#spider-man.

feel this soooo immensely

i really liked homecoming when it first came out and i saw it for its own thing bc it lacked the usual threads (uncle ben’s influence, peter not having to struggle w tech bc he had tony at his disposal, the lack of working class relatability) and it was a fun, lighthearted addition that i found necessary in the growing juggernaut of the mcu. the fact that the high schoolers acted their age was also appealing and i was a big fan of michael keaton as the vulture. plus i think tom holland is easily likable and talented and lol yes his run as billy elliot gave him points

as time passed and i became more critical of the mcu as a whole and particularly bc i got into miles morales after this that i started resenting mcu peter for basically feeling like a lesser (and white) miles origin retread which wasn’t helped w his lore basically being so entwined w tony’s to the point that the guy feels like the spiritual uncle ben of peter’s movies. and the fact that they had the necessary elements to say something interesting about class w a billionaire mentor and a blue collar villain but nope lol did nothing w it past some empty lip service what did i expect from a disney product. also i hated that the thematic conclusion of homecoming where peter decides to strike out on his own and fight for the little guy in his community was basically erased due to the demands that a cinematic universe has especially on a big name like spider-man.

from a business side of things (putting on my feige hat here) you can’t just have peter not be part of the big space fight or not to go globally to deal w higher stakes even if it comes at the expense of forcing him out of his city (and i argue that nyc is basically its own character in the spider-man mythos that it doesn’t feel as right when the setting takes place elsewhere in a spider-man story) peter always works best as a freelancer in his own contained stories where he’ll occasionally collaborate w the avengers but all his key character development and benchmark moments happen within his own independent runs.

and yes also completely agree, mj (and ned) are tragically underutilized (which isn’t helped on a media ethics level as they’re poc servicing a white lead’s arc). as supporting characters they’re meant to serve peter’s story but i don’t think it does the characters justice when the audience only cares for them as extensions of peter. if either of them dies maybe we’ll feel sad but only because peter feels sad not bc of the loss of the characters themselves. i have felt more urgency and potential grief of the times aunt may and mj were threatened in the raimi movies than the times any other supporting character in mcu pete’s movies has been threatened (w perhaps the slight exception of happy and that’s only because we’ve known him for a considerable time outside of peter’s movies.) in the raimi movies we know that aunt may struggles financially and we see her go through the grieving process after the loss of her husband. we know that mj struggles w a dysfunctional family life and aspires to be a successful actress and to be loved for who she is.

what do we know about ned and mj outside of their functional relation to peter in these movies??? what do we know about their inner world and their motivations? absolutely nothing except for surface level stuff (eg that they’re in the decathlon team, ned likes nerdy things, mj has snarky humor w a morbid edge etc). that’s why i was so detached from peter and mj’s romance in ffh because all the essential development happened off screen! we’re just told that pete now likes mj and we’re never shown how she came to develop feelings for him in the first place. what do they like about each other? why did mj feel so compelled to confirm peter’s identity past her own baby crush? is it possibly bc she’s just a curious person or she just needs to know the truth which stems from a possible interest/aspiration in journalism or research work (we know that she has an interest in activism)? any answer goes bc we don’t know anything about her besides her role as the offbeat minor character in the first movie and peter’s love interest in the second.

and i think that’s why spider-man suffers in a cinematic universe. the reason why spider-man 2 remains one of (if not) the best spider-man and superhero movies is that it’s interested solely in the world of peter and his cast. we have the time to explore aunt may, mj, harry, and peter’s rogues gallery in meaningful depth because the runtime isn’t also being bogged down by the contractual and logistical obligations that come w being part of a cinematic universe. we don’t have to worry about a spider-man movie acting as a plot vehicle to serve the larger storyline that’s supposed to lead to the next crossover endgame-like team up. we can focus on the small character moments which is why sm2 is so impactful. it’s not the bombastic theatrics of seeing all of our fan favorite characters team up. it’s seeing these characters as their own and relating to their struggles not as fantastical superhumans but as actual grounded people

and i understand why creative changes had to be made (like how many times do we need to see uncle ben die) but i think as mcu pete’s stakes get bigger the appeal of him and his stories for me, his literal epithet as the “friendly neighborhood spider-man” takes more and more of a backseat. he might as well be some other indistinguishable superhero’d avenger who just happens to have spider-man’s branding without the things that make him spider-man