Martin Sheen to be Uncle Ben?

[Cognitive Gear]

Yes, Martin Sheen.

Honestly, this movie keeps looking better and better to me. I hope that they can close the deal on this, as it will really round out the cast.

[TheSubtleDoctor]

...crap...

The subject title is a little misleading. I thought you were talking about Martin Sheen playing the most challenging role of his career....the man who knows best, the icon of rice himself: the Uncle Ben. But, you meant that Uncle Ben. Geez. You got my hopes up, sir...darn!

[Radical Dreamer]

This article is awesome. Not only did I not know that Dr. Conners/The Lizard was to be the main villain for this movie, I also think that Sally Field is a spot-on choice for Aunt May. I'm really looking forward to seeing how this will turn out!

[TWWK]

Forget the Martin Sheen news - I think the Sally Field news is terrific. She's an amazing actress, and it would be great to see her in the film. Now, I'm interested.

[Nate]

*shrug* I don't think it's that great? I just can't see Sally Field as Aunt May, sorry. Maybe it's one of those things where when the movie actually comes out I'll be impressed but just hearing it I'm kind of like meh...not impressed.

[bigsleepj]

"Life is like a box of chocolates, Peter. You never know what you're going to get."

[Scarecrow]

Well... I don't care. I wish they would skip the uncle ben/aunt may stuff and just skip to something exciting. We've been there done that, don't need to see another origin story.

I'm so sick of these first comic book movies being origin stories. Just start a movie halfway through a story arch and just assume the audience knows whats up. It would be more interesting than seeing how another super hero gets his powers over and over and over again. Especially one that was just done so recently. Unless uncle ben and aunt may are in flash backs, I have absolutely no interest in this movie at all. Not like I did before anyway but just saying.

[Yuki-Anne]

The article says that Uncle Ben will not be the catalyst for Spiderman's origin.

[ShiroiHikari]

Honestly, I'm surprised that they're already doing a different Spiderman series. But I guess the first movie did come out about ten years ago now, so...eh.

[battletech]

Was uncle Ben not the catalyst in Ultimate Spider-Man? I ask to find out where they are getting this new origin story. If Ben is the catalyst in ultimate. They must be coming up with their own origin.

[Nate]

If nothing else, they could just make Spider-Man a mutant rather than being bitten by a spider. It would be a weird origin for the character but...it wouldn't be bad, I don't think, and it's not like they didn't already change a lot of things in the other movies (like getting rid of the web cartridges and just having the webbing be natural). Also, just making him a mutant would help to avoid the necessity of setting up a lab, a spider (be it radioactive or genetically enhanced), a contrived reason for him to get bitten...it'd streamline the origin story to just have him just start to develop the powers one day, like other mutants.

As long as they didn't try to turn it into a whole racism/coming of age story, I think it'd work well...and they wouldn't have to, not really. I mean...the Fantastic Four get away with having superpowers and not being mistreated like mutants so...it could work.

EDIT: The worst part of this movie is nobody will ever be as good as J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson. That right there is enough to make me have little to no interest in this movie.

[ShiroiHikari]

EDIT: The worst part of this movie is nobody will ever be as good as J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson. That right there is enough to make me have little to no interest in this movie.

This is a good point.

[bigsleepj]

Was uncle Ben not the catalyst in Ultimate Spider-Man? I ask to find out where they are getting this new origin story. If Ben is the catalyst in ultimate. They must be coming up with their own origin.

Although the original 1960's Spiderman was not written chronologically, it did have a story where Peter Parker relates the tragedy of Uncle Ben to another person. This was later re-utilized in Ultimate Spiderman.

They used to say there are thre origin stories that should never be tampered with: Jonathan Kent must die of a heart attack, Thomas and Martha Wayne must get gunned down in a robbery, and Uncle Ben must die in a way that Peter could have stopped if he had acted less selflessly. The reason is these events are integral to the formation of the character's psyche. Without it... where do you go? Cynicism land? Kick *ss Land? James Cameron's Spiderman land?

[Nate]

Jonathan Kent must die of a heart attack

I've never heard of this. In fact, a little searching reveals that in the original Superman storyline, Pa Kent dies of natural causes after Clark had already been established as a superhero. In later continuities, Pa Kent was still alive long after Superman existed.

This seems to be something only the Superman movie did, and was put into the comics later (a quick search reveals the only time Pa Kent died of a heart attack in the comics was after The Death of Superman, which would mean it's definitely not an origin story, and after an arc involving Braniac which again, not origin).

The reason is these events are integral to the formation of the character's psyche. Without it... where do you go? Cynicism land? Kick *ss Land? James Cameron's Spiderman land?

I guess, but that doesn't mean they have to recreate the scene from the comics. Otherwise the new movie will be just like the previous one, with us going "Yeah yeah we know can we get on with it?" There's plenty of ways for them to have Uncle Ben die by Peter's negligence without going the whole "wrestling and getting ripped off by the manager who gets robbed and Peter doesn't stop him so the guy shoots Uncle Ben" thing. They need to make it new and different or else it's just a rehash of the other movie. And they should avoid the "With great power comes great responsibility" line.

[bigsleepj]

This seems to be something only the Superman movie did, and was put into the comics later (a quick search reveals the only time Pa Kent died of a heart attack in the comics was after The Death of Superman, which would mean it's definitely not an origin story, and after an arc involving Braniac which again, not origin).

Hmmm. That's how I heard it, and I suppose I heard wrong.

I guess, but that doesn't mean they have to recreate the scene from the comics. Otherwise the new movie will be just like the previous one, with us going "Yeah yeah we know can we get on with it?" There's plenty of ways for them to have Uncle Ben die by Peter's negligence without going the whole "wrestling and getting ripped off by the manager who gets robbed and Peter doesn't stop him so the guy shoots Uncle Ben" thing. They need to make it new and different or else it's just a rehash of the other movie. And they should avoid the "With great power comes great responsibility" line.

I suppose they could re-shuffle events a bit; maybe Uncle Ben dies before he got his powers sorted out, or something, or even before the spider bites him.

[Cognitive Gear]

[quote="bigsleepj (post: 1435620)"]I suppose they could re-shuffle events a bit]

Despite not hearing much about Uncle Ben's role in the movie, I sort of expect him to have most of his screentime in flashbacks. I only say this because I am guessing that the origin story won't take up much, if any of the overall runtime.

[Yuki-Anne]

Ultimately, I don't envy these people their job, because the audience isn't going to be able to view it without comparing it to Raimi's version.

Fact is, I don't see why they're doing it at all, except to cash in on the franchise, but... *meh*

It'll be interesting to see how they try to make it different.