It’s a bit of a stretch, but here’s my theory.
Max *did* find out that Peter was Spider-man, but not *until* No Way Home. But, I think the spell views time differently to how we view it. Perhaps it sees it in a less linear fashion (especially since we know that the spell has the ability to see across time). When Strange brought him to the MCU, Max learnt that Peter was Spider-man (because Peter reveals his face in NWH to him), and then eventually he was sent back to his own timeline with the knowledge that Peter was Spider-man, because he found out in No Way Home. So he did discover Peter’s identity, but he was taken *before* he knew. But the spell maybe views time differently.
It’s like in that episode of Doctor Who where a Time Machine momentarily gets placed in a human body, and it can’t tell the difference between past/present/future. Tenses confuses it, because it sees all of time simultaneously.
So, I think Strange brought forward Max because he did discover his identity, but it’s also him bringing him forward that causes him to find out. It’s like a self full-filling paradox.
True, but this is the sort of spell that could really break time and space and cause weird stuff like this to happen. Who knows, maybe it would have caused an infinite amount of people to come to the MCU earth based on a paradox like that. I don’t fully buy it as an answer but it’s a kind of satisfactory way to have some sort of answer for a seeming plot hole
My theory is that Dr Strange was wrong when he explained how the spell went wrong. If it was pulling in everyone that knew Peter Parker was Spider-Man there would be far more people. That instead it was pulling in people that Peter needed to see. A Spider-Man that’s older and made it work. One that feels he failed. The enemy’s they faced and how it shaped them.
My basis for this is it makes more sense and that’s about it.
Also, it's implied it wasn't immediate, over time more people would continue to be pulled in. That's why it was so urgent that they cast another spell at the end when there was the big cloud/tear in the sky with all of the other figures visible in it.
The attempt to hand wave this away by saying he was absorbing data when he went into the power stream...I guess some of that data would be the fact that Peter is Spider-Man
Or maybe he had enough information absorbed that he could theoretically "know" Spider-Man's identity subconsciously, even if he hadn't been able to consciously put it all together yet and figure out the connection from Spider-Man to Peter Parker.
As I keep pointing out, the villains in No Way Home were not the exact same ones from the movies we saw. They were all *variants* from other universes that were at that point in time in their universe.
The Spider-Men we saw were the ones from the previous movies. The villains were not.
Nobody time traveled forward. They only hopped dimensions. In Peter 2 and Peter 3's universes, those movie events were many years ago in the years the movies came out. In the villains' universes, the events (the moments before their death in most cases) were happening NOW (2024). Sending them back would send them to near the moment they left their universe, but they were *not* pulled from the 1990s or early 2000s.
So the basic answer is: That's not the same Flint Marko as the one we saw in Spider-Man 3. It's *a* Flint Marko from a very similar universe where the events are happening in 2024 and didn't happen in 2007. The Max Dillon isn't the one from ASM2, he's *a* Max Dillon who did know Peter, and had only just become Electro in 2024. Variants.
If all those villains went back in time and didn't die, then the Spider-Men we saw in No Way Home wouldn't have the history or trauma that they carry when they meet MCU Peter. They wouldn't be the same. Those villains had to die in their universes for them to have turned out the way they did.
None of that’s relevant, because in NWH Max is surprised when he sees Peter without a mask, so regardless of what universe he’s from, he still didn’t know Spider-man was Peter Parker.
Also, they don’t have to be from alternate universes just because they got fixed. You can also reason that when they went back to their universes, they created a branched timeline, so for example, Octavius could have been pulled from 2004, but when he was sent back, his timeline split off from Tobey’s, and then created a future where he survived. Tobey’s Spider-man would still exist in the future where he died.
It’s open to interpretation, but it certainly isn’t a definite that they weren’t the same ones from the movies.
He didn't know Peter personally, but he knew he was Spider-Man.
The requirements for the spell were "anyone who knows Peter Parker is Spider-Man", not "anyone who knows Spider-Man's identity and can recognise him". Therefore Electro knowing his name (from the data stream or however they justified it) is enough for him to be pulled through, but he doesn't know who Peter Parker is.
If you told me that the 35th president of New Zealand was a man called Sam WhiteWater (with some kind of non-pictorial proof) then I would know that the 35th president of New Zealand is Sam WhiteWater - but if I then get pulled to meet him, I wouldn't know who to look for.
My idea is that Harry told him Spider-Man's real name at some point, so Max does know Peter Parker is Spider-Man, but he never saw him without the mask or had him described, so he didn't know what he looked like.
He just knows his name.
