sarah531: Are we still ok to submit Obscure Faves here? If so, I want to submit Ursula Ditkovich from the original Spider-Man films! She lives next door to Peter Parker and has a crush on him but is shy and so doesn’t act on it apart from bringing him food all the time. And she displays no jealousy and is instead happy when Peter starts dating MJ. And she fumbles her words and bakes cakes and SHE IS MY ADORABLE EMOTIONALLY MATURE RUSSIAN BAKER BABY. I wrote fic about her once but there should be MUCH MORE
I ACTUALLY TOTALLY KNOW EXACTLY WHO YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT AND YOU’RE RIGHT SHE IS 100% ADORBS 10/10 WOULD FAVE
also yes yes submissions are ALWAYS open i know that i am being really lax on making posts my life is just one huge collegiate entanglement right now but i PROMISE i am gonna be getting to the featured fave stuff i mentioned and hopefully all sorts of other cool stuff don’t you fret
Also – representation discussion ahoy! – I was kind of relieved to see that Mageina is Jewish and therefore there’s a chance Ursula is. Because that makes her more similar to me – I came from Russian Jews-
And yet! Tumblr is awash with discussion today about Jewish representation, and I just wish I could say anything about it. But I can’t! I know Some Stuff re: Judaism happened in my family’s recent past and I want to know about that, too, but there’s just nobody to ask. It’s too awkward and too problematic. :(
So I may just write a fanfic about Ursula too having Nobody To Ask.
Some Raimi Spider-Man headcanons that no-one asked for:
Peter is autistic, and has selective mutism (that bit in the first movie where he just smiles at MJ instead of answering her made me think of this: I hope it’s accurate)
Harry is bisexual: he hides it well. His feelings about Peter have always been deeply confusing and contradictory.
Ursula and her father are Jewish (Mageina Tovah is, after all.)
Gwen is openly bisexual
Flash Thompson later got in touch with Peter and MJ and apologised for his behaviour in high school, which is why he can be seen in the background at Harry’s funeral.
MJ and Gwen sought each other out after the events of Spider-Man 3 and became friends. (Well, that’s semi-canon anyway I guess, the novelisation has them hugging at the funeral)
Gwen has three younger brothers, because that’s a bit of canon from ASM that I really like. (It always weirded me out that there were so many only children in the Spiderverse)
That little boy who is impressed at Peter’s car stunt is this universe’s Miles Morales.
May knows her nephew’s secret identity because she’s essentially his mother. Robbie knows too, because he’s much, much less self-obsessed and cynical than Jonah and quickly worked it out. Ursula also knows, because she lives next door to Peter after all and has witnessed his suspicious comings and goings. All three have sworn to themselves to never, ever tell anyone.
This scene is terribly important to me, you guys. At the time in my life
when I watched it, I could barely talk to a person without stammering
and staring at the ground. Ursula couldn’t either by the looks of
things, but she still went in there and tried to help out her lonely,
unhappy next-door neighbour. It’s my favourite scene across all three
movies, honestly.
a little boy in an iron man helmet tries to shoot one of the rampaging suits with his lil toy flight stabilizers
in spider-man 2
a little boy puts on his spiderman suit and stands up against the rhino
that’s great for all the little boys in the theater, but you know what I want?
i want a little girl to help the heroes
i want a six-year old redhead to kick nat’s gun to her
i want a twelve-year old with braces and a lisp to shake cap back to consciousness
i want a nine-year old latina girl to take clint by the hand and walk him down unfamiliar streets back to the main fight
i want a sixteen-year old black girl to kick an enemy in the back of the knees to save sam wilson
because girls are sitting in that audience too
and they deserve to see that
Try Spider-Man 2 (the other one). No, really!
Peter Parker sans spider-powers runs into a burning building to save a little Asian girl. As soon as Peter gets into trouble, the little girl tries to pull him to safety. Some combination of the two of them gets him out of the fire. (Here’s the scene!)
In the very next scene, Peter is full of angst that he wasn’t able to save everyone in the fire, and is staring gloomily out of his window. Ursula, the shy and awkward daughter of the building’s landlord, knocks on his door and offers him some chocolate cake. Peter accepts, they eat together, that’s…pretty much it. But after that, his mood seems to improve.
If you’re wondering what those two scenes have in common, it’s that they were promptly written off as silly or unnecessary. (How can a small child help pull a grown man to safety? Why does the action stop for five minutes while Peter talks to some ugly girl?) But in 2004 I was, like the OP says, the girl sitting in the audience, and I felt a) utterly delighted and b) like I belonged. So if someone could do that for today’s girls, that’d be great.
You’ve found the Context Captions! In this scene, Harry (after an initial bout of thoroughly ineffective supervillainy) decides he doesn’t want Peter to die after all and takes a fatal wound for him
The train passengers that Spider-Man just saved go up unarmed against Doc Ock (who is very, very armed.)
