Come anticipate animated Miles Morales in SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE with me

"do animals talk in this universe?"

the trailers in front of this were a mix of very dire and samey children's animation about fuzzy animals with indistinguishable handclappy pop themes, intolerable Christian movies, and DC's Shazam, which struck me as at least not horribly misbegotten and possibly charming in a throwbacky kind of way

god, the crossturbation trailers actually had me reacting loudly in the theatre. we had two of them.

did you get the one with Topher Grace?

I wouldn't know

was the female Doc Ock from the comics?
― fuck the NRA (Neanderthal), Monday, December 24, 2018 5:33 PM

original to this film apparently, according to wikipedia
― I have measured out my life in coffee shop loyalty cards (silby), Monday, December 24, 2018 5:37 PM

There was one in the 90s but probably a different character.

GOD DAMN this was TREMENDOUS. this is EXACTLY what a comic book movie should be.

only niggle, which is common to pretty much all movies and tv now, is that everything happens so fast you forget what just came before. there's v little time to actually process anything. but my lord, the benday dots and shading and absurdly abstract climax - cars and buildings and trains and the brooklyn bridge all floating by in a swirling, howling matrix of dots and colours, all to be used as background and leverage and weapon. utterly insane.

my 7-y-o says, pausing over a burrito afterwards, "it was all about the promise he makes to peter parker." and i thought god damn, lord and miller would bottle that moment if they could and put it on their mantelpiece.

It really is that good. Kinda expect to see this being a year zero moment way more than anything around it -- just give it a few years.

i don't think I've ever seen anything like it, outside of loony tunes. the anarchy and physical delight of it.

Agreed that this is the standard to which superhero movies should set themselves. I’d take something of this caliber over any live action adaptation for what it’s worth.

- bagel -

it turns out 'make pretend real' wasn't it

were the backgrounds and foregrounds supposed to be deeply off-register at times or should i bug the theater about a refund for showing the 3D version during the 2D showing?

Yes that was an intentional choice to interpret depth of field through a “misregistration” effect. Theatrical 3D uses polarization not colored lenses. (NB I thought this effect was very cool.)

i had the same thought! the fact they were able to make choices that bold is frankly a goddamn Christmas miracle imo

there is something else that annoys me, not a big deal, but hang on for an extremely Old Lunch post. i too have read a screenwriting book or two, and there is a moment in this movie which is commonly known as All Is Lost - miles is imprisoned by super-strong spidey string to a chair, his powers deemed too immature for him to participate in the Final Mission; he is unable to make good on his promise to peter parker. everything has stopped, the movie is going to happen without him. now typically what happens here is the hero has to realise some fundamental truth about themselves in order to tap into their real power - they have to stop fighting fate, or realize they're actually in love, or whatever. once the key to their own personal conflict has been turned they're able to advance to the public conflict of the A-story. this little turn has been used so many times in so many movies that we're primed for it, even if just subconsciously. so it almost no longer even needs to make any sense, in a way. it just needs to be there. and in this movie it just sort of seemed to be there without making much sense. Miles' dad shows up, knocking at his door. to tell him that.. he's hard on him because he loves him! but.. we knew that! miles knew it! his dad even hailed him on the patrol car's loudspeaker to tell him he loved him, in front of all his new classmates (fantastic scene by the way!) I guess you could say that Miles doesn't in fact CONFIDE in his dad - he saves that for his uncle. that's a key that could be turned here, maybe. but miles doesn't (can't, in fact - his mouth's stopped up!) So his dad just.. leaves? but the box has been ticked - Miles now digs deep and can turn on his electricity powers and we're off. i mean.. not a huge deal but it is the pivot on which Miles' story turns and it's pro forma.

lol okay my 7-y-o has set me straight on this. Miles WANTS to confide in his dad but he can't because his mouth is stopped up and it makes him so mad that he is able to use his powers, like the Hulk!

broke my superhero movie ban for this and dammit i'm glad i did. an absolute feast for the eyes. i mean in a year where isle of dogs and mandy both came out...idk they're all spectacular in completely different ways, unforgettably bold.

while this film maybe missed a couple of storytelling beats in its rush to be a literal comic book, it really is the best representation of the form i can imagine having existed on screen thus far. it couldn't have put any more thought, effort or love into its desire to do the form justice. it makes me want to read marvel comics and that coming from me is nearly heresy

let's talk about phil lord (and christopher miller) (but mostly phil lord). the dude wrote this and i think his script and story allowed the perfect pacing and space for the visuals to build to their jaw-gaping climax, which was kind of like cloudy with a chance of meatballs turned up to fifteen - he's always wanted to make this exact spectacle and now he has (as producer/writer - i'm v interested to find out more about the actual direction team)

i've wanted to start a lord/miller thread for a while. i'm obv v cynical about superhero movies and hollywood spectacles and such but they are YET TO MAKE A BAD FILM - they absolutely nail it every time. i think they and lord especially are the preeminent geniuses of the actionverse right now. they have some very repeatable but always laudable tropes. they are single-handedly responsible for making cops cool again. i mean they're doing amazing work presenting their idea what the police could and should be - strong, fatherly, responsible, moral, balanced. so yeah they love cops, sure, but they mostly love good fathering. idk i'm rambling here. cops as servants rather than corrupt powerbrokers. it's a fantasy maybe but they own it so well. stop me ffs

also all their scripts are on point

again, the greatest technical achievement to date in computer animation

Things to notice:
🕷️ Both Miles & Peter are animated on 2's (12 poses/sec), while the scene was rendered on 1's (24 frames/sec). So even though they're frozen for two frames, they are moving within the frame.
🕷️ They are on animated 2's, but offset from each other.
🕷️ Bagel!!! pic.twitter.com/V64n8cRffT

