Headscratchers / Spider-Man 3

• Why, exactly, does Harry's butler watch and wait until Harry's wasted his life waging an obsessive and futile war of vengeance against Spider-Man and had half his face blown off by a pumpkin grenade before pointing out that he has first-hand proof that Spider-Man wasn't responsible for his father's death?
  • The butler was next in the Osborn will and wanted to knock them all off without getting blamed for it?
  • Or maybe the butler wasn't aware Harry had discovered that his father was a supervillain (and had started a shooting war with Spider-Man) until he found the guy half-buried under rubble in the secret room. Better to let him think Dad was an okay guy so he could hate an unknown masked vigilante instead.
    • That's a good explanation. Should have been covered in dialogue, though.
  • Actually, in a deleted scene it was revealed that the butler wasn't real at all; just another part of Harry's psychosis. Unfortunately, like a lot of ideas, it kind of got lost in order to facilitate the sheer number of dangling plot threads.
    • That would have been cool, but weird, since Harry once talks to him in front of Peter.
    • Also, he appears way back in the first Spider-Man. Of course, he could simply be a hallucination of the butler Harry already fired.
    • And he went to go get food. All of this makes him a Voodoo Shark.
    • Perhaps the butler was real, but not the scene. Maybe he was imagining the Butler there, when the butler was in the kitchen making a sandwich or at home.
  • An alternate explanation would be that the butler didn't think Harry was ready to hear the truth. I believe Harry had put his father on a pedestal after his death, so trying to insult that memory would get him fired.
    • A completely selfish motive for acting the way he did...that makes absolute and complete sense. The butler doesn't give a damn about the Osborns, he just wants to keep his job.
    • He does indicate that he truly cares about Harry and is distraught at his death so it seems unlikely that he was that selfish.
    • Like in "Star Wars", people seem to assume that telling someone "Your father was a mass murderer" is easy.
  • People always say the butler was stupid for not telling Harry, but his motives make perfect sense. At the end of Spider-Man, 1 he found out how Norman died but didn't tell Harry because he knew that if Harry knew his dad was a killer it would be damaging. You can argue about if that would be worse than Harry thinking Spidey killed Norman but that's another story. At the end of Spider-Man 2, Harry finds out his dad was the Goblin but his butler never knew about that. Then Harry lost his memory. The butler was not made aware of the fact that Harry knew his dad was the Goblin until the point where Harry's bomb goes off in his face. Ergo, the butler's logic is: 1. Don't tell Harry his dad was the Goblin. 2. If Harry does know that his dad was the Goblin then tell him how Norman died. He didn't know point 2 had occurred until just before he told Harry what really happened that night.
    • And as for letting Harry blame Spidey, the butler doesn't know that Spidey is Peter, so it makes sense that he'd let Harry blame the mysterious figure with a smear campaign against him.
    • Wouldn't he think that antagonizing a super-powered vigilante of uncertain moral standing might be a bad idea for Harry? You'd think he would have immediately told Harry the truth, if only out of concern for his safety.
    • Despite his hatred, Harry doesn't really do much against Spider-man throughout most of SM 2. He doesn't hire assassins, or build giant spider-hunting robots, or anything drastic like that. Perhaps the butler hoped that Harry might rage impotently for a while but would eventually simmer down and move on. And who knows, if Octavius hadn't interfered, maybe he would've.
  • For that matter, how does Norman's wound even constitute evidence that Spidey didn't kill him? Spider-Man has Super-Strength. He could've thrown the Green Glider at Norman, or vice versa, without breaking a sweat; indeed, it's a more likely scenario, from a purely tactical viewpoint, for one combatant to injure the other that way than for one to mortally wound himself while aiming a remote-controlled weapon at an opponent who's standing directly between himself and the weapon.
    • That may be so, but Spider-Man is generally not known for killing his opponents. And the butler wasn't presenting a case in court - he was trying to save his master from a self-destructing path of vengeance and hoping that Harry would simply trust him.

