Into the Spider-Verse Observations
Boy do I love this movie. I was excited before it came out. But I really wasn’t ready for just how much this movie would infect me for a month straight after seeing it. I had to see it two more times in theaters and listen to the related score and soundtrack over and over again until my body would settle down for a bit and await its release on DVD. I’ve watched it three more times since then and poured over it for my own nice collection of beautiful screenshots and noted a lot of fun “movie observations” that makes Spider-Verse a nice case for narrative and film-studying. But I’m not that crazy on writing my own film criticism, so I’m just dumping the observations here for sharing. Some of these realizations came after watching the Blu-Ray version of the movie’s “Alternate Mode”, which puts the movie in the frame of mind of how the film may have originally been conceptualized by putting in deleted sequences and storyboards, giving you an almost 2.5 hour experience to watch.
Oh yeah, SPOILERS.
Observation #1: Unraveling the Spider-Mythos
30 minutes into the film, Spider-Man is proclaimed dead. The final version of Into the Spider-Verse opens with quick shots and hyper-edited opening sequences to catch us up to speed with the meme, the legend, and hero story that maintains as one of most relatable superheroes called “Spider-Man”. The film relies on the fact that everyone kinda already knows who Spider-Man is and how he’s amazing but also isn’t allowed to be cool because the actual burden of shouldering responsibility without making massive profits off of the job of being “Spider-Man” means that life would only become more difficult and being born into riches removes how relatable he is. We all know the beloved line: Great power, great responsibility. But Spider-Man today is also loved for how long he has been able to endure relevancy in comic books and otherwise, allowing him to be the silly, awkward, sad joke he sometimes is. This is made clear when audiences react stupendously to moments where Peter B. Parker / Spider-Man cries in the shower (in his suit), watches TV while eating pizza (in his suit), and generally lives life like some miserable sap who is tired and giving up…but still wearing the suit. We relate, but it’s also a superhero going through those problems and find it kinda funny. We’ll also get back to Peter B. Parker in a little bit.
Spider-Man’s capability to be so memetic on screen without feeling like the moments are just shilling for our love speaks volume of the passion and love the creators put into this film, but also to how Spider-Man has been a part of our wider culture for so long now. Everyone can relate to Spider-Man on some level and the movie doesn’t waste time trying to make us “get it”, because the movie has much bigger things to overcome in the realm of making us get “different Spider-People”. Some came already on-board for the ride, but others…well, Spider-Man is a literal pig in this movie. There’s some changes that take place here. But I think the fundamental design of this approach is ingenious. Essentially, there’s tons of visual references that suggest that the universe we’re watching, this universe where Spider-Man is this 26-year-old blonde-haired perfect version of the superhero we’ve come to know, isn’t ours. This isn’t necessarily our Spider-Man that people who have only seen Spider-Man movies have come to know. From a detail level, blonde-Peter Parker in this film fights a Doc-Ock with different styled limbs (and we’re surprised with the knowledge that it’s a female later), the bridge sequence from Spider-Man 1 here involves two buses instead of bridge tram cars, the romantic kiss sequence with Mary Jane from 2002’s Spider-Man is played out in a different light, Spider-Man defeats Doc-Ock in Spider-Man 2 without having to rescue MJ in this version, Coca-Cola is called “Koka-Cola”, and Spider-Man is this insane success story with a bunch of awesome different suits in a hero cave, a Christmas album, a cereal, etc. While all of these things refer to Spider-Man things that have happened in our actual lives, they are framed and showcased in this film in a more idyllic “perfect” way compared to the source material (except for that one dance scene in Spider-Man 3 and the Popsicle).
Essentially, the Spider-Man that Miles knows and the Spider-Man that we are being presented is the idea of the Amazing Spider-Man, a hero we can all know and love in perfect form. That’s kinda why I thought it was so funny to see this great shot near the end of the opening montage involving Spider-Man’s leap meant literal doves flew by to make the shot holy and perfect with the sunrise and the godrays.
