This Is What Happens When Villains Are Done The WRONG Way 

Is Spider-Man the greatest video game hero of all time? ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-PLJDvB7GZe4.html

Spiderman 3 didn't fail at everything; Bully Maguire will live on forever as a huge source of memeable quotes, right alongside Thanos.

If Venom hadn’t been forced into Spider-Man 3 I think the movie would have been a truly phenomenal film on par with 1 and 2. Venom should have been saved for Spider-Man 4.

Lesson of the day: when the studio gets involved in the creative process, bad things are going to happen.

Me who actually likes Spider-Man 3: “I’m gonna put some dirt in your eye.”

Sandman should've just been Harry's hired experimental goon. Harry turns into the one spearheading the creation of supervillains to avenge his father’s death, leading to the formation of Sinister Six, then becoming the Goblin in the finale chapter.

Even Stan Lee said we never find out whether the Sandman gets any type of redemption or whether he was ever able to help his daughter.

I just rewatched 3 today, I honestly don't hate it as much as everyone does.

This is why whenever anybody says “multiple villains don’t work, look at Spider-Man 3”, I’m a bit dismissive. It’s not that multiple villains can’t work. It’s that multiple villains have to be centered on a common theme, a common conflict. When they’re all disparate and detached like they are here, the story suffers for it. But then you can do what No Way Home did and it works, brilliantly well, because even though there’s five villains with the legacy of a sixth looking over the whole thing, the theme is consistent among them all, so it works.

I think No Way Home will pull it off. They don't have to set up all the villains and go through all of their backstories. Spiderman 3 and Amazing Spiderman 2 did.

I personally always liked Spider-Man 3 but fell into the crowd shitting on it. The scenes with Sandman, especially his intro as he gains his form were hard hitting. Despite all the issue with having to go between 3 villains Raimi definitely handled it better than many would have.

The timing of this right after the No Way Home trailer feels poignant

Problem with Spiderman 3 and Amazing Spiderman 2 is not too many villians. Its too many plotlines.

This is kind of a meh take on the “too many villains.” You say that The Dark Knight Rises had three villains which was an issue, but you completely ignore that the other two movies, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, had the same amount of villains. Batman Begins had Ra’s Al Ghul, Scarecrow, and Carmine Falcone. The Dark Knight had the Joker, Two-Face, and Salvatore Maroni. Both of these movies are phenomenal and have some of the most memorable villain portrayls DC has had. Too many villains to juggle isn’t the issue, the issue is that at least ONE of them have to be good. Spider-Man 3’s villains aren’t dealt with well.

I don’t know, I just love Bully Maguire. I couldn’t stand living in a world without it. Without Spider-Man 3, there’s no Bully Maguire.

I'm more forgiving with Spider-Man 3 now than I was when it first came out. It still has some stuff I'm not a fan of, like how Venom and Harry Osborn's Green Goblin was treated, but it's not the worst Spider-Man movie ever made. That honor goes to Amazing Spider-Man 2.

Harry's redemption arc was handled pretty well. Could've used more time though, same with Sandman's arc. Sandman was the best part of Spider-man 3, that & the final battle.

No Way Home: hold my magic

The church scene would of been perfect as a post credit scene with venom jumping into camera to finish 👌

Nerdstalgic: There's too many villains in Spider-Man 3 Sam Raimi: I missed the part where that's my problem

We’ll see what they’ll do with villains for no way home

After the release of no way home, these two movies do the same "many villains" thing, though NWH does it masterfully. It takes these 5 villains, who don't really compliment each other, and makes them work due to Peters "moral mission." They all represent a part of Peters code: to try and help people whenever possible, even if they themselves are trying to kill him. It does what this movie and others like it couldn't: have more than one villain in a movie and make it work by keeping the themes consistent.

Actually there's 4 villains of the movie. Harry, Sandman, Venom, and Peter's cringy yet still hilarious emo personality.

And yet you get Ra's, Falcone, and Scarecrow in Batman Begins and all the villains serve their purpose, make their point, have an important part in the story, and don't overstay/understay their welcome.

It is often the ones with over abundant villains, or poorly managed writing, which turn out to be the end of the franchise in that iteration.

