Spiderman 3 is very high on my list of "Worst Movies Ever Made."

o.O

You mean like... I can eat a galaxy for breakfast powerful?  Cause, um, I grant you that making a super-big god creature, yeah... that's more powerful than superman, but are there human-like characters that are more powerful than "Immune to everything and stronger and faster than everyone, and supersenses, and super lasers shooting from his eyes, and x-ray vision"?

Oh.. yeah, there's the lead thing with the x-ray vision... so kryptonite and lead are his only two weaknesses.

Like 804 said, they just needed to do a Superman movie circa the last decade or so. Watch the Justice League cartoon; I mean, Supes is still definitely The Man of Steel, but he's been toned down so challenges can be thrown his way.

The thing about Superman is that no one can relate to him. In the last Superman movie a bank robber held a gun up to Superman's eye and pulled the trigger. The bullet hit Superman's eye and reflected off; leaving him unharmed. That 1 to 2 seconds of film is the perfect example of why I don't care about Superman in the movies. He is a god among ants on our world. There can be no struggle for him against anything that humans throw at him. Except of course, unless Lex Luthor finds yet another sample of Kryptonite. Also, that movie was mostly wasted on boring and irrelevant story lines involving his bastard son and Lane's huspand.

What... this one?

http://www.free-tv-video-online.info/movies/2009/x-men_origins_wolverine.html

Enjoy!

I'm pretty sure that, for some reason, Superman isn't invulnerable to Magic or some such thing.  I can't find a definite reference on that though.

The real problem with "Big S" is that he's the Messiah.  He was sent by his father from "heaven" to the earth, walked among us as a man and, when he came of age, took upon himself the burden of saving humanity.  The writers have struggled for years to contain him but everytime the get his ability on a leash somone comes along and takes it off again.  The only stories about Supes which are interesting are those designed to show the conflict of being an alien in a foreign land, the "what if?" scenarios like Red Son which give us alternate spins on how a perfect man would develop, or the ones that are used to make other people (primarily Batman) look cool.

M

I wouldn't have said a mockery, more a modern day re-telling of that story.

Essentially, for me, it boils down to what Superman represents.  He's not a man who's struggle symbolises hope.  He's not a man who fears the world and hopes that he can do some good in it.  He is Hope.  He is Good.  It's a nightmare for any writer to challenge those things.  If you kill Superman what hope does anyone else have?  If you corrupt him then everyone's corruptible.  They tried killing him as a gimmick and had others step in to take up his charge (Superboy, Steel... whoever else) but at the end of the day all that remained in the back of anyones head was "Superman is dead".

Marvel on the other hand had Captain America.  While he started out as naked patriotism the character evolved much more to mirror the 'blue eyed boy scout" that Superman represents to the world of DC.  The difference with Cap is that he's a man; a man who believed in an idea so much that he was willing to put his life on the line time and time again in its defense.  He wasn't the idea, just its champion.  This is someone you can test.  This is someone you can kill.  And they finally got the balls to do it.  In this case we don't get the "If Cap is killed then there's no hope".  Instead we have "He died doing the right thing, others can learn by his example".  Bucky takes up the shield and Captain America moves on.

Batman is the next idealogical step along from this.  He's damaged goods.  Enough wealth and power to make Solomon blush but haunted by the demons of his past.  Irrevocably insane.  But he drives on and he does his best.  Every night.  In Batman we have a man fighting himself and winning.  Who doesn't want to be that man?  Who doesn't want to be the man who can hold his head high despite his own flaws?

Plus, he's got the batmobile.

M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdFstm_kJzU

I was recently told a story about a spat between Kevin Smith and Tim Burton.  I don't want to look it up because I trust my source.  Anyway, apparently, Smith took some kind of shot at Burton (a relatively good natured shot) over this or that thing in one of his movies, and Tim Burton rather arrogantly replied something like, "You've got to be kidding.  *I* don't read comic books."  Smith replied, "I know.  I've seen your movie.  {Batman}"

I felt bad for Jack.  I really did. 

You mean... you watched the whole scene where Peter was dancing and playing the "bad boy" and singing in night clubs and... and... you didn't vomit?

I haven't seen X-men 3 yet.  I'm kind of scared to.  Please bear in mind, I don't read comics and never have.  When I see a comic book movie, I'm watching a movie about a superhero.  I have no idea what is or is not in the comic book, so I never get offended that something is not "true to the original."  I just want to see a good movie.

