Brock was flirting with Betty and he was cocky as well. Then he loses everything and goes to the church to ask to kill Peter Parker. That truly is an act of desperate man.

 

[batman11]

That truly is an act of desperate man.

Clearly he was desperate, but why?

Peter got him fired, Peter "took" his girl, what else?

The problem, as stated many times before was that this movie was just too big to take Eddie's character where it needed to go. We needed to see scenes of him as sick person before Venom, we needed to see who he really was. Just the Church scene alone doesn't cut it. It was a very dramatic step from being a laughable, flirty guy, to being a psychotic person begging for the Lord to actually kill a human being.

Like I, and many others before me have said, Brock needed some more development, but the movie was just too big to include it.

 

[Spider-ManHero12]

Clearly he was desperate, but why?

Peter got him fired, Peter "took" his girl, what else?

Those are the things that meant the most to him in the film. peter should no sympathy for Brock when Brock begged him not to rat him out. thats another reason brock hates Peter.

 

[DACrowe]

Well we know that there is one major scene where Eddie stalks Gwen after getting fired and Captain Stacy runs him off their property, I wish that was in there.

I do thin kthe movie was too big to fit Eddie Brock in satisfyingly but considering he was a last minute addition I still think he ended up being a good character in limited capacity. Why was he so pissed, people ask? He's ****ing psychotic. He's a sociopath at the end of the day with dellusions of grandeur and a self-serving egomaniac.

That is why he could be so stupid as to forge that photograph. You see hints of it before he loses his job. When Gwen basically shoots him down saying "We had a coffee Eddie," his reaction shot shows something REALLY menacing under the eyes that is just waiting to be unleashed. When a man full of pride and ego loses his job and "his girl" to the same man within 48 hours, he is completely ruined and embarassed. He is a front page fool. That kind of ego does take something to heart and that is why he'd have the aduacity to go to a nearby church and pray for Peter Parker to be killed by God.

I'm just syaing, Brock did not have enough screentime, but we understood his character, personality and mmotivations really well. Then when he gets this "gift from God," that tells him everything about his enemy, he goes insane and unleashes that monster that society and a lack of power had kept in check the whole movie (now he is ruined but is supercharged. Why not just kill everybody who you don't like for the heck of it, then?).

So yes, I think Topher took what could have been a very boring character and gave him some personality and life. And despite his limited screentime, I think he has as much depth and is infintely more interesting than the dull as dishwater Eddie Brock from the comics.

 

[Uber Venom]

How? I found it to be very interesting and enjoyable to watch.

Another thing I liked was how Brock was flirting with Betty and he was cocky as well. Then he loses everything and goes to the church to ask to kill Peter Parker. That truly is an act of desperate man.

It didn't seem like enough to me. I had seen too little of the character to really feel bad or connect with him.

 

[DACrowe]

You really aren't supposed to feel bad for him though. The guy's the scum of the earth. It is just Grace gave a very good performance in that you can believe he is this sad and suffering. But once he goes into tohe church you see his true colors unmasked. The guy is a piece of ****. He is not meant to be sympathetic.

 

[omid17]

You really aren't supposed to feel bad for him though. The guy's the scum of the earth. It is just Grace gave a very good performance in that you can believe he is this sad and suffering. But once he goes into tohe church you see his true colors unmasked. The guy is a piece of ****. He is not meant to be sympathetic.

 

[Lantern Venom]

It didn't seem like enough to me. I had seen too little of the character to really feel bad or connect with him.[/quote]

It clearly wasn't enough. Without the backstory of Eddie's cold childhood and years of depression in professional disgrace, the audience couldn't connect with him. He just switches gear from being a smug egomaniac, which Eddie isn't, to being a straight villian, which Eddie also isn't. All the complexity of the character was removed.

 

[Uber Venom]

You really aren't supposed to feel bad for him though. The guy's the scum of the earth. It is just Grace gave a very good performance in that you can believe he is this sad and suffering. But once he goes into tohe church you see his true colors unmasked. The guy is a piece of ****. He is not meant to be sympathetic.

I know. I should have worded my post better. I didn't even get the feeling that he was sad and suffering. He lost his "girl", yet you see them together in one scene, in which she owns him. He loses his job, but it was his own fault. I couldn't connect with him on any level.

 

[omid17]

I know. I should have worded my post better. I didn't even get the feeling that he was sad and suffering. He lost his "girl", yet you see them together in one scene, in which she owns him. He loses his job, but it was his own fault. I couldn't connect with him on any level.

agreed

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

I will tell you one moment were Topher nailed the character for me, is when Peter drags him from the Symbiote at the end, and then Peter turns around and see the Symbiote in all of its glory, with a look of terror on his, and yet Eddie looks at it, and you see love and pride on his face, like he is looking at his newborn son.

I thought Topher played that part superbly

 

[Victarion]

I would've liked to have seen the part where he went to Gwen's house after loosing his job. The only part that took me out of the movie was that "What the hell?" after Spidey smashed his camera.

