Dear God, the Salt and Pepper shakers are -armed-.

Also? "New Goblin" is the shittiest name for a villain ever.

God, no kidding. They could've went with Peter's 'baby Goblin' and it would've been better.

I pretty much agree with your comments about the movie as a whole, though I elaborated on them more in my own LJ entry. It's a shame that after the awesomeness that was Spiderman 2 that they dropped the ball a bit with this one, but I guess two out of three isn't bad.

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We figure the discussion went something like this:

SONY: "Hey, Sam! You know that restraint and gentle touch on the material we've been forcing you to use?"

Raimi: "Yep!"

SONY: "Well, we figure that 3's about all we can milk this franchise for, so just go apeshit, OK?"

Raimi: "Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee! I'm gonna have VENOM, and Crazy Harry, and all this ANGST, and it'll be a BROADWAY MUSICAL, and it's gonna be the BEST MOVIE EVAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!"

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Strange, because I've heard that Raimi has stated in the past the he specifically does not like Venom, which would explain his overall crummy treatment in the movie.

Well, whether he likes him or not I was still pretty disappointed by Venom's part. The actor played a good Eddie Brock, but he could only do so much with what script was given to him, I guess.

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Oh? I didn't know that.

I thought he was pretty decent for what he was. Watching him go increasingly unhinged worked pretty well, too.

If anyone was totally un-neccesary to the film (besides Gwen, the MASSIVE REVALATION THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE IN SPIDERMAN 1, OR 2, BUT WAS REALLY POORLY DONE IN 3, or about half of Harry's scenes), I thought it was the Sandman.

Did he look cool? Totally! But aside from the very beginning of the film, we're not really given that much reason for him to be there, aside from "Ooo, let's make Peter mad, and a deus ex machina for the cops not being around."

You could have given Eddie/Venom some more screen time, cut the Sandman, and played up the Harry plots a bit more, and I think the film would have worked just as well (and maybe a little better).

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I disagree a bit with the Sandman. I thought he was done well and made into an interesting villain, at least more interesting than I initally thought. At least they made him far more interesting than 'Rargh! Sandman smash!' that most of the trailers made him out to be. I like that he genuinely regretted killing Ben Parker, and had reasons for doing what he was doing, as predictably cliched as they were. (Must... save.... dying daughter!)

Though you ARE right, if he were cut out entirely they could have devoted more time the Symbiote/Harry/Venom stuff and made them more awesome. Having the Sandman be the 'real' killer of Uncle Ben was pretty tacked on. Sandy could've been removed from the movie entirely without affecting the other plot arcs much at all and it probably would've been a better movie for it.

I felt Brock was just a tad rushed, though. But of course, that also would've been remedied if they cut Sandman out. I just felt there was a bit too big of a jump from 'Parker cost me my job and my girl' to 'HAY GOD KILL PARKER FOR ME PLZ, KTHXBYE'. It also took me forever to recognize the actor. I knew he was so damn familair since he first appeared on the screen but I didn't realize he was Eric Foreman from That 70's Show till the end.

But, I'm sure there's one thing we can all agree on. JJJ was still awesome.

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Hell yes. JJJ was brilliant. And the scene with Peter in his chair? Heh.

Also, that Bruce Campbell got, hands down, the funniest scenes in the movie.

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I AM French, you know...

Yes. Yes he did. XD

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flying-landon.livejournal.com

I really don't think it was too far of a jump. I mean, first off, until the scene in the church, he's acting like most normal people might would act in that situation. Yea, it's his own fault he got hosed, but still he's angry about everything, and Parker is his target.

Enter Venom symbiote, which they explain already that it amplifies such things. So where Parker was upset, and went to Spidey Rage, but fighting it, Brock gets from already raging mad to unhinged and loving it. So yea, I think it makes sense for Eddie to go to batshit murderizing insane.

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Perhaps, but he got the Venom suit AFTER he asked God to kill Peter Parker. The Eddie Brock post-Venom was just fine, it's just that I felt right before that it was just a bit of a leap from "Dammit, there goes Parker with my girl." to "Well God, mind killing this man for me?"

Just muttering under his breath, perhaps, "Oh God, kill him please" would have been cool, people do THAT all the time. But actually going out to a Church to do it was hilariously excessive. Of course, they needed an excuse to get Brock to the steeple where Peter was tearing the symbiote off, I guess.

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Me, I thought it was pretty honest Irish-Catholic behavior... *duck*

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More seriously, I think that part of Eddie's reaction is out of the fact that he has been set up as this guy who's on the rise and really living the life he always dreamed about, and then over the course of a few days/weeks, he gets it taken away, piece by piece, by Peter Parker.

That's gonna cause some issues.

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Actually it was the other way around.