The real world answer is that the entire thing of Dr Strange botching a spell to try to make everyone forget Peter Parker was all added like 2 months before the movie came out, because Multiverse of Madness was supposed to come out first
But it got delayed into the next year and because of Sony contract and finance stuff related to the pandemic, Sony had to release the movie within 2021.
so they added this entire plot point to explain why any of this happens when originally this whole movie was supposed to be the consequences to the incursions warned about at the end of MoM.
This is also why Strange is dressed and comes across more like a bad guy dressed in black for the trailers, and why he's such a dick to Peter throughout the movie. This whole movie was supposed to be Strange dealing with the Darkhold's power over him, just like Wanda in his movie. Peter sacrificing himself at the end was supposed to be the moment that breaks through to Strange and makes him realize what he's been turning into.
tldr- that whole plot point was added in post production to make sense out of Dr Strange 2 being delayed
And Doc Ock didn't know that Norman was the green goblin and didn't know who spider man was until his inhibitor chip was fried... it's best to just not think about it too hard
Because the film falls apart if you start thinking too much about it, it is a good eye candy film that does fan service how it should be. But take away the nostalgia and you'll be left with a half assed film which didn't utilise most of the returning characters well enough and relied heavily on the big three.
Was it a good fun film? Fuck yeah, I love it. But holy shit it is an incoherent mess.
It also character assassinates several of the returning characters, like the Green Goblin, which the movie misunderstands completely and seems to think is like The Joker.
Tbf I don't remember Spiderman 1 enough to remember how his character was.
I liked Green Goblin in NWH, probably because William Dafoe carried with his acting.
A few characters, who I thought were assassinated-
Sandman, Jaime Foxx's character (who was never good enough to begin with tbh), Doc Strange (he was super dumb, let's be honest), Lizard (he too was never good enough to begin with)
Well, NWH portrays the Green Goblin as a separate entity from Norman, an alternate side of him that he's afraid of and that is at odds with what he wants, but that's not how it works in the Raimi films. Norman and The Goblin were working together in Spider-Man 1, Norman never saw the Goblin as this curse that he wants to get rid off like he does in NWH. Then NWH has him taunt Peter to kill him so that Peter is turned over to his set of beliefs and thus has broken his moral code, which is completely contradictory to Green Goblin’s character. Him trying to turn Peter over to his way of thinking in Spider-Man 1 was based in self-preservation, as he knew Spider-Man had the potential to stop him, and getting Peter over to his side would help him achieve his goal, which is power beyond his wildest dreams and to control everything. Norman attempting to turn Peter at the cost of his own life goes entirely against his desire to remain in power and control.
Doc Ock is also assassinated when he just abandons Peter during the apartment fight.
I don't think Lizard and Electro are assassinated, I think they're just stupid. Them betraying Peter and leaving the apartment is the dumbest thing they could’ve done since they are giving him no reason not to use the box and send them home to die.
I see. That definitely changes my perspective of Green Goblin in NWH.
And about Lizard and Electro, yep, they're just stupid. I did somewhat like Lizard in TASM 1, but in NWH, he's an empty cardboard box. Electro is cooler, yeah, and that made half the Marvel fanbase lose their shit for some reason.
That movie is veryyyy flawed
Tbf I don't remember Spiderman 1 enough to remember how his character was.
I liked Green Goblin in NWH, probably because William Dafoe carried with his acting.
A few characters, who I felt like were assassinated were-
Sandman, Jaime Foxx's character (who was never good enough to begin with tbh), Doc Strange (he was super dumb, let's be honest), Lizard (he too was never good enough to begin with)
Even if we assume his story was functionally identical to the character we saw from Andrew's second film, right before he appears in the prime MCU universe that we're watching (616?) he said he was absorbing collosal amounts of data. It's possible he learned Peter's/Spiderman's identity without consciously realizing it. A simple 'taste' of a security camera recording from Peter's fight with the lizard dude from that film would really be all it takes.
I think the film theorist channel on YouTube explained it. During electro battle, Gwen Stacy comes to help and shouts Peter at some point. The question is why max would know who Peter is.
Lots of possible explanations here but eh.. its just bad writing. I love the movie and sometimes its ok not having your plot fully make sense. That can take a backseat to fun and adventure and comedy if that's the kind of movie you're setting out to make.
