MILES MORALES: SPIDER-MAN
SYNOPSIS: Spider-Man is dead, killed alongside the Green Goblin in the Oscorp lab that created them both, when their fighting triggers a radiation bomb that Peter sacrifices himself to stop. New York is still mourning its hero while a new threat rises, causing a young man to rise to the occasion to train himself to earn the right to wear the mask.
BACKDROP: We open with the huge hero’s funeral for Peter Parker. It’s awe-inspiring and the narration of that carries us into meeting Miles for the first time. He’s young and smart, but a little reckless. He’s a very different kid than Peter was. While it’s acknowledged that Spidey had a good run as a hero, most of his supporting cast will not be making an appearance. The only two who will play a major role are Aunt May, who serves as a sort of mentor figure to Miles, and J. Jonah Jameson, who is so guilty over Peter’s death that he goes after this new Spider-Man for totally different reasons than he went after the first. He wants the new Spidey brought down because he feels its an affront to the old one’s legacy.
THE STORY: Miles is a young boy with a promising future. He’s enrolled in a very prestigious school, but he keeps getting in trouble. Each time, each dispute, causes him to be at risk for simply being kicked out. His parents make it quite clear to him that he can’t take any risks. These people are always looking for excuses to kick someone like him out. His dad never had opportunities like this growing up and he doesn’t want Miles to waste them. But then Miles gets bitten by the spider and everything turns upside down. His powers are different than Peter’s, he has no idea what is happening to him at first, but his best friend Ganke is a Spidey superfan and tries to guide him through it.
Still, there’s the looming question of what to do about it. He tries to ignore his abilities, tries to hope that they will go away, but they don’t. He can’t help doing the right thing. But he’s bad at it. Miles has no idea what he’s doing and also knows that Spider-Man is an idolized hero, an icon that people look up to, almost God-like after his death. He can’t be that, he doesn’t believe he has that in him.
When he realizes that he can’t avoid this, he tries to see what it was that made Peter special, so he goes to the one person who might truly know: May Parker. She explains to him that it wasn’t Peter’s powers that made him amazing, it was his heart. And she sees some of that in Miles. But she also says that the life Peter chose got him killed and it’s going to do the same to Miles as well. That’s what he has to come to terms with if he’s going to do this. If he still chooses to be Spider-Man, maybe she can give him a few pointers to at least keep him alive a little bit longer.
TONE & STYLE: Basically, this movie is The Karate Kid with Aunt May as Mr. Miyagi. He starts off as the last person anyone would expect to be this hero, this fighter, but she sees something in him and elects to whip him into shape. She’s snarkier than we’ve seen in most of the movies so far. Peter’s death made her a bit more cynical and a lot more blunt. This is a fighting movie, through and through, and it’s about Miles learning to believe in himself while simultaneously training himself for the big third-act fight.
THE THEMES: There are the obvious themes, first and foremost, of taking on a legacy you don’t believe you’ve earned and trying to live up to a name. Miles has a picture of Peter that he carries with him throughout the movie to remind him why he’s doing this. Just something he stares at once in awhile. The overreaching theme of the film, however, is coming to terms with a purpose that you know you might not survive. Miles steps into the role of Spider-Man having already seen where it gets you: killed. He’s becoming a hero but the story constantly deals with the fact that this is a line of work that one does not generally survive, paralleling his story to a firefighter or soldier. It’s something you have to do, despite the consequences.
THE VILLAIN: But of course, a Spider-Man movie needs a villain. We tease enough of the big fight between Peter and Norman through flashbacks to establish who the Green Goblin was. Then, just as Miles is getting into the, er, swing of things, we reveal that the Goblin actually survived the explosion. He’s a lot worse for wear. His body is exponentially mutated, he’s covered in scars and tumors and it looks like he can barely even move. His mind is scattered, but the skill of his genius remains. He sends out hand-made drones and other creations made from his lair in the sub-basement of the abandoned Oscorp labs, all targeting Miles, almost as if they’re testing him.
As we go along, Miles pieces together the fact that all of these Frankensteined parts came from Oscorp and begins to discover that the Green Goblin may have somehow survived the blast. He comes face to face with the Goblin at the end and, because he’s been staring at this picture through the whole movie, can look him right in the eyes and determine that this is not Norman Osborn. This is Peter Parker.
Peter has been training Miles behind the scenes, watching him for awhile, even planting the spider. He’s been calculating everything to build to this moment. Peter did not die in the blast, but he wishes he did. His whole existence is agony, he can’t have anything like his old life back and even more than that, he had closure. He was finished. He’s been sending out drones to prepare Miles for this, because that’s his whole motivation. He wants Miles to kill him. When Miles refuses, that’s what leads us to an actual fight, which ultimately leads to Peter sacrificing himself once again when he realizes the building is unstable and is going to collapse on both of them.
In saving Miles, Peter realizes what he's become, how far off his path he's driven himself, and gives Miles his blessing. Tells him that the mask will make him enemies. It will destroy his relationships. Being Spider-Man is not just a role you play, it's a responsibility. And with great power comes great responsibility. Then he dies. The speech gives Miles the closure he needs to feel as though he has earned his webs and swing comfortably into the sky as Spider-Man for the first time.
CAST: You want a relative unknown for Miles and probably Ganke as well. They’re kids, so let’s cast kids, right?
AUNT MAY – for a younger, sassier, cynical Aunt May I can think of no one better than Jane Lynch.
J. JONAH JAMESON – I’ve been saying for some time that Alec Baldwin’s Oscar winning scene in Glengarry Glen Ross is basically an audition for J.J.
NORMAN OSBORN – You know, we’re only seeing him in brief flashbacks, but let’s really cast it anyway, especially if it’s decided to bring him back at a later date. I’d go with William Fichtner.
PETER PARKER – Have to go with someone young, but seasoned, and who could play the Goblin role as well, obviously. I won’t lie, I’d love to see Andrew Garfield make a comeback for this. Let me have that dream. Or even Tom Holland, who I'm sure will be great in the role. If neither of them, how about Radcliffe?
