Were web shooters really such a problem in Raimi's film trilogy?

[Dzika_Sowa]

I remember watching the first Spider-Man as a kid, and I couldn't understand why they decided to introduce an organic web.

It really made no sense to me. Where would Peter be storing web fluid? Underarms? In the butt? Also, in the original comic book, the creation of the web fluid formula proved Parker could become a scientist.

So... why were web shooters abandoned? The dude flying the glider in the green haloween armor was scientifically achievable, but the artificial web wasn't?

[Agent Z]

I remember watching the first Spider-Man as a kid, and I couldn't understand why they decided to introduce an organic web.

It really made no sense to me. Where would Peter be storing web fluid? Underarms? In the butt? Also, in the original comic book, the creation of the web fluid formula proved Parker could become a scientist.

All the things about Peter's powers and this is the one that bugs you? And it isn't like the web shooters are the only evidence of Peter's intelligence.

So... why were web shooters abandoned?

Probably because they figured, "why not give him web shooters?"

The dude flying the glider in the green haloween armor was scientifically achievable, but the artificial web wasn't?

The flying glider and goblin armor were built by a million-dollar company. If you include the web shooters you have to explain where Peter got the materials from, how he could afford them and why he doesn't use it to improve his and his family's financial situation.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

The decision to remove the web shooters in favor of "organic webbing" was made by James Cameron when he worked on the screenplay for a prospective Spider-Man adaptation. That was there in the screenplay and drafts well before Raimi came on.

Raimi obviously didn't think it was a problem. From what I read, the thinking was that it made things simpler to sell the wish fulfillment of Spider-Man getting all these powers and abilities in a single go than to spend time showing how Peter came up with the web fluid and then developed the wrist cartridges.

[Triniking1234]

Organic web shooters got rid of the "no ammo" deus ex machina that was getting pretty rampant in Spidey stories. Thank God.

[Snoop Dogg]

Peter just drinks water to promote the production of his sticky white fluids. It was all about appealing to the young adult demographic.

[Spidey_62]

I really don't think it was a problem. Just streamlines the whole affair a bit more- get bit by a spider and just get all the powers. They still had Peter's love of science on display, but it just comes down to if it bugs you or not. They were still able to do the "out of web fluid" bit in SM2 with him losing his powers due to anxiety/stress/depression which was taken from ASM Annual #1.

[Scott Taylor]

Made sense to me. We saw how well showing him "invent" the webs went in the ASM movie. It was a practical throw-away sequence and dumb. Fortunately they went back to the "he just has webs, deal with it" approach in the MCU.

By the way, in terms of most powerful webs in all the movies, I'd give it to the organic webs. They are still closest to the comic version.

[Spider-Tiger]

I watched a Maguire interview recently in which he says something along the lines of (I'm paraphrasing) "if Peter was capable of inventing something like webshooters, why is he barely scraping by as a photographer for the Bugle?" so I'm assuming that was the logic of the film's producers. The first film originally had webshooters before it was edited out.

They quickly backtracked with the TASM films.

[Lukmendes]

I watched a Maguire interview recently in which he says something along the lines of (I'm paraphrasing) "if Peter was capable of inventing something like webshooters, why is he barely scraping by as a photographer for the Bugle?" so I'm assuming that was the logic of the film's producers. The first film originally had webshooters before it was edited out.

They quickly backtracked with the TASM films.

In the comics he tried to sell off the webs, but they're kinda useless for practical use outside of being Spider-Man.

Either way, being able to something that advanced and being able to make money from it are two different things, and Spidey definitely ain't a businessman, so yeah.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I really don't think it was a problem. Just streamlines the whole affair a bit more- get bit by a spider and just get all the powers. They still had Peter's love of science on display, but it just comes down to if it bugs you or not. They were still able to do the "out of web fluid" bit in SM2 with him losing his powers due to anxiety/stress/depression which was taken from ASM Annual #1.

I didn't have an issue with organic webbing in the first film, but I did in the second film because it went overboard with the web-fluid is a metaphor for sexual potency thing.

