How To Make Spider-Man Boring - Far From Home

this video is sponsored by nordley pn stay tuned to find out how you can take back your privacy online today spider-man far from home for all its merits had a problem I mean the action scenes are great the acting from Aaron involved is well done the villain has charisma and is certainly a lot more interesting than most other villains in the MCU but for all of those strengths this film had an area where it failed so extensively that it held back the film it kept far from home as being a decent enjoyable superhero film but prevents it from truly shining and reaching its full potential as one of the best spider-man stories that we've ever seen and what is this film's most condemning failing it's spider-man now this isn't your bog-standard whinge on current a spider-man where I say oh the craters don't understand the spirit of spider-man's character or something to that effect rather the reason why spider-man in this film isn't very interesting especially when compared to other incarnations of the character like in Sam Raimi's trilogy or in spider-man homecoming is because in this film spider-man makes for a frankly weak protagonist there are so many crucial ingredients that make a protagonist interesting and spider-man in this film lacks most of them to the point that dare I say it it makes spider-man a downright boring protagonist ok no mandatory disclaimer for these kinds of videos just before you hit the dislike button hear me out first but before we break down why spider-man in this film makes for a really weak protagonist we need to first explore the idea of character want verse knees the two elements of want and need are really the cornerstone of any good character motivation and if you want your character to have an arc these two things cease to be something you should consider giving your protagonist and they become pretty much mandatory ingredients if you want to do your arc properly simply put a character's want is their objective they give themselves in the story it's the surface level goal they have and it's usually quite a simple one meanwhile their need is usually quite more elusive it's the deepest desire that character in their hearts if you're creating a character arc that need the character has is something the character is largely unaware of at the start of the story and said character becomes more aware of that need as time goes along and all too often the most fascinating characters take these elements of want verse knees and pit them against each other whether you protagonist wants a goal but their goal it turns out has nothing to do with their real needs or even better their want is actually destructive and if they go through with that once it pushes them further away from what they really need deep inside but okay all of this is really rather abstract and it would certainly help if we had a few good examples to demonstrate why want verse needs are so important when creating a compelling protagonist let us take Toy Story 1 for example in the start of this film our protagonist woody is Andy's favorite toy and he is very much enjoying life then Buzz Lightyear comes along and steals the spotlight now buzz is Andy's favorite toy and this makes woody deeply envious it presents us with Woody's want which drives the plot would he want to reclaim his old glory of being the favorite toy again and he sabotages buzz in order to achieve it and in doing so gets them both lost and devastates Andy but as the film plays along would he realizes how deeply selfish his want is and Woody's need is to recognize that it doesn't actually Messer who is Andy's favorite toy the only thing that matters is that Andy has a favorite toy that he is happy and that Woody is there for him in whatever capacity and he needs him to be here's another great example in Shrek Shrek wants to live in his swamp alone then a massive fairy tale creatures squat on his land and this motivates his want and therefore the plot Shrek wants privacy his meat however is to realize that a life with loved ones is so much more fulfilling than living alone and when he finally achieves his one when he finally gets all these squatters of his land at the very end of act 2 while the Shrek we see at the start would have been over the moon to achieve this Shrek now just feels Paulo because now he knows what it's like to feel loved and realizes that his want was the opposite of his far more important needs and the rest of the film is him pursuing that need as he chases after Princess Fiona this makes Shrek an incredibly engaging protagonist so those are two examples where want verse need are well fleshed out and done so to great effects making for interesting protagonists that go on interesting journeys now let's apply that concept to Spider Man far from home so in this film what does Spider Man want and well spider-man's one is twofold he wants to stop the monsters in the first half of the film then stop Mysterio in the second half okay that's our want it's a pretty simple one but that's okay a want is totally allowed to be as simple as that but what's really important and what requires a lot more thought is his need what does spider-man need to happen in this film and that is exactly it it's one of the reasons why spider-man felt so boring to me or at the absolute least is a lot less interesting than the otherwise could have been because he doesn't actually have anything he needs I mean you could say he needs to get with Mary Jane but he already wants to be with her at the South the movie so that's just another one and if the protagonist of your story has no internal needs that they work their way towards achieving said character will be all the more boring for it I mean what's absolutely brilliant that showcasing how weak spider-man's motivation is in this film is this line of dialogue so after the first monster appears