Venom trailer

[Cen]

So it's here.
Venom's face looks nice. His voice is cool.

But apart from that? no spiderman, his powers are bonkers and looks like "Prototype:the movie", no need to call it Venom.
Opinions?

[Brother Oni]

...looks like "Prototype:the movie"...

This comparison makes my inner geek sad.

It's only a trailer, so I'm reserving judgement, but it looks like a far more serious take on the character than 90s Venom and their macabre sense of humour ("Eyes! Liver! Pancreas! So many snacks, so little time!").

I wonder if they're planning to tie this in to the rest of the MCU.

[Clertar]

I find it strange that Venom doesn't have the Spider-man powers that it got from being merged with Peter Parker. That, with the "evil Spider-man" looks of the suited-up Venom, plus the yearning of the symbiote to merge with Peter Parker again, with the origin story we seem to be getting in this movie make it feel a little empty to me, in the sense that if you remove that, all you have is a guy with some powers --of which we have so many it's hardly special anymore. The same trailer would work with an adult verion of Stranger Thing's Eleven and it would be the same.

[JoshL]

Caveat: I'm not into anti-hero/protagonist Venom at all. I like him as the monster that he is. I feel the same way about vampires too, but I digress.

The first half of the trailer didn't grab my interest, but once Venom kicks in, I found it far more engaging than I expected. Wouldn't go out of my way to see it, but I'd happily see it with friends.

Fun fact: Tom Hardy is playing both Eddie and the voice of Venom. From the trailer, that's looking like some solid work!

[GentlemanVoodoo]

A bit iffy at best. The trailer at first does suggest a much darker movie but then turns into another generic action super hero movie. It seems they were trying to pass this off like an adult like film similar to Logan but still keeping it PG-13. May see this when it gets to the cheap theatre but not that impressed so far.

[lord_khaine]

I kinda disliked the trailer. Most of all because i kinda found the Symbiote powers kinda boring and dumb.
The most this have in common with Venom is the name and apperance.

[Devonix]

Best Venom is Flash Thompson Venom because it elaborated further on something always evident in the mythos. That everything was Peter's fault.

[Rater202]

They seem to be having Eddie take on Flash Thompson's Heroic Traits while giving the symbiote the actively malevolent traits it gained after years of corruption.

[ben-zayb]

They seem to be having Eddie take on Flash Thompson's Heroic Traits while giving the symbiote the actively malevolent traits it gained after years of corruption.

That's what confused me too. Wasn't Eddie the "abuser" in the Venom-Eddie reñationship?

[Devonix]

That's what confused me too. Wasn't Eddie the "abuser" in the Venom-Eddie reñationship?

Eddie was more an enabler than an abuser.

[Rater202]

That's what confused me too. Wasn't Eddie the "abuser" in the Venom-Eddie reñationship?

It's more that Eddie's first round as Venom was a mutually toxic relationship all around--The Planet of the Symbiotes storyline all but explicitly states that he was abad host for Venom.

Eddie Brock had violent mood swings as a result of his adrenal cancer and had come to hate Spider-Man because Spider-Man catching the Sin-Eater revealed the confession he reported on to have been false--his poor journalism in that incident costing him his job, while that and other factors cost him his marriage.

He went to his church, begging God to forgive him because he was planning to kill himself, only to be jumped by the Symbiote who bonded to him and had itself come to hate Spider-Man due to being rejected by him and not quite understanding why(BTW: Originally, Spidey just freaked out at his costume being alive. Venom having made him act more aggressively was a retcon made after the Animated Series did it)

It was that mutual hatred that kept them together, but that was basically the only thing they had in common and being exposed to violence and hatred is not good for a klyntar's psychological health--they're a race that can feel emotions but doesn't really have a concept of them, and Venom had exactly one host prior to being imprisoned for god knows how long and he had Venom exactly long enough to commit total genocide of every life form on his home planet.

Essentially, Venom was a pissed off toddler sharing a body with a guy with a nasty hormonal imbalance and this relationship was bad for the both of them, ultimately driving the symbiote violently insane, and it would take out its frustrations on Eddie, who grew to hate it, when he wouldn't play to its violent impulses.

MacGargan made it worse, being an outright villainous host and also a pliable host who eventually became a willing puppet for the Symbiote's bloodlust(Notably, it's implied once or twice that the Scorpion didn't stop eating people after the symbiote was taken from him) which made it worseto the point where the Klyntar Hivemind had to basically erase almost all of the Symbiotes memories other than Flash Thompson and it's first host before the purification would take.

