LogFAQs > #925530960

final_lap posted...

The villain feels like it was ripped out of an episode of Power Rangers.

But the main problem with the villain isn't even the silliness imo. It's 1) that Green Goblin has no motivation or driving logic for being evil other than he literally took a serum or w/e that made him evil. And 2) that his origin story conveniently coincides with Spider-Man's.

But that's a common occurence with superhero films isn't it? Films like Spider Man and Batman Begins try to portray a non superhero inhabited world and show how a superhero came to exist in them. That's a pretty fanciful concept in of itself and exciting if done right. But there's always that second origin story crammed in (for the villain) so there can be a showdown at the end. As if the whole movie is just a professional wrestling match preceded by 2 hours of buildup.

Not saying it's a bad movie necessarily. I think the movie did for Spider Man what The Christopher Reeve films did for Superman. That was no small feat. Also, I love Toby Maguire as Parker.

You kinda have to do a double-origin story with the first movie in a superhero franchise, after which the sequels only need to do an origin story for the villain. Granted, not all superhero movies have a villain origin story. Joker's origins in TDK are unknown, beyond the stories he tells (which contradict each other). Some of the origin stories are interconnected. Thor 1 is about as interconnected as an origin story can get, as the hero and villain are side-by-side through much of it and the movie explores their relationship. Spider-Man and Green Goblin are somewhat tied together in Spider-Man and, in turn, in ASM1 you have something similar with Spider-Man and the Lizard. In general, having an interconnected origin story makes a lot more sense than just having a superhero and villain separately come into their powers and identity at the same time, which feels far more contrived and is a *lot* harder to work in from a narrative perspective.

And the serum didn't make the Goblin "evil," it made him crazy.... and the Raimi films' portrayal of insanity drove me crazy, considering it *always* involved a character talking to themselves or straight-up monologuing.

As for Batman Begins, it has two villains, neither of whom has a traditional origin story. Ras and his League of Shadows had always been around (and, more importantly, the League plays a role in Batman's origin) and then the Scarecrow had always been acting in that capacity.

Plus, because buildup to a fight would be boring, superhero movies usually have the hero fight the villain several times before the big confrontation. iirc, Spider-Man 1 has quite a few Goblin confrontations before the final battle.
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