GoCorral

I saw The Amazing Spider-Man 2 this weekend with my wife.

She’d liked the first one even though she claimed it was scary.

That was pretty much her reaction to the sequel too. She only likes watching romantic comedy movies when we go out.

I liked it a lot because it stayed true to the comics in many ways that the last series of movies did not.

And for those who haven’t seen the movie, I will be talking about spoilers and stuff in this blog post so you should avoid it if you want to keep the movie as suspenseful as possible.

The Amazing Spiderman series has Gwen Stacy as the Peter Parker’s love interest. The original movie series had Mary-Jane Watson.

In the comics Mary-Jane goes to high school with Peter and Gwen does not. Peter never becomes involved with Mary-Jane until they are 23 or something.

Gwen is Peter’s college girlfriend in the comics. They shifted her to high school in the movies to advance the narrative faster.

In the comics, Peter has no girlfriend in high school.

This can get confusing because they rebooted the comics as well. I mean the original Amazing Spiderman comics.

So the new movies have kept Gwen as a first girlfriend and written their relationship to be realistic and charming.

The original movies made you wonder why Mary-Jane dated someone who didn’t seem to care about her emotions and physically endangered her (I started wondering less after I realized how that type of relationship matches Mary-Jane’s parents’ relationship in the original movie series).

Other parts of the movie called back to the comic as well.

The scene on the airplane is very close to how its described in the comic, Aunt May’s oblique references to Spiderman match the comic (she knows that Peter is Spiderman already), J. Jonah Jameson is still a dick even through email, Harry “goes away for awhile” and then comes back to “do drugs” before he becomes the Green Goblin (his voice is also perfect for the Goblin), Norman’s creepy green skin matches how he looks in the comic reboot (Ultimate Spiderman), etc.

The music in the movie was also amazing. I’ve been listening to it at work this week.

And now for the spoiler part!

Gwen Stacy is killed almost exactly how she is in the comic.

The Green Goblin drops her and Peter catches her with his webbing, but she dies regardless.

One of my friends posted on Facebook that this type of plot twist is too common in modern movies.

The female lead dies to make the hero feel sad, but it also sends the message that women are expendable.

I agree. They could’ve just as easily referenced the comic with her plunge to earth, but had Peter rescue her successfully in the movie.

I’d much prefer a sequel where Gwen Stacy was still Peter’s girlfriend instead of Mary-Jane. It’s hard to imagine Mary-Jane being anything but inferior to the relationship Gwen and Peter displayed in the first two movies.

But the little fanboy in me is happy that they stayed by the comics.

-Mister Ed