Adaptational Sympathy in Films.
The following have their own pages:
- The Amazing Spider-Man Series:
- The Amazing Spider-Man: Dr. Curtis Conners is the alter-ego of The Lizard, the prime example of Reptiles Are Abhorrent and a monstrous creature who wants to turn people into lizards, with poor Conners being stuck in a Jekyll & Hyde situation—all because he was trying to regrow his own arm. The film adds the extra wrinkle that he worked for a Corrupt Corporate Executive under Norman Osborn, and that his desire to help others was being quashed by the evil within the company. As such, when he does become his villainous persona, he does so because he didn't want an untested serum used on wounded veterans, and his transformations are played more like a drug addiction. Then this becomes Averted in Spider-Man: No Way Home when he's thrown into the MCU...and only wants to turn people into lizards.
- The Amazing Spider-Man 2:
- Max Dillion, aka Electro, was depicted in the comics as the victim of a freak accident with an electrical storm. This movie shows that he was a relentlessly bullied electrician mutated by electric eels on accident, and wound up being ostracized by New York despite Spider-Man's attempts to help him. The incident caused him to develop a Broken Pedestal to his former hero and led him to try and take him down.
- Harry Osborn became the Green Goblin in mainline comics continuity to seek revenge against Spider-Man for the death of his father, as did the one from Sam Raimi's trilogy. This version instead walked down the path of villainy when he was dying from a rare genetic disorder, and Spidey refused to give him his blood to help find a possible cure.
- Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.: Margaret's mom Barbara is made more sympathetic in the movie, in part by giving her her own plotline outside of Maragaret's perception with both angst about her parents and the frustration of being a housewife.
- Batman Film Series:
- Batman Returns:
- The Penguin gets this treatment by having been made a Tragic Villain. Unlike his previous appearance in Batman (1966), which establishes him as a Card-Carrying Villain who revels in every despicable act he undertakes, or in the comics, in which he is a self-proclaimed "Gentleman of Crime", this Penguin is callously abandoned by his parents for being a deformed freak and raised by circus freaks living in the sewer. It was this that led him to resurface years later, pull a Villain with Good Publicity stunt to become mayor, then kidnap every firstborn child in Gotham to drown them in the sewers, then bomb the city with penguin-propelled rockets.
- The same film gives this treatment to Catwoman, the Trope Namer for Dating Catwoman and the femme fatale of Batman's rogues gallery. Her previous depiction in the 1966 series saw her as a Card-Carrying Villain, much like the Penguin, and tease the idea of redemption on-and-off, but always continue to straddle towards being a bad guy. In this film, she was the assistant of Max Shreck, who threw her out a window when she learned of his plans to turn a power plant he was building into a power drainer he could siphon off Gotham with. She survives but is driven mad by the experience and becomes Catwoman to get her revenge.
- Mister Freeze follows in the footsteps of his counterpart from Batman: The Animated Series in Batman & Robin. Instead of being a kooky mad scientist, he's shown as a Tragic Villain (albeit a more comedic one) trying to save his wife from dying from a horrific disease.
- Batman Returns:
- The Batman (2022):
- The Riddler is normally an Insufferable Genius whose Freudian Excuse stems from an abusive father making his intelligence seem inadequate, giving him a need to outsmart Batman at every turn and prove himself the superior mind. In this movie, he's an orphan who's waging war against the corrupt system Gotham is trapped under, and manipulated events to expose Carmine Falcone and the corrupt cops and politicians under him as having taken a charity fund that Thomas Wayne left aside for struggling orphans like himself. Moreover, he sees Batman as an ally in his plans, having been inspired by him to take action—though ironically he hates Bruce Wayne and sees him as part of the problem.
- Catwoman also gets this to some degree. Her comics iteration had a rough history given how she lived as a street prostitute, both of her parents treated her like crap, and her becoming a burglar was her trying to survive—this combined with her belief that Carmine Falcone, Gotham's most notorious mobster, may be her father (although it's never proven). In this film, Carmine is her father, and he strangled her mother to death, leaving her to tough it out working in his very night club as a waitress for the most sleazy of clientele, and her campaign against him intensifies when he kills her best friend (and possible lover) for learning about a conspiracy Falcone has been running for years.
