Spider-Man: Far From Home (Jon Watts, July 2, 2019) Movie • Page 45

How? If anything, that was the last nail in the coffin of doing Secret Invasion any time soon (which, thank goodness).

I do think some version of SWORD, maybe w/ a bit of Alpha Flight, is likely for Captain Marvel 2. Like, it's very likely Abigail Brand is in that movie.

I'll say this, I'd rather talk Spider-Man with someone whose favorite live action Spidey film is SM2 than someone whose fav is Far From Home. The amount of Far From Home hype out there in the world blows my mind, lol.

 

To me it was showing the audience that other characters they know could be skrulls outside of what happened in Captain Marvel.

 

I'd be really pissed if they did that fake-out of the Skrulls being bad guys and then good guys only to be bad again lol I don't see them doing something like that in this universe, unless there's a bit of a split/"civil war" amongst the Skrulls themselves

 

It is a thing that there are different "factions" of Skrulls and Kree, so they COULD do it, but it feels a bit too soon after saying "Skrulls are the good guys" to start setting up an arc where they're the bad guys

 

Feige stated in multiple interviews that there are bad skrulls.

 

My least favourite phrase in the English language is "Tobey was the best Peter Parker, Andrew was the best Spider-Man". I see it all the time in Spider-Man related comment sections. It really sucks that people actually think Maguire's performance was an accurate take on Peter Parker. Garfield was much closer to the character I know and love from the comics.

 

I love Maguire’s Parker performance.

 

Why? He was horribly miscast in my view.

 

An actor can portray a character in a good way even if it’s not very identical to it’s comic counterpart. Look at Hugh Jackman as Logan for example. Not super similar to his comic counterpart but still owned the role.

 

He plays the role incredibly earnest, he feels downtrodden and beat up. He expresses simultaneous frustration and hope, and I know that dorkiness isn’t necessarily required in the Peter Parker formula, but especially for early Peter, he has to feel like an outcast, and Maguire plays a weirdo dork who it makes sense wouldn’t have a lot of friends (the casting of Daniel Desario as his only friend contrasts cool against nerdy very well). The Raimi movies paint in broad, soap opera-y archetypical brushes (complete with casting people who look/are 28-32 years old as high schoolers), so for the tone it makes complete sense. He is not cool at all, which is partially why it feels so freeing when he dons the suit and does his webslinging and superheroing. It becomes the escape from constantly disappointing everyone it needs to feel like, which you need his performance as Peter to get.

Also, while his romance with MJ is painted similarly broad, his vulnerability and dialogue with her have a real dramatic import. Basically Tobey’s performance as Peter is awkward and earnest, so when paired against someone like JK Simmons’ Jameson, it helps reinforces both of their characters extremely well. Acting isn’t just line readings and crying, it’s embodying the ideals or purpose of your character scene to scene, and while it helps to have a great script and director to help you emphasize that (Maguire worked with the best director to helm a Spider-Man franchise yet), I feel like Maguire’s performance comes off as the most purposeful and realized version of Peter Parker I’ve seen. I know there are different angles to take with the character that can work just as well, I just like Raimi and Maguire’s angle best so far.

Also, I know I said acting isn’t just line readings, but he does have some really great ones

 

Jackman worked much better in the role of Wolverine than Maguire did as Peter Parker. It's just odd to me that people hold up Maguire as the best live-action Peter Parker/Spider-Man when he's nothing like the original character. Some people say he's closer to the original 60s version but even then I struggle to see it.

 

The problem is Maguire's Parker never moves beyond being an "outcast". One of the very first panels in a Spider-Man comic is Peter asking a classmate out on a date. Sure, he gets rejected but the point is that he at least had the confidence to ask her out. That's something that Maguire's Parker doesn't have. Maguire always came across like a hopeless dork, and that's just not Peter Parker. It feels like instead of actually looking at what makes Peter Parker work as a character, Raimi and his creative team stripped him of any nuance and instead chose to portray him as how most people would imagine a stereotypical geek, and said "hey, this is Peter Parker!". It's lazy, really.



Maguire fails to convey many of Peter Parker/Spider-Man's core characteristics; wit, intelligence and charisma are all absent from his performance. Garfield and Holland managed to capture these traits much more successfully, hence why I massively prefer their takes on the character.

Edit: Obviously it's not just Maguire's fault. The whole creative team for the Raimi movies are to blame (although even if they'd written a more comic accurate Peter Parker/Spider-Man, I severely doubt Maguire would've been able to pull it off).

 

Here’s my roundtable episode on this. Featuring Chorus friends @Jonathan and @BackyardHero11. Also Kt Schaefer who is not on here. Welcome to Geekdom | Spider-Man: Far From Home | Episode 140

 

Yeah that comic sequence makes Peter look like an incel. I like the route of making him super passive, never putting himself out there, someone who never so much as makes one move towards a girl, someone who feels powerless constantly, suddenly and randomly being bestowed great power. It’s an adaptation, things change and the authors created their take on Peter Parker. I don’t need him to be 100% comics accurate because there are a million different comic versions of him.

