Whenever a new film comes out that I'm a fan of, I always end up overanalyzing the littlest details and jumping to my own conclusions, positive or negative. Naturally, that brings about some things I get very excited about and some things I'm equally anxious about in a bad way.
I've done one of these for The Dark Knight Rises as well as Avengers, so naturally, next up is THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN…
THINGS I'M WORRIED ABOUT 1. Redoing the Origin with Liberties Supposedly, they're going to retell the Peter Parker story, but take certain liberties with it. Any time someone messes around with a story, it gives me a little skepticism at first. Hoping something's handled well and changed for the better doesn't mean that it necessarily will be. For all we know, they could be taking this in the completely wrong route and trying to make it so he's some sort of mystical spider representative. I think we're all in agreement that they have enough sense not to do that, thankfully, but you never quite know for sure, hence why I'm putting it in this category. It's more so the potential for this to be a disappointment as opposed to having any actual evidence for it. So far, I haven't seen anything crazy that I dislike.
2. Captain Stacy's Prominence It seems like this film REALLY puts a lot into Captain Stacy's character. To an extent, that's good, as it'll give Gwen more of a relationship with Peter and things can progress in a different way than we've seen Spider-Man on film so far. However, I'm hoping that this isn't a situation where people that aren't particularly familiar with the character walk out of the movie thinking Stacy's the third most important Spider-Man character out there or something. He's important to Spider-Man history, but he's no General Thunderbolt Ross in comparison to the Hulk's cast of characters.
3. Where are Peter's Friends? Gwen, but who else? There's no Harry. There's no Eddie if you're going the Ultimate route. Peter's supposed to be a bit of an outcast, but if they have him truly down to just Aunt May and Gwen, that'll be a little too depressing. This could be handled well and not even noticeable, but it could also be a downer to a level that it doesn't necessarily need to be.
4. No Mary Jane Watson I know, I know, Gwen was here first and Peter's had plenty of love interests other than Mary Jane. If anybody was going to be in this movie as the love interest other than MJ, it naturally had to be Gwen. I don't think Debra Whitman, Carlie Cooper, or anyone else could fill the slot. In my opinion, Felicia Hardy works better as a temptress more so than a legitimate love interest, whereas Betty Brant is more so just a casual flirt and shouldn't have a whole movie revolving around her character. Still, the absence of Mary Jane has me a little uneasy. I don't have any doubts that Gwen can handle a film on her own, particularly when she's being portrayed by Emma Stone, but the future is what has me questioning things. Which leads us into…
5. Sequel Opportunities You haven't established Mary Jane Watson, so if they ever go with Gwen being killed, who fills in the romantic subplot without being rushed? You haven't set up a friendship between Harry and Peter to build upon like the first trilogy, nor have you filled that void with Eddie Brock to start building towards the symbiote or something and have it really mean a lot. Obviously, Oscorp being involved would make sense to lead to Norman, but we've already seen Green Goblin – how can they bring him back and do it differently enough to justify it? For the most part, there aren't a lot of villains left to be done that can withhold a film on their own. Sure, you can do a double-up and have Kraven and Scorpion (kind of an "everyone hunts each other" scenario with JJJ considering Kraven the good one, not Spider-Man) but are people just going to think that's a ripoff of Lizard? What possible story can hold a whole film with Rhino or Electro or Vulture?
THINGS I'M EXCITED ABOUT 1. Redoing the Origin with Liberties Just as there's potential for great harm to be done with this, there's potential for it to be quite streamlined and efficient. Raimi's first Spider-Man film I think was fantastic and pretty spot on in terms of how they handled the origin (as well as the pacing and so forth), but I was hoping we wouldn't see just a rehash of that again. I don't need to see Peter in a wrestling match and all the other details. They might even be able to think of a way to add a twist to the origin that is so well received that it becomes retconned into the true continuity from the comics. Stranger things have happened before. Look at what happened with Mr. Freeze from the Batman Animated Series versus Mr. Zero.
2. Lizard If you're going to reboot the series and you need a villain to tie into an origin story, there's no better choice for them to have made, in my opinion. Lizard presents a physical threat but not to the level that he can't be topped by a new villain in a sequel, he presents a moral threat as he has a good justification for his transformation, he presents an emotional threat tied directly to Peter Parker allowing us to watch a true story develop throughout the film, and he's flashy and fan-favorite enough to be marketable. Contrary to most people, it seems, I'm actually even a fan of the no-snout look. If he would come out looking like a literal giant lizard, it would be less realistic, so I'm happy about that.
3. Tone Right off the bat, this film seems like it's got a much better grasp of Spider-Man humor. Audiences should be laughing with Peter or at Peter within the film, not laughing at the film itself. The same idea applies to the seriousness of the film. Whereas with Raimi's films, we had something as infallible as "angry Peter in the symbiote" turn into "Peter parts his hair emo-style and dances". This time around, it appears as though Peter won't be a whining annoyance.
4. Andrew Garfield I'm really looking forward to seeing his interpretation of Peter Parker. Not only do I think it'll be better than Maguire, but I can see it becoming the template that people use in their minds for Spider-Man whenever they think of the character (similar to how I personally go straight to Kevin Conroy's Batman). He has a passion for the character, he's a good actor, he's dedicated, and he looks to have been given a good enough script to work with. If all the elements are in place, his work alone should make the film really enjoyable.
5. Sequel Opportunities Just because I'm worried that they might not have much to go on doesn't mean they can't surprise me for the better in the future. I can't honestly think of a single storyline you could use to anchor a film around Mysterio, but if it can be done, awesome. As a Spider-Man fan, doing an interpretation of a character from the comics is something I want to see no matter who it is, just out of sure curiosity. Maybe we can even get our hopes up that this can be a trilogy that ends with the Sinister Six!
So what are some things that you're worried and/or excited about for the Amazing Spider-Man?