Spider-Man: Far From Home (July 2, 2019) [ENDGAME SPOILERS ALLOWED!] (1 Viewer)

[Adam Lenhardt]

Something that's been bugging me. This might fall into the category of "don't think about it too hard because the movie doesn't work without it," but still.

Peter was dead until about, what, 20 minutes or so before Tony died? I didn't time Endgame, but there wasn't a lot of time between Peter's resurrection and Tony's death. All of the time between those two events was a big battle.

Nick Fury was also dead for the same amount of time as Peter. So:

Spoiler

When exactly in the MCU timeline did Tony leave the Edith glasses with Fury for Peter? He had no way of knowing whether they would succeed in bringing back the snap victims or not, so he didn't know for sure that Peter was going to come back. And why would Tony choose Fury to give this particular item to Peter, rather than Happy, who already had a relationship with Peter?

Spoiler

Tony Stark knew once he cracked time travel via the quantum realm that there was a strong likelihood that he wouldn't survive the mission. I'm guessing he took the time to get all of his affairs in order, and perhaps had two sets of instructions: One for if they succeeded in reversing the Snap, and one if they failed.

If Peter came back, that meant Fury came back too. And if Homecoming taught us anything, it's that Happy's maybe not the best person to trust with powerful secret technology.

 

[Sam Favate]

I went again this morning and again loved it.

One new thing I noticed:

Spoiler: Final Tag

Why does "Maria Hill" refer to Nick Fury as "Nick" when they're alone? It happens a few times throughout the movie. I get why she would call him that when other people are present, but when it's just the two of them, that feels like it's just to throw us off who they actually are, and not because it's natural.

You will recall in Captain Marvel, Fury told Carol that everyone calls him "Fury," even his mother. This was a clue.

 

[Malcolm R]

The German site has the 3D version as a reg B.
Hope that isn’t accurate.

Pre-order listings always default to the region of release, regardless of the final specs.

 

[TJPC]

The 3D “Spider-Man Into The Spiderverse”, and “Venom” from Germany, both Sony products as “Spider-Man Far From Home” is, were region free, and both, when inserted, default to the English menu.

The covers of course are in German, but the English is available on line or do as I do and copy the insert from the copy from the Public Library.

 

[Jake Lipson]

You will recall in Captain Marvel, Fury told Carol that everyone calls him "Fury," even his mother. This was a clue.

Yes, but when they're alone in the scene together

Spoiler

she could have just as easily called him Talos, because if they're the only two people present, there's no one to fool other than the audience.

Spoiler

I'm guessing he took the time to get all of his affairs in order, and perhaps had two sets of instructions: One for if they succeeded in reversing the Snap, and one if they failed.

That works.

 

[Thomas Newton]

Something that's been bugging me. This might fall into the category of "don't think about it too hard because the movie doesn't work without it," but still.

Peter was dead until about, what, 20 minutes or so before Tony died? I didn't time Endgame, but there wasn't a lot of time between Peter's resurrection and Tony's death. All of the time between those two events was a big battle.

Nick Fury was also dead for the same amount of time as Peter. So:

Spoiler

When exactly in the MCU timeline did Tony leave the Edith glasses with Fury for Peter? He had no way of knowing whether they would succeed in bringing back the snap victims or not, so he didn't know for sure that Peter was going to come back. And why would Tony choose Fury to give this particular item to Peter, rather than Happy, who already had a relationship with Peter?

Maybe

Spoiler

Stark gave the glasses to Fury's organization, rather than to Fury personally. Or maybe the Skrull had been impersonating Fury for 5 years, so long that people forgot that he was an imitation of Fury and not the real thing.

The other question this raises is why Stark would want to give his technology to a governmental or quasi-governmental agency, knowing that once they had it, they would probably never willingly hand it over to Parker.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Ok, so a while ago, we were ranking the Spider-Man movies and I put the Raimi movies in last place and that was, shall we say, a unique choice.

I’m rewatching them now for the first time in probably ten years. I’m in the middle of the second one, and it’s really irritating me more than anything else. It’s well cast and it has some good individual moments but all of Peter’s conflict feels so contrived and false. It doesn’t ring true to me and that sinks the whole movie for me while making it obnoxious to watch.

Here’s one quick example. MJ wants Peter to see her play, and he arrives late and the single solitary only usher at the theater won’t let him in. Peter therefore sucks outside the theater, doesn’t see the show, waits for but then hides from MJ, and then leaves. She thinks he’s stood her up and is upset.

I don’t buy any of it. First off, that’s not how Broadway theaters work. There’s more than one usher or ticket taker, so the idea that there’d be one single person to stop him from going in rings false. Theaters don’t prevent you from going in at all. They may not let you take your seat until a scene or act break, but at worst, you’re standing in the back watching from the aisle, and then seated when there’s a break. Oh, and Peter is Spider-Man and the film establishes in his opening pizza delivery scene that he can sneak into secure buildings unnoticed. So if he wanted to get in to see the show, he’d get in.

