Spider-Man 3 got THIS right...

I have a confession to make venom is boring wait wait wait okay ju just hear me out it's not that I don't get why he's such a popular character because believe me I see the appeal hell I even like him on a superficial level he's the anti-s Spider-Man a shadowy reflection of everyone's favorite wall crawler a monster born of all Peter Parker's rage and spite or at least that's what he's supposed to be because for all the Pomp and Circumstance surrounding the character I've never felt he lived up to that potential like here's a character with all of spidey's powers who knows all of his deepest darkest secrets and mirrors him visually he should be his ultimate adversary his most personal foe the one who forces the web swinger to look Inward and confront his inner Darkness but I've never felt Venom Rises to that potential at least the original interpretation of the character at the end of the day he doesn't really amount to much more than and a really big guy who can sneak up on Spidey without triggering his spidey sense the fact that they mirror one another physically and aesthetically feels almost incidental a lot of the time and I find that incredibly frustrating because he should be so much more so maybe a more accurate confession is that I've never really liked Venom as a foil to Spider-Man in a Rogues Gallery filled to the brim with compelling Rivals who challenge Spidey both physically and and emotionally venom has just always been like a massive missed opportunity to me a villain who by All rights should embody all of our heroes worst traits his inner demon made literal but who winds up being little more than a cool aesthetic but I realize this is an extremely hot take like all of my Spider-Man takes apparently I could already feel some of you gearing up to Flame me in the comments but I at least take solace in the fact that I'm not alone in feeling this way Sam Ry the guy who kickstarted all this Spider-Man stuff y'all's loves yeah well he kind of famously didn't get venom either so much so that he was kind of at a loss with what to do when aarod and Sony thrust the character upon him for Spider-Man 3 it was really more just that I didn't understand the character that well it wasn't close to my heart the best thing I like about stanlee and Steve dicko Spider-Man is that they made relatable characters that I understand even if they were confused like Norman Osborne they still have goodness in their heart they want them to do the right thing when I read about Venom which I hadn't read as a kid I had to catch up on it when they wanted him to be in the movie I didn't recognize enough Humanity within that character to be able to identify with him properly that's really what it boils down to ry's inability to connect with Venom resulted in him taking significant liberties with the character when adapting him and you know what people [ __ ] hated it so much so that his take on Venom is probably the most controversial part of what is still an incredibly divisive film but having just had the opportunity to rewatch Spider-Man 3 in theaters I've come to an important realization about myself I actually really like Sam ry's take on Venom in fact putting aside the film's numerous other shortcomings I'd go so far as to say that it's probably the most interesting I've ever found the character what's that smell that's little something called nice and easy what's on you are you sick of smelling like cheap cologne and Body Spray but aren't ready to commit to designer prices well thanks to this video sponsor scent bird you don't have [Music] to sent bird is a fragrance subscription that lets you choose a new designer fragrance to try every month for just $17 you shouldn't have to plagiarize a co-worker's photographs to just afford designer fragrances and with scentbird you won't have to they have over 700 perfumes and colognes from Brands like Gucci and Prada as well as Indie labels like Skyler and confessions of Rebel every month you get to pick what you want to receive so there are no surprises or luck of the draw type deliveries with your subscription what's that smell well I'm glad you asked JJ because this month I received colognes from Tommy Bahama curat tricks Versace and House of bow with my favorite of those being the Tommy Bahama Maritime Triumph I am loving this so much I have been wearing it almost every day it is the perfect fresh nautical classic just male summer scent it's a limited edition fragrance from Tommy Bahama it's a vibrant masculine fragrance harnessed by the warmth of the sun and the everescents of the sea as they say it's a scent for the man who appreciates freedom and adventure emblematic of personal Victory it's got hints of Mandarin Violet leaves pimentos Cedar Leaf cashmere wood I mean this is the [ __ ] I am no joke going to buy an entire bottle of this because it smells so good it's my new obsession but the best part is with each fragrance you'll get a 30-day Supply so you can try out scents before committing to a full-size bottle and you can pause or cancel your subscription at any time making it a hassle-free experience so give it a try use my coupon code for 55% off off at sent Bird that's just over $7 for your first month for customers in the US and Canada again use my coupon code or click the link in the description or scan the QR code