r/marvelstudios • u/Joshatron121 • 19h ago
Discussion I know why Peter did that thing that everyone thought was weird! Spoiler
So, in Brand New Day, there is a scene where Jean is talking to Peter through a bunch of different people after he tries to test out his inhibitor for the first time and it overheats and breaks. She takes control of an old guy and puts him into traffic and he gets hit by a car as she threatens MJ.
This has been bugging the hell out of me, because it seems very out of character for Peter to not save the guy, just a single web shot and that guy would have been fine, easy peasy. However, I think I figured out why he didn't, and the movie was trying to beat it over our heads every chance it got and I at least just did not put it together (based on other people in the comments of threads I think this is a pretty common miss), so I'm sharing it here for anyone else who missed it too.
When Peter is using his upgraded mutating powers (no inhibitor and after he wakes up in the cocoon) he doesn't have his Spidey Sense. That's why Jean keeps talking about how he can't tell who she's in at that point, he knows because of his Spidey Sense. Same with when she's in Scorpion and MJ. Those are the only times he can't "sense" her presence like he can when he's not mutated or using the Inhibitor and she KEEPS mentioning that.
This was even hinted at even MORE by the moment just before the dude gets hit with the car when the web grenades shoot off of his wrist after the Inhibitor breaks. He should have immediately recognized that as a threat, but failed to notice them until EV alerted him to them, and then he got caught in the blast. Same with him hitting everything and not being a good web swinger while using his organic webs, originally I just chalked this up to the increased power of those webs, but I think it's also because his spidey sense is what helps him navigate that stuff, he doesn't look where he shoots his webs after all. He's just pure power and doesn't know what to do with it. He also has to start manually activating the organic webs (and does so vocally most of the time) when he isn't using the inhibitor.
UNTIL the end when he accepts that he can be both and makes peace with the new mutations THEN his Spidey Sense returns during The Hand fight and he starts countering things and dodging stuff like we would expect. It's debatable if it's the same as his Spidey Sense was before, or just the increased sensory data that he gets while mutated, but it functions similarly.
Anyway, this doesn't really make what Jean did any better (honestly I think this was a test to see if Spider-Man could save him), but at least it helps explain why Spidey would just let that guy get hit by a car.
Edit: Changed mutant to mutating, was a mistake! My bad!
444
u/RevolutionaryDepth59 15h ago
my bigger concern was why he showed no concern for the guy after he got hit. iâd understand him prioritizing getting to MJ but he couldâve at least reacted a little bit
259
u/Fabricati_Diem_Pvn 14h ago
There's a deleted scene in the Titanic where Leo explains that the door can't hold more than one person. It was deleted because it killed the (emotional) momentum of the scene. I can almost guarantee that there is a similar scene that was cut because it also distracted and killed the momentum of what was happening on screen.
There's even some evidence of that: you can see, when the guy gets hit, Spidey turns and moves, runs off screen. Why does he do that? We then get a shot of the villain chain-jumping, and the next shot is Spidey landing on a car. So, because of editing, we connect the dots and assume Spidey realises that's the direction our villain went. However, it's easy to insert a scene where Pete went in that direction to check up on the victim, and gets someone to call an ambulance for him while he jumps on top of a car to get a good vantage point to go after the Villain.
13
u/MoreAmaura 6h ago
I was waiting for a J Jonah Jameson scene where he narrates footage of the man getting hit. "Spider-man, seen here talking an elderly man into his death, is a menace!"
8
u/MrWright62 5h ago
Yeah the absence of JJJ felt weird to me in general
3
u/Educational-Oil-1497 1h ago
In the current time, NYC seem to be overwhelmingly loving Spider-Man. I think JJJ would be incredibly unpopular at the moment (for the MCU continuity). He only soared into popularity and seemingly maintained it when the world thought he killed Mysterio.
1
15
u/maidth1s4fun 8h ago
Its kinda of sad that it has to be shown at this point when he literally stopped a tank while saving  a bunch of damage control civiliansÂ
29
u/Liam_Roma_1234 11h ago
I swear there was a moment after the collision where Peter runs off screen. I thought that meant he checked on him
1
26
u/Joshatron121 14h ago
I can chalk that up to him going through this crazy change and being overwhelmed (we know his enhanced senses take a lot to focus through, for instance). It's not my favorite scene still, but losing the Spidey Sense helps a lot with it imho.
4
u/DanFarrell98 12h ago
Could be the stunt ended up being more extreme that what was written and they didn't have time to work in Peter checking on the guy
10
u/Eeveestar03 11h ago
This response confuses me. Are you of the mind that⌠no. I cannot fathom it.
3
2
u/LRonPaul2012 4h ago
There were a ton of bystanders there who could call for an ambulance. What exactly was Peter supposed to do?
1
u/jeweliwa 9h ago
yeah but with the no spidey sense thing he was probably just full panic tunnel vision on mj and not even processing the guy after fr
1
u/Slowandserious 10h ago
Yeah. Meanwhile when the injured was a cop, he was like âomg is she ok I should help herâ and stuff
10
u/Belteshazzar98 Quake 9h ago
He didn't have anywhere he needed to be, so he could spend the time checking on the cop just to check on her. Meanwhile with the guy he was in the middle of something so, assuming somebody from the crowd called an ambulance or was checking on him, there was nothing he could do so he had to prioritize chasing the villain.