I think organic webbing was a decision made to introduce Spider-Man in the first film made by people who weren't sure if it was guaranteed to succeed well enough to have a follow-up. Organic webbing makes a lot of sense as a streamlined origin thing but not as an ongoing element. Since as you guys mentioned, Spider-Man running out of webs can't be something you can use with endless webbing.

Likewise, the third movie introduced the Symbiote. In the comics, the Symbiote was the first time Spider-Man had unlimited organic webbing in the comics...and the Symbiote giving Peter those extra powers and advantages was part of the appeal of that costume to Peter and the reader. If he has organic webbing before he gets the Symbiote, where's the sense that the Symbiote is addictive enough/tempting enough for Peter to like the Symbiote and prefer it to his normal costume?

The later movies had a sense of guarantee about follow-ups so they used web-fluids and shooters, even if other issues come up (like Garfield simply pilfers the formula off Oscorp rather than create it himself). Holland at least made the formula and original shooter design with Tony Stark coming up with those gadgets (which sucked in a different sense).

[Spidey_62]

I didn't have an issue with organic webbing in the first film, but I did in the second film because it went overboard with the web-fluid is a metaphor for sexual potency thing.

I think organic webbing was a decision made to introduce Spider-Man in the first film made by people who weren't sure if it was guaranteed to succeed well enough to have a follow-up. Organic webbing makes a lot of sense as a streamlined origin thing but not as an ongoing element. Since as you guys mentioned, Spider-Man running out of webs can't be something you can use with endless webbing.

Likewise, the third movie introduced the Symbiote. In the comics, the Symbiote was the first time Spider-Man had unlimited organic webbing in the comics...and the Symbiote giving Peter those extra powers and advantages was part of the appeal of that costume to Peter and the reader. If he has organic webbing before he gets the Symbiote, where's the sense that the Symbiote is addictive enough/tempting enough for Peter to like the Symbiote and prefer it to his normal costume?

The later movies had a sense of guarantee about follow-ups so they used web-fluids and shooters, even if other issues come up (like Garfield simply pilfers the formula off Oscorp rather than create it himself). Holland at least made the formula and original shooter design with Tony Stark coming up with those gadgets (which sucked in a different sense).

What's interesting is there's multiple shots in the finished 1st film where you can see the web shooter nozzles on his wrist in-costume (one of them is when Spidey and MJ are on the garden roof talking after he saves her in Times Square), because they originally had it so Peter was wearing the web-shooters over his organic wrist shooters. That was another Cameron thing. The web-shooter props were on display at E3 2001, I think- and there's a bit of trailer footage from that event that has Peter in his bedroom with the webshooters on (along with a shot of the Alex Ross suit in motion).

At the end of the day I don't think any of em have done it right but I think after all these years the simplicity of the Raimi movie's organic webshooters (and just the rest of his powers in general) works better for me than Garfield's stealing web formula from Oscorp and the special parent-blood, and then finally getting a Spidey that uses more techy gadgets but he hardly made any of them himself.

[Huntsman Spider]

In the comics he tried to sell off the webs, but they're kinda useless for practical use outside of being Spider-Man.

Either way, being able to something that advanced and being able to make money from it are two different things, and Spidey definitely ain't a businessman, so yeah.

Funny enough, there are some practical uses for a biodegradable synthetic fiber with potentially greater tensile strength than steel, such as in construction modeling, I would think.

[TheCape]

Funny enough, there are some practical uses for a biodegradable synthetic fiber with potentially greater tensile strength than steel, such as in construction modeling, I would think.

It needs to last more than an hour thougth. That's why they initially rejected it in universe.

[Huntsman Spider]

It needs to last more than an hour thougth. That's why they initially rejected it in universe.

Fair enough, though I think it could also be used to make temporary bridges for rescue or disaster relief operations, as well as medical bandages, and given that the web-formula can be made to last longer nowadays . . .

[Scott Taylor]

It needs to last more than an hour thougth. That's why they initially rejected it in universe.

When you put it that way, it makes sense that 1) they were uniquely for Spider-Man and 2) that they were hard to sell.

As I recall in the MCU films, it lasted two hours.