• Why doesn't Mary Jane just bite the bullet and admit that she got canned from that play? True, Peter's being a bit obnoxious and over-impressed with himself, but mind-reading isn't one of his Spider-powers and he can't exactly show her any sympathy that she got canned if he doesn't actually know that she she got canned.
  • You don't know much about women, do you?
  • This one works for me. It was pretty clear that MJ was upset and needed someone to listen to her, and Peter wouldn't shut the hell up about himself and hear what she was saying. It's pretty common for men to be too assertive when a woman just wants to talk. Maybe that's unfair of MJ, but Peter wasn't really paying attention like he should have. Trust me- been there, done that.
  • Passive-aggression and expectations of mind-reading are pretty much the emotional default for any woman in a relationship.
    • Back on the subject of Mary-Jane getting canned from the play, why was it not until Opening Night that anyone found out her voice projection sucked? Wouldn't that have come out during, say, her audition?
    • During rehearsal and auditions, the auditorium would presumably be empty, right? It's surprising just how much sound can be absorbed by an audience being there.
    • Yeah, but this was a Broadway (or maybe Off-Broadway, I don't remember) play. The director, musical director, and sound designer would be able to tell. Speaking of the sound designer, do they not use body-mikes? These days, everyone in every Broadway play I've ever seen does nowadays. Plus, if she was that bad, she would have been switched out before the press night. That's one of the reasons for preview performances. (Actually, just about everything about MJ's acting career is done poorly in the movies, almost to the extent of Falsely Advertised Accuracy- which is odd when you consider how many people on the staff and cast of the film should have some experience with the theater.)
    • I thought that because she saw Peter sitting in the front row, she subconsciously sang to him rather than the whole audience.
    • What gets me is apparently she was rather successful in her role in The Importance of Being Earnest in the second movie, certainly enough so that the play ran for a little while. So she can't project when she's singing, and all of a sudden a once-headlining ("once" here meaning less than a year or so ago) actress is unemployable on Broadway?
    • In the matter of why Mary Jane didn't tell Peter that she was fired, I think there's another possible reason. She's living in the shadow of a hero. A nerdy hero, who's sometimes prone to complaining, but a hero nonetheless. He's going out into the world, day after day, night after night, risking (and often receiving) bodily harm to save people he's never even met before, even though, until recently, the public (at least, parts of the media) hated him for it. He does all this to make up for one, tiny mistake which cost him the life of the most important man in his life and, for the most part, he shoulders all of these burdens pretty well. It's already going to be difficult for MJ to compare herself to the guy she spends most of her time with, but on top of this, she can't even hold down a job? Plus I don't think she wanted to bring Peter down. He was riding high on the fact that the public was finally appreciating all he does. She's going to come to him with her problems just when there's a parade put on in his superhero's name? And I think she was planning to tell him at dinner, but his newly inflated ego and then Gwen Stacey got in the way and messed things up.
    • I always thought the idea was that MJ was a fine singer and the critic was just being a jerk about it. Critics aren't always fair.
  • For that matter, why does everyone act as if Peter being a bit pleased with himself is a really terrible thing? Okay, he's a bit obnoxious about it, but come on — considering how the status quo seems to be life consistently taking a dump on him, why shouldn't Peter feel good when things are going his way for a change?
    • Hey, if it makes him strut like the opening sequence of Saturday Night Fever and leads to that unforgivable jazz club sequence, I'm saying terrible.
    • Yeah but what about before he started wearing the black suit? He didn't dance then and he was no more obnoxious than anyone else would be in his position.
    • Opinion is divided on what kind of character Spidey should be. The average joe who experiences both the downs and the ups we can all relate to, or constant humiliations to create a "Spidey-against-the-world" kind of feel. Even Steve Ditko was more supportive of the second version. It's worth noticing in the comics that after Ditko left, Peter started getting a lot luckier. Two girls fighting over him, a son of a rich scientist for a best friend/roommate. A motorcycle, etc.
    • Two girls had been fighting over him long before Ditko left (Betty and Liz), and both the friendship between him and Harry and rich girl Gwen's obsession over him were already set up during his run.
    • Furthermore, during the remainder of Ditko's penning, Peter was too occupied with Aunt May's health. In other words, it was the beauty queen who made the first move. Peter didn't really care at the time.
  • So many people hating on movieverse MJ and calling her a bitch to Peter is what bugs me. It seems these people are never looking at things from her perspective due to a bias towards Peter. Okay so she was something of a Satellite Love Interest bitch who gave Peter No Sympathy in the second movie but she was never a bitch in the first film unless you consider seeing other people besides Peter bitchy and she was having to deal with harsh personal issues in the third. She came off as self absorbed about it but so did Peter: these two are both flawed human beings after all. If you dislike MJ for being a Damsel Scrappy is one thing but a "four star bitch" is taking it too far.
