Home Entertainment Amazing Spider-Man plot details emerge from Tokyo press conference

Amazing Spider-Man plot details emerge from Tokyo press conference

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Stars Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone, as well as their producers recently hosted a press conference in Tokyo to promote their upcoming Amazing Spider-Man reboot. The press conference can be found in it’s 57 minute entirety below, but since I know most internet users have the attention span of a fruit fly, you can find the choice quotes from the affair (courtesy of Collider) below that.

 

Producer Avi Arad was questioned on what sets this reboot apart from what the  Tobey Maguire films did before:

“In our movie, [Peter] finds his true love. Gwen Stacy was always the true love of Peter Parker… We found a very, very good story about what makes a human being. About what sets their destiny.”

Which, to be quite honest, does not sound like much a difference to me. Most folks, outside of comic geeks, had never even heard of Gwen Stacy and just assumed that Mary Jane Watson was Peter’s true love. Who he also kind of “found” in the Sam Raimi directed trilogy.

Arad then elaborated on the relationship between Peter, Gwen and Dr Curt Conners aka The Lizard:

“We introduce our villain, Dr. Connors, and in the great tradition of Marvel, Dr. Connors is going to be connected to Peter Parker and, in our case even more interesting, to Gwen Stacy. Right there, the challenge of having to deal with a villain who is a mentor and the only one who you can look at and say, ‘So what really happened to my dad?’ That’s a very hard person to fight.”

Once again, this is not striking me as all that new, as in the previous films, Willem Dafoe’s Norman Osborn was an almost scientific mentor to Peter. The only curveball is that the Lizard is now apparently involved in the death of Peter’s father somehow.

As I mentioned in an earlier article, one very positive impression I am getting from the film was that they appeared to be relying on way more practical effects, actually using Andrew Garfield in the suit, as opposed to the CGI Spider-Man we saw so much of in the earlier films. Garfield actually spoke about this at the conference as well:

“As you can see, a lot of the stunts are practical and grounded in reality. That was something that Marc [Webb], the director, really wanted to make sure happened in this movie to set it apart from previous ones… I would exhaust myself every day and get into near-death experiences every hour on the hour… I collaborated with [the stunt team] not only on the big stunt set-pieces but also on what happens to Peter’s body when he gets bitten. What happens to his DNA and how that effects the way he moves and the way he interacts with objects. The idea that he has spider DNA running in his system. What that will do to his sense of space. What that will do to the sensitivity of his skin. To have an opportunity to play in that forum with creative and talented people was a real opportunity and gift.”“You don’t want to know! You want to watch the movie and find out. Plus, it would be weird if we were like, ‘There’s something iconic coming up!’ You’ve got to decide if it’s iconic or not. But there is a nice first kiss and it’s different than the upside down one. And we liked it.”

I think this is a brilliant approach, and will probably the defining difference between Maguire and Garfield’s Spider-Man. All the footage or images we’ve seen thus far has shown this off, and it looks great.

And then finally, Emma Stone was asked about whether or not there will be a kiss in this film to mirror the iconic upside-down kiss between Toby Maguire and Kirsten Dunst in the original:

“You don’t want to know! You want to watch the movie and find out. Plus, it would be weird if we were like, ‘There’s something iconic coming up!’ You’ve got to decide if it’s iconic or not. But there is a nice first kiss and it’s different than the upside down one. And we liked it.”

Which is short-hand for “we just had a normal kiss”.

I’m still of the opinion that a reboot was never needed, however the cast for this one is magnitudes better, in my opinion, and I’m intrigued to see what they can bring to the table. Or wall, so to speak.

Last Updated: January 19, 2012

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