La Ron S. Readus
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All 9 Spider-Man Movies Ranked! (VIDEO SCRIPT)
🕑 Added 2021-12-20 21:00:04 +0000 UTCWhere do I rank the 9 Spider-Man movies from least to best? Also known as, "Hey La'Ron! Give the internet yet ANOTHER reason to absolutely hate you!" Challenge Accepted.
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I'm not gonna lie, Readers; I've been wanting to make this video for about a month
And you may be asking yourself, "Why would I wanna do such a thing knowing that there's a significant portion of the Spider-Man fanbase that always treats vids and lists like this as a personal attack of they're nowhere close to their own?"
Well one, because to a certain extent, I enjoy organized mess
Especially organized mess that can give me watch time
And two, making rank-slash-tier lists like this allows me to think critically about what did and didn't work in a film for me
So much so, that depending on how many opinions I unearth regarding the subject what did or didn't work, may end up being its own video down the line.
Now as you know, Spider-Man: No Way Home as of the recording of this video is the latest Spidey film to be released and has only been in theaters for about 3 days
And the reason why I didn't make this video a month ago was because I wanted to see No Way Home first, so I can rank it accordingly.
But now that I have No Way Home under my belt...after going to a crowded matinee showing of it while doing my best to channel my inner Bernie Sanders...
Here's my current ranking -- from least favorite to all-time favorite -- of every SPIDER-MAN movie.
Which means no, I'm not including either of the Venom movies. But if you know anything about me, you should already know that I was never gonna include any of the Venom movies.
But before I give the internet a reason to be toxic towards me, I wanna talk to you about this video's sponsor, Zenni Optical.
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/Offer expires on January 4th 2022, and thanks to Zenni Optical for sponsoring this video!/
So I’m not even about to waste some of y’all time; my number 9 and 8 are The Amazing Spider-Man movies. 2 for number 9 and 1 for number 8.
There are a few problems that I have with the ASM movies that turn me off from the overall concept the franchise was going in.
/And that’s the “Chosen One” narrative it tried to run with Peter and the mystery behind the importance of his parents that they tried to adapt from the Ultimate Spider-Man comics/
I also never really gelled with Andrew Garfield’s depiction of Peter Parker. Not his Spider-Man, his Peter Parker.
/I always thought that his Peter was a bit too cool to properly be Peter, which sucks because both his Spider-Man and Garfield’s understanding of the character as a whole is absolutely perfect./
/Like, his interview regarding why he feels Peter shouldn’t look up to Tony Stark during his press tour for TASM 2 was... (chef’s kiss) Just perfect./
Speaking of Ultimate Spider-Man, I actually DIDN’T have a problem with the whole “Oscorp was responsible for the genetically altered spider that bit Peter” bit that the ASM movies adapted.
/But they failed to make the “shadowy man in the hat” character foreshadowing whatever grand Spidey-event they were planning for TASM actually compelling to me, or even get me to care about it enough to look forward to my questions being answered in the next installment./
/Especially considering how they decided to haphazardly wrap up that storyline with the subway lab scene in 2? I dunno, man; they were doing a lot with that, and I wasn’t really feeling it./
The reason why 2 is number 9 instead of number 8 however, is that along with all of my previous points, they still felt the need to tackle on a Norman Osborn Green Goblin with an Electro-focused story just to establish and foreshadow events that are too in the future for us to properly care about WHEN WE ALREADY HAD THE STUFF FROM THE FIRST MOVIE TO DEAL WITH.
Like, my personal bias against Jamie Foxx aside, TASM 2 was too busy focusing on all of the side shit from part 1 that they wanted me to acknowledge was prominent info for me to properly care about Peter’s want to help Max.
/Hell, all of the foreshadowing and focus on the mystery and chosen one aspect from part 1 kept me from caring about the relationship between Peter and Harry in it as well!/
While there’s stuff about them that I did appreciate, the Amazing Spider-Man movies just didn’t work for me. And at this point, it’s gonna have to take some real bad solo Spidey movies for them to move higher up on the list.
Number Seven: Spider-Man: Far From Home
/Far From Home was fun. And I really did like how Mysterio was utilized when his true villainistic nature was revealed. But this was also the movie that really showed me how much of a crutch Iron Man was to the development of MCU Peter, and it makes me not like it as much./
And yes, that’s both regarding Peter’s personal relationship with him, and Mysterio being the second MCU Spidey villain to have beef with him as their main motivation to become a villain.
/And while the shit made sense for Vulture and his crew in Homecoming and provided a very powerful commentary on how the working class constantly gets screwed over, seeing how the Mysterio thing played out the way that it did in Far From Home made me realize that blaming Tony Stark for the majority of Spidey’s villains was not only the easy way out as far as motive and explanation, but also puts less agency on the interconnectivity as Spider-Man’s actual nemeses./
Not only should Tony Stark not be the main root for every Spidey villain depicted in the MCU, but he should also not be a replacement for Uncle Ben. PERIOD.
