There's Only ONE FLAW in Across the Spider-Verse

This is later than I would have wanted, since a few creators have pointed out this issue. Still, I believe this is still worth the upload.

Also, I needed to upload something; it's been too long.

Edit: Holy cow/dalmatian/the Spot! The genuine engagement and thoughtful dialogue in the comments is a blessing and an inspiration. You can safely bet that I will be uploading more analyses in due time. Thank you, new subscribers for the incentivization!

[zach]

Gwen literally asks Miguel if he knows that this canon event theory is right and he says "do you want to find out." I think the writers made Miguel being wrong pretty strongly implied. Especially when you see Gwen's realization after her canon event is disrupted.

[Raccoon_Murphy]

I believe this is exactly what the directors wanted us to notice, constantly proving Miguel is wrong through showing us events that don’t fit in his theory.

[mr.temtem]

Another thing is, how has Spider Noir's dimension not colapsed after taking the rubix cube back with him?

[rosalindgatto]

I feel like the 'canon event' theory might help some of the older Spiders relieve themselves of guilt. 'It's not just my fault that my Uncle/the Police Captain died, it's a canon event that I couldn't have done anything about.' Just a possible reason why so many Spider People (many of whom would be considered geniuses in their own universes) uncritically believed Miguel's theory.

It also makes Gwen not wanting to go back to her universe not just about avoiding getting arrested, she's been told that 'the captain dying' is a canon event (especially if it's Captain Stacy), so if she goes back, HER DAD WILL DIE. If she's not there to affect the 'plot' of her universe, her dad is safe, so the fact that being forced back to her universe was hung over her head for most of the movie as a threat, and later followed through with, was horrible and manipulative of every adult Spider Person involved.

[luk_testa]

I think that the simplest explaination is also the correct one: Miguel is simply mistaken about what causes the disruption of the universes, and we are probably going to find out the actual reason in the next movie

[SaiScribbles]

I think it's possible that Miguel is sincerely mistaken about how this works. I mean, you can easily predict he's going to be proven wrong somehow.

[witchmations]

While rewatching the movie after seeing this video I noticed that when Gwen reunites with her dad and he quits being captain she has this moment where she goes "Wait a minute, you're not going to be captain? That means.." she doesn't finish the thought out loud, and the first time I didn't really catch it, but this moment might foreshadow that Miguel is wrong because her father can never die in an accident if he isn't even captain and nothing bad happens to her universe. She effectively broke cannon, and nothing happened.

[HannahBananabreadpudding]

This is something that’s been bothering me since I got out of the theater. So we know that Miles is an anomaly. He wasn’t supposed to be Spider-Man according to Miguel. So my question is, why would something that’s not cannon (Mile’s dad surviving) negatively affect (his universe falling apart) a not cannon character? Because the whole thing is that Miguel doesn’t want Miles to save his dad bc it could disrupt or destroy his universe because it’s not a cannon event. But miles himself isn’t cannon. So why would his dad not dying have any impact on his story. He already has the powers and experience. It wouldn’t make any sense for his dad to die anyway. So either Miguel is lying (highly plausible), Miguel somehow overlooked that (I doubt it), or there’s something else going on that I didn’t think of.

[justinmcdonald]

By Gwen inspiring her father to quit the force, did she not disrupt her own cannon event and then realize for herself that despite doing so, her universe showed no signs of collapse? It was unsaid, but I think in that moment she realized Miguel was lying and she fully committed to building a resistance against him and support Miles in saving his father.

[alexis]

I've seen theories that because the Earth-42 spider bit Miles, his 'fate' has swapped with the Miles of Earth-42. It was always suppose to bite Miles; it just bit the 'wrong one.' The fact that he's been fine thus far is proof that Miguel's theory is at least somewhat incorrect.

[EclipsedVision]

IMO it's because Hobie is right, miguel is holding up this conformist spider society without fully understanding every element of it, he doesn't know why that one universe collapsed but given that he knew he wasn't meant to be there he assumed it was his fault, and thus began holding so called "cannon events" as some unchangeable standard for all spider folks across dimensions, the entire point of spiderman is "anyone could be behind the mask" it would make no sense for miguel to be correct in saying all spiders must be the same.

Hobie's just ahead of the game and when he sees miles and his determination he sees miles' potential and realizes he could be the catalyst for the necessary change to free spider society and shine light on the fact that not everyone is the same and that's how it should be. (that's just my headcannon though, can't wait until SV3!!)

[spliter]

I suspect what's going to turn out is that you can distrupt your own canon events without it breaking the world.
The spider society seems pretty prepared for fixing canon event breaks, so my guess is they have seen at least some of those before (IIRC someone even says they can't always save them).
They specifically hunt for anomalies as the culprits which again, makes me think they pinned anomalies as the likely cause.
However in all canon breaking events we see broken it was because someone outside of that universe intervened.
In the case of mumbattan it was miles interfering with Pavitr's canon event. In the case of Miguel's universe breaking was because he was the being from another universe interfering.
In the one case where we see someone break their own canon event nothing happens (ie: Gwen, talking to her father causing him to quit the police force)
So I think that's the key: only you can change your own story.
This would not only explain how Miguel can be both right and wrong at the same time, but it would also fit perfectly with Miles' character growth of making his own story.

