BY ELIZABETH EGAN, STAFF WRITER
Almost every good story has a protagonist and an antagonist. The well liked protagonist has to overcome a challenge and defeat the antagonist to achieve their happy ending. From rom coms, to sci-fi to superhero movies and thrillers, this is the most basic outline of any good story.
Before going any further, this article will contain some vague spoilers. If you have not seen the movie yet and want it all to stay a surprise do not keep reading.
In Spider-Man No Way Home, the protagonist, Peter Parker, chooses not to defeat the antagonists but to transform them back into the protagonists of their own story. This comes at the cost of his own happy ending.
The movie is frustrating to watch. Many terrible things happen that could have very easily been avoided. When I watch movies, tiny details that could have changed the whole trajectory of the movie, like Dr. Strange simply asking Spider-Man a couple of questions before launching into an earth altering spell, really bothers me. Because of this, I like to force myself to ignore the little details of a movie and focus on the big picture. I think this is something the majority of people do or else nobody would ever truly enjoy a movie.
My 12-year-old cousin who I watched the movie with did not have this same practice. On the car ride home she peppered me with questions about the movie. Why didn’t Dr. Strange ask if Peter had talked to MIT admissions before casting the spell? Why couldn’t Peter just accept that he would have to tell his friends that he was Spider-Man again? Wouldn’t sending all the villains back to live out their destinies in their own universe have been better than all the horrible things that were caused by trying to help them? Would fixing them in one universe mean they were fixed in their own universe? The list went on and on. She is a huge marvel fan so she was not trying to criticize the movie, these were all valid questions.
As I tried to be the wise older cousin and come up with a way to answer her questions I thought about how even though some bad decisions were made. The movie had a powerful message about deserving redemption and second chances and choosing to do the right thing even when that might be the hardest thing.
At first all Peter wants is a second chance for his friends to get into MIT. Then that spirals out of control and six adversaries of Spider-Men
from two different universes are out to get Peter. They get them all contained and Dr. Strange is about to fix everything and send them back. The movie could have ended right there.
Right before Dr. Strange is about to cast the spell all six villains realize when they go back to their own universe they will die. Remembering the words of his gold hearted Aunt May, Peter realizes it is his job to help the six. Even though they all try to kill him at some point, Peter continually refuses to send them home to die without an attempt at redemption.
This decision reeks of minor havoc on New York City and comes at an incredibly high cost to Peter who is still just a high school aged kid. Despite this, Peter never gives up on trying to fix whatever is making the villains be villains so they have a chance to live their own lives to their fullest potential. None of the villains started out evil. Whether it was falling into a vat of electric eels or a lab experiment gone wrong, something happened to make these people do the horrible things that they did. Peter Parker chose not to condemn them based on the worst thing they did but instead believe in them based on the best thing they could do. Even the one who hurt him the most was given a chance for redemption.
Imagine if that was how everyone all looked at the world. The reality is that most of the worst people see of humanity has an easily detectable root cause. When tragic events like school shooting, terror attacks, senseless murder, even war are to occur if people just looked past their anger and asked why, it could transform the society people know today. From asking why, society could find the answers that will allow them to be like the fictional Peter Parker and undo the villains of its non-fictional world. If everyone possessed even a fraction of the unwavering kindness that Peter Parker and Aunt May show through this movie, it would be a very different world.
