Vocab: vapid, vehement, veracity, vestige, vivacious
Commonly Confused Words: course/coarse
Grammar Focus: parallel structure and semicolon/colon
Okay, guys. We have to talk about something. And that something is Spider-Man.
Specifically The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
First off, DO NOT SEE THIS MOVIE IF YOU ARE EPILEPTIC. There is this one scene that is no good for that, I will tell you right now. Second off, I promote this movie vehemently, but this is not so much a review as it is a rant, which means THIS POST IS GONNA BE CHOCK-FULL OF SPOILERS. (Mr. Parker, you should go see it before grading this. I'm not kidding.) It also probably won't be very cogent. (<<ha.)
For you to fully understand all the feels I feel about this movie, you need to know two things about me: a.) I view all things media as two parts writer and one part an emotional human being, and b.) Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy always has been and always will be my OTP (One True Pairing, for any non-fandom-y readers), rivaled only by AnthoBea (Anthony Rousseaux and Bea Holmes, one-shots of which surface periodically on my girlfriend's blog here). Additionally, Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone are like my two favorite actors ever because gosh they are both such adorable dorks and I love them oh my god. They are perfect.
But so of course, they killed her.
Yup.
And it was beautiful.
That is not to say that Death is beautiful. It's not. It's harsh and ugly and desperate, and unlike every other perfect and lovely Hollywood actor, the broken way that Andrew Garfield cries portrays that quite nicely. However, the death is beautiful from my writer-y point of view. Having seen the movie twice in its first three days, I have such an incredible amount of respect for whoever wrote it.
They spend the entire movie, it seems, building us up. They make us so sure of Peter, whose web shooters never miss a beat even when they're broken, who saves every pedestrian, who responds so immediately in every situation; he is the perfect hero. And they make us so in love with, so incredibly lost for Gwen, who's gorgeous and intelligent, not some vapid damsel in distress, but the high school valedictorian, who knows what she wants and makes her own decisions, who so obviously loves Peter and makes everything un-complicated for him, but also lives and leads her own life.
Given that, the true excellence of Gwen's death scene relies so heavily on defeating the heavily set conventions of the genre. When the villain claims he'll kill the girl, you know his words are written without a vestige of truth because a true superhero never loses a soul, especially not the love of his life. Furthermore, in every other movie, when the protagonist holds their loved one's lifeless remains in their lap, crying over their body, begging them to open their eyes...the person always does. Sometime, I'll have to review Frankenweenie to fully express my thoughts on this scene, but let's suffice it to say it is the most clichéd thing you could ever write into a story, and I will lose all respect for said story if you do.
But these writers broke the cliché.
Gwen does not open her eyes. And somehow, whether it's due to the integrity the movie has already shown, or the sheer finality of her limp body once she's hit the ground (she falls from a clock tower, by the way), you know she won't. And Peter's sobbing, and it's brutal and coarse and unexpected, and although it's a factor that I came in to the movie already invested in the characters, this was the first movie I've ever cried in. When his web reached down to catch her, the end of it opened slowly into an unmistakable hand. But he couldn't catch her this time.
But somehow, even without my two-parts-writer perspective, the crushing honesty of Gwen's death doesn't ruin the movie for me, because it ends with Spider-Man coming back to the city after his period of grief because Peter finally watched a video of the speech Gwen gave at graduation. It says that there are dark times ahead, but not to lose hope, because people need you and things do, eventually, get better. So Peter gets new hope and closure, and goes back to saving the city, and the movie ends with the same shadowy figure who spoke to Dr. Curtis at the end of the first movie talking to Harry Osborne, setting us up for another sequel.
Our beautiful Spider-Man will go on without Gwen Stacy, as will his adventures. And I truly believe that no one beats Emma Stone, but honestly, I'm pretty excited to see what vivacious or sexy redhead may play MJ in the next movie.
I'm gonna really miss Gwen, though.
-Allie
Update: so, it came to my attention in searching for pictures of Gwen's death that she actually died in the comics as well (which apparently I should have known - I really need to find those), but my points about clichés and everything still stand. but so yeah.
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| (courtesy of: Sneak Peek) |
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