Whoever this narrator is, I like them a lot. I would love to hear more from them

I must be the only guy that actually likes Harry's Goblin costume

The Dark Knight had Scarecrow, Joker, The Mob, and Crooked Cops as villains. Batman Begins had Ras Al Ghul, The League Of Shadows, Falcone, Scarecrow, Bruce's parents murderers, crooked cops and the released patients of Arkham. The number of villains isn't the problem, it's how its executed.

If they wanted Harry in the movie they could have easily made Harry the mastermind of sorts, manipulating both Sandman and Spiderman to be at odds with each other. Have the main villain be Sandman, and we know by the end Harry was behind it because he was trying to kill Spiderman, tying in with him finding out in the second movie, which they can't walk back from. Cue credits, next movie is about Harry as the main villain and we get him as the green goblin now. Then for the next movie after that they could have done Venom as his own standalone movie. So yeah basically we could have gotten three separate movies from all three arcs if Sony were smart and just spaced them out, not force Venom to be shoved in there too.

I still can’t help but love this film just for the cheese of it

I despise when people say there are "wrong" ways to do art. What you're really doing is wanting your nerd itch scratched.

Weirdly, I think Eddie Brock/Venom’s place in the story makes 100% thematic sense for the story the film is trying to tell: Peter darkly succumbing to vanity and vengeance. Sandman forces Peter into these dark places, and Harry’s just makes sense given SM2. I agree there are too many villains given the length of the movie, but individually they could all work great!

Okay, but the Nolan batman trilogy is how you do multiple villains per film brilliantly. It can definitely be done well, so I'm still excited for No Way Home, but maybe a lil more apprehensive now.

I hope they consider this movie when making No Way Home. But I’m kinda counting on Sony messing something up again. I mean, they don’t have a good track record

"Hello Peter" YESSSSSS 🤩🤩

The Dark Knight vs Amazing Spider-Man 2 Main villain: Joker = Electro Friend who becomes a villain: Harvey Dent = Harry Osborn Cameo villain: Scarecrow = Rhino Dead love interest: Rachel Dawes = Gwen Stacy

1:41 speaking of The Hero with A Thousand Faces, one of my favorite albums (Heroica by the band Sight) dropped in 2019 is a concept album about a hero's journey following that same structure and I believe was inspired by the book. Really good if you're ever in the mood for some background prog rock music.

I just realised how freaky it is that Spider-Man and X-Men hit their highs and lows very close to each other. X-Men - 2000 Spider-Man - 2002 X2 - 2003 Spider-Man 2 - 2004 The Last Stand - 2006 Spider-Man 3 - 2007

i grew up loving the prequels and spider-man three and it’s funny to see that everyone thought they were bad

The fact that this video essay about having too many villains is a risky move, is uploaded right after the trailer for spiderman no way home which has 6 villains.

I reject the notion that Spider-Man 3 has too many villains. Batman Begins had several main villains and was a great movie. The problem is that Spider-Man 3 doesn't synthesise it's elements effectively. It's easier to synthesise elements when there are fewer of them, but various elements is not the real problem.

While yes there are plenty of examples of how to poorly execute multiple villains, there are examples when multiple characters/villains are pulled off properly. One great example is Into the Spiderverse where we had a sinister group of six villains and that movie is praised to being one of, if not, the best comic book movie of all time

When people are criticizing a movie before it comes out

There is literally nothing in this video I haven’t heard before. This is like the most vague, surface level critique of the film. Sorry to be brutally honest, and I love the passionate presentation and sharing of this information, maybe it’s an old video. I’ll just ignore this video, I like all the other Nerdstalgic videos.

There’s actually 4 villains in this. Peter’s ego is the main villain in this movie

Spider-verse had a ton of new characters that didn't have the set up that these spidies and villains do. It is about knowing how to use them not artificially limiting or increasing them.

Your videos have good pacing, great research and passion for what you are talking about. Excellent job

Ideally the story would focus on Harry as the main villain, who seeks revenge on Spider-Man, and is pulling strings on Sandman, who is the more powerful character. At the same time Peter possesses the symbiote suit, which helps him fight villains, but using methods which cause Peter to reject it in the finale. Eddie becoming Venom would be a huge cliff hanger and Spider-Man 4 would be the most anticipated film for the upcoming years.

