A Geeky Viewpoint

The other day I wrote some thoughts about The Amazing Spider-Man 2 [TASM2] which I would like to continue with this post.

My review of TASM2 probably seems extremely negative and full of hate and disdain, which is only partially true.   Like every Super-Hero film I wanted to like the film, in the case of TASM2 more so than most.  
I grew up watching "The Spidey Super Stories" on the Electric Company, the Spider-Man cartoonsThe Amazing Spider-Man TV Series, and both the Spider-Man and Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends Cartoons of the early 80's.   Their have also been 5, yes five, additional Cartoon, I mean animated Series involving Spider-Man giving a real connection to audience of any age with the Wise Cracking Web Crawler.
from 1976 (in re-runs as I not quite that old), the 1977 Live Action

I went to the theater wanting to like TASM2, I came out extremely disappointed more so because it could have been SOOOOOOOOO MUCH BETTER than what we got.

The Viper

In last year's The Wolverine Svetlana Khodchenkova character the Viper asks Mariko, played by Tao Okomoto, "Did he choose you because you were weak or strong?" in reference to why she was chosen to lead a multi-billion dollar corporation, Yasida Industries.
This is the feeling I have about Marc Webb at the moment, did the triumvirate of Sony Pictures, Columbia Pictures, and Arad Productions choose Marc Webb because he was weak or strong? 
To be clear Marc Webb first movie, a romantic comedy 500 Days of Summer while not a big box-office success was a critically acclaimed work having been nominated for a Golden Globe - Best Motion Picture Comedy or Musical.   But what else does he have going for him as he stepped into the directors chair mere days after the announcement that Sam Raimi was stepping away from Spider-Man 4.   Even Webb himself had doubts "was a little skeptical at first — you feel the presence of those other movies. But then I was like, 'How could I walk away from this? What an opportunity!"
I always felt that Marc Webb was chosen over more accomplished directors because Avi Arad felt he could easily overrule Marc and have his decisions be final.  

Speaking of Avi Arad he has recently lost his cool, for the lack of a better way to put it, after an article in Business Week Magazine. 

Avi Arad

If we take Avi at his word he is the only reason that MCU exists and it was his plan because only he could make such a plan and he knew how to do character development and build linked stories and only he could return Iron-Man to Marvel and ...
Not wanting to get side tracked into the numerous holes in Avi's timeline, why Iron-Man over Spider-Man?   Let's be honest, Spider-Man is clearly a A-List character for Marvel in 2004, David Maisal as COO was brought in because of his connections to build the Marvel Studios as a self-funded company.   Spider-Man 2 had not be released yet, historically sequels dropped 33%, it was being released into a much more competitive market and predictions of "as much as a 50% drop wouldn't be shocking".   So clearly of Avi Arad plan for world domination in making Marvel Studios a self funding production studio was as clear as he states, than the first choice had to be Spider-Man with Iron-Man a very distant 54th place.   I wouldn't doubt that Marvel Studios approached Sony back in 2004 and I wouldn't doubt that Sony floated a dollar figure that couldn't be met by Marvel Studios, but than Spider-Man 2 went on to set Box Office Records, and the rest is history.

Avi Arad is also on record that it was his plan to build the MCU as a series of linked movies, building character development into all aspects of the movies.   Here is the problem with those statements, if only he could do it, why is it failing in The Amazing Spider-Man series of movies. 
How does that story and character development work in TASM and TASM2?   Honestly I don't know the answer to that question.   I think clearly in TASM2 the film makers failed, I mean a 20 second introduction to Alistair Smyth, Felicia Hardy, and comments about J. Jonah and ...   We these supposed to be nods to the fans or story line plots or ...   Chris Cooper, who's scene appears in two of the trailers is an uncredited cast member, really....  

As an aside who all read Jameson email in the voice of J.K. Simmons?   or was it just me? 

Sam Raimi

One of my concerns with The Amazing Spider-Man when I reviewed the movie is it lacked focus.  There was no clear Spider-Man theme in the story.   If you go back and watch the Sam Raimi trilogy of films it's amazing [pun intended] how much the Sam Raimi and his team of producers had plan for the Spider-Man story arc.  It starts in the open sequence and builds that arc in each of the acts of each of the movies.   That focus doesn't exist in the The Amazing Spider-Man, that's not saying that Marc and his leadership group isn't trying to make one with Peter's Actions affecting the lives of those around him.   The problem is its an after thought; more of let's run this up the flagpole and see who salutes solution.

