Anticipating Spider-Man: Homecoming (and then presumably Spider-Man: Prom)

Like, the entire throughline of the "wrong hands" argument is that certain things shouldn't be done because the potential for abuse is too great; sure I might trust you not to go too far with it but do I trust your successor? And the movies show what happens and reinforce the idea through storytelling that these things aren't the wonderful ideas they may look like at first blush, and the characters deal with the fallout, both good and bad (the objection to Vision I find interesting considering that he couldn't exist as a sentient character without that arc, which is adapted from the comics so that Stark is responsible for his creation rather than Pym; you're making the argument that Age of Ultron should have ended with them murdering an ally).

I also think that the villains in these movies being directly motivated/created by Stark isn't accidental. Tony and his methods brought as much harm upon the world as they did good, which is partially why he's so reluctant to jump back into the fray in Endgame and why his actions at the end have so much resonance. You say "they missed the opportunity to do this as a redemption arc for Tony Stark when, IMO, that is exactly what they did.

(And one of the side-effects of a redemption arc is rose-colored glasses get directed upon your faults, which is why the public perception in Far From Home is so fawning and why Beck's connection to Stark is important in underlining how Stark's M.O. had profound negative consequences.)

His MO of farty acronyms? Hm... maybe next Tony inspired villain will be MODOK : Malignant Odor Designed Only for Kvetching

See, to me, "this can't fall into the wrong hands" is different from "certain things shouldn't be done because the potential for abuse is too great." To you, one implies the other, but in simplistic action movies it's easy to resolve "wrong hands" by getting it back into "the right hands," and that's that. Indeed this is precisely the resolution of Spider-Man: Far From Home: it was bad that the bad guy got the glasses. Thank goodness, Peter realizes that he was good enough to wield the glasses all along, and then, thank goodness, he gets them back. Order is restored. It's a little like "the wicked brother has usurped the throne" stories for children: we celebrate when the true, good king returns. If I said "this basically endorses the notion of monarchy and rule by divine or blood right," would you say "what are you talking about - the film shows that it's bad when a bad king is on the throne so clearly it's in the subtext that throne-based government is no good"?

To me what it comes down to is that the nature of the objections to the drone murder systems is never "there shouldn't be a drone murder system." It's always some adjacent or even parallel problem: you went off and built it without consulting us, you wouldn't listen to me when I said Bucky was innocent, etc. In a universe with like two hundred characters and ~supposedly~ able to tell all kinds of varied stories, in which everyone is constantly mad at Tony for all kinds of other things, in which Tony's origin story is that he ostensibly decides to no longer make weapons, it's conspicuous that nobody is raising this point.

Re: Ultron and Vision, I'm definitely not arguing that they should have murdered an ally! I'm arguing that the movie should have been written differently. If you're saddling me with all but the last ten minutes and saying "okay, all this stuff can't be changed, now end this story," is that really fair? Similarly, it doesn't really matter what decades of Tony's established characterization are. Tomei's Aunt May is more or less the opposite of the comic book character, who is defined by hating Spider-Man, not knowing his identity, and being one thousand years old. Tbh I haven't read a lot of Iron Man comics - are spy-and-execute satellites really that big a thing for him? The only big character things I can immediately think of for comics Tony are him being an alcoholic (something the movies dispensed with in one and a half scenes) and him being a high-handed establishment authority figure (something the movies garbled by making him a wise-ass rebel executive, meaning that when they get to Civil War, making him The Man versus rebel Cap is a serious screenwriting Hail Mary).

re: Tony's arc and the implication/subtext that he's really been a real problem - I'm open to this but it's something we have to read into the films, not something that's there. Okay: not everything has to be spelled out! But these are superhero movies that spell tons of other things out (witness the nightmarish scene in GOTG with Kurt Russell going line by line through "Brandy"). As well, one of the great accomplishments is supposed to be that they feel like an interconnected tapestry - so why can't characters call out things from previous films so that it feels more like an intentional downward-then-upward long-term arc? If they really intended Tony to be an asshole, it would not have been hard, or make the films be painfully literal and dumbed-down, to toss this into AoU:

