Why I Want Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 3 To Be Completely Forgotten Already

How long must we wait for a properly-handled black-suited Spider-Man movie that doesn't involve Tobey Maguire-Peter Parker's poorly-delivered "wisecracking" lines, cheesy musical dance moments, pointless retcons like Sandman being the true (though accidental) killer of Uncle Ben Parker in the 1st Spider-Man when it could've been the comic book burglar-like carjacker, potentially loose ends like Peter proposing to M.J. for marriage that never got resolved in the next following permanently shelved sequel(s), and a wimpy, miscast Topher Grace-Eddie Brock who became a less intimidating Venom and quickly die in the end without putting up a huge fight? Ever since The Amazing Spider-Man 2 came out at the start of this May before it instead opened to a disappointing worldwide gross of $708 million and surprisingly mixed reviews, I am shocked to learn how much of a huge debacle it was since then! And as the YouTube comment would say that "it makes Spider-Man 3 'a lot better'"! Are the YouTube reviewers saying that they "loved" Spider-Man 3 and that no matter how bad it was, they'll still see it like it were really real and keep calling it a Sam Raimi Spider-Man trilogy instead of DUOLOGY and say that it is "better" than the Amazing Spider-Man films (even though they have Andrew Garfield the best Spider-Man ever)!? Uh-uh! No way am I ever gonna see Spider-Man 3 as "canon" after I watch the 1st two which I liked! The Raimi films will NEVER be better than the Amazing Spider-Man movies for me if we view the most anti-climatic and WORST Spider-Man film ever made which upsettingly put an axe on the franchise without even a proper happy ending before the reboot happened! Don't care about the Harry Osborn-Goblin setup in Spider-Man 2 which makes Spider-Man 3 "necessary to watch"! That's what happened with the Jean Grey-Phoenix hint in X2 before next thing we know, it wasn't handled well in X-Men 3! The "New Goblin" subplot was greatly overshadowed by other subplots, anyway. And I DISAGREE about Peter (not dressed as Spider-Man!)'s fights with Harry the Goblin being one of the "greatest fights ever" (music felt out of place and not epic-y enough like Danny Elfman's, u know!)! Dane DeHaan, in MY view, is way better than James Franco's so-called Green Goblin! He looked like an actual goblin (almost as Willem Dafoe's cheap Goblin-like mask) and accomplishes things successfully unlike that whiny jerk! So it is most wise that we should SKIP Spider-Man 3 regardless of any resolution to Harry's vendetta on Spidey for Norman's death, which he does not shut up on! The Spider-Man 2 final swing closed the curtains on the Sam Raimi Spider-Man series (NOT "trilogy"! Yeah, I said it!) for me. I am glad that director Sam Raimi admitted that he was "very unhappy" with the way Spider-Man 3 had turned out. That I agree and he was right. Spider-Man 3 became very bad starting in the disrespectful "Who Killed Uncle Ben?" revelation part. And how dare he!? Robert Denerstein of the Rocky Mountain News says that Spider-Man 3 is a "satisfying conclusion"!!?? It most certainly is NOT! The Peter and Mary Jane sad dancing part is TOO DEPRESSING to close the entire Raimi trilogy! This movie completely LACKED all of the fun the 1st two had! Just like X-Men: The Last Stand and Blade: Trinity, both abysmal Marvel movie threequels that nearly hurt the 1st 2 fan-favorite ones! The only difference between this & Blade 3 and X-Men 3? Is that X3 was finally able to continue the story with The Wolverine and X-Men: Days of Future Past, with the latter erasing the so-called Dark Phoenix moment in The Last Stand which (spoiler alert) brought back Jean Grey and TRUE X-Men leader Cyclops from the dead! I truly wish that there was a DIRECT Spider-Man 4 that will redeem the 3rd one's mistakes and tie up loose ends so that we'll be completely behind it! But if Spider-Man 4 is never made because of "story issues," then we should best of all NOT mention or see Spider-Man 3 ever again! Doesn't matter if many video stores will keep selling Spider-Man 3 or include it in the "Spider-Man Trilogy" Blu-ray collection, neither of us will ever consider watching Spidey 3 if bought already! For it will always be a HUGE THORN to the well-acclaimed 2 chapters! Precisely why I decided to give away my Spider-Man 3 DVD and Blu-ray to the Richard & McKay's store! If X-Men: Days of Future Past was able to wipe out events that included X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, then that should have happened to Spider-Man 3! After all, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, Terminator 3 and Salvation, RoboCop 3, TMNT III, Jaws 2-4, and Superman 3 & 4 are awfully-bad sequels that are best forgotten like they NEVER happened! Spider-Man 3 being the highest-grossing Spider-Man film (due to its $890 million worldwide gross (*shudders*) and its massive $151 million opening) is like saying that it is a "good movie" and should be fully-recognized and not forgotten! God help us all. It needs to be DISCARDED from the top 50 highest-grossing films list like Indiana Jones 4 (earning the most money with over $786 million than the previous 3!) needs to be! I wish it was actually the 1st Spider-Man movie ($403 million domestically; $821 million globally) that is the #1 Spider-Man movie of all time! And that the #1 2007 movie in America should have been either Transformers ($319 million) or Shrek the Third ($322 million). You Sam Raimi Spider-Man lovers shouldn't keep acknowledging  Spider-Man 3 like you still "loved it" when I, for one, think that The Amazing Spider-Man 1 & 2 are a lot better than the INFERIOR Spidey threequel that does not deserve all of the recognition to the entire public when it has a lot of bothersome parts that we can't handle even if it had some oh-so-amazing highlighted moments! If we are to really erase Spider-Man 3 from existence, we should always remember the old Spidey flicks as TWO MOVIES, not as 3 movies! Just as we remember the classic Christopher Reeve Superman films as two instead of four. Besides, we shouldn't keep hating The Amazing Spider-Man; especially the latest Amazing Spider-Man 2! At least they all gave us the correctly-portrayed Spider-Man where Tobey Maguire failed to deliver by being way too serious, act so overemotional (crying for no reason since the bridge scene!), hardly mention anything "funny" when dressed as Spider-Man, and spend too much time as Peter Parker! As well as giving us a much more believable chemistry for both Peter and Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone all the way! Bryce Dallas Howard… boo!) before he would date Mary Jane Watson (who though after the uninteresting Kirsten Dunst?)! Andrew Garfield will always be my favorite Spider-Man despite how "flawed" the ASM movies really were!