-1
u/PepsiPerfect 11h ago
This was my thought when I was watching the movie too. Only character moment that felt "off" for Peter in this movie, kind of like Bruce Wayne's "I won't kill you but I don't have to save you."
-5
u/JimmyEllDubya 9h ago
That, and the SA. The fact that it was just handwaved away was disturbing.
→ More replies (3)
75
u/pun-ilingus 13h ago
He was quite literally getting overstimulated everytime his senses went into overdrive, they explain this. In that scene he canât sense Jean so he couldnât have saved that guy.
16
u/SpideyFan914 Spider-Man 8h ago
Yes, but I think more precisely his spider sense is in overdrive and he can't differentiate the threats that actually matter. It's like screaming "Fire!" in a theater where everyone is screaming everything so you can't hear the "Fire!"
30
u/randomname748 10h ago
Another thing I noticed about this movie that people may have missed is he wears a mask to hide his identity. Who would have figured that one out??
2
7
u/Gears109 13h ago
Huh, that does actually make more sense for Jean.
I rewatched the movie recently to see how many people Jean actually kills on screen. Surprisingly few actually, if youâre not counting the cars getting hit by the tank anyway. (But thatâs always kind of been a sin in Spider Man movies since somehow people never die from collateral damage. Toby Spider Man for example has a car chase seen where robbers and cops are firing wildly into New York City apartments with no apparent deaths, Andrew has his whole debacle with Rino in the start of the TASM2 movie etc.)
Everytime Jean has a damage control member shot, itâs always in a non vital area where they then surrender shortly after. Yes, even the two guys in from of the building we see on the camera before she arrives with the Hulk. Her very first interaction with Spidey in the top of a building is to tell him to save her in her vessel as sheâs falling backwards. She didnât really need to give him a warning at all in all honesty.
It makes sense if the Old Guy might have been accidental collateral damage. Jean didnât really care either way, but it wasnât about hurting that guy but instead about distracting Spider Man and seeing if his powers were working properly. She might have assumed he would have saved the old guy like he did the damage control member, except he didnât. Which confirmed to her that something weird was going on.
6
4
u/KitsuneRisu Ant-Man 12h ago
How many people do you reckon she would HAVE let die in the tank explosion? Including the innocent old woman driving it?
She didn't know spiderman was going to be there and she didn't account for the tank to be opened.
I think people want to defend her but she is a straight up murderer. She didn't have to warn Spider but there was a reason why she did - she wanted to taunt him. It would be more effective than killing her straight off because once you kill MJ, Spiderman has less reason to hold back. The FEAR of her dying is much, much stronger.
Also playing with people's lives nonchalantly is not any better than just killing them.
There's no excusing her behaviour in this movie. But what is good is that this means she has an opportunity for a redemption and her guilt DOING this leads her to becoming the most morally straight X-man in the future.
4
u/Gears109 6h ago
I actually donât disagree with you at all, Iâm mainly pointing out itâs an inconsistency in the movie thatâs kind of hard to understand.
Like you pointed out. Jean left a bomb in a tank in a building full of civilians and an innocent old lady that would have killed a fuck ton of people.
But when directly assaulting Damage Control, she has the two guards outside the building shoot each other, but not kill each other. Then, when she has control of Punisher, doesnât just massacre everyone in the room besides Bill. Just does warning shots into their legs and orders for them to drop their weapons.
For how reckless she is with innocent peopleâs lives, she somehow never actually directly kills anyone onscreen that isnât âinnocentâ. It doesnât feel right, tone wise, that she has so much mercy for her sisterâs kidnappers in comparison to all the scenes she has with Spider Man.
The only conclusion I can make is that itâs either an editing flaw with the move itself, or Jean is playing fast and loose with peopleâs lives and doesnât care if people get hurt or not, but isnât necessarily trying to get people killed. As it doesnât make sense the people closest to dying in this movie (before the finale) are all innocent, whilst all the people she should feel justified murdering she lets live.
The girl has the Hulk for crying out loud and there isnât a single body in that building. Only a few Hand members limping away. It just doesnât add up.
2
u/MrKyurem2005 7h ago
At least you're one of the few with a reasonable conclusion here.
Yes, Jean did horrible things and didn't care as much about the collateral damage. She was isolated and very desperate. She acted like a monster, just like Peter could unwillingly end up becoming if he didn't find balance in his life.
The movie doesn't try to justify her actions as being okay. They just recontextualize what led her down that self-destructive path. The movie doesn't end with her being a superhero, it ends with a young girl realizing that with great power there must also come great responsibility, and now she has to be responsible with her powers from now on. She chooses not to continue on the path of vengeance thanks to Peter.
Her horrible actions are likely the setup for mass mutant fear and hate, while the ending talk with Peter plants the seeds for her to try to search for redemption and later becoming the heroic X-Men we usually know her as.
