What’s up guys? Jared again. Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse burst into theaters in
2018 and was immediately met with critical acclaim, eventually crescendoing into an Oscar
win for Best Animated Film. It’s a rare film to surpass 90% approval ratings amongst
both critics AND audiences on Rotten Tomatoes, and quickly established itself as a fan favorite.
Importantly, based on Wisecrack’s unscientific and anecdotal evidence, this film is also
an incredible conversion machine, turning decidedly non-comic-book-lovers into Spidey
stans in just under two hours.
So what makes this movie so intoxicating? I mean, besides the obvious magnetism of Nicolas
Cage’s acting:
“Sometimes I let matches burn down to my fingertips just to feel something, anything”
Ok but seriously - is it the charismatic, relatable, non-shoe-lace-tying Miles? Is it
the trippy visual aesthetic? Spiderham? Or is there something deeper going on here? And
does it have anything to do with Charles Dickens? Let’s find out in this Wisecrack Edition
on Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse: Deep or Dumb? And as always, spoilers ahead.
Alright, let’s dive into a recap. Meet Miles Morales, a Brooklyn kid who hates his pretentious
new boarding school, Visions Academy. While graffiting a subway service tunnel with his
cool Uncle Aaron, Miles gets bitten by a radioactive spider… and well, you know what happens.
Trying to figure out why his hands are so sticky, Miles returns to the scene where he
stumbles upon Spiderman trying to stop Kingpin from using a deadly particle collider to access
another dimension.
“Whoa.”
The experiment gets cut short and Spidrman gives Myles a thumb drive to override the
collider before getting killed by Kingpin. Still green at the whole Spidermanning thing,
Miles swiftly destroys the drive by accident.
Miles finds out that Kingpin’s particle collider did partially succeed, at least in
summoning a bunch of other spider persons into his dimensions. Among them, the older,
dad-bodied Peter B. Parker, Spider-Gwen, Spider-Peni, Spider-Ham, and Spider-Academy-Award-Winner-Nicolas-Cage.
They team up to defeat Kingpin, and to return to their dimensions. Miles becomes his dimension’s
new friendly neighborhood spiderman- the end.
So is Spiderverse deep, or just an emotionally engaging, heartwarming feast for the eyes?
Let’s review the evidence.
Argument 1: Myles’s Quantum Arc
The film’s first suspected reservoir of depth rests in the journey of newly-anointed
Spiderman, Miles. If we weren’t sure what the central theme of Miles’ arc is, the
movie pretty blatantly telegraphs it right up top when he and his dad discuss his life:
“We all make choices in life,” “Why, it doesn’t feel like I have a choice-”
“You don’t!”
Peter Parker echoes this sentiment once Miles has been bitten, telling him that becoming
Spiderman ain’t optional:
“I don’t think you have a choice, kiddo.”
But what’s exceptionally clever about the film’s exploration of choice is the way
it’s reinforced through recurring references to quantum theory and quantum mechanics- scientific
concepts central to the plot. In an early scene, Miles’ science class watches a video
about the topic. In it, a civilian-clothed Doc Oc explains:
“Our universe is actually one of many parallel universes going on at the same time.”
Here, she outlines the Many-Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics, which holds that there
are many parallel universes existing in the same space and time as our own, including
a tragic dimension in which I shaved my beard and Woody was dognapped by pirates. Anyway,
Doc Oc goes on to say that:
Here, the film invokes an aspect of quantum mechanics - the idea that every opportunity
yields multiple possibilities which ripple out, eventually creating countless more possibilities.
Although relevant to Miles’s outer conflict- having to save the multiverse with his pals,
it also mirrors Miles’s inner conflict- confronting the fact that every choice is
a leap of faith down a diverging path, one that has ripple effects.
We see this early on through the motif of Miles’ shoelaces. It starts with Miles’s
dad telling him: “Tie your shoes, please.”
Then, when a random student says the same, he replies
“Hey.” “Yeah?”
“Your shoe’s untied.” “Yeah, I’m aware. It’s a choice.”
Even Spiderman soon joins the chorus:
“You know your shoes are untied?”
Still, Miles continues to rock the untied look. Fittingly, this choice has a consequence
- he trips over his laces and breaks the thumb drive needed to disable the accelerator. Here
we see the power of choice and the consequences of one’s choices literalized.
The theme of choice and diverging paths is reinforced by contrasting versions of Peter
Parker. The first one has lived up to his responsibilities to protect New York, and
died a hero as a result. His foil, Peter B. Parker, the Type-B of the two, is the less-than-perfect
Spiderman who chose to alienate his wife, fall out of shape, and spend a lot of time
crying in the bathtub instead of saving the city. Their shared name and essential attributes
suggest that they could have gone down similar paths, but the ripple effect of choices, and
the infinite possibilities presented by those choices, led them to become very different
Spiderdudes
A similar dichotomy exists in the contrast between Miles’ dad and Uncle Aaron, each
offering a unique path for Miles’s future. Miles exists in a flux between his lawful
dad and his cool Uncle Aaron, who likes to indulge in some light artistic vandalism Early
on, Aaron tells Miles that his dad also used to be a rule-breaking punk before he made
the choice to straighten out and became a very rule-abiding cop:
“Oh my gosh, don’t cops run red lights?” “Oh, yea, some do. But, uh, not your dad.”
