The Amazing Spider-Man

[Chux]

Yeah, I read it. A little spoilery too if you're able to put 2+2 together.

[Will]

Judging from trailers and reviews the films seem to fix the problems the Raimi films left behind by adding more villains and characters as well as making Peter/Spider-Man more like his comics counterpart but Sony's pushing these films out too fast.

I wouldn't be surprised if there was burnout on both sides of the fence so I hope they take their time with Spider-Man 3 while their other films like Sinister Six and Venom fill in some of the gaps. But even those films have a possibility of messing up.

[MechDeus]

Not enough characters was a problem with the Raimi films? What?

[Will]

The too many characters issue in Spider-Man 3 was mainly because Sony crammed two films into one so it wasn't spread evenly, they also jumped ahead too much and tacked on Gwen Stacy and her dad later on which the Webb films approached more accurately in a chronological sense.

Amazing Spider-Man 2 may have a similar issue to 3 but what I'm mainly referring to is taking a more expansive approach to the universe by adding lower level villain confrontations in the film such as the Spider-Man vs Rhino sequence that seems to be early on in the movie. The Raimi films were missing stuff like that and never properly paid off the Curt Conners turn into the Lizard either which was kind of taken care of in some ways by the first Amazing film.

[MechDeus]

So what would you consider Sandman if not a lower level villain confrontation? There wasn't room in the films released to stick Lizard in there. Having Conners in there for a possible future bit was the only (unfulfilled) foreshadowing either of these Spider-Man series even attempted, which I rather liked.

Even that aside, that first review (from some place I'm unfamiliar with so maybe it's way off, no idea) is already saying there's like 20 minutes of bloated nonsense from cramming too many villains in this one and losing focus. We're probably going to be treading familiar ground here but without the laughable dark Parker stuff.

p.s. It's funny playing the ASM game which is set after the first movie and has a very different Rhino in it.

[Will]

I'd personally consider Sandman a higher tier villain than Rhino or Shocker but that's just me.

Spider-Man 3 really should have been Harry Goblin and Sandman while leaving Venom out for the 4th with maybe Lizard thrown in. Spider-Man 3 could have handled Sandman as main or secondary villain incredibly well and arguably did up to a certain point but they fucked it up. Like I said, Amazing Spider-Man 2 could be a similar cluster fuck but their approach so far seems closer to what to expect from a Spider-Man movie in terms of what a Spider-Man universe looks like.

Agreed about the game version of Rhino, it's funny since it's not what's in the movie but I suppose it's one of those things that can be explained as prototype versions of said character. Spider-Man games never seem to fit perfectly into the movie canon since they have to take liberties with other villains that aren't in the movies before the movies decide to do anything with them. The Alistair Smythe characters seems like he could work out as a linking element though.

[YellerDog]

Just Venom, end it on the deserted island with the faked death, done.

[Advocate]

The other issue was Raimi hating Venom. So having to add Venom was more of an appeasement to the studio. He literally plugged him in spots meant for Sandman development.

[Dolemite]

If Rami had no choice he should have just said "fuck it" and held off Sandman for another movie instead of splintering SM3 like he did.

[MechDeus]

I think it got so messed up from too many characters that they wanted to split it into two movies but couldn't figure out a good spot to do so. And yes, it should've only been Sandman OR Venom and Goblin, especially with Gwen Stacy getting tossed in there too.