Spider-Man: No Way Home continues to entertain moviegoing audiences the world over. The new MCU film sees Peter Parker grappling with a cavalcade of Multiversal baddies from Marvel's past. Villains such as Jamie Foxx's electro and Rhys Ifans' Lizard show up on the main MCU earth to cause trouble for Spider-Man and his allies.
While Spider-Man himself was given a variety of new suits in the film, some of these classic villains arrive sporting updated looks themselves.
And one in particular, Willem Defoe's Green Goblin drastically modifies his armor to give himself a fresh coat of paint as it were.
Doc Ock's Got Some Brand New Duds
Spider-Man: No Way Home costume designer, Sanja Milković Hays, spoke to Variety about the many new suits and character designs that the characters were rocking in the film.
Hayes had this to say on the process of updating Green Goblin's armor from the 2002 Sam Raimi Spider-Man movie:
“[We] needed to respect the originals, but also bring them up to the aesthetics of what the new generation expects from us. So it is upgraded and the technology for the way it was made is very different,”
Another classic antagonist, Alfred Molina's Doctor Octopus also received some improvements that were a bit more subtle than Goblin's:
“The original coat was sort of greenish and brownish. We went greener with his trench coat and made it tighter, more form-fitting. The idea was to give him more of the villain look of today.”
Hays also explained the reasoning behind a major change for Ock: Making his tentacles CGI as opposed to the original, practical effect they once were.
“It’s essential to make it as much as possible for actors not to have to think about the costumes, as there is so much else for them to do.”
Were The Spider-Man Villains Changed For The Better?
Certainly, out of all five bad guys in No Way Home, the Green Goblin and Electro received the most drastic updates. Electro, as he appeared in 2014's The Amazing Spider-Man 2, was blue and wore a dark-colored, form-fitting bodysuit. In his new appearance, all of that was stripped away and he essentially takes on the form of present-day Jamie Foxx.
Green Goblin begins the film with his classic Raimi armor but quickly abandons it in favor of a more cobbled-together, battle-damaged appearance. He even smashes his trademark mask in a fit of rage.
While fans likely would have been just fine with leaving the villains the way they were, these changes are refreshing and modern. And the core of each character is still there from the last time fans left them in their respective films.
Would it have been neat to see Doc Ock sport something a little more "comic booky" than a trench coat this time around, audiences seem to be responding positively to the character's interpretation in the film regardless.
Marvel Studios' Spider-Man: No Way Home is now in theaters in many markets around the globe.
