Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
December 14, 2018 8:34 PM - Subscribe

Spider-Man crosses parallel dimensions and teams up with the Spider-Men of those dimensions to stop a threat to all reality.

Rotten Tomatoes' Critics' Consensus: “...matches bold storytelling with striking animation for a purely enjoyable adventure with heart, humor, and plenty of superhero action.”

Jason Johnson for The Root: “I Expected to Hate Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Then Marvel Made It Extra Black.”

A.O. Scott for The New York Times: “This may be the first ‘Spider-Man’ feature to qualify as a great New York movie.”

Eleanor Shellstrop, Arizona Trash Bag: “No more Spider-Man movies! There's way too many Spider-Man movies! Too many dorky little twerpy Spider-Men.”
posted by D.Billy (139 comments total) 30 users marked this as a favorite
 
IT IS THE BEST MOVIE. And tomorrow when it’s not hours past bedtime I am going to listen to the soundtrack on repeat.
posted by annathea at 8:44 PM on December 14, 2018 [8 favorites]


This was amazing. The jokes we're earned, and the insanity ratchets up ever so slowly, without taking you out of the film's spell. Just loved how clever everything was.
posted by bfranklin at 10:12 PM on December 14, 2018 [6 favorites]


Oooo, I was just coming to make a post on this. Me and my daughter loooooved it! Spiderman was my comic of choice as a kid, and I feel like the only person on Earth who didn't like the Raimi movies (the Garfield movies were just a big nothingburger, Homecoming was good).

This felt like a real spiderman movie to me. The affection, the humour, the colour palette, I just loved everything about it.

Kudos for them on taking a chance with the animation, actually giving it a style, and a bold style at that. It worked super well for me - I only wish I had seen the movie in 3d.

My daughter was so excited to see SpiderGwen. "Daddy - did you see? She's better than Spiderman!". this illustrates the paucity of superior female characters in movies, that a 7 year old girl can see this and be shocked. Made me very happy.
posted by smoke at 10:43 PM on December 14, 2018 [24 favorites]


From a comics perspective, this film, above all the other superhero movies, embraced its print past. The extensive use of screentone dots, the use of panels and text boxes, the exclamations as moving text in the frame, the insane angles and shifting horizons. These people know their material and its materiality. It wasn't just a great movie with an excellent story, it was a love letter to reading those specific comics while being a kid. The animation here traveled in time in opposite directions simultaneously, looking forward and breaking new ground, while honoring it's fragile and pulpy past. I really liked this movie. My whole family did. Amazing indeed, Mr. Spider-man. Please make more like this.
posted by Stanczyk at 5:31 AM on December 15, 2018 [17 favorites]


I repeatedly make this mistake: I hear that some big franchise movie is brilliant and groundbreaking and better than all the others, and I go to see it and… it’s just another big action movie.

But this time I really thought it was much better than it had any right to be. It was really good. We’ve had years of comic book movies and finally we get one which makes use of the visual creativity of the original medium. In retrospect it’s surprising it took so long, but even though it’s a great idea, they could easily have screwed it up.

I think it’s almost entirely the visual brilliance that lifts it above; if you filmed the same script as a live action movie it would be an above-average, tightly written, cool, funny Spiderman film but I don’t think it would be that special. But apart from anything else, it’s just great to see a big studio animation which isn’t either classic Disney style or Pixar-esque digimation.
posted by Bloxworth Snout at 5:46 AM on December 15, 2018 [13 favorites]


Glad to see this finally pop up. I saw a preview screening two weeks ago and it's been so tough not blabbing spoilers all over the place.

It is so much better than it has any business being. It looks amazing - as has already been said, they leaned hard into the aesthetics of comics, not just the idea that comics have panels and borders like Ang Lee and Edgar Wright have played with, but also the physical medium of comics and how they are rendered and printed. My only quible was the way they rendered out of focus areas as though the print colours were misaligned did sometimes look too much like you're watching an old red/blue 3D movie without the glasses on.

I was so, so excited that they leaned in hard to the whole Spider-Verse, not just Peter and Miles but also the characters like Spider-Ham. Friggin' Spider-Ham! And the post credit character (are we doing spoilers on that sort of thing here?) was not only a great way to keep this type of cross-over open for sequels but also a nice casting choice.

But the biggest thing for me was how this movie nailed the characterization of both Peter and Miles in a way that Insomniac's recent Spider-Man game totally failed to do. This is the Miles I want the greater, non-comic reading world to know and love.
posted by thecjm at 9:18 AM on December 15, 2018 [5 favorites]


Can we talk for a moment about the moral implications of Spider-Ham eating a hotdog in that final scene? Dark af, man.
posted by absalom at 9:35 AM on December 15, 2018 [3 favorites]


Can we talk for a moment about the moral implications of Spider-Ham eating a hotdog in that final scene? Dark af, man.

Peter Porker, Spider-Ham isn't a pig. He's a spider who was bitten by a radioactive cartoon pig and though that transformed him into a pig, he retained the proportional powers of a spider.

So is he a pig now? Can pigs eat hot dogs? What about spiders? Because I bet there's a tiny bit of ground up spider in every hot dog too.
posted by thecjm at 9:55 AM on December 15, 2018 [7 favorites]


Yes, I know his story. It still raises questions.
posted by absalom at 9:59 AM on December 15, 2018 [5 favorites]


Spider Pig!
Spider Pig!
Does whatever a spider pig does!
Can he swing from a web?

No he can't
He's a pig
Lookout!
He is the spider pig!
posted by Stanczyk at 11:48 AM on December 15, 2018 [11 favorites]


My favorite part: Aunt May’s sofa cushions are covered in plastic.

And really, by far the best Aunt May ever. You know that the Peter Parker of this universe excelled because he had her for backup.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 11:52 AM on December 15, 2018 [33 favorites]


This movie was great based on the animation alone. The story was boiler-plate and by-the-numbers. Another goddamn origin story chock-a-block with all the inevitable angst and insecurity. Miles spent almost an hour running away from fights in not a Spidey suit. Homecoming is the better story by far, but the Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy Spiders were great. Oh look, it's D.V.A. Jump scared? Anyway, I did enjoy it, but it's not the 2nd coming of Spider-Man film.
posted by Brocktoon at 4:17 PM on December 15, 2018 [1 favorite]


I loved this so much. Miles and his family were great, the fascination of Spider-Man Noir with the Rubik's Cube, a Doc Ock who doesn't have a shitty bowl haircut, and Spider-Man sings!

The only thing I didn't like were the 15 minutes of previews at my theater, but at least they did have a couple of people dressed up as Spider-Man and Spider-Gwen when we were there.

I hope it makes all the money, because I want to see more like this, please.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 4:33 PM on December 15, 2018 [1 favorite]


"My friends call me Liv. My enemies call me Doc Ock."
20 minutes later...
Aunt May: "Oh, great. It's Liv."
posted by ssmith at 9:46 PM on December 15, 2018 [60 favorites]


Can we talk for a moment about the moral implications of Spider-Ham eating a hotdog in that final scene? Dark af, man.

Chill out man, it's kosher.
posted by Strange Interlude at 11:03 PM on December 15, 2018 [2 favorites]


Aunt May: "Oh, great. It's Liv."

Makes sense; 616’s Aunt May had a relationship with Doc Ock, too.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 10:56 AM on December 16, 2018 [14 favorites]


The. Best. Aunt. May.

also... Nic Cage as Spider Noir !
posted by kokaku at 2:41 PM on December 16, 2018 [6 favorites]


I may have enjoyed other comic book movies as hugely as I enjoyed this, but this is maybe the first comic book movie I've seen that feels like it loves comics the way that I love comics.
posted by jameaterblues at 6:48 PM on December 16, 2018 [15 favorites]


I drink egg-creams and I fight nazis.

I loved everything about this damn movie. The animation was so good and it had the writing to back it up. And so much heart. I already want to see it again.
posted by Gordafarin at 3:14 AM on December 17, 2018 [12 favorites]


Abigail Nussbaum recommends the film: "an absolutely gorgeous movie, a feast for the eyes where every frame and action sequence seems to have been carefully planned, and where every assumption we make about how animation should look is exploded with terrific results."

I noticed Bendis and Ditko showing up in the phone address books of our characters' cellphones!

I sporfled aloud at "I think it's a Banksy." and when Spider-Pig says "That's all, folks" and another Spider-Man says "wait, can he say that? legally?"

I also noticed Miles's dad's badge reading DAVIS (I presume Miles took his mom's surname). And his first name is Jeff. The character's name is Jefferson Davis???

The end credits were better than some James Bond opening song sequences. Glorious.

What a fun ride of a film.
posted by brainwane at 10:49 AM on December 17, 2018 [11 favorites]


Well, that was great.
posted by kyrademon at 1:28 PM on December 17, 2018 [1 favorite]


I loved everything about this, including the soundtrack. THE SOUNDTRACK IS SO GOOD.
posted by crossoverman at 3:22 PM on December 17, 2018 [6 favorites]


And the ‘flashlight’ beam that was pixelated? And the incredibly kick ass Lily Tomlin as the incredibly kick ass Aunt May? And in the end fight sequence was that the WB water tower flying by?

