"Amazing Spiderman" kind of contradicts its message

[Trinket to Ride]

I've spent the last few days catching up on movies I've been meaning to see, and one of them was the recent Spiderman reboot. For the most part, I liked it, but they made a change to the origin story that I didn't like at all.

Spoiler: Spoilers? (I mean, its Spiderman, you probably already know what's going to happen)

The part where Uncle Ben dies. For those who didn't see it/need a refresher, Peter is in a convenience store when he sees it get robbed. As the criminal is running, Peter refuses to help stop him, because the clerk in the store was being an asshole. Instead, Uncle Ben tries to intervene when he sees the criminal has a gun. It doesn't go well, Ben gets shot, the criminal gets away, and Peter loses another father figure.

Now, if Uncle Ben hadn't tried to be a hero, and had just let the criminal keep running (especially after seeing that he's armed,) all that would have happened that night is the convenience store losing about $200. But instead, he gets himself killed, and the bad guy gets away anyway.

That was my biggest gripe with the movie. That and some completely unnecessary bad CGI (seriously, it probably cost ten times as much to animate that spider walking across the wall than it would to just catch a spider, let it go, and film it walking.)

I just felt like telling someone.

So anyway, use this thread to talk about Amazing Spiderman, the specific scene I brought up, or other hypocritical moments in your favorite films.

 

[FavouriteDream]

Spoiler: Spoilers? (I mean, its Spiderman, you probably already know what's going to happen)

The part where Uncle Ben dies. For those who didn't see it/need a refresher, Peter is in a convenience store when he sees it get robbed. As the criminal is running, Peter refuses to help stop him, because the clerk in the store was being an asshole. Instead, Uncle Ben tries to intervene when he sees the criminal has a gun. It doesn't go well, Ben gets shot, the criminal gets away, and Peter loses another father figure.

Now, if Uncle Ben hadn't tried to be a hero, and had just let the criminal keep running (especially after seeing that he's armed,) all that would have happened that night is the convenience store losing about $200. But instead, he gets himself killed, and the bad guy gets away anyway.

I think the point was to show that if you don't act initially and stamp out injustice when you see it, you are opening the door for someone weaker or less prepared than you to try to clean up your mess and they may suffer because of your inability to act.

But I do agree with you, it's kind of a messy sequence. The Tobey Maguire film did it better I think, he let a gunman go and the gunman ended up killing Uncle Ben in an unrelated incident. There is less contradiction there.

 

[Vault101]

I think the point was to show that if you don't act initially and stamp out injustice when you see it, you are opening the door for someone weaker or less prepared than you to try to clean up your mess and they may suffer because of your inability to act.

or that you shouldn't be petty because that "bad thing" you let happen could hurt somone...and it both cases it hurt Peter

OT: ok kind of unrelated but does anyone remember the Richie Rich film with Mcauly Caulkin? becase THAT is literlaly undermining its own message

Richie is Rich (duh) but he doesn't have any freinds, the message here is that freinds are something you need regardless of how much money you do/don't have

so Richie tries to connect with a bucnh of working class kids by engaging in one thing they have in common...baseball makes sense right?

except the kids basically tell him to fuck off....becauses...he's rich? they assume he's snobby? (when he acts anything but, save for one part where he misunderstand the concept of "most kids don't have a 10 000 allownace)

riiight ok then, so how does he make freinds? well the group of kids come over to his house and play with his shit...

...seriously theres a montage of them on quad bikes, rollcer coasters, his own private mcdonalds, and theyre all complaetly enamoured with him..

now I get the "point" here was that they spend time with him and get to know him better, and its a kids movie do you want "kids doing cool things" except it reeeeeeaaaaly has some bad implications

if that wasn't bad enough when they go to leave one of the kids mentions they were offered $100 to come in the first place....but its ok right because they got to play with his toys?

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Spoiler: Spoilers? (I mean, its Spiderman, you probably already know what's going to happen)

The part where Uncle Ben dies. For those who didn't see it/need a refresher, Peter is in a convenience store when he sees it get robbed. As the criminal is running, Peter refuses to help stop him, because the clerk in the store was being an asshole. Instead, Uncle Ben tries to intervene when he sees the criminal has a gun. It doesn't go well, Ben gets shot, the criminal gets away, and Peter loses another father figure.

Now, if Uncle Ben hadn't tried to be a hero, and had just let the criminal keep running (especially after seeing that he's armed,) all that would have happened that night is the convenience store losing about $200. But instead, he gets himself killed, and the bad guy gets away anyway.

I think the point was to show that if you don't act initially and stamp out injustice when you see it, you are opening the door for someone weaker or less prepared than you to try to clean up your mess and they may suffer because of your inability to act.

I think they were going for that as well, but it would've worked way better if...

Spoiler

... Uncle Ben didn't go around trying to stop the bad guy, but rather get himself killed without doing anything in particular. Like in the original movie.

 

[Zhukov]

if that wasn't bad enough when they go to leave one of the kids mentions they were offered $100 to come in the first place....but its ok right because they got to play with his toys?

Okay, not that I've ever actually watched Richie Rich or anything, but wasn't the point of that whole affair that the kids were originally bribed (by the butler dude) to come visit, but they ended up getting to like Richie once they actually got to know him? Which is why they tried to shush that one kid when he asked for the $100.

 

[Vault101]

Okay, not that I've ever actually watched Richie Rich or anything, but wasn't the point of that whole affair that the kids were originally bribed (by the butler dude) to come visit, but they ended up getting to like Richie once they actually got to know him? Which is why they tried to shush that one kid when he asked for the $100.

that is true...yes

but the montage of playing with his stuff does not help

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Okay, not that I've ever actually watched Richie Rich or anything, but wasn't the point of that whole affair that the kids were originally bribed (by the butler dude) to come visit, but they ended up getting to like Richie once they actually got to know him? Which is why they tried to shush that one kid when he asked for the $100.

that is true...yes

but the montage of playing with his stuff does not help

Well, I approached the person that would go on to become my best friend simply because I noticed he had a Game Boy. You know how people are drawn to people with similar interests - for kids, all they're interested in is entertainment. So you always befriend the person you can play with because he likes what you like, and take it from there, ideally.