Another Pass at Another Pass at Spider-Man 3

Let's look back at the time Case had Geoff Moonen on to talk about Spider-Man 3.

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Transcription

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00:05
Case
Hey, everyone, and welcome back to another pass podcast. I am case Aiken, and as always, I am joined by my co host, Sam Alicea.

00:13
Sam
Hi.

00:14
Case
And today, this is a bonus episode where we are taking another pass at another pass. So in this case, we are talking about the 6th episode of the show. We are talking about Spiderman three. Three.

00:25
Sam
Yes. We are talking about Spiderman Three, indeed. Yeah. I will say this. The episode that we're going to listen to, right. Because we always kind of, like, talk, and we talk about prepare people for what they're about to hear. The sound quality is good, so that's really nice. And also we have our lovely Jeff. And Jeff is amazing. And so it's always going to be a conversation. I do think that this episode gets closer to our current modern format, but it's still more of a progress. Kind of like spitballing and kind of agreeing that you liked what you said, but not quite having a thesis at the end, but I think it's getting closer to what another pass has become.

01:13
Case
Yeah. And this one was an interesting one because we realized that the production schedule had caused the double feature of the amazing Spiderman movies to come out a little premature for when Spiderman Homecoming was coming out. And it seemed like, hey, we should probably put that out there. Yeah, we should probably do a Spider man. So this one was kind of a scramble. We weren't thinking that were going to do this movie particularly early on, and then it was like, yeah, you know what? Let's take a swing at it. Jeff, you free? All right. Jeff's free.

01:49
Geoff Moonen
Cool.

01:50
Case
We'll get that episode in. Which is why, actually, the next episode is also going to be a Jeff episode, when at the time, I was trying not to have it be like the same guest every episode, if that makes any.

02:00
Sam
No, no. That definitely means variety is the spice of life.

02:03
Case
Because the next episode, were talking about the Planet of the Apes movie, the Tim Burton one, because that was when war for the Planet of the Apes came out, which this is really giving me nostalgia feels for the early days of certain POv where were seeing all these movies for the show. We were talking, there was a lot of nerd conversations going on, and it felt very exciting. And this is also around the time where fun and games with Matt and Jeff is just getting off the ground. So I forget if he plugs it in this episode, but it's coming out around this time. And very shortly after, this would actually come onto the banner for certain POV and actually make this like a network and not just a show that has some spin offs. So, fun times.

02:46
Sam
Yeah.

02:47
Case
Before we start this episode, if you haven't heard it before, I am actually fairly positive about Spiderman three.

02:53
Sam
Yeah, you are.

02:54
Case
Which I think will surprise some people generally just because the movie has such a bad reputation. But I actually rather like it. I came out of theaters loving it. There are some messy things in there. But I think it's actually like, overall, a good movie, which is why I didn't want to really do this early on, because I like it and I don't think it really needs that much of a change. It's also why I don't have really strong sentiments about what things to change when you get into it, although we do certainly have things that we discuss where this would have been nice to fix.

03:21
Sam
Yeah. I definitely differ from you. I did not enjoy this as much when I left theater and actually had not watched it since I had seen it in that theater because of the feelings I had when I left theater. And I think just generally, I think that the movie is very messy. I don't think that the performances are bad, and I actually think that some of the ideas are quite good. And while I was listening to it, I was like, oh, wow. You know, actually, case is making some good points of positivity here that I agree with. And I genuinely like where you and Jeff go with the general pitch. But I definitely will say that since I could not remember a lot of this movie and I did rewatch it. Yeah, no, it's still a hot mess.

04:13
Sam
It is a hot mess movie that needs to be tightened up and edited a lot, in my opinion.

04:20
Case
Yeah. So why don't we have everyone listen to the episode again? The audio quality is pretty good. I had figured out how to record myself pretty well at this point and edit my own levels pretty well. And Jeff has a really good setup because he's a voice actor professionally. So our stuff sounds pretty good.

04:37
Sam
Yeah, this episode sounds great.

04:39
Case
Yeah. Behind the scenes, I am still having some issues with the way I do my recordings where I was having file corruption issues if it went too long. So I would do like, 15 minutes and then break. And then 15 minutes and then break. But it doesn't sound as egregious as it did for the Star Trek the motion picture episode. We're a lot better at picking up our threads and having it be kind of controlled, so doesn't sound too bad. It's a pretty good episode, I think.

05:09
Sam
Yeah. Agreed.

05:11
Geoff Moonen
Cool.

05:11
Case
Well, so here is that episode, and when we come back, we will talk about our thoughts on it, and we'll probably have a plug somewhere in there for one of the many great shows on our network. But until then, here's the episode Spiderman three. Get me pictures of Spiderman. Yeah.

05:39
Geoff Moonen
Welcome to certain point of views. Another pass podcast. Be sure to subscribe, rate and review on iTunes. Just go to certainpov.com.

05:53
Case
Thanks, folks, for tuning in to another pass podcast. I'm case Aiken, and today I'm talking about Spiderman three. And I'm joined for this conversation with none other than Jeff Moonin.

06:03
Geoff Moonen
Hey there, everybody. It's great to be back.

06:05
Case
Jeff, thanks for coming back on. Excited to talk about this one, especially because Spiderman Homecoming is coming up soon. So we really wanted to talk about all the Spiderman mishaps that have happened before. We already did amazing Spiderman one and two, and now we're talking about the one that was pretty badly panned at its time and kind of killed the.

06:26
Geoff Moonen
Original franchise, kind of the Batman and Robin of Spiderman.

06:31
Case
Yeah, pretty much.

06:33
Geoff Moonen
I'd like to talk about that a little bit because Spiderman has definitely been a very interesting sort of character in the modern cinematic universe because they've tried to reboot Fantastic Four a few times, and it's just been a non starter the entire time. X men, they've had to kind of keep reupping the license but have more or less kept their own internal thing going on. Spiderman has gone through several, like is somewhere in between, and the Raimi franchise, I suppose, was the first big success, which meant they kind of had to keep some things. And it's all been a lot of plug ups and wood glue and halfways. And I guess I'm thinking about this in terms of. Because I think X Men came out in 2000, correct? Or right around there.

07:20
Geoff Moonen
Thereabouts, I would say that's kind of like the I know stuff came out before it. I know Blade was before it. But like 2000 X Men, that was kind of the beginning of sort of this era that I'm thinking about. Stuff that came before is definitely all very important, but sort of like the modern landscape of comic book adaptation superhero films has been in the. So I guess 2002.

07:43
Case
This is the generation that leads up to Iron man one coming out and kind of shifting the paradigm again.

07:48
Geoff Moonen
Exactly.

07:49
Case
Although in that case, like, really ramping it up. And we thought that this era that we're talking about was already ramped up.

07:55
Geoff Moonen
Yeah, all the leaps, missteps move forwards, move back. Some were bigger than we thought some were smaller than we thought and they all got us to where we are now. And so none of them should be discounted. And I think that's why it's a great idea for us to discuss this movie because it came out, what, 2007, I want to say. And, yeah, so it's been ten years and people had very strong feelings about Spiderman three coming off of, well, Spiderman two, which was at that point the most successful, the most critically acclaimed, the most beloved, in a way, comic book franchise, comic book adaptation.

08:31
Case
Absolutely.

08:32
Geoff Moonen
That moment.

08:34
Case
Yeah. I mean, regardless of opinions in retrospective about that movie, and it's generally positive, there are one or two people who are not fans of it. And I get mad at them because they're stupid. But it was certainly the most financially successful. It broke the record for opening weekend that the previous Spider man had set just two years earlier.

08:54
Geoff Moonen
True.

08:57
Case
Yeah. There was a lot of hype going into this movie. It felt like it's like, all right, cool, we're getting the next one. They can't not bat it out of the park.

09:06
Geoff Moonen
There was a lot of, when I.

09:08
Case
Saw it, I was like, oh, yeah, everyone's going to love this movie because I actually really like this Spider man movie. I know why people don't like it. I could see all that. But there's a couple of scenes in here that are good enough that they make me favorable to the movie regardless of obvious flaws. And I'm always surprised at how much people don't like it and can't even remember the moments that I'm like, no, don't you see? This was so good.

09:33
Geoff Moonen
No, there was some wonderful. I got to be fair here. For all of its hokeiness, for all of its slapstick, there was some great character subtlety and all this is very fresh in my mind and very new because I feel I should point out, before we go any further, I watched Spiderman three for the very first time this week to record this episode.

09:57
Case
And I appreciate that.

09:59
Geoff Moonen
I do this for you.

10:02
Case
All right, so let's talk about what we liked, then, what we didn't, and then what our pitches are for this one. Because I have a couple of ideas, but I'm also in danger of running into other ideas I've had for Spiderman movies before because we did amazing one and two. And I think it has some shared problems, particularly with two. I feel like amazing Spiderman one was actively trying to be different than this movie. And then Amazing Spiderman two kind of went back in this direction.

10:28
Geoff Moonen
All right.

10:29
Case
And I would say went worse. So let's talk about good things. My favorite moment in this movie, and one of my favorite in all the Spiderman franchise, is the creation of Sandman.

10:42
Geoff Moonen
All right.

10:43
Case
I thought it was great. And I have a hard time saying, like, well, they shouldn't do Sandman because they had such a great scene. When he starts to come alive as this sand elemental and is struggling to understand where he is, and he sees the locket and he tries to pick it up and he can't, and it falls through his sandy hand. And it's like the focus on that locket and that connection with his daughter is the thing that's driving him forward. And it's like he could have died in this moment, but will itself is why he continued to live. It's not even like the superpower stuff. This is the kind of thing that myths are born on. It's like a man was like Odysseus was separated from his daughter and he was sent to hell, but he fought his way back.

11:23
Case
And in the very dirt where his body had decayed, he formed the will to drive forward so that he could go back to his wife and live. The lordship that he was denied by Troy.

11:35
Geoff Moonen
Absolutely.

11:36
Case
It's like that the hand forges around it and from that his body grows out. It's such a great moment there. And when I saw that, I was like, this movie is a great movie. That was the moment where I was like, I don't think you're going to make me disagree with problems, but I do think that I'm going to stand by. This movie is a great movie.

11:56
Geoff Moonen
This film is not irredeemable. Just look at this moment, those several minutes. I agree. When I first saw them happen, it almost in my brain went to, you could cut this little part out and it would almost look like an art film, like a stop motion art film. You expect there to be like a very norwegian director's name at the end of it. And to have, like, I don't know, to be very art notes, just like.

12:19
Case
I said, it becomes like myth at that point. Instead of true Sci-Fi it transcends that level.

12:27
Geoff Moonen
Yeah, absolutely. I feel, which is that level.

12:29
Case
That comic book stuff kind of goes back and forth. Hence you got Thor and Iron man in the same universe. So there's a little bit of Sci-Fi and Thor and a little bit of mythology and Iron man, and they both have a balance point there. And that's like comic book super science.

12:45
Geoff Moonen
And to be fair, while my major, I think just about every gripe I have, or 80% of my gripes about this movie can fall under the heading of too many villains. I feel all of them get really beautifully shot, intriguing, either beginning moments or formative moments in some way that I almost feel as though. But we can't get rid of that. But we can't get rid of that. Right.

13:11
Case
It's hard. And we can go more into that later because I have thoughts about a similar thought, but I don't know where I'd cut one. All right, so that's all good. I think the dynamic of like, all right, so we're going to introduce Gwen Stacy as being like a fantasy for Spider man whenever life is getting too, like, he's so happy. But here's an alternative where he gets to be back on the chase like the glory days of Spider man when he's really in the nader.

13:41
Geoff Moonen
Yeah.

13:42
Case
So I thought she worked fairly well. I really liked Eddie Brock. Like, topher Grace is Eddie Brock. I thought it was inspired casting to have him be like anti Peter Parker type spiderman.

13:52
Geoff Moonen
I agree.

13:53
Case
As opposed to being like, he was kind of like a muscle band jockey kind of dude. He was a bro. He was just like, guys, I'm a bro. It's cool. I'm going to take these pictures. Oh, I couldn't get it. I faked. Yeah. Like, that's Eddie Brock. And this is a much more interesting character, at least at first introduction, you could develop the character more, but in a movie with three villains, you're not going to get.

