On "Spider-Man: No Way Home"

WARNING: MAJOR spoilers ahead! Also: adult language.

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To preface what I'm about to say: I grew up watching Spider-Man with my dad: Tobey Maguire's iteration. Those movies are some of the few good memories I have of the little time I got to spend with him.

Sitting through NWH, I was practically vibrating in my chair every time a reference was made to a movie I'd seen in the past. Norman Osborn gave me nightmares as a child; not Green Goblin: Norman Osborn. Willem Dafoe sends shivers down my spine to this day. The cinematics were great, the tie to the Avengers was hysterical (albeit with something of a Deadpool with the X-Men kind of vibe,) and the characters' reactions were mostly relatable.

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I'll admit: I don't remember much about Sandman, and never watched the movie with Jamie Foxx's character, or the lizard dude, so I'll be pulling from their wikis. Doc Ock, I'll say, was kind of cool to see as his old self again.

All that being said, I think the overall message of the movie was a toxic one.

For those who haven't seen it and are ok with a summary, it's pretty much the same as Into the Spiderverse, with a twist: Peter spends the majority of the movie trying to send old nemeses of him from other universes back where they came from: AFTER 'curing' them, mostly against their will.

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For Doc Ock, a cure means repairing the chip that broke and caused his arms to overpower his mind. Dr. Otto Octavius suffers his original accident as a result of being power-hungry, and this suffering is compounded by the fact that he lost his wife in the process; he was begged to shut the experiment down before it became a disaster, and he refused to listen to reason. While it is entirely possible he might have been able to return to his universe and live a rehabilitated life (After having someone explain just exactly how he returned from the dead in the first place...), the fact remains that while a genuine interest in science and desire to better mankind is at the root of his personality, so is his hunger for power. Is it really worth risking the potential that he's going to go back and come up with some other scheme that's going to cost more innocent lives? Would the world really ever be able to trust him again? Living in a world that wouldn't trust him enough to allow him to live his life pursuing science, wouldn't he be even more likely to revert to crime? He'd essentially be living his life in a cage. His 'cure' would essentially be saying that death was too easy and too light a punishment and now he has to suffer for the rest of his life being watched under a microscope.

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Max Dillon's second chance is given in the form of sucking all the excess electrical energy back out of his body. He's not a fan at first, after feeling the energy of the new universe, but likes the way he looks. He allows Peter to put a device on him, but then listens to Norman's words about how his power makes him a god. Having lived the life of an Average Joe, working a job that placed unreasonable demands on him, Max fell into a vat of electric eels while trying to do his job; his entire life is altered because his employer treated him like trash and seemingly had no respect for basic safety protocols. His desire then to remain a person with power over his own life and the power to take revenge on the people who wrecked his life is understandable. Again though: would returning him to his universe have any point at all? People may end up fearing him. Again: he'd live under a constant microscope. One starts to get vibes along the lines of Suicide Squad after a bit, watching this all play out.

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Flint Marko: the man who ACTUALLY shot and killed Uncle Ben in the Tobey Maguire movies. Flint ends up in jail for a completely unrelated reason, and then escapes from jail only to fall into a particle accelerator. While he does eventually get to explain all of this to Peter in the Tobey Maguire series, the fact remains that he was still a criminal prior to his accident; why would reversing the effects of his accident make him redeemable??? Initially, I thought I remembered that he'd been involved in crime in the first place in order to pay for his daughter's medical care, which does become more political allegory and the Utopian idea that society first made a criminal and then punished him, but even in that case: why would reversing the effects of the accident and bringing him back to life in his own universe be a good thing? Again: we're basically setting up the Suicide Squad all over again.

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Dr. Curt Connors, AKA, The Lizard. Dr. Connors is basically another version of a little guy who gets crapped on by his employer and comes up with a reckless way of trying to prove his worth. To summarize: political allegory, still the same person, would be under a constant microscope if he came back, etc., etc.

