Doctor Octopus (Spider-Man Films)


 * NOTE: This article is about the incarnation of Doctor Octopus from the Sam Raimi trilogy. The mainstream version can be found here: Doctor Octopus.

"The power of the sun in the palm of my hand. Nothing will stand in our way! NOTHING!"

- Otto, now known as "Doctor Octopus" becomes evil after he hides in his lair and reveals his plans. "My Rosie's dead. My dream is dead. And these... monstrous things should be at the bottom of the river... along with me."

- Otto after his experiment goes horribly wrong. "Intelligence is not a privilege, it's a gift, to be used for the good of mankind."

- Dr. Octopus before his transformation into Doc Ock to Peter Parker.

Otto Octavius, later called Doctor Octopus, is the main antagonist of the 2004 Academy Award-winning movie Spider-Man 2. He was a scientist who became controlled by his malevolent mechanical arms, and was from there, turned into a dangerous super villain.

He was portrayed by Alfred Molina who also played Satipo, Reverend Leland Drury, Maxim Horvath and voiced Lasombra.

Origin
Otto Octavius is a scientist by profession who studied science together with Curt Connors. It was at university that he met his future wife Rosalie who was studying English Literature at the same time.

Otto dedicates his life towards researching and building a sustainable fusion power reactor with his wife's help. He finds funding for his project from Oscorp under the leadership of it's new head of research development, Harry Osborn.

Harry also introduces Otto to Peter Parker who was writing a paper on him for a university class, ironically taught by his colleague Dr. Curt Connors.

Becoming Evil
"'Doctor Octopus'. New villain in town: 'Doc Ock'."

- J. Jonah Jameson decides on a name for the villain. To help him perform a sustained fusion experiment, Octavius developed a set of artificially intelligent mechanical arms, which are impervious to heat and magnetism.

Though the experiment overloads and becomes unstable, Octavius refuses to halt it, with devastating results: his wife is killed; the neural inhibitor chip which prevented the advanced AI of the arms from influencing Octavius's own mind is destroyed, and the arms are fused to his spine.

Unconscious, he is taken to a hospital to have the appendages removed, but the tentacles develop their own ability to move at will and brutally kill the surgeons, and Octavius escapes and hides out in an abandoned warehouse by the waterfront. Octavius' failed experiment left Oscorp bankrupt causing Harry much anger.

At the Bugle, Hoffman and J. Jonah Jameson discuss what to name him. Hoffman suggests "Doctor Octopus" which Jameson thinks is crap. He then suggests "Science Squid" which J.J also thinks is crap. Hoffman finally suggests the name "Doctor Strange" which J.J thinks is good, but is already taken. J.J finally settles on Hoffman's original idea (which he takes credit for himself) and decides to name him "Doctor Octopus" or "Doc Ock" for short.

At the warehouse, Octavius laments on the death of his wife. Uncontrolled, the tentacles begin to corrupt Octavius' mind, playing on his vanity and ego, and he decides he must complete his experiment at any cost.

Bank Showdown
As Peter and his aunt are discussing with an accountant at a bank, Octavius, wanting to rob the bank for money to fund his experiments, arrives at the place, wearing a large brown jacket ,exposing his tentacles and ripping off the vault door. Security guards attempt to stop him, he simply throws them out of his way and starts collecting all the money. Peter then changes into Spiderman and attempts to stop Octavius. After a short glitch in his powers, Spider-Man manages to recover and soon the two take their fight outside the bank, but Doc Ock takes Aunt May hostage. After Spider-Man rescues her, she revises her former opinion of him and realizes that he is a hero. Octavius escapes unscathed.

Allying with Harry Osborn
After acquiring funds from his bank robbery, Doctor Octopus has completed rebuilding his fusion reactor, but is still in need one final item: the tritium which fuels the reactor. He goes to Harry Osborn's penthouse for it, where Harry calls Octavius a hack. After threateningly dangling him over the edge of the Osborn mansion balcony Harry proposes a deal. Harry agrees to give Octavius all the tritium he needs in exchange for capturing Spider-Man and bringing him back to him alive. He tells Doctor Octopus that Peter will tell him how to find him, but urges him not to harm Peter.

