Spider-Verse: Into the Serial

Can a great movie be badly written?

So, a few weeks back I finally got to see Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse after spending what felt like a month trying to avoid spoilers. Whilst I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, as a writer, I do have some…niggles.

Now, the movie has been an unmitigated success. We’re talking $683.9 million at the box office on a budget of $100 million. It was certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with a closely aligned 95% critic score and 94% audience score.

I enjoyed it, the wife enjoyed it, the kids loved it. All around a good time. But, as a writer, I had niggles.

First of all, the movie is meant to be aimed at kids, right (kinda)? Or at the very least their comic-obsessed fandom parents (guilty as charged). But my goodness was this long for a kids movie! 140 minutes? Really?? To date, it’s the longest American animated film in the history of cinema. But it’s over-bloated.

Now, I believe there’s a reason for this: they wanted to stretch the story across two movies and increase its “franchisability” (not to mention earnings). But what this means is that we end up with a movie that’s longer than it needs to be and writing that’s looser than it ought to be.

I’ll have to wait for the sequel to know for sure (which, as of now, is on indefinite hold due to the writer’s strike), but I can’t help but wonder if the story could have been tied up in a single movie? And don’t get me wrong, the vast majority of that 140 minutes is thoroughly entertaining. They filled every scene and every moment with all kinds of tid-bits, gags, and easter eggs, but there were moments where it definitely felt like the writing could have been tighter.

Let’s take the opening for example. I didn’t time it the first time, but on the second watch I confirmed that a good 20 minutes was dedicated to Gwen Stacy and her backstory before we even saw the opening credits. And I get it—it makes sense for where the story goes by the end, but again it felt like this opening could have been shorter with much tighter writing.

If Gwen were the main character in the sequel, it would make sense…but she isn’t so it ends up being an overly long prologue.

What is interesting is that the opening does set up the only character arc that actually has pay-off and a conclusion by the end of the movie, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

My overall thoughts about the movie are that I enjoyed it, but I’m irritated by how the story has been structured. I’m irritated because it’s an incomplete movie with an incomplete story. It essentially ends up being a chapter in a serial, which would be fine if it were actually a serial, but it’s a movie. It’s like having the 1st and 2nd acts of a movie but you have to wait for the sequel to get the 3rd act.

It has no conflict resolution. It foreshadows a lot of things that don’t pay off by the finale because they’re being saved for the sequel.

There is a character that does have an arc in the movie and whose main conflict finds a resolution by the end, but that’s Gwen. The problem is, it isn’t her movie, even if the opening 20 minutes are dedicated to her. It doesn’t fully commit to being her movie because it’s ultimately Miles’ movie. It’s his story (more on this later).

Coincidentally, the same weekend I first saw Spider-Verse, I also watched Fast X. Both movies suffer from the same problem, and it’s a problem that is emblematic of modern cinema and storytelling. They both end on cliffhangers without having resolved their central conflict. It’s as if the filmmakers & writers simply ran out of run-time instead of taking the time to craft a complete story with a definitive beginning, middle and end.

Now, let’s compare this to a movie that (a) is a sequel, (b) sets up another sequel, (c) ends on a cliffhanger, and (d) still resolves its central conflict.

The movie in question is Back to the Future 2.

What follows is a brief summary of the plot. If you haven’t seen it, you are crazy. You need to log off now, go and watched parts 1 & 2 and then come back here.

Ok, good? Ok.

Back the Future 2 - One of the Best Sequels Ever Made

Marty McFly and his girlfriend Jennifer are taken into the future by Doc Brown to prevent their future son from being arrested, creating a domino effect that ruins their entire family.

Whilst in the future, Marty purchases the Sports Almanac in an antique store which records the results of every sporting event from the 20th through to the 21st century. His plan: use it to bet on future events and get rich in his time.

Doc Brown discovers the Almanac and throws it in the bin because he didn’t create the time machine to gamble. Unfortunately, this exchange is overheard by Biff Tannen, the elderly former bully of Marty’s father, George McFly. The elderly Biff steals the time machine, travels back to 1955 (the time period from the first movie) and gives the Almanac to his younger self.

When Marty, Doc and Jennifer fix the future of the McFly family and travel back to 1985, they find themselves in an alternate timeline where George McFly is dead, Doc Brown has been sectioned, Biff Tannen is rich and has married Marty’s mother.

Doc discovers elder Biff’s broken cane in the time machine along with the bag and receipt for the Almanac. In order to fix their present, they have to travel back to 1955 (and to the events of the first movie) and steal the Almanac back whilst also trying to avoid their past selves.

They succeed, but the time machine is struck by lightning seemingly killing Doc Brown and stranding Marty in 1955. A few minutes later, he receives a personally addressed letter from Doc Brown in 1885 telling him he’s alive and well and not to try and come back for him under any circumstances. Marty races to the climax of the first movie, arriving just as his past self is sent back to the future. He finds the shocked past Doc Brown where they deliver this immortal exchange:

Doc: It can’t be. I just sent you back to the future.