- Bumblebee: The titular Autobot has had many moments of suffering in his life, no thanks to most iterations of them having their voice box ripped out by Megatron, but the trauma of it is usually glanced over. This reboot of the Transformers film series places a greater emphasis on this trauma by showing how the poor scout was given Easy Amnesia thanks to Blitzwing being the one to tear out his voice, was largely lost in the world that his new friend and caretaker Charlie Watson was trying to help him understand, and was being targeted by both the US Military and the Decepticons manipulating them for a war he had no idea he was fighting.
- In the comics and the MCU, the Red Skull is a heartless, unrepentant Nazi and one of Marvel's vilest villains. In Captain America (1990), while still the villain of the piece, the Red Skull is more of a tragic, self-loathing figure. Instead of a German man who eagerly worked directly under Hitler, this Skull was abducted from his family in Italy as a child and forcibly experimented on. He even is capable of showing a degree of love for his daughter, which Johann Schmidt most certainly never did.
- The Dark Knight Trilogy:
- Batman Begins: Henri Ducard, a Composite Character of the original iteration and Batman foe Ra's Al Ghul, throws this trope onto The Demon's Head. While the original Ra's became who he is for varying reasons from story to story, Ducard ascended to become Ra's Al Ghul when he lost his wife and sought a new purpose after her death.
- The Dark Knight: Harvey Dent's transformation into Two-Face is usually played with tragedy, and this iteration is no exception. The circumstances, however, add a layer of depth beyond the original's change by showing that this bright, shining beacon to justice in Gotham—and a key ally to Batman's war on crime—lost his way when corrupt cops on Maroni's payroll kidnapped Dent and his girlfriend, ADA Rachel Dawes, and strapped them both to explosives. Only Dent survived, albeit with his famous scarring, and The Joker used the opportunity to corrupt him further, all so he can prove that all it takes is one bad day to drive the sanest man alive to lunacy...and the people of Gotham will lose all hope knowing their shining knight has fallen.
- The Dark Knight Rises: Bane's comic past is shrouded in mystery, with all that's known about him is that he was forced to serve a prison sentence for his escaped father when he was a child, was raised in a literal hell-hole, and survived through fierce determination alone so he can gain power and respect, culminating in him breaking Batman's back. This Bane was thrown in the hellish prison "The Pit" for reasons unrevealed, but when he tried to protect the young child of Ra's Al Ghul, all he got was a severe beating that left him on heavy painkillers fed through his mask to keep him functional. When he was freed, he joined the League of Shadows as a loyal servant, only to be excommunicated because he had grown too close to said child, Talia Al Ghul, but nevertheless continued Ra's mission to destroy Gotham.
- DC Extended Universe:
- Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice: Batman gets this treatment in regard to his battling of Superman. In The Dark Knight Returns, Superman is a government lackey trying to bring in the older and more embittered Dark Knight for acting against America's wishes, which Batman has no intention of standing down to. When he fights the Man of Steel here, it's because he witnessed Metropolis being turned into a war zone in Man of Steel, which saw his company's office in the city destroyed and hundreds of his workers killed by the battle between Superman and Zod. As such, Batman fears Superman is one day away from killing everyone, and his more brutal methods of fighting crime from having lost his allies in his own war have made him steadfast in that belief.
- In Justice League (2017), Steppenwolf only seeks to unleash the Unity upon Earth For the Evulz, being an unrepentant conqueror that revels in the destruction he causes for his master. When Zack Snyder's Justice League was released, Steppenwolf is made much more sympathetic by giving him a clear-cut motivation: returning home to Apokolips by conquering 5000 worlds—a punishment incurred upon him by Darkseid for having partaken in a coup against him long ago. The same film also depicts him as constantly being put down by Desaad and shows moments where the tired and weary Steppenwolf pleads to be allowed to come home.
