Greats of Yester-Year: Spider-Man 2

Sam Raimi, your touch will be missed.

In 1978, Richard Donner took us into Metropolis and made us all believe that a man could fly. Being that my parents had not even met in 1978, I did not believe it. I was not there. But as a child, watching Christopher Reeve sail through the skies, it was all I needed to believe that the world would be okay. Reeve and Donner's Superman film gave hope a face. Optimism wore a red cape and boots. And all the possibilities within ourselves were inspired to beautiful life.

Superman was more than just a movie. It stirred within everyone the belief in heroes, both within and outside ourselves. On that basis, it was an experience.

Superhero movies got better. Darker. More complex. They swung from heavily stylized and high-energy to gritty and, dare-I-say, realistic. At some point, it mattered where Batman got his toys. And the answers were excellent.

But in 2002 came Spider-Man. And in it, something surprisingly close to the experience of the original Superman for its younger generation of viewers. A beneficiary of timing, Spider-Man came touting a pro-American, pro-New York, pro-hero message to a nation barely beginning to step past one of its darkest hours.

Spider-Man was good.

So it was with no small amount of enthusiasm that geeks around the world looked upon this teaser for Spider-Man 2 with mouths grinning and eyes wide. Comic fans, geeks, the world had embraced Spider-Man, and with that came the promise of a sequel larger in every way. And, if we were lucky, better.

But the joy turned out to not just arrive with the first glimpse of footage. No, Spider-Man 2 would not be content to just blast us with a montage of its action scenes with heroic music.

Spider-Man 2 had to slap us in the face and remind us all what kind of a world this was. A real one. A romantic one. A dangerous one.

The teaser for Spider-Man 2, for those who don't watch the videos as they are posted above, starts with something cut out of a chick-flick, where Mary Jane Watson, the song that keeps Peter Parker's heart beating, asks him point blank if he loves her. From the first film, we know that he does. Can see that he does. Can see that he wants more than anything in the world to say so. To embrace her.

But from the first film, we also know that he cannot. For with his great power, comes a great responsibility and he can't put her life in danger for anything.

So he says no. She processes this, fails to believe it, and demands a kiss. And just as he is about to oblige, and his ultimate test be presented to him, his spider-sense tingles and tells him (and the emotionally invested audience) to duck.

For there is a car coming through the window at them.

As only a Spider-Man could, he grabs her, flattens her to the deck, allowing the car to sail inches above them as it crashes into the restaurant behind them. It's a great twist. Like jumping with fright while you're laughing at a joke, Spidey gets us while we are painfully involved in his love life.

The rest of the trailer plays out as a standard montage, accompanied by Danny Elfman's incredible score from the first movie.

And for its precious short run-time, we are given the original Superman experience, where we are reminded that heroes exist. They inspire. They uplift. They fight until there is no fight left in them, and even then, they fight some more.

It's a fantastic teaser that set the bar ridiculously high for the film itself. And luckily for us, Spider-Man 2 leapt over that bar with air to spare.

Like only Superman had accomplished before it, Spider-Man had us believing that a man could fly. But not because the effects were good. Because it was one of the rare times that fake heroes became absolutely real.

Sam Raimi, you will be missed.