Posted on 05/02/2007 9:44:55 AM PDT by SirLinksalot
Spider-Man 3" begins with Spider-Man, a.k.a. Peter Parker, surveying the crime-free paradise he has created in the big city. Not only do criminals fear him, but the public finally sees him as the hero he wants to be. To top it all off, Peter is about to propose to the girl of his dreams, Mary Jane Watson, aka M.J.
There's trouble in paradise, however. Peter is getting a big head from all the public adulation, and he is not able to properly comfort M.J. when she gets a bad review after her opening night on Broadway. Meanwhile, a new, cocky photographer, Eddie Brock, challenges Peter for a full-time job with the Daily Bugle. The cost of getting the job is to give crusty editor J. Jonah Jameson a negative photo of Spider-Man doing something bad!
Then, when Peter's relationship with M.J. starts to turn more and more sour, a new villain shows up, an escaped criminal named Flint Marko who gets caught in a particle physics experiment gone wrong to become the Sandman. The Sandman is a really cool-looking character who can change his shape into a battering ram or shifting sand particles, or float away as a sand storm.
As if Peter Parker and Spider-Man didn't have enough problems, Peter's old friend Harry takes up the Green Goblin mantle to get revenge for the death of his father, the first Green Goblin, who was killed during a fight with Spider-Man. And a meteor from outer space unleashes an intelligent alien monster of malevolent, black sticky goo that attaches itself to one of Peter's Spider-Man outfits. When Peter learns that the Sandman, Flint Marko, is really the one who killed Peter's beloved Uncle Ben in the first movie, the new black suit unleashes all of Peter's anger and hate. Thus, the greatest villain of all turns out to be Peter's, and our, own dark, sinful hearts.
The story builds from here into a thrilling finale where Peter learns the true meaning of love and the power of forgiveness. In the end, he finds a way to make things right again, but with a newfound level of maturity.
It's hard to juggle more than one major villain in a story, and this may be where "Spider-Man 3" suffers most. It gives the movie one or two too many sub-plots to handle. That said, of all the action movies with more than one major villain (see "Batman 2" and "3," for example), "Spider-Man 3" does the best, because it knows where it's headed and what it wants to say.
Thus, the final third of "Spider-Man 3" contains overt Christian references to Jesus Christ on the Cross, a Christian church and answered prayers. These combine to reinforce the movie's Christian themes of love, sacrifice, forgiveness, hope, compassion and faith. Consequently, despite a couple scary villains that are a little too much for younger children, "Spider-Man 3" has a very strong Christian worldview with very strong moral, biblical values. If Christians and families see only one action movie this year, "Spider-Man 3" is the one action movie they and other moviegoers may not want to miss.
Best of all, not only does "Spider-Man 3" extol Christian values like sacrifice, forgiveness and love in a setting that resonates with overt Christian metaphors and symbols, it also is a cinematic embodiment of Jesus Christ's statement in John 15:13, "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." This is a lesson that both Peter and M.J. learn in "Spider-Man 3." It is also what Jesus does for us on the Cross, so that His death may wash us free of sin and bring us closer to Him and His precious love and joy in the Kingdom of God and Heaven.
--------------------------------------------
MOVIEGUIDE® is dedicated to redeeming the values of Hollywood by informing parents about today's movies and entertainment and by showing media executives and artists that family-friendly and even Christian-friendly movies do best at the box office year in and year out.
Ted Baehr and Tom Snyder are founder and editor, respectively, of "MOVIEGUIDE®: The Family Guide to Movies & Entertainment."
Good quote. But we should note the Gospel of Thomas didn’t make it into the canon.
Editors. Hmph.
