SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER VERSE IS ART
Animation. It’s a tool to explore boundless depths of imagination. Through the years, animation has evolved towards photorealism, trying to make animation look like real world live-action. In 2018, Spider Man Into the Spider Verse came and reminded us why animated movies were made in the first place —abstraction, to escape from reality to our imaginations!
We have seen the Disney & Pixar animated films, they all kinda feel the same, which has led to the stereotype of ‘animated movies are for kids’. Once in a while something comes up and changes everything and that something came in the form of Spider-Man Into the Spider Verse. It revolutionized animation. Instead of 3D animation, the creators went towards 2D colours and art, bringing back comic book to life. This type of animation style allowed the animators to showcase their artistry and realize their vision without compromise. Visualizing the spidey sense, the sound effects of THUD, THWIP,BONK,etc like it is done in comic books were things that made the animation so great!
Multiverse is a concept that has been booming in movies recently. But only Spider Man Into the Spider Verse used this concept to fully explore and expand the limits of imaginations and ideas and possibilities. But what really made that movie standout apart from the animation style is the story. This was the story of Miles Morales, a teenager who’s accidentally becomes Spider Man and is thrust into the responsibilities that come with it. movie questions the most important part of becoming Spider-Man: What does it mean to become Spider-Man?
After five years, the creators are finally back with their next installment:
SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER VERSE
Surpassing Expectations
Spider Man Into the Spider Verse revolutionized animated movies. It was my favourite comic book movie ever and the only movie that could possibly surpass that is its next movie, not a surprise. It didn’t just surpass the first one, it went sky high. Read on and know yourself:
WHAT DEFINES SPIDER-MAN?
Miles Morales’ Story
“Being Spider-Man is a sacrifice”
Miles has been Spider Man for over a year. He’s alone, unable to share his life fully, people can only know half of him. Miles fears that his parents would not accept him fully or love him as much if he reveals his other half of his life, hence he constantly lies to his parents. He misses Gwen, Peter and people like him who can understand the position he’s in. He wants to study physics just so he can learn to travel to other dimensions to people who can understand him — he wants to belong to a group. Miles’s Mom Rio explains to Miles:
You know for years I’ve been taking care of this little boy. Making sure he is loved, that he feels like he belongs wherever he wants to be. He wants to go out into the world and do great big things. And what I worry about most is they won’t look out for you like us.
Wherever you go from here you have to promise to take care of that little boy for me. Make sure he never forgets where he came from. He never doubts that he is loved, and he never lets anyone tell him that he doesn’t belong there.
Miles goes out to a multiversal adventure with spider-people like him. As he goes to the Spider-Society he meets hundreds of Spider-Mans from multiple dimensions, thinking this is where he belongs, this is where he wants to be, to be in a group of people who are like him, who understand him. But it is not the place he thinks it is.
Miguel O’Hara, the leader of the Spider-Society, believes in canon events — events(mostly tragedies) that happen in the story of every Spider Man, be it the spider bite, the death of Uncle Ben, fall of Gwen, etc. When these events are altered, anomalies occur and this Spider-Society works to prevent anomalies from happening. When Miles is informed that his dad has to die as a part of canon event, he isn’t ready to face that, unable to accept that the universe demands tragedy. This makes us ask:
What if Spider Man doesn’t want to accept the grief that makes him Spider Man?
Through the story we are revealed that Miles’s spider bite was an accident, an spider from another dimension gave him his powers which means Miles was never supposed to be SPIDER MAN! In Miguel’s eyes, Miles is everything he is fighting against. Miguel tells him “You don’t belong here, you never did.” The place that Miles thought he belonged to, rejected him. It’s further revealed:
Gwen: Miguel, that’s enough!
Peter: This isn’t what we talked about.
Miles: You talked about this? You knew? Y-You all knew?
Gwen: I-I didn’t know…how to tell you.
Miles: That’s why you never came to see me…
The very people Miles wanted so bad to go to never came to see him once even when they could. Miles realizes that his parents are the only ones in this entire multiverse who unconditionally love him, no matter what. Every spider-man has gone though tragedies but none of them have known it to happen before it actually happened, except Miles so he writes his own story, his own destiny, like his mother said, “he doesn’t let anyone tell him that he doesn’t belong there”
“Everyone keeps telling me how my story is supposed to go. Nah, I’mma do my own thing.”
— Miles
Gwen’s Story
Gwen’s story starts on a similar note. She’s alone, constantly longing to be with Miles, as he’s the only friend she’s made after Peter(in her universe) died. She joins bands to belong to a group but in vain as she can’t be her whole self anywhere. The tragedy of Gwen’s story is that Peter dies in her own hands and her dad, a police Captain starts a manhunt for Spider Woman(not knowing its her own daughter) thinking she killed Peter. And when finally Gwen reveals her identity to her dad, the duty of a policeman and the anger over the death of Peter overcomes him in a heartbreaking moment when Gwen says: “Can you just not be a cop for a second and be my dad here and listen to me?” but her father unable to accept it, goes to arrest her. Her father, the only person she could trust, is unwilling to accept her as her whole self. Her story is what Miles fears will happen to him on revealing his whole self to his parents. Thus with no other option left, Gwen goes away with Miguel leaving her world behind.
