u/Honest_Cheesecake698

It has been spoken of quite a lot how poor the twist in Jigsaw 2017 is, both regarding how the game we see was actually played before all the others and Logan's involvement in being the first helper of John's. There's plenty you could say, but I'd like to focus on Logan being retroactively attached to the backstory of the franchise and how the way it's portrayed does nothing but raise questions.

So in the flashback at the end, see that Logan was the Buckethead that didn't immediately wake up and as a result got buzz sawed in the back. The reason why he was put in the trap was because he accidentally mislabelled John's X-Ray, meaning his cancer wasn't discovered. Despite this, John saves his life, seemingly because of his own mistake of accidentally giving Logan too much sedative balancing things out. You can debate how in character this is, especially for a John Kramer who was just starting out, but that's how it goes, and what we see then is Logan helping John and constructing the Reverse Bear Trap. We do get dialogue between them, and it's clarified that Jigsaw gave him purpose after he came back from the war a broken man. But it's never explained if Logan was involved in the long term or the short term, but neither of these choices work.

1. Short term, he was just recruited for some help and then either left or was allowed to leave.

A more in character version of John would save Logan and then drop him off at a hospital without revealing his identity. But okay, he wants to recruit Logan to help him. Yet that leads to the question:

Why? Logan knows who John is, knows that he's the Jigsaw Killer, has actively assisted him and is perfectly easy to manipulate and keep around. And has John ever been the kind of person to simply let someone walk away of their own accord? Even when someone survives their test, he's still done things like decided to use them in other games or recruit them. And he did everything in his power to keep his identity a secret till he allowed the police to find him on his own terms.

I know that Logan might not have been the perfect accomplice given his behaviour in present day, but that was after his offscreen wife's death. It's likely that beforehand, he could have actually been a solid assistant to John in the long term. Logan would have been far more capable than Amanda or Hoffman too. Plus, John had no leverage over Logan beyond simply having saved his life, so Logan easily could have been the kind of person to betray his new master.

The idea of Logan only being a short term partner makes Jigsaw look incredibly short sighted and also doesn't seem to fit his characterisation. Why is Logan the one person allowed to walk away or be sent away, when Dr Gordon, Hoffman, Amanda and so many others weren't?

Finally, it gets weirder when you consider that Logan's sin was one that resulted in John only getting diagnosed with cancer when it was too late to fully treat it, and yet the mistake with the sedatives was enough to make John go "You know what, not only do you not deserve to die, not only can you come and help me, but you can also leave when you want to". Hoffman was kept under blackmail because he copied a Jigsaw trap and individuals that did far less harmful things to Jigsaw were either put in traps or kept around. The idea that he could find it in his heart to allow Logan to go free, again especially before Saw 1, is laughable.

This is all speculation, but given the tie in it does make sense to consider the other films. However, if Jigsaw got a sequel and tried to explain how Logan was there during the other movies, that would run into other issues too.

2. Long term, he was around for certain entries in the series.

Obvious question is where was he, which is amped up by how much we'd already seen in flashbacks of the building of the various Jigsaw games that 3 different apprentices took part in. Maybe Logan helped out, but we never saw it. The answer is that he wasn't conceived in the other films, but even if you put aside him not being shown or mentioned, it still raises questions that I don't even think a Jigsaw 2 could have answered reasonably.

If he was around up to the events of Saw 3, it would already be absurd because if they needed someone to help keep Jigsaw alive, they didn't need Lynn Delon to do it. Logan had worked in a hospital for years and easily could have had the surgical means or know-hows to help keep John alive. Maybe they would still need Lynn for some of it, but it comes across like it's taking an unneeded risk.

