Ok so with Spider-Man No Way Home not only breaking the multiverse,
internet and the minds of every single Marvel maniac out there, I thought I'd
take a look back at the movie that started it all to talk about the best details in it.
Though it was made way before Easter Egg hunters like myself obsessed over
every single shot and frame, the movie is still filled to the brim with things most
people miss and we're still uncovering things about it twenty years later.
The movie follows Spider-Man as he goes toe to toe with the Green Goblin.
Several scenes including the Goblins death are ripped right out of the
pages of The Amazing Spider-man 122 in which he was impaled by his own Glider.
Both Norman Osborn and Peter share somewhat of a father and son relationship in the wake of
uncle Ben's death but beyond this it's clear Norman wishes his son was more like Peter.
This idea of them being mirror images of one another is shown during the Thanksgiving Dinner
in which the pair wear their opposites colurs.
Peter wears a green shirt with a purple tie whereas norman wears a blue shirt with
a red one. Going beyond this though, Harry wears a mixture of both which
somewhat hints towards his fractured allegiances throughout the trilogy.
There's also several callbacks to this movie with Harry later down the line and
when Peter first meets him he's wearing a Burgandy sweater with a t shirt underneath
and a hoody jacket over the top. In Spider-man 3 when Harry has amnesia he also wears a similar
set of clothes showing how his mindstate has gone back several years to the events of this movie.
Willem Dafoe really embodies the role and it's easy to see why they brought him back for No Way
Home. The actor exudes a lot from his facial expressions and during the scenes in which he
acted against a mirror he did these entirely in one take jumping back and forth between the
personas. However the creative team actually did something really subtle to make it so that
there was an extra creepy factor to him and when Willem is playing the Norman Osborn side
he wore fake teeth that made his smile seem more inline. However when he was leaning into being the
Goblin these were removed and we got those awesome Canine fang like ones creeping through his grin.
During the Green Goblin jumpscare that happens in the film, if you slow down the footage you can
also catch a second Green Goblin standing in the background. It's super unnerving when you catch
it and though most people won't it subliminally gives the idea that the Goblin is supernatural.
However it might also be hinting towards how a
second Goblin would later come down the line behind him in the form of Harry.
When he attacks J Jonah Jamesons office you can
also see that they've subtly painted on big black Irises onto his mask
which gives them a big bug eyed look that's inline which his costume from the comics.
His home is also filled to the brim with masks from ancient tribes and
this of course hints towards the Goblin in the subconscious of his mindstate.
Now Norman is very much a tormented character and though we never fully learn what happened to his
wife it's clear it was pretty bad. Just before the balcony attack, Harry tells MJ that she should've
worn black because his father loves that colour and when we're in the house we can catch a brief
glimpse at a Mrs Osborn who's wearing a black dress. At the dinner we then see MJ wearing
black showing that she was trying to impress Norman even though it didn't go down very well.
Now Norman says that all women are beautiful until they're snarling after your trust fund like a pack
of ravening wolves and thus I think the woman in the portrait is probably Norman's mother.
This thanksgiving dinner scene also has a lot of similarities to the painting by Norman Rockwell
called Freedom From Want. I absolutely love how this shot is used in a similar
manner to demonstrate all the characters coming together for
one final time before everyone ends up in the crosshairs of the Goblin.
Now I feel like we've been talking about the Goblin a lot and the true
main character of Spider-man is of course...well Spider-man.
Early on in the movie Peter is bitten by a genetically altered Spider and we actually
get some foreshadowing of his powers on a screen giving a CGI rendition of the arachnids DNA.
These include things like Web Tensile strength, spider strength, jumping, speed, spider-sense,
precognition which im guessing is the same as spider-sense and speed again. The DNA strands
that fly in are old red, blue and green, colours that are of course associated with Spider-man
and the Green Goblin. We also see a Spider using it's strength to dangle a much heavier object by a
webstring which somewhat foreshadows Spider-man holding onto the dangling cable car later on.
Peter also ends up taking a photograph of MJ and shoutouts New Rockstars for pointing out
that this photo shows up later in Spider-man 2 in Peter's apartment.
Peter ends up getting organic webbing in the movie
but at one point in the film we can catch the web shooters on his wrist
which were originally supposed to be a part of the plot but these were later removed.
Personally I actually prefer the organic webbing as whats the point
of getting bit by a spider if you can't shoot webs out your arse.
At one point in the film Peter eats lunch at school and if you look closely at his hand
you'll see a red line coming down from the spider bite indicating the track of it's venom.
