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Movie of the Week #15 - Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse
First superhero movie this time around with the animated Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse from 2018.
Are you familiar with Spiderman, from other movies or the comic - and how does it compare? Have you seen the sequel Across the Spider-Verse? All comments are welcome.
The rest of the schedule for February is:
- 12th: The Aviator
- 19th: Batman Begins
- 26th: Gangs of New York
I've seen both of them multiple times at the cinema, and own them on Blueray. They're among my favourite movies of all times, for the story, the music and the artwork. Every time I watch them, I will forget at some point that I'm watching an animated movie. And then I remember it again and I'm blown away by the art.
I like most of the Spiderman movies just fine, I've even rewatched a couple of them. They're good entertainment. But Spiderverse grabbed me in a way none of them did. Spider-Verse gets Spiderman (I'm sorry, Spider-Man), the mix of whimsy/funny and action and earnestness. And they both have spectacular animation. They never forget the comic roots - you can see it in textures, in the stylised shapes and the thought/speech 'bubbles' that are effortlessly part of some scenes. And they also do such bold things, like the radical changes in style and colour in Across the Spider-Verse that nonetheless are never jarring.
The Leap of Faith sequence is absolutely iconic. The movie builds towards it, and the payoff is incredibly satisfying.
Man, I know what I'll be watching tonight. Maybe I'll do a liveblog.
I had a difficult time with across the spider-verse, even though I LOVED the first movie. Did you immediately like the second one?
I did, it got me right from the start. I'm looking forward to the third one, too.
I loved every minute of the second one, and I went into it not aware that there was going to be a huge cliffhanger. It's the first movie in a long time where I loudly vocalized my despair at having to wait to see the conclusion... BTTF2 might have been the last one.
I think I've watched the Guggenheim Scene about fifty times at this point... the art, and the music, and the dialog... all perfect. Now I'll probably have to go watch it again. ha.
The Guggenheim Scene is so much fun. It's one of my favourite tracks of the whole score, too.
I did know it would be a cliffhanger, but that didn't make it any easier :D
Loved the first one. Pretty disappointed in the 2nd one. It both feels way too long and like it's half a movie. There's all this build up introducing more spider people, and showing that their organization is ethically dubious. Miles going against them should be like 60% of the way through the movie, and then it just ends.
Part of the problem for me maybe was that the marketing was pretty full of spoilers. Some of the reveals might have been more satisfying if we didn't know about them months before the movie came out. But it ended up feeling like not alot happened.
This sums up my feelings about that movie. For some reason I’m glad I’m not the only one, I was afraid I was just not getting the story.
Such good movies. I absolutely agree that Spider-Verse gets Spider-Man more than any of the other movies. Judge me all you want, but I think Into the Spider-Verse is my all time favorite movie. Just every single thing in it clicks with me every time I watch it. I've only watched Across once (we instabought it, but I haven't gotten to rewatching it), but I loved it, too.
I'm someone who is pretty easily entertained anyway, and I have really enjoyed all 8 live action Spider-Man movies. But even so, Into is definitely my favorite of all of them, and Jake Johnson is my favorite of all Peter Parkers. Ah, so good!
It’s funny because I used to be, dare I say it, ashamed that I liked Into the Spider-Verse so much that I considered it to be my favorite movie of all time. I always thought I’d have to explain how it was better than the classics that everyone brings up. Instead, I leaned into it and no one has said a peep about it. I mostly get “oh yeah, that movie was awesome” or, at worst, “I don’t like comic book movies”. It really is a great movie.
I feel very much the same way. Into is one of my favorite, if not my actual favorite, movies of my life. Across gets that designation by extension because it takes everything about the first one and builds upon it and I’m excited for Beyond because of what they’ve done so far. As you said, they get Spider-Man and what drives him and how each Spider-Person is different and unique and how, even with that, they’re all still unified. It’s really, really great and, as a lifelong Spider-Man fan with boxes of comics, it’s one of the only forays from comics that I feel is truly successful at its goals.
I may join you in watching tonight and I’m definitely watching in 3D.
This film suffers badly from the "Matrix Effect" - when it hit theatres, it's visual style had truly innovative elements - deep-saturation colours on black and variable-framerate characters being key among them. Now these elements seem to be everywhere, to the point that they've become tired. NGL, the inclusion of low-framerate Miles in the latest spidey game was a nice touch.
Thinking back, the place I first saw extended limbs and acrobatic low framerate was in 2012, on Disney's TRON:Uprising... albeit with less mature character rigging and animation.
The "Kirby crackle" effect in Into the Spider-Verse is an interesting nod to the ink-heavy style of early Marvel artist Jack Kirby. That, and the use of heavy halftones, was a show of respect to the golden age that made me smile hard in the theatre.
