Rick's World

Almost a year ago, I wrote my thoughts on what would happen in the Spider-man 3 movie, based on the very first, early trailer that they showed. Friday night, I finally saw the movie. Let's see how well my predictions were.

Note that this article contains a few spoilers about the movie so if you don't want to know what happens, don't keep reading. I'll write a full review of the movie later...

In the original article, I wrote out my suspected plot summary:

Based upon the scenes in this movie, here is my best guess as to the plot of the movie.

Peter and Mary Jane have been dating for a while. Peter decides to ask her to marry him. He goes out and buys an engagement ring. Right as he is about to ask her to marry him, he somehow encounters the black costume. The costume flows over his red and blue costume, replacing it with the black costume we see in the trailer. He goes about being Spider-man in this new black costume, thinking nothing is different. It turns out that the costume is affecting his mind. This leads him to stray from Mary Jane. He meets Gwen Stacy and has a romance with her. Mary Jane finds out and they have a big argument/breakup. Somewhere along the way the new Green Goblin and the Sandman make appearances. No doubt there will be a few scenes of the black costume Spiderman fighting them. Later, he discovers that the costume is controlling him and discovers that sound waves can kill it. He heads to the church bell tower and stands there while the bells go off. The costume supposedly dies. He leaves. Eddie Brock, who was also in the church, below the bell tower, finds the injured costume. They join together and become Venom. This leads to a climactic battle between Spiderman, back in the red and blue costume, versus Venom (and maybe Green Goblin and Sandman too). He fights and wins. He returns to Mary Jane and explains everything. They make up and he proposes to her. The movie ends with the two of them getting married.

Looking back at my plot summary, I got most of it right although I did make a couple of mistakes.

What I got right

I predicted that Peter was going to ask MJ to marry him. That's an easy one. Just look at that engagement ring. Of course his attempts at a proposal didn't go as planned. This scene of Peter falling, while trying to grab the ring actually occurs during a spectacular, plain-clothes fight between Peter and the New Goblin.

I predicted he would have a romance with Gwen Stacy and that this romance would have been influenced by the black costume. While the romance was brief, he did in fact have a romance with her. It turns out that she is his lab partner in class. That's how he met her. He later, while under the influence of the black costume takes her to a jazz club, does an elaborate (and really cornball) dance number and dances with her... This jazz club also happens to be the same jazz club where MJ is now working as a singing waitress - a particularly cruel move for him to make. He flaunts his date with Gwen right in front of MJ's eyes.

The New Goblin is, in fact Harry Osbourne. This was hardly a surprise. He became the Goblin after his father's death in the comic books, and he did the same here. His father died in the first movie, supposedly at the hands of Spider-man. In the second movie, he discovered that Spider-man was his (soon to be) former best friend Peter Parker. At the very end of the second movie, after a vision of his dead father, he discovers his father's Green Goblin lair. This is a room full of Goblin weapons, suits, masks and even the formula that gave him the Goblin powers. In this movie, he finally goes and becomes the Goblin and attacks Peter.

What I got wrong

In this scene we see Spiderman, in the black costume, standing next to one of the bells in the bell tower of a church. In my original plot summary, I said that he discovers that sound can kill the suit, so he goes to the church tower and stands there while the bell goes off, trying to kill the suit. Turns out I was only half right on this. He did go to the bell tower, but at this point he didn't know sound waves killed it. He just happened to be there fighting the suit trying to pull it off. In the process of fighting it, he stumbles into one of the bells, causing it to go off. The sound from this causes him to weaken the suit enough that it leaves him. The suit then drips down below him, onto Eddie Brock, who is in the church, below. The suit lands on him and he turns into Venom. It is not until much later that he discovers that sound can kill the suit.

The other major thing I got wrong was that Peter and MJ didn't get married at the end, as I expected. While Peter was planning on proposing to her (and in a way he did), due to some screw ups by him, both with and without the black suit influencing him, it just never happened. They pretty much broke up during the movie, but sort of got back together at the end. Also, he didn't actually buy the engagement ring. He was planning on buying one, but when he tells Aunt May that he is going to propose to MJ, she ends up giving him her old wedding ring that Uncle Ben gave her. I actually liked this much better.

All in all, I did a pretty good job with the predictions. Coming up next is my full review of the movie!