will The Amazing Spider-Man movies be forgotten in the future?

[The Dark Knight]

Do you think audiences would have preferred to sit through Ben's death a third time?

Where did I say I wanted this? The answer is I didn't.

From what I know, Uncle Ben is NOT mentioned by name at all. Civil War doesn't mention Uncle Ben by name either. That's a stone cold fact that cannot be denied. He's simply not an important person in this universe, if he even exists. A line or two with his name would've sufficed, ala TASM2, but it seems we get nothing. I don't care if Tony Stank is in the film for one minute or one hour. Peter looks up to the guy with admiration and gets handed a fancy suit which he then keeps. In the complete absence of Uncle Ben or Uncle Ben's ghost, he's Peter's male father figure. Don't show Uncle Ben's murder again - fine. But at least mention him a couple of times. He's a huge part of the Spider-Man mythos and I think ignoring him is a travesty.

Civil War is used as evidence Peter has spider sense, even though HC doesn't show this feature at all.
Civil War is used as evidence Uncle Ben could exist, even though HC doesn't mention him at all.

We have people trying to use the CW to justify the sequel's complete and utter absence of these aspects. But I'm sure if this was MoS/BvS, we'd be told a film should be able to stand alone as a piece of cinema, regardless of what transpired before it.

As expected, we get more spin and double standards.

[Dagenspear]

From what I know, Uncle Ben is NOT mentioned by name at all. Civil War doesn't mention Uncle Ben by name either. That's a stone cold fact that cannot be denied. He’s simply not an important person in this universe, if he even exists.

Him not being mentioned by name is a far cry from not being important, because that's simply not true. He is. He's Peter's motivation for his heroism. Should it be stated outright? Yes. Is it the movie's biggest problem? Yes. But he's not ignored and is important.

A line or two with his name would’ve sufficed, ala TASM2, but it seems we get nothing. I don't care if Tony Stank is in the film for one minute or one hour. Peter looks up to the guy with admiration and gets handed a fancy suit which he then keeps. In the complete absence of Uncle Ben or Uncle Ben's ghost, he's Peter's male father figure. Don't show Uncle Ben's murder again - fine. But at least mention him a couple of times. He's a huge part of the Spider-Man mythos and I think ignoring him is a travesty.

You're ignoring the whole point of the movie, which is actually a similar one to Raimi's, and that's that the tech cool father figure Peter looks up to as a hero, he shouldn't look up to. Tony isn't a real father figure. He's a cautionary tale for Peter. Him keeping the suit is honestly the easiest way for us to get the classic eye moving look, which I'm fine with. The point is he rejects being Iron Man and becomes his own hero.

Civil War is used as evidence Peter has spider sense, even though HC doesn't show this feature at all.
Civil War is used as evidence Uncle Ben could exist, even though HC doesn't mention him at all.

We have people trying to use the CW to justify the sequel's complete and utter absence of these aspects. But I'm sure if this was MoS/BvS, we'd be told a film should be able to stand alone as a piece of cinema, regardless of what transpired before it.

Whenever you have a movie that's building on a previously established foundation, the story may be standalone, but the whole canon should be taken into account. Homecoming won't retroactively change anything about Civil War though. All Homecoming can do is build upwards from what Civil War established. Just like all DOJ can do is build on MOS, not the reverse. Unless we're dealing with prequels. No one's saying these things shouldn't be established more efficiently in this movie though. They should. There are problems with the movie. It's more flawed than Raimi's initial movie. Have a very great day!

God bless you all!

[riddler]

I just think these criticisms are too harsh.

Yes I can confirm that through Civil War and Homecoming there has been no reference to Peter having an Uncle or the name "Ben", the closest is the implication that May has recently suffered loss in her life. We all know how important Ben is to Peter within the mythology of the character but you just can't recapture with dialogue the chemistry we saw between Tobey Maquire and Cliff Robertson and then Andrew Garfield and Martin Sheen. I just don't feel a few Ben references would have improved the movie, it does an adequate job expressing Peter's motivations and we can't ignore the fact that unlike Maguire and Garfield, this version of Peter Parker would have grown up in a world where superheroes and villains exist in his neighbourhood so in a way, becoming Spider-man solely because of a responsibility to Ben isn't as effective, in fact it borders on silly for a teenage boy to feel HE needs to protect a city already protected by the Avengers. It makes more sense for him to want to become an Avenger. Also it's not as if they can't circle back and address the Ben character in a future film.

