Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023) (1 Viewer)

[Tino]

I’ll be seeing this again this week in IMAX as I was kinda tired when I saw it and nodded off a few times. I’m sure I missed some good stuff.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Swoosh. Right over your head!

I'm trying not to read posts that talk about the film because I haven't seen it yet.

 

[Bryan^H]

Here's Why Spiderman: Across The Spiderverse Will Not Release In 3D; The Reason Will Surprise You

What is 3D animation?

in.mashable.com

Bummer

 

[Edwin-S]

Here's Why Spiderman: Across The Spiderverse Will Not Release In 3D; The Reason Will Surprise You

What is 3D animation?

in.mashable.com

Bummer

What a load of shinola.
Flat is flat. The claim there was no difference between the 3D and 2D versions in the first one because the art style stayed the same is ridiculous. Of course, the art style stayed the same, but there was a separation of layers in the 3D version that the flat version didn't have.

And the claim that 24fps and 12fps is a new form of animation makes me laugh. It just sounds like another way of saying on ones and twos that have been a standard in animation for.decades.

 

[Jason_V]

I've let Across the Spider-Verse sit in my head for a weekend without talking about it. I wanted to see how my thoughts may have morphed over a few days. (I didn't rewatch the first movie ahead of this one; I was also not a fan of the first the one time I saw it.)

Did I like it? Yep. The wildly different animation styles is amazing to watch with a ton of details and choices in every single shot. It looks spectacular, alive and, maybe most importantly, different. Story-wise, it's fine. Nothing came as a massive shock to me, but I know I may be the outlier. The score is amazing, as I mentioned previously, with as many styles in it as the animation sports.

Do I feel the need to rush and see it again or declare it the best of all time? No and no. Will it win Best Animated Movie at the Oscars? Assuming it's nominated in this category and not Best Picture, yes. Would it be a fair win in either category? In BAM, yep, 100% (Disney's Wish would have to be an absolute powerhouse juggernaut in the Fall to change my mind). In BP, maybe. Not a lot has wowed me at the theater this year, but we also have a lot of year left.

My husband, who has not seen the first movie and tends to struggle with movies over 2 hours long said he enjoyed the entire thing and didn't get bored/antsy with it. When I asked if he wanted to go back and see the first one, it was a quick, categorical "no."

 

[Tino]

I'm trying not to read posts that talk about the film because I haven't seen it yet.

I thought you were teasing him since he loved it.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

I'm surprised so many here are surprised "Across" is a "Part One".

I didn't even pay that much attention to the movie over the months but I knew going in that it was "Part One".

I did see something very recently that referred to the movie as Part 1.

Not sure if this was an ad or whatever - I'm completely blanking on the source.

But I do know I saw it in the last few days, so the lack of a true conclusion didn't surprise me at all. I was completely aware of this being one part of a longer story

That said, the audience with whom I saw the film clearly didn't know this, based on their reaction.

 

[Tino]

I'm surprised so many here are surprised "Across" is a "Part One".

I didn't even pay that much attention to the movie over the months but I knew going in that it was "Part One".

I did see something very recently that referred to the movie as Part 1.

Not sure if this was an ad or whatever - I'm completely blanking on the source.

But I do know I saw it in the last few days, so the lack of a true conclusion didn't surprise me at all. I was completely aware of this being one part of a longer story

That said, the audience with whom I saw the film clearly didn't know this, based on their reaction.

So what did you think of the film??

 

[Sam Posten]

I didn’t know it was part one but I am #TeamNoSpoilers

 

[Joe Wong]

While the marketing could have been clearer for general audiences with respect to this being a Part 1, sometimes that could have negative connotations as well.

Eg. “I have to sit through 2 movies to get the whole story? Maybe I’ll wait until they’re both available.”

Obviously the studios would rather you go to the cinema to watch both when released rather than wait.

The motivation for turning this into a 2-parter (there was more story than for a single film) is different to splitting up a book into 2 films (Deathly Hallows, Mockingjay, Breaking Dawn, etc.), but the cynicism may be there. Of course the fans will likely watch both when released anyway, but that general audience may waver.

I forget what the general reaction was when Infinity War came out in 2018. I’m sure there were plenty who were frustrated, but I don’t think it hurt Endgame. If anything, it increased the anticipation. I’m thinking the same may happen here, unless one didn’t like this entry and hence has no interest in seeing the conclusion.

Spoiler

A similar example was for Back to the Future 2 back in 1989 (which, coincidentally, has a similar moment when the lead character returns to a world that is different to what he expected). I vaguely recall feeling a little unsatisfied when BTTF2 ended, but I think I knew the 3rd film was coming out in about 6 months. Given there was less accessible news back then (re: BTTF 2 and 3 formed a single story), I wonder how the general audience felt?