Also, if Logan was faithful enough to keep around, why was Amanda at all trusted with continuing his work, and why was Hoffman given any remote amount of leeway when even John knew he was far from the right guy? Importantly too, why did Logan never raise a finger or try and get involved in the events of anything after John died? If he owed something to Jigsaw, then why didn't he get involved in anything and why was he never trusted enough to be told to do something? Lawrence Gordon, a crippled Doctor who had only done surgery for the games, was essentially asked to take out Hoffman if Jill died, but Logan wasn't given the same command even though he's more physically capable?

Basically, it implies that John made no use of this perfectly good follower and essentially got screwed over because of it.

Stuff like this is why it's a lot better for Jigsaw to be in it's own continuity, because otherwise if you care at all about that then this just breaks your brain and devalues the John Kramer character.

I still remember his whispered delivery of "Good night little girl........." and "I'M GONNA KILL YOUR HUSBAND NOW MRS GORDON!". He doesn't speak loads, but when he does you can't help but listen.

This is all on casting. I have an unwatched collection of Lost on Blu Ray so I've not gotten used to him, but Michael Emerson's cadence and voice is so perfectly unsettling. Even when he's got that 15 seconds of screentime as an orderly, the way he goes "His name is JOHN" and he gives that wide eyed and mouth open stare is a little nerve wracking by itself, even if it also paints him as pathetic.

If he was given more material across the various movies even in flashbacks, he could have brought the energy and tension that Saw 1 had with him just by his mere presence alone.

(I'm going by memory, so correct me if I'm wrong)

Plenty have said this is the section where the editing either feels off or it just throws a lot of information at you without giving much time to breath. And whilst this could have just simply been a result of the difficulty of giving the audience an "in" to this epic story, I think there something deliberate about how the opening stretch of this movie is presented before we actually meet Odysseus on the beach with Calypso

The movie's first moments are a Bard telling the story of Troy and Odysseus's act in vague sweeping terms, with us getting the very start of the Trojan Horse infiltration (Sinon being killed and selling the lie), but it's cut off and interrupted before it can go any further.

Then, we get the general setup on Ithaca and the situation with Penelope/Telemachus dealing with the Suitors. But within this stretch we get those flashbacks. A couple of them are just short glimpses of better times with Odysseus and Penelope, but there's others too.

We get Eumaeus remembering Odysseus as someone with enough compassion to pick out Argos the dog and keep him from being thrown off a cliff. We get Antinous remembering Odysseus as a hunter with that important bow plucking trick, plus as the guy who could have brought him into war but picked Sinon instead (either falling for or ignoring Antinous's dodging). We get Penelope remembering him as a loving husband who nevertheless felt like he forced to leave for war due to knowledge of Agamemnon and what could happen to his family/kingdom otherwise.

At the end of the day, these are all just small glimpses at the man before we actually meet him, so any amount of truncation make a bit of sense. They're all individual pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that even together don't make up the whole picture. It's only when we get Odysseus's memories that we start to understand everything and the movie starts to play out in full basically.

There's maybe more to delve into, like how each POV on Odysseus gets closer and closer to his true nature, or how the flashbacks and jumping around speaks to the general division created in Ithaca, but I'd be interested in what other people think in regard to that. Even as someone who wasn't immediately grabbed by all of this part of the film, I still saw purpose to the way it was presented.

1. The raining of the Frogs feels like a karmic resolution. Stealing the chance for Jimmy Gator to kill himself (do wish they kept in the house burning down with him in it), reuniting Claudia and her mother, making Donnie smash his teeth (which helps sell his sympathy to Jim), waking up Earl so that he can see his son one last time before he dies with Frank getting some form of acknowledgement from his dad too, making Stanley happy with him getting that line "This happens. This is something that happens". The only thing that's unclear is how Linda's ambulance crashing is supposed to be karmic, I don't think it makes a difference in whether her life is saved or not.

2. Revisiting it today it's even more impressive how the several storylines are cut together and the sense of dramatic flow is maintained via editing certain sequences together, keeping the same music running over them.

3. Is it melodramatic? In places, yeah. But it's about emotionally earnest themes and challenging subject matter, so it can afford it.

