Spider-Man: No Way Home – SPOILER discussion

Topic

Out in some territories as early as Wednesday, elsewhere on Friday.

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Anonymous wrote:

Also, there was the suggestion that the spider in Peter might also affect his personality over time in potentially dangerous ways.

This point was brought up again in No Way Home, as this is how Garfield described his character growth after Gwen died.

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It’s an interesting way to present the character. In a lot of ways, when Lee and Kirby, Ditko and the rest were creating the classic Marvel characters, they were influenced by the other popular (and weird) media at the time. So, the creation of Spider-Man was as influenced by movies like The Fly (1958) and I Was A Teenaged Werewolf (1957) as it was by Superman and Superboy comics. Stephen King often pointed out that what makes horror stories work – or at least the way they work for him when reading or writing them – is that there is something in your unconscious that says “with a little bit of changes here and there, this could be real.” That’s what makes it scary. It may be about a giant, fire-breathing reptile or giant man driven insane by radiation exposure that is stomping cities, but it’s really about the horrors nuclear war or some radiation disaster can inflict without warning on the entire world. Godzilla was inspired by an actual nuclear disaster in the South Pacific that killed several Japanese fisherman and The Amazing Colossal Man (probably an inspiration for The Hulk) was in theaters at the same time high schools would have atomic bomb drills. They expressed the anxiety of the age as ridiculous monsters that were much easier to handle than the real monster of potential nuclear war.

Spider-Man is a matinee monster origin turned into a superhero story, but I feel that the inward success of Spider-Man and the Hulk has a lot to do with the same appeal The X-Men had for me in the 80’s and probably still has for teen readers today. Even though the most popular Marvel heroes are often outsiders and underdogs, and – like in the X-Men movies – they can be used as stand-ins for all sorts of groups excluded from the mainstream, I think the essential appeal of the stories and characters was that it felt like a mythic or metaphoric (and exciting) portrayal of the struggles of adolescence. When a person is a child, generally, they are taken care of, everyone (generally) finds them to be adorable and they get a lot of physical and emotional support – however, they don’t have any power and are often anxious and afraid.

However, once they reach the teens, the bodies start changing, emotions become harder to control, and they get more power, but they also start to be held responsible and stop being cute. So, it feels like despite all good intentions, you’re now in a world where people no longer love or trust you compared to how you were treated before you could drive a car, start a serious fight, get a job or get pregnant or get someone pregnant.

So, the idea that Peter would also have this darker internal personality – the Spider – representing the potential downside of his powers that he has to constantly keep in mind and in check fits in with that basic struggle of maturing from a child into a young adult.

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Todd

Yeah, depending on how much it is extended, I may watch it. Though probably not in the theatre.

Resurrecting this thread as I saw the new “extra fun stuff” edition of this today (or whatever it’s called) as they’re doing a special promotion in the UK with ultra-cheap cinema tickets all day.

It’s a fun expansion of the original that adds lots of little additional moments without really changing anything in a major way. But lots of the little additions were things that I enjoyed, either explaining minor plot points in slightly more detail, giving nice character moments and extra dialogue, or sometimes even expanding on the existing action scenes.

A lot of the expansions were early on with the school stuff, and to be honest would have dragged a bit in the theatrical version, but it’s nice to have them here. There are only a couple of moments that feel like they really should have been kept in the original. (Including an additional little riff from JB Smoove which is always good).

The closest comparison I can draw is probably the T2 and Aliens and LotR extended editions, which are nice to have and would probably be my chosen way to watch in future, but which probably wouldn’t have been wise to release as the original theatrical version.

[Al-x]

I got the movie off of ITunes at the time and now this extra footage. Now I am hoping to just download the footage off a YouTube video later on if it’s there.

Because of the Sony contract, the movie is not streaming on Disney, so I bought the movie. But now I wonder if iTunes will get me the extra footage or if I have to buy this new Directors cut or whatever they are calling it.

 

I read some comments and online speculations on how that final spell would work and erase memories and even very private moments and photos.

There were a few Twilight Zone episodes (My favorite old show) where some character and their memories were erased from existence and only one guy remembers and he is trying to prove the character existed.

Strange concept and hard to speculate on how it all works out.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 3 months ago by Al-x.

Al-x wrote:

I read some comments on how that final spell would work and erase memories and even very private moments and photos.

There is a new post-credit scene in this edition (replacing the Dr Strange trailer from the original version) that alludes to this – it shows the school TV channel displaying a lot of photos and video of Pete’s high school years, and in every shot he is either obscured or cropped out, while MJ, Ned etc are all still visible.

Like with One More Day/Brand New Day in the comics, it’s a fudg-y solution to an awkward problem and it raises as many questions as it solves, but at least they tried I guess.

Is this extended version only in cinemas? Little annoying none of this content was on the blu-ray.

Don’t worry, now you’ll be able to own a second blu-ray =P

Martin Smith wrote:

Is this extended version only in cinemas? Little annoying none of this content was on the blu-ray.

Yes. It feels like they’ve literally held back what would have been deleted scenes on the Blu-ray and edited them back into the movie for an extended version.

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Todd