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He had a very cat-like movement to him, I thought. More Black Panther than Black Panther. Of all of the stock Spider-villains Kingpin had working for him with little fanfare, Prowler actually managed to stand out as the no-nonsense one. (and also implies that Miles' invisibility is very, very good) And the adrenaline junkie point does bring up that Spider-man has almost always been portrayed as simply enjoying being Spider-man and being a superhero, despite life making it incredibly hard on him a lot of the time. Which is probably just as well, if they didn't enjoy it they'd go crazy from the stress and terror.
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Jan 10, 2019 06:50
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Saw the movie earlier today and just caught up with the thread ( ). The film great, especially visually.
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Jan 10, 2019 07:55
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Only tangentially related to the current Prowler disco, but there's a couple small things I want to note real quick: 1. The last line from Sunflower that Miles sings before his dad reminds him to go to school is "some things you just can't refuse..." which opens up the fate/choice themes that we've already touched on. (And the incomplete line that gets interrupted is "she wanna ride me like a cruise", which I guess is the primer for Miles being weird around girls) 2. On the way to school, Miles is slapping his tags everywhere. He jumps up for a big one (and gets it!) but then he trips on his shoelaces, falls in the road and it looks like he's about to get run over for a second? But then it's his dad in the cop car. It was like a little reprise of Icarus -- flew too high and fell, kind of combined with the specter of getting arrested (or even killed) for his The end of the film repeats the moment: Miles tags the stone lion and segues into a suicide drop off the top of a skyscraper. Coming to love his fate/destiny/dad is kind of sealed with a joyous plunge into death. [edited cause i misremembered the statue as an eagle] mmmmalo fucked around with this message at 05:48 on Jan 11, 2019 |
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Jan 11, 2019 03:46
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I've listened to What's Up Danger a bunch since watching the movie. Song good, scene good, movie good.
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Jan 11, 2019 04:30
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ConfusedUs posted:Other than the sound, my favorite part of Prowler's "feel" was his animation and movement style. He'd go from stock still to full speed and back in an instant. You always got the sense that he was pouncing. That economy of movement made him scarier! It was superb, there's a lot of "charge----------->STRIKE", it's extremely distinctive. He moves unlike any other character.
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Jan 11, 2019 08:12
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Prowler is almost textbook in how you make a villain seem dangerous without expository dialogue. He jumps in from out-of-frame to very methodically and efficiently beat the hell out of Peter Parker, and immediately the tone surrounding the character is set for the rest of the film. Now whenever he's on-screen my eyes are glued to him and I'm just wondering what he's gonna do next. Into the Spider-Verse was really really really good.
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Jan 11, 2019 21:16
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I really like how it had several different classic Spidey villains, which is how big multi issue story arcs in comic books often rolled. In many ways, while I have watched many different super hero movies this is the first film I've watched that could truly be described as a comic book movie.
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Jan 11, 2019 21:44
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One thing that did stick out to me is that they didn't really do anything with Miles' Dad assuming spiderman killed Aaron outside of him changing his mind about his assumption at the end. I mean the reason why that plot point got lost in the shuffle makes sense (film was packed enough as it is), but it was still the one thing that stuck out.
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Jan 11, 2019 23:11
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Simply Simon posted:My biggest issue is that I can't quite reconcile the two. I'd love to have a reason or even a hint at a reason why someone who's such a good person in, well, person, is such a bad guy in costume. Trespassing and defacing property are against the law, but tbqh I really don't see the issue with them doing art in an abandoned subway tunnel, like that barely registers as criminal for me. And it's painted as such a positive, healthy thing for Miles as well, no hint of "uuh but what if they CATCH us? What if DAD finds out?". Just doesn't gel with "Aaron mercilessly hunts down who is obviously a young kid with a motorcycle, later strangles and almost kills him". Hot take: as a cop, the dad is also an enforcer willing to kill unarmed black kids as part of his job, and he also considers it a just part of his job. I don’t think you’re supposed to see into that part of Aaron’s life, but just be shocked by the apparent incongruity. The dad suggests that he was a criminal, he built a super suit to do crimes, he got hired to do crimes like dr octopus and green goblin and the rest.
