SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME Writers Address [SPOILER]'s Shot At Redemption During The Movie's Final Battle

SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME Writers Address [SPOILER]'s Shot At Redemption During The Movie's Final Battle

There were a lot of memorable moments in Spider-Man: No Way Home, but one really resonated with the wall-crawler's fans. Now, writers Chris McKenna & Erik Sommers have shared their reactions to the scene.

News
By JoshWilding - Jan 01, 2022 10:01 AM EST
Filed Under: No Way Home
Source: Variety

By now, we're sure you know Spider-Man: No Way Home brings back Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield as their respective versions of Peter Parker. While the former has seemingly found happiness with Mary Jane Watson, the latter is still grieving after the traumatic death of Gwen Stacy. 

Meeting his fellow Spider-Men has a positive effect on the Amazing web-slinger, though, and it feels like this Peter is in a much better place by the time all is said and done. It no doubt helps that he saves MJ from falling to her death, thereby finding a small sliver of redemption for past mistakes.

Talking to Variety, writer Chris McKenna said this about the final act's memorable scene. "There was an animatic of all these different things [potentially] happening in the finale," he recalls. Garfield's Spidey saving MJ "was one of the ones that we saw and were like, ‘How are we not doing something like that?'"

McKenna and his fellow writer Erik Sommers talked about the scene on the rooftop with the three Peters discussing those immortal words: "With great power there must also come great responsibility." Sommers explains that, "There was a big discussion of how much to use that phrase. Those words are so loaded. You have to be very careful about where and when you employ them."

"We had decided to have May say it to Peter, but would we bring it back as something that helps the three of them identify this uncanny cosmic link that they have? Or would that be too much to hear it again? Ultimately, the team decided, let’s hear it." McKenna adds, "We could really lean into, for instance, Webb-verse Peter having troubles — he’s in a dark place in his own life."

The Spider-Man: No Way Home scribes did such an amazing job with Garfield's Peter that there's already a very vocal campaign online for him to be given the chance to reprise the role. If so, we're hoping it's not The Amazing Spider-Man 3 Sony originally had planned (it involved a formula to raise the dead) because that wasn't going to be a good movie in any way, shape, or form.

If this was it for his Spider-Man, though, it's fair to say Garfield managed to go out on a high.

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TheWalkingCuban
TheWalkingCuban - 1/1/2022, 10:09 AM
To those that say Aunt May needed more time before dying, compared to 2 uncle bens’ combined 10 minutes
Nightwing1015
Nightwing1015 - 1/1/2022, 10:36 AM
@TheWalkingCuban - I think the difference is we got more of Peter's relationship with the Uncle Ben's 10 minutes than we did with his relationship with May over the first two films. Tobey and Ben in the car and Andrew and Ben arguing had more emotion than any conversation MCU Peter and May had.

No Way Home was a great film but if the first two had used May better her death would've been even more impactful than it was already.
Superspecialawesomeguy
Superspecialawesomeguy - 1/1/2022, 10:37 AM
@TheWalkingCuban - But we actually cared about uncle Ben in those 10 minutes tho.
TheWalkingCuban
TheWalkingCuban - 1/1/2022, 10:58 AM
@Nightwing1015 - Sorry I’m not so cold hearted! On a serious note, Her yelling at him when she saw he was Spiderman, them eating at the restaurant, the way he just called her May instead of aunt may, her datong and it being awkward to him! Her mad at him when he got home crying when Tony got mad at him. Him being protective of her with the bodega dude. Such real stuff, we got soap opera stuff twice. We never got the fun loving aunt encouraging him to be decent and dying.

Plus she was hot so it’s even sadder.
TheWalkingCuban
TheWalkingCuban - 1/1/2022, 11:01 AM
@Nightwing1015 - Do we always need emotion? That kind of emotion? What we got instead was character building with him being awkward because of how hot she was to everybody, her finding out he was Spiderman, i listed lots of the stuff in another comment, Suffice to say I’m glad we got what we got, and you still have the first two iterations of the power/responsibility quote to enjoy. Everybody’s happy, unless you didn’t like what happened here. If I remember correctly everybody was complaining about it happening the second time, we all know good and well it would be even more complaining the third time around. We complain, it’s what we do
Itwasme
Itwasme - 1/1/2022, 12:04 PM
@TheWalkingCuban - not gonna lie, when people say that I keep thinking this has to be some form of sexism. It's such a laughable statement.
TheWalkingCuban
TheWalkingCuban - 1/1/2022, 12:23 PM
@Itwasme - My friends that watch but don’t type about it all day liked that part. I try to think like them just so I don’t become so cynical. But man when I watched it on the big screen I thought it was the perfect way to bring the quote up. Get on here and find out it was anything but
Nightwing1015
Nightwing1015 - 1/1/2022, 12:44 PM
@TheWalkingCuban - "On a serious note, Her yelling at him when she saw he was Spiderman"

You mean that half-sentence swear word she said in response? 😂 Yeah what an emotional moment!!

