Spiderman Preview Thread! — Page 46
Posted: 12/18/10 at 4:49pm
Posted: 12/18/10 at 4:50pm
EDIT: Success!
Updated On: 12/18/10 at 04:50 PM
Posted: 12/18/10 at 5:07pm
Let's just keep adding posts. Page 46 is bound to come eventually.
EDIT: Oh, dear. I'm sorry I was so behind on this. Carry on.
Updated On: 12/18/10 at 05:07 PM
Posted: 12/18/10 at 8:27pm
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118029227
Posted: 12/18/10 at 9:02pm
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Posted: 12/18/10 at 11:16pm
Posted: 12/18/10 at 11:55pm
Posted: 12/19/10 at 12:25am
Just sort of generally, I think act one is fixable...it sticks very close to the plot of the first film. Mostly they need book/lyric rewrites because those are the things that are distracting. It really confused me that the characters seemed to speak randomly in rhymes, and it sounded quite forced (though the actors were doing their best). The second act is the real problem here...it just veers into the strange and incomprehensible and that shoe song is just...let's just say I had my hand covering my mouth so that my giggles wouldn't escape, haha. I did really like "Boy Falls From the Sky" and "If the World Should End" though...those were really the only two songs in the score that stood out to me.
Visually it's stunning. I really loved the forced perspective and comic-book feel of the sets, particularly in the scene between the Green Goblin and Spider-Man toward the end of the first act.
Performance-wise, I was indifferent about Reeve Carney...his singing was sort of painful at times, and his acting was mediocre. Patrick Page was very good and I wish he was given more to do. Jennifer Damiano did well with the material she was given, and her voice was sounding better than I have heard it sound in a while. Natalie Mendoza has a fantastic voice and did a lot with what she was given. The actors in the Geek Chorus were also really good...I love Gideon Glick, I think he's adorable (and way too talented for this).
I really think a workshop or reading would have helped them out...perhaps then Taymor would have realized that the second act is incomprehensible. I really tried to go in with an open mind but the show is just...bad.
Also, I'd really like to know why Harry Osborn was cut...he's really important in the first film and I assume in the comics as well.
Updated On: 12/19/10 at 12:25 AM
Posted: 12/19/10 at 11:27am
Posted: 12/19/10 at 3:29pm
Posted: 12/19/10 at 4:33pm
Posted: 12/19/10 at 5:04pm
Posted: 12/20/10 at 2:11pm
Posted: 12/20/10 at 3:09pm

Ultimate comics, and Ultimate Spiderman, is a stream-lined reinterpretation of the Marvel mythos, however. Harry Osborne figures more into the original "Earth-616" continuity--which one would assume Taymor & Co. would be working off of... how I wish they'd pay more attention to Ultimate Spiderman, though in both making films and animation.
I am a huge fan of Ultimate Spiderman. It started out as a way to gain young readers who found Spidey's current mythos too convoluted and therefore hard to jump on (Clone Saga, anyone?). However, Brian Michael Bendis's writing ended up appealing more to adult readers, so the Ultimates line of books took a serious adult-directed turn.
So, yeah, Bendis took a different tact with Harry Osborn and the Goblin in general (he's a mutated creature, not a dude in a mask). Clone Saga even got a brilliant re-imagining that I could see being turned into a musical.
Posted: 12/20/10 at 5:40pm
All in all, I had fun. It wasn't brilliant, nor was it bad. But with Julie Taymor behind it, a little bit of me was disappointed that it didn't feel as "epic" or as "inspired" as I had imagined. I would be okay with a $65M failure if it really felt like it was on the edge of something unexpected. Can't say that was the case, but it's still a solid evening's entertainment. And at least you know your money isn't going into some fatcat's pocket -- it's all right there in front of you!
Updated On: 12/20/10 at 05:40 PM
Posted: 12/20/10 at 6:26pm
Awesome explanation of the Ultimate series. I honestly haven't read too many of the older original Spider-man outside of for a while in the late 90's and some of the landmark issues like Gwen Stacey's death. Unfortunately I picked it up again right in 2007 as One More Day was happening and saw what I was NOT missing.
I love Ultimate Spider-man though for its clarity and simplicity in characters. My favorite aspect of it though will always be the way they changed Gwen Stacey from being a simpering co-ed with no personality into an awesome badass who wasn't just another love interest, but instead a tough and real teenage girl. I hope we see some of that come through in the next movie! Too bad it didn't carry to the musical! (The simplicity too)
Posted: 12/20/10 at 6:30pm
Posted: 12/20/10 at 6:51pm
The thing that I love about the Spidey/PP from US is his warmth. I find myself really caring for him. But the stories are the stars with huge emotion, pain, and mitral ambiguity. I also love Peter's position in the Ultimate Universe. He is just a young man in NY but he connects everything, and the serum that transforms him was once the last hope to recreate Cap A's super soldier serum. Smart, simple, and a great story generator.
And yes, Ultimate Gwen Stacy is a brilliant character. The pain, though. Oh, the pain.
I get none of this beauty and potential from what I've experienced of TODT.
Posted: 12/20/10 at 7:05pm
Posted: 12/20/10 at 7:21pm
I really haven't read much of the other Ultimate titles, but I'll have to check out the Bendis, Millar and Vaughn titles! Thanks for the rec! I'd be interested to see more from Ultimate Nick Fury and such.
Posted: 12/20/10 at 8:01pm
Mitral = moral
Why is a mitral? Silly swype.
=)
The original Millar/Hitch run of Ultimates is all I can rec where that's concerned. Fury is good in the Ellis minis tho.
Boublil/Schoenberg could musicalize Fury maybe?
Posted: 12/20/10 at 8:54pm
Posted: 12/20/10 at 9:09pm
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