It should be noted that Venom regained it's memories of it's main hosts after an encounter with Spider-Man, though it's missing it's time with Deadpool(Deadpool's Secret Secret Wars and Deadpool: Back in Black) as well as the events between it's birth and ending up with it's murderous first host(Poison X, a Venom/X-Men crossover, suggests that Venom was oobducted from the Klyntar home planet and sold as a weapon, but Venom doens't recongize the armsdealer)

Ooh, something else: According to a Flashback to Venom's original host, the White Spider-Emblem, or at least something similar to it, is an actual part of the Symbiote's defualt form when bonded to a host. It's similarity to the outfit of the Second Spider-Woman, what Pete was thinking of when he bonded to the symbiote thinking it to be another costume, is apparently a coincidence.

Meaning that Venom should totally have a Spider-Emblem in this movie.

[Kitten Champion]

The only thing I've genuinely liked from the whole symbiote concept in Marvel was the original Black Suit Spider-Man story, where Peter faces his inner-most desires against his moral centre to basically reaffirm who he his as a person and hero. It was something that was developed carefully - so you could see where Peter was coming from and why it was such a big temptation for him - as opposed to a Devil literally showing up to make a bargain in some contrived circumstances.

It was also a story pretty unique to Spider-Man, insofar that so much of it comes from Peter as a character and his comic's basic thematic conceit, he is a Superhero where most things don't go his way and he has to struggle with day-to-day minutia like where his next paycheck comes from and his aged aunt's cholesterol levels and the like.

Making Venom a nemesis to Spider-Man makes sense, I just don't care about him as some kind of tangentially related anti-hero character. It was kind of fun for a while in PS2's Ultimate Spider-Man to play the brawny monstrous thing in a sandbox environment, but I... guess the crux of it is I have no emotional attachment to Venom himself beyond a certain respect for his aesthetic.

Basically, I'm not invested in this movie at all one way the other and the trailer hasn't changed that. If it gets good reviews and I'm not doing anything I could see it maybe, that, or more likely, rent/stream it later.

[Devonix]

The only thing I've genuinely liked from the whole symbiote concept in Marvel was the original Black Suit Spider-Man story, where Peter faces his inner-most desires against his moral centre to basically reaffirm who he his as a person and hero. It was something that was developed carefully - so you could see where Peter was coming from and why it was such a big temptation for him - as opposed to a Devil literally showing up to make a bargain in some contrived circumstances.

It was also a story pretty unique to Spider-Man, insofar that so much of it comes from Peter as a character and his comic's basic thematic conceit, he is a Superhero where most things don't go his way and he has to struggle with day-to-day minutia like where his next paycheck comes from and his aged aunt's cholesterol levels and the like.

Making Venom a nemesis to Spider-Man makes sense, I just don't care about him as some kind of tangentially related anti-hero character. It was kind of fun for a while in PS2's Ultimate Spider-Man to play the brawny monstrous thing in a sandbox environment, but I... guess the crux of it is I have no emotional attachment to Venom himself beyond a certain respect for his aesthetic.

Basically, I'm not invested in this movie at all one way the other and the trailer hasn't changed that. If it gets good reviews and I'm not doing anything I could see it maybe, that, or more likely, rent/stream it later.

Venom became far more interesting once they started tackling a lot of the problems. You see all of that stuff was never really the Symbiote's fault. It was Peters. Pete took what was basically a newborn creature off into battle, and since Symbiotes feed off of the emotions and thoughts of it's host Pete put all of this stress, and agression and other whole host of problems into this creature, and then when he found out it was alive he freaked out and abandoned it. All of Venom's problems come from that abandonment.

[Kitten Champion]

Venom became far more interesting once they started tackling a lot of the problems. You see all of that stuff was never really the Symbiote's fault. It was Peters. Pete took what was basically a newborn creature off into battle, and since Symbiotes feed off of the emotions and thoughts of it's host Pete put all of this stress, and agression and other whole host of problems into this creature, and then when he found out it was alive he freaked out and abandoned it. All of Venom's problems come from that abandonment.

The Flash Thompson Venom was enjoyable - at least in comics - particularly if you look at the Symbiote as a victim of circumstances just as Flash is after his life started to go downhill.

... but that character took decades to make with the fictional parts they had to work with coming into alignment. This seems to be going with more of the 90's concept of Venom, only Eddie Brock isn't an envious bag of toxic masculinity.

Actually, It looks a lot like the Norton Incredible Hulk movie. With the neurotic, dishevelled protagonist with a potentially sinister Id made-manifest that'll pop up to save him while making his life kind of hellish all the while. Only the major antagonists are corporate thugs rather than military, and presumably they'll make Carnage at the end rather than the Abomination.

