Spider-Man: Lotus: The 6 biggest talking points from controversial fan film

Spider-Man: Lotus is one of the most talked-about films of the year, but not necessarily for the right reasons.

The fan film with a budget of $100,000 has proven to be hugely controversial in the months leading up to its release.

The trailer generated a lot of buzz back in 2021, but it took until June 2022 for the first of the controversies to be unearthed. Back then, an anonymous twitter user shared screenshots of messages from Warden Wayne, the man cast to play Peter Parker in the movie, using racial slurs.

Wayne was quick to post a lengthy apology to Twitter blaming his past behaviour on being “raised in a homeschool conservative environment in a small town in Arkansas.”

Writer and director of the film Gavin J. Konop also came in for criticism after Twitter user @Berkmanboom shared screenshots of Konop using racial and homophobia slurs

In a YouTube video that addressed the controversies facing the film titled “Addressing Everything”, Konop attempted to explain his past actions as well as claiming some of the screenshots were fake.

“In my first couple years of high school, I’m gonna be honest I was pretty much a giant loser. I was online way too much, I was part of these group chats and communities where I very often said the most offensive things I could think of to get attention from people.”

He also said that he takes “full responsibility” for his actions and admits that he knew “I was wrong, I wasn't raised knowing these things were not okay to say.”

Spider-Man: Lotus (Fan-Film)www.youtube.com

In the few days since it was made available to watch on YouTube it has been viewed more than 2 million times – but there are some who will have been put off by details behind the scenes clouding the film’s production.

Lotus takes place in the aftermath of Gwen Stacy’s death and focuses on Peter Parker as he deals with the fallout. Many will be wondering how it stacks up - these are the biggest talking points about the film itself, aside from the controversy behind the scenes, and some of the biggest criticisms aimed at it over recent days.

Overall length and long establishing shots

One of the most common points made about the film is that it’s just too long. It’s close to an hour and 45 minutes in length and there is too much padding – a lot of it coming in the form of generic shots of New York.

Turning Peter Parker into a completely unsympathetic character

Parker deals with the death of Gwen Stacy by lashing out at others a lot of the time. That in itself wouldn’t be an issue, as many people might do the same in such a stark situation. However, some social media users have claimed that Parker in Lotus is a fundamentally unsympathetic character. Ultimately, any film would be close to unwatchable when the superhero himself is an insufferable character who continuously puts others down.

This moment early on in the film which shows Mary Jane coming to check on him in a show of support, only for him to unload a character assassination her way, is one that shows exactly the point they’re making.

Parker's conversation with a terminally ill child is all about himself

There’s one extended sequence people have focused on in social media discourse, and that’s the moment Spider-Man “trauma dumps” on a young boy with terminal cancer.

After receiving a letter explaining a super fan of his is unwell, Parker goes to see him twice. The first scene had the potential to be quite a sweet moment in the film, but instead, Peter Parker seems to reject the child’s love of Spider-Man and questions why the kid is a fan of his and not Captain America, before talking about Gwen Stacy’s death.

“It’s my fault…” he says. “I can’t do anything about it, no matter how hard you try. I’m not the hero you think I am. All of this, it’s not me.”

He then dismisses the young boy's feelings and tells him he doesn’t understand because he’s “just a kid”, before leaving. It feels a little strange tonally and again shows Parker's lack of self-awareness to consider the feelings of a terminally ill child before his own.

He later returns and apologises, looking back at a load of his old adventures and sparking a series of flashbacks, giving him fresh determination to wear the suit, but the sequence has attracted some criticism online.

Parker’s dress sense

It’s a minor gripe one, for sure, but some people have pointed out that the fact Parker dresses like a trust fund kid at a yacht club dinner goes against the key principles of the character familiar to many from the comics.

The CGI

The opening few minutes feature some of the strongest moments of the entire film – and it’s pretty impressive to see this version of Spider-Man navigate New York.

But while it’s unfair to criticise a fan film that costs relatively little to make for its CGI, it is true that some moments look great while others, less so.

Even CGI in multi-million dollar films can look cheap at times, though, so it’s not surprising that fans used to the biggest productions would pick faults with some moments from Lotus.

Others, however, did defend it. One viewer wrote: “No way people are complaining about the CGI in #SpiderManLotus. It’s literally a fan-made film. Hate all you want on it, but pointing out bad CGI in a fan-made film is just dumb.”

A lack of action

The film is very much a character piece, focusing on the personal relationships of Peter Parker, Mary Jane and Harry Osborne with lots of long, dialogue-heavy scenes, and some have pointed out that film is lacking in action sequences.

The opening few minutes feature a short fight with the Shocker, and there’s a brief scuffle with the Green Goblin in a flashback sequence. However, some were left feeling that they expected more action from a Spider-Man film – even a fan-made one.

Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.