I also think Maguire portrays a quiet intelligence. No the movies don’t make his intelligence much of a factor, but he’s believably smart. No, he’s not as charismatic as Garfield or Holland. They’re better at that aspect of the adult Peter. The Raimi movies were never really going for that, though. The dynamic they were interested in was a subversion of the power fantasy, that the powers complicate his life and while yes, the seemingly dorky, unlucky guy is actually a superhero, he’s destined to never get any real credit for it, doing the right thing and utilizing your power responsibly is thankless, but ultimately rewarding. Those sort of consequential thematics resonate with me much more than any MCU Spider-Man movie, and I think even the ASM movies were trying to tell a similar story, they just got weighed down by a bunch of other nonsense and misguidedly tried to reject too many similarities to the Raimi movies even though their love stories shared a lot of themes.

Anyway Tobey was a great Parker and Spider-Man 2 is great.

 

Maguire's Peter Parker is bad, but his Spider-Man is even worse. All his one-liners fall flat because of his boring delivery. You mentioned that it's "freeing when he dons the suit and does his webslinging and superheroing", but this doesn't really work for me because he still seems like a hopeless dork even when he's in the suit. There's no contrast between the way he acts as Peter Parker and Spider-Man, so the "power fantasy" you refer to just doesn't come across in the way you describe imo. It doesn't feel like he's escaping from his awkward self when he puts on the suit. I'd actually say TASM achieves that effect in a much bigger way, as it genuinely appears like Garfield's Parker is enjoying himself to some extent when he puts on the suit. The scene where he webslings away from the police in TASM1 is genuinely joyful with all of the funny comments he makes ("alright, that was fun!", "I'm swinging here, I'm swinging here!", etc). Maguire's Spider-Man in comparison is entirely joyless.

 

If we're talking about adapting the comic book character, based the majority of Spider-Man comics, Tobey really isn't a good Peter Parker. I feel like the initial few Ditko years, Raimi's films, & Dan Slott's comics are the only places he's really dorky. He's traditionally nerdy & unlucky, but also charming & sarcastic. Tobey's Peter is more of an amalgamation of Amazing Fantasy #15 Peter & Christopher Reeves as Clark Kent.

That said, now that I have some good Peter Parker via the Webb films &, to a far greater extent, Spider-Verse, I'm able to really appreciate Spider-Man 2 for what it is. Tobey's bigger facial expressions are still super rough, which is distracting af in the train sequence. But, when he's going subtle, leaning into either Raimi's quirky comedy or more muted sentimentality, he works well for the different thing the film is going for.

That thing just isn't the Peter Parker I've been reading all my life. But, hey, neither is Tom Holland so far, & all sorts of dweebs like pretending he's the one to finally get the character right, so whatever.

 

I disagree. Yes, Maguire’s Spider-Man is stiff and Garfield embodied that in-suit spirit better, but the action still looks gorgeous and still creates a contrast between his Parker performance and his actions in the suit.

 

@Nathan, I know Far From Home is in the conversation for your least favorite Spidey film. But, maybe you should give it more credit for making SM2 look so much better to me, lol.

 

For the record, I do still have a lot of love for Spider-Man 1 and 2. I grew up with those movies. I just have a lot of problems with Maguire in the title role (as you've probably guessed by now).

 

It’s always been great! But I do appreciate the evolution of your feelings lol

For all my issues with TASM 1 & 2, I’ve at least rewatched them. I feel no desire to revisit Far From Home.

 

It sounds like your issues are maybe with the actor, maybe less so the performance? Which is fair. There are actors who I just don’t like and it’s a challenge to get over that and buy into what’s onscreen. Aside from the admitted stiffness of his in-suit Spider-Man performance, I think he’s doing exactly what the movie needs and asks for (I for one am not bothered by his uniquely expressive face)

 

I loved the movie. That being said, I fully expect to come into these Marvel threads to see Nathan and Tim ripping them apart, even if they enjoyed them ;)

 

The Raimi movies are great for what they are and when they came out. They're campy and fun, but if they came out today... Oof. Maguire nails part of the role (mostly how often he gets beaten down but usually gets back up), but he completely falls flat everywhere else. Every writer tends to write Peter pretty differently, so Maguire is probably pretty close to certain runs on the character, but I just don't enjoy watching him on screen and that's a huge problem IMO.

But I think the MCU Spidey movies are the best live action ones, so what do I know

 

Garfield's potential was wasted on bad writing and convoluted narrative IMO. I really did enjoy him as Spidey, though I love Holland as well.

I think ASM2 had some real potential. That's still my favorite live action Spidey suit.