Miles’ Leap of Faith – it’s the best scene in the Spiderverse franchise.

I dare you to ask anyone what was one of the most heartstopping, breathtaking, and invigorating scene in Into the Spiderverse. I guarantee you they will describe you the following Scene: Miles leaping off a skyscraper, initially falling but then gaining control, swinging through the night time lights of New York City. 

A lot of things make this scene incredible the spectacular animation being one, but I argue that the music is the key. As “What’s Up Danger” by Blackway and Black Caviar plays in the background, we as the audience can’t help but feel an amplifying sense of triumph and excitement. 

The album created for Into the Spider Verse utilizes both modern day hip-hop and trap beats. Alongside the album is the movie’s incredible scores created by Daniel Pemberton. This score uses a lot clever moments to add depth to their characters. For example, when we meet the many different spider people (from different universes) each character is accompanied by a distinct sound. 

• Gwen Stacey is heard with hard rock – alluding to the fact that she herself plays the drums in a rock band
• Spider-Noir is heard with that classic film-noir jazz sound 
• Penny Parker is heard with upbeat-electro beats that sound like they came straight out of an anime (like her!)
• Spider-Pig is heard with some looney toons esque music 
• And finally whenever the Prowler is on scene, we hear this distorted elephant noise (that carries into the plot twist in Across the Spider Verse; if you know, you know)

All these little moments exemplify the diversity and differences between each spider hero. But let’s come back to “What’s Up Danger”. The key here is that no other superhero has been integrated so deeply with hip hop. Although it is not uncommon for superhero movies to utilize rap in their music scores, when was the last time you heard the huge, climactic moment use hip hop? 

Spiderverse uses hip hop in such a way to show (not tell) the viewer how integral it is to Mile’s identity. They do this in the beginning of the film as well, when Miles is singing along to “Sunflower” by Swae Lee and Post Malone. Then moving on to “Familia” by Nicki Minaj, Anuel AA, and Bantu, to illustrate Miles’ half Puerto Rican heritage. 

We can do this with almost every song on the albums released, and link it back to Miles’ character, identity, or heritage. However, in this scene Pemberton layered “What’s Up Danger” with the original score. The score contains the motifs used to represent Miles’ independent journey as a character, alongside the one representing the identity of a Spider Hero. Both integration of these three musical structures, in this one scene is ultimately what gives us such a climactic moment. 

But theres one final layer to this all. We only ever hear the hip hop music (from the albums) whenever Miles’ is in his known world of Brooklyn, or his home. Examples include:

• The public’s reaction to Peter Parker’s death when we hear “Scared of the Dark” by Lil Wayne, Ty Dolla $ign, and XXXTENTACION
• When Miles is stressed out he hums the “Sunflower” tune
• When Miles is at his lowest, and is trying to return home we get “Hide” by Juice WRLD and Seezyn
• And finally at the end of the film we tie it off with “Sunflower” once more

On the other hand, whenever Miles is acting as Spiderman (a role that is alien to him for a large portion of the film), we hear mostly the original movie score. Thus, the hip hop we hear in the film represents the real world, or Miles’ old life, while the instrumental score represents his duty as Spiderman. 

So, when Miles leaps off that skyscraper, we are literally seeing both his known and unknown worlds merge. There was so much depth and thought put into just this one scene, but it was most definitely worth it. This is just one of the many incredible insights of the film, but we can all say for certain that Spiderverse and its story telling is brought to life by its music. 

_{Inspiration/Credits: Daniel Pemberton, Blizzic (Youtube)}