The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (The TTP Remix)

Guys, I wanted this movie to be good SO. F#&KING. BADLY.

And I know I’m six years late to the party but…but it still hurts. So much.

I actually really liked The Amazing Spider-Man. I was both it and Andrew Garfield’s performance as the web-head’s biggest proponent. He did a good job of modernizing the character. He’s a douchy little shit with a good heart. Exactly how Peter Parker was in the first run of the comics. The film was an origin story. Sure, that by itself is the reason why a lot of people gave it so much crap. “Do I really have to see him get bit by the spider again?” they asked. “Can’t I just go watch Bruce Wayne’s parents get shot for, like, the eight time instead?”

But that’s why I had so much hope for TASP2! We could hit the ground running (or swinging)! Peter’d be Spidey from the outset, and because of his character development in the first movie, he could still be a wiseass, but more like the outright heroic incarnation of modern Spider-Man. And…and…

Sigh…

Okay, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a bad movie. Yes.

Because it’s actually, like, 5 movies just smushed together. There is SOOOOOO much good stuff in this movie. Good setup, good characters, and plotlines that just need time. To. Breathe. So what I’m going to do is pinpoint most of the major plot points in TASP2 and stretch them out across a multi-film arc that could have worked IF Sony had just been patient. I’ll even throw them a bone and put together that Sinister Six movie they’re so damn obsessed with making (and are looking to be trying to make AGAIN with that Morbius movie coming up).

Okay? Okay. Here’s a quick-ish list of everything going on in TASP2. Keep in mind that I’m assuming that you’ve seen the first movie and they’re not necessarily all going to be in the same order in which they occur in this movie:

• Peter’s dad and Norman Osborn made the super spiders that gave Peter his powers. So Oscorp couldn’t weaponize them, Richard fine-tuned them to his DNA, making them effectively useless. So Norman had him and his wife killed.
• Peter’s Spider-Man full time. Graduates high school. Seeing Captain Stacy’s ghost all the time convinces him to break up with Gwen. Kind of.
• After getting saved by Spidey, an Oscorp employee named Max Dillon becomes obsessed with him. After “death” by falling into a tank full of super eels (who apparently also freelance as dentists?), he comes back as a blue, electricity-zombie.
• Norman’s son, Harry, is back in New York. Norman dies of a degenerative disease (in his fifties or sixties!) but not before telling Harry that he’s destined to die from the same disease. Peter and Harry reconnect and Harry tells him that he thinks that the only cure to the disease is Spider-Man’s blood.
• Aunt May becomes a nurse.
• While hers and Peter’s relationship keeps flip-flopping, Gwen is accepted to attend a university off in London.
• Peter becomes obsessed with figuring out how his parents died. Aunt May tells him about how agents came knocking, asking about his parents, which somehow leads to Peter finding subway coins in a calculator…? His dad ends up having a super-secret underground train base that just rises out of the goddamn tracks because of course it does. Peter finds out about the super spiders and how he’s the only one compatible with their venom.
• This leads to him showing up as Spider-Man to talk to Harry, telling him he can’t have his blood. And…he’s unintentionally a real dick about it.
• After an altercation with Spidey in Time’s Square, Max (now calling himself Electro) is being held and experimented on in an asylum.
• Harry gets kicked out of Oscorp by the higher ups. In revenge, he breaks Electro out of the asylum. They team up. Electro goes after Spider-Man while Harry threatens one of the higher ups to show him the sole-surviving venom from the super spiders.
• Harry injects himself with the venom. Instead of curing him, it instead seems to accelerate the disease, making him fugly.
• After reaffirming their relationship, with him promising to go with her to London, Peter and Gwen work together to stop Electro.
• Harry shows up, figures out Peter’s Spider-Man, and we get an overall faithful adaption of “The Night Gwen Stacy Died.” Minus death by goblin glider.
• Peter grieves, having given up on being Spider-Man for months. But he suits back up to go fight the Rhino. Because the Rhino’s also in this movie. For, like, four minutes.
• Black Cat’s also in this movie? You and Paul Giamatti deserved better, Felicity Jones.
• Now an inmate at the asylum, Harry has started putting a team together to take down Peter.

