The conclusion of Spider-Man: No Way Home left fans perplexed by a seemingly glaring plot hole, but now the film’s writers are clearing things up.
The point of the third act’s conclusion was to highlight the ripple effect of Peter Parker’s heart-wrenching choice, which left space for the plot hole to exist. In erasing all memory of Parker from the world — there are questions about what happens with any physical evidence that Parker was Spider-Man after Doctor Strange put the spell into place.
In a recent chat during IGN Fan Fest, Spider-Man: No Way Home writers Erik Sommers and Chris McKenna talked about the plot hole and teased that a thorough explanation might be in projects to come.
“We talked about that a lot and we can’t divulge much, but just know we talked about it a lot and there were conversations about it,” McKenna said.
“And I will say answering those questions by the end of the movie, felt like it would be almost too much to have to explain that, in this movie. So I would hope that it’s one of those details that I feel like would’ve been a bridge too far for us to have to explain in this movie. But we have thoughts and answers.”
Sommers added that it would have detracted some of the emotion from the impactful ending.
“We deliberated a lot… is it going to be like a Back to the Future kind of thing?” he said.
“Or are people going to be disappearing from photos? Are physical objects going to be disappearing? All these things. And like Chris said, ultimately, we decided that it would take so much time and real estate in the movie to explain all of that. It would just detract from the emotion of it.”
As for the plot hole itself, Sommers and McKenna stressed that they do have answers — we’re just not going to hear them quite yet.
“Believe me, we have answers to it,” McKenna said, “but I don’t think we’re… We’re not allowed to divulge that. But we have answers.”
It’s unclear when or even if we’ll get any of these answers, but let’s hope future MCU projects deliver.