- SHAZAM! (2019): Dr. Thaddeus Sivana, Shazam's earliest arch-enemy, was a Mad Scientist in the Pre-Crisis years who wanted Revenge against the world who had shunned him, a Lex Luthor-esque businessman who blamed Shazam for losing his power, and, in the New 52, a man who tried to save his family using magic. This Sivana is none of that, being the victim of an abusive father and a Big Brother Bully who taunted him as little more than a failure all his life, was coldly cast out by the Wizard and rejected to wield his powers because he was tempted by the Seven Deadly Sins, and was subsequently blamed for a car accident he had no control over thanks to the Wizard's rejection.
- The Suicide Squad:
- Robert DuBois, alias Bloodsport, turned to villainy in the comics when he was too scared to fight in Vietnam, resulting in his brother losing all his limbs when he went in Robert's stead. This Bloodsport had an abusive father who raised him into a killing machine, including locking him in a chest for 24 hours with starving rats just to teach him a point, to the point that violence is really all he's ever known.
- Christopher Smith, better known as Peacemaker, follows closely in his comic counterpart's footsteps, except his father, like Bloodsport's, was directly involved in molding him into a killing machine, rather than subconsciously haunting him for being a Nazi Death Camp Commandant. While he is still a Well-Intentioned Extremist, comics Peacemaker was violent even to the point his superiors were scared of him, while this one let his patriotism to bury the US Government's involvement in "Project Starfish" cause him to kill Rick Flagg, though it's shown he's morally conflicted about it. His own self-titled series rams this further by showing how deeply messed up he is, and genuinely trying to make up for it in some way. Said series also shows his father, Auggie Smith, is a racist piece-of-shit who's the super-villain White Dragon, who made him who he is so that Smith could continue his crusade of white supremacy, and forced him to kill his brother in a fight while he and his friends chugged beers and watched, then had the audacity to blame Chris for the whole thing. All of this stunted poor Chris into believing he could only be loved from a man who clearly hated his guts.
- Polka-Dot Man in the comics is an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain who pales in comparison to the likes of The Joker and the rest of Batman's rogues, while also lacking much of a backstory. This version was experimented on by his mother to give him and his siblings superpowers (most of which didn't survive), sees virtually everyone as his mother, has to horrifically expel his powers from his body twice a day or else it would kill him, and has become The Eeyore as a result of his traumas. Tellingly, he's an Adaptational Badass in this series, as his powers actually make him a Lethal Joke Character capable of actually harming Starro himself.
- Ratcatcher I, through his brief appearance, is shown to have a more tragic fate compared to his comics counterpart. While the original was a sanitary worker who was arrested for killing someone in a street fight, turning to crime as a result of seeking revenge, this one was just a poor man from Portugal trying to raise his daughter by using a special invention to control rats to help them. Sadly, he dies from a drug overdose, leaving his daughter to take up the mantle.
- Starro The Conqueror is given this treatment. The original version was a ruthless being who used his spawn to forcibly turn people into his slaves so he could lay waste to entire planets. Here, he was the victim of cruel experimentation, having been plucked from his peaceful life so he could be turned into a weapon of mass destruction.
- Wonder Woman 1984:
- Most versions of Maxwell Lord are depicted as unambiguously evil villains with few redeeming qualities, especially the mainstream version best known for killing Ted Kord in Infinite Crisis and taking control of Superman before Wonder Woman snapped his neck. This Lord is shown to have grown up in a poor family, was implied to be a "Well Done, Son" Guy who could never live up to his father's standards, and is struggling to provide for his young son, whom he wants nothing more than to be the kind of father that would make his kid proud.
- Barbara-Ann Minerva is the third iteration of The Cheetah in the comics, having served as Wonder Woman's archenemy for years. Her original characterization depicted her as selfish and conniving, having been turned into the Cheetah for coveting immortality, only for her more promiscuous life to make her transformations very painful. Her first encounter with Wonder Woman sees her try to trick the Amazon out of her lasso, which ends rather poorly for her. In the DCEU, Barbara's really a Nice Girl whom, like Electro in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, is treated with disdain by her coworkers except for Diana, and her becoming Cheetah is out of an admiration for Wonder Woman and the strength she possesses, though the cost for doing so is becoming much meaner in the process.
