“Spider-Man: No Way Home” spoilers

Exactly. Peter wants to do the right thing, but he still makes childish decisions through the first two movies and the beginning of this one. It's not just that he screws up the spell, though Dr. Strange should have known better than to let that happen. He doesn't even try to fix things the conventional way, making an appeal to the school, and goes straight to asking for something supernatural. The MCU hasn't focused on the concept of magic having a price at all as it often does in the comics, but that was Wong's role in this movie. He was the voice of reason, questioning the decision to use the spell. In the comics, Dr. Strange is Sorcerer Supreme when Peter makes a similar request during the One More Day storyline. Strange refuses, which leads to Peter and Mary Jane making a deal with Mephisto, whose real goal is to separate the two of them.

Sorry for the comics tangent, but in the MCU, Peter doesn't really start trying to make mature decisions until the spell goes haywire, then he regains the respect of Dr. Strange and becomes his own man with his sacrifice at the end of the movie.

 

I don't read the comic books and I haven't seen the movie yet, but I gather that at least in one "future" timeline, Peter and MJ are married, they have a daughter, "Mayday," who by her late high school years, starts showing spider powers, and takes up the mantle.

That would be a crazy storyline, to have the current Tom Holland Spidey, on the cusp of college age, somehow meet up with his own semi-stepdaughter from another universe, the daughter of Tobey-Peter and Kirsten Dunst-MJ, a year or two younger and taking up web slinging herself.

 

There are multiple timelines in which Peter and MJ have a daughter. Mayday Parker was introduced in an issue of What If? The character was so popular that she was brought into the MC2, comics set in a possible future of the MCU. It was recently revealed that the reason Mephisto wants to split up Peter and M.J. is that he has had a vision of the future in which their daughter leads to his downfall. That ties back into the One More Day storyline, which was the inspiration for at least part of No Way Home.

 

Some interesting answers to questions about plot holes in the movie.

 

I don't think they downplayed it, they outright ignored it. They had a dropped line in this one during a conversation between Peter and MJ that I think was the first time in the MCU that Peter has even mentioned being bitten by a spider.

Which is fine. I remember reading an interview with some writer or another where they said it wasn't necessary to rehash it, and summed it up well by saying something like, "If you dropped someone into the middle of an Amazonian tribe that had never had contact with the outside world and started telling them the origin of Spider-Man, they'd cut you off and say, 'Yeah, yeah, radioactive spider, Uncle Ben, great power comes great responsibility. We get it.'"

 

Saw it today. My theater was pretty full, from what I could tell.
And, even after 12 years of credits scenes, people still left as soon as the end credits rolled. I see that happen in every MCU movie I go to, and it blows my mind every time.

 

Saw it today. Pretty full theater for 11 a.m. on a Thursday. Definitely a movie to see in the theater. Audience reactions were very fun.

Great flick. Definitely among my favorites of all the Marvel movies. I was a huge fan of the first two Tobey Maguire flicks. Was really fun to see him again. As said on the thread, he and Garfield had much beefier roles that I expected.

Also agree that it was smart to get rid of the Goblin mask. His face makes the character.

I did have to look up what was going on in the mid-credits scene. Didn't see or know anything about the Tom Hardy Venom flick. I did recognize Dani Rojas from Ted Lasso though.

 

I enjoyed the interplay between the villains as they were in the cells figuring out what was going on. I would love a deleted scene or would have enjoyed a credits scene where they're all just sitting there bullshitting with each other about their encounters with Spider-Man.

In the same vein, the chemistry between the three Peter Parkers was great. Loved how Holland and Garfield were amazed at Tobey's organic web shooters (another nice bit of fan service for pointing that out), and the scene before the final battle where they're all comparing notes. Also liked the hints at the life beyond the movies for Garfield Spidey and Tobey Spidey, where you see that these characters continued to evolve and endure challenges as both Spidey and Peter Parker.

 

Two more questions for the class:
1) In that scene before the big battle Garfield Spidey mentioned fighting the Rhino. I never saw Amazing Spider-Man 2, so was that actually on screen or was that an easter egg?

2) All of the villains supposedly died while fighting Spider-Man, but I thought Sandman just sort of drifted away at the end of Spider-Man 3. What was he doing there?

 

Rhino was at the very end, barely even in it. Paul Giamatti played him.

 

To expand on TSP's post, Paul Giamatti played a thief stealing a truck full of experimental chemicals that Spider-Man had to stop, thus making him late for his own high school graduation, at the beginning of Amazing Spider-Man 2. At the end of the movie, Giamatti's character shows up in a mechanical Rhino suit. We see just the beginning of Spider-Man's fight with him.

Regarding Sandman, I believe a significant amount of time has passed for that version of Peter Parker between the end of Spider-Man 3 and when he shows up in No Way Home. Maybe they ended up fighting again during that time. The Lizard also wasn't killed during his appearance. He was just depowered and sent to prison.

 

Good flick. Very curious how they move forward from here with Spidey