Movie Club: Spiderman (2002)

[LiamABC]

WELCOME EVERYBODY TO THE LATEST DISCUSSION THREAD OF THE NEW MOVIE CLUB, DESIGNED TO RUN PARALLEL WITH R.O.C.K.S. A big thanks to everyone that are joining us through all of this.

This week we’re paying tribute to Stan Lee, with the first of the modern Spiderman films, from 2002 or thereabouts I believe.

Remember any ideas for films to discuss are most welcome, and should be made on the Movie Club Introduction thread (the sticky one), and anyone is welcome to add their thoughts about movies already discussed on their respective threads.

Just a friendly reminder to everyone that, whilst fans are obviously welcome to passionately discuss and give their views on these movies, please remember to keep things on a friendly footing and respect your fellow posters.
Also, please do not post where or how to find the full movie online. And do not post asking others to PM it to you. You are however allowed to watch the movie in whatever manner you want.

[Mark_M]

The first theatrical Spider-Man movie. I remember I was so excited back when this movie first came out.
I grew up watching old repeats of the 60’s and the modern 90’s cartoon, reading the comics and even getting some action figures. During the early 90’s I even watched old repeats of the live action TV series…which I found on VHS around the time this movie was released lol. My friends were not too impressed at how much more interested I was in the old series.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErhFqQOEUDE

I actually first seen this movie back when it came out, but not in the cinema. My friend purchased a bootleg copy at the Sunday market and we watched it.
Considering how I had watched the cartoons and had various action figures it is kind of odd I wasn’t that interested in going to the cinema to watch it.

With the occasional exception, Superhero movies from the late 70’s to 2000 were pretty much hit and miss. After The first couple Superman and Batman movies they were mostly misses. Although I still think the 1990 Captain America was pretty cool. X-Men and Spider-Man were pretty much the start of them getting back on track of being good movies with interesting characters.

Back when I first watched this movie and re-watching it now, unlike X-Men, I am still very impressed how much of attribute this film is to the classic Spider-Man story. It has pretty much everything in being an origin story for the character, meeting Mary Jane and the Green Goblin’s origin, Peter and Harry’s friendship, getting his job as a photographer and even some story with Mary Jane and Harry’s family etc.

I thought the casting was okay for the most part and they all did a pretty good job.
Toby Maguire was a good choice overall of Peter. I quite liked how in the movie he could shoot webs which kind of makes sense for someone with spider powers, rather than having to make web shooters.
William Dafoe was really good as Norman Osbourne/Green Goblin. Although I really didn’t like suit and would have preferred something more like the comic instead of his armour look. He looks more like something from the 70’s/80’s Japanese live action Spider-Man series.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1PePr8hAsc

J.K. Simmons was pretty much perfect as J. Jonah Jameson.

My favourite scenes would be the wrestling match, the dinner scene and the final fight scene.
I really liked the casting of Randy Savage as Bone Saw McGraw. It was strange seeing him not being his Macho Man Randy Savage character. Well I suppose it’s not to different to how he was around 1999. But its a shame he didn’t really do that much aside from swinging weapons. In the 80’s and early 90’s he was a tremendously athletic wrestler.
The dinner scene was great when Norman worked out Peter was Spider-Man.
The setting and look of the final fight was very atmospheric and looked like something you would expect from the comics and cartoons.

My only real complaint is that it’s quite long and crams a lot into the story.
The story would have worked a lot better if they hadn’t crammed so much in and covered so much ground and just kept the focus to peter still being in High School.
I also didn’t like the inclusion of Macey Grey and song Hero by Chad Kroger. Not keen on either of them…the latter especially.
They should have used the Ramones cover of the 60’s Spider-Man theme tune.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5P8lrgBtcU

The movie does have flaws but overall a good movie and a really good movie of Spider-Man. Visually especially. Although I do kind of prefer the more contained story of the Spider-Man: Homecoming 2017 movie. I can’t really comment on the sequels and Andrew Garfield versions as I haven’t watched them.