But the genius of presenting this Spider-Man isn’t in how it catches us up all to speed. Like I said, this film more or less relies on our own previous filmic and cultural understanding and love for the character, there’s not a lot of time to get us to fall in love with “great power, great responsibility” all over again. If we didn’t get it before, that opening sequence will do it. Instead, the genius in this film is in how it turns our idea of Spider-Man into an idea that says, “You can be this.” (the literal line is across the movie here and there “Anyone can wear the mask.”)
And it does so by killing this idyllic Spider-Man. He’s dead. He doesn’t exist anymore. And now Miles has to fill in the hole, or Spider-Man and the universe is doomed.
I love it.
This isn’t necessarily the most original of hero concepts, even The Lord of the Rings is about people admiring the heroic actions of previous generations and realizing there’s a new need to rise up and stop evil again. Function and metaphor are closely linked here and do a great job that doesn’t need much analysis, but Spider-Man is sorta the thing we need to see go through this right now. Spider-Man films went from being an immediate game-changing success story that served as a cultural rallying point for people (twice), tapered off into a corporately-infected third film, and found itself being rebooted so fast an entire generation was already tired of Spider-Man within just 10 years. By the time Tom Holland became the “new” Spider-Man, most people had gone through an entire cycle of loving Spider-Man, wanting to forget about him for a while, and loving him all over again while also getting very tired of the hollywood superhero machine.
And, I’ll make this clear, I really love the Tom Holland Spider-Man. But when I left the theater for the first time after seeing Spider-Verse I kinda wanted to kick Peter Parker out of the current MCU and demand Miles’s place in the spotlight because it’s such a welcome change-up! The fact of the matter is that a good Spider-Character to fill in the shoes of the Spider-Man we have come to know in film (via Peter Parker) is about as necessary a “kill the Spider” cultural change-up as it is that we be allowed to let Bruce Wayne go away for a while in films. In fact, something tells me this very principle is going to be repeated with insane amounts of success with the upcoming Joker film. It’s been kinda impossible to do anything in the realm of Joker in live action films since Heath Ledger’s performance as the Clown Prince. Since Jared Leto’s performance met about as much love as Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man, I’m feeling a similar comparison here isn’t too rough around the edges.
So we kill Spider-Man, and ponder for a bit about what it means to take up the mantle but Miles doesn’t get very far, because there’s these two well-written, but only sorta fleshed out internal conflicts within him: He’s afraid of the responsibility and expectations of the world, thus in ways not really wanting to be Spider-Man. And he feels like he doesn’t have a choice in what to do with his life. (very standard “coming of age” stuff). I’ll talk about some more of this stuff down below in discussing the film’s “Alternate Mode”, but basically Miles is stuck and unsure of how to progress except in trying to find a way to stop Kingpin. The answer to his personal development problems will have to come via the radical crazy answer in the film: The Spider-Verse itself. And we start with Peter B. Parker.
If there’s any complaint I’ve heard over the years about Toby McGuire’s portrayal as Spider-Man, it’s in his slow-speaking, long-winded, overly emotional, very defeated almost soap-opera approach to the character. And, I can’t really debate against those faults, though I personally found them as a good strength to the weight of Peter’s troubles in those films and the overall aesthetic presented in the Raimi films. Then again, Peter is built to be someone I would like to watch on screen: An awkward, brown-haired, young man who has trouble expressing his emotions sometimes. Either way, Peter B. Parker, who lives in a world where “Coca-Cola” exists instead of the Koca-Cola we see in Miles’s universe, felt like a natural comedic tragedy progression of the Toby McGuire Spider-Man that millions came to know in the early 2000’s. He’s got the same hair color (drawing the comparison a bit more in line with the Peter Parker that we would know), he consistently overcomes his problems, but not necessarily in a way that makes his life better, just more challenging or tiring. His marriage falls apart, Aunt May eventually dies, he has various financial / life support failings, he gets hit by that one drone, all of it feels kinda like the way we imagine that “truly being a hero isn’t easy”-version of Spider-Man that would eventually become our reality if we kept watching Toby McGuire get older and older as Spider-Man. Simultaneously, we as an audience that grew tired of watching Spider-Man come out again and again kinda needed this weird catharsis of a Spider-Man who refuses to hear that great sentence uttered at all because it can’t be easy to keep at this forever, nor do we need to see Uncle Ben or Batman’s parents die again. As Peter B. Parker said it so perfectly, “I’m sick of it.” He’s very much the embodiment of a tired culture that thinks Spider-Man is a good thing while not necessarily knowing how to keep going with it forever.