AND THAT’S NOT EVEN EVERYTHING!

Okay, okay…I can do this…Alright, here we go. But before we do, let’s talk about Through Line. A through line is the major plotline that is set up at near, if not the very beginning, of a story. It carries through to the very end until it’s concluded in, well, the conclusion! Out of all the plotlines I listed up above, which would you guess the through line of TASM2 is? If you guessed Richard Parker’s super spiders then you’d be right. They’re set up in the VERY first scene. Their venom’s the McGuffin that gave Peter his powers in the first film and might be the cure to the Osborne disease. And Harry finally taking it is what pushes him over the edge and sets off the final battle that leads to Gwen’s death and Peter’s ensuing (if temporary) retirement.

But hey, can you guess who has nothing to do with this through line?

Electro!

But he’s the MAIN antagonist of the movie! The guy whose face is on all the posters!

Now don’t get me wrong, there are stories that pull off having unrelated antagonistic forces out there. And you could make the argument that Max being an Ex-Oscorp employee connects him tangentially to the spider plotline, especially since without him, Harry wouldn’t have been able to get ahold of the venom in the first place and-

You see what I’m doing here? Justifying. When you have to sit down and actively justify or defend the story beats in a film that by itself means that they’re failing to be organic. To flow into each other, build upon each other, justify their existence in the narrative based upon their own merit as opposed to needing a salty fanboy to do it.

And the sad thing is, I actually really like Electro in this movie. His design is cool and different from any other incarnation of the character, and Jaime Foxx steals quite a few scenes he’s in. I even don’t mind him when he’s a complete dork! Could they have tone it down some? Sure. But maybe there could have been a mention or an allusion to him being on the autism spectrum, instead of him just being crazy. That’d add a way more tragic spin to things, seeing as Max is simply not mentally equipped to handle the pressure of his new powers. I really do believe that Foxx’s performance could have worked if Sony had just let.

It.

Breathe.

If this had been the Electro versus Spider-Man movie they’d advertised. If they’d allowed Electro to try to be the hero. Emphasis on try.

But before I get this remix started, let’s get the elephants in the room out of the way: Peter’s parents. People just seem to hate ‘em bunches. But think that stems less from them as characters and more from how they seemingly take away from Uncle Ben’s impact on Peter’s character arc.

Peter’s quest to avenge Ben’s death is entirely dropped in this movie and I don’t actually mind that. It shows that he’s elevated himself above revenge and is now focusing on being heroic so as to honor his uncle’s memory. Not all character development has to be in your face. It’s subtle and works to fix some of the issues that people had with him in the first movie. And Peter’s parent’s deaths are actually relevant to the overall plot of this movie, unlike Ben’s. So for that I’ll give it a pass.

Also, everybody jokes about how stupid Peter’s parents being spies is but they’re really not. It’s made clear that they’re on the run from Oscorp specifically, not working for any government agency. Sure, the opening plane scene does feel more like an action thriller than a Spider-Man movie, but I’ll chalk that up to the movie’s lack of tonal consistency.

So without further ado, here you go. The Amazing Spider-Man 2-Remixed:

