Spider-Man: Raimi Vs Webb

This week I did something I haven't done before, I watched both the original Spider-Man franchise and the Amazing Spider-Man movies (including the new one).  So today I am going to tear them apart to determine which of the two franchises is the definitive Spider-Man.  Because the movies are so different I'm going to compare the similar elements first, starting with the characters.

The Family

Everyone knows Spider-Man was raised by his aunt and uncle, and in the movies they are portrayed very differently.  In Raimi's original trilogy May and Ben Parker are much older, personally I preferred the younger version that Webb chose.  Sure the late Cliff Robertson and Rosemary Harris were a more accurate portrayal, and far better used than Martin Sheen and Sally Fields are in Webb's series.  This is a difficult decision for me because I am such a fan of Sheen's other work.  However if I had to choose based solely on their performances in the films...I'm gonna have to give it to the original.  Despite their age they are just given a lot more to work with, which results in a far better set of characters.

The Thief

This one is a far easier choice to make.  In Sam Raimi's Spider-Man the thief is seen robbing the wrestling promoter, presumably taking thousands, after the promoter refused to pay Peter $3000, Peter lets him go.  This results in the death of his Uncle in a carjacking gone wrong, and a fairly emotional confrontation a few minutes later.  In Webb's Amazing Spider-Man however, Peter lets the thief get away after being denied chocolate milk from a convenience store, and uncle Ben is then killed trying to stop him.  This leads to Peter searching for the man, who apparently looks like every other criminal in New York, and confronting the look alikes one by one all while being a smart-ass, cheapening the whole ordeal.  So for this I obviously have to go with the original.

The Love Interest

For this one I can't directly compare Gwen Stacys, because that would be unfair to Bryce Dallas Howard who only got a few minutes of screen time.  So instead I'll compare Kirsten Dunst's Mary Jane Watson and Emma Stone's Gwen Stacy.  In Raimi's movies Peter and MJ have a...complicated relationship.  Personally I feel Raimi's handles the idea of a civilian vs superhero identities a lot better.  Peter knows that he can't be with MJ and still keep his secret in tact, this works for the first two movies.  However the third movie doesn't have this barrier and their being apart is just for the sake of keeping the character consistent.  In The Amazing Spider-Man however, Gwen learns almost immediately that Peter is Spider-Man.  This leads to an entirely different relationship, one that is far more supportive and actually makes the characters better.  Of course both actresses are really just playing the same roles they always play, and Emma Stone is just more charming.  So I give this one to Gwen Stacy.

Flash Thompson

Honestly, both franchises horribly misuse this guy.  Flash is Peter's high school bully as well as Spider-Man's #1 fan, and in the comics he goes on to become his friend, joins the army, loses his legs, becomes an alcoholic, sobers up, and becomes Venom.  In the Raimi films we get maybe two scenes where Flash picks on Peter, and the incredible hallway fight scene where Peter fights back.  In Webb's movies we get a scene where he picks on someone else and gets angry when Peter calls him on it, a scene where he loses at basketball to Peter, a scene where he tries to offer support to Peter after Ben dies, and one last scene where he is shown in a Spider-Man shirt.  In essence Webb's version is the jock we all knew in high school, not a jerk, just full of himself.  It's this more humanized take that Webb does that ends up being the better interpretation, and therefore the winner in my opinion.

Green Goblin

Comparing all the villains would be like  comparing apples to broccoli, they're just all so different.  So instead I'll do the common enemy; The Green Goblin.  Raimi's Goblin is portrayed by Willem Dafoe, and my God what perfect casting.  Dafoe is terrifying, going from calm to crazy banana-pants at the drop of a hat.  Raimi's version also has a Jekyll and Hyde feel as the Osborn and the Goblin are separate entities.  The only problem with this version is the suit, it just looks ridiculous, especially when compared to this anamatronic mask they were testing for the film.

As for The Amazing Spider-Man franchise (MAJOR spoiler warning for those who haven't seen The Amazing Spider-Man 2 yet), Norman is not the Green Goblin, instead it is his son Harry.  In the film Harry is Peter's childhood friend who has been away at boarding school for years, only returning to the city because his father is dying of a degenerative disease that turns his skin green, and by the way it's genetic.  So throughout the movie Harry is trying to find a cure for his Green Goblinitis that involves Spider-Man's blood.  But when he finally gets it the blood not only cures him, but turns him into the Green Goblin for a whole 5 minutes.  Honestly this was probably one of the bigger slaps in the face Webb's films gives us.  It's clear the Goblin is only in this movie to set up the Sinister Six film that's in the works, although Rhino is handled even worse.  Though to the movie's credit Dane Dahaan does really well with what little he is given.  As for the suit, personally I feel it's really dumb, but arguments have been made for it being better than Dafoe's.  This comparison ends up being a bit unfair in the end simply because of how high the bar was set with Dafoe, and how lazy Webb's attempt came off as being, the better Goblin is Dafoe.