Marty: I know you sent me back to the future, but I’m back. I’m back from the future.

Doc Brown exclaims “Great Scott!” faints and the movie ends with a “To Be Concluded.”

Cue curtains, you may now applaud.

Ok, so what does BTTF2 do that Spider-Verse doesn’t?

Though it sets up the sequel, it resolves its central conflict: Marty’s greed and hubris causes him to ruin his timeline. He must undo his mistake to fix the future.

It also sets up and resolves his conflict with the central protagonist: Biff Tannen (in 2015, Alt-1985 & 1955).

In contrast, most of what Spider-Verse sets up it doesn’t pay off because it’s saving it for the sequel. This is one of the reasons it feels like a story that has been split into two movies because they couldn’t (or didn’t want to) condense it down to one.

This is the problem with a lot of modern, blockbuster filmmaking. It’s all about franchisability as opposed to telling a good story. How much can we milk this cash-cow?

And the writers (obviously, because they want to keep writing) don’t kill their darlings and trim the fat off their fiction.

Now let’s go back to Across the Spider-Verse.

Again, spoilers ahead. Across the Spider-Verse is now available on digital so go rent or buy it if you haven’t seen it, then come back.

Ok, good? Ok.

Across the Spider-Verse - A Sequel in Two Parts

Mile’s central conflict is essentially: “I should be able to choose my own destiny. I get to write my own story.”

Now, I’ll admit, because the movie is so dense (both visually and narratively) it’s hard to actually pick out this central conflict.

It’s somewhat connected to the kind-of main protagonist, the Spot; a former Alchemax scientist who inadvertently made Miles Spider-Man by experimenting with the collider, bringing the spider from Earth-42 that would go on to bite Miles into his universe (Earth-1610). Conversely, the explosion of the collider in the climax of the previous movie is what gave the Spot his portal powers.

His plan is to travel to alternate earths and use their colliders to gain more power. During a battle with the Spot, Miles (somehow) sees visions of the future involving the death of his dad at the hands of the Spot.

The death of Mile’s dad is what is called a “canon event,” an event that’s key to life of a Spider-Person and helps hold the web of the Spider-Verse together.

We learn that Miles is the result of a disrupted canon event and the Spider-Society are tasked with preventing Miles from interfering with the inevitable death of his father.

Miles escapes and returns home, only it’s not his home. It’s Earth-42 where the spider that gave him his powers came from: a world where his uncle Aaron (the Prowler from the previous movie) is alive, his dad Jeff is dead and his alternate self has become the villainous Prowler.

And…that’s actually where the movie ends. On that cliffhanger.

Now, I did leave out some plot details but that’s because I wanted to focus on the central conflict & the main protagonist to make my point.

“Write Your Own Story”

As I said, Miles’ central conflict is the notion that everyone else is trying to choose his destiny for him. This is foreshadowed in the beginning of the movie (after the Gwen sequence) when meeting with the school guidance counsellor, exemplified when she says to him and his parents:

“That’s your story, now just stick to the script.”

Unfortunately, the latter part of that line is almost inaudible. I missed it the first time round.

The concept comes up again during his conflict with Miguel O’Hara (Spider-Man 2099, the secondary antagonist) and the notion of a canon event. It’s a set in stone event that can’t be deviated from. Again, Miles’ destiny is being decided for him: he has a story to tell and he must stick to the script.

What we do see is Miles’ power and determination to write his own script. Fair enough.

The problem is, this central conflict isn’t resolved by the end of the movie.

None of what happens to Miles in Spider-Verse is down to his actions or his character flaw. If anything, it’s implied that everyone else is wrong and he’s right. He’s not the one that needs to change; the multiverse does.

His actions only lead to problems and further plot complications at the end of the movie; the aforementioned cliffhanger. Choosing his own destiny and determining to break the cycle of canon events leads to his getting stranded on Earth-42 in the clutches of his alternate self.

Neither is his conflict with the Spot the result of his own actions or character motivations. Things have just kind of happened to him and he’s had to deal with them. He didn’t do anything to get bit by the spider, the Spot did; and whilst his actions inadvertently led to the Spot’s creation, it was whilst he was being heroic. What else should he have done?

In effect, he’s lacked agency. When he does take matters into his own hands, it doesn’t result in dire consequences until the cliffhanger. By then, it’s already too late narrative wise.

The thing is, there’s a lot of great setup here. The problem is it’s all setup for another movie.

In contrast, Marty McFly’s main character flaw is his pride. It’s his pride that causes him to covet riches and fame. His coveting skews the events of the movie and the central conflict into an alternate timeline he needs to fix.

What BTTF2 does that Spider-Verse doesn’t is it resolves the central conflict with both the protagonist and antagonist and sets up the sequel. It ends on a cliffhanger, yes, but it resolves its main plotline in the process.

Mile’s rivalry with the Spot? Unresolved.

His desire to choose his own destiny? Unresolved.

His conflict with Miguel O’Hara and the mystery of canon events? Unresolved.

His dad’s pending death? Unresolved.