    • In the first film, she was indeed a nice girl. In the second, she had such little sympathy for him that she couldn't understand him missing the play despite him being a) dirt poor, b) recently being fired by one of his jobs, c) his mode of transport was recently trashed. There was plenty of reasons for him to miss it, and he called the next day to apologize. He did go, but was late. It was a known characteristic of him in the film to be late for things, and if the policy -that he had no previous knowledge about- was to deny late arrivers a seat, then its understandable he'd be late. As for the third film, you're acting Biased towards MJ there. Peter wasn't as self absorbed as either you or her made out. Before he started wearing the black suit full time, which is before she broke up with him if I recall, he attempted to use his troubles to compare with her troubles. As he pointed out, criticism is something you need to get used to in this kind of job or life. When she was canned, she should've told him, not keep quiet and get angry when he doesn't seem to care. He tried to talk to her about it, but she kept it from him and only confided in Harry. She had a point about it feeling like her dad said them, but Peter grew up being picked on at school, so he has just the same experience as she does in the field of being verbally abused, AND HE STILL FIGHTS CRIME DESPITE BEING CRITICIZED FOR IT! She was being a lot more unreasonable than he was, but that was because the writers were merging all his love interests into one, and it just didn't work. As Raimi was focusing on how the woobie angle, he made it look like everyone only focused on their own problems, which makes them all seem depressing.
    • Agreed on how she was nice in the first film but bitchy in the second. But the third...biased to MJ? Like everyone else is biased to Peter? I said they BOTH had their faults in the situation. MJ didn't tell Peter about her getting fired because she knew Peter was having success and didn't want to trouble him with her problems, so Harry was the next best friend she could turn to. Was it the right move? Probably not, but that just means she made a human mistake. And her getting angry at Peter was because she got the misconception that fame as Spider-Man was causing him to drift away from her, and things Peter did like the kiss with Gwen gave her damn good reason to believe this. Focusing on one's own problems is what some people do, that just makes them realistic characters. Peter and MJ both gave it the best they could but their own flaws got in the way. But having flaws does not make one a bitch.
    • Yes, but there's a difference between having faults, and being very self centered about that. He told her he knew what she was going through and she insisted he didn't, thats Wangst. She does have a point, but she was being unreasonable about it. Then the kissing Gwen thing, as has been pointed out somewhere on this site, she's an actress, she kisses people all the time. He kissed her to entertain the crowd, she does it to, what's that? Entertain the crowd. Then, when she made a big deal about it being 'their kiss', she seems to of forgotten she did the exact same thing with JJJ's son. Yes, they're both flawed, but MJ acts pretty unreasonable at times, which makes her unlikable in the films. I'm not being biased towards either, but she was being pretty harsh to him in the film, more so than he deserved. "MJ didn't tell Peter about her getting fired because she knew Peter was having success and didn't want to trouble him with her problems"? Erm, no, that seems more like guesswork. There wasn't anything in the film that said that's the reason, she just did. That could have been why, but there's no more indication to that than there is that she did so for any other reason. The fact is, when she had a problem, she kept it to herself and lashed out at him when he tried to help. Yes, it may be a human response, but that doesn't make it the right response. I'm not saying Peter was in the right either, but MJ was being very self obsessed in the film, which many could see as something a bitch does. I don't have anything against Mary Jane, but film MJ was a Tsundere at best.
    • Wangst is subjective; some people find troubles like MJ had realistic for a girl her age. And as I said before, she got the false impression that Spidey's newfound fame was causing Peter to drift away from her, so to her, Peter kissing Gwen confirmed that to her. But clearly she still had feelings for Peter since afterwards she was still concerned about him when he was obsessing over his uncle's killer being loose. And since you are saying that they were both unreasonable, there's no reason MJ should be labeled "a bitch" if Peter can't be too. Really, the most reasonable person involved was probably amnesiac Harry!
    • There's a couple substantial differences about the kissing: Mary Jane might kiss someone to entertain the crowd, but that's explicitly her job—she's getting paid for it, it's part of the script that she can't change. Peter, however, is not getting paid for it, and did it on the spur of the moment with his actual girlfriend watching. As for kissing John., MJ was engaged to him, and had no idea who Spider-Man was at that point—I got the impression she was trying to 'test' it, like seeing if he kissed like Spidey did. There's a world of differences between Peter kissing Gwen and MJ kissing John.
    • There's a part at the parade where Peter takes MJ's picture, but actually focuses it on the "Spidey is Mighty" banner so she's all out of focus. More than anything, that tells me that he really was being self-absorbed. It's understandable that he's thrilled about the city liking him, and Mary Jane is happy for him too, but it becomes more and more apparent that he's so wrapped up in himself that he's not paying any attention to her feelings. Kissing Gwen Stacey in front of her is very inconsiderate of her feelings, and every time MJ tries to talk about her career, Peter launches into an anecdote about everyone loving Spider-Man. He's saying things that are supposedly comforting, and with the best intentions, but it comes off as dismissive and self-centered. MJ wants to feel that Peter really gets what she's going through. I don't think it was unfair of her to get upset with him for continually missing the point and failing to see that something's wrong with her. I think she was on the verge of telling him, but she just found it difficult for any number of reasons, and most of all wanted him to notice. It's fair enough to say that wasn't the most logical course of action, but I think he was being pretty darn dense - if in a nice, loving way - and her reaction was understandable.