Wit respect to the spider-sense, let's call a spade a spade here. EVERY spider-man live action film has been inconsistent with the spider sense and had moments where Peter didn't sense things he shouldn't. The movie also addresses the suit aspect. He became spider-man on his own, making his first suit which he later dons in Homecoming. The Stark suit does help him but he does go without it on occasion.  The trailers don't show much of it but in the third act once Tony takes the suit back and that is the point. Peter was relying too much on the suit, once it was taken away he had to rely on himself. Peter states he's nothing without the suit so Tony takes it away and forces him to become something without the suit and he does. The door is now open for us to see different spidey suits and I for one am excited about that.

I wonder if the fact that their father figures were recently killed will help bring Peter Parker and Peter Quill together?

[The Joker]

That's main objective with ALOT of this movie; to be different.

It's like Disney really wanted to make a Miles Morales Spider-Man movie, but wasn't brave enough to pull the trigger.

Hence all the "In Name Only" supporting character's such as goofball High School BFF Ned Leeds, Liz TOOMES, Michelle "MJ" Jones, Eugene "Flash about as menacing as Daniel Larusso" Thompson, "Hot" MILF Aunt May. ect

In a nutshell, it's lazy writing. Rather than being demanding of yourself to remain reasonably within the confines of the source material, it's clear as day that Disney decided dramatically changing characters (in more ways than just appearance) to suit their MCU interests was more important. It's the same old song; the characters being made to serve the agenda, instead of serving the needs of the characters.

As far as a writer goes, that's what's known as "a challenge". Not a reason to change the characters and dynamics.

[thecolorsblend]

We have people trying to use the CW to justify the sequel's complete and utter absence of these aspects. But I'm sure if this was MoS/BvS, we'd be told a film should be able to stand alone as a piece of cinema, regardless of what transpired before it.

As expected, we get more spin and double standards.

Don't you know? They're totally different. Because anything that isn't the exact same must be the exact opposite. They're not exactly the same which means they're total different, don't you get it?

[Dagenspear]

Don't you know? They're totally different. Because anything that isn't the exact same must be the exact opposite. They're not exactly the same which means they're total different, don't you get it?

Whenever you have a movie that's building on a previously established foundation, the story may be standalone, but the whole canon should be taken into account. Homecoming won't retroactively change anything about Civil War though. All Homecoming can do is build upwards from what Civil War established. Just like all DOJ can do is build on MOS, not the reverse.

[The Dark Knight]

We have people trying to use the CW to justify the sequel's complete and utter absence of these aspects. But I'm sure if this was MoS/BvS, we'd be told a film should be able to stand alone as a piece of cinema, regardless of what transpired before it.

As expected, we get more spin and double standards.

Don't you know? They're totally different. Because anything that isn't the exact same must be the exact opposite. They're not exactly the same which means they're total different, don't you get it?

Via digging, I know Homecoming retroactively shows Peter was video blogging in Civil War, right before he jumps out to reveal himself at the airport. If showing another side of past events is a crime, Homecoming and the MCU Spider-Man is guilty too. But y'know, this is completely different to showing another side of the Metropolis attack in BvS. Just as Marvel retroactively made Iron Man 2 Peter's first canon appearance. BvS builds upon MoS as well, because uh, it's a sequel. But all we get is double standards and semantics.

[Dagenspear]

Via digging, I know Homecoming retroactively shows Peter was video blogging in Civil War, right before he jumps out to reveal himself at the airport. If showing another side of past events is a crime, Homecoming and the MCU Spider-Man is guilty too. But y'know, this is completely different to showing another side of the Metropolis attack in BvS. Just as Marvel retroactively made Iron Man 2 Peter's first canon appearance. BvS builds upon MoS as well, because uh, it's a sequel. But all we get is double standards and semantics.

Neither changes anything about their previous movies. Homecoming doesn't change anything about Iron Man 2. And BvS changes nothing about MOS. It's all the same. The vlog thing hurts Homecoming and nothing else. It changes nothing about Civil War.