And oh geez I loved the heck outta this movie.
posted by mce at 3:25 PM on December 17, 2018 [3 favorites]


I wrote a fairly long post about this movie that I apparently neglected to post. Summary: the movie is real good y'all.

One thought I hadn't included was about old Peter. I think he not only represents the old Spider-Man, but is also in part a stand-in for old Spider-fans. He's old, worn out, alone, bitter, and regretful. He meets this fresh new version who is full of potential but Miles isn't Peter Parker, isn't himself. He might have accepted the Peter Parker who died in Miles' universe because they're so similar, but Peter B Parker is distrustful of change. He's dismissive of someone young and new.

One of the movie's theses (and it has several) is that any Spider-Man can be your Spider-Man. Letting a new one in the club doesn't diminish "the original"* in any way whatsoever. In fact, by accepting Miles and taking him under his wing, Peter B Parker reinvigorates himself. He's less bitter, more open to change, and strives to be a better version of himself. I think this is a not-so-subtle commentary on the insular middle-aged comic books fans who rail against any change to their version of the character. The filmmakers are saying that you can have both and neither detracts from the other.

And, if you can't accept this black/latinx teenager who tags his neighborhood and does graffiti murals (loved that part because it reminded me of the back of the 90's Spider-Man trading card set [and also all the great street art when I lived in Philly]) as Spider-Man then surely you must not be cool with Spider-Ham, who is just a series of cartoon gags and thinly veiled Looney Tunes pastiches.

Perhaps I'm overthinking it...

* I have problems with this term for any Spider-Man that appears in the film, but I can't think of a better term. None of them are original, nor could they be. Peter B Parker bears little resemblance to the Peter Parker that Ditko and Lee created. That version hasn't really appeared since Romita took over and turned Peter into more of a leading man in a romance comic than a bespectacled nerd. Spider-Man is like Doctor Who. Same character, different actors.
posted by runcibleshaw at 7:13 PM on December 17, 2018 [32 favorites]




(found those comments in a tab I'd left open...)

Saw it last night. Some thoughts in no particular order:

Possibly the best spider-anything committed to film ever.

The movie starts off with a gag about how everyone already knows the Spider-Man origin story so they're not going to spend a lot of time on it (a complaint many had after the first live action reboot and which the newest live action reboot avoids). It then proceeds to tell no fewer than 6 more Spider-person origin stories! They clowned extremely hard on the live action folks with that.

Almost nothing in the film in terms of plot or reveals was a surprise to me since I read most of the comics these characters were based on. Didn't reduce my enjoyment a bit. If anything it made it better.

Nic Cage!

John Mullaney was absolutely perfect as Spider-Ham, and way they animated the character's nose-holes in his mask was a delight.

Kirby dots!

The colors, oh my god the colors. I am a person who really enjoys a saturated palette and I could not have been happier. My retinas were seared and I couldn't feel better about it.
posted by runcibleshaw at 7:43 AM on December 18, 2018 [18 favorites]


It's been a long, long while since I've been as delighted by a movie as I was by this one. I have literally nothing bad to say about it. I mean...it must have flaws, but whatever they were, the rest of the movie insured that I did not register them.

It went beyond being a Spider-Man movie and became a movie about our (the audience's) relationship to the idea of Spider-Man. There was a lot of warmth, and a lot of wisdom in it, without it ever becoming cloying. Visually, this thing seemed to be approaching collage at some points. And the soundtrack album is killer as well!

This was not the super-hero movie that I expected to make me cry, but here we are I guess.
posted by Ipsifendus at 9:01 AM on December 18, 2018 [11 favorites]


Also saw it last night. Now that I've had some time to process: DAMN. What a movie. Incredible visual style that probably comes as close as humanly possible to putting a superhero comic on screen (thus ridding us of the last reason to care about Ang Lee's Hulk) but also a really amazing/spectacular/sensational/web-of translation of what's so great about Spider-Man, both in general and in the Miles Morales era specifically. "You get back up," "anyone can wear the mask," etc. And the soundtrack! Of course that landed right after my free Tidal subscription ran out.

More specific nerding-out:

Everything about the visual style is great, and the decision to use different styles for the alternate-universe Spiders paid off in spades, but in particular I love love love the decision to use Bill Sienkiewicz's design for Kingpin. I never dreamed his surreal, monstrous art would translate that well to the screen. Liev Schrieber's choice of accent was great too -- Spider-Man is second only to Ben Grimm as Marvel's New Yorkiest hero so the more of that we get in the adaptations, the better.

So many quick background gags to go back and discover. Looking over reviews and fan-sites I found that I missed a ton of touches in Miles' universe that show it's not "our" world, way beyond the police cars that say PDNY instead of NYPD. The two that come to mind now are runaway inflation (the receipt for Peter and Miles' burger breakfast shows a tab of $30,000 -- no wonder Pete couldn't pay!) and "Koca-Soda" replacing Coca-Cola.

Tombstone, who in the comics is an African-American man with albinism, is voiced by the rapper Krondon, who in real life is an African-American man with albinism. (He also played Tobias Whale, ditto, in CW's live-action Black Lightning series)

I'm surprised they didn't go any deeper into Spider-Gwen's history. I guess part of that is because both versions of Peter seem to have followed the Sam Raimi plotline for their early 20s rather than the comics', so Gwen was just a fling and not their first love, but even so it's weird to see any version of Peter Parker pining over the parallel universe Mary Jane but not even blink an eye at Gwen Stacy standing in front of him with superpowers. And we only get a very quick hint of who her dead "friend" was (that would be the Earth-65 Lizard, AKA Peter Parker).

I also noticed Miles's dad's badge reading DAVIS (I presume Miles took his mom's surname). And his first name is Jeff. The character's name is Jefferson Davis???

It's implied (or outright stated, I forget) in the comics that Jeff's family has a thing for naming their kids after historical figures. Think about what Miles' name would be if he went by his father's surname.

Holy shit, the end credits. I want to watch that a million more times. And then the stinger! Straight from "wait, is that...." to "holy shit IT IS!" to collapsing in hysterical laughter. This is why the *chef kiss* gesture was invented.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 9:10 AM on December 18, 2018 [18 favorites]


Oh shit, I almost forgot! They kept Spider-Ham's origin! It's crazy enough that Peter Porker is in this big-budget Hollywood movie, but they show him as a mild-mannered spider being bitten by a radioactive pig! I LOVE COMICS AND I LOVE THIS MOTION PICTURE.

(Also, probably the best testimonial I can give is that my wife, who's been running on intense sleep deprivation, only came to the theater because it was a birthday get-together for a good friend of ours and told everyone that she fully expected to sleep through most of the movie, was rapt through the whole thing and came out raving about how great it was.)
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 9:21 AM on December 18, 2018 [6 favorites]


Oh, this was great. So very good. I liked the Aaron twist (spiders don't do well with uncles, do they?), I really liked the animation. I wish I could get a video of "Spider Bells" and loved the last line "Why did I agree to this? I have a degree in chemical engineering." I liked the comic book stylings and the explanation of all the spiders. I liked that Miles goes from no mentor to "janky hobo" mentor to having too many mentors and the real challenge is whether or not the very brand new guy can handle this compared to the experts who've at least had a few years of practice. Peter B. Parker was done very well and I liked Spider-Gwen and kind of root for that cross-universe ship.

Can someone explain Peni Parker to me? I don't remember seeing her in the trailers really (and she doesn't seem to be represented at all in the animated credits). Does she have spider powers or did she just build a robot? Is she a famous thing like the rest?

I continue to be baffled at names like Jefferson Davis (ditto Jefferson Jackson on Legends of Tomorrow). Nice that Miles got his mom's last name though. Too bad she's not in it much.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:14 PM on December 18, 2018 [1 favorite]


Peni debuted at the same time as Spider-Gwen, in the run-up to the first Spider-Verse crossover, but didn't make nearly the same kind of splash so she's only appeared in events that involve a bunch of alternate-universe spider-heroes teaming up.

As I understand it, her father (probably named Peter?) was bitten by a radioactive spider and developed a telepathic rapport with it instead of getting his own superpowers like the others. He built the SP//DR mech for the spider to pilot and they became a sort of two-in-one superhero package. After he died in the line of duty, Peni was willingly bitten by the same spider to recreate the telepathic bond and became the new human half of the SP//DR duo.

Comics, everybody!
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 4:57 AM on December 19, 2018 [16 favorites]


My kid's first superhero movie in the theater was Lego Batman, and the second was Into the Spiderverse. Both fantastic films, but I worry that the younger set of audience members are going to be disappointed by any superhero flicks that deal with only one dimension.