[Rater202]

Venom became far more interesting once they started tackling a lot of the problems. You see all of that stuff was never really the Symbiote's fault. It was Peters. Pete took what was basically a newborn creature off into battle, and since Symbiotes feed off of the emotions and thoughts of it's host Pete put all of this stress, and aggression and other whole host of problems into this creature, and then when he found out it was alive he freaked out and abandoned it. All of Venom's problems come from that abandonment.

Uh, no, for one, Venom wasn't newborn, it'd been around long enough that the corrupt Klyntar thought that a corrupt Klyntar that wanted to cooperate with a host was insane and lock it away.

2: Venom: Space Knight makes a point of showing that Venom's original, genocidal host is responsible for it's literal addiction to rage and violence, while Poison X implies that it was genetically altered to be more agressive than usual.

3: The Klyntar are literally a species that's designed to be living weapons that adapt to the needs of their hosts, with the pure Klyntar Symbiotes making it a habit to bond to noble warriors so that they can respond to crises all over the universe, so Spidey taking it into battle wasn't a problem. It was literally born and bred to be a superhero and had been used as a murder weapon long before Pete got it.

4: The Guardians of the Galaxy arc that established that made it a point to mention that it's specifically "bad hosts" who make symbiotes evil, and after losing Toxin Eddie Brock has come to believe that his own anger and issues are responsible for the symbiote becoming evil--that's part of why he stole it from FBI custody after it was separated from Lee Price. the current canon is that Eddie and the symbiote's mutual hatred of Spider-Man and later their antagonistic relationship greatly exaggerated Venom's corruption.

5: And that's not even counting Deadpool's Secret Secret Wars and Deadpool: Black and Black, which are considered canon and establish that Deadpool was bonded to the symbiote briefly before putting it back in it's can(for fear that his warped psyche would traumatize it) and that he later had it for a bit between Spider-Man ditching it bonding to it and Eddie getting it, the implication being that absorbing Wade's insanity was a contributing factor to the symbiote's declining mental state

Spider-Man rejecting it, and Venom not understanding why he rejected it, were a contributed to it's violent insanity, but they're far from the sole cause.

[Legato Endless]

Arguably an irrational pet peeve, but whenever a scientist in a film talks about something being 'the next stage' in human evolution, it makes me question what the writer's priorities are. Do we really need this explanation? Especially with how cliché and absurd it is? Bonus points for the scientist being an attractive person with frumpy clothing and glasses.

This feels like something out of an earlier decade.

[Rater202]

Arguably an irrational pet peeve, but whenever a scientist in a film talks about something being 'the next stage' in human evolution, it makes me question what the writer's priorities are. Do we really need this explanation? Especially with how cliché and absurd it is?

Especially when it's something as inane as merging with technology and another organism?

Bonding to a symbiote isn't going to evolve humanity. Bonding to a Symbiote will not make you Homo superior, Homo novus, Homo symbiosis or even Homo sapien symbiosis. It makes you a human living in symbiosis with another organism.

If every human in the world, or at least a majority, were bonded to symbiotes and the symbiotes started exclusively bonding to humans, than maybe in a couple hundred-thousand or million years natural selection will result in humans that are optimized for for symbiotes and symbiotes that are optomized for human hosts and, thousands or millions more, a macro-scale equivelent to the processes that resulted in mitochondria.

Or you could cut out the middleman and genetically engineer human/symbiote hybrids in numbers great enough to eventually outbreed native humanity or, in less realistic stories, interbreed with humanity while producing part symbiote offspring, which would cut the numbers down to a ocouple hundred or thousand years

[Spamotron]

Uh, no, for one, Venom wasn't newborn, it'd been around long enough that the corrupt Klyntar thought that a corrupt Klyntar that wanted to cooperate with a host was insane and lock it away.

2: Venom: Space Knight makes a point of showing that Venom's original, genocidal host is responsible for it's literal addiction to rage and violence, while Poison X implies that it was genetically altered to be more agressive than usual.

3: The Klyntar are literally a species that's designed to be living weapons that adapt to the needs of their hosts, with the pure Klyntar Symbiotes making it a habit to bond to noble warriors so that they can respond to crises all over the universe, so Spidey taking it into battle wasn't a problem. It was literally born and bred to be a superhero and had been used as a murder weapon long before Pete got it.

