Here is the basic timeline of Batman:
May 1939 - First real story involving Batman, basically a detective with little remorse for killing.
April 1940 - Robin introduced, Batman fleshed out to be more "campy".
1969 - O'Neil and Adams start to distance themselves from the "campy" nature.
So you are saying that because for 1 year in the first 30 years of Batman's history he was dark, he was always this "Dark Knight" he is made to be today?
What I'm saying is that the best of Batman has historically come when those in charge explored the character's darker side.
Again, heroes can be changed an reimagined. They always are and movies go along with that. When audiences want campy, they get it. When audiences want dark, they get it. When audiences want to see Nazis and Communists beat up, they even get that, too.
True
Spiderman is no different. Take an ordinary guy who through some weird twist of fate, starts to get stronger and faster. He takes it for granted and at a very immature time, loses his father figure in his uncle. He has to deal with his growing need for revenge along with his changing physical nature. You can make it dark, not super dark of course, but you can make it more realistic. Marvel has done it with it's characters already in a lot of the Ultimate series.
Spidey has had darker portions of his history, as well. It just so happens that he is a character who works best when you can mix that dark stuff in but still keep it more light-hearted. Imho, Raimi's trilogy has perfectly captured that, even the crappy #3. I thought the biggest problem with #3 was that it simply tried to do way too much. Trying to fit the Sandman origin, the entire Venom saga, the Hobgoblin story and the Peter/Mary Jane rom-com all into one movie was just overkill and made it a convoluted mess with a truncated finish after a really long buildup.
People act like Batman is the only one who can be dark and realistic, but Batman isn't realistic in the least. None of these are. None of them are so groundbreaking and revolutionary that they cannot be repeated with great writing.
Agreed, but if you're gonna change the tone of a character nearly everyone is familiar with that writing had better be great.
X3 premise was good but they screwed up with production blunders almost from the beginning. I thought there was enough that it wasnt awful and a decent watch. Maybe I need to watch it again only saw it in the theaters.
It was horrible. Like Spidey 3, it just tried to do way too much. I went in ready to see the Phoenix saga played out before my eyes. What I got was the Cliff Notes version, with a lot of other crap thrown in. IIRC, this took about a year or so to play out in the comics and had both great action and great themes which seemed to fit the direction of the franchise after the first two movies.
The Last Stand, as it was fittingly named, was made to dazzle your eyes but was ultimately empty popcorn fare whereas its predecessors gave us something to chew on.
Wolverine origins I thought was bad.
Meh...thought it was better than
The Last Stand
Havent seen Drag..heard it was fantastic.. But it supposedly also mixes in some campiness. Hes obviously an immensely talented director ,its his writing I question. Certainly seems to be great at writing that genre.
I thought
DMTH was great and yes it does mix in some camp. That's his style but he usually does well with it (see the
Evil Dead series, if you haven't, plus
Darkman).
His dislike for Venom cost the franchise IMO. From what I recall he was against it from day one and avoided the Venom/Eddie Brock story as much as he could.
Did he dislike Venom or was he simply not wanting Venom in that particular movie? Either way, it turned out crappy so I guess it doesn't matter.
What everyone forgets is that over time the Venom story became very confusing, and essentially pointless. Carnage is a shallow character, the symbiotes are an easy cop out for Spider Man writers and it is very rare that there is any reason to care about Venom. Raimi wanted to go for a character driven movie, which with the baddies in the Spiderman universe, would of worked. Many of Spidey's enemies are normal guys, who with another break, could have ended up heroes. What Raimi did with Doc Oc in Spider-Man 2 was a great example of this. I think if the studio hadn't interfered with the Sandman, while not my favorite villain, it would have been a good movie.
You make good points, except that there is enough there for either Venom or Carnage to make a character driven movie. You can stay faithful to the characters without telling the story exactly as it is in the comics. You just have to make sure the changes you make are good ones, ie organic webs for our hero over the retardness of having to make it every few days.
Empire made the point, that with this reboot, it will have only been 10 years since we last saw Parker's origins. as nearly everyone already knows the basics (Uncle Ben, radioactive spider, etc) this really dulls my interest in the next movie. I don't want another origin story.
I'll reiterate the point I already made here. By that time, your interest may not be that great but there will be lots of little boys with little to no knowledge of Raimi's trilogy. Either that or they'll have seen them on TV and can't wait for the new Spider-man movie without all the hang ups about which direction the character is going in.