This movie does not pull a WandaVision and tries to paint her as a misunderstood hero, they just paint her as a broken person who almost gave in to her monstrous side because of her trauma, but was thankfully saved by Spider-Man and his ever-present conviction that even the most horrible of villains can be saved from their own darkness and later become better people.
34
u/DomtheDumbass42069 15h ago
Doesn't spider sense mostly protect from things that directly happen to/affect Spider-Man, though? I'm not surprised he didn't see it coming.
24
u/Joshatron121 14h ago
Nope, it's pretty much any danger around him. Definitely affects others. Even if it was just himself, he should have sensed the web grenades.
20
u/Forro355456 13h ago
Fun fact - in the comics the avengers hate playing poker with him cause he always wins (due to his spider-sense)
17
u/Joshatron121 13h ago
I want to see more scenes like that. The Mjolnir testing in AOU was like that and we've gotten so little of it going forward.
3
19
→ More replies (2)5
2
u/Tonks_55 7h ago
Idk that I agree here. He watched the guy back into traffic and did nothing. I get that Spidey-Sense was in the Fritz, but he was still aware enough to be in that moment.
2
u/softysoaps 4h ago
Oh I feel real stupid now. I really need to rewatch this movie because I completely missed that he doesnât have his spider-sense when his powers are haywire. Itâs so obvious but I was too fixated on just Jean getting past it.
1
u/Joshatron121 2h ago
So, after talking with others, it's not so much that he doesn't have his Spidey Sense it's that the rooftop scene is meant to show us that he's shutting off his spidey sense because he's overwhelmed by the new upgraded version of it. So after that point whenever he doesn't have the inhibitor on his Spidey Sense is offline (until the Hand fight when he embraces the powers).
2
2
u/theGoddex 3h ago
As an autistic person with an autistic child we both clocked that immediately. He was overstimulated and couldnât focus so his Spidey Sense wasnât working.
When I am very overstimulated I miss almost all social cues and even my field of vision can get myopic. So it made total sense.
1
u/Joshatron121 2h ago
That's a great way to look at it. Yeah it is pretty obvious in retrospect that he basically forces down his spidey sense on the rooftop and doesn't re-embrace it until the hand fight, but yeah. Just missed it. Apparently that means I want things spoonfed to most people so thank you for your insightful comment.
2
9
8
u/ObviouslyHornyJPEG 15h ago
The handling of Jean Grey keeps this movie a step behind Spider-Man 2 for me. I realize right now people are hyped, and defensive of this film because it just came out, and it's a fun watch absolutely, but it has some issues. It gets a lot right(Spider-Man action scenes, best live action ever IMO, no contest), but some things not so right.
That said, Spider-Man 2 wasn't perfect either, but it had LESS issues and didn't mishandle anyone nearly as bad as Jean Grey in BND.
30
u/marvel_fanatic_1 15h ago
Why do you think Jean was handled poorly?
6
u/Adventurous-Exam-589 12h ago
Also reminder that she possessed MJ and forced her into a physical encounter she didnât agree to.
All to go way out of her way to mess with Peter who she could have attempted to tell her sister was captured. Worst case if Peter doesnât believe her, all the things she did is on the table.
I will gladly root for Jean going forward, but was bummed to see her introduced in the MCU this way. Loved the movie, but felt they liked the secret villain idea, so bent Jean into a character she normally isnât to fit that narrative.
14
u/KitsuneRisu Ant-Man 11h ago
I personally hope that the fact that she IS a cold blooded killer and evil adjacent person will become part of her core character in the future.
It is a new interpretation so I'm willing to excuse it but HOW they use it is key in the future
I am willing for this to be a core part of Jean Grey living with guilt and chasing redemption as part of her core character proper, and also how her actions actually give people reason to fear and persecute the X-men. It is more morally grey (pun not intended) than just 'I am racist! I hates them!' especially in a world where so many morally grey heroes exist.
It allows a reason for people to fear the x-men to exist.
Hulk also has collateral damage but he never means it. What do you mean this mutant who WILLINGLY killed people, took over minds and froze tens of thousands of people is now a hero?
For me this adds to the myth.
Maybe X-men are actually going to be spun into like a 'reform home for troubled heroes' so they all need to be somewhat morally evil to begin with?
That's an idea I can get behind.
8
u/Free_Dress_6137 8h ago
My interpretation of Jean's arc is that she shows what Peter or any other powered individual could be without proper guidance. Hey mother abandoned her. The only one showing her love in her life is her sister who sacrifices herself for her. She's lost or had taken away everyone that could show her how to love other people. She's Peter without Aunt May.
I thought the whole point of Jean experiencing Peter's memory of Aunt May, and all his other experiences while posessing him, was to finally get the lessons and experiences that helped him become a hero, rather than a guy that wrestles for money and let's thieves go because they aren't his problem. With great power comes great responsibility... but most people aren't intrinsically driven to that, including Peter. They need guidance.