• Why doesn't Mary Jane try to warn Peter that Harry threatened her? Did she really think Harry would settle for merely breaking Peter's heart. If Harry were that subtle he would not have threatened her, he would have seduced her or he would have pulled a Iago and made Peter and everyone else think he did.
  • Well she was terrified and had no idea until this point that Harry was going insane, so I can assume she wasn't in the best mindset.
  • More to the point, she knows Peter's Spider-Man by now. She witnessed him fighting Ock firsthand, among other feats of super heroism, and has a good idea of what he's capable of. Instead of dumping him, why not say, "Peter, Harry is hiding over there and he threatened me." She loves him, right? So she has so little faith in Spidey that she'd rather break the heart of the man she loves than trust that he can take care of himself? Even if she's not thinking straight, you'd think she'd feel safer by Peter's side. This is a guy who has rescued her from Harry's father repeatedly and from Ock, after all.
  • Didn't Harry make it clear that he's the Goblin now, or at least has the power to fight Peter on a level field, and that the attempt to do that led to his memory loss at the start of the film? If so, MJ has every reason to believe another Peter vs. Harry fight will end with one of them dead. She definitely doesn't want to see Peter die, probably doesn't want to see Harry die, and definitely doesn't want Peter to have to kill him.

• Why does Peter stoop to super villain level when he attacks Harry in his own house? He nearly kills Harry, because Mary Jane dumped him. The audience knows Harry threatened to do some undisclosed thing to her if she did not dump Peter, but Peter does not. Moral dissonance much?
  • He's under the influence of the black suit.
  • Harry also ambushed Peter at the beginning of the movie and beat the piss out of him. When Harry woke up with Laser-Guided Amnesia, Peter was willing to be the bigger man and dropped it. Then Harry starts messing with him and his woman * again* , so Peter beats on him. Not the best response, but he was wearing the Black Suit. Then as Peter turns to walk off * again* , Harry throws a hand grenade at him. Moral dissonance nothing, Harry got off light.
    • I'm not sure not attacking the amnesiac for no reason he'd know about counts as him being the bigger man. More like... not being a complete asshole, and not going out of his way to create problems for himself.
    • When he attacked Harry in his house, I was under the impression that, at this point, Peter had guessed Harry had got his memory back (remember the villainous wink in th café?). Note that when he arrives, he comes in from the balcony. The only way he could enter would be by web swing or wall crawling. Plus his shirt is open just enough to leave his black suit exposed. If Peter thought Harry still didn't remember, I doubt he would have arrived in such a suspicious way.
    • I'm not sure not attacking the amnesiac for no reason he'd know about counts as him being the bigger man. Peter also simply allowed Harry to go about his business, even knowing that Harry was smart, wealthy, had a vendetta against Spider-Man, and had tried to murder Peter on at least two occasions. Not turning Harry over to the cops was the bigger man part of it. And as noted above, Peter was accused of hypocrisy because he nearly killed Harry. But that happened when Peter threw back a hand grenade that Harry had thrown at his head.
    • As far as not turning Harry over to the police, what would he do if he did? What would he say to them, "He tried to kill me because he thinks I killed his father?" They would want to know why and there's no way Peter can explain that without also revealing that he's Spider-Man, which he doesn't want for obvious reasons. So not turning Harry in really was just saving Peter unnecessary trouble.
    • Again: The Black Suit. Peter didn't care at that point whether Harry knew or not. Harry took his woman, so he was going to pay.
    • Seriously, at that point, Peter was under the influence of the symbiote. It doesn't make it okay that Peter physically scarred Harry, but it also isn't exactly moral dissonance or Disproportionate Retribution for that matter.
    • And to be fair, that last bit where he catches and throws the bomb back looked to be his spider sense acting up (which the third film plays really subtle-like for some reason), i.e. pure reflex. Then the black suit made him not care. Did I mention he was wearing the black suit, which decreases or eliminates his moral compunctions and makes him more unfettered?
  • A) The Black Suit had been shown to heighten aggression and general dickery.
  • B) Friends fight. Peter knew Harry could take his punches because he'd been enhanced by the formula, and there was no indication that he had any intention of killing Harry until that last moment when he threw the grenade back in a fit of rage (and/or spider sense).
  • C) Harry had already tried to kill him once, despite Peter's attempts to explain, and now he was deliberately screwing with him by going through his precious MJ. During the fight, Harry again continually attempted to kill him, first by stabbing him in the stomach with a knife, then with arm blades, then with a grenade.
  • D) A + B + C = Between the attempted murder and the girlfriend stealing and subsequent taunts, Peter was absolutely fed up with Harry's actions. This was compounded by the black suit, which he had been wearing for a while and was becoming more and more influenced by. Even with all that he had no intention of killing Harry, just venting his anger, and simply stopped caring due to all of the above reasons when Harry tried to kill him again by throwing a grenade at him. In a split-second of fury, he tossed it back. True, he didn't show remorse for it; maybe he was too far gone, or maybe he knew Harry was alive. Honestly, I was more appalled that he broke Brock's camera with very little provocation. But again, black suit.
  • Black suit aside, we're dealing with a hero who is essentially a Blood Knight. Getting in between him and his girl and trying to kill him numerous times is generally considered a good way to get yourself horribly killed. Harry got off easy with a scarred up face. Other Blood Knight heroes would've killed him on the spot.
  • Also, remember, Peter had been trying to convince Harry that he didn't kill his father, but Harry wouldn't listen. Peter was fed up, was tried of trying to get Harry to see reason. If he wanted to fight Spider-Man because of a mistaken slight, if he didn't want to listen, why bother? He probably thought, "Hope you can stand toe to toe with me, because I'm about to give you the fight of your life."

• Was anyone else bothered by Harry's death? It takes some thinking about, but he dies facing Spider-Man, away from Venom. We have to assume he could see Venom was about to stab Peter and he was off screen, so a bit to the side. To see he would either have to be between them, behind Peter facing Venom, or behind Venom facing Parker. Only the third option explains why he would end up facing away from Venom, because he would have run in front of him. But then it would easier, faster, and safer to just tackle the guy. Otherwise we have to assume that he did some kind of pirouette to end up facing Parker, and deliberately turned his back on the sharp blades plunging towards him. Would it really have been too hard to have him try and fail to block the glider, or attack and be killed by Venom while Parker was getting free? Because as it is it seems like he committed suicide by alien symbiote.
  • Which, if you think about it, is entirely in-character. Mentally disturbed, remember? Nothing to see here, move along.
  • I missed the bit where he seemed suicidal during that fight. He actually seemed a lot happier than at any time in the movies except when he had amnesia, freed from most of the issues he'd had. "Mentally disturbed" doesn't mean "does things at random".
  • For one thing, it was a typical heroic sacrifice and they don't usually care about logic with those. For another, Venom was taking a flying leap towards Peter and Harry, without his hoverboard, probably couldn't have reliably stopped it. He decided to jump in front of it, without the benefit of having much time to think, and what's the most natural reaction when something's going to hit you and you can't get out of the way? You either shield yourself, or you turn your back to it, because your back is less vulnerable than your front. Okay, that doesn't help much against impalement, but it's still a natural reaction.

