Spider-Man 3: No Way Home

[Revolutionary_Jack]

i mean can we blame him in the first movie he save mj first then the kids. only one comes back home with him and have fun times

At the end of that movie, MJ was coming home with him, but he decided he's joined the super-priesthood and ghosts her and decides that being selfless is the way to go...and then in the second movie he goes backsies and guilt-trips her with mixed signals right through the movie making her justifiably fed up with him, and then he loses his powers because repression is bad. Then after seeing how crime has risen when he can't be Spider-Man anymore, what brings him back is Octopus kidnapping her by throwing a car into a cafe, and not the randos who he passed by in the "Raindrops are falling..." montage.

I don't know how you can look at that and say he behaves selflessly. That's totally the opposite of ASM#50 where it was stopping a random old guy from being mugged that brought him into action.

[Kaitou D. Kid]

At the end of that movie, MJ was coming home with him, but he decided he's joined the super-priesthood and ghosts her and decides that being selfless is the way to go...and then in the second movie he goes backsies and guilt-trips her with mixed signals right through the movie making her justifiably fed up with him, and then he loses his powers because repression is bad. Then after seeing how crime has risen when he can't be Spider-Man anymore, what brings him back is Octopus kidnapping her by throwing a car into a cafe, and not the randos who he passed by in the "Raindrops are falling..." montage.

I don't know how you can look at that and say he behaves selflessly. That's totally the opposite of ASM#50 where it was stopping a random old guy from being mugged that brought him into action.

This.

A lot of the problems in Spider-Man 3 started in Spider-Man 2, especially in regards to Peter and MJ's relationship. No surprise in hindsight since they brought the Smallville writers on for Spider-Man 2.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

This.

A lot of the problems in Spider-Man 3 started in Spider-Man 2, especially in regards to Peter and MJ's relationship. No surprise in hindsight since they brought the Smallville writers on for Spider-Man 2.

Which Smallville writers?

The screenplay for Spider-Man 2 was a big laborious back-and-forth with a lot of writers coming and going. The novelist Michael Chabon wrote a draft that was rejected and overturned (it involved making Doc Ock young and handsome and Mary Jane's boyfriend...ugh, they reworked this into John Jameson which still stinks but not as bad) and I think the lack of clarity and focus is a reason why the second film is structurally so much weaker than the first film. Doctor Octopus having AI puppeteering him feels like an obvious fix for a villain who they presented as sympathetic but who has to become a bad guy to beat up and it's just lame.

I know this isn't a popular opinion but I never bought and accepted the idea that Spider-Man 2 was better than Spider-Man 1. It's a good movie on the whole, with quite a few great scenes but on the whole it's more slipshod than the first film (not that SM-1 is perfect) and I felt miffed at the film when I saw it first, and seeing it a few more times hasn't lessened my opinion.

[bat39]

Exactly. With Spider-Man 1, they had great success (the greatest success in fact because no movie since has equalled its domestic US gross) and they used the template of that in every succeeding film.In SM-1, Goblin and Peter's origin stories are intercut and interwoven and their civilian/supervillain lives intersect until the Thanksgiving scene where Goblin learns that Peter is Spider-Man.

So they decided to use that as a template for every movie that followed and the result is every movie had a villain who had a personal connection with Peter when originally that was Goblin's own special thing but now it's handed out like candy to randos.

-- Spider-Man 2 : Otto Octavius, a guy to whom Peter had no connection with in the original comics, is now Peter's mentor-daddy (which Norman tried to be but that was one-sided there).
-- Spider-Man 3 : The Sandman retcon (which was all Raimi, let's all be clear). Also Eddie Brock as Peter's photography rival in the Bugle wasn't a thing in the comics either.
-- TASM 1: The Lizard is now friend of Peter's Dad and mentor-daddy to Peter which again not there in the comics.
-- TASM 2: Electro was a crazy troubled fan of Spider-Man who becomes a supervillain fixated because...whatever.

In the case of HOMECOMING it's especially blatant, because that scene where Peter visits Toomes' house is modeled beat by beat on the Thanksgiving Scene from SM-1. FAR FROM HOME likewise with Mysterio as mentor-daddy or as Gyllenhaal plays him in the first half, louche uncle who gives bad advice.

That's one of my gripes with Spider-Man movies since SM-1...if you tie every villain into Peter's personal life then Peter doesn't feel superheroic or selfless. If he has a personal stake in everything it's not long before the audience wonders if he'd be involved if it wasn't someone he knew or was connected two or three degrees away from. It makes it too melodramatic and takes what was once interesting and tied to one villain into a formula. It also makes Spider-Man incompetent because it's one thing when Goblin finds his identity, but when Adrian Toomes/Vulture deciphers it, that's embarrassing.

