Okay, I agree completely with the fact that Gwen Stacy was just used wrongly. However, I don't agree with this comment. If I want the exact same experience as the original, I'll just read the comics again. I have no intention of shilling out 8 bucks for a newly released movie I've already seen.
Okay, nowhere in the post am I asking for a verbatim copy. It's about not having much in the way of recognizable traits. [spoilersandstuff]
I was talking about Gwen Stacy mostly. Personally, I think Venom doesn't fall under this, because he was never really in Sam Raimi's vision. Marvel strongarmed him into this movie.
Also, while the comic book Venom was popular, the definitive pop-culture version of Venom that is responsible for most of his popularity has to be the animated series. And in that, he came from... the moon. In a rock. Yeah. It really just depends on what you view as the source material.