The only conflict and plot thread that is resolved, ironically, is the one introduced in the opening twenty minutes.

Gwen Stacy is Spider-Woman, but she’s also the daughter of NYPD captain George Stacy. He believes Spider-Woman is responsible for the death of Gwen’s bestfriend, Peter Parker, who turned himself into the Lizard. When Gwen reveals her secret identity to her father, he rejects her (probably out of fear) and proceeds to try and arrest her. She’s rescued by Miguel O’Hara and Jessica Drew who invite her to join the Spider-Society.

When Gwen is ejected from the Spider-Society near the end of the movie for being a liability, she reconciles with her dad who resigns from the police. This calls back to the opening where, after revealing her identity, she pleads with him to be her dad and not a cop for just a moment. By the climax, he has chosen to be her dad rather than a cop. Wonderful.

Of course, we don’t see most of this development onscreen but it’s still emotionally satisfying because we know that Gwen has probably been gone for months. That the plot thread is established during an emotionally charged and compelling opening and resolved near the movie’s climax is why it works and why it’s satisfying.

Miles’ story is left hanging because it’s all setup for the sequel.

The question is, what should they have done? How could they have structured this story differently?

Because we haven’t yet seen the sequel, I can’t adequately answer that question but I can make some suggestions.

Make the Ending the Middle

Miles ending up on Earth-42 should have been the midpoint of the movie, just like Marty McFly realising his dad was dead and that he was in an alternate 1985 was the midpoint of BTTF2. And this goes back to my main complaint about the movie: it’s too long and feels like everything they want to do in this movie and the next could have been tied up in one story.

Make the Movie Mile’s Movie

Most of Gwen’s opening isn’t crucial to the story and could have been reduced to the clever comic-book backstory sequences they did in the first movie. If you go back and watch that sequence, it actually covers most of the same beats (she joins a band and fails to save Peter Parker). The only crucial piece of information is that her dad thinks Spider-Woman is responsible for Peter Parker’s death and that her revealing her identity to him is what leads to her joining the Spider Society.

It’s as if they wanted to make the sequel Gwen’s story but couldn’t commit to it because it’s Miles’ story. Either make it all about Miles or make a separate story about Gwen.

Cut Some Character Moments

Many of the scenes with characters talking and interacting are great, well written and humorous but they bog the story down. They start too early and finish too late. If they’re not absolutely plot critical I think they should have been trimmed or cut entirely.

Obviously trilogies are big business. Every movie studio wants to have that major movie trilogy (or interconnected cinematic universe) because they bring in the big bucks. But when you have a story that could be told in a single movie but you decide it needs to be expanded into two or more to “fully tell it,” what you end up with is a story that isn’t as tight as it could be.

It may be that once Beyond the Spider-Verse comes out, I’ll come back and eat all my words here but I’m interested to see how it all pans out.

Here is my prediction: Miles will convince his Earth-42 counterpart to help save his dad, something Earth-42 Miles couldn’t have done.

A Good Movie, Badly Written?

Here’s the thing. The movie isn’t bad. It’s actually great. And it isn’t even badly written in its individual parts and scenes. It’s that it’s poorly structured because it’s the first half of a story. Now, that’s fine if you’re writing a serial. Everyone’s coming in with the understanding that every chapter or part isn’t necessarily going to be a self-contained story. Every chapter is part of a bigger picture. But this isn’t meant to be the case with movies. You go with the expectation that you’re getting a complete, 3-Act experience. Even if they are part of a trilogy or a series of stories, they should have their own individual story that comes to a conclusion. Back to the Future 2 shows how to do this well.

The movie deserves its own story, even if it’s the middle part of a trilogy. Back to the Future 2 foreshadows things in the next movie and even carries over Marty’s character flaw, but it doesn’t allow that to get in the way of the story it’s telling. It does this so well, in fact, that it’s worth going over before I conclude.

When Jennifer is hiding in the closet of her future home, listening to a conversation between her future in-laws and her kids, Marty’s mother mentions how Marty got into an automobile accident where he broke his hand, resulting in him giving up his music. One of his peers called him a chicken when he refused to race him at a red light resulting in him crashing into a Roles Royce.

It’s almost an offhand comment that comes off as a bit of background information. It’s not paid off until the closing minutes of Back to the Future 3 where we see the race unfold. We think Marty’s going to race when he’s called a chicken, but instead he throws the car into reverse and witnesses the other car swerving to miss a Roles Royce. He’s learned his lesson and altered the course of the future. Character arc concluded.

But, as I said, whilst this arc takes place across two movies and whilst this sequence is foreshadowed in Back to the Future 2, the setup doesn’t make up the entirety of the movie.

Can you imagine if Back to the Future 2 ended at the part in the graveyard because they wanted to expand this one movie into three? Heaven forbid.

To my fellow fiction writers, what do you think?

Is there a place for serial storytelling in the movie medium?

Do you think the story could have been told in a single movie?

Any other sequels you can think of that setup a follow-up whilst telling a stellar, self-contained story?

Are there any lessons you think we can learn from this for our own fiction?