Spider-Man and the army guy (SPOILER)

Cafe Society
1

I read over the Spider-Man thread, and while people noticed small details like single mentions of villains’ secret identities, no one has mentioned the army guy’s name.

You remember the army guy who visited OsCorp at the start to threaten its funding? His name was General Slocum. His name tag shows that it’s spelled exactly that way.

The General Slocum is the name of a steamship that caught fire and sank in the Hudson in 1904, killing over a thousand. Before last year, it was known as the greatest disaster in New York history.

And the character died in a fire!

Considering that the movie was already known for having to change itself (or at least pull the trailer) after the disaster of September 11, the reference to The General Slocum was just . . . odd.

Any thoughts as to why it was there?

2

that’ll teach me to start threads at midnight . . . bump

3

They really didn’t change the movie that much after Sept. 11. The teaser using the WTC was never in the movie and the New Yorkers helping Spidey was in already(including the line, "You hurt one of us, you hurt all of us).

So they left it because they’d filmed his scenes already(and Slocum is written on his name tag).