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Spider-Man - The New Animated Series (Special Edition)

Spider-Man - The New Animated Series (Special Edition)

List Price: $24.95
Your Price: $19.96
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Spider-Man show
Review: First off let it be known that this is not an animated cartoon for children.Twelve and up sounds better to me.This show was on MTV, and was pretty well written but kind of hadan mtv style to it to attract mtv's viewers and thats wre it slumped a little bit.Other than that this show was very good and entertaining.The action was absolutely brilliant and if you like seeing spidey in action this is awesome.Fight scenes were great the voice tlent was pretty near perfect and the show was at many times funny.Watching spidey web swing was glorious , very well done.The show wasnt very well advertised bu that doenst mean it wasnt good, it was on , on friday nights at 10pm on mtv, and still was mtvs top rated show every friday it ran.the show will be continuing next year but not on MTV. It will be on a more child friendly network like cartoon network, and the thought of putting it on primetime on a channel like fox has even come to mind. This show will be back for a second season so keep an eye out sometime next year for it to hit airways again.If your a spiderman fan i'd recommend this to you, especially if your looking forsomething to hold you overuntil the second movie comes out in july of 2004

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Spider-Man: MTV style
Review: Spider-Man swings again.

Over the course of his forty year existence, there have been many different animated incarnations of the classic Marvel Comics superhero on televison. The first "Spider-Man" series produced by Krantz Animation (in its first season) and Ralph Bakshi (in the second and third seasons) from 1967-1970 turned out to be a seminal favorite among fans. Although the animation was limited, the cartoon featured character designs which held close to the John Romita comic book artwork from the 60's, tripped-out visuals and the ever-famous title song ("Spider-Man, Spider-Man ... does whatever a spider can! ... Look out! There goes a Spider-Man!"). This was followed by "Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends" in the early eighties, another 80's solo series from the same production team focusing on his solo adventures, and the seriously flawed FOX television series from the nineties.

After much fanfare as well as a few delays, the latest "Spider-Man" series was broadcast on MTV in the summer of 2003 -- and the entire first season is collected here in this special edition DVD set. Naturally, there was plenty for fans of the wall crawler to enjoy as the episodes followed the adventures of mild-mannered college student Peter Parker, who leads a double life as the costumed crime-fighter, Spider-Man. By using a process called "cel shading" on computer generated characters, the animators of the show were able to incorporate the viewer in a collection of dizzying web-slinging sequences and action scenes like never before. Finally, here was a cartoon where Spider-Man actually moved (and swung above the streets of New York City) as he should -- along with delivering a few amusing, choice wisecracks in between punches.

But the series also was hampered by several glaring flaws -- including a few obvious limitations inherent in the techniques used by Mainframe Animation (i.e. the characters often look and move like disturbing mannequins, their clothes seem as though they were painted on their bodies, etc). There were also some serious drawbacks in terms of the overall creative execution of the series. The storylines unfortunately tried to capture a "Dawson's Creek" atmosphere in terms of the relationship between Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson, and this often felt extraordinarily trite. Classic villains (aside from the updated Electro, Kraven, Kingpin, Silver Sable, and the Lizard) were often ignored in favor of new, younger, and sillier adversaries. The ragged pacing often went into overdrive too often, the writing sometimes would get repetitious (think of all the scenes where these college kids are drinking coffee), and there was also an annoying cliche of having Peter Parker "instantly" change from his street clothes to his Spider-Man costume inside of a split second (and usually off-screen as well). Apparently, producers Morgan Gendel and Rick Ungar thought Spider-Man had the same abilities as the Flash -- or that Peter changing to Spidey should be treated exactly like a video game.

There were also frustrating reports that MTV had demanded that almost no old people appear on the series (since their audience supposedly "didn't like seeing old people"), which led to a complete dismissal of Aunt May -- a terrible mistake considering her impact on Peter's life and the decisions he makes -- and the scaling back of J. Jonah Jameson as a major character. There also seemed to be a massive attempt to "hip up" Peter Parker and his world -- with very mixed results. Favorite characters from the comic books including Gwen Stacey, Betty Brandt, Robbie Robertson and Flash Thompson either appeared once in the first season or were almost unanimously dropped in favor of forgettable romantic interests like budding TV reporter "Indy."

Brian Michael Bendis (of "Ultimate Spider-Man" fame) is credited as executive producer, but his talents are barely felt in this series -- outside of a single episode entitled "The Party."

Despite this, fans of the character and older children will find enough here to enjoy. There is some violence and mature themes, and parents should be aware that there are several deaths in a few of the episodes. But the entire first season and extras are certainly worth the DVD's price, and some fans may not mind the problems that I've listed in this review. Hopefully, a second season on a different network will allow the producers of this series to correct the missteps of this first season -- and give the public a definitive Spider-Man cartoon series. Until then, this special edition DVD will certainly suffice.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Ultimate Spider-Man: The Animated Series. 'Nuff Said.
Review: This was the most perfect Spider-Man series of any yet made. Though it lacked the jazzy tunes of the original sixties series ;-), it far surpassed the convoluted mess that Marvel gave us in the early 90s.