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Jan 12, 2019 02:30
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So I looked into all three of the directors: Peter Ramsey was the one of the three who had preexisting directorial experience, having done Rise of the Guardians. He's also done storyboards for a variety of live action films. Rodney Rothman is the director who was directly involved in the screenplay (co-writing it with Lord): most of his previous credits were serving as a writer and/or producer on various tv shows. He also wrote the screenplay to Lord and Miller's 22 Jump Street. Bob Persichetti's mostly did in-betweens for late 90s/early 00s Disney films and storyboards for Dreamworks films. He also co-wrote the screenplay for Mark Osborne's The Little Prince.
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Jan 12, 2019 23:50
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Digamma-F-Wau posted:Rodney Rothman is the director who was directly involved in the screenplay (co-writing it with Lord): most of his previous credits were serving as a writer and/or producer on various tv shows. He also wrote the screenplay to Lord and Miller's 22 Jump Street. A lot of animation purists have been getting upset about people who traditionally work in live-action being brought on to animated projects on the grounds that they're not as familiar with The Process but honestly it feels more to me like they're just threatened by the fact that the flipside of animation being treated as a medium rather than a genre means the old guard doesn't wield nearly as much power over their isolated little kingdom as they did in the old days. It's like how professional cartoon voice actors complained about movies having live action actors doing voices in movies and now almost everything on TV has one actor for each role instead of Rob Paulsen and his five friends interchangeably voicing everyone on every channel and the shows are much better for it.
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Jan 13, 2019 05:47
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Digamma-F-Wau posted:One thing that did stick out to me is that they didn't really do anything with Miles' Dad assuming spiderman killed Aaron outside of him changing his mind about his assumption at the end. I mean the reason why that plot point got lost in the shuffle makes sense (film was packed enough as it is), but it was still the one thing that stuck out. I feel like it was largely there to remove one of Miles' last hand-holds. While it didn't go far it went far enough that when Miles was at his lowest he couldn't go to his dad. In turn that set up his dad opening up honestly to him. They might have done without it but I think it helped emphasize that.
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Jan 13, 2019 05:51
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Just watched the movie a second time. Verdict: Still just as  a second time around.
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Jan 13, 2019 09:16
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My only complaint is that I wish the movie had more time to develop Miles's relationship with Aaron. Even one more scene might have helped really solidify it before everything goes to hell. I don't know that I'd cut anything for it, though, so I can see why they didn't have enough time for that arc, but I wish they had. Absolutely loved the movie overall, though.
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Jan 13, 2019 20:27
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Simply Simon posted:My biggest issue is that I can't quite reconcile the two. I'd love to have a reason or even a hint at a reason why someone who's such a good person in, well, person, is such a bad guy in costume. Trespassing and defacing property are against the law, but tbqh I really don't see the issue with them doing art in an abandoned subway tunnel, like that barely registers as criminal for me. And it's painted as such a positive, healthy thing for Miles as well, no hint of "uuh but what if they CATCH us? What if DAD finds out?". Just doesn't gel with "Aaron mercilessly hunts down who is obviously a young kid with a motorcycle, later strangles and almost kills him". Some of the worst people in history manage to be kind, loving and compassionate towards their family or people they like. To apply it more to Aaron, there are people who do violent poo poo on the streets to those they consider "others" and justify it(or hell in some cases it might be true) as things they have to do to survive , but when they are with people they love and care about, they are the kindest people in the world.