• Open with that opening shot of Spider-Man just falling through the sky and then swinging through New-York. It’s an amazing (heh) shot that just captures the feeling of freedom of being Spider-Man.
• First big cut: no Rhino, no graduation. At least not off the bat. We’re going to be moving the montage of Peter being Spider-Man, saving the little kid from being bullied, being sick and still saving a clerk from getting robbed, here instead of in the middle of the movie. This shows the audience just how serious Peter is about the gig and how much effort’s he’s putting into helping people. He’s not keeping himself busy to keep his mind off of Gwen. He’s doing it because he legitimately wants to.
• Speaking of Gwen. She and Peter are broken up. They’ll still be in their last year of high school at the beginning of the movie, so we’ll have scenes of them consciously avoiding each other. She’ll show concern whenever Peter keeps showing up late to class, exhausted and covered in new bruises, but she’s trying to move on. Maybe she’s even started dating Flash.
• Peter’s heroics are negatively impacting his grades, and he gets pulled aside by the school’s councilor and told that, by this point, it’d take a miracle for him to graduate. He’s then asked what his plans for the future were. If he’d been planning on going to college or going straight into working. Peter glances sideways at his backpack on the floor, spots his new camera peeking out from inside, and answers, “I did always like photography.”
• And now we’re gonna bring back Russian gangster Paul Giamatti. He’s still driving a truck full of Oscorp chemicals, causing havoc. But this time Peter does not fuck around. He swings in and immediately takes out the truck’s tires, catching the truck as it barrels to him. His feet’ll grind through the ground, tearing both it and his feet up, but he’ll manage to bring the vehicle to a halt. This’ll both demonstrate just how strong he is, but also that he’s still vulnerable to damage. 
• Paul Giamatti and his henchmen will shoot at Spidey. To keep their attention focused on him and not the running civilians, NOW he’ll start to quip, pull down their pants, maybe smack ‘em into each other. All the while we’ll pan over to a camera webbed to an overlooking street light and we’ll hear the regular clicking of photos being taken.
• Oh, yeah, forgot to mention, but Peter does actually work for the Daily Bugle in the movie proper. And he and J. Jonah Jameson email each other…I don’t know, it’s weird and forced. As much as I love JK Simmons, I’d just cast another actor. To hell with it, if he can be Thanos, K, Jonah Hex, and Cable, let’s just get Josh Brolin. So Peter goes to the Daily Bugle and shows Josh Brolin-Jameson his photos. They’re actually not that good, but better than anybody’s been able to get, so Brolin-Jameson buys them off him.
• Up to this point we’ve been mostly just following Peter. Now we’re going to switch back over to the truck that Paul Giamatti had been trying to steal, now swarming with Oscorp scientists, checking to make sure that the cargo wasn’t damaged. One of them is Max Dillon. He’s mostly silent and freezes up when anyone tries to talk to him, but when a strange man in a coat and hat boards the van and asks him for a status update, Max gives a highly detailed and professional answer, making the other employees look at him in surprise. Though he does all this while staring at his feet, unable to make eye contact. The man pulls out one of the canisters labeled Cr. Inside is a frozen spider.
• We cut to Peter getting home just as Aunt May’s about to leave for her second job as a nurse. Like with Gwen, there’s a tense awkwardness between them. It’s become clear that Aunt May’s stopped asking about Peter’s extracurricular activities. Before leaving, she tells him solemnly, “The school councilor called…Maybe it’s not what your Uncle Ben would’ve done, but I gave you your space. Let you figure it out on your own. But you’re a grown man now, Peter. Your future is based on how much effort you put in…How much you want it. But I know that if your Uncle Ben or mom and dad were still here, they’d want to see you graduate. I know I do.”
• Shaken, Peter takes out his phone and stares at Gwen’s contact photo. We get a few flashes of her dad getting killed by the lizard (no ghost George Stacy in this movie!) and he puts the phone away, and leaves the house again to go fight crime and get more photos.
• Later in the week, Peter is called back to the Daily Bugle. There he’s grouchily introduced by Brolin-Jameson to the Oscorp heir, Harry Osborn. They’re not old friends here. Peter might have heard of Harry, but that’s it. Harry tells Peter that he wanted to get in touch with Spider-Man to thank him for both saving the truck full of Oscorp goods, and stopping Curt Connor’s change-everybody-into-lizards plan. Peter tells him, “Sorry, can’t help you. I just take the pictures. I don’t really know the guy.”
• Harry then changes the topic, telling him what a small world it is. That the guy who takes Spider-Man’s pictures also happens to be the son of Richard Parker, his father’s original business partner. He then invites Peter back to Oscorp, saying, “A lot’s changed. Curt Connors was onto something. He just backed the wrong horse.”