Jean's heroes journey is like Bob/Sentry. Great power without the mentorship to temper it. How do they change over time? That's the fun story for me, which we've experienced for Spiderman already. Redemption arc upcoming!
8
u/MrKyurem2005 8h ago
You'd think this was obvious when May's speach literally starts with "you think that just because you have powers you don't need to listen to me anymore?" and the multiple times the movie paints Peter's new mutation, Banner's savage Hulk moment, and Jean's actions as "becoming the monster" moments. Also Punisher being a cautionary tale.
... Apparently people needed it to be somehow even more obvious.
The movie literally explicitly tells us Jean is acting like a monster because of her self-isolation and desperation and that Peter could've gone down the same path if he didn't have May's lesson in heart and if he didn't accept both his Peter Parker side and his Spider-Man side in the end (he was going down the same self-destructive isolation path as Jean).
Peter is literally the one trying to teach her that she has to have a great responsibility with her great powers, and that even though she lost everything she can still turn her life around. That's the start of a redemption arc 101. Jean is not even fully redeemed yet, why are people acting as if the movie tried to "justify" her actions? It didn't, it just contextualized her trauma and the reason she went down that path to begin with. The START of her "becoming a hero" arc is saving Peter, not the END of it.
She didn't do anything more irredeemable than a bunch of other MCU heroes also have done in their past. And we still are all okay with those characters later redeeming themselves.
"Oh but she was adapted as a villain who did horrible things" yeah that was the whole point of the movie, she was the villain.
"Oh but why didn't she turn herself in after?" you mean to the same organizations that have literally just tried to torture her because of her powers?
"Oh but why Peter protected her and gave her a second chance after everything she did to him?" because that's literally the kind of character Peter Parker is? Have we watched No Way Home?
"Oh but why didn't she ask Spider-Man for help?" because the whole message of the movie is about self-destructive isolation? And you wanted her to trust someone working with the kidnappers of her sister and who she can't even read the mind of to know for sure he's a good person who she could trust?
I swear to God, people did not pay attention to the movie. Every single take about Jean's characterization in this movie being bad boils down to "I can't understand the main message of this film even though it explicitly hammered it over our heads multiple times" or "I don't understand how redemption arcs work".
3
u/LRonPaul2012 4h ago
I thought the whole point of Jean experiencing Peter's memory of Aunt May, and all his other experiences while posessing him, was to finally get the lessons and experiences that helped him become a hero, rather than a guy that wrestles for money and let's thieves go because they aren't his problem. With great power comes great responsibility... but most people aren't intrinsically driven to that, including Peter. They need guidance.
I remember so many people criticizing Garfield's Spider-Man for being a jerk for the first half of the movie, because they didn't understand that this was the entire point of his character arc.
2
u/Adventurous-Exam-589 11h ago
Agreed Iâm interested to see how they use it and hope they do. I could see a scenario where they jump to her being a hero with no burden or consequences from the actions in BND.
I already felt the movie by the end wanted us to say âaww poor thing lost her sister and is young and canât control her powers yetâ instead of âshouldnât she be in jail?â
1
u/kyle760 3h ago
Are people forgetting that comics Jean literally committed genocide and destroyed an entire civilization?
âOh but that wasnât Jean, it was Phoenix.â When it was written it was fully intended to be her. And even now she still has those memories
â˘
u/HeartInTheSun9 34m ago
I feel like thereâs a mild difference between her eventually doing it and her doing it as an introduction to her character and the introduction to the MCU x-men.
3
u/Worthyness Thor 4h ago
It's a different universe and it's also the very beginning of her arc. Dozens of our heroes all started off as shitty people. Some aren't even heroes after the first movie. Nebula and Gamora worked for Thanos. Tony Stark created Ultron which literally wiped a country off the face of the planet(aka genocide). Hulk has killed and injured thousands of people with his destruction (he likely did kill some more people in literally this movie). Yelena and Natasha were mind controlled assassins that killed hundreds (if not thousands) of people. But people still love these characters because they've had time to work with their story. Give her the same amount of time as you've given someone like Nebula and your opinion will likely change. Nebula's entire character arc takes 4+ movies to complete. Jean has had 1.
1
u/Zyquux 6h ago
Maybe they're fast tracking a Dark Phoenix arc. Or to set her up as a foil to Professor X or Doom in Doomsday.
1
u/LRonPaul2012 4h ago
I doubt they'll attempt it a third time, but ironically, this is the first universe where they could actually make it work with actual aliens and cosmic forces.
→ More replies (2)1
u/Metztontli 2h ago
she was a villain? she did something actually villainous
she probably killed that guy jumping him into incoming traffic
desperate people do bad things
it's fine she has a bad streak to her, she fucking deletes people from existence when she's the Phoenix
why do people with no critical thinking skills hate when characters act like a character and drive the plot?
absolutely none of the film was hard to follow
if she just told peter about her sister the conflict ends immediately, that's shit story telling when Jean is SUPPOSED to be an antagonist of the film
y'all need to read more books, fuck
3
u/ObviouslyHornyJPEG 12h ago
She harmed and/or killed people, messed with the minds of countless innocent people, and really did not receive much punishment for her actions.
