The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Maybe if it sticks with the original ending, and not the alternate one where Richard Parker turns out to be alive all along, and is the one to tell Peter the "great responsibility" line.

The movie as it is was kind of a mess, but keeping in that scene probably would've completely ruined it for me.

There was almost no arc to any of the characters. Strangely enough Harry's was the best handled, even if subject to a weird "first signs of mutation happen immediately after dad tells him". I almost thought Norman might have done something to screw him over. But the Peter and Gwen relationship goes back and forth at least 5 times in the second film alone, which is not hyperbole and that kills the intended moral of Gwen's death. She could have been on her way to help him and a bus hit her, that's how relevant it was to her or Peter's actions.

Then Gwen's high school graduation speech focusing on our mortality was so heavy handed I could tell it was written JUST to bring back at the end. Electro's motivations are almost untouched and really quite irrelevant, him being screwed over the power plant design is used as a failed attempt to calm him down, and that's it.

In some ways it felt like they were trying to actually BE connected to the MCU, with the supervillain prison despite the fact this universe only had one beforehand. Plus all of the Oscorp's villain gimmicks in the vault were so random you'd think they were made for some alternate purpose besides generic "failed military contracts."

If I had to cut the movie, I would do it in a way that you can't hear Gwen's speech at the beginning, and then end the movie with it. No rampaging Rhino, only Peter listening to the speech, taking the mask and swinging out of the window.

I would cut the entire Green Goblin fight, subsequent Gwen death, and mourning scene. Go straight to the And the Adventure Continues with the Rhino.

Gwen isn't dead, at least not yet. Electro is the final battle. Harry isn't seen again after discovering the Sinister Six armory and getting a wicked idea.

I would also cut every single instance of the over-the-top ridiculous German Mad Scientist.

There are still so many problems this wouldn't fix, many of which would require redoing scenes instead of just cutting and editing, but it's a start.

edited 11th Sep '15 7:24:58 AM by TobiasDrake

I liked that they went there and showed her dying, as sad as it was. But yeah, I agree concerning the German scientist. WTH was that?

I'm on the fence about that they did it. I am absolutely opposed to how they did it.

I have no issues whatsoever with the way they handled it. I dig this scene, hard.

• It completely sabotaged Harry's character, turning him from a reasonably complex character into a cackling Joker knock-off.
• It killed off one of the two main reasons people like these movies.
• It's a textbook example of Women In Refrigerators.
• It takes place after the climax, resulting in Ending Fatigue. A moment this important to the franchise should not inspire feelings of lethargy and, "Goddamit, just f*cking end already."
• The consequences were rushed through in approximately two minutes of screentime because the film had no interest in actually dwelling on what happened; it killed Gwen just to kill her, not to do anything interesting with it.
• It was meant to spin off into a movie starring Harry, which was never going to happen because nobody would ever watch a movie where they're intended to root for a psychotic, one-dimensional asshole who murdered their favorite character.

A well-conceived scene does not kill the entire franchise. This scene ruined the characters of everyone involved in it and made future sequels impossible.

edited 11th Sep '15 10:02:50 AM by TobiasDrake

I think even the executives at Sony realized how big a mistake they made by killing off Gwen, as they were bending themselves backwards trying to find a way to bring her back before the Marvel deal (an Interquel, alternate universes, spider-blood, the Carnage symbiote).

Which is pretty much the same thing that happened with Stan Lee and the first death of Gwen Stacy. He was getting so many complaints from the fans that he insisted Gerry Conway bring Gwen Stacy back...so he brought her back as a clone, thus kicking off the very first Clone Saga.

And we all know how well that worked out.

Another thing they should've done was emphasize and draw out Electro's turn from confused anger to outright villainy more, instead of having him snap from "you betrayed me" to "I'll control the city and destroy Spider-Man! Don't you know, I'm Electro!" between scenes - it really ruins the development the character has into an engaging, conflicted antagonist, and it's largely done because the movie wants the main antagonistic relationship at that point to be between Harry and Peter which, as pointed out, wasn't done well.

While not having Harry become the Goblin at the end, his and Electro's partnership could have had more to it as well - Electro finally having someone who needs him and Harry turning to the one person his deluded mind believes isn't against him would've been a great tool for development for both of them. While not having Harry outright fight Spidey at the end, I would have bought Harry and Electro more clearly helping each other in the climax and then Harry escaping while changing into the Goblin in The Stinger.

And not kill him at the end, though that probably would have also required not buffing him up to the extreme levels of power he had partway through.

edited 11th Sep '15 11:52:01 AM by KnownUnknown

Although this would make for a completely different film, I just find it kind of strange that they didn't have Norman as the Goblin at all and instead killed him off (seemingly for real although maybe they would have brought him back in a later film?)

I know it's a case of Not His Sled, but it's weird to go right to Harry as Goblin and villain and not use Norman- especially because Norman is typically the reason for Harry being an asshat.

I think it would have worked better for Norman to be manipulating/tricking Harry. Like you could even have Harry become the Goblin, but then Norman would show up as the "real Goblin".

They already did that fakeout in Spectacular Spider-Man.

Yes. And it worked great.

If you're going to hang a Norman Osborn shaped gun on the wall, you have to fire that gun.

The entire ASM series had a distinct air of "We already did this once, how can we do it again but different." The main difference between these films and the Nolan movies compared to the Burton-series is that the Nolan movies approached it not strictly from a "how can we do it different" but "how can we do it better."

ASM added things like the Richard Parker conspiracy and Peter's hunt for the man who killed Uncle Ben as an attempt to be different from the Raimi movies, but they weren't not very well developed. I was actually okay with the revelation in ASM 2 that Richard Parker coded the spiders to his DNA and that's why only Peter can get spider powers (something often ignored in other adaptations), but stretching that plotline over two movies didn't do it any favors. The climax of ASM 2 was also really convoluted, you had Electro messing with the power grid with Spider-Man and Gwen fighting him, Aunt May dealing with the power outage at the hospital, unnamed flight controllers trying to deal with two jets on a collision course and THEN Harry shows up as a Diabolus ex Machina.

The movies were not short on ideas, but including ALL of them is the problem. It's hard to isolate one or two specific things they could remove to make the whole thing work.

I think the TAS movies tackled the three main problems with the first take spot on. It allowed their characters to develop and grow, bothered to give the girl-friend a proper characterization and went didn't cop out in the end but actually went through with the consequences. They are also more layered. Are they flawed? Sure. The first movie not so much (a few minor aspects, but all in all, it's my favourite Spider-man movie), but the second one stinks of executive meddling. But I think it is pretty easy to look past the nonsensical aspects and spot the movie series which could have been.