User blog comment:StanLee4Ever/The Amazing Spider-Man film/@comment-61022-20111009145452

The thing that gets me is that every time a creative team (this time a movie studio) does something new, unexpected, or reboots said franchise there are millions of fans who come out of the woodwork crying foul. Common phrases are "You're ruining this franchise/that character/this series/my childhood".

What it all really boils down to is that most of the man-boys out there who whine about this stuff endlessly on message boards are far too attached to these characters and the idea of change scares him. I used to be one of those guys when I was a teenager, and they always exist. Like, for example, when Marv Wolfman created New Teen Titans -- people were boycotting it without even reading the series -- and it is possibly his best works. Another one is with the Transformers franchise, everyone *hate* Beast Wars without giving it a chance, now it's revered as not only a great series but some solid sci-fi work. When Marvel "undid" Peter Parker and Mary Jane's marriage, people screamed bloody murder -- I know I wasn't impressed with the idea either -- but some of the post Brand New Day stuff (once it got it momentum) was actually very well done.

The big problem is, these people don't like change.. Which is ridiculous. Because change happens in our lives everyday. It's been this idea that things have to maintain a status quo and never "break the mold" or change, or be told differently because people hold onto the original stories. You take a look back at ancient myths and old stories prior to the 20th century. They were always about great changes, they were retold, remade, and so on. How many variations of Hercules are there out there? Heck, there are variations of every major religion out there. The fact is, story telling has always been mutable, it was subject to change. Things were redone to befit the writer, and appeal to more readers. It's nothing new.

I think what caused the era of the Internet Troll who whines about changes was fostered by the method of story telling that became prevalent in the late 70s and ran all the way up to the mid 90s or so and didn't really start changing until the 2000s. It was around this time restrictions on what sort of television programming for children was lifted by the FCC and suddenly you had Saturday morning cartoons that were half hour toy commercials. You know, stuff like G.I. Joe, Thundercats, Transformers etc.

The thing with those shows when they first started was that *THERE WAS NO CHANGE*, every episode ended the way it started back with the status quo restored and everyone went on their merry way. There were new characters tossed in for good measure to sell more toys. But they set the standard with everything else. When they did try to make a change, what happened? The backed down to pressure. There was also this push by concerned parent groups that too much violence was warping their children, and that stifled any creative change that could come about by having death, illness, or anything else. Essentially, it created a generation of coddled children who could not handle change.

I was part of that generation. I lived it.

You want to know what a reality these people want would be like? Imagine coming home from your day-to-day whatever and coming home and watching the SAME TV shows, reading the same books, and listening to the same music every day. And I'm not talking about getting a new supply of entertainment. When you turn on the TV at 6:00 it's the SAME episode of the Simpsons every time, all your comic books are exactly the same issues -- no you can't go out and buy more -- and you still have that same best selling album from that one band, and you listen to the same songs all the time.

That's the world these people want to live in. Now, I don't know about the rest of you, but that's !@#$ing boring.

By and far, most people are not *that* bad, but I've read some doozies. I remember reading about this one guy who whenever Transformers: Armada used to play on the Cartoon Network, he's put on a DVD of the old Generation 1 cartoon from the 80's and watch an episode and *PRETEND* that was playing on TV instead. What is wrong with someone that they need to do that just to violently avoid something different? Okay, extreme case, and granted most of Transformers: Armada was *awful* (in terms of story telling, and animation) but it *did* get better, you just had to give it a chance.

When you compare North American culture to that of the east, in Japan for example, their entertainment is FULL of change. Characters die, people change, stories are redone and remade -- all the time -- that's just the way it is, yet you don't see people react to it quite so violently as they do here.

I think it's been the introduction of Japanese entertainment in North America (the Anime invasion of the late 90's, and the storytelling stylism that has quickly invaded the American film making culture) that has saw the return of stories where things actually change, things are rebooted, redone, told from a different perspective.

At the end of the day, what people are going to have to learn to do is not judge something by *why* it exists, but the quality of the story being told and how its put together. I for one am sick of hearing people whine about something without actually having seen it, or just looking at promos and being a jury based on that. I mean seriously, you're going to judge an 2 hour movie on a teaser trailer?

As for the Amazing Spider-Man... I will pass judgement when the movie actually comes out and I bother to see it (Heck, I haven't bothered to watch Spider-Man 2 or 3 to be honest with you. Not out of avoiding it, but just because I haven't gotten around to it, I'm more of a horror movie guy so that's what I usually watch) I'm not going to compare it to the comics that have existed for sixty years, or the movie franchise that came before. It's ridiculous. Why stop there? Why not compare it to the Spider-Man cartoon from the 60s? Or lets compare it to Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends? Or the short lived Spider-Man Unlimited cartoon from the 90s? Or why not the Spidey Super-Stories from the 70s? I get that it's a franchise character, but does every premutation of a franchise have to be dissected and compared to what came out before it?

It's about as ridiculous as trying to dissect each different version of Power Rangers if you ask me. Which is to say: What are you accomplishing? The essential details are the same: Five teenagers, colorful costumes, a garish bad guy, robots that combine and a monster who grows super-big and gets blown up at the end of the episode. Seems pretty pat and solid there. That's the formula, which is fine *But* what's important here is the STORY. What's the story about.

That's the same thing with Amazing Spider-Man. The window dressing is there: Peter Parker, notable characters, web shooters, an origin story, a bad guy. Peter learns about responsibility etc. etc. etc. All *ground work* for the eventual story they are going to tell. Why are you going to nit pick about window dressing when you haven't even bothered looking out the window?

That's all I'm trying to say here.