MJ – Nerds on Earth https://nerdsonearth.com The best place on earth for nerds. Sun, 19 Dec 2021 21:17:39 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://nerdsonearth.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/cropped-nerds_head_thumb2-100x100.png MJ – Nerds on Earth https://nerdsonearth.com 32 32 All the podcasts from NerdsonEarth.com, under one umbrella. We create short run podcasts for nerds, covering D&D, Marvel, Starfinder, and more! You vote for your favorite shows and they just might get a second season. MJ – Nerds on Earth false episodic MJ – Nerds on Earth jason.sansbury@nerdsonearth.com podcast All the podcasts from NerdsonEarth.com, the best place on Earth for nerds. MJ – Nerds on Earth https://nerdsonearth.com/wp-content/uploads/powerpress/noe-podcast-logo.png https://nerdsonearth.com/blog/ Spider-Man: No Way Home Finishes the Trilogy We Needed https://nerdsonearth.com/2021/12/spider-man-no-way-home-finishes-the-trilogy-we-needed/ Mon, 20 Dec 2021 13:00:00 +0000 https://nerdsonearth.com/?p=37746 Spider-Man_No_Way_Home_banner_001

Nerds on Earth reviews Spider-Man: No Way Home.

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Tom Holland returns in the third MCU Spider-Man movie, and his first of the shows in Phase 4, with Spider-Man: No Way Home. I want to break down my thoughts on the film, which does a wonderful job of addressing the perceived missteps of the latest Spider-Man reboot. As such, there will be spoilers below. So, just as a big warning:

?? SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME SPOILERS BELOW. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! ??

Now that we have that out of the way, Spider-Man No Way Home ended up being exactly what everyone expected: a Spidey reunion of Spider-Mans across the multi-verse, teaming up against the Sinister Six. Well, the Sinister Five if you want to get technical.

In our previous Spider-Man movie article, where we discussed the finer points of Spider-Man: Far From Home, one of the last points we mentioned was that if Sony had made its own Sinister Six movie, it wouldn’t have been nearly as well-received as the Mysterio-laden action-packed MCU film that we were blessed with in 2019. They were right to combine with the creative production of Kevin Feige, Amy Pascal, Jon Watts, and more.

One of the past grievances of the Tom Holland Spider-Man movies is that they lacked that galvanizing moment of tragic loss. In Tobey Maguire’s origin story, we had the loss of Uncle Ben. The same goes for Andrew Garfield’s The Amazing Spider-Man. But so far with Tom Holland, we hadn’t seen any of that loss directly.

A core aspect of Spider-Man’s character is the whole great power, great responsibility schtick. You could certainly argue that Tony Stark served as Spider-Man’s father-figure, but the tone of the movies never really lent themselves to capitalize much on that loss. They’ve been fun. They’ve been cheeky. They’ve shown the more positive aspects of Spider-Man’s character that we all know and love.

But, as it turns out, the MCU has been playing the long-con. Instead of rehashing the origin story of Peter Parker in a single movie (for the third time in two decades), they’ve been giving us an origin trilogy with the loss of Aunt May. And, naturally, she gives Peter the iconic responsibility line to boot.

It certainly marks a turn in the tone for Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, as he was suddenly filled with rage and vengeance over Norman Osborne’s actions. We saw a completely new side of Spider-Man, a darker side, especially in those final moments on the Statue of Liberty’s broken shield. And now that the world has forgotten he is Spider-Man, how will Peter Parker handle the isolation that comes with everyone you hold dear forgetting him completely?

We easily could have seen MJ or Ned take the fall and serve as Peter’s catalyst, but they went with Aunt May. In the end, though, the memory spell ended up taking all three of them, and more.

Tom Holland as Spider-Man in No Way Home
“Do it.”

Another bonus of Spider-Man: No Way Home is how fast-paced the action is. Within the first half hour, Doctor Strange is casting the spell and setting up the action that follows. Inside of the first hour, we’ve become reacquainted with Doc Ock, Green Goblin, Sandman, Electro, and Lizard. And then it’s onto the other Spider-Men. Spider-Mans? I don’t know how the plurals work here.