SONY: You know how you've been really hitting the mark with your sensitive and thoughtful portrayal up 'til now?

RAIMI: ...yeah?

SONY: Okay, we're gonna blow the doors off this one! It's a third movie in the series movie! We need at least three villains! Make one Venom!

RAIMI: Oh, no, not Venom, I

SONY: VENOM!

Marvel: You heard Sony. Use Venom!

Raimi: [sotto voce] But I hate Venom [normal voice] You do know this will give us Third Movie Syndrome...

Marvel: Venom!!

Raimi: Right. Venom. And Sandman, since the CGI people need two years notice to do the effects and the toys. You got it. Okay. Yeah. Bye. [calls brother] We're going out drinking. Get us a designated driver. We're gonna need it.

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Yeah, but he started throwing so much of his B-Movie cred at the screen as the thing went on that I think he gets to shoulder just as much blame as Sony...

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The other factor in this was he had to write it uncertain about whether Dunst would return as MJ. She'd been quite adamant about 3 being her last Spideymovie...thus necessitating a new potential love interest. Enter Gwen. But she started wembling and then going "okay, maybe I'll be in 4". So the script was set up so they had a reason to break up, with an ambiguous "will they or won't they" ending in case she isn't done wembling.

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Personally, I say that if they DO make Spidey 4 that they either drop MJ from the story, or get a NEW one, regardless of how Dunst wembles at this point.

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Yeah, true.

I'd agree I'd far rather see a new actress at this point if they do 4 - her portrayal just grates on me, and most of the "relationship problems" really seemed to come down to MJ being totally unwilling to tell Peter the truth at any given time...

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I'm so glad you said that.

Peter was guilty of relating in the only way he knew how -- Spider-Man's having to deal with being popular and loved. Peter Parker isn't popular or loved, so how was he to have any other frame of reference?

She didn't tell him she lost the job. She just let him think she was still fine, because he doesn't have time to do much other than listen to the police radio, go to school, and go to work at the Bugle. He had no way of figuring it out other than asking her and she was all "everything's fine" or "nothing is fine, you don't understand I don't feel well I'm leaving."

I think they just need to ditch MJ and if they don't go with Gwen, they need to bring in Felicia Hardy, baby.

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C'mon. :D I may not be very good at relationships, but I can understand the basics. ;D

One reason I would kinda like to see the Spidey/Black Cat, if they go for four, or even "mask romances" in general is that it seems like it'd be so much more natural to share your life with someone who you could relate to on that level.

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True, but the drawback of "mask romances" is the failure to relate at the civilian clothes level. Which is what destroyed Peter and Felicia.

And you more than understand the basics.

You're just the only person who actually said MJ was the reason the relationship wasn't working out. Everybody else was just, "she's a slut!"

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*grins* True, but you'd think that they'd have a better shot than (at least in the movies) Peter and MJ, who can't connect at any level, apparently.

I know that in the comics, at least, they seem to mostly be a functional relationship, but c'mon...

Naah. I didn't yell that MJ was a slut until she decided to solve her problems with Peter by snogging Harry. ;>

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flying-landon.livejournal.com

Yea, I have to agree. Both Sandman and Venom could have been a WHOLE lot cooler if they had more story. 3 Villians is just too much to flesh out in a single movie. Now the problem with Venom is that he couldn't really get going until after Parker gets rid of the suit. Which would have been rushed if it was any earlier. Really, he'd have been best to have been set up here, and been the main villian in a 4th movie. That give him proper build up time and such.

Instead he becomes a main villian and we get Goblin/Spidey tag-team.....

Sandman was really cool, for what time he had, I think. I think had he more time he'd have been a show stealer like Green Goblin and Doc Ock.

And New Goblin? In the comics, wasn't he called Hobgoblin? I'm not up on my marvel, really, but I thought that's more or less where Hobgoblin came from.

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Hobgoblin is actually technically supposed to be a 3rd guy - a Mercenary that gets his hands on the goblin gear and chemicals as part of a plan to kill Spidey.

Even if the trilogy is supposed to be more about the redemption of Harry Osborn and Peter Parker than it is about anything else, the thing was just ...flat. Though I admit the Goblin / Spidey fighting together scenes were pretty fun.

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ardaniel

There's three Hobgoblins in the regular Marvel Universe-- Kingsley (the original Guy Who Figured Out the Goblin Formula without Harry's help and made it less likely to cause huge doses of crazy), Macendale (the mercenary BZA's talking about), and the New Guy (whose identity hasn't been revealed).

In the Ultimate books-- "regular Marvel, only everyone's a dick for no real reason"-- Harry Osborn is, in fact, the Hobgoblin.

And he's on fire. Literally.

Go fig.

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