Speaking of Venom Robbie later brings up to Jameson their photographer Eddie
and he says that he can't get a decent photograph of Spider-man.
This is of course a reference to Eddie Brock and in Spider-man 3 he reuses Peter's old pictures,
touching them up with photoshop in order to get paid.
Now during this lunch scene we watch as Peter catches Mary Jane
and also her lunch. This moment was actually done for real without any CGI
and though it apparently took 156 takes, Tobey Maguire actually managed to do it.
This trick was actually pulled off using adhesive
which you can see on the bottom of the apple and also magnets.
Water, fire, air, and dirt, f**king magnets how do they work.
Well ill explain and if you slow down the footage you'll see that the jelly
actually bounces back ontop of the milk carton because of the magnet that's laced inside of it.
If you look closely at his hand when he shoots the webbing at the lunch tray you'll also see
that he makes the spider-man web firing gesture. He doesn't figure out until later on that this
is how you fire webs but I love that they have this happening here to show why it happened.
During this time Peter discovers his powers and he ends up going to a rooftop where he
tries to fire his webs. He says up up and away web and also shazam, the both of which
are references to Superman and Shazam. Superman is also brought up by Aunt May later and I love
the theory that in the Marvel Universe that DC characters are who are in comic books
and in the DC universe Marvel are the ones on the page. This would also explain why
The Flash has so many Marvel references in it and Its a really nice fan theory.
There's a moment when Jameson looks through Peter's photos and he calls them all crap.
I kinda think this might be a reference to Batman 1989 when the Joker does the same
thing with Vicki Vales and I promise that's the one reach for the video.
What do you mean they're all reaches.
Now those DC ones are pretty obvious easter eggs but this scene is given a
nod in Spider-man Homecoming when Ned asks Peter how far he can shoot his web and he says that if
it was him then he just stand on the edge of a building and shoot it to see how far it goes.
Now if you're enjoying the video I'd massively appreciate the thumbs up and I've got you for 3
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Who am I? You sure you wanna know? well I'm somewhat of an idiot myself but the
names Paul and this is the Heavy Spoilers show.
Now uncle Ben's death is a massive part of Spider-man's origin story
and the performance from Cliff Robertson was so iconic that
lines from his performance were actually used years later in Into The Spider-verse.
The conversation that happens between Peter and Ben is really impactful
and it takes place in an Oldsmobile Delta 88. This car has appeared in a number of Sam Raimi's films
including the Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2, Darkman, Army of Darkness and also in Drag me to hell.
When Peter exits it if you slow down the footage you can also catch his red hoody hanging out the
back of his clothes too and he'd later go onto wear this as part of his wrestling costume.
The robber who apparently kills uncle ben, though I don't really count Sandman as doing it actually
also appears in the Amazing Spider-man once more showing that it's all connected.
During this time we also see the origin story of the Green Goblin and alongside him is Dr Mendell
Stromm who fans of the comics might know as being a half man half machine villain.
At one point in the movie Peter catches Mary Jane working at the Moon Dance Diner and if
you've seen Tick Tick Boom you'll know that this location pops up in it too as being where Jonathan
Larson works at. Larson is played by Andrew Garfield who of course also played spider-man
and I love how this all kinda ties together for trivia fans.
Also there's a cameo by Lucy Lawless at one point who you
may know as playing Xena the warrior princess.
Now this movie isn't perfect and there's faults in it too, when Peter is testing his webbing he
shoots one at a lamp and ends up smashing it. Aunt May then knocks and when we cut back to
a bigger shot of the room we can see that the lampshade is back where it was completely fixed.
We'll forgive it though he also smashes a photo of himself,
Ben and May and later this shows up by aunt mays bedside in a brand new photo frame.
However the movie is great and I still have as much fun with it now as I did
all the way back in 2002 when I saw it in the cinema for the first time.
I absolutely love it and if there's any easter
eggs in it I missed then make sure you comment below and let me know.
We're running a competition right now and giving away 3 copies of the Spider-man 4k trilogies on
the 30th of December. All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning is like the video,
make sure you subscribe with notifications on and drop a comment below with your thoughts on
the episode. We pick the comments at random at the end of the month and the winners of
the last one are on screen right now so message me @heavySpoilers if that's you.
If you want something else to watch then make sure you check
out our breakdown of perfect scene in Spider-Man Homecoming. We break down the
entire thing so it's definitely worth checking out if you wanna know more.
With that out the way thank you for sitting through the video,
I’ve been Paul and I’ll see you next time. Take care, Peace