This upcoming Venom spin-off helmed by TF/Star Trek/ASM 2 writer Alex Kurtzman is the reason why I want to pretend that the completely forced Venom in Spider-Man 3 is never real. But when I found out that it is possible that the Venom movie will be released BEFORE The Amazing Spider-Man 3 comes out in 2018, is Andrew Garfield's Peter Parker ever going to get a black suit before the arrival of Venom? Is Eddie Brock, this time NOT a wimpy and skinny comedy-related actor like Topher Grace, going to be bonded with the Symbiote to become a menacing Spider-Man knockoff anti-hero? If neither of them become a reality, then that would be a shame for me. How is it necessary for a Venom movie to come first prior to seeing the return of our favorite web-slinging hero in the next 4 years? Neither both The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Sinister Six showed any hint of Venom's appearance or the Alien Costume storyline. While Sony will probably not want to make a Spider-Man 3 rehash, even though I want a Spider-Man movie with the Alien Costume story done right, how are we ever going to see a black-suited Spider-Man on the big screen again (but with MORE screentime!) without getting crammed over by too much Peter Parker drama and unneeded "humorous" dance scenes that greatly ruined the excellent dark tone in the Symbiote subplot as the DECEITFUL teaser trailers have potentially depicted since 2006? And I know that there are others besides Eddie Brock who ever assumed the role of Venom with Flash Thompson being the example (popularly as "Agent Venom"), but I was hoping that the Eddie Brock character would be redeemed in the Amazing Spider-Man movie universe and make us forget about the Topher Grace fiasco since the controversial Deadpool-Weapon XI issue in the Wolverine Origins movie. If that won't be the case, then I may as well watch the well-handled Spider-Man: The Animated Series/Spectacular Spider-Man Venom episodes frequently to remain attached to the traditional Black Symbiote Spidey-Eddie Brock-Venom story. Sony had better reconsider that by releasing a Venom movie AFTER The Amazing Spider-Man 3 or 4!