[Wilycub]

Honestly, as a child I was never too much into superhero comics. I was more in to the British D.C. Thomson comics (Beano, Dandy, Sparky etc.) The only superhero comics I ever read (and there were only a handful) were Batman and Superman, because they were my favorite characters. So my first introduction to Spider-man was via the animated cartoon series and the live action series (of which I only watched the pilot).

So when this movie came out, I didn’t have a lot to compare it with, but I guess that’s a good thing because I enjoyed it immensely! The story was very well done, balancing all the characters and all the important elements in Peter Parker’s life, setting things up for the sequels. I agree with Mark that the story could have been trimmed a bit.

Maguire gave a very good performance as the titular character and his alter ego. But he could have been a bit more “energetic”. He seems a bit too mellow for a teenager. I also like the spidey suit in this movie the best, compared the ones that came after it. J.K. Simmons and Willem Dafoe were perfectly cast and gave probably the best performances of all the other cast. I wasn’t too impressed with James Franco’s performance or his character. I thin kit could have been better, but perhaps that’s how the character was written.

I’m going to devote a whole paragraph to Mary Jane Watson because she is the one character in the entire trilogy that I REALLY disliked! Her job was to be pretty much a damsel in distress and nothing more. The Green Goblin uses her as bait in this movie, Doc Ock uses her as bait in the second movie, and Venom uses her as bait in the third movie. Her job is just to get strung up and wait for Spidey to come and rescue her. And she’s a very unlikeable character who is very immature (and remains that way throughout the trilogy) and who can’t commit to any relationship seriously. Throughout the trilogy: she is seen first dating Flash Thompson, then moves to Harry, then to Spidey, then to Jameson’s astronaut son, then back to Spidey, then back to Harry, then back to Spidey. I feel that character should have been a bit stronger, like Louis Lane in the original Superman movie and the Smallvile series. Someone who can hold her own and who is mature enough to not pick fights over petty things and jump from boyfriend to boyfriend whenever she feels like it.

One major thing that I like about Maguire’s Spiderman as opposed to Garfield and Holland’s Spiderman is that Maguire’s character gets his web shooting ability from the spider bite itself. I know this is not how it was in the comics, but it seems more believable and logical to me that his own body is producing the web that he shoots from his wrist (like a real spider). Compare this with the other Spidey incarnations in which Parker himself builds these awesome wrist web shooters which are really small, can store a ton of webbing material that is super strong, and be able to shoot it hundreds of meters. Even NASA scientist wouldn’t be able to do that!!! I feel Raimi was right in changing this aspect from the comics.

[Mark_M]

@Wilycub

I’m going to devote a whole paragraph to Mary Jane Watson because she is the one character in the entire trilogy that I REALLY disliked! Her job was to be pretty much a damsel in distress and nothing more. The Green Goblin uses her as bait in this movie, Doc Ock uses her as bait in the second movie, and Venom uses her as bait in the third movie. Her job is just to get strung up and wait for Spidey to come and rescue her. And she’s a very unlikeable character who is very immature (and remains that way throughout the trilogy) and who can’t commit to any relationship seriously. Throughout the trilogy: she is seen first dating Flash Thompson, then moves to Harry, then to Spidey, then to Jameson’s astronaut son, then back to Spidey, then back to Harry, then back to Spidey. I feel that character should have been a bit stronger, like Louis Lane in the original Superman movie and the Smallvile series. Someone who can hold her own and who is mature enough to not pick fights over petty things and jump from boyfriend to boyfriend whenever she feels like it.

I completely agree. I didn’t mention it but I really didn’t like her character in the film. Spidey had to save her about 3x times in this movie alone.
Personally I have nothing against Kirsten Dunst as an actress. However aside from having red hair she has literally nothing else in common with the Mary Jane from the comics or cartoons. She doesn’t look or have the personality of Mary Jane. The personality in the movies is the writers fault, but as for the look they should have got a different looking actress.

@Wilycub

One major thing that I like about Maguire’s Spiderman as opposed to Garfield and Holland’s Spiderman is that Maguire’s character gets his web shooting ability from the spider bite itself. I know this is not how it was in the comics, but it seems more believable and logical to me that his own body is producing the web that he shoots from his wrist (like a real spider). Compare this with the other Spidey incarnations in which Parker himself builds these awesome wrist web shooters which are really small, can store a ton of webbing material that is super strong, and be able to shoot it hundreds of meters. Even NASA scientist wouldn’t be able to do that!!! I feel Raimi was right in changing this aspect from the comics.

