Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

analysis
#1

I’m hoping there’s someone else out there who saw this film and is interested in exploring whether or not it has a storyform. I’ve written all of my ideas on the storyform here.

[details=Overall Story Throughline: Saving the multi-verse]First OS driver and the storybeats contained within:

  • the Overall Story Throughline of PHYSICS: Tossing Spidey around and threatening the existence of the city. Causing an “earthquake”.
  • the Overall Story Concern of DOING: Wilson Fisk starts the story off by Doing something dangerous: attempting to connect to parallel universes.
  • the Overall Story Issue of SKILL: The villains are more powerful skilled than a weary Spider-Man and an inexperienced Spider-Man.
  • the Overall Story Problem of TEST: The villains Test the limits of some sort of particle accelerator that could destroy the city.

The closing driver is when Miles destroys the accelerator.

The OS of Into the Spider-Verse consists of a team of various Spider heroes retaliating against evil villains who threaten the balance of the multi-verse.[/details]

[details=Main Character Throughline: Miles Morales]The First MC driver: Being bit by a spider, and the effects of that bite. This driver showcases the storybeats of:

  • the Main Character Throughline of SITUATION: Struggling to control new powers, getting stuck in sticky situations
  • the Main Character Concern of PROGRESS: Experiencing “puberty”, aka: growing into a Spider-Man. Struggling with uncontrollable new powers.
  • the Main Character Issue of FANTASY: Fantasy is “belief in something unreal”. Miles initially misplaces his belief in the idea that he is experiencing puberty, rather than the Facts of his situation.
  • the Main Character Problem of TEST: Miles questions his validity as a new Spider-Man. There can only be one Spider-Man, right?

The MC Throughline poses the exact question: “Can I be Spider-Man?”. Miles continues to question his validity as Spider-Man throughout the story.

By the end of the story, Miles has answered that question with the solution: “You can be Spider-Man”. Take a leap of faith. Trust in yourself, and you can become Spider-Man. He Changes when he literally takes a leap of faith, and then remains Changed for the rest of the story.

  • MC THROUGHLINE: Situation. Struggling to grow into a Spider-Man.
  • MC CONCERN: Things are changing for the worse. New school, struggling to gain control of new powers. Oh, and also discovering who his Uncle is.
  • MC ISSUE: Fantasy. Not so sure on examples of this.
  • MC PROBLEM: Testing one’s validity as Spider-Man. One moment is the scene where all the other Spider people pressure Miles and cause him to question whether he’s really capable of being Spider-Man.
    [/details]

Not as clear on the RS or IC throughlines.

[details=RS Throughline: Father/Teacher-Son/Student?]
The non-accuracy/vagueness of Peter’s lessons to Miles damages their relationship.

When he actually gives Miles specific instructions, there is no conflict in their relationship. Like when they swing and “Thwip!” in the forest.

I think their relationship closes when Peter asks how he knows Miles is going to be okay, to which Miles responds: “You don’t.” And then I think he also says: “It’s a leap of faith”. This shows not only that Miles has Changed as the MC, but that he has an accurate understanding of what it means to be Spider-Man. The two of them can part ways, at peace in their relationship.

Also, the scene of Miles unwillingness to respond to his dad with “I love you” at the start, the way he would rather just vaguely respond “I know”…

Even though that scene might be before the story starts, I think it sets up RS moments with his dad, especially towards the end. Like when Miles (as Spider-Man) clearly tells his dad he loves him. Or maybe that means something else.[/details]

IC Throughline: Spider-Man? Dad?

When it comes to the IC throughline, I can’t exactly think of moments where something a character did actually impacted Miles to Change. Mainly just the line, “it’s a leap of faith”, and that’s obviously not enough for an accurate representation of the IC Throughline.

[details=Story Points]Resolve: Changed. He takes that leap of faith.

Driver: Action

Limit: Optionlock. I could argue on why, but there’s not really a point considering there’s no timelock in the film to oppose the idea of an optionlock.