With Brian Michael Bendis as an executive producer, how could this not be good? The visuals were excellent, lending a nifty neo-comic-book feel to the environments. The stories were inventive, coming up with some nifty new spins on classic pieces of the Spidey mythos. The best revision, of course, was that written by the not-infalliable-but-close BMB himself; taking the one-d villain Electro in a direction different from either the main or Ultimate comics stories but no less entertaining.

The Legion of Super Voice-Actors is in great form here: Neil Harris, Lisa Loeb, and Ian Ziering turn in performances that are almost always sonically superior to Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, and James Franco respectively. The guest stars shine, most notably Stan "the Man" Lee himself as Ezekiel (or whatever they called him, the guy who advised Peter to kill Kraven).

In short, if you're any sort of Spider-Man fan and you didn't catch it the first time around, I highly recommend purchasing the DVD of this series. It's something for everyone: a continuation of the movie in bite-size chunks, an animated adaptation of Ultimate Spider-Man, a way to get pumped for 2004's Spider-Man 2, and just a rollicking great cartoon all around. Five stars.

A single caveat: If you didn't know, this cartoon originally aired on MTV. With that sort of a target audience in mind, it should be no surprise that they made this series

UNSUITABLE FOR YOUNG CHILDREN.

If you're a parent who considered 2002's Spider-Man movie too intense for your child (as many, quite reasonably, did) this series is not a wise investment. Rather, find some of the other fine animated Spider-Man DVDs avaliable on Amazon.com- the ones you're looking for say (Animated), in parentheses, after the title, and are suitable for all ages.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Not all it could have been
Review: First off, I'm a huge spider-man fan. I heard about this upcoming mtv series very early on and was in front of my tv for the premiere, and for the following few weeks. What I found when I tuned in was a beautifully animated show, with some nice ideas and characters, that ultimately fell short because of its scripts. The major problem with Spider-man the tv show was that it was a half hour in length. This gave the writers zero time to get you to the villian, have them fight spider-man, and then come to a resolution. Because of this alot of the episodes felt rushed, and alot of the endings were over the top. It's hard to end an episode in 5 min without making it seem like a really cheesy way to defeat a super villian. Maybe if it was an hour long like the much acclaimed smallville, it would have had a chance to flesh out its stories. But as it is the series fell short of expectations, and fell off of my tv radar.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: KINDAVE GOOD.
Review: KINDAVE GOOD.I DON`T LIKE IT AS MUCH AS THE 1994 SERES.IT`S KINDAVE GOOD THOUGH.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Awesome!
Review: This Collection has them allll !!1 13 episodes on two discs: Heroes and Villains, Royal Scam, Law of the Jungle, Sword of Shikata, Keeping Secrets, Tight Squeeze, Head Over Heels, The Party, Flash Memory, Spider-Man Dis-Sabled, When Sparks Fly, Mind Games Part 1, Mind Games Part 2

Each episode has audio commentary by various contributors to the series, including producer Adu Paden, Stan Lee, and Neil Patrick Harris

Amazing spider facts

Test footage

Outtake reel

Building with Layers (multi-angle featurette)

The Making of Spider-Man

Creating the Models

Animating Performance

Spider-Man Music: The Composers

Production artwork

DVD-ROM: Character Modeler

Widescreen anamorphic format

Number of discs: 2

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Really really good!
Review: When this series first came out and I saw it was on MTV and Bendis helped out on it, I was not going to watch it, which for a life-long Spidey die-hard like myself, was surprising. But I gave it a chance and I really liked it. When you see who does the voices (Neil Patrick Harris, Lisa Loeb, Ian Ziering, Eve, Cathy Griffen, etc) you think it's going to suck, but it works really well. And the animation is really good....a lot better than I thought it'd be for completely CG. If you are a huge Spidey fan, you should get this, the awesome '67 Collection, and help petition for the release of the entire 65 episode run of the awesome 1990's series that ran on Fox.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Nice Update
Review: I have been watching Spiderman cartoons and shows in various forms for 30 some years. This is a nice update to the series.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Godawful, Hellbound Filth
Review: The animation is horrible ... the voices are terrible ... and it was on MTV. Three strikes and YOU'RE OUT!

The early 90s series that aired on Fox was far superior in every conceivable way. Too bad that series (along with the same era X-Men) may never been released on DVD in its entirety.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Nice, but not perfict
Review: As a Spiderman Fan, I had to buy this DVD, the price is right.
I belive Spider man of the 90's was much better over all, even that this one is computer animated, it is poor on animation and very unnatoral movment!
What I must say is I love that fact that this one is on an adult level.
Buy this DVD set, much better and cheeper than the individual DVD's


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