- Disney Live-Action Remakes:
- Aladdin (2019): Jafar is given this treatment by the addition of a Freudian Excuse, unlike the simply and inexplicably power-hungry version seen in the original film. While he still seeks to dethrone the Sultan, he feels his peace-loving philosophy towards a neighboring kingdom is flawed, as Jafar grew up there, living on the streets as a dirt-poor common thief (not unlike how Aladdin is now), and was always put down his whole life (to the point that being accused of being second best is a Berserk Button for him).
- Beauty and the Beast (2017):
- The titular Beast in the 1991 original is still more-or-less the same character here, being a spoiled and selfish prince who was cursed to become a hideous monster for being cruel to an enchantress, but this film adds one crucial detail: Here, he lost his mother to the plague and was raised by his cruel and unforgiving father, who is implied to have molded him into the person he is prior to meeting Belle.
- Gaston also gets this to some degree, as, unlike in the original film, where he was depicted simply as a vain, self-centered and somewhat dimwitted brute, many of his actions in this version are implied to be because of PTSD from having served in a pretty brutal war. The same with LeFou, who was originally a Butt-Monkey in the animated film, but here he loyally serves Gaston (and is implied to have a crush on him, but ends up pulling a Heel–Face Turn when Gaston leaves him to die during the assault on the castle, and, in a scene cut from the movie, is shown to have a more deeper moral conscience when he asks the Enchantress if it was worth cursing the Beast in the first place.
- The Castle Servants in the original film were transformed into anthropomorphic objects, attempting to play matchmaker so they could be restored to humanity, but their transformations were of little consequence to their overall well-being and actually made them immortal. The remake, like with the Broadway Musical, places them under the gun; should the curse fail to be broken, they will lose their humanity and become as lifeless as the objects they were turned into, making their efforts all that more urgent.
- Christopher Robin: The titular Christopher Robin spent much of his childhood in the Hundred Acre Wood, playing with his friends and enjoying each other's company. This film throws in an added sense of tragedy in that he not only lost his father to World War I while he was sent off to boarding school, but the poor man fought in World War II and lost all sense of joy and wonder in his life, leaving him working at a job under a nasty boss and unable to spend his adulthood bonding with his own child. Fortunately, a willy-silly old bear comes by and is able to help him regain what he had lost.
- Cinderella (2015): Lady Tremaine was little more than a Rich Bitch known for her Death Glare in the 1951 original. Here, her mistreatment of Cinderella stems from the fact that losing both her husbands — the first she married because she was genuinely in love, and the second so she could support her daughters — and not being able to stand the idea that her step-daughter has kept true to herself in spite of all the tragedy, while she was never able to.
- Cruella: In 101 Dalmatians, Cruella de Vil is an insane, evil fashionista who simply wants to skin dalmatian puppies to make fur coats and she is an outright Hate Sink. In this film, Cruella has a legitimate Freudian Excuse for why she hates the Dalmatians: Her birth mother, Baronness von Hellman, ordered them to kill her real mother. Furthermore, she doesn't actually kill or skin the Dalmatians. Instead, she gives them to Roger and Anita respectively.
- Dumbo (2019): The Ringmaster of the original story committed Villainy Free Villainy by throwing Dumbo's mom in a cage and making the poor elephant a clown. The film's version, named Max Medici here, is an Adaptational Nice Guy, but he's also struggling to make ends meet for his performers thanks to World War I, forcing him to cut costs just to keep business afloat.
- Maleficent: The titular lead from the original film committed one of the biggest acts of Disproportionate Retribution in a film—cursing a baby to die before the sun sets on her sixteenth birthday just because she wasn't invited to her christening ceremony—and was known as the "Mistress of Evil" for a reason. The film goes out of its way to show that she had plenty of reason to become evil, thanks to King Stephan personally betraying her by cutting off her wings, making her vendetta against him much more personal.
