Breaking Down the New Spider-Man: No Way Home Trailer!
Five Mutliversal Villains Make Their MCU Debut…
As December inches closer and closer, fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe have been awaiting the marketing for the MCU’s next installment as if it was their last meal, and finally, we have a new trailer to watch on repeat for the next month or so! With the trailer out, it’s time to talk about it, so if you have yet to see it, I have linked it below, directly from Sony Pictures’ YouTube Channel, so give it a watch and then come back to this…
The big talking point coming out of the trailer is obviously the villains. For some time now, it has been known that Alfred Molina would be returning from Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 as the infamous Doctor Octopus, but this trailer gave viewers their best look at the returning iconic antagonist, who still seems to be very much in tune with his 2002 counterpart, showing signs of a potential change of heart that could be seen playing out in the film. Of course Molina is not the only former Spidey villain returning to the fold, as for several months, leaks insisted that Jamie Foxx, Rhys Ifans, Thomas Haden Church, and Willem Dafoe would be reappearing in their former roles, and we now have official confirmation thanks to this trailer, showing each of them (somewhat, as we do not see the human forms for Sandman or The Lizard). This revelation brings the villain count for No Way Home to a total of five known villains, being;
- Alfred Molina as Otto Octavius AKA Dr. Octopus
- Willem Dafoe as Norman Osborne AKA The Green Goblin
- Rhys Ifans as Dr. Curt Connors AKA The Lizard
- Thomas Haden Church as William Baker AKA Sandman
- Jamie Foxx as Maxwell Dillon AKA Electro
The trailer also sees Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) reveal to the MCU’s Peter Parker (Tom Holland), that each of these multiversal baddies died fighting a version of Spider-Man, noting that it is their destiny, which of course, it being a movie and Peter being Peter, leads to the somewhat annoyingly naïve superhero absconding with some mystical MacGuffin. The big question that we already all know the answer to is… Where are the other Spider-Men that these villains fell to?
Sony, Disney, and/or Marvel Studios seem hellbent on not showing Tobey Maguire or Andrew Garfield in any of the marketing for the film, despite several leaks, as well as their own trailers making it clear as day that the two former Peter Parkers will be making their triumphant return to the big screen this December, but it appears that until the movie hits theaters, we will not see any official media featuring the two of them alongside Tom Holland’s iteration of the famous Web Slinger. If it was not clear enough that these two will return, Molina’s Otto Octavius unmasks Holland’s Parker and states…
You’re Not Peter Parker…
Some last minute fun details/notes from the trailer…
- With Jamie Foxx’s Electro receiving a fresh coat of paint, the electricity around his body now is used to form a look similar to Electro’s classic comic design!
- The shot in which we see MJ (Zendaya) falling down the side of the Statue of Liberty is a clear shot-for-shot reference to Gwen Stacy’s death in The Amazing Spider-Man 2…
- The Statue of Liberty shown within the trailer is under construction, in what appears to be changing of its real life design, to one replacing the statue with one of Captain America, as a giant version of his iconic shield can be seen in the trailer footage!
Closing on a personal note, I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of Spider-Man: No Way Home this December. I grew up on the Raimi trilogy, with significant love for the original two films and thorough enjoyment with Spider-Man 3, flawed and weird as it may be. I love Andrew Garfield as an actor and while The Amazing Spider-Man movies are not that great, I never saw it as an issue with Garfield, more-so an issue with the stories being told. The three cinematic releases into the Marvel Cinematic Universe this year, being Black Widow, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and Eternals, have been all over the place for me, loving both Shang-Chi and Eternals and not really enjoying Black Widow at all, so I am hopeful with this final release for 2021, that we get something truly special. With how ambitious this film seems to be setting itself to be in terms of plot and scope, if it is even just good, that will be acceptable for many.
The one thing I am really hoping for is that Willem Dafoe is in it for the long haul as Norman Osborne, as I think it is safe to say the Raimi version of the character is likely to die or be sent back to his universe by the end of this film, but the MCU will still be without its own Norman Osborne, and following Avengers: Endgame, there is a very big Tony Stark-shaped hole in the world. I for one would be in favor of some big-time, long-term storytelling being set up here, with introducing the MCU’s version of Norman Osborne into the fold as a Tony Stark-like figure who begins his journey as a protagonist before eventually fulfilling his unfortunate destiny of becoming one of the most revered villains to date. Time will tell, but Dafoe has been and always will be Norman Osborne.
Spider-Man: No Way Home releases in theaters on December 17, 2021.
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