4. The pacing is pretty slow at first and in areas I can see how PTA would have edited it differently today, especially given how each storyline isn't that complex by itself. I assume he'd maybe leave out The Worm entirely, even though it does have a justification for being in the movie. There's lengthy sequences and it's unique that you're watching an epic that doesn't take place over the course of a very long time, only a day or two. At the same time, as it goes along I didn't feel the length that much and you do get sucked into the movie enough that it's easy to forget the length itself.

5. I also wondered if I'd find the music too insistent, but even that becomes normalised the more it's played and acts as a glue that connects a lot of the character's emotional states together.

6. One of the all time great ensembles, not a single bad performance. Highlights in terms of performances are that moment when Jimmy Gator stumbles and stutters before he collapses in the Quiz Show, Cruise's entire fake performance that's deliberately deconstructed, Phillip Seymour Hoffman's obviously empathetic and caring nurse, Jason Robards' monologue on regret, John C Reilly's emotional confession at the dinner date, even the side characters like Thurston Howell or Melinda Dillion's Rose Gator are really damn well acted.

7. I feel like Magnolia is PTA's least subtle film, it's very upfront and direct with it's themes. At the same time, given how the film is about coming to terms with your past and the emotions you repress, it's not like it's inappropriate. It's almost operatic.

8. From a certain point onwards I was hooked in, and seeing scenes like the Wise Up sequence and the ending especially in the cinema was a real treat, the emotions hit hard. The Goodbye Stranger sequence also has a lot of power in it's visual direction and way it establishes Donnie's desire.

9. The opening with the talk of "coincidences and chance" sets up the film in a few ways, and one of the most prominent is how the Sydney Barringer story ties into the themes of despair, self destruction, dysfunction and the consequences of poor parenting that permeate the film as a whole. I can't deny that the end of the prologue, where the door is closed behind Barringer's wailing mother and a couple of cops are behind the friend of Sydney's in a zooming in close up, followed by the cut to black and cue of Aimee Mann's "One" gave me chills.

10. My audience found Frank TJ Mackey's seminar's and vulgar dialogue hilarious and I'll assume they were laughing AT it.

Cooper's first scene is him having a nightmare and waking up. The beginning of the epilogue is him waking up.

There's the cryopods that put people into hypersleep.

Both Murph and Dr Brand die in hospital beds.

The Dylan Thomas poem specifically says "Do not go gentle into that good night, Rage against the dying of the light".

Murph's final monologue mentions "being in for the long nap".

The setting that comes through the movie is Murph's bedroom.

The sad goodbye between Cooper and Murph is on her bed.

There's probably more examples, and I don't know exactly what it means but it stuck out to me.

For me it's just the way she speaks, her slow measured poise. She always sounds like she's in control, but is also calmly gliding through every word she says.

That line is the phrase, "things will get worse before they get better". In The Dark Knight, Alfred uses it towards Bruce I believe after Rachel's death. In The Batman, Bruce himself uses it in the ending narration when talking about the aftereffects of the flood.

It's not that it doesn't have it's place in both films, it's not that it's not a saying people use in real life, and it's not that the context is the exact same. But I remember on first viewing it took me out of the moment, solely because Alfred's use of that saying in The Dark Knight felt like one of the standout lines of that movie. And whilst I doubt that it was a deliberate reference, and I'm sure that other Batman media/comics have used that line, to anyone with good memory of the standalone Batman films it feels like a direct link.

People say words to the effect of “Why does Cooper leave Murph and his new extended family?”

1. Murph got over her resentment for his having to abandon her. She literally tells him to go and that she already has her own family with her.

