Hello.

I’m currently in Malaysia and still completely behind on my blog post uploads however, the official Spider-man trailer for the 2017 film was finally released yesterday and I felt like since I was already running late for the other posts, I should just take the time out to write this one up whilst it’s still relatively new. I had previously intended to upload a post about Tom Holland on my other blog: Linn Tells A Story, however due to my week being incredibly hectic, I didn’t have the luxury of just sitting down and writing it all out. I will however, definitely upload that post sometime next week. It’s going to be great so please check that out here, when I do post it.

Yesterday, was an extremely long day for me.

The night before, it was announced that the new Homecoming trailer would be released on Jimmy Kimmel Live at 11:35PM (LA time?) and obviously my being in Malaysia means that it would be towards the late morning before I would be able to watch it due to the time difference and everything. For those of you who are not yet aware, I’m currently in Malaysia and I’ll remain in Malaysia for around 2 months where I’ll be working as an intern for a company. Therefore, during this time yesterday, I was stationed at my office desk during work and I was completely unable to watch the new trailer because it would be rather unprofessional to begin watching Spider-Man trailers  whilst stationed at the office desk.

Of course, I was completely tardy to the party; in this situation, the whole trailer madness that had all Tom Holland fans hyperventilating. I was only able to finally experience the trailer after work and of course, I paused the video several times and screamed (thankfully, nobody was home). Not because the trailer was absolutely phenomenal, more so the fact that I was extremely excited that Tom Holland finally broke through and had his own solo film.

After my adrenaline rush died down, I really hate to say this but I just have to be honest and voice out the fact that, I found the trailer incredibly underwhelming. I love Tom Holland, I really do and I want nothing but for him to be successful and happy. However, my integrity for Spider-Man still remains and I just can’t find it within me to blindly ignore it just because of Tom’s presence. I really can’t. I love Spider-Man too much to be able to do it.

I am aware that Marvel is extremely eager to tie everything into the whole Marvel Cinematic Universe but I really didn’t want it to end up like this. True. Spider-Man was undeniably the apex of Captain America:Civil War; if not the best bit. However, I did have one little tiny qualm about how it all played out. I don’t know about you but, to me, the allure of Spider-Man was the fact that he was just an average teenage kid who’s incredibly intelligent. Taking the fact that he designed and created his own official costume into consideration, he (to me) was a true superhero. Sure, he does technically have radioactive blood flowing through him. But on top of that, he invented his web shooter, he manufactures his own web and he designed his own official suit. He, much like Iron Man, can survive as a solo superhero that relies on nobody else.

Unlike the other Marvel Superheroes such as Captain America, Thor, War Machine or Scott Lang’s Ant-Man(Just to name a few), who had to rely on others in order to play their part as a superhero. For example, Captain was injected with (essentially) ‘superhero steroids’ in order to gain super human strength. His costume was also supplied and funded by S.H.I.E.L.D. His biggest asset, his shield, was designed and made by Tony Stark’s father. Adding onto that, Thor was born to be a god so I’m absolutely certain that it would be completely unnecessary for me to attempt to explain anything. You get the point.

With all of that in mind, I felt that with this new reboot, they were taking everything that I loved about Spider-Man and just tossing it into the nearest waste bin. It’s cool, I’ll admit it. I do love the whole Iron-Man and Spider-Man combination. It’s epic. The idea is definitely genius. Both of them are my two favourite Marvel Superheroes, what do you expect me to say? But for me, I am just absolutely against the idea of Iron-Man designing the final and official version of Spider-Man’s suit. I don’t care if this is another universe, this completely obstructs Spider-Man’s whole creativity process. I’m okay with the upgrades, but the fact that Spider-Man’s only creation of his suit was that jumpsuit, before Tony Stark swooped in, is just disappointing.

Another aspect of Spider-Man that really made me gravitate towards him. Was the fact that his identity was a secret. He was just an unknown student amidst the masses. He could do whatever he wanted, save whoever he wanted and just be the superhero that he wanted to be. With this new version, he’s a kid who finds himself constantly reporting to Tony Stark and it just feels a little too constricted. What happened to complaining about not have time for school because he bears this heavy responsibility of being Spider-Man and protecting the people of New York?

I love Tony Stark, his bluntness and his dry character are the best. And honestly, I really do not want to see a version of a Tony who worries about consequences and actually verbally voices out his concerns. Wasn’t he the one who tried to convince Peter to go to Germany and brushed off the fact that Peter had school? Didn’t Peter almost reject the chance to join Team Iron Man? What happened to those characters? What happened to the reluctant Peter and the reckless Tony? I don’t care if I love both Robert and Tom, if things aren’t lining up then it’s just unacceptable. What am I supposed to do with all of this now?

I felt like that acting skills were seriously lacking as well. Which is really disappointing. I’m not sure if I’m just used to seeing Tom acting in serious films where his performances are so emotional but I felt that there was just something missing. It might be because of the pressure of trying to portray Peter Parker or it might be the fact that he’s not used to playing the part of a teenager who is embarrassed or in love. If you look back on his prior movies, he usually specialises in more of the emotional aspect of things.

Another element of the whole movie that I’d like to address, is this whole ‘let’s just go out of our way to include as much colour as possible so we can gain more brownie points’ thing. What are they doing? I get that in this whole day and age, we’ve got to seem unnecessarily politically correct but this just seems like a whole racial inclusion pity party right now.

I’m not racist.

If race is an issue then I’m just going to point out that I’m a person of colour. Yellow colour. I’m Asian; specifically Chinese. But this is just going a little overboard here because just look at it! Tom’s the only Caucasian one there! Why did the casting director and staff feel the need to be so blatantly obvious in the way they announce that they’re not racist? Why is race even a factor or issue here?

Cause heck, if we’re going to get so technical about racial inclusion, where the hell are all the Chinese people at? And don’t you dare try and say that this guy is Chinese because hey, now you’re one hell of a racist.

Don’t even try to just say that you can gloss if over by saying that he represents all Asian people. But I’m not kicking up a fuss about this. I don’t care if they include Chinese people or not. But you gotta stay true.

For example, Zendaya is not a Caucasian with black hair.

MICHELE IS WHITE. (Her name is Michele Gonzales and it is spelt with only one L. Seriously, they are actually spelling the name incorrectly)

JUST LIKE HOW PETER PARKER IS WHITE.

It’s the exact same reasoning behind the fact that Marvel is never going to cast an Asian person as Spider-Man. It’s not about being racist. It just ain’t right. It’s exactly like how Avatar the Last Air-bender cast Indians to play the Chinese people of the Fire Nation. Now if I remember correctly, that was just the best choice ever.  It just isn’t right.

I feel awful for not ABSOLUTELY loving the trailer and what I’ve seen so far of the film. But I just have to say that I really hope that Marvel and Sony picked all the mediocre scenes for the trailer because if these are the highlights, I don’t know how much more disappointment I can handle.