— Todd Vaziri (@tvaziri) January 2, 2019

there's more stuff in the thread on this single shot. The offset 2s are wild as heck

haha man I didn't notice all that stuff but I was conscious that there was a lot of deep animated juju going on even if i didn't know exactly what it was. the off-register depth-of-field effect, the stop-motion style stuff. felt bristly and alive and all times.

so fuckin' metal. animation-wise, i mean

I want to sit in a theater and frame-advance through this movie for 12 hours

Same. What a great movie!

I watched this yesterday and despite several distractions, I was absorbed. So beautiful and streamlined.

Doc Ock reminded me of Entrapta from the nu She Ra, both in voice and design.

Looooove Gwen's design. Undercut + pointe shoes = yay.

For sure, one of the best costume comic book costume designs in the last decade. Feel like that's half the reason for her success

Took my four year old to see this before christmas not expecting too much but holy fucking shit did I love this. Enough that I saw it again on New Years Day; I don't remember the last time I saw a movie twice in a theater - honestly it might have been Back To The Future or the Phantom Menace (in an attempt to see if it really was that bad).

Everything about this was great, even for me with little to no comic book / spiderman literacy. And Doc Ock (prior to the reveal) was the biggest laugh for me as she felt like a dead-on composite of a bunch of STEM academics I know or have had interactions with.

she reminded me of the 'nerd' character on Orphan Black

I loved this movie so much, Doc Ock was legitimately terrifying and her demise was wonderful.

Three times in my life have I been in a movie theatre and seen something so funny that my entire body seized up in a static form of hysterical laughter. The first was age 10 when Bob Hoskins yells "Ooga Booga" at the bouncer in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit". The second was Jonah Hill wiping out on a side-view mirror in Superbad. The third was the moment when Aunt May is looking around her house at the various fight scenes, and frames appear 1-2-3-4 of tussling, and the final fourth frame is of Spider-Ham smashing one of Aunt May's plates over his own head. One of the funniest gags I've ever seen tbh

Sorry it wasn't a sideview mirror it was Emma Stone's nose

I misremembered

lol!

The third was the moment when Aunt May is looking around her house at the various fight scenes, and frames appear 1-2-3-4 of tussling, and the final fourth frame is of Spider-Ham smashing one of Aunt May's plates over his own head. One of the funniest gags I've ever seen tbh

Joy and genius indeed.

A very pure lol

I love especially that it was Spider Ham's panel that sent May over the edge.

also also lol at Miles scrolling past Bendis when he was desperate for someone to talk to after his powers started manifesting.

this was great, so nice to see something that doesn't look like every-other-fucking-thing. only time my attention started to droop was in some of the emotional beats in the 3rd act which felt rote. otherwise appreciated the overall wild and loose tone

I'm going to see this again with one of my kids this afternoon. Something I've been wondering since the first time, though: how did he end up with Morales as his last name? Maybe we'll get a name origin story in the next movie.

Went into this with a cautious "it can't be as good as everyone says" in my heart but it really is as good as everyone says!

how did he end up with Morales as his last name?

that's his mom's name?

yeah. but isn't it unusual for a child to take the mother's last name and not their dads?

because if he took his dad's name he'd be Miles Davis

(it's pretty damn weird that his dad's name is "Jefferson Davis")

also unusual for a child to be bitten by a radioactive spider and gain superpowers iirc

and yet, it happens

It apparently happens a lot!

it's more common than you think

Even better the second time, especially the final set piece. And Spider Ham, when he glitches, makes that cartoon googlygoogly sound.

it's pretty damn weird that his dad's name is "Jefferson Davis"

thank you!

thank David Brothers in 2012: http://4thletter.net/2012/11/me-and-my-people-got-history-why-how-i-write-about-race/

This was extremely cool.

https://youtu.be/WvIphseK3pA

Great interview with the directors.

Ordered this print from Bottleneck Gallery. Glow in the dark bonus to a cool image for a Spidey fan. Nice when they have timed runs, printing as many as ordered, versus a limited run that seems to sell out in minutes.

Do we have a thread for discussing "Sony's Spider-Man Universe (SSU)," and specifically this new Madame Web movie? Thx

One of Dr. Morbius's many gifts to our community is making it impossible to find anything on the Jared Leto film.

Free-to-stream Spider-Verse short on YT tomorrow!

https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/the-spider-within-a-spider-verse-story-when-and-where-to-stream-the-short-film/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcGPpwFdE1Y

I still don't know what they thought, not releasing this movie in the relevant territories as Kilometers Morales.