Or, “How to Kill a Franchise in Two-and-a-Half Hours.”

Or, “Goodbye, Hobbit.”

Or, “Why the Blu-ray fight just got a whole lot tougher.”

Like most of America, I plunked down my hard-earned cash and valuable free time to watch this disaster of a movie. And after the smoke of the box office rush has settled, it sounds like I’m not in the minority. But as one will see, the implications of this are farther-reaching than the inevitable descent out of the box office top ten.

First, about the movie itself. It would be a cop-out for me to say it was a disappointment. Inevitably in a trilogy, not all the films will be on the same par excellence. Some films might be better than others, but they should overall offer the same standard for enjoyment. Spidey 3 is the trilogy’s spoiled brat – it was given the most time to produce, had the biggest budget, and already had that built-in audience of fans who enjoyed the previous two, but fell way short of expectations.

Want specifics? Things started wrong right at the opening credits when I saw Michael Chabon‘s name missing. You see, not only did he write the story to one of the greatest superhero movies of all time in Spiderman 2 (the other being Unbreakable, which I can debate later), but he’s a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and comic fan who also penned early treatments for the X-Men and Fantastic Four franchises, and the writings of his experiences are almost as enjoyable as the treatments themselves. Comic books have reached a heightened maturity and storytelling expertise that have transcended their perceived and popular image. Chabon is someone who understands this and respects it, and it doesn’t hurt he’s a damn fine writer to boot.

So even though I saw “Screenplay by Sam Raimi and Ivan Raimi…”, I still held on to hope Spidey 3 would be worthy enough to be mentioned in the same paragraph as the previous two. And things started off good enough, even with a singing, snaggletoothed Kirstin Dunst kicking off the super-festivities. Yes, I said singing. And no, it wouldn’t be the last time she’d sing in this movie. But clocking in at 140 minutes with a severe lack of Spidey, they’d have to fill it with something, right?

It’s filled alright, but with the stuff you’d find yourself scraping off the bottom of your shoe. Sure, the sappy conventional “I love you”s between Peter and M.J. are grating, but could be overlooked by the nearest action piece, right? Sure, if only that weren’t followed up by Aunt May’s turn as Gandalf the Grey and stopping the story dead in its tracks to spew infinite wisdom to little Pete. Then I knew it was going to be bad when Raimi put Stan Lee in a spoken cameo that made his Mallrats gig look Academy-worthy. But still, this is Spidey we’re talking about, he hasn’t let me down yet. Right?

Right…the Sandman was nothing more than a diversion in a movie with no real villain, and a pretty stupid diversion to boot. Apparently there’s enough sand on Manhattan to make him tower thirty stories in the air, along with the requisite slow-motion growls a giant film monster makes. And his inclusion was so forced Raimi had to completely alter the emotional makeup the first film just to fit in his subplot, which is a shame since the entire Sandman plot could have been edited out with minimal impact to the overall storyline.

And then there’s Venom. Richard Roeper wrote Spidey 3 was “never scary”, and this is where Raimi really dropped the ball. For those unfamiliar, Raimi started out making low-budget horror films, and a lot of his technique from those early films have shown up in his big-budget blockbusters. Spidey 2 in particular had a scene right out of Evil Dead when Doc Octopus was made his way with some Doctors who wanted to part him of his tentacles against his wishes; the shadows, the screams, the flashy camera were all reminiscent of what Raimi does best. But for a villain as menacing as Venom, there’s none of that here. Instead, Venom’s driving motivation to kill Spiderman is because Parker stole Eddie Brock’s job. Terrifying, I know.

The entire movie is filled with inconsequential plotlines. One such is with Gwen Stacy, played by the surprisingly plump Bryce Dallace Howard, who is used only as a sucker for Spiderman to rescue and a plot device to make Brock jealous. She’s in the movie long enough to make people curious as to how she fits in with the Spidey lore, and gone well before the hokey finale. And speaking of that finale, by the way – I won’t give anything away, but let’s just say it reminded me of something out of Spy Kids. And no, for those wondering, that’s not a good thing.

So now we know the movie stinks, but what about those deeper ramifications I spoke of earlier? Well, for one, this does not bode well for Raimi’s chance to helm The Hobbit. Either New Line will look for a new director, or count their blessings at how lucky they had it with Peter Jackson and bring him back on to finish the Tolkien literary universe. And what about Blu-ray? Well, Sony was betting on Spidey 3 to drive Blu-ray to a blow-out Holiday 2007 season, with the film rumored to be released on the format in November. Mark my words: not only will the film suffer a steep 60% or larger drop in ticket sales the second week because of bad word-of-mouth, but when Shrek 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean are finally out by the end of May, Spidey 3 will only be remembered for its lackluster box office gross, despite its opening weekend.

But why is this bad for Blu-ray? Because Spidey 3 will have left an indelible smudge on a once-cherished franchise. Especially how it isn’t much of a standalone film, and it made changes to one of the critical and emotionally charged moments of the first movie, this disappointment has tarnished the overall trilogy. Don’t believe me? Remember how great everyone thought of The Matrix when it came out? What about after seeing the last two films, Reloaded and Revolutions? Not so much. Same goes for Batman and Star Wars. Spiderman 3 will cause the entire trilogy to suffer, and the Blu-ray discs won’t be the celebrated and must-buy releases they could have been had the movie done the other two justice. Sure they will sell software, but no longer will they sell hardware like Sony was hoping.

The first two movies made me a True Believer. Number Three made me wish superheroes were real, because they would have rescued me from the theater and beat up the manager so I could have my money back. Yes, it was that bad.