STEVE: "Tony, you can't appoint yourself the guardian of the world. No man can."
TONY: "Couldn't agree more. That's why I'm putting it in the hands of an AI. A good AI. Programmed to look out for us. To fight the fights we might not be around for."
STEVE: "I've heard that before - from Fury. His system was supposed to make us safe, but HYDRA almost used it to murder millions of people. And after that, I realized something. It's not just WHO has the power ----"
TONY: "You mean 'what.' Not who. AI? Computers? I know you know what computers are by now."
STEVE: "I'm serious, Stark! It's that nobody SHOULD have the power. This --- this thing you've created, this power to invade people's lives, to kill people because you've decided to create this without consulting the world you're trying to protect ---- it's all wrong!"
TONY: "Oh okay, I get it. I'm arrogant for wanting to detect threats and stop them, by whatever it takes. But us deciding to put on custom suits and go punch the bad guys? That's A-OK with you? What I think is, I'm a realist, and there are threats out there, and if Ultron can stop them, we need Ultron. Get out of my way, Steve. I'm turning it on."

(FIGHT ENSUES. TONY SUBDUES STEVE AND ACTIVATES ULTRON. FROM THIS POINT ON, TONY IS AN EVIL VILLAIN UNTIL HIS REDEMPTION ARC STARTS, BECAUSE DOING WHAT TONY IS DOING IS ACTUALLY *BAD* AND NOT JUST A BIG MISUNDERSTANDING THAT ALLOWS ALL SIDES TO COME OUT UNSCATHED AS DESIRABLE HEROIC ACTION FIGURES.)

on reflection it is possible i have become the Vision, only instead of Jarvis and Ultron, i am the fusion of Morbs and Tuomas

Doc OTM on this one IMO, I hate all this military drone techno-thriller stuff in Spider-Man

fun movie though despite that

also - isn't Spider-Man the wisecrackin' hero? Does he make one quip this whole movie?

Iron Man is the hero who solves problems by building weapon systems he can fly around in.

.. .and remote control.

also - isn't Spider-Man the wisecrackin' hero? Does he make one quip this whole movie?

― Screamin' Jay Gould (The Yellow Kid), Tuesday, July 9, 2019

"i love led zeppelin"

I think they’re better off writing him as a teen goof who is trying his hardest AND trying to play down how little he knows about what he’s doing than a quippy wisecracker

? Quippy wisecracker (incl false bravado) is Spider-man’s defining characteristic.

One of the reasons i find the character tiresome but thats beside the point

toning it down for MCU is good. nonstop catskills humor in the middle of a fist fight seems like mmmm possibly not that effective onscreen

I feel like the last film had a better sense of the thing where up against Flash, he's hopeless, but with the mask on, he's got the confidence to toss zingers - like in the ATM robbery scene.

Yeah thats standard m.o. for writing the character

It's also how he was in Civil War and they did bits of it in this movie, although not as much because he was really in a headspace of "I'm not sure I want to be Spider-Man" for most of it.

"i love led zeppelin"

cool to have comics references in this movie

Saw this today & loved it.
Tom Holland is such a good Spidey/Peter & they handle all the teen stuff so well. And there’s nothing I love more than hero’s journey stories;i mean i know they kind of all are versions of that but this one has him outright rejecting the call, not even on the fence or doubting but basically saying NO... I love the way Holland showed the emotion in that, and Fury being like Marvel Great Santini at him was such good drama.

And Zendaya! Those two have SUCH great chemistry.

I got teary when Peter & Happy were talking about Tony. I still miss him too!! idc if he was a warmonger or w/e

Jake was fkn great, I was thinking later he would have been a good Spidey in his younger days. though maybe his acting chops now are better than they were then so that is prob moot. His heel turn was great, and I enjoyed the meta special-effects angle of the story.

Super dork moment: When Mysterio/Quentin & Peter were at the bar all i kept thinking was how great would it have been if Peter was drinking an Aqua Velva!? :D

it makes spider-man seem like a total dumbass who hasn't learned anything from anything and has to go through the same arc each movie. kind of a harry potter thing. or an iron man thing for that matter.

― Good morning, how are you, I'm (Doctor Casino), Monday, July 8, 2019 12:18 PM (six days ago) bookmarkflaglink

This was Mr Veg’s complaint too but I feel like it discounts Peter’s age & that he’s an anxious self-doubter at heart. Ok so he overcomes x but that doesn’t mean his baggage gets left at the door. When he faces y he’s still going to panic & freak out because he’s still ~emotionally~ the same guy. For him, with a doubter’s mind & low self-esteem all x just taught him is that he could do x! We see him as a superhero but he’s not able to see himself that way so he still makes decisions as a teenager, not as a superhero. He’s not got the confidence or perspective to assume he can now do y or even z for that matter. Maybe that’s annoying for ppl to watch but that’s kinda how life is when you have that mindset. Just bc you have superpowers doesn’t mean that goes away.