Personally, I'm glad to see those elements in more animated films. Watching it made me realize that in recent years, a lot of animated films have ironically been focused on realism: realistic motions, realistic textures, realistic lighting... I think the shift to CGI got animation studios too focused on technical aspects. They haven't been taking advantage of animation's potential outside of things like magic and special effects, talking animals and non-human characters, etc.
Seeing the chase scene where Miles is dragging a half-conscious Peter across the city just stuck with me from the first time I saw it. It was just full of all sorts of Looney Tunes-style antics I just don't really see anymore, their bodies feel so elastic throughout it instead of stiff and rigid. Then there's all of the crazy color choices for various scenes where they abandon realistic lighting to put focus on the mood.
I think it reminded a lot of animators and studios of the full potential of the medium, and opened the doors for them to start being experimental again. So while some will and are definitely trying to emulate some of its stylistic choices for profit, I'm looking forward to seeing more animated films just try all sorts of new things again. Animation isn't just for kids' movies, it's also art, and I think Spider-verse did a good job reminding people of that.
I agree. We watched the latest Ninja Turtles animated film and it seems very inspired by Into the Spider-Verse. I really enjoyed it, though. Once you get past the “Oh yeah, they’re doing a Spider-Verse style but for a Ninja Turtles”, you really start to see how they took that general vibe but then made it unique to the Turtles. It suits the movie and story well and I hope more movies try to do the same but also extend from there to make unique choices that fit within their universes rather than just trying to emulate Spider-Verse.
I really like this visual direction, and I think it's cool that it's setting a higher standard for kid's animations. Maybe we'll look back and wince at how zeitgeisty it is in 20 years time, but it's fun for now.
That said, 'Into to the Spider-Verse' drove me insane for its inconsistency with the visuals. The worst offence is the frame-rate - I couldn't for the life of me understand when and why it was changing. 'Puss in Boots: The Last Wish' made an interesting choice to lower the frame rate as a big action scene happened which gave everything a kind of anime showdown vibe; 'Into the Spider-Verse' seems to just change it on a dime, sometimes even mid-shot.
In this clip we have multiple similar shots of Spiderman zipping through the trees, all changing between 10-30fps. I found it very distracting! I thought maybe it was doing the opposite to The Last Wish and bumping the frame rate when it was high-action, but there's other moments in the film where it jumps as very little is happening at all. Everyone I was watching it with says they didn't notice it, so maybe it's just me. It seemed completely ironed out in the second film, so I can't help but think someone in the chain agreed.
Anyway, a fun movie, I preferred it to the second. Lots of laugh-out-loud moments especially in the first half. Wasn't too crazy about the alternate spider-men thrown in in the second act, especially when the trio of Miles, Peter and Gwen is so strong. Loved the visual design of the villain - it's a shame his arc didn't really play much into the plot except motivation. I think the best super hero films have the villain challenge some central philosophy to the hero, which they eventually overcome.
I don't....notice ...maybe I don't even know what framerate is and I can't pick it out because of that? It's how many frames per second, right? Like, higher frame rates (up to a point before our brains stop processing them) will be perceived as smoother animation/movement, whereas lower fps will appear more like a flip book or slide show.
Perhaps this is something that one has to be exposed to with intentionality a lot more to train for that sensitivity. (Also I'm on the low end of visual input sensitivity to begin with. Im terrible at most video games as a result)
Do you have a good example of when a movie maker intentionally used variable frame rates in the same scene as a device?
I've worked in animation before, so it could be something I'm more attuned to. Ideally it should be something you don't notice but feel.
I'm not too much of a movie buff, but I pulled up a clip from Puss in Boots and it's definitely done to a more deliberate effect. See here (first part of the film, so no spoilers), the beginning 4 minutes are typical 24-30fps, but when the action picks up the frame rate drops. 4:45 is probably the best example of this, and it's more interesting than I thought - see how the crowd is rendered at a higher frame-rate than Puss? So it's even different between different elements in the same shot - but importantly it's done deliberately to ramp up the sense of action - Puss is in the action and so his frame rate is lower.
There's even a cool moment at 5:34 where the frame rate becomes smooth as Puss swings around the monster, but it drops again as the bell hits the monster.
It's a little bit much, I'm not sure I'm a fan, but I like the intention.
Very interesting.....I would not have picked up on that without your pointing it out. I can feel the effects cumulatively but not be able to articulate why the sense of action in the sequence stands out.
Re-watching the Spiderverse clip, is it possible that they animated Miles with lower frame rate to give his movement a clunky, choppy feel to it, to contrast with the smoother, more practiced swings of an experienced Spiderman, culminating in their synchronized swings through the tree as Miles' frame rate catches up to Peter's? Lol I can't actually "see" it but it would be a good story telling tool to visually show the audience how Miles is literally getting the hang of something.
Back to Puss, I really liked how the on-screen and out-of-story music and sounds go nicely together (diegetic together with nondigetic, I think)
It's definitely not just you. They talk about it in at least one behind-the-scenes thing. IIRC Miles is animated every other frame for bits of it and eventually syncs up with Peter?
