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kate_nepveu) wrote2004-07-05 10:58 pm
Week in Review
Out to Massachusetts this weekend for a family holiday barbeque. We had to take the dog, because all the local boarders were full, but it went better than we feared—she does not like other dogs, but when outdoors and a reasonable distance away from the other two dogs (my parents' and my cousins') and kept company by at least one person, she was pretty calm. She didn't sleep in our room this time, and yelped for about ten minutes intermittently when she was put to bed, but after that she was okay. The barbeque itself was very nice. We met my new first cousin once removed, who is four months old and looks extremely concerned all the time; apparently he's the spitting image of his dad at that age, so he won't necessarily grow up to be a horrible pessimist just because he looks that way now.
We saw Spiderman 2 yesterday. Indiscriminate spoilers follow.
Occasionally it was pitched too high, and on rewatching the lack of subtlety in those places will probably make me wince. But overall it just made me happy: the characters and acting kept me engaged, the look was brilliant, and it was tight and fast. I was fascinated by Doc Ock's arms, the way they looked and moved—they had personality. About the first thing I said after was, "I want arms like that, only not evil."
(Actually, the very first thing I said, as we walked out during the credits, was, "How would you like to be credited as a Scientific Consultant on that?" Even I could tell that the physics was deeply wonky, though at least I didn't notice any objects free-falling at different speeds this time.)
(Speaking of physics, Peter Parker does not have good luck with mentor figures. If I were him, I'd stop trying.)
As for the Spiderman-Peter-MJ triangle: well, I suppose pyschosomatic superpower problems are no less implausible than genetically-engineered spiders or whatever. I loved the shot of Peter walking away from the costume in the trash: the costume's eyes were the last thing to fade out, down at the bottom right corner of the screen. And I wanted to cheer Mary Jane when she told Peter that it being too dangerous wasn't his decision to make: I hate that romance plot.
Speaking of cheering: Aunt May smacking Doc Ock with an umbrella from behind, and then him learning from that—you notice that it didn't work for MJ late in the movie? Chad's theory about Aunt May, by the way, is that she knows Peter is Spiderman, and her awkward big speech was intended by her, as well as by the writers, to motivate Peter. I liked this very much and adopted it immediately.
The look of the movie was wonderful, I thought, from the very clever opening credits to the sequence in the trailers, that shifts from Spidey swinging down the street, to his reflection in Doc Ock's sunglasses, to Doc Ock swarming up the clock tower. Did I mention I want arms like that (only not evil)?
Maguire and Dunst are signed on for three movies, and the end of this one certainly suggests that the three are going to be a loose trilogy, both plot-wise with the Osborn family and thematically, as suggested at Crooked Timber. I've seen a bunch of people commenting that they recognized some high number of important characters from the comic books. I know squat about the canon, but MJ's ex-fiance, astronaut-boy, smells like a future important character to me—might as well add another to the collection of men upset that Peter/Spiderman "took" MJ from them. Other than that, I have no idea—spoil me! It'll pass the very long wait until the next one.
I suppose, while we're talking about superhero movies, I should drop in this personality quiz result. After a fast pass at it, apparently
You are an SEDF--Sober Emotional Destructive Follower. This makes you an evil genius. You are extremely focused and difficult to distract from your tasks. With luck, you have learned to channel your energies into improving your intellect, rather than destroying the weak and unsuspecting.
Your friends may find you remote and a hard nut to crack. Few of your peers know you very well--even those you have known a long time--because you have expert control of the face you put forth to the world. You prefer to observe, calculate, discern and decide. Your decisions are final, and your desire to be right is impenetrable.
You are not to be messed with. You may explode.
What's more, I'm on the far end of the scale:
Wackiness: 4/100
Rationality: 4/100
Constructiveness: 10/100
Leadership: 4/100
I don't know what I think of this—focused, sure; remote, okay, but out of awkwardness as well as reserve; and I like to think of myself as too nice to be an evil genius. Oh well.
Today we went furniture shopping, and found a TV stand that should let us save some space and remove the stereo equipment from its current rickety shelving. Finding the right piece was surprisingly easy; figuring out the best place to put it is surprisingly hard, but will probably be apparent once we get the thing and try out the various options. Oh, and we bought books, of course. And early this week Chad's new computer will be delivered, and I'll attempt to connect it to his old one and transfer his files over. Wish me luck . . .
(I have already had more computer luck than I expected this week. I had to upgrade Eudora because 3.0.6 doesn't support SMTP authentication—go figure—which I hadn't wanted to do because a 4.x or 5.x that I'd tried had saved my mailboxes in HTML ( all over the place, like that) for no apparent reason. Eudora 6.1, I am pleased to say, does no such thing. I don't known whether this means I'm on a roll with computers or I'm out of luck.)
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(If so--guess it's my night for not knowing what to think--I had no idea my peeve on this was so blatant. Actually I do know what to think--I think I should go downstairs, set the dryer to run for a long time on no heat, and then go to bed. Which is what I'm going to do.)
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Anyway, yay non-stupid romance plots.
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And, I can spoil you - my son got this 'guide' to Spider-man, covering all of Spider-man's comic villains, allies, and girlfriends. *g* Possible villains as hinted at by Spidey 2, based also on comic history:
MJ's dumped at the alter boyfriend, John Jameson, in the comics ends up with catching a werewolf disease on the moon. (Yep. LOL) He goes all crazy, naturally.