Every bit of conflict that Peter faces feels like this to me: a writer’s contrivance and not an organic development. He doesn’t seem to have agency over his own decisions or life. And maybe he can’t, because his problems are ultimately so simple that he should be able to solve them, and the writers are forced to come up with these contrivances to keep a half-baked story going.

 

[Jake Lipson]

@Josh Steinberg, I loved Spider-Man 2, saw it four times in theaters and even double dipped when they put out the 2.1 cut. I have to say I never thought about it like that at all. But you're right on the money about that scene you're describing. I haven't watched it in years either I should revisit them.

Also, even if he couldn't get in (which I agree he should have been able to), why wouldn't he just tell Mary Jane that he was late? She'd be upset, but probably less so if she knows he actually made it versus not showing up at all.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

That type of plotting is one of the reasons I so wholeheartedly embraced Tony Stark’s presence in MCU Peter’s life. MCU Pete has “the Stark Internship” - it upsets everyone he’s close to but it’s a good cover that doesn’t raise suspicion. I’m sure a lot of us know someone who’s a workaholic or overly obsessed with studying, or whatever the thing is, where you like them but they’re just not very available...but in a mundane and maybe frustrating way, not in a red flag way.

Now, consider Raimi Peter and ask if this is someone who’s behavior wouldn’t inspire more questions than it answers: a formerly good student who is inexplicably cutting class, falling asleep in class, and failing; a reliable friend who turns into a flake overnight; a next-door crush who suddenly stops showing interest; an employee who is regularly late to work; a tenant who doesn’t pay rent; a nephew you’ve raised who suddenly and uncharacteristically withdraws from his life. Raimi Peter never offers an explanation and often just stares into the distance when confronted with his alarming change in personality. I know Raimi Peter isn’t a junkie, but if I knew him and saw him behaving like this, I’d think the guy had a major problem of some sort and if he was my nephew or my best friend or my best student I would be looking for answers.

All of that’s to say, these character interactions don’t feel authentic to me either.

Poor Franco as Harry. He gets the worst of it:
UNDERLING: Spider-Man just saved your life!
FRANCO-HARRY: He humiliated me just by touching me!!

These movies feel much closer to Joel Schumacher than Christopher Nolan or Jon Favreau to me.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Again, all good points. I liked them more than you've said that you do, but I can't argue with your logic either.

And yet, Joel Schumacher put the Batman franchise on ice for eight years. Raimi's trilogy helped lay the groundwork for the MCU, so like them or not, the comparison doesn't fully hold up. If you took out the Raimi films and the huge success that they experienced, I don't know if Marvel would have been able to go out on their own with the characters that they still had the rights to and give us the MCU.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

All that said, I recognize that the Raimi films were culturally important and enjoyed by many and I’m not trying to say they’re objectively bad. They’ve just never worked for me, but I’ve seen them all just the same.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

@Jake Lipson - fun fact. Julie Taymor’s primary exposure to/understanding of the Spider-Man character came from the first Raimi movie.

I saw the original version of the musical before she was first. It was...well...trust me, I know you know your musical theater, but you’ve never seen anything like it. That is not necessarily a compliment.

 

[Jason_V]

The one thing I will say about that, Josh, is Peter is young in that movie. I'd say 19 or 20ish, give or take. He made a decision and it turned out to be the wrong one (re: telling MJ). Sure, you could say the story required him to make the wrong decision, but he's also young and who among us hasn't done something in the moment we instantly regretted?

It's the same complaint I've heard about Far From Home. Why does Peter not want to be Spider-Man? He was in such a rush to be Spidey earlier and then all of a sudden, no more. Well, for one, he's a kid. He glamorized being a superhero in Civil War and Homecoming (and even Infinity War). And then he felt what it was really like in Endgame...and he doesn't want to be that person. He wants to protect his small circle, not the world. It's a not a problem in the script; it's accurate to life. Teenagers want to be adults all the time, but when they really understand what it is to BE an adult, they're like "forget this noise."

That's just my $0.02.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Yeah, I can’t really say that the movie is objectively bad or structurally flawed. It just doesn’t work for me. And I do realize there’s a distinction between those two.

I do think the Raimi films go to the “if I could only tell [insert character here] what I was really thinking, there wouldn’t be a conflict at all, but I can’t because, reasons” well a few too many times. It’s not really that I want Peter to tell everyone, it’s just frustrating to me to see that he basically has the same relationship with every single character. Raimi Peter comes off as a flaky jerk to me, not because of the responsibilities of being Spider-Man but because he just leaves everyone twisting in the wind always. MCU Peter doesn’t go around spilling his secret but the way he handles the duality of the role works much better for me.