4: The Guardians of the Galaxy arc that established that made it a point to mention that it's specifically "bad hosts" who make symbiotes evil, and after losing Toxin Eddie Brock has come to believe that his own anger and issues are responsible for the symbiote becoming evil--that's part of why he stole it from FBI custody after it was separated from Lee Price. the current canon is that Eddie and the symbiote's mutual hatred of Spider-Man and later their antagonistic relationship greatly exaggerated Venom's corruption.

5: And that's not even counting Deadpool's Secret Secret Wars and Deadpool: Black and Black, which are considered canon and establish that Deadpool was bonded to the symbiote briefly before putting it back in it's can(for fear that his warped psyche would traumatize it) and that he later had it for a bit between Spider-Man ditching it bonding to it and Eddie getting it, the implication being that absorbing Wade's insanity was a contributing factor to the symbiote's declining mental state

Spider-Man rejecting it, and Venom not understanding why he rejected it, were a contributed to it's violent insanity, but they're far from the sole cause.

The Klyntar retcon for the symbiote is indeed interesting. My big fear is that sooner or later the Klyntar Hivemind is going to encounter Carnage and given the "murderous insanity is a cosmic level superpower," thing that too many writers in comics love their attempt to cure him will inevitably drive them all insane.

[Rater202]

The Klyntar retcon for the symbiote is indeed interesting. My big fear is that sooner or later the Klyntar Hivemind is going to encounter Carnage and given the "murderous insanity is a cosmic level superpower," thing that too many writers in comics love their attempt to cure him will inevitably drive them all insane.

I'd be more worried about the fact that literally the entire population of Planet Klyntar has been abducted by the posions and genetically modifed to make them borderline impossible to remove from hosts, then forcibly bonded them to most of the major marvel characters as well as the Students at the Xavier School and a handful of C-Listers with the intent to assimilate them into th ePsion Hive.

Also, if it helps, barring some asspull that resurrects all the people who were eaten by Poisons, Cletus Kassady is dead.

On the other hand, Norman Osborn has the Carnage Symbiote now and has fed it the Goblin Serum.

[Reddish Mage]

Arguably an irrational pet peeve, but whenever a scientist in a film talks about something being 'the next stage' in human evolution, it makes me question what the writer's priorities are. Do we really need this explanation? Especially with how cliché and absurd it is? Bonus points for the scientist being an attractive person with frumpy clothing and glasses.

This feels like something out of an earlier decade.

Or you could cut out the middleman and genetically engineer human/symbiote hybrids in numbers great enough to eventually outbreed native humanity or, in less realistic stories, interbreed with humanity while producing part symbiote offspring, which would cut the numbers down to a ocouple hundred or thousand years

Seems to me you got the idea all wrong. Attractive frumpy scientist knows that in the 21st Century, old-style evolution is out of date. Now evolution has outsourced all the work to mad scientists for mass-production humanity substitutes.

Symbiote-humans sound like decent competition for the other candidates.

It all has to happen with 2 hours and 15 minutes. Movie audiences won’t have otherwise.

[Darth Ultron]

As a stand alone movie, if someone was just making ''The Cool Anti Hero" it does not look so bad.

It does not seem like a Venom movie though....other then the name and the look of the CGI spam character.

Venom with no Spider Man? Does not seem right?

I guess they are just hoping all the kidz will be like ''way coolz Venom!" and they will watch the movie? Or maybe they just think the movie is good enough to attract non-comic people?

[Rater202]

From what I understand, Sony is trying to make a "Spider-Man" expanded universe that, while including Homecoming, doesn't nessesarily inclide the rest of the MCU.

There's a movie about Black Cat and Silver Sable on the docket, too.

[Wraith]

On the one hand, my first - and still favourite - exposure to Venom was the animated series, and it's going to be hard to think of any original story for Eddie Brock/Venom which does not begin with Spider-Man. It's iconic to say the least, and gives a certain definition to his powers that are going to be very hard to explain without that first contact.

The comparison to Prototype being a prime example; Without the web-slinging aspect being referred to directly, this Venom movie feels a lot more like it was meant to be a remake of Spawn with an angry anti-hero with a black bodysuit and all the powers of silly-putty, because.... reasons.

Having said all that.

Spider-Man 3 was a mess for a long list of reasons, but one of the most vocalised (that I have come across, at least) is how an iconic character like Venom was wasted; being given to a whiney ass like Harry Osbourne, who then had to share screen-time with two other villains, all after having squeezed in an obnoxious and cringe-worthy "Peter Parker is a lame sort-of evil now" opening act.