"the way he just called her May instead of aunt may"

Ok so saying her name. What a wonderful developed relationship.

Jokes aside, I know they had some hints at an interesting story but I just feel the Peter-May relationship should have a variety of emotions in it. Frustration, pathos, love, fun, ect.

Aunt May just didn't get much screentime in the first 2 and I think if she had it would've been different.
ElricReturns
ElricReturns - 1/1/2022, 12:44 PM
@TheWalkingCuban - I think the depictions matter. Uncle Ben and Aunt May have classically been portrayed as elderly figures of high morality and gentle natures. They always played on the sweet and sentimental tropes of grandparents and the noble elderly. May was always this kind and gentle snowy haired angel to Peter, and to the audience. Ben was likewise a wise and kind sage who in his short appearance made a MASSIVE impact on Peter Parkers life with a lesson that would shape his life forever.

This elderly angle also immediately sets them up to be fragile, and that gives readers the feeling Peter has when the story puts them in danger.

Uncle Ben was a very smartly crafted character who only needed to be around for a short time to make an impact on Peter.

May is the exact opposite to Ben, as her character was crafted to be the nurturing presence Peter requires when life gets too big for him. He can always come to May for guidance and emotional support.

Now, Marisa had many elements of May, but she was also very very VERY different from most versions of Aunt May. Even the PS4 Spiderman understood the elderly angle to May's character better than the MCU.

Making May younger and hip and hot kinda inherently changes May's character fundamentally. Now she's wearing leather jackets and retro clothing and she's quiping and dating Happy like it's Sex in the City.

Pretty much the only thing they got right is she's Peter's Aunt and works at FEAST. Otherwise, just like Michelle Jones Watson, just like Ned, just like erased from history Uncle Ben, it's just a completely different character because all Feige cares about is it being different, not good.

This Aunt May needed WAAAAAAY more development and reason to LOVE her like we all love Aunt May.... she was just there and kinda cool. She didn't make me worry about her or care about her.

And also, we don't "care" per say about Uncle Ben. We care about that moment, and it's significance in shaping a Superhero we love. In NWH, it wasn't used to make Peter anything. It didn't shape him. Didn't make him decide to not murder Goblin. He still massively messed up and got innocent people killed becausehe was trying to save villians. That's still on Peter, best of intentions aside, Peter's choices got people killed.

So, your argument about screen time is mute for a number of reasons. It was just a dumb idea to shift Ben for 5 movies then hand off the moment to leather jacket cool Aunt May.
Itwasme
Itwasme - 1/1/2022, 12:45 PM
@TheWalkingCuban - I'm right there with you. The following scene really brought it home too because the first time the 3 spider's meet is to address the most important line in Spider-Man's history. That's poetic.

It also had the benefit of reminding the audience that those versions still exist. You can go back and watch them.