• Did Spider-Man lose his spider-sense? He gets surprised by Harry, the effects used in previous films isn't shown once, the only evidence he has it is throwing a bomb back. On a related note, why didn't harry just let spider-man use his spider-sense to avoid the glider.
  • Spider-Man was held in place by Venom's webbing. Spider sense or no, he couldn't have gotten free in time to avoid it.
  • Once I figured out what you were trying to say, I can tell you Spider-Sense isn't perfect. In the comics and the movie, the symbiote was able to avoid Spider-Sense somehow, probably as a result of attempting to bond with Peter. This is why Spidey never knew the symbiote was a danger in the first place and also why he can't sense Venom coming. Also, in the comics, Spidey keeps his Spider-Sense secret. Very few know about it at all, save maybe Daredevil and the Fantastic Four. Harry wouldn't know about Spider-Sense, either, so Harry couldn't have "let" him use it; he didn't know Spider-Man has it.
    • But the symbiote's ability to bypass the Spider-Sense comes from and after the time they spent together. No reason for it to do that before the split.
    • The symbiote wasn't dangerous, strictly speaking. So it wouldn't alert his spider-sense.
    • In fact the symbiote DID trigger his spider-sense. In Secret Wars, when Spider-Man activates the machine that pops out the symbiote (what was that thing supposed to be, anyway? a symbiote vending machine?) he picks it up and his spider-sense does go off for just a moment before the symbiote merges with him for the first time.
    • The symbiote "Venom" was placed there by a combination of his own species and Thanos. When Thanos feels the presence of the symbiote on Earth he realizes what it is and how it got there — most importantly is that the entire species felt "Venom" was a threat more than any of their other kin. Bonding for the feeling of exhilaration and the adrenaline rush led to the rest labeling him a deviant and sticking him in the machine - since The Beyonder was taking random pieces of reality and placing them in his world he wound up with the machine that had the symbiote in it (the next part is CANONICAL. DON'T BLAME ME.) whose purpose was repairing the clothing for the team when The Beyonder was finished beating the tar out of them for that day. When Spider-Man used the machine and acquired the symbiote, he felt that it was looking for something - he didn't feel paranoia. His thoughts about Spider-Woman led to the suit replicating her design. Leading to even the Japanese, who only know of him from 1995-onward in the comics, and finally seeing him in the symbiote, realizing that this was the Bad-Ass, Take No Prisoners, All Shall Fall, Victory Or Death Spider-Man. (Sorry for name-dropping storylines. I couldn't help it).
    • I believe you all missed the point. In Spider-Man 3, there is a scene in which Peter is driving his scooter down the street and Harry bodyslams him from behind with his flying horizontal surfboard. Harry was not related to Venom at all, but still didn't activate Peter's sense.
    • Doesn't he, though? Didn't his eyes widen or something when Harry attacked him? He avoided a thrown bomb without looking, and if I recall, there are a few things he does that required some kind of precognition.
    • Contrary to popular belief, the sense is not precognitive. At best it warns that danger is about to happen. It doesn't tell what the thread is or where it's coming from. Most of the time he's just fast enough to react to it. That and he probably wasn't expecting anything to come from above.
    • The Spider-Sense doesn't give Spidey, like, a picture of what's about to happen. It seems to be, basically, a little voice in his head that shouts, "SOMETHING'S WRONG GET OUT OF THE WAY!" at appropriate moments.
    • And contrary to the above, the sense is precognitive. It gives him precognitive dreams of events to come, and will give him several minutes of warning for low-key dangers. He can use it to make predictions, for instance being able to predict what image a computer will give if it's compiling completely random images, or to win at poker.
    • Except this is the movies and none of that stuff is ever shown.
    • In the comics, it's semi-precognitive. He doesn't exactly know what it is, but he gets a sense of where it's coming from and basic response. Like, he'll know that it's a punch coming from back and to the left, so he should move his head or duck; but he won't necessarily know details about it. He's used it to predict attacks and the right moment to do something. In the movies, Harry might have been coming at him too fast to register in time.
    • The Spider-Sense in the comics is explicitly precognitive, but also somewhat finicky. It can detect a villain in disguise, but won't recognize someone Peter considers a friend as a danger, which is how Miles "The Jackal" Warren managed to be a credible threat: Spider-Man would get the briefest of warnings, if any at all, only when Jackal was about to attack. Sam Raimi is exactly the kind of comic book geek who would keep that in the film for the die-hard fans. Harry and Peter are friends, so Peter gets no blip from his Spider-Sense until Harry is actually about to hit him.

• The News identifies that the hostage in the cab is Mary Jane Watson, and lists how she just got of Broadway. Well if they have that information, isn't a little odd how they didn't mention she was also a hostage for The Goblin and Doc Ock?
  News Anchor: At the risk of editorializing I'd say this girl has really bad karma.
  • I think the writers didn't really want to draw any more attention to this fact, particularly considering that in the original script, it was supposed to be Gwen who was kidnapped.
  • On that note: Nobody in New York draws some kind of conclusion from the fact that this same girl keeps getting kidnapped and saved by Spider-Man?
    • Spider-Man saves tons of people, all the time. I doubt anyone out there is keeping count. And if they are, hey, she's a smokin' hot redhead. Who could blame him?
  • Does anybody in New York even know about Green Goblin and Dr. Octopus kidnapping her? Those two seemed to be private, villain to hero only. The ordeal in the third movie seemed to be the only one that was really public.
    • In the second movie, at least, she was publicly engaged to Hero Astronaut John Jameson, and you think if his son's fiancee is kidnapped by a supervillain, J. Jonah Jameson isn't gonna put it in the paper? Likewise, the thing in the first movie happened in a very public place, you'd think some reporter would have showed up to interview those kids on the gondola and probably spotted MJ too.
    • Although since in the end his son's fiancee was saved by Spider-Man, who JJJ hates with the fire of a thousand supernovae, he'd probably keep it quiet at the risk of actually saying something nice about Spidey.
    • Also, Doc Ock's kidnapping of her wasn't exactly private either, what with him snatching her out of a restaurant, not to mention that Ock is explicitly kidnapping her for her connection to Peter Parker and says so in front of several witnesses.

• One of my biggest questions about the final battle: If the news cameras could zoom in to the point of making a clear identification on Mary Jane, why did the same not work with Peter? He did have his back to the crowd when he was pinned and un-masked by Venom, but when they were fight-falling, wouldn't the cameras have picked up something? And when he lands, he is still un-masked, and is facing the crowd. The news cameras would have had a clear shot of his face.
  • MJ was constantly in the same spot, while Peter was constantly on the move, making him harder to track. Plus there was more than one thing to focus on once he showed up. Perhaps the cameras were following Venom when he landed on the ground.
    • If I was a reporter or a camera man, and a superhero had lost his mask, I know where my attention would be.
    • Do you want to give the guy who fights the rhino and the scorpion on a weekly bases a reason to focus on you?
    • Filming Spider-Man's real identity might get you in trouble. By this point it seems public opinion of him is back on his side (since Eddie's photograph was exposed as having been fabricated), so if someone just filmed him and put it on TV, it could cause a ton of controversy. Plus, if you expose his identity and someone kills him as a result, who are you going to turn to when some costumed maniac is laying waste to New York? Maybe his face did get filmed, but whoever filmed it destroyed the footage a la the guys on the train in Spider-Man 2 out of admiration for him, worry for what would happen to New York without him, desire not to court controversy or some combination of the above.
    • If your city had a near-legend like Spider-Man running around, would you want to be the guy who ruins the "awe" factor by revealing him to be just some ordinary guy? It's much smarter for the media to leave him as a larger-than-life character and grab viewers that way.
  • Plus, at the time, wasn't Spidey currently getting the crap pounded out of him by the Sandman? They were too busy gripped with grief and horror about the very real possibility that they were witnessing the death of their much beloved hero. Trying to zoom onto his anguished face ("Hey, kids! Here's your dying hero's pained expression!!") just wasn't at the forefront of their thought.
  • Who’s to say that Spider-Man’s identity wasn’t publicly outed by the ending of the movie? There’s no real indication to the contrary during Harry’s funeral or Peter & MJ’s reconciliation (besides people not swarming him, which wouldn’t be respectful given the circumstances). As this is the last entry in the Raimiverse, maybe the trilogy’s conclusion really is Peter’s identity becoming somewhat public knowledge.