• Cut to Oscorp, maybe even a cool shot of the super eels swimming in their tanks. Gwen is on standby, in charge of managing the crowd of people who have come to see the “Oscorp Expo.” Along with the eels, we see robotic tentacles peeling oranges, a man in a suit hovering in the air using a winged jetpack, etc.
• Peter and Harry arrive just as very grey (greenish) Norman Osborn takes the stage. We spot Hat Man in the background while Max stands up on a platform, checking the voltage levels on the Eels, murmuring to himself as the large number of people has him on edge. Down below, Peter and Gwen catch each other’s eyes. After a moment, Gwen tries for a smile and Peter returns it sadly.
• Despite his sickly visage, Norman speaks with a charismatic authority. He explains how-before their very eyes-Osborn Tower will become powered by the genetically-enhanced eels. Up above, Max turns a dial and everything goes dark. Everything except for the green-blue light from the eels’ tanks. Gradually everything comes back on line and the audience claps.
• While Norman continues to speak, Max checks the power readings. They’re continuing to rise, going past 100%. The eels begin to thrash against the tanks and the panel Max is standing by overloads, sending sparks into his face. He falls over onto one the tanks, shattering its roof and going in, where you get the same scene of him being transformed. The tank then explodes, drenching and electrocuting Norman and knocking him off his feet. We see his body twitch before going still and then all of Oscorp Tower goes dark.
• Outside, everyone is being interviewed, with Gwen being checked up on by medics since she was close to the stage. Peter goes over to her, asking if she’s okay. They catch up a little and there’s still clear love between them, only for Gwen to get a call on her phone. “It’s, uh, Flash. I gotta take this,” she tells Peter. He hesitates but nods and walks away. Talking to Flash, reassuring him she’s okay, Gwen stares after Peter, looking disappointed.
• The next day, we meet up with Harry at a private hospital. We get the same scene with him and Norman on his deathbed. He asks Harry if “the signs have started?” and Harry nods. Norman says, coughing, “We’re so close…The cure is so close…Not enough blood…Need…fresh sample…
• “Who’s blood?” Harry asks. Norman beckons him forward and with his dying breath whispers, “The…spider.”  
• The next bit of the movie-from Max waking up in the morgue, to him facing off against Spider-Man in Time’s Square-will go mostly unchanged except for one thing: Gwen’s not going to be on a “friend date” with Peter, but on an actual date with Flash. Flash is being pretty thoughtful, telling her he knows he’s not a smart guy, but he can tell something’s been bugging her. That’s when she tells him about being accepted to go to school overseas. Flash’s face breaks out in a smile and he hugs her, congratulating her. On cue, while they hug, Spider-Man happens to swing on by and while Gwen stares after him, looking pained, Flash laughs with a fist bump, “Yeah! You go, Spidey!”
• He and Gwen are in the crowd whenever Spider-Man and Max have their spat. Max is a ticking time bomb. He’s murmuring to himself, hugging himself, acting more like an overgrown child. He does nearly attack a few people, but instead of being shot by a sniper, Peter’s spider sense kicks in. He jumps in and takes the bullet for Max. As Peter’s bleeding, he kneels in front of Max and tells him, “You’ve got power in you, Max. Gotta…gotta be responsible with it…Use it for good.”
• “Good?” Max asks, his voice like a small child, but hearing the sirens, Peter has no choice but to swing away, leaving a small puddle of blood in his wake. Peter gets home and stumbles down into the kitchen, manages to use some small tongs to get the bullet out. But before he can sew the wound closed, he collapses and falls unconscious from the blood loss.
• Peter wakes up in room, in his bed. His damaged suit is draped over a nearby chair, with his boots nearby. Aunt May is gently wiping at his sweat drenched face with a towel. “Aunt May?” he says, almost in a whisper.
• “Don’t waste energy explaining,” she tells him sternly, but not angrily. She’s still wearing her scrubs. They’re stained with dried blood. “You’re lucky you’re not dead.” She then shakes her head and adds, with just the slightest bit of pride, “Spider-Man.”
• “Spider-Man,” Max murmurs. He’s huddled in a far corner of a padded room. The lights overhead keep flickering as he speaks to Hat Man, who’s standing in the doorway. “You want me to be…like Spider-Man?”
• “Not like Spider-Man, Max,” Hat Man says. “We want you to be better.”
• We then get a short montage of Max being given the suit he wears in the last act. It’s similar to the montage in Iron Man 1, with Tony learning to use his suit. An indeterminate amount of time passes, with Max getting more and more used to his powers, and we’re shown that he’s becoming dependent on Hat Man’s validation. Until Hat Man finally says, “You’re ready for your debut. Electro.”
• Cut to Gwen knocking on the Parkers’ front door, a large purse slung over one shoulder. Aunt May opens the door. She’s pleasantly surprised to see Gwen. Gwen tells her she’s come to deliver Peter some of the school work he’s missed out on the past few weeks. She hands it to Aunt May but she hands them back and gently ushers Gwen inside, much to Gwen’s embarrassment.
