Reaction & Review | Spider-Man

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to "Tales of the Longbox" here on Reaction and Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be checking out a television pilot film from 1977. That movie is "Spider-Man".

Now this movie has a bit of an interesting history. You see, back in the late 70's, CBS wanted to have a live action television series for Spider-Man. Which I believe may be the first time Spidey's ever gotten a live action series of it's own. Unless, of course, you wanted to count that Japanese Spider-Man series that came out a year later. But anyway, as for the version that came out in the U.S., this series, which would later be called "The Amazing Spider-Man" got a television pilot film that was meant to catch viewers interest. And interest they showed, because the movie did very well when it aired on CBS. And the show itself would get at least 2 seasons, along with a couple of film sequels.

However, CBS would later cancel the show and I honestly have no idea as to why. I can't say it was because of poor ratings, because, like I just mentioned, the show was doing pretty well when it was airing on TV. I don't know if it was because of a rights issue between CBS and Marvel, or if the show itself was too expensive to make. But regardless of the reasons, the show was pretty much canned, so we only got these 13 episodes that were actually produced.

Now personally, I'm really looking forward to watching this movie. Mostly because I'm rather curious to see what someone could do with the web-slinger long before he became massively popular. And if it does turn out to be any good, then I'm probably gonna have to track down the series at some point, assuming if it was ever re-released on DVD. But anyway, I'm just gonna see if this pilot is any good on it's own merits. And the only way I'm gonna find out, is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Spider-Man".

3 minutes later

OK, so we just had a bank robbery happened with two guys, both of whom I'm assuming are mind-controlled, if the close-up shots of these pins are anything to go by. One of them was wearing gas mask as he came out while the gas itself was coming out of the bank. And mind you, this is all happening in broad daylight! And somehow, *nobody* that was walking across the street, or even other people in their cars happened to notice the man walking out of the bank carrying a suitcase, probably filled with stacks of money. OK...and now the two guys just crashed unwillingly into the wall with their getaway car while these two other guys came out of hiding to steal the suitcase that, apparently, *is* indeed filled with money. I have a *bunch* of questions that'll hopefully get explained later on, so I'll try and see if the movie will explain any of it before I start to ask them myself.

12 minutes later

All right, while it's cool to see that Parker realizes what has happened to him without even saying anything, I'm still wondering about the other thing involving the people being mind-controlled against their will to steal money. How exactly did these mind control devices get onto these random people? Were they chosen at will to just wear them without even realizing what they are? Or were they just given to them at random by whoever's been handing them out to them? That's what I'm really curious about right now, and I'm hoping that gets some kind of explanation soon.

9 minutes later

OK, I have a really dumb question here, and I know it's probably not gonna get answered, but I'm curious about this. So, Peter has been telling J.J. that he saw this Spider-Man that's been making the headlines. Mind you, this is all before Peter even makes the costume, and he's explaining everything to J.J. about what he's seen that this Spider-Man can do in great detail. And my question out of all this is *why* would you even tell all this to J.J.?! I understand that someone like J.J., or even some other normal person wouldn't believe any of it, but don't you think that if someone else had that kind of interest in Spider-Man like Peter does, and he told them about all this, that one of them could suspect that Peter was indeed Spider-Man? Again, I understand that it's probably just a trivial point in the long run, but telling your boss all this just seems pretty fucking stupid, even if J.J. wouldn't even believe it to begin with.

7 minutes later

Wait, why is Peter removing the steering wheel from this person's car? What sense does that even make?! I don't know if he wanted to make the accident look more serious than it already is, but all it's doing is making Peter look like a fucking criminal now that he's tampered with the crime scene. It's bold, I'll grant him that much, but still, I thought Peter was a little bit smarter than this.

18 minutes later

OK, so...I guess the way our villain uses his mind-control powers is to make people look at brightly-colored lights that are just flashing in front of their eyes. I'm gonna be honest, guys...this isn't really making a whole lot of sense. It would probably make more sense if I knew what the hell they are even *looking* at. But no, instead, we'll just have colored lights blinking in front of these people because...I don't know. Perhaps maybe the psychedelic phase of the 70's were still a thing back then, so I guess maybe that's what they're actually looking at. Again, I don't know if that's the case or not, but it *kind of* makes sense in a somewhat stupid way.

5 minutes later

Wow...so, even as Spider-Man, Peter is still having allergy issues to a point where he actually dropped his tracker device after sneezing, thus breaking it. I'm now wondering how long Peter's been having these allergies if he's *still* sneezing? Perhaps maybe the medication he's been taking is just shit, who knows?

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Spider-Man". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK. So, um...gosh, I'm trying to figure out where to even start with this movie, but even I'm kinda lost here.