Spider-Man

And now for the topic you all came to see, which Spider-Man do I feel is better.  First a bit of background.  When the original Spider-Man movie was being cast over 10 years ago, even the studio thought Tobey Maguire was a bad choice because he wasn't the action star they wanted.  However Raimi wasn't looking for an action star, he wanted Peter Parker...and he got him.  When it comes to Superheroes and villains I feel movies need to stick with a simple rule, cast the secret identity, not the hero.  Think about it; the costume is going to be worn by a stunt man most of the film anyway, so whats it matter if the actor can bench a truck.  Maguire however did end up bulking up considerably for the movie, and thanks to baggy clothing he managed to maintain the illusion that they were very different people.  This version of Peter is more emotional than Garfield's and the way they are both played are very different.  Andrew Garfield plays Spider-Man as a smart-ass hipster.  He does the quips we all wanted from Maguire but never really got, and his body type is more what we expected as well, the lanky, more spider-like look.  However where Maguire was the perfect Peter Parker, Garfield is a more more accurate Spider-Man.  Garfield's Peter is an entirely different story, he's obnoxious, he seems cooler than he should be, and despite appearing smarter than Maguire's version, he ends up being all show with his gadgets whereas Maguire was actually intelligent.  If you look at the fights in these movies Garfield is constantly being told how to win by Gwen, but Maguire improvises,  examples being removing his mask to appeal to Octavious, or creating an acoustic enclosure to bring down Venom.  As for the suit, both The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Raimi's suits are equally impressive, seriously well done costume people, these are fantastic.  So the ultimate decision ends up being one of personal preference here, and personally I just prefer Tobey Maguire's take on the character.

As a last minute bonus, check out these images I found on the internet of the unused Black suit and Venom.

Seriously, between these, the Spider suit, and the unused Goblin Mask Raimi proved that it is possible to have comic accurate costumes that don't look stupid on film.

Original Vs Remake: Red Dawn

       In this installment of Original vs Remake I take a look at one of my guilty pleasures, Red Dawn.I wanted to do this a few weeks ago since I saw the movie opening weekend, but classes got really busy for a while.  These movies are about a small town in the United States that is invaded and the citizens are forced to fight off the invaders.

Plot

       In the original, the Russians and Cubans invade a small town in Colorado, forcing the high school students who escape to the woods to band together and create a military force called the Wolverines after their mascot.  The movie takes place over the course of a few months as the Wolverines wage a guerrilla war against the Communist forces.

       The remake on the other hand uses the North Koreans instead, and rather than a small town in Colorado, it takes place in Spokane Washington, an area where I currently live, more on that later.  other than that its basically the same, in fact scenes from the original are even used in the remake.

       The verdict: I liked both of these movies, however at the time that the original came out it was the height of the Cold War when there was a fear of Russian invasion, thus providing a bit more of realism.  The remake on the other has an invasion that needed a setup with fake news footage.  This took away from the realism a bit and an invasion by North Korea is currently in real life not a concern.  Point to the Original

Characters

       The original had a lot of characters, from Patrick Swayze and little Charlie Sheen, the many other high school students, the Air Force pilot, the many Soviet officers.  None of them really got the time to be fleshed out, and no matter how many times I see it I only know the main characters as Patrick Swayzee and Charlie Sheen.  That's really all I can say about that.

       The remake did a little better, there were only a handful of main characters, all of which had identifiable traits.  Plus I found this the perfect movie for Hutcherson's attempt to get into action movies, as his character starts as the classic Hutcherson character, and is forced to evolve into an action star through circumstance.  The relationships here are also stronger, and when someone died it held far more weight than the original did.

       The Verdict: This one was easy, I actually remembered the characters in the remake, which is the biggest factor.  I wasn't a fan of Jeffery Dean Morgan's character, I was expecting The Comedian, or John Winchester, but instead got a  guy I couldn't like.  That aside, point to the remake.

Other Issues

       Both of these movies have their fair share of small problems, for example; why did the Soviet Union invade Colorado rather than a coastal state, and with Cuba's help they could have easily taken Florida.  Hell, how did they manage to invade without ANY resistance.  The only explanation given is a sneak attack on the command center, but with all the spying going on chances are we would of had some idea it would happen, and been on alert.