And it's just unnecessary, you don't need to have the villain know or care who the superhero is. The Dark Knight has Joker who doesn't know or doesn't care who Batman is. One of the greatest Spider-Man stories - Kraven's Last Hunt - is primarily about how Kraven doesn't care or wishes to see Spider-Man as a human being and despite numerous chances refuses to learn his secret because to him, the totem of Spider-Man means more than whatever real person is inside, which is part of his tragedy, his inability to recognize or care for humanity. If MCU or whoever does KLH and makes Kraven know Peter's identity, then they have already screwed the pooch of adapting it as far as I'm concerned.

We hardly get any scenes where villains snarl at Spider-Man and call him "Spider-Man" anymore. Like in the No Way Home trailer, when Doctor Octopus sees Holland Spidey and calls him "Peter"...so basically the first time Holland Spidey encounters any version of Doctor Octopus, it's not as Doctor Octopus and Spider-Man it's as "Peter" and that stinks.

It's weird because SM-1 again was the only time where you had a huge stretch(between Peter's graduation and Thanksgiving) where Spider-Man and Green Goblin encounter each other multiple time as SM and GG, as superhero and supervillain and we don't get much or any of that later (a little bit with Ock in SM-2 but then that's a case of a dude puppeteered by AI and not really a character). Like Vulture and Spider-Man exchange no lines of dialogue in the two fight scenes they had before that Meeting scene. Mysterio knows Peter's identity from the start.

Some interesting points here!

I never noticed the bit about every Spider-Man movie trying to recreate the Peter-Osborn/Spidey-Goblin dynamic from the very first film. That is a great point. Though I don't think this is a problem (if one considers it 'problem' of course) confined to the Spider-Man franchise. An overwhelming number of superhero films (or big franchise films in general) go with the idea of a personal connection of some sort between the hero and villain, or some kind of personal stake being involved. Hell, Daniel Craig's entire era of James Bond films after Casino Royale has involved some kind of personal stake in his missions, or personal connection to the villain!

In a way, this dates back all the way to Burton's first Batman movie, where they gave Batman and Joker a personal connection by making them responsible for each others creation. Though the connection was a bit understated there, I think this is where the core idea of making it personal, at least in superhero movies, came about.

You see it everywhere. In Man of Steel, Zod is the one who killed Superman's father. In the Iron Man films, Obadiah Stane, Ivan Vanko, Justin Hammer, Maya Hansen and Aldrich Killian all had personal vendettas against Tony Stark. In Aquaman, Orm is Arthur's half-brother (which admittedly is comics canon). In Black Panther, Killmonger is T'Challa's cousin, who wants revenge for the death of his father which T'Chaka caused (which isn't comics canon). In Wonder Woman, Ares killed all the old Gods, including Zeus, Dianá's father. Hell, with the exception of the Joker, and Scarecrow, every villain in the Dark Knight trilogy had a personal connection to Bruce Wayne! (okay, not Bane, but he's basically an extension of Talia).

So I'd argue this is more a feature of the superhero genre on film than anything else.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I never noticed the bit about every Spider-Man movie trying to recreate the Peter-Osborn/Spidey-Goblin dynamic from the very first film. That is a great point.

Thanks. It never struck me until I saw Homecoming and the scene he visits Liz's house and I thought "My god, this is the thanksgiving scene again" and then the wheels clicked and it all made sense going back to SM-2.

So I'd argue this is more a feature of the superhero genre on film than anything else.

You have a point that this seems to be common across the superhero films.

However, as a counter:
-- Richard Donner's SUPERMAN, Luthor has no personal connection to Clark/Superman and doesn't learn his secret identity.
-- SUPERMAN II. Same with Zod.
(The only part of Superman III I remember is a viewing on TV as a kid in which only the junkyard fight registers with me but I believe this applies here and in Superman IV)
-- Batman 1989: Burton's Joker never learns Batman's secret identity, even if they added in that horrible flashback making him the killer of Bruce's parents.
-- Batman Returns Penguin the main villain isn't connected to Bruce Wayne and doesn't learn his identity. Catwoman does admittedly but she isn't really a villain (and is in fact the movie's true protagonist).
-- Batman and Robin, none of the villains are personally connected to Batman or learn his identity.
-- Superman Returns, Luthor doesn't find out Superman's identity.
-- The Dark Knight, neither Joker nor Two-Face learn Bruce Wayne is Batman.

In the Marvel films, this kind of personal connection seems more common than not (and most of the Marvel heroes other than Spider-Man who've been adapted don't have secret identities) but given that Spider-Man is more like Superman and Batman i.e. a solo individual superhero with a deep rogues gallery, than other Marvel heroes, I'd argue that there's more evidence that Spider-Man should eschew this pattern than follow it.

[ChrisIII]

I would argue there is sort of a personal connection between Superman and Zod-Jor-EL jailed Zod and the others. I'm pretty sure Zod mentions this a few times after Luthor brings it up.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I would argue there is sort of a personal connection between Superman and Zod-Jor-EL jailed Zod and the others. I'm pretty sure Zod mentions this a few times after Luthor brings it up.

Perhaps but Superman II spends most of its time with him as Clark having given up his powers (probably where SM-2 got it from) so that connection doesn’t register as much. Zod never learns Clark is Superman.

[Snoop Dogg]

spider-man 2's plot is nonsense garbage but everything else is great so no one cares

[Frontier]

Yeah, that way Sony can spelunk money on CGI and not have to pay actors' salaries and SAG royalties...

Well, that and it lets them fill out the Sinister Six without needing to get three other guys.

Which event brings back his superpowers that he had lost:

Was it the kid trapped in the building, or was it Ock kidnapping Mary Jane at the cafe?

Since Peter's power-loss is psychosomatic that means unconsciously, Raimi!Peter values saving Mary Jane more than saving random civilians.

I thought it was a gradual build up to him getting his powers back. MJ was just the tipping point and, for the audience, a more emotionally poignant crux for Peter.

[Kevinroc]

spider-man 2's plot is nonsense garbage but everything else is great so no one cares

A lot of super hero plots are nonsense garbage.

[green_garnish]

Well, that and it lets them fill out the Sinister Six without needing to get three other guys.

I thought it was a gradual build up to him getting his powers back. MJ was just the tipping point and, for the audience, a more emotionally poignant crux for Peter.

He lost his powers when he lost MJ, and regained them when she needed Spider-Man. I think that's a lot more than an emotionally poignant tipping point.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

A lot of super hero plots are nonsense garbage.

SM-2's plot isn't nonsense garbage but structurally the movie is weak and not at all satisfying.

The train scene for instance has absolutely nothing to do thematically with the rest of the film. It's basically a mini-short film and it's best appreciated separately on YouTube than within the context of the rest of Spider-Man 2. The way the scene is framed and directed with all these weird messianic imagery, Peter unmasked and all the people deciding to keep Spider-Man's identity secret and hold off against Ock doesn't work with anything established before.
-- For one thing, Spider-Man as I mentioned before is motivated primarily and essentially by love for Mary Jane in the film. The reason for the train scene is that Ock kidnapped Mary Jane and Spider-Man confronted him and their fight spilled over on the train. If Ock was a pure supervillain who spitefully attacked this train and Spider-Man rushed to save it (the way Ra's Al Ghul's train attack at the end of Batman Begins which came out a year later played out) it would have felt more earned.
-- The train scene seems motivated by 9/11 imagery and symbolism, with Spider-Man stopping a transport vehicle going out of control on Manhattan. But it feels inappropriate considering what was set-up in the lead to it. Peter lost his powers and got it back for MJ, and not for random people being mugged in broad daylight or for kids trapped in a burning building. In that scene it feels not Spider-Man the character but Spider-Man the Macy's Float or NYC icon. You are putting something extra-cinematic.
-- Then the crowd at the end decide to preserve Peter's identity from Ock bravely, with Ock set up as this evil terrorist trying to force the crowd to hand over a hostage. But the movie still ends with Ock dying tragically in the denouement and attaining a measure of redemption because when white guys become terrorists it's all tragic and redemptive and stuff. You can't have your film's major action scene paint the antagonist as an evil ruthless monster who doesn't give a s--t about anyone on board and then end the film with him going "I will not die a monster". It's like Hans Gruber after doing all the vile stuff in Die Hard suddenly getting sympathetic at the very end.
-- Overall, having your major action climax happen at the end of the second act leaves the finale nowhere to go, which means that Ock's Tritium experiment which might end the world feels empty and doesn't register as important.

Spider-Man 2's strength rests on the back of three or four well-directed scenes in the midst of a lot of incoherence:
-- The opening montage of Peter as a struggling grad student.
-- Otto awakening in the hospital.
-- Peter confessing to Aunt May.
-- The final scene between Peter and MJ.

He lost his powers when he lost MJ, and regained them when she needed Spider-Man. I think that's a lot more than an emotionally poignant tipping point.

He didn't lose Mary Jane, he drove her away by rejecting her and then being disappointed that having chosen to be a priest, she didn't reciprocate by becoming a nun.

[green_garnish]

He didn't lose Mary Jane, he drove her away by rejecting her and then being disappointed that having chosen to be a priest, she didn't reciprocate by becoming a nun.

So, what you're saying is, he lost her.

[Frontier]

I think Spider-Man can be majorly motivated by a loved one but still, deep down, be a hero who wants to save people.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I think Spider-Man can be majorly motivated by a loved one but still, deep down, be a hero who wants to save people.

Well yeah. But too much of one at the expense of another is an issue with the movies.