and is defeated Spiderman says this what are you gonna do about the water monster look I just want to spend some time with MJ we were talking about Paris and she likes me but hold on because this presents a bizarre inconsistency spider-man says he doesn't want to fight the monsters he just wants to enjoy his holiday but he clearly does get involved for the plot because otherwise there wouldn't be your movie so where the hell the spider-man get his motivation from well it's rather simple Nick Fury comes up to Peter and asks him to get involved and that's it that that is his motivation there's nothing personal about it he doesn't feel this profound need to defend the innocent or get revenge or anything resembling a powerful emotion his motivation is that Nick Fury just asked him to get involved that's really boring but that weak motivation alone isn't necessarily a death sentence I mean this is exactly how it is in spider-man homecoming in spider-man homecoming Peter wants to stop the vulture and generally stop the bad guys because that's what heroes do but you know what spider-man in that film still makes for a pretty decent protagonist so why is spider-man a less interesting hero in far from home compared to homecoming well it's because there are many things that make a protagonist interesting and you don't necessarily need to tick every single box in order to have a interesting character your protagonist doesn't require a character arc in order to be a good protagonist I mean it really helps if you have one but you can make a good story without it however and this is a big however if you're going to deny your protagonist a character arc you simply must make up for it in some way and from what I've seen a great commonly used way to make up for this is to make your protagonist as proactive as possible I mean shock they're the exact same character at the start and end of your story but they're just so damn proactive from start to finish that we can't help but be fascinated by their story I think a great example of this kind of partying astiz Marty in Back to the Future Marty doesn't really have an arc in that first film does he but he's so extraordinarily tenacious in his efforts to get back to his time and fix his mistakes in messing up the timeline that he makes for a perfectly interesting protagonist mozzie effects the plot the plot does not affect him so making spider-man extremely active in this film would have been vitally important to remedying the fact that he lacks a strong lead and character arc and certainly under no circumstances can we have Nick Fury flooding him with a stick for the first half of the movie and spider-man's holiday plans against his will to force him to get involved in fight the monsters and spider-man just bridging Lee sighs and goes along with it as the definition of passive that's the absolute last thing we should do and oh that's uh that's exactly what they do and this really is salt in the wound because not only does spider-man have a weak motivation he is also extraordinarily passive and again your protagonist doesn't need to tick all the boxes in order to be interesting but now we've entered the realm where spider-man is lacking in two of the most crucial building blocks that makes a good protagonist and all of a sudden his interest as a character is really starting to wane now I know a lot of you are probably thinking this and quite possibly angrily typing a comment about it right now but doesn't spider-man have a need in this film it's the need to fill the shoes of Tony Stark right I mean it certainly seems that way on the surface level it's even in the trailer a spider-man looks at street art of Tony and is afraid about the idea of living up to the next Tony Stark in the beginning when a journalist asked him what it's like to take over from Tony Stark spider-man has a small panic attack then runs away from the event obviously showing that he's terrified about the idea you think that establishes spider-man's need in this movie but this exposition it's like the writers introducing a Chekhov's gun a very tantalizing intriguing Chekhov's gun then immediately throwing it out the window because this had the potential to be a really interesting need for spider-man provided they weaved it into the plot and flesh this idea out but they didn't because asides from that press moment in the beginning we have only two moments in this whole film where the concept of him being the next Iron Man is addressed when spider-man gives the glasses to BEC because he doesn't have faith in himself and when in the JEP just before the climax happy tells him that he shouldn't want to be like Tony because Tony was secretly a very guilt and anxiety ridden man and is the kind of guy that you don't really want as a role model those are the only moments this apparent need spider-man's is addressed and that is not how you do a character need you can't just mention it three times in the two-hour long movie and never show that he's grown in between those sparse moments I mean that talk on the plane with happy that just so happens to be the end of the second act which means that throughout the entire third acts his mission to be the next Tony Stark is never even addressed it plays no role in his motivations there is no dialog talking about it in the entirety of act 3 even in the wind down when we have our falling action in far from home spider-man's need is so often forgotten about is so poorly fleshed out that calling his need in the first place is unduly over-generous I mean what makes this neglect as spider-man's need in this film so appalling is it would have been just so easy to add a few scenes here and there a few bits of dialogue who fleshed this out and make his character so much more interesting so okay we never have any resolution to this apparent need and Happy's motivational talk on the jet that just wasn't