If the trailer for the new Avengers is any indication, a casual understanding of quantum theory and parallel dimensions is going to be for them like spaceflight was to the genre films of the 20th century.
posted by subocoyne at 2:41 PM on December 19, 2018 [9 favorites]


they rendered out of focus areas as though the print colours were misaligned did sometimes look too much like you're watching an old red/blue 3D movie without the glasses on.

I loved the movie and animation but this aspect really messed with me to the point where I looked around to make sure everyone else wasn't wearing 3D glasses that I had missed. I thought maybe they were purposefully trying to duplicate that aesthetic.

Anyway. This was a breath of creative fresh air in the realm of animation, even speaking outside the superhero genre. I was kind of worried because most people I know aren't interested in seeing it based on the trailers, even though I know they'd really enjoy it. But it seems to be doing well in the box office, so that's a good sign.
posted by Emily's Fist at 12:16 AM on December 20, 2018 [4 favorites]


I haven't read any Spider-Man comics since the Todd McFarlane run in the 1990s so I know my basic Spider-Man but not much more than that. I simply couldn't place the Kingpin's henchman in that Spawn-lookin' getup. At some point Miles says something along the lines of "the Prowler was here!" or "the Prowler almost got me!" and I thought to myself, "okay thank you for scratching that 'what is that character's name?' itch I was having, but how does Miles know his name?"

Similar situation when Peter B. Parker has Miles bound to his chair in his dorm room and tells him to use his 'venom strike' to break the webbing. Miles has just received these powers and I'm pretty sure he hadn't gotten around to naming them yet.

Both examples are just instances of the writers knowing the universe and its details and were just forgetting to introduce them to us. Or maybe I'm wrong, maybe those things were brought up somewhere earlier and I just missed it.

... but I doubt it, because I was sitting there wide-eyed and with rapt attention. I enjoyed the hell out of that movie. If these tiny nitpicky errors (if they can even be called errors) are the worst I can come up with, they did a pretty good job making this film.

Now please bring me a full-length Spider-Gwen movie, same animation and writing team. PLEASE.
posted by komara at 7:31 AM on December 20, 2018 [8 favorites]


Now please bring me a full-length Spider-Gwen movie, same animation and writing team. PLEASE.

Voltron's co-showrunner Joaquim Dos Santos has signed on to direct the Spider-Verse sequel, while Voltron's other showrunner Lauren Montgomery is in talks to direct the Spider-Gwen spin-off.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 7:58 AM on December 20, 2018 [21 favorites]


oh snap

have I run out of Christmas wishes yet? Because if not I would like to also request movies in this exact same style for both Ms. Marvel and Squirrel Girl please and thank you.
posted by komara at 8:01 AM on December 20, 2018 [14 favorites]




I really hope that Spider Verse ushers in a whole slate of super-high-quality, stylistically diverse animated comics movies. Fantastic Four, plz!
posted by D.Billy at 1:34 PM on December 20, 2018 [3 favorites]


Quick FYI before my very long comment -- for anyone who's lurking to decide whether to see the movie, please be aware that it's got a lot of quick cuts and flashes that could be difficult for people with photosensitive conditions! I somehow adjusted before I got a migraine, but I've heard about people with epilepsy having problems.
posted by bettafish at 5:59 PM on December 20, 2018 [4 favorites]


This is a film made by people who love comics as a medium, and Spider-Man in all it's very tangled mythology, and want to share that love with everybody, whether they feel the same way or they just had time to kill on a weekend. And it worked! I can't remember the last time I heard an audience so audibly engaged in a film, and this has been the year of Last Jedi, Black Panther, and Infinity Gauntlet.

Miles was the Miles I've always wanted to get from the comics and never quite gotten; Peter was...not quite my Peter, who hasn't junked his own life that badly yet, but way closer to him than I ever expected to see on film after 16 years of starry-eyed, novice teenagers. And yeah, the "mentor inspires mentee who inspires him back" plot is as old as fiction, but it was done with such heart and specificity here. Miles isn't just afraid of growing up, he's overwhelmed by the pressure to make something of himself while knowing that he's been handed an opportunity that so many other kids in his community are never going to get. Peter isn't just afraid of growing old, he's realized that he ruined his relationship with the woman he loves out of what he thought was an irreconcilable difference but was actually fear, and he's still terrified to try and fix it. And they both put their lives on the line to keep each other safe and in doing so inspire each other to get back up and trust in themselves again and it's so good, UGH. My feelings.

Misc bits of delight:
⁃ After 56 years of, "He's a Protestant, really? Are you sure?" Peter Parker (and/or Mary Jane Watson) is FINALLY, canonically Jewish! (Peter A is gentile, though, he was buried in a church.)
⁃ MJ is a strong presence in the film despite not actually showing up much. Aunt May is a strong presence in the film because ALL HER SCENES ARE INCREDIBLE. (And hell yes she was engaged to Liv.)
⁃ Chris Pine is totally convincing as that guy you meet for five minutes who changes your life forever. And between this, Rise of the Guardians, ST: Into Darkness (yes, I know! But his death scene was good), and Wonder Woman, is he the Sean Bean for Millennials?
⁃ I'm mad I can't legally stream Atlanta in my country because Brian Tyree Henry was so good with a character who could have been thankless and by the books and now I want to see a lot more of him.
⁃ How is Prowler the scariest character in a film with the Green Goblin, Doc Ock AND Kingpin?? Whoever did the sound design for that character deserves all the awards. And I was on tenterhooks as to whether Aaron would attack Miles or not after he found out who he was!
⁃ During the credits I told my friends, "I hope they release at least one Christmas song on the soundtrack," and then "Spidey Bells" came on.
⁃ Here's some comics nerd/animation design trivia for you: Peter A's mask is based off of the design of Mark Bagley, the main artist of Ultimate Spider-Man (the version of Peter who was eventually succeeded by Miles). Peter B's mask is clearly based on the style of John Romita Sr (who solidified the "classic" look of Spidey, Peter, and...the entire rest of the cast, pretty much) -- except when he squints, and his mask goes Steve Ditko.

A quibble and an issue:
⁃ Yeah yeah I know it was just to arrange that scene between her and Peter B, but my girl MJ would never go to an event arranged by the Kingpin without an ulterior motive, are you kidding me
⁃ I'm always happy to see Kimiko Glenn getting work, but in a film that otherwise strives so hard towards inclusiveness, it was... disappointing that Peni was basically just "anime waifu Spider-Man." Particularly since Rio Morales barely appears compared to Jefferson, MJ's white despite being voiced by Zoe Kravitz, and most especially that the comics have interesting, non-stereotypical spider-women of color, Cindy Moon and Anya Corazon, who've been sidelined in not insignificant part because of the White Feminist Cult of Gwen. I know Cindy is slated to appear in the Spider-Women movie and her own solo film, but even if they both come to fruition this is an ongoing issue in SFF media -- women of color are still expected to wait our turn after white women and men of color when it comes to being included as main or even important secondary characters.
posted by bettafish at 5:59 PM on December 20, 2018 [27 favorites]


(I did say it was a long comment.)
posted by bettafish at 6:00 PM on December 20, 2018 [1 favorite]


They released a whole Christmas album (okay, five songs of it) and damn can Shameik Moore actually sing:
https://open.spotify.com/album/1dO8j15uVKxkHA92rYufUv?si=B_bEZdeSTN-FDfecLX-uXA


I loved how Miles was the emotional core of the movie. He felt like a fully realized kids with his own interests, and seeing that tie into his superheroic pursuits (when he made his own suit with SPRAY PAINT because he's an ARTIST) was amazing. (+ if you liked this movie read Jason Reynolds's Spider-Man novelization, he's also one of the contacts in Miles's phone!)
posted by storytam at 12:32 AM on December 21, 2018 [5 favorites]


The spray-painted suit was SO much better than what happened in the comics, where Nick Fury just...handed a thirteen-year-old a Spider-Man suit in different colors. Here Miles finally got to put his own stamp on his heroic identity and it was ♥ ♥
posted by bettafish at 10:07 AM on December 21, 2018 [13 favorites]


Oh hey speaking of Miles' suit the "What's Up Danger" scene is on YouTube so I'm gonna go watch that about a billion times.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 10:19 AM on December 21, 2018 [11 favorites]


Another goddamn origin story chock-a-block with all the inevitable angst and insecurity. Miles spent almost an hour running away from fights in not a Spidey suit.

I think what works so well is that while it's another origin story for Miles, but with all the other Spider heroes there at other points in their careers it also features heroes in their prime (Gwen and Noir), legacy heroes (Peni), and heroes dealing with maybe being past their prime (Peter B.).

So, yeah, Miles doesn't really get to be Spider-Man and be awesome until the last part of the movie, but I wasn't upset about it because you had a bunch of awesome Spider-People taking butt and kicking names and looking awesome. And that made it that much better when Miles finally puts on a proper suit and joins them looking just as great and being just as amazing as the others.