Outcome: Success. The protagonists achieve their goal of destroying the particle accelerator (and they return to their universes).

Judgement: Good. Miles is smiling and happy at the end. The characters have all returned to enjoy their respective universes.

Approach: Do-er

Problem-Solving Style: Linear? Mainly because I feel like I would notice if the problem solving style was Holistic. Maybe I’m wrong.[/details]

If the OS is Physics, and the MC throughline is Universe, then the growth is going to be Stop. I might have a problem with that, because I feel like the problem isn’t so much that Miles needs to stop testing himself as much as it is that he needs to start trusting. I feel like the argument is sort of along the lines of, “If you begin to trust that you can be Spider-Man, then you can become the hero to save the multi-verse.”

I’d appreciate any thoughts on what the storyform could be, or on how my own ideas of it are right or wrong.

#2

I believe (judging from his very positive tweets) that Jim has seen it and is working on an ‘official’ analysis.

That aside, I agree with Saving the Multi-verse and Miles Morales as OS and MC. My guess is that the IC is Peter B. Parker. There’s a possibility that it’s all of the other Spider-people too, but I think his bond with Peter B. Parker is the strongest of them all. They have the ‘you and I are both alike’ at the graveyard, and Peter’s influence is very much about pushing Miles to take that ‘leap of faith’, regardless of his worries or anxieties. There are a few other characters who take on that mantle before he turns up (MJ; Chris Pine Spider-Man), but he feels like the consistent holder of that perspective.

And their relationship of mentor-mentee is the clearest for me out of the whole movie. I didn’t feel his Dad really had too much of an overriding ‘influence’, but there were definitely a moment or two where he acknowledged that he was pushing his son to be something greater, which perhaps could fall under the IC perspective. But that partnership of new Spidey and old Spidey felt very strong to me.

Also: best post-credits ever.

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#3

Maybe I should’ve waited a little bit longer then, haha. I just haven’t been able to stop thinking about the film.

Reading a tweet, yeah, I must’ve misidentified the problem elements. Duh. Literally in the theaters I saw the word “Expectations” glaring in my face and I thought to myself: “Wow, it’s almost like they’re telling us the problem is Expectation.”

So, if Expectation is the MC Problem, then I guess I narrowed the storyform down to the correct quad of concerns at least. As to whether or not I assigned them to the correct throughlines… maybe not so.

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#4

I had the opposite problem! I was so swept away by the story, and especially the visuals, that even the idea of Dramatica completely left me. I honestly didn’t even notice the expectations graffiti until I saw Jim’s tweet and then I was like ‘oh, yeah, this was actually made by people!’ The visuals kind of hypnotised me, I completely lost myself in it.

I think you’re right in saying that Miles is a start character. It definitely didn’t feel he had a chip on his shoulder as much as he needed to start believing that he can be Spider-Man or something similar. But I think the OS is certainly in an external domain (a lot of the Universe stories involve time vortexes and portals opening and things like that, so an argument could be made there, but this felt more like physics to me), which makes Miles an internal character but I can’t think of an example right now.

I was honestly so swept away by how beautiful it looked that I’ll have to see it again to discuss it in detail.

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#5

Easily the best movie in a decade. Maybe two.

I still can’t stop thinking about it.

I went through an entire analysis of the film with another Dramatica aficionado over text. Helping him work through a lot of the thinking that is involved when trying to figure out the most accurate storyform for a film.

I explained a lot of really important things that I thought everyone would benefit from that I’m putting into an article I’m publishing this week.

I’ll let you know as soon as it is up.

If you haven’t seen it–you have to. It’s like seeing The Matrix for the first time, but only multiplied by 5000x

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#6

Proof that no studio executives were involved in the making of this film!

As someone who worked in animation for 20 years, I can’t believe the choices they were allowed to get away with in the storytelling. No one was holding them back.

As far as Miles’ personal problems go…what’s the one thing he had the biggest problem with? Hint: it’s one of those bookend things. Hint #2: there’s two of them.