2. She’s about to die or is at least pretty close to dying anyway.

3. Cooper does have an extended family, but they’re strangers to him as of right now and he’s a stranger to them.

4. Cooper is taking the chance to do what he couldn’t do in the past, honour the wishes of his daughter.

5. As much as he hasn’t seen his daughter in person, knowing he helped her save humanity is a strong consolation.

6. Murph reminds Cooper that he’s still not finished the mission. Amelia Brand is indeed still out there and likely on the only potentially habitable planet. It is important that Cooper keeps going for the sake of humanity and Murph knows that.

7. Cooper had his character shift and was willing to stay to be with his daughter when all is said and done. He only fully walked out because she asked him to.

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Let's just blatantly misinterpret the movie for the sake of a cheap laugh, and apparently 56,718 people agreed.

I’m talking about how this monologue Jeremy’s father has regarding Corey’s change in personality, which is fine by itself, ends in this ridiculously pretentious aside. Here’s the monologue: “I always liked Corey. You know, some kids, you can tell they're a pain in the a*s, but Corey was a good kid.

And I just couldn't imagine he'd be capable of hurting anyone on purpose. But with the trial, I... just started spinning with theories, and... and eventually I thought, "Give it up. You're never gonna get closure. There's no such thing."

A couple of years go by, and I'd see him every now and then, see the way people avoided him or how they made faces behind his back, which, if I'm honest, pissed me off.

Because I felt like they took my pain......my despair, and they made it about them. And then, yesterday, I'm on my way to work. There he is. And I think, "I'm gonna say something, prove my wife wrong. Let's find a way to forgive this kid."

And I pull up next to him, and he looks at me, and it's not him. At least not in the eyes. And I don't know, man. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

Right then, I felt like I got my answer. The kid who used to mow our lawn didn't k*ll my son. I know that. But the guy I saw on the side of the road was down a dark path.”

All well and good, then it ends on this line: “Did the town do this to him after the accident? Or was it always there?”

Now, this isn’t wrong for the character to speculate, but it very blatantly feels like a demand for the audience to think the same thing. And honestly, there is literally no evidence that Corey was ever evil in any fashion before he encountered Michael. So the answer is blatantly obvious, it’s either the town or it’s Michael.

It bothers me because it’s begging for depth that isn’t there. It references something that’s not in the movie. Corey never shows signs of being a psychopathic killer or a bad person and the film goes out of its way to excuse anything bad he does. Like if the film wanted this debate, then you can’t write the opening accident the way they do.

Unironically; the Halloween remake did a better job at this with its version of Michael, specifically with the animal killings, and it’s left vague as to whether he started this years ago or if the current shitty environment he was raised in caused him to start harming innocent things.

Corey never acts like this, and there’s no sense that he wasn’t a largely decent person who at worst just has some impulsive control issues under stress before he shifted. If the evil was “always there”, maybe show it in some way?

I'm thinking of confusing, creepy and weird moments in horror that either go unexplained or are pretty vague even with any explanations you can come up with. I'm also thinking of examples of things happening with characters and TO characters also, though it can really be anything.

Other responses this moment could create are sayings like "What happened to them?", "Where did they come from?", "Why did that happen?", "What were they doing?", "What did they just do?", "Why are they doing that?", stuff like that.

The disappointment with there not being anything overtly supernatural and Mr Reed being a "generic villain that just captures women" is entirely fitting to the character and backs up everything we've seen of him. He thinks he's smarter than he is whilst also being very effective and prepared, he puts these two women through a grim and threatening process intended to break them. He's someone who not only isn't religious, but has a deep seated hatred for it.

With all of that in mind, if he actually knew of some kind of other higher power and demonstrated it, it wouldn't gel with his character. Mr Reed, for all of his tricks, is not a complex mythic icon or someone trying to convince others of something intricate to devote their lives to. He's just a person and he is fundamentally anti-religious.

If the movie did go "Lovecraftian" or just stuck to what we thought was going on with The Prophet, he also wouldn't be the opposite of the Mormons he's up against. Having that contrast with the two missionaries creates a genuine battle from beginning to end. I personally think he'd be a less threatening character if he was just the messenger for something else more powerful than he is too. It would also make the time spent with him feel like a waste.