right on the screen for 55% off at sent Bird that's just over $7 for your first month for customers in the US and Canada and thank you so much to sbird for sponsoring this video I should probably start by clarifying that I'm not here to tell you you're wrong for disliking Sam ry's interpretation of Venom if you're a fan of Eddie Brock as he was written in the comics specifically in that early run from the mid to late ' 80s and you were disappointed that Spider-Man 3 didn't adapt that version of the character Faithfully That's fair enough there's really nothing I can say to convince you otherwise because you're not wrong Remy's version of Venom only resembles his comic book counterpart in the most superficial of ways it's a stretch they're barely the same character so rest assured knowing that this isn't going to be a video about why Spider-Man 3's portrayal of Venom is actually secretly super accurate to the comics rather it's going to be a video about why I really appreciate the changes Ry and Co made when adapting Venom because as far as I'm concerned ry's take is genuinely inspired and fixes what has always been my biggest issue with the source material that being Eddie Brock himself when I say Venom squanders the potential of the character's premise most if not all of that Miss opport can be attributed to his alter ego I just think Eddie in the comics is a really boring Foe for Spider-Man I mean sure there's something cosmically funny about Spider-Man's powers and deeply held Secrets falling into the hands of a man who is the complete opposite of him a borish meathead who most resembles the jocks who bullied Peter as a kid than Peter himself but it doesn't really do much to challenge Spider-Man as a character the whole point of a character like Venom a character who mirrors the hero is that they're supposed to be a foil for the hero a dark reflection that personifies their worst traits and tendencies they should present an internal struggle for the hero as if a physical manifestation of an internal struggle yet Eddie Brock doesn't reflect Peter Parker in any meaningful Way Beyond his job as a photographer so when he bonds with the Symbiote it doesn't really amount to much more than oh no this big mean more on now has all of Spider-Man's powers and knows his secret identity which would be a perfectly serviceable threat were he just some random villain but Venom's not just some random villain Peter and the Symbiote have a history and Venom is designed to be a shadowy reflection of Spider-Man a monster Made In His Image but Eddie Brock just isn't that in order for something to be a reflection it has to somewhat resemble the thing it's reflecting but while Venom may look like a twisted e version of Spider-Man nothing about who Eddie is as a person speaks to that idea it's a purely superficial parallel and that lack of substance saps their rivalry of any saliens for me in fact I think one of the reasons why I love Spider-Man PS1 so much and the relationship between Spider-Man and Venom in that game is because yeah Venom is an antagonistic figure but he's antagonistic like an older brother but like any sibling you're going to to butt heads once in a while and by Eddie Brock being a big dumb idiot that's obviously going to butt heads with Peter Parker so even in that interpretation while Venom is antagonistic he's not a villain and in fact he and Spider-Man team up in that game to defeat Doc O Venom is very much just a simple dumb idiot who misunderstood something that he saw and it just kind of works as a fun little side quest for Spider-Man in that game so you can have him fight Venom but that brings us to Sam Ry the Undisputed master of giving Spider-Man villains genuine POS what I find so ingenious about Sam ry's approach to Venom in Spider-Man 3 is that he not only seems cognizant of the character shortcomings but he addresses them directly instead of giving us meat head jock Eddie Brock he goes for something entirely different completely reimagining Eddie as the anti- Peter Parker instead of just a superficial contrast I.E Eddie The Jock versus Peter the nerd Ry positions Brock as the antithesis of who Peter is as a person Peter is mild-mannered and modest while Eddie is Brash and overly confident Peter is kind and sincere while Eddie wears a thin veneer of kindness in order to smooze those around him Peter waited to be with the love of his life out of a desire to protect her while Eddie is possessive and rushes his relationship with Gwen while having a let's say Cavalier attitude about her safety thank God you're okay Daddy hey in short Ry makes Eddie a genuine foil for Peter a fact compounded by the casting of Tober Grace a dweeb looking nerd not unlike Toby's Peter Parker but with a decidedly douchier Edge however what really makes this interpretation truly sing is the way Remy then uses Eddie to interrogate Peter as a character because while Eddie initially contrasts with Peter over the course of the film we come to realize that Peter is just as prone to the same toxic Behavior as Eddie capitalizing on the idea that the Symbiote exacerbates the host's less desirable traits a concept first introduced in the ' 9s animated series Remy brings Peter's more toxic traits to the Forefront the longer Peter is bonded with the Symbiote the more his inner demons start to present themselves