For Sale: Fire Extinguisher, Never Used

One writing decision that I normally wouldn’t have liked for writing Spider-Man but I loved in the context of this movie is to have Peter have no discernible source of income. They never explain where his money is coming from. Normally, I think Peter’s financial struggles and how they relate to Spider-Man are a core part of his character that should be shown explicitly. He’s out here fighting for his goddamn life and trying to make the world a better place and then he goes back to a shitty fucking apartment and paying its rent is a daily source of stress and all he has in his fridge is half a can of Arizona ice tea and an expired cucumber. That is part of what makes Peter Parker so compelling as a character—his struggles are similar to those of so many people out there, and his efforts as spider-man come at direct cost to his life as Peter Parker. So much of that cost is shown in how he struggles to hold down a job because of the demands of his vigilantism. He is constantly on the struggle bus. That being said, I think having no discernible signs of a job was the exact right move for this movie. Because the point is that he hasn’t gotten to be Peter Parker in a very long time.

Having to hold down a job and fight for his income gives Peter something outside of spider-man. He still gets to be a real boy at work. Excising work from the plot entirely was the exact right choice for what this movie was trying to do.

At the end of no way home, Peter Parker has been erased from this reality, and Peter sets fire to his one route back to having something in his life as Peter. He chooses to not tell MJ and Ned the truth. He excises Peter Parker from his own existence. And the costs of that is perfectly continued in this movie. Peter doesn’t get to be Peter anymore. All he has left is Spider-Man. Giving him a job—even if it’s a shitty job that he hates—is giving him something outside of Spider-Man. I think the movie made the exact right decision in just not having anything about his income because it allowed them to cull any part of his life that still let him be Peter.

I do also want to give them credit for the decision to be completely silent on how he makes money. Giving him a random job would have harmed their message by giving him something outside of spiderman. But explaining how he was making money outside of a random job would have had inherent narrative implications that they just didn’t have the narrative space to deal with. Like. Is he getting paid to be spider-man? Have people been donating money to him? Did he sell some tech he invented and he’s living off that? All of those options have narrative consequences that you would have to grapple with, and it doesn’t really come with narrative pay off. You don’t need to answer that question to tell the story you’re trying to tell, so just don’t. Let the audience draw whatever conclusions they may. You don’t have to give them the answer to every question. Answering “how does he make money” does nothing to move forward the plot, so narratively, it’s dead weight. So often I see writers get themselves in trouble by trying to answer Every Possible Question but they just don’t have the narrative space to deal with the implications of their answers and it fucks them over in the long run. Simply not bringing it up was the perfect move here.

I thought they did a great job at elegantly creating a sense of isolation at the beginning. Very minor moments went a long way. The little sign saying to leave the takeout at the door—he’s not even talking to the fucking delivery man. He has one neighbor recognize him enough to say “oh we live on the same floor” and he immediately moves into the attic. He has a treadmill and it’s inside his apartment—he’s not going to the gym and getting outside contact that way. He doesn’t have gym friends. He doesn’t have anyone.

And they cut these moments of isolation with this constant contrast of Spider-Man’s success. Spider-Man’s Doing Great. Key To The Goddamn City. Everyone Loves Him. Crime’s At An All Time Low. :) NYC Loves Spidey. :)

The narrative initially invites Peter and the audience to speculate as to whether it’s better to excise Peter Parker from his own life. Peter Parker is nonexistent. He has no friends, no obligations, no life. And on the surface, that is fucking great for Spider-Man. He doesn’t have to try to make it to class because he doesn’t go to school. He doesn’t have to go be there for his girlfriend’s big event or his friend’s birthday or his aunt’s dinner because he doesn’t have anything outside of spiderman anymore. Spider-Man is thriving because he no longer has to compete with Peter Parker for existence. And maybe it’s better that way.

The narrative then spends the rest of the story disproving that notion. You need both. You need the humanity of Peter Parker to inform spiderman. He cannot just be one or the other. And that was so expertly outlined by his struggles with his mutating abilities, but more on that later.

At the beginning, Peter is allowed two lifelines to his identity as Peter Parker, and they are lifelines he is struggling to hold onto. He has his memory of May, and he has his memory of Ned and MJ. That is it.