14:15
Geoff Moonen
That was really, and I went into watching this so that everybody had said terrible things about venom, about Topher Grace, about Eddie Brock. I really enjoyed his performance. I really enjoyed Eddie Brock. And I agree. He's, and in a very interesting way, because they don't make him jockey, but they make him the other kind of entitled nerd. Because in a way, Peter is the entitled just and Eddie is more of the assertive, aggressive, entitled Nerd. And if he doesn't get what he wants, he'll just outsmart people by making this happen. And. Come on, cut me a break. No, but you're right. There much to be said for simplifying aspects.

14:54
Geoff Moonen
And that was one of the pitfalls, I think, of the Raimi trilogy because it was before we'd all kind of come to the general consensus of, you don't have to necessarily go with the character that's most popular. It's okay to do away with certain elements so long as you tell a good story.

15:13
Case
Right. I mean, this was the most true to the comics movie adaptation at that point. And it still holds, actually being very true in a way that even some of the Marvel movies don't really do it. They're true to the spirit, but they have a lot of details kind of shifted. Agreed. So it's impressive to see how much they accomplish, considering that they were being directly opposite, like X Men or Blade, where they have the thinnest kind of component of the. And then. And just build up from there as a generic superhero movie, whereas this one kind of comes from an opposite direction. And I feel like Marvel, especially phase one, is kind of the happy medium.

15:55
Geoff Moonen
No, you're right. And then from there, they built and branched out in phase two and onwards. But you're right. And so this is an excellent case study as well, in terms of, you can get all the details right, but it doesn't mean you've made a great movie. Maybe good, maybe not.

16:13
Case
All right, so let's move on to some of the stuff that weren't quite as big a fan of. We've mentioned the three villains thing. I think we've got a lot to talk about with that one. It's the problem a lot of superhero movies face. It's very similar to amazing Spiderman two, which is why some of the fixes I have are going to be related to that. But it's like Batman and Robin. We just saw that not too many years before, where it's like, let's have villains everywhere.

16:39
Geoff Moonen
Yeah, well, we got this person attached, and we need to push this one. And, well, what about this? And it's a bit of, like, a little too much success makes too many ideas, makes too many cooks. Take your pick on that.

16:52
Case
I mean, I will say I like things about all of them in this one, and sometimes not so much. There are actually three competing forces that are not connected to each other, which is actually really impressive that they do. It's not like henchmen, but I think I probably would simplify it if I was going to do all three, to have one be sort of more of a mastermind.

17:13
Geoff Moonen
Yeah, absolutely. And I think the big thing is they don't connect at all on the surface, but thematically, they all connect beautifully. But unfortunately, you can't tie that up as well, because on the surface, they don't mesh. And having them in scenes together is very awkward. Like, even during the team up, it was awkward. There wasn't actually any team up. It was just kind of a double booking at the showdown.

17:40
Case
I have this love hate relationship every time when I first watch it, I don't care for this detail. But then on later viewings, I actually really enjoy it with the way Sam Raimi makes some of the characters look like cardboard cutouts of the comic book characters, like J. K. Simmons. And in this case with, I don't know, the first time I watched it, I actually was not a fan. And then in repeat viewings, I'm like, oh, actually, no, I dig it. I see what you're, it's like, it was like a little too much on first viewing because I was looking for realism. And then when I go back and look at this weird cartoon that Remy has put together with live actors, it's a different feel. And I'm like, oh, I'm actually much more okay with this whole design.

18:26
Geoff Moonen
Yeah, you have to have some sort of surrealism that goes on when you make a movie with superpowers, just by its very nature, I believe. So what then follows is you need to have a certain either internal consistency or some distinct rules so that when you break them. Well, I feel the Raimi trilogy has a very muted resting pattern. Peter is very soft spoken. MJ is much more sober and muted than she ever is in the comic books. And then you've got, I want pictures.

19:05
Case
Of Spider man right now.

19:07
Geoff Moonen
And I'm going to chomp on this.

19:08
Case
Cigar and I'm just going to be the best.

19:09
Geoff Moonen
Damn.

19:11
Case
Like, I'll make him infamous.

19:13
Geoff Moonen
Yeah. JK Simmons nailed it from moment one.

19:18
Case
For being an actual, living, breathing comic book character.

19:21
Geoff Moonen
Yeah. And whether that's an acting, directing, producing, whoever made what awesome choices, bravo. Brava. Here, here. Because again, it was rules broken. And even in the first Spider man film, when you have Peter, they're just like, well, he's actually a hero.

19:38
Case
No, he's not.

19:39
Geoff Moonen
I'm going to push him, like. And it's just perfect. You had rules. You broke them. There we go. That's great. Yeah.

19:46
Case
It's almost like if you're going to do vignettes of Spider man and, like, not any of the rest of the characters, but the character Spider man, who was a CGI character for the most part, was interacting with you would do the most surreal. Like, you wouldn't want it to look realistic because that would create the uncanny valley even more so with the CGI Spider man. So if you were going to do, like, Jameson being harassed by Spiderman and vice versa and do those famous scenes from the Ditko run, you could do those short films with this cat or with Simmons, basically. And then CGI Spider man. Yeah. And it would work. Yeah.

20:23
Geoff Moonen
I feel like Simmons would have the best weekend.

20:26
Case
Yes.

20:28
Geoff Moonen
And if you wouldn't, I don't want to know. I just like how this feels in my head. And so when you have such good, clear, step away choices like that, it's when they get muddled that it gets more frustrating. And I suppose Gwen Stacy is a distinct choice as well, but one that I suppose doesn't read as much. I think Gwen Stacy kind of comes across certainly to me as an idea of trying to commit to comic book detail for the sake of comic book detail. I mean, they'd already wrapped several pieces of the Gwen Stacy mythos into Kirsten Dunst's Mary Jane.

21:09
Case
Yeah, I have thoughts about Mary Jane, but that's more of the franchise as a whole. Agreed.

21:14
Geoff Moonen
And it's that kind of thing of they'd already. All right, I'm going to get real graphic here. They've basically pulled all the organs and pieces and bones out of Gwen Stacy's corpse here, out of the form and body to build the modern prometheus of Mary Jane Watson in these movies. And then they throw the shell up there to fulfill the remaining details. And maybe I just already from the word go have uncomfortable with them doing this in the third movie. I know they had plans for a fourth, a fifth, a 6th, but it was already like, we're well into this. You're doing this now. You could have done this with Betty at the bugle or anybody else or any amount.

21:56
Case
Oh, my God. Yeah. That's actually a note I have.

21:58
Geoff Moonen
Yeah.

21:59
Case
Not just because. Absolutely. The relationship that he had with MJ was really more the Gwen Stacy relationship just as a whole. Yeah, sure. Mary Jane was technically the girl next door to Peter Parker, but Gwen Stacy was the girl next door type. And they, for the most part, have MJ as being that girl next door type. She just happens to be an like, the thing is, she's a very pretty girl and it's all her life actress, but she doesn't look like a supermodel to me.

22:40
Geoff Moonen
She's a beautiful girl next door type. She doesn't seem the sort that's like the impossible supermodel, nor did they do her up like that. And they make a certain attempt to draw the intriguing parallels between MJ and Peter in the third movie. Being in the public eye, dealing with your own insecurities, dealing with your critics. And again, there wasn't enough space to let that breathe. And it seems as though there was a definite they're both keeping things to themselves. But why? And bigger communication needs to happen. The real enemy is, although that's getting towards what my central thesis of what I feel the third movie should have been about. What I think is a very compelling statement thesis to work with on Spiderman Three. Because I will say they did a very.

23:35
Geoff Moonen
I'd say they did a very admirable good job even of maintaining an interesting arc over the course of the trilogy. And I think the first one is discovering your identity, discovering your strength, your power, your independence and the terrors of that. And it's all flailing and crazy. And the second one is about finding that control and finding your footing. The third kind of should be letting go of your demons, letting go of your past and moving on. Because both MJ and Peter are established as having childhood demons one way or another.

24:15
Geoff Moonen
Whether it's Peter being bullied or MJ being terrorized by her father and having specters of them never being the person that they already are and either having reminders of that or having it pushed into their face and the fact that they're both dealing with that in parallel and on their own when they just kind of need to become adults. And they even have in the movie the fact, something that struck me know they've been dating for a while and Peter's thinking of proposing to her. They don't live together. You live in New York City? New York City. Do you know how expensive rent is?

24:56
Case
Any crazy money live with in New York. You buddy up.

25:01
Geoff Moonen
You buddy up.

25:03
Case
He's in a one bedroom by himself.

25:05
Geoff Moonen
Yeah. He lives in less than a studio.

25:09
Case
Oh, man. He could be the third roommate in what should be a one bedroom apartment.

25:13
Geoff Moonen
Right?

25:13
Case
Like that is a very common thing in New York.

25:15
Geoff Moonen
That was my first apartment in New York.

25:18
Case
It was mine as well.

25:19
Geoff Moonen
There you go. And meanwhile, having that sort of dynamic would be funny. It'd be great for like a tv show kind of pace. It would be extraneous elements. But having Peter and MJ in a one bedroom together or a studio or sharing something isn't too out of the ordinary or too insane. And that allows foreign takes away from. And so I don't.

25:44
Case
I mean, to be devil's advocate, like, we don't know exactly how long it's been between the second and the third movie and it could just be within their lease.

25:52
Geoff Moonen
It's true.

25:54
Case
Although Peter doesn't look like he looks like he's paying month to month. But it's very possible that they both actually have leases which have been my situations in the past too. Where. All right, cool. In five months, we're moving in together. Cool.

26:07
Geoff Moonen
Right?

26:07
Case
All right, cool.

26:08
Geoff Moonen
Or, like, even the sense of one of them mostly living at the other one's place now given how terrible Peter's living conditions are, maybe because he needs the balcony to jump off of his Spider Man. I don't know. Like, having most of his stuff at MJ's and he's just kind of getting well.

26:27
Case
But he had nothing at his place in Queens, right.

26:30
Geoff Moonen
Or.

26:30
Case
Or like, wherever his studio was, he could have a ton of stuff over at MJ's, which I don't think we really see. But his place could still look exactly the way it does right there. It's just the bare necessities right there.

26:44
Geoff Moonen
Yeah, I guess so. It's the bed, the Spiderman outfits and the police scanner. It's all he needs.

26:50
Case
So that's one of your ideas there. Now, do you want to go deeper on this one or do you have the next point that you're thinking?

26:56
Geoff Moonen
I do want to go a little deeper on the central idea because something that I had mentioned before earlier in the episode that all three of the main villains have some aspect of this thesis in mind, whereas you have Harry as the wronged friend or the best friend from your past who isn't letting something go or isn't moving on or they need to work something out together. And even in the amnesia storyline gets a bit of a second chance. And that allows a sort of arrested development for the actual concept, not the show, for Peter to be like, hey, I don't have to deal with this anymore. I've got this back. But it comes back. It always does. You can't just tamp it down. It's another piece of great responsibility. Flint, Marco is a real element.

27:51
Geoff Moonen
Know moving on and letting go of his anger. Letting go. Know it's Batman as an adult getting to let go of the death of his parents, which Batman is not allowed to do, but Peter might be. And he does do that. And that sense of making the hard choice and do you get revenge or do you rise above it? And that conversation that he gets to have with Aunt may about it, while hilariously awkward and cringeworthy, is also a good look into that sort. Know what makes a hero style.

28:26
Geoff Moonen
And Eddie Brock is another piece of an adult relationship, of moving on, of pushing past, of making these things are because any one of the four of them, Peter, Harry, Eddie, Flint, has kind of the power in their hands to walk away from their choices or to double down on them or to forgive or to rise above or to move on. And so removing any one of them except Peter, he's Spider man. You need him. But removing any one of the other.

29:02
Case
Three, at least at this time, Sony thought you needed.

29:06
Geoff Moonen
And to be fair, he was whatever. Any one of those other three, any of the three antagonists. And you can still make intriguing parallels that go on. Something going on in Peter's life versus Spider Man's life. And those are the big pieces too, where it's kind of Mary Jane has herself and her career self, her actress self, which is the thing she keeps secret from Peter when she is replaced on the show in her run. And so it's kind of the two faces, the two lives, and opening up about them and being able to. You're not going to move on unless you let it go.

29:50
Geoff Moonen
And I actually feel like something that struck me, and this is a little bit of a jump around, but I'm just thinking of it right now, what I felt would have made for a really excellent things move on or things whatever, for Peter and MJ at the end of this movie, rather than it being the jazz club, although that is in its own, like, okay, we're going back to where something horrible happened and we're making it okay. But in that same.