• With nothing to do but heal, Peter’s sitting in the living room, flipping through books and working on a large pile of overdue projects and papers. Without a shirt on, we see the cloth bandaged around his midsection, over the bullet wound. Aunt May clears her throat and Peter looks up, his eyes going wide when he sees Gwen. “G-Gwen? What are you doing here?”
• “Delivery service,” she says, unable to keep her eyes off his bandages. She hands him he folders. Aunt May looks between them and then rolls her eyes. “Of course I’m the last one to find out,” she mutters, walking into the kitchen. “Probably my own fault, seeing as I couldn’t figure out my only nephew’s swinging around in the American flag!”
• “She knows!” Gwen exclaims and Peter gives a tired nod. They share some chit chat, with Peter saying he’s decided to try to graduate. That maybe, if he’s lucky, he and Gwen could end up going to the same university. Just as Gwen looks like she’s about to tell him about London, a broadcast suddenly plays across the living room TV: “GIANT ROBOT RHINO DECIMATING DOWNTON!”
• Peter suits up, with emphasis of him hugging at his side. Sure enough, Paul Giamatti is “THAAAAA RHIIIIIIINOOOOO!”. People are screaming and running away (not standing around and staring as if it’s the goddamn parade) as he peppers the surrounding police cars with bullets. Spidey swings in but the landing’s rocky. He rushes in and attacks the robot with a manhole cover. The cover bounces off uselessly (because of course it does), and the Rhino charges forward, the horn digging into Peter’s injured abdomen and pinning him up against a building. Paul Giamatti spouts out a Russian prayer (because those are a thing, right?) and presses one of the suit’s gun hands up against Spidey’s face.
• Despite the clear blue sky above, thunder roars and a blast of pale-blue energy slams into the robot suit. Peter and Paul Giamatti scream in pain as electricity flares across them, and the robot suit stumbles back, dropping Peter to the ground. What follows next is Electro just being a freaking god. The Rhino shoots at him? A force field appears around the blue man, turning them to dust. Rhino charges at him? Max disappears and reappears, like a super powers bullfighter. Finally Electro will straight up Kamehameha Paul Giamatti, turning the suit into a hunk of smoking metal.
• Electro will then go over to a dazed Spidey and help him to his feet. As the crowd and the police officers applaud, Spidey will ask, “You’re that guy from the expo, right?…Max?”
• “Not Max,” Electro will say, pumping his fist into the air. “I am Electro!”
• Back at Oscorp Tower, Harry will be staring at a large, holographic diagram of the human body. “Cr added,” a voice will say, and then it will declare, “Incompatible. Incompatible. Incompatible.” Harry will slam his hands on his desk, seething. Behind him, Hat Man asks, “So the Spider isn’t the cure. None of them-”
• “It has to be,” Harry snaps. “We added the Spider’s blood and it upped the success rate significantly it’s…It’s just that this version of the cure kills the host before it can properly take…But why?”
• “If only we could ask Richard Parker,” Hat Man says airily. “If your father hadn’t been so…hasty. Perhaps I could go visit Connors again? If he isn’t having one of his moods, I can have him take a look?”
• “No.” Harry considers his words for a moment. “We don’t have a Richard. But we do have a Parker.”
• Up atop the Brooklyn Bridge, Peter and Electro have a chat. Their conversation is initially friendly, with Max talking like an overexcited kid, showing off his powers to Peter. Peter, still hurt and his suit partly charred from Electro’s initial attack, voices his concern for him, telling him that this isn’t a game. That with his powers, it’s all too easy for Max to hurt someone, if accidently. “But…but I saved the day,” Max will say, unable to comprehend why his hero’s chastising him. So he rationalizes it the only way his stunted mind can. “You’re…you’re just jealous!”
• “No, for your first day I think you did a really good job,” Peter will try to say.
• Max will cut him off, sparks flaring from his fingertips, “Better than you! You watch! I’m gonna be better than you ever were! And then they’ll see…Everybody will see…me.” Peter tries to reach out for him, but too late. Max has already disappeared in a burst of static.
• Unable to handle swinging, Peter takes the subway home. He checks his bandages. They’re burnt and stained red. Just as he leans his head back, closing his eyes, he gets a call from Aunt May. “Peter…I saw everything on the…Are you alright, son?”
• Tears brimming in his eyes, Peters whispers a pained, “No.”
• “Where are you?” she asks just as Peter gets another call from an unknown number. He asks Aunt May to hold on and answers. It’s Harry. Harry asks Peter to go with him somewhere. Confused, Peter gets off the subway and then gets picked up by a limo, Harry sitting in the back.
• Harry takes Peter to the underground secret train base. In this version, Richard and Norman made it together, with all the data in here being kept off the main Oscorp servers. “Take a look around,” Harry tells an awed Peter. “This is as much your inheritance as it is mine. Though yours comes with…considerably less baggage.”
