Spider-Man: Homecoming

[thecolorsblend]

With respect to GOTG2, let's wait and see, shall we?

I'm all for that. I'm just keeping my expectations low.

Neither Thor film was among the best MCU entries, so the door is open for Thor: Ragnarok to be an improvement on the first film and Thor: The Dark World.

I rather enjoy the first Thor film. If that was released in today's market, it would do better because wide audiences are more trusting of the Marvel brand than they were back in 2008.

And you're right about the Captain America series, but I'm also one of those people who prefers Iron Man 3 to its predecessors.

Good for you, I guess, but the arc of that series in the public mind peaked with the first one and went downhill from there. Just like it did with Thor and Avengers.

[The Laughing Fish]

I'm all for that. I'm just keeping my expectations low.

Too bad some people don't follow that approach for ALL movies and prefer to jump on the bandwagon instead.

[The Laughing Fish]

Apparently, people are believing that Sony's Amy Pascal is hinting that Spider-Man could drop out of the MCU after the Homecoming sequel because she said this in an interview:

"One of the things that I think is so amazing about this experience is that you don't have studios deciding to work together to make a film very often. In fact it may never happen again, after we do the [Homecoming] sequel."

https://youtu.be/Glpcj-oQEN0

But according to Forbes, Spider-Man has three films to appear in the MCU. Hmmmm.

In other news, Sony are making an R-rated Venom movie...that has nothing to do with the MCU. And the title character is cast by...Zac Efron?!

http://screenrant.com/venom-movie-zac-efron-eddie-brock-mcu/

***EDIT:*** Considering that today is April Fool's Day, I should've realised that the Venom/Zac Efron news was fake.

[thecolorsblend]

Spider-Man's entire participation in Civil War felt tacked on... and a bit like someone was trying too hard. "See? Spider-Man is joking around as he fights! It's just like the comics! See? SEE???"

If he leaves the MCU after all this Homecoming and the sequel stuff... eh. Whatever. I've got three Raimi films and two Webb films. When it comes to Spider-Man movies, I'm good, thanks.

[johnnygobbs]

Spider-Man's entire participation in Civil War felt tacked on... and a bit like someone was trying too hard. "See? Spider-Man is joking around as he fights! It's just like the comics! See? SEE"

If he leaves the MCU after all this Homecoming and the sequel stuff... eh. Whatever. I've got three Raimi films and two Webb films. When it comes to Spider-Man movies, I'm good, thanks.

I somewhat agree with your first paragraph.  Spider-Man's involvement in Civil War felt shoehorned rather than natural.  And I'm a little worried about how much screen-time Iron Man/Tony Stark will be getting in the upcoming 'solo' Spider-Man film.

The thing about Spider-Man/Peter Parker was that he was always the little guy who didn't start off with any rich and powerful friends/benefactors, and I fear that by featuring Stark as a constant presence in the new Spider-Man franchise, that 'little guy versus the world' feeling will be somewhat lost.

[The Dark Knight]

Spider-Man's entire participation in Civil War felt tacked on... and a bit like someone was trying too hard. "See? Spider-Man is joking around as he fights! It's just like the comics! See? SEE"

If he leaves the MCU after all this Homecoming and the sequel stuff... eh. Whatever. I've got three Raimi films and two Webb films. When it comes to Spider-Man movies, I'm good, thanks.

I honestly believe Diveristy-Man was originally going to feature Miles Morales instead of Peter. Check out the supporting cast. Some of them strongly evoke his characters. This is basically a Miles film but with Peter.

That aside, I think something is being lost with this new version of the character. He is a young impressionable kid, and I get that. But he seems way too fascinated by pleasing the Avengers and Stark, when at this point of his career it should be about protecting the public. That's why he started doing this in the first place. Something about this doesn't click with me.

One of the reasons why I liked Spider-Man was because he was independent during his origins. He had to work things through himself and make things himself. Sure, Holland made the suit we see in Civil War. But after that, it's probably going to be Stark being Lucius Fox. Here's a new suit, here's a spider signal, here's this, here's that. A backstory of Peter creating a homemade suit doesn't really matter when the norm becomes the situation with Stark. Peter is the struggling kid who doesn't have the resources but he makes things happen. Having Stark in the mix takes that aspect away in my opinion. Things become too easy and it makes Peter an accessory.

Another reboot burned me out and this direction made me lose interest altogether.

[thecolorsblend]

I honestly believe Diveristy-Man was originally going to feature Miles Morales instead of Peter. Check out the supporting cast. Some of them strongly evoke his characters. This is basically a Miles film but with Peter.

I'll take your word on that. I don't know much about Miles, tbh.

That aside, I think something is being lost with this new version of the character. He is a young impressionable kid, and I get that. But he seems way too fascinated by pleasing the Avengers and Stark, when at this point of his career it should be about protecting the public. That's why he started doing this in the first place. Something about this doesn't click with me.

Good point.

I'm not a professor of Spider-Lore or anything. But my impression was that Spider-Man spent the great majority of his publishing history more or less on the outs from the wider Marvel universe. Yeah, occasionally he'd find acceptance from the Fantastic Four or the Avengers or something. But by and large, those exceptions mostly underlined that he is an outsider, even among his own peers.

