Sam Raimi Is Impressed With Doc Ock In The Spider-Man: No Way Home Trailer

As far as I'm concerned, the release of "Spider-Man: No Way Home" means that Marvel has exactly one job to do: don't embarrass yourselves in front of Sam Raimi. It's one thing to turn the third "standalone" Spidey movie into a multiversal free-for-all, but it's quite another to dip into the pre-MCU past and bring back established villains (and heroes, if you believe the rumors/leaks) from Raimi's classic "Spider-Man" movies. The grand return of Alfred Molina's de-aged Doc Ock at the end of the "No Way Home" trailer almost singlehandedly broke the internet and, thankfully, Marvel can count Raimi among the very happy fans.

For better or worse, it seems like CGI de-aging technology has become ubiquitous throughout the movie industry in record time. Not that anyone's asking me, but I'd say that there's only been very few instances where the effect has worked anywhere near as effectively as the filmmakers hoped for — namely, the reappearance of Sean Young as the replicant Rachael in "Blade Runner 2049." And that only worked because the entire point was that she was supposed to appear uncanny and just a little too-perfect. So you can count me among the killjoys who weren't exactly impressed by our first look at Alfred Molina's dead-eyed Doc Ock in the trailer for "Spider-Man: No Way Home."

But what does any mere mortal's opinion matter when compared to that of esteemed filmmaker Sam Raimi? Speaking to Syfy Wire, the filmmaker behind "The Evil Dead," "The Quick and the Dead," and "A Simple Plan" shared his thoughts on seeing his own villainous creation brought back from the dead and thrown into the MCU:

"That was beautiful. He looks great, the animation's great. I'm assuming it's not puppeted because when we did Doc Ock, we had puppets and animation for his octopus tentacles. But it was smooth and powerful and I loved his costume they kept [from the original]. I think it's gonna be a great movie."

As scandalous as it would've been for the "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" director to have completely disowned "No Way Home" in the most brutally public way possible, we'll simply have to content ourselves with Raimi taking the boring high road and the optimistic approach. It'll surely be fun to see Alfred Molina and Willem Dafoe back in character as Doc Ock and Green Goblin respectively ... but here's hoping that the final product will be exponentially less distracting from a special effects point of view.

"Spider-Man: No Way Home" swings into theaters on December 17, 2021.