What really gets me when George Stacy admits he quit the force is that it really breathes life into him, he’s not just a character with a tragic fate ahead of him, he’s his own person who makes his own decisions. The same way I love the detail that Rio is bad at giving speeches and is prone to oversharing while giving one, isn’t that so cool that all these characters feel like real people with real choices and real traits?

Furthermore, the movie has a very strong subtext about generational trauma, as many films the past few years have, lol. Miles looks at this older generation of spider people, who as you so eloquently put it, are trying to marry their suffering and trauma to their purpose, to the point wherein it seems impossible to disconnect the two. Miles literally says “nah, imma do it my own way”, which is such a beautiful thing to hear, a kid looking at his elders and seeing them for who they are and knowing that he can become something different, maybe even something better. We don’t have to suffer to find purpose, we can do good without having bad be done to us.

I could also just go on about the racial aspect, Rio tearfully talking to Miles about how in some places people won’t protect him the way his family does, and how he can’t allow those people to tell him he doesn’t belong, and how he takes that with him regardless of whether it’s about being Afro-Latino or it’s about being Spider-Man, but I don’t want to clog your comments with an essay, so I’ll just end it off with a thank you for such an awesome video.

It's criminal to leave out that, during the entire chase scene, Peter B. Parker is the ONLY one that actually keeps up with Miles because he's the only one actually willing to listen to him and talk things out. And while Gwen certainly cares about Miles, she can't fully commit to hearing him out because she herself is too conflicted about her own situation, leaving it to Peter, the grown up, that already got over himself enough to actually CARE about Miles' pain, no strings attached.

This review made me realize that part of the reason why Gwen was so willing to believe Miguel was that if he was right, then her Peter was cosmically fated to die and therefore she didn't need to feel guilty about how he did

During the scene after Gwen went home, the shadows that the raindrops running down the window cast on the walls made it look like the paint of the world was dripping. That little detail almost gave me a heart attack because I love attention to animation detail.

I love how, by the end, Gwen also broke a canon event. Her dad quit being a cop, so Cpt Stacy won't die, breaking the canon.

I didn't think that anything could top the "heroic defining moment" better than the first movie's leap of faith sequence, but Across the Spiderverse did it with Miles outnumbered and overwhelmed on a train speeding to the moon, and the line: "Nah, Imma gonna do my own thing...!"

The animation and score made the Spot a legit cosmic horror and I can't get over that

I love how Peni had like only 1 line and a few seconds of screen-time in the new movie and yet the internet absolutely lost their shit over that one scene

Can I just say how much I love The Spot as a villain? He's granted nigh-unparalleled cosmic power, the ability to see and go anywhere in creation, and he's just... a petty asshole. He tries to break into an ATM. He's pissy about how being a henchman was a bad career path, and about how Miles chucked a bagel at his head once. He whines about Miles not taking him seriously. And his end goal is just... petty vengeance. He's the ultimate anti-Spiderman. With Great Power comes Great Petulance.

I think my favorite realization that I had instantly in the theater as the scene was playing, was that Peter B. Parker wants his kid to turn out like Miles because Miles is so dedicated to his family. specifically, when Miles learns his dad is slated to die, he doesn't consider accepting it for even a second. Miles loves his parents too much to let that happen... he's a good kid.

and so are Gwen, and Hobie, and Pavitr... they're good kids who love people, and want to save everyone. and with each other's help, they might be able to accomplish that better than they would've alone. it seems like isolation is an affliction battled by every spider person at some point... but this multi-dimensional power has introduced all of them to the perfect method of soothing that issue. it'd be a horrible shame to have the ability to make these connections, only to feel powerless to help each other when it matters most.

Hobie is so chaotic he literally shifts between being animated on 1s, 2s, and 3s. That's dedication

21:00 It's never touched on in the movie, but I feel like Hobie worked with Miguel, not because he didn't object to Miguel's ideas, but because he knew exactly how messed up the whole Spider Society is as a concept and stuck around to keep an eye on them. Dude's all about rebelling against Authoritarianism and Miguel's extreme adherence to 'canon' is just another shade of it, and the minute he saw that Miles was the one that could start undoing it, he does what he can to motivate him and ducks out when the rest of the Society try to stop him.

Such a great movie the only bad thing is that it ended. People are not tired of superhero movies, they are tired or bad ones

Love that Hobie never just said "Hey Miles and gwen, just do this..." before giving them the travel device and instead let them try things their way while acting as a safety net for them. He's a great embodiment of several running ideas: letting people skip punishments if it's goi9ng to do more harm than good, trusting the kids to make their own mistakes and learn from them and the general rejection of being a slave to canon.
I also enjoy that while an antagonist they don't make Miguel a full villain. His motivation might be self serving but is never truly malicious, at least as I understand it. he's sincere in his BS, not honestly knowingly trying to inflict misery on people for some nefarious goal. That said, the vampire bit has a lot to answer...

tbh the Spot already has a lot of thematic relevance. He's a mirror to miles himself, both not being taken seriously, having apparently no place to belong in the grander picture and having to grow in power and self-confidence to MAKE everyone take them seriously. He's literally shaped like the outline self-portrait of Miles in the first movie.

As both an artist and a horror fan, I absolutely adore the design of the Spot, as well as the writing behind him. At the beginning of the movie he's total comic relief and his design plays into that; his torso is a bit too short and his limbs are a bit too long, giving him an awkward sort of look that enhances the comedy. But then when the writing starts to take him more seriously as a genuinely terrifying threat, the traits that made him awkward like the too-long limbs start contributing to the horror and the feeling of Wrongness about him and starts becoming genuinely disturbing! Absolute top tier villain design and writing imo.

Yeah Miguel basically did just accidentally create a Spider-Cult that appeals to all Spider-People because of all the patterns of tragedy. A sort of psychological vent for the stress and tragedy of Spider-Man. I think there's also shades of Generational Trauma involved.

I adore the subtle nuance of The Spot so much. He, like Miles in the eyes of the Spider Society, starts off as somewhat of a joke, someone who’s “not worthy of standing among the greats”. But both of them have an immense amount of potential and become powerful threats to their opps in their own ways. They’re following the same arc, just, The Spot’s is the evil version of Miles’.

What’s even cooler to me than that alone tho, is that the only Spider-Man The Spot cares about getting respect from is Miles. It feels like even more of a dunk on everyone who refuses to consider Miles as Spider-Man. The Spot is about to go from a random villain-of-the-week to a villain so huge that he’s putting reality itself in jeopardy across all universes, and yet, the only Spider-Man he cares about is Miles. He even knows of the existence of Blonde Peter, the first Spider-Man in his verse, and yet he still calls Miles Spider-Man, not any other kind of derivative title that implies he’s not an original.

The strongest villain in Spider-Versal history respects Miles as Spider-Man, and I’m sure the way Miles responds in BTSV will force everyone else (his side of the screen, anyway) to do the same. It’s just so freaking cool to me and I’m so excited to see where The Spot’s character and dynamic with Miles goes in the next movie.

This proves that Spider-Man just works better in animation. There’s a flexibility that the medium allows that is just perfect for capturing the inherent ridiculous nature of the character whilst giving him the level of stylisation he deserves

Hobie is the first positively-portrayed anarchist character I've ever seen in popular media. He's just so fucking cool and 100% my favorite character in the whole movie, who stole the whole show the instant he showed up. And that's wild, because Jess' introduction was literally "hey, look at this lady, she's the coolest person on the planet" before she manages to kneecap herself by being a jerk. I just need way more Hobie, and second the demand for just Hobie and Gwen being buds and chilling in Hobie's punk universe.