I guess I can start by saying this. You might've noticed that I've been kinda harsh on this movie. I've been asking questions and pointing out things that don't really make a whole lot of sense when you start to think about it. For instance, how exactly did the people wearing these mind-controlled pins actually acquire them to begin with? Well, that part actually does get explained, in which our main villain, Byron, is controlling these people through these lectures that they attend in which they later get mind-controlled through colored lights and along with Byron's voice telling them what they must do and so on. And what they end up doing is robbing banks in which our villain wants 50 million dollars by the end of the week. Otherwise, the 10 people that he has mind-controlled will be told to kill themselves by committing suicide in someway. I'm gonna get more into that in a second. I also wondered why Peter even bothered ripping off a steering wheel to begin with, despite the fact that he's tampering with a crime scene. I thought maybe he was gonna go for the mind-controlled pin that is usually attached to the victim's clothing, but instead, he just ripped off a steering wheel, and I still don't know why. I guess maybe he wanted to make the car crash look more like an accident, but it still doesn't really make much sense at all as to why he would even do such a thing in the first place?

I suppose since I'm already talking about the writing, I want to talk about something that's gonna be deemed as rather strange to a lot of people. If you know anything about Spider-Man, the one thing that comes to most people's minds would have to be his origin story. Whether it's through comic books, the animated series, or even some of the movies, most people know about his origin story. And you would think, this being a pilot for a Spider-Man TV series that they would capitalize on that origin, right? Well...not really. Now yes, we do get to see the basics of his origin story, like the radioactive spider biting his hand, thus leading him to realize he can climb walls, and then later developing the famous costume and the web strings. But in terms of a characterization arc centered around Peter Parker becoming Spider-Man does not exist in this movie. So if you're expecting, say, Uncle Ben to give Peter the pep talk about great power comes great responsibility shtick, don't bother looking for that. Because, for one thing, Uncle Ben's existence in this movie is *never* acknowledged or brought up at all by anybody. Not Peter, not Aunt May, nobody. In fact, Aunt May is also seen as an afterthought in this movie, since she's in this for about 2 minutes tops and...that's it. Anything involving a personality for her is pretty much nonexistent here.

Now you might think that because we're not getting the usual origin story for Spider-Man that this might be seen as a downgrade, right? Well, if you're looking for a more in-depth origin story for the character, then yes, it could be seen that way. However...I actually think this is a very refreshing take on the character. I say this, because if you really think about it, how often is it that you have seen origin stories for other comic book characters such as Batman, the Ninja Turtles, or even Superman? Characters whose origins have been overplayed in entertainment so often that most people are comfortable with the fact that they have seen it over and over again. And while I don't mind the origin stories myself, I'm kind of getting tired of it because I've often seen those origin stories being played out so much that I want to see a somewhat more refreshing take on it. And this movie actually does do that. Now granted, since this movie came out in 1977, I'm sure it probably could've benefited for more of a characterized backstory for Peter Parker, but I also have to remember that this thing is essentially a pilot for a TV show, so it's possible that they may have explored more of the backstory in the show. I'll have to find out eventually if I ever find a copy of this series somewhere on DVD.

But getting back to the movie itself, the characters in this movie are mostly forgettable. I'm talking everyone from Aunt May, the rough-and-tough police detective, J.J. (AKA Jonah Jameson), and even Judy. Judy, I think, is suppose to serve as the love interest for Peter Parker, but there's really no chemistry at *all* between the two characters. They try to force it near the end of the film by having the two holding hands, but like I said, there's no chemistry between these two characters. They act more like acquaintances rather than friends. Now who knows, *maybe* it's explored more in the show, but this movie really didn't leave a good first impression of their supposed relationship. But as for Peter Parker himself, he's actually the one character who sorta stands out here. While he may lack the personal depth, he's kinda the same as he's portrayed in the comics, but he also sounds very positive about a lot of things. However, he's also kind of an asshole at the same time. Mostly because I would never imagine him doing shit like tampering with a crime scene, which I've already went into great detail over. But for the most part, Peter in this movie is still very likable. Most of that can be attributed to the acting, however, I'll get into that in a second.

The only other thing I want to mention about characters is our villain, Byron AKA "The Extortionist". He's pretty much a discount dollar store version of a Bond villain. I say this, because usually Bond villains have some sort of ulterior motives such as conquering the world or destroying it. Here though, Byron just wants money. Why? I don't know, blackmail money against the mayor or something. Maybe he wanted to use that money to keep his company afloat so that he could keep his lectures going to control people into robbing money from banks. What I find strange is that the movie keeps reminding you that the Extortionist wants the money by the weekend, otherwise, the 10 subjects he's mind-controlled will be asked to kill themselves in some way. And what's strange about it is that when Peter and Judy first attend these lectures, the people that's also there attending is actually *more* than 10 people. If I counted correctly, there were about 13 people involved in the lecture. Two of them, of course, counting Peter and Judy. So it leads me to believe that Byron has more than 10 followers involved in his scheme. So does that mean then that if the 10 people who are bound to commit suicide if the ransom is not made in time die that there will be other replacements involving Byron's new followers? It just seems kind of weird to me and it didn't really make a whole lot of sense the more I thought about it.

