The Best Easter Eggs in Spider-Man (2002), From the Hidden Second Goblin to Willem Dafoe's Fake Teeth

Spider-Man from 2002 was made long before Easter egg hunters like me obsessed over every frame, yet it is filled to the brim with details most people miss. With Spider-Man: No Way Home breaking the multiverse internet and the minds of Marvel fans everywhere, I went back to the movie that started it all, and we were still uncovering things about it 20 years later.

The film follows Spider-Man as he goes toe to toe with the Green Goblin, and it is definitely a battle for the ages. Several scenes, including the Goblin's death, come right out of the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man #122, in which he was impaled by his own glider.

Peter and Norman Osborn wear each other's colours at Thanksgiving

Norman Osborn and Peter share something of a father and son relationship in the wake of Uncle Ben's death, and beyond that it is clear Norman wishes his son was more like Peter. The idea of the two being mirror images is shown at the Thanksgiving dinner, where each wears the other's colours. Peter wears a green shirt with a purple tie, while Norman wears a blue shirt with a red one.

Harry wears a mixture of both, which somewhat hints at his fractured allegiances throughout the entire trilogy. There are also callbacks to this movie with Harry later on. When Peter first meets him, he is wearing a burgundy sweater with a T shirt underneath and a hoodie jacket over the top. In Spider-Man 3, when Harry has amnesia, he wears a similar set of colours, showing how his state of mind has gone back several years to the events of this film.

Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin got different teeth for each persona

Willem Dafoe really embodies the role, and it is easy to see why he was brought back for No Way Home. He conveys a lot through his facial expressions, and in the scene where he acts against a mirror, he did it entirely in one take, jumping back and forth between the two personas.

The creative team also did something really subtle to add an extra creepy factor. When Dafoe is playing the Norman Osborn side, he wears fake teeth that make his smile look more even. When he leans into being the Goblin, those are removed, and we get those awesome fanglike canines creeping through his grin.

A second Green Goblin hides in the jump scare

During the Green Goblin jump scare, if you slow it down you can catch a second Green Goblin standing in the background. It is super unnerving, and though most people will not notice it, it subliminally gives the idea that the Goblin is supernatural. It also might be hinting that a second Goblin will come along not too far behind him in the form of Harry.

When the Goblin attacks J. Jonah Jameson's office, you can see that big black irises have been subtly painted onto his mask, giving it a bug eyed look in line with his costume from the comics. Norman's home is also filled with masks from ancient tribes, which hints towards the Goblin and his subconscious.

The black dress, the portrait and a Norman Rockwell painting

Norman is very much a tormented character, and though we never fully learn what happened to his wife, it is clear it was pretty bad. Just before the balcony attack, Harry tells MJ she should have worn black because his father loves that colour. In the house we catch a brief glimpse of Mrs Osborn wearing a black dress, and at the dinner MJ is wearing black, showing she was trying to impress Norman, even though it did not go down very well.

Norman says that all women are beautiful until they are "snarling after your trust fund like a pack of ravening wolves," and so I think the woman in the portrait is probably Norman's mother. The Thanksgiving dinner scene also has a lot of similarities to Norman Rockwell's painting Freedom from Want. I absolutely love how the shot is used in a similar way, showing all the characters coming together one final time before everyone ends up in the Goblin's crosshairs.

A DNA screen foreshadows Peter's powers

Turning to the true main character, early in the movie Peter is bitten by a genetically altered spider, and we get some foreshadowing of his powers on a screen showing a CGI rendition of the arachnid's DNA. The list includes web tensile strength, spider strength, jumping, speed, spider sense, precognition, which I am guessing is the same as spider sense, and speed again. The DNA strands are in red, blue and green, colours associated with Spider-Man and the Green Goblin.

We also see a spider using its strength to dangle a much heavier object from a web string, which somewhat foreshadows Spider-Man holding onto the dangling cable car later in the movie. Peter also takes a photograph of MJ, and as someone pointed out, that picture shows up later in Peter's apartment in Spider-Man 2.

