The Spectacular Spider-Man is the PERFECT Adaptation of the Character
After the trailer of Spiderman: No Way Home, everyone is in a "Spiderman mood." Many are re-watching the Raimi trilogy, the Holland films, and some are even revisiting the Marc Webb duology. But there was this one Spiderman show that had gotten a lot of praise from some of my favourite YouTubers, and so I decided to watch this show, containing 2 seasons, and only 26 episodes in total.
That show was called, "The Spectacular Spider-Man."
This is one of those few Spiderman adaptations that actually gets the essence of the character perfectly right. It feels lifted right off the comics, because it gets what the comics were trying to say about the character. We don't like Spiderman just because he has a great design, and his superpowers. We like Spiderman, mainly because of the person behind the mask, Peter Parker.
The show sets up the character of Peter, and his struggles immediately in the first episode itself. The reason why Spiderman is the best superhero, and Peter Parker is the best character to me, is because he is like us. Human, vulnerable and flawed. It doesn't matter whether he's Spiderman. He still has a responsibility to the people he cares about. He still goes through problems we go through. This makes him not only relatable, but empathetic, because we can see ourselves in him.
Peter feels powerful as Spiderman. It's almost as a form of escapism for him. He even says it. But when he takes off that mask, he has to worry about his Aunt May not being able to pay the bills, he has a crush on a girl, his crumbling friendships, a job to pay the bills. These problems ground him, because at a point of our time in our lives, we have felt this way. Even if we don't have the exact same problems as Peter, we can still relate to how he feels. Like we disappoint the people around us, or how we have to make choices in extreme situations, and suffer the consequences for that choice.
Even the villains are pretty interesting. Many of them are 'plain evil', but they're charismatic enough to keep us watching. Many of the villains are empathetic to some degree. Doc Ock is a scientist who feels powerless and meek. Vulture is a creator cheated to by Norman Osborn. Molten Man was tricked into being experimented on for money. Electro is a man who wanted to go about his daily life, but one small accident ruins his life.
But some of the villains such as Green Goblin, Rhino and Sandman are villains that are simply bad. But they're never boring. There's still a great scene in season 2 where a small girl gets mocked for not being able to create a proper sand castle by 2 boys, but then Sandman scares the kids away and makes the girl smile. It's a beautiful moment that made me care about him instantly in 2 minutes.
The internal conflict never ceases to impress me. The moments of character interaction and action sequences never feel disjointed because they're all interconnected by the fact that Peter has to go from one of them to the other. He has to constantly make excuses to the people he has to leave when something goes awry. When Spider-Man gets praised for saving the lives of the people, those same people hate Peter Parker. It's similar to my favourite Spiderman story, "Spiderman 2", where it focusses on how the wallcrawler's life ruins Peter's. A mature exploration of being a superhero. This conflict is also causes the birth of Venom, and the rivalry between Eddie and Peter. It's really efficient writing.
Some minor criticisms are that I wished some of the characters would've been a bit more fleshed out. Such as the characters of Liz, Mary Jane and Gwen. And season 2, in my opinion, needed a bit more of the high school character scenes. Now I get it, that it's a childrens' show and it needs to have it's fair share of action and battles. But I just preferred to see more of the high school drama. Both are vital to the series still.
Also, the intro to the series is simply perfection. Never once did I ever skip the intro.
The Spectacular Spider-Man is the perfect adaptation of the webhead because it shows us the internal struggles of being a superhero. It contains flawed and real characters that add to the conflict of the protagonist, and has moments of humanity and genuine connection, apart from the terrifically animated action scenes.
The showrunners could've made something dumb and silly for the "kids." But you can tell that they actually put effort in crafting a narrative that anyone can enjoy.
One of my favourite shows ever made.
Thank Your for Reading
I hope you liked this blog review, please make sure to comment about your thoughts on the film, or on how I could possibly improve. Also follow my YouTube Channel "Detox with P-Talks Official" where I analyse movies and do other movie related content along with short films, etc.
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