One thing that doesn’t help for me is that Maguire presents as much older than Peter to my eyes - I don’t buy him as being the age the character is meant to be. Kinda funny how Garfield was actually older than Maguire, but appeared younger to my eyes.

I think with any film and especially films that deal with the fantastic, at a certain level you either buy into it or you don’t, and it’s more of a gut feeling than a logical response, and my gut’s not buying it.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Julie Taymor’s primary exposure to/understanding of the Spider-Man character came from the first Raimi movie.

Julie Taymor is a brilliant director when she is matched with the right material, like The Lion King and Across the Universe.It seems like Spider-Man was a bad fit for her, especially if she only went to the movie as source material and didn't consult the comics. Her direction of The Lion King is simply astounding, and it continues to sell out almost 22 years later. It grossed $2 million last week for the New York production alone. So, she is probably well off as a result of it whether or not she continues to create new stuff. However, it's very telling that, despite her enormous success with Lion King, she has not directed another Broadway musical since being fired from Spider-Man.

you’ve never seen anything like it. That is not necessarily a compliment.

Yeah. I can't get to New York so I can't claim to have seen it, but I've heard a lot about that and I have that Playbill.

 

[Jake Lipson]

I went to see Far From Home again today and again loved it. This was my third viewing of it and it felt just as fresh and funny and exciting as the first time. I don't like making big pronouncements like this after only one viewing because I might just be excited, but now I've seen it enough that I can say definitively that I think it is the best Spider-Man movie they've ever had.

However, something occurred to me in regards to Mysterio's plan. I'm willing to accept that he probably just didn't think this through very well to begin with, but it bears discussion.

Spoiler

Mysterio says he needs to "save" the world from an Avengers-level threat so that he can be taken seriously as the next Iron Man. That makes sense.. But he doesn't have any superpowers other than his illusion tech, which has to be programmed in advance (we know this because we see him setting up the stuff he's going to use in London when he realizes that Peter has the missing projector.) So let's say, for the sake of argument, that everything had gone according to his plan. Peter gives him Edith, and doesn't find out that he's faking, and he "saves" London and shakes hands with the queen and becomes the next big superhero.

What was he going to do when he eventually had to actually face a real Avengers-level threat that he didn't create? There are enough disasters in the MCU that he should reasonably expect that he would come face-to-face with an actual problem that his superhero persona would then be expected to deal with. If an actual super-powered being were to show up unannounced (like Thanos essentially did in Infinity War) and Mysterio hadn't prepared an appropriate illusion for them, he would be ill-equipped to do anything and would probably be killed. So what was he planning to do when this situation presented itself?

 

[Robert Crawford]

Now, you're thinking too much about the film and its plot points that might have some holes in them.

 

[Jake Lipson]

It just seems very poorly thought-out (by Mysterio as a character, not necessarily by the writers of the film.)

Spoiler

If he actually thought that his considerable intelligence makes him the most qualified to face down alien invaders like The Avengers did, then he seems sorely mistaken.

 

[Thomas Newton]

I went to see Far From Home again today and again loved it. This was my third viewing of it and it felt just as fresh and funny and exciting as the first time. I don't like making big pronouncements like this after only one viewing because I might just be excited, but now I've seen it enough that I can say definitively that I think it is the best Spider-Man movie they've ever had.

However, something occurred to me in regards to Mysterio's plan. I'm willing to accept that he probably just didn't think this through very well to begin with, but it bears discussion.

Spoiler

Maybe Mysterio's goal was only to become "the next Iron Man" for as long as he could milk fame and fortune (and revenge on Tony Stark) from the role. Once an Avengers-level threat appeared, Mysterio might use the illusion technology to fake his death. Then he could escape the threat by moving to a nice, private, remote island. (I hear there's one that Syndrome no longer needs.)

Sure, it would be very cold-blooded of Mysterio to leave scores of people to be killed. But his behavior in the movie was very cold-blooded. The attack on London wasn't just about harmless illusions, or even massive property damage that didn't physically injure anyone. One of Mysterio's goals was to kill scores of innocents. He also had no problem with manipulating Peter to gain control of the AI, and then repeatedly attempting to murder Peter once Peter found out his true intentions.

Not that an "island escape" strategy would be without risk. Suppose that the threat was "Galactus is hungry, and no longer considers the Earth off limits" or "Thanos is back from the dead, and has decided that genociding only half of the Universe was a mistake." No place on Earth would be safe from threats like those.

 

[David Weicker]

Big villains have historically not thought ahead.

How many have intended to cripple a society in exchange for money, not realizing that currency is essentially worthless post-disaster.