• How would the police explain Harry's death? Did Peter take Harry out of his costume the same as he did with Norman? What would the post-mortem say?
  • Is it possible that Spider-Man simply told them (most of) the truth? Harry wanted to save M.J, so he used technology created by Oscorp to join the battle and sacrificed himself.

• Why doesn't Marko's locket turn into sand in the test reactor? One would think that the material it's made out of would be a lot easier to turn into fine rock on a molecular level than a human being...
  • Power of Love
  • Maybe it did, but reformed more quickly than Marko due to its smaller size.
  • On a related note, why did his clothes turn to sand as well, and how could he reform them, since they're separate from his body?
  • Clothes have organic sources - leather for the belt and shoes, cotton for everything else - and that must be why they combined with the living creature that managed to reform itself. Although that brings the question as for why the metal in his belt disintegrated but the one in the locket didn't.
  • Any metal components in Marko's belt, footwear, and so forth probably did survive the test reactor unscathed. But they lay so flat underneath the loose sand as to be hidden, and Marko wasn't going to sift through all that grit for a buckle or a few stray lace-grommets.

• What were Gwen and Captain Stacy doing at Harry's funeral? At no point do either of them interact with Harry, or even make indication that they know him.
  • Well Gwen got to know Peter... so she may have come to support him after his friend died, with Captain Stacy coming along out of kindness.
    • Given how Harry was wealthy and prominent, he may have connections with the police for various events and Stacy was sent as a representative at his funeral, with Gwen tagging along because he was friends with Peter.

• Where the hell did Peter learn how to play the piano?
  • In Spider-Man 2, Aunt May tells the banker that she was going to start teaching the piano again to earn extra money so she could qualify for a loan. If she knows the piano, it stands to reason that she taught Peter when he was a kid.

• The part of the jazz club scene where Gwen first notices Peter playing the piano: who the hell uses a mirror to apply perfume?
  • Maybe she's a little ditzy?
  • Checking make-up. Applying perfume. Multitasking your make-up is not hard when you are an actress. It's not hard period, honestly.

• When Gwen shows up at the restaurant where Peter intends to propose to Mary Jane, what bothers me is Mary Jane seems to completely miss Gwen mentioning that Peter talks about Mary Jane "all the time". Yet Mary Jane continues remaining pissed off at Peter with the whole, "Are you trying to push me away" Wangst.
  • "Peter talks about you all the time" = "I'm a super-hot blonde chick who hangs out with your boyfriend all the time."
  • Added to that is the implication that Peter's told Gwen about Mary Jane "all the time," but Peter has apparently not mentioned Gwen once to Mary Jane. Logically, you could take this to mean that Peter loves MJ and thus keeps talking about her — but in MJ's already-angered state, it means Peter hasn't mentioned Gwen because he doesn't want MJ to find out about Gwen.

• Eddie begs Peter not to out him as a fraud after he cheated to get a job that he knew Peter wanted. Obviously the matter of Peter knowing that Spider-Man wouldn't commit a crime is moot as Eddie isn't aware that he is Spider-Man, but did he really think Peter would be content to let the false photo thing fly?
  • He's a self-centered asshole. Why is it a headscratcher when he act self-centered?
    • The headscratcher is not about the selfishness. Yes, that part is not surprising. It's about the unbelievable audacity and lack of self-awareness. It would be one thing if Eddie offered Peter literally anything in return for his silence and complicity, but instead he tries to play the sympathy card because he really needs the job. The same job Peter was competing for. Like, this is tantamount to me stealing your car, then you track me down and I have the gall to not only ask you not to press charges, but let me keep the car.
    • He’s desperate and probably not thinking it through logically.
    • There's no logical reason why he should expect Peter not to expose him, but it's perfectly natural for someone in a situation where they have everything to lose and are completely powerless to prevent it to desperately beg for mercy anyway.
  • I think the bigger question is how he expected to get away with passing one of Peter's pictures off as his own. Let's take Peter being Spider-Man out of the equation: up until Brock showed up, Peter Parker was apparently the only photographer ever able to get clear pictures of Spider-Man in action. Did he really think some crappy Photoshop would render Peter incapable of recognizing his own work?
    • It's just as Peter said to Eddie, he didn't think it through. Eddie was so obsessed with impressing Jameson (even through questionable means) he didn't consider how easy it would be to expose him as a fraud. Eddie seems to not be terribly smart and has probably succeeded in life mostly through cutting corners and brown-nosing.

