What Makes Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin So Terrifying

Is Spider-Man the greatest video game hero of all time? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLJDvB7GZe4

The fact that he woke up in an entirely different universe, caused absolute fucking havoc for a version of Spider-Man he doesn’t even know out of spite, is pretty terrifying I would say Edit: Hey Spidey Fans! Thanks for all the likes and love. Please keep this thread positive and no bashing others opinion if you comment.

I find it also fascinating how in No Way Home he acted with his every single facial muscle and yet it was very simplistic and never came off as being too much! Even after a 20 year break, he stole the show in each scene and was maybe even more menacing than ever. Willem Dafoe truly is an acting powerhouse!

Another little detail that is seldom acknowledged is that Dafoe wore prosthetic teeth when playing Norman, but had his natural tooth gap on display as the Goblin. This detail returns in Spider-Man: No Way Home.

Willem Dafoe's Goblin is so underrated overall as a villain. He understood the assignment for both Raimi's First Spider-Man film and for No Way Home. Finally he is getting the props he deserves for the Goblin role.

The "don't tell Harry" line is also great. In his final moments Norman comes out again and pleads with Peter to not reveal how far he's fallen. So that at least the one person he cares about the most will remember him as a good man and not the monster he's become.

What really got me was that his last words were, "Don't tell Harry." He could have apologized, he could have threatened, but instead that last line showed a large part of Osborn that was hidden away. The part that cared what his son thought.

This is exactly the kind of stuff I've been saying about Dafoe's performance for 20 years. Also, casting James Franco as Harry was perfect, the resemblance is uncanny.

The duality theme in Rami’s trilogy is fascinating. All three villains and Peter struggle with the choices of their two possible sides

Willem Dafoe doesn't get enough credit for his role as the Green Goblin. He set a standard for his villain role in the movie.

We don't deserve how good william defoe was as green goblin. He even managed to terrify you outside the mask. He's the best villian in the MCU

The fact that Dafoe looks still looks exactly the same as he did in the 80s is a little terrifying.

I remember when I was a kid seeing this for the first time, goblin genuinely terrified me. Especially the scenes when Norman was talking to the mirror. It was my first time seeing a superhero movie and at the tender age of five, this was my first Introduction to what a great (and terrifying) villain is supposed to be. And honestly, a lot of villains even in the MCU don’t come even close.

what really gets me, personally, is that he drives the double personality angle of his character so well. When he's Harry's dad and a businessman, you really fell for his struggles, and its also very believable when he goes full on crazy. You can actually feel that he is a threat.

"The heart, Osborn. First, we attack his heart" That line still terrifies me. Because Goblin really chose to attack the ones closest to Peter just to make him realize that messing with him was a bad idea...

We just watched the Tobey Maguire trilogy (my bf and I) and he covered his eyes during the scene with the Green Goblin in the burning building. It was the scariest scene of his childhood. The Green Goblin scenes were definitely the most impactful of all three movies. Him talking to himself in the mirror, crawling along the floor to get the mask. Such a great villian. His face is up there for me with Jim Carrey in terms of the way he can manipulate his features. Really an incredible actor.

The score during his first Jekyll and Hyde scene is super dark and terrifying, and it establishes his arc in the movie impeccably

Everyone keeps saying that they want Willem Dafoe to play the Joker, but after watching No Way Home, I realized that he doesn't need to. Dafoe mastered the Green Goblin so well that I believe that playing the Joker would feel like a step down for him. I think he would be a fine Joker, but he embodies the Goblin so well that it would feel redundant for him.

When my husband and I watched the scene with all the villains at Happy's apartment in NWH, my husband immediately heard the change and knew that Norman had switched over to Goblin, even though his back was to the camera. The fact that something that subtle clued us in is a tribute to how amazing Willem Defoe is as an actor.

The "Don't let him take me again" line reminds me so much of the most impressive thing (in my opinion) that Mel Blanc ever did. In one episode of Looney Tunes, Bugs and Daffy are making fun of each other, and they do it by impersonating each other. Mel voiced Bugs pretending to be Daffy AND Daffy pretending to be Bugs, creating four distinct voices instead of just going into his original voices. Similarly, Dafoe manages to make a distinct voice for when the Goblin is in control but is trying to sound like Norman, and we can tell exactly what it is.