[riddler]

I think shoehorning Peter as the kid from Iron Man 2 is silly for the simple reason that we KNOW that couldn't have been the intention back then but I don't fret about it because it has never been stated in any film that the kid was in fact Peter. I have no issue with either BcS or Homecoming showing part of a previous film from a different perspective. This concept has been around since "Rozencrantz and Guildenstern are dead" showed an alternate form of Hamlet (which Disney also incorporated into a Lion King spin off with Timon and Pumba) both films managed to pull it off without contradicting previous films.
The tough thing with a shared universe is the inevitable question "what was this hero doing when this was going on?" So now we have answers to why Batman never showed up when superman fought Zod or what Peter was doing during the Civil War before Tony recruited him. Wonder Woman did the same thing too and expanded on BvS and since we've already seen bits and pieces of them already, I wouldn't be surprised if Justice League gives a similar treatment to Flash, Cyborg, and Aquaman. If DC can keep pulling this off, this may give them a leg up on Marvel since this further connects their shared universe and gives people a reason to watch every individual film.

You guys know I don't like to take a side in the Marvel vs DC debate but consider the following: half the phase two films could be skipped over completely without losing any continuity; Iron Man 3 and Thor 2 didn't really add anything to the MCU continuity and it's taking 3 years and two films for any aspect of Guardians to cross over into ANY of the other films. On the DCEU side though, even Suicide Squad which is the most stand alone of its films is well connected; Batman and Bruce Wayne are in it, the Flash makes a cameo, the death of Superman is addressed. Suicide Squad may actually end up being a key cog in this plan, most people would admit that one of DC's biggest advantages over MARVEL is a better rogue gallery of villains so this is a better way of showcasing them and even giving us films from the bad guys side. Marvel just doesn't have the lineup of villains to pull this off, their best answer is the sinister six and those are all Spider-man villains.

[Silver Nemesis]

Honestly, I don't think any of the Spider-Man films are bad. Some are better than others, but I think even the weaker entries are average at worst.

I watched Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance for the first time the other night. Now that's a bad superhero film. Abrupt night-to-day transitions, inconsistent colour temperature, unmotivated camera movements, overuse of Dutch-angle shots, horrible overacting (especially from Cage), dreadful CGI, flagrant disregard for the 180-degree rule, obnoxious overbearing soundtrack, predictable storyline, insipid action scenes, cringey humour, emotional disconnection between the characters, overuse of low-angle close-ups and bizarre framing of the lead actor's face (either the directors filmed it open matte and didn't realise where the black bars were going to go, or else they shot is anamorphically and deliberately framed each close-up to crop out Cage's receding hairline). It's a 3/10 at best. I mean... just look at this:

This came out in 2011. Those effects. 2011!

But the Spider-Man films? Even the worst entry is worth a 5 or 6 out of 10. They're all competently made on a technical level. And I can honestly say I've enjoyed all of them. Even The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which objectively is probably the weakest entry, has a lot going for it. I've watched it a couple of times lately and I still enjoy it. Rather than list all the things wrong with that movie (and there are quite a few), I'm going to quickly mention a few things I like about it.

Garfield is a great Spider-Man. He's not my favourite live action spidey (that would be Maguire), but I can see why many fans like him best. He and Stone are both excellent and have tremendous chemistry together. Garfield's costume in TASM2 is also a massive improvement over the one he wore in the first film.

Fox and DeHaan deliver interesting takes on their respective villains. The similarities between Electro and Schumacher's Riddler didn't bother me. I thought he was funny and sympathetic in the early parts of the film and actually quite intimidating in the later scenes. Certainly not the best Spider-Man movie villain, but I enjoyed Fox's Electro a lot more than Giamatti's Rhino or Ifans' Lizard.

There are some strong action scenes. The battles between Spider-Man and Electro are particularly good. They're also sufficiently different from the action scenes in Raimi's films that they don't feel recycled.

The soundtrack. TASM2 has the best spidey score outside of the Raimi trilogy.

The movie has dramatic weight. Gwen's death is genuinely sad, and the scenes between Peter and Aunt May are touching. The relationships built upon what was established in the previous film, and consequently the emotions the characters are expressing feel earned.

Come to think of it, I might actually prefer TASM 2 over its predecessor. TASM is a better film and has fewer obvious flaws, but the second movie has more rewatch value for me.