• After Spider-Man 2, it becomes apparent that Peter did not go back and explain to Harry what happened. Would it have been so difficult for him to say: "I didn't kill your father, I'll explain later but right now the entire city is endanger from Octavius."
  • Yeah, it doesn't make much sense, but it's possible Peter was still feeling guilty, and thinking he was responsible for Norman's death. From a more Doylist perspective, the filmmakers needed Harry to keep angsting about it so he'd have a motivation to put on the Goblin suit.
  • Even if Peter had said something, it's not long after that that we get pretty clear indication of Harry losing his mind. Why would Harry find a reason to listen to Peter when he sees the hallucination of his father feeding him a deluded outlook on the situation?

• Venom obviously has a human mouth when his face is human. But when his face is not peeled back, his mouth is huge, as expected. In the film, is the big alien mouth part of the mask, as in the mouth of the symbiote itself, or does Brock's mouth gradually morph into a monstrous form when his real face is concealed? Maybe it's one or the other in the comics, but this troper is not familiar with the Venom stories.
  • Most likely it's Brock's mouth morphed. There are a few shots where he speaks a few words with his Venom face, the only difference is that his voice is lowered, then once his face is peeled back, he continues his sentence. But then again, when the symbiote is released from Brock, its face still resembles Venom, so it could just be the symbiote taking him over.
  • That's something that the comics never bother clarifying either. Sometimes it's portrayed one way, sometimes it's another.

• There's something that bugs me about the bell tower scene. When Spidey releases the symbiote from himself, he has no clothes on underneath. Does that mean he swung home naked?? Or did he bring a pair of clothes with him, like, did he think to himself, "Hey, I'm gonna find some way to break the bond from this thing that's making me a jackass, but hey, I'm gonna be naked afterwards, better bring clothes!"?
  • In the scene prior, he's seen wearing clothes over the suit. He probably took those with him.

• Marko broke out of Rikers, which is in the Bronx. Why then did the stack of unopened letters he found at his house have Wrightstown, New Jersey on the return address?
  • They could've been forwarded.
    • So rather than send the letters the 11 or so miles from Riker's Island to Marko's home in Brooklyn, the letters were sent 83.9 miles to Wrightstown, New Jersey, and then sent back the way they came 75.5 miles to Brooklyn?

• Norman was only Goblin for a few days. How did he have time to create a high tech snow board, a new mask, and millions of pumpkin bombs in that short amount of time?
  • It wasn't 'a few days'. It seemed more like a few MONTHS, like, six or seven. There were clearly several time skips while Peter was evolving his Spider-Man costume, and a few months between when Norman blew up his competitors and when the board attempted to oust him.

• Did Peter ever reveal Aunt May that Uncle Ben's murder was accidental? Marko was about to back away when Carradine ran and slapped him on the shoulder, causing him to accidentally pull the trigger. Marko was extremely and genuinely remorseful for the killing, and even tried to help Ben, but Carradine abandoned his partner. Did he ever tell her?
  • If he was to reveal it, it would raise the question of how he found out that Ben's death was an accident. It may have put too much of a risk on his superhero identity if he revealed that he personally spoke with the wanted criminal and would raise the question of why he didn't report it to the police.
  • True, but is there someway to reveal Ben's accidental murder without raising suspicions or revealing his identity as Spider-Man?

• In the first and second film, Harry hating Spider-Man for killing his father made sense, since he believed his father was an innocent man that Spider-Man murdered. However why does he still have a bloodlust for Spider-Man after finding out his father was the Green Goblin, i.e. the guy who killed dozens, attempted to kill more, including Mary Jane, and attacked the parade that Harry himself was at and could have been killed by. Even if he still grieves for him since he believes he was a good man at one point, why does he seek vengeance even after finding out Norman was a criminal?
  • In The Spectacular Spider-Man, in a similar situation, Harry bitterly notices that "My father was ill. He needed help." Perhaps here Harry also blamed Peter for killing Norman instead of apprehending him so that he could get help for his mental disorder.
    • I thought Harry didn't know his dad was the goblin until his butler told him. Didn't Harry think Spider-man broke into the Osborn mansion and killed Norman for...some reason?
    • The ending of Spider-Man 2 shows Harry discovering the secret Goblin lab, with all the costumes and bombs, and he uses the goblin serum on himself, so he knows his dad was the Goblin.

• I know this has been asked time and time again, but...what happened to the symbiote sample at Dr. Connors' class? Did it expire?
  • I always assumed that was a Sequel Hook for a possible Carnage appearance, but it never panned out because the franchise was rebooted.
  • Venom most likely collected it offscreen prior to meeting Sandman. The symbiote may have detected it wasn't whole, and likely directed Eddie to the sample.

• If Sandman feels so guilty about killing an innocent man, then why didn't he turn himself over to the police at the end? Also, Peter takes his word that it was an accident. For all he knows, Marko could be lying to him. We, the audience, know it was an accident, but Peter doesn't.
  • Maybe Flint died at the end (what with Peter forgiving him and turning to sand and blowing away thing).

• Is Marko's sick daughter screwed? Was that subplot supposed to be resolved in the cancelled Spider-man 4? Unless Peter is secretly Bruce Wayne, Marko would have to go back to his criminal ways.

• Why is that when Peter is trying to take off the black suit in the bell tower, it's instead the pure symbiote rather than the actual costume that he had before? It's shown before that he takes it off normally like the regular costume, so why the sudden change?
  • That's the symbiote bonding more strongly over time. It might also be able to tell he's trying to get rid of it for good, and isn't willing to go.

• If Harry took the exact same human enhancers as his father, shouldn't he have the same side effects, like insanity or the split personality? Why did it just affect him less?
  • Natural variation. Ask any doctor and they'll tell you that no two people react to medication in the same way. Some people need higher doses, some lower etc, in order to have the same effect. Norman clearly had a strong reaction to the medication, Harry less so. Perhaps it was the age difference, who knows.
  • Maybe he refined it so it wouldn't cause those side effects.