Even with the heroes known you need to write a movie for a “clean” audience, one that doesn’t know the characters before hand. Otherwise you get into the problem with X-Men 3 where they had somebody show up for 30 seconds to use their powers then never be heard from again, sure the hardcore X-Men fans recognized the characters when the power got used and could comprehend their place in the story but for the rest of the audience it was a serious case of “who’s that, what can they do, where’d the go”. Then you have another problem, with so many of the characters involved in movie franchises already you’d need to figure out how Secret Wars fits in the other movie series, will the Spidey in the Secret Wars movies be the same Spidey that’s in the Spiderman movies, if yes will the next Spiderman movie be pre or post Secret Wars, will any subsequent Spiderman movie be post Secret Wars; and the same set of questions need to be dealt with for all the characters heroes and villains alike. Movie companies have no practice managing things like that.
but for the rest of the audience it was a serious case of “who’s that, what can they do, where’d the go”.
No doubt that was true for a portion of the audience, but I would hazard a guess that the true success of the films was decided by said hardcore fans. It's people my (our?) age in their early to mid 30's that are making these films successful because it was us who grew up on this stuff.
More looking forward to The Dark Knight. Batman Begins may have been the best comic book movie ever. Spidey 2 was very good.
So I suppose they're not going to name this black goo? It's called Venom and has been around for over 20 years, long before TNG came out.
At least somebody else remembers Venom. Thank you. I thought I was the only one staring at the TV screen thinking they’ve gone back 25 years for a storyline
“Skin of Evil”
But even with us (37) we haven’t necessarily stayed current. Remember the comic industry regularly does ret-cons and semi-reboots. The version of Spidey I grew up reading wasn’t really the same as the version Stan and Jack made before I was born and neither is the same as the Spidey they’re writing in the comics now and none of them are the same as the Spidey in the movies, heck they’re even doing a bit of ret-con in this movie making Sandman the guy who killed Uncle Ben. Which is part of why you always have to do the character introductions. Even if eveybody in the audience is fans of the comics they’re going to be fans from different eras who have learned different histories of the characters none of which will exactly match what they’re doing in the movie.
I just don’t see Scret Wars as doable, it’s a great story but it’s so horribly over complicated, and I’m not sure how much of a following it has. There’s really one generation of comic book geek that knows the story so it won’t have much of an audience. It was a great story but I think it’s going to remain where it is, in the past and in paper.
Well, there is this one part.
In the orginal, Brock went to Church seeking salvation then got transformed by the symbiote.
In the movie, he went to pray to God so that God would smite
Peter then got the symbiote.
Of course, I took this from Wiki. Grain of salt and all that.
This deserves a “SPOILER ALERT”!
At least in parts 1-2 it was a real conundrum considering that his very connection to her puts her life at risk.
Tough choice, get the love of your life and subject her to peril 24/7 or go lonely but she’ll be safe from harm.
And please, please, keep him white. GL was originally an anglo. I had no idea who in hell thought it was a good idea to change the skin color of a major character?
It’s as bad as making Shaft or Spawn a white man. These heroes are made in a certain manner and they should be left as such.
“At least in parts 1-2 it was a real conundrum considering that his very connection to her puts her life at risk.
Tough choice, get the love of your life and subject her to peril 24/7 or go lonely but she’ll be safe from harm.”
If you are a big fan of Spiderman, maybe thats how you see it. I found it annoying, especially before he realized what he had ‘become’.
Anyway, I’ll see it when it hits cable, or pick up the DVD.
YMMV. What’s your kind of movie? ;)
Spiderman, spiderman. Does whatever a spider can...
I’d answer, but I’m afraid you’ll ‘web me’....(chuckle)
I like action movies as much as the next poster. Popcorn for the mind is a good thing in moderation.
There’s more than one Green Lantern.
First Green Lantern was Hal Jordan. Then he went nutso for awhile after Coast City was attacked (destroyed, IIRC), becoming a villain called Parallax. After he was brought down, he spent some time as the Spectre.
Meanwhile, a number of other people took their hands at the mantle of GL: John Stewart (the black guy) and Kyle Rayner (another white guy, but with black hair). Remember that there is an entire organization of Green Lanterns.
Less than two years ago, Hal finally became the Green Lantern again.
So it wasn’t as if Hal was turned into a black guy.
I'm presuming you saw the movie and are just trying to be humorous.
If you saw the movie and are being completely serious, then I have to ask: Did you just miss some stuff, or are you the superficial type who blocks out everything about a movie but the fight scenes and hot chicks?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.