There is a two second clip of the movie that I think was brilliant, and it was the fact that at one point you see a reminder on Peter’s phone telling him to buy May flowers. Why does he need a reminder to do that? He seemingly doesn’t have a job competing for his time. All he has is spider-man, and that has the most flexible hours imaginable. He lives in the land of 24 hour bodegas. He could go to buy May flowers any hour of the day. Why does he feel the need to pick a specific time and set a reminder on his phone to go do something he could do whenever?

To me, that two second clip at least invites the interpretation that Peter is struggling to hang onto the few moments he still has of being Peter Parker. He is setting a reminder because otherwise he will forget. Spider-Man is consuming more and more of his life in the same way his spider dna later starts consuming his genome.

Peter is similarly struggling to hang on to his memory of MJ and Ned. He has a piece of paper in a cup that he keeps shut up in a drawer. He has Ned’s Instagram and he is narratively punished for watching it. When I was watching Ned’s Instagram reels I was like “oh my god did I write those” because the movie uses social media in the EXACT WAY THAT I WOULD

There is an extremely painful irony in every single one of Ned’s Instagram videos. Ned tells MJ she can’t pretend that she’s never been more happy and she’s like “you’re right, I can’t.” Ned has a fucking laundry list of best friends who aren’t Peter that he made at school, couldn’t imagine this time without them. Peter cannot escape the reminder that they do not remember him, they do not miss him, they are happy without him. Every time he watches a video, he pays a price. And in the final video, MJ implicitly diminishes the idea that these videos mean anything to anyone. Who is even watching these, Ned? They are his sole remaining lifeline to the people he loves, and he cannot escape the reminder that the importance of these videos is entirely unilateral. He is clinging to videos that do not truly mean anything to the people he loves. He is reminded, once again, that his love for them is one-sided. He is never allowed to fantasize that this is real, and so he gets no unconditional relief from watching these. And so he is once again invited to let go of his life line to Peter Parker. Doesn’t it hurt to watch these? Don’t you just want to forget? Let go, let go, let go.

I don’t remember if they did this but if I could go back and watch it again I’d try and see if anyone even calls him by his own fucking name before Jean Grey does when she breaks into his apartment. He uses fake names when he goes to the party at MJ and Ned’s apartment and at ESU. When was the last time anyone’s called Peter by his own name?

I’ve said this already but having the police officer earnestly tell spiderman that he’d never hurt him he loves him and having Peter be like “oh. Okay.” Was the EXACT COMEDIC BEAT I myself would hit to the point where I was sitting in the theatre wondering if I was soulmates with whoever wrote the script.

First thing I didn’t like in the movie: Peter should not have had an AI.

Marvel has this obsession with giving every tech savvy character an AI and I absolutely hate it. First, this world should be fucking allergic to AI after age of ultron. AI was restricted by the Sokovia Accords themselves, and it was the only part of the Sokovia Accords that I thought was fair. But then every two seconds they decided we needed another fucking AI. Yeah, let’s only enforce the discriminatory police state bullshit out of those things. Let’s not give a shit about the thing that actually caused the problem in Sokovia. It’s soooo hypocritical.

Beyond my ongoing beef with the Sokovia Accords, I think giving Peter an AI was actively detrimental to what they were trying to do here.

You want to emphasize Peter’s sense of isolation in this movie. Giving him the AI gives him something to talk to. His loneliness would have been reinforced if he doesn’t even have a computer to chat with.

I do want to acknowledge the narrative benefit of having an AI. You’re dealing with a visual media. You do not get the benefit of an internal monologue. You need to rely on dialogue to explain a character’s thoughts. That’s a little hard to do if he has no one to fucking talk to. So I get why you have an AI character.

That being said, I think you could have remedied it by having him just talk out his thoughts aloud when he’s alone. Plenty of people talk to themselves, and it would have reinforced his sense of isolation. Like. I would have had that man pulling a Wilson on Castaway in every apartment scene. He’s has to talk to himself because he has no one else to talk to. He’s talking through his thoughts aloud and then it’s a hard cut to his empty apartment. He doesn’t have MJ. He doesn’t have Ned. He’s alone, he’s alone, he’s alone.

