Spider-Man 3: No Way Home

[Agent Z]

Is there a reason for us to presume that Spider-Man No Way Home is not in continuity to the previous two Spider-Man movies?

Since the movie is far from being released, that means that the discussion of the previous movies and the elements of the larger continuity it's part of, would obviously have bearing on any speculation between now and its release.

You aren't speculating. You're complaining about movies that have already been released that have Iron Man in them. The entire conversation for the past six or so pages has been about Iron Man not what will happen in No Way Home.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

You aren't speculating.

I, and others, speculate that the next movie will be an underwhelming disappointment because of the previous ones, and Tony Stark and his use by the MCU is the reason for that.

[Kaitou D. Kid]

It's a gag because Shane Black likes gags like that but I don't think you should infer anything deeper than that just on that alone.

I don't doubt it was a gag, but I'm skeptic of it being solely a gag.

But RDJ's Tony is meant and intended to be the great noble hero. You can't have him be that and then have him create Ultron and then have him be a great noble hero. It doesn't work.

Was he really meant and intended to be that, though? Outside of Homecoming and Far From Home that put him on a pedestal, the other MCU films were pretty self-aware (decently, at the very least) of who Tony Stark was.

Plus, redemption stories don't work without a character having red on their ledger (to quote Nat). That is why, narratively, it was always important for Tony and Nat to be the ones who commit the sacrifices and not someone like Captain America. Someone like Steve Rogers sacrificing himself to save the universe wouldn't have much emotional meaning and would also be predictable, since he jumped on that grenade from day 1.

You can have the mirror and parallel to Thanos even without Ultron. Iron Man would be the guy who faced up to the abyss got pulled back and decided that he can't control everything and that he needs to have people around him to hold him to task.

Whereas with the way the movies ended up going, Tony learns his lesson (IM-3), f--ks up majorly again (Age of Ultron), and again (CW), and leaves others to carry water for his f--k ups (MCU Spider-Man), and then fails against Thanos (IW), and then does something right at the very end, only to be revealed that he was a puppet for Doctor Strange who set him up to sacrifice his life (Endgame). The way it's done in Endgame it does feel tragic and special...emotionally it works, dramatically it's well-staged, but if you step back and take it as a continuum, the character arc doesn't entirely work in my view. It doesn't feel like a tragic arc...so much as Stark being ping-ponged for the sake of plot, with Dr. Strange making that literal.

I think Tony f--king up so much is why it works. Like Wanda said, Tony is a man who, throughout his life, couldn't tell the difference between saving the world and destroying it. That was true back when he was making weapons for the Military Industrial Complex, and continued to be true (to a huge extent) after he became Iron Man, and is one of the other themes that parallels him to Thanos who also couldn't tell the difference between destroying the world and saving it.

Also, while Doctor Strange set him up, Tony seemed content when he realized what he had to do. I think if Tony were to pick up in that moment some other way there was only one way to save everyone, he still would have done it and would have been content with it.

I had issues in IW and Endgame, with Pepper and his family essentially framed as a kind of reward and consolation prize for Tony rather than the way it was set up in the solo movies as a mutual relationship that builds over time.

I don't know if I agree with this either, since they were planning on starting a family since the beginning of Infinity War and had one after losing everything (I mean, it's not much of a reward if you're not the winner).

[cam18]

MCU Spider-Man is polarizing the same way Dan Slotts run is.

As in, not really, but a vocal minority really really wants to(unsuccessfully) prove that it is.

maybe maybe not no one has taken a poll to my knowledge....and every spiderman movie has been pretty successful even the bad ones.....not everybody is just gonna sit and nod there head in agreement to anything the MCU pushes out just because its the MCU and I think some of the more MCU diehards are a bit shocked by that...

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I don't doubt it was a gag, but I'm skeptic of it being solely a gag.

Well the thing about comics lore and serial continuity is that it kind of slides over "style". Like if you look at Ant-Man, the famous montage of Luis doing that rapid-fire narration where all the actors in the past somehow mime and recreate his facial expressions (while having his voice) wouldn't make sense from a lore view, right? But somehow it's a distinct part of the Ant-Man movies, with Luis (and Cassie) being the emotional centers of their stories (even in Endgame the carhorn of Luis' truck has that emotional weight tied to that character).

Plus, redemption stories don't work without a character having red on their ledger (to quote Nat).

Tony has enough red on his ledger for his years as a defense contractor. You bring up Black Widow, but her redemption arc isn't exactly:
"I was a spy/assassin and killed innocent people...then I became an Avengers...then I went back to being a spy and killed innocent people...then I became an Avenger...then I did more bad stuff...then I finally died and redeemed myself."

I mean IM-3 shoehorned Pre-Cave Tony being a jerk to Killian as motivation, and that worked fine there. In fact, Age of Ultron would have worked better if Ultron was some project that Pre-Cave Tony worked on (in the same way Wanda and Pietro are tied to Pre-Cave Tony) that went dormant and is now reactivating.

