No Way Home "Down Came The Goblin, and Took The Spider Out" - Willem Dafoe Needs His Thread Too

[Spider-Fan]

Dafoe was def MVP of the villains. He was great

 

[Another_Fool]

Dafoe killed it. It also was nice to see him be menacing without that Raimi camp. I know a lot of people liked him in the original trilogy, but I personally never took to how Raimi portrayed him in SM1. NWH felt closer to the menacing Green Goblin I always wanted.

Spoiler

Stunned they didn't take advantage of having Flint tell Norman that Harry was killed. Felt like that might've been a good way for the evil side of Norman to resurface.

At least he finally got to kill someone close to a Peter Parker, which is something he never actually did in SM1.

 

[OtherwiseKnownAs]

Wait, was it common knowledge that Norman and the Green Goblin were one and the same? Ock knew who it was right away. And then Flint said it was all over the news that Norman was impaled on his own glider. How did Harry not know?

 

[Superhero 101]

Daffod did a great job the apartment scene was intense he really brought it all

 

[GREEN =w= DAY]

Willem Dafoe absolutely crushed it! I found him more menacing and more of a threat in this film than I did in the Raimi movie

 

[samsnee]

I’m glad they got rid of the helmet early. It would have looked even goofier here than in the Raimi movies. DaFoe’s facial expressions sell it better than any prosthetic ever could. Plus his voice as goblin was so much creepier this time around. He wasn’t really sympathetic in the original movies so they did a good job here of finding that balance.

 

[The Caped Knight]

Can I say that William knocked it out of the park with such a phenomenal performance. It was so good to see his physical facial expressions as The Goblin.

The fight sequences was brutal. Dafoe didn't hold back. He dominated with ferocity.

 

[CadeSkywalker28]

Willem was great as both Norman and Green Goblin, but I was dissapointed how much screentime he had. I expected a lot more. When he showed up in the final battle and get knocked out from the glider, losing his goggles and hoodie (Why even bother adding them?) and being defeated in like a minute? Wow...

This is how you do it. Let him be a challange, let the fight breath a little.



The final battle was messy as hell.

 

[Detective Conan]

Dafoe was def MVP of the villains. He was great

Kind of makes me think we’ll never get an actual MCU Norman because how can they ever top this?

 

[Spider-Fan]

Kind of makes me think we’ll never get an actual MCU Norman because how can they ever top this?

You can't lol

 

[RaimiWebSpidey]

Feige knows they can't top the OG villains, there will never be versions of those characters in the MCU.

 

[Superhero 101]

They can still show up or at least different version

 

[CadeSkywalker28]

If Norman appear, he will be completely different character.

 

[samsnee]

Willem was great as both Norman and Green Goblin, but I was dissapointed how much screentime he had. I expected a lot more. When he showed up in the final battle and get knocked out from the glider, losing his goggles and hoodie (Why even bother adding them?) and being defeated in like a minute? Wow...

This is how you do it. Let him be a challange, let the fight breath a little.



The final battle was messy as hell.

I mean they had a pretty big brutal fight at the condo.

 

[CadeSkywalker28]

I mean they had a pretty big brutal fight at the condo.

That fight is great, but the final fight is... Meh.

 

[Detective Conan]

They can still show up or at least different version

Well..

Spoiler

In the movie, it’s pointed out that Oscorp doesn’t exist. While that doesn’t necessarily preclude him from existing in the MCU, I do think Dafoe is supposed to be the defacto MCU Goblin. And we likely won’t be seeing another version anytime soon. I think Marvel would find doing a new version after Dafoe redundant, especially when Dafoe kind of was playing a new version of him.

If Norman appear, he will be completely different character.

He’s definitely would have to be radically re-imagined. I think I would characterize a MCU Goblin as being the MCU’s answer to Lex Luther and make him this cunning sociopathic monster who’s the chest master behind the scenes. You know, something akin to the comics characterization him after getting revived. This Norman, unlike Dafoe’s Goblin is rotten to his very core and only using image he projects as this generous philanthropist as a facade to hide from his true nefarious intentions.

