Plot hole: The whole premise of the movie is that due to a botched spell, people who happen to know that "Peter Parker is Spider-Man" are pulled inside this universe. It's a bit of a stretch already that amongst those people is...Peter Parker himself, twice over, but let's say it makes sense. The problem is that Jamie Foxx's Electro does not meet this condition; he never found out. You could say it's a retcon or it's a different universe from the original movie's, but even this cop-out explanation is negated by the movie itself when Max Dillon makes a joke that shows that he didn't know Spidey's identity or even race.
Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)
Directed by: Jon Watts
Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Holland, Zendaya
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Suggested correction: Although Max didn't discover Peter's identity on film, an explanation of why Max knows his name IS offered. When the villains are talking about what happened before they found themselves in the MCU, Max indicated that once he tapped fully into the power grid and information systems, there was nothing he didn't know at that point. Since we know there is a clandestine organization tracking Peter from the end of ASM1, it's possible Max gained the info from their database.
In the interest of clarity, you refer to the one line that goes "I was stuck in the grid, absorbing data."? Nothing about tapping fully, and becoming omniscient as the correction presents. So we have to give it that specific meaning and make a connection to the obscure postcredit scene by Fiers in the unfinished trilogy that asks Connors if he said anything to the boy imagining that it produced data that was 'on the grid' somehow, and Electro never processed this information in the movie. Not sure if it's quite an"explanation offered", since the movie offers none. It's a 'possible' explanation like the other one people use, about hearing Gwen say Peter's name (I like this one better because at least it would give a special meaning to a throwaway line and I do I love attention to details).
Suggested correction: I don't find it such a stretch that he knew Peter's name but didn't know what he looked like.
When Spider-Man is explaining his plan to defeat Electro to Gwen, Gwen addresses him as "Peter." Electro was laying on the ground nearby and likely would have heard this. Presumably, knowing that Spidey's real name was Peter was enough to pull him in.
There are almost 10,000 "Peter" in New York alone in our world. Knowing just the super-common first name wouldn't cut it and the movie does nothing to support this theory, in fact does everything to undermine it (Strange's explanation, Electro's joke, complete lack of addressing it, etc). Also if he overheard that bit in the original movie, he would have also learned their plans to defeat him.
Suggested correction: I guess we're all going to ignore the fact that this Electro has a completely different look than the Max we saw previously. It's quite possible he's from a different universe.
He's not from a different universe than the Electro from The Amazing Spider-Man 2. The Lizard and the Andrew Garfield version of Spider-Man both know who he is, and he talks about events from the aforementioned film. His different appearance is also explained in the film.
All that means is he went through similar experiences and has a similar appearance as the Max they knew. Ala J. Jonah Jameson.
Suggested correction: It's not people who know who is Spider-Man that are spilling in, it's people who are connected to him in any way.
No, no. Strange says it explicitly "That little spell you botched, when you wanted everyone to forget that Peter Parker is Spider-man? It started pulling in everyone who knows that Peter Parker is Spider-man" and so on. That's why in the end they fix it by making everyone forget who Peter Parker is, not who Spider-man is.
Plot hole: Otto Octavius in this movie instantly recognizes the Green Goblin as Norman Osborn, a fact that was never public at least as long as Ock lived. On the other hand, he does not react to Lizard being revealed as Curt Connors, who was a colleague of his in 'his' universe but never a freaky mutated dinosaur like in the 'other' universe.
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Suggested correction: Green goblin died and his identity would've been public after his death.
Wrong. Peter placed Norman's corpse on his bed and was discovered by Harry. It's not like he left Norman's body in the building ruins to be discovered by the authorities. Harry himself didn't even know his father was the Green Goblin until the very end of Spider-Man 2. Even Norman's dying wish to Peter was to not tell Harry the truth about him.
Continuity mistake: Doc Ock is supposedly from Spider-Man 2 yet here he's gained a sweatshirt or turtleneck whereas in that movie he didn't have one. It's made clear he was pulled from his timeline just before his death, so he should be wearing the same thing.
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Suggested correction: I mean how much time took place between the spell casting and his arrival at the bridge? I'm sure there was some confusion.
Trivia: SPOILER: Although it was the film's worst kept secret, whenever asked, Andrew Garfield would deny, sometimes vehemently, that he would be appearing in it.
Trivia: Spider-Man asking Doctor Strange to cast a spell in order to make people forget that he is Peter Parker is similar to the comics storyline "One More Day." After the events of "Civil War" where Spider-Man revealed his secret identity to the world, he made a deal with Mephisto to save Aunt May's life in exchange for Mephisto nullifying Peter's marriage to Mary Jane Watson. As part of the deal, Mephisto erased everyone's memory of Spider-Man being Peter Parker.
More trivia for Spider-Man: No Way Home
Otto Octavius: Hello, Peter.
Matt Murdock: You may have dodged your legal troubles but things will get much worse. There's still the court of public opinion. [Catches a brick thrown through the window].
Peter Parker: How did you just do that?
Matt Murdock: I'm a really good lawyer.
Green Goblin: Poor Peter... too weak to send me home to die.
Peter Parker: No. I just wanna kill you myself.
Green Goblin: Attaboy!
Question: When Dr. Strange separates Peter's spirit from his body how is Peter still able to make his arm move?
Answer: His spider-sense is probably somewhat aware that his astral form has been separated from his physical body, so it is taking over and controlling his movements.
I concur with your answer because while he is separated from his suit you can see the aurora of his spider tingle all around his head.
Answer: I guess I missed something because I thought that suit was made with Stark tech and has nanotech in it. I figured it was the suit keeping the box away and Doctor Strange thought it was Peter.
Question: Are the Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield Spider-Man movies now part of the MCU?
Answer: No, they are part of the multiverse. The MCU is just one of those universes within the multiverse.
Answer: I almost think the best way to refer to them would be to call them "MCU-Adjacent." Both answers nail it - they're not part of the MCU universe itself, but are canonical to it and co-exist alongside it thanks to the establishment of the multiverse. And considering the "Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness" trailer teases Patrick Stewart as (presumably) Professor X, I think we could probably also apply this to pretty much any other Marvel adaptation ever made that was not made by Marvel Studios itself. It all co-exists and is all canonical to each other through the use of multiverses/alternate timelines/alternate dimensions.
Answer: No. It's explained that they are from another universe, and were sent back to their universes at the end of the film.
Question: Surely 'curing' the villains and sending them back to their own universes will have severe implications on the timeline. For example if Norman Osborn never dies in Spider-Man, then Harry never finds out, never becomes the new goblin and wouldn't be able to save Peter in Spider-Man 3?
Answer: Potentially, but there are way too many variables. Changes to the original Spider-Man timeline might have such ramifications that the events of the third film never come to pass at all! Or indeed the Norman Osborn that we see might be a variant of the one in the Spider-Man film, with his own timeline, or indeed making changes to the original timeline might split off multiple alternate timelines. There's just no definitive answer.
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