And going back further, there was The Empire Strikes Back, which left the story unresolved as well (I wonder if people back then knew there was going to be a 3 year wait!).

 

[benbess]

....And going back further, there was The Empire Strikes Back, which left the story unresolved as well (I wonder if people back then knew there was going to be a 3 year wait!).

Yes, we knew that.

 

[Joe Wong]

Yes, we knew that.

Thanks - I ask as I didn't go see TESB in cinemas at the time (and actually didn't see it until after Return of the Jedi).

 

[Colin Jacobson]

So what did you think of the film??

Liked it! About the same as the first one.

Not a top 5 comic book movie but very good.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

While the marketing could have been clearer for general audiences with respect to this being a Part 1, sometimes that could have negative connotations as well.

Eg. “I have to sit through 2 movies to get the whole story? Maybe I’ll wait until they’re both available.”

Obviously the studios would rather you go to the cinema to watch both when released rather than wait.

The motivation for turning this into a 2-parter (there was more story than for a single film) is different to splitting up a book into 2 films (Deathly Hallows, Mockingjay, Breaking Dawn, etc.), but the cynicism may be there. Of course the fans will likely watch both when released anyway, but that general audience may waver.

I forget what the general reaction was when Infinity War came out in 2018. I’m sure there were plenty who were frustrated, but I don’t think it hurt Endgame. If anything, it increased the anticipation. I’m thinking the same may happen here, unless one didn’t like this entry and hence has no interest in seeing the conclusion.

Spoiler

A similar example was for Back to the Future 2 back in 1989 (which, coincidentally, has a similar moment when the lead character returns to a world that is different to what he expected). I vaguely recall feeling a little unsatisfied when BTTF2 ended, but I think I knew the 3rd film was coming out in about 6 months. Given there was less accessible news back then (re: BTTF 2 and 3 formed a single story), I wonder how the general audience felt?

And going back further, there was The Empire Strikes Back, which left the story unresolved as well (I wonder if people back then knew there was going to be a 3 year wait!).

I thought about "Back to the Future 2" in this circumstance as well.

In that case, I knew there's be a "BTTF3" coming out soon, but I was not prepared for "BTTF2" to end with a cliffhanger.

I assumed they'd be separate stories.

I was hopping mad when "BTTF2" literally ended with a trailer!

 

[Chuck Mayer]

Spoiler: Discussion of the Cliffhanger

As I get older, I read less and less (and less) about upcoming films. I don't care about ancillary storytelling or multimedia marketing. I just want the movie to be good, coherent, and worth the ticket price. So I was a bit surprised at the big cliffhanger ending. I realized it was going to happen in the last few seconds of Gwen's speech to close the film...her "are you with us?" was a clear get off the stage moment. So the To Be Continued... felt completely earned to me. I'd certainly got my money's worth from the film, and from the character arcs. But I was surprised for a moment. After it, I remembered that they had already announced a third film (and titled it). I just didn't remember until this film ended. I agree that a March 2024 card would have been a good idea...ten months isn't too long to wait. To be honest, I was impressed and excited about a good old cliffhanger. Probably still on the high that the film gave me.

 

[Joe Wong]

Spoiler

If anything, the fact that I knew there would be a Part 2 made the ending less certain and more suspenseful on many aspects than if it had been self-contained.

For example, if it was self-contained, then my expectation would have been that Miles is able to get back to his Earth-1610 and save his dad in some way that prevents his universe from collapsing.

But because there is a Part 2, I didn’t expect him arriving on Earth-42 (though it makes logical sense), where there is no Spider-Man, his dad has passed, his uncle is alive, and the resident Miles is actually the Prowler! Wow!

I’m actually hoping Beyond isn’t just tying loose ends but actually introduces more story, character development and potential complexity. Similar to how Avengers: Endgame didn’t just resolve the cliffhanging threads from Infinity War, but threw in a whole time travel component as well (which can be tough to tackle for most movies).

 

[Joe Wong]

Also, we had been discussing earlier in this thread whether this could be considered part of the MCU because Doctor Strange was mentioned in the trailer. After seeing the film,

Spoiler

I have to admit that Sony is connecting this directly to all of their other films. The live-action cameos from Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, Donald Glover and Peggy Lu, as well as J.K. Simmons' voice, prove that the No Way Home joke wasn't just a throwaway line of dialogue. I still don't think this counts as an official MCU film because it is not produced by Marvel Studios. But Sony is certainly trying to make it MCU-adjacent, as No Way Home retroactively did for their other movies which aren't part of the MCU either.

