The Spider-verse

I myself love the spider-verse saga. What is the spider-verse saga you may be asking due to there being a lot of different spiderman movies. The Spider-verse saga is a soon to be three movie series. The movies out so far are Into the Spider-verse and Across the Spider-verse. The upcoming movie is Beyond the spider-verse. It is scheduled to come out in 2027. The production of these movies has been long and strenuous.  According to many sources, Phil Lord (The writer and producer) is very creatively indecisive. He has scrapped nearly finished scenes which take weeks to finish and have great detail. This has made a lot of the animators mad and ready to give up. But I think his Creative indecisiveness shows through the films a bit which adds a nice touch. Everything has a purpose, and everything is greatly detailed. I am not siding with him by no means, but I do see how creative indecisiveness could play a positive role in some scenarios, but I will say a deadline isn’t one of them. The movies due to this have taken year and years to release. But in turn have become some of the most acclaimed animated films. 

Here’s why. The animation style isn’t confined to one specific style. Each scene showcases many different styles. This is partly due to the concept of different dimensions coming together. All of these different styles meshed together in the right way though create amazing art and animations. I won’t nerd out too much about the animation though because normally that’s all people talk about when talking about these incredible movies. The color scheme of these movies is also unmatched in my opinion. The colors flow, contrast, and just work so beautifully together in a way that speaks volumes. 

The soundtrack. Oh my gosh where do I begin. The soundtrack fits with the movies and senses to a tee. Metro Boomin did the most recent soundtrack, and it was amazing. It tells the story in and of itself. The first soundtrack is also such a masterpiece and guides you through the story as well. Each song helps you to better feel and understand Miles’s feelings (the main spiderman throughout these movies) in my opinion. This is what makes them so great. 

I think these movies are great also due to how it showcases Stan Lee’s work. It shows how many characters he made and how diverse everyone is. In recent years certain franchises have taken his characters and stories and warped them for intentions that aren’t great in my opinion. They have taken it upon themselves to try and create diverse characters and inclusive stories, but they end up ruining the stories. I feel that it’s a good thing to have diversity and inclusivity in media but why create stories out of need for money and wanting to appeal to everyone when Stan Lee already wrote some of the most diverse characters and story lines in the superhero world. They were also not stereotypical characters or stories. They are each individual and very distinct characters. I think these movies showcase this due to how many spiderman characters he made. It makes you think about how many characters he made, and how many stories he wrote for each one and how very different each one is. Of course, some of the characters they had to make up to fill the screen but overall, every spiderman seen in the movies are in Stan Lee’s comics. This is a topic I think about a lot. It is so prominent not only in superhero movies but also just in the entertainment industry. People try to be inclusive by making up stories and characters that center around race and stereotypes. This makes me mad, honestly. Don’t get me wrong I think we need individuality in entertainment but not like this. Stories that all center around the same stereotypes mesh together and aren’t original in my opinion, it’s not art, nor is it entertaining. 

Anyways back to talking about spider-verse. It is such an awesome trilogy, and it has a great story line as well. Its writing is amazing as well. I definitely think that the production process is insane due to over 150 animators alone working on the first movie and more than 1,000 animators on the second. The animation team for these movies is one of the biggest Imageworks has ever had on one project. So, you can imagine how much of a big deal these movies are. Although they have had about 100 animators quite due to the strenuous atmosphere it’s still a huge project.

In-between the release of the last movie and the upcoming movie, Beyond the spider-verse, they have announced works on another film. A new movie solely focused on Hobie Brown, a spiderman who makes a few appearances in Across the spider-verse. Most know him as Spider-punk. The new movie has some excited while others are skeptical. Hobie is very punk, as his name suggests, and due to this fans think that they might not encapsulate the punk subculture. Punk is a great and complex subculture. It goes against authority, this is what makes people skeptical of the movie. People are scared of such a big company like Sony overseeing the project and dulling the punk aspect of the character. I think though that if they do this movie in the right way it will be great.  

 

This was one big dump of random facts about the Spider-verse movies, but I am excited to see the new movies and can’t wait for my next blog.