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Spider-Man's Success:
"Never Lose Sight of the Human Elements"
by Joe Tracy, Publisher of Hollywood Lot Magazine

When Spider-Man was released in 2002, critics responded with strong praise at how the movie really brought the audience into the story. It’s something that George Lucas had mastered with the original Star Wars Trilogy, but was out of touch with when he produced the new Star Wars trilogy.

The secret to good movie-making is the ability to pull the audience into the story by developing characters and making people care about them. Director Sam Raimi is good at this and his foray into bringing Spider-Man to the big screen forever changed the way Superhero movies would be made. Raimi learned to humanize the hero in order to make you better relate and care. Instead of focusing on visual effects, digital technology, and the latest visual “wow factors”, Raimi insisted on first perfecting the story and characters.

Perhaps Alfred Molina, who played the villain Doc Ock in Spider-Man 2, put it best when he said, “Sam never loses sight of the human elements in the job.”

Superheroes have often been detached from others because we can’t relate to the powers they have. However, we can relate to a Superhero facing the same struggles as us. It’s those “human elements” that make people care more about a superhero and the story he/she is in.

In Spider-Man, Peter Parker had to deal with some very deep and internal issues. The biggest was a decision he made that resulted in the death of his uncle… a death that occurred after Peter had some harsh words with him. Seeing this man with “super powers” go through such a terrible emotional struggle pulled the audience deeper into the film because they now cared about him and had empathy for him.

Toronto Star movie critic Peter Howell was blown away when he first saw Spider-Man, calling it “A blockbuster with a heart and brain.”

It’s this heart and brain – making people care about the characters and never insulting their intelligence – that other studios adopted for their superhero movies after Spider-Man went on to become the sixth-highest grossing movie of all time. Suddenly superhero movies like Batman Begins and Superman Returns were trying to “humanize” the heroes to make audiences care more about them. It worked.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, a man named George Lucas wowed audiences with a smart movie that had heart – Star Wars. It was Lucas that soon commented that a visual effect without a story was just a visual effect. Unfortunately, visual effects were about the only good thing of the new trilogy he made years after making that comment. Instead of smart humor, we had characters now farting and stepping in poop. The trilogy was dumbed down and so much focus was put on the visual elements that the story failed to reinvigorate those that were captivated by the original trilogy. People who were fascinated with the concept of the “Force” were now told that it had to do with “midi-chlorian levels”.

In 2002, there was little doubt among box office analysts that Star Wars: Attack of the Clones would be the number one movie of the year. After all, it was a Star Wars film. But analysts were wrong because Spider-Man also came out that year and the connection it had with audiences easily propelled it beyond Attack of the Clones, $404 million to $311 million.

There’s a lot moviemakers can learn from the Spider-Man movies and that is that audiences want films with brains, a heart, and human elements that suck you into the story and make you care. The villain in Spider-Man 2, Doc Ock, was even humanized before he was villainized. Then he was humanized again before the end.

With Spider-Man 3, Raimi has his work cut out for him because of the sheer size of the cast. The more heroes/villains you introduce into a movie, the harder it is to focus on the backstory, story, and human elements for each character. In Spider-Man the focus was on one villain. In Spider-Man 2, the focus was on one villain. Now, in Spider-Man 3, four villains will appear, which hopefully doesn’t spread the story too thin. But, then again, Raimi is all about “human element”, so prepare to care as we get caught in this Web of wonder once again.