Spider-Man: No Way Home is Deliciously Meta
Channel: Matthew Loffhagen
Date: 21/09/2022

Yes, I made another one of these. Apologies if it's all very obvious and long since past relevance, but I'm having fun making teeny tiny video essays.

Might do something more topical next time.

Spider-Man: No Way Home is a film about second chances.
Peter is desperate to fix the consequences of his Spider-Manning, which, while definitely the right thing to do, have ended up hurting his friends.
In doing so, he meets a bunch of (deliberately vague spoilers here) colourful characters who have all suffered negative consequences from their own bad choices. Peter endeavours to give them all a second chance – even the one with an obvious evil goblin face. Because, hey, obvious evil goblin-faced people probably need the benefit of the doubt most of all.
This theme hits a meta-textual level at the start of the third act, when a familiar character (again, vague spoilers, but you know who I mean) from some previous Spider-Man films shows up. This particular character is distraught at his biggest failing and is still working to overcome his guilt, but, at the same time, the audience is seeing him in a new light, because it turns out, while his previous films were…not universally beloved…with a better script, he’s actually amazing in his role.
So everyone gets a chance at redemption, both within the narrative, and in retroactively making some less popular Spider-Man films better.