The point is that the story was constantly moving and snowballing, keeping us on the edge of our seats. Even the Matt Murdock Daredevil cameo was unexpectedly exciting! How great is it that ( ?? HAWKEYE SPOILER INCOMING ??) in the SAME WEEK we got to see the reveal of Vincent D’Onofrio reprising his role as Kingpin in the Hawkeye series, AND we get to see Charlie Cox in Spider-Man: No Way Home?! Such fantastic planning!

What I really enjoyed about the movie is that Spider-Man: No Way Home wasn’t about Spider-Man fighting villains. It was about him doing what he has always tried his best to do: Save them. Spider-Man is a selfless hero, constantly putting himself into harm’s way to protect the ones that he holds dear. Even if that means protecting his enemies from other universes. It’s something that Aunt May understands, and we get that final reminder from her as Peter and Happy visited her gravestone.

Spider-Man and Doctor Strange casting a spell.
Casting the spell happens so early into the movie!

Third, it’s important to note that Spider-Man: No Way Home isn’t a movie filled with cameos. The reprisals and roles of this movie were full-blown master classes in acting. Alfred Molina’s reaction when Peter inserts in the new chip was incredible, as was the full-blown psychological madness of the Green Goblin wrestling control over Willem Dafoe.

In the first half, we get so much fan-service that I could hardly keep up with it. From classic lines like Osborne’s, “I’m something of a scientist myself”, to the introduction of Garfield and Maguire, my theater was hopping! It really followed suit with the tone of the previous two Spider-Man films.

But everytime Dafoe, Molina, or Jamie Foxx took the stage, they absolutely nailed it. Some might go so far as to say that they stole the show! It was almost as if the writers took off the training wheels and let the actors thrive in their roles the ways that they envisioned the character. After so many years, it was as if nobody even missed a step.

A final point about the villains: I really, REALLY wanted a Spider-Man Sinister Six movie, and I’m happy for what I received. We still got the awesome fight sequences of Spider-Man managing a battle on multiple fronts, but he did it with two more of his Spidey friends. That gave us the web-slinging, high-flying action that makes Spider-Man movies such a joy to watch.

I’ve heard remarks that J. Jonah Jameson served as the de facto sixth member of the Sinister Six, thanks to his role in sweeping the general public into the anti-Spider-Man hype. Although, doesn’t that kind of make Mysterio the indirect sixth member? After all, he was the one who publicly announced Spider-Man’s identity to the entire world. Jameson just ran with it.

The other obvious choice for the sixth man was Venom. The mid-credits scene with Tom Hardy gave us that nugget, but I’m not convinced that the Venom in that universe really has any beef with Spider-Man yet. However, it does set us up with future symbiote hijinx in future flicks.

And so where does this leave Spider-Man and his role in the MCU? The world knows Spider-Man, and his role in saving the universe isn’t suddenly removed from the sacred timeline. But Peter Parker is now alone, starting from scratch, watching his friends keep living life with the relative safety of not knowing he is Spider-Man.

It’s a terribly sad burden and sacrifice for Peter to make. He’s just a kid, and yet he gave up everything so that he could protect the people that he holds dear. It’s heartbreaking. He no longer has to juggle two lives, now he is just Spider-Man, regardless of what his coffee cup might say.

I highly recommend checking out Spider-Man: No Way Home. It puts a firm bit of punctuation on Tom Holland’s Spider-Man origin trilogy, and expands our insight into Peter Parker’s emotions in a brand new way. It’s a worthy addition to the Spider-Man lineup, and to the MCU as a whole.

Broken Green Goblin mask from Spider-Man No Way Home
The Green Goblin never truly leaves…

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Spider-Man: Far From Home is the Next Step for the Marvel Universe https://nerdsonearth.com/2019/07/spider-man-far-from-home-marvel-universe/ Sun, 07 Jul 2019 21:28:59 +0000 https://nerdsonearth.com/?p=24873

Nerds on Earth reviews Spider-Man: Far from Home.