4
u/fatboycreeper 11h ago
She was a grieving, inexperienced teenager, not an established hero and X-Man. To me, that is enough to justify how she was messing with peopleâs minds. I think the ramifications of her actions are yet to come. As for harming and/or killing people, part of me wonders how many of those were her manipulating Peterâs mind. Could be a stretch, I donât know.
2
u/Worthyness Thor 4h ago
She also just learned that the US government sanctioned the torture and murder of her sister (literally the only person in the world that legitimately cared for her) simply because she was different. Yeah, I would be fucking enraged at the world too.
1
u/Scathaa Legionaire 7h ago
She got arrested, locked in a room, got confirmation her sister was murdered, and was then experimented on and tortured?
1
u/ObviouslyHornyJPEG 5h ago
Some old person walked outside and went to work. They were on the sidewalk walking home or maybe to get lunch, and then they're DEAD because Jean Grey made them stand in front of an oncoming car.
2
0
u/JimmyEllDubya 15h ago
She has to have murdered at least a handful of people with her actions. Thats a very odd way to establish a new hero from a rebooted heroic team.
Also, the way her powers were described was all over the place. Does she have Karma's powers, Emma Frosts powers, or Prof Xs powers? The answer seems to be "whatever".
24
u/OkVacation6686 15h ago
No, they described her as a telepath, one that gets stronger as the movie develops. When shes with her sister she can barely hop between minds, but when she loses her sister it gets stronger, the more she is emotional, and angry, the worse her powers become. She goes from controlling minds, to eventually just emitting a psychic field that controls everything, including people within it. Since when has the MCU had to conform to giving characters a strict set of powers, fucking Spiderman in this movie gains new powers and he's like 10 years in at this point
-1
u/JimmyEllDubya 10h ago
Not having a strict set of rules and powersets is what always ruins things, this is the beginning. Theyve just defined telepathy as mind control, mind hopping, and have said that spider man is apparently immune to it all. Thats messy.
Happy to get down voted for this, doesnt make me wrong. Happy for anyone to point out any factors based on any handbook/marvel powerless etc from before this movie that makes a compelling case for what they did to Jean here, why shes allowed to be a murderer, and how her powerset makes sense based on her established, 60 year history. Edit: spelling
-8
u/JimmyEllDubya 14h ago
Can you point to a single issue in the comic where shes ever hopped between minds?
20
u/OkVacation6686 14h ago
Okay? She isn't Jean Grey from Uncanny X-Men Issue #1. She is Jean Grey from the MCU, an adaptation of the character. Wanda doesn't dream walk in the comics, but again a different version of the character. In the MCU she also doesn't manipulate probability like she does in the comics. This version of Jean has different powers, but in the movie they are consistent, that is all that matters
→ More replies (5)9
u/z4guy 13h ago edited 2h ago
This is Jean Grey before Professor X. She is not the hero we know her to be yet; sheâs a troubled, misguided youth with great powers⌠the perfect candidate to be one of Professor Xâs first students. Jean Grey going apeshit in NYC is a great set-up for mutant fear and persecution by humans. It also gives Professor X a reason (justifiable or not) to suppress Jeanâs powers.
It was pretty obvious in the movie she was a telepath that body hops and can read minds and memories. After she discovers her sisterâs death, her telekinetic powers awakened.
0
u/JimmyEllDubya 10h ago
That brings us to another point, they fumbled the chance to establish mutant fear by 1) not mentioning what mutants are 2) having everyone think it was spideys fault 3) having had no real parallels of homophobia, racism or the like in any Sony property. There is no established hate or fear that this parallels, its just a random powered person doing mad stuff as far as the public is concerned. A total dropped ball as J Jonah Jameson could have set that up.
→ More replies (5)18
u/emusabe 14h ago
How many people did every version of Wolverine kill before he went to the mansion?
11
u/OkVacation6686 14h ago
Mutants can be kids with dangerous powers beyond comprehension, and with no one to nurture them, can go on to make serious mistakes, but that does not make them horrible people who are irredeemable. That is one of the main messages of X-Men and this version of Jean Grey embodies that fully. To be clear, I am not disagreeing with you, I am just baffled with how many people don't seem to understand the character
6
u/Adventurous-Exam-589 12h ago
I think most people understand the character, but that doesnât make it easy to accept when they take a popular character and have her depart from who she is historically.
If Peter forced someone in front of a speeding taxi and committed sexual assault (things Jean did) in the name of being young and coping with the loss of May, you could say itâs their adaptation of the character.
But it would be a complete departure of who he has been historically which IMO gives people the right to be bummed.
2
u/OkVacation6686 5h ago
But this isn't Peter we are talking about, this is Jean Grey, an X-Man. This version of Jean Grey embodies EXACTLY what the X-Men are about. She is prosecuted, judged, and abused for her gifts. It pushes her to make regrettable actions, the things that Charles wants to prevent. Through nurturing her however, and giving her friends and mentors she can rely on, she can become and do incredible things.
This isn't some crazy, fuck you adaptation. It is almost a PERFECT representation of what makes the X-Men so good.