30:16
Case
We both know it was bad. It was a bad moment.

30:19
Geoff Moonen
Bad moment.

30:19
Case
Couldn't move on with our lives.

30:20
Geoff Moonen
Move on with our lives. Yeah. Is it something the. And I'll go back to the apartment. Because again, you don't really see either one of them. Peter, in MJ's apartment, certainly, but almost have kind of an end of the day thing where he comes home, whether it comes in through the window or something like that, which is a fun reference to the times in the comic books when he used to come in through the skylight of their loft and almost have a, hey, sweetie, how was your day? And actually talking about what happened to Spider man, what happened as Peter, what happened as know, almost have that sit on the couch, actually talk.

31:00
Case
Oh, so like, this actually would wrap up theme of growing up from the first movie where it's like, very much like this is puberty, by the way. White Goo is going everywhere. Have this be like him coming into being like the full on adult. Like, maybe MJ's pregnant.

31:13
Geoff Moonen
Maybe you don't even necessarily have to have that.

31:16
Case
You don't have to have that. But it's one of those sort of struggling teenager. This is the moment that, okay, we're not going to do a movie about him for a little while. We'll figure it out. But he's an adult now. His story of growing up has now concluded with these three movies. That story is what we told.

31:35
Geoff Moonen
You can have them. Still a grad student coming in, talking about something he was talking about with Dr. Connors or whatever else. It's just one of those. The mundane identity version of. And the adventure continues, which I feel is important. And honestly, any of the other three guys, if you still want to keep them in the movie, you could have them be whatever Peter is dealing with at the very beginning of the film and wrap it up like catch Flint, Marco, Catch Sandman, whatever it is. Have them card off. There's a reference for everybody, and there's a moment of, for people who aren't comic book audiences going, why the hell is there a guy you can turn into sand? And what's with the shirt and everything else? Don't worry about it. There's a more important story going on.

32:16
Case
Yeah. I think there's a lot of extraneous subplots that did need to happen in this movie that could have given the big three big stories. They wanted to do some space, but as a result, it just feels so quick with weird 180s when stuff is introduced.

32:35
Geoff Moonen
Yeah. And I mean, I know that they wanted to put Venom as a separate movie, but this is what happened. Right.

32:43
Case
Well, and also, originally, they wanted to do a Sandman Vulture team up.

32:47
Geoff Moonen
Yes, they did.

32:48
Case
Yeah. Which would have been interesting. And when I was rewatching it, I think the formula they're talking about in Professor Connor's class sounds like a formula that could apply to the vulture's wings because they're supposed to be. And that might have been, like, leftover from earlier. Or I realized that it could also be an application to Sandman, which would make sense for this movie.

33:10
Geoff Moonen
Either way, fun Easter egg.

33:11
Case
Who knows?

33:12
Geoff Moonen
Who knows?

33:13
Case
Yeah. Because if you're going to do a science scene, you try to make the science match what's being discussed in the movie itself. That's actually the classic scenarios of Spiderman, where he was kind of like the Flash, where it's like, here's the science lesson for how I beat this. Like, with Vulture, it was like, I can figure out a magnet that'll allow his wings to no longer work. And with Sandman, I'm going to do something that causes sand to dissolve or sand to blow.

33:37
Geoff Moonen
They don't let Peter be a scientist in these movies. They also don't let him quit. No. So maybe that's something.

33:47
Case
Yeah. But also, Tobey Maguire as a clipper, I don't see it.

33:51
Geoff Moonen
Could have at least tried.

33:53
Case
He could have tried.

33:54
Geoff Moonen
He could have. He's.

33:55
Case
But he's bad when he does.

33:56
Geoff Moonen
Yeah.

33:58
Case
Like, they have a couple throughout the series, and he's not a clipper, but he's a good Peter.

34:03
Geoff Moonen
This is true. He is a great.

34:05
Case
He's a very good Peter.

34:06
Geoff Moonen
He gets that nerd part of Peter down. Great. And that is not damning with faint praise.

34:11
Case
Right? Yeah. So, I mean, like, here's my thought on how to take this movie, because like I said, I like this movie. I think that it is a jumble. But I was so happy when movie Bob did is like, you are wrong about Spiderman three video a few years back and has since gone on and talked about the franchise as a whole. That was such a good series. And I was like, I'm so happy someone agrees with me because everyone just says they hate it. But I will say, though, that.

34:45
Geoff Moonen
The.

34:45
Case
Things with all of these characters could better interlaced. And considering that we have to respect what the studio would want for the purpose of, like, this can't be like pie in the sky. I'd remake it this way. So Venom's got to be there, right? You've been setting up the new goblin for two films now. Sandman doesn't, and that sucks because Sandman's.

35:12
Geoff Moonen
My favorite, but great performance, too, and.

35:16
Case
It'S clearly what they were looking for. And also is the best special effects, because if you do Venom and Green Goblin, you do another goblin, which we already saw in a movie, and you do Venom, who looks like Spider man but with, like, tentacles and is hard to light. So you can't do really visually interesting sequences. At best, you can do kind of abstract sequences.

35:37
Geoff Moonen
Yeah. And you can see that in how little they used him.

35:40
Case
Right. And Sandman ultimately is like a big visual spectacle, which is both something a studio would like for this type of movie and Sam Raimi definitely wanted to do. So it's hard to say, don't do that.

35:52
Geoff Moonen
And you actually could have without a mastermind style thing going on. If you take Sandman out of the equation, both. I mean, Harry in the third movie does a little bit of psychological warfare in a way that I see Eddie Brock doing. And the two of them kind of being like, we need to ruin Peter's life. Yes, we do. And going at it, I could see.

36:14
Case
Harry not being the goblin yet, but if they're like, well, we got to close his arc. It's hard to say that, but you could have Harry just be like a continual background player now. Just like directly messing with him or.

36:29
Geoff Moonen
Maybe like bankrolling Eddie and maybe selling.

36:31
Case
Arms to maybe not full on villains everywhere but, like, high tech gangs. Like, if he was selling goblin technology to just like random, like bank robbery but with super guns and goblin bombs.

36:45
Geoff Moonen
Yeah.

36:48
Case
And he almost becomes like a Lex Luthor type. Yeah, that actually would be, it would.

36:53
Geoff Moonen
Make more sense than the petulant kid on a.

37:00
Case
Like, if Franco is definitely down for more movies, that's a great place to do it. If he's not, then you kind of have to do the Goblin scene finally. Like, you have to be like, well, we've been building it up for years. Let's get to it.

37:11
Geoff Moonen
Right?

37:12
Case
In which case you could be more, I'm thinking Hobgoblin one, aka Ned leads, aka Roderick Kingsley, is a fuck off. The Hobgoblin mark one was a manipulator and was great.

37:29
Geoff Moonen
He was a great villain, just bar none.

37:32
Case
And I would say if Harry became that character and even if he wasn't actually actively creating the other two, which I actually don't want him to do, but maybe was like, maybe created the symbiote or maybe unleashed the symbiote, his researchers discovered this life form and he's trying to figure out what it does and he thinks he can weaponize it and uses it on Peter and it turns into the black.

38:00
Geoff Moonen
Yeah, that actually be really interesting.

38:02
Case
Like, it's still an alien, but it's also kind of a science thing which makes it like ultimate venom, which was coming out about this time.

38:09
Geoff Moonen
That's true.

38:11
Case
So you get that sort of like, synergy there and it still works because it's just like, oh, I thought this would kill him and devour him, but actually it's empowered him, but it's empowered him with rage. And Peter, you're better than, like, how could I not see how good a person you actually are? And they can still have a moment where he sacrifices himself to stop the thing. He's.

38:33
Geoff Moonen
All very, it's nicely cyclical and it's a better bringing in and less contrived than a meteor coming in. The plotline, the director never asked know, literally comes in out of space and attaches itself to his know. It just happens.

38:52
Case
It's rough. It's a mean or fuck. They could have used John Jameson. They could have had him come back at the beginning having done an expedition and found this thing and it was spirited away by the people who funded this spaceflight, which is Osborne Industries.

39:05
Geoff Moonen
Or it somehow ends up at the daily bugle because Jameson wants to do something with it or see something about it, or Peter's taking pictures of it. And almost in a parallel to taking pictures of the spider and getting bitten by it, taking pictures of the symbiote and getting attached.

39:21
Case
Actually, I'm really liking this idea of, like, what if it was an Osborne funded flight into space with John Jameson? And that's why the bugle is there at the event. They basically get a scoop because the publisher's son was the, if you want to keep the Alien order at this public event. And Harry knows Peter is Spider man at this point and hates Peter, not just Spider man. So it was established in the movie before. So it's also an opportunity for Harry, now that he is aware of it, to try to just get it on Spider man without facing him in public or anything like.

39:56
Geoff Moonen
Yeah.

39:56
Case
To have Peter Parker be infected. Almost like the inverse of the spider experiment.

40:02
Geoff Moonen
Yeah, true.

40:03
Case
Where he's, like, taking photos and something gets him, and in this case, it bonds with him and is going to kill him. And it was an attempt to kill him instead of an accident that gave him superpowers.

40:12
Geoff Moonen
Yeah, it's a good parallel that doesn't have to come off as very heavy handed.

40:18
Case
Yeah, I'm liking this one a lot more now that. The more we talk about it, because now we're basically doing this dark twisted mirror version of the first Spider man movie, which I think they would like to do. This would be a fun way to do all of those. They already are twisting the Stacy like, doing the same kiss as Mary Jane moment, which I just felt in.

40:42
Geoff Moonen
General was like, okay, they're just letting people be dumb. So you got drama.

40:46
Case
Yeah. I like this idea we have. Yeah. So maybe Hobgoblin is more of the manipulator that's like setting up everything and is waiting to come in at the end, I think, with a better suit. I don't get why they decided to make him look like robot ninja surfboarder. It was like, everything. That's cool. It was poochie.

41:07
Geoff Moonen
Yes, it was.

41:09
Case
It was like, what do kids like? And let's do all of that. Put that into this new goblin and have them fight early on and have it not really matter. And then have this. The amnesia subplot, which does prove to be very goblin like. The split personalities and not knowing your actions was very much a part of the original Green Goblin and has always been a thing kind of associated with them. But where it was like a bonk in the head was, come on, we're better than.

41:40
Geoff Moonen
But agreed.

41:41
Case
And you could do more interesting things like, we did that now, like, Oto Octavius hadn't been a person possessed by his own mechanical arms, and it had been just more like, these are my actions. Then sure, you could have done the amnesia thing, but in this case, all three movies have that same plot.

42:01
Geoff Moonen
Yeah, pretty much.

42:03
Case
And it's frustrating. And this is the worst version of it. It's not like I just got superpowers and it's a crazy person unleashed in me. And I've got the robot. It's, I got a bonk on the head.

42:15
Geoff Moonen
Yeah. But not.

42:17
Case
Yeah.

42:18
Geoff Moonen
And also in that idea of the dark parallels of Spiderman one and Spiderman three, I know they started to have Willem Dafoe as a voice in Harry's head, and they filmed far more than they did. And they had the weird, confusing thing with, was the butler a thing in Harry's head or not? Or was meant to be, but having almost not Harry's dark personality but his dark, twisted version of his father yelling at him is its own fun thing.

42:46
Case
Right. And they were doing that in the one before. And I liked that character bit with him. That worked.

42:52
Geoff Moonen
Yeah, it's good fun. It's good comic book movie. Like were saying before, you find those rules so you can break them beautifully.

43:03
Case
Yeah.

43:04
Geoff Moonen
And his goblin was just so over the top. It was great. And Harry's never was. No, it was just James Franco, which nothing against, honestly, the whole amnesia thing allowed for some really fun moments and some good bits of character interaction, but at what?

43:27
Case
Right, like, it was nice moments, but maybe if it was a person who couldn't talk to, they. They hated each other so much, but at the same time, he actually wanted to redeem himself with, like, MJ.

43:41
Geoff Moonen
Yeah.

43:42
Case
Which he kind of turns into at a certain point. But it was a person who understands how much hatred has consumed him but can't stop it.

43:52
Geoff Moonen
Yeah.

43:54
Case
It's slowly destroying him, but he does want the rest of his life to know that at least he's sorry that it is.

43:59
Geoff Moonen
Yeah. It becomes pathological and not comic book crazy.

44:03
Case
Right.

44:05
Geoff Moonen
Yeah.

44:07
Case
So let's talk, I guess, the venom stuff. So I just pitched away that him being introduced becomes more important. And I would do the black suit earlier. I get the idea. You want to set Spiderman where he is as a baseline, then do the twist with the black suit and then go on but we've had two movies, like, if the black suit kicks in super fast. And by the way, I would definitely have the black suit look more like the OG black suit because I love that giant Spider man design.

44:36
Geoff Moonen
Absolutely.

44:38
Case
I don't need it to always be faithful, but there's no reason it had to be just like a black version of his existing suit. I'm hesitant to say, like the Batman forever Batman and Robin style suit.

44:53
Geoff Moonen
Fair.

44:54
Case
But the Batman and Robin suit kind of could work. As long as you don't do the bat nipples, you're doing a pretty good shaped plastic look, which would be very interesting for the symbiote because it would look different than the base costume just to be a truly alien thing going on with him.

45:12
Geoff Moonen
Yeah. So it doesn't even look like fabric anymore.

45:15
Case
Right. It's merged with his flesh, and it's just like the spider being pronounced upon his form.

45:22
Geoff Moonen
Yeah, pretty much. It's an adaptation upon the mind of Peter.

45:28
Case
Yeah, that would have been interesting and have that around for the movie as a whole because you would still have him eventually give it up and return to his classic suit. So that would be kind of like in Winter Soldier cap rocking, rather the spy suit look for the first half of the movie. But then once he's redeemed himself and he's ready to take on the sins, or rather the enemies by collusion, I should say have Spiderman in the same way put on his classic suit at that point. And that's when we know that he's back to being a hero.

46:05
Geoff Moonen
Yeah. And it just as much, I feel they were a bit heavy handed at the beginning of, like, everybody loves mean. You could have that. You could have it muted, whatever. And if you introduced the black suit earlier, it gives a really nice, obvious thing for JJ to point at to think Spider Man's up to something.

46:27
Case
Right.

46:28
Geoff Moonen
Or find out what's up with us or what's going on, but he's still doing these heroic acts, it seems, and yet.

46:34
Case
But maybe a few more arms get broken and maybe it's a little bit more violent. Maybe it's just enough to start making people wondering. Yeah, and this helps. It's a world where there's a lot of maybe not full on supervillains, but more powerful crime.

46:51
Geoff Moonen
And this also ties in nicely to that idea of growing up past your previous trauma because you think you've put on a good, brave face. And Peter is somebody who swallows his anger. He's very quiet. He's very reserved, even in the comics, as much as he quips, that's his way of venting it out. And when he's truly angry, it's a terrifying thing.

47:14
Case
Right.

47:14
Geoff Moonen
And this being a situation where it's like, okay, I think I've grown up. I think I've matured. But, man, do I get mad really quick. What's up with that? Either continuing a poor cycle, that being something that scares MJ, that's what reminds her of her own childhood. And there's far more connection and pivot points here.

47:37
Case
Yeah. Did you ever read the run in the 90s from when Chameleon created replicants of his parents to the introduction of the clone saga?

47:49
Geoff Moonen
Bits and pieces. It's been a while.

47:51
Case
So there was, like this theme that Spider man was so broken, basically, they were trying to turn him into Batman, and he just referred to himself as the spider in his head. And he was like, out night after night, getting more and more beaten. Like, he would never stop being Spider man. And MJ would barely see him. And he was just barely turning in work. And he was like this just depressive funk where he was, like, just being Spider man. He fought like typhoid Mary, and there was scorpion. Like, all these encounters with aggressive villains who hurt him in ways. He was cut up. His suit was totally torn, and it was like, patched together with webs.

48:29
Geoff Moonen
His first act.

48:30
Case
Yeah, yeah, basically. And it was kind of also, like later when they did it with Wolverine where he went monstrous and he was wearing the bandana and all that. So it was that era for Spider man. And one of themes was that Mary Jane was getting really upset and starting to worry about him in that state. That would be the perfect mindset for what you're where if Spider man started to be that way, and sure, let's have the black suit be the trigger. But if Spider man started to be that way, that would trigger Mary Jane having memories of her father and her.

49:05
Geoff Moonen
To become more closed off. And Peter feeling like either being angry at her reaction as well as worrying that he's hurting her and him becoming more closed off.

49:14
Case
Yeah. Their relationship is basically through at least the status quo form of it before he gets into emo black suit mode in what we got right. And he's really only, like, salting the wound. He's not actually ending the relationship. It's already basically over at that point. So he fucked up before he even got to there. But in this scenario, we allow for it to be this terrible influence over him. And then you can use it as, like a drug metaphor or like a drinking metaphor, for example. And that could be the thing to tie it to MJ's father.

49:52
Geoff Moonen
True.

49:55
Case
Yeah. I like this Sandman.

49:57
Geoff Moonen
Yeah.

49:59
Case
Sandman should be more of a force of nature than what he is in this movie. Like, I love his creation. I love all the things that are going on, but I almost feel like Sandman should be just a thing that's moving through that Spider man is trying to mitigate, but he just can't stop. It's just a wave. And so that when he shows up at the end, he should have been, like, a thing where it's just like, Spider man was trying, but he just can't succeed because he's not. Sandman's just like, no, you don't understand. I need this money. It's for my daughter. I need this money. You're not going to stop me. And just, like, Spider man can't do anything about, like, we don't need to tie it up with the line of him being, like, the true murderer of Ben Parker.

50:39
Case
And if you go with that sort of approach, if Spider man finally is confronted with, like, maybe he finally did something that actually angered Sandman. Like, Sandman should be almost emotionless about it. It's just cause, like, I love the flint Marco of the comics where he even actually becomes eventually, like, a hero for a period of time before stupid stories. Byrne, like, reset his brain. And I like that idea where it was always about him getting to the goal that he had. And it wasn't like, trying to be evil. He was just like, I need the money for this thing, and I'm not very smart.

51:16
Geoff Moonen
He was more of a flash rogue. Yeah, he was a crook with superpowers, not a megalomaniac.

51:22
Case
Yeah. Like, he was an avenger at one point.

51:24
Geoff Moonen
Oh, yeah. He can do some real damage. He's a serious threat.

51:27
Case
Yeah.

51:28
Geoff Moonen
If you wanted to make him even a dispassionate antagonist throughout, but just like, one of those, one that got away consistently throughout. Like, Peter, you need to let it.

51:38
Case
Like, I'm almost mad. We don't have a superhero actively who's, like, not, like, part of a team and not a reformed villain, but it.

51:45
Geoff Moonen
Is I. Defender of the Jersey shore.

51:48
Case
Yes.

51:49
Geoff Moonen
Flint Marco.

51:50
Case
Defender of Jersey.

51:52
Geoff Moonen
Hey, you know, in the summer, you get down to Asbury park, you go to seaside, some crazy stuff goes down. You need a defender like that. And you're right, it's very unfortunate that the end of it, you look and you go. In a pre production sense, Sandman feels superfluous. When you look at the finished product, what they made of him, was pretty damn good. It almost feels like a shame to take it out, but stuff gets cut.

52:18
Case
Well, this is why I'm saying, have him be a force of nature so that Peter's arc isn't about him. He's just a thing that's out there.

52:25
Geoff Moonen
Right.

52:26
Case
Occasionally robbing a bank, and Peter's like, I got to stop you. But I can't. He never gets a break to figure it out until finally he does something that angers Sandman. And so Sandman shows up with the same confrontation that now Venom and Hobgoblin is. But the venom thing was an actual effort by hobgoblin, and Harry is just hobgoblin. And Hobgoblin, he could have actually forgiven. Like, that could have actually happened at that point. So, like, we're just talking about even just refining it so that Harry set all these things in motion, and he realizes the consequences are going to kill his friend.

53:05
Geoff Moonen
Yeah. And at that confrontation, even turns. And so now it's them versus venom. And then all of a sudden, Sandman shows. It's like. And then there's this asshole.

53:14
Case
Yeah. Or it could be Harry. In that scenario. It's like, Osborne, look at, like, you gave me that money so I could be with my daughter, but they took her away still, or whatever.

53:28
Geoff Moonen
He doesn't necessarily have to get his powers from Oscort, but it could be something that Harry did. Cheesed them off one too many times or just went, yeah.

53:36
Case
I'm not saying have him be, like, an experiment that Osborne created, especially not if Osborne is also doing venom, but if he's one that plays him less so than electro in amazing Spiderman two, but where he's like, I have the money for you to go do this thing. I can set up a situation where Spiderman is going to be there, and that's when Venom comes into, like, maybe, like, shows up, like, fights. Like, wins, gets some money. But he finds out that his ex wife has taken the daughter away completely. So he will never be united with, like, that kind of thing. Right, exactly. And that's when he's cheesed. He goes back, finds out that Spider Man's still alive, that hobblin's like, now been like, whoops, I overdid it. I'm teaming up now. And Venom is actually trying to kill.

54:28
Geoff Moonen
Yeah. Like, that's a good climax that brings everybody together, and you don't need a moment of venom being like, hey, you want to go kill Spiderman?

54:37
Case
Yeah. So this is really a refinement of the movie that we got because we could do more villains, we could do less villains. But this is a pretty good take on the movie we have and how you could just make it a little more compelling.

54:48
Geoff Moonen
Yeah.

54:50
Case
I'm actually kind of impressed with how close it is because I was worried that we'd start talking about it being like, well, the only way we can make it is if we cut Sandman. But I think we have a way of having Sandman be compelling. We just don't focus on him as much. He's not like the pathos of Peter. He's the shit happens of.

55:07
Geoff Moonen
Yeah.

55:09
Case
And like, meanwhile, it's like Hogwart and Venom that are the pathos. Let's talk a little bit about Eddie. I guess so. I like the Topher Grace as an evil Peter Parker kind of thing.

55:20
Geoff Moonen
Yeah.

55:21
Case
But like that kind of a character where it's just like same young man, kind of scrawny, entitled geek. As you said, I thought that was all fine. I think the Gwen Stacy stuff I would have cut completely. So I would have probably had him be more aggressive in his career. If you're going to do a love interest, I agree. Betty Brandt is the way to, like, I love Elizabeth Banks. She's been in two movies. It could be one of those moments where they set her up as like an older woman. It could have been like Peter's breaking up with his fiance and all of a sudden there's like a moment where her hand touches his hand while he's upset at work. And that's where the relationship starts because it's already there. They don't have to introduce a new thing.

56:04
Case
Being a lab partner that's a coworker. Yeah.

56:07
Geoff Moonen
They established the difference in Betty's manner towards Brock and like, within moments of each, like, within this film alone, without even knowing what was built up as a professional or working relationship between Betty and Peter in the first two films. Yeah. It's there because I feel in what I've read about people's take on Spiderman three, on Venom, everyone's like, okay, yeah, I could see Topher Gracie, he's not a bad Eddie Brock. He's a terrible venom. And I think some of that is not his fault.

56:44
Case
They don't give us that much venom. If it's going to be the symbiote, set him up early enough that you can spend some time in costume and see how it's affecting his life, but then have the symbiote also be scary. Not just shows up once to fight him.

57:00
Geoff Moonen
And there's a fun comic book style thing you can have running with this if Eddie becomes Venom sooner and in the sense where, like, the stealth killer.

57:10
Case
Trying to kill, like, without revealing himself.

57:13
Geoff Moonen
Yeah.

57:14
Case
Or moments ran for, like, a couple issues before.

57:17
Geoff Moonen
Yeah. Or like Eddie antagonizing Peter or Spider man and starting to actually do the symbiote wi. And this is both its own thing about him working with Harry as well as the whole symbiote thing. And you get some things of him being a bit sinister without it having to be crawling on the wall with his face being revealed because one of the iconic pieces of design of venom is his face. And in the sound design, when they have him do, like, screeches and roars, they clearly are fine with doing post production on the sound. But it's basically the difference between Topher Grace as Eddie Brock and his venom is all with him. It's like talking like this and then suddenly talking like this. They don't do anything to it. And it feels like one of those characters. If they can do.

58:05
Geoff Moonen
I know it's 20th Century Fox and Sonny, but whatever. If they can put vocal effects on mystique as just a blue person, they can put some reverb or something. Extra voices, like voice of the Legion style on venom. And that would have, with no changes to delivery or character, I think that would have put forth more the venom people expected.

58:31
Case
Yeah. You could even stunt cast it with someone, like, have the other voice, like a voice, like maybe speaking to Eddie in his head. It could be anyone. It's your chance to have a second Willem Dafoe pronounced there. Although maybe that's too cartoony.

58:46
Geoff Moonen
It's possible. I think you would need to have him as a primary voice, but almost like undertones of something or just simply a matter of it being one of those where they're running through whatever thing and it becomes a big, monstrous, feral sound. They didn't really do much with Peter talking, wearing the suit. So there's really no development there. Maybe if we're going the route that we're talking and they don't do a full on voice over voice, but have him sound bigger, have him sound more vicious, have him know in his own delivery. And they just make it. They punch it a little bigger and then when Eddie gets it becomes even more like these are those things. Yeah.

59:29
Case
Or just alien screams in the background, like, very muted, but you're hearing a distant alien kind of roar every time he talks. And it's because it doesn't speak English but it does have a voice that speaks out in unison with Eddie's.

59:45
Geoff Moonen
It speaks with him, exactly.

59:47
Case
Yeah.

59:48
Geoff Moonen
It would create that good terror. Like that's that visceral alien style terror. And then you can have Eddie just being. Eddie being like, hey, Pete. And just a real antagonist as creepy thing.

01:00:02
Case
Consider this thing. So they play out much more him being like the rival photographer because they make him anti Peter. Imagine the kind of rear window esque kind of like stalker shit that you could do or like voyeur shit that you could do with Eddie Brock becoming aware of who Peter is by way of the symbiote. He's like studying Peter from afar with his camera. And then he just leaps off a building and he shows up into moments and is studying Peter using technology. But also then his new spider powers. Kind of like, again, like anti spiderman. The reverse of what Peter would do to his rivals.

01:00:43
Geoff Moonen
Yeah, very much so. And you could have him even as a, rather than kicked out of every other publication now working for the bugle. You could have him as a gossip photographer or something following MJ and then discovering Peter both through the symbiote and just happenstance.

01:00:59
Case
Yeah. And that would give him a reason to have a rivalry with Peter from the get go. Like for Peter to dislike him and the threatened MJ in that regard because instead they go with him being the one to be dating Gwen Stacy who is a rival for Peter's affection herself. But Eddie is not like a rival for MJ's affection.

01:01:20
Geoff Moonen
It's a shame to cut that. Know his opening line to Captain Stacey was beautiful. The whole bit where he comes in just like, I know she's going to be doing a modeling thing. And oh, by the way, yes, I work for the Daily Bugle. By the way, I'm dating your daughter.

01:01:34
Case
Yeah, it worked fine. It was like a little bit like, okay, so here's the guy. This is who Eddie is. Okay, cool. Here's all the full presentation.

01:01:41
Geoff Moonen
And actually even keeping that presentation for somebody who works for gossip rags or is the photographer works with a publication that maybe gossip bad review of overlap.

01:01:52
Case
Spiderman. Like, Spiderman could be seen as like a celebrity in that regard.

01:01:55
Geoff Moonen
Also true.

01:01:56
Case
So maybe it's not for the bugle. Maybe he's trying to get to the bugle because he'd make more. Yeah, but has been doing fashion magazines but they're also like, look at who's sleeping with whom and also see Spider man at this thing. Isn't it crazy? There's a Spider man.

01:02:10
Geoff Moonen
Yeah. And he has to kind of fudge the results in order to get what he needs. He's. He's willing to cut those corners to get what he wants. And that bites him in the ass.

01:02:23
Case
Wow.

01:02:23
Geoff Moonen
All right.

01:02:23
Case
So I'm really liking this idea for liking. Basically we're just cutting out Gwen Stacy because I think she's superfluous. And then maybe kind of shifting the argument of the MJ, like, breaking up with Peter to have a little bit of it be due to the symbiote and make the symbiote not a creation of Osborne but unleashed by Osborne. You get to tie in Jameson and have the Sandman not be like the actual killer of Ben Parker but have him be like a force of nature trying to do his actual objectives. But we don't have that personal connection with Spider man. And as a result, he's a little more distant. Like, you still get all these good scenes with Thomas Hayden Church but it's not one where Spider man actually feels like he has power of.

01:03:10
Geoff Moonen
Get that wonder. You can get that beautiful moment of, like, wow, is this guy connected to you? Not everything's about Peter Parker. Exactly.

01:03:16
Case
So it actually separates him a little bit more than what he'd be going for. So we're making one, a little bit of a creation of the other, but we're separating the background connection for another one. So it's not everything that comes through Peter Parker and Richard Parker. Like, in the amazing movies.

01:03:33
Geoff Moonen
Well, because as well in this movie, there's a lot of, like, I see where you're going, Peter, but you're also now making it about you. Could you stop like. And having a true blue like this has nothing to do with you is kind of cool.

01:03:53
Case
I'm really like this. I was afraid we'd get into either being too close to my pitch for amazing two or be in danger of trying to figure out who to crop and not be able to decide. So I'm impressed that we actually made a tighter version of what we actually like.

01:04:10
Geoff Moonen
No matter what, something or someone had to get dropped. There was just too much.

01:04:15
Case
Now we're just doing distance. Like, we're not even, like, dropping. We're just creating a little bit more space to breathe, I guess. We're dropping Stacy, but we are dropping.

01:04:23
Geoff Moonen
That and we're dropping the connections to flint Marco so that we can strengthen the bond elsewhere.

01:04:28
Case
So he's being pushed back when Stacey's totally dropped. We can even keep the arc but have it betty Brandt and maybe not have the earlier setup stuff. Maybe MJ's just jealous when she stops by to see Peter at work.

01:04:41
Geoff Moonen
Yeah. It doesn't even have to be anything serious. It just needs to be.

01:04:45
Case
Cause like, if we're bringing back John Jameson, then it gives reason for J. Jonah Jameson to dislike Mary Jane and be really mad that Peter's dating her. Yes. Because remember he paid for that.

01:04:56
Geoff Moonen
Oh, yes. So even the caviar.

01:04:58
Case
Yep. So that's actually perfect. If he's like, he likes Peter, we know he likes Peter, but he is really pissed off with him because Peter is the reason why he spent all this money for a wedding that didn't happen.

01:05:11
Geoff Moonen
Yep.

01:05:12
Case
That would have been so much fun. Like, he could have even been happier with Spider man at that point. Like the balance could have shifted.

01:05:20
Geoff Moonen
Yeah.

01:05:21
Case
Oh, God, that would have been great. So you open.

01:05:24
Geoff Moonen
Hilarious.

01:05:25
Case
You have Osborne related, like, plans that lead to him having an opportunity to infect Peter with the venom symbiote. And he could be special request from Harry. He doesn't want to do it. But Jameson's so mad at him. So he feels like he has to. Otherwise he loses his job.

01:05:42
Geoff Moonen
Right.

01:05:42
Case
So he goes to this event, like this press event, and it's like just so, just won the bugle and it's a great opportunity, but he's infected with the Venom symbiote and is as a like. Then starts to become angry and aggressive and that scares Mary Jane and that starts to drive a wedge between them. Sandman shows up and he gets so angry about it. But the guy isn't actually like, he's not really hurting that many people. He's just stealing shit. He's not even really killing anyone or anything like that.

01:06:13
Geoff Moonen
He's defending himself.

01:06:14
Case
Peter's getting so angry about this guy, but it's like Mary Jane's like, why are you getting so angry about this guy? It's like, because I'm Spider man. It's my job. So you go with that kind of angle that leads the Sandman to be a stressor on Peter's life but not the thing that's directly driving him as such. And the fact that he's so angry is like the indicator that he is focusing too much on his career as Spider man. Meanwhile, Harry's manipulating all this stuff and he's actually trying to set up the stakes a little bit higher. And he is maybe forcing himself into public situations with Peter but can't talk to him but is happy to see Mary Jane. And it creates this weird scenario where MJ knows that she shouldn't trust Harry that much.

01:06:56
Case
But Peter can't talk about his relationship with Harry to her. It's like one of those weird things. She knows he's Spider man, so she probably knows who the Green Goblin was. But Peter can't say anything bad about Harry because of their history and his own guilt. So she doesn't realize how connected he is.

01:07:13
Geoff Moonen
It might be okay, but he doesn't.

01:07:15
Case
Feel it will be, so he doesn't. Or he doesn't reveal how connected Harry is to everything and all the problems in his life. So MJ doesn't realize it. And so MJ feels like she can go to Harry because he's a trustworthy figure and he's using this and he's using all these other things to position himself in a better spot against Spider man until he actually finally does. Venom comes to me. He's like, venom is great. This is great. I have anti Spider man to kill, actual Spider man with. I'm going to use him. And then when, like, in position to do so, that's when he realizes it's his friend and that his father's death isn't really on Peter, it was on his father. And that he's letting the same thing consume him just the way, like, the symbiote is consuming everything around him.

01:07:58
Case
Yeah, and that's when the Sandman shows.

01:08:00
Geoff Moonen
Up, and then it's a throwdown. Yeah.

01:08:03
Case
And then you get Harry to die. But it's a Harry who wasn't absolved by being amnesia, who was absolved by actually going through an emotional journey and coming out of it a better man as a result.

01:08:17
Geoff Moonen
No one gets off easy on this. Yes, you've got the symbiote affecting emotions and whatnot, but those were all things that were still.

01:08:26
Case
Yep.

01:08:27
Geoff Moonen
There's no convenient amnesia. There's no reset button. There's no anything. No one gets off easy. You have to go through it.

01:08:34
Case
And we give James Franco a valiant death.

01:08:40
Geoff Moonen
Here, here. And die in a nice suit.

01:08:42
Case
Yeah, I think we have something right there.

01:08:45
Geoff Moonen
I agree. And again, it makes a nice. It's that whole trilogy feel of, like, the first one establishes, the second shakes it up, and the third set kind of like, it feels actually a little bit like a dark Knight trilogy, where Dark Knight rises has a lot more to do with Batman begins.

01:09:04
Case
Yeah, well, that's third movie syndrome.

01:09:07
Geoff Moonen
It is third movie syndrome. I know. And that's the first one I think of, but it'd be a good use of it.

01:09:12
Case
Yeah. Like, third movie syndrome has that whole thing. It's the reason why return of the Jedi has a death Star, just like the first Star wars. Or why alien three is like them alone under gunned against a single alien, just like alien one.

01:09:28
Geoff Moonen
It's why last crusade is Nazis.

01:09:31
Case
Exactly. With, like, a holy artifact like that. Yeah. I mean, it's why. I don't know. Highlander three, the final dimension, has a very similar structure, unlike other movies in the franchise.

01:09:46
Geoff Moonen
Truth?

01:09:47
Case
Yes. Just like Highlander three just like it. I'm feeling good about this. It would be the dark mirror of the first movie because we're talking about having a similar scene to him becoming Spiderman in the first place. We get to have some pathos there, but we get to end with your ending of, like, they've mended their relationship. He's no longer growing up. He's grown up, and he comes home to his woman, regardless of his girlfriend. Yeah, if it's girlfriend or wife or whatever, but it's him. And they're like an adult couple, and they understand that neither of them are perfect, but they're trying their best and that they love each other truly. And that is the thing that's bringing them together. It's not just like I happen to be attracted to you or you happen to save my life.

01:10:31
Case
It's a true working relationship where they have to be a team together on all of this.

01:10:39
Geoff Moonen
And also, one last thing I want to point out or bring up that final confrontation could be something that Harry calls for. Peter, it's like, hey, I want to make amends. I want to finally bury the hatchet, and it becomes a big thing because then you don't have to put MJ in danger. She doesn't have to be a damsel in distress again, which was actually a stipulation of Kirsten Dunst's in the production. She didn't want that, and it was a last minute. Nothing could work that they put her in that. So it's doing well by productions I know we're wrapping.

01:11:11
Case
She should be the one to come in and actually have a solution.

01:11:15
Geoff Moonen
True.

01:11:16
Case
Yeah. I think we've got a good format here. I mean, hopefully, we're not going to see the movies quite like this again or like the amazing movies again. Hopefully homecoming, which is coming out next week, is going to be just a great movie and much more in line with modern Marvel styles.

01:11:38
Geoff Moonen
Tom Holland in Civil War was already more Spider man than I've seen anywhere else. So, yeah, I'm excited.

01:11:46
Case
All right, man. Can't thank you enough for being here again. Today. I know this was kind of last minute and it broke a pride point that you had for a while.

01:11:56
Geoff Moonen
It's fine. I guess now I'll finally have to watch the amazing movies. Yeah, never watch those either.

01:12:03
Case
Then listen to the podcast that we did earlier. We have some good stuff because there's some trouble with them.

01:12:09
Geoff Moonen
Yeah.

01:12:11
Case
But yeah. Thank you so much for being here, folks. Thanks for tuning in. Hope everyone enjoys Spiderman homecoming. I hope we enjoy Spiderman homecoming. Next week we're going to be talking about Highlander two, the quickening. And until then, stay scruffy, my nerf herders.

01:12:29
Geoff Moonen
Thanks for listening to certain point of views. Another past podcast. Don't miss an episode, just subscribe and review the show on iTunes. Just go to certainpov.com.

01:13:06
Sam
Are you tired of watching your beloved characters being tortured by careless authors? Are you sick of feeling like they could have swapped out all of the painful action and the plot would remain untouched? Subscribe to books that burn the fortnightly Book review podcast focusing on fictional depictions of trauma, we assume that the characters'reactions are reasonable and focus on how badly or well they were served by their authors. Join us for our minor character spotlights, main character discussions, and favorite non traumatic things in the dark, books we love. Find us on Spotify, iTunes, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts.

01:13:40
Case
Well, that was a picture of Spider man, and we're back.

01:13:44
Sam
Yes. I mean, the real star of this movie, or any of the Spider man movies, anytime he's Jay Jimmieson. Honestly, he's amazing. So the best casting ever.

01:13:55
Case
Yeah, I mean, JK Simmons is such a fantastic cast choice for J. Jonah Jameson that they brought him back for the MCU, which is great. I love it.

01:14:06
Sam
Absolutely 100% approve of that decision.

01:14:10
Case
Yeah, I mean, it's interesting looking at this the same way it was for the amazing where now that Spiderman no way home has come out, there is a reckoning with a lot of the stuff that was done in these movies, like the missteps of the various pre MCU Spider man movies have been addressed and in some cases redeemed. Although this one I don't think really is really touched on as much. In no way home because Sandman is fine in no way home. But I actually think they don't do enough with him in that movie versus in this. I love Sandman. We talk about this in the episode, the sequence of Sandman coming back from being atomized like when he first reforms a sand is one of my favorite sequences in superhero movies, period.

01:14:54
Sam
And it still very much holds up. I will say that for the most part, this movie still looks very good. And it's 2007, so it's been years. It still looks really good. And Sandman is. I feel like out of all the villains, there are too many villains in this movie. He feels the most compelling and sympathetic, and so it's very easy to like him and the effects look good. And honestly, it's one of those things where I feel like one of the biggest missteps of this film is not having more of that character in it.

01:15:36
Case
Yeah, this movie, there's too much going on in this movie. What you talk about in there and the fact that it's studio mandate for Venom, that's the big problem. But the thing is, per the general ethos of the show, we try to deal with studio mandates, not say, well, what if it didn't happen? So that's the challenge of discussing this movie.

01:16:02
Sam
Yeah, I'm going to say that I actually really enjoyed or really agreed with you and Jeff when you said that Gwen Stacy was unnecessary in this because she has r1 major point or purpose in this film, and that's just to make multiple people jealous. There's no other reason for her to be. She's kind of like a stand in. And I did not even remember that Elizabeth Banks was in it. And I love the fact that you said, if we really need some lady to make people just. I was like, yes, more Elizabeth Banks. Why not? She's amazing. And also just makes sense because she's already there at like, I know Peter's still going to school, but we're not really seeing a lot of that because there's so much going on.

01:16:53
Sam
And honestly, even when I saw this in theaters, I remember just thinking that the love drama, the breaking up to makeup and all that stuff, it takes so long. It's just consumed so much of this film. I mean, I looked because, of course, I'm streaming this. This time I looked and it's like, oh, the last time I saw Sandman with an hour, 50 or 50 minutes in, and then it takes like 30 to 40 more minutes before he's back on screen. And the same thing with venom, it's like a little bit like Eddie Brock. It's a little bit before that. And it's just like, it takes so long for this drama that's happening between Mary Jane and Pete. And I'm like, just break up. Just stay broken up. You guys are horrible for each other.

01:17:48
Sam
This is a horrible, like, it just kind of languishes in the middle of this film, and then you've just got no time to develop anything other with the other villains. And I agree with both you and Jeff. I actually do agree that Topher Grace is great. And what is it, the nerdy entitlement? Is that what Jeff said? Yeah. I actually think that it works so well. And I do agree with you, Kate's, that it could just be a professional. It doesn't need to be relationship wise. It can just be a professional jealousy of, like, I'm better than him. Why is he getting better shots, things like that. And I think that would have been sufficient enough. Right. Just having this guy who's jealous and kind of like, how does this guy keep getting these shots of Spiderman? I'm a better photographer.

01:18:50
Sam
I have more experience. Who is this guy who's just a freaking college student to get better pictures than me? And then just like, this obsession builds into stalking. And you can still have him have a creepy moment with, you know, she might as well just be Elizabeth Holmes. But you know what mean, like, you can have him have that creepy moment. You can still have him be a creep. You can still have him be like this guy who's like, hey, I'm snormy. And no, I'm going to do weird things and just kind of have him skeeve people out and not bring Gwen Stacy into this at all because they literally just use her to be saved to make Eddie jealous and to make MJ jealous. And every time she shows up, it's just to make people.

01:19:44
Case
I mean, at least the character, Gwen Stacy realizes that she is being used in that way and is offended as such, which is like, well, good on you for acknowledging this whole situation. But yeah, the movie itself uses her just as a totem of rage and envy, which is disappointing and particularly because the character is so important. But as we point out in the episode, so much of the iconography related to Gwen Stacy had already been usurped by this version of Mary Jane.

01:20:18
Sam
Yeah.

01:20:19
Case
That she wasn't really providing any of, like, that conflict. And that contrast with MJ could be really interesting, but they didn't really do it. Like, I am overall, again, fairly positive about this movie, but even just thinking about this now, like, man, you know what have been a good way to make the venom stuff work with both the Goblin and Sandman stuff, or at least the goblin stuff, and at least that way they kind of connect a bit better. So in the comics, the deal with Eddie Brock is that he was disgraced because he bet on the identity of a supervillain. And it was wrong. Like, he assumed it was a different person and tried to out them as such. I forget the specifics on the character, but that's why he was disgraced.

01:21:14
Case
Simultaneously, the villain hobgoblin has always been mysterious in terms of who is the hobgoblin. Like, that's always been a shtick for the character. And infamously, back in the early eighty s, I want to say it was when this all went down, maybe it was mid 80s. There was a lot of behind the scenes drama between the writing and the editorial staff. I forget the name he was going by at the time, but his pin name now is Christopher Priest was the editor and kind of fucked over someone who was on the writing team and screwed up what was supposed to be the reveal of who the hobgoblin was, which was going to be Roderick Kingsley, and instead went with this misinformation that he was given that it was Ned Leeds, who is a character who works at the Daily Planet.

01:22:04
Case
So in light of that, I think by this point, they had already reestablished that it was Roderick Kingsley because for like 30 years, the character, probably not 30, probably more like 20, the character had been dead leads straight through. Till when. Yeah. So I think it was like just before this that they actually cleared it up because I think it was like 2004, something like that. When they finally got rid of it all, got rid of the Ned leads part. And so you could have actually had a scenario where Eddie Brock pinned his assumption of who this hobgoblin. I'm just going to say hobgoblin because it'd be easy was when it, in fact, it turns out to be Harry and gets in a lot of trouble as a result of it all.

01:22:56
Case
This could also work where he could pin it on Ned Leeds if he wanted to, who could be working at the Daily Bugle. Because Ned Leeds was in a relationship with Betty Brandt, who is Elizabeth Banks character at the time. So you actually could tie this all together with stuff that was in the comics and give that as a reason for Eddie Brock to have this hatred professionally for Spider man and maybe Peter as. So that could actually be a really cool kind of element to tie those two plot threads together. But then, man, Sandman is the reason why they made this movie, but he's the easiest one to cut.

01:23:33
Sam
Yeah. And it's interesting because, wait, so I know in the episode you brought up the fact that there were plans to make more movies and kind of the both of you spitballed this possibility of instead of having Harry turn directly into Goblin and make that transition in this movie, have him be kind of like a mastermind, like kingpin, Lex Luthor X kind of person. And I actually really like that thought. Again, I don't know, as you guys didn't know whether or not James Franco was just like, I'm done with know because actors get that. Like, it's been three know, maybe you want to complete your arc and whatever. But I was thinking about it and I was like, okay, well, if we make him kind of one of those petty villains, right? Because his dad was the hobgoblin, right?

01:24:32
Sam
But he's going to take up that mantle. But he can be kind of a little bit different. He can kind of want to systematically take over Peter's life, like take things away from like play him. And we get a little bit of that playing in the script here where he knows, he comes to the realization, he remembers and he knows, and he's kind of doing manipulative bullshit. But what if it's just like what's happening throughout the film and then you have him hire Sandman because he's so fucking cool and in that way, if you want to. And I think that this is a big problem that happened in the Batman films. And even on some level, even with the Tom Holland Spiderman, there's something about the studios where it gets to the next movie and they're like, we have to make it bigger.

01:25:27
Sam
Let's do twelve villains. And I think that they could have balanced that out by, if you have Harry or anyone, be like a mastermind kind of manipulator, heading towards taking on a mantle, blah, blah. You can have them send out minor villains to test the water. You could send out like an electro for a scene and have Spider man beat him very easily, or just any dime a dozen. Because Spider man has so, like, kind of things and have a fun montage that doesn't include evil dancing, which I don't know why Sam Raimi was like the embodiment of evil is a dance number. He's cool.

01:26:19
Sam
You could still do that kind of thing and kind of make it very funny and kitsch and have him kind of do that and then kind of discover this very strong person with a very strong motivation, which is his child. And you can still have the lovely speech at the end of this film, which is, I think, again, this film does itself a disservice by spending so much time on this breakup and this weird symbiote taking over moment that it has. That's basically almost an hour of the film that you miss out on this lovely character that is the Sandman, because the acting is really great and there is something so beautiful and tragic, and he's the wrong guy. He's not a good guy, but he's doing the wrong things for a reason that you can empathize with.

01:27:30
Sam
I don't know if I would necessarily make him the actual killer. I don't know if I'd do that. I don't know if I would change that about the script. But I do think not having him more in and honestly, like, it takes too long for the symbiote to reach. Like, it takes so long for him to become venom. And then because Topher Grace doesn't have a lot of time on screen, we get terrible moments where his face has to show because he needs to be on screen, because he needs a certain quota on screen. And it just kind of takes you out of the venomness. And if we're going to keep Gwen, then put her in the car with Mary Jane. Like, have her be there. Have Eddie be, look, I'm stronger than Spider man. I'm better. Don't you just kind of just. Yes.

01:28:27
Sam
She realizes that she's being used, but she's still just an object for everyone in this movie to feel resentment or jealousy against. And I don't know that would necessarily change it. But there was this feeling of obsession, and he doesn't quite follow through with it. He's obsessed with Gwen. That's why he follows Peter to the jazz bar. He's not following Peter. He's following Gwen in the movie. And so the fact that she's not there, too kind of feels like a loose end that should have been tied. And I'm fine with. I know that Mary Jane is the star. Kristen Vince is a huge star at this point, and I know that. But it would have been kind of cool to have them both there and given a little more power to Mary Jane if she was there.

01:29:18
Sam
Holding Gwen's hand, being like, it's okay, we've got this. I've done this before.

01:29:23
Case
I've been several times.

01:29:24
Sam
I've been through this before. I've been in a car. I've hung upside down. He'll find a way to save us, I promise. I think. And kind of given a little comedy and levity there, too, I think would have worked.

01:29:38
Case
Yeah. Like, the way that they have treated MJ in the MCU movies with, like, that level of competency, particularly in no way home, I think, would have gone a long way towards making Jane, like, more dynamic in this movie.

01:29:54
Sam
Yeah. And again, this is not like everyone in this film acted very well. Everyone's having their emotional beats and stuff like that. It's just that she's just still such a victim. It's hard because Kristen, she didn't want to be a damsel in distress. And at the end of the day, she still ended up being just that. And so I think in that way, if Gwen had at least been in the card, she'd at least been a person who was comforting. There would have been a certain amount of confidence. And it's a little bit better for the overall relationship that I think is not healthy for either of them. But if she had been there comforting Gwen and being like, listen, it's going to be okay.

