[SPOILERS] What exactly was cut from The Amazing Spider-man?
Since the release of the movie in theaters, fans have seemed to notice something, some of the scenes in the trailers don’t add up with the final movie. So what exactly was cut? And what could it have meant for the movie?
Spoilers follow the break:
*If you do not want key moments of the movie ruined for you, do not read any further.*
Over at BadAssDigest.com an article was posted titled ” was the untold story cut from The Amazing Spider-man?” in which the author, Devin Faraci, points out some really interesting points from things edited out of the movie,( shown in clips and the trailers), which heavily suggests a last minute edit of the film.
In his article he makes a list of several points that could show things missing, then goes to explain evidence of their obvious absence.
Firstly the article goes on to address how the story feels unresolved in the sub-plot of Peter seeking out Uncle Ben’s killer. As it currently stands, Spider-man goes on his hunt for Uncle Ben’s killer, catches a bunch of guys who bear the same profile, then mysteriously drops the entire quest. While some would argue that this is because of the scene where Peter gets reprimanded by Capt. Stacey and where he feels guilty for how selfish he is acting, and how its contradictory to the moral lesson Uncle Ben gave him, but it is also worth noting that it is rumored that in an earlier cut of the movie, the whole subplot was “resolved” a bit more. Possibly leaving this portion of the plot the way it was so it could be resolved in a sequel (which is currently being written). It is interesting to note that in the original comics, the killer has ties to Mysterio (unlike the 90’s cartoon where they made them both one in the same), a villain that the director Marc Webb has stated that he would love to include in later movies.
However, the article addresses further what could be one of the greater and much more obvious omissions from the final cut. In the current movie, Dr. Rajit Ratha seems to be this menacing lackey for Norman Osborn, ready and willing to take the untested Lizard serum to a veterans hospital to test on the wounded soldiers, only to be stopped? by the Lizard on the Brooklyn Bridge.. then he… well that’s it. Nothing more happens to him. They don’t even mention him any more. But for anyone who has watched and paid attention to the trailers knows that there was much more of him once in the movie.
The BadAssDigest article seems to shed some light on this:
A poster at the Superhero Hype message boards put together images and screengrabs that seem to be all from this sequence. The story of it is laid out pretty well here:
Mr. Ratha finds Connors’ sewer lab, is about to kill him and then Connors turns into the Lizard and gets him first. Spider-Man shows up, there’s a tussle and then…? I’m not really sure where this fit into the film; it had to take place after the scene where Spider-Man ‘hunts’ the Lizard in the sewer, but how long after?
Anyway, Ratha died in the original cut. I can’t figure out if he was turning into a lizard in that large picture or if it’s just an element of coloring.
It is very interesting that all of this was cut. Maybe it was deemed too violent, or maybe they decided that having this character stay for future installments as Norman Osborn’s menacing lackey, who seems to know much more than he is letting on.
What I feel is the biggest cut from the movie, was one of its selling points, “The Untold Story” and all the conspiracy that was with it.
Months ago, a series of rumors came to light, one that suggested that The Amazing Spider-Man would be making a very simple, but very huge, change to Spider-Man’s origin. This rumor spread like a wildfire, fans became mixed, and its possible it was cut from this take of the movie because it was so controversial among the fans. The rumor suggested that it was no longer just a radioactive/genetically created “super-spider” and its spider bite that would change Peter Parker into a superhero, but instead, the spider bite would activate something already within him that would make him a superhero, very much like Ang Lee’s Hulk movie from 2003.
This entire plot is not fully reflected in the final movie. But some hints of it do remain. When you look at the movie with this in mind, and add in deleted elements that where shown in marketing and aspects from the videogame, you can actually see the possibility of the thing that once may have existed in this movie.
The major hints from the movie are still in place, Curt Connors talking about how every subject of the cross-species DNA tests died, unknowingly speaking to the one successful one. So… how did Peter survive? The movie gives the question, shows the idea, but then this sort of leaves you hanging there, with the clues are in front of your face, but no answer to be seen.
Peter was bitten by a spider…. a spider that Peter’s father made, bred to be unique and powerful, a spider just like one shown in the film’s prologue in his dad’s office. So what made Peter so unique? you would think after nearly 10+ years of having these things locked up in a lab, one accident would have occurred with them. So why is Peter the unique one?
The article from BadAssDigest seems to address this very well with some compelling arguments:
In the first and last trailers we hear a man – clearly Mr. Ratha – whispering ‘Do you think what happened to you, Peter, was an accident? Do you have any idea what you really are?’ That certainly sounds like a reference to Peter’s genetic destiny, and a clip that I don’t believe is in the finished film. Judging by the whisper I’m going to guess – and this is just a guess – that it is Ratha’s dying words to Peter after the Lizard does him in. This is a movie that seems like it should have at least one info dump dying declaration in it, and this would have been it.