That certainly works for this movie, but the reason I find this problematic as a storytelling choice is because the multiverse rules in this franchise are contradictory to the multiverse rules that have been established in Disney's MCU. So I find it messy to reconcile that. I think having the animated Spider-Verse be totally separate from anything that the live-action side is doing actually creates more freedom for them than tying it all together does. For example, the concept of glitching when you're not in your own universe applies in these films. But none of the characters from Raimi and Webb films ever do that in No Way Home when they come into the main MCU timeline with Tom Holland. No one in Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness ever does that either. It's not an idea that applies to the MCU, but it works well for Spider-Verse.

In Loki, you have the Kang variant running the TVA (until Sylvie killed him) trying to prune other timelines. Here, you've got Miguel O'Hara essentially trying to keep multiple timelines intact. So tying together the various versions seems to create more sticky plot holes and inconsistencies than anything else. Sony isn't going to take direction from Disney on the projects like Spider-Verse which they own outright, nor would they have any reason to do that. (For the record, I this film is better than the majority of what the MCU has produced lately.). And yet they still want to bump up against the MCU. So for consistency's sake, this is kind of weird.

On another note: the scene where Gwen comes to see Miles in his bedroom is clearly supposed to be the same scene that we saw at the very end of the first film before credits. This film makes very clear that Miles and Gwen have not seen each other at all since the events of the first film and decides to declare that scene a year later retroactively. I really don't have a problem with that because the storytelling was so effective here. However, I started wondering today if Miles is wearing the same shirt in the new version of the scene in this movie as he was in the end of the previous film. I feel like he may not have been, but I can't find a screenshot to prove that and wonder if my mind is playing tricks on me or not. If they did change what he was wearing at the time, that would be an unnecessary and sloppy continuity error between both films.

Edit: Here's a TV spot with footage from that scene with Miles wearing a jersey. I think this is what he's wearing for this entire scene in the movie. This is probably as close as we'll get to an official clip until the movie is released digitally.



Here's a clip of the end of the first movie where he's wearing a plain T-shirt:



And here is the first look teaser from December 2021, in which he's wearing the same shirt as the first movie. So why did they change it to the jersey? If it's the same moment, and the movie makes clear that it has to be, then it should match exactly.



Also, note the "Part One" over the title at the end of this trailer. I'm not sure why they decided to drop this from the marketing, but it does make clear here that this was always intended as a two-parter. Personally, I like that the two films have separate titles instead of being Part One and Part Two. But I suppose Sony could have made it clearer in more recent marketing that this was the first half.

Spoiler

1. Excellent points regarding the desire of Sony to attach itself to the MCU. We could see that intention already with Venom's cameo in the post credits of No Way Home (and earlier, the mention of Tom Holland's Peter in the post credits of Venom 2).

Financially, it makes a lot of sense. If you can associate your movies with another studio's franchise, why not attach them to the MCU (the highest box office grossing franchise in history)?

Since they're not co-produced with Marvel Studios (owned by Disney), like you said, I do not consider the Spiderverse films or Sony's Spider-man-related films like Venom, Morbius and Kraven the Hunter, etc. to be part of the MCU. And one of the directors (Kemp Powers) doesn't think Across is tied to the MCU, either. Sony can try as much as they like to link them with the MCU, but they're still not "canon" MCU.

As you highlighted, how the multiverse works is different between the MCU and the Spiderverse. So, similar to the idea that the Sony films are not part of the MCU franchise, then the multiverse concept in Sony's films is also different. While we see scenes of Tobey and Andrew, etc., in Across the Spiderverse (and Sony can do whatever they like with the images from these films, since they own them), I'd like to think of them as instances where those events still happened, but in a different setting to those we saw in Tobey's and (separately) Andrew's films (which existed independently in their own setting and had nothing to do with multiverses). They were shown in Across the Spiderverse because the audience may be familiar with those images, but it's not confirmed that they are the same Tobey and Andrew we saw in their films. Of course I'm speculating here, until proven otherwise, but that interpretation makes it easier (for me) to accept the differences and not be an issue.

2. With respect to the end scene in Into being the same scene as when Gwen drops in in Across, agreed. Don't know why they changed the clothing (likely an unforced error), but my younger son remarked that Miles seemed to have grown in physical size as well (which Gwen observes), which would make sense given the year and 4 month gap.

