Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is one of the most uniquely animated movies that has been released within the past decade. The new Spider-Man movie, the one owned by Sony and not Marvel, utilizes a broad spectrum of animation techniques, which brings something new to the table.

Instead of animating in just 3D, Spider-Man also utilizes 2D animation in many areas of the film. Usually the use of 2D animation would be used to outline or add emphasis to the 3D models, giving it an interesting style. The use of both 3D and 2D animation, with the addition of textures, allowed the film to get that comic book look and feel throughout the entire film. It is an impressive feat that often meant scenes took several months to be animated because of the style the animators were trying to create.

Why does this matter? It matters because this brings an entirely different outlook to the animation industry and shows budding animators that you do not have to stick to status quo. So many films often choose to animate in purely 3D and focus on how much detail they can add to their movie, from the individual fibers in clothes to pores in faces.

Lately, no one has been trying to move outside of that box and into a new animation style, since the old one works so well. This tends to make new animators feel as though they have to keep with the old style of animation in order to make it in the industry. This makes them want to kill off their style because they think that people do not want to see something that is new and would rather watch something with which they are familiar.

However, with the release of Into the Spider-Verse and the overwhelmingly positive reviews, more animators are beginning to realize that people want something different and outside of the norm. People actually want to see something fresh, and we are willing to spend money to watch these different movies not once but maybe even twice in theaters. With this in mind, Into the Spider-Verse has opened the doors and paved the way for animators that might have been scared to go against the grain because of the lack of interest. I hope that within the next few years, we might actually begin to see movies that differ from what we often see.

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