So there’s a new Spider-Man movie out now, conveniently titled The Amazing Spider-Man, and I don’t intend to get into a debate over whether they really needed to reboot the franchise already with another origin story. (The answer is “no,” by the way. Thus ends the debate.)
I’m here instead to say that I’ve already seen several reviews, including this one in the online Seattle P-I, of an apparently different movie with a similar title: The Amazing Spiderman.
Okay, okay, I know it’s the same flick, but really—when you’re reviewing a movie, I think it’s kind of important to get the name right, and as Karen noted in a recent post, hyphens are cheap, my friend. Plenty to go around. Besides, when you run the word together like that, the movie sounds more like a documentary about a two-bit magician named Harvey Spiderman.
Oooh–nice tie-in there. Well done. I approve this message.
It’s good to know that I’m not the only one who gets all hot and bothered about little things like hyphens. I mean, think about it: There are so many other things that are hugely important that I could lie awake pondering, but it’s things like missing (or overabundance of) hyphens that bug me.
ETA: Doesn’t Marvel still ride herd pretty tightly on their trademarks? I mean, time was we’d have been drawn and quartered for omitting that hyphen. I spent enough time as the creative director for that product line, I still have nightmares. (See what I mean about being kept awake by little things?)
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Seeing “Spiderman” all as one word is just common enough that it really bothers me, especially with all the attention surrounding the new movie. Copyeditors (if they exist) probably think, “Well, lessee, ya got Superman, ya got Batman, ya got Aquaman, so I guess Spiderman it is!” But with no hyphen, it just looks like someone’s last name.
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I know we’ve banned CNN from this site for being low-hanging fruit, but I’m making a special exception here because they also have a review of the movie (just an iReport, not an “official” review) that omits the hyphen.
http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-811059
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And–leave it to the BBC to get it right.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-18734224
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