 

[Mike2001]

Just catching up with the thread after seeing the movie yesterday with my family. I enjoyed It tremendously, but was a bit surprised by the reaction of my 13 year old daughter. She is the biggest Spidey fan I know, having absorbed Spider-man in all of his various media incarnations over the last few years. From the trailers, she was looking forward to seeing all of these Spidey iterations in the movie. And in the movie, she was 100% team Miles, agreeing with his actions and his thought processes (Spider-men find a way save as many as possible and solve these intractable problems). So the fact that all of these previous Spider people that she has enjoyed so much went along with 2099 Spider-man instead of teaming up to solve the problem left her disappointed and retroactively disliking the Spidey characters she has loved. She would 100% agree with the poster up thread who stated the movie did Peter Parker dirty.

 

[Chuck Mayer]

Some other stray voltage on this film and Sony's plans:

1) I sort of see this as the opposite of Disney live-action films. Sony is all in to make a "live-action" Miles Morales movie. I'm thinking to myself: why? You've NAILED it with these beautiful, heartful, hysterical, steeped-in-comic-lore animated films. You can't even remotely approximate that with some actors and a focus-grouped script.

2) Making Gwen a co-lead was brilliant. Steinfeld is a great actress, so let her carry half the film. It also balances out the Miles side and creates a strong foundation to spin her off.

3) I didn't expect to care too much for Pavitr. I missed my "Into" spider-heroes, so adding a new one felt like insult to injury. I was wrong. He was outstanding, and that sequence was a very bright spot in a film full of highlights. Massive credit goes to Karan Soni, and his voiceover does the hard work of making me like and care for the character.

4) I expected to actively dislike Spider-Punk. Same whine as with Pavitr, plus I'm not a counter-culture guy (I'm a square), and it felt too on the nose and try hard at first blush. Not my thing at all. Feels like service, not storytelling - my biggest gripe with superhero films these days. Welp, I was wrong. He was integrated well, and he was vital to the story development. Another gem of a voice performance as well.

5) Renaissance Vulture was a love letter to both design and animation. What an amazing sequence.

6) As with the first film, I continue to believe that Spider-Man is the most malleable and approachable of the costumed superheroes. On paper, the powers don't make a ton of sense conceptually, but in motion (and especially in a visual medium like comics and video games and films) it feels better than flying or laserbeams or any of that. It's one of those concepts where everything works - grit, origin, rogues. It can be serious AND silly, can carry genuine weight and visual joy.

7) As with the first film, stepping outside of Peter Parker helps us appreciate the character even more, and Miles is plenty interesting on his own. So is Gwen.

8) I still think Raimi's Spider-Man 2 is the high water mark for comic films. If Beyond is as good as its predecessors, I think that'll be something really meaningful though.

9) I do hope we get more of the rogues gallery in the next film. The only other character remotely close to Spider in that department is Batman. And I think Spidey's is better.

10) I was worn out on multiverses almost immediately. They depress stakes, and create easy and pointless fan/casting/etc service. Credit to the writers here for making the multiverse work for them, narratively and thematically, instead of working for it. We still got plenty of fan-service, but that tended to be for jokes or throwaways - the concept still helped the stories effectively play out. They created stakes, instead of obviating them.

11) The film was still a lot to take in and process. Maybe a little too much of a good thing. I agree there is a bit of work for Peter and Gwen in the next film to smooth out some of these choices. I struggled with our heroes sitting there and watching their friend and teammate get thrown around and belittled. I get the greater good and all, but nah. That said, I have genuine faith in this team to make it work in the end.

12) The music (and songs) were outstanding...again. The animation was always inventive and intriguing. Every choice didn't work for me, but enough of them did to make this an incomparable feast. The voicework was second to none. This is pretty next level stuff, at a lot of levels. Pretty thrilling to see inventiveness and creativity on display so boldly, so assuredly. Movies are playing it safe more and more often, and this went the other way. Exhilarating.

 

[jayembee]

^^
Like I've said before, people are free to choose for themselves what they want to consider canonical/non-canonical or connected/non-connected despite what the studios involved say. Likewise, people are free to ignore discrepancies if they choose to believe that two things are connected. I choose to believe that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (and other pre-Disney+ Marvel shows) is part of the MCU, and ignore things that might suggest otherwise, despite Marvel Studios claiming they are not part of the MCU. I also choose to think of Ang Lee's Hulk as at least representing the origin of the MCU's Hulk, despite the inconsistencies. And I choose not to believe that the Venom and Morbius films are connected to the MCU.

The same sort of stuff has been a thing in the comics since back in the 1970s. There have been Superman/Spider-Man team-ups, Batman/Daredevil, Batman/Captain America, and other Marvel/DC crossovers, as well as crossovers/team-ups between Marvel or DC and other comic book companies. Comics fans (in general; I'm sure that there are some who drank the Kool Aid) never thought of these things as suggesting that DC comics and Marvel comics shared the same universe.