Otto Octavius (Earth-96283)

"Intelligence is not a privilege, it's a gift. And you use it for the good of mankind."

―Otto Octavius to Peter Parker^[src]

Dr. Otto Octavius was a scientist who worked for Harry Osborn at Oscorp when an accident with his project made him into the villainous Doctor Octopus.

History

Spider-Man 2

Dr. Otto Octavius had devoted his entire life to developing a fusion-based energy source. His work eventually led him to Oscorp, and Harry Osborn. He worked long and hard on his fusion device, which used tritium as its source. Harry also introduced him to Peter Parker, who was writing a paper on him for a class taught by Curt Connors, Octavius' friend. The scientist and science student shared the same aptitude and passion for science, and during Peter's interview of his science idol, the two formed a bond like mentor and student.

When Octavius finally finished his fusion reactor for Oscorp, he prepared a demonstration, which Peter and Harry attended. He also unveiled his "smart arms" to assist in the demonstration. These four powerful mechanical arms were attached onto his spine, controlled through advanced artificial intelligence, and equipped to safely handle the fusion's magnetic hazzards. The experiment appeared to be a success at first, creating a small sun in the center of the reactor as the energy core. But the core soon became unstable, and threatened the safety of the staff and spectators. Because Octavius was too stubborn to turn off the machine, the experiment turned into a complete disaster, destroying the inhibitor chip keeping Octavius in control of his arms, causing the arms to become permanently attached to him, and killing his wife, Rosalie. Spider-Man arrived and unplugged the device before anyone else got hurt.

Octavius was taken to the hospital, where the seemingly now sentient mechanical arms killed every doctor in his operating room, and Octavius escaped afterwards. J. Jonah Jameson gave him the name "Doctor Octopus", or "Doc Ock", and apparently declared him a criminal.

While taking refuge in an abandoned warehouse over the Hudson River, Ock reflected on his past mistake, but was swayed by his intelligent mechanical arms to finish the fusion experiment. Determined to magnify his dangerous machine and use it again, he robs a bank for funding. Spider-Man attempted to stop him, and almost succeeded, but Ock managed to escape and used the stolen money to buy parts to rebuild a larger fusion reactor.

He then demanded more tritium from Harry Osborn, who was determined to take revenge on Spider-Man, and bargained it in exchange for Spider-Man's capture. By kidnapping Mary Jane Watson, Ock forced Peter Parker to "find" Spider-Man. After an extensive fight against Spider-Man, which culminated to the near destruction of a train full of people, Spider-Man successfully saved the passengers, but Ock successfully captured and delivered Spider-Man for the tritium.

He returned to his lair to activate his machine, but Spider-Man managed to pursue him and resumed the fight to save the captive Mary Jane. The magnified fusion once again became unstable, threatening the entire city. But when unplugging the reactor failed to stop the now self-sustaining sun, Spider-Man unmasked himself, revealing himself to be Ock's student. After appealing to Ock's "human side", and reminding him the responsibility of using his intelligence for the good of mankind, Octavius realised his mistake, and he voluntarily collapsed the platform, along with the reactor and sun, and sunk them into the river, stopping them from destroying the city, but at the cost of his life.

Powers and abilities

Superhuman Strength: With the harness, Otto was crazily strong, being monumentally stronger than humans and even Spider-Man; nothing came even close to matching his strength in the second movie.
Superhuman Durability: With the harness, Otto was more durable than a human, being able to survive Spider-Man's attacks, such as being slammed into a car.

Character traits

For Dr. Otto Octavius, science was everything. It was his power, and thus his responsibility. It was his life's goal to become a great scientist whose contributions would become a benefit for mankind, and he intended to accomplish this through his fusion-based energy reactor. And like any great scientist and inspirational teacher, he would instill this same motivation into any young potential scientists, such as Peter Parker.

However, after the accident left his mind and judgement vulnerable to the artificial intelligence of his mechanical arms, he came to believe that completing and perfecting his dangerous project was more important than using the right methods or considering the severe consequences, and he lost sight of the responsibility of a great scientist he once believed.

After his battle with Spider-Man, he was confronted by Peter, the student and would-be scientist who learned the responsibility of intelligence from Octavius himself. Finally remembering that intelligence was a gift for the good of mankind, Octavius regained control over his mechanical arms and his sanity, and sacrificed his experiment, as well as his dreams, to save New York from the danger he created, redeeming himself before he died.

Relationships

Rosalie Octavius - Wife.
Dr. Curt Connors - Friend.
Peter Parker - Student.
Harry Osborn - Employer and provider of the tritium.
Spider-Man - Former Arch enemy, first encountered during first experiment.

Appearances/Actors

Raimi series (2 films)

- Spider-Man 2 (First Appearance) - Alfred Molina
- Spider-Man 3 (Referenced Only)

Behind the scenes

Doctor Octopus was supposed to appear in Spider-Man teaming up with the Green Goblin, but Sam Raimi cut the character because he didn't want to slow down the story adding a third origin.
Alfred Molina is a Marvel Comics fan and declared he was excited when Sam Raimi, amused by his interpretation in Frida, asked him to join Spider-Man 2's cast.
To create Doctor Octopus' mechanical tentacles, Edge FX was hired to create a corset, a metal and rubber girdle, a rubber spine and four foam rubber tentacles which were eight feet long, which altogether weighed 100 pounds. The claws of each tentacle, which were dubbed "death flowers", were controlled by a single puppeteer in a chair, to control every available form on the claw. Each tentacle was controlled by four people, who rehearsed every scene with Molina to give a natural sense of movement as if the tentacles were moving due to Octavius' muscle movement. On-set, Molina christened his co-stars "Larry", "Harry", "Moe" and "Flo", with "Flo" being the top-right tentacle.
Edge FX was only hired to do scenes where Octavius carries his tentacles. CGI was used for when the tentacles carry Octavius: a twenty feet high rig held Molina to glide through his surroundings, with CG tentacles added later. The CG versions were scanned straight from the practical ones. However, using the practical versions was always preferred to save money, and each scene was always filmed first with Edge FX's creations to see if CGI was truly necessary. Completing the illusion, the sound designers chose not to use servo sound effects, feeling it would rob the tentacles of the sense that they were part of Octavius' body, and instead used motorcycle chains and piano wires.

Trivia

In an early version of the script, Doctor Octopus was supposed to be much younger and to fall in love with Mary Jane Watson. He was supposed to be the creator of the spider that bit Peter Parker in the previous movie, and to be forced to collect Spidey's spine in order to survive the infection caused by his tentacles fusing with his skeleton. The idea was later rejected by Avi Arad.
When J. Jonah Jameson is searching a name for Doc Ock, Hoffman proposes him "Doctor Octopus", "Science Squid", and "Doctor Strange". Jameson replies to the last as "That's pretty good...but it's taken!" He then decides on Doctor Octopus (which Hoffman originally proposed), and nicknames him "Doc Ock".