How Super 8 Ruined The Amazing Spider-Man

[seriousfic]

So, rumor has it that in ASM, Uncle Bartlett isn't killed by a burglar. No. Peter gets in trouble at school, Ben has to change his work schedule to deal with it, and so later he dies in an industrial accident.


That's so stupid I can believe it. This is the production that changed Spider-Man's costume despite
1. It staying the same for fifty years.
2. Everyone liking it.
3. It looking perfectly good in live-action.

I felt like the Hulk for a second there. C'mon, let's unpack that.

First off, I don't really care too much about fidelity to the source material. That's not the issue here. If ASM wants to set itself apart from the Raimiverse and change the origin, fine (although they wouldn't have to set themselves apart if they weren't redoing the origin like a bunch of uncreative hacks walk it off, walk it off, I'm cool). I would be fine with the broad strokes changing. It worked out fine in Batman Begins for Bruce's parents to be killed at the opera instead of outside a movie. And Tobey Maguire fighting a real wrestling match was part of Raimi's deliberate retro choices for his trilogy. I'll admit, these days, a teenager trying to make a buck off superpowers would probably be a Youtube celebrity. I'd even prefer that over some Geoff Johns "mastupdating" with Peter Parker fighting in an MMA cage match or something.

What's important is being faithful to the emotions and themes of the original story. So! Peter has to be actually responsible for Uncle Ben's death, in terms of him knowingly doing the wrong thing and it directly leading to homicide. Otherwise, you break the entire concept of Spider-Man. You'd think people would get this, given one of the justifications for rebooting is how bad Spider-Man 3 was (said the people who made Spider-Man 3 so bad with executive meddling), and one of the reasons fans didn't like Spider-Man 3 was how it retconned Uncle Ben's death. Me, I still don't get why they couldn't have Sandman hurt Aunt May or Peter's dead parents to get the same emotional investment, but whatevs, not the issue.

See, if Peter's at fault, then him becoming Spider-Man is about taking on responsibility, seeking redemption, being heroic. If he's only responsible in terms of a crazy wacky happenstance that could've happened to anyone however he acted (over/under on the school trouble being Peter fighting a bully?), then him being Spider-Man is more along the lines of a mental problem. Someone will doubtlessly say "It wasn't your fault, Peter," and it actually isn't, he's just some pathetic headcase who can't get over his uncle's death and move on with his life.

This exact same thing cropped up in Super 8, part of that movie's entire hard-on for sloppy storytelling. Throughout the entire movie, we knew that the girl's dad was responsible for killing the boy's mother. He came to pay his respects at the funeral and Sheriff Kyle Chandler dragged him out into the street and arrested him. That's Coach Taylor! If he says you killed his wife, you must've fucking decapitated her.

Then it turns out that all the guy did was get drunk and call in sick to work, causing the wife to be on the scene when the accident happened. (I guess if he really wanted to prevent an accident, he would've shown up to work hungover.) And yet, it's treated as this big moment when Kyle Chandler says it wasn't his fault. Of course it wasn't his fault, you psychotic jackass, what kind of idiot would think so weeks or even months after the initial grief?

Is this like a new Robert McKee thing, Hack Writing 101? "I want a character to be blamed and have angst for something, but I don't want the audience to dislike him." "Just have it not really be his fault! That way, it looks noble that he's taking responsibility for it anyway, and we don't have to ask any tough questions about whether he really deserves forgiveness since he hasn't actually done anything wrong."

Comments

[liliaeth]

Ah, but this plot point was signed on by the same people at Marvel who agreed with Brevoort, that Spider-Man isn't really about responsibility.

You know, just because it's only been the main theme of the series for the past forty plus years...

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

... I can't even make jokes anymore. It's literally beyond my ability to parody.

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

Moving on to, shockingly, less corrupt and unspeakable matters, how's the reading coming? I ask because I've finished the next part of the fic and it does reach the vaginal tightness stage.

[neo-prodigy.livejournal.com]

Why Marvel has essentially dropped the ball : because most of their flagship titles and franchises have lost sight of what made them organic and relatable.

Spider-Man: a young boy journey into manhood and learning the responsibility that comes with having extraordinary power.

X-Men: Allegory to the Civil Rights movement.


But watching these series you'd think it's about 30 something year old manchild aka Scott Pilgrim the middle age years and the awesome adventures of the Canadian mutant secret agent and 500 sidekicks.

[stillanerd.livejournal.com]

To be fair, though, there was some leaked footage from last year showing Peter knelling over the body of his Uncle Ben screaming to someone to "call an ambulance!" and it appears Uncle Ben still dies from a mugger's gunshot wound rather than an industrial accident. However, there was indeed a scene shown at one of the comic book conventions previewing portions of the film that showed Uncle Ben picking up Peter after he gets suspended for getting into a fight with Flash Thompson via using his spider-powers, and Uncle Ben telling Peter is he's been forced to take a different shift at work because of this. Thus, this, rather than Spidey's traditional comic book origins, is what presumably results in Uncle Ben's eventual death at the hands of a mugger, which also seems to suggest that not only is Peter already a costume vigilante crimefighter BEFORE his Uncle Ben gets killed but that Peter doesn't even encounter his Uncle Ben's killer prior to that same said killer killing his Uncle Ben--both of which, of course, potentially make Spider-Man a completely different character since his motive and reason for being a superhero are entirely different.

[nike-ravus.livejournal.com]

Word.
I think I need to send a lady in my writing group this. Honestly, dude's a pirate. I know he's also the hero of your inspirational romance novel, but Pirate, and you're telling me he never even killed anyone? How are you supposed to have an awesome redemption arc if you never did anything wrong?