Spectacular Spider-Man Animated Series!
August 23, 2007 | 3 Comments
No shock, but this is an extremely exciting announcement for me. In the video we only see Spider-Man as a whole, but there are snippets of a few other classic villains shown in this order: Doc Ock, Lizard or Scorpion, Electro, Goblin, Vulture, Sandman and Venom.
This will be arriving sometime in 2008!
Tags: animated, animation, cartoon, doc ock, electro, goblin, lizard, Sandman, Scorpion, spectacular spider-man, spectacular spiderman, spider-man, spiderman, venom, Vulture
Another Spider-Man 3 Trailer
April 12, 2007 | 2 Comments
Based mostly off the NBC HD exclusive trailer, Sony put out this new Spider-Man 3 trailer.
In addition to the extended fight footage with the new Green Goblin, we also see a better outline of the plot. We also see a scarred face Harry, leading us to believe he was not killed in either of the two places where previous clips implied he may have died. The part most people will be excited about in this trailer is the fight sequence with Venom. It is fairly extensive and show Eddie Brock first merge with the suit, we see him with sharpened and pointy teeth, and we see Venom able to sneak up on Spider-Man, meaning they will keep his ability to not set off Spider-Man’s “spider sense”.
I have to say, I think they have shown too much of this movie. Frankly, if you compiled all the trailers and exclusive footage together, you would probably have most of the film right there. I had hoped they would make Venom like Jaws and keep him hidden up until release. The buzz and excitement over seeing him alone would have made this movie break all records.
I recommend not watching this trailer or anymore trailers May 5, 2007 will be here soon enough. If you can hold off until then, you will enjoy this movie more, I’m certain of it.
Tags: eddie brock, Green Goblin, harry osborn, movie, spider sense, spider-man, spiderman, spiderman 3, spidey, trailer, venom
Spider-Man 3: Serious Fanboy Anti-criticism
March 14, 2007 | Leave a Comment
I felt it was finally time to weigh in on a couple ridiculous criticisms I’ve seen circulating on the net related to the upcoming Spider-Man 3 movie:
1) Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane appearing in the movie at the same time
It is absolutely true that Peter fell in love with Gwen before MJ. However, MJ was first referenced in Amazing Spider-Man #15 (1964) and fully appeared for the first time in #42 (1966). At this point they immediately begin dating. This of course annoys Gwen Stacy who first appeared in issue #31 (1965) and has a crush on Pete. Eventually Peter ditches MJ due to her apparent shallow superficiality. He promptly dates Gwen, and as MJ is dating Harry Osborn (Pete’s roommate) all of them hang out together regularly. MJ continues to show interest in Peter to Gwen and Harry’s disliking. Eventually Gwen is killed at the hands of the Green Goblin in issue #121 (1973). The writers do this because the seriousness of their relationship can only lead to marriage logically and they do not want Spider-Man to have aged this much so soon.
After this tragedy, Peter and MJ have a bit of a rekindling, but they never manage to get things together. It is not until issue #258 (1984) that MJ reveals that she knows his secret identity and she has matured to a point where they establish a solid relationship that has mostly remained to this day. The movie has certainly approached this in a slightly different way, but not as far off as some have claimed, nowhere near enough to “ruin the film” or make anyone “hate Raimi”.
Seriously though, can anyone deny Howard’s hotness as Gwen?
Actually, if we want to get all weird about this, Betty Brant showed up in Amazing #4 and was definitely the first significant girl Peter dated!
2) Venom’s teeth and tongue are too small
When Todd McFarlane (visual creator of Venom) first drew the character, it was without the large pointy teeth and tongue. Later, Erik Larsen adds these things plus a ton of green drool when he replaced McFarlane as the lead artist on Amazing. Since then these visual elements have always been repeated, as well as exaggerated, with each new artist that draws Venom. Raimi’s choice to use a fairly stripped down “original” Venom probably made for a much easier character to portray on screen.
On that note, here’s a new picture to enjoy of Spidey actually fighting with Venom:
Tags: amazing spider-man, Betty Brant, erik larsen, gwen stacy, mary jane, mary jane watson, movie, sam raimi, spider-man, spiderman, spiderman 3, todd mcfarlane, venom
Spider-Man 3: NBC.com Exclusive HD Preview
March 6, 2007 | 2 Comments
If you don’t like to know much about upcoming movies and truly appreciate the surprise and enjoyment of seeing things for the first time in the theater, stop reading now.
NBC.com is running an exclusive HD preview of Spider-Man 3. The catch is that it will only be online until 12AM tonight! (Of course then you’ll just have to look for it on YouTube or Google video…) This is more of a clip, or full scene than a preview. It is a full 7m 31s long clip that shows three major scenes and then ends with a few short clips in preview style.
First it starts with Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson hanging out in a web expressing their love for each other. This then cuts to a scene with Peter telling Aunt May his intentions to ask MJ to marry him. Aunt May tells a touching story of how here and Ben met, as well as the fact that they would have been married 50 years if he had not been killed. She then gives Peter her engagement ring to give MJ.