Finally, making the supernatural real would trade out the ambiguity present in the film's actual ending. I think it hits harder given how it has seemingly been made clear that Religion is indeed just a form of control, that religious concepts like miracles (like resurrections) are impossible and that there is no higher power. Having Sister Barnes briefly come back to life to save Sister Paxton plays into that. Then having Sister Paxton escape, and see a butterfly which Barnes wanted to be reincarnated as, raises the question of if there actually is a higher power, and if Mr Reed was wrong all along.

Now the beat at the end where Sister Barnes's admits that she doubts Prayer works but she still does it even for Mr Reed, is a fitting enough resolution. The extension of that though is possibly a more direct refutation of Mr Reed's process, where he sets up a scenario in which someone coming back from the dead is ultimately faked. Plus, there's enough room for this to be some kind of dying fantasy, which would probably prove MR right, but show that faith persists even in actual death.

Bottom line, I think the people who wanted Heretic to reveal some kind of supernatural entity just weren't on board with what the film was going for. That's not a bad thing but I find it unfair to punish the movie because it didn't play into your expectations.

Many people reacted to the ending of the Speak No Evil remake by arguing that it was a "straightforward black and white happy ending that cathartically kills the bad guys and lets the good guys win". And sure, it's an ending that's much more like that than the famous downer ending of the 2022 Speak No Evil. But I think calling it a happy ending is itself too neat.

Beyond the general trauma of surviving that circumstance, there's one really noteworthy beat that's focused on. The death of Paddy at the hands of his "son" Ant is shown to be something he literally encourages and relishes, because he believes he's successfully corrupted Ant into being just like him. Obviously Paddy isn't exactly correct given the circumstances, but this isn't a case where the villain is being defeated in a basic sense, he's welcoming his own defeat because he thinks he's proven something and successfully left a bit of himself in this boy he kidnapped.

And also, the actual mood of the ending after Paddy dies is fairly bittersweet, it's more along the lines of "Yeah, they got out, but they'll have to deal with years of trauma, and Ant is still rattled and upset at what just happened". I think the last shot is Ant teary too.

Finally, the change to make Ciara younger and potentially at one point more of a victim of Paddy also paints her death in a darker light too. In the original film, the couple were just as evil as each other and they both lived. By making it likely that Ciara was basically groomed by Paddy into following him, having her die is at the very least less straightforwardly karmic.

Whilst I remember liking the Wolverine we focused on in that film, I personally think they played it pretty safe with him. The dramatic weight of his character is sorta undermined by just how been there done that it feels. We've seen a Logan who angsts and feels trauma from his past. We've seen a Logan who's having to handle the aftermath of Mutant Genocide (and this is another X Men being wiped out situation). We've seen a Logan who's an outcast and who has to do the right thing as a form of atonement and even self forgiveness.

It's not helped by Hugh's reprisal of the character and the fact that it's literally part of the plot that he has to live up to the other version/s of Wolverine that he's invoking, so it's pretty predictable that he'll get through his self loathing and even the audience wants him to not be so hard on himself. The writing relies on you knowing that Logan always steps up and becomes a hero, so as much as they rely on this backstory that he abandoned them to drink and killed anyone he could out of revenge and guilt, at the end of the day when he says that he's no hero, we know for a fact that that won't be true.

