The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Discussion [SPOILERS] and Contest

I think people have been getting more and more nitpicky over the years, and hold nostalgia up above everything else. I recently rewatched the Raimi Spider-Man and it made me cringe so much.

The puzzle piece metaphor fits my feelings about the movie perfectly. As soon as the movie was done, I said out loud that there was so much wrong with that movie but I still enjoyed it. Emotionally, the film hit a lot of notes, particularly with Aunt May and Peter Parker. The characterization is excellent. I'm pretty sure the downfalls in this film are based on the short-sightedness from the first film. There were foreshadowing opportunities that could have been laid out in the last movie that would have made the pacing flow better here.

I was pretty disappointed with the pointless Felicia character and I really wished they could have introduced more of the college life with Peter and Gwen but that stems from my love of Spider-Man: Blue.

Agreed it just seemed very cramped and rushed. However my stand out moment was Spidey helping out the kid with the bullies and walking him home. That scene made me tear up haha

Agreed haha

Hey everyone the contest side of this thread has ended, and I'll be contacting winners via PM shortly. Feel free to keep discussing the movie, though.

I finally got to watch the Amazing Spider-Man 2. Here's my discussion-review-thing.

And fair warning, it is dripping with spoilers.

Pre-first of all: I accidentally listened to the spoilers while working, as I was working outside of my truck and had the show going so I could hear it and could not stop what I was doing to turn it off. Nothing surprised me, as much of it was expected, but I did go into the movie knowing the many gripes and praises you guys had given it and I honestly think it shaped my viewing of the movie more than I thought it would, and strangely enough, it was in a positive way. Who knew being spoiled could be at all positive?
Either way, I was prepared for the mistakes you guys talked about and I searched for them and worked better to understand them, and thus, I came away really loving the movie.

First of all, and I understand many of the sentiments and concerns spoken on the podcast, but overall my thoughts lineup most closely with Bobby's in that, the good of the movie outweighs the bad. By a long shot.

Rob Liefield (who I don't consider a man of particular taste that I agree with or have. Really, just the fact that he draws women in such a way that I disagree with skews his opinion in a way that I must be convinced by him to agree. But that is neither here nor there and all that is relevant here is that I disagree with him. Not to seem too negative! [Sorry Steph!]) said on his Twitter feed before I watched the film that it was a present day Batman & Robin minus the bat-nipples. Now, that, in my humble opinion as a viewer and lover of comic book things, is a crass statement that completely ignores the central goodness of the film.

The good things, such as every scene with Peter and Gwen, or when Peter is saving someone (i.e. the kid with the turbine or Max) and his wit is charming and kind and uplifting. When he argues with Aunt May or tries to hide that he is Spider-Man and is bumbling about it, such as the moment with the cleaning the chimney. I really love the way Andrew Garfield accentuates that he's struggling to come up with a good cover up story by raising the tone of his voice to an almost falsetto. I actually found Electro more believable than that of the Green Goblin, but I understand that time constraints really worked against a proper exploration of why Harry becomes Goblin. And as to Electro having a suit so quickly, being that they have been working on soon-to-be Sinister Six stuff, I feel it makes sense that they would have a suit tailored to withstand electric shocks. This especially having worked with the electric eels and having begun studying Max and why he is what he is, they would want to find a way to do it again on someone who could be a weapon for them, as that is what they are doing. Creating weapons. And I actually didn't have that big of an issue with Peter's family stuff. I especially think the moment where Aunt May cries out that Peter is her child is a very powerful moment that couldn't have happened without Peter searching for truth about his parents. And I do find it interesting and fitting that his father's legacy, even though he feared it would be used for evil, is in fact his son. The Parker legacy is, completely and wonderfully, Spider-Man. Andrew and Emma work so well together that I can't bare the fact that this will be the last movie of them ever being Peter and Gwen together and in love.
My biggest gripes with the movie were the weird lines given to Electro, such as, when asked for his name, he says, "Oh, don't you know? I'm Electro.". Whenever he said that, I cringed. That was horrible. His change did make more sense to me than it did to you guys, only in that I think that he was on the edge already and he even admits that he has so much anger harbored inside of him. It would makes sense, to me, that after seemingly being humiliated (which is something that is enough to send almost any person over the edge) by the person he most cared for in the world that he would lose it, feeling finally utterly alone in the world. I think that's enough to break any person. And the moment that they are standing on the bridge--above Peter's lovely message he was concerned Gwen had missed--and all the power around begins to stop is a very powerful moment, one of the best I have seen as the entrance of a villain/major problem for the protagonist.
Another gripe I have with the movie is some of the weird music choices, though they didn't bother me quite as much as some, as I understood where they were coming from, having electronic music for an extremely electronic character.

The effects used for him in his electricity mode or whatever were actually a lot better than what I was imagining going in, so they didn't bother me.
Now, when it comes to Harry's turn, it's not that simple. He's scared of dying, yes, but why didn't Peter just say, "Hey, why don't we work on it together. We can find a way to make it work, to ensure that it doesn't kill you or do anything worse than that." Jayci pointed out to me afterwards, if Peter would not have searched Harry out in the first place, Gwen wouldn't have died, at least, not in that fashion. Now, she admitted that wasn't fair, but if Harry had never learned who Gwen Stacy was, would Goblin had tried to kill her? I also pointed out to her the terrible truth that, even though she was going to die anyway from the fall, it was the way that he caught her that killed her. Having known what was to come of her, and Jayci having been accidentally spoiled by my brother, Shelby, when he thought that we had just seen it when we missed it, new that she was going to die. I alone knew she was going to die horribly, though I wasn't sure how graphic it was going to be shown. Jayci was a nervous wreck the whole movie and by the end of it, told me she was actually glad she was spoiled because she wasn't sure that she could have made it through that ending without having been properly warned. Even though I knew it was coming, my hand went to my mouth and I could help but shed a few tears. The quiet moment, when Peter sticks the web to bar and crawls down to her, just like he had saved her anytime before was almost more than I could bare as I held tight to my fiancé's hand.
The only thing that made me think Batman & Robin throughout the entire movie was the weird puns and lines given to Electro, who I honestly was surprised to really enjoy as a character.
One last thing is the weird Rhino suit. I hope that is just considered a prototype and not the final build for the villain in movies to come. Other than that, I didn't mind him being in there. I actually thought it was a great way to end the movie, as it wouldn't have worked to leave it with just the death of Gwen Stacy, as I'm not sure people would have left at all excited about future installments.

Overall, I really enjoyed the movie. Honestly, I would rank it higher than the first one and would say it fights with Spider-Man 2 as to being my favorite Spider-Man movie. If the movie was only Peter and Gwen's banter and Spider-Man saving people and having fun and being the uplifting hero that he needs to be, I would still be saying the same thing. The moment I knew I was crazy about Garfield being Parker was when he flipped out about the kid building that turbine. It almost brought tears to my eyes in that very moment. I was the bullied kid as a child and that moment was...it was special to me.