They loved each other so much don’t touch me
1) Aunt May gives her wonderful speech about heroes, but I could only fit one line in the gif 2) Gwen apologises for Peter using her to make MJ jealous
1) This is Ursula! She’s crushing on Peter so much she accidentally sets fire to things when he’s around, and then she overcomes her shyness to bring him cake 2) MORE TRAIN SCENE
1) Everyone knows this scene, probably because it’s still one of the best ones 2) JJJ proves he’s actually got badass principles
1) Otto decides to die to save the city from himself 2) Ursula wants Peter to be happy 3) Betty is Peter’s friend and he should appreciate her more
1) MJ stands up for Peter, 2) the train passengers promise to not reveal Peter’s identity, 3) The love between the central trio is what really makes these movies for me
1) Peter, with no superpowers, runs into a burning building to save people, 2) Peter forgives the guy who helped kill his uncle, 3) Awww poor Otto
1) MJ tries to defend Spider-Man against Ock, 2) The little girl Peter saved doesn’t run away and instead helps him up, 3) This speech of Peter’s is what snaps Otto back to reality
The original Spider-Man trilogy is campy and cheesy and it probably hasn’t really aged well, but I love it so much and will absolutely recommend it to anyone who likes the MCU simply because (as seen above) it is just so thoroughly uncynical and virtually everyone from Peter to Gwen to Aunt May to Peter’s neighbour to random bystander #563 is SUCH A GOOD PERSON
Me personally, I think it has aged well, sheerly because it never deliberately anchored itself to one particular generation/demographic (unlike one particular reboot which I will not name), but rather it was just an incredibly earnest representation of the source material.
What I loved so much about this series is that it never tried to run away from the “comic” aspect of it being a comic book movie. When I say that, I don’t necessarily mean that it was overly hilarious or was filled with zingers like a Joss Whedon production, but it was never afraid to embrace levity and even more camp aspects, and as the OP stated, it was just so incredibly UNcynical.
It took bits and pieces from canon and melded it with modern storytelling that allowed for a fresh and contemporary narrative throughout all 3 films (yes, even Spider-Man 3). It never tried to cut off any of its potential audience, it never tried to appeal to just ONE particular clique through the use of fumbling dialogue and an indie soundtrack, but rather it’s story focused on the people involved. Underneath the costumes and superpowers, these were honest-to-goodness lives that people were living, from trying to hold down a steady job to getting the rent paid, these were stories that anyone could get on board with, which is why I find myself incredibly disappointed when people just dismiss this franchise sheerly because they might not consider it “relevant” anymore.
It’s an incredibly human story, unafraid of depicting moments of weakness, unafraid of showing us that even our idols can fail, but also unafraid of being disarmingly sweet to show that people are often inherently valuable and kind, thus imbuing the series with a simple, yet undeniable humanity that never had to be forced, but rather we just naturally rooted for and gravitated towards.
It was light-heartedness, solemnity, and gravitas all rolled into one, and it is a tone that I have not seen in any vein since Christopher Reeves’ Superman films, and I don’t think I’ll see again in a superhero series to come, which is why I hold the original Spider-Man films in such high regard.
You nailed it, darn you!
I have a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff from these movies (books, DVD extras, that sort of thing) and they all come back to “We loved this story, we loved these characters, we loved this city and we loved the folks we were working with”. Sure, you can’t really count on any part of the blockbuster-making machine to be 100% sincere…but I really like to think they were.
Few things have disappointed me more than the recent backlash towards these movies. Even the universally mocked Spider-Man 3 has a hell of a lot to offer (more than a lot of other superhero films, actually), and if I’m being honest, no other franchise – not even Star Wars, not even Lord of the Rings – has had the sheer effect on me that the original Spider-Mans had. As much as I love the MCU (and I do) it’s never quite nailed the “there’s a hero in all of us” theme that was so integral to the Spider-Man trilogy. Like, you know that headcanon post going round about Brooklyn residents sort of adopting Steve Rogers and standing up against his enemies? An idea like that is what the entire climax of the first Spider-Man hangs on! (I’ve actually seen quite a lot of MCU and ASM headcanons that just make me think “The Spider-Man trilogy already did that. Go watch it!”)
S’like, yeah, these fims are about superheroes, but they’re also about goodness, really. Illustrated in Peter, of course, and illustrated in MJ and Aunt May and Harry’s sacrifice and Otto’s redemption, but (crucially) also illustrated in Ursula, the shy young woman who brings Peter food even though she can barely talk to him without awkwardness, and in the train passengers who put themselves at physical risk protecting Spider-Man from Doc Ock, and in Gwen who’s so sweet and nice she apologises to another woman for something that wasn’t her fault, and in Peter’s landlord who was really far nicer to him than he deserved at that point in time, and…I could go on, but you get the idea. Basically? When I was sixteen – and still, ten years on – I finished watching Spider-Man 2 and I wanted to be like Spider-Man.
The original Spider-Man trilogy is campy and cheesy and it probably hasn’t really aged well, but I love it so much and will absolutely recommend it to anyone who likes the MCU simply because (as seen above) it is just so thoroughly uncynical and virtually everyone from Peter to Gwen to Aunt May to Peter’s neighbour to random bystander #563 is SUCH A GOOD PERSON