Number Six: Spider-Man 3
The reason why Spider-Man 3 is so high on this list is because Sam Raimi did the best with the bad situation that he was given, and I will take this to my grave.
/Also, despite Avi Arad forcing Raimi to include Venom in the movie so he could make a paycheck on toy sales, Raimi was not only able to craft a very well done story on the toxicity of revenge and the importance of forgiveness, but actually find a way to link it back to the events of the first movie in order to make the only Proper Movie Trilogy in the history of Spider-Man on the silver screen./
Say what you want about Topher Grace as Eddie Brock. Say what you want about Peter Parker’s symbiote dance and his Fever performance at Mary Jane’s bar. But considering what was forced upon him, Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3 could’ve been MUCH worse
Number Five: Spider-Man: No Way Home
I know this movie just came out, so I’m not going to spoil it. Instead, I’ll use this clip from the first Spider-Man movie to explain why I believe this film is as good as it turned out to be.
(Back to formula?)
Number Four: Spider-Man Homecoming
Despite the use of Tony Stark in the film, I really do enjoy how Spider-Man Homecoming truly feels like a quintessential Spider-Man story in the vein of a John Hughes film.
/I love how Vulture reflects that of a Raimi-era villain in the case of being given a very real motivation worthy of a Spider-Man story that boosts him from the C tier that he is in the comics to between that of an A and S tier/
And I love how they used one of the stories Ditko wrote for Spider-Man back when he was an Ayn Rand fanboy that tried to turn Peter into an objectivist incel as a result in order to do it.
/Want more info on that? My buddy Scott Niswander over on NerdSync recently made a video about Steve Ditko’s run as a writer on Amazing Spider-Man that explains the overall philosophy and attitude he tried to steer Peter in at the time that reflected his own viewpoints and philosophy. I highly recommend you check it out./
The point I’m trying to make is that I have a whole lotta love for Homecoming.
Not necessarily for the things inspired by Miles Morales and applied to Peter’s own upbringing, mind you; I’m still salty about that.
I appreciate Homecoming because of how much its narrative dips into and introduces Peter to his Neutral Good roots.
/Not only do we see through Vulture that this is how Peter learns to understand the importance of being a hero of the PEOPLE considering his motivations affected by who he looks up to, but this is also the beginning of him understanding that just because he WORKS with a billionaire doesn’t mean he should be beholden to him, and that’s where I think Far From Home missed the mark with how they handled the relationship between Peter and Tony after Endgame. Definitely top 5 material for me./
Number Three: Spider-Man 2002
Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man was able to mix the superhero origin worldbuilding and storytelling aspects that I grew to really appreciate in Richard Donner’s Superman...
With the action and deep dive associated with superheroes and the relationships with their arch-nemesis that I grew up loving thanks to Tim Burton’s Batman
/Spider-Man 2002 is a quintessential superhero origin movie for me. And outside of the movies I mentioned earlier that I regularly compare its type of superhero storytelling style to, the only ones that have come relatively CLOSE to matching the hybrid of Superman and Batman that is Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man within the MCU is Iron Man and Captain America/
Spider-Man 2 is my number 2.
/Not just because it did such a great job at showing the tragedy of Otto Octavius through the eyes of a filmmaker who REALLY loves the character in order to do so, but also because it was the first time I’ve ever seen a specific arc-slash-issue of a superhero adapted on screen, regardless if it’s a loose one or otherwise./
Up until Spider-Man 2, every superhero sequel I’ve seen were pretty much either original ideas, or came from comic issues that were either ridiculously old or I had no knowledge of.
The Spider-Man no more issue was one that I was immediately aware of thanks to Spider-Man being one of the main superheroes I knew about when I started my comic book journey thanks to the animated series...
/And seeing the iconic image of the outfit in the trash immediately jogged my memory and made me realize that you can utilize elements of the source material to tell a story/
Not only was Spider-Man 2 the first time I consciously saw that play out...
/But the story it told about selfishness versus sacrifice as a result utilized the source material PERFECTLY, and resulted in some of the most iconic Spider-Man media and imagery to date/
Which means my number one and currently my all-time favorite Spider-Man movie is Into the Spider-Verse.
And I’m gonna cash in my Stan Lee ‘Nuff Said card for this one, because I feel that if I have to explain to you WHY Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse deserves to be in the number one slot, then you should probably ACTUALLY watch Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
But, I digress, Readers. Your homework assignment for the day:
Write in the comment section below what YOUR ranking of the nine Spidey solo movies are from least to best.
Whatever order your list is in, I'd love to know your thoughts.