This then cuts to Peter on his scooter where he is attacked by the new Green Goblin. After throwing him around quite a bit, the Goblin removes his mask, revealing Harry Osborn, and tells Peter he is going to kill him. Peter argues that he did not kill Harry’s father Norman and the chase begins.
This fight continues for a majority of the preview. The fight is particularly brutal. At one point Peter nearly loses Aunt May’s ring, but is able to fight off Harry long enough to get it back. At this point Harry starts pulling out some of his special goblin weapons.
Peter is able to use them back against him and catches Harry off guard. He finally gets enough distance between himself and Harry to setup a clothesline of webbing to surprise and takedown Harry.
We then see Harry fall four or five stories onto the pavement where he is seen unconscious. Peter rushes too him and begins CPR. We are left wondering if Harry is in fact alive. Having seen other clips in other trailers, Harry does end up in a hospital, so this must mean he survived.
This is where the “scene” portion of the preview ends. We then see the text “and the story continues…” Then it transitions into a series of clips from the movie. The most significant being of Sandman and Venom. I really love how they show Sandman as able to become huge in this clip.
Finally we are treated to our first clear, high quality shot of Venom. Sadly, it is the same shot we have seen blurry in previous leaked and official trailers.
I continue to be excited about this movie, but I am starting to think they are showing us too much. If this is the entirety of the Goblin vs Spider-Man action in this film, I will be a little let down that it was shown so completely to us. As much as I enjoyed this, I do appreciate secrecy and surprises in the theater.
Tags: "black suit", "Spider-Man 3", aunt may, ben parker, engagement, film, goblin, Green Goblin, harry osborn, mary jane, mary jane watson, mj, movie, nbc, nbc.com, peter parker, preview, ring, Sandman, sony, spider-man, spiderman, spiderman 3, theater, trailer, venom
Spider-Man 3: The Video Game Trailer
February 28, 2007 | 6 Comments
With both Spider-Man 2 and Ultimate Spider-Man video games, Activision put together possibly the greatest product tie-in video games. IGN gave these scores of 8.8 and 8.4 respectively, which says a lot (scores from GameCube versions).
The development team is claiming that they have improved on the previous games with a larger, more detailed map of Manhattan as well as the ability to go underground in the sewers and subway systems. In previous games, they left things wide open for you to swing and explore the city, taking on thugs and side missions as you so desired. In this game they have enhanced this piece immensely, causing alternate story lines to spawn based on your actions as well as setting up competing city gangs who need to be kept under control.
Of course all the villains from the movie will be included, we can expect Venom, Goblin, and Sandman. They also promise to bring in a few other Spider-Man bad guys who aren’t in the movie, just to keep things interesting.
The trailer above leaves me with very high hopes for this game. More than anything, I hope they can find a good way of harnessing the Nintendo Wii controller for even more engaging game play.
But, hey who am I kidding, let me swing around New York city as Spider-Man and there really doesn’t need to be much more of a point in the game than that…
Tags: "black suit", activision, city, comic, comics, gamecube, manhattan, new york, Nintendo, peter parker, spider-man, spiderman, venom, video game, wii
Spider-Man 3: Collectible Action Figures
January 13, 2007 | 4 Comments
Keith and Alan pointed me at these soon to be released (Q1 2007) action figures. They are being created by Medicom Toy and distributed by Sideshow Collectibles. Due to their collectible nature, I don’t expect them to be commonly available or affordable. It looks like the pricing will be in the >$100 range for the fully pose-able 12″ figures.
The one feature I think is most cool about these is the way they have made a jointed figure and then put a stretchy plastic like material over the character as the suit. This hides all the joint mechanics creating a far more seamless action figure. My main criticism of these would be Venom’s face. Something about the distortion of it bothers me…
I’m really looking forward to seeing what the lineup of kid targeted action figures for Spider-Man 3 will be!
Tags: "Spider-Man 3", action figure, collectible, collectibles, figures, marvel, movie, spider-man, spiderman, toy, toys, venom
Spider-Man 3: Images of Venom
November 13, 2006 | 9 Comments
Thanks to Alan Derosby the site tip, I finally got the opportunity to see a clear version of the Comic Con footage I had previously blogged a blurry version of. The key moment I was dying to see was the end footage which featured the first imagery of a full Venom.
I know Sony has been yanking this footage all over the place, so I’ve merely grabbed to frames of the video to publish, hopefully they’ll allow this to stay. With the 100s of incoming searches I get for this daily, I’d think they’d want this promoted as much as possible. Fan zeal for this film is at an all time high, they should milk the community to create the largest opening ever, but that’s just me.
To my delight, they have chosen a McFarlane-esque Venom. At least for now we see sharp teeth, but no oversized tongue or excessively huge Venom. In many ways, I hope the quick clip with Brock begging to end Parker’s life in a church followed by his transformation into Venom becomes the final scene, or even a post credits scene to end the third movie. It would make the ideal cliffhanger and would guarantee a fourth film.
Tags: comic con footage, eddie brock, mcfarlane, peter parker, spider-man, spiderman, trailer, venom