• Harry's hatred for Peter doesn't make sense. He found Green Goblin's weapons and armor in his dad's mansion. If he's aware his dad was the Green Goblin, why would he get revenge on the guy who killed him in SELF DEFENSE? Harry saw it first hand that the mysterious Green Goblin was a murderous lunatic.
  • Harry is not in the most rational frame of mind, first of all. At the end of the second movie he's already seeing hallucinations of his father, urging him to avenge his death. Also, reason is often overridden by emotions, especially when family is concerned. He had already been stewing in his hatred for Spider-Man for a while when he found out Norman was the Goblin, and Peter was not forthcoming with the details of their fight. Add to that the jealousy Harry already feels due to his perception that Norman favored Peter over him, and Harry's obsession with vengeance is very understandable. "Spidey killed my dad, Spidey must pay" is likely as far as his thought process goes on that front. Rational thought evolved to justify decisions we've made for emotional reasons, and that's still the way it's often employed.
    
    In other words, Harry sees Spider-Man with a dead Norman. Harry's midbrain says, "Spidey killed Dad. Spidey must die." His prefrontal cortex follows up with a rational justification after Harry finds the lab: "Dad may have been the goblin, but Spidey shouldn't have killed Dad, he should have brought him in alive to get treatment." Then later, when he finds out Spidey is Peter: "Norman was like a father to Peter, and Peter betrayed him. And he kept it from me for months. He's a murderer and deserves to die." If he had engaged his prefrontal cortex first, it might have advised him that Spidey had always acted heroically in the past, there was probably a fight and Spidey likely killed him accidentally or in self-defense. But unfortunately, that's rarely how brains work. Especially schizophrenic ones.

• Why didn't Peter try to destroy the symbiote after getting it off? Did he just assume it wouldn't find someone else to bond with and would die off? Because my first move would be to torch that shit. Hell, it seems like he must have just swung off immediately without even checking what happened to it, since he'd have otherwise gotten into a conflict with Venom then and there.
  • Peter was really freaked out by the symbiote at this point. He'd figured out it was affecting his behavior, so he tried to get rid of it, and it REALLY didn't want to go. He also has no idea how to destroy it at this point. He probably wanted to get as far away from it as possible so it didn't try to bond with him again. He probably wasn't thinking about what would happen after that.

• Why is Sandman so quick to agree to kill Spider-Man? He clearly feels incredibly guilty about the one time he killed, and he intially doesn't even want to fight Spidey. All he wants to do is get the money to save his daughter. He could easily do that without killing Spidey.
  • “I want him dead too, Flint. That's why I've been looking for you. Oh yeah, I know all about you. Like the fact that Spider-Man won't let you help your poor daughter.” Do you think Sandman is going around advertising his name and the fact he has a child? Flint isn’t stupid enough to think the demonic looking Spider-Man wannabe who clearly has done his homework is going to politely accept a potential “no” and go on his merry way with no harm done. The game makes it explicit with Venom cutting the knot and kidnapping Flint’s daughter to force him to help.
  • Pretty sure Spider-Man had already tried to kill him at that point.
    • He did, but despite his best efforts he only inconvenienced Marko. There's nothing stopping him from just trying another theft. The only reason he would want to kill Spidey at that point is revenge, which seems out of character.
    • Just because Spidey didn't succeed that time doesn't mean he can't. Marko knows that Spidey tried to off him, it doesn't really matter that he wasn't able to that time. That's apparently enough reason for him to agree to kill Spidey.
    • The comic book "Spider-Man 3: The Black" reveals that, when Venom sought Sandman's help, the former told the latter Spidey wants to prevent him from getting the help his daughter needs.
    • Another possible reason: just because Spidey doesn't succeed in killing Marko, doesn't mean he didn't try. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't be so forgiving to anyone who attempted to kill me.

• When Venom and Sandman are subjecting Spider-Man to a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown in the climax, how does Peter's mask get torn up? It's doubtful blunt force would be sufficient to cause such cosmetic damage, especially in the way that's depicted onscreen. At least in the first Spider-Man, you could chalk the mask damage up to the sheet of glass Spider-Man crashed through in the abandoned building, along with the Green Goblin's pumpkin bomb literally blowing up in his face.

• When Peter imagines what could have happened the night Uncle Ben died, he imagines Flint Marko remorselessly shooting Ben despite Dennis Carradine insisting that he leave Ben alone, painting Carradine in a sympathetic light. Why does Peter do that? Even if Carradine didn't kill Ben (like Flint later confirms) and just leaves the scene to avoid being arrested, he still laughed at Peter when he asked him why he didn't give his uncle a chance.
  • He’s overcome with emotion and not thinking straight.

• Why is Harry's face visibly scarred and damage due to the explosion of the Pumpkin Bomb? Peter himself got a Pumpkin Bomb exploding on his face in the first film and he didn't get any scar at all.
  • Simple fact of Peter likely being more tough. Despite the enhancement, Harry was getting almost completely trounced in the fight that led up to that moment.

• Does Eddie Brock, prior to being claimed by the Venom symbiote as its host, possess amazing sight and hearing senses? When he finds Peter trying to remove the symbiote from himself at the church's belltower, he immediately recognizes Peter, even though Peter has never screamed in front of him (so he couldn't know what his screams are like) and is at the top of the belltower.
  • Eddie does look up after opening the door to the bell tower, so we can assume he caught a glimpse of Peter's face in those few seconds. He could have also recognized Peter's voice from the screams, even if Peter never screamed around him before.

• So somehow, none of the Pumpkin Bombs went off when Harry got thrown into the glass stands full of them? They seem to trigger at just the click of a button, so how did not falling onto the ground trigger at least one?
  • I'm guessing those grenades need a certain pressure applied to their detonators to activate, so Harry simply being thrown into them wouldn't activate them.