I think the chance to have a different Wolverine, and even specifically being designed "The worst of all of them", could have lead to more unique chances. I'll spitball some ideas:

1. A Logan who just simply refused to join the team at all and then felt immense guilt when the team died, because he didn't join them in fighting for their lives and pro Mutant cause. This is most in line with the film, and honestly I think it would have been a nice counterbalance with Deadpool being rejected for his attempt to join The Avengers. Plus, a Wolverine who never even became an X Man at all would make his becoming a hero at the end by saving Deadpool's universe more satisfying.
2. A Logan who actively sold out the X Men. It would be a heavy sin to weigh on his conscience that's worse than apathy/abandonment, him being part of the team but decided to throw them to the wolves to save his own skin? Now that would earn the status of The Worst Wolverine, but via his guilt and via what he does at the end, you could balance that out and make it so that his helping Deadpool save his universe is the ultimate form of redemption for selling out his old team.
3. A Logan who also decided not to join the X Men, but the X Men could be still alive and fairly thriving. It could be a world where Mutants are more well liked though occasionally still being fought for, but regardless this Wolverine would look bad because he refused to play ball. Every other Mutant is either fighting for their cause, living in peace or a part of the X Men. This Logan on the other hand, chose to stay a drifter with no care for using his powers to help anybody.

This would be a stretch, but I'd make this version of Logan's trauma not a Mutant Wipeout, instead specifically he went through the same Weapon X procedure as the other Wolverines only this time he remembers what he did with Stryker vividly and it's why he didn't join the X Men, because he's haunted by the terrible things he did and how Stryker betrayed and manipulated him. In a film that's in love with the past X Men franchise and plays into people's nostalgia for it, it's a shock that they felt the need to pull from the recent DOFP and Logan and not from say X2 or even Origins Wolverine where Ryan Reynolds first played Deadpool.

It's a risky move, but I'd even go as far as to get Danny Huston back as Stryker and give him some flashbacks where he can play more like the Stryker from X2, and have scenes that feel like what Stryker describes in X2 regarding Wolverine's character. It's also weird because this Wolverine knows he's been alive for 200 years, so wouldn't it be interesting if what made him so unheroic ties into how much he remembers from his long lifespan?

Any of these choices I doubt would have destroyed the movie, but what do you guys think?

And it's not because of Singer or Spacey either. Singer's X Men films do have a nostalgic appeal. Singer's Superman movie really doesn't though and that's because of the following core factors regarding Returns:

1. It's not 2000s enough to be a nice time capsule of that era as it's trying to replicate the 70s Donner aesthetic and tone, plus even having the same dialogue or kind of dialogue. The only thing about it that feels of it's time is just taking some cues from later "dark and gritty reboots", which sticks out like a sore thumb given the Donner films it's referencing.

The camp factor of many 2000s Superhero films just isn't there so even if you don't care too much about the quality, it's not satisfying in that way either.

2. It feels like a harbinger for what people didn't enjoy regarding modern takes on Superman himself in regards to him being distant, not saying much, darker and perhaps more morally grey, plus a take that's utilised more for symbolism than being a down to earth, relatable figure. And it's far worse here because this is supposed to be Reeve's Superman even with a time skip and a different actor.

3. It also feels like a harbinger for certain modern Legacy Sequels that prioritise essentially being remakes of the films they are a sequel to and relying too much on call-backs. Returns isn't a complete example of this because Legacy Sequels weren't a full on fad back then, but there's so much that's similar that it weighs down the dramatic potential for this film to have stood out.

4. Whatever the film tries to tackle has been either committed to more in other films, or done better. So there's not much of a reason to watch it. The Snyder films dedicate themselves to being different from the Donner ones, the Donner films are what they are and Superman 2025 steers away from what bogs Returns down whilst still having homages to Superman The Movie that are more restrained than Returns's.

5. Even if you appreciate the focus on drama over spectacle/universe building and feel nostalgic for that, Superman Returns's actors don't have much energy and feel wildly miscast in places, the drama between the characters is muddled by certain choices they make, the romance between Clark and Lois lacks chemistry especially because both are burdened with being angst ridden and split up, plus Clark himself is wildly unsympathetic in a lot of ways, and none of the characters feel all that 3 dimensional either.