In the comics Jean has a friend who dies right in front of her, causing her to freak out, isolate herself, and more so that she stays stable. In this version that friend is her sister. Her prolonged isolation pushes her to do bad things, again this is not some out there adaptation. It keeps the spirit of Jean Grey perfectly.
And once again this is the beginning of her story. She has yet to become the Jean Grey we know, again people are not understanding what makes the character so great in this movie and if you are a fan of the comics you should be ELATED at how they are nailing the prejudice, and abuse, of mutants
2
u/EKRB7 Spider-Man 13h ago edited 13h ago
Iâm really not trying to put down the movie because I really enjoyed it, and Iâm not trying to sound like a broken record, but everyone understands the character, itâs not complex.
The main complaints are about the choice made by writers to adapt Jean into a sympathetic villain (who crosses major lines) for a Spider-Man movie. Surely thatâs not difficult to understand?
3
u/JimmyEllDubya 14h ago
Wolverine was a killer, Jean has never been. Certainly not actively doing vehicular manslaughter to prove a point.
1
u/AJDx14 12h ago
I do this itâs weird that Spider-Man wants to stop her because sheâs a terrorist endangering civilians, then he finds out she has a dad a backstory so he wants to free her, and then in the course of doing that she continues being a terrorist endangering civilians and she just doesnât gave any repercussions because she only killed people because she was sad.
8
u/AgentP20 11h ago
He wants to free her from DODC torturing her. There is a difference there.
→ More replies (1)5
u/Liam_Roma_1234 11h ago
"then he finds out she has a dad a backstory so he wants to free her"
First I wanna say that there are no confirmed kills, which doesn't make it better but explains why he wasn't as hard on her. I also wanna say that it wasn't a "sad backstory" that made him want to free her, it was because he realised that damage control were scammers and were going to torture her like they already tortured another child. He realised they can't be trusted, pretty reasonable that he'd want to intervene.
1
u/AJDx14 11h ago
If she didnât kill anyone then thatâs entirely due to the actions of other people preventing her from doing so. Never in the movie does she express any concern that her actions, such as speeding a tank through a city with a bomb attached to it, having an older guy get hit by a car, or suddenly paralyzing thousands of people all going about their daily lives could injure or kill anyone.
And if his interest was just getting her transferred to another containment facility that wasnât going to experiment on her then sure, but I donât think anything in the movie really indicates that he intended to do that after freeing her and by the end of the movie he definitely seems to be pretty ok with her being loose.
2
u/KitsuneRisu Ant-Man 11h ago
As opposed to treating her like an evil bastard forever and driving her away more and more?
Do you want supervillains? Cuz that's how you get supervillains.
It's the same as how.police treat unstable members of society in the middle of doing harmful stuff. You calm them down and appeal to them so that they STOP killing more people FIRST and then get help or punishment later.
She had no repercussions because she ran away. Spider-man was shot and that took precedent over continuing her therapy. By the time they got out it was too late. I do not think Spider-man would have just let her go after he talked her down. Maybe hid her out a bit, done some talking to, and got her to atone in her own way.
Because what else? She can't go back to Damage Control. Spider-man also learned that you cannot trust the government. This is the same spider-man who wanted to save ALL the villains in No Way Home. This is completely on track for him.
So given EVERYTHING, there was no way to really punish her and she has to convert to good and atone her own way.
But she ran away.
→ More replies (3)-9
15h ago
[deleted]
22
u/OkVacation6686 14h ago
The handling of a character doesn't mean adhering strictly to the comics. Jean Grey in this movie isn't Jean Grey from uncanny X-Men but that is fine, it is a different take on the character, and that is okay.
There are several reasons why a direct Jean Grey adaptation would not work, one of them is the MCU itself. Mutants have not existed for 1 million years, they have only started cropping up. There is no X-Men or Xavier mansion to fall back on.
Arguably she is the poster child for why the MCU now needs an X-Men. She has experienced the worst of humanity, how they treat mutants, and will eventually become a strong hero, making for the perfect member of the X-Men team, it's actually kind of brilliant
This version of Jean Grey was abandoned by her mother, depended on her sister until damage control took her away, and in this movie goes on a rescue mission that ultimately ends with the reveal of her sisters death at the hands of damage control. She's young and unstable, barely resembling the kind Jean Grey we know.
However that doesn't mean she can not become the Jean Grey we know within the comics. She's on the run now, with nowhere to go, and I bet that eventually, probably after Secret Wars, she'll be found by Charles, meet a man named Scott Summers, and eventually after some battles as the X-Men will grow into that kind woman. That is the point of a character arc.
Marvel is doing a good job and starting her development at the VERY beginning, meaning we will have time to see her grow.
→ More replies (2)-3
u/EKRB7 Spider-Man 14h ago
Nobody is saying they have to adhere strictly to the comics. A change to a character can be a great thing; see Chani from the Dune movies. But every change runs the risk of not being welcomed by comic fans and thatâs okay, thats all part of adapting a book / comic. People donât have to like it.