and the more he starts to resemble Eddie Brock he becomes overly confident smug and Reckless just a generally off-putting guy trying way too hard to look badass unlike the Eddie of the comics who is just the total opposite of Peter in the broadest sense topher's Eddie provides more of a deliberate contrast he and Peter are different but in ways that correlate so when Eddie finally bonds with the Symbiote he becomes the personification of all Peter's most toxic inclinations the person Peter could become if he gave into his dark impulses the person he very nearly became while bonded with the Symbiote ry's Venom isn't merely what a Spiderman but bad he's the physical embodiment of the inner Darkness Peter struggles with throughout the entire film all of this toxicity all of his Venom made manifest in confronting Venom Peter is forced to confront himself and at the end of the day that's what an effect of foil is meant to be one of the biggest issues people have with this version of Venom is that he's barely in the movie and I guess you can kind of uh call out the look of Venom like it's just having this weird costume for him like I'll give you that it's not my favorite look for the character but when we actually get the Venom face in its truest form I think the Ramy Venom looks pretty Sinister and creepy and it works with everything that I'm kind of talking about here but aesthetic aside I think the complaint of Venom really only being in the third act sort of misses the point because the Symbiote is Venom or more specifically the darker more aggressive person Peter becomes while bonded with the Symbiote is Venom so while Venom doesn't become a separate character until the end of the second act he's a presence throughout the entire movie and in making Eddie a more explicit reflection of Peter's dark side he ultimately functions as an extension of Peter a vehicle for Venom to latch on to so that Peter can physically confront his demons rather than simply adopting the story of the Symbiote from the comics beat for beat he streamlines it in order to zero in on Peter Parker as a character if the black suit exacerbates the darkness within Peter then Eddie and Venom should externalize that conflict in reimagining Eddie as a distorted reflection that accentuates his most toxic traits Ry does exactly that so when Peter finally rids himself of the symbiot only for it to immediately bond with Eddie it doesn't just feel like the end of one story duv tailing into the beginning of another separate Story the way it kind of does in the comics instead it feels like the climax of a single cohesive story about Peter's descent into darkness and rise out of it Peter's confrontation with Venom is so much more than just a fight with evil Spider-Man it's a referendum on the darkness in Peter's heart this is why the Sandman scene that immediately follows Venom's defeat hits so godamn hard sure you could probably put that moment before the third act right after Peter sheds the black suit and it would probably still play as a nice little character beat finally free of the corrupting influence of the Symbiote it would make sense for Peter to make amends with the people he hurt but it wouldn't feel earned Before Peter is able to make peace with flint and forgive him for his past and Uncle Ben's death he has to do more than simply separate himself from the dark vengeful impulses that drove his pursuit of Sandman he has to confront and overcome them his rage has been the one thing standing in the way of catharsis the entire story and so the moment can really only happen once you've had Peter confront the physical embodiment of that darkness by the same token Peter's reunion with Mary Jane in the final scene of the film feels equally a eared because we've seen Peter reckon with his sins first right before the third act there's a short scene of Peter going to MJ's apartment to apologize but he can't bring himself to go through with it because deep down he's still wrestling with the guilt he feels over the way he treated her but simply stopping abusive behavior is not the same as atoning for it and Ry understood this it's only after confronting Venom that he's finally ready to make amends because we as the audience recognize what Venom represents for Peter in a recent interview with the rap Sam Ry was asked who he'd like to see as the villain in hypothetical Spider-Man 4 and I think his answer goes a long way toward explaining his approach to Venom I think if we were to make up fourth Spider-Man film we'd probably have to figure out the journey that Toby Maguire's character would be going on and what obstacles he had to overcome to achieve that growth personally and I hope that the villain would be chosen based on a representation of that obstacle sure you could have crammed the more comic book accurate version of the character into Spider-Man 3 and maybe that would have made a lot of people very happy but I think it ultimately would have run into the same issue the comic book character does which is that Eddie Brock as Venom doesn't pose a personal challenge for Peter he's a purely physical threat a hulking brute with all of his powers with none of his sense of Duty and responsibility he know knows all of Peter's secrets and can use the knowledge to torment him but nothing about that fact forces Peter to confront something