enough if we're going to be able to call this an arc Spiderman must come to a final epiphany as to exactly how he's gonna fill iron man's shoes so how about we have a scene just after the final battle so when spider-man got Edith in the first place the note that came with it says for the next Tony Stark I trust you and after Beck's death Peter is on the Tower Bridge thinking things over he pulls out that crumpled note looks to the sky and says something like I don't want to I'm sorry Tony but I can't I've tried and I just can't live up to being the next you so I'm done trying I know this isn't what you wanted but it's what I want I want to be my own man to make my own way in life I don't want to fill your shoes because I already have my own I'm not Iron Man I'm spider-man and then he throws the note into the river programs the Edith satellite to fall out of orbit and burn up in the atmosphere so no one can use it as a weapon in war and he deletes her operating system from the glasses then the glass into the river as well now that would have been a brilliant way to resolve his apparent need in this film and give him an interesting argh where he decides to take a big step towards adulthood and learns the lesson that just because a parental figure wants you to do something that doesn't necessarily mean that's the best thing for you to do and sometimes you need to be your own person make your own decisions in life and go against what other people want you to do even if you respect them that would have been such a great way to flesh out Peters need in this film to the point where it's justified in calling it a need and they could have done other things little bits of dialogue here and there to flesh this idea out into a proper good arc and it would have been so easy to do a lot of these things that it's really inexcusable that they didn't I mean how about when he first meets fury fury tells him that he has no faith in Him maybe fury says it while spider-man is eavesdropping that Peter is just not good enough to be the next Tony Stark he's naive and childish and this fills Peter with self-doubt or maybe he just tells Peter to his face that he needs to be so much better than he currently is else he'll never live up to being the next Iron Man and spider-man then over the course of the movie tries and fails to do exactly what fury wants him to do and be more like Tony spider-man's want should have been to be the next Tony Stark and his knee should have been to realize that he should aspire to be the best version of himself and not somebody else and that would give him a powerful arc but of course they didn't do that instead his need comes across as half-baked like the writers laid 30% of the groundwork for a character arc told themselves hey we'll just bless you now in the second draft but then totally forgot to do that and I said earlier that spider-man is extremely passive in this film and the thing is if you ask me the fact he is so passive is actually more damning than his lack of any internal need and I mean need is great if spider-man had one it would have undoubtedly made the movie so much better but if you ask me an active protagonist with no work is more interesting than a passive character with an arc and it just so happens that spider-man is one of the most passive protagonists we have ever seen before in a superhero movie both Marvel and DC included but before we break that down recently I've discovered this money upfront multi-level marketing scheme that I think you should absolutely join and with this business model you'll make tons of money in note you spider-man using X's to Edith I found your IP address and now I know exactly where you live and I candy this you and shut your internet down not to mention I can see everything you do while you browse especially when you use your phone on public Wi-Fi and now the world will be mine not so fast Mysterio Ivan stone or VPN on these glasses what no that's right now my information is secure and not only can my government no longer spy on everything I do but neither can any of the tech giants like Google or 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what did you say I had to do again click that link in the description that's Nord VPN comm /the closer look or use the code the closer look at the check out but you'll never get the chance to use this incredible service villain what No Mongoose and they'd rather over ripe mango and that is exactly why I said that forty thousand dollars to my long-lost Nigerian uncle anyway spider-man in this film is extraordinarily passive fury tells him to do something so he begs without a word of a projection the monsters attack spider-man reacts spider-man is given the information that Mysterio is about to tak London so he reacts and goes to meet him there and frankly the only moment in this entire film where spider-man shows true as in like true proactivity is when he makes a decision to give the glasses to bec this moment is actually great because it makes spider-man active and I mean you could be really nitpicky and say well he was manipulated into making this decision by the bad guys so even if this is his one moment of proactivity it has a war Stan effect because it's all a part of the villains plan but to give credit where credit is due this moment as a wonderful job at telling a spy man is afraid and lack self-confidence so a big thumbs up to the creators however it's nowhere near enough one good choice isn't enough to redeem a character who is otherwise wholly passive and this actually presents a pretty good segue into a really interesting question why do we find active characters so much more interesting than passive ones I mean it would be helpful to know right if you ask me there are tons of reasons why and it's a pretty complex answer so much so that I barely understand it myself but one thing that's for absolute sure