Sony's Spider-Man Short Film Reveals Some Surprisingly Dark Symbolism About Miles Morales

Sony Animation put out a short animated piece set in the Spider-Verse world, released as a charity fundraiser rather than as the full third movie fans had been expecting. I set aside time to watch it because I am such a big fan of the saga, and I came away thinking it was well put together despite being a much smaller offering than a feature film.

The short appears to take place in the gap between the first Spider-Verse film and Across the Spider-Verse, showing Miles Morales isolated, struggling with his grades, and dealing with a masked villain whose face has a spider-like design, something I noted deliberately echoes the old worry from Spider-Man's original creation that a spider motif on a hero could read as evil. There is also a clear nod to Amazing Spider-Man number 33, with an image of Peter Parker holding wreckage above his head standing in for the inner turmoil that comes with being Spider-Man.

There is also a shot that felt akin to the opening of Across the Spider-Verse, with a horror figure's yellow eyes hovering above Miles's bed the way Gwen Stacy once did in that film, only here it plays as a kind of shadow self haunting him. I said at the time, "this is so well put together, just the animation," and I flagged that it was surprising Sony did not release it around Halloween given how unsettling some of that imagery gets for what looks on the surface like a fun kids' cartoon.

The Spiders Ganging Up on Miles Read as a Stand In for the Spider Society Turning on Him

The most pointed piece of symbolism for me came when a swarm of spiders is shown ganging up on Miles before he ends up alone. I read that as a metaphor for the Spider Society turning against him, leaving him with no friends, no fans, and nobody around him. As I put it in the moment, "we're seeing deeper layers already, kids," because that image does a lot of work in a very short space of time.

A Quiet Father Son Scene Grounds the Short in Something More Personal

Alongside the darker imagery, there is a simple domestic scene of Miles talking with his dad about school and about a girl, which I took as showing Miles trying to find common ground with his father amid everything else going on in his head. It is a small moment, but it balances out the heavier material about self doubt and the darkness Miles seems to be wrestling with internally.

No Release Date Update, and I Appreciated the Gesture Anyway

The short ends without any release date news for Beyond the Spider-Verse, and the joking response in the moment was that fans might have to wait maybe next year. Even without that update, I said, "I appreciate the studio being like, you know what, you guys, we were meant to have a full movie, we're going to give you a little short instead," and I was glad to see the scale of the credits, since it is clear a lot of people worked hard to bring even this smaller piece together.

Did anyone else catch symbolism or Easter eggs in the short that I did not mention here?