The Spider-Man No Way Home Extended Cut Sheds New Light On Doctor Strange's Ambiguous Spell

The extended more fun stuff version of Spider-Man No Way Home landed on digital with roughly 10 new scenes and about 13 minutes of extra footage. Whether the whole extended cut is worth revisiting is still up for debate, but the new post-credits scene does a far better job than the theatrical cut at illustrating the somewhat ambiguous Doctor Strange spell at the end of the film, and I think it changes what we thought Peter lost.

The original spell Peter asked Doctor Strange to cast would have erased Spider-Man from everyone's memory

In the undercroft of the sanctum, Peter first has Doctor Strange cast a spell stating that "the entire world's about to forget the Peter Parker Spider-Man including me," meaning every single person on Earth would forget that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. Honestly, that sounds like the best outcome available to him. No one remembers who Spidey is, it could be Paul for all we know swinging around throwing webs.

But I understand Peter's frustration at not being able to share his secret with his friends and family, which is what drives him to interrupt Strange's spell not once, not twice, but four times. Those interruptions leave the spell loosely following a new set of parameters: everyone who already knew Peter Parker was Spider-Man before should still know him afterward.

That loosened version of the spell is what pulled other villains and other Spider-People who knew the secret into the 616 universe, which is why so much nostalgia got worked into the film, and it worked really well.

The final revised spell wiped out Peter Parker's entire existence, not just his Spider-Man identity

Fast forward to the end of the film, where Doctor Strange is trying to fix the multiversal fissures in the sky that are letting other characters populate the main MCU universe. Peter has Strange change the spell again, this time to "make everyone forget who Peter Parker is," not just that he is Spider-Man. Every single person on Earth is affected, but instead of simply forgetting he was Spider-Man, they entirely forget who Peter Parker is, as though he never existed and never saved the universe in Infinity War and Endgame. It is almost like a Thanos snap, but solely for the Peter Parker persona.

I cannot even imagine how difficult it would be to get a driver's license, obtain a loan, or sign up for a dating site like eHarmony after something like that. That is what plays out in the final scenes of No Way Home: Happy does not know Peter, MJ does not remember him, and he ends up living by himself, essentially leaning into the Spider-Man persona while building a new life with friends, family, and loved ones. I had kind of assumed he was a John Doe type character at that point, with no paper trail through however many years of his life so far.

The extended post-credits scene shows the spell left behind faint traces of Peter's existence

The post-credits scene of the more fun stuff version opens on high schoolers at Midtown High looking up at a television screen reminding them of things like graduation photo pickup and cafeteria safety, done in a way that plays like a badly made late night infomercial. Things then shift to Betty Brant's corner, which is essentially a video yearbook looking back at the events of Homecoming and Far From Home, including footage from the decathlon, prom, and the Europe trip, and a mention that some of them disappeared for five years and then reappeared.

One clip from the Europe trip shows the whole group posing together, but one person's face is obstructed by pigeons flying through the frame. Going back to Far From Home, that person's clothing matches Peter's. Essentially, Doctor Strange's spell did not simply wipe every trace of him from existence the way I originally assumed.

Instead, there is proof here or there that someone existed alongside the group, examples being that obscured photo and MJ still wearing the necklace Peter gave her. People remember a random person being with them, they just do not know it was Peter, which is a strange way to go about it. But I think if he had been entirely removed from these events, the timeline would have gone chaotic, so it makes more sense for a faceless placeholder to live out those events while Peter alone keeps the real memories.

Losing Aunt May, Happy, the Avengers, MJ and Ned pushes Peter toward a new set of allies and villains

Without Aunt May, Happy, the Avengers, MJ, or Ned, Peter is starting over in a way the first three films never put him through, since those movies were about him coming into the Spider-Man alter ego rather than rebuilding his whole life from nothing. That reset opens the door to entirely different allies and villains, splintering the story in one of many directions pulled from the dozens of comic storylines Sony and Marvel Studios have to draw from.

I could see this reset leaning into his Daily Bugle origins the way the comics have, and possibly bringing in Gwen Stacy as a love interest, or Felicia Hardy, also known as Black Cat, as a fly in his web. Harry Osborn or the MCU version of Eddie Brock could also factor in, alongside a whole roster of Spider-Man villains from previous installments or new ones that have not had a live action treatment yet.

Maybe even a Sinister Six movie, though hopefully not put together the way the Morbius setup teased its Sinister Six, with a Scorpion character that was set up and never followed up on.

MJ's photo and necklace could reopen the door to Peter's secret, and the spell might reach further than one universe

This is all speculation and theories, but I do think there are cracks in the spell Doctor Strange cast, given this lingering evidence of Peter Parker in a couple of photos. I can see MJ doing some hardcore investigative journalism because of the pictures and the necklace she still has, and eventually solving who Spider-Man is again, much like she did in Far From Home. They left the door open with those two, and it would be odd if she and maybe Ned were not somehow tied back into the fold.

Another thing worth thinking about is the ripple effect of the final spell. Other Spider-People and villains were pulled into the 616 universe because they knew Peter Parker was Spider-Man. With the final spell erasing Peter Parker from the world, does that same erasure ripple out and happen across the entire multiverse too, with no one anywhere remembering Peter Parker? If so, that would be an already established way to build on a live action MCU Spider-Verse story, maybe not the most creative route, but one that would let all these spider people sympathize with one another while helping bring things back to normal.

What do you think the Peter Parker spell actually erased, and how do you think it plays into future Spider-Man movies and the wider MCU?