Opinion: The importance of the Spider-Man trilogy

When I think about the best superhero movies, the ones that jump to mind first are the Sam Raimi Spider-Man films. Not The Dark Knight, not Logan, not Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

The original Spider-Man trilogy is unapologetically Spider-Man but also unapologetically comic-book-y. It doesn’t try to disguise itself as a crime thriller, a western, or a political epic. It’s a superhero story through and through but its ability to communicate something deeply human isn’t compromised because of a kid swinging from webs.

These movies put the human in superhuman. Director Sam Raimi takes stories about real, authentic people and uses the fantastical elements as a vehicle to elevate them. By using Marvel icons as a platform or entry point, he’s able to deliver something that feels true despite the flashiness that comes with those characters.

The idea of being a superhero is anything but a dream for the beloved wall-crawler. Most kids dream of the fantasy of being a superhero. How cool would it be to have all that freedom? Be idolized? Be the one that comes out on top? Spider-Man isn’t escapism like many other superhero stories because he rarely comes out on top.

Even in victory, he typically suffers defeat in a very personal way. A loved one dying as a result of his actions. Rejecting a girl he desperately wants. Betrayal. Despite being a character of fiction, he’s subjected to the torment of reality without a “happily ever after” ending. It shows that a magic wish or superpowers won’t solve your problems. Life isn’t about chasing a seemingly unreachable state or item that will magically make everything right for you.

After Peter’s bitten by the spider, he thinks all his problems will be solved. He can turn this into an opportunity for fame and fortune, get the girl by impressing her, and finally be happy. We all know that this backfires for him in just about every possible way. His only father figure is shot and killed as a result of his more careless actions, he realizes he can’t have the girl because of the danger it poses, and he realizes the weight of his newfound abilities.

As he says at the end of the first film, it’s his gift and his curse. He ends up inheriting a responsibility that almost quite literally puts the weight of the world on his shoulders. Even with a bright red and blue suit and a plucky attitude, Spider-Man is often having to swallow the hardest pills. In Spider-Man 2, Peter visits Aunt May who’s moving boxes out of her house with the help of a little boy named Henry. May reveals to Peter who has recently thrown away his webbed threads that Henry wants to be just like Spider-Man.

Peter responds very quickly with a confused “Why?” This is coming from the guy who about a year prior was gleefully leaping from roof to roof, covering his room in webs, and workshopping ideas for his costume in his college-ruled notebook. The guy who was so excited about being a superhero can no longer bear the idea of why anyone would want such a burden.

Peter Parker is someone who truly knows the meaning of consequences. Sometimes people think consequences means you get what you deserve, it’s a form of karma, or whatever. The truth is consequences come with any action, they’re the results of whatever you do, good or bad. Peter knows that even if you do everything right and you give your all to something, you can still end up with an unfair and severe punishment.

Peter Parker has mastered something that should be super difficult: Being a superhero. He’s shot at, punched, exploded, and everything in between but he’s best in class. What he hasn’t mastered is being a regular guy. That seems incredibly backward. The impossible task of preventing supervillains from killing people or whatever bad thing they want to do is somehow easier than life itself.

While I enjoy Tom Holland’s Spider-Man a lot, he’s not as internally tortured as Tobey Maguire’s. Tom Holland’s Peter has different struggles but they only scratch the surface, they feel like a movie character’s problems. Tobey Maguire’s Peter struggles with problems that feel much more tangible, much more painful on a deeper level.

Where Tom Holland deals with a crush and has to simply figure out how to ask her out, Tobey Maguire deals with the many complicated layers of love. There are all these intertwining factors preventing him from being with Mary Jane, whether that’s his responsibilities as Spider-Man or his inability to be who she needs him to be as a man.

He longs for her, his battles with his enemies are equally as painful as the battle raging on in his heart. Sometimes the blows he takes from his pursuit of Mary Jane are far more painful than a punch in the face.

In Spider-Man 2, he makes an effort to go see the play she’s starring in but is unable to make it due to a crime happening on his way there. He stands outside of the theater, waiting for her to exit, and just as he’s about to go up and talk to her… he watches another guy come up and kiss her. They walk off into the metaphorical sunset, leaving him in the dust, utterly heartbroken.

If that wasn’t bad enough, he also has to take a picture of them together when said other guy makes a public marriage proposal to Mary Jane. This isn’t as simple as just seeing a girl you like with someone else, it’s a girl he had a chance with and ultimately failed to take advantage of. He has to live with this feeling of failure, the attainable being lost, and it taunts him.

Anyone who has experienced any form of true heartbreak knows that feeling of being unable to escape the thought of that significant other. Spider-Man 2 brings this front and center by littering images of Mary Jane all across the movie, usually at Peter’s lowest moments.

Her face is on a massive billboard in the opening of the movie, it’s on a bus that nearly pancakes Peter when he’s delivering pizzas, and then he has to mope past a wall plastered with her gaze after he begins to lose his powers. It’s painfully brutal.

His relatable suffering doesn’t end there. Unlike other superheroes who seem incorruptible or perfect, Spider-Man is a subject of a human being’s greatest pitfalls. Even after donning the mask and finding his purpose, he can’t help but make grave mistakes and be flawed.

The first thing he wanted to do with his powers was to use them to make money and acquire fame. He then seeks revenge on the man who killed his uncle and shows no mercy. In Spider-Man 3, he is consumed by his pride and ego, becoming blind and losing focus on who he is and why he’s Spider-Man. He relapses back into this shell of a hero.

Peter Parker is constantly at war with himself as he lives a life that pulls him in so many different directions. A life that can cause you to lose sight of yourself, make mistakes, and bring out a side of you that’s not true to who you really are.

Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy lets us know it’s ok to struggle. It’s ok to doubt ourselves and the situations we found ourselves in. It’s ok to grapple with the hard choices we are confronted with. While another superhero like Batman always seems to have all the answers, Spider-Man is always at a crossroads, unsure of which path to take.

At the end of Spider-Man 3, when Peter reflects on the events of the film, he has a monologue all about choice. “Whatever comes our way, whatever battle we have raging inside us, we always have a choice. […] It’s the choices who make us who we are and we can always choose to do what’s right.”

There really isn’t a “right” path. The Spider-Man trilogy teaches us that there’s no avoiding our problems. There isn’t a happily ever after, there will always be another battle, there will always be more pain, but there will always be lessons to learn from those struggles.

Whether that’s a lesson of forgiveness, giving up the things you love or want the most, or accepting responsibility, there are real lessons to learn from each of these movies. This trilogy is about a character who, just like anyone else, has to deal with life-long growing pains. We always look at superheroes as the problem solvers, the ones that know exactly what to do but that’s not Spider-Man and that’s why he works so well.

I don’t love Spider-Man because it’s an escape from reality. I love Spider-Man because his stories are a reflection of how life is, with or without superpowers. I love Spider-Man because it’s about someone constantly aspiring to be better rather than already being the best.