I’ve come to the realization that franchise movies think we’re dumb

These big franchise movies have a lot to face when making a movie. But maybe they should stop thinking their audience is dumb.

Hey franchise movies we love so much? Maybe don’t think your audience isn’t capable of basic understanding anymore. To specify, something happens in Spider-Man: Homecoming that makes it out like the audience was full of morons.

And this isn’t the first time it’s happened with a big franchise. It’s a repeat offense where the filmmakers discount their viewers and then sacrifice storyline and/or characters because of it.

Below contains spoilers for Spider-Man: Homecoming.

So I would like to take us back in time to 2013. Star Trek: Into Darkness was getting ready to make its way onto our big screens and J.J Abrams was pretending to be clever. (That’s mean, he’s very smart but this was not.)

The movie continued to sell itself as not a remake of Wrath of Khan. Whenever they were asked about it, the cast said that Benedict Cumberbatch wasn’t Khan. And we were skeptical but wanted to believe that this Star Trek movie didn’t white wash one of the great villains of the franchise.

Too bad for us that that is exactly what they did. And they lied to their audience for a lackluster plot point when it would have been much cooler if Benedict Cumberbatch just played John Harrison.

Getting the one lone gasp for the name Khan (originally played by Mexican actor Ricardo Montalbán) was not worth it. It ruined the story and left a bad taste in our mouths. Lucky for us, Star Trek Beyond saved everything, but still. Into Darkness didn’t need that bad press.

Now you’re probably wondering, so what does this have to do with Spider-Man: Homecoming? Well, Zendaya is MJ.

So shocking, I know, contain your non-existent screams since we already knew.

Basically the filmmakers pulled the “no, she’s not Mary Jane” card because technically her name is Michelle. But to keep her true identity hidden for a crappy reveal at the end, it basically made Zendaya not exist in the movie.

No really, big star Zendaya had maybe five scenes throughout the movie and even fewer lines. To give the movie credit, I truly believe it was their way of keeping her identity as MJ a secret. The problem was that we all already knew that Zendaya was playing our Mary Jane Watson (again, even though her name was Michelle).

It was a real “Robin” moment from the end of The Dark Knight Rises. Except that, you know, Joseph Gordon-Levitt was still given a meaty role and also that’s not Robin’s name. (His name is Dick Grayson to start but that’s beside the point.)

Basically they wasted Zendaya for no reason. She had the best performance of the movie and was in it for maybe 5 minutes.

Stop wasting your female characters

After seeing Wonder Woman and watching how Steve Trevor was treated, it honestly hurts to see the flip of it and watch as Zendaya gets five minutes. Now, I love Steve Trevor and he is one of my favorite comic book characters so I loved seeing him on the big screen but he was literally Diana’s equal.

Michelle? She was the quite smart girl who barely spoke and was in five scenes. So as you can see, it’s not fair. Not in the slightest. My plea throughout all this? Stop pretending like your audiences are stupid. They’re not. We could have had Zendaya as Ned’s part and this movie would have been infinitely more interesting.

Next: Spider-Man: Homecoming had an interesting take on the Vulture

Spider-Man: Homecoming is in theaters now and it is a pretty incredible movie. But also remember that Zendaya could have been so much more had they not forced this stupid ‘shock’ at the end.