To me an origin story about a new hero taking his place among other heroes feels very different from the other Spider-Man movies about Peter stepping up to be The Hero in a world where he is supposedly inventing (but from our perspective really just re-inventing) the whole idea of being a superhero.
posted by straight at 1:41 PM on December 21, 2018 [7 favorites]


Peter was...not quite my Peter, who hasn't junked his own life that badly yet, but way closer to him than I ever expected to see on film after 16 years of starry-eyed, novice teenagers.

Well, yeah, Peter B isn't our Peter, he's WHAT IF Our Peter Actually Fell Off That Ledge He's Always Teetering On? (And that shot of Spider-Man huddled in a ball in his bathroom, sobbing, stood out even in this movie of a zillion amazing images.) Could Peter get back up even from that?

Oh, hell yeah, he could.
posted by straight at 1:54 PM on December 21, 2018 [10 favorites]


I liked the Aaron twist (spiders don't do well with uncles, do they?)

Man, as soon as they mentioned Miles having an uncle, my Spider-Sense should have been going crazy, but somehow they got me on this. It's great the movie had so much going on it could fool me this way.
posted by straight at 1:58 PM on December 21, 2018 [6 favorites]


I loved this, and so did my twelve year old.

I too, was a little taken aback by the visuals for the first few minutes, (including looking around to make sure I wasn't supposed tole wearing 3d glasses), but soon I was too absorbed to be bothered.

I especially enjoyed them leaning into so many visual aspects of the comics, and . . .

>thwip<
>release<

>thwip<
>release<
posted by Tabitha Someday at 7:32 PM on December 21, 2018 [6 favorites]


Someone made the GoFundMe that Miles mentions in his Christmas song! (In our universe, the money goes to Puerto Rican hurricane relief.)

In Peter’s song, he namedropped both Silk and “my friend Mary Jane Parker,” awww.
posted by bettafish at 4:50 PM on December 22, 2018 [3 favorites]


I had two "Wait, what? Really?" moments in this movie.

1. Prowler hesitates like 30 seconds talking to the Spider-Kid he's got completely captured and Kingpin shoots him in the back?! But then you see that utterly monstrous Sienkiewicz Kingpin looming up at them and you believe it even if it doesn't make any sense.

2. Octopus takes a spectacular fight-ending triple punch from Gwen, Miles, and Peter B. and it just sorta staggers her for a moment then she keeps fighting. I guess she must have some serious superpowers beyond just the arms?
posted by straight at 10:38 PM on December 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


Spider-Ham and his autophagia is a visual thing in the world of bbq. Seriously, driving through the US you inevitably will come across the visual of a pig wearing a chef's hat, maybe a tuxedo or a meat counterman's apron and beckoning you to his cannibal feast. He may be holding a platter of his parted out brethren. Dark and enticing this is the visual iconography of pork barbeque in the US.

I can write a lot about autophagia and bbq visuals.
posted by jadepearl at 11:53 PM on December 22, 2018 [19 favorites]


Think about what Miles' name would be if he went by his father's surname.

That would've been cute or silly at worst and I don't see how anyone would've been offended.

I cannot, however, fathom naming an African American character after the Confederate president. It's not cute, funny, ironic, or anything remotely acceptable. I've seen this spoken of on several sites and so far I haven't gotten a decent explanation of what happened when the character was created in the comic books with such an absurd name.

Other than that I loved the movie, especially the music.
posted by fuse theorem at 9:14 AM on December 23, 2018 [2 favorites]


I cannot, however, fathom naming an African American character after the Confederate president. It's not cute, funny, ironic, or anything remotely acceptable. I've seen this spoken of on several sites and so far I haven't gotten a decent explanation of what happened when the character was created in the comic books with such an absurd name.

HEAR, HEAR. It bugs the crap out of me (see above "Jefferson Jackson" comment), I don't know why anyone would do that logically (other than "white people wrote the comic and didn't think," I guess) and at this point, why wouldn't someone change it?
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:09 AM on December 23, 2018 [4 favorites]


This was so good. Looked amazing, great sound track, very self-aware with all the comic-book art styles. I fucking loved that Miles went out and bought an ill-fitting Spidey costume, which totally reminded of my own kid and the various costumes he's grown out of but still wears (he wore a stormtrooper costume to the cinema, ha).
posted by EndsOfInvention at 3:05 AM on December 24, 2018 [1 favorite]


Of all the Nolan Batmans (which I thoroughly enjoyed), of all the modern Marvel films (some of which have been very good), this is the first super hero film I've ever seen that has made me want to go and read some super hero comics.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 3:10 AM on December 24, 2018 [8 favorites]


Ah shit I missed the post-credits scene because I didn't want to hang around for 10 minutes with the kid getting bored. Fucking love this film.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 3:16 AM on December 24, 2018 [4 favorites]


Saw it, loved it, will no doubt do a very slow rewatch when the Blu-Ray comes out to see how many Easter eggs I can catch on my own. Animation whoa, Spider-Gwen yay, Aunt May and Liv hmm.

One thing that I was thinking about WRT Peter B. (and Peter-Prime, if that's what we want to call Blond Peter) is how it relates to what was done with/to Peter in the comics. Specifically, I'm thinking of the hugely controversial One More Day/Brand New Day storyline, which sought to revive sales of the comic by doing away with the status quo of the time, that of Peter being (usually) happily married to supermodel Mary Jane Watson, and return him to being sort of a loser. (Well, it was hugely controversial in comics; most of the outside world didn't know about it because not many people read comics any more, which was what they were trying to fix.) The genius idea behind OMD/BND is that the marriage was literally retconned out of existence by Peter making a deal with Mephisto, Marvel's version of Satan (no, really), in order to save Aunt May's life. And that was only the first of many mistakes over the next several years, none of which really permanently fixed the book's sales woes, although the book did get sales bumps from one-off stunts such as putting Obama on the cover or giving Spidey a new (temporary) costume, some of which show up in the movie in the Spider-Lair underneath Aunt May's back-yard garden shed.

Anyway. Think of the movie's Peter-Prime, obviously happily married to Mary Jane Watson, as contrasted to Peter B., a sad sack who never got over splitting up with MJ. Pretty obvious lesson there, hmm? Per runcibleshaw's earlier comment, Peter B. is not only a stand-in for old Spider-fans, but also for the sort of editorial and creative stagnation that tries to pull Peter back from any sort of intimate commitment or character advancement (like a person reaching the end of an elastic web strand and being yanked back, if you will) and only really succeeds in condemning him to this eternal web-swinger purgatory. Ironically, Dan Slott, who took over Spider-Man writing duties with "Brand New Day" (and caught a lot of flak from fans for it) wrote the big Spider-Verse crossover event that seems to be the main inspiration for this story.

A couple other things:

straight: Prowler hesitates like 30 seconds talking to the Spider-Kid he's got completely captured and Kingpin shoots him in the back?! But then you see that utterly monstrous Sienkiewicz Kingpin looming up at them and you believe it even if it doesn't make any sense.

It makes sense on the level that this Kingpin really is just an overgrown thug who's about half a second from flying off the handle at any moment. Which makes him scarier than the more thoughtful, deliberate incarnations of the character. One of the more unpleasant implications of his efforts to bring back Vanessa and his son (aside from destroying the entire multiverse, maybe) is that, if he'd succeeded, Vanessa and Richard would have eventually become discombobulated the same way that the Spider-Gang were about to be; but, since they really weren't "his" Vanessa and Richard, he probably would have just shrugged and grabbed another pair from another dimension. (Which, given the likely reaction of the other Kingpins, would have resulted in an interdimensional gang war.)

2. Octopus takes a spectacular fight-ending triple punch from Gwen, Miles, and Peter B. and it just sorta staggers her for a moment then she keeps fighting. I guess she must have some serious superpowers beyond just the arms?

Likely. The main comics Spidey's Doc Ock had some specific anti-Spidey measures; after the first time that Spidey webbed over his glasses, Ock coated them with something like Teflon to keep the webbing from sticking. A Doc Ock who can open dimensional portals could probably cobble together a personal force field.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:46 AM on December 24, 2018 [3 favorites]


I really loved this movie, it was just about perfect.

Some of the questions above can be answered in this list of easter eggs, which includes the detail that the 3D-ish styles was a callback to old comics where colors bled through during printing, and that Spider-Ham isn't a cannibal because in his definition, he'd only be one if he ate Porky Pig, another anthropomorphized pig.
posted by numaner at 10:52 PM on December 25, 2018 [4 favorites]


oh yeah and holy crap how great was Nic Cage? so great!
posted by numaner at 12:30 AM on December 26, 2018 [2 favorites]


The film was a nice surprise. I went in cold to it with no viewing of trailers or media. To be honest, I was not a Spider-Man fan at all and went to it as part of a family trip. But this film was great. It is good for both the hardcore Spiderman fan and also people totally new to the universe or multi-verse as is the case. I am not impressed with the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) because the majority of it seems more about spectacle and shallow line delivery but this film really served the arc of the stories contained within it. The technical skill of it coupled with a strong story vision for all the characters was very good indeed. Mad props to the voice actors who made the visual characterizations lively and lived.