The AIs are just so often used by marvel to make their characters less. Why is the fucking AI figuring out why Peter’s mutating? Let him do that. Showcase his intelligence. You could have gotten the same result with a five second Bella-Swan-Google-searching-vampire style montage but one gives Peter’s character the benefit of making him smart enough to solve his own problems. He doesn’t need a robot to tell him what’s going on. He figured it out for himself.

I also would have made his setup/computers a little bit shittier to imply he’s still got the struggle bus going on in the background. Make it look like he pulled those monitors out of a dumpster.

I’m gonna tip my hat to them on one point with respect to the AI, and that’s the fact that they didn’t give it much of a personality. It helps with the sense of isolation. I still think it would have been better to not have an AI at all, but they mitigated the damage of it by stripping it of most of its ability to give much of an illusion of companionship.

We’re gonna get all of my initial complaints out of the way at the same time. He was way too buddy-buddy with DeWolffe (I don’t remember how to spell her name) and the police in general. Like babe you are an illegal vigilante.

Spider-Man is not a government employee. Even when the city loves him, he is an outsider. Why is he getting the same alerts as the police and why do they know he’s getting those? If he has access to those, it’s because he hacked their fucking systems. He should not officially be on restricted channels. Why do the police have his fucking phone number? Why are they chit-chatting on the morning commute? Why does DeWolffe know he’s been getting headaches? Don’t tell them fucking weaknesses.

They were just way too familiar and it narratively harmed his sense of isolation. This is again something I’m going to give them credit for on—they also mitigated the harm they did with this plot point. They made a point of saying that Peter doesn’t even know DeWolffe’s kids names. I just think it would have been better for him to have even more space from her. Have him pull back hard from any concern or attempts to probe into whether he has any fucking life. Have him call from pay phones or burner phones. Give him more distance and it’s more of a payoff when he shows he’s learned her kids’ names at the end.

I’m also going to give them credit in this respect—he is narratively punished for trusting the government as much as he did. Damage Control had weapons prepared specifically for him all along. They shouldn’t have been trusted. But this punishment is isolated to Damage Control itself, so the credit I’m giving them is limited.

The biggest thing I did not like about this movie: the one (1) line Peter had about running facial recognition across every camera in the city. That was fucking big state propaganda. That line was sponsored by goddamn Flock cameras. Fuck you fuck you fuck you

I am not joking or exaggerating in the slightest about that. That line was propaganda. This is legitimately how people have historically used art to desensitize the public to violations of their rights. Marvel specifically has a history of doing this. I bitched about this with EDITH and I’m bitching about it now.

You see a superhero with the most invasive fucking tech that violates countless human rights and it’s fine :) you can trust them with it :) they’re the good guy :) great power great responsibility etcetera etcetera :) :) and it actively desensitizes you to viewing that as a bad thing or a violation. It’s pure fucking police state propaganda.

Why the fuck did Tony stark have a fucking weaponized satellite that let him call out fucking missile strikes on people with such little oversight that a teenaged boy could call one out on another teenaged boy by fucking accident? NO ONE SHOULD BE ABLE TO DO THAT. Why did he think it was okay to casually be able to search every fucking phone on the planet including the ones of people who are not even accused or suspected of doing something wrong? That kind of tech is inherently immoral. It is violative by merit of its own existence. But it is presented as fine :) you can trust them to have it :) they are the good guys :) do you really need to worry about this if you have nothing to hide :) FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART THEY ARE DOING THIS ON PURPOSE AS PROPAGANDA

There was no need to have Peter be searching every camera in the fucking city in some weird police state bullshit move. He found the Scorpion when he attacked a fucking government base. This wasn’t a “oh my god he was just barely clipped by a camera outside of a bodega and we would have had no other way of finding him were it not for our fuck off invasive camera sweeping program” it was a “yeah he SHOWED UP WITH A MECHANICAL ATTACK TAIL UNIQUE TO HIM AND STARTED STABBING PEOPLE WITH IT so it’s a pretty big hint that this is the scorpion.” They could have just had someone phone the fucking attack in. The facial recognition software line had no narrative benefit and came at the cost of Spider-Man’s character. That’s some pretty great power that he should be questioning if he’s using responsibly. It was there as fucking propaganda and it was the only part of the movie that I actively hated.

