undeadsuitor said:
Honestly, going back and watching the first two Raimi movies kinda shows how...mediocre they are. Like Doc Oc gets praised a lot for being a great villain..but is he? Visually yeah he's pretty unique but motivations? He's mind controlled by his tentacles.
Same with Green Goblin, he was mentally controlled by the green joker gas he used on himself.
It's telling that the writers couldn't come up with a proper motivation for not one, but both of their signature villains other than "they aren't in control of themselves"
I think it's less about their motivations, and more about how they're performed and realized. Willem Dafoe and Alfred Molina are always a treat, and they do a great job with these villains.
They also had some teeth (like the movies themselves); They acually flat-out murder people. And it shows they don't mess around and are a significant threat to the hero. I can't say I ever felt any sort of threat or tangible sense of danger emanate from the MCU villians.
And
Spider-Man villians in general aren't that deep or motivated by anything other than 'I'm a bad guy, and I'm gonna do bad things'.