Spider-Man: No Way Home *spoilers*

[trappedslider]

OH! regards the actual movie.

Saw it Christmas Eve and loved it. Spidey is my all time favourite spandex wearin' fool so getting three of him in the one movie was gold for me.

I thought the premise was a bit forced. I don't see how Peter or Strange could possibly have thought that mucking around with the minds of everyone in the world is any way ethical. I feel that that writing did a disservice to the characters.

I suggest you go look up "One More Day/Brand new day"

 

[Dire Bare]

Peter is a teenager. His impulse control is still developing, as is his ability to consider the consequences / ethics of his choices.

Dr Strange is an adult and theoretically should know better, but he is also arrogant and made some assumptions on Peter's part (i.e. He clearly assumed that Peter had exhausted all of his options and that this was his last desperate attempt to set things right rather than his initial impulse.)

Sometimes I think people forget how flawed people are . . . . and when our on-screen heroes make flawed decisions, we criticize them as unrealistic, when the opposite is more often true.

Peter Parker and Stephen Strange always making the right call and carefully thinking things through before acting . . . . that would be unrealistic!!

 

[Stalker0]

Sometimes I think people forget how flawed people are . . . . and when our on-screen heroes make flawed decisions, we criticize them as unrealistic, when the opposite is more often true.

Peter Parker and Stephen Strange always making the right call and carefully thinking things through before acting . . . . that would be unrealistic!!

I think the issue with strange is, we have to remember that he didn’t gain his powers through accident…he was given the knowledge by the ancient one and other wizards.

aka he had people that mentored him and “tested him”, ensuring he had the proper morality to use magic wisely. Further the ancient one (through use of the time stone) had stated that “strange is to be the best of us”…a pretty high bar.

lastly, strange’s backstory is losing his hands due to irresponsible action, and his first movie is seeing him exposed to the dangers of magic used for the wrong purposes.

with all of that, the idea that strange would mind wipe the entire world just because his buddy asked is a pretty major disconnect.

 

[Dire Bare]

I think the issue with strange is, we have to remember that he didn’t gain his powers through accident…he was given the knowledge by the ancient one and other wizards.

aka he had people that mentored him and “tested him”, ensuring he had the proper morality to use magic wisely. Further the ancient one (through use of the time stone) had stated that “strange is to be the best of us”…a pretty high bar.

lastly, strange’s backstory is losing his hands due to irresponsible action, and his first movie is seeing him exposed to the dangers of magic used for the wrong purposes.

with all of that, the idea that strange would mind wipe the entire world just because his buddy asked is a pretty major disconnect.

Meh. Strange is (or was) a highly talented surgeon, someone who requires years of training, mentoring, and who must follow a code of conduct . . . . and plenty of surgeons in the real world make bad calls, morally and practically.

Strange is the Sorcerer Supreme . . . and yet, still human. And one characterized as arrogant and impulsive at that. If you've caught the "What If" series on Disney+ . . . a version of Strange makes a call, out of his pain and arrogance, that destroys the entire world.

Also, let's not forget the mistakes of Strange's magical colleagues, including the Ancient One.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Peter is a teenager. His impulse control is still developing, as is his ability to consider the consequences / ethics of his choices.

Dr Strange is an adult and theoretically should know better, but he is also arrogant and made some assumptions on Peter's part (i.e. He clearly assumed that Peter had exhausted all of his options and that this was his last desperate attempt to set things right rather than his initial impulse.)

Yes, Peter is a teenager and can be forgiven for his moment of selfishness. Strange is a functioning adult, he definitely should be aware of the ethical ramifications of wiping (some of the) memories of everyone in the world. Does he at least bring that up with Peter? Just point out how bad this is? No.

As I write this Stalker0 has posted about how this goes against what we know of Strange as a person.

I'll just add that Peter should be better. Even a young Peter should hesitate at doing something to 7 billion-ish people without their consent. So yes, I call it a disservice to the characters. It didn't destroy the movie for me. I was quite able to say to myself "Well, that's the premise, it could have been better. But here we are so bring on the web-slinging!"

I suggest you go look up "One More Day/Brand new day"

I've read One More Day. Considered by the vast majority of the Spiderman fandom to be a travesty of the character. An opinion which I share.

Have never felt any need to read Brand New Day which I assume is a re-visit/doubling down on One More Day.

 

[pukunui]

Yes, Peter is a teenager and can be forgiven for his moment of selfishness. I'll just add that Peter should be better. Even a young Peter should hesitate at doing something to 7 billion-ish people without their consent.

If you were being hounded 24/7 by news media, been arrested and harassed by haters everywhere you go because of a lie, can’t even be anonymous at school, caused your two best friends to be denied entry to MIT merely because of their association with you, been arrested, etc etc - even as a fully rational adult, would you really be in a frame of mind to consider the ethical ramifications of wanting to be forgotten?

I don’t think Peter was thinking in terms of what effect the spell would have on everyone else. He was just thinking in terms of “make it go away!”


I also don’t think Strange’s action was all that out of character either. It’s possible he was taking a broader view - e.g. Spider-Man can’t do his job as a superhero if he’s constantly being harassed and accused of being a bad guy when he isn’t. I expect he wasn’t just doing it to help a friend but to help the world at large because it needs the good guys to be able to do their jobs effectively.