part of the reason why proactive characters are the most interesting types of characters is because they are the ones who make the choices while the passive character lets the choices get made on his behalf the active one chooses between two or more options and in doing so reveals a ton about who they are deep inside thus making them interesting the thing is character choice is actually a brilliant device from a writer's perspective I mean if you think your character could do with being a little more interesting a fantastic way to do it would be to force them to make an insanely difficult choice at some point in your story say for example if they own a weapons manufacturing company and love that fact then they see how terrible and effects that company is having on the world and is hurting good people so then he shuts down the weapons manufacturing branch of his weapons production company and shows he's grown I mean I can't think of any examples quite like that that's just a hypothetical but if you make your protagonist make decisions like that they inherently become all the more fascinating to your audience you can do so many things with character choice you can have them choose a path that turns out to be a terrible mistake causing your character to feel profound regret causing internal conflict and making them three-dimensional if your character has an arc you can have them make a choice at the start of your story that displays their self-centered ways then they make another choice near the end of your story that showcases how much they've changed and ties their arc in a neat little bow but this presents a pretty interesting learning opportunity because while character choice can make your character fascinating it can also do absolutely nothing to make your character more interesting there are tons of examples where a character makes a choice and it is as boring as if he never made that choice at all but how does that make any sense right how can one choice reveal so much about a character and make them fascinating while another reveals nothing and he is tediously boring by comparison well it's this on the surface level it could seem like your character has a strong agency because said Cara to makes a decision look it far from home for example MJ discovers a camera from a drone and gives it to spider-man it then plays a hologram from the fight and spider-man realizes that Mysterio is a hack and has been playing on all four films he then decides to go tell Nick Fury about this and that's a decision right spider-man find something out then chooses to act on it and tell someone well yes of course that is a decision but it's also one of the most boring ways that having character choice in your story because when the correct choice to mate is so glaringly obvious when there is only one viable path and every other option is so ridiculously idiotic that only a madman was Pickett and then your character makes the most obvious choice that is when the element of choice in your story is at its most insipid the times when choice is the most fascinating device is when that choice is gray when there are multiple paths ahead at least two of which viable but if you want an example of exactly that what makes for an outstanding choice in fiction I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a better example than in Batman Begins where the League of Shadows as the final act of Bruce's training demands he executes the criminal this criminal is a murderer and the world is against him a whole cabal of highly trained assassins is around Bruce any of which could kill him all of which egging him on to do the deed and Bruce refuses then fights his way out this right here makes for fantastic fiction and what makes this choice so bloody powerful is the fact that there are multiple viable options he can take he can kill the criminal which would be extremely easy all you have to do is do a quick slice he would earn the admiration and respect of his peers and life would be looking pretty good for him if Bruce cared more about himself than other people this would absolutely be the path he'd take or alternatively Bruce can take the insanely difficult option of refusing what everyone wants him to do we remember that guy who wanted to kill his parents killer and would have done so if someone hadn't done it before him and now he is choosing to save the life of someone who is just as evil as the man who he'd planned to kill this choice does an outstanding job at displaying the progression of his moral code we see that he's becoming Batman this right here is a great example of how choice can be used to potent effects in fiction because when you do it right it not only makes your character proactive it not only moves the plot forwards but crucially it is in my opinion the hands-down best way of giving your audience insight into who your character truly is deep inside I mean dialogue is great if you have a character explain their moral compass to another character that can make for a great scene and reveal who they are to the audience but if you have the option of picking a well-written dialogue exchange where a character explains their morality or having an action scene where your character displays their morality and makes an active decision that affects the plot that second scene will do a better job at showcasing your character and entertaining your audience 99% of the time I mean okay here's a better alternative for spider-man discovering that Mysterio is the bad guy how about instead of just being handed the drunk piece that makes him suspicious he takes the initiative so he notices that the attacks are following a pattern and he because of his own agency realizes that the next monster appearance will be in Prague before anyone else does so without consulting anyone he goes and then he gets ready and prepares for the attack he knows it's a fire