Regarding Spider-Ham and his denial of his cannibalism,

From the easter eggs article:
In the comics, Spider-Ham eats hot dogs and other pork-based products with increasing frequency. After Spider-Gwen gets her head kicked around in battle, during Spider-Gwen (vol. 1) No. 2, she begins to hallucinate that Spider-Ham has become her guardian angel. That Spider-Ham begins to eat some corn dogs, which Gwen comments on as cannibalistic. His response: "No, I'm a cartoon. Cannibalism would be if I ate Porky Pig."

It makes a certain degree of sense, especially considering that Spider-Ham is a spider that was bitten by a radioactive pig. I guess he identifies more as a cartoon and a spider than he does as a pig. Either way, everything about it is a bit disturbing.
Indeed very disturbing. He only views consuming anthropomorphic pigs as cannibalism? There have been plenty of cartoon pigs e.g., Silly Symphonies so where do they fall into the spectrum of his consumption? Other characters including Spider Gwen thinks its weird and the author is right, it is disturbing. Because Spider-Ham eating a hot dog is disturbing. He is in denial that he is eating his non-anthropomorphic cousins. They say that denial is the first stage. It also does not change the haunting imagery of the cannibalistic pig of American BBQ iconography or even the more disturbing thought of whether that initial display of leering pig offering his brethren is not really offering his eternal self beckoning you to illicit pleasures. Is the pig that haunts the imagery of BBQ a descendant of the the eternal boar (Saehrmnir) that feeds Valhalla, a creature that is killed every day to be brought back and consumed again?
posted by jadepearl at 2:14 PM on December 26, 2018 [2 favorites]


Spider-Ham is a spider, a carnivorous predator. Of course he eats hot dogs. Stop trying to make him a pig just because you think he looks like one.
posted by straight at 8:42 PM on December 26, 2018 [5 favorites]


The confusion comes from the fact he's called Spider-Ham instead of following superhero convention and being named Pig-Spider/Ham-Spider.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 7:26 AM on December 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


We went to this on Monday with the 5yo and he asked to go see it again yesterday. Twice in one week! And I loved it both times! And so did he!

I did not catch, though, just to be nit picky, if it actually passed the Bechdel Test. For all of the amazing female characters, did any actually speak to another directly on screen? Maybe during the showdown at Aunt May's house?

I loved the humanity of this. It didn't feel cartoony unless it was purposely Spider-Ham cartoony. I loved how Peni's animation style was anime style and flatter than Miles. The soundtrack was phenomenal. And that closing sequence with millions of Spideys was very James Bond and I loved it.
posted by jillithd at 3:45 PM on December 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


While watching yet another origin story can be a bore, I give this movie a pass since most viewers won't be as familiar with Miles's as with Peter Parker's. The rest of the origin stories they summarized with extreme prejudice.

This was the Spider-Man movie I've been waiting for my whole life. Comics are supposed to be *fun" and this certainly was.
posted by kindall at 10:44 AM on December 28, 2018


if he'd succeeded, Vanessa and Richard would have eventually become discombobulated the same way that the Spider-Gang were about to be

My headcanon on is that in a zone where all the universe are colliding, Kingpin thought he could have stayed with them indefinitely...of cities the test of the world would be desired, but that's a small price to pay.

Indeed very disturbing. He only views consuming anthropomorphic pigs as cannibalism?

It sounds rather like the principle in Narnia, where they have both talking (sentient) and non-talking (nonsentient) animals. It's considered OK to eat the latter, but not the former.

So, do I get a No-Prize?
posted by happyroach at 11:23 AM on December 28, 2018 [3 favorites]


This was the best comic book film I've seen in quite some time. I hope we get a bit more, because this is the expanded universe I want to see more of. I've grown tired of the bloated MCU and at this point I only watch because I'm too deep into the series to give up now and it's just me going through the motions and chuckling occasionally.

I'm ready for something new and different that is inventive, diverse, & clever. More of Miles please.
posted by Fizz at 1:29 PM on December 28, 2018 [3 favorites]


Also Miles humming and singing lyrics he doesn't know is such a perfect thing to capture, and it's something I can relate to.

I had a smile and was grinning throughout this entire film. It's so worth seeing on the big screen.
posted by Fizz at 1:30 PM on December 28, 2018 [10 favorites]


It makes me sad how many people say they are tired of the MCU. I feel like they're only just now really hitting their stride. Homecoming -> Ragnarok -> Black Panther -> Infinity War is a streak of movies of astonishingly high quality for genre series like these. I don't think you could get a movie like Spider-Verse without studios being confident they have an audience that can handle the dense comic-book craziness of Infinity War.
posted by straight at 2:49 PM on December 28, 2018 [12 favorites]


What a great movie! What I liked best is that this is the first Western movie I can recall seeing that really looked like a comic book. Not a live action adaptation with comic book elements. Also not a manga-inspired anime, but something more Western. And such beautiful animation. I loved the glitch effect. I loved the different antimation styles for the Spider people. I loved how everything dialed up to comic book crazy in the final fight scene. Comic books! As movies! Someone else should try it some time. (Seriously; any recommendatons outside of anime / anime-inspired things like Clone Wars?)

One of my secret hopes + fears is someone really does a serious attempt at Sandman on screen. Ideally a prestige episodic TV show, or maybe just a movie of one of the one-off stories like Orpheus. This movie was the first time I've seen an animation treatment that I could imagine working with Sandman's art. Obviously you'd need a different style, more gloomy mysticism and less Kirby-dotted kapows. But it seems in the right neighborhood.

I'm not a huge Spiderman nerd but I appreciated how they hit the mythic highlights of the story. And I love Miles Morales. I was primed a bit to like this from the recent Spiderman PS4 game. It's a really good game, and much like this movie does a great job of translating the fun of comic books into a different medium. Also they do a great job telling Miles' story in the game so I knew all about him and how clearly he was gonna be awesome.

One question.. which Earth does Miles come from, which Earth is this movie taking place in? I get this movie doesn't really dovetail with all the MCU stuff and Tom Holland's Peter Parker. But is the whole movie meant to be in some parallel earth? Blonde Parker was part of what raised the question for me, but also all the off signs in New York like "Planet Inglewood".
posted by Nelson at 2:19 AM on December 29, 2018 [2 favorites]


It makes me sad how many people say they are tired of the MCU. I feel like they're only just now really hitting their stride. Homecoming -> Ragnarok -> Black Panther -> Infinity War is a streak of movies of astonishingly high quality for genre series like these.

You're right, the recent run has been great, but I still feel like the MCU is a bit bloated. I guess I go through waves where I'm a fan of the films and where I'm exhausted by their particular way of story-telling.

This is definitely a high though and easily at the top of my list of comic-book films when it comes to GOAT.
posted by Fizz at 5:06 AM on December 29, 2018 [1 favorite]


This universe seems to be a close cousin to the Ultimates universe (which is where Miles was introduced) but it differs in a whole bunch of ways (blond, married Peter who seems to have some similarity to the Sam Raimi Spider-Man, being one of the most obvious); I don't think it has appeared in comics before.
posted by straight at 10:45 AM on December 29, 2018


(Psst. If you liked Spider-Gwen, Hailee Steinfeld is pretty great in Bumblebee, a surprisingly good movie that still needs a Fanfare post.)
posted by straight at 10:46 AM on December 29, 2018


The chart of multiverses that appears in Kingpin's Science Room seems to identify Miles' world as Earth-1610, which is the Ultimate Universe, but of course there are differences from the comics version.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:46 AM on December 29, 2018 [1 favorite]


It makes me sad how many people say they are tired of the MCU. I feel like they're only just now really hitting their stride.

This, so much. I feel like the MCU has been in a process of educating the moviegoing public, easing them into accepting the weird depths of Marvel comics. Start simply with the Hulk, add in IronMan, toss in magic and aliens with Thor, and so on, and then Avengers, and Guardians. So by now we're ready for things like Kamala Khan, Rom: Spacetoaster, and Machine Man. Hell, at this point, even a Nextwave movie might be possible.
posted by happyroach at 3:06 PM on December 29, 2018 [6 favorites]


I used to want a movie based on StormWatch or The Authority but it would take the GNP of several countries to make. Nextwave: Agents of Hate would be even better but I'm not sure the universe could handle Elvii MODOKs on screen without the universe spontaneously exploding and being replaced.

Who even owns ROM anymore? I see there are new comics coming out on Comixology but they're published by IDW now? That series was super-dark once Mantlo got up and running, that would be so good.

They touched on Spider-Verse in the most recent episode of Ragnatalk and they point out the magic that is Spiders-Man. I want more Spiders-Man!
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 5:18 PM on December 29, 2018 [5 favorites]


Ooh Nextwave... I’d love to see that after the (theoretical and non-existent) Squirrel Girl movie.