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Jan 13, 2019 20:28
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Harrow posted:My only complaint is that I wish the movie had more time to develop Miles's relationship with Aaron. Even one more scene might have helped really solidify it before everything goes to hell. I don't know that I'd cut anything for it, though, so I can see why they didn't have enough time for that arc, but I wish they had. I thought their relationship felt incredibly solid for how quickly they conveyed it. While Jefferson is critical of Miles’ artistic endeavours and dismissive of his doubts about school, Aaron is unequivocally supportive. That right there gives you such a perfect feel for their family dynamics.
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Jan 13, 2019 20:34
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Phylodox posted:I think it’s fascinating that Prowler (distinct from Aaron) is a character who’s basically, like, 70% sound design. Visually, he’s not all that imposing at all; gangling of limb, goofy cape, ill-fitting mask. With the addition of a single sound, though, he goes from being laughable to utterly terrifying. There’s something primal and disturbing about that noise, and it’s great how effective it is. The shading on Prowler in every scene is amazing too and it really makes him larger than life. I saw a figure of him on shelves and he just looks comical without it. TheKingofSprings fucked around with this message at 20:52 on Jan 13, 2019 |
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Jan 13, 2019 20:45
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Phylodox posted:I thought their relationship felt incredibly solid for how quickly they conveyed it. While Jefferson is critical of Miles’ artistic endeavours and dismissive of his doubts about school, Aaron is unequivocally supportive. That right there gives you such a perfect feel for their family dynamics. Oh yeah, they did a lot of work with Miles and Aaron's one big scene together, for sure. Their relationship and eventual conflict and tragedy definitely affected me. I'd have just liked to see a little more. It's not critical, though, which is why I don't think I'd cut anything for it because the rest of the movie has so much that's so great, too. I think the scene that hit me the most was Jefferson talking to Miles through the door while Miles can't respond.
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Jan 13, 2019 20:53
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SirSamVimes posted:Just watched the movie a second time. Came here to post this. Such a fun, gorgeous movie.
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Jan 14, 2019 02:34
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Show availability seems to be drying up around me. I've seen it maybe seven times now and I smile every time figuring out its someone's first time seeing the movie because of their reactions.
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Jan 14, 2019 03:16
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Prowler is pulled off pretty amazingly well especially for a villain that's a relative newcomer to the spider-mythos and doesn't have an immediately clear gimmick or motif. I thought he had a bit of a cat thing going on, though that might be vague. He reminded me a bit of a far less comedy version of the CG TMNT cartoon's Bebop. That said, Spidey and the TMNT would definitely get along.
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Jan 14, 2019 05:14
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Prowler is pulled off pretty amazingly well especially for a villain that's a relative newcomer to the spider-mythos and doesn't have an immediately clear gimmick or motif. I thought he had a bit of a cat thing going on, though that might be vague.  
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Jan 14, 2019 05:17
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In terms of pop-culture penetration, I think the claim still stands. The dune buggy is better known outside of people who read comics, probably.
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Jan 14, 2019 05:41
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I don't know if I missed a line earlier but I had no idea what 'the people scary noise guy' villain name was until right before the house fight scene, but I'm not versed in spider-lore outside of the well-known stuff.
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Jan 14, 2019 06:14
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pray for my aunt posted:I don't know if I missed a line earlier but I had no idea what 'the people scary noise guy' villain name was until right before the house fight scene, but I'm not versed in spider-lore outside of the well-known stuff. Perfect Peter says his name briefly when he first fights him in the collider.
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Jan 14, 2019 06:18
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Antifa Turkeesian posted:In terms of pop-culture penetration, I think the claim still stands. The dune buggy is better known outside of people who read comics, probably. And I'm pretty sure the incarnation of the character that's Miles' uncle is new. D-list villains get completely reinvented pretty often. And Spider-man has a LOT of D-list villains that nobody remembers until an adaptation or a really good run reinvents them in an interesting way. If they brought back Humbug most people would consider a version of the character anyone cared about to be new.
