A Spider-Man Who Could Have Been

Dear God, I finally found the script (with storyboards) of James Cameron's Spider-Man movie.

For those who never knew, shortly after T2 Cameron had a strong desire to make Spider-Man his next directorial effort. Corolco Pictures hurried out to buy the rights in order to supplicate their biggest moneymaking figure and to secure their next big blockbuster.

Problems arose as various studios fought over the rights to Spider-Man (no one knew who the hell owned the rights due to a series of nightmarish events as various producers bought, sold, and traded the rights with vague understandings of exactly what those rights really were)and were further compounded by the problem of Marvel Comics going bankrupt (and the publisher thus declaring the property reverted back to them in order to make much needed money) which drew out the various question of who owned the movie rights for close to a decade. In that time, James Cameron wrote a script for use on the picture which never was filmed due to Cameron's interest waning as the trial went on and his apparent retirement after the masterpiece which was Titanic. It would seem Cameron simply didn't have the balls to attempt another movie for fear of being compared to what was arguably his best picture.

As to the script, it is much different in tone from the Raimi version though some of the scenes were used (and diluted for a younger, more general audience) . I will say I prefer Cameron's much more adult take on Spider-Man. He feels realized perfectly especially for a city like NYC. Sorry, but I could never really believe in Raimi's version of Peter. A wimp like that surviving in the Big Apple was not only ludicrous but highly grating. Raimi's Spidey was a whining little wimp. Cameron's Spidey not only had an inner strength but a much more noble, albeit juvenile, slant. It's also not nearly as over the top as Raimi's Spidey would become with Part 2 being the only redeemable part of the series with Part 1 being far too campy with Goblin/Dafoe, the wrestling scene, and other characterizations/plot points I nitpick over while Part 3 was shallow, overpacked, and not really believable in even a comic book universe. Cameron's Spidey lives in a gritty, violent, very real world who doesn't wear some designer superhero suit. The villains are cold blooded, thought out, and driven.

The part which draws me most is the fact that Cameron has the character nailed much better than Raimi's scripts ever did. There are the quips and a very real story of angst as Parker matures and becomes a man. This would not have had Maguire as the lead. I don't care how you try to twist the character, Maguire never would have come across as a joking, strong willed Peter Parker. Maguire has always based his Parker more along the lines of Reeve's Clark Kent rather than what Parker really should have been: a goofy kid trying to figure out just who the hell he really was. Parker's shy, easily pushed around personality does not jive with the empowerment he discovers through becoming Spider-Man. Raimi and Maguire play Peter Parker as two separate individuals while Cameron did the right thing showing them to be one and the same.

You can catch that script here. Enjoy what could have been, my fellows.

Hollywood doesn't get comic books

Now I will be honest; the majority of movies based on comic books are sub-par, do not follow the source material really well, and are too dumbed down for audiences due to a need to be overly generalized. Movie studios are too scared to invest time, effort, and heart into projects which could truly play out as our own modern mythology. People look at comic books and sneer as if this a juvenile form of entertainment without any literary value or merit. These tales are far more than simple entertainment. They are tales of action, adventure, and when written with respect for both the character and the content, capable of deep, emotionally rich stories. They can be progressive, such as X-Men, which symbolized racism and its harmful effects on society, and Daredevil, a comic which presented the ability of the blind to function in and contribute to society. They can be introspective, such as the brooding Batman or the alcoholic Tony Stark of Iron Man. They can be about the nobility of the human spirit, such as Superman and 300. And they can be about the darker side of man (Sin City, V for Vengeance).

Comic books are morality plays, insight into modern culture, views into human nature, and larger than life epics that help to make it all palatable because it attempts to prove to us the nobility of man. Like the tales of Greek gods and heroes, Celtic myth such as Beowulf, and the olden tales of Arthur and his knights, comics are our modern day legends.

The problem with the current studio system is that it does not recognize these tales for the rich characters and tales they have to tell. These are merely stories with explosions, excessive violence, over the top villains, and quirky jokes. The studios have glossed over the material and understood only the outlying plot but not the theme to what makes comic books such an endurable part of American, as well as world, entertainment.

One fine example is what became of the Spider-Man franchise. Whereas the first two movies did well in capturing the heart of the Spider-Man series, Peter Parker struggling to do what was right in a world that didn't always appreciate his efforts as he attempts to discover his place in it, the third movie simply crapped on story for more violence and mindless plot that served on to cram as many characters as possible into an already overburdened cast. Juvenile humor was used to deal with serious plot threads, such as how power can ultimately corrupt an individual (Parker with the symbiote which would eventually become Venom). Rather than show the inner turmoil of a character whose actions never seem capable of ever totally solving all of his problems (the more he helps the city the more he drives MJ away, whereas the more attention he spends on MJ and his own life the more the city suffers), they make it seem as if Peter's life is simple as can be. Having a full-time job in a precarious position as a photographer, attending college, trying to carry on a relationship, and being the sole champion of a city shouldn't come easily to anyone. Spider-Man 2 did well in showing how difficult it is to carry on so many responsibilities and the sacrifices that generally accompany having to make such choices of public service: when do the good of the many outweigh the good of the few. Spider-Man 3 completely crapped all over that dilemma by removing it and making being a superhero seem so easy. To put oneself consistently in harm's way, to sacrifice oneself for so many: to make it seem so easy is to completely undermine the heroic nature of being a superhero. Spider-Man 3 could have been about how the stress of doing so much finally led Peter into a gray zone where he began to take shortcuts (becoming violent, taking advantage of his powers to improve his own life versus those of others, etc.). Instead it became another mindless popcorn flick as Sony freaked over its declining profits and wanted to ensure its economic security.