about himself if anything he kind of affirms Peter and while that surface level antagonism is fine when the villain is a souped up Thug Like Rhino or Electro it's just a tad underwhelming when it feels designed to reflect the hero's inner Darkness ry's Venom capitalizes on this potential and Spider-Man 3 is is all the Richer for it in my opinion which isn't to say the film executes its bold New Vision for Eddie flawlessly far from it in fact while I think topher's characterization is fascinating and greatly enhances Peter's emotional Arc I'll be the first to admit he occasionally feels a little sidelined there's just so much going on in Spider-Man 3 and Eddie frequently gets lost in the shuffle which somewhat obfuscates the parallel being drawn between him and Peter looking at stuff cut from the film such as several sequences that found their way into the official novelization it's clear there was an intention to have Eddie's Fall From Grace mirror Peters more explicitly including a scene where he shows up at Captain Stacey's home after being fired from the bugle the scene really punctuates how toxic Eddie's fixation on Gwen is with him completely disregarding how uncomfortable he's making her it's a great little character beat that deepens Eddie's fall and force Shadows Peter's toxic Behavior towards MJ in subsequent scenes editor Bob moroski has explained that moments like this were ultimately cut for pacing reasons which makes sense again the film already has too many balls in the air as it is particularly in the second act but it would have gone a long way towards giving Eddie more of a consistent presence in the film at the end of the day Spider-Man 3 is still a broken movie a very broken movie there's really no way around that fact hell it's not even close to being one of my favorite Spidey flicks it's probably towards the bottom of that list but I really don't think ry's approach to Venom is part of that problem over the years I've seen people go so far as to claim that Sam deliberately [ __ ] up the character to spite Sony which feels incredibly disrespectful sure it's no secret Sam Ry didn't want to use Venom and didn't understand the character but that doesn't really seem to be a problem exclusive to him look at every other major adaptation of Venom everything from Insomniac Spider-Man 2 to Spectacular Spider-Man to the Tom Hardy Venom films they've all felt the need to alter this character in one way or another to make him work as an antagonist or in the case of Tom Hardy's Venom not make him a Spider-Man villain at all so the writers adapting him have to find new ways to make him more compelling whether that be by having the Symbiote bond with a character who has more of a relationship ship with Peter like Harry Osborne or making Eddie a contemporary of peters's in school or getting rid of the Spider-Man element alt together and just having Eddie and Venom as a kind of jaal and hide situation hell even look at the Animated Series which first introduced the idea that the Symbiote Amplified Peter's worst traits all of these adaptations feel designed to fix the problem that is Eddie Brock and Sam ry's iteration in Spider-Man 3 is no different if anything I think ry's approach feels incredibly respectful rather than just shoving the character into the film based on a mandate with little care or effort Ry makes a genuine attempt to incorporate the character into his world and turn him into a Sam ryes villain for lack of a better term Sam Ry may not have wanted to include Venom but he sure tried his hardest to make him work and I think at the end of the day that's the most respect effect you can show The Source material when working on a production of this scale so yeah Spider-Man 3's Venom rules guys and if you can't make peace with that find religion hey thanks guys for checking out this video it's been a lot of fun to really dig into Venom and Eddie Brock and put my feelings about that character out there in a way that coincided with the re-release of Spider-Man 3 which is a a film I don't love but you know it's got some good stuff going in there mainly uh the symbiot suit and Venom and Eddie Brock as we've discussed in this video thank you thank you so much to our channel members for supporting the channel on that level if you're interested in that you can check that down in the description below and thank you so much to sent bird for sponsoring this video seriously guys I love them and I love their service I've been using it for the past couple of months and um it's really opened me up to some new fragrances I perhaps wouldn't have tried otherwise so be sure to check out their awesome service by clicking the link in the description below and I'll catch you guys in the next one see you

Channel: FilmSpeak

Views: 77,068

Keywords: filmspeak, video essay, ending explained, explained, spider-man 3, spider-man 3 got this right, spider man 3, spider-man 3 venom, spider-man 3 is underrated, topher grace venom, venom analysis, venom video essay, spider-man video essay, spider-man analysis, how sam raimi created the perfect venom, sam raimi venom, sam raimi, spider man 3 venom, the best version of venom, why spider-man 3 is misunderstood, why spider-man 3 is underrated, spider-man 3 explained, venom explained

Id: FF79-ht3Atk

Length: 22min 0sec (1320 seconds)

Published: Tue May 21 2024