Tony's story arc of constantly changing and then backsliding and screwing up before dying is a redemption story because we are told it's a redemption story, but the story arc, is "*******-finally-gets-hit-by-a-truck". Tony gets yo-yoed around on the plot to add conflict and drama before conflict and drama decided to kill him off, and we're supposed to pretend that they didn't tell the story the way they told it.

That is why, narratively, it was always important for Tony and Nat to be the ones who commit the sacrifices and not someone like Captain America.

I agree with Iron Man sacrificing himself making sense in the end. I just have issues with how it's built up to, and how it's framed.

Like where's the sense that a few months after ENDGAME, you release a movie like FAR FROM HOME where you make massive retcons which makes Iron Man out to be an Patent-Swindler and liar all to tie into Mysterio (a character who would never need such motivations) and add baggage on to Peter for no good reason. You make the hero look bad and say that his actions and consequences will affect people long after he's gone and then still end the movie with him as a hero...that doesn't work.

Also, while Doctor Strange set him up, Tony seemed content when he realized what he had to do.

I don't think a father of any child would be "content" of sacrificing himself.

[Jewel Runner]

I, and others, speculate that the next movie will be an underwhelming disappointment because of the previous ones, and Tony Stark and his use by the MCU is the reason for that.

Basically all you're saying is you didn't like the previous movies and you have nothing more to do than talk about how you won't like the next one either.
That's not speculating that's bellyaching.

[Kaitou D. Kid]

Tony has enough red on his ledger for his years as a defense contractor. You bring up Black Widow, but her redemption arc isn't exactly:
"I was a spy/assassin and killed innocent people...then I became an Avengers...then I went back to being a spy and killed innocent people...then I became an Avenger...then I did more bad stuff...then I finally died and redeemed myself."

I mean IM-3 shoehorned Pre-Cave Tony being a jerk to Killian as motivation, and that worked fine there. In fact, Age of Ultron would have worked better if Ultron was some project that Pre-Cave Tony worked on (in the same way Wanda and Pietro are tied to Pre-Cave Tony) that went dormant and is now reactivating.

Tony's story arc of constantly changing and then backsliding and screwing up before dying is a redemption story because we are told it's a redemption story, but the story arc, is "*******-finally-gets-hit-by-a-truck". Tony gets yo-yoed around on the plot to add conflict and drama before conflict and drama decided to kill him off, and we're supposed to pretend that they didn't tell the story the way they told it.

I think this is an over-simplification of Tony's 11-year character arc. I don't think it's a constant history of only screw-ups. I mean, his history pre-Iron Man is exactly that, but his resume between 2008 and 2018 is more of a mixed bag, and his final act is full-on noble. There is a gradual buildup to what he does in Endgame, and Tony by Phase 2 is a much better and more grounded person than in Phase 1, and by Phase 3 he is much better and grounded than in Phase 2 (it is because a lot of Tony's screw-ups also stem from his other character flaws like his avoidant-personality type, which he gradually overcomes throughout his relationship with Pepper and his friendship with the Avengers).

I agree with Iron Man sacrificing himself making sense in the end. I just have issues with how it's built up to, and how it's framed.

Like where's the sense that a few months after ENDGAME, you release a movie like FAR FROM HOME where you make massive retcons which makes Iron Man out to be an Patent-Swindler and liar all to tie into Mysterio (a character who would never need such motivations) and add baggage on to Peter for no good reason. You make the hero look bad and say that his actions and consequences will affect people long after he's gone and then still end the movie with him as a hero...that doesn't work.

Sounds like it's maybe easier for me to disassociate HC and FFH from the rest of the MCU? One of the other problems with MCU Spider-Man is that, even though the events line up, there is so much thematically that doesn't connect with the other films that it's hard to buy them being in the same universe. They're like Agents of SHIELD and the Netflix shows, in that sense.

I already talked about how Watts portrayed Tony and Peter entirely different in Homecoming from Civil War, and how those two are the only films that out Tony on a pedestal, but there are also other things that don't line up:

1. Post-2012 Tony driving Toomes out of business sounds more like 616 Iron Man and not MCU Iron Man (616 Tony is very business-oriented while MCU Tony is like Bruce Wayne... He spends most of his time being a superhero and letting someone else run his company). The same goes for the employees layed off that joined up with Mysterio. This would all make more sense in 616 but not with the MCU version of Iron Man, especially not after Phase 1.

2. Tony not inventing Mysterio's tech doesn't make sense since Civil War established that that tech was personal to Tony.

3. Speaking of points 1 and 2... If this Tony really is as business-driven and economically ruthless as these Spider-Man films make him out, why are these also the only two films that put him on a pedestal?