Now with all that said, the writing here isn't really all that great. It honestly feels like, to me anyway, that the story felt more like a discarded script from a 007 movie rather than a story about Spider-Man. Now that doesn't automatically make this story *bad*, it's just nothing spectacular. But I will say that if you can go into this movie with your brain shut off, then the writing here is OK, just as long as you're not expecting anything big here when it comes to this movie. So with that in mind, what about the acting? Well, I am gonna say that the acting here is actually pretty good. The best actor, by far, would have to be Nicholas Hammond as Peter Parker. He brings something very charismatic to the character, and, like I said, it makes it stand out in a very positive way. The rest of the acting here is also pretty good, too. Even though the characters lack any sort of depth, they actually were able to make due with what they had to work with. So, I have to give major props to all the cast members in this movie. They did the best job that they could with their given roles.

Special effects...oh boy, um...where to start? Now I should mention, first and foremost, that aren't really a whole lot of special effects in this movie. The spider string that comes out of Peter's web shooter is kinda standard-looking for a spider web, so it's fine. But then we come to the wall-crawling sequences, and this where the film's special effects start to take a nosedive in it's quality. You see, for about half the shots in this movie, the wall-climbing you see Spider-Man do is done in green/blue screen. And these scenes look *awful*. Most of these scenes is when Peter is suppose to be climbing around his house and you can clearly see his hands are touching the ground, despite the fact that there's clearly a blue sky in the background of the house and his hands are seen nearly touching the sky. Now I totally understand that this movie was originally made for TV, and, maybe for the time, these effects looked amazing. But as for myself, no. These effects, if I were to view them by 1977 standards, I would say that they looked cheap, corny, and just terrible all around. That being said, though, I *will* say that the Spider-Man costume looks really good. I mean, for it's first time in live action, this is a really fucking impressive Spider-Man costume. Granted, I am somewhat more partial to the Tobey Maguire costume since that was my first live action experience with Spidey, but I will say that this one definitely comes at a close second. So yeah, the costuming here is great. Special effects, though, leave a *lot* to be desired.

Camerawork here is decent for television movies standards. There is one other thing about the wall-climbing sequences I wanted to bring up, and that ties into the camerawork. While the green screen shots of the wall-climbing sequences are terrible, there are a couple of other scenes where they look decent. Most of it consists of a wide open shot where you see Spider-Man climbing up a building, and those shots look decent, mostly because they weren't filmed in front of a green screen. The other bit is when you get to see Spider-Man's point of view as he's climbing, and I will say that these shots look pretty impressive, too, as you if feel like you're Spider-Man trying to climb up a building. Or at one point he falls, though the authenticity of the fall was sorta questionable. But regardless, the camerawork here is fine by made for TV standards. The lighting is also decent for television movie standards. The sound-mix is also decent, though admittedly, I find it kinda strange that whenever Spider-Man is in a fight sequence, be it all of two fight scenes in the movie, mind you, anytime that he hits one of these guys wielding wooden swords, there's a metal-like sound that goes off with each punch and kick he gives out. I don't know if that was just a mess up on the Foley artists or what have you, but it is sort of noticeable, especially if you were looking for it. Aside from that one hiccup though, the sound-mix is still decent for television movie standards. The score here is honestly nothing special. The theme that plays almost anytime Spider-Man is involved plays about 4 or 5 times in the entire movie, and while it can get tiresome after a while, it's not the worst thing I've heard. So you can take that for what it's worth. The score here is decent, but it's not great by any stretch.

So overall, guys, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "Spider-Man"? Kind of, yes. Like I said earlier, if you're able to shut your brain off and not think about the possible logic issues that this movie has, or how it doesn't feel like a traditional Spider-Man story, then you might honestly really enjoy this movie. If you're a die-hard fan of Spider-Man, then it's possible you might find some enjoyment out of this movie. However, like I said, you just have to be aware of what you're getting yourself into when it comes to this movie. And as for me, while I do think the movie isn't great, it is still interesting enough for me to try and track down the series somewhere, assuming, again, if it was ever released on a home video format. I know this movie was released on VHS, but I don't know if that alone would be worth the purchase on VHS. Maybe if it's at a cheap price, I would consider it then, but that's just me, personally. But if it is out on DVD or Blu-ray, again, as long as it's for a cheap price, then I would say go ahead and buy a copy of it somewhere. Now, as for myself...I think I'm gonna go and re-watch my copy of the first Tobey Maguire "Spider-Man" movie from 2002. That, to me, still holds up as a classic and I kinda want to re-watch it again now after seeing this. So that's what I'm gonna do next after I get done typing this review up.

And with that, guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.