Sequels vs Remakes/Reboots: Spider-man Pt. 3

Live Action


For any comic book fan live action has always been either feast or famine. Of all the characters who have gotten a Live Action version the most popular seems to be Superman, the Man of Steel has had 8 live action incarnations. From Movies to Broadway Plays and TV shows, Superman is to date the most successful Comic Book Character to be translated into Live action. Now to be fair I am not just talking about money made off of said property I also mean the dutiful translation of the character and his villains, If I was just talking about money Superman would still be up there but especially including recent box office success the list would probably be:Batman, Spider-man, Iron Man, Superman and The Incredible Hulk(mainly because of his long running TV series and made for TV movies). The problem with most live action attempts is that the medium of Comic book and cartoon allows you to create a world where physics don't matter, you can create whatever look you want and since it isn't "real" you tend to get a break on the look of things. With live action if it doesn't look right people will be disappointed.

The 1970's

Peter Parker got a live action TV show in 1978 called the Amazing Spider-man starring Nicholas Hammond

Okay, as a 4 year old at the time this show came out I would like to say as BAD as it looks now hey everybody looked like that back then. Those extra shiny costumes, the cheesy special effects, the bad wire work there was no cgi back then it was all rotoscoping, stop motion camera work, and picture flipping. As a little kid just happy to see Spider-man on my TV screen I ignored the fact that the webbing came out as a Nylon string or else a premade net, I also ignored that I guess Mr. Hammond had never done any rock climbing because it always looking like he had just bent over and dog walked up the sides of buildings. Nick Hammond had the look of peter parker though, yeah yeah those weird eye screens were always kind of silly but I guess back then it was the only way they were able to let him see. It ran for about 2 years and while today's standards relegate it to the campy-ness of the original Batman live action TV show or maybe a step below the Incredible Hulk TV show for believability. The Transformation from Bill Bixby to Lou Ferrigno worked because of the difference in stature of the two men even if since then live action hulks tend to be CGI and stay away from purple pants hood.

Sequels vs Remakes/Reboots: Spider-man Pt. 2

The Cartoons

You don't hang around for 40 plus years, sell tons of merch, become a favorite of people around the world and don't sooner or later get placed onto the small screen. Spider-mans quirky mannerism, flippant conversations and determination has made him a beloved cartoon character for generations. For most my age the iconic images of Spider-man come to us from the 1960's cartoon Spider-man named after the comic book. The colors were a little washed out but the action was evenly paced and the stories were ripped right from the comics.

One of the most memorable things from this show was the theme song, every spider-man theme song since then as well as the in show music always tries to match the resonance of it. For the most part spider-man didn't really change in look for the better part of 30 years. Even in the 1980's Spider-man and his Amazing friends Peter Parker looked the same, the funny part about the show is that Iceman was and X-man and while for the show Fire Star was also an X-man in the comics she was a Hellion, a ward of the Hell Fire Club and one the X-men's biggest rival. It was also an interesting mix because Spider-man and Ice man are both seen as "class clowns" so the two were always playing off each other. There was also a running joke because Ice man and Fire Star can pretty much to quick changes anywhere where as spidey has to find a place to strip.

Sequels vs Remakes/Reboots: Spider-man Pt. 1

As I am sure many have heard by now next year a new Spiderman movie will be released that is going to restart the entire Spidey Universe for Sony. The movie is titled "The Amazing Spiderman" after the long running comic of the same name. Now while there has been some complaining about the new movie I want to look back at how we got to this point, because especially for us Marvel Fans spidey was a culmination of years of wants, dreams and disappointments.

The Comics


Through the years if you were a spidey fan you have probably heard of the following titles: the Amazing Spider-man, the Spectacular Spider-man, Web of Spider-man, Ultimate Spider-man Peter Parker has been swinging through the streets of New York in his red and blue PJ's for the better part of 50 years. Stan Lee and Steve Ditko brought us these wonderful tales of the Queens New Yorker with the extreme case of the guilties starting in 1963. Peter Parker is a straight "A" student, slight in build, high in intelligence, awkward, and seemingly out of place. Peter stays with his Uncle Ben and Aunt May Parker, because something happened to his parents when he was a young child. One fateful night  Peter takes a trip to Empire University to see a demonstration of nuclear energy.

I guess it's better to write whats on your mind than to try and force it

While I have quite a few posts languishing in draft at the moment I am doing a post for  the "Sequels vs Remakes and Reboots" series focusing on Spider-man, one of my favorite comic book characters. For those who don't know Sony Pictures is Rebooting their Spider-man movie series starting back from the beginning with Peter Parker in high school. The name of the movie is "the Amazing Spider-man" after the long running comic of the same name. Supposedly it is taking a slightly darker tone more along the lines of the Ultimate Series, and one of the things I'm happy about is a return to the Web Shooters which are an iconic part of the Spider-man universe.