[homemadecinema]

I honestly doubt that the writers could have overlooked something like this, I'm sure that this will all be revealed and explained in the next one.

[zarinaa]

Also, Miles's 'Uncle Ben Moment', the death of Uncle Aaron, only happened because of other Spider-People being in his dimension. If Aaron caught Miles and realized who he was and didn't kill him, which is what was happening, he wouldn't have died because Kingpin wouldn't be there to shoot him because he was overseeing the attack at Aunt May's house where the Spider-People were. So other dimension people CAN effect Cannon Events without everything getting dusted.

[AnnieMay_]

I think you noticed exactly what was intended!! From the last moment of my first viewing, I didn't trust Miguel. And on my second viewing I noticed A LOT about the way Miguel acts. Yeah, he NEVER explains how his actions actually led to the collapse of that world. But he also NEVER mentions his OWN canon events. We see tons of spiderman canon events, and NONE of them are Miguels. In all cases he is being untruthful. He is either hiding a lack of his own, or purposefully not showing them. Shifty AF. And on top of that, prior to the halfway point, everyone trusts Miguel. Gwen trusts him, Peter B. is his friend. They both introduce Miles to him with hesitancy but Peter is light about it, and later is horrified to see how violent Miguel is towards the kid. Im willing to bet thats the first time anyone has seen Miguel HATE someone. And why? Why does he hate Miles? A child who had literally nothing to do with what happened to him. He was bit before he knew jack about the collider, he didnt get in OG Peter's way and cause him to die, if he hadn't been there to stop Kingpin it's entirely likely that things would have been much worse. Miles isnt at fault for any of this, let alone how it affects things (if it even does). So why does Miguel hate him? I think it because Miguel wanted what Miles got. I dont think Miguel is a Spider-Man. I think Miguel did something to the canon. I think Miguel fucked things up and that Miles is proof of that. Because Miles' world if fine, world 42 is fine(ish), the canon rewrote itself (miles has a loving supportive family, he gets along with the police chief, he's not seen as a menace by the cops or the people, yada yada). And if Miles can be disrupting the story like that, it proves that whatever Miguel did to unravel a whole world was much, much worse than replacing some guy who gets shot (obvs Spider-Man wouldn't have been shot so the Miguel in that world must've just been some dude). And again, I dont think Miguel is a Spider-Man, he doesnt have a spider sense, he's not sticky, we have no proof that he's got canon events, and he's the only one with fangs....he's even gotta re-up the Spider-Man-ness. I dont trust him, not even a little. I think he's lying, to everyone, maybe even himself.

[filopsofos]

Like the rest of the comments have already said, I think that this all was intentional and that the writers wanted us to go go "wait a minute" and find the "plothole." It's not the movie that has a plothole, it is miguels story that has one. Although that is out of the way some would argue that Miles is still a bad spider-man as he cares only about saving his dad and not the multiverse, but he really did show that he kind of understood how wrong Miguel was. Like on the scene where the canon events were explained and he said "so we are just supposed to let people die just because some algorithm said so?" Someone would call this bad writing and that the movie just has a massive plothole but you would have to try SO hard to make something like this, it really feels intentional and the writers most likely wanted us to piece all the hints together, and in the last movie unravel it all. Otherwise, if this really is all a big coincidence and the writers were by miracle just bad, it's going to be disappointing. I am 100% certain it won't be like that tho.

[GiveMeTheRice]

You’ll also notice that the showing of Miguel’s universe being deleted looks entirely different than what is happening on Pav’s universe after Miles saves the captain. Looks more like just another one of Spot’s holes as apposed to everyone getting Thanos snapped

[ghostygirl]

If Miguel *is* wrong, or even misleading the spiders, then it's pretty easy to see why they would follow him. A whole *society* of people who share your trauma and particular struggles would be worth it for, like, most of the spiders, and knowing the people in their lives who have died died for a reason would help, too. Not to mention, they're all superheroes, so helping on a scale even bigger than their own world would probably sound amazing to them.

[Cerberus]

One thing that's potentially an even bigger problem is that Miguel mentions and how in No Way Home, Dr. Strange does his spell that screws with the stability of that entire universe and the spider-men closest to it, thus bringing in Tobey and Andrew's spider-men to the MCU. That means those 3 universes are also part of the larger Spider-verse. Tobey's Spider-man is in his 40s, meaning that there was plenty of time, years even, from when he first put on the suit for his canon events to occur. Even MORE damning, though, is Tom Holland's Spider-man, who was SNAPed away for 5 years. That Spiderman was entirely gone until miracle of science, time travel, and literal cosmic magic brought him back and we never saw any Captain or Gwen Stacy in his universe. Clearly, if those universes are connected to the larger Spider-verse, and therefore subject to the mechanics of canon events, then there is a LOT of lee-way time-wise for a canon event that is potentially missed to be made up for later. Miguel knows this, he's seen the records of No Way Home. So why is he, and every other Spider-man in his little city of such heroes, so insistent that Miles not be allowed to go back home? I can only give so much leniency to an entire legion of very intelligent, very heroic people for missing such an obvious problem and they exceed it in this movie by several orders of magnitude.

[idont]

Funny thing, in Miguel's universe, there was no uncle who was killed. Nor was there a police captain he was friends with.