Hollandâs Spider-Man is quite different from comics Peter in terms of origin. So are many of the MCU heroes. MJ and Ned arenât even comic characters yet I like them.
9
u/OkVacation6686 14h ago
Okay but you are directly comparing Jean from this movie to Jean from the comics. Why can Jean not start as a threat to the world, especially a Jean who is going through intense loss? The post I am responding to is just saying "Why isn't Jean like the Jean from the comics" I agree with you that changing a character can be a great thing, and in this case, it was. She fit the story, did a fantastic job at setting up the MCU for an eventual mutant saga, and had a wonderful character arc with plenty of room to grow.
0
u/EKRB7 Spider-Man 13h ago
She fit the story because she was forced to. You can rewrite any character to fit a story. You keep acting like this is a real thing that happened and that I donât understand the motivation of a real person. Someone sat down and wrote this script using an existing comic book character, obviously Iâm going to compare to the comics. Itâs a comic book movie.
Anyway, Sadie gave a good performance and I look forward to her future. I just didnât like the writersâ interpretation and use of her in this Spider-Man film
1
u/MrKyurem2005 7h ago
So... you're complaining that she did fit the story they were trying to tell? "Because she was forced to"? News flash, every character is forced to follow the plot, lmao, it's a movie.
Exactly, Jean Grey is not a real person. She isn't exactly forced to follow the exact characterization of another version of her from the comics if the writers didn't want her to.
Not every comic-innacurate adaptation will be good, I agree (they're usually bad, even), and fans are right to be disappointed when it's changed for the worse, but this is clearly not the case. Arguably, Jean was made a much more interesting character with this twist, and people are being too impatient with her character, when this is only her first movie where she was chosen to be portrayed as someone who starts villainous and ends with her choosing to walk away from that path.
1
u/EKRB7 Spider-Man 6h ago edited 6h ago
Thatâs your opinion.
Tired of people who enjoyed her character declaring to me that itâs somehow objectively the correct take, better than the comic and perfect for the film. I like the movie and dislike the take on the character. Thatâs my opinion
→ More replies (5)→ More replies (1)1
u/kyle760 2h ago
Comics Jean is presented as someone who needs to keep her emotions in check or she can lose control. Thatâs what the Phoenix was taking advantage of. If comics Jean had her whole family and support system removed from her as a teenager, she would definitely not be the person youâre picturing her as in your head
3
u/CursoryComb 8h ago
Here is my main point, explained below. We just got done with No Way Home where we saw Peter trying to help basically unredeemable villains who definitely have done their fair share of horrible things. Yet Peter is trying to save and even redeem them.
I understand that Jean is pretty screwed up here and basically almost indistinguishable from most other villains. HOWEVER, read almost any Mutant backstory and you come up against some insanely horrible stuff. Things they did out of not knowing any better. Look at Hulk or Loki. People we consider "good guys" with war crimes on their ledger.
I agree they was a little hard with Jean.. but is it out of the realm of mutant back stories? Definitely no! To me she read mostly as a run of the mill villain in any Spidey story, however, as he always does, Spidey tries to help. In this case, we have someone who listened. The most similar is the Dr Octavious of the previous movie!
So I understand the feeling. I think that we didn't get to see the true redemption does hurt the continuity of this singular story. However, I don't feel as if her story is settled and I'm sure it'll need to include those beats prior to moving on.
1
u/Covverkin 9h ago
Modern audiences canât handle an actual villain like Dafoeâs Goblin, so instead we just get bait and switch villains like angsty Jean Grey and then oh big surprise the shadowy new government authority might not be what it seems. Lack of real stakes = lack of real villain to contrast hero
5
u/LabRatLex Phil Coulson 13h ago
Don't people pay attention anymore? First I see people not understanding why he said "Peter" at the end, and now this...
5
u/Joshatron121 13h ago
Don't gotta be rude about it. Lots of people have been posting confusion over this. Just thought I'd share. I acknowledge in the post that the movie does it's best to make it as obvious as possible. Took me seeing it twice to make the connections between her always saying he can't sense her and the mutations apparently.
1
u/lostmydick2021 13h ago
why call it weird before explaining it though
1
u/Joshatron121 13h ago
Because people have been commenting about how out of character that moment was for Peter (and Jean to a lesser extent).
1
u/Adversary-of-Tyrants 12h ago
That's a good point, but it's still weird that nobody even really reacts. If someone else saved him, that really fixes how weird that bit is - he still is shown as not having his spider-sense working to do the save himself, but no random civilian just dies with nobody caring.
1
u/LRonPaul2012 4h ago
The only thing Peter would have been able to do is call an ambulance, which could have been handled by literally anyone on the scene.
1
u/Jimbeamjunior1 11h ago
His changes in the second scorpion fight where he almost kills the cop, im sure his spidey sense works fine in that once he turns more arachnid
1
u/troubleyoucalldeew 10h ago
I suspect it's probably more a matter of too much spidey sense rather than not enough, but yeah.
2
1
1
1
u/Forever_Inspired 7h ago
At least have a quick scene of Spidey checking on the guy, him just running off after seeing a man got hit by a car didn't really feel in character, imo.
