20 Years Later

 
 Spider-Man (April 29, 2002) 

Wow. I’d never thought to talk about this movie, but it’s been that long. 

On April 29, 2002, a certain friendly neighbourhood web-slinger arrived in theatres like a streak of light: Spider-Man, starring Tobey Macguire and directed by Sam Raimi of the Evil Dead fame. 

This movie….what can I even say about it? Two years earlier, Fox had had their successful comic-book movie with 2000’s X-Men, and before that was New Line Cinema’s Blade film in 1998. These two films and their success not only helped with the success of Spider-Man by showing people that good comic book movies were possible but also paved the way for the later success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe that would follow years later. 

We all know the story of Spider-Man from both comics and animation, but let’s do a little review for those of you who may not have read the comics, watched the cartoons, played the games, or seen any of the movies. Peter Parker is an ordinary teenager: bright but isolated from other kids his age. His parents died when he was young, and he’s been cared for by his Aunt May and Uncle Ben, who’s struggling financially. Peter wants nothing more than to pay them back for everything they’ve done for him. 

And he gets his chance in a way few could have imagined: while on a school science trip, Peter gets bitten by a radioactive genetically altered spider. The accident changes his DNA giving him increased strength (often referred to in the comics as the “proportionate strength of a spider”), agility, the ability to cling to walls, and his most iconic power, the Spider-Sense. The ability to detect danger before it happens and react to it. 

Seeing that his time has come, Peter leaps to use this money to help his Aunt May and Uncle Ben and becomes a wrestler, getting into the ring with Bonesaw McGraw and beating the veteran down, but gets stiffed on his fee because the match went too quickly. As he’s leaving, he sees a thief making away with the money for the matches but does nothing to prevent it as a form of petty revenge. 

This selfishness comes back to bite him when his Uncle gets shot later. Peter tracks down the killer only to meet the man he refused to stop earlier when he rips off the killer’s mask. Because of that choice, one of the most important person in Peter’s life died. 

And so, having learned that with great power, there must come great responsibility, Peter devotes his life to saving lives, fighting evil, and using his power to help as many people as he can, as Spider-Man. 

Not the Amazing Spider-Man. That’s a different dude who’s also the same dude. 

  As I said, we all know this story, but Tobey and his film, however, are what brought it to the big screen for the first time. And this Spider-Man movie had almost everything. It had the origin. It had had our hero swinging on a thread if you took a look overhead. It had J. Jonah Jameson—played magnificently by J.K. Simmons—being a massive blowhard. It even had Aunt May being sent to the hospital! 

Cause that used to happen a lot. That poor woman constantly had one foot in the grave. 

For me, one of the quintessential scenes of the movie was Peter first realizing he had his powers and slowly testing him out, as shown in this Youtube clip below: 

The look on his face and the whoop of exhilaration he gives as he realizes he can crawl on walls, his hilarious attempts to get his webbing to work. That’s something that many of us would do if we suddenly got superpowers. 

However, it’s not all fun and games—and smashing faces into billboards. Peter also has to contend with his greatest enemy. The Green Goblin, aka Norman Osborne, played by Willem Dafoe. 

The Goblin has always held the role of one of Peter’s most personal foes. During the course of the film, Dafoe’s Goblin does his best to match his comic’s incarnations villainy as shown by this second youtube clip: 

Man. That’s some good quality evil. Attacking a little old lady while she’s praying and threatening her into finishing the prayer? Only a comic book movie could get away with something like that. And, of course, it’s faithful to canon too. 

As I said before, May ended up in the hospital a lot. 

There were changes back then, of course. First off, in direct defiance of the famous song from Spidey’s 1967 animated series, the spider that bit him, as mentioned above, was genetically altered rather than radioactive. Next up, this Peter doesn’t create web-shooters; his webs are natural, making him one of the few incarnations of Spider-Man to truly do everything a Spider can. This is one of the more notable changes. As a long-time comic book fan, I was OK with it. Back then, I questioned if a teenager could create such a revolutionary adhesive that dissolves in one hour on the apparent shoe-string budget Peter is constantly forced to work with. Now, I may be wrong on that, but that’s how I felt. Some fans may have been annoyed at the extra ability, but it never bothered me. The biggest issue is that we’d never get any moments where Peter accidentally ran out of web-fluid mid-swing. Still, the sequel would acknowledge that with its subplot of Peter’s powers being on the fritz. 

Also, Norman and the Goblin were not separate personalities in the original books. Norman was the Goblin, 24/7. He did lose his memory for a bit, but the Goblin was always really him. The idea of Norman and the Goblin being separate is something the movie lifted from 1994’s Spider-Man: The Animated Series that aired on Fox. Next up, the wrestler that Peter fought against was not Bonesaw Mcgraw (and not played by the late Randy “Macho-Man” Savage) but Crusher Hogan (possibly named after Hulk Hogan, but I never confirmed that). 

Most of these changes the film made would not find their way to the comics, as is often the case with movies. Nonetheless, the success of the original Sony Spider-Man film would have reverberations through the film and comic world. As I said earlier, this film and the X-Men films opened the door for more Comic Book movies. Some successful, some not so much, until finally, Marvel would decide to stop letting others do films of their characters and start doing things themselves, beginning with Iron man in 2008. 

This incarnation of Spider-Man would appear two more times, first in Spider-Man 2 in 2004 and then in the far less successful Spider-Man 3 in 2007. The poor showing of the third movie would end Tobey’s run, being replaced by a Continuity reboot in 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man (which will have its day in the sun come June) so look forward to that), starring Andrew Garfield. 

J.K. Simmons would become to J. Jonah Jameson what Patrick Stewart became to Professor Charles Xavier and reprise the role in games, animation, and, most recently, in the MCU third Spider-Man film. 

All three Tobey Spider-Man movies would see video game adaptations. The second game, in particular, used a Wide Open Sandbox gameplay style, wherein between story beats, you could go around the city saving people, stopping attacks and robberies, and helping little girls get back their balloons. 

Unless you were me, I was awful at finding those balloons. 

The Second Spider-Man game would influence a lot of later Spider-Man games, all the way up to the recent PS4 (and PS5) incarnations. 

There would also be a brief arc in Ultimate Spider-Man for Marvel Comic’s Ultimate line, where a Spider-Man movie was being made, including cameos by Tobey MacGuire and Sam Raimi. 

Years later, Tobey would return to the role alongside Andrew Garfield in 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, bringing together his, Garfield’s, and Tom Holland’s Spider-Man in one movie. Nearly 20 years after the first film hit theatres. 

And all because of this movie. I don’t know if we were ready for Sony’s Spider-Man.  

Well, except for Bonesaw.

(Randy Macho Man Savage as Bonesaw McGraw clip provided courtesy of Gipy.com)