My Favorite Summer Movies of 2014

My Top 10 favorite movies of Summer 2014:

1. Transformers: Age of Extinction - 18% (CinemaScore: A-)
2. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - 52% (CinemaScore: B+)
3. X-Men: Days of Future Past - 89% (CinemaScore: A)
4. Godzilla - 74% (CinemaScore: B+)
5. Guardians of the Galaxy - 91% (CinemaScore: A)
6. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes - 90% (CinemaScore: A-)
7. How to Train Your Dragon 2 - 91% (CinemaScore: A)
8. The Fault in Our Stars - 80% (CinemaScore: A)
9. Maleficent - 50% (CinemaScore: A)
10. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - 22% (CinemaScore: B)


Note: These percentages indicate how positive the critical reviews are, according to rottentomatoes.com. To learn more about CinemaScore, enter http://www.cinemascore.com/.

Welcome to George Mason University!

As of yesterday, I have now attended the George Mason University for this semester until in a few years before my graduation in 2016! The classes I am taking now are Intro to Digital Photography, Typography, History of Graphic Design, and New Majors Colloquium! I hope they're not gonna be as hard as I had anticipated since at least one of these classes require a lot of writing, an expectation that I would attend to one of the important events, and having deadlines that may sometimes be a little too soon to meet! But I hope to have a neat experience at GMU! Go Patriots!

Quick Review of 'Guardians of the Galaxy'

For once, I was expecting it to have a somewhat cheesy humor after seeing the 1st trailer, but I wasn't expecting this to be one of the best Marvel movies ever next to Captain America 2 and X-Men: DOFP this year! Even if it's not Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, or Hulk! This movie is exactly what the Green Lantern movie should have been when it comes to a sci-fi movie that is supposed to be mainly set in space! Warner Bros. and DC should definitely use this film as a reminder of how they should not make Green Lantern so awful it flopped miserably both critically and financially! Chris Pratt actually nailed his role as Peter Jason Quill, A.K.A. Star Lord (Who?) since his animated character Emmet from The LEGO Movie! I was skeptical at first, but seeing how Chris Pratt can act both serious and funny (this time, more believable) at the same time, that's what Ryan Reynolds completely lacked when he was Hal Jordan! In the first scene, I feel sad for Peter Quill when he was just a little kid who mourned over his beloved mother's death before he was abducted by the Ravagers, led by Yondu, where he would later become… Star Lord. Gamora, played by Avatar's Zoe Saldana, is one kick ass alien chick! From blue to green, she sure has a way of acting like a tough-as-nails woman! Love how she keeps kicking Quill in the balls during their first encounter! Ouch! Dave Bautista, Drax the Destroyer, could've had more character, but he sure is a tough wrestler and really displayed his emotions over the loss of his wife and daughter which led him to seek revenge to kill Ronan the Accuser, along with Thanos. Rocket Raccoon and Groot are the best characters in Guardians of the Galaxy! I'm glad I saw that movie just for them! They absolutely stole the movie! Never knew that The Hangover's Bradley Cooper would sound that hilarious when playing an obnoxious Raccoon-like alien thief! Vin Diesel is awesome as the tree-like alien Groot even if he had only one major speaking line ("I am Groot"). But what a noble sacrifice he made to save the other Guardians. "We are Groot." I was scared that Groot was gonna die when it's just too soon to kill off such a popular Guardian of the Galaxy. Though I was relieved when I saw Groot as a tiny branch seedling on a pot, similar to his comic book counterpart, who was last seen dancing when Drax is not looking at him. So that means Groot is back, baby! Nothing can tear the Guardians of the Galaxy apart! Let's see how Mark Ruffalo's Hulk can take on Groot if the Avengers ever make an encounter with the Guardians of the Galaxy!
Now, to analyze the other things I noticed which connects all of the movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Thanos (the one who gave Loki the Chitauri army in The Avengers) is clearly one threatening big bad villain thanks to the amazing Josh Brolin; even more dangerous than Lee Pace's Ronan the Accuser. Can't wait to see more of him in The Avengers 3 once we are done dealing with Ultron next summer. The Orb, a main plot device Macguffin of this film, is one of the "Infinity Stones" that were used to power up the Infinity Gauntlet, a powerful glove-like weapon that Thanos plans to use to control the entire universe. So the Infinity Stones we have seen so far are the cube-like Tesseract ("Space"), the Aether ("Reality"), the Scepter ("Mind"), and the Orb ("Power"). What we need now is to see the remaining stones, Time and Soul, in any one of the Phase 3 films and what kind of forms that they might take. After the credits, although a little brief and somewhat doesn't make sense even in a funny way, is… Seth Green's Howard the Duck! But at least this strange new CGI-animated alien duck among the Collector's relics is better than the badly-written 5-time Razzie Award-winning Howard the Duck movie back in 1986. So Universal did the right thing giving the Howard the Duck character rights back to Marvel after having a massive failure with their infamous duck character. But I doubt that we'll be seeing him again in any of the Marvel films when one was enough already. It probably would've been better if we actually had a mid-credits scene where Nebula, though injured, returns to her father-figure and master Thanos, where she reports to him that the Orb is now lost after his most trusted associate and traitor Ronan is now dead. Thanos would then reply that it won't matter, for he is now a little more concerned with finding the last 2 remaining Infinity Stones hidden somewhere while plotting to retrieve the other 4 Stones currently in possession on Asgard, Knowhere, Xandar, and Earth.
I'm glad that I got to see this lesser known Marvel movie set in the world of Avengers! It really balanced the action and bizarre humor really well thanks to the unique direction of Slither's James Gunn! Even if it could've worked as a Phase 3 movie since it has nothing to do with Avengers: Age of Ultron! I'll be looking forward to see a sequel if it means waiting until May 2017! I doubt this year's TMNT will stand a chance against GotG at the box office during its 2nd week of this August!

