Was ‘Spider-Man’s’ extended release worth the extra 11 minutes?

By: Caroline Tanner

Caption: Saturday, Sept. 3 – A friend and I go see “Spiderman: No Way Home” when it returned to theaters as the extended version of the movie. Photo credit: Caroline Tanner.

Marvel fans everywhere flooded to movie theaters to catch “Spider-Man: No Way Home” as it returned to the box office as the “More Fun Stuff Version” this weekend. This version had an extra 11 minutes of footage in the movie that was cut out of the original version. I was excited to go see this movie again because I enjoyed the original version, and I was curious to see what footage they decided not to include.

I was very surprised that they left out the footage that was new in the extended version. I found that most of the scenes were quite hilarious, but I have some thoughts as to why I think the producers left out a few of them. One scene that I do not understand why the producers cut out of the original movie was when Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man interested the other two Spider-Men by telling them about his ability to shoot webs out of holes in his wrist. Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man told him, “That’s so cool man. Like I wanna see the holes.” The whole theater of adults busted out laughing when they heard this line.

I do see how the producers might have left some of the lines out of the original movie because they might have thought they were a bit too inappropriate. However, there have been more inappropriate lines that the producers have kept in other Marvel movies. I also think that if they left this line about Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man wanting to see the holes, younger children would have simply brushed it off and not thought anything of it.

I enjoyed that there were more clips of Matt Murdock/Daredevil in the movie, though there was not much more we saw of him. I also understand that they might have wanted to cut those scenes out because it was not terribly important to the storyline, and it was only about an extra five second clip of him. There was only one new part of the extended version that I was not totally in love with, and that was the end credit scene. It was not that important to the storyline of Spider-Man, and it did not add anything new to the Marvel Universe. It was not terrible, but I do not think that it was worth sitting through ten minutes of credits to see it.

All in all, I strongly feel that this extended version is better than the original version, and it made me fall in love with the movie all over again. Overall, I thought that the extra 11 minutes of footage added to the entertainment value of the movie. I thought that most of the new scenes were very funny and made Marvel fans everywhere laugh. Whether you have seen the original version of “Spider-Man: No Way Home” already or not, I think that the “More Fun Stuff Version” is more fun.