Lastly on B-parker, this is definitely a reach, but I like the idea that if Peter B. Parker is so tired of hearing that sentence because he’s been letting Uncle Ben down, then it could also mean Spider-Man has been letting us down too. This kinda makes it endearing to see the character have an arc of his own in the film, wherein we’re able to recognize that Spider-Man may have had some bad times, his experiences with Miles in this film help re-teach him the lessons he always knew so he can get back up and try to be everyone’s hero again.
Observation #2: The Parallels
A fair deal of the parallels and motif work is in the music. I write about electronic music on Medium but I’m not really that educated in music theory or structure too well and instead normally look at the aesthetics of music and its execution. But there’s some phenomenal, if not simple, musical execution going on in Spider-Verse supported by really solid original songs to strengthen each moment. The motif’s development across the film is well documented and demonstrated in the video below, but I also wanted to call additional attention to the glitchy, fully formed version of the theme that takes place during Miles’s monologue at the end of the film (the movie’s on Netflix, you can check it out there).
And then there’s one additional specific set of shot parallels I want to draw your attention to. While the cinematography is something that probably deserves greater focus in its own writing, one of the early sequences in this film features what I’m considering the big “Wow moment” that is set to dazzle both the audience and Miles. It’s this sequence of shots:
There’s a specific set of movements across and up the scaffolding, taking the weight of the turning collider piece and then leaping off of it to use that momentum and fling Spider-Man to the ceiling. Right after this, Miles asks to himself how Spider-Man does that. And all throughout the film Miles struggles to utilize his powers with the same grace and ease all the other Spider-Verse characters do. But once Miles has made his leap of faith, we see him perform the same feat in his own transformed way just like everything else every Spider-Character does.
Similar parallels are drawn in actions and phrases across the film. Peter B. Parker and the various other Spider-Characters keep leg sweeping Miles to test his skills in the basement scene. Then later at Peter’s dorm room, Peter B. Parker holds Miles in place after a leg sweep to showcase Miles cannot yet do what he’s trying to do. Prior to this scene, during the fight at Aunt May’s house, Miles is unable to handle the fact that his Uncle Aaron is the Prowler and that Miles has to fight him. Peter B. Parker says to Miles, “You gotta go, man.” Across these two scenes, Peter is demonstrating vocally and physically to Miles that he’s not yet ready to face the responsibilities and faith required to manage being the next Spider-Man.
Then, not long later, Peter is attempting to sacrifice himself because he’s trying to run away from his problems back in his own universe. It’s less a situation of Peter continuing to doubt Miles’s abilities so much as Peter being afraid of messing up again. Miles, committed to making sure Peter doesn’t die in this universe, performs the sweep on Peter, and reflects back a near identical version of the phrase Peter told him not long before.
Shortly after this moment, Miles also reflects back the teaching about a leap of faith to Peter, concluding Peter B. Parker’s own arc.
Observation #3: Alternate Mode
So if you haven’t nabbed the blu-ray copy of this film, you might be missing out on this really cool “alternate mode” in which we see deleted and unfinished scenes from the movie inserted back into the movie from start to finish with little additions and bonus elements. A few things here make sense as to why they were removed. One group of deleted scenes mix in Miles already being good friends with his roommate at school and this roommate teaches Miles about Spider-Man, the myth, and his powers so Miles can start to use his own powers. In the end these sequences were cut likely to save time and the movie further relied on the Spider-Man story that is retold again and again and again in this film with 30 second micro-cuts.