That being said, that’s just like. three things off the cuff that I didn’t like, none of them related to very substantive aspects of the plot, and most of them could have been fixed with very minor script changes. My standards with writing are very high, so to like a movie this much is crazy for me.

Another minor point that I really liked was how they handled scorpion coming out of his possession. He had a very innocent confusion in how he spoke. There was something about the way he was like “what… spider-man?” that almost sounded like he was asking Peter for help. I just loved how the actor did it because in that moment, Scorpion wasn’t genuinely the antagonist. He needed help. And he didn’t get it from Peter, because that was one of the moments where his spider hormones surged.

The entire conflict with Peter becoming more spidery was so perfectly reflective of the core message of the movie. He is losing his humanity, he is losing himself, he is losing Peter Parker, and of course he is, because he was barely hanging onto Peter Parker as it was. But he needs Peter Parker. His humanity is what makes Spider-Man good.

When he is overwhelmed by his spider aspect, his morality goes out the window. He brutalizes Scorpion. He almost kills a responding officer. He even dangles MJ off of a building. He should be much more mindful of the safety of the possessed victims when he’s fighting Jean but when the spider is in charge he just isn’t.

When his hormones are surging, he also loses the ability to see Jean Grey. They give this a mechanical explanation in the movie—it’s seemingly related to his sensory overload—but I felt that this plot point was at least open to an interpretation that was reflective of the core message of the movie. Peter’s losing the very human part of himself that always saw the individual that he was saving. He doesn’t see Jean anymore, just like he doesn’t see MJ when he’s dangling her off the roof or scorpion beneath his possession. He is blind action and reaction. He is missing his humanity. He’s missing the part of himself that is always saw the person that needed saving. He is missing the part of him that is Peter because that’s the part of himself that he’s been slowly starving to death. And he cannot truly be spiderman without that piece of him. His humanity is what’s missing.

This entire movie was a masterclass in maintaining a coherent narrative message. The narrative rewards him when he clings tighter to his lifelines. He goes to the party at MJ and Ned’s and he gets his first confirmation that a part of them missed him. Ned is looking for spider-man. MJ feels like she’s meant to be waiting for something in the city. A part of them recognizes the hole he left in their lives.

They narratively reward him again during the fight with the Hulk. The solution isn’t to just Punch Harder or Fight Better—it’s to say Bruce, it’s Peter. You know me. Being Peter Parker is what saved him.

The fact that MJ did not just go back to Peter when she found out was written with me specifically in mind. They are in my fucking head.

Peter makes a decision for both of them at the end of NWH, and that decision comes at cost. They cannot just reset to where they were years ago. She’s not the same person she was back then. He is not the same person he was. She doesn’t even remember him. They can’t just go back to what they were. Maybe they could have gotten what they lost back if he had given her the choice back then, but he didn’t, and they both have to live with that.

I am not saying it’s impossible for them to ever be romantically involved again. I hope they do ultimately get back together. MJ and Peter are one of my favorite romantic pairings of all time. But it just shouldn’t be as simple as “oh my god now that I know this we can erase the last few years and pretend we’re those same fucking teenagers again.” If they want to be together, they would need to rebuild a relationship. It would require time and effort and purpose.

I love this so much because it gives MJ the dignity of being her own person. She is not just handed to Peter as the prize to the hero with all interiority hand-waved away. A real person would not just fall into some rando’s arms with no issues after years apart. And it also makes it clear that the choice that Peter made for both of them at the end of the last movie comes at cost. It doesn’t just narratively walk back one of the biggest decisions from his franchise. Like oh my fucking god YES thank GOD they didn’t just get back together

Even though the romantic dimension isn’t present in their relationship, the care and compassion is still there. MJ is so human with him. She invites him up to say hi to Ned. The romantic love is missing but she still cares about him as a person.

Peter is again narratively rewarded for clinging tighter to his lifeline. He goes and he spends real time with MJ and Ned, and that is how he figures out that damage control lied to him. It’s such a coherently communicated and internally consistent message that I could cry.

I have so many good things to say about Jean Grey and her presence in this movie but I got a different ask about that already and I’m still typing it out. We’re just gonna say that I loved it for right now and expand on that in the other ask.

