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Sony Pictures recently held an event in which 6-minutes of footage from Marc Webb's The Amazing Spider-Man screened. It seems like a lot of people are torn about this movie because Sam Raimi's vision is still fresh in everyone's minds. I'm actually incredibly excited for the movie and think Webb is a talented director that will bring audiences and fans something incredibly cool, new, and fresh.
I would have loved to see this footage for myself, but it just wasn't in the cards for me. So we have to go off of what other people have said about it, and live it through their words and descriptions. Having already read through them, the movie sounds like it will be pretty damn awesome. I was sold on the film early on, though. As a fan of Spider-Man I was excited to see another movie made through some fresh new talent.
Read everything over and tell us what you think!
First up we have a description from Omelete:
The six minutes of scenes that we've watched this weekend showed a really different Spidey from the first grade. The idea seems to show how Peter Parker already had a hero soul before having his powers: the first scene shows how he became enemy of the school bully, Flash Thompson: the bully is rubbing the face of a skinny boy in his food, when he sees Peter and says "take a picture of this, Parker!". Peter refuses and asks Flash that let his coleague go - just to become the target of a violent fight.
The next scene goes forward on time - when Peter seems to already have his powers - and shows him getting revenge on Flash, holding him by his shirt collar and acting in a similar manner as the bully, what gives him a visit to the the principal's office. Comes in scene the always wise - and fun - Uncle Ben(Martin Sheen). "Your bad behavior made me lose a day of work. What did I told you about power and responsability?", he argues with his nephew in the middle of the empty school. But Gwen Stacy(Emma Stone) comes. Satisfied with the scolding, Uncle Ben decides to mock him: "hey, isn't that the girl I saw on your computer? HEY! You're on his computer!", says with a smile, before leaving. Then a sequence that looks straight from (500) Days of Summer comes up, with Peter and Gwen flirting in an absolutely fun way, saying things that makes absolutely no sense. Stone is amazing as Gwen Stacy... looks like the character version of John Romita(senior) - and moves exactly like I imagined that Romita's Gwen would move.
Andrew Garfield Parker seems more serious, but his Spider-Man is exactly like in the comics. The action scenes ended the clip and showed him finding out about his powers, agile and making jokes all the time. Lot of the scenes were not finalized, showing the actor being trown in the air with cables and landing. The final sequences had Doctor Curt Connors(Rhys Ifans) and his arrogance, taking advantage of Peter knowledge(which appears in several scenes as the science genius he is on the comics, including working with his web-shoters and costume) to finalize his formula to grow a new arm. It doesn't take too long to see the Lizard, resulting from this experience, appearing in brief scenes(he is extremaly like the toy photos that have been around.)
This second description/review comes from Comic Book Movie:
There was a lot going on in the action packed teaser and while I can't remember the specific order or every single little snippet shown, I will do my best to describe the highlights to you. Surprisingly, there is no clear shot of the Lizard. We do see a close up of his eye and claws - both of which were incredibly deailed and looked fantasic - as well as several other action shots featuring the villain taking on Spider-Man in various locations (not to mention a very cool scene of his tail wrapping around the hero's neck in what appeared to be a sewer). However, this is arguably no bad thing, especially with another six months until the movie is released...we don't want to be spoiled with too much after all. What it lacked in Lizard, it more than made up for in Spider-Man. There are a lot of webswinging shots which really pop off the screen in 3D and the mix of practical and CGI is blended seamlessly. The "money shot" can be seen at the end of the trailer as the top of what appears to be the Oscorp building starts to collapse as an unmasked Spider-Man runs for cover after battling the Lizard up there too from what we saw of their confrontation. The scene shown at last year's San Diego Comic Con of Peter waiting in the back of a thugs car was shown, and yes, he does have the black eyes at this point (however, it would appear this was due to the lighting rather than any other specific reason, although I have a feeling this WILL be elaborated upon in the film itself). There are plenty of wisecracks and the mask actually moves when he speaks - thankfully eliminating the extremely false sounding moments in the past films where the audio was quite clearly dubbed over. This was a really fun sequence which really separates it from the Sam Raimi's helmed movies. You wanted a faithful take on the character? Well, this lifelong fan of the character would say that THIS is it. There's some quieter scenes too, including Peter finding his father's old bag, hunting down Curt Connors and finding his way to Gwen's apartment by landing on the fire escape outside. The dinner with the Stacy's first glimpsed in the teaser trailer sees Peter suggest that the menace Spider-Man is doing what he police can't, something that doesn't sit well with Captain Satcy who we later see declaring him an outlaw. All in all the 3D was, well, amazing. There were no POV shots, but there WERE plenty of other scenes which convinced me that it will be worth forking out the extra few pounds for a 3D ticket. Even the regular scenes in the Parker household really pop and while it may be too early to say this, I honestly can't recall seeing better 3D footage since Avatar back in 2009...this was better! One other thing which really grabbed my attention was Peter building his wshooters and then activating them, resulting in a blue light which also flashed as they're used - it works brilliantly.