And there’s more! The last two trailers released have Dr. Connors saying, mid-Lizard transformation, ‘If you want the truth about your parents, Peter, come and get it!’ What truth is that? There’s no ‘truth’ in the film, and Connors and Peter never have a good conversation about Peter’s parents. Going by the “ASM Deleted Scenes #1” image that line of dialogue may very well take place during the sewer encounter with Mr. Ratha.
By the way, it would make the end of the film work better if Peter didn’t just give Connors information he found in his dad’s briefcase. Wouldn’t it be more dramatic if some element of Peter himself – maybe his blood – was an integral part of making the Lizard formula work? Wouldn’t that make Peter’s sense of guilt for helping create the Lizard carry more weight? I’m actually not convinced this was ever in any filmed version of the movie, but it feels like the ghost of an idea cut out of a previous draft.
To me this all adds up to obvious proof that at one point The Amazing Spider-Man explicitly had a storyline about Peter’s genetics. That’s the much-hyped ‘Untold Story.’ In an interview with the Huffington Post, Marc Webb denied this. Sort of:
I have heard rumors that you wanted Peter’s parents to be the source of his powers, not the traditional accidental radioactive spider bite. There are rumors of a reshoot to incorporate the more traditional spider bite.
I think there was something on the internet.
I want to clear that up.
It’s completely false.
So what we see is the way it was always shot?
Yes.
What he’s denying here is the bite, not Peter’s ‘Untold Story’ of genetic destiny. The original cut of the film ALWAYS had Peter being bitten, which is what Webb is saying in that quote. What it also had was the concept that the only reason why Peter didn’t die was because of something uniquely special about him. Something certainly involving his father.
By the way, I suspect that there’s a change in the movie to make Peter’s parents’ disappearance less open ended. If you listen to the dialogue and gauge by Peter’s emotional state, you would guess that his parents vamoosed late one night and no one ever heard from them again. In fact Peter bitterly responds to Uncle Ben’s speech on responsibility by saying he wished his father had some. Which is a weird thing to say when your dad died in a plane crash.
I believe that the newspaper clipping saying Peter and Mary Parker died in a plane crash (seen when Peter is Bing-ing his father. I believe he gets spider powers before I believe he uses Bing) was a late insert. There is nothing else in the film that indicates Peter’s parents are dead. Everything else makes it seem like they’ve simply vanished off the face of the earth.
Plus add this to all the evidence laid out in The Amazing Spider-man videogame: (thanks to an article from Kotaku)
Beenox’s ASM tie-in title picks up on the movie’s plot points in very broad fashion but it’s still possible to see hints of the Genetic Destiny/Untold Story threads in there, too. The game refers to the mutated animal/human hybrids—like Curt Connors’ Lizard persona and the Vermin and Rhino villains—as cross-species. Peter also gets categorized as a cross-species, too, by Connors, girlfriend Gwen Stacy and the Oscorp robots he fights throughout the game.
What’s weird about that element is that the game refers to cross-species as a legacy of experiments that the film barely mentions. There’s only one other cross-species in evidence in the film and movie-Connors goes to great lengths to say that human trials haven’t been done yet. Also, Peter’s unique status as a cross-species that doesn’t go all animalistic is the key to creating an antidote for the virus being spread by Vermin, Scorpion and the game’s other villains. Peter has spider-powers but doesn’t sprout four extra arms. The mention of a specific element in Peter’s DNA that stops that from happening makes it seem like the game was meant to expound on that particular plot point from the movie.
Of course, this is all rampant speculation. But having seen the movie, it does feel odd that a major plot point that’s supposed to motivate Peter Parker—his father’s mysterious death and the full breadth of Richard Parker’s scientific legacy—doesn’t get adequately resolved. Do you think a big chunk of the Amazing Spider-Man movie got cut?
While all of this lays out some very interesting questions, speculation seems to play on the rest. What really was intended for Spider-man to find out about himself? Was he experimented on as a child? is this something that will be touched on in the sequels? or will it be left out and ignored?
All things considered, I think it would really (and finally) add some real gravity to Peter parents disappearance, unless of course they go the Ultimate Spider-man route, and make his dads experiments lead to the creation of Venom and that’s eventually what cause the plane crash. (interestingly enough, Sony is prepping a Venom solo movie, with no ties to the last movies, and “could” tie into the new ones).
Hopefully the future movies will resolve this once and for all, or maybe just the audio commentary on the DVD/Blu-ray.
