Spider-Man (5 Stars)

Let's get nostalgic. When Stan Lee saw the finished version of this film for the first time he must have felt proud. This was the fulfilment of the dream he had when he wrote the first Spider-Man story in 1962. Amazing Fantasy #15 was the beginning of the silver age of comics. Lee's simple little story about a teenage hero changed the course of comic book history.

Fast forward to 2002. 40 years were needed before technology had advanced enough to transfer Lee's ideas from paper to film. And what a film! It's a true labour of love. It's obvious that director Sam Raimi is a fan of the character and treated Spider-Man with respect. The three films he made were intended to be as iconic as the sixties comic stories. And he succeeded. Maybe he rewrote certain events, and in particular he "telescoped events", pushing things together that happened years apart in the comics. For instance, the original Green Goblin first appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #14 and didn't die until issue #122, published nine years later. However, the film takes care that the Goblin's death happens in exactly the same way as in the comic.

While I'm in the mood I'll name a few changes between the comics and the film. It's not meant to be complete. Maybe someone can comment on my post by listing other differences.

1. Although the ages are never explicitly stated, Peter Parker became Spider-Man at about 15 in the comics and at about 18 in the film. This is significant, because in the comics his early adventures take place while he's at school. He graduates from high school in issue #28.

2. In the comics he was a teenager in the sixties, in the film he's a teenager in the early 21st Century. All of the new Marvel films place the heroes today, and in general it works. I feel that the Hulk should have been left in the sixties.

3. In the comics Mary Jane was Spider-Man's third love interest, after Betty Brant and Gwen Stacy. In the film it's stated that he'd known her since he was six and had had a crush on her since fourth grade, but in the comics he doesn't meet her until issue #42 (his second year of college?)

I guess changes like these are necessary when you're compressing 2500 pages of comics into 100 minutes of film.

Let's move onto another topic. This is so far the only one of my favourite films that I rebought on Blu-ray after already owning it on DVD. I didn't intend to rebuy any films, but the Blu-ray Spider-Man Trilogy was on offer for £10.47 at Tesco, much less than I'd paid for the three films on DVD, so I made a spontaneous purchase. Was it worth it? Yes!

I need to go into this subject in more detail. When DVDs first came onto the market in 1996 the quality jump from videotapes was so immense that there was no doubt about upgrading. I rebought all my favourite films on DVD without hesitation, as many others did. Within five years DVDs were outselling videos. However, there doesn't seem to be the same rush to adopt Blu-ray since Blu-ray Discs were introduced in 2006. The experts say that it's a big quality jump in terms of sound and picture, but the public isn't convinced. Why not?

The main reason is that the improvement of DVD over videotape was obvious to everyone on the equipment they already had. The improvement of Blu-ray over DVD is only obvious with added investment. To appreciate the improved picture and sound quality of Blu-ray you need to invest at least £1000.

First the sound: Most people who watch films listen to the sound through the inbuilt television speakers. If you're not willing to pay £400 upwards to connect your television to a good hi-fi system you won't hear a difference between DVD and Blu-ray. Added to this is the problem that most people are unable to appreciate the difference in quality between cheap and expensive hi-fi systems. Sad but true. In the days when orchestral music was fashionable people trained their ears to pick out the individual instruments. In today's rock and pop era "loud is good".

As for the picture: If you're using a CRT television or a small flatscreen television you won't notice any difference between DVD and Blu-ray. But analogously to "loud is good" people today believe that "bigger is better", so the sales of large screen televisions are booming. People want a 40" television as a status symbol. The problem is that after changing from a 22" CRT television to a 40" flatscreen television you'll sit down to watch a DVD and you'll notice that something is wrong. The picture is less clear than it used to be. The problem is that the same number of pixels are being shown farther apart on the screen, so the picture looks fuzzier. This problem can be solved by playing your DVD with a Blu-ray player, because Blu-ray players have an "upscaling" feature, which processes the image to increase its vertical resolution from 576 pixels (PAL formatted DVDs) to 1080 pixels. Now it's a question of whether you're willing to pay about £100 for a Blu-ray player or £40 for a new DVD player with upscaling capabilities.

Upscaling a DVD picture is a big quality jump. Almost anyone will see the difference on a 40" television. The question is whether there's a difference between an upscaled DVD picture and a Blu-ray picture. It's not possible to answer that question directly. New films are filmed digitally or digitally mastered at 1080 pixels, so watching them at this resolution you will see fine details and perfectly sharp images. An upscaled 576 picture will look almost as sharp, but not quite. However, older films were transferred from tape to DVD at 576 pixels, and when they're released on Blu-ray they've been upscaled 1080 pixels in the studio from the digital DVD version, because it's faster and cheaper than a new transfer from the videotapes. In this case the DVD and the Blu-ray will look identical. Added to this is the problem that the original master tapes of older films are often in poor condition and even a new transfer wouldn't improve the picture.

I'll give a guideline whether Blu-rays are better than DVDs:

2006 to present: Blu-ray is better
1996 to 2005: Blu-ray may be better, especially in big budget productions
1995 and earlier: Blu-ray is not better

It's not impossible that a pre-1996 Blu-ray is stunning quality, but it's an exception. For any pre-2006 film that you're thinking of buying on Blu-ray, read reviews to see what other people think about the quality, then compare the prices. When an old film is rereleased on Blu-ray it means that the DVD is old but the Blu-ray is new, leading to considerable price differences. For instance, at Asda you can buy "Hollow Man" on DVD for £3 while the Blu-ray version costs £17.50. At price differences like that I'd only buy the Blu-ray if it were my favourite film, and even then I'd want to be 100% certain that the picture would really look better.

"Spider-Man" was made in 2001, and it's worth it. Excellent picture quality and hardly any price difference (at least not at Tesco). When all Blu-ray Discs are so cheap there will be no need to worry about what to buy.