monster so he gets hoses and rigs this whole system with a water fountain to fight the fire but only then does he notice someone being shifty down below and this piques his curiosity mist has actually one of Mysterio's goons who is setting up the hologram system doing some last-second touches to the display then spider-man Yanks on this thread pulls a Batman ties the guy up upside down and gets answers out of him and discovers Mysterio secret plan and instead of simply being passive instead of MJ giving him this drone piece and him being told Mysterio as a bad guy spider-man persevered and discovers entirely because of his own agency that something is wrong if the film did it this way it would have done wonders to make his character more interesting the thing is you can easily have an active protagonist while the villain is also being active themselves the thing about The Dark Knight is it could have so easily fallen for this inactivity problem that far from home does but it doesn't throughout the film the Joker and the mob are causing chaos and being this destructive force but what does Batman do does he lie in wait in his cave until he gets a phone call saying that Joker is committing crimes and then he goes no he persevered he wants to take out the mob their money launderer flies back to Asia does Batman passively twiddle his thumbs and wait no he takes the initiative he leaves his comfort zone and goes to this new continent and kidnaps the money-launderer even though the villains are being an active force Batman is an active force himself we see Batman endlessly throughout the entire runtime of this movie trying so very hard you take the initiative and even though a good amount of this activity is in vain because the Joker's plan goes off flawlessly anyway Batman's character is all the more engaging for its but how can we apply this to Spider Man far from home well how about in an improved version happy is the one who gives spider-man the glasses he hands them over at the star of the film and just as spider-man is getting used to them the elementals attack New York let's say Peter is good friends with the shopkeeper at his local store and when the elementals attack the shopkeeper dies in his arms and this inspires him whoever this force is it attacked his hometown it killed his friends he finds the Patterson and realizes that the next attack will be in Europe a place not too far away from where he's about to go on holiday and he uses that holiday to go on a mission to hunt down the elementals so no one else will get hurt or lose their friends like he did in this improved version Nick Fury doesn't ask spider-man for help spider-man hunts down Nick Fury and asks him for help he tells him that this monster attacked his hometown and he wants to help take it down and save lives but fury says snow because he already has Mysterio who is a grown adult he doesn't need anyone else and spider-man is just a kid fury doesn't want a child on the battlefield because he'll just get hurt so while Fury and Mysterio are in Europe dealing with the monsters spider-man against the will of fury and everyone else persevere and independently hunts down the monsters while Fury and Mysterio are the passive characters as they react when the attacks happen spider-man finds out where these attacks will happen beforehand and by finding the pattern creatively tries to stop them before they happen instead of Edith buying the Opera tickets a Peter digs into his university fund goes online and pays for those Opera tickets himself shelling out tens of thousands of dollars over the course of the film and essentially drains his savings in order to hunt this creature down and stop more deaths and then we combine this with the idea earlier of him on the ark to be the next Tony Stark when he ultimately rejects and decides to be his own man and all of a sudden spider-man's stop being a bland protagonist and he's become fascinating hasn't he and ultimately we still have the exact same plot except for maybe an alteration to the first couple scenes where the monsters attack New York instead of attacking Venice all we've really done is tweak the plot so spider-man is one who pushes himself to act rather than other people pushing him and it makes the film all the more entertaining and maybe this presents a mini arc for the supporting characters I mean it would have been really cool if your restarts the film not having the slightest respect for spider-man thinking he is just a kid who's got no place fighting criminals but due to his tenacious perseverance and the fact that spider-man uncovers alone the truth about Mysterio and essentially saves Fury's life fury learns to respect by the man and we end on a note where fury says that the next time he's got problem Peter will be the first person he comes to in homecoming Peter had this issue where he was desperate to get into the action but happy and Tony didn't respect him enough so weren't giving him any jobs but now because of spider-man's perseverance fury has learned to respect him and think of him not as a child but as a capable adult now spider-man will have his hands full with good deeds to do which is what he's always wanted and he's no longer doing these days as Iron Man's protege he's doing them a spider-man and that would be a great note to end the film on anyway thanks for watching don't forget to Like and subscribe and I'll see you guys next time on the closer look

Channel: The Closer Look

Views: 887,467

Keywords: spiderman, spider, man, spider-man, far from home, far from, from home, home, homecoming, video essay, video, essay, the closer look, closer look, the closer, mcu, iron man, avengers, endgame, end game, writing, creative writing, character, arc, character arc, character arcs, avengers endgame

Id: nVRzCE7LmdI

Length: 31min 13sec (1873 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 08 2019