So, what of this weekend’s big-screen depiction of Gwen’s death? The filmmakers more or less dodged the question. While falling (inside a clock tower, not off of a bridge), Peter fires a web and snags her, but gets her too late, and her back and head hit the floor. If he’d fired sooner, would the whiplash have killed her? We’ll never know, and producer Matt Tolmach said that’s by design: “It’s not about the forensic details of that fall at all. I would say that there’s a tragic inevitability once you get into the clock tower… The cause of death here is love, commitment, personal choice.” In an interview with ScreenCrush, director Marc Webb said about the scene, "Originally, she didn’t hit the ground. She just bounced and her neck was supposed to break. But, what was interesting was people, when they watched that, the web represents salvation to people. They did not understand or believe or were not willing to accept that she had died — which is how it was done in the comics. So, we had to add a moment where there’s an impact wound. And then people understood what it meant."