Comic books are about the possibilities that lie within all of us. There is a reason the early heroes costumes were under there clothes, why these heroes were separate identities from who they really were. A hero can be anyone, anywhere, at any time. That possibility lies within all of us. It is not who we are but we we do, our actions, that define us as heroes. The real us is not important. It is the ideal, the hero that we seek to become, that is the truly super part about being a superhero. Likewise, the infamy that all of us are capable of, how readily we may slip into the abyss beneath that thin line we walk everyday are ready fodder for comic book tales.

Comic books are rich material. They are more than a child's early steps into novels. They are visual tales that captivate and illuminate the world around us. They are living, breathing art. They are us magnified. If only studios could realize this and put that heart into their translations to the big screen one could just imagine the amazing tale they could tell.

Spider-Man 3 (Or the last nail in the coffin)

Like everyone, I was really impressed with Spider-Man 2. Everything just worked really well, it had thrills and hints of depth and a lot of iconic images and it was all clicking. Doubts began to emerge as it seemed that this movie would feature 843 villains [a DUMB IDEA that contributed to the ruin of the Batman movies], and continued when each of the 19 trailers for this movie seemed to be about an entirely different film. How would they bring all that together into a cohesive whole? Well, they don’t really.

I’m gonna go light on the synopsis since I’m sure you know it all already. Peter and MJ are chillin’ in a web when a meteorite crashes next to them and this goo [well-animated goo, by the way] goes home with Peter, only to lie dormant in his apartment until it is thematically appropriate. Then he gets attacked by his friend Harry, son of the Green Goblin from film one, who gets konked on the head and his thematic portion also lies dormant until the plot necessitates that it doesn’t. And there’s this escaped dude from prison with a sick daughter who falls into the kind of open-air particle physics facility that are just lying around everywhere in New York. Those things really are a public menace. He gets disintegrated and reintegrated as a big wad of sand.

But as usual there are personal problems. And the main characters seem not to have had a single conversation about them in the past three years—those are some communication issues. MJ has made it to Broadway and sucks ass and gets terrible reviews. She reveals herself as a needy narcissist as she bitches Peter out for any attempt to make her feel better, and he reveals that he doesn’t need any cosmic gloop to be a self-centered prick as he can only relate to her problems via what a superstar he is. Then there are flirtations and rival photographers and homespun advice from Aunt Bea or whoever and scenes with the Russian landlord and blahbitty blah.

So eventually the gloop takes Peter over and unleashes his dork side. He becomes a little nastier, but there are two problems: 1) it’s NICE to see him not be such a goody-two-shoes and show a little edge for once, and 2) since he was a stuck-up cock before, his transition isn’t much. A lot of other reviews have derided that his cocky strut down the street echoes Tony’s in Saturday Night Fever, but I think it’s clear that this is quite a conscious decision on Raimi’s part. It is obviously meant to be self-mocking. However, it goes a bit far when Peter is virtually boogying down the street doing hip thrusts. What should have had an edge of seriousness becomes too funny and goes on too long.

And that kind of becomes the main problem. At a certain point I leaned over to my friend and said “This is getting really long,” and he said “I was just thinking the same thing.” Actually, I had started thinking it fifteen minutes prior, but was just trying to be nice. So, if I had main criticism and quote that they could pull out and put in a movie ad it would be: IT’S SO LONG AND COMPLICATED YOU CEASE TO CARE.

There are many an action sequence, but you know what? They’re all kind of the same. Spider-Man swings around. Whether it’s an everyday out-of-control crane [the pointlessness of which was kind of a come-down] or the Goblin [now the New Goblin… like the New Monkees] or the Sandman… they're pretty much all the same. There are a LOT of storylines this time around and I just got tired of them all. Plus, in retrospect, the Sandman didn't have anything to do with anything. You could neatly excise him from the movie and still have a complete film with themes intact—in fact, it would be much more focused.

The special effects are good. They range from cheesy to quite good, and you can see that they poured more money into certain sequences. Those who were surprised to learn, in Spider-Man 2, that there is an elevated subway on the East Side that inexplicably dead-ends above the East River will be curious to discover that there is a massive cavern beneath Manhattan, seemingly 10 or more stories in height, where the subways move through on elevated tracks. The fights are also incredibly brutal, with someone or other getting their head slammed into a girder every few seconds or so. Everyone was fine. Other reviews have said that it seems that the characters haven't matured since the last film, particularly Maguire, but I didn't find that to be the case. However it did seem at times that their established characters were diverted to do out-of-character things in order to shoehorn them around the story and themes. What else? I don't know, I could nit-pick over other stuff [we did NOT need to see the Russians that much], but basically they just needed to scale it back and focus it. It's as if he thought it was the last one and he felt he needed to cram as much as he could in. The climax was a big 'so what?'

Yeah, it's too bad. I saw the second one three times and enjoyed and admired it every time. I couldn't possibly sit through this one again. What a bummer.