But to say May didn't have enough development in this franchise is laughable, especially when you compare it to the other Ben's.
TheWalkingCuban
TheWalkingCuban - 1/1/2022, 12:49 PM
@Nightwing1015 - I don’t see how those moments were not solid
TheWalkingCuban
TheWalkingCuban - 1/1/2022, 12:58 PM
@ElricReturns - I appreciate such a concise and thoughtful response, and can see your point of view particularly with the elderly part. I think of my grandma and dad that died a year apart to the day (both died on her birthday) and my grandma was so quiet and wise. My dad was an aggravating aggressive gregarious lovable loud Cuban. With my grandma there was peace in her passing away after a hospice period. My dad died suddenly, and I hadn’t spent real time with him in years, but his last few weeks we’re back and forth helping me on my food truck. He was always angry at me, and I stopped talking to him, and on our best night at work, afterwards, he died of a heart attack, and I felt just horrible. Like it was my fault. I’m the one that found him too. I think death is a complicated thing that we’ve seen a few different ways now. I’m not gonna knock the uncle Ben ones, I simply like Aunt May’s too (the second uncle Ben death was and is still two too many, I thought it back then and I still do)
Nightwing1015
Nightwing1015 - 1/1/2022, 1:08 PM
@TheWalkingCuban - I actually think the first was a massive missed opportunity. It was set up as some cliffhanger that she found out his identity and then it was kinda just ignored in the subsequent film. I wanted to see her first conversation with him about that because May had never found out on screen before.
TheWalkingCuban
TheWalkingCuban - 1/1/2022, 1:10 PM
@Nightwing1015 - In between those films, the blip kinda made it less of a big deal.
ElricReturns
ElricReturns - 1/1/2022, 1:40 PM
@TheWalkingCuban - I kinda liken it to how Snuder didn't understand the Kent's, and thusly his changes made for an anticlimactic Pa Kent death and a Ma Kent none of us really cared for. Johnathan and Martha got more screen time and attention than previous versions of John and Martha, but we cared even less about them in Man of Steel. The depictions matter more than screen time, I feel.
ElricReturns
ElricReturns - 1/1/2022, 1:51 PM
Except I kinda respect Snyders changes more, because he wasn't making changes just to be different from what came before despite what the changes do to the world as a whole or if they are better changes, Snyder made changes because they interested him more and he thought they elevated the world he was building and the story he wanted to tell. Feige just wanted new.

I'd hate to get news Feige has been hired to make a new DCEU, because his Superman would be recruited by Batman and have a suit buit from Wayne tech, instead of PA Kent dying he will kill Ma Kent, he won't work for the Daily Planet, Lois Lane will be black and called LL, for Lana Lowery-Lane just because, Jimmy Olsen will be a different minority character entirely named Bill, Lex Luthor and Lexcorp won't exist at all and we'll find out in the last movie since they never actually mention he was from Kryton in the other films, that in this version he's from another dimension and that's when Pa Kent tells him his origins.

Really cool Kevin.
MyCoolYoung
MyCoolYoung - 1/1/2022, 1:56 PM
@TheWalkingCuban - I never really understood the “they didn’t make me care for the person” argument in no movie.

I’ve barely watched anything with Betty white in it but it’s still sad when she died and I know that’s real life but even fictional death is sad, especially when it’s acted as well as it was in no way home.

I don’t see how they didn’t care for her when she was Peter’s moral compass the whole first act. She convinced him to help the villains and she also convinced him he did the right thing as she was dying.

Not sure what more they needed. Peter to turn his back on her and she die because of that? Hard pass
TheWalkingCuban
TheWalkingCuban - 1/1/2022, 2:01 PM
@ElricReturns - I can empathize but I suppose I wasn’t locked to a certain depiction for them. I can see how that would be aggravating
TheWalkingCuban
TheWalkingCuban - 1/1/2022, 2:13 PM
@MyCoolYoung - I’ve heard some of their arguments that make sense but they still don’t change my mind: it was a good cinematic emotional death
ElricReturns
ElricReturns - 1/1/2022, 2:22 PM
@MyCoolYoung - are you [frick]ing kidding me!? This is how I found out Betty White died.... wtf!!!
MyCoolYoung
MyCoolYoung - 1/1/2022, 3:30 PM
@ElricReturns - wow. So sorry if I broke that news to you insensitively or anything but yeah she died yesterday. Really tragic my wife told me she was planning a big 100 party
ElricReturns
ElricReturns - 1/1/2022, 3:50 PM
@MyCoolYoung - oh no no no. Sorry, I didn't mean it like it's your fault lol

Yah no, I just love Betty White, I watched the Golden Girls back in the day, she's a treasure. She died literally the day before her 100th birthday. I was looking forward to her 100th. I was just taken by surprise that I find this news out like that from your post. There was absolutely nothing wrong with your post.

I just was in shock. This news hurts!
KWilly
KWilly - 1/1/2022, 10:14 AM
One of the best scenes in the movie. I loved how instead of just catching her with the web, he pulled her up, basically bear-hugged her, and then backflipped into landing. That way no whiplash and no head smashing.