- Mulan (2020): Böri Khan, the film's version of Shan Yu, has a gripe against the Chinese Empire for killing his father, whereas Shan Yu only fought them since he thought they were a Worthy Opponent.
- First Blood Combines this with Adaptational Heroism for John Rambo. In the original novel, Rambo's PTSD turns him into an unhinged mass murderer who starts a war with a small town and ends up killing a good portion of the populace by the end of the book. In the film, Rambo is portrayed as an Anti-Hero who was physically abused by the locals after being arrested for vagrancy, and even after his mental breakdown he still goes out of his way to avoid killing anyone, with one confirmed exception.
- Goosebumps did this with Slappy the Dummy. In both the book and the 1995 TV series, he is a sadistic Control Freak who tried to enslave his family and turn them against each other. In the movie, Slappy loved his creator R.L. Stine until he was imprisoned in one of his manuscripts while still conscious and unable to escape. When he finally got out, he was understandably pissed at Stine for trapping him all those years and believes his creator doesn't love him anymore.
- How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000) does this to the Grinch, a mean old grouch who lives atop Mount Crumpit and spends his days hating the Whos who live in Whoville below. The original story, as well as the animated special, depicted him as a miser who just hates Christmas and goes out of his way to "steal" the holiday so he can have some peace and quiet. This film gives the Grinch a Freudian Excuse as to exactly why he hates Christmas since he was bullied and picked on as a child due to his unusual appearance, and his attempt to embrace the holiday ended in humiliation thanks to future Mayor Augustus Maywho. When another attempt to change his ways ends exactly the same way thanks to Maywho again, he loses it and decides to steal Christmas. It also falls into Jerkass Has a Point and Villain Has a Point territory, since the Whos undergo Adaptational Jerkass and become greedy misers obsessed with gifts and stuff for the holiday—a fact on which Grinch calls them out during his "The Reason You Suck" Speech against them following his second humiliation.
- Joker (2019): The titular character is the Monster Clown, a self-described agent of chaos, and an unrepentant psychopath who's responsible for killing Jason Todd, crippling Barbara Gordon, tricking Superman into killing his wife and unborn child while simultaneously reducing Metropolis to a nuclear wasteland, and the occasional bout of littering. This film goes out of its way to show Joker (here, named Arthur Fleck) was just a man who wanted to make people laugh, but was constantly put down by society (including his own mother and his possible father Thomas Wayne) for having a mental illness, was beaten within an inch of his life several times, and never once given a moment of happiness. As a result, he decides to make Gotham City smile...whether they want to or not.
- Mean Girls (2024):
- In the original film, Janis hated Regina for (presumably falsely) outing her as gay and causing her to become a social pariah. Here, her hatred of Regina has a much more sympathetic cause; when they were younger and Janis came out of the closet, Regina initially supported her, but exploited Janis' sexuality to get a boy's attention, then widely mocked Janis, even using a stuffed toy that represented their friendship to do so, eventually causing Janis to snap and burn the toy with a Bunsen burner, which netted her a suspension and being labeled a pyromaniac.
- The musical format means we get to hear every character's inner thoughts via song rather than just Cady's via voiceover like in the original, giving more sympathy to Gretchen and especially Regina.
- In Ophelia, Polonius comes across less as a Professional Buttkisser driven mostly by ambition (as he's often presented in Hamlet) and more as an ordinary man trying to keep his job, protect his family and not piss off an increasingly tyrannical king willing to kill anyone who threatens his power.
- Pokémon Detective Pikachu depicts Tim Goodman this way: while both he and his counterpart from video game are in Ryme City to find out what happened to Detective Harry Goodman, the film adds the detail of him being a former Pokémon trainer who turned his back on the idea after losing his mother to an unspecified illness as a child and subsequently being estranged from his father.
