All though I have not watched the movie itself I think it is just awsome. It is more than the "Matrix", I am an animation student and I know what goes into producing such realistic pictures. This is more than I anticipated. Thumbs up to the entire crew that worked on this production.

Great, depthy analysis--especially the Merchant-Ivory reference. Bravo.

If someone were to suggest that the Spider-Man Comics themselves be made a collection of photographs of models, live backgrounds, and computer generated imagery - all supposedly living up to the same "spirit" of the originals - they'd be called crazy, fans would loath the concept and that would be the end of it. But do the same thing with the film version and suddenly it's regarded as the best possible adaptation. The idea of making the film a drawing (or a million of 'em) is rejected - sometimes harshly - by some of the same people who should most want a movie. I find it a little odd (and even a bit depressing) that an article for AWN mentions a live-action version of Spider-Man with such glowing terms. I was hoping to come to AWN and find opinions advocating the use drawn animation, but instead I find articles celebrating the lack of it. Comic book fans need to take a step back, turn away from the glare of the hype surrounding Hollywood Mega-Flicks and ask themselves if this is truly the best way to adapt the comics they know and love. If they think a live-action film can ever be "true" to the comic like a quality, respectfully made animated film could, they're kidding themselves. The Comic is drawn. Live-Action film is not. The quality of the filmmaking cannot change that fact and will *always* prevent live-action films based on comics from being what fans truly want. (Often without even realizing it!) If what matters is supposedly not the medium but only in how it's done as is always insisted, then why not embrace the concept of the "live-action comic" I describe above? Fans don't, and I don't know if anyone would. Film should be held to the same standard. But I do think that after the initial surge of live-action comic book films starts to die down in a few years an interesting evolution may occur. As more and more of the film becomes CGI, live actors might start to seem out of place, superfluous. The recent failure of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within notwithstanding, a 100% CGI film based on a comic will eventually emerge. Once that step's been taken, keeping the characters to the same proportions as real live people may seem pointless, so why not do as comic book artists do and idealize the characters? Maybe that would be the end of the process, and photorealistic CGI renderings of comic book art is as far as comic book films progress. But it could continue, pushing even closer to the visuals of the comic itself. Do away with the photorealistic textures and lighting, clean up and define the edges and get rid of the murkiness that's carried over by the look of the real world. And then try to get the actual look of artwork, the inking, the shading, the coloring. If CGI can pull off this look then Great! But maybe it won't be able to, in which case the best option is to abandon CGI and use actual drawing in an animated film. ...Say, didn't comic book fans consider drawn animation and reject it? It's a bizarre irony. The solution to what fans want is right here and available now for much less than what Hollywood regularly spends, but the Hollywood system is stacked against drawn animation and most movie goers claim disinterest. Even those who don't assume animation is for little kids stereotype it as the worst cliches of anime or some Bruce Timm stylized series (which look like the Flintstones only taller). Comic book fans may not be more than a tiny fraction of moviegoers, but they are the ones who can lead. What they find entertaining is what the average Joe may as well several years down the line. We're already seeing this with anime. As for audiences, they will accept what they accept. The big box office success of films based on comics doesn't come from any mainstream love of comics, but rather entertaining, well hyped movies created by the smoothly running, well oiled entertainment machine that Hollywood's become. Starved for ideas, Hollywood's latched onto comics' widely known properties that fit into the popular Sci-Fi, Action-Adventure genres and have struck gold. If the change is brought about slowly enough progressing from the CGI they love to the animation they don't-know-enough-to-love-but-should, then drawn animation (or at least the look of it) will have been brought back and will succeed, even with mainstream audiences.

About the only really false note in the entire movie was Flash Thompson -- why did they decide that blonde, blue-eyed, big-man-on-campus, star athlete Flash Thompson would be best portrayed as a lumbering Gudio? A 'Guido' of course being a stereotypical Italian thug of outer Burrough origins. And 'Flash' really was; from his flying wedge hairdo to his cheap jewelry, he looked like he escaped from a viewing of STAYING ALIVE. On the other hand, his unnamed friend was Flash Thompson -- blonde, good looking, casully cruel. Did somebody just mess up the call sheets (blonde guy as Flash, big Italian guy from unnamed best friend) and nobody noticed? Steve Bennett