---Morzan

 

[Victarion]

I know. I should have worded my post better. I didn't even get the feeling that he was sad and suffering. He lost his "girl", yet you see them together in one scene, in which she owns him. He loses his job, but it was his own fault. I couldn't connect with him on any level.

I don't think we were supposed to connect with him at all. If anything, it makes him a much more pathetic character and just a tad unbalanced in the head.

---Morzan

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

I would've liked to have seen the part where he went to Gwen's house after loosing his job. The only part that took me out of the movie was that "What the hell?" after Spidey smashed his camera.

---Morzan

I know, i dont see why they cut it, it couldnt have been longer than 5 mins at the most and it wouldnt have effected the flow of the movie at all IMO, in fact it probably would have improved it.

 

[omid17]

I know, i dont see why they cut it, it couldnt have been longer than 5 mins at the most and it wouldnt have effected the flow of the movie at all IMO, in fact it probably would have improved it.

agreed

 

[New Goblin jr.]

I agree with AVEITWITHJAMON aswell. besides it being more character stuff for Topher to play, although I really get why Eddie does what he does. To me, in his mind Peter took everything away from him, his job(although eddie did make a fake photograph of black spidey). And he and Gwen have probably only been on a couple of dates.
(the keyes to the city scene, anyone?) Peter still humiliated him, so as for eddie's motives, it's chrystal clear. As it is with Harry and Sandman.

 

[The Joker_1000]

Eddie was out of it, he thought they were a couple only after coffee.

 

[omid17]

pretty pathetic don't you think?

 

[Stevens25]

I thought Topher was wonderful in the film. He's the one person who really surprised me. Like most people already said,he was given very little to work with but he took what he did have and made it great. As for him not being huge like his comic book counterpart. Well,things that work well in comic books don't always work well on screen. I just can't see this huge,muscle bound guy working next to little Tobey Maguire as a dinky photographer at a minor newspaper. He would just look so weird and wouldn't fit in at all with everyone else. Imagine someone who's say,6'4' and weighed 250 pounds working with Tobey,Kirsten and James Franco!
Topher was awesome,imo!

 

[DACrowe]

I don't know Tobey but seeing fan favorite (dear God, don't ask me why) Brock Lancaster (or whatever the wrestler's name is) in a suit with a small tie and leather jacket walking next to Elizabeth Banks, Tobey Maguire, Bill Nunn and saying to JK Simmons "I have a girl I'm planning to marry..."

Just don't see it.


I'm going to ask all the Venom fans now pissed about the movie...if the movie had been centered around Venom and he had as much screentime as say Doc Ock in SM2, but still died at the end...would y'all still be pissed?

I wonder if a lot of the hate isn't towards the movie's flaws so much as Venom dying. Doc Ock goes and there is barely a whimper from fans and none from non-fans. Venom dies, the villain many people MISCONCEIVE as Spidey's arch-nemesis, and 8 months later they're still *****ing and moaning about it.

 

[Stevens25]

I don't know Tobey but seeing fan favorite (dear God, don't ask me why) Brock Lancaster (or whatever the wrestler's name is) in a suit with a small tie and leather jacket walking next to Elizabeth Banks, Tobey Maguire, Bill Nunn and saying to JK Simmons "I have a girl I'm planning to marry..."

Just don't see it.


I'm going to ask all the Venom fans now pissed about the movie...if the movie had been centered around Venom and he had as much screentime as say Doc Ock in SM2, but still died at the end...would y'all still be pissed?

I wonder if a lot of the hate isn't towards the movie's flaws so much as Venom dying. Doc Ock goes and there is barely a whimper from fans and none from non-fans. Venom dies, the villain many people MISCONCEIVE as Spidey's arch-nemesis, and 8 months later they're still *****ing and moaning about it.

I'm not that upset about Venom dying. It really showed that Brock made bad choices and payed for the evil he embraced. But,what bothers me is that he didn't have hardly any time to develop and was barely in the film. Venom is definetly in the top 3 of Spidey's villains(Goblin and Ock are the others). Certainly,he's the most popular,by far. Most people were really looking forward to see him and in the end we only recieved 10 minutes of Venom in a 2 hour and 25 minute film. Doc Ock and Goblin had alot more screen time and as characters,they were fleshed out and we really understood what kind of men they were. In Spider-man 3,Raimi didn't do that with Brock(or Sandman). Certainly,Spidey's most popular and vicious enemy deserved more time than just 10 minutes?
I would've rather this happen: Either cut out Sandman altogether and have the first half of the film be about Peter getting the symbiote,and then the second half about Spidey vs. Venom. OR....Cut out Venom and have him as the main villain in Spider-man 4.

That being said,I'm not really pissed about it. I'm just kinda sad to see Venom wasted. But just getting to see him on film was a thrill.

 

[Matt Murdock]

The one thing that got me in this movie about Eddie Brock was the flagpole part. I think that was reaching on Raimi's part, planting the seeds of Eddie's suspicion a little early, I think.

Other than that, I thought all of the villains were quite good, particularly Harry.