Picked up the old Spiderman animated series on DVD a couple years ago after seeing Spiderman II. Remembered loving the series as a kid, and thought I’d check it out again.
Big mistake. Those paper-thin plots may have been easily comprehensible to children, but they sure don’t hold much interest for adults. Just to give you an idea, episode in, episode out, the villain of the week cackles that soon – very soon – he’ll "rule the world".
Sorry, Rhino. Bone-head like you ain’t never gonna rule the world.
Still, there were a couple of bright spots. That jazzy late ’60s superhero music is cooler than ever. And J. Jonah Jameson – boy, is HE a hoot. Each week, no matter what Spiderman does, no matter how he saves the city, ol’ Jonah can be counted on to twist the facts in his efforts to portray Spidey as Public Enemy #1.
You just gotta admire the man’s consistency.
I only managed to get through one of the discs, but while watching it occurred to me that kids viewing the show everyday after school were actually being taught an important message from J.J.. Namely: Don’t believe everything you read in the papers. The people in charge of the mass media sometimes have their own agenda. Be skeptical.
Not a bad lesson for young folks, I’d say.
I mention all this because I recently saw Spiderman III a second time on IMAX at Miramar Village. Good fun, though I don’t think I walked away with anything deeper from it. It kind of is what it is.
Well, I did walk away with ONE thing. The thing that really struck me was the continuing presence of Uncle Ben. Usually with movies like this, the death of an important character serves as little more than a plot device; it’s there simply to provide motivation for the hero to become the HERO.
Consider Luke Skywalker. Did he give much thought afterwards to Uncle Owen, Aunt Beru or Biggs Starlighter? Maybe he did, but he sure looked happy at the end of A New Hope, considering that within the last few days he’d lost (1) his kindly mentor, (2) his foster parents, and (3) his best friend in the entire world.
Dunno about you, but I think I’d be a mess after all that. Even if I WAS getting a medal for blowing up the Death Star and saving half the galaxy!
The Parkers’ reaction to the death of Uncle Ben is quite different. Uncle Ben may have died three movies ago, but we STILL see him in flashbacks. Aunt May still talks about him. We get the sense that his tragic death has cut the heart out of this family. This character was important to them – he was loved. Uncle Ben’s gone, but not forgotten.
I expect some amount of silliness in a superhero movie, and Spiderman III did serve up its share of that. In its treatment of death however, I think there’s a certain maturity there that isn’t always to be found in movies of this genre.