From memory they're playing with individual/different framerates for characters the same way they played with different animation styles per character. I definitely think it works better in some scenes than others. Probably a personal taste thing too for whether it 'works'.
Except in the clip I shared there's multiple shots of Miles fumbling in low and high frames, and Peter swinging confidently in low and high frames. I just can't figure out the reasoning.
My personal armchair theory that I came up with just now - most of the film was animated at a film standard frame rate, and then at some point in production a decision was made to lower the frame rate to give it that stop-motion, comic book feel. Unfortunately the fluidity of some animations gets lost (when animating you really need to know the framerate so you know certain keyframes aren't being dropped), and so some shots are kept at the higher frame rate. I think this is backed up by how subsequent movies adopting the style manage it so much better - when you know from the start which scenes are being shown at what FPS, you have much more control.
I don’t think that’s the case… in the commentary, they talk about how Peter was always animated on 1’s (every frame) and Miles starts off animated on 2’s (every other frame) but the rest of the film is also on 1’s. Eventually, when Miles “becomes Spider-Man”, they smooth him to 1’s. I don’t believe Peter is ever animated on 2’s and, if you’re seeing that, it might be your eyes playing tricks on you.
My eyes aren't playing tricks on me. They may have said that in the documentary, but the scene I posted there's multiple instances of Peter being animated on 2s and Miles being animated on 1s, and they never share screen time without being in the same frame rate. You can go through frame by frame and see this very clearly, since the background is animated on 1s.
0-18 - all character animated on 2s.
18-42 - both Miles and Peter animated on 1s.
42-56 - Miles and Peter animated on 2s.
56-1.00 - Miles is briefly animated on 1s.
1.00-1.03 - Miles is back to being animated on 2s.
1.03-1.06 - Miles and Peter both animated on 1s.
1.03-1.10 - Miles and Peter both animated on 2s.
1.10-1.12 - Miles and Peter both animated on 1s.
1.12-1.36 - Miles and Peter both animated on 2s.
1.36-1.44 - Miles and Peter both animated on 1s.
1.44-1.46 - Gwen briefly animated on 2s.
1.46-2.08 - Peter, Miles and Gwen animated on 1s (except sometimes Gwen is animated on 2s when talking)
Talk about whiplash!
Makes sense that this is the most active thread in this series so far.
I was looking through some of my old Midweek Movie Talk comments and found the one I did for Across the Spider-Verse.
I remember so many people thinking Into the Spider-Verse was, not just the best Spider-Man movie, but also the best comic book movie of all time (even James Gunn named it as his favorite comic book movie). I think it's good, I think it's fun, but I never went head over heels for it like a lot of people did.
I still prefer the Raimi films to this (even Spider-Man 3 tbh). And I think this came out during a time when the Raimi trilogy was being reassessed as not being so great. A reassessment which didn't last long.
As comicbook adaptations go, this is also pretty high on my (albeit short) list. My general problem with the live action movies is that the comic book aesthetics and action feels and looks fake with the uncanny valley blend of CGI and real footage. This animated version keeps the comicbook feel and look, and that works way better for me.
I have only seen the first two Spiderman movies, which is already 20 years ago. I have barely seen any Marvel movies since then. It was nice to see a comicbook movie that actually looked like one. The animated aesthetics here is incredible and for the most part I also liked the meta humor aspect. Was fun having an origin story set in a world where another Spiderman already exists. But around the halfway mark I sort of slowly lost interest in the story, as the plot progression went into how these things usually go and the pretty comicbook violence and destruction didn't had the same fresh appeal as it did in the beginning.
The first two, you mean Toby McGuire's from 2002? Wow that's a blast from the past. Yours is a very interesting perspective because you somehow managed to skip over Marvel's MCU spiderman in between these two, is that right?
Were you already familiar with Miles Morales as a comic book character?
Yes, the ones directed by Sam Reimi. Besides those, I think I have seen the first Iron Man and the first Captain America. Honestly didn't expect the comicbook movie trend lasting so long. Before that I had probably seen some of the tv animated series from the 1990s, but I have never been that much into superheroes in general. My cartoons of choice as a kid was Donald Duck, Tintin and Asterix :)
(not the topic but MAN Asterix is so much my childhood :D I still can quote them by heart and do so very frequently)
You’re European tbf. If you look at global box office returns, Europe never really cared for the MCU.
Not sure about box office numbers, but they still feel pretty big. They are up in theaters for several months and seem like something many people have seen and talk about.
Go-to example of why everyone should immediately turn frame interpolation off on their TVs/monitors.
I hadn’t even considered what the movie would like with that enabled. Obviously (as any sensible person would do) I make disabling that my first course of action for any new TV. Assuming most people just leave it on since it’s usually the default, I have to wonder if parts of Spider-Verse are just visually incomprehensible for them, or would it just smooth out all of the framerate changes like they never happened? Sucky either way.