The Fantastic Four Movies Should Go Back to Marvel! Scrap the Reboot Plan!

Seven years we hardly had a Fantastic Four movie. SEVEN YEARS! What is Fox thinking about keeping the Fantastic Four rights just by makin a reboot, already scheduled for next summer!? Look at the box office gross of F4: Rise of the Silver Silver (only $289 million worldwide on a $130 million budget) compared to the 1st one ($330 million on a $100 million budget) back in 2005! And why plan a sequel already for 2017 when it's obvious no one's going to appreciate Josh Trank's new vision of the Fantastic Four!? Since the delay was so long between ROTSS and the F4 reboot, I think the F4 rights should have gone back to Marvel/Disney already! That way, we could have a more proper Fantastic Four movie (set in the world of Avengers), and the Dr. Doom, Silver Surfer (his overall origins and source of power, I mean) and Galactus (needs to be portrayed NOT AS A GIANT CLOUD!) characters done right!

Once I learn that the Human Torch, brother of the Invisible Woman (CAUCASIAN WHITE!), is being played by fellow Chronicle star Michael B. Jordan (a BLACK person!) and that the F4 reboot will have a "found-footage feel" (similar to Josh Trank's 2012 sleeper hit Chronicle), I suddenly have extreme mixed feelings. While the 1st 2 Fantastic Four films from Barbershop and Ride Along director Tim Story are not that great, I think the casting of the 4 cosmic radiately-powered heroes (Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans (CAPTAIN AMERICA!), and Michael Chiklis) are MUCH BETTER than the so-so casting of their reboot counterparts (Miles Teller (hmmm), Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan (boo!), and Jamie Bell (huh!?))! Regardless if the reboot is likely based on the Ultimate Fantastic Four comics! But come on! While their acting is okay, at least the Tim Story version of the heroic foursome GREATLY RESEMBLED the Fantastic Four comic book/animated show characters compared to their Josh Trank selves! Especially Michael Chiklis, who I think has the best physique and resemblance of Ben Grimm/The Thing unlike Jamie Bell who just felt a little too scrawny to be the Thing even with a little help of motion-capture and CGI! Now for Johnny Storm, A.K.A. the Human Torch, he was a lot better as a WHITE person! Big mistake changing the hot flamin show-off by letting Michael B. Jordan sign up for this! We don't care if Josh Trank had fun with this young African-American in their first breakout movie! Now how are Johnny and Susan going to be REAL siblings!? Chris Evans will forever remain to be the best Human Torch besides being a great Captain America! Flame on! Kate Mara, the sister of Rooney Mara, seemed beautiful enough to be Susan Storm who can turn invisible and create force fields. She's the only star that I don't mind since she's almost like her comic book character. Just as long as she does better than the oh-so-pretty Jessica Alba who almost won a Razzie for Worst Movie Actress. Miles Teller, I don't know. He's a little too chubby to be Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic. I doubt that the star of The Spectacular Now and Divergent has the scientific 