I've been told that The Dark Knight contained a lot of easter eggs for comic book junkies to prove that the entire cast and crew were trying to make a "comic book" movie, not just a Batman movie.  I don't know what they are, and wouldn't recognize them if I saw them, but I'm glad they were able to pull it off.  In the end, I want to see a good movie, though, and I don't really care about whether it matches the book.

I know I'm not the main target audience, and I'm not saying I think they ought to make the movies differently because I don't read comics.  I'm just giving my perspective as a non-comic reader who's marginally interested in superhero movies.

Oh, and back to SM3, the characters were too wooden for me.  "Hi, I'm the remorseful bad guy with lots of rage!"  "Hi, I'm the PURE EVIL from another galaxy that will flood your brain with endorphins and make you sexy."  "YOU KILLED MY FATHER!  PREPARE TO DIE!  Oh... yeah... wait... my father was a douche... Oh... no he wasn't!  Ok... he was a douche.  I love you man!"

The Batman had real problems to deal with.  Spiderman had a petulant poser best friend with ego problems and a whiny girlfriend who wants to know why she can't be an actress since she's such a princess.  By contrast, The Joker was a brilliant, manipulative, self-serving sonofabitch with a chip on his shoulder and apparently limitless political pull.  That big sand monster was just a thug, and who gives a shit about alien goo?

So says hambydammit.  So shall it be.

Oh yeah... I remember the different colors of kryptonite now...  Kind of hokey, but yeah, they had that on The Superfriends on Saturday morning back in the 70s.

In a way, this whole thought process was already kick started by my little rant about D&D v.3.  Heroes cause escalation problems.  (This is also why I don't have to go to the theater to know that Fast and Furious is the worst movie ever made on any planet.)  Escalation is a real sonofabitch when you're trying to do any kind of serial.

I just thought Sandman was stupid.  I have no sympathy for stupid.

You're exactly right.  It was sort of like watching a horse race.  "Coming up on the left, we have a huge lump of sand smashing everything in sight... but... look out!  Mary Jane wants to be an actress.  Making a stab through the middle, here comes Harry... what a tortured soul.  FLASHBACK!!  Back to the nasty alien goo!  Peter's a bad boy!!!  Naughty Naughty!!  Alien GOOO!!!!!  Sandman!!!!  BOOOOM!!!   CRASH!!!!!

That'll be $9.50 please.

The whole damn thing was too cliche.  Maybe it's just a problem with Spiderman.  I understand wholesome vs. evil, but on the big screen, you have to make your characters human.  These characters were all cardboard cutouts.  No soul.  (FSM forgive me.)

No kidding?  I'd have never guessed that.  Alien goo makes people act bad?  I prefer Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Yeah, Peter had a lot of potential as a character, but whether it was from trying to be "like a comic" or just bad writing/directing, he just ended up looking like a damn naive fool.  Like I said, I have no sympathy for stupid.

Might as well take this thing full circle.  This is why life has more meaning when there isn't an all powerful being making sure everything works out just the way he likes it.  Limits make life interesting.

Actually, I've seen a lot of work indicating that limits might be damn near necessary for the creative process.  If I tell you, "You've got ten minutes to outline a compelling story," a lot of people will freeze up simply because they have no idea where to start.  On the other hand, if I tell you to outline a compelling story about a teenager alienated from his father who narrowly avoids jail and has a life changing epiphany, yeah, you're restricted severely, but you also have something to work with... and the more restrictions you have, the more creative you have to get to come up with something interesting.  Limits inspire creativity.

Funny you mention that.  The friend I mentioned earlier said something that I thought was really interesting.  Any half-decent Star Wars geek knows that there are problems in the SW plot that make reconciling the Egyptian Exodus with archaeological records look like childsplay.  Han can't skip across a couple of parsecs to drop off some money, but Luke can complete years of training while Han skips across a couple of parsecs to visit his old buddy Lando.  Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

The thing is, Lucas didn't know he was making a six part movie series.  He was blowing his wad on something he thought was fun and interesting.  Unfortunately, he took the Bill Clinton route when his mistakes were discovered.  He could have stepped up to the mic and said, "Folks, I was just making a space cowboy movie.  I didn't plan ahead for six movies.  A few things aren't going to work out perfectly because that's the way it works in the movie business.  Just use your imagination.  It's not the infallible word of god.  It's a movie."  Instead, he's constantly gone back and insisted that there are plausible explanations that make all six movies flow seamlessly together.  What a crock.

Fix the problems.  Move on.