ROM was a license that lapsed, so Marvel can’t do new things with it, or reprint old stuff, I think. ROM is now part of the Hasbro Comic Book Universe (HCBU (pfft haha)), which looked DOA to me. Marvel probably could file off the serial numbers and run with it, though.
posted by Pronoiac at 5:58 PM on December 29, 2018 [1 favorite]


The chart of multiverses that appears in Kingpin's Science Room seems to identify Miles' world as Earth-1610, which is the Ultimate Universe, but of course there are differences from the comics version.

For every universe where people number and label the multiverse correctly, there is another universe that is identical except they number the multiverse differently. Very confusing that someone in the Spider-Verse picked for themselves the number we use to label the Ultimates universe.
posted by straight at 8:04 PM on December 29, 2018 [3 favorites]


I’ll second D.Billy’s comment; a Fantastic Four movie with similar animation and script would be...incredible. Kirby Dots for the win.
posted by Eikonaut at 8:46 PM on December 30, 2018 [1 favorite]


Spider-Man is straight, but ‘Into the Spider Verse’ is a coming-out story, a lightweight queer reading of Miles' journey in the story. I think this essay is a little bit overwrought and a little bit culturally appropriative. But it also does a good job explaining how gay people like me always look for our selves in stories like this.
posted by Nelson at 7:02 AM on January 1, 2019 [3 favorites]


Makes me sad that Spider Ham's hammer will likely disintegrate into glitchiness

I can write a lot about autophagia and bbq visuals.
posted by jadepearl


I will be looking for that on the blue.
posted by otherchaz at 7:39 AM on January 2, 2019


I fucking finally saw it tonight and I LOVE EVERYONE IN THIS BAR SPIDER-VERSE
posted by nicebookrack at 5:46 PM on January 2, 2019 [3 favorites]


I have never identified with fanart so hard in my life.
I loved how upon meeting Miles, Peter B. goes from "ugh, Miles, it's good I don't want kids, teenagers are the worst" then after like half a day to "HOW DARE ANYONE SUGGEST MY BELOVED SPIDER-SON IS LESS THAN FLAWLESS" because YES. Miles is such a good sweet funny compassionate kid, pure cinnamon roll too good for this multiverse. And he is surrounded by good people and kind family and friends who all love him! I'm going to cry again.
posted by nicebookrack at 9:01 PM on January 2, 2019 [5 favorites]


I wasn't expecting to choke up at the (until now) inevitable Stan Lee cameo.

Stan: I'm going to miss him.
Miles: Yeah.
Stan: We were friends, you know.
Miles: Can I return it if it doesn't fit?
Stan: It always fits, eventually.
posted by mon-ma-tron at 9:40 PM on January 2, 2019 [15 favorites]


Halloween Jack & runcibleshaw, I really love y'all's theory of Peter B. Parker as a symbol of creative stagnation in Marvel editorial and fandom. I love it so much I'm going to infodump a relevant detail from the One More Day mess: a big reason WHY the Spider-Marriage was erased in the comics.

The genius idea behind OMD/BND is that the marriage was literally retconned out of existence by Peter making a deal with Mephisto, Marvel's version of Satan (no, really), in order to save Aunt May's life.

In addition to whatever financial reasons prompted OMD, the accepted nerd gossip is that in early-'00s Marvel HQ, certain Powers Joe That Quesada Be in Editorial personally hated Mary Jane Watson as a character and hated the Peter/MJ relationship in general. They wanted the Spider-Marriage gone. But they didn't want the Parkers to get divorced because that would make Peter Parker look old. "Nobody wants to see a divorced Spider-Man! Spider-Man is a young dude character, fresh and freewheeling! Young fans can't relate to a middle-aged divorced Spider-Man with an ex-wife! Besides, divorce is a bad thing, and we can't have heroic Spider-Man look kinda like a failure and kinda pathetic and kinda like the bad guy!" So instead they had Spider-Man sell his marriage to the devil.

That muffled screaming you hear is the echoes of baffled spider-nerd rage I've been broadcasting to the universe for almost twenty years now.

Meanwhile, back to Peter B. Parker in the movie. Peter B. looks old. Peter B. is a middle-aged divorced dude with graying hair and wrinkles and a bit of paunch. Peter B. has an ex-wife and exhausted depression bags under his eyes, and he sobs alone in his bathroom and has lost hope. Peter B. is a mess. But he's also a great hero, and a great Peter Parker, because of course he is, and we care about him, because of course we do. Of course Peter B. picks himself up in the end. He's still Spider-Man. Anyone can pick up the mask.


Anyway, if you want to read a recent AU comics series that retconned the retcon, check out Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows, in which Peter & MJ stayed married and had a daughter named Annie and they all fight crime as a spider-family. It's a delight.
posted by nicebookrack at 11:43 PM on January 2, 2019 [11 favorites]


Peter B. Parker: You sold your MARRIAGE to Mary Jane to the DEVIL.
Comics 616 Main Universe Peter Parker: Look, I had no choice!
Peter B: You sold your marriage to MARY JANE to the devil.
616 Peter: There were lives at st—
Peter B: *crushes 616 Peter's windpipe with one hand*
posted by nicebookrack at 11:56 PM on January 2, 2019 [7 favorites]


This fanfic is a precious gift:
#friendlyneighborhoodspiderpeople (3818 words) by pepperfield
Chapters: 4/?
Fandom: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Characters: Miles Morales, Gwen Stacy, Peter B. Parker, Peni Parker, Peter Porker, Spider-Man Noir - Character
Additional Tags: POV Outsider, Social Media, Epistolary, Twitter, Tumblr, reddit, Friendship, Team as Family, Discord - Freeform, Texting, Multimedia
Summary:
Anonymous asked: they're CLONES people. it's obviously clones jfc i hate this website
New York's started to notice that there might be more than just one Spider-Man in town.



Holy shit we could get actual Spider-Verse clones. If Blond Peter wasn't secretly Ben Reilly all along. Animated! Clone! Saga! Please oh please give me Peter B. with a Kaine B. Parker to judge all of his tacky life choices
posted by nicebookrack at 8:16 PM on January 3, 2019 [2 favorites]


Just saw it for a second time; my daughter still loves it, made me bust out my paints for the first time in ages to paint her a spider gwen / ghost spider picture.

I was curious if my totally blown away love for this would hold up to a second viewing, (a lot of super hero movies don't, I like them but get bored as sin half way through the 2nd viewing) it not only held up but I noticed more and more and more little brilliant details. Cuts were a character is doing voice over and it bleeds into the next scene and their last few lines are foreshadowing into that new image. Little visual storytelling details, so many wonderful things.


BAGEL!
posted by French Fry at 7:42 AM on January 5, 2019 [9 favorites]


Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse wins Best Animated Feature Film at the Golden Globes!!! 🎉🕷🎉🕷🎉

Golden Globe Award-Winner Spidey, I'd now like to introduce you as Oscar-Winner Spidey!
posted by nicebookrack at 5:54 PM on January 6, 2019 [4 favorites]


The character's name is Jefferson Davis???

So, maybe in the Miles universe, Jefferson Davis's family never left Kentucky and he ended up serving as an officer in the Union army during the civil war?
posted by straight at 9:31 AM on January 7, 2019 [2 favorites]


(Which solves the "WTF, fictional Davis family?" question, but not so much the "WTF, writers of Into the Spider-Verse?" question.)
posted by straight at 9:34 AM on January 7, 2019


Yeah I don't recall if it's ever addressed as to why his name is Jeff Davis, but they likely kept it in the movie because that's his name in the comics as created by Brian Michael Bendis and Sara Pichelli. All in all it's an extremely comics loyal film. When reading the comics it always struck me as a dumb accident more than anything.
posted by French Fry at 6:24 AM on January 8, 2019


Although if Miles did have his father's last name, he'd be miles davis.
posted by French Fry at 9:06 AM on January 8, 2019




Also, search "spidersona" for some ludicrously great fanart.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 12:30 PM on January 9, 2019 [2 favorites]


What's up Danger?/Hamilton mashup, live, by LMM
posted by Gorgik at 4:09 PM on January 9, 2019 [2 favorites]


Has anyone read any pieces about this movie you'd recommend? I only just watched it last week, so the talk is tumbleweeds at this point. (It was so good, and it looked so good, and I just want to think about the movie more. Also as a lukewarm fan of actually reading comics, I finally understand all those people who appreciate watching book-sourced movies "so they don't have to read the books." I really enjoyed this movie, but I also enjoyed watching the comic-styled animation far more than I've ever enjoyed reading an actual comic book.)
posted by grandiloquiet at 8:58 PM on January 15, 2019 [2 favorites]


but, since they really weren't "his" Vanessa and Richard, he probably would have just shrugged and grabbed another pair from another dimension. (Which, given the likely reaction of the other Kingpins, would have resulted in an interdimensional gang war.)

The fanfic I want.

Well, not so much the interdimensional gang war, but the monstrousness of Kingpin repeatedly yoinking Vanessa-s and Richard-s from other universes and having them around for a day, a week, a month until they dissolve in unbearable agony, and he just goes out and gets a new one. And then the time that Vanessa shows up, crying and confused, shivering in the arrival chamber, and then when she gets close enough, she murders the shit out of him, because in her universe, Kingpin isn't a name. It's a title.

