Watching Movies - The Theory Of Everything
On Spider-Man, The Multiverse & The Power Of Starting Over
Author’s note: Spoilers for all animated and live-action Spider-Man movies
I. Genesis
“And the world lay spread before me.” – Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
There’s a certain excitement that comes with thinking about the future.
In the future, possibilities are endless, the kind of person you can be is endless. Life is undefined, bounded by its elasticity, limited by its mortality.
This enthusiasm is what carries us through childhood – the illusory promise that we can be anything we want to be.
Then we grow up.
II. ‘62 Adolescence
“Time is luck so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” – Gwen Stacy, The Amazing Spider-Man 2
There’s a certain anxiety that surrounds you when you realize that time is limited. Stakes get higher, everything feels more urgent, the future is no longer a promise but a prison with the word ‘destiny’ attached to it. This is the reason why coming-of-age stories usually start at adolescence. Being a teenager is the moment when life can feel so hopeful and bleak at the same time.
Since his creation in 1962, Spider-Man has been stuck in a state of perpetual adolescence, eternally somewhere between the ages of 16 and 26. His stories are filled with action, humor and melodrama at equal measure. With Spider-Man there is no downtime, his stories often fluctuate between ecstasy and misery at full tilt. Nowhere is this more apparent than in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, a maligned film that has surprisingly become more resonant with time.
From the moment the film starts, we have a Peter Parker that is running out of time: running out of time to attend his high-school graduation, running out of time to rekindle a relationship with his long, lost friend Harry Osborn, running out of time to save New York City and the people he loves within it.
Whether it is from a corporate or storytelling level, this version of Peter Parker has little to no agency. From the first film being made because Sony was at risk of losing the movie rights to the second film’s half-hearted attempts at catching up with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Andrew Garfield’s version of Spider-Man was one that seemed unaware of its built-in expiration date.
Ironically, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 finally grants Andrew’s Peter a moment of respite but it comes at a terrible cost. Just before the end credits, we see him take up the mantle of Spider-Man again, resolving to live by his girlfriend’s words of being “greater than what we suffer” and “becom[ing] hope”. However, less than 10 years later, we find out that this was a fool’s errand and some events are simply too catastrophic to push past. In his own words, Andrew’s version of Peter Parker became “bitter” and stopped “pulling his punches” and we all know what that looks like.
The moment for Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parker to have a better life was robbed from him, he ran out of time and the world callously told him to move on. A life defined by tragedy and regret.
III. The Weight
“Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching…I have been bent and broken, but – I hope – into a better shape.” – Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
There’s a certain heaviness that settles in when you realize that you are not living the life you wanted. It’s a heaviness that borders somewhere between resignation and depression, a feeling that you have lost the battle to fate and there is no other life that you can live except the one you are experiencing right now.
This is where we find Peter B. Parker at the beginning of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. We find a Spider-Man that has lost everything meaningful to him but carries on anyway because he has nothing else to do. This version of Spider-Man has seen too much, done too much and, quite simply, lived too much.
The key difference between adults and teenagers is that, at some point, adults stop fighting the inevitable, they accept the world as it is and are no longer interested in determining what it could be. But what if there was another way? What if it was possible to start all over again?
IV. One Last Time
“I see this spark in you…it’s amazing…Whatever you choose to do with it, you’ll be great.” – Jefferson Davis, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
There’s a certain hesitation that creeps in when you start believing in yourself again. It’s an inner conflict between striving for better and fearing that you will always be defined by your worst mistakes.
As pointed out by writer and critic Andy Greenwald, the beauty of multiversal storytelling is the chance at redemption, the elusive possibility that this juncture of life you are in is not a dead-end but a platform for a new beginning:
“We human beings mostly repeat our mistakes and rarely deviate and rarely change and rarely learn. But if you keep trying, if you keep running at it, something might change. You might get a better shot. You might redeem yourself.” – Andy Greenwald, ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’, the ‘Hawkeye’ Season Finale, and ‘Station Eleven’ Episodes 4 and 5, The Watch (The Ringer)
This is what the Spider-Verse incarnation of Miles Morales shows us. Whether it is with his urging of Peter B. Parker to take ‘a leap of faith’ and go back home at the end of the first film or his insistence to ‘do his own thing’ near the end of the second, Miles illustrates the importance of not accepting things as they are.
Like his namesake, Miles Morales represents that spark of ingenuity, that spark of individuality, that spark that we see in ourselves every now and again but refuse to acknowledge because we believe that it is too late.
It’s this message that powers the best multiversal stories – the idea that we always have an opportunity to become our best selves no matter how far along in life we are.
It’s hard to predict whether Miles will retain this ‘spark’ in Beyond the Spider-Verse, especially when, like Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man, he increasingly appears to be a man running out of time but hopefully, we will all be better version of ourselves by the time we get to see it.
Further Reading
[1] Ted Chiang, Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom, OneZero
[2] Daniel Chin, How Many Spider-Characters Can the Spider-Verse Hold?, The Ringer
[3] Tasha Robinson et al, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse goes bigger, bolder, and more ambitious, Polygon
[4] Joshua Rothman, What If You Could Do It All Over?, The New Yorker
Further Watching
[1] Alexander Kinzey, Into the Spiderverse and Escaping Comfort Zones, StoryStreet
[2] Kristian Williams, Spider-Man – The Lessons of Heroism, KaptainKristian
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Yours Truly,
John Noire