Why it faild? Answer: Avi Arad (the guy who FORCED Sam to put venom in it)

Tbh, spiderman 3 was my favorite of the sam raimi trilogy. Seeing that Harry and Peter finally reconciled with each other and Peter finally having closure with Uncle Ben's killer was a good ending. Sure, the Venom part was a bit forced since he's only seen 1/4 of the episode but other than that, it really gave us a good ending.

I forgot your channel existed. Haven't seen one of these since the Aunt Viv video. Can't wait to binge!

This, like all the videos I've seen of yours, is very well done. Thank you!

It's not that bad a movie tbf, just underwhelming after comparing it with the first 2 movies. It still had pretty great stuff

If we're being honest I would say Blade in many ways kicked off the super hero craze we see now.

This has given me so much to think about in terms of how villains should interplay with each other and the lead...thank you!!

I'm not sure how much it makes sense from the logical way, but some of those problems talked about in this video, actually made the film different and unique. Which made it interesting to watch and it felt like you couldn't predict some plots as easy as compared to other movies.

You’d think after all these years studios would learn their lesson about interfering

Haven’t been to this channel in a bit, what happened with your voice, new microphone?

Anyone else find it ironic that they described Spider-Man and X-Men as starting the super hero craze (0:50) when the video just two days ago was all about Blade being the "true start to the franchise?" Not a bash on the channel or anything, just stood out to me as amusing.

I have to say the one film that made multiple villians work near perfctly was Spiderman Homecomming, which included: Vulture, Shocker I, Shocker II, the Tinkerer and Sorpion (the latter was only teased). But it managed to do this by having a villian hierarchy all the “extra” villians serve the main story.

So weird hearing someone other than Tyler but this new guys voice is nice too lol.wonder what his name is? 🤔

I was about to say, you almost forgot the 4th villain of Spiderman 3 - Sony

Can't believe I forget about this channel 😅but anyways good stuff as always ☺️👍✨

3:55 *why are you looking at me like that step-dad?*

For the longest time I thought a lot of villains was a good thing

If anything, they should’ve done 2 villains with Sandman and then Harry Osborn Green Goblin, and maybe Harry and Peter team up to take on sandman. It would’ve cut out the venom arc completely and then Harry, who had been building to for 3 movies, and sandman would’ve been more deceloped

Hey my man what’s the background music in the beginning it smacks

OMGG it’s a midweek Nerdstalgic episode!! Wooop wooop

I never understood why Spider-Man 3 got so much hate yet the newer MCU movies gets praise with ratings above 80% on rotten tomatoes. Maybe it was ahead of it’s time?

the scene with Harry was good and wasnt forced bro, big miss there

"Moves tend to fail when they have more than one villian" Raiders of the lost Ark: 👀

I'm pretty sure Into the Spider-Verse had more villains (or just villains and minibosses). Kingpin Doc Ock Tombstone Scorpion Prowler

Spiderman homecoming has a lot of villians and characters and did well.

Imagine being the Sony exec who ruined both Spider-Man and That 70s Show with a single decision.

They did that in the 60s too with the Spider-Man cartoon and with Superman animated in the 90s. Both respectively lost me at two different decades 70s and 90s. Too many villains. I knew this when I was young and a bit older.

@nerdstalgic Would love to see your analysis on the quality of Spider-Man: NWH. Is it truly a brilliant film in its writing? Or is it poorly made fan-service?

Spider-man 3 is my favorite of them all, and I think there should be more villains on the movies, mainly the MCU.

That’s why they should split it into two, still good film tho

It also had the problem of the action scenes being moved so fast(probably to shove more in time-wise) that during parts of the movie I literally couldn't see what was happening. The fight between him and Franco flying around the city comes to mind. It was kind of a CGI nightmare, even in a landscape of superhero films.

I think it's pretty clear by this point, that Sam Raimi didn't have full creative freedom in the third movie. It's painful visible the problems with pacing and some decisions that probably are in the movie because of external interference. However I disagree with your point that they do not have a unified cohesive theme. The whole story in the 3rd movie is about forgiveness. Peter had to learn to forgive himself and forgive Sandman, but to do so, he had to learn it from Harry, who had the courage to forgive Peter first. Sam Raimi found in Venom (forced upon him) an opportunity to show the worst side of Peter Parker and to extend that "forgiveness" theme onto Mary Jane and Aunt May as well.

People like the shit on this movie but when you adjust for inflation it's pretty much tied as the highest grossing Spider-Man movie.