01:30:57
Sam
Spider man is really good at this because there's feeling of, like, I'm mad at him and I don't like him very much right now, but I trust him and I believe in him. And that brings you full circle. Also, I just want to say that the scene in the restaurant where he's going to propose, it's still funny to me except for her speech, which I always hated because it's so clearly written by a man. Because she's just like, it was our kiss. Not like you fucking kissed her. The point is not that he kissed her in a way that he kissed you. It's the fact that he kissed someone. Spiderman never has to kiss someone. It's not a prerequisite for saving people that it's not like that should have been a deal breaker right there. Like, I'm sorry, bro, you cheated. No matter what.

01:31:51
Sam
It's not just that. It could be like, you kissed her and it was just like our first kiss. What the fuck is wrong with you? But no, the first line should have been like, you fucking kissed her.

01:32:03
Case
Yeah, you kissed her. And not only that, you know what it looks like? It looks like the first time we kissed.

01:32:07
Sam
Yeah.

01:32:08
Case
You're deliberately trying to. Don't you see how that's insulting to me?

01:32:14
Sam
Yeah. So the whole speech, I was just like, but you're missing the key point. Like, this shouldn't even be a dinner. You should have broken up with him already over the phone. He should have been like, no, I'm out. That breakup scene should have happened right after the whole parade. There should have been no romance. Peter's such a dick. Even before the symbiont gets into him, he doesn't even realize what's happening with her? Which, fine, people get busy, but then he kisses someone else, and he assumes that Mary J. MJ is going to automatically be like, oh, spoon, I just watched you as Spiderman make out with someone, bro. Really horrible. Horrible.

01:33:07
Case
Yeah. It's so weird because alluding to the fact that they were planning on making another movie after this one where they were going to do the lizard, which turned into amazing Spiderman one, it's so weird looking at this and being like, well, what was the plan if studio interference with Venom aside? And I get, like, Raimi not wanting to use Venom was relatively new at that point, and relatively because, yeah, he'd been around for ten years or 15 years in comics, but, like, Raimi grew up, not the era of Spiderman that he grew up with. So Venom was an insert from studios, but they still had Sandman and the end of Spiderman two. Both MJ and Harry are now aware of Peter's identity as Spiderman. So you have to figure out, is there another step? Is there another step beyond that?

01:34:02
Case
What's the plan for Harry if it's going to keep going? What's the stuff that's going to be for MJ if it keeps going, right. Instead of just wrapping up, especially with.

01:34:12
Sam
Harry, because this is a big pet peeve of mine, and it happens in all the superhero movies. Just because we want the actor recognition, people are going out there wearing these masks to save their identity. And there's always a time when they're out in public and the mask comes off, and it always kind of like, I do get it, guys. I understand that actors get paid a lot of money and stuff like that, but it does. Somewhere deep down in my brain of practicality, it annoys the crap out of me. And so in this movie, when Harry gets his memories back and the hobgoblins in his head, the first thing he does is he goes to Mary Jane's house and he attacks her. And he is just Harry. He is like, full costume on the board, but he's just attacking her.

01:35:15
Sam
And it's like, to manipulate her. And it's just like, bro, where are you going? Because now, even if he susses up that outfit, she knows exactly who the criminal is, right? What else could you do from that? Maybe, I don't know. He could blackmail her. That if she ever reveals him, he'll reveal Peter. I don't know where you go from that, but if you go with the idea, which I think, and we talked about this, I think that the amazing Spider Mans were leaning towards that. If you go with a Harry who wants to be a master manipulator and is okay with keeping the secret as long as he tortures Peter, I think then you've got another movie coming, right?

01:36:14
Sam
You focus mostly on Venom and Sandman and you have Harry start using his connection, his wealth and even his friendship with Peter to kind of start chipping away at the things, right? And so Brock actually makes a lot of sense because if he's got this professional chip on his shoulder, then Harry supporting. Right. Would help him. Oh, this is like, I'm going to take away your bread and butter, Peter. I'm going to slowly take away everything. And so when Peter and MJ break up, he moves in, he starts hanging out with her, he starts talking to her. And then there's like this tension because now I got your girl. She may not necessarily be with me but I could pull that know? And so it would be like a more interesting, I think, psychological, you know, fucking with him.

01:37:17
Sam
And I think that would be really interesting. And then you can focus on Sandman and you can focus on Brock because they're being manipulated by Harry and they're being fed these things. And Sandman can still be sympathetic. He can still be someone that just touches your heart, which he did. That was such a good performance. Honestly. I just think you skip that and then you can have Brock defeat it. You can have the symbiote kind of unpaired with him and at your cliffhanger, you can have him then seep into Spiderman and then the next movie can have a symbiote issue with Spiderman and the hobgoblin come up and do a fourth movie that's a final matchup between these two.

01:38:17
Case
Know, or whatever they were. Because also this is like what's the end game with Harry as a goblin? But also they've been teasing Dylan Baker as Kurt Connors for two movies at this. Like he's a pretty big actor to be just a bit character in these two movies. And it's because they intended to have him play the lizard in the next one. And like just going to say this part here. Dylan Baker went to my high school jersey and Prabh along with not at the same time, but with fucktards like Bret Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch. But also some interesting ones. Well, also additional fuckers. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. I just realized because I'm like looking at the list right now. So like, motherfuckers. But then some cool ones like Ian Harding, who was on pretty little liars.

01:39:12
Case
Roy Hibbert, who was a professional all star basketball player. Arthur Smith, who I actually did shot put with, is the head coach for the Atlanta Falcons. So just like a weird list of people when I'm looking at this Mo Raka, who used to be on the Daily show.

01:39:27
Sam
Oh, yeah, he's on CBS this Morning or something like that. One of those morning shows now.

01:39:33
Case
Yeah. Strange fucking list when I'm looking at that. But yeah. Dylan Baker is the first one on the list of notable alumni. For some reason, there's no order to it. It's not alphabetical. And it's not. Oh, actually, no, I take it back. It is alphabetical. That's why. But it's last name alphabetical.

01:39:48
Sam
Last name alphabetical.

01:39:49
Case
Yeah. Because I was like, why does it go seventy s and forty s? Because I would do it classier.

01:39:57
Sam
Of course. Yeah. No, you're absolutely right. Honestly, the next movie could be hobgomb and listen, which is kind of like what they did with amazing Spiderman, but again, they added a third villain. We do not need so many villains. I just want to put that out into the world. All the future writers of superhero. And just like in general movies, you do not have to make more than one villain. You can make a villain and make it a really good villain. You can actually develop your villains. You can give them purpose. You don't even have to make them sympathetic. But maybe just write that character. Just putting that out there looking at you. MCU, DCU too. Just one villain from here on out, please. Maybe two. If it's a good team. Like, and if it makes sense, make it make sense.

01:41:07
Sam
Don't just throw two people together looking at you. Batman forever.

01:41:15
Case
Yeah, I mean, man, raimi, liked setting up all these. The ultimate finale we got is at least like, okay, here's a turn for Harry to redeem himself. That's nice. Sandman gets to have a pretty empathetic speech. I also say I like Sandman a lot as a character. I really hate that he was turned back into a villain after he had a redemption arc in the comics. And I know why you would do it. I think it was really done the way they did it. But it was actually kind of fun because he had become, like, a mercenary for a while working with Silver Sable. And I mentioned this in the episode. He joined the Avengers for a stretch and actually was typically a pretty big defender of Spider man.

01:42:02
Case
And even before, when he was a villain, he was usually represented as someone who's very practical for his crimes. He was like, I need the money for x thing, or I'm just trying to do a thing. I really don't want to fight you right now. You can also just leave, and I'm not going to really be upset. I'm not going to chase you, dude. Just. I'm taking this because I need it. Just fuck off, man. And Spider Man's like, no, I can't do that. And he's fine. And, you know, that's. That's how their encounters typically went. So I like Sandman a lot. I like that they had a really sympathetic version of him here. I'm annoyed that in no way home he kind of shifts to being a villain again for a little bit.

01:42:39
Case
I don't think there's a real reason for it that's well established in that movie. I think it's implied that he's having a hard time staying together.

01:42:47
Sam
Right.

01:42:47
Case
But they don't really spend much time. They spend the least time on his character, which I get because there's other ones to talk about. So I like the depiction in this movie. I was really impressed with how comic accurate they got it. I thought it was a lot of really cool stuff. They did it. I thought it was a choice to give him flight powers in addition to all of his other abilities as Sandman, where he can just move around as a cloud of sand, because that's weird. But I get that it's easier to do that with CG than it is to do what they did in the MCU or in no way home, where he's actually moving around the ground, because that's a much more complicated cg thing that I don't think they were up to the task at the time.

01:43:29
Case
And they again like the formation part so good. So I like Sandman a lot. I like that we got a redemption arc for Harry. There's a lot of things to like about Brock and know the black suit Spider man, like making him angry, is a newer convention of adaptations that would have been, I don't know, really. I would have liked if they had held off on Brock. But the finale, as it's written makes sense the way you get to it because then you get kind of redemptions for two thirds, and the last third is the one that's more of a straightforward villain, although he's actually the hero in the comics nowadays. So it's a weird fucking world when we're talking about Spiderman characters. I don't know. The movie is a mess, but I still like it a lot more than the majority of people.

01:44:24
Case
And, yeah, I don't know. I have a hard time being like, well, change it all these ways because it unravels things that I'd still like about the movie.

01:44:35
Sam
Yeah, I think that as someone who is not as fond of this movie as you are, I can definitely see redeeming things in this movie. Like I said, actually, all the performances are really good. I think that there are some really beautiful acting moments in this. I think that every scene that the Sandman does is actually pretty good. I think that Kristen Dunst gives a great performance. I do hate Tobey Maguire's hair when the symbiont is in him, but I do acknowledge that it was in the era of emo and that's what was cool. It looks terrible. It looks terrible on him. But again, he is a good actor and he does do a good job. And I think in general, the script is just a mess and it needs to be streamlined.

01:45:41
Sam
And I think the easiest ways to do that is to cut out Gwen and to get the symbiote faster into Eddie, which means figure out a different way or more quickly, have the Venom costume or Venom poison Spider man and have him more quickly decide, like, it's not for him, this is not for me. And so, yes, a lot of that stuff in the middle will go, including the snapping of fingers. And listen, I am not a person who hates musical numbers. We have established I like a good musical number, but it just was so out of left field in this movie. And normally, I am there. I am in it. I am in it to win. I liked Popeye. Okay, it was a weird freaking movie. But I just think that this is just. It takes too long.

01:46:52
Sam
If this was a shorter movie, if it was just about Venom, if there weren't other villains and moments that were losing, to have that moment, I'd be like, fine, leave it in. I don't hate it as much as other people do. I know the Internet loves to make fun of that moment. They love to show Spiderman snapping down the street and people, like, following him and stuff like that. But I truly, truly feel like that should go. And some of the beats between breaking up and getting back together need to shorten for the MJ and Peter storyline. I do think that Harry needs to go to MJ for keeping that with a mask on so that we can possibly do something with his character for a fourth movie. And I would just change it.

01:47:56
Sam
I would only give the Sandman a redemption arc and I would leave Harry to have his redemption arc in the next movie.

01:48:06
Case
That's kind of what I'm thinking. But honestly, Venom just needed to not be in, like, they could have done the black suit but not do Venom in this movie, which would be weird, but they could have teased it with him having the nightmares of the two suits fighting over him that they always like to do. And then had the venom show up in the next movie. Because then the end boss of this movie, as it were, could have been like Harry teams up with Sandman. Harry is defeated and sent to jail or something to that then. And Sandman flees. But we get the big speech, and then the next movie, it could be like the lizard and venom kind of coming to be a thing.

01:48:55
Case
And then Harry could have swooped in to save the day at the end that way so we could get that redemption arc.

01:49:03
Sam
You could have even teased a little bit of, you could have the symbiont still show up, right? And have it be the thing that helps him kind of seal the deal at the right and then have him be know, kind of explain to MJ that he doesn't like the way it makes him feel and kind of get rid of it and then had it slip into Eddie Brock. So you could still have Eddie Brock in this film and still have him there as a really annoying person who's kind of always in Peter's business, which I think actually adds a good tension because one of the things that the animated series for Spider man did so well is always having someone around.