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Now we come to the part that pissed me off more than anything: Norman Osborn.

Norman Osborn was the CEO of Oscorp prior to his death at the hands of Spiderman. As such, he is single-handedly responsible for Dr. Connors' accident, having failed to provide reasonable working conditions for him, and doubtless for his other employees as well. Norman also exposes his own son to mental and emotional abuse by favoring Peter Parker instead. Harry then ends up becoming toxic and abusive himself, as a result of trying to live up to his father's expectations. Norman is a power-hungry, driven, workaholic who is perfectly capable of bestowing praise, as long as it's for things he deems worthy. While he undoubtedly greatly suffered mentally as a result of being exposed to the gas that turned him into the Green Goblin, he was not a redeemable character to begin with. Peter could see the relationship between Norman and Harry, and stayed consistently in the middle of it. Norman coming back to life, especially if Harry was still alive, could cause FAR more harm than good. While I agree that Tom Holland's character shouldn't have had to bear the burden, Norman Osborn should've died again at the hands of Spiderman. Tobey Maguire's character walks into the movie with the air of a 'youth pastor,' or even a wise old sage. As such, he should've been preparing a serum that would've killed Osborn upon injection; not out of an air of revenge or even justice, just simply because Norman originally dies as a result of his own choices, and his death was of benefit to the people in his universe. Involving Holland's character at all is simply recreating the suffering Harry went through losing the love of his father, and Maguire held the responsibility for correcting that imbalance.

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Norman Osborn being redeemed and sent back into his universe is a slap in the face to any child who ever grew up with a toxic parent. Imagine someone who treated you like shit walking in your front door, guided by the best friend that parent favored over you, only to be told "He's cured now! It's ok!" What the hell would your first reaction be?!?

And another thing: Tom Holland's character was only alive because Stephen Strange gave Tony Stark what he needed in order to make it happen. They fought a damn war together. Why in the ever-living hell would he question Stephen's judgment on something like that?!? It might as well have been reckless fucking Star-Lord chopping Thanos's head off all over again!!!

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This movie absolutely hammered home the idea that no matter what sacrifice you make, you can't change toxic people, and even if you do: what's the point of doing it if you just turn into a toxic person yourself? While that itself isn't overall a bad lesson, why did we even need it again after Infinity War and Endgame?!? We saw what happened when they tried to reason with Thanos. Even in What If, he STILL thinks genocide is a good idea.

NWH breeds the idea that it's ok to push yourself to the brink of killing yourself in order to help someone else, rather than setting healthy boundaries and rather healthily saying "this isn't my problem to solve." Instead, Aunt May ends up becoming as toxic before her death as Albus Dumbledore turned out to be right before his. As the cop who interrogates her points out: she actively encourages a child in her charge to risk his life in a pursuit that has no guarantee of helping anyone, rather than saying: "You're right. I see now that this problem is bigger than us, and we're not the right people to solve it. Let's put things back the way they were." As a result, Peter ends up ENTIRELY alone in the world, as a result of completely and ridiculously reckless behavior that literally tears a hole in the fabric of the universe and nearly destroys it and everyone in it in the process of redeeming someone who had already caused more harm in the world than good.

Another message that comes across is that if you stand up to your mentors, bad things will happen. Peter whoops Stephen Strange's ass, and pays the ultimate price for doing it. In this case, the price is warranted for not listening, but is that really a good lesson to teach? I was always told to respect my elders when I was Peter's age too, and if I'd done so, I'd be living a life in which I was absolutely miserable. In some cases, disobeying our mentors is the right thing to do. If a beloved superhero is teaching the opposite, are we going to see an increase in people in therapy because they can't understand why living up to other peoples' expectations and doing what they're told is making them so fucking miserable?!? If he'd stood up to Aunt May, and let Dr. Strange put things back they way they were, he could've just gone on living his life. So could everyone else; the publicity would've died down, and the ultimate cost would've been that he had to stop being Spiderman.