I finally saw No Way Home! And while I really liked it I have some big questions. Parts of the story don’t make a lot of sense to me and overall the multiverse is already giving me a headache.
I mean I had questions after Loki but I thought Spiderman will probably answer them and not so much…
Spoilers obviously!
First of all the Empty Universe Stuff:
As in okay Doctor Strange was there and I understand it’s a comic thing and not everyone is going to show up in every movie but Peter was in a whole lot of trouble. And legal trouble at that. Nick Fury couldn’t spare five minutes to radio down and say yes, yes he was working for me? (Or who he thought was me anyway?)
And what about Pepper and Happy (especially Happy who did everything else for Peter) I mean people kept talking about Mysterio like he was real and they were investigating missing weapons from Stark Enterprises but no one could spare a second to say yeah, yeah this wasn’t some inter-dimensional selfless superhero but Quentin Beck disgruntled ex-Stark employee who worked specifically on illusion style designs????
Speaking of Strange:
Okay. I’ll give Peter the beating him with math (ugh math) because it’s a Spiderman movie and they had to take him off the board but did they really, really have to imply that Ned was some kind of power wunderkind?
I admit it’s partly because I just don’t like Ned but I kind of think they did a number on Strange’s powers here and I don’t expect Wanda to have any trouble with him 😉
Now to the Multiverse:
Okay how does the multiverse relate to time?
Because I got the impression the multiverse was now. Like they took Toby and Andrew’s Spiderman as they were (or would be that could get confusing) now same as Tom. Yet all of the villains were taken helpfully just before their deaths somehow even if that was decades ago.
Like if they took present day Tobey and Andrew why did long dead villains get caught up in the spell?
I mean Otto even notes the passage of time when he’s talking with Tobey Spiderman literally saying You grew up dear boy…
(I also felt like it gave Max a bit of a personality change there 🙂 but it’s been a while since I’ve seen that film so on that I’ll give them a pass.
Cure them vs. The Spell’s Fine Print
I am just to much of a cynic to fully get on board May’s plan and the question of whether or not it was worth it just so she could spout the same old line that multiple Uncle Ben’s have died for and really this Peter should and seemed to know already…
I can really only say it was worth it if it worked in their universes and they lived!
BUT
Will anyone remember this?
Forget the villains. You aren’t talking about present No Way Home Tobey when you send Goblin back to his death you are talking about OG Tobey Spiderman he’s not going to know what happened.
So do they all die regardless???
And here’s the thing if they don’t die fighting Spiderman wouldn’t that drastically change Tobey and Andrew’s journey’s? Especially Tobey. I mean if Goblin doesn’t die and is indeed cured you don’t have the fight with Harry in the third movie (which they mostly just ignored regardless) and if Otto goes back right to the time he said he left…
Well did he even need to be cured? He chose to make the sacrifice to destroy the machine so… wouldn’t he still have to?
So I guess the whole thing was only worth it if the movie had answered questions it didn’t touch on and probably didn’t want to think about. I really enjoyed No Way Home I just think story wise there’s a lot of multiverse related hand-waving that I couldn’t quite look past.
I’m sure Doctor Strange will make it all make sense!
Finally! Glad you enjoyed it. I tried not to question it too much. I know I’ll have to when I review it, but it’s so much fun that I overlook most of it.
OK a lot of what you say here is related to how I feel about the movie. When I watched this movie for the first time, I adored it – it’s very hard not to go along with the utter joy of all the returning characters, the set pieces, and that *incredible* apartment block scene (seriously, from Holland’s Spidey Sense kicking in through to the end of events on the ground floor, it’s a stunning action sequence and gets across the relentless physicality of Green Goblin that I connect to the comics). However, once I started to think about the movie, I realised how contrived everything is to get to these big payoff moments.
For example, like you say about how unexplained all the timelines and Universes are (surely the character growth of characters would change in their worlds now, as you say). Also, the spell to make everyone forget Peter is Spidey goes wrong – fine. But then we’re just told that this means a very specific multiverse-related thing is now happening (e.g. yay we get to bring everyone back!).
The thing is, the film IS utterly joyous to watch and I had a great time, so I almost feel overcritical for being harsh in retrospect. It is often the case for me with MCU films – e.g. Civil War, which was awesome to watch when it released but when you think about the plot, it’s completely incoherent. It’s hard to know how to feel! It does stop me from putting it as one of those 10/10 “great” films in my head though, I’ll say that.
I get it. I was grinning the whole time (except the one part I was crying even though I knew very well it was coming) even as I was thinking the whole time… this doesn’t really make sense. I’ve been trying to sort out how it worked and I don’t know I think for me it’s like the best example of a pure emotional viseral film that somehow didn’t leave me feeling like I had been emotionally manipulated. Can’t explain it. I’m not sure this is one they could ever repeat the formula of again. (Though it’s Hollywood so I’m sure they’ll give it a try!)
Well they’re probably about to try again imminently with Doctor Strange!! Will be intriguing to see how it turns out!
I enjoyed No Way Home in the theater and I don’t think I need to watch it again. It was a great crowd experience for sure, but I’m with you in that once you give thought to the story and all the tangling destinies it gets REAL messy– and exposes so much of this as Fan Service: The Movie. It wants the big setup and setpieces but doesn’t want to deal with the crazy ass yarn that needs to be spun to do so. I too was left with so many spiraling questions that my head was spinning. Initially I thought it was bc of the big reveals, then I realized I had some gripes 😬
As much as I enjoyed it I concur. It does leave me worried a bit for multiverse of madness though. I hope the story holds up 🙂
1,000x YES. I, too, really enjoyed the film – so much so that all the little annoying questions they left weren’t the first thing I talked about when people asked me what I thought about it. But I got there soon enough. And I second all of this! And it was so cathartic to read this and see you had the same questions, too :).
I’d also add…Dr. Strange was an exceptionally accomplished surgeon and is presently a master of the mystic arts. He didn’t think to ask Peter if there was anyone who he wanted to remember him? He just jumped into a dangerous spell with such reality-shaking potential consequences…and he didn’t even think to ask about that? And when he really does the spell at the end…WHAT THE HECK? So EVERYONE forgets that Peter existed? How does he get an apartment or a job or his GED or anything without a social security number or a driver’s license or ANY RECORD OF HIS IDENTITY whatsoever? I get the hard reset they were going for and I am intrigued to see where it goes…but that really didn’t make sense.
Maybe Marvel can pay us to read their scripts ahead of time, point this stuff out, and then they can send it in for rewrites before they film it! We’d be GREAT at that!
In some respects I imagine it’s annoying for those behind the scenes for the whole big internet to always be policing your films… but there were some pretty big holes in this one!
But I wouldn’t turn down the chance to read some scripts or see the films early 🙂
I say we start working on our resumes now and send them along by late spring. Then we can get hired soon enough to help with ‘The Marvels’ and ‘GOTGV3’ in postproduction.
And get in on the ground floor for the Fantastic Four!