If you watch enough movies, you’ll find the rhymes.
Music is often talked about as being cinematic. The images the lyrics conjure. The feeling a swell of harmony gives you. The way you can, even as the song is playing, play out an entire 4-minute short film in your head, either wholly original, a mixture of old memories, or a little bit of both.
But what about movies as being musical? Good film, like good music, will match its choices to the message. Awful bickering might have sharp, harsh cuts between two whisper-to-full-yell characters, or it might have long, lonely takes in autumn light, each character looking for truth yet to spill out. There’s a reason why some film critics will, when a film is absolutely humming, say it simply sings. It’s harmony. It’s beautiful music to the mind’s ears.
We can see the music within a film, but what about from film to film? These rhymes come in their similarities, but most especially in their thematic overlap. Their characters – though movie-worlds apart – are struggling with the same questions and seeking the same answers.
In December of 2017, an aging, exhausted franchise was greatly revitalized by abandoning the myths of old. It took everything that had become stale – most especially the monomyth and themes of destiny – and chucked it like bad fashion even nostalgia couldn’t save.
This past December, an aging, exhausted franchise was greatly revitalized by abandoning the myths of old. It took everything that had become stale – most especially the themes of destiny and responsibility – and chucked it like bad fashion even a comics artist wouldn’t want to ink.
In 2017, Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi took some bold steps, hacking with a lightmachete through the cobwebs of a claustrophobic Star Wars galaxy. Suddenly, what once felt distant felt instantly relatable. I could empathize with the characters again. I could see myself in them. They had earned my investment. Even more: they asked difficult questions of the audience and left them to ponder the answers.
In 2018, Rodney Rothman, Bob Persichetti, and Peter Ramsey’s Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse threw out the old Sony playbook and graffitied all over what had come before. It shot its shot and took some bold swings with Miles Morales at the front, and a parallel universe that multiplied the different Spidermans in one fell swoop. No longer did I feel a distance from Peter Parker. I actually kinda empathized with the dude. And I had five other Spiderman – each with their own distinct look and personality – to become invested in.
Both films masterfully operate as installments in an ongoing story and stories that stand alone. The Last Jedi wrestles with over 40 years of Star Wars history (the Expanded Universe, the games, the books, the comics) just as Into the Spiderverse tangles itself with over 50 years of Spiderman history (the comics, movies, video games, and graphic novels). Both are able to recontextualize what came before so that the future finally feels alive and fresh and inviting.
LOST IN THE WOODS
For the entirety of The Force Awakens and a good chunk of The Last Jedi, Rey is unsure of what exactly she’s supposed to be. She’s clearly good at some things, otherworldly at others. But she’s not sure if she’s ready. She’s not sure if she’s a part of a line of destiny. And she is certainly not sure just how to find out any of this. It doesn’t help that Old Man Luke is resistant to train her, or even that Kylo Ren revealed her parents were nobodies.
We find out early on in Spiderverse just how resistant Miles is to the idea of his new school. He waits until the last possible minute to pack, and he reminds his own father he’s only at this special boarding school because he won a lottery. He finds more comfort in his conversations with his Uncle Aaron, deep inside the darkness of the subway tunnels, making art that few people will stumble upon. He’s in that awkward middle school stage where puberty and the sudden ability to wonder about your place in things collide in confusing ways.
SHOW ME THE WAY
“I need someone to show me my place in all of this.”
Both Rey and Miles have perfect opposing forces in their older mentors. Rey and Miles have all the energy and drive (even if it’s fueled by uncertainty and curiosity) but undeveloped skill. Old Man Luke and Peter B. Parker have zero energy and drive – so eager they are to return to their status quo and be left alone – but all the skill and wisdom. Both mentors do everything they can to avoid helping. They try to walk away, to slam another door in their face. But they can’t escape the persistence. They eventually must come into the fold and pass on the baton to the next generation, not only for their own (and a world’s) survival, but to continue the legacy they had begun.
A LEAP OF FAITH
Johnson often writes his movies like novels, dense and full of setups, payoffs, and themes. And the process of animation, with its fits and starts and thousands of storyboards, allows for the writers to embed as many layers as possible. Both films have lines that are planted early on and come back in deep, cathartic moments later in the film. They are not only thematic rhymes between films. They are thematic rhymes within their own story.
If you’ve seen any of the movie’s marketing, you’ve probably seen the shot of a hooded Spiderman in his Air Jordans, pushing off the glass of a skyscraper. His push, the glass behind his touch shattering, appears as violent as his fall feels quiet, even still. He’s falling in a vacuum, between the roof and the streets below, where his moment of truth is about to be revealed. Either he makes it, swinging his way out. Or he becomes Spidersplat.
It’s a beautiful image on its own, but even more so knowing it’s the one moment where Miles finally gives himself a chance. We even get to see how he chose one of the tallest buildings he could find. His web threads are shooting upwards as he’s dropping out of the sky. It’s a beautiful image of someone reaching at the same time they’re falling. It’s what taking a chance on yourself looks and feels like all at once.
This is when Miles unshackles himself of all expectations and trusts his own ability to at least try. It’s not exactly confidence. It’s bravery. It’s doing something because doing nothing is only going to make you crazy.
After Kylo tells Rey her parents are nobodies, simultaneously deflating an online theory and the audiences’ expectations, she has to grapple with her place. She still doesn’t feel ready. But she’s forced into action. She has to do something to save her own life and the life of others.
“Let the past die. Kill it if you have to.” – Kylo Ren
Miles, Rey, Peter B. Parker and Old Man Luke are all struggling with the past. Old Man Luke is stuck on his failure to teach Kylo Ren the ways of the Jedi, which led to Kylo joining the Dark Side and Luke going into hiding. Peter B. Parker laments the way he treated Mary Jane and their marriage, resulting in a divorce he’s not quite recovered from. Kylo’s line is meant for Rey, but it could be said to any each of the aforementioned characters. In fact, it needs to be said. It’s recognizing the freedom that comes from letting go of what came before and pursuing the opportunity of the future.
Miles – and his Spiderpals – struggle with the weight of expectations and with failure. Miles doesn’t truly grapple with how limited his skillset is until there’s a fatal, painful consequence he can’t quite move past. It’s paralyzing. When Peter B. Parker demands him to show his powers on command, he can’t do it. It’s that embarrassing, demoralizing moment of trying to prove to people you’re really okay when you know you’re not.
“When will I know I’m ready?” Miles asks.
“You won’t,” Parker says. “It’s a leap of faith. That’s all it is, Miles. A leap of faith.”
THE WAY FORWARD
There’s no way to know what JJ Abrams has in store for Rey and Kylo Ren in December’s The Rise of the Skywalker. I don’t have high hopes it will continue the thematic tissue laid down by Rian Johnson. Just like I don’t have high hopes that Sony will stick with Rotham and Ramsey to tell further stories for Miles. But, in a big way, that’s appropriate to what’s been stated before. The leap of faith involves jumping into the unknown. And we’ll always have – and remember – the platforms that were built for them to jump off of. The Last Jedi and Into the Spiderverse are classics for this generation and the next. They’ll show us how we can move forward in the face of uncertainty. How we can reclaim our story. How we can be like the heroes we’ve always admired.
The Last Jedi and Into the Spiderverse are both currently streaming on Netflix.
