Spider-Man 2 story
Set two years after the events of Spider-Man, the film finds Peter Parker struggling to manage both his personal life and his duties as Spider-Man, which affects his civilian life dramatically. Meanwhile, Dr. Otto Octavius becomes a diabolical villain after a failed experiment kills his wife and leaves him neurologically fused to mechanical tentacles. Spider-Man must stop him from successfully recreating the experiment, which threatens to blow up the city, while dealing with a subconscious desire to stop being Spider-Man that is stripping him of his powers. It is the second installment in the Sam Raimi directed Spider-Man trilogy.
34 total · 16 major · 18 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| aunt and nephew | major | Peter and Aunt May. |
| coping with personal failure | major | The story followed the aftermath of Otto Octavius dramatically failing in his life's work to make commercially viable generation of electricity using nuclear fusion a reality. He coped with this failure by becoming a mentally unbalanced super villain. |
| crime | major | Spider-Man was fighting street crime in New York City off and on. |
| descent into madness | major | Otto Octavius, a.k.a. Doctor Octopus, went dangerously insane after his failure to create a fusion-based energy source. |
| duty vs. love | major | Peter felt he couldn't reveal to Mary Jane that he loved her on account that being with her would put her life in peril. |
| facing a genius adversary | major | Peter came out of retirement as Spider-Man to save the people of New York City from the criminal genius Doctor Octopus. |
| friendship | major | Peter's longtime friend Harry harbored a growing resentment toward Peter because Peter refused to reveal Spider-Man's identity, and Harry held Spider-Man responsible for his father's death. |
| fusion power | major | Otto Octavius, a.k.a. Doctor Octopus, went dangerously insane after his failure to create a fusion-based energy source. |
| heroism | major | Peter came out of retirement as Spider-Man to save the people of New York City from the evil genius Doctor Octopus. |
| mad scientist stereotype | major | Otto Octavius, a.k.a. Doctor Octopus, fit the bill of mad scientist to a tee. |