the two things that Sam Raimi omitted from Spider-Man

There are two items of negligence by director Sam Raimi from the first Spider-Man movie.

1) Spider-Man is one of those repressed freaks that no matter what he is like without the mask, he is not given to just let fly with whatever it is he is thinking, unless under some circumstances. More importantly whatever Peter Parker is, Spider-Man exploits all the freedom of anonymity and makes wisecracks and jokes and such a for a variety of reasons, but he does it constantly. How many jokes and cracks did Spidey make in the first movie? I recall that one when he webbed JJJ’s mouth shut. Very little aside from that. There was some levity in the dialogue when Spidey rescued Mary Jane the first time but aside from the flirting with his love interest Spidey just wasn’t personally funny.

2) When Spider-Man is drawn by Steve Ditko (and the first two Spider-Man movies are loosely based on the Ditko creations), all of his combat is based on acrobatics. He is always moving, always hyperkinetic, and always the kind of opponent for a dude on a flying sled. The Green Goblin maneuvers and tosses grenades. The Vulture flies and Spidey swings up and at ‘em. The point is: Spidey’s fights involve aerobatics of sorts. He leaps, jumps, kinetics, dodging. Remember the train fight from Spider-Man 2? That was Spider-Man! For the most part the first Spider-Man movie’s fight scenes consisted of Spidey standing on the Goblin’s sled and going toe-to-toe punch-for-punch sorts of combat. “Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots”-sort of stuff. There was even the last fight where Spidey got whupped for nothing.

One could make many rationalizations for it, but these things are omissions.

These are what Spidey is. These are major aspects. This was the first Spider-Man live action production in over twenty years. Most importantly, there wasn’t going to be a second shot for years and these things were about seven dollars a show. For all of that, I want what Spider-Man is, and I want it the first time!

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