When Peter became a kinda sorta apprentice to Stark in the Civil War comics, it marked a turning point for him. He was accepted by Tony and, by proxy, the rest of the Avengers in a way he had never been before. Joining the New Avengers was one thing. But going to work for Stark was a new beginning for him. It was enfranchisement that he had sincerely started believing he would never have.

Now, putting aside what happened in the aftermath of all that, Peter still had a TON of crap to go through to get to that point. It was a payoff that he had EARNED.

But Holland's Peter is getting it in his first MCU film (and it arguably started in the Civil War movie) and I just have problems with that.

Another reboot burned me out and this direction made me lose interest altogether.

This.

[johnnygobbs]

Here's a new interview with Michael Keaton: http://nerdist.com/michael-keaton-spider-man-homecoming-vulture-fangirls/

Here are a few interesting paragraphs where Keaton discusses his new comic-book character in some degree of detail:

Keaton revealed the blue-collar roots of Toomes, the small business owner of salvage company who he said, "Feels like a victim, and some of it is justified actually. He believes that there's an upper echelon of society of people who are getting away with a lot and have everything. And there's a whole lot of folks who are working hard, and don't have much."

For Toomes, that upper echelon means Tony Stark, whose company pushed his crew out of the Battle of New York cleanup gig that could have meant big money for a small business like his. So, with the help of his team, Vulture plans a series of heists to ripoff Stark Industries. On set we learned his team is made of Phineas "The Tinkerer" Mason (Michael Chernus), and Herman "The Shocker" Schultz (Bokeem Woodbine), as well as a cohort played by Logan Marshall-Green that no one on set would dare reveal. So what B-list baddie might he be?

Careful to not spill spoilers, Keaton didn't speak to Marshall-Green's role, but did say of the Vulture's squad, "They're his boys, and they are like-minded. They are just his boys, you know?"

"I really like the relationship with the Tinkerer–with Michael (Chernus)'s character–it's great," Keaton said. "He's real funny, so we goof around a lot and make up very, very funny backstories. But they're funny but then you think, 'Well, that's probably their relationship. They probably get on each other's nerves sometimes.' I have a lot of the ideas and then I just say, "Go make that. Go make that for me. I want to have a thing that does all this stuff. Just go make that stuff for me." And he's great. I'm having a lot of fun in that relationship."

Keaton was likewise tight-lipped when it came to questions about the set of Vulture's lab, which we got to tour. Winding through a dark and drafty warehouse, the glamor of Hollywood felt faraway. Within its chilly concrete walls, there was a bounty of strange glowing tech, and a pair of metal Vulture wings that extended into steel fingers. Then on the fridge, some children's drawings in crayon. So, this super-villain isn't just some wild rogue, he's a working dad whose motivation is providing for his family.
"He wants to look out for who his kids,"Marvel producer Eric Carroll said. "He's got sort of a Tony Soprano mentality. He doesn't have these big delusions of grandeur where he wants to take over the world, or replace the government, or even defeat the Avengers or anything. He just wants his shot at the good life, and he thinks it's not fair that someone like Tony Stark can make a fortune selling weapons and find the light, turn away from that, and be looked upon as a hero and then even worse, he gets paid to clean up the mess! ... So he's one of those guys. 'I'm doing some shady stuff, but I'm not really hurting anyone,' you know?"

Keaton's The Vulture/Adrian Toomes is coming across more  and more sympathetic each time I read about him.  I'm now wondering, is he the villain, or is it Tony Stark.

[Silver Nemesis]

I rated Civil War a 9/10 on this site after I first saw it last year. I've since watched it again on DVD and realised that I overrated it in my initial review. My revised score would be a 6 or 7 at most. I still think it's a good film, but The Winter Soldier retains the top spot for best MCU movie IMO.

In retrospect, Spider-Man's inclusion in Civil War is one of the problems I have with it. Those scenes work in isolation, and I like Tom Holland in the role. But as others have pointed out, there's no reason for those scenes, entertaining though they are, to appear in that specific story. The whole plot basically stops so Marvel can plug another one of their upcoming films. It's inorganic. And I'm tired of this trend in general. It's nice that studios now have the option to include one hero in another's film should they need to, but I think there's been a tendency of late to abuse that freedom.

More and more, I'm longing for the days of unique and simple standalone superhero films like Batman 89 and The Crow, where one hero battled one villain and there was a sense of closure at the end of it all. It's great to have movies like The Avengers and Justice League, but we need more self-contained cameo-free films to balance things out.

As for Spider-Man: Homecoming, I'm not sure if I'm going to see it yet. I skipped the Webb films in theatres, but I'm intrigued to see Keaton in another superhero film. He's the main selling point for me.

[johnnygobbs]

I agree, once again, with a lot of your comments Silver Nemesis.

Like you, I appreciate the freedom Marvel Studios has to place any one of its various characters (except, alas, for the X-Men and Fantastic Four...) in whichever movie it chooses.  I also appreciate the sense of continuity between movies.

But I also resent the sense that certain MCU instalments are beginning to feel like two-hour trailers for the next movie rather than self-contained adventures one can appreciate without insisting on prior knowledge or waiting for loose threads to be resolved.

Like you say, Batman 1989 is a great example of a self-contained comic-book movie, that resolves its narrative within the space of two hours.  It's also why I can forgive the filmmakers for portraying The Joker as the murderer of Bruce Wayne's parents.  That plot contrivance adds to the sense of a resolution, with Batman finally confronting and definitively defeating the very man/monster that effectively created him.