In contrast, Uncle Aaron’s rebellious streak has led him down a drastically different path
- one which involves working for Kingpin, killing people, and generally being a not
great guy. In his final moments, Uncle Aaron reflects on the gravity of his mistakes:
“I wanted you to look up to me. I let you down, man, I let you down.”
This functions as an interesting reversal of the Uncle Ben story - in which Spiderman
lets a robber go, only to find out that this very robber shot and killed his beloved uncle.
In that narrative, he blames himself for making the wrong choice. In contrast, this time,
it’s Uncle Aaron, not Miles, who blames himself for the series of choices that led
him to die in an alley and left his nephew uncle-less. Just as the death of Uncle Ben
taught Peter Parker that he has to use his powers, and use them responsibly, the death
of Uncle Aaron teaches Miles that his choices can easily lead him down a regrettable path,
and that he must take responsibility for those choices.
The dire mistake of not taking responsibility for your choices is also embodied in Kingpin,
who can’t live with himself for driving his family away, such that they literally
drove away and got into a car crash and died. The ripple effects of his actions have left
him all alone, and rather than accepting responsibility, he tries to reverse fate by summoning his
family from another dimension.
So we see several characters accepting varying levels of responsibility for their choices,
as well as the ripple effects & diverging paths that come with those choices. The central
question of the film becomes: What kind of person, and specifically what kind of spiderguy,
will Miles become in the universe of this film?
This calls to mind another aspect of quantum mechanics: The Copenhagen Interpretation,
which a few physicists dreamt up in the 1920s. The theory postulates that an object can and
does exist in all possible states. For instance, are photons particles or waves? Well, sometimes
they act like particles, and sometimes they act like waves. Quantum mechanics uses the
term superposition to refer to multiple possible states existing at once, say as a wave or
a particle, or an alive cat or a dead cat. Metaphorically, Miles exists in a kind of
indeterminate superposition between two extremes: he exists in both the state of becoming like
his criminal Uncle Aaron or like his honorable cop father. But here’s the thing about superpositions:
when somebody observes the object in question, its superposition “collapses” meaning
that the object is forced to “choose a probability”, that is, become either a wave or a particle.
In the film, it’s not a literal observation that forces Miles to choose which “state”
to exist in, although he certainly is being observed by his fellow spider-people. Rather,
it’s the immense pressure of the task at hand.
So what decision is he going to make? Well, at the beginning of the film, we see him choosing
to resist responsibility - he doesn’t want to take advantage of getting into a prestigious
school, and even chooses to get every question on his true false test wrong. So it’s not
surprising that, when he’s first bitten, he resists and actively does not want to take
on the mantle of Spiderman.
“You’re like me.” “I don’t wanna be.”
When he watches Peter Parker fighting off multiple bad guys, he knows he should help
but realizes:
Here, he’s choosing passivity, rather than making an active decision. Regardless, Miles
learns that his choices have ripple effects - Peter Parker dies. Though it’s not implied
he blames himself for Parker’s death, he does blame himself for not doing anything
to try to stop it, as indicated the next time he’s faced with a similar situation:
“I can’t sit there and just let Spiderman die without doing anything about it, I’m
not doing that again.”
We start seeing Miles make active choices, like choosing to help Peter B. Parker steal
trade secrets. We also see Miles taking responsibility for the promises he’s made:
“Look I made a promise, so, I have to keep it.”
This underscores the way the theme of choice is used as a new take on the cliche Spiderman
theme of:
“With great powers, comes great-” “Don’t you dare finish that sentence.
Don’t do it. I’m sick of it.”
In the first two-thirds of the film, we watch Miles accept his new identity and express
desire to keep the promises he made to Peter Parker and save the glitching Spiderpeople.
But we start to realize that Miles’ choice to embrace being Spiderman won’t be enough,
as he can’t control his finnecky powers. However, in the next pivotal scene, Miles
asks Peter B. Parker:
“When will I know I’m ready?” “You won’t, it’s a leap of faith.”
Here, the film posits a so-called “leap of faith” or the choice to take a chance
and embrace the scary unknown, which here means diving into a dangerous situation without
knowing if you’re ready. Miles is able to take this leap after an encouraging monologue
from his father, who says a lot of adorable dad-ish stuff like:
“I see this, this spark in you, it-it’s amazing. It’s why I push you, but, it’s
yours. Whatever you choose to do with it you’ll be great.”
The message seems to be that the choice to believe in oneself is ultimately the most
important choice of all - as soon as Miles is able to do that, he goes from Sticky Fingers
to Smooth Operator. Well, at least when it comes to Spidermanning, he could still use
some work in the romance department.
“Friends?” “Friends.”