As if it couldn't get any better, Marc Webb then revealed that he had one more surprise for those lucky enough to be in attendance. A reel of footage (in 2D due to the fact that they're stil working on it) which would feature a handful of unfinished scenes, but plenty of other never before seen moments too. It played very much like a trailer and started with Flash Thompson beating up a kid and telling Peter to take a photo of it. He refuses and receives a beating for his troubles (to which he has a witty comeback - "I'm still not taking that picture"). The next scene was the one shown at last year's San Diego Comic Con, an exchange between Peter, Uncle Ben and Gwen in which the chemistry between the three in their respective scenes eith one another is clear. We also saw an extended version of the scene in the car, this time featuring Spider-Man getting on his knees and begging the thug not to use his knife on him. What happens next? He uses his webbing to make a fool of the guy, pretending to sneeze at one point and throwing it like a baseball only seconds later. This was very, very funny and while some fans may think this sounds as if Peter is being portrayed as arrogant while in costume, i assure you hat it doesn't come across that way. A motorcycle cop pulls up behind him as the scene moved on and he fires off a couple of shots before Spidey dodges them with ease and jumps over him. We also see Peter testing his powers out in an abandoned warehouse, struggling at first and later perfecting them as he skateboards through the city. There were a lot of negative comments from fans when Garfield was spotted with a board but it works very well here and is a fun way of showing off his new powers. This footage also confirmed that it is Captain Stacy who unmasks Spider-Man (part of this IS shown in the trailer but it isnt quite so clear) and that he is handcuffed when it happens. Moments before a helicopter shoots something which seemingly immobilises him, thereby allowing this to happen. He escapes, fighting off the police despite literally having both hands tied behind his back. Later on, a confrontation between Spider-Man and the Lizard reveals via voiceover that Peter may have helped create him by assisting Connors with the experiment to regain his arm (removed convincingly by CGI and then growing back again). One of the unfinsihed sequences saw the Lizard attack Van Atter's car, only to be thrawted by Spider-Man who saves several of the vehicles from being throwfront the bridge. It was at this later point in the reel of footage that we were shown a facial shot of the Lizard as he climbed up the top of a building in pursuit of Spider-Man and he looks EXACTLY like the Pez dispensers, concept art and various toys we've seen. Whether he had a snout wasn't clear (more on that below) but it looked to me like a regular humanoid face and not the animalistic version associated with artists such as Todd McFarlane.
Next up is a description from Comingsoon:
Before they got to questions, they showed the new 3D trailer, which begins with an amazing helicopter shot of New York City in 3D and we see Spider-Man swinging up onto a fire escape and landing outside Gwen Stacy's window and she asked him how he got there, because they're twenty stories up. It then shows a scene of Peter looking at a valise that his uncle Ben says belonged to his father and his Aunt May (Sally Field, looking very young compared to previous incarnations) tells him his father was a very secretive man. Peter then goes to see Dr. Curt Connors and we see a bit of his transformation into the Lizard, as well as a scene of Spider-Man stopping a car thief. As he breaks into a car, Spider-Man is sitting in the back seat and he makes a joke that if he's going to steal cars, not to dress like a car thief. When the thief asks if he's a cop, Spidey retorts, "You seriously think I'm a cop? In a skintight red and blue suit?" (We'll see more of this scene later as well.) A lot of the trailer shows how Gwen's father Captain Stacy, played by Dennis Leary, is trying to get Spider-Man, sort of making him a secondary antagonist, as he puts a warrant out for Spider-Man's arrest. (Later, we'll also get to see some idea why Stacy is so against Spider-Man.)
We didn't get to see that much of the Lizard in the trailer, just snippets to give us some idea of how CG is being used to create him, but Peter states he has to stop The Lizard "because he created him." The trailer ends with a scene of Spider-Man trying to escape as a giant radio antenna at the top of a building comes crashing down. The tagline for the new trailer of course is "The Untold Story Begins," driving home the point this is a relaunch in the Batman Begins vein.
The real fun came with the extended sizzle reel, which expanded on many of the scenes we saw in that new trailer and gave us a much clearer idea of what to expect from the movie, showing a good mix of drama, action, story, characters… everything really. This wasn't just a quick glimpse of footage but instead was made up of full never-before-seen scenes shown in what seems like a logical chronological order to give us a good idea of the film's story structure.
The footage began at Parker's school, "Midtown Science High School," as Parker sees Flash Thompson torturing a smaller kid in the playground and he tells Peter to take a picture, but when he refuses, Flash pushes him to the ground and starts beating on him, but Peter says he's still not taking the picture. When asked about it, Peter says he fell off his skateboard, and we see more bullying of Peter at school before he lashes out and slams Flash into lockers. We then see him being reprimanded by Uncle Ben for fighting, and when his uncle sees Gwen standing in the background, he embarrasses his nephew by asking if that's the girl he has on his computer and says he's Peter's probation officer. Embarassed, Peter has an awkward conversation with Gwen that gives us a good sense of the dynamics between them as well as the strong dialogue we can expected. He ultimately ends up asking her out as the Coldplay ballad "Til Kingdom Come" starts playing in the background and they go their separate ways.
This then transitions into a black and white flashback of Peter as a young boy with his parents (including Campbell Scott as his father Richard), then we get a little more of the scene from the trailer where Peter finds his father's valise and his father says he asked them to keep it safe for them. In the extended footage, we see the contents of the valise which includes a picture of his father with Curt Connors, and we then get a much better introduction to Ifans as Connors, who talks about the fact that he's missing his right arm, saying he's a scientist and the "foremost authority on reptiles," and that he is hoping to fix himself.
