Spider-Man 3: No Way Home

[Amadeus Arkham]

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.

I don’t like the liberties they took with Doc Ock. To me, making Doc Ock a sympathetic guy who’s being partly manipulated by his tentacales never sat right with me. Molina’s performance was good, but I actually thought his characterization was a misfire, and they gave him the generic wife to be killed off to motivate his villany.

[Frontier]

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

I feel like we're meant to get Peter as an altruist in a general sense but his emotional arc coinciding with his hero arc is just the world of Peter Parker merging with the world of Spider-Man.

I don’t like the liberties they took with Doc Ock. To me, making Doc Ock sympathetic guy who’s being partly manipulated by his tentacales never sat right with me. Molina’s performance was good, but I actually thought his characterization was a misfire, and they gave him the generic wife to be killed off to motivate his villany.

It definitely wasn't 100% comic Ock but I think it worked in the context of that interpretation.

[Amadeus Arkham]

I feel like we're meant to get Peter as an altruist in a general sense but his emotional arc coinciding with his hero arc is just the world of Peter Parker merging with the world of Spider-Man.

It definitely wasn't 100% comic Ock but I think it worked in the context of that interpretation.

Molina is great, but he does things in the movie that don’t make sense like what’s the point of having him rob a bank when he can simply steal the parts he needs to complete his machine? And why does he throw a giant car at the cafe when looking for Peter when he himself doesn’t even know he’s Spider-Man who has superhuman durability? I mean I guess that version of the character works as sympathetic tragic character who’s a victim of his own scientific gifts but I can’t get pass the fact that his tentacles are *essentially* the real villain of the movie, and that’s a major issue for myself that hurts him as a character. I’m not opposed to giving the character pathos, I mean I love the changes Bruce Timm and Paul Dini made to Mr. Freeze to make him more of an sympathetic character, and that’s a good example of making a villain from the source material sympathetic but also remembering that he’s the guy fully responsible for the bad things he’s doing. I don’t think Molina’s Ock is a bad version of the character, but I’d be lying if I said that tentacles controlling him didn’t weaken him as a character for me.

[Frontier]

Molina is great, but he does things in the movie that don’t make sense like what’s the point of having him rob a bank when he can simply steal the parts he needs to complete his machine? And why does he throw a giant car at the cafe when looking for Peter when he himself doesn’t even know he’s Spider-Man who has superhuman durability? I mean I guess that version of the character works as sympathetic tragic character who’s a victim of his own scientific gifts but I can’t get pass the fact that his tentacles are *essentially* the real villain of the movie, and that’s a major issue for myself that hurts him as a character. I’m not opposed to giving the character pathos, I mean I love the changes Bruce Timm and Paul Dini made to Mr. Freeze to make him more of an sympathetic character, and that’s a good example of making a villain from the source material sympathetic but also remembering that he’s the guy fully responsible for the bad things he’s doing. I don’t think Molina’s Ock is a bad version of the character, but I’d be lying if I said that tentacles controlling him didn’t weaken him as a character for me.

I don't think he was in that rational a state of mind thanks to the tentacles.

I think it's a common interpretation that the tentacles getting grafted onto his body, at least to some extant, make him more mentally unstable than he was before.

[Amadeus Arkham]

I don't think he was in that rational a state of mind thanks to the tentacles.

I think it's a common interpretation that the tentacles getting grafted onto his body, at least to some extant, make him more mentally unstable than he was before.

That’s one way to look at it, but I think it has more to do with script needing to contrive action sequences for the sake

There’s no reason why Ock has to rob the bank even if you could chalk it up the tentacles screwing with his mind, but it’s a convenient way to justify a flashy fight scene with Spider-Man and Doc Ock in the bank and there’s no reason he has to throw that car at the cafe…other than for a scary slow mo sequence to bring terror to Ock’s entrance. I’m probably coming across as nitpicking but I never could quite vibe with the way Ock was portrayed in this movie as I wish he had agency doing what he did.

And I never got a sense the tentacles amplified his insanity as he was perfectly sane and stable prior to the tentacles taking control of him.

