Thu, June 24, 2004

In the city of Los Angeles, it's safe to say that there are plenty of billboards promoting the upcoming release of Spider-Man 2 (June 30th – be there!). I would have to say it's unlikely that anyone is left who isn't aware that there's a Spider-Man movie coming out this summer.

Since I'm eagerly anticipating the movie, I don't have any problem with this. And since all the advance reviews have been excellent – in fact, with the trailers I've seen as evidence, it's impossible for this film to be less than spectacular – I think it's safe to assume that this is not a Godzilla-style blitz attempt to make a lot of money fast before word-of-mouth gets out about how bad the movie is. Columbia's reasons for the Spidey inundation are their own, but it's safe to say that it isn't a matter of propping up an almost-unreleasable film. Good for them! Yahoo for Spidey!

Here's what I notice, though. (The billboards are huge and they're everywhere. I spend a lot of time looking at them while waiting in traffic.) In most of the posters for the movie, Spider-Man is making his trademark web-slinging gesture. (Wrist cocked, pinky and index finger extended.) This is a little strange, considering there's no web material being emitted in any of these photos, but that's not the point. The point is the outfit. Notice, if you will, the glove of the Spider-Man outfit.

This is one of the better designed superhero costumes. Certainly the original (nippleless) Batman costume for Michael Keaton was fantastic. And of course Superman's getup, while campy and a bit dated, is a classic. But here's Spider-Man. Like Batman, a very familiar suit throughout the character's history, but one that requires a certain amount of updating in order to seem "current." The underlying hexagonal grid is a genius stroke. (Of course, I'm a tad biased towards hexagonal grids – this site used to be covered in 'em.) I also like the raised spider web pattern and the reflective eyes. The success of this outfit is in the many, many small details. Among them, the glove.

Look at it closely. The costume designer had a real challenge in front of himself here. It's imperative that the raised spider web pattern be continued onto the hands. You can't just stop at the wrists and have red gloves. And you can't orient the stripes vertically, down the lengths of the fingers. That would look weird – like some sort of claw. No, the stripes have to go across the fingers, which means going around the fingers. And that's where it gets challenging. The stripes must be spaced just right, because if the final stripe at the end of the finger is too far from the tip, it looks like you have a little cherry tomato hanging off the end. If it's too close to the tip, you run the risk of the squid tentacle sucker. Look closely; they managed to define just the right amount of space between that last ring and the end of the finger. Very little margin for error here. See? It's all in the details.

And, by the way, how perfect is that hand gesture? It's like the five note melody for Close Encounters. It has to be unique yet utterly simple. It has to have its own style, but seem completely natural. A fist wouldn't do. Pointing would be weird. Even the hand extended flat like a ninja chop wouldn't seem right. There are so many gestures already taken, and only five fingers to work with – not a lot of combinations. Granted, the final Spidey gesture is very close to "Hang Ten" or an inverted "I Love You" (does anyone do that one, though?) – but that's just the thing; with such a limited amount of combinations, changing one finger or flipping it over is a big change. I have no idea who came up with the gesture, if it was in the original Stan Lee comics or not, but I think it would be interesting to know. These things seem so organic but they make up a huge amount of the character's iconic identifiability. That's why I love the sequence in Spider-Man right after Tobey leaves the cafeteria and he's trying to figure out how to make the web again. He goes through all the gestures (including the nodding bull), and it just reinforces how unique the Spidey gesture is.

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