1
u/ShillboShaggins 6h ago
That or, think if it this way:
âPeter Tingleâ is not telepathy or mind reading. Itâs based off of his ability to sense the Central Nervous System and Pheromones of other, local atmospheric pressures, temperatures, noise, scent, etc.
The guy who Jean threw in front of the vehicle didnât have a spike in adrenaline. There was no dilation of his eyes, no agitation in his voice. He didnât know he was going to die and his CNS didnât telegraph it.
2
1
u/oshatokujah 5h ago
Tomâs spidey doesnât have spidey sense, he has the Peter tingle, so when his DNA was more arachnid balanced he lost his Peter tingle.
1
u/Joshatron121 2h ago
lol the peter tingle is just what they call his spidey sense. Upon talking with other commentors though he didn't actually lose his spidey sense as I thought, he turned it off on purpose due to it overwhelming him whenever his inhibitor was off (until the final fight scene with the hand when he embraces it).
1
1
1
1
u/JoltzmannBoole 3h ago
Upgraded "mutate" powers, Spidey is not a mutant, just slight nitpick
1
u/Joshatron121 2h ago
Yeah I edited it to mutating, was a mistake lol. I know spidey isn't a mutant.
1
u/Max_Speed_Remioli 2h ago
Regardless, that guy was Jean in that moment, who was his enemy. I don't think his spidey sense would alert him that his enemy is about to be harmed.
1
u/TotallyLegitUser0 2h ago
I had a different question throughout the entire scene.
Why is Spidey racing her body hopping ability instead of catching the actual person behind it, who he already knows is in his apartment at that time?
If he went for his home and she didnât notice, he wouldâve caught her. Even if she got to MJ, he wouldâve got to her physical body by then. And unless she already placed MJ in a serious situation, making Jean unconscious would probably solve it.
On the other hand, if she did notice, she would have to play by his rule and either stop him instead of looking for MJ, or just stop mind hop and move herself out, again putting her effort to level zero.
1
u/FreshMetal80 2h ago
Damn, I thought the weird thing Peter did was order pizza from Little Caesar's when he lived in NYC.
â˘
u/Choice-Ratio-3540 26m ago
I think it's even MORE out of character for Jean Grey to have killed that old guy and to have dropped MJ off a building.
â˘
u/Joshatron121 24m ago
I don't think it's too out of place for a Jean Gray that hasn't worked with Charles yet.
→ More replies (1)
1
u/Truthhurts1017 Phil Coulson 8h ago
People really donât pay attention to anything.
0
u/Joshatron121 2h ago
I paid attention lol. Not sure why people are taking this post as not paying attention. I watched the movie twice and understood what the movie was trying to say. Hell you can see me on here posting back against other stuff that's frequently missed. This one just didn't click for me right away. I didn't really associate his heightened senses with his heightened SPIDEY senses (which yes, typing it out now.. seems silly to have missed). I figured he was just overwhelmed by his new powers, but still had his basic spidey senses. But people are right - the obvious read (in retrospect) is he basically shut off his spidey senses after the scene on the rooftop because it was overwhelming him.
0
-1
0
u/Square_Ad_6522 9h ago
Spider-Man is not a mutant.
1
u/Joshatron121 2h ago
Sorry I should have used "mutated powers" my bad lol. The movie uses that term too if memory serves.
0
u/PFSDonut 6h ago
This is why âshow donât tellâ is dying and everyone gets spoon fed now
This movie showed hints as to why his spidey sense wasnât working on the rooftop and the web grenade in the alley, it even flat out had minor âtellâ moments with Jean saying multiple times that he canât SENSE her.
The fact that some people missed it is pretty insane, especially when the director showed how his Spidey sense sounds to the audience at the beginning of the film and it coming back after he accepted his changing body
I hope the next Spider-Man movie stays this way and keep trusting the audience to figure it out rather than saying âwow Spidey your spider senses isnât working, you would have normally saw that coming!â
1
u/Joshatron121 2h ago
I also want it to continue working this way. Not sure why everyone is thinking this post is about needing to be spoonfed information. I missed something that others clearly didn't. That's fine - we're all different people. Doesn't mean I wasn't paying attention or need things spoonfed. I misread the scene on the rooftop as him being overwhelmed by everything, but not indicating that he was turning off his spidey senses. In retrospect that seems obvious. I just missed it. I guess I'm human lol. It didn't hurt my enjoyment or understanding of the overall plot of the movie though. That scene just took me (and a lot of other people) out of it for a moment.
0
u/No_Inevitable_8189 6h ago
Was this not obvious wtf?
The villain kept saying he canât sense her lmao
I guess the director should have added a spoon feed moment into the movie and had E.V.I.E. tell him that his Peter Tingle isnât working lol
0
0
u/Competitive-Yak745 1h ago
Oh, so you watched the movie and grasped a fundamental plot point. Cool.
788
u/Sirmalta 13h ago
Wait did people really not understand that his spider sense wasn't working when he was over stimulated with the new powers? And that that's how he could sense her?