This is the first time I've ever seen a movie so close to its theatrical release date (I think it came out on Friday)...but I'm still surprised that I haven't seen anyone online talking about how it ended yet. Like, the audience reaction in the theater I was in was fairly loud and fairly negative; unless they were all just booing ironically (I certainly wasn't) I would have expected to see at least some mention of some people being unsatisfied with it, instead of the usual steady stream of praise from everyone in my Twitter feed...

It's not a bad movie, by any means. I'd still call it well above average, even. But I dunno; maybe it's just my high standards, but I can't 'fall in love' with a story that slowly, painfully grinds to a halt in the last act and then ends with a very poorly-executed cliffhanger.

I'm fairly certain that cutting the story in half was a last-minute decision; I can't see the writers doing such a wonderful job with the first hour of the film and making a conscious decision to muck it all up in the second half. If they'd known ahead of time that they only had half the plot to work with, they could have done something like:

1. Extend an earlier portion of the story: The school meeting, the party, Miles reuniting with Gwen, The Spot planning his revenge, exploring Mumbattan with Pavitr, exploring Spider Society HQ...there are SO many slower/more casual portions in the story that could've had a few extra minutes or seconds tacked on here and there to help them fill whatever runtime they wanted.
But, see, when you get hit with a big change really late in production, going back to redo finished scenes isn't as feasible as just modifying the scenes that are still WIPs. Hence, the decision to simply extend the last 15 minutes by having Gwen wander back and forth through dimensions and having Miles confess his secret identity to a mother who has no idea what he's talking about (which really ruined the emotional impact of the scene...).

2. Add a new scene: They showed the rest of the Into the Spiderverse cast (Peni, Spider-Pig, Noir) at the last second, and I feel like, if they really are gonna re-introduce such important characters to the story, why didn't we get a scene dedicated to seeing them again?? ._. Like, I mentioned extending the Spider HