TheAllPurposeNothing

Saw the movie Saturday and loved it. But I did leave with one big problem:

From the first film, Harry doesn't know that Norman was the Goblin. Why in the world would he be hearing the Goblin laughing in the mansion??? How could he equate his dad to the Goblin?

I understand its just a matter of plot mechanics, but for me, it stuck out like a sore thumb.

BTW, my favorite moment in the movie: the death of Ursula as they show her reflection in the shard of glass flying at her.

Jackskeleton

I think that was sort of the madness being passed down to him. He reached a breaking point with all that was going on. driven insane sort of the same way daddy was. only without the need of the chemicals.

Mordred

Alright, I'll bite. What is this a reference to?

devilshalo

Harry had heard the goblin laugh in the mansion before, not knowing it was the goblin laugh.

Regurgitator

Have you ever heard of an evil spirit or ghost roaming about the place and talking to you? That's what Harry experienced thru his close connection with his father.

johnglass

I just found this site, which is basically an encyclopedia of Marvel characters.

http://www.marveldirectory.com/indivuals.htm

johnglass

Either Alfred Molina was the drummer for Night Ranger, or he's referring to his scene in Boogie Nights where Sister Christian played in the background

KnightLerxst

Cool site.

For some reason the Hobgoblin II bio glosses over Ned Leeds and Jack O Lantern...but they mention it under Harry Osborne's bio...

Soon afterward, Harry became president of his father's company. He eloped with his college sweetheart, Liz Allan, and they moved to a large house in Englewood, New Jersey, where they had a son. But the legacy of the Green Goblin continued to haunt Harry. Reporter Edward "Ned" Leeds came into possession of the Green Goblin's journals and equipment and used them to become the costumed criminal known as the Hobgoblin. He used the knowledge he gained from the journals to blackmail Harry by threatening to expose the activities of him and his father in their respective roles as the Green Goblin. Spider-Man thwarted this plan.

After Leeds was murdered, the identity and methods of the Hobgoblin were adopted by Jason Philip Macendale Jr., the mercenary formerly known as Jack O' Lantern. During the time called "Inferno" when demons from the dimension Limbo invaded New York, Macendale threatened Harry and his family, seeking the secret to the original Green Goblin's enhanced strength. However, the black magicks being manipulated in the area affected the dark part of Harry's soul, creating flashbacks to his activitiesas the Green Goblin. Portions of Harry's repressed memory emerged (not including his knowledge of Spider-Man's secret identity) and Harry once again assumed the mantle of the Green Goblin. For the most part, however, Harry maintained his sanity as he confronted the Hobgoblin to protect his family.

With the help of Spider-Man he managed to defeat the Hobgoblin. When Spider-Man asked Harry if be would like to become a "super hero," Harry scoffed and said that he had other responsibilities as a husband

MasterCXtreme

Has anyone noticed that in the past 2 movies, Spider-man hasn't really finished or defeated ANYONE on his own? Here's a list I put together...

-The robber, who killed Ben, falling to his death (IIRC).
-The new yorkers throwing objects at the Green Goblin, giving Spider-man more time.
-SM flipping back so the blade kills the Green Goblin.
-The little girl helping him up in the burning house.
-Aunt May striking a big blow to Doc's head with a cane.
-Doc Octavius sinking the fusuion machine on his own.
...The train scene may count... but without those people there, he would've fallen into the water... possibly dying.

There may be something I'm missing... but it's just something I thought was a very re-occuring thing in the big action scenes. But I suppose it fits the theme mentioned above... "The weight of the world isn' on your shoulders alone."

TheGuy

I still don't know how Harry knew where Ock's hideout was. That was just dumb!

Patman

Ursula was the landlord's daughter's name.

Rosalie was Doc Ock's wife.

zooiiks

While I loved Spider-Man 2, it really left me yearning for something else....

More specifically: Wonder Twins: The Movie!

w/ Andrew "Dice" Clay as Gleek the Space Monkey

Picture it:

"Gleek, Gleek...Do I look like a spacemonkey OH!!"

TheAllPurposeNothing

My bad. Thanks for the correction.

Tommy Ceez

According to the marvel RPG Spiderman had a strength rating of Incredible (40) (Where Hulk or Thor would be 100) so he pretty much would have knocked his head clear off. Add that to the fact that he had absolutly no body armor and yes, the fall onto the two cars would have killed him....but nitpicking is useless.

A quick reason for the subway unmasking to be NECESSARY.

-Picture yourself as a mortal in the Marvel Universe (wasnt there a graphic novel about the lives of humans in a city with indefferent, god-like superheros screwing up your morning commute with thier pitched battles?)
-Do you assume Spidey is a normal guy, or do you think he's an alien, an ex-commando, a government agent, a paranormal deamon, or a highly skilled law enforcement officer?
-When the riders saw that he was just a kid, it makes thier standing up to Doc. Ok more plausable. Its no longer "let these lunatics handle it themselves" its "Holy crap, this kids in trouble"
In almost every superhero movie, the citizens get all choked up when the superhero is about to die, which comes across as hamfisted. In spidey2, the commuters are choked up because thier EMBARASSED that a teenager was the guy who they took for granted, who they expected to save them, who they might have rooted against at one time or another.
-The construction worker who comperes spidey to his son must be thinking, "He may be superhero, but he's just like my lazy, shiftless kid" which makes his stepping up to Doc realistic.

The movie was fantastic. The scene where spidey and doc are fighting on the building and they become dislodged, falling to the street below...

...all music stops and all you hear is the woosh of air and the sick thud of thier punches - FANTASTIC!

Michael Corvin

Well put Tommy.

Dr. DVD

Bingo! Alfred Molina was the man blasting Sister Christian in that scene in Boogie Nights; probably one of the best stand alone scenes in movie history.

jiggawhat

I felt there was a tad too much dialogue and parts in the movie where it just started to drag on and on. For the most part, the movie was good.

JesseCuster

I caught a screening this afternoon and honestly, it's hard to imagine a film packing more high-quality action sequences and thought out, well-executed dramatic scenes into two hours than this one. And pretty seamlessly, at that. The only place where the rythym really got disrupted was the end, the very end, and if that scene had come any earlier, it would have thrown more of the film off track. Actually, I think it was the gawdawful (intentionally so, I'm sure) wedding music. It sounded like somebody broke out their early '80's Sanyo keyboard for that bit. The scene itself, by itself, played just fine. And it had to be there, to provide positive resolution for part 2 and a setup for part 3.

Some of my favorite parts:

- I loved that there were discussions, aimed at Peter but at us as well, that went into some depth about the whole superhero ethos or code or call it what you will. Along with the best of the Spidey cannon, you could hear distant echoes of Watchmen and The Golden Age and some of the other superhero comic book epics of our time. Good, good writing, IMO. And they absolutely *nailed* the "suffering of Peter Parker" bit. If there's anything ever-present in the history of Spider-Man, from Lee/Ditko through McFarlane to the present, it's the cloud of misery and woe that follows Peter everywhere he goes. Except, of course, for MJ

- Is anyone else still thanking their own personal gods that they went and continue to go with actors in the Spidey films and not faces? I love Maguire and Dunst as the leads and the selection of James Franco is going to pay off in a monumental way in Spidey 3. The casting of the supporting characters has been positively inspired. J.K. Simmons stole the show! Alfred Molina was sublime.

- There was a lot of wit in this one. And not the sort of obvious things that cropped up in Spidey 1. Loved the Asian woman with her two Spidey songs. And I laughed out loud when "Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head" started up. Bruce Campbell (when did he get so big?) was a hoot.

- The effects were pretty astounding. Because of the movements of the Spidey character during fight sequences, there just isn't any way for it to look *totally* accurate. There will always be a feel of unreality to it, regardless. I do think they got the model closer to how Tobey actually looks physically (it was too narrow and spastic in the first film IMO) and I noticed that they seemed to used more live base shots of Maguire, with effects added in post, as opposed to 100% CGI work. This especially helped during the train battle. I'm not sure if I've seen more ferocious fighting in a superhero flick than this one's Spidey/Doc Ock set-to's. Vicious...like a bare-knuckle brawl on speed.

My negatives (all pretty minor):

- Any way you cut it, Danny Elfman's score is pretty half-assed. This is going to go down in film history as maybe the best superhero series of all time (unless Watchmen or Preacher get made by someone who knows what they're doing) and I'll be damned if I can presently remember *any* musical cue or theme from either film. That's pretty sad, especially since I just saw the second film and I tend to pick up on a film's music as quickly as anything. Spidey deserves better, period.

- Though her performance was excellent and she looked pretty fetching at the end, did anyone else think Kirsten Dunst looked plain old sick in the first half of the movie? I'm not a make-up person so someone that is...was she supposed to look pale and washed out like that? She has naturally fair skin but jeez...someone put a little rouge on her cheeks or something.


That's pretty much it. I would give it a 9/10. But I would give Superman and X2 a 9/10 and a 8.5/10 respectively. Which is to say that I've never seen a perfect superhero film. But I have hopes for Spidey 3 (James Franco will hit it out of the solar system if they let him run with it) and X3, especially if they go into the Dark Phoenix storyline. 'Nuff said

B.A.

I thought it was excellent - ****1/2 out of *****. It completely exceeded my expectations and blew the first one out of the water, imo.

JoeyOhhhh

WOW! Quoting the Marvel RPG, never thought I'd see that.

The unmasking at the train didn't bother me, I mean Peter Parker has a average description, so even if people were to give a description, you've got alot of people in NYC to go through.

cruzness

Saw it twice this weekend and all I've got to say is....Awesome. The acting was great. The story was engaging and the action was phenominal.

Lara Means

I've gotta disagree here. I actually like the themes that Elfman created for this trilogy. The Spider-Man theme, the Peter Parker theme, and the Peter/MJ romance theme. It's just too bad that the rest of the movie is kinda lackluster, but it gets the job done!

stevek

MasterCXtreme,

GG and Ock were both down for the count at the end of their respective movies, GG after getting a wall dropped on him and getting punched silly, Ock after Spider-Man lifted the power cable up and Ock stabbed into it. Both looked pretty beat.

Besides, doesn't Spider-Man still get his ass kicked in the comics on a regular basis? He did back in the 70s when I was reading the comics.

The thing that doesn't make sense to me is when they decide to stop fighing because it's not the end of the movie yet. When GG and Spider-Man were fighting in the burning building, did they both decide to quit because they were late for Thanksgiving dinner? The guy's a murderer and Spider-Man just takes off because he's got to pick up a can of cranberry sauce?

And after Spidey swings Aunt May down to the street, he makes conversation for a minute and then swings off in the opposite direction. Ock just walked around the side of the building with the bank loot, I think he could still be caught if you go after him!

Seriously though, there's a million nitpicks if you want to pick them out. Overall, I found these movies to be highly entertaining and in keeping with the spirit of the original material. Just a watch a few episodes of the 70s live action TV show and you'll have a new respect for these movies.

criptik28

Nicely put.

criptik28

Anyone else think that the planetarium (with its huge sphere-shaped room) would become Doc Ock's new lab? You know, to house that mini-sun and all...

Was Doc Ock's "secret lair" just the remains of his old lab? That would explain why Harry knew where it was. (For that matter, anyone could have found it, after his initial demonstration.)