Fundamental Coincidences in Spider-Man 3
8 Comments Published by Joel May 7th, 2007 in Movies. Share This
Coincidence can ruin a movie by making the plot less believable, yet it is one of the few things that many movie watchers will let slide, even as you shrilly point it out to them over and over again outside the movie theater. Screenwriter John August takes a look at last weekend’s big show, Spider-Man 3, and points out glaring “Fundamental Coincidences” that make the plot feel less cohesive. I’d past in an excerpt, but he has some minor spoilers of the plot, so I leave the choice up to you. (I haven’t seen S3 but I still didn’t feel ripped off by his spoilers, but then again I know most of the plot already.)
Being a snooty backseat director, fundamental coincidences tend to drive me crazy. I can put up with a lot of unrealistic physics and such, especially in a popcorn movie like Spider-Man, but when things happen that make no sense simply for the sake of moving the plot forward or making an excuse for a cool action scene it gets under my skin. I thought Spider-Man 2 was better than the first one, for instance, but that scene where Doc. Ock throws a car into the coffee shop at Peter Parker’s head because he wants to talk to him was supremely irritating. Just call his cell, then throw the car.
The perils of coincidence [JohnAugust.com]
i didn’t notice any horrible coincidences in the movie. just crappy acting and a really terrible dance scene. emo spidey is no fun.
My biggest problem as I was pointing out to a work buddy was only once in the entire movie did he use his Spidy sense. More often than not, he got his ass kicked on shit he should have seen like when he was riding his bike down the street and Harry got to him.
Damn wish I could re-edit my post. Took a look at his points and many of them are actually true to the comic like Eddie Brock being at the church and Gwen being the police chiefs daughter (a point that had they done the first movie right, would have been important since the Green Goblin killed both the police chief AND later Gwen)
Also Marco’s birth was only a slight retcon. All they needed to do was keep the Peters dad was a spy and Marco killed him angle to have it been the original storyline.
Ultimately the biggest problem with the movie was not how coincidental everything was. It was how many baddies where IN the film (3 full plotlines thus a lot suffered like Marco’s daughter basically dissapearing, More interaction between Peter and Harry and Mary Jane, or more interaction between Brock and Gwen and Peter) Any one of those threads could have been one whole movie.
I really need to see this movie, but it seems the more super hero movies I watch, the more I remember my comic book childhood, and the angrier I get with the movie for not being true to what I know. The most recent of this was the 3rd X-Men movie. Maybe I dipped out on my X-Men series prematurely, but I dont remember the Phoenix Saga ending that way (or really any of the X-Men ending that way). I was furious at the movie, and doubly pissed off because it was 2am and no one was around to bitch at. Do the writers/directors take in to account the hordes of pissed off (pseudo)fan-boys when the contemplate straying from the original plot lines?
What I hated the most about Spidey 3 is that Peter just happened to discover that the alien is vulnerable to sound AFTER he enters the church that Brock is in – a double coincidence in one scene!
In the comics (entering nerd mode here) didn’t Peter enter the church after Reed Richards discovered the alien’s weakness? Doc Conners easily couldve filled Reed shoes, but the costume storyline was so underdeveloped.
Rumor has it for good reason. Originally it was going to be Scorpion. Marvel suits begged that it be changed to Venom because of fan popularity. Sam hated Venom and had sworn in interviews in the previous two films that he would never do the Venom storyline because he just thought the character was stupid (and you talk to any long time Spiderman fans and they would agree.) He only wanted to do the original 60’s-70’s villains like Black Cat and Scorpion. In the end the suits won.
Why do the long time Spidey fans have beef with the Venom character? Initially, he was one of Pete’s best baddies before Marvel went ass-crazy with him.
Not sure, I just know they do through people talking and the numerous posts on AICN about him. A lot of it seems to deal with the bad Peter aspect, that they are tired of the good version vs bad version storylines which Venom essentially is, a what if Peter Parker was not the sweet boy you met in Spiderman Issue 1 but a kid who kept getting beat down and turned angry at the world because of it which essentially is Brock.
Personally I just felt there was no reason to have him OR the Gwen character in the movie. They added nothing really, especially Gwen. If you wanted to have Gwen Stacy they should have just did the first movie the true way, and have him save the kids at the sacrifice of his lover.