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#7

I can remember two issues at the start that were ‘corrected’ at the end:

– He wouldn’t say ‘I love you’ to his Dad at the beginning without a significant push. At the end, he does it willingly (albeit as Spider-Man).
– He doesn’t want to go to the private boarding school place that his Dad wants him to go to, even intentionally (and unconvincingly) flunking the test. Eventually, he makes the effort to finish his essay. Can’t remember if they dealt with the outcome of that.

Will have to see it again to look at the structure, but I’m guessing his problem is to do with the expectations placed upon him by his Dad and the school (“you’re smarter than this”; “these are your people now”) and his solution would be determining who he is or who he can be, with his new double life.

In fact, I think there was a scene early on with Uncle Aaron where he’s complaining that he doesn’t want the life that his Dad is pushing him into or something. Might be misremembering.

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#8

Totally agree with everything you say, and I love your explanation of Problem and Solution—

—but not the two bookend scenes I was thinking of :grin:

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#9

I’ve spent the past few hours trying to figure out the bookend scenes you’re referring to, but my brain is failing me at the minute and the only bookends I can think of are the opening and closing credits…

Oh, wait, is it the graffiti? Have I missed the most obvious one? Since he does a graffiti with his Dad at the end, but I can’t remember what it was. I need to see this movie again.

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#10

Nope.

There’s a really obvious one that you’ll kick yourself when you remember!

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#11

Two potential bookend moments…

  1. I’m pretty sure he gives his own monologue at the end, just like the other Spider-People did. It really cements the idea that he’s determined who he is (or what it means to be Spider-Man).

  2. Miles nervously does the shoulder touch at the start compared to his confident shoulder touch at the end.

And when it comes to his personal problem, it seems to me that maybe his low expectations of himself (or him trying to meet other people’s high expectations), cause him to become nervous and lose control of his powers.

Once he’s determined who he is, he can confidently control his powers. He’s able to leap off a building without crashing to the ground, he’s able to gracefully swing through busy streets rather than have a train drag him, he’s able to race across windows instead of crashing into them…

…and most importantly, he’s able to do the shoulder touch properly.

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#12

Textbook answer!

Yeah, whenever I talk to people about potential bookends, they never remember the shoulder touch! Such a clear concrete example of a Changed Main Character Resolve.

The comic book monologue is great too - I forgot about that one. It’s like they were so nervous about making sure that the Determination bit worked that they did it about five times!

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#13

I am indeed kicking myself for not coming up with that one! I was thinking the shoulder touch was introduced too late into the story to be considered a bookend, but I might have misremembered where it was. And I guess anything before the first driver could technically be thought of as a bookend.

I will admit that for a second I thought Jim was crafting some elaborate prank where we would exhaust every possibility and then he would say something like ‘the opening credits creates the audience expectations for the story and the ending credits are the determination of who made it’.

I am grateful (for my own mental wellbeing) that was not the case. :sweat_smile:

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#14

In case anyone following this thread hasn’t noticed, Jim has posted a really cool “walkthrough analysis” article on his site:

I love how the article includes the full chat session, a great learning opportunity. The one tricky part for me when I tried to analyze the film last week was MC vs. IC Domain, and that’s something Jim walks the unnamed writer though in the chat session. As usual, once Jim points things out, the story point seems obvious and you don’t understand how you missed it before!

I can’t resist one nitpick about the film though, which for me keeps it from achieving the lofty “greatest of all time” status Jim mentions. Spider-Girl and her explanation for being at Visions Academy… I have no issues that she went back in time when she came through the dimensional rift, totally cool because hey, dimensional rift … but then she went to Visions because her spidey-sense told her to?? What? Her spidey-sense told her to dress up like a student and attend classes for several days?

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#15

I interpreted it as her spider-sense was directing her to meet Miles and that led her to Visions, where she then realized that she could only blend in by posing as a student until their paths crossed. Almost like it was leading her to her destiny.

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#16

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on bob’s burgers this weekend.

I finally saw the movie. The trailer for new Spiderman indicates a Spider-versey direction.