Honestly, it’s hard to remember what big-budget animation looked like before 2018. It was all so smooth. Too smooth, maybe. Everything followed that Pixar-pioneered "plastic" look where every surface was perfectly rendered and every movement was mathematically fluid. Then Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse dropped and basically broke everyone’s brain. It didn't just give us a new story about Miles Morales; it changed the literal DNA of how movies are made.
Sony took a massive gamble. They handed the keys to Phil Lord and Chris Miller, the guys known for making "good movies out of bad ideas," and let them run wild with a visual style that actually hurt some people's eyes for the first five minutes. It was stuttery. It had weird lines on the faces. It used halftone dots like an old comic book. But once your brain adjusted? You weren't just watching a movie anymore. You were inside a living, breathing comic book.
The Secret Sauce of the Spider-Verse Animation
The look wasn't an accident. It was a massive technical headache. Most animated films are animated "on ones," meaning there are 24 frames per second, and every single frame is a new image. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse flipped the script. They often animated "on twos," which is an old-school technique where you hold one image for two frames. This creates a crunchy, hand-drawn feel that mimics the pacing of a comic book.
But here is where it gets nerdy. They didn't do it for everyone at the same time. At the start of the movie, Miles is animated on twos because he's clumsy and hasn't figured out his powers yet. Peter B. Parker, the veteran, is animated on ones. He’s smooth. He’s experienced. As Miles gets better at being Spider-Man, his frame rate actually shifts to match Peter’s. That is storytelling through math. You don't see that in many movies.
Why Miles Morales Mattered More Than the Multiverse
People talk about the multiverse like it's a new thing, but comic fans have been dealing with it for decades. What made this film click wasn't the "whoa, there are six of them" factor. It was Miles. Specifically, a Miles that felt like a real kid from Brooklyn.
Shameik Moore voiced him with this perfect mix of confidence and total terror. Miles wasn't a science prodigy like Peter; he was a graffiti artist who loved his dad but felt the pressure of a magnet school he didn't want to be in. The creators leaned into the cultural specifics. The music, the Jordan 1s, the way Spanish is spoken without subtitles—it felt grounded. When you ground the character, the multiversal craziness actually has stakes. If Miles doesn't feel real, the stakes of the world ending don't feel real either.
The Technical Nightmare of "The Line"
If you look closely at the characters' faces in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, you’ll see these little black lines. In traditional 3D animation, the computer handles the shading and the "inking." Not here. Sony’s Imageworks team actually developed new software to draw those lines over the 3D models. It’s a hybrid. It’s hand-drawn art on top of high-end CGI.
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Artists had to manually "ink" the expressions. If a character moved, the line had to move with them, but it couldn't look "glued" on. It had to look like a pen stroke. This is why the movie took so long to produce. They were literally inventing the tools as they were using them. They threw out the "motion blur" that every other studio uses. Instead, they used "smear frames"—those weird, elongated drawings you see in old Looney Tunes—to show fast movement. It makes the action feel punchy. Aggressive.
The Soundtrack Was a Character
Post Malone’s "Sunflower" is the obvious one, but the score by Daniel Pemberton is the real MVP. He did something wild. He took a classic orchestral superhero theme and then literally "remixed" it. He would record the orchestra, press it to vinyl, and then scratch it like a DJ.
- Prowler's Theme: That terrifying elephant-like sound? That’s not a synth. It’s a heavily distorted wind instrument sound that signals pure dread.
- Spider-Gwen’s Theme: It has this "indie rock" garage band vibe that matches her background as a drummer.
- Miles' Theme: It evolves. It starts simple and gains layers of hip-hop beats as he gains confidence.
What Most People Miss About the "Leap of Faith"
The "Leap of Faith" scene is arguably the most iconic moment in modern animation. You know the one. Miles jumps off the skyscraper, the camera flips upside down so it looks like he’s falling up into the city.
But look at the glass. When Miles breaks the glass on the building to jump, he doesn't just jump. He breaks it because he’s still not sure he can stick to things. He’s literally breaking his safety net. Most viewers see the cool visual, but the narrative weight is in the hesitation. The movie spends an hour telling him he’s not ready. His dad tells him. Peter tells him. Gwen tells him. The "Leap of Faith" isn't about him suddenly becoming powerful; it's about him deciding he's okay with failing.
The Legacy: How It Changed Other Movies
Since Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse came out, the "Pixar Look" isn't the only game in town. You can see the DNA of this movie in The Mitchells vs. the Machines, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem. Studios realized that audiences actually crave "imperfection." They want to see the artist’s hand in the work.
The industry call this "stylized 3D." It’s basically a license for animators to stop trying to mimic reality and start trying to mimic art. It’s cheaper than hyper-realism in some ways, but way more labor-intensive in others.
How to Appreciate the Spider-Verse on Your Next Rewatch
To really see what makes this movie a masterpiece, you have to look past the main action. Stop looking at the characters and start looking at the "errors."
- Watch the backgrounds: Notice how the background characters and buildings have "color bleeding" or chromatic aberration. It looks like a misprinted comic book from the 1960s. This isn't a mistake; it's a deliberate choice to guide your eyes to the center of the frame.
- Listen for the "Thwip": Every Spider-Person has a different sound for their web-shooters. Penney Parker’s sounds digital. Spider-Ham’s sounds like a cartoon "pop."
- Check the "Kirby Krackle": During the final fight at the collider, look for the black dots in the explosions. That’s a tribute to Jack Kirby, the legendary comic artist who used those dots to represent cosmic energy.
- Frame Rate Check: In the scene where Miles and Peter are swinging through the woods, watch how jittery Miles is compared to Peter. By the end of the movie, that jitter is gone.
The real genius of this movie is that it trusts the audience. It trusts you to keep up with a chaotic multiverse story. It trusts you to accept a pig and a noir detective in the same room. Most importantly, it trusts that a story about a kid from Brooklyn is universal enough for everyone to see themselves in that mask.