For this year’s Best of Sac State, students voted on what they thought was the best film for 2021: Sony and Marvel Studios’ “Spider-Man: No Way Home.” 

“No Way Home” was the third Spider-Man movie to star Tom Holland as Spider-Man, but this one came with a twist: two other actors who have played Spider-Man in previous iterations, Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire, also make an appearance. 

When Spider-Man’s secret identity is revealed to the public, he turns to Doctor Strange in hopes that he’ll  help him make the world forget that he’s Spider-Man. 

A crossover within a crossover happens then when a portal is opened by Peter’s best friend Ned Leeds, Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, manifesting  Andrew Garfield’s and then Tobey Maguire’s iterations of Peter Parker/Spider-Man. 

The Spider-Men then decide to work together to develop a cure to help the villains with the ailments or struggles that made them into who they are so they won’t have to be sent back home to meet the fate they had in previous Spider-Man movies. 

The three Spider-Men appearing in one film came as a surprise to many Marvel fans as the actors had vehemently denied to everyone, even their own friends, that this is what was going to happen in the movie.”

“I ain’t gonna lie, I got tingles all over my body,” third year political science major Kevin Rivera said. “I damn near cried.” 

“Spider-Man: No Way Home” was seen by some as a love letter to fans of the character, and showed that people still have love for all three actors who have portrayed Spidey in the past. The favorite among students at Sacramento State seemed to be Tom Holland, but Tobey Maguire proved popular as well.

“Andrew Garfield is cool. He embodies in my opinion the nerdy aspect of him,” Rivera said. “Tom Holland the young aspect, but I got to go with Tobey Maguire’s [Spider-Man].”

“At first [Holland’s Spider-Man] didn’t go through as much pain as the other two,” first-year business finance major Jackson Horn said. “But since Aunt May died and he had everyone forget him, I think he has the pain now [that the others did].”

Others also mentioned Holland because they said he is who they envisioned Peter Parker to be, as if he had come to life from the comic books.

“[Holland] fits the Marvel genre,” said Destinee Lang, a third-year journalism major. “He is silly and fits the role of the comics, and I just feel like that was what they needed in the ‘Spider-Man’ movies.”

Those who chose Maguire said that it was because they grew up watching him portraying their Spider-Man.

“I like [Maguire’s Spider-Man] story a lot better just from watching it when I was younger,” fourth-year business general management major Anthony Rosales said. “The older Spider-Man to me was one of the better ones.”

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