It's no big surprise that Venom wants to stay well clear of any association with that kind of box-office poison and is trying to learn from previous mistakes - focus on Eddie Brock and Venom, don't water it down by including too many periphery characters and plots - and I think that's probably a good thing. Time will perhaps tell whether or not they cut away TOO much by there being (according to some sources) only a cameo by Spider-Man rather than an extended presence... And yet, I find myself intrigued by the possibilities of how they might tell a non-Spidey Venom story, and how they choose to evolve it into the MCU later.

It also helps that I like Tom Hardy a lot, and that he looked to be on really good form in the trailer. I remain quietly optimistic that an excellent lead actor might be able to carry an adequate script if done well - I'm hoping for Dredd or Punisher: War-Zone amounts of spectacle, rather than Hulk-style nonsense.

[Rater202]

Spider-Man 3 was a mess for a long list of reasons, but one of the most vocalised (that I have come across, at least) is how an iconic character like Venom was wasted; being given to a whiney ass like Harry Osbourne, who then had to share screen-time with two other villains, all after having squeezed in an obnoxious and cringe-worthy "Peter Parker is a lame sort-of evil now" opening act.

You're drastically misremembering--Harry wasn't Venom, he was "The New Goblin," Eddie Brock was still in the movie, they just completly and utterly removed anything sympathetic about him.

Key point: The scene in the curch, he wasn't begging God to forgive him because he was planning to end his life, he was asking God to Kill Peter Parker becuase Parker had... Cost him his job as a journalist by pointing out that he'd not only completly made up a story but had actually plagerized one of Peter's own photos and eddited it to make his fake ass story seem real.

[Draconi Redfir]

honestly i just hope they don't do what spider man 3 did and make "Venom" have exclusively his human face when in "Venom" form. You only see "Venom"'s face in that movie for about a combined minute or so at best, rest of the time it's peeled-back to show off the boring human face.

also; Make him swole dangit. There was no reason to have him thin and fast in spider man 3, he's supposed to be built like the hulk and able to smash concrete with his fists. "Thin crazy and fast" is Carnage, not Venom.

[Rater202]

honestly i just hope they don't do what spider man 3 did and make "Venom" have exclusively his human face when in "Venom" form. You only see "Venom"'s face in that movie for about a combined minute or so at best, rest of the time it's peeled-back to show off the boring human face.

also; Make him swole dangit. There was no reason to have him thin and fast in spider man 3, he's supposed to be built like the hulk and able to smash concrete with his fists. "Thin crazy and fast" is Carnage, not Venom.

Eddie's Venom had the same figure as Eddie--it was Gargon's Venom that was a hulking brute, and Ultimate Venom copied that.

Since Sm3 Eddie was lithe, his venom had to be lithe.

Also, CG is expensive and they'd used up a lot of the budget already.

#notdefendingjustexplwining

[Draconi Redfir]

Eddie's Venom had the same figure as Eddie--it was Gargon's Venom that was a hulking brute, and Ultimate Venom copied that.

Since Sm3 Eddie was lithe, his venom had to be lithe.

Also, CG is expensive and they'd used up a lot of the budget already.

#notdefendingjustexplwining

all i know is i played at least two video games and saw one animated series where Venom had bulging biceps and pecs for days. maybe i'm biased, but my opinion stands.

beefy venom ftw

[Wraith]

You're drastically misremembering--Harry wasn't Venom, he was "The New Goblin," Eddie Brock was still in the movie, they just completly and utterly removed anything sympathetic about him.

Thank you for clarifying the mistake, but y'know what? I'm not even going to apologise for it.

If they can miscast a film so badly that I genuinely couldn't tell the difference between (supposed) college quarterback Eddie Brock and red-headed nerd Harry Osbourne, I don't think that's entirely my fault and just serves to highlight how bad the SM3 Venom really was. Two whitebread guys in CGI pyjamas and with the same stupid hole cut in the front of their mask; again, it's no wonder the new movie is staying as far away from that as possible.

[Brother Oni]

Eddie's Venom had the same figure as Eddie--it was Gargon's Venom that was a hulking brute, and Ultimate Venom copied that.

I distinctly remember 90s Venom being fairly buff as Eddie pumped iron during his time in prison. This was shortly before the symbiote broke Eddie out of prison and left its spawn behind with his cellmate, Cletus Cassidy, who would later become Carnage (a quick wiki check says this was around Amazing Spider 345).

That said, looking up Gargan's Venom, I agree that Venom was much bigger with him (I wasn't able to read many Marvel comics after about '96).

[Rater202]

I distinctly remember 90s Venom being fairly buff as Eddie pumped iron during his time in prison.

But it didn't physically make him buffer.

Trilogy Venom conformed to Eddie's body, like comic venom, but that Eddie wasn't ridiculously buff.