What was worth keeping, but maybe difficult to manage and thus didn’t make the cut, is this other story about a boy and these various parental figures he looks up to or struggles with in his life. The core film still holds these torn perspectives where Miles sees his Uncle Aaron as a cool guy and his dad as someone who doesn’t understand him (while Miles feels a similar way about himself), and the competing interests in Miles’s life from the perspective of Aaron and Jefferson Davis. Neither are directly competing with the other to tell Miles how to live his life, but Miles falters to find a way to talk to his dad about his new problems arising in the film. In the alternate version of the film, an additional scene is shown where Miles goes home during his school week and gets into an argument with his dad over choosing his future once again. Throughout the movie Miles is unable to reconcile this feeling that he lacks any choice in the matter of his future, while Aaron enables things that interest Miles. In simple terms: At the start of the film Miles has an emotional disconnect with his dad due to expectations placed on him, and a close tie with his uncle due to how Aaron fosters Miles’s desires.
As Miles gets his powers, sees Spider-Man die, and reasonably freaks out upon realizing he has to save the world, he cuts himself off from his family further, not knowing how to talk to them or not being able to reach them (because they’re off being the Prowler). Meanwhile, Miles is making new friends and looking to them, as well as the stories of his universe’s Peter Parker to figure out how to be Spider-Man. Miles wants to do the right thing, is afraid of what that entails, doesn’t feel free to choose, and most importantly: Doesn’t know how to do it and satisfy both pieces of his life.
Meanwhile, Peter B. Parker, in a cut sequence, explains to Miles that he needs to forge his own path as Spider-Man. Peter learns that Miles emotionally prioritizes his Uncle Aaron first, his mother second, and his dad third. Peter then explains in his own world he made mistakes, he lost people, and he would maybe do things differently if he had the chance. Peter illustrates to Miles that looking to everyone else for the answer will not yield the results Miles seeks, it has to come from his own desire to protect the people he loves and become Spider-Man in his own way. This scene takes place shortly before Miles goes to Aaron’s house and finds out Aaron is the the Prowler, and then the Prowler dies not long after. Miles has been given the answer from Peter, his new friend, as to how he should go about becoming a Spider-Hero, but is still lost on what his family wants for him. In Aaron’s dying words, he tells Miles that he’ll be better than his dad or his uncle, being the best of all of Miles’s family members and strive to do the right thing in life. Then, Miles’s dad, fresh on the tragedy of losing his estranged brother, tells Miles that he wants Miles to do what he wants with his talents because he knows he’ll do great no matter what Miles chooses to do. Only after hearing validation, indirect or direct, from these three sources is Miles able to manifest his confidence and transform into a new Spider-Hero. The movie smartly downplays the biggest weak point in which Miles feels like he doesn’t have a choice about what to do and has a unique epiphany for that subject. The great power still has great responsibility, but Miles does not have to be the new Spider-Man in the same way as ones before, he can be his own Spider-Hero.
I thought this sub-plot was underplayed a bit with the lack of these extra scenes in the movie, even though some of the pieces are already in place and hinted at in the core film. Regardless, I feel it would be rewarding to see this version of the film at least once (it’s about two and a half hours in total) as it provides a different, if not more complete, presentation of the emotional journey Miles goes through in Into the Spider-Verse. I wouldn’t recommend it to a first time viewer of the movie, as the original film is still phenomenal and accomplishes its goals with ease. But it’s an interesting extra layer to the things happening to Miles in his hero’s journey in Spider-Verse.
And that’s it. I started writing this thing originally back when I got the Blu-Ray in February and I really wanted to make sure I spent time chewing on it and going over the material again until I knew there was enough there to discuss. Into the Spider-Verse is a fantastic film, and it’s on Netflix now. But I’d honestly recommend catching this thing on Blu-Ray if you can, the team behind the animation on this film knocked it out of the park with revolutionary techniques and there’s really something special lost when the sound, visuals, and music are squished down into the streaming pipeline.
Just go watch it. You deserve a good Spider-Man movie like this one.
