Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)

Simply put, the manipulation of peoples memory is deeply risky and prone to question and intense interrogation. There was a rant that I really liked writing, but I felt it was too meandering, and failed to succinctly get to the real meat of what I wanted to say about this film, so out of polite curtesy, I have kept it as simple as what I just mentioned, and put it at the end of the review for you to see.

This isn't about a, sick, crazed magician abusing his powers of advanced magic, it's about Spider Man, using said magic irresponsibly. You might've guess that this film somehow features memory manipulation, due to events in Far From Home, Spider Man now has to wipe the whole worlds memory of him being Spider Man. Obviously, magic is not Spider Mans strongest power, so he goes to Doctor... Doctor Who? What a strange name. Anyway, he goes to Ex-Sorcerer Supreme Dr. Stephan Strange to ask for the world to forget him as Spider-Man.

This is where the stupidity comes in, because instead of saying "I wish everyone who didn't know I was Spider Man before Mysterio told everyone, forgot about it." he made Strange rewrite the spell 6 TIMES (actually 5), this breaks reality. Suddenly people from other universes, who knew Peter Parker was Spider Man crept into this universe, universe 616.

This movie was actually well done, I only really noticed the stupidity of Peter's decision after I had seen it and started to rewatch it. And it didn't affect my enjoyment of it that much. I really enjoyed the scene in the Mirror Dimension, though I wonder how Doctor Strange was able to manipulate it like he did, it's established in Doctor Strange that to control the mirror dimension, you have to have a connection to the Dark Dimension. That's how The Ancient One did it, and that's how Kaecilius did it. So how was strange able to do it?

I did a little googling, and redditor stevejobs3768 explains that any sufficiently powerful wizard can manipulate the mirror dimension, it's just the dark dimension can Amplify that ability. I like that idea, I just wish they made it clearer.

I felt the 2 extra spider men came out of nowhere, not like they were bad, the scene they were introduced was a really fun scene, it's just that they were introduced so late. But I guess it makes sense, Peter Parker does know who Spider-Man is after all.

Aunt May's death was really sad, and it showed Peter at rock bottom, it really shows you what it would take for this Spider-man to not pull any of his punches. Though I was particularly upset with Toby's Spider-man's death. But atleast Andrew got to catch MJ this time. :D

This is the monologue I wanted to put at the beginning, but I felt it would've been too meandering, even for me!

Messing with people's memories is a tricky thing, so much could go wrong or unaccounted for. What if when you wipe the person's memories they just so happen to lose a memory somebody else remembers? Do the people you memory wipe have a right to know if there memory has been tampered with? If so, what gives a crazed magician the right to tamper with people's realities in that way? What memories could we tamper with? Only traumatic memories? Furthermore, Do we wipe the memory itself, or the pain of experiencing it? And what about the persons consent? Certainly they should have a say in what gets deleted and what stays more than anyone. And when deleting memories, are we risking the person not potentially growing and learning from the experience? Or are we keeping them in a cycle of pain > erasure > pain and erasure because the pain is too much to bear?

All these questions seldom get answered in films like this or men in black. I find, when tackling these questions, that memory manipulation is a potentially deeply violating procedure if done improperly. And you have to make sure nothing goes wrong, you have to make sure that all the people who the participant actively talks to also have their memories of the event erased, or at the very least, agree not to mention the events that the participant has erased, and you have to delete any images that could allow the participant too form a timeline of events that have been erased.

Along with throwing out any other items that will also do this.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MCUTheories/comments/ro6bbh/does_dr_strange_draw_power_from_the_dark_dimension/