The web shooters that were cut, and a venom trail on Peter's hand

Peter ends up with organic webbing, but at one point you can catch web shooters on his wrist. These were originally supposed to be part of the plot but were later removed. Personally, I actually prefer the organic webbing, because what is the point of being bitten by a spider if you cannot produce webs from your own body?

When Peter eats lunch at school, look closely at his hand and you will see a red line coming down from the spider bite, indicating the track of its venom. Speaking of Venom, Robbie later brings up their photographer Eddie to Jameson, saying he cannot get a decent photograph of Spider-Man. That is a reference to Eddie Brock, who in Spider-Man 3 reuses Peter's old pictures, touching them up with Photoshop to get paid.

Tobey Maguire's lunch tray catch was done for real

In the lunch scene, Peter catches Mary Jane and also her lunch. This was done for real without any CGI, and though it apparently took 156 takes, Tobey Maguire actually managed it. The trick used adhesive, which you can see on the bottom of the apple, and magnets. Slow it down and you will see the jelly bounce back on top of the milk carton because of the magnet inside it.

Look closely at Peter's hand when he shoots webbing at the lunch tray, too, and you will see him make the Spider-Man web firing gesture. He does not figure out until later that this is how you fire webs, but I love that it happens here to show exactly why it went off.

Superman, Shazam and a possible Batman nod

As Peter discovers his powers, he goes to a rooftop and tries to fire his webs, saying "up up and away web" and also "shazam," references to Superman and Shazam. Superman is also brought up by Aunt May later. I love the theory that in the Marvel universe the DC characters are the ones in the comic books, and in the DC universe it is Marvel's heroes on the page. That would explain why The Flash has so many Marvel references, and it is a really nice fan theory.

There is also a moment where Jameson looks through Peter's photos and dismisses them all. I kind of think this might be a reference to Batman, when the Joker does the same thing with Vicki Vale's photos. The rooftop scene is also given a nod in Spider-Man: Homecoming, when Peter is asked how far he can shoot his web, and the person asking says that if it was him, he would just stand on the edge of a building and shoot it to see how far it goes.

Uncle Ben's Oldsmobile is a Sam Raimi regular

Uncle Ben's death is a massive part of the Spider-Man origin story, and Cliff Robertson's performance was so iconic that lines from it were used years later in Into the Spider-Verse. The conversation between Peter and Ben is really impactful, and it takes place in an Oldsmobile Delta 88. That car has appeared in a number of Sam Raimi films, including The Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2, Darkman, Army of Darkness and Drag Me to Hell.

When Peter gets out, slow it down and you can catch his red hoodie hanging out the back of his clothes, which he later wears as part of his wrestling costume. The robber who apparently kills Uncle Ben, though I do not really count Sandman doing it, also appears in The Amazing Spider-Man, once more showing that yes, it is all connected.

Mendel Stromm, the Moondance Diner and Lucy Lawless

We also see the Green Goblin's origin story, and alongside him is Dr Mendel Stromm, whom comic fans might know as a half man, half machine villain. At one point Peter catches Mary Jane working at the Moondance Diner, and if you have seen tick, tick... BOOM! you will know that location pops up as where Jonathan Larson works. Larson is played by Andrew Garfield, who of course played Spider-Man, and I love how it all kind of ties together for trivia fans. There is also a cameo from Lucy Lawless, known for playing Xena: Warrior Princess.

The movie is not perfect. When Peter tests his webbing, he shoots a lamp and smashes it, yet when we cut back to a wider shot the lampshade is back where it was, completely fixed. We will forgive it, though, because he also smashes a photo of himself, Ben and May, and later it shows up by Aunt May's bedside in a brand new frame. Little touches like this make the movie great, and I still have as much fun with it as I did back in 2002.

Which Easter eggs in Spider-Man do you think I missed?