4. EDITH isn't something Phase 3 Iron Man would make. I've heard hardcore Iron Man fans agree with me on this.

5. The "7 years later" timeskip that was later debunked by the Russos.

6. Feige saying Endgame is the end of Phase 3, but later saying FFH is (making FFH feel like a tacked-on film).

HC and FFC feel like the red-haired bastard children of the MCU films, almost like even though they're canon the shareholders don't really see them as "pure-blooded" Marvel films and therefore there is a lot that doesn't line-up character-wise. So while it's fair to say Tony's actions in these films make his character arc not work, there is so much inconsistency that it's also fair to say only The Iron Man Trilogy + Civil War + The Avengers Movies are the true story of Tony Stark (except for maybe the proposal at the end of Homecoming).

I don't think a father of any child would be "content" of sacrificing himself.

I mean, you can be both dissapointed and content about it.

[Jewel Runner]

I think this is an over-simplification of Tony's 11-year character arc. I don't think it's a constant history of only screw-ups. I mean, his history pre-Iron Man is exactly that, but his resume between 2008 and 2018 is more of a mixed bag, and his final act is full-on noble. There is a gradual buildup to what he does in Endgame, and Tony by Phase 2 is a much better and more grounded person than in Phase 1, and by Phase 3 he is much better and grounded than in Phase 2 (it is because a lot of Tony's screw-ups also stem from his other character flaws like his avoidant-personality type, which he gradually overcomes throughout his relationship with Pepper and his friendship with the Avengers).



Sounds like it's maybe easier for me to disassociate HC and FFH from the rest of the MCU? One of the other problems with MCU Spider-Man is that, even though the events line up, there is so much thematically that doesn't connect with the other films that it's hard to buy them being in the same universe. They're like Agents of SHIELD and the Netflix shows, in that sense.

I already talked about how Watts portrayed Tony and Peter entirely different in Homecoming from Civil War, and how those two are the only films that out Tony on a pedestal, but there are also other things that don't line up:

1. Post-2012 Tony driving Toomes out of business sounds more like 616 Iron Man and not MCU Iron Man (616 Tony is very business-oriented while MCU Tony is like Bruce Wayne... He spends most of his time being a superhero and letting someone else run his company). The same goes for the employees layed off that joined up with Mysterio. This would all make more sense in 616 but not with the MCU version of Iron Man, especially not after Phase 1.

2. Tony not inventing Mysterio's tech doesn't make sense since Civil War established that tech was personal to Tony.

3. Speaking of points 1 and 2... If this Tony really is as business-driven and economically ruthless as these Spider-Man films make him out, why are these also the only two films that put him on a pedestal?

4. EDITH isn't something Phase 3 Iron Man would make. I've heard hardcore Iron Man fans agree with me on this.

5. The "7 years later" timeskip that was later debunked by the Russos.

6. Feige saying Endgame is the end of Phase 3, but later saying FFH is (making FFH feel like a tacked-on film).

HC and FFC feel like the red-haired bastard children of the MCU films, almost like even though they're canon the shareholders don't really see them as "pure-blooded" Marvel films and therefore there is a lot that doesn't line-up character-wise. So while it's fair to say Tony's actions in these films make his character arc not work, there is so much inconsistency that it's also fair to say only The Iron Man Trilogy + Civil War + The Avengers Movies are the true story of Tony Stark (except for maybe the proposal at the end of Homecoming).



I mean, you can be both dissapointed and content about it.

That logic doesn't work when actually looking at the films nothing in the movie suggests Tony intentionally drove Toomes out of business, nothing even suggests Tony knew he existed when he helped create Damage Control, and the tech used in Civil War doesn't mean he had have been the sole creator especially since he uses the tech to lead in to announcing that he's granting funding for MIT students projects.
Then EDITH only makes sense after IW Thanos just attacked and successfully murdered half the population, of course Tony would be paranoid even Endgame shows he created an armor for Pepper.
Then Far From Home being phase 3 only makes sense with how heavily the events of Endgame affected the plot, and frankly it's a meaningless change start of phase 4 or end phase 3 it doesn't actually matter, not the way you're trying to make it look at least

[Agent Z]

Basically all you're saying is you didn't like the previous movies and you have nothing more to do than talk about how you won't like the next one either.
That's not speculating that's bellyaching.

Precisely.

[Digifiend]

New costume revealed:
https://www.cbr.com/spider-man-3-pho...d-new-costume/

[Jman27]

New costume revealed:
https://www.cbr.com/spider-man-3-pho...d-new-costume/

so a red belt

[Frontier]

New costume revealed:
https://www.cbr.com/spider-man-3-pho...d-new-costume/

I barely notice any differences.

[Mistah K88]

I kind of miss the red line along the arm...Also I guess the color blue is out of the picture for MCU Peter. I find it interesting that the black red color scheme is so prominent now.

[Jman27]

I kind of miss the red line along the arm...Also I guess the color blue is out of the picture for MCU Peter. I find it interesting that the black red color scheme is so prominent now.

Can’t really call this prominent since it appear for one film. Also wasn’t the black a reference to the original design which is now blue?

[CosmiComic]

I may be late to this discussion, but is anyone not interested in Tobey and Andrew appearing? Not saying they will be. I'm cautious about theories now!

Personally, I'm not into them coming back.