personality and the look of Ioan Gruffudd's stretchable team leader of the Fantastic Four. For Dr. Doom, Toby Kebbell appears to be a decent actor since Wrath of the Titans and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, but is he going to be better than Julian McMahon's Dr. Doom character (he could have been more threatening without his cheesy voice)? The reboot had better not ruin the image of the Fantastic superhero quartet!

I hope that once the Fantastic Four reboot comes out next year on August 7th, it will probably perform LESS in between Fantastic Four 1 and 2 (pulling a "franchise fatigue" stunt since the Spider-Man/Amazing Spider-Man films) due to the initial mixed fan reactions to the reboot's overall concept! No matter how much money it makes whether its budget is higher/lower than the original F4 films' budgets of $100 million and $130 million or how it better performs overseas, fans might still say NO to another Fantastic Four movie like Fox is just attempting to "milk the franchise" until it's dried out. If the critical and/or financial results are disappointing at most in every film, Josh Trank and Fox would have no choice but to CANCEL production for any more Fantastic Four reboot sequels despite one being scheduled for June 9th, 2017 already! Fox is much better off owning just the X-Men after losing the rights to Daredevil (a new 13-episode Netflix TV series of the "Man Without Fear" is being made for Marvel) 2 years ago! The X-Men movies (now up to 7 films (if you count 2 Wolverine films) with a grand total of over $3 billion!) are more known to fans than Fantastic Four, anyway.

What is Happening to the 'Amazing Spider-Man' World?