- In the novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Changez is depicted as a flaky, capricious sort of person, feeling pleased with the 9/11 attacks despite living in the United States and not caring much about Islam or the lives of Muslim strangers, with the implication that while he may not have always been a (possible) fundamentalist, he was never truly "good" by anyone's standards. The film adaptation makes him a victim of profiling after the attacks, which serve as his Start of Darkness.
- Resident Evil: Apocalypse: Nemesis in his debut appearance in Resident Evil 3: Nemesis was a completely unsympathetic bio-organic monster with no motivation except for killing his marked targets, which he does so without question. Nemesis in Apocalypse is instead depicted as a former human played up as a Tragic Monster forced to kill his allies, and him getting to pass away as Matt Addison is mourned by those who knew him beforehand.
- Star Trek (2009): Captain James T. Kirk, The Kirk of Star Trek: The Original Series and The Ace of Starfleet in the Prime Reality, undergoes this treatment for his younger counterpart in the Kelvin Timeline. The original had already known loss; his brother, his son, and (for a time) his best friend and first officer. This iteration loses his father literally when he was born, and becomes a Brilliant, but Lazy recluse instead of the captain of Starfleet's flagship. To start with, anyway.
- Queen Ravenna in Snow White & the Huntsman. In the original fairytale, the evil queen doesn't get much motive for trying to kill her stepdaughter and consume her organs beyond the fact she's a cruel, jealous tyrant who can't stand anyone being prettier than her. In this film, she's given a backstory in which she was taken away from her mother by a cruel king and forced to become his mistress; she also indicates she and her brother lived in poverty at some point "begging for scraps". Ravenna spent much of her life being used and abused by men, with her mother casting a spell upon her to give her everlasting youth and beauty as it was "the only thing that could save [her]", although she must still drain other people's lifeforce to maintain this eventually. The reason she wants to consume Snow White's heart is less from jealousy and more from the fact she would be eternally youthful and never have her power threatened again. Deep down Ravenna believes that without her beauty she is nothing, having apparently never grasped the concept of inner beauty.
- Sonic the Hedgehog (2020):
- Sonic himself, while still portrayed as a mixture of the Mascot with Attitude in Western canon and the laid-back nature of the Japanese canon; is given a sense of loneliness stemming from being separated from his guardian Longclaw and sent to Earth as a child.
- Dr. Ivo Robotnik, while still a humorous villain that's increasingly obsessed with Sonic; mentions being orphaned as a child and having to deal with schoolyard bullying for his intelligence.
- Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022) continues the pattern with Miles "Tails" Prower: though all versions of his character see him as gaining confidence after meeting Sonic, this film adds the detail of being more reclusive in his workshop with his own sense of loneliness before Sonic appearing on his radar inspired him to search for Sonic on Earth.
- Knuckles the Echidna is depicted as the Last of His Kind in most incarnations of the series; but the film explicitly ties his backstory with Sonic's as he was the only remaining member of the echidna after their conflict with the owls began; making his guardianship of the Master Emerald much more personal. Though Knuckles had been put through the wringer before, this film presents his character in a new light.
- Space Jam: A New Legacy:
- Bugs Bunny, another heroic example, is known as both one of the quintessential cartoon characters and a Karmic Trickster who outwits various bad guys like Elmer Fudd or Yosemite Sam when they try to harm him (or just annoy him in general). This film shows that Bugs lost all his friends when the A.I. Al-G Rhythm tricked everyone into leaving but him, and him teaming up with LeBron James is to help get his friends back.
- Lola Bunny also gets this treatment to an extent. The original iteration was treated as little more than eye candy for Bugs and the audience, and the version introduced in The Looney Tunes Show was rewritten as a Cloud Cuckoolander. Lola's story in this film is to try and break away from her past (both in a story and meta sense) by joining Wonder Woman and the Amazons, only coming back when she learns Al-G Rhythm has LeBron's son hostage.