 

[Stalker0]

Meh. Strange is (or was) a highly talented surgeon, someone who requires years of training, mentoring, and who must follow a code of conduct . . . . and plenty of surgeons in the real world make bad calls, morally and practically.

Strange is the Sorcerer Supreme . . . and yet, still human. And one characterized as arrogant and impulsive at that. If you've caught the "What If" series on Disney+ . . . a version of Strange makes a call, out of his pain and arrogance, that destroys the entire world.

Also, let's not forget the mistakes of Strange's magical colleagues, including the Ancient One.

We have to consider the scale though of the effect. Your right that a surgeon sometimes makes a bad call on a person and they suffer consequences.

But what Strange is doing is the equivalent of operating of millions of people without their consent. That is an ethical level WAY WAY WAY beyond what a typical surgeon must consider.

Ultimately I have to respect that Dr Strange is an impulsive (and by that I mean reckless to the point of unethical) character in the comics, and so the portrayal in the movies is accurate with that. I guess the only way to reconcile that is with the notion that the Ancient One was a very poor teacher, who allowed an arrogant and impulsive person access to incredible power. You could argue that Ancient One herself is the most reckless of them all, and so Strange is just the apple not falling far from the tree.

 

[pukunui]

Another thing to consider is that when the Ancient One said Strange would be the “best of us” - she may have only been referring to his role in saving the universe from Thanos, or she may have been referring to a time further ahead than this current point.

That is to say, maybe Strange is still on his journey to becoming the “best of us”.

 

[Staffan]

I've read One More Day. Considered by the vast majority of the Spiderman fandom to be a travesty of the character. An opinion which I share.

Apparently Straczynski was considering having his name taken off the comic, but was persuaded otherwise.

Have never felt any need to read Brand New Day which I assume is a re-visit/doubling down on One More Day.

Brand New Day is basically the Spider-Man reboot that follows One More Day. It doesn't really touch on the One More Day events, at least not at first, except that One More Day is a necessary precondition for Brand New Day to happen. Eventually they go into the in-universe version of events, which is a version of No Way Home (though more successful): after being beset by problems related to having revealed his secret identity, Peter asks Dr Strange to remove the memory of him being Spider-Man from everyone (except, it turns out, MJ). It actually succeeds extra well, at least for a while, which makes it impossible for people to whom Peter hasn't actively revealed himself to make the connection.

If you can ignore the bad taste caused by One More Day, Brand New Day and the storylines following it (eventually leading up to The Superior Spider-Man) are actually really good. It feels like a throwback to "the good old days", with mysterious villains, a reinvigorated supporting cast, and all that good stuff. It also leans very strongly on the science side of Spider-Man, avoiding the mysticism Straczynski dabbled in.

I think both Straczynski's and the follow-up team's Spider-Man are great, but they're not really compatible with one another.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Brand New Day is basically the Spider-Man reboot that follows One More Day. It doesn't really touch on the One More Day events, at least not at first, except that One More Day is a necessary precondition for Brand New Day to happen. Eventually they go into the in-universe version of events, which is a version of No Way Home (though more successful): after being beset by problems related to having revealed his secret identity, Peter asks Dr Strange to remove the memory of him being Spider-Man from everyone (except, it turns out, MJ). It actually succeeds extra well, at least for a while, which makes it impossible for people to whom Peter hasn't actively revealed himself to make the connection.

If you can ignore the bad taste caused by One More Day, Brand New Day and the storylines following it (eventually leading up to The Superior Spider-Man) are actually really good. It feels like a throwback to "the good old days", with mysterious villains, a reinvigorated supporting cast, and all that good stuff. It also leans very strongly on the science side of Spider-Man, avoiding the mysticism Straczynski dabbled in.

I think both Straczynski's and the follow-up team's Spider-Man are great, but they're not really compatible with one another.

Ah. Well, I've learned a thing. Thanks. I'll be honest - I would struggle to accept any on-going plot that required One More Day to have been a thing. It's just not in my head-canon, you know? Like Spidey beating Firelord isn't in my head-canon. And of course I have even more issue with an older, more experienced Peter wanting to do non-consensual psychic surgery.

If you were being hounded 24/7 by news media, been arrested and harassed by haters everywhere you go because of a lie, can’t even be anonymous at school, caused your two best friends to be denied entry to MIT merely because of their association with you, been arrested, etc etc - even as a fully rational adult, would you really be in a frame of mind to consider the ethical ramifications of wanting to be forgotten?

I don’t think Peter was thinking in terms of what effect the spell would have on everyone else. He was just thinking in terms of “make it go away!”


I also don’t think Strange’s action was all that out of character either. It’s possible he was taking a broader view - e.g. Spider-Man can’t do his job as a superhero if he’s constantly being harassed and accused of being a bad guy when he isn’t. I expect he wasn’t just doing it to help a friend but to help the world at large because it needs the good guys to be able to do their jobs effectively.

Yeah, I get why Peter did it. And it works well enough for me to accept it as the premise for the movie. This bit of the writing gets a passing mark. A conceded pass. (YMMV, obviously.) The rest of the movie was a pure joy.