When you said Peter has bad luck with mentors, I laughed. Remember Dr. Connors, the professor with one arm who said Peter was 'brilliant but lazy'? Per the comics, he's obsessed with the loss of his arm. He's been studying lizards and the ability some reptiles/amphibians have for growing limbs/tails back. He comes up with some kind of serum, tries it on himself and *drumroll* turns into The Lizard. He goes all primal on Spidey, though Peter tries to use his science smarts to find a cure.
In the comics, Harry Osborn discovers not only Spider-man's true identity, but also that his father was the Green Goblin. Sound familiar? In the comics, Harry becomes the second Green Goblin. Given the ending of Spidey 2, I'm thinking that's the best bet for the next movie's main villain. Though since the Green Goblin by himself has already been done in the first movie, and since the first two movies have set up the habit of Oscorp to fund screwy science projects, I half wonder if the Green Goblin will be supplemented with another villain, possibly Jameson-as-Wolfman (Oscorp maybe funding a moon project that turns him?) or Lizard (Oscorp maybe funding Connors' research?).
Also, I totally agree, I believe Aunt May knows Peter's secret. I thought so even before finding out that she knew in the comics - just the way she looked at him and the things she said. Yup.
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And . . . werewolf disease on the moon? Right. (The movies have not been afraid to tweak origin stories, though, so I'll wait and see.)
I kind of think that two villains would be too many--Harry, the Green Goblin, Peter, and Spiderman are a very complex mixture and deserve a lot of screen time, and when you throw in Peter/MJ/Spiderman . . . There are interesting things that could be done by throwing astronaut-boy into the mix, too, but that might almost be another movie by itself.
Thanks for the spoilers!
(Oh, and re: Aunt May--Jim Henley, who is blogging up a storm on this movie, had some interesting thoughts on her big speech.)
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I don't know that they'd bring Norman back completely - that itself would be awfully complicated. But I could see possibly Harry doing this. One complaint I've seen made by people involved in the Spidey films (director and producers) was that the Goblin mask didn't allow for much 'acting'. So, would they want another movie with someone (less vocally able than Willem Dafoe) trying to act through that mask? My thought is that they'd let James Franco play Harry Osborne as Harry Osborne, except more ominous and borderline insane and all that, while Spider-man deals with another villain. Then in the climax Harry as the Goblin would do the big reveal in costume - he's been behind this other villain all along, muahaha. :P
And, I don't really see the MJ/Peter/Spidey triangle as being a new, huge part of movie 3, since it's been there from the beginning, really. There's a new dynamic now that she knows the truth, but I don't think that dynamic would put much more meat into the movie than the triangle has in the past, do you know what I mean?
I read Henley's post - LOL. I think he's closest to the mark, imho, when he says that her speech aligns with her ingrained philosophy of sacrifice. Uncle Ben was all about that too - with great power comes great responsibility; just because Flash may have deserved to get his ass kicked, and just because Peter could do the kicking (and wanted to), doesn't mean he should. Etc.
But I don't think the speech was sinister, and I don't think Peter has absorbed anything ominous from it. I mean, if you subscribe to the modern Instant Gratification, Look Out for Number One mindset, yes, the morals behind self-sacrifice are freaky and nasty. But Aunt May goes on and on about the good Spider-man does, and since Peter is a superhero, that kind of thing is in the end more to the point than the question of 'What about me?.'
As far as Aunt May mentioning being able to die with dignity - that's a thread throughout the whole movie. Uncle Ben was very morally responsible; Peter even says when he tells Aunt May how Uncle Ben died that he died because he was "the only person who did the right thing" that night. Uncle Ben = someone to look up to, therefore dying because you do the right thing = morally responsible. And then Doc Ock last words are "I will not die a monster" or something to that effect: he dies because he does the right thing, but that means he can die with dignity. So, yeah, theme.
Maybe it's creepy that Aunt May would seem to encourage her beloved nephew to possibly go out to his death, but would it have been better for her to say "I know you're scared, and I know you really want to do what you want in life and make sure you are happy before all others, never minding the people who will die that you could have saved, never minding the kids who looked up to you as a hero and a role model who keeps doing the right thing even when it's hard to do, and, you know what, I think you should go for it, kiddo. Heck with the rest of the world"? *g*
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And, the clone thing cracks. Me. Up. I was reading about that last night to my son, and we were both just O_o. He said, "Well, how about we pretend that didn't really happen." *g*
You know, the thing I like about comic book movies is having the stories distilled into something less complex and slightly less bizarre. I appreciate that there is a lot of backstory to, say, X-Men and Spider-man, but beyond reading the newsbite version, I can live without all that stuff. I'm perfectly happy with the movies. :P
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(Oh, and by the way--are *all* the Spidey villains the result of Science Gone Wrong?)
I vote for the self-sacrifice option on Aunt May as well, but Jim makes a good point, that Peter was taking it much, much too far--was it Jim or someone else who pointed that maybe what Spidey also needed, besides belief, was a hot meal and a good night's sleep? Until the end, the concept that he has *multiple* responsibilities never seemed to occur to Peter or Spiderman--he was all-or-nothing.
And I do think MJ will be a bigger issue in the third--done right, relationships take up a lot of time, and I think the look on MJ's face as Spidey swung away from her demonstrates that. It's another responsibility for him to balance.
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Alex Knapp at Heretical Ideas
(BTW, do you still have my spare _From the End of the Twentieth Century_? I think I've lost track of it.)
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Also, I always thought the whole Green Goblin Redux thing was lame in the comics, and I think it'd be lame in the movie.
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