- Sony's Spider-Man Universe:
- Venom (2018): Eddie Brock and the titular symbiote both have an Irrational Hatred of Spider-Man in the comics—the former for Spidey inadvertently ruining his journalism career by revealing Eddie had pinned the wrong man as the "Sin-Eater" serial killer, and the latter for being discarded as part of the wall-crawler's life when it made him too aggressive—and spent a good chunk of their time trying to destroy him. With no Spidey in his universe, the Eddie of this series ruined his own life when he tried to expose Carlton Drake as a fraud by disobeying orders from his boss and getting his fiancé fired for using her legal case files, leading him to getting dumped and winding up a destitute—which he blames on Drake until he accepts his role in the affair later on. Venom, meanwhile, is a loser back home, and is considered weak amongst its species, only bonding to Eddie entirely by accident. From there, the two get put through a few wringers, both against Drake and later Carnage, as well as against each other, but through heartbreak and hell, they emerge from it the Lethal Protector.
- Venom: Let There Be Carnage: How does one describe Cletus Kassidy, better known as Carnage, in the comics? A violent sociopath and Straw Nihilist, a Self-Made Orphan, and one of Spider-Man and Venom's most deadly enemies, dedicated to killing as many people as possible because he thinks life has no meaning. In this movie, he's still all that, but he claims he killed his family for being horrifically abusive to him, and is shown to have a genuine love for his fellow cellmate Shriek, which causes conflict between Kassidy and the Carnage Symbiote.
- Spider-Man Trilogy:
- Spider-Man: Norman Osborn, alias the Green Goblin, is the most infamous Corrupt Corporate Executive in the Marvel Comics, and an Ax-Crazy psychopath noted for flying around Manhattan on a glider throwing pumpkin bombs; that and also becoming the villainous director of national security for a time. In the comics, he grew up in an abusive household screwed over his business partner while also being neglectful to his son Harry, but here, though he's still mildly corrupt and a bit distant with Harry, he's a good-natured scientist who does care about his son, and his descent into madness came from him being forced out of Oscorp (albeit for very good reasons). His Goblin persona is also shown as a Split Personality, forcing him to do things that he otherwise wouldn't.
- When this version of Norman appeared in Spider-Man: No Way Home, he was further portrayed as a helpless, terrified victim of the Goblin persona and desperately wants to be rid of it, and the characters and the overall narrative itself treat Norman with a lot more sympathy than Spider-Man already did.
- Spider-Man 2: Doctor Otto Octavius, aka Doctor Octopus, is an Insufferable Genius known as one of Spider-Man's most vicious enemies in the comics, raised by an abusive father and a manipulative mother (the latter of whom forced her to break off his engagement) before a lab accident fused his arms to his spine. This Ock, like with the above example with Norman, is much nicer, instead going off the deep end when a failed experiment kills his wife and fuses the arms to his spine—said arms then going rogue and convincing him to recreate his research by any means necessary.
- Spider-Man 3: Flint Marko, alias the Sandman, is usually just a petty thief on a good day, made an angry and bitter man when he screwed up his own life. Here, he turned to crime to raise money for his sick daughter, and his transformation came about by accident (well, that and the people testing the particle accelerator thought he was a bird.) He also has a Dark and Troubled Past thanks to being Uncle Ben's killer in this series—an act of which he deeply regrets.
- Spider-Man: Norman Osborn, alias the Green Goblin, is the most infamous Corrupt Corporate Executive in the Marvel Comics, and an Ax-Crazy psychopath noted for flying around Manhattan on a glider throwing pumpkin bombs; that and also becoming the villainous director of national security for a time. In the comics, he grew up in an abusive household screwed over his business partner while also being neglectful to his son Harry, but here, though he's still mildly corrupt and a bit distant with Harry, he's a good-natured scientist who does care about his son, and his descent into madness came from him being forced out of Oscorp (albeit for very good reasons). His Goblin persona is also shown as a Split Personality, forcing him to do things that he otherwise wouldn't.
- What Maisie Knew: A downplayed case, as while Maisie's parents still hate each other and want to take her away from the other, they are more affectionate towards their daughter than their literary counterparts and do want the best for her, despite their parenting skills not being good and being upstaged by Margo and Lincoln, who are better at parenting Maisie than her biological parents are.