Spider-Man 3 was incredible, I loved every second of it.

I’ve heard a lot of people say they think Venom was misplaced. I honestly think Sandman was. His whole arc with being uncle Bens real killer completely undermines the first film. And I personally wanted Venom way more!

You can do a story with many villains, and I have examples of how it can work. So how do you do it well? Well, let’s look at these villains one by one. In Superman II, Zod poses a new threat and gets the main screen time as a villain. Luthor’s inclusion follows up on his role in the previous movie in a believable way. He works because the villain has already been set up, and there’s a clear and interesting dynamic between Luthor and Zod while a balance of power is always at play here. Unlike the “Let’s Team Up” moments of SM3 and TAS 3, the moment where Luthor offers his services to Zod is more nuanced and provides a differing look into the power balance between the two. Batman Begins, meanwhile, takes the idea of a villain hierarchy to the extreme, having each antagonist one-up the last: Joe Chill, the antagonist at the beginning, turns out to be just a product of Falcone’s world, who turns out to in turn be only a tool of the Scarecrow, who is just an employee of Ra’s al Ghul. In this way, each villain hands off the baton to the next, so our attention is never split. The Dark Knight does the spectacular and pulls off two main villains, but even still, while we see the origins of one, the other is fully formed; the Joker was always the main antagonist, and the final fight with Two-Face is, by proxy, an extension of the conflict with the Joker. Also, Harvey Dent serves as a thematic halfway point between Batman and Joker. And in The Batman, the differing relationships between the villains comes into play. Catwoman serves mostly as an ally while Penguin works for Falcone but the investigation into both is conducted in the context of the Riddler’s whole mystery. A superhero movie CAN have multiple villains; you just need to be smart about how much you use each one.

I am probably in the minority but Spiderman 3, despite all its issues, was much better than the Garfield and Holland films. No Way Home looks promising for me thanks to the Raimi OGs

Don’t care what anyone says I love this movie

I am still learning nuances of English, so can anynone explain what "quo" meanis in the context (and in general) of "status quo of yore", please ?

How is Harry Osborne a "dark reflection" of Peter? In the end, he literally saved his life.

It should have been Venom & Sandman. Then they should have made Harry Osbourne stay his friend, then at the end if the movie, implied he is going to become Hobb Goblin. Have him dye his hair blonde, wear a letter man collegiate jacket, and studying his father's old work.

They should’ve eliminated Sandman. The rest was good: keep the New Goblin as the villain of the first part of the movie, than Bully Maguire becomes his own antagonist, and at the end Eddie becomes Venom, giving Peter and Harry an opportunity to forgive each other.

What if: Harry Osborne got the Symbiote and we didn't need to have Eddie Brock or knockoff Green Goblin in the first place.

I'd argue that the Venom storyline and the Sandman storyline do have a somewhat nice interplay in that Peter, under the influence of the black suit, tries to kill Sandman in vengeance for what happened to Uncle Ben, something that it's explicitly said Spider-Man wouldn't do. Once he's freed from the suit's influence, Peter's able to forgive Marko, who isn't strictly a bad person. The rest of the structure (where Venom and Spider-Man team up) doesn't really make sense, but there's an interesting idea at its core.

Great job you guys.

02:27 Ironic, that just as you discuss "returning home" you show a scene from LOTR in which Frodo leaves his home forever. 03:47 Okay I thought much of that made little sense at all. As over-arching themes/conflicts, the ones you just mention sound good but also generic, clearly coming from someone who doesn't really know the genre much.

Is that a reference to new Marvel's SM3, that also going to have a lot of characters and what can happen to them if they won't arrange it all wisely?

Ok, stupid question (possibly) is this a different narrator or just a different mic or mixing?

4:40 No Venom as in no black suit?

A movie can only hold soo much.. however, the Spectacular Spiderman animated TV show showed how it could work, having 6 villains against a Venom symbiote Spiderman (who was ASLEEP the whole time).

I still never understood why everyone hated SM3, I thought it was just childhood nostalgia but recently rewatched it and still loved it. I liked the first 2 more but it’s never been this “terrible movie” that everyone else calls it to me

A villian is a soul mate that challenges our heroes, pushing them to be a better version of themselves, or to look inward and opens the hero's perspective and the experience helps them grow as both a hero, and as a person.