6. Regarding the production, it's heavy on special effects that aside from some of the practical work aren't easy to appreciate because they don't look charmingly dated, they just look not as good as films made later. It's a muted film and not very appealing to look at. It takes itself very seriously outside of some jarring humour. It's a long movie that doesn't feel like an epic, rather just something that was allowed to be 154 mins so it's not short and swift either.

7. Regarding continuity, if you're in the mood for a Superhero film that feels standalone compared to many others today that rely on continuity, then Superman Returns is confused in that regard as to whether to function as a remake, reboot or sequel. It's an out of place yet repetitive Superman 3, and it's too tied to the past to function as a standalone experience whether in the iconography or specifically in how the characters behave and talk about their past history.

The best I can give Superman Returns is that it is a sincere film, but that shouldn't be mistaken for it having a strong heart. And also, I don't mean to shit on anyone who does feel nostalgic for this film or just likes it, but on the whole about 20 years later I don't think that Returns will achieve that

Right as those audio clips explaining The Entity finish, we get a flash montage of images and they're too quick to make out fully what they are. But I slowed them down and crazily enough, it's shots from the film later on. The Entity can create super realistic videos to show anyone who goes in it, but it can also predict what does end up happening in the movie too.

The one difference is that whilst it gets as far as imagining Ethan on a biplane, it also creates images of the nukes going off, a shot of Grace looking frozen (I think), Benji/Degas/Paris looking distressed and Ethan from Mission Impossible III yelling. Basically, it tells you upfront that although The Entity can predict with extreme precision certain things that'll happen, it couldn't predict it's own defeat and it always believed it would win. Hell, it didn't even create an image of Ethan in distress from the present, it had to create one from the past.

Is it a stretch that The Entity could create images of shots from the movie, yeah and I can see why this would throw people off. But if it's as powerful, all seeing, knowledgeable and as prediction heavy as it's said to be, whilst also being arrogant and genocidal, I can believe that it would think ahead enough to get some things right.

It's also interesting because the opening titles usually show quick clips from later in the movie, and this film's own opening titles do that too. It's like a dark inversion to have The Entity do it. Finally, there's something poetic about the very first piece of voiceover being from Ethan spoken over that big coffin and then followed by going into that digital space that forms the Eye and then playing all that dialogue over it.

The line is "we live and die in the shadows for those we hold close and for those we never meet". He did say this in Dead Reckoning Part One, but that separation either tells us that The Entity can't recreate it or on a more symbolic level that it's a creed that applies so much to human spirit of Ethan and his team in general that it's importantly re-played outside of the cold ruthless calculating machine.

I remember finding his character very annoying to watch because all he does for most of the film is just object to his father. That's it. Every scene he has after a certain point could be summarised as "Quarich does something bad, Spider yells 'Stop it', 'No' or 'Don't do that'". Beyond how grating this gets over the course of that runtime, there's also the character beat at the end where he saves his dad.

For me, this beat didn't feel warranted because I never felt any kind of genuine connection between them. I didn't feel like Spider had any love for Quarich, he never knew his human dad and he's only just met his Navi version of his dad, whom he spends the whole time actively yelling at or disliking being around. The only justification is just "Spider has standards and doesn't want the guy who birthed him to die". There's no other justification on his part as to why he couldn't just simply let Quarich die.

Saving him would have been more meaningful if instead of getting on people's nerves and having Spider just repeat the same thing to show that he's an innocent good kid, Spider actually did genuinely bond with Quarich. What if he was even tempted and influenced by his father's character and actions? It would make the saving at the end feel like a natural consequence, where even despite the climax going how it did, some of that manipulation/relationship stuck.

It's not that there's no justification for the save in the final film, it's just that there's not enough to give it actual weight beyond the basics. And it perhaps speaks to a very audience pleasing form of writing, where Spider has to be in the right the whole time rather than being allowed to be a naïve kid who's tempted by his dark and evil father because people would find it uncomfortable to watch Spider not be the person constantly and loudly proclaiming that his father is bad and doing the wrong thing.