For Gwen, opening up leads to heartbreak. That is why Gwen hasn’t been able to tell the truth to Miles, about his anomaly. Gwen & Miles long for each other yet the multiverse does not allow them to be together. It is from Miles that Gwen learns anything is possible. As Gwen is forced to confront her dad once again, she pours it all out all the bottled up feelings.
“I can do all these things but I can’t help the people I love the most!”
Finally she and her dad reconcile, and this makes her realize that the only solution to her problems is standing up to them and not running away from it. Therefore she forms a group to help Miles as she says:
“I never found the right band to join. So I started my own.”
ANIMATION
The very opening scene of Spider Man Across the Spider Verse solidifies the fact why this needs to be animated. We are introduced to Gwen’s universe, which is made with water colour art and is absolutely stunning. Further, the background animation changes in this universe according to the feelings of the characters!
Then let’s talk about Mumbattan, the India Universe:
Yes, the a major portion of the movie takes place in an Indian Universe with its own Spider Man aka Pavitr Prabhakar(nice Indian style on Peter Parker)! The animators designed India like pencil-drawn Indian comic art. Pavitr has his own style of web-slinging — instead of web-shooters he uses lattu, he wears Indian-inspired clothing. In the animation, the sound effects like Thwip, Dharram, Dhishoom are visualized in Hindi.
Even exploring further animation styles, there is Spider Punk who is designed in modern pop-art and paper-cuttings very representative of the character he is.
And finally there is Nueva York, a futuristic world which holds the Spider-Society — a place where all the Spider-people from different universes meet and work to protect the multiverse from anomalies.
The train chase sequence in Earth-928 is one of the most exhilarating and visually marvelous scenes in the movie. In this futuristic world, the train is speeding over the roadtrack which is vertical leading straight to space, crossing multiple circular stations and Miguel is trying to catch and stop Miles. Whenever the train crosses these stations, the entire texture and colours change for like a blink of an eye.
Besides the designs of various dimensions, the artistry in so many things in this movie is brilliant. For example, an alternate Vulture appears from Leonardo Da Vinci’s dimension (which is made of paper) and when he uses some weapon, mathematical calculation appear beside him because he is supposedly a scientist, an engineer.
And yes, the main pull for the fans was this movie promised a lot of different variations of Spider-Man in the Spider-Society and the creators went bonkers with it! If you thought Anime Spiderwoman and a Peter Porker(pig spiderman) was crazy then wait for this. A robotic spider man, a Malala version Spider woman, a paper bag spider-man, A Peter Parkedcar(who is a car but spider-man), a Lego Spider-man, Web-Slinger(a cowboy Spider-Man), a Cat Spider-Man(or woman who knows), a werewolf Spider-Man and a T-Rex Spider-Man(whose thwip sound is T-WHIP, genius)!
One of the funniest moments of the movie is in a therapy session in Spider-Society where both the therapist & the patient are Spider-Men(obviously):
Patient Spider Man(sobbing): And then I looked at my uncle…and…
Therapist Spider Man: Uh, let me guess. He died?
MUSIC
Daniel Pemberton has truly outdone himself with the soundtrack of Spider-Man: Across the Spider Verse. With the various animation art styles that the movie has, the soundtrack also explores so many score tracks while retaining its identity. The score uses rock drum beats and floaty synth pop band music to explore Gwen and her universe through the music. Miguel O’Hara is a futuristic iteration of Spider-Man hence his theme is electronic, techno and synthesized. For Spider-Man India, the music is highly inspired from Indian instruments(the tablas are very distinct) with some futuristic synth tones. For Spider Punk, it was hard rock with distorted bass.
Miles’s theme was steeped in hip-hop culture with its unique record-scratching sound effects. The Spot’s theme with a eerie whistle-like music with heavy synths provides the necessary creepiness and terror. In a nutshell, the score of Across the Spider Verse has its own character and it tells the story all along the journey. Link to the soundtrack album below:
EPILOGUE
Spider-Man: Across the Spider Verse is Art. The creators and animators used the power of animation to tell gripping and compelling stories in the Spider-Man lore and expand the boundaries of art styles, music styles, imaginative stories. There have been quite many multiverse-centric stories in the recent years, viz, Spider-Man: No Way Home(2021), Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness(2022), Flash(2023) and the exceptional Everything Everywhere All At Once(2022) but none of them have used the “multiverse” storyline to this extent of imagination. Until the next installment in the trilogy Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider Verse comes out, this will remain as an appreciation blog on the artistry of this movie and how Across the Spider Verse can be hailed as an absolute masterpiece !
