Spider-Man: No Way Home is not only one of the highest-grossing MCU movies to date, but also among the most acclaimed from the company’s impressive 27-movie lineup. Perhaps that alone explains why a lot of fans are hell-bent on continuously debating the possibility that the movie might not be all that impressive if you strip away the surprise cameos and appearances from previous Spider-Man actors.
A recent Reddit thread that’s been going viral within the fandom once again brings the question to the fore: Was No Way Home more than the sum of its fan-service moments and surprise cameos? Or did Marvel essentially trick us into sitting through a 2-hour trip down memory lane?
The majority of fans seem to be of the opinion that No Way Home can stand on its own two feet even without the cameos due to its cinematic brilliance, namely the Aunt May twist and the sequences that followed it.
Many folks admit that while the movie indeed contained tons of fan-service moments, they were handled in a compelling manner.
Of course, many think that Tobey and Andrew’s role in the film was not a cameo or fan-service, but rather an integral part of the narrative.
That’s not to say a lot of fans don’t stand by their criticisms. In fact, some in the thread have gone out of their way to break down the core issue lying at the heart of No Way Home by writing up long bodies of text such as the one you see below.
When all is said and done, no one could claim that No Way Home was, by any stretch of the imagination, a divisive movie. That being said, it increasingly looks as though fans are questioning Marvel about whether it is actually living up to the high bar of the Infinity Saga, or simply riding on its success by leaning into nostalgic elements, a continuation of which philosophy is also apparent in the latest Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