It’s also worth noting that Peter B. Parker similarly undergoes a leap of faith in one’s
self when he returns to his own dimension, and, rather than bemoaning his fate, attempts
to fix it: He reconciles with MJ, presumably in the hopes of finally making his dad bod
dad-certified, even though he doesn’t know if he’s ready to start changing diapers.
“Do I want kids?”
So there you have it. A film with truly smart screenwriting that uses quantum theory thematically
to mirror the main characters larger emotional arc. Smart, yes. But deep like...deep dish
pizza? Deep like... Wait a second - What’s the deal with this:
Argument 2: Is Great Expectations A Great,Deep, or Dumb Reference?
Charles Dickens’ novel Great Expectations becomes a recurring reference in the film.
Miles’s English class is reading the book, he gets assigned to write an essay on it after
deliberately failing a test, and he even riffs on the book’s title in his graffiti art.
The recurring presence of this novel, on its face, seems to imply that Miles has the potential
to go from average Brooklyn kid to truly dope superhero, that he will literally go from
having “no expectations” to living up to majorly great expectations. After his uncle
dies, Miles throws the notebook with his “Great Expectations” graffiti art out of the window,
as if giving up on the task before him. In direct rebuttal, Peter B Parker throws the
notebook right back at him, as if insisting that he live up to the great Spiderman name.
So, surface-level reference? Or a deep thematic connection? It appears to just be a surface
level nod to Dickens’ novel, as it doesn’t really speak to what the book is about. Importantly,
it seems to ignore the fact that Dickens’ novel deals heavily in irony and satire, and
his protagonist, Pip, is something of a punchline. A blacksmith’s nephew & apprentice, Pip
is obsessed with improving his status and becoming more sophisticated so that he can
win over his truly-unpleasant love interest, Estella. While Miles is special in spite of
his initial desire to just be normal, and generally not live up to his potential, Pip
believes he is special and entitled to more than his humble lot in life, and thus spends
the book attempting to realize the “great expectations” he has for himself. The entire
story is told from the point of view of an older Pip, who has since learned that his
expectations were baloney. In contrast, Miles learns, over the course of the film, that
his expectations for himself need to be higher. You could read them as foils to one another,
but we don’t really see how that contrast deepens the meaning, or adds anything much
of value to the film. So we’re going to say that, in this interpretation, the film
is Deep with a debatably kinda-dumb literary reference.
Argument 3 - The Spiderverse as Eye Candy
But there’s one more layer to this film that we’d be dumb not to mention: its visuals.
From a purely aesthetic perspective, this film is absolutely revolutionary. For context:
Basically since 1995, when Pixar released the first CGI animated feature, Toy Story,
the lamp-loving studio has set the standard for what modern animation should look like.
You’d recognize that aesthetic anywhere: Shiny surfaces, clean lines, highly-realistic
imagery. Now we love Pixar as much as the next emotionally-stunted millennial, but we’d
argue that Spiderverse is so visually stunning because it blatantly refuses to conform to
the Pixar look. Instead, the film fully embraces the comic book aesthetic, becoming increasingly
more comic-book-like as Myles transitions into Spiderman.
This is even clear from the opening moments, which show the Sony logo fading into ben day
dots. Ben day dots are those tiny circles you’ll see in some comic books, usually
in the colors of cyan, magenta, yellow, or black. They were initially used by comic book
illustrators in the early to mid-1900s to create a sense of depth and tonal range on
the cheap - printing a bunch of tiny dots was less expensive than printing large swaths
of solid color. Comic book artists today will often use ben day dots to indicate a flashback
or evoke a more retro aesthetic. The geniuses behind Spiderverse’s animation employ ben
day dots throughout the film, particularly during moments of emotional intensity. In
this way, they mimic the aesthetic that accompanied some of the earliest Spiderman comics in the
60s. Through sheer inventiveness, it debatably does more to evoke the original Spiderman
experience than any other rendition before it.
Other comic book visual effects also work their way into the film, from written sound
effects, to actual paneling, to the Spidey Tingle. By incorporating so many hallmark
qualities of comic books - the film inherently defends the oft-maligned medium.
At the same time, the film also visually pays homage to another, frequently derided medium
- street art. First, Miles literally creates eye-popping street art, and we watch the long,
laborious process that entails. Then, the shapes and colors of Miles’ art return with
a vengeance later on when the supercollider is turned on. Also, he spray paints his Spidey
suit, giving it a graffiti’ed aesthetic. Some of the film’s most visually masterful
moments occur when its directly evoking street art - So that’s pretty cool too. The film
elevates both the street art and comic book aesthetic; making a compelling argument for
the artistic merits of both.
For all of these reasons, we’re inclined to see Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse as
a pretty deep film. Couching Mile’s arc in quantum theory is so sharp, and the visuals
are on point. The Great Expectations thing? Eh. It can’t ruin this fun and heartwarming
film. But what do you guys think? Is there, indeed, more to the Miles Morales story than
meets the eye, or is our Peter tingle way off track? Let us know in the comments. Thanks
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