• Peter asks Harry what he means and Harry comes clean about the degenerative disease that runs in his family. Curing it was the very reason why Richard and Norman founded Oscorp in the first place. They managed to create various serums that put Norman in remission, but the disease always came back, worse than before. Connors last project was only one of many projects in the works to try and save Norman. But now that there is no Norman to save…
•  “Funding’s getting cut since the king’s dead,” Harry says. He then says, staring at his trembling hand, the veins of his wrist tinged with the slightest bit of green, “Fuck me, right?”
• “There has to be something in all of this that we can use!” Peter exclaims, gesturing to the beakers and fill cabinets around them. Harry shakes his head, “No not here. But there is a cure. And only one person has it.”
• “Who?” Peter asks.
• “Spider-Man,” Harry says. “Peter, I know you know where to find him. Please, I need his blood. And not just a vial or two. We need a steady supply so as to figure out the right combination with it and the serum, and right dosage. I’m not an idiot. I’m not going to stab an untested substance into my arm and hope it instantly magically cures a degenerative disease. With luck, and consistently administered doses, even if I can’t be completely cured, I can be in remission before it spreads too far. Please, Peter.”
• Peter stands up and looks around. He spots a dusted covered framed photo of Richard and Norman standing arm in arm. Behind the photo, is a tiny glass dome housing a petrified spider, exactly like the one that bit him so long ago.
• “I’m sorry, Harry,” he says, looking utterly disgusted with himself. “But I’m just a guy who was in the right place at the right time. Spider-Man caught me and took me up on a nearby roof so that I wouldn’t get shot. Had my camera with me, took some photos.” He shrugs. “Took ‘em to the Daily Bugle, hoping to make some quick cash. I don’t know Spider-Man. I’m sorry.”
• Harry stares at him, his eyes searching. His shoulders then sag and he nods. He stands up and hands Peter a key. He looks around at the subway. “Have it. Burn it. I don’t care. See ya, Parker.”
• Waiting by the limo, Hat Man opens the back door for Harry and asks with a small smile, “Will we be using force then, sir?”
• Harry grimaces in pain. He clutches at his trembling hand as he says, “No choice. Send in Electro.”
• Cut to Electro back at Oscorp Tower. He’s standing in front of a tank of the super eels, watching them swim. He presses a hand to the glass. An eel swims over and presses its nose up against the glass, by  his palm. Max smiles, tilting his head to the side like a curious child. “You…see…me,” he says to the eel.
• Unnoticed, Hat Man enters the room and walks up next to Max. “Electro,” he said, spooking Max a little. “I’ve got a mission for you.”
• “Another bad guy?” Max asks excitedly.
• “The worst,” Hat Man answers. “Spider-Man.”
• Max scoffs at that. “Spider-Man? Spider-Man’s not a bad guy.”
• “Oh really? Then how can you explain him killing someone?” Max stares at him, confused. “There’s a boy who’s very sick, Max. Oscorp can cure him, but we need Spider-Man. We need you to find him and bring him back.” He holds out his hand to Max, seemingly unafraid of his power. “Be a true hero, Electro, and help me save a boy’s life.”
• Max takes his hand. “…I…I don’t have to kill him, do I?” he asks.
• “We’d prefer if you didn’t,” Hat Man answers with a knowing smile. “But you’ll probably have to hurt him. A lot.”
• What follows next is Electro getting Peter’s attention by taking out all the power in the city and fighting at the power plant. With his childlike mentality, it’ll make more sense for this version of the character to beat the shit out of Spidey to the tune of “Itsy Bitsy Spider”, but it’s a matter of taste. I personally found it funny. Gwen will also be there to help Peter, and the overall climactic fight will play out the same. It’ll be more tragic, with Spider-Man begging Max to stop, only to have no choice but to take him out.
• The Night Gwen Stacy Dies does not happen in this movie. Instead we have the graduation scene from the actual movie, with Peter sauntering across stage to receive his diploma from Gwen. No big kiss. Just a smile between the two.
• Like in the comics, Gwen goes off to London, which she discussed with Aunt May while Peter went to fight Paul Giamatti. With a push from Aunt May, Peter hurries off to the airport to say goodbye, but then decides to write “I Love You” under the bridge instead. Gwen sees it, smiles sadly, and then we cut to Peter standing at the top of the bridge, watching her plane take off and soar through the sky, out of his life. For now.
• We’ll then cut to Harry and Hat Man walking through a dimly lit hallway. At the end of the hall are a pair of heavily armed guards. They let him through and we enter a second room. There are six or so even more heavily armed guards standing at attention around a bullet-proof glass cell. Inside is a man clawing at the floor, carving numbers and symbols and dozens upon dozens of spider emblems. He twitches as the two men enter. The majority of his face is covered scales and one of his eyes is reptilian yellow. He sniffs at the airy and snarls through partly fanged teeth, “…Osborn.”
• “Hello, Dr. Connors,” Harry says. He grimaces and scratches at his neck. Greenish veins have begun to spread up along his spine. “Sorry I didn’t visit sooner. We’ve a lot to discuss.”
• END