01:49:54
Sam
And Eddie Brock specifically, but even other people that were kind of annoying that they just disliked him and they didn't know his secret, but they could have figured it out, right? And so it's part of that tension of, like, why is that guy always around? Like, damn it, I'm trying to save the world and that guy's right behind me, and what did he know? And that paranoia that I think a lot of superheroes get when they start to be observed by people that should just kind of let them pass. And I think that could have know, towards the end of this film, you could have Eddie be really suspicious of Spider man.

01:50:39
Sam
And since he's kind of doing that stalking shit that he's really good at, he can kind of end up in a position where he's near Spiderman when he gets rid of whatever it is, however he wants to get rid of the symbiont, and he kind of picks it up to figure out what it is, and then he's infected and then that can be your ending leading into the next movie. Right? So that, like, oh, shit, Venom is going to be in the next movie. So you still have Venom. You're still doing what the studio wants you to do, and you still have the moments of Spider man having Venom part of him, and maybe even feeling uncomfortable towards the end, but acknowledging the strengths, but then feeling like, no, I need to defeat people with my own strength and not use this.

01:51:35
Sam
And then you have Eddie pick it up and then become venom. And I think that kind of maybe could have been okayed by the studio because you would still have some of the black Spider suit for the end, and you could have that for the reveal. Right. Like, the final showdown between these characters, because everyone loves a super Saiyan, right. You got to power up sometimes when you're going to the ultimate showdown, and then you can still have Venom in it and then lead to Venom being an even bigger part in the next movie and kind of making that promise. And I think, honestly, a lot of people have been like, yo, Venom. Oh, my know.

01:52:26
Case
Yeah. I'm even picturing it as, like, the post credits.

01:52:30
Sam
Yeah.

01:52:31
Case
Not that was a big thing for the Spider man movies, but post credits weren't invented by the, like, you get the church scene, but you don't see Eddie's there, and then you cut back to it, and you see the symbiote being ripped off, and then it flows down, and then you cut to Eddie, and it starts dripping on. You can even do the full transformation, and that's like, just fade to black right after. That would have been a really cool thing for hinting at the next Spider man movie. And then they would have had to make that Spider man movie.

01:53:05
Sam
Yeah. And it would have been great because then you've got this showdown from this guy who was annoying the whole other movie, right. Just up in his craw, except now this guy has power. And that would have been, like, this person who already resented you has power. And I think that would have been, like, a nicer, cleaner development for these even break. You could have Venom break Harry out of prison, if that's how we're ending, instead of redemption, we send him to jail, like the opening of the next movie.

01:53:48
Case
He could be broken out by Harry. Right.

01:53:50
Sam
We can have Venom go to get him because he knows he must know something about Spiderman and he wants to know everything, and then that makes them infinitely dangerous.

01:54:02
Case
Yeah, I like that. It's weird to speculate on a multi movie situation like that, because then we start getting more variables, but it certainly would be fun. Yeah. The first two are so good. I think that's the biggest problem when talking about this one, where even the most okayest of okay movies was going to be a huge letdown after Spiderman two.

01:54:28
Sam
Yeah.

01:54:29
Case
And this movie is a messy movie, so it's okay. But I don't pretend that it's not a hot mess in terms of its structure, all the things that went into making it, but I still just do rather like it. And so it is weird for me to be go too hard on it because again, it's not one that I have an axe to grind for it and often find myself defending. And it's also not one where, because it's so complicated how it got fucked up by the studio and by everything and all the plans that they had going into it, that it's a very difficult one to fully beat out without necessarily breaking the whole structure.

01:55:15
Sam
Yeah.

01:55:15
Case
But I do like that idea and I think it could be done. It would require some faith in the audience in a way that now we would be fine with. Like, MCU would be totally down for that kind of pacing out, for sure. Sequel baiting. I don't know if Sony was into it at that particular time just because of where the industry was, but I think it would have been well.

01:55:42
Sam
Have done. I think it would have done well. People are not as old as us possibly listening to this, but Spiderman one and Spiderman two were big hits. The critics liked them.

01:56:01
Case
Spiderman one set a new box office record for opening weekends for movies. When we say like, oh, yeah. Well, James Franco was becoming a bigger star. This is the movie that made James Franco a like. The reason why he was the big celebrity of the Freaks and geeks crew is this franchise of movies. And while Toby Maguire had been doing a bunch of stuff, he became rich because of these movies. And Kirsten Dunst had while, yeah, tons of movies. Over the course of her career, she became able to do whatever project she chose to do and not having to do ones for money because of these movies. These were some of the biggest movies that ever came out.

01:56:40
Case
And so the fact that the third one was kind of a whimper doesn't change the fact that they were hugely successful as a result of these movies.

01:56:46
Sam
Yeah. People had immense expectations going into this particular film.

01:56:51
Case
Yeah.

01:56:52
Sam
Because they had so much fun with the other two. So much so that people were totally willing to overlook the fact that webs just shoot out of him. The normal criticisms that you get. I mean, not that there were no criticisms, but people didn't really harp on it because they enjoyed these films like the first and the second film so much that there are still people on, there are people on the Internet that will show pictures of Tobey Maguire and say, that's my Spider man. There is real feelings. Those same people also pretend that Spiderman three does not exist. But I will say that is why this movie is such a big let down. And it's interesting because there are other comic book movies that are worse than this one, but this one gets a lot more shit than those.

01:57:57
Case
Yeah, I mean, we're recording this call right after I just got off a men of steel call talking about Superman four, the quest for peace. And I would say that both Superman three and four are way worse movies.

01:58:06
Sam
Than this one for sure. And I absolutely, positively agree with that. So I will say that as someone who is less positive on this movie than you, I will say that it's better than those two Superman movies by far.

01:58:20
Case
Yeah. But like I said, I think I spoke most of my piece in the actual episode. I don't really just have that much to say.

01:58:27
Sam
Always enjoyable to have a case and Jeff episode as far as I am concerned. I'm not just saying that because Jeff edits our stuff. I really, truly believe that and I love his insight for sure.

01:58:39
Case
Yeah, I mean, Jeff and I have such good rapport. The show is kind of birthed from the two of us having conversations, so it's always great having him. And for a long time he was tied neck and neck with Ben and Addie for a number of guest appearances and might have eclipsed them at this point. But I would have to really stop and figure out who has been on the show the most, not counting the two of us. So that would be an interesting challenge right there.

01:59:03
Sam
It would be.

01:59:05
Case
On that note, next time on the bonus episodes, we are going to have another Jeff episode because as I mentioned, we're talking about the next planet or not the next. We're talking about Planet of the Apes, the 2003, I think Planet of the Apes movie. Wait, I've got it in my notes.

01:59:23
Sam
I think it's 20 03 20 01 planet I know it's pretty interesting. I will have to rewatch it because I have not seen it since I saw it in theater. So I'll have to rewatch it because I don't remember a lot of it. And now I've watched so many Planet of the Apes movies that I really need to rewatch it.

01:59:39
Case
Right by nature of us launching the bonus episodes after we finished our Planet of the Apes marathon, there was no way for us to sync it up. So that this happened close to when that one came or to when we concluded it, but it's still pretty fresh in our minds.

01:59:55
Sam
It's like I'm like, I'm going to remember facts for one of the first five and nothing of this, so I'm going to have to watch it. So that'll be interesting.

02:00:04
Case
Yeah, so that's going to be a fun one. It's a good episode. Likewise. That was, like I said, recorded. Because war for the Planet of the Apes had just come out or was coming out. So we wanted an episode that tied in because of SEO. We don't really worry about it too much on the show, but when it can sync up, it's, like, cool. And especially when it was new, were like, oh, yeah, that'd be fun to do an episode on. Low hanging fruit for some of those. So that's the next bonus episode. Meanwhile, on the main show, we just is in very big air quotes right now. We just did Power Rangers 2017, and the next episode we've got up is actually practical magic.

02:00:45
Case
That one we've had in the can for a while because we recorded that before my daughter was born, and we've actually got the next couple recorded, so that's good. And we're all dealing with some personal stuff, but particularly for me, the baby stuff just makes it really hard to get the episodes finished and out the door. Even with Jeff doing a great job editing the actual episode, there's still work that goes into it. Beyond that, one of which is, like, the episode art, which is like, yeah, whatever. But I like having episode art that looks good. I like doing the clips that we do and all those things that we work on and also just posting it takes mental space that is difficult to do when you're super sleep deprived and barely sitting at your computer, ever, when.

02:01:29
Sam
You have a new baby demanding things. Feed me, Seymour. Sorry, I couldn't help myself.

02:01:37
Geoff Moonen
Apologies.

02:01:38
Case
It's all good.

02:01:40
Sam
Baby Chaos is not like that.

02:01:42
Case
But life is going to stabilize at some point. We're getting our shit together, and we'll be back with more episodes in a semi regular rotation until we finally get back on some kind of schedule. And I appreciate everyone for all of that.

02:01:59
Sam
Yeah, thank you, guys. Thanks for bearing with us.

02:02:02
Case
Yeah. But we've got some good fans who have reached out and have been expressed that they were cool with it. So I do appreciate all those. And, like, I said, we've got more stuff coming. I'm really excited for all this. And, yeah, can't wait to talk to you again for a real episode.

02:02:26
Sam
That was baby brain right there, guys. That's what happens.

02:02:31
Case
Yeah. This whole call has been just like, oh, man, do you know how much I haven't slept? So much.

02:02:39
Sam
So much so when he slows down, that's what it is.

02:02:43
Case
Yeah. If you want to see normal case, you have to crank your podcast player just like a little bit up, but then also be ready to throttle it back when I do have those moments of lucidity.

02:02:55
Sam
Yeah. When you get really excited, you're like, well, actually, right, in 1980s in the comics. And I'll just go too fast.

02:03:04
Case
Yeah. All right. Well, Sam, do you have anything else you want to bring up before we call it?

02:03:10
Sam
No, I think we fixed it.

02:03:11
Case
Yes, fixed. Everything's fixed. Rescued past another. All right. Yeah. So like I said, we'll be back next time to talk about practical magic, which was a really fun conversation with Anna Grindrodfini, who is one of our friends from certain POV. Check out our website, certainpov.com. You can find tons of great shows over there. You can find a link to our discord server. Come chat. We're having great conversations there because I can do it on my phone. I'm actually somewhat present there as opposed to anything with a computer because I'm either at work or I'm dealing with a baby. Normally. My wife is being very nice by letting me record a bunch of stuff tonight.

02:03:52
Sam
Thank you.

02:03:53
Case
Yeah, they're awesome. Everything's great. And yeah, until next time, if you enjoyed the show, pass it on.

02:04:05
Sam
Pass it on, please. Bye bye.

02:04:09
Case
Pass it on. Stay classy, San Diego. All right, Josue, let's go through our.

02:04:17
Geoff Moonen
New comic day stack.

02:04:18
Case
We have a lot to review. I know. Maybe we've gone too far.

02:04:22
Geoff Moonen
Let's see.

02:04:23
Case
Marvel, of course. DC. I got image.

02:04:27
Geoff Moonen
Dark horse. Black mask.

02:04:29
Case
Boom. Idw. Aftershock vault, of course. Mad cave.

02:04:34
Geoff Moonen
Oni. Valiant scout.

02:04:36
Case
Magma behemoth.

02:04:38
Geoff Moonen
Wow, that's a lot.

02:04:40
Case
All we need now is a name for our show.

02:04:43
Geoff Moonen
We need a name for a show about reviewing comic books every week. Something clever, but not too clever, like a pun.

02:04:50
Case
It's kind of cheesy.

02:04:52
Geoff Moonen
Yeah.

02:04:52
Case
Something that seems funny at first, but.

02:04:54
Geoff Moonen
We might regret later on as an impulsive decision. A few dozen episodes in.

02:04:57
Case
Yeah, we'll think of something. Join Keith and Oatsway for we have issue the weekly show reviewing almost every.

02:05:03
Geoff Moonen
New comic released each week available on.

02:05:05
Case
Geek Elite media and wherever you listen to your podcast.

02:05:10
Geoff Moonen
Cool. Eo.

02:05:12
Case
All right. Yeah. Shit.

02:05:22
Sam
This is another pass at another pass.

02:05:25
Case
Yeah.

02:05:25
Sam
It's what we're doing today.

02:05:28
Case
Cpov certainpov.com close.