Incidentally, how about this for an alternate ending to episode IV?  Han swoops in, saves the day, flies off into the sunset, Western style.  In the final scene, everybody gets their medals, and Luke is downhearted, wishing Han were there.  Leia whispers, "I don't know... I don't think we've seen the last of Han Solo."

Enter Episode V:  Han has returned from an encounter with Jabba the Hutt, who (being an evil son-of-a-bitch) was no longer happy with just the promised price, and demanded ten times as much, and put a price on Han's head after he narrowly escaped capture.  Seeking refuge with the rebels, Han is once again unwittingly made part of the rebel alliance's struggle, all the while being pursued by evil Jabba and the bounty hunters.

 DERAIL (I can do it since it's my thread.)

Sometimes, directors make good decisions about staying true to the book.  If Tom Bombadil had been in LoTR, I would have thrown up in my mouth a little.  He was a terrible character in the book, and as far as I can tell, was just a nice plot device to help Tolkien get himself out of a jam because he wasn't creative enough to figure out anything interesting.

Yes.  I just totally shat on Tolkien.  The books weren't as good as everybody makes them out to be.  All the fantasy shit that came from them?  Some of it's pretty cool.  Some of it's not.  It's like Star Wars.  The legend is better than the facts.

Back to Spidey, though, I guess perhaps contrasting me and Vastet is an interesting experiment.  I don't know or care about the comics, and I thought Venom was a totally boring piece of shit-like alien goo.  Vastet has all these memories of how cool Venom has been in the past, and was disappointed, but probably still rode a lot of nostalgia to get him through an otherwise terrible movie while still feeling pretty good about the experience.

What do you think, Vastet?  Nostalgia bias made the movie seem better to you than it seems to a neophyte like me?

See... that's all Lucas had to say.  "Hey guys... I kind of fucked up by not planning well enough for a sequal, and I had to make do with what made it to the screen.  It's a movie.  Read the books, and you'll see how it all works out."

But nooooooooo!  The movies are seamless.  Right.

There are two kinds of people in this world.  Those who will ditch Star Wars in a heartbeat for some pussy, and those who don't get enough pussy.

Dr. Doom

Lex Luthor

(I admit, I'm having to think a little now... )

Oh, duh... The Joker.

The Penguin

umm.. was the Silver Surfer a bad guy or a good guy?

(I told you guys I don't know shit about comics.)

Magneto...

this is getting really difficult.  Who was that big fucker that ate planets and dressed in purple, or something...

That's all I can think of.

lol. Fair enough. And true enough.

I really can't disagree at all.

This particular goo does. It is sentient in and of itself. Sadly, they didn't get into that very much in the movie. Most of what they did get into, it was a backdrop to Peter's whole emo thing, and he wasn't paying much attention. By rote, neither did we. Dr. Connor's voice was literally over-ridden by Peter and the girl next door.

On the bright side, they didn't rush it to the extent that Carnage was also involved. Carnage being the offspring of the original symbiote, who ended up fusing with a clinically insane criminal. My fear is that they'll hyper this by simply having a remnant of the suit survive S3, and find this guy, as opposed to Eddie and Venom still existing, and Carnage being the offspring and a seperate individual. At least half of the fun of the characters came from Carnage and Venom fighting each other to have the right to destroy Spiderman.

It's a good point. There were a few things in S3 that Peter had already overcome, only to be saddled with them all over again. Which ends up making him an idiot.

In the interest of not spoiling anything I'm not going to respond to this comment.

Oh very much so. When I first started writing, all I had to work with were a few disconnected ideas floating around in my head. I immediately set to work on defining certain gameplay aspects, as the desired end result of my writing would be a game format (Vid, or RPG, or both). Then, when I had properly defined some things that needed to be defined, I sat down to start the story itself, and did absolutely nothing. I didn't have anything to work with. Or, more specifically, I had too much to work with. So I went and started defining a few more things, creating an outline for the series in the process. That made writing the story infinitely easier. I wrote two chapters in two days. Then I got stumped again, because I was doing a character/scene change and I hadn't properly created the setting for the new character. What other characters will interact with her? Where? How? How many are available to interact with her? What about the societal functions? So I went back to my outline again and started some more work.

Of course, I look back on my defining of the gameplay aspects now, and see they need to be completely reworked as well. lol.