[Scott Taylor]

I don’t like the liberties they took with Doc Ock. To me, making Doc Ock a sympathetic guy who’s being partly manipulated by his tentacales never sat right with me. Molina’s performance was good, but I actually thought his characterization was a misfire, and they gave him the generic wife to be killed off to motivate his villany.

To me it seemed very true to Ditko's vision of the character, with a few small changes in the details. The tentacles did become bonded to Ock during the Ditko run, and he did lose his mind as a result of the accident. He was already a jerkwad, sure, but the accident turned him into a megolomaniac. The tentacles didn't talk to him, but he did consider them to be a part of his own body.

Most of that went away with the end of the Ditko run, by the way, and the arms just became tools. But I always loved the subtle touches Ditko made to his characters like that, and appreciated the Raimi approach of making Ock more nuanced, with complicated motivations. Because that really is his history.

[bat39]

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.



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.

Oh I agree there are definitely films where there isn't some kind of personal connection, and even if there is, it may not be that much of a focus. But its easier to come up with examples of films where there is a personal connection between hero and villain, or a personal stake, than it is to come up with films where there aren't.

Superman II incidentially does give Zod a personal connection to Superman - he's targeting Superman at least partially because the latter is the son of Jor-El, who imprisoned him. It isn't played up that much but it's there.

Batman '89? The Joker doesn't make a big deal about knowing Batman's identity, and doesn't care, but by the end he does seem to remember the murders (he mentions being a ''kid when I killed your parents''). Just because Joker's too crazy to make a big deal out of it doesn't mean it isn't personal for Batman...but again, they don't play this up as much as later movies would.

In TDK, I'd argue that Harvey Dent/Two Face has a personal connection to Gordon and Batman. Him not knowing Batman's true identity doesn't change that. You're conflating the villain knowing the hero's true identity to a personal connection - sometimes its present, but not always. Bruce did know Harvey in both identities, but it's as Batman that he was allied to him and that's why Harvey becoming Two Face hits hard.

I agree with you that this gets way too repetitive. But there's a reason why a myriad of writers and directors go down this route. It's the easiest way to humanize the villain, and/or add some spark to the conflict beyond a straight-forward ''good vs. evil'', and/or seamlessly incorporate the villain's origin/backstory into the narrative.

I think No Way Home could have been a great way to break from this formula for one film at least, since theoretically, Spider-Man would be traveling the Multiverse and meeting villains whom he has no personal connection with (even if his alternate versions do). But then you have Doc Ock calling him ''Peter''...then again, it seems like No Way Home's message might be that the secret identity and ''living two lives'' isn't such a great idea, going by Dr. Strange's quote from the trailer, so who knows how this will pan out?

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Most of that went away with the end of the Ditko run, by the way, and the arms just became tools. But I always loved the subtle touches Ditko made to his characters like that, and appreciated the Raimi approach of making Ock more nuanced, with complicated motivations. Because that really is his history.

For most of Octopus' publishing history, he didn't really have a backstory or motivations. From the 60s to the mid-90s, Ock was a bad guy, a mad scientist and a gangster. But he didn't have an origin or backstory. In the mid-90s, Tom Defalco developed one for Ock and he introduced the idea that he came from an abusive background and that this was the reason he was what he was, and that started the "sentimental turn" in Doctor Octopus. I am not against characters getting origins and backstories eventually but in the case of Ock his backstory was just weakly conceived and it created a problem in the comics that the new backstory doesn't fully align with the version in print over three decades before and you have competing versions of Octopus that don't make sense such as Paul Jenkins (who saw Ock as "Ted Bundy") and Slott.

It's a mistake to see everything in Raimi's films as coming directly from Steve Ditko's ideas, the writers of the films pulled from different eras and the more sentimental conception of Ock you see in the film comes from Defalco, and also the Fox Cartoons, than from how Ditko conceived and saw the character. Ditko never intended any of his villains to be sympathetic, that much is quite clear. Interesting and weird to look at, yes that was his intent but nothing more. None of Ditko's villains were shown to be insane, even Norman Osborn. You read Ditko's Norman and Goblin and there's no evidence of the "split personality" that Lee-Romita introduced.