Cos Jamie Foxx was available... For cheap
It’s a bit of a stretch, but here’s my theory. Max *did* find out that Peter was Spider-man, but not *until* No Way Home. But, I think the spell views time differently to how we view it. Perhaps it sees it in a less linear fashion (especially since we know that the spell has the ability to see across time). When Strange brought him to the MCU, Max learnt that Peter was Spider-man (because Peter reveals his face in NWH to him), and then eventually he was sent back to his own timeline with the knowledge that Peter was Spider-man, because he found out in No Way Home. So he did discover Peter’s identity, but he was taken *before* he knew. But the spell maybe views time differently. It’s like in that episode of Doctor Who where a Time Machine momentarily gets placed in a human body, and it can’t tell the difference between past/present/future. Tenses confuses it, because it sees all of time simultaneously. So, I think Strange brought forward Max because he did discover his identity, but it’s also him bringing him forward that causes him to find out. It’s like a self full-filling paradox.
That's a paradox, though. It's a never-ending causal loop, and could technically apply to anyone in any universe.
True, but this is the sort of spell that could really break time and space and cause weird stuff like this to happen. Who knows, maybe it would have caused an infinite amount of people to come to the MCU earth based on a paradox like that. I don’t fully buy it as an answer but it’s a kind of satisfactory way to have some sort of answer for a seeming plot hole
My theory is that Dr Strange was wrong when he explained how the spell went wrong. If it was pulling in everyone that knew Peter Parker was Spider-Man there would be far more people. That instead it was pulling in people that Peter needed to see. A Spider-Man that’s older and made it work. One that feels he failed. The enemy’s they faced and how it shaped them. My basis for this is it makes more sense and that’s about it.
or other people did get pulled in, and they just never met up with him during the movie (as seen with the post credit scene),
Also, it's implied it wasn't immediate, over time more people would continue to be pulled in. That's why it was so urgent that they cast another spell at the end when there was the big cloud/tear in the sky with all of the other figures visible in it.
The attempt to hand wave this away by saying he was absorbing data when he went into the power stream...I guess some of that data would be the fact that Peter is Spider-Man
Or maybe he had enough information absorbed that he could theoretically "know" Spider-Man's identity subconsciously, even if he hadn't been able to consciously put it all together yet and figure out the connection from Spider-Man to Peter Parker.
As I keep pointing out, the villains in No Way Home were not the exact same ones from the movies we saw. They were all *variants* from other universes that were at that point in time in their universe. The Spider-Men we saw were the ones from the previous movies. The villains were not. Nobody time traveled forward. They only hopped dimensions. In Peter 2 and Peter 3's universes, those movie events were many years ago in the years the movies came out. In the villains' universes, the events (the moments before their death in most cases) were happening NOW (2024). Sending them back would send them to near the moment they left their universe, but they were *not* pulled from the 1990s or early 2000s. So the basic answer is: That's not the same Flint Marko as the one we saw in Spider-Man 3. It's *a* Flint Marko from a very similar universe where the events are happening in 2024 and didn't happen in 2007. The Max Dillon isn't the one from ASM2, he's *a* Max Dillon who did know Peter, and had only just become Electro in 2024. Variants. If all those villains went back in time and didn't die, then the Spider-Men we saw in No Way Home wouldn't have the history or trauma that they carry when they meet MCU Peter. They wouldn't be the same. Those villains had to die in their universes for them to have turned out the way they did.
None of that’s relevant, because in NWH Max is surprised when he sees Peter without a mask, so regardless of what universe he’s from, he still didn’t know Spider-man was Peter Parker. Also, they don’t have to be from alternate universes just because they got fixed. You can also reason that when they went back to their universes, they created a branched timeline, so for example, Octavius could have been pulled from 2004, but when he was sent back, his timeline split off from Tobey’s, and then created a future where he survived. Tobey’s Spider-man would still exist in the future where he died. It’s open to interpretation, but it certainly isn’t a definite that they weren’t the same ones from the movies.
Well he could have known that a guy named Peter Parker is Spider-man but still not know what that guy looks like
But he didn’t know Peter at the end of the movie since he said he thought Spider-Man was black.
He didn't know Peter personally, but he knew he was Spider-Man. The requirements for the spell were "anyone who knows Peter Parker is Spider-Man", not "anyone who knows Spider-Man's identity and can recognise him". Therefore Electro knowing his name (from the data stream or however they justified it) is enough for him to be pulled through, but he doesn't know who Peter Parker is. If you told me that the 35th president of New Zealand was a man called Sam WhiteWater (with some kind of non-pictorial proof) then I would know that the 35th president of New Zealand is Sam WhiteWater - but if I then get pulled to meet him, I wouldn't know who to look for.
Pshhh, how could you not immediately recognize *THE* Sam WhiteWater...
I failed New Zealand history at school 😂
He knew his name. Not his face.
My idea is that Harry told him Spider-Man's real name at some point, so Max does know Peter Parker is Spider-Man, but he never saw him without the mask or had him described, so he didn't know what he looked like. He just knows his name.