Black Panther is still my favorite, but this actually may displace Ragnorak as my second favorite MCU movie. It's so assured and visually inventive and funny and full of real, genuine heart.
posted by joyceanmachine at 11:55 AM on January 16, 2019 [4 favorites]


How the Creators of ‘Into the Spider-Verse’ Crafted an Inclusive Superhero Tale That’s Damn Near Perfect
- FILM CRIT HULK
How Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Changed Animation - Vulture (Sony is trying to patent the Spider-Verse movie animation style)
Superhero, Fatigued: The Mostly Joyous Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Is Also About Burnout
- Vulture
Q and A Podcast with director Rodney Rothman

And a little something on the Stan Lee cameo: “The thing that was interesting for us is that it evolved,” Rothman said. “We recorded it a year ago and it was not that long after his wife [Joan] had passed away. We had versions that tried a little harder to be funnier and tried a little harder to be harder. What ended up in the movie were the lines that had the most meaning to him.” In passing the mantle from Peter Parker to Miles, Lee’s crucial line got changed during the recording session: As originally scripted, Lee says the costume “never fits.” But, in the spur of the moment, they re-recorded the line: “It always fits…eventually.”
posted by grandiloquiet at 8:33 PM on January 21, 2019 [12 favorites]


It's absolutely insane that it's taken this long for a bonafide comic book superhero movie to hit the big screen during this modern age of superhuman cinematic ascendence. And everyone involved made this a hole in one. Surprised that Disney wasn't involved in this animated triumph, though unsurprising given how much they've deviated from trusting in the hand-drawn cartoon medium that they built their original empire upon.
posted by Apocryphon at 10:56 PM on January 21, 2019 [3 favorites]


Finally got around to seeing this and it's so great! Just so great. Thank you Mefites for talking it up so much so we made sure to see it on the big screen.
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:15 PM on February 2, 2019 [8 favorites]


Uncle Aaron thoughts on rewatch: I did not believe Aaron would hurt Miles/Spider-Man when Miles was unmasked, and that surprised me, because I went into the movie knowing from the comics the plot twist that Miles's Uncle Aaron is the Prowler. But where comics Prowler Aaron is a selfish scumbag who'd sell out Miles in a heartbeat, movie Aaron turned out to be a ruthless criminal who genuinely loves and supports his nephew. The warmth of Mahershala Ali's voice and the warmth of Aaron's relationship with Miles made it inconceivable that Aaron would hurt Miles, and that surprised me more than the plot twists.

A lesser movie would have this storyline as a grasshopper/ant plot of Miles turning to his stern but loving dad Jefferson's way of life and away from the fun but selfish lifestyle of his grasshopper uncle. Instead, Aaron's support of Miles's artistic expression is genuinely important to Miles as a character, and dad Jefferson turns to supporting Miles's art. And the final fight with Kingpin underscores how Miles loves and draws strength from both his dad and uncle (Jefferson yelling encouragement, Miles using Aaron's "shoulder touch" against Kingpin). Aarghh, this movie is ridiculously good.
posted by nicebookrack at 1:39 PM on February 5, 2019 [8 favorites]


it's taken this long for a bonafide comic book superhero movie to hit the big screen [I assume you mean animated]
Not to detract from Spider-Verse at all, but 2014's Big Hero 6 from Disney was based on a Marvel superhero comic.
posted by nicebookrack at 1:44 PM on February 5, 2019


I took that to mean a bonafide comic-book superhero movie, as in one that actually seeks to translate the medium and not just the genre.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 1:56 PM on February 5, 2019 [4 favorites]


It's no Spider-Verse, but Big Hero 6 is definitely one of the better translations of comic book aesthetics to the big screen. I can still think of several shots that are framed like perfect comic book covers or panels.
posted by straight at 12:28 PM on February 8, 2019 [1 favorite]


From writer Amber Ruffin, a funny and moving short Twitter thread.
"I was not prepared to see a teenage Black boy portrayed in an honest way. I know it's 2019, but I still need to be emotionally prepared. That shit is moving as fuck."
posted by nicebookrack at 7:30 PM on February 8, 2019 [8 favorites]


Big Hero 6 is also great, but it looks more like contemporary Pixar-styled CG while Spider-Verse has got that classic hand-drawn style. Which is crazy that makes it first of its size to be on the big screen, aside from smaller movies like say Teen Titans Go! To the Movies.
posted by Apocryphon at 10:45 PM on February 20, 2019


Finally managed to see this last week. Still blown away by how good it was.
posted by pharm at 2:10 AM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]


Saw it a 3rd time in the theaters with my daughter . We also watched big hero 6 recently , and it's actually startling how similar these movies are in many ways . Also there is a stark similarity in the "multiverse" space between these movies and other marvel movies . Somewhere on a white board at Marvel-Disney is written "multiverse = pink/purple + bubbles/fractals"

I don't think I've seen a film in theaters this many times since independence Day came out during a terrible heat wave and my family didn't have AC.
posted by French Fry at 6:51 AM on February 22, 2019 [2 favorites]


OSCAR-WINNER SPIDER-MAN WOOOO
posted by nicebookrack at 6:37 PM on February 24, 2019 [11 favorites]


Bought it and rewatched last night. I get emotional just thinking about how good it is, that something with so much loving detail in every frame is even allowed to exist.
posted by whuppy at 5:32 AM on March 1, 2019 [1 favorite]


I bought it and watched it with my wife and kid (who had already seen it while I slumbered on a Sunday, third-shift/off-weekends sucks)...

I kinda like that the only reason Spider-Man died in Miles' universe is that he was at once Spider-Man and Daredevil, with less angst than you'd expect, and so Kingpin exposed his secret which made for GREAT comics, while every villain got a huge power-boost, HYUJE! Bigly! I mean, Tombstone is there, Hammerhead is sort of there, and the Kingpin has to hunker down to fit through doors so often he's basically shoulders with a face as a neck-tie. Also, he's at least Collossus-level strong, which is fifty-tons more than Spidey could lift, according to OHOTMU.

"Crusty Middle-Aged Spiderman" who is now my wife's new secret pet-name for her new Husband, lives in such a crap-sack world, he's able to take them all on with aplomb. While also half-assed mentoring Miles, who is just really, really good at this once things start moving and grooving.

Also Nick Cage, breaking the fourth wall with a ball-peen hammer into ever smaller and smaller bits! The guy who had to try to take up the slack with Peter Porker: The Amazing Spider Ham... welll... I had all of the comics as a kid. He was trying to channel Nathan Lane and Josh Gad and Chuck Jones and Roger Rabbit and the directors completely failed the character.

Nick. Cage. With a Rubic's Cube. NIIIIIIIIICE.

Miles. His Uncle. His Dad. His Mom. Just... Miles. The character and the actor, maaaaaaaan... it pretty much made the movie.

Pretty much.

Then the fight-scene at the end...

OK. I have declared a Mountain-Dew and Pixie Stix film fest. I have now introduced a new film and re-ordered it to suit.

Fifth Element is still the first film.

Speed Racer has been bumped down, because THAT WAS CRAZY, WHAT EVEN ARE WE WATCHING, THIS GUY KILLED TWO SPIDER-MEN AND MILES IS RUNNING AT HIM AND THE KINGPIN IS ABOUT TO THROW A BUILDING ONLY IT'S NOT A BUILDING, BUT TWO BUILDINGS AND A SUBWAY TRAIN AND WHAT ARE THESE BUILDINGS AND SUBWAYS AND COLORS AND...

This. Is. A. Good. Movie.

I'm going to make it better. Or worse. I consider it better.

Aunt May is kind of a bad-ass. That's kinda worse. But there's actually a better to make up for it. Aunt May is played by... Wait for it...

Wait for it...

Aunt May is played by Lilly Tomlin.

It. All. Works.
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:03 AM on March 8, 2019 [2 favorites]


One ringngy dingy! You said your name was Milhouse? Two ringy dingy! That's your middle name? Guffaw-snort, OK, "Richard", sure. Three ringy-dingy! Say, who were you trying to call? Dr. Statewide? Dr. Kodachrome? Dr. Strangelove! I'm sorry, Dr. Kissinger doesn't seem to be at home would you like to leave a message, Milhouse?
posted by Slap*Happy at 9:36 AM on March 11, 2019


I just, finally, watched this (thanks, iTunes) and I'm INCREDIBLY sad that I did not put forth the energy to see it in a theater. HOLY MOTHER OF RABBITS, the movie was BEAUTIFUL.

The gradual disintegration of the super-collider chamber into the Weird and Fantastical was BRILLIANTLY animated. The subtle and not-so-subtle transformation of Miles' own world into a comic-book world (seeing the thoughts in his own head as dialog boxes, for example) was visual story-telling at its best. The quick clips of things in each Spider-person's backstory (Peter crying in shower), the soundtrack, the voice actors... every beat was solid.