Being able to shoot webs naturally like a spider makes a lot more sense for someone with spider powers. I dont believe Spider-Woman had to rely on web shoots and that her webs were a natural ability.

@Wilycub

Honestly, as a child I was never too much into superhero comics. I was more in to the British D.C. Thomson comics (Beano, Dandy, Sparky etc.) The only superhero comics I ever read (and there were only a handful) were Batman and Superman, because they were my favorite characters. So my first introduction to Spider-Man was via the animated cartoon series and the live action series (of which I only watched the pilot).

My favourite comics were Transformers, G.I. Joe, He-Man, Thundercats, Bravestarr, Ghostbusters and Beano and Dandy. Although sometimes I would get the occasional Marvel or DC comic like Spider-Man, X-Men, Batman and Superman which I also enjoyed. We used to have a newsagents in the village and usually every week or two after school I would get a couple comics.
The first two action figures I ever got was the Secret Wars Hobgoblin (Spider-Man villain) and Captain America along with Cap’s Turbo Cycle and the Doom Roller.
I still have my original Hobgoblin and recently got a loose second hand Captain America. Long story short I left my Cap figure in the wrong box of toys that was given away to my younger cousins. They enjoyed playing with the toys…but they really didn’t look after the toys.

They need to make a Spider-Man movie with Hobgoblin as the main villain.

[LiamABC]

Just seen this film for the first time in about 15yrs.

Nothing much to add to what’s already been said.

Yes, it is a bit long, and I had to hit pause a few times and do other things. There were some good moments and it was a good film overall but they could probably have trimmed 15-20min off the runtime easy.

Mary-Jane . . . yes, she’s not really much of a character. Unfortunately, there are people like that in real life, I know because I’ve met a couple. Shallow is the word - take Molly Ringwald’s character from The Breakfast Club and put her in this movie in Mary-Jane’s place and you couldn’t tell the difference.

The fact that Spidey produced webs from his own wrists in this movie was a shock to the system the first time I saw it as I too had been brought up on the cartoons that had those bracelet-cartridges with a seemingly infinite supply of web fluid. But looking at it now it does make more sense for it to be generated within his own body. He’s got bitten by a radioactive spider and gained a whole load of spidery powers, why shouldn’t the webs be part of that too? OK, granted, in real life that would most likely just kill you or at least make you ill, but if we’re going to swallow that part of the backstory, they might as well make it all fit together.

[The_Drifter]

This Spider-man film was the first Marvel movie I saw in the theater. Despite being a fan of the comics as a kid/teen back in the '80’s, I wasn’t sold on the idea of films based on the characters - I figured they would mess up some aspect of the comics when the character(s) got translated to scren.

Despite this, I still went to see this film when it opened in late Spring 2002. And, I really enjoyed this - very true to the original Steve Ditko/Stan Lee comics from the 1960’s, with obvious modern updates. Tobey McGuire nailed it as a geeky, non-athletic Peter Parker who didn’t quite fit in with his classmates. This made his becoming a “super hero” all the more jarring, but that was the whole point of him in particular getting the powers. I initially didn’t like the fact that Green Goblin was in a metallic green costume (since I preferred the more Halloween-like costume/outfit from the comic), but it really grew on me - and, after a while I realized that this really “fit” into the SM film universe.

As has been discussed, one of my favorite aspects of the film were the organic spider-webs that SM generated from his hands. In the comics, Peter Parker “created” this webbing due to his incredible knowledge of high-school chemistry - yeah, right. And, one of the issues SM had in the comics was that his webbing kept running out at important moments, i.e. battling a super-villain, needing it to swing from one building to another, etc.

So, the organic webs made a lot more sense in the context of the origin - i.e., if you can buy that a radioactive spider biting someone will give them the strength/power of a spider, you can also buy that this will give them the ability to organically produce webbing, like spiders can.