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Jan 14, 2019 06:50
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Ghost Leviathan posted:And I'm pretty sure the incarnation of the character that's Miles' uncle is new. D-list villains get completely reinvented pretty often. And Spider-man has a LOT of D-list villains that nobody remembers until an adaptation or a really good run reinvents them in an interesting way. If they brought back Humbug most people would consider a version of the character anyone cared about to be new. Miles' uncle has always been Aaron Davis and, when Ultimate Marvel was a thing, he was Prowler there. Now, he's the Iron Spider in main continuity, but Aaron Davis as Prowler isn't new.
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Jan 14, 2019 09:50
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He at least well known enough that most assumed Donald Glover was going to be a villain in Homecoming based on being cast as Aaron.
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Jan 14, 2019 17:17
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I've never heard of Prowler before this movie, and I'm into comic stuff enough to read the Funny/Badass Panels and Good/Bad Art threads in BSS. Anecdotal, I know, but I'm pretty glad that it wasn't spoiled for me that Aaron might be a supervillain just from his name.Harrow posted:My only complaint is that I wish the movie had more time to develop Miles's relationship with Aaron. Even one more scene might have helped really solidify it before everything goes to hell. I don't know that I'd cut anything for it, though, so I can see why they didn't have enough time for that arc, but I wish they had. Again, to the at least two responders in the last page, I get that some people do bad poo poo, and that the movie mirrors the two brothers, but I wanted to know specifically about Aaron, the character not the cipher or plot device, because I liked Aaron. Digamma-F-Wau posted:One thing that did stick out to me is that they didn't really do anything with Miles' Dad assuming spiderman killed Aaron outside of him changing his mind about his assumption at the end. I mean the reason why that plot point got lost in the shuffle makes sense (film was packed enough as it is), but it was still the one thing that stuck out. So this could have been a setup for a very trite and personal pet peeve plot about Jefferson trying to bond with Spider-Man's out-of-costume identity while also hating his super-hero identity and Miles having to dance around that and UGH, but it wasn't actually so...yay? But on the other hand, why even bring it up then? It only served to annoy me with the possibility of such a plot development happening, but then...it didn't. Also, again, actually a bit of a disservice to Aaron as Jeff seems to just forget about his brother's death rattling him quite a bit in that one scene.
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Jan 14, 2019 17:49
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Simply Simon posted:But on the other hand, why even bring it up then? So Miles couldn't go to his father with any of his problems. He didn't kill Aaron but he still felt guilty about it anyway, at least at that moment, and that created a giant gulf between him and his dad. One of the big themes of the movie was "You need to take a leap of faith" but that was played against the other theme of "Other people need to trust you enough to stop holding you back and let you take that leap of faith". It wasn't until absolutely everyone who had been trying to help Miles find his way ended up leaving him behind (either as a choice to protect him, or through their death) that he finally had the freedom to make the leap of faith. Miles' Dad was never going to do that so the film had to find some way of pushing Miles away from him anyway. The "We're not going to let you fall" motif keeps coming up in the film again and again:    (I think there were a few more, I couldn't find the clips online) In the end Miles actually steps into that role and takes responsibility for the others, which is when we get this reversal:  "You have to let go." And it's only after all that has happened that Miles is finally ready for this: 
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Jan 14, 2019 18:08
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That scene with Peter and Miles in the dorm room was so good. You know that Peter wants this so for Miles so bad, but he can't let Miles go on a suicide mission.
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Jan 14, 2019 19:01
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Snowglobe of Doom posted:So Miles couldn't go to his father with any of his problems. He didn't kill Aaron but he still felt guilty about it anyway, at least at that moment, and that created a giant gulf between him and his dad.  . I think my personal resentment for this common plot device just blinded me a little, it makes perfect sense for why it happened and how it plays into Miles' development.In fact, I remember now that I felt more tension during the scene with the door, because conceivably Jeff could have tried to force it open, and he would have discovered that Miles is Spider-Man, and that would have sucked a lot. I mean, not that I thought he would do it, but it added an extra complication - even if Miles could have gotten rid of the gag, for example, he couldn't have called out to his father to open the door and free him and hug him and tell him everything is going to be fine.