It was clear that the leadership behind TASM2 wanted to do everything in their power to differentiate between TASM and Sam Raimi's trilogy, with not using some key phrases or looks, clock tower vs. cable car, but I really felt TASM2 was attempting to get he vibe of the first trilogy.  The bad guys were simplified and so on and so forth.  

Without a clear vision of where you want to go, how can you build a road map.  


Gwen meets MJ

In TASM2 a lot of work was done to introduce the audience to Mary Jane Watson, an actress Shailene Woodley was cast and multiple scenes filmed.   A quick review of the subplot that was supposed to be TASM2: MJ moves in next do to Peter and his Aunt, there is a scene where speaks with Gwen, another where she catches Spider-Man returning to home, and a third scene where she has another dialogue with Peter and Gwen.    That's it, 9 minutes tops in the movie.    

This unfortunately is a sample of what happened through out the filming of TASM2.   



Spider-Man and MJ in a Garage


Multiple Max Dillon scenes were dropped from the film, including more interaction with Alistair Smyth, a scene with his mother and another scene with Gwen (where she remembers his name.)

There is a second scene in which Peter and Harry are renewing their friendship, in which supposedly an quick explanation of how a poor kid and the super rich kid met in the first place.    



MJ hightailing out of the film.

There is multiple scenes with Felicia and the Oscrop corporate espionage story line, that were filmed to some extent. 
Towards the beginning of the third act their are multiple scenes with Peter and Gwen that show the budding love between the couple.  

There are multiple scenes with Gustav Fliers [Fiers?] the mysterious gentlemen seen  at the end of the TASM interviewing Dr. Connors in his jail cell. 

Now we run into the problem, if each of these story lines, sub plots, themes was indeed filmed we are discussing upwards of an additional hour of film footage.    That's not a slice here and a slice there, that's practically a whole second movie that was filmed.     In some ways I felt like they put the 200 or so scenes on the walls and threw darts to determine what was in and what was out.    In theory I understand why the MJ storyline was cut as it could distract from the Gwen story arc, but as for the rest, why were they filmed in the first place?

All of this is at least to me a clear indication that Marc, Avi and others didn't know exactly where they were going, and while its not uncommon for film makers to film a few extra minutes a scene or two that don't make the final cut, I have never heard of a movie with that much extra footage.

It is also interesting on what got put in the film, the opening sequence with Peter's parents on the plane, what exactly does that accomplish for this movie?   I totally get it brings an end to Peter's parent storyline created in TASM (to some degree) but its 5 minutes of movie that has less meaning to the audience than what didn't make the film.

The scene with Peter and Harry on the water front is a nice scene and one of the best cinematography of a conversation in the film, it was smooth and flowing, in comparison to many of the supper choppy editing of showing just one persons face, however it like Peter's Parents backstory doesn't really add to the movie considering that the other parts of the Harry and Peter subplots were cut out of the movie.  This scene detracts from the Peter and Gwen story line for no gain, except to put Harry on the screen longer and hope the audience buys it.

Speaking of choppy editing, that was a huge issue to me through out the movie, in too many scenes we are focusing on the talker rather than the conversation.   If you watch Marvel's The Avengers one of the most important scenes has all the main actors (short Hawkeye) discussing Shield and the Avenger Initiative, its a six minute long scene with 9 cuts.   In TASM2 the scene were Peter and Gwen breakup outside the restaurant lasts like 2 minutes and I lost count of the cuts at 15.  Joss Whedon is more concerned on who is receiving the news than the speaker in Marvel's The Avengers, yet in the pivotal moment in TASM2 we are bouncing around like basketball in a rubber room.  It is not just this scene, this MO happens through out the film.      

I don't think it was a bad story so much as bad execution on the part of the filmmakers.    Many people have been ready to crucify this film since Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci were announced as screenwriters, but it is not the script that holds this film back. 

In closing I want to add a final thought, one that really bothers me at this moment.   When I look at TASM and TASM2 as a whole I see two very distinct films, the problem is 40 percent of one film comes from TASM, 40% from TASM2 and 20% from the footage on the cutting room floor, same goes for the second film.   Its almost like reading a series of books by reading chapters from different books in a non chronologically order, chapter 4 book 1, chapter 8 book 3, chapter 2 book 1... and I am left with the assumption TASM3 will be the same way....