Spider-Man: No Way Home may be packed with Multiversal villains, Doctor Strange, and potentially multiple Spider-Men, but at its core, the threequel is about Tom Holland's Peter Parker wrestling with the loss of his identity and the impact on those around him. Teasers, trailers, and TV spots for No Way Home, as well as the newly released first minute of the film, have shown Spider-Man and his friends dealing with the fallout of Mysterio's claim that Spidey caused his death and is, in fact, Peter Parker.
This problem is one that has never been explored in a Spider-Man film before, but this isn't the first instance of the MCU going a different route than Spidey films that came before. Both Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield's versions of Spider-Man graduated high school in their first and second films, respectively.
Only now, in the MCU's third solo Spidey film, is Peter Parker approaching the end of his high school career; and a newly released clip from the upcoming film has shown how Peter sees the future as the answer to his current problems.
New Spider-Man 3 Clip Highlights Peter Parker's College "Escape"
A new Spider-Man: No Way Home clip, released on Good Morning America and shared via @sebbazz, shows Peter, MJ, and Ned discussing their college plans and how it will offer the trio a "fresh start."
The clip begins with the three on a rooftop and appears to follow a previously released clip where Ned interrupts Peter and MJ's kiss. Ned begins by saying, "If we get into MIT, we should live together!"
After Peter and MJ agree to the idea, Peter goes on to say, "New school, new town. I could Spider-Man there. I mean, they have crime in Boston, right?"
As he takes MJ's hand, he continues on explaining how college could be the answer to their problems, "Yeah, so it'll be like a fresh start, and we'll all be together."
After MJ echoes Peter's claim of a "fresh start," Ned does the same, placing his hand on top of theirs.
The full clip, as shared by YouTube user Un Poco de Marvel, can be seen below:
This isn't the first time leading up to No Way Home's release that fans have heard about Spidey's college plans. Tom Holland recently confirmed that his character "is finally heading off to college" in a world that "knows that he is Spider-Man."
While the marketing for the film has only highlighted Peter Parker's current predicament and his desire to fix it, just where audiences find the character when the credits roll - and whether or not college with his friends is still a possibility - remains to be seen.
Is Spider-Man Bound for Boston?
Since this scene appears to take place after Peter and MJ's interrupted kiss and that opening scene in the film's first trailer, it doesn't look like Peter will continue to see college as his only option of "escape" from his new problems.
After all, audiences know that he will go to Doctor Strange at some point for help, leading to that doomed spell that supposedly cracks open the Multiverse.
Still, the fact that Peter's college plans play a part in No Way Home could imply that college will be the focus of Spider-Man's next trilogy; and even though Peter sees MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) as a fresh start, it actually has ties to both his past and the future of the MCU.
Previous MCU films have confirmed that Tony Stark was an MIT alumnus, and he actually brought up the importance of college plans and his pull at the Boston-based university in Spider-Man: Homecoming.
Also, in Captain America: Civil War, Stark appeared at MIT where he showcased Binarily Augmented Retro-Framing or B.A.R.F. which happened to be designed by Quentin Beck and led to him becoming Mysterio.
In addition, the cast and crew of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever actually shot on-location at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where upcoming Marvel character Riri Williams or Ironheart attends. Therefore, it's safe to say that MIT's presence within the MCU looks to continue.
Finally, on a different note, it's worth mentioning that Peter Parker's question about there being crime in Boston echoes an exchange between Andrew Garfield's Peter Parker and Emma Stone's Gwen Stacy in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. After she is accepted at Oxford University, and he decides to go with her, he asks her if there's crime in London in a similar fashion.
This, of course, isn't the only parallel between the MCU's MJ and The Amazing Spider-Man's Gwen Stacy, as a clip of MJ falling has been compared to Gwen's fateful fall in the Andrew Garfield Spider-Man sequel.
So will we see Tom Holland attend MIT in the future of the MCU? Does this additional, new parallel between MJ and Gwen Stacy imply Zendaya's run in the MCU is coming to an end? Thankfully, fans won't have to wait much longer to find out.
Spider-Man: No Way Home swings into theaters on December 17, 2021.