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Imagine if you are Sony and Marvel: You just released two really well received Spider-Man movies in a row, with the live action Spider-Man: Homecoming and the amazing animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. But the plot of your next live action movie hinges on a movie that came out before it and that you can’t really use much in marketing, even though technically, your lead character is a bunch of sad ashes floating around some moon deep in the galaxy.

I mean, from the word “Go!” you got a lot to do and manage to make this next film soar. And with the admission that there are spoilers ahead for Avengers: Endgame, here are some of the things that the story did remarkably well in the just released Spider-Man: Far from Home.

First off, let’s talk about how the whole film is an homage to the classic theme of Spider-Man: “With great power must also come great responsibility.” This Peter Parker is the only one where we didn’t get a full origin story. Thankfully the producers of this set of films said “If you don’t know it by now…” and moved forward.

The gist of this film is that Peter is wanting to take a break and just be a regular guy on a trip with his school buddies as they explore Europe. And throughout the movie you get nudges from Aunt May playfully packing his costume for him, to Happy Hogan delivering him a gift from Tony, to the appearance of very cranky Nick Fury who all basically are saying, “We need you in the game. All the time.”

It felt true to the sense of Spidey, without there being a flashback to the scene where Peter is yelling into a rainy sky holding his uncle’s dead body in his arms. It felt like a nice way to trust the audience while still being a wonderful homage to decades of stories!

Second, the casting of this movie is stellar. Zendaya is a revelation as Mary Jane, Peter’s love interest. The addition of the other pieces from the MCU works well. It is nice to see Nick Fury and Colbie Smulders, who has to love getting those checks for showing up and being Maria Hill every once in awhile. (And she is always great at it!)

It just feels like a nice group of high school kids together in Europe with the accompanying things that happen. (The sub-plot of the couple that suddenly gets romantic just for that one trip made me want to call my high school friend Charlie and remind him of how he pledged his undying love to a girl from the next county over at Windy Gap and how quickly she dumped him when we came home and she discovered what losers we were.)

I like high school Peter Parker and the high school issues that he has to face. Tom Holland is the best Spider-Man in live action and it isn’t because the others were awful. He just embodies the earnestness of Peter so well and it makes the whole thing work. And Jake Gyllenhall has to do two things over the course of the movie: 1) be likable and 2) be Mysterio, and he does both of them well.

Third, this movie helps clear up some of the Endgame issues that are hanging out there. It doesn’t do a deep dive but it addresses what do you do when people who were dead for 5 years come back and haven’t aged. (Conveniently, that is most of Peter and his high school friends from the first movie.) To think about how people’s age versus real world age and the bureaucracy that would create in a real world is fascinating.

Plus, we get a nice comedic subplot about how someone “dusts” themselves out of all their relationships to run away with their hook-up. Humanity is awful and of course at least one person would do that. It was just a nice, subtle way to push some of those things forward and help the MCU continue to re-set the universe for its next stage.

That said, there are some closing post-credit scenes that have major, major implications, the first one for Peter Parker and the second for the whole dang Marvel Universe!

Again, Sony was incredibly smart to turn away from its own desperate attempts to hold on to the Spider-Man rights as a cash grab and decide instead to connect back into the Marvel Universe. I cannot imagine a Sony solo produced Sinister Six movie would have done anything near the box office that these last two live action Spider-Man movies have done, much less be better stories.

Instead, Sony made that partnership and leased back the character it had leased from Marvel in the first place, tying it to a Marvel train that just continues to tell great stories and make money. I am terrified that some jerk producer at Sony is going to think they don’t need Marvel now and try and do their own Venom / Spider-Man crossover and wonder why it tanked and, most importantly waste some of the teenage years that the cast has left when they should be telling the next wave of stories. Please, Marvel and Sony: continue to play nice and benefit one another!

If you haven’t yet seen Spider-Man: Far From Home, you should definitely check it out, for all the things above plus it serves as a nice thought piece about reality and special effects and what really matters in the very special effects heavy piece of a superhero movie!

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