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Jan 14, 2019 20:05
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Digamma-F-Wau posted:One thing that did stick out to me is that they didn't really do anything with Miles' Dad assuming spiderman killed Aaron outside of him changing his mind about his assumption at the end. I mean the reason why that plot point got lost in the shuffle makes sense (film was packed enough as it is), but it was still the one thing that stuck out. Yeah I get why this plot development happened (ratchet up the stakes for Miles by putting distance between him and his dad) but on top of the story not doing much with this development, the way it happened was sort of awkward and contrived. I was expecting Jefferson to react in some way to his brother wearing the Prowler suit but he doesn't seem to notice this at all, and instead rushes to blame Spider-Man as if he found dead Aaron in civilian clothes. Maybe Jefferson already knew about what Aaron was up to in his criminal career and probably in the moment he didn't much care about anything beyond his brother's death, but it took me out of the movie a bit that Jefferson just ignored that Aaron was wearing a super suit.
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Jan 14, 2019 20:05
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hiddenriverninja posted:That scene with Peter and Miles in the dorm room was so good. You know that Peter wants this so for Miles so bad, but he can't let Miles go on a suicide mission. And it’s balanced with his own death wish as a way out of having to deal with his own problems.
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Jan 14, 2019 20:12
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The Ninth Layer posted:Yeah I get why this plot development happened (ratchet up the stakes for Miles by putting distance between him and his dad) but on top of the story not doing much with this development, the way it happened was sort of awkward and contrived. I was expecting Jefferson to react in some way to his brother wearing the Prowler suit but he doesn't seem to notice this at all, and instead rushes to blame Spider-Man as if he found dead Aaron in civilian clothes. Maybe Jefferson already knew about what Aaron was up to in his criminal career and probably in the moment he didn't much care about anything beyond his brother's death, but it took me out of the movie a bit that Jefferson just ignored that Aaron was wearing a super suit. I just assumed Jefferson already knew, they had already established that there was a serious falling out between the two.
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Jan 14, 2019 20:35
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At that point, it doesn't matter to Jeff what Aaron did. Before (and after) everything, they're brothers.
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Jan 14, 2019 20:56
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Macdeo Lurjtux posted:I just assumed Jefferson already knew, they had already established that there was a serious falling out between the two. hiddenriverninja posted:At that point, it doesn't matter to Jeff what Aaron did. Before (and after) everything, they're brothers.
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Jan 14, 2019 22:59
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I figure it's more a knee-jerk assumption; Jefferson finds his brother dead in a supervillain costume during a super powered brawl and black suited Spider-man who he considers a dangerous vigilante right next to him. After some time to cool off and possibly an autopsy, he can rethink his assumptions. Another theory: it's easy to forget that most spider folks have spider sense even when it's not explicitly indicated to the audience. Much like another recent movie Peter Parker, Prime Peter probably had his going off like crazy...
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Jan 15, 2019 08:02
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Well I read a few of the more recent pages of the thread and now I retroactively hate the movie. Psyche I loved it. Visually the most spectacular movie I've ever seen, and the sound design on Prowler was probably my favourite part of all. Every time he was onscreen I was rooting for him because he moved and sounded so cool, and I especially liked how dorky he actually looked in daylight and how they made him scary despite that.
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Jan 15, 2019 14:12
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Simply Simon posted:I think the (quite long) scene they had together was fine; I'd even argue it was two back-to-back scenes (them discussing Miles' problems at the new school, and then the actual spraying in the subway tunnel to make him feel better about his ability to have choices in life). As I said initially, the only thing I personally would have added to those scenes was the most subtle of hints towards why Aaron liked being the Prowler so much. Yeah, maybe that's what I was missing--maybe I wanted to get to know Aaron as a character more. There's a lot hinted at beneath the surface for him and I think that's what I wanted to see more of.
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Jan 15, 2019 15:31
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