themes in Spider Man 3

[Scott]

I just watched SM3 a couple of days ago and wanted to make a couple of observations. Please comment, disagree, agree or whatever.

Spoiler

The main theme is the importance of forgiveness and the danger of not forgiving. Aunt May has the clearest verbal expression of the theme. She says that the desire for revenge is a poison that will eat up a person. The danger of revenge and the power of forgiveness is seen in main plot of Peter, but is also seen in the secondary characters and in their subplots.

With respect to Peter, the alien suit inspires in him anger and influences Peter to seek revenge against several people, including MJ, the Sandman, and Harry Osborn. All of Peter's attempts produce pain and misery. They don't redeem or save him from his problems. This failure emphasizes that revenge is bad. Peter's desire for revenge turns him into a literal monster, the alien Venom or a quasi-Venom. The monster is a good metaphor for the desire for revenge.

But Peter finds redemption in forgiveness. The ending scene with Sandman is very good. After all that Sandman has done to Peter, Peter in the end simply forgives him. It was a strong ending and has a good message. As we pray in the Lord's prayer, "forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us." I thought it was a powerful ending.

Peter also forgives MJ for her perecived wrongs, and risks his life to save her, even though he believed that she had wronged him.

The forgiveness theme also find expression in other characters. Harry's hatred of Spiderman had been eating away at him and bringing him misery. He was the monster (so to speak), the Green Goblin. Harry Osborn forgives Spidey and comes to his rescue. His mask was different, it ws not Goblin-like, indicating his renewal. He is liberated from the poison and has an internal renewal. He no longer suffers from the bitterness that brought him pain.

The revenge theme finds expression in the Venom character (I can't remember the guy's name). By embracing revenge, he becomes a monster, Venom. Again, a metaphor for evil.

In this age of action movies where getting revenge is key and is glorified as having redemptive or saving power, it is good to see a movie actually glorify forgiveness.

Anyway, the movie was a lot of fun and has a good message, consistent with a core Christian principle.

Thoughts?

 

[ServantOfKing]

I completely agree and enjoyed reading your description of it! Although there were some cheesy parts I was pretty impressed with the theme of forgiveness too.

 

[VaughanRSmith]

I liked the idea that forgiveness was important, however yet again Hollywood fails to give any backing to the idea. You end up with a movie which says "You should forgive people, because really every person is good at heart and is trying their best to overcome their bad environment/situation/parents/whatever."

Personally, I think that is far more damaging to any Christian witness than a nihilistic movie such as Fight Club or The Crow. The starting point for a "Christian principle" should be the fallen-ness of man. I think that it would be dangerous for Christians to use this movie as an example of "Christian principle", because the blocks on which forgiveness is built are inherently anti-Christian.

Also, I just hated what they did to my favourite Marvel villain. Venom should have been given more time, more character, more everything. GRR!!!

 

[Scott]

The movie do try to make Sandman less culpable. While that is not necessarily the basis for forgiveness, it does illustrate a Christian principle that we should not pre-judge. And even though Sandman's crime was less culpable than it could have been, it was still a sin and a crime. He was still fully culpable. One can choose to forgive or not. Still the principle that revenge fails does not turn on that one fact. Revenge is bad in all of the plots, including the one with the final venom. He won't forgive, and he wants revenge, and so he becomes a literal monster.