Geektyrant and Thinkhero as usual have great coverage with many different vids, images and opinions on the entire process from the initial news of Spider-man 4 being canceled for the reboot to the casting of the new Peter Parker, to high res images and video clips. Of course some people are upset about the change from Tobey Macguire and Sam Raimi to Andrew Garfield and Marc Webb. but in my eyes the reboot allows us to see some of the iconic Spider-man villians re-imagined, brought back to life, or brought into the timeline. I won't deny I have always HATED the Gobby costume from the first movie, I thought it look stupid and forced almost as if they were trying to upgrade not only spider-man's origin but also his villains costumes. For the first movie nah it didn't work not at all, it was just a disaster, I loved Doc Ock's costume in the second one, Sandman's costume was pretty good too, Venom Sucked and Gobby Jr, was meh. So as far as I am concerned Sam Raimi was 3-2 and 1  with costumes. Spidey's costume was good, Gobby's costume sucked, Doc Oc was good, Sandman was good, Venom SUCKED, and Harry/Gobby jr was in the middle he was supposed to be wearing the original goblin costume but in real life he probably would have had an updated costume with better functionality made. So I will let that one be a push.

I didn't mention it because I was hoping it would GO THE HELL AWAY

If you have been observing the weather channel as of late you will notice that the devil appears to be enjoying a nice long vacation. By that I mean down here in the midsouth hot is a damn understatement, it was 106 yesterday, let me repeat that it was ONE HUNDRED AND SIX DEGREES yesterday(yes for only like 2 hours between noon and 3 pm but ahem the 104 it was residing at for the rest of the damn day was no freakin' peach either) now I don't know about you but last time I checked this wasn't the Mojave and I was trying to enter the world of Rango. I know this used to be the doorstep to the old wild west but that was then and dammit this is now, Land of the AC home of the slushie. I shouldn't walk out my front door and immediately begin sweating like I just ran 2 miles.

There's warm

There's Hot

There's too hot

And there's "I'm not that idiot who doesn't believe in climate change, global warming or that we are damaging our planet so could you please quit playing and turn the air back on"

Another lull

I could blame my lack of production blogwise on the heat, a heavy work load, even getting lost in the keys, it's no excuse though. Even with my new laptop unlike before when I would sit up and write until I fell asleep(or watch porn, it was a toss up  but writing usually got done too) I have not gotten myself fully back into that habit yet. It's sad but especially as of late I won't say I have commitment issues I will say my stick to  it tiveness is at an all time low.  I mean yes I have followed through on some things and yes, I am sure if I check I am well over 120 posts to this here blog. I also know that a good portion of those 120 posts came in may when I was a blogging fool(it happens when it happens), part of it inspired by the fact that thanks to that Tornado/severe thunderstorm that rolled through we had no power so the only thing I could do was blog to clear my head. No power meant no video games, no facebook, the barest of human interaction because in essence I was cut off from the digital world. 

Every little happenstance became a reason for me to write, cause for me to look back later and either laugh or shake my head. Hell I even have stopped writing my movie reviews(mainly because I am so far behind), I have seen Green Lantern, X-men:First class, Transformers, and Captain America now(I didn't get a chance to peep HP7 pt2 yet, but I will) done a few trailers posts for them, but as far as reviews go NADA. I actually have this long one written for X-men that I want to break up into a smaller piece but well at the moment my brain just isn't fitting the pieces together in a way that I'm liking.  While in the book I read a few weeks ago it mentions how "talking politics on a blog was a death knell", I happen to like talking about politics sometimes and personally the best thing about a blog or website that you produce the content for: You can do it your way. So yes my political views may scare some folks off but hey, if you disagree be brave enough to say it with your keyboard. I may moderate you out of here if you are off topic(my content is diverse enough that you could probably find SOMETHING that you can speak on without hijacking a post) too much but I'm not so heartless as to say "You disagree with me so you have to go".

The trailers for Captain America

Apollo 18

This seems to be a horror thriller based on "why we don't go back to the moon" when american astronauts for the Apollo 18 mission arrive they find the helmet of a russian cosmonaut and his tracks on the moons surface. The harrowing events that happen next are enough to keep all countries from coming back to the moon.

The Three Musketeers

Has it been 10 years already? It's seems like every 10 years there is a new 3 musketeers based movie. As usual young D'Artangan comes to Paris to join the musketeers following in the footstops while Malady Dewinter, King Buckingham of England, and Cardinal Richelieu plot to take over all of France from King Louis. It looks to be action packed along the lines of The Musketeer, but honestly I don't know if anything will be as fun as the early 90's version of The Three Musketeers. There may have been a high amount of cheese in that movie but it was still fun, and that cast was awesome, I'm sorry Tim Curry as the Cardinal was just great.