The novels clear that up. After Han came back to save Luke from Vader, and allow Luke to nuke the Death Star in the process, Han was given a command within the Rebel Alliance. His duties in the fledgling alliance were insurmountable, as the alliance was sorely lacking in skilled labour and administration. Han was one of the people the Alliance tapped heavily for this, which made it so he never got around to paying Jabba off. There's even a mention of it in Episode V, where Han mentions running into a bounty hunter on Ord Mantell, though obviously the movies themselves didn't address this to most peoples satisfaction.

Oh, and regarding Luke training while Han is taking his time getting to Lando, well the Millenium Falcon's hyperdrive was down. They were moving at sublight speeds to get to Lando. Hence, Luke had plenty of time to train. But I think it was weeks or months. It couldn't have been many years, if it was any. Return of the Jedi occurred 4 years after A New Hope, and only about a year after The Empire Strikes Back.  

There are a few errors in the Star Wars chronology, but to be honest, I have yet to see a universe with so few of them. The movies themselves only have one or two issues. The novels add another two or three. I would be greatly surprised if anyone could come up with a list of 10 insurmountable inconsistancies.

And actually, Lucas did have an idea that he was looking at a six part series. They wouldn't let him call the first movie Episode IV until it had already been successful, but it was his intention to call it that from the beginning. The reason he started at 4 instead of 1 is simply technology. He had a hard enough time coming up with the effects for Episode 4, let alone the mass cityscape of Coruscant in 1, 2, and 3.

However, from everything I've seen Lucas say on the matter, he only had a vague impression of where he was wanting to go. He certainly didn't have scripts or even outlines written up for Episodes 1 through 3, but he did have the idea that he was going to make them.

Well maybe it would help if you knew why Jabba had a price on Han in the first place. It is stickier than the movies let on. On Kessel, where all Glitterstim Spice (THE premium drug on the market) is mined, you have a prison planet run by the Empire (at the time of the movie in question at least). This planet isn't large enough or stable enough to have much of an atmosphere. And even if it was, it would probably be stripped away by the Black Hole cluster nearby. This cluster is why the "Kessel run" is so difficult. In order to complete it faster, you have to skim closer to the black holes. Which is obviously somewhat suicidal.

On Kessel, an administrative flunky for the Empire named Moruth Doole was running his own little scam. He'd import miners who wanted some cheap spice, gave them some maps, and arranged to distribute the spice for them, at a cost of course(thanks to an arrangement he had with Jabba). When these miners had emptied the caverns they were mining, or the Empire was getting close to discovering them, Doole would traditionally turn them in to the Empire to preserve his business and gain favour with the Empire.

Han was not one of these miners, but he was indirectly attached to one group by happening to be the guy running the spice when Doole decided to betray them, which put him afoul of an Imperial task force. Jabba knew this well, and had an assassin pay Doole a visit, as well as trying to capture Han.

Han also suspected Doole's involvement, and that made him a bit less eager to return to the field he'd been working all those years (Jabba's assassin failed to kill Doole). Which made the Rebel Alliance seem like a much better destination for him.

I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that bias allows me to enjoy S3. I also have no doubt in my mind that if they take one more wrong step in the series that I'll wash my hands of it.

As a life long Marvel comics (and Spiderman in particular) fan...and Hater of almost all of what DC comics tries to pass off... The X men movies, the Spiderman Movies...Daredevil, Electra and the first Hulk movie all ranged from awful to unwatchable...the commonality they all shared was that Marvel liscensed out their rights to Sony Pictures, who bastardized the product...

*However*...with the advent of Marvel Studios...Iron Man, and the 2nd Hulk were terrific...Sony is doing the upcoming Wolverine movie, which looks to be another insipid, dummied down. story line altered product, designed to attract kids (who will hate it for the same reasons that adults do).

I am about to shuck my hog in anticipation of the Thor, Capt America, Iron Man 2, and Avengers movies...Christ I am sad.

Damn.  I was trying to think of something witty to say about this, and all I kept coming back to was... damn... you're right!  I'd never thought about it this way.

Ah, angsty pubescent slasher fiction... nothing screams "I WAN'T PUSSY!" like it.  It's the teen version of punching girls on the playground.  Isn't human nature fun?

Oh yeah, there was a comment Hamby made earlier that I meant to comment on, and never did now that I'm looking back.

You shat on Tolkein. Personally, I do too. I tried reading the Hobbit once. I don't think I made it through the first chapter. That was my one and only Tolkein encounter. I have not seen the LOTR movies. I have not read the books. I haven't had anything to do with him since my failed attempt to read the Hobbit. Everywhere I turn my favourite authors champion him. Meh.