Now that's character development.
kg8817
kg8817 - 1/1/2022, 4:23 PM
@KWilly - To me that signified the smart way of showing the audience (instead of telling them) that he was obviously in such a dark place (as he says earlier in the movie) that he became obsessive as well; essentially likely practicing the fall on rooftops every night for months (or years) after she died figuring out that series of movements would’ve been the way Gwen could have survived that fall and where he made the fatal error.

Just great stuff.
Nemesis17then
Nemesis17then - 1/1/2022, 10:16 AM
They should have let MJ die after Holland's Spder-man failed to catch her and then make Doctor Octavius fall and have Tobey's Spider-Man fail at caching him. That way all 3 Spider-men would have a common link which in the end would bring them closer and make them happier that they share the same mistakes and why not make them come to terms with the fact that they suck catching falling loved ones and embrace it by simply saying "I missed the part where that's my problem" when they see a loved one fall.
THE END.
globaltravels
globaltravels - 1/2/2022, 1:24 AM
@Nemesis17then - lol I chuckled
MovieMonster
MovieMonster - 1/1/2022, 10:21 AM
Say what you will about The Amazing Spider-Man 2 but it handled the death of Gwen Stacy very well. I rewatched it just before seeing NWH and that scene packs an emotional punch. Andrew catching MJ, as quick of a scene it is, is one of the highlights of NWH. The reaction from the audience was incredible.
Supercat6376
Supercat6376 - 1/1/2022, 10:24 AM
I would have been so disappointed had they not given Andrew’s Peter the opportunity to save MJ. That was one of the things I most wanted to see when the rumors started.
incredibleTalk
incredibleTalk - 1/1/2022, 12:52 PM
@Supercat6376 - I have to say that Tom looks so much more mature and serious in this one scene than any other time in the MCU...
Supercat6376
Supercat6376 - 1/1/2022, 1:05 PM
@incredibleTalk - my eyes watered during the scene with aunt May after happys apartment was attacked. It was a great movie that made me feel a million times better about the Garfield movies, the first of which I really enjoyed minus the follow the lizards scenes.
globaltravels
globaltravels - 1/2/2022, 1:25 AM
@Supercat6376 - even when the trailer dropped, everyone immediately started to speculate that it was Garfield saving MJ because honestly “that shit writes itself” and I’m glad the writers agreed
Supercat6376
Supercat6376 - 1/2/2022, 10:53 AM
@globaltravels - 💯
DalekCraigWasson
DalekCraigWasson - 1/1/2022, 10:25 AM
Andrew absolutely knocked it out of the park. Tom too. Tobey, well, it was nice to see Tobey again LOL.

I get that Tobey's an older, wider Peter than the other two, but it really reminded me of the way Harrison Ford kinda just plays himself in later years Indiana Jones and Han Solo instead of the distinctive "character" he was. He just felt way more like "I'm here for a paycheck" compared to Andrew who was felt like "I am going to prove to everyone that I was a [frick]ing awesome Spider-Man."
ShimmyShimmyYA
ShimmyShimmyYA - 1/1/2022, 10:29 AM
@DalekCraigWasson - feel like he was just playing himself in Star Wars OT
Frshcoupe
Frshcoupe - 1/1/2022, 11:10 AM
@DalekCraigWasson - Tobey is goated so that’s why it felt that way. He’s an OG.
OmegaDaGrodd
OmegaDaGrodd - 1/1/2022, 10:26 AM
It really is incredible that they decided to give Garfields Peter so many moments of healing in this movie. Seems like something that could've easily become distracting but it fit seamlessly here
Dannywest
Dannywest - 1/1/2022, 11:30 AM
@OmegaDaGrodd - In My headcannon he probably replayed that scenario time and time again so if that ever happened to him again he wouldnt make the same mistakes twice, as for the scene i think it needed more momentum because he catched her too fast and maybe it couldve worked better if there was a sense of insecurity as to whether he would get there in time or not
marvel72
marvel72 - 1/1/2022, 10:37 AM
When Aunt May died and that swat team were about to enter the building,we should have seen Spidey lose his shit with them.

As for MJ falling and Garfield Spidey saving her was perfect.
RokoVII
RokoVII - 1/1/2022, 10:43 AM
@marvel72 - the writers saved his anger for later when he lost his shit against Green Goblin
marvel72
marvel72 - 1/1/2022, 10:51 AM
@RokoVII - Yeah, it was fine how it was done. I would love to see him like hiding in the shadows and taking each one out silently like a spider.
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