I wanna talk about Norman Osborn from the very first Spider-man film and the thing that keeps ringing in my head. You probably left the movie with Peter’s narrative in your mind, but when I walked out of the movie, the thing which kept intriguing me was the bad guy of the story was much more of a victim rather than a villain.
Before you witness him becoming a villain, you witness him becoming a victim. It is only when his life’s work is threatened, that he decides to embrace his dark side by volunteering as the first human subject for his super soldier like serum. The serum then messes with his brain and the dark side fully takes over.
Then you finally see him as a villain with scenes like these where he kills the Army general and the board of directors of his company, Oscorp. But even though he commits these heinous acts, I was having a difficult time looking at him as a villain because these scenes felt like Norman was simply fighting to keep his company alive. The only problem here was the way he chose to do it with.
Even when Norman attacks the poor old aunt May, instead of believing that Norman is a villain, the scene when he is pushed out of his own company kept playing in my mind over and over again. It had me totally convinced that no matter what Norman does, I will never see him as a villain because the people who surround his business will always push him towards making villainous or controversial choices. But his war with Spider-man is obviously not business related, it’s just a little detour that the movie took.
The only time when I almost fell towards looking at Norman as a villain was when he tried to kill Mary Jane and a bunch of little kids while giving Spider-man the choice to save only one of these two.
But in all honesty, it felt like there could have been a much more intense way of establishing Norman on the villain side to overpower his victim side so that I could finally stop empathizing with him and root for him to lose at the hands of Spider-man.
So in the end, I want to know what you thought about Norman Osborn and the Green Goblin. Do you see him simply as a villain or do you see him as a complex victim of complicated circumstances? Think about it and leave a thought provoking answer in the comments. Until then, follow this channel so you can stay tuned to some film philosophy every Monday.
In the hopes of connecting with film lovers all over the world, this is Mr. Zeecon, in the making of a great story.
http://zeeconstory.com/
Before you witness him becoming a villain, you witness him becoming a victim. It is only when his life’s work is threatened, that he decides to embrace his dark side by volunteering as the first human subject for his super soldier like serum. The serum then messes with his brain and the dark side fully takes over.
Then you finally see him as a villain with scenes like these where he kills the Army general and the board of directors of his company, Oscorp. But even though he commits these heinous acts, I was having a difficult time looking at him as a villain because these scenes felt like Norman was simply fighting to keep his company alive. The only problem here was the way he chose to do it with.
Even when Norman attacks the poor old aunt May, instead of believing that Norman is a villain, the scene when he is pushed out of his own company kept playing in my mind over and over again. It had me totally convinced that no matter what Norman does, I will never see him as a villain because the people who surround his business will always push him towards making villainous or controversial choices. But his war with Spider-man is obviously not business related, it’s just a little detour that the movie took.
The only time when I almost fell towards looking at Norman as a villain was when he tried to kill Mary Jane and a bunch of little kids while giving Spider-man the choice to save only one of these two.
But in all honesty, it felt like there could have been a much more intense way of establishing Norman on the villain side to overpower his victim side so that I could finally stop empathizing with him and root for him to lose at the hands of Spider-man.
So in the end, I want to know what you thought about Norman Osborn and the Green Goblin. Do you see him simply as a villain or do you see him as a complex victim of complicated circumstances? Think about it and leave a thought provoking answer in the comments. Until then, follow this channel so you can stay tuned to some film philosophy every Monday.
In the hopes of connecting with film lovers all over the world, this is Mr. Zeecon, in the making of a great story.
http://zeeconstory.com/
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