Abducting MJ
Doctor Octopus destroys a coffee shop where Peter and Mary Jane Watson were meeting. Peter, through his spider-sense throws Mary Jane and himself out of the way of a thrown taxi, but Doctor Octopus abducts Mary Jane and tells Peter to tell Spider-Man to meet him at the West Side Market Clock Tower at 3 O'clock or he'll kill MJ.

Train Showdown
Spider-Man arrives at the clock tower and demands to know MJ's whereabouts. He then engages Doctor Octopus in a battle, which starts off at the top of the tower and then they battle down on top of a train. During the battle, Octavius destroys the brakes of the train, forcing Spider-Man to rescue the runaway train so he can escape.

Spider-Man manages to stop the train before it can plunge over the end of the track, but at great physical exertion. He nearly falls, but the people in the train catch him and pull him up. Doctor Octopus arrives and the passengers defend Spider-Man, but his mechanical arms are too powerful for them. Doctor Octopus captures Spider-Man and delivers him to Harry as arranged. He then takes the tritium for his own. Spider-Man awakens and convinces Harry to reveal Octavius' whereabouts so he can rescue Mary Jane, learning that Octavius is rebuilding his machine and threatening the world.

Final Battle and Demise
"I will not die a monster."

- Doctor Octopus, before bringing the fusion device on top of himself and sinking it in the river as an act of redemption for his crimes and for the death of his beloved wife Rosalie "Rosy" Octavius. Spider-Man finds Doctor Octopus in an abandoned warehouse on the waterfront, where he's restarted his fusion experiment. After battling with Doctor Octopus, Spider-Man manages to stun him with an electric shock. Peter then reveals his true identity to Octavius and pleads with him to stop the machine. Returned to his senses by the shock and determined to end his doomsday experiment before it causes more harm, Octavius uses his mechanical arms to collapse the floor of the building, successfully drowning the fusion device at the cost of his own life. He drowns in the river along with the fusion core.

Production of the character
David Duchovny, Liev Schreiber, Robert De Niro, Sam Neill, Ed Harris, and Chris Cooper were all considered for the role of Doctor Octopus. Apparently Sam Raimi decided to cast Alfred Molina as Octavius after his wife watched the film Frida which Molina had starred in. Molina was a huge fan of the Marvel Comics since childhood. Cooper would later be cast as Norman Osborn in 2014's The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

Trivia

 * This version of Doctor Octopus is one of the few versions that was portrayed as a truly sympathetic character.
 * Doctor Octopus was originally planned to appear in Spider-Man and team up with Green Goblin, but he wasn't included because Sam Raimi thought it "wouldn't do the movie justice to have a third origin in there".
 * The mechanical tentacles were each made up of 76 individual pieces. Each one of them were controlled by four people, who rehearsed each scene with Alfred Molina to get a more natural sense of movement. The sound designers chose not to use servo sound effects, to complete the illusion that the tentacles are a part of Doctor Octopus' body.
 * Molina actually gave names to his four mechanical tentacles (Larry, Harry, Flo, and Moe). Flo was the top right tentacle, because it was operated by a female grip and that particular tentacle was the most motherly, which removed his sunglasses and gave him sips of his drink.
 * In the earlier scripts of Iron Man, Doc Ock was planned to be mentioned by Tony Stark, but this reference was scrapped in the final version. Probably, this reference was cut because the universe of Sam Raimi's Spider-Man is not part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
 * In Spider-Man 3, Doc Ock makes a non-physical cameo in one of J. Jonah Jameson's newspapers.
 * In the video game adaptation of Spider-Man 2, Doc Ock has many henchmen. However, in the movie, he works alone, without any henchman, like the other villains of the Spider-Man trilogy.
 * Unlike in the comic books and other universe, Doc Ock often says "we" with his arms. Which is similar to Venom with the symbiote.