I cannot believe this. Treated badly in a similar vein as Iron Man 2 and Quantum of Solace. Just when I thought things were going so well as, I for one, ENJOYED The Amazing Spider-Man 2 after my completion in the final History 102 exam at the start of this May! How can this anticipated Amazing Spider-Man sequel get unexpectedly mixed reviews when it was starting to prove to be more exciting than the 1st Amazing Spider-Man and FAR MORE SUPERIOR than Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 3!? What's the big deal? Especially when its opening record of $91 million is deemed "disappointing"? I mean, a $700 million worldwide haul a "disappointment"? Sure it's waaaaaay behind the predecessors (Spider-Man: $821 million, Spider-Man 2: $783 million, Spider-Man 3: $890 million, The Amazing Spider-Man: $757 million)' worldwide grosses, but I thought it should be worth it for The Amazing Spider-Man 3-4 and the Venom/Sinister Six spin-offs to happen in the new few years. Let's see if the DVD/Blu-ray sales will make up for it by the time the Blu-ray 2D/3D pack comes out next month, whether it's still less the previous ASM's $757 million gross (including DVD/Blu-ray sales of over $90 million) or not. This would have gone better if The Amazing Spider-Man 2 wasn't having a tough competition with Neighbors, the 2014 Godzilla reboot, X-Men: Days of Future Past, and Maleficent at the May 2014 box office!
I thought Andrew Garfield is a MUCH BETTER SPIDER-MAN than Tobey Maguire! Just like Emma Stone is a far better choice at playing Gwen Stacy than Bryce Dallas Howard! As do Dane DeHaan as Harry Osborn (to me, better than the James Franco counterpart with a JERK-like attitude and the anti-climatic New Goblin costume!) and Jamie Foxx as Electro (a better ASM villain than Rhys Ifans' Lizard)! Spider-Man in this movie acted a lot more like his comic book/animated TV character! He really makes me laugh at everything he says onscreen, especially in the beginning! Unlike Tobey's, Andrew Garfield brought some life into his character when dressed as Spider-Man in scenes like fixing the invention for the glasses kid! Everybody should know THIS is how Spider-Man should act no thanks to how he was handled in Spider-Man 3! If many people disliked how "forced" the plot was, maybe they should have thought about improving the written script without shoehorning anything that would have been developed a bit more. In fact, Paul Giamatti's Rhino character would have worked better as an Amazing Spider-Man 3 villain instead of just being in the end for no reason. But at least I get to see some closure with the missing Parker family going on an unknown mission prior to their deaths on an airplane! Plus, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with having 3 villains when the Rhino was only in like 4 mins, making Electro and Harry/Green Goblin as the major villains and thus have taken one step at a time to focus on any ONE Spider-Man villain! I don't understand how The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is completely disliked for everything it has compared to the Sam Raimi films? When people are the ones who won't shut up about things like the Green Goblin costume, Kirsten Dunst's Mary Jane being so "forgettable," Tobey Maguire's lack of Spidey's sense of humor, as well as the majority of the infamous Spider-Man 3 (such as Sandman being Uncle Ben's killer, Tobey Maguire's EMBARRASSING performance, and Topher Grace's poorly-handled "Venom")! Know what might be better? The Sinister Six teaser ending credits should have ended with Gustav Fiers ("The Man in Shadows") finding what's left of... Norman Osborn (thought to be dead due to an illness) and told him it is "time to wake up"! We don't need a brief X-Men: DOFP Mystique clip playing midway through the credits when the X-Men movies (owned by Fox) have NOTHING to do with The Amazing Spider-Man! 'Cause then we'll know for sure that we ARE gonna see more of Chris Cooper as the original Green Goblin in the next film as he had promised!
To make things perfectly clear for the last and thousandth time,…. I WILL ALWAYS SEE THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN WORLD AS THE REAL DEAL! Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 1 and 2 were SO MUCH BETTER WITHOUT SPIDER-MAN 3! Who cares if Spider-Man 3 had a huge opening of $151 million and having the title of the "#1 Movie of 2007" (its domestic gross was $336.5 million), "the most expensive movie ever" (the budget was $258 million), or "the highest-grossing Spider-Man movie of all time" due to its $890 million worldwide record!? We should PRETEND THAT SPIDER-MAN 3 NEVER HAPPENED despite Spider-Man 2 hinting Harry becoming the next Green Goblin! I wish people should be thankful that the Amazing Spider-Man movies have ERASED SPIDER-MAN 3 FROM OUR HEADS! It's Sony's fault that Spider-Man 3 is the "final chapter" when it was SO POORLY-EXECUTED and didn't quite end in a happy way! If Spider-Man 3 wasn't so bad the studio can't get agree with Sam Raimi on the Spider-Man 4 story, then none of this would have ever happened! The Amazing Spider-Man story just can't go incomplete without The Amazing Spider-Man 3 (out in 2018) and the villain-centric spin-offs to tie up the loose ends if this franchise fatigue is going to continue like this! If the next Amazing Spider-Man films were never made on time or not meeting the box office expectations, then everything that foreshadows the Sinister Six team in the 1st two was ALL FOR NOTHING! Oh, and how can we also have a proper Venom after the whole Topher Grace fiasco when Alex Kurtzman just had it all planned out to direct the new Venom spin-off movie? What's the point of rebooting the web-slinging hero blockbuster movie franchise if people instead ended up having EXTREMELY MIXED FEELINGS towards the Marc Webb-directed Spidey films? Perhaps Sony should have reconsidered letting the Spider-Man rights GO BACK TO MARVEL after Spider-Man 4 was shelved, instead of keeping them for the sake of a reboot!

Registered 4 Art Classes at George Mason University!

Mom and I went to today's orientation at George Mason University this morning. Later in the afternoon, I was able to register 4 art classes for this fall! AVT 101 (New Majors Colloquium), AVT 215 (Typography), AVT 253 (Intro to Digital Photography), and AVT 418 (History of Graphic Design)! And best of all, Friday is the only day that I don't have class at GMU! Hopefully, the schedule isn't gonna be difficult for me, and neither should the classes I'm taking be extremely hard for me as long as I know one of my new teachers' past experiences and efforts! GMU, here I come!