It's absolutely insane that it's taken this long for a bonafide comic book superhero movie to hit the big screen during this modern age of superhuman cinematic ascendence.

There's a Mr. E. Wright here who'd like to speak to you about a little piece you may have heard of, "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World".
posted by hanov3r at 3:11 PM on March 13, 2019 [4 favorites]


INCREDIBLY sad that I did not put forth the energy to see it in a theater.

Went to see it yesterday in the cheap theatre. It was amazing. Really, really glad so many Mefites talked about this film so I would see it as a worthwhile diversion to drag the kids to on a rainy Sunday afternoon. We all came out excited, me perhaps the most.

I want to go see it again. It's a hardcore origin story.
posted by nubs at 8:20 AM on March 25, 2019 [2 favorites]


Finally saw it … on BluRay. I do wish I had seen it first in the theater. I think it's running at one or two here.

The little documentaries that come with it note that there are a lot of easter eggs in the movie, including at least one wordless Stan Lee appearance.
posted by ZeusHumms at 9:48 AM on April 3, 2019 [1 favorite]


including at least one wordless Stan Lee appearance.

I'm pretty sure I spotted Stan Lee in the crosswalk when Miles and Peter B. Parker are lying in the middle of it, with the smashed snowman head.
posted by nubs at 2:31 PM on April 3, 2019 [1 favorite]


I'm going to stop watching superhero movies now, because they cannot possibly top the Spider-Verse. It was amazing. That's all folks!
posted by sapagan at 11:14 PM on April 4, 2019 [4 favorites]


(Can he say that?)
posted by whuppy at 4:55 AM on April 17, 2019 [4 favorites]


I dreamt last night that Miles Morales and the other Spider-beings showed up in Avengers: Endgame, still animated in the same style as Spider-Verse, fighting alongside the live action heroes.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 6:30 AM on April 25, 2019 [4 favorites]


Austin Walker and the Waypoint crew discuss Into The Spider-verse in their latest Waypoints podcast. I listened to this co-incidentally right before my second watch of the film, which was nice.

Also I completely missed the "Oh great, it's Liv" line the first time round. Love it.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 7:10 AM on April 25, 2019 [1 favorite]


I grabbed the DVD over the Easter weekend and made my wife watch. She thought I was nuts at first, but then was blown away by how much fun it was. She wants the soundtrack, and a Spidergwen hoodie.
posted by nubs at 9:08 AM on April 25, 2019


TIL "Oh great, it's Liv" is actually a deep-cut callback to comic book storylines where Aunt May and Doc Ock were romantically involved.

It's strumming on the same vibe as Spider-Ham: Comic books as source material are often ridiculous nonsense, which somehow makes the entire mythos even more impressive when you realize the heights and depths it incorporates.
posted by whuppy at 7:58 AM on May 6, 2019 [8 favorites]


The Prowler sound effect reminded me of the Rover sound effect from cult classic The Prisoner
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:19 PM on May 12, 2019 [1 favorite]


One of the animators posted some of her reference shots

Emma (Pei-Hsuan) Shih : Reference and shot comparison

(via Jason Scott's (@textfiles) twitter feed)
posted by DigDoug at 5:23 AM on May 22, 2019 [6 favorites]


I have been holding off on seeing this because my TV was broken, but just the color blue -- which left a lot of things pretty watchable, especially these days where every other film is ugly with color correction anyway -- but I finally got it fixed! And watched this!

It was visually amazing, especially the love and exuberance of the art. Also, the madness of the credit sequence had me laughing in delight.
posted by fleacircus at 8:51 PM on June 2, 2019 [2 favorites]


That's great fleacircus. Although this is definitely not the movie I'd choose to test whether my TV was displaying colors correctly or not -- unless maybe I'd seen it several times already.

My second time, I took a friend to see it, forgetting that he sometimes has difficulty (not like epilepsy or anything) with over-stimulating flashing lights. He nervously asked me during the opening credits, "Is the whole movie like this?" I suddenly felt both like a bad friend and completely uncertain in my memory of how flashy the rest of the movie was. "Um... I don't think it's mostly quite this much...?"

Fortunately he made it okay and enjoyed the rest of the movie.
posted by straight at 11:18 AM on June 4, 2019 [2 favorites]


Finally got around to this since it appeared on Netflix. I can't believe no one mentioned the fucked up frame rates. The backgrounds are a smooth 24fps (or 32 or whatever) while the characters are a choppy 8 fps or something. So distracting!

There are smooth pans and zooms of figures that are jerkily moving like a 1960s stop-motion christmas special.

If you've modeled and animated everything already how hard would it be to throw some GPU hours at it and fill in the missing frames? There are hand-drawn animated movies with smoother animation.

So I guess it was intentional? This bugs me way too much.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 5:16 PM on June 29, 2019 [1 favorite]


Yeah, the frame rate thing is a deliberate artistic choice to represent the more experienced spider-people through higher frame rate, and Miles’s transition/coming of age visually
posted by DoctorFedora at 6:00 PM on June 29, 2019 [2 favorites]


The different animation rates for characters is totally an intentional effect, "animating on twos". It's not a money-saving thing like the old Hanna-Barbera; it's used to create rhythm in the animation.

It's possible the Netflix encoding screwed things up or else something in the presentation on the TV. I have to imagine any frame interpolation a TV does (ie, soap opera effect) sure will make it look worse. But it should look choppy, staccato. That's the look.
posted by Nelson at 6:22 PM on June 29, 2019 [2 favorites]


Thanks for confirming it was a deliberate choice!

(I still don't like it, but hey, not everything is for everybody.)
posted by paper chromatographologist at 6:34 PM on June 29, 2019


I was wondering if anyone would mention the choppiness. It was distracting at first but eventually I stopped noticing it. I didn't notice the frame rate difference between characters!

I had seen that frame rate thing before I saw the movie, when someone linked a clip of the part where Miles meets Peter B and they "catch the S train". They said it was proof what a visually amazing movie this is, but the frame rate was off-putting and I think it made the action in that extremely fast and chaotic scene even harder to follow so I was like, "Er this is bad actually," but it still looked like it was going to be a visually interesting movie.
posted by fleacircus at 10:06 PM on June 29, 2019


Incidentally the choppy motion is the exact same effect used in The Dragon Prince (especially Season 1) and it is similarly off-putting. The thing is, though, that lots of beautifully hand-animated films use similar techniques, animating to 12 or 8fps even though the movie is running at 24fps. Animators learn how to depict smooth motion with limited frames, usually via smears and careful in-betweening, but this is significantly harder to accomplish in CG, where in-betweening is usually left to the computer and failing to have enough frames invariably leads to a choppiness. The extent to which the animators made it work in this movie is a testament to their skill and the care they took to recreate an effect that really has no place in computer-generated art (And likewise, the animators of TDP not realizing their stylistic choice would result in more work, not less)
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 9:35 PM on June 30, 2019 [1 favorite]


I found the animation in Dragon Prince almost-unwatchably distracting. But in Spider-Verse, I didn't notice the FPS at all. Maybe it's just because I had so much other eye-candy to focus on. Or maybe it's a cinema vs TV screen thing - I'll have to check the Netflix version (any excuse for another rewatch!).
posted by Gordafarin at 8:14 AM on July 1, 2019 [1 favorite]


I didn't notice the frame per second issue, but I did spend a lot of the early movie distracted by the background colors that weren't aligned. I kept looking around at other people in the audience to make sure I hadn't somehow stumbled into a 3-D showing without picking up the proper glasses for it.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 2:29 PM on July 1, 2019 [1 favorite]


Man, as soon as they mentioned Miles having an uncle, my Spider-Sense should have been going crazy, but somehow they got me on this. It's great the movie had so much going on it could fool me this way.

They totally, completely got me. When Prowler showed up at the window, my first thought was, "Huh, why's the bad guy here? How does he know the apartment's empty? Is he a friend of Aaron's?" I swear to god, I thought, "is he here to water the plants?"

I have now seen the movie three times and the family relationships - with Miles, his dad and his uncle - have made me cry every. single. time.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 8:04 PM on July 19, 2019 [5 favorites]


It's interesting that some of the characters are alternate versions of Peter Parker and some are alternate versions of Spider-Man.

Although from the very beginning Spider-Man's premise was that he was the hero whose life readers could most relate to, so I guess there's a sense in which Gwen and Miles and Peni are also alternate versions of Peter Parker.
posted by straight at 8:10 AM on July 22, 2019


Watched it for the first time last night. Made me so glad I followed through on my instinct to buy the Blu-Ray sight unseen.

It's the most revolutionary film I can think of since The Matrix. And I was so pleasantly surprised at how astonishingly impactful and unspoiled it was for me, though I had seen and read a lot about it.
posted by DrAstroZoom at 9:38 AM on September 4, 2019 [5 favorites]




I’ve been waiting for someone to do this: I drew a parody of an old Spider-man cover featuring characters from #SpiderVerse
posted by 1970s Antihero at 4:28 PM on May 5, 2021 [1 favorite]


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