       The remake I'm able to pick apart a lot more, simply because I live near Spokane.  For example, Spokane isn't a small town, in fact its one of the largest cities in the state, in fact the perfect location in Washington would have been my hometown of Cashmere, its small, in a highly defensible valley, the surrounding towns are small, and the nearest military base is at least an hour away.  Plus we have woods nearby.  Another issue is that you can't get Seattle news out of Spokane, though I must commend them for getting an actual Seattle news anchor.  Then there was the deer, I didn't catch this, but my brother claims that the specific deer used isn't native to the state of Washington.  Next there is the fact that Spokane is surrounded by military bases throughout the state.  In Washington we have multiple Army, Air Force, and Navy bases, some within a few miles of Spokane, and at Eastern Washington University, the school I attend, there is an ROTC chapter where many of the students have already served.  Then there is the Hanford site, it wasn't even mentioned in the movie, yet it is a large nuclear facility that isn't too far from Spokane, sure it was shut down years ago, but it is still a Nuclear Reactor that could have played into the plot, it felt like a missed opportunity.  The biggest issue however is how few guns there were.  In the Eastern half of the state almost every household owns at least 1 gun, my father's personal collection is in the double digits, same goes for his neighbor.  In fact my friend owns a set of Russian military AK-47s, proving that some people even have automatic weaponry.  It sort of bugged me that in the movie they had such a hard time finding guns, when I know there are a lot of them in the area.  Also the movie claims the Koreans invaded Seattle and Spokane, these two cities are almost 500 miles apart with many gun owners and military bases between them, how did they only capture these two cities, yet the capital Olympia was left untouched?  Lastly was the Korean's magic EMP device, it took out all communications, yet the Wolverines were still able to watch TV and use radios, sure it was the big explanation as to why they were able to invade, but it doesn't work when you see that the television still works.

       But these are all small things that can be looked past.  Besides there were probably millions of other problems with these movies.  And in the case of the remake they tried to cover it up by finding an actual news anchor from the state to cameo, rather than an actor.

Final Verdict

       With the score tied up it all comes down to which movie I felt was more enjoyable.  I feel that if you combined the plot of the original, with the character development of the first film, you could have a great movie, rather than 2 guilty pleasures.  Honestly, I feel these movies are almost equal, and depend on personal preference, personally I prefer good characters to good stories, so I liked the remake a bit more.  That and the acting seemed better in the remake, made me enjoy it a bit more.  So in this case I feel the better movie is the Remake.  So ignore what the critics say, this movie did what it set out to do and was exactly what you would expect going in.  It was entertaining and enjoyable, way better than some of the other crap that spawned franchises, I'm looking at you Twilight and Hunger Games.  If your interested the original is available on Netflix, and chances are the remake will end up there as well.

       If you have any thoughts on this topic, feel free to post comments below.

Original vs Remake: Fright Night

       This is an idea I got from watching Nostalgia Critic, but in a recent video released on the site, it is now known that Doug Walker has decided to stop doing Nostalgia Critic videos as a weekly thing.  Because I liked the idea of comparing originals and remakes, and because there is so many out now I've decided to do them every now and then as well.

       In this post I will look at Fright Night  This is a movie about a kid named Charlie Brewster who discovers his new neighbor Jerry is a vampire.  He goes to the resident vampire expert Peter Vincent and together with the help of his friend "Evil" Ed and his girlfriend they fight the vampire.

Best Charlie

Original

       In the original Charlie is played by William Ragsdale, if you don't know who that is don't worry, he isn't in much.  He is portrayed as as horror film buff who in the beginning of the movie stops making out with his girlfriend because his favorite show is on, way to be a winner dude.  Unlike the remake he seems a little whiny and seems to go searching for evidence that it is OK to kill his neighbor.  His friends at one point take him Peter Vincent to prove that vampires aren't real.

Remake

       In the remake Charlie is played by Anton Yelchin who's credits include Chekov in the new Star Trek franchise, Kyle Reese in Terminator Salvation and an incredible guest spot on the television series Criminal Minds.  Needles to say they probably had a bigger budget.  In this version Charlie is a high school student who grew out of his nerd phase and is now one of the "cool kids",  needless to say this Charlie won't give up making out with his girlfriend for TV, just when he thinks his neighbor is killing someone.  This version has to be convinced by his friends his neighbor is a vampire, and is far more skeptical.