So I saw this yesterday, and it was fine but I think pretty firmly bottom-tier MCU for me. Way below Homecoming imo. I'm glad lots of folks itt enjoyed it as much as they did, though. It was fun, and the cast is still great, but it just seemed to be missing something. Kinda feel like someone reading the script should've at some point said, 'Oh hey guys, you know the thing where a chunk of the last movie revolved around mishaps during a class trip? Maybe we don't need to go back to that well in the very next movie.' Seeing the WTF look on my unwitting gf's face during the Mysterio reveal was fun. The mid- and post-credits scenes were great, but problematic inasmuch as they're probably the scenes that grabbed my interest the most. The scenes during the actual movie should be the ones to do that, maybe.

Disappointed that Ned and Betty's breakup in no way involved a goblin mask or pumpkin bombs, boooooo.

I wanted a few more bantz with Mysterio's team

One of my favorite things about these Marvel movies, maybe even (especially even?) the not so good ones, is how their tiers and unevenness or whatever sort of reflect how the comics themselves work. There might be an epic arc for a couple of months, followed (or interrupted) by some silly one off storylines. Not every issue is a major crossover event, some are just, I dunno, Peter Parker trying to pick up the dry-cleaning.

I do agree that the biggest (or any of the biggest) moments in these movies really should not occur after the movie is over.

I went and re-watched Homecoming after seeing this and they're both good, but Homecoming definitely superior. I had forgotten how menacing Keaton was. Still, the cast went a long way for me, and I found them more fun- maybe more relaxed as an ensemble- to watch this time around.

I mean the cast in Far from Home vs Homecoming

The car ride Peter takes with Keaton in Homecoming is probably the best moment of suspense filmmaking in this entire enterprise.

totally! I love keaton's speech - the way it's delivered and staged.

Ahahahahahahahaa

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/adambvary/spider-man-leaving-mcu-tom-holland-marvel-studios

Good luck with yr fucken Morbius movie you absolute nutsacks.

I’m sure they’ll pony up the dough

spider-man has died

Of dysentery

SONY letting Disney figure Spider-Man out for them and then walking away with Disney's ideas and not paying them for it – well, every writer, director, and animator in LA can see why that's funny, is all I'm saying.

— Ben Schwartz !¡!¡ (@benschwartz_) August 21, 2019

Do u really think Sony has wrapped its head around the formula, tho, because...I'm not convinced.

Venom >>>> basically all the MCU stuff I've seen tbh

i mean, no, but i respect where you're coming from on that one. it's a terrible movie but an extraordinary viewing experience.

the latter negates the former imho

absolutely! file under "i loved this, i want to see it again, and i wouldn't recommend it to anyone"

Venom was 40 minutes of entertainment and the rest was...a thing

Venom was a barely passable airplane movie. At least I could make out what Hardy was saying most of the time in it.

Oi u in pieces bruh

Simon, what percentage of the impetus for seeing Venom in the first place was the puckish, premeditated thrill of disseminating the notion that a widely-panned film was better than the entire MCU slate? 40%? 60?

Venom was decent

[Venom was a barely passable airplane movie. At least I could make out what Hardy was saying most of the time in it.]

^^^ Of the three leads, Riz Ahmed was the only watchable actor. Hardy's mumbled New York accent and constant "OMYGOD WHAT'S HAPPENING!?" made me yearn for Nic Cage's nuanced Johnny Blaze. Michelle Williams was low-key and seemed tranquilized. The FX were decent enough.

Problem was Upgrade was the same movie but 300 times better

sony pretty much made my favourite superhero movie ever with multiverse and one of my top 5 videogames ever with the ps4 spidey

Upgrade, featuring Other Tom Hardy, was great.

Oh I way preferred venom to upgrade

God I hate Disney bootlickers on Twitter

Simon, what percentage of the impetus for seeing Venom in the first place was the puckish, premeditated thrill of disseminating the notion that a widely-panned film was better than the entire MCU slate? 40%? 60?

uh, no percent. I heard it was batshit and endearingly dumb and it was. also, Riz-as-Musk getting owned was pretty cathartic