Looking back at Spider-Man (2002) you can see that it’s not some grand, epic superhero movie. It’s about a boy and all his relationships, and how his experiences taught him how to be a responsible (spider) man. So it kinda is more of a coming of age story, set within a superhero context. So let’s discuss Spider-Man the movie!
Peter Parker starts off the movie by stating that it’s a story about a girl. The movie really starts off as a typical teenage movie. You see the popular girl with the douchebag boyfriend, who our dorky (but loveable) protagonist will save her from.
Running parallel to the story of Peter Parker’s growth and change, is the story of Norman Osborn’s change. One of the lines he says at the beginning of the movie is, “don’t ever be ashamed of who you are”. This really brings up one of the big themes of the first Spider-Man movie. Both Peter and Norman undergo some big changes, and both end up embracing those changes. Although in very different ways of course. During Peter’s school excursion he talks about spiders saying, “Spiders can change their colours to blend in with their environment, it’s a defense mechanism”. This alludes to who Peter is in the beginning of the movie, it doesn’t take until the end for him to embrace his individuality.
Even though Norman Osborn’s Green Goblin was a little (a lot) goofy, he was still an interesting villain. “40,000 years of evolution and we’ve barely even tapped the vastness of human potential”. Osborn is a scientist. He believes in exploring and reaching what we once thought was unreachable. He has an ambition to improve, and that ambition is what ultimately causes his death.
Peter and Norman’s change (coincidentally) happens around the same time, but of course they go off in very different directions. See Norman is motivated by logic. Science is objective and follows reason, which is why Norman believes highly in it. However as Kant suggested, all knowledge is ultimately limited and contextualised through our rather subjective minds. And as we saw, the mind of Norman is a little crazy. So for a man who valued reason and logic so highly, that reason and logic was filtered through a pretty insane mind, and the end result is the Green Goblin. Green Goblin is the conflicting persona from his insanity, who is able to give him what he’s always wanted, power.
Peter on the other hand is motivated by his heart. Most of his actions in the beginning of the film follow his heart. He enters the wrestling match so that he can get money to buy a car to impress Mary-Jane. And it’s Uncle Ben that makes him realise that he needs to consider logic and reason as well with his actions. I mean we all know the line, “Just be careful who you change into…with great power, comes great responsibility”.
Peter was initially too motivated by his heart and emotions. He was pissed off with the guy that didn’t give him the money he thought he deserved, so he ended up letting the bad guy go, the bad guy who would end up killing his uncle. It is these consequences that help him learn responsibility, and to think through his actions more.
Luckily Peter is responsible enough not to join Green Goblin on his evil escapes. Green Goblin comes to Spider-Man in hopes of him joining him. Green Goblin respects that Spider-Man is superior and powerful like himself, believing that the rest of humanity is there to, “lift the few exceptional people on their shoulders”.
When that partnership doesn’t work out for Green Goblin he goes for the thing that motivates Peter the most, his heart. So he tries to hurt Aunt May and Mary-Jane of course.
In the end Peter saved the girl, and even got the girl, something he wanted in the beginning of the movie. But he decides to choose the responsibility of being Spider-Man, and with his heart, uses reason and logic to focus on being Spider-Man, and accept Mary-Jane as only being his friend…for the time being.
So for what started as a movie about a boy who wanted a girl, ended up as a movie about a man who had a responsibility. And even with the flaws of the movie (like Mary-Jane being a boring ass character) it’s the heart and growth of the movie that still makes Spider-Man one of the best Spider-Man movies.
Categories: comic book movies
Girl-On-Comic-Book-World 
Thanks for another great post. The first Spidey movie got it right IMO. One thing that is easy for audiences unfamiliar with the comic originals to forget is that the majority of Marvel heroes started out as selfish a-holes, who only thought of benefitting themselves, and later evolved into better human beings when they started serving the needs of others. It was very intentional that Stan Lee wrote them that way.
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So true! And I think that this movie really captured the story about this teenage kid who wanted a girl, who grew up to become a much better person. It’s the growth of Peter’s character in the movie that really makes it work overall
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Yeah, one thing that bugged me about “Amazing” was there was zero character growth. I liked Garfield more than Toby for Spidey, he was better for the role, but Amazing was underwritten and nonsensical that it really bugged me.
The thing that was total crap was when Uncle Ben dies, then Garfield Spidey goes on this mad quest to find his killer, then at some point he just stops. He never finds the killer, and that part of the story is inexplicably stopped and not resolved without any explanation or reason at all.
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Hmm I think I’ve only watched ASM like once, and the one time I watched it I remember liking it, though after rewatching Raimi’s Spider-Man again I might have to re-visit ASM to compare the stories
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If you’re up for 2 mins of laughs check out this Spidey video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy-v4c4is-w
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Hahah Cinemasins of course, surprised it was only 2 minutes long
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This article highlights some of the continuity errors and mistakes due to last minute changes to the film (like still using footage in the previews of plot lines were removed from the film)
http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2012/07/05/was-the-untold-story-cut-from-the-amazing-spider-man
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Okay I defs need to re-watch this movie
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Personally I think that Amazing Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2 (Toby Maguire) are better, but Spider-Man 2002 told a much better origin story than Amazing Spider-Man. Also, the Green Goblin is just fun, and the goofiness does capture the spirit of the older comics. At the very least, it stands out from the barrage of brooding superheroe movies we got in the early 2000’s, like Daredevil (meh), Blade (fun), Blade sequels (just no), Hulk (zzz), The Punisher (never seen it) and others.
Andrew and Toby are both good as Spider-Man, with Toby being better at showing the socially awkward nerd while Garfield is better with the mad genius side of the character. You could feel Toby’s journey and development more, yet even by the end of the third movie, he’s still awkward. Garfield on the other hand starts off as confident, to the point where it almost feels like becoming Spider-Man didn’t change anything besides giving him powers. The best portrayal of Spider-Man would be somewhere between the two of them.
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Yeah you’re right about GG! And agreed, somewhere in the middle between Toby and Andrew’s performance would be perfect. I think that the growth of Peter’s character is such an important part of the story, so it would have been good if ASM showed us more of that
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Like if they started off more in Toby’s direction, and gradually shifted toward Andrew. If they can strike that balance in the new version (the third in less than 15 years), then it should be good.
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