Edge

       Both of these characters are good for different reasons, the original has a mindless determination to his quest and nothing is gonna stop him from accomplishing them.  On the other hand the remake makes him more of a reluctant hero, only getting involved when he believes he witnessed a murder.  Personally I find Yelchin's portrayal to be more believable, and if there's one thing I like in my horror movies, it's believability.  Because of this I enjoyed Yelchin's Charlie far more than the original.
Round goes to the Remake.

Best Jerry

Original

       In the original Jerry is played by Chris Sarandon, who I'll admit I'm not as familiar with as I should be, but he played Jack Skelington.  In the original Jerry moved into the house next door to Charlie and his mother, this version seems to be content with screwing with our hero more than anything.  His cover is that he has a "roommate" and works nights.  In reality his roommate is his daytime protector, who dedicated his life to keeping him safe.  As far as movie monsters go he isn't really all that special by comparison to say Jason, or Dracula.  But in this setting it works.

Remake

       In 2011 Colin Farrell played Jerry.  In this version Jerry works night construction on the Vegas strip, so it is normal that he blacked out his windows so he sleep, no daytime guardian.  He also comes off as a womanizer and is seen taking women home...who are never seen again.  This version of Jerry is more memorable because rather than simply kill his victims, he locks them in a secret holding cell in his house and feeds on them slowly, eventually turning his victims rather than killing them.

Edge

       This one was easy, both actors gave great performances, however in the end it is the remake that makes Jerry a memorable monster, plus Colin Farrell just seems to have much more fun with the role and his enjoyment is is what makes his character better.
Round goes to the remake.

Best Peter Vincent

Original

      In the original Peter Vincent is the host of a horror movie show called Fright Night, he is played by the late Roddy McDowall and is my person favorite character in the movie.  He is portrayed more as a sidekick in this version however and mostly seen helping Charlie by providing information he already knows.  However he does also have the arsenal needed to fight vampires, or pretty much any other creature of the night for that matter.  He fills the role of the wise old man that is seen a lot in movies.

Remake

       This version is played by David Tennant, need I say more?  In this version Vincent is a Las Vegas stage magician who as a child witnessed his parents being murdered by a vampire.  Again this is my favorite character in the movie.  This Vincent swears, drinks, makes lewd comments, and makes jokes a child would call immature.

Edge

       This one was hard, I loved both version for different reasons, However the remake actually gives a back story that explains his obsession with the occult.
Therefore this round goes to the remake.

Best "Evil"

Original

        The original "Evil" Ed was played by Stephen Geoffreys, he is Charlie's best friend.  Why I don't know, he's constantly insulting Charlie and is just all around annoying.  In fact my favorite part of the movie is when he gets killed, but the moment is ruined when you find out he survived at the end.

Remake

       In the remake "Evil" is played by McLovin, that's right, McLovin is in this movie.  This version is Charlie's childhood friend who tries to warn Charlie about Jerry, but Charlie plays it off as a crazy nerd trying to restart a dead friendship.  Unfortunately this version isn't in the movie a whole lot, in fact his disappearance is what makes Charlie suspicious of Jerry.  Even more sad is because of how horribly typecast he has been in the past, he just isn't as terrifying as he is trying to be.  However I love him in anything he does and this is no exception.

Edge

       This one is easy, one of these performances pisses me off, the other I liked.
Round goes to the remake.

Best supporting cast

Original

       This movie's supporting characters include Jerry's daytime protector, Charlies mother, and his girlfriend.  None of these characters get the development needed to actually judge them.  Charlie's mom has a thing for Jerry, the protector is hard to kill, and the girlfriend is the damsel in distress in the end.   Honestly I don't think there is enough to warrant further discussion.

Remake

       The remake has far more characters, no daytime protector, but you do get Vincent's girlfriend and Charlie's new friends.  In this version Charlie's girlfriend and mother are both capable of protecting themselves for most of the movie.  His friends are stereotypes of "cool kids", and Vincent's girlfriend contributes to some of the funniest scenes in the movie.  Other than that you really get that invested in these characters, and you know how they are gonna end up when the credits roll.

Edge

       Due to lack of character development this one is also rather easy.
Round goes to the remake.

Final Verdict

       While both movies are great, the remake does something that is both rare, and expected at the same time.  It modernizes a classic for a whole new audience, this is something all remakes aspire to, but only a handful are capable of.  Fright Night is also one of those rare horror movies that has a plot that makes sense.  Both movies are worth watching, however in my opinion the remake improves upon everything the original was, and is more entertaining.  As always feel free to post your opinions in the comment section.