I wish they had! If you’re going to have a not-really-MJ and a not-really-Ganke, then just give them entirely different names and make them original characters. As it is, the ones in Homecoming are kinda-sorta-not-really-but-maybe-sideways versions.
The MJ one is just baffling to me. She’s literally the only female on the poster other than Aunt May. She’s obviously important to the movie and the franchise. If they really wanted a fake-out, but Liz on the poster.
Eh, you could almost make the case that they used her for name recognition. Googling her reveals a Disney Channel career and a slight pop culture imprint. I can see a marketing executive trying to hit a wider variety of demographics with that, especially if their direction was “We need to include one of the supporting kids in the poster and it doesn’t matter which one.”
Looks like she was in @Kelly_Wand’s favorite movie, too!
EDIT: I should say that I agree with you on those characters, though. Either embrace it or make them different.
Oh, I’m well aware that she was cast and marketed for her youth appeal. But again, anyone who followed the build-up to this movie knew who she was playing. You can find numerous articles about her casting. It really wasn’t that well-kept of a secret.
That would be a vanishingly tiny percentage of viewers. Most people hardly look at a poster other than notice a blob of Spider-Man colors as they walk by it.
I can’t wrap my head around your incredulity that she’s a kinda sorta MJ character, since almost everything about Marvel movies has been kinda sorta like the comics.
A lot of similarities and fan service, but ultimately not faithful to canon in anything but spirit.
I think we’re all okay with that if you reconcile it strictly with what they showed us on screen with MJ.
What we’re rolling our eyes at—my incredulity at least—is the spin in interviews where it sounds like they’re trying to keep alive the option to also introduce Mary Jane Watson at some point, like they’re undecided or hedging their bets and might want to have the impact of this “twist” in this movie and then still get in hook of the “real” MJ later on.
Saw it this past weekend. I bought a ton of Spider-Man books and loved the character for many years. I think this was the absolute best film portrayal of the character of them all! The reason for that is it stayed on exactly the right scale for the character and even specifically addressed his “Friendly Neighborhood” side through Peter’s interaction with Stark and Happy.
What I always loved about the books was that nearly every story was so grounded in living in NYC and the villains were small-time or had plans that were realistic in their goals. They may have had powers or tech at their disposal, but they mostly flew under the police radar as the Vulture does in this film and tried to carry out their plans without attracting too much attention to themselves. And even when they appeared to the populace, they weren’t on a Fantastic Four level threat so Peter or Daredevil or the Punisher or some smaller level hero (“hero”) could handle them. That made it all the more exciting when Spider-Man would get sucked into something much larger!
They captured that so well with this movie, and I loved the high school life. My boys (11th and 12th this coming fall) could totally identify with the world of Peter Parker as I’m sure many teens going to the films did as well, and for me as a Dad, it was a nice reminder of those years of my own life and how to see that time through my kids’ eyes now. The performances were great, especially Keaton as Toomes, and I REALLY loved how he turned Gargan down at the end of the film when asked to reveal Peter’s identity. That was a very Toomes-ish thing to do! What will be really cool is if they continue down this path toward a Sinister Six setup with Vulture in the crew and possibly having to repay Peter for saving his ass…
Anyway, sign me up for a lot more! I really hope the film doesn’t stall out. It’s Spider-Man to a T to be honest. Names and places somewhat flipped around and changed of course. Did you know the ATM scene is based on one right out of the books? There’s so much care put into this that wasn’t in anything but maybe Raimi’s first two films. Sure, the Ferry coming apart was a little bit toward the comic side of physics, but it sure did make for a great scene. :)
I just read that review and unsurprisingly, the whole plot of Peter aching to be accepted as an adult and an Avenger but finally figuring out he’s just a kid and that’s ok totally went over that reviewer’s head. sigh
I liked it; it was a good MCU move. Though as a Spider-man movie I’d put the first two Raimi movies above it overall.
This seemed to be trying very hard to avoid repeating the beats of the Raimi movies, and while I understood and appreciated why they went that way - Raimi covered the teen soap opera and secret ID angles extensively, so there’s no need to do the exact same thing here (and Lord knows we don’t need the origin again) - I’m not so sure what they replaced it with was 100% gold.
For example, while giving a superhero a guy in chair/hi-larious nerdy comedy sidekick is a perfectly sound formula, it’s also a very common one. Doing it to Spidey just makes him more like a CW show and less like the original. The thing about the Lee/Ditko Peter Parker is that he was a kid who felt like he had no support network at all. That made something like a cold or a fractured arm feel like a major crisis. This Peter has a buddy to dish to and watch his back, and Tony freaking Stark to bail him out when things go really bad. It’s a very different feel.
Speaking of which, most of the Tony Stark and Happy screen time was filler. Less of both of them would have had a bigger impact and made it feel more like a 15 year old kid interacting with big shots from another league. Instead it felt like someone said, “We’re paying an arm and a leg for Downey and promoting this as Iron Man 3 1/2, so make sure Stark gets plenty of pages” even when it wasn’t needed for the story.
Moreover, the whole “Peter decides to forgo being BFFs with Tony Stark and hanging out with the Avengers” theme is a total tangent to the core street-level character. While they did a good job of dealing with it, Peter being a Stark protege is a problem they made up for themselves, so I’m not really inclined to pat them on the back for their skill in making it go away again.
On the plus side: Peter and his friends actually acted like teenagers for once, better pacing than the Raimi movies, nice re-conceptualization of the Vulture in terms of character and theme, the alien-tech scavenger idea was solid (and retroactively made Luke Cage make a lot more sense, though again that’s untangling a knot they made themselves), the action was good (if not outstanding), and the Cap cameos hilarious.
In the latest Batman movies, there’s been Alfred, left behind and sitting in a chair providing wisdom and support. In most of the DC CW shows (Arrow, Flash, Supergirl) there are always sidekicks who stay behind, sitting in a chair, proving tech support and guidance. There’s Oracle from many years of DC comics. I’m sure the list goes on. It’s definitely a trope of the super hero genre.
This was great, with the big exception being the fight scenes with the Vulture in the dark. Could not see shit, had no idea what was going on. These fights had a very Transformers 1 feel to them. Just a pointless mess.
Finally got around to seeing this. I think they captured a 15 year old young man hero very well. It was entertaining from start to finish too. My nephew might have just been a tad too young to see it. I suspect mommy had some questions for the ride home… like what is porn.