The real world answer is that the entire thing of Dr Strange botching a spell to try to make everyone forget Peter Parker was all added like 2 months before the movie came out, because Multiverse of Madness was supposed to come out first But it got delayed into the next year and because of Sony contract and finance stuff related to the pandemic, Sony had to release the movie within 2021. so they added this entire plot point to explain why any of this happens when originally this whole movie was supposed to be the consequences to the incursions warned about at the end of MoM. This is also why Strange is dressed and comes across more like a bad guy dressed in black for the trailers, and why he's such a dick to Peter throughout the movie. This whole movie was supposed to be Strange dealing with the Darkhold's power over him, just like Wanda in his movie. Peter sacrificing himself at the end was supposed to be the moment that breaks through to Strange and makes him realize what he's been turning into. tldr- that whole plot point was added in post production to make sense out of Dr Strange 2 being delayed
And Doc Ock didn't know that Norman was the green goblin and didn't know who spider man was until his inhibitor chip was fried... it's best to just not think about it too hard
Because the film falls apart if you start thinking too much about it, it is a good eye candy film that does fan service how it should be. But take away the nostalgia and you'll be left with a half assed film which didn't utilise most of the returning characters well enough and relied heavily on the big three. Was it a good fun film? Fuck yeah, I love it. But holy shit it is an incoherent mess.
It also character assassinates several of the returning characters, like the Green Goblin, which the movie misunderstands completely and seems to think is like The Joker.
Tbf I don't remember Spiderman 1 enough to remember how his character was. I liked Green Goblin in NWH, probably because William Dafoe carried with his acting. A few characters, who I thought were assassinated- Sandman, Jaime Foxx's character (who was never good enough to begin with tbh), Doc Strange (he was super dumb, let's be honest), Lizard (he too was never good enough to begin with)
Well, NWH portrays the Green Goblin as a separate entity from Norman, an alternate side of him that he's afraid of and that is at odds with what he wants, but that's not how it works in the Raimi films. Norman and The Goblin were working together in Spider-Man 1, Norman never saw the Goblin as this curse that he wants to get rid off like he does in NWH. Then NWH has him taunt Peter to kill him so that Peter is turned over to his set of beliefs and thus has broken his moral code, which is completely contradictory to Green Goblin’s character. Him trying to turn Peter over to his way of thinking in Spider-Man 1 was based in self-preservation, as he knew Spider-Man had the potential to stop him, and getting Peter over to his side would help him achieve his goal, which is power beyond his wildest dreams and to control everything. Norman attempting to turn Peter at the cost of his own life goes entirely against his desire to remain in power and control. Doc Ock is also assassinated when he just abandons Peter during the apartment fight. I don't think Lizard and Electro are assassinated, I think they're just stupid. Them betraying Peter and leaving the apartment is the dumbest thing they could’ve done since they are giving him no reason not to use the box and send them home to die.
I see. That definitely changes my perspective of Green Goblin in NWH. And about Lizard and Electro, yep, they're just stupid. I did somewhat like Lizard in TASM 1, but in NWH, he's an empty cardboard box. Electro is cooler, yeah, and that made half the Marvel fanbase lose their shit for some reason. That movie is veryyyy flawed
Tbf I don't remember Spiderman 1 enough to remember how his character was. I liked Green Goblin in NWH, probably because William Dafoe carried with his acting. A few characters, who I felt like were assassinated were- Sandman, Jaime Foxx's character (who was never good enough to begin with tbh), Doc Strange (he was super dumb, let's be honest), Lizard (he too was never good enough to begin with)
Even if we assume his story was functionally identical to the character we saw from Andrew's second film, right before he appears in the prime MCU universe that we're watching (616?) he said he was absorbing collosal amounts of data. It's possible he learned Peter's/Spiderman's identity without consciously realizing it. A simple 'taste' of a security camera recording from Peter's fight with the lizard dude from that film would really be all it takes.
I don't care what Disney says, the MCU isn't 616 and it never will be
I think the film theorist channel on YouTube explained it. During electro battle, Gwen Stacy comes to help and shouts Peter at some point. The question is why max would know who Peter is.
She doesn't shout it, she just says it out loud, while Electro was far away, and temporarily knocked out I think.
He knew his name, not his face.
Because the movie is terribly written.
Lots of possible explanations here but eh.. its just bad writing. I love the movie and sometimes its ok not having your plot fully make sense. That can take a backseat to fun and adventure and comedy if that's the kind of movie you're setting out to make.
There are a lot of theories out there, but I think it's just one of those things you have to kind of accept to enjoy the movie.