It’s not perfect. Not by a long shot. But my main goal was to give both Harry and Max proper motivations for why they’re doing why they’re doing. I took out the whole Electro-Loony-Fan angle. He’s not going, “HA HA HA, fuck the world, let me be evil!” To his dying (?) breath, Max is trying to be a hero. He latches on to Hat Man (who is apparently called the Gentleman?) and because of that, he can’t tell he’s being played. Plus, he wasn’t asked to kill Spider-Man, just bring him in. So in his mind, it’s more like a cop going out to try and arrest a known criminal.

The whole “Osborn disease” plot really bugs me in the actual movie. It’s shown that Norman’s lived to see his fifties at least, but then, when Harry finds out he’s got the disease, he’s acting as if he’s going to die within months if he doesn’t get Spider-Man’s blood. I’d be more sympathetic if they made a point of showing how painful the disease is for Harry to deal with (maybe he’s unable to dress himself without an assistant-who could be named Felicia-, maybe he can’t sleep without medication and/or booze, etc.) but beyond the green skin pigmentation, we don’t get a real sense of what the disease is actually doing to the Osborns.

My version of Hat Man knows Peter’s Spider-Man, but he’s keeping that card close to the vest. We never actual got to learn what his motivations were in the movies, so I’m keeping it ambiguous here as well. You can gather that he was in on Peter’s parents being killed, but that’s really it. I mostly focused on him being a bad influence for Max. An “Anti-Uncle Ben” if you will.

And yes, there was no action scene with Peter’s parents, and no he doesn’t find out they were murdered or that Richard spliced his own DNA with the spiders. The first movie set up this big mystery with Richard Parker, only to answer everything in the second movie, leaving nowhere for the mystery to go in the third, fourth, etc. I’m going to be playing the long game with this one, have Peter learn everything in phases.

Keeping Peter and Gwen broken up was a tough call, but I couldn’t have him stringing her along and unintentionally making her decision to go to London harder than it had to be. In the movie, all of this just makes him come off as a wish-washy dick. I’ve also always had a preference for Peter in high school. You can blame that on my love for the Ultimate comics and the Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon, but hey, it’s my remix I’ll do what I want.

Also I like the Lizard and he’s already been established in the verse. Might as well set him up for a comeback.

Eventually. ‘Till next time!