Pairing him with Frank in this movie was the perfect move. Sometimes I see MCU pairings and I’m like “you just had more movies to run out on that actor’s contract huh.” I have this entire rant about how step one to fixing the trainwreck that was doctor strange: multiverse of madness is to cut doctor strange. He had no business being in that movie. His dead weight dragged the entire film down—it should have been Scarlet Witch or America Chavez headlining that movie. But picking Frank for this was PERFECT. You needed him and his genuine isolation to foil Peter’s imposed isolation. You needed that scene of him saying “you aren’t here yet and you don’t want to be.” He is the exact character I would have picked to be support in this movie.

I think it’s obvious that I think their dynamic was perfectly drafted considering it’s the dynamic I gave them four years ago in my fucking fanfic. 10/10, could not have possibly loved it more. Exactly how I always imagined them together.

The ending

Oh my god the ending

The narrative again rewards Peter for embracing his lifeline to Peter Parker. He saves Jean through his memory of May.

One of the things I hated most about the reboot is how they erased Ben from the narrative. I understand not wanting to film the same fucking origin story that’s been the subject of multiple major motion pictures, one of which was released only a few years prior, so I’m actually okay with the decision to skip the spiderman origin story in the MCU. But Ben should have haunted the narrative in the way he just didn’t. His loss shaped Spider-Man’s core and yet there was next to no trace of him.

Subverting his origin story and having it be delivered through May in NWH was one of the best writing decisions in the entire MCU. I hated far from home because it felt like marvels dedication towards fucking chaining spiderman to Tony stark like Prometheus to his goddamn rock had eviscerated his comic book identity. But they returned Spider-Man’s core and depth to him in NWH in no small part through May and they used her perfectly to anchor him in this movie

Peter saves Jean by inviting her into his head to “speak” with May. And then he sits down at her side in May’s place. He speaks to her himself. He saves her as Peter Parker. And it is as a Peter Parker who has internalized and decided to live May’s teachings to him the same way Peter in the comics internalized and lived Ben’s teachings to him. It was such peak spider-man.

I WAS THE TARGET AUDIENCE OF THE DECISION TO HAVE HIM RECONNECT WITH NED AT THE END OF THAT MOVIE. He’s not showing up with flowers to chase a woman who’s already rejected him. He’s chasing platonic love. Friendship!! Y E S

Having him stay in Montreal is (I think obviously, at this point) my preference. For one, I just really hate him getting forced out to begin with. I would rather force every single homophobe out and replace the entire team before making Shane walk. I also just really like Montreal as a city. It’s one of the most historically queer positive cities on the planet. I like the idea of them rallying around him.

That being said, I also really like the idea of him going to a team that treats him with the respect he’s earned in his career. Three goddamn Stanley Cups should earn him a hell of a lot of respect.

And I frankly like it when Shane respects himself too.

His relationship with Ilya is just so bad and unbalanced by the end of TLG. Why is Shane just an hollow doormat? Why is Ilya’s explicit reaction to Shane’s reputation being destroyed and his friends leaving him to be happy and hopeful? Why does he repeatedly crack fucking jokes about his partner being subjected to vicious workplace discrimination?

Whenever I’m like, exploring a story avenue, I always have to ask myself what the point of the story is for me. What do I want to talk about or develop with this story? And for me, the appeal of this kind of story would be to see if Shane and Ilya were willing to recognize the weaknesses in their relationship and try to correct them.

I like it when Shane has the self respect to say “hey, the total lack of empathy and outright digs at the worst thing to ever happen to me and my career is actually very shitty. I’m going to a team that respects me. You can either start respecting me or I’ll do the same with this relationship.” And I like it when Ilya actually respects and like, gives a shit about the wellbeing of his partner. Ilya “Loverboy” Rozanov they will never take you from me. I like the idea of them putting in the work to get better and have a strong and balanced relationship, and frankly, I think having Shane sign with a team that isn’t Ottawa would be a good wake up call as to the need for that.

It would also give him more of a chance to salvage his reputation and career than fucking canon gives him. He’s not just limping around on his hubby’s leash. He’s not just Ilya’s accessory. And you don’t get generational talents for buy-one-get-one-half-off just because they’re gay.

If I had a like, post-TLG dream team that can’t be Montreal for Shane, I’d put him on the Admirals.