Spider-Man ending explained: A hero is born

There are quite a few superhero movies we could credit for changing the face of the comic book genre. Sam Raimi's Spider-Man is undoubtedly one of them. Released in 2002, it came at a time when there weren't too many crime-fighters on the silver screen, but the overwhelming levels of success that it experienced are exactly why there were many more of them afterwards.

The movie starred Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker, who went on an unbelievable journey throughout its two-hour runtime, evolving from a young kid lacking in confidence to one of the world's greatest heroes. To do that, he had to battle the villainous Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe) and protect those he loved, including Aunt May (Rosemary Harris), and Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst).

Spider-Man stands up as a classic two decades later, but it also served as the beginning of a movie franchise. If the end of the movie left you wanting more, let's dive into the closing moments and explain everything you need to know!

Green Goblin is dead, but the family feud is far from over

Peter Parker went through it in Spider-Man. Not only did he develop super powers and become New York City's new hero, he ended up battling a foe unlike anything he had ever seen before: A physically-enhanced monster known as the Green Goblin. To make matter worse, that monster just so happened to be the father of Peter's best friend Harry: Norman Osborn.

The Goblin was desperate to get Spider-Man to join him in his mission of chaos but he refused, putting the two on a collision course that ended in the villain's own demise. There was no coming back from it, as his own glider - which had been aimed at Spidey - ended up ramming straight into him, the blade going right through him and pinning him to the wall behind him.

Norman's last request was that Harry not find out, so Spider-Man honored those wishes and attempted to spare his friend the pain of knowing what his father had become. In doing so, however, he was caught leaving Norman's body back in his mansion by Harry himself. As a result, Harry vowed revenge.

This arc plays the long-game in the Spider-Man franchise, as Harry makes it his mission to take Spider-Man down, unaware of the crimes that his father committed as the Green Goblin. And this creates the ultimate conflict for Peter, as the only way to clear his name is to cause his best friend even more pain - something that the heroic Spider-Man doesn't want to do.

Sparing his loved ones from pain really does become Peter's new mission in the final act of Spider-Man, and something that he attempts to carry forward into Spider-Man 2.

Peter tells Mary Jane they can only be friends to protect her

One thing that was abundantly clear from Spider-Man was that Peter Parker was deeply in love with Mary Jane Watson. Even if you weren't familiar with the source material, you could tell that he had loved her his whole life, just as you could tell that Mary Jane was slowly beginning to fall for him.

But Mary Jane had two other suitors too: Harry Osborn and Spider-Man. Her relationship with Harry, Peter's best friend, had crumbled after he was nothing short of awful towards her, and she wasn't aware that Spidey was actually Peter. That made the moment she realized she was in love with Peter all the more powerful; she didn't fall for him because he was secretly Spider-Man, she fell for him because he was her trustworthy, kind, loyal Peter Parker.

When she revealed those feelings to him in the film's climax, Peter responded a little differently to how we were all expecting; telling her that he loves her as a friend, and that he can only be a friend to her. It was a bittersweet moment that rocked us all to our core (though not quite as much as it rocked MJ) as we knew that wasn't the truth.

Peter told her this lie to protect her. Throughout the course of the movie, people that got close to him often ended up in perilous or life-threatening situations, including MJ, and that made him realize that he had to protect his loved ones from harm by distancing himself from them. And as a result, he had to break his beloved's heart whenever she finally said the words to him that he had been waiting to hear his whole life, breaking his own heart in the process.

"I'm Spider-Man"

A large portion of Spider-Man was spent with Peter attempting to figure out who he was. He was changing, and not just in the typical teenager sense. He wasn't just growing into a man, he was growing into a hero, and the movie explored that arc throughout as he attempted to juggle his own wants and desires with what he could to help people with his newfound gifts.

Uncle Ben was worried about the man that Peter Parker was growing into, and for a moment, he was right to feel that way. Peter had lost sight of who he was, and for a moment began using his powers for all of the wrong reasons. But after the death of his uncle, he decided to use those gifts to avoid anything like that happening to anyone else ever again.

Uncle Ben once told Peter that, with great power comes great responsibility, and he became a shining example of that; using his talents to save, protect, and be there for others when nobody else could be. He had saved New York City from the threat of the Green Goblin, and even though other threats would come their way, he would be there to stop them.

No matter what threats awaited Peter Parker and his loved ones in Spider-Man 2, Spider-Man would be there to save the day.