Editorial: What Do You Do With A Problem Like Spider-Man?

Hey guys, remember that Spider-Man movie that came out a few years back? The one with the corny dialogue, the performance from Jamie Foxx that was god-awful? The one that made me yearn for the days of emo-Peter? Yeah, that thing happened. What year did that come out? 2012, right? Wait....this year??? TWO MONTHS AGO??? Huh. I forgot all about it. And I'm sure many moviegoers have too.

Or at least they did, until Roberto Orci (one of the two writers on The Amazing Spider-Man 2) made headlines this weekend about how he wasn't a part of the project, as well as not knowing the timeline for upcoming movies. Now, Orci was supposedly a major part of the creative force behind sequels to The Amazing Spider-Man, but due to his new job as director of the next Star Trek movie, I'd assumed he'd vamoosed from the wall-crawlers cinematic adventures. So really, is he the best guy to talk to when it comes to the future of this franchise?

That being said, it does give me a chance to really talk about the future of this once fruitful series, that has now deteriorated into a punchline (actual lines like "It's my birthday...Time to light up my candles" will do that). The main thing they have to fix: Peter Parker. They've essentially turned Andrew Garfields interpretation of the famous character into a Poochie version of Parker. Even in the first film (which I actually really liked), this was a problem, with them turning Peter into a loner and a rebel, but not having the guts to do anything interesting with it. His main sign of being a monster society can't control? He brings a skateboard to school! Scandalous! 

Still, that's nothing compared to what they've made him into in this sequel, in which students cheer Peter Parker kissing Gwen Stacy. Having fellow students cheer Peter Parker is pretty much like Superman killing someone; it goes against all that person stands for. Peter's supposed to be a socially challenged everyman, a meek fellow that unleashes more energy within his Spider-Man personality. Not only does this franchises take on Peter Parker betray the comics, but it commits the ultimate cinematic crime; it's boring. I can't relate to this dude, his quips aren't funny and because he stalks his ex-girlfriend (God almighty that bugged me), it's hard for me to relate to his romantic plotline, especially when his girlfriend just takes the stalking thing in stride.

Alrighty, we've got a boring protagonist, let's just make our villains terrible shall we? Curt Conners lacked depth in the first movie (why they dropped his wife and kid from the comics I'll never understand), but at least his lizard version was cool on a visual level. We spend huge chunks of time with Electro at the start of this movie, yet we never feel for him, especially since he doesn't even wind up doing much in the film. The fact that the big "Avengers"-esque event all these movies are leading up to involves combining six villains into one film just sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. You can't handle two bad guys (I'd count three, but Rhino was in TASM2 for like, 10 seconds), how can you handle six? You did an amazing job with The Cabin In The Woods, Drew Goddard, but I'm not even with you directing this project has a chance.

All of these frantic franchise endeavors stem from Columbia not only trying to retain the rights to Spider-Man and keep them from falling to Disney/MARVEL (at that studio, he'd be forced to team up with The Avengers, which would be a tragedy), but also to keep a consistent franchise going for the studio. But in order to fix up Spider-Man, they should take a cue from a franchise they already have a major hand in; James Bond. Just like 007, have Spidey go on numerous self-contained adventures, without some overarching goal like the Sinister Six looming over everything and then have actors trade the job of playing the character periodically. Boom. Ya gots yourself a film series for the ages.

Or you could just sell the rights to Disney/Marvel.