 

[Godzillasaurus]

Willem was great as both Norman and Green Goblin, but I was dissapointed how much screentime he had. I expected a lot more. When he showed up in the final battle and get knocked out from the glider, losing his goggles and hoodie (Why even bother adding them?) and being defeated in like a minute? Wow...

This is how you do it. Let him be a challange, let the fight breath a little.



The final battle was messy as hell.

I agree. He did great in the role and the final design I actually really liked. But once he showed up to the climax he didn’t really do anything and just ended up getting his ass kicked.

Similarly to Endgame, the climax itself wasn’t that great in my opinion. I wouldn’t have liked the movie as much had it not been a nostalgia trap

 

[TeeKay]

Atta boy.

 

[Ninjablade]

Dafoe was definitely a standout, but there wasn't as much of him as I thought there was going to be. Which was a little bit of a disappointment because I really liked what they were doing with him, it just gets a little lost in the shuffle of everything else.

Either way, I was happy to see my favorite villain do some cool things and Dafoe really stepped back into the role as if he never left. That guy did not miss a single beat.

 

[Drizzle]

Dafoe showed them who's boss here. Only thing is, I wish he didn't destroy the mask. Would have been cool to see him put it back on for the finale.

 

[Karelia]

Dafoe may be the goat of comic book movie villains after this. He's always been one of the best, but he absolutely crushed it here. Even more so than in the original Spider-Man film.

 

[Toomes' Phone]

Dafoe's performance as Green Goblin in NWH was enough for him to overtake Molina's Doctor Octopus as the best villain of the franchise, something I never thought would happen.

 

[lordofthenerds]

Wait, was it common knowledge that Norman and the Green Goblin were one and the same? Ock knew who it was right away. And then Flint said it was all over the news that Norman was impaled on his own glider. How did Harry not know?

This is something that bothered me a bit too. I'm pretty sure only Norman's butler was supposed to know he was the Goblin.

 

[The Joker]

Dafoe may be the goat of comic book movie villains after this.

Never. Heath Ledger's Joker has yet to be topped.

 

[The Joker]

Dafoe's performance as Green Goblin in NWH was enough for him to overtake Molina's Doctor Octopus as the best villain of the franchise, something I never thought would happen.

It still hasn't happened. Setting aside the fact that he doesn't even look like a Goblin for most of the movie, Dafoe's Goblin in NWH was a wafer thin villain who's motive in this was simply that he likes being powerful. It was a very one dimensional take on the character.

Goblin in Raimi's movie has way more complexity and nuance to him. As Norman he was trying to save himself from losing Oscorp, the company he built. He had developed a fixation on Peter/Spider-Man and recognized a potential for greatness in both of them. Peter was the son he wished Harry was, and Spider-Man was the one equal to his Goblin. He felt like he had real goals and purpose.

Even in the final showdowns, the one in Raimi's movie felt far more brutal and personal. Plus Goblin's final moments had some depth to them with the father side of him emerging asking Peter not to tell Harry as he didn't want his son to live with the shame of what his father had done. That was a villain with some dimension to him. In NWH he gets injected with miracle cure and is just like ooops what I have done? You could sum up NWH as him just wanting to keep his power. The mustache was on over time twirling here.

He most certainly has not topped Doc Ock in SM-2, IMO. Ock was a well rounded villain, visually awesome, and absolutely slayed it on the action scenes compared to Goblin. A villain who didn't need to be the dad of his best friend, or kill his Uncle, or be the dad of his girlfriend etc to have a personal link. A villain who was able to connect with Peter on a conceptual level and be a mirror image of him in his character arc. Peter was being irresponsible by giving up being Spider-Man so he could live his dream of a normal life. Ock was being irresponsible by doing evil things to make his dream of making his fusion reactor happen.

Unlike in NWH there was no quick miracle cure. Peter had to get through to Ock as a person. Speak to Otto Octavius the scientist, the man behind the tentacles to get him to see the error of his ways. There was depth and nuance in Ock's redemption. He wasn't stuck with a needle and that was that.

I can't fathom how anyone could see the Goblin out ranking Ock. NWH did not enhance Gobby's character. It didn't enhance any of the villains. The scene of Tobey's Peter having a reunion with Ock had more resonance and emotion to it than the entirety of Osborn's screen time, IMO.

Honestly I've taken baths that were deeper than NWH Goblin.