There are parts of the film that pull from different periods of the character's history:
-- Tentacle-driven Octopus suddenly dressing as a gangster with a fedora and cigar, seem to be based on classic Gangster Ock.
-- Octopus terrorizing the train draws from the "Terrorist Ock" you see in "The Death of George Stacy" and "The Owl-Octopus War"
-- The Tritium Experiment and how it can destroy stuff, looks like it came from the Neutron Bomb blowing up Manhattan in "Owl-Octopus War".

I agree with you that this gets way too repetitive. But there's a reason why a myriad of writers and directors go down this route. It's the easiest way to humanize the villain, and/or add some spark to the conflict beyond a straight-forward ''good vs. evil'', and/or seamlessly incorporate the villain's origin/backstory into the narrative.

I think it works best for characters who don't have deep rogues gallery (like most MCU characters other than Spider-Man) than it does for Spider-Man.

Fundamentally it's not realistic. If you look at some of the real-life rivalries in politics, there's often no backstory or any such thing. Look at the most consequential rivalry over the last decade -- Trump and Obama. Obama and Trump have no backstory or connection to each other, neither was on the other's radar until Obama became President, and yet somehow that led to some self-proclaimed billionaire dedicating himself, for no substantive reason, to torpedoing his legacy.

The way the rogues were featured and introduced in the Lee-Ditko run, randos who would be what they are without Peter Parker knowing about them, is far closer to reality than somehow people Peter encountering in his personal life becoming villains or being 2 or 3 degrees away from them. The former also has the advantage of making the world bigger and having a larger scope.

But then you have Doc Ock calling him ''Peter''...then again, it seems like No Way Home's message might be that the secret identity and ''living two lives'' isn't such a great idea, going by Dr. Strange's quote from the trailer, so who knows how this will pan out?

Well Spider-Man fundamentally has to have a secret identity, that's baked into the concept. So the movie will end with his secret identity going under wraps in some way or form.

[Amadeus Arkham]

*deleted post*

[Amadeus Arkham]

I think No Way Home could have been a great way to break from this formula for one film at least, since theoretically, Spider-Man would be traveling the Multiverse and meeting villains whom he has no personal connection with (even if his alternate versions do). But then you have Doc Ock calling him ''Peter''...then again, it seems like No Way Home's message might be that the secret identity and ''living two lives'' isn't such a great idea, going by Dr. Strange's quote from the trailer, so who knows how this will pan out?

It’s not clear if Ock is actually talking to the MCU earth Peter or if it’s simply edited to look that way, and in the film he’s actually talking to Raimi Peter.

[Arsenal]

It's also possible the "hello peter" scene is entirely trailer bait and doesn't happen in the movie at all.

[Jman27]

It's also possible the "hello peter" scene is entirely trailer bait and doesn't happen in the movie at all.

possibly we wont know til the movie.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Maybe the way the film ends, Peter’s identity is forgotten but the villains still hate Spider-Man and the final fight is a masked Spider-Man fighting the rogues without them knowing who he is.

That’s part of the having it both ways approach of these MCU films.

[Amadeus Arkham]

One thing that always weirded me out about that train fight in Spider-Man 2 is how much Doc Ock seemed able to take Spider-Man’s superhuman punches when he himself hasn’t obtained any augmented physical durability during his accident. I’m sure many could simply chalk it up to Spider-Man holding back his punches in order to avoid killing him but the way it’s presenting in the film just seems like Spidey is punching hard and not holding back. I think the filmmakers present that scene as if Ock has superhuman durability.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

One thing that always weirded me out about that train fight in Spider-Man 2 is how much Doc Ock seemed able to take Spider-Man’s superhuman punches when he himself hasn’t obtained any augmented physical durability during his accident. I’m sure many could simply chalk it up to Spider-Man holding back his punches in order to avoid killing him but the way it’s presenting in the film just seems like Spidey is punching hard and not holding back. I think the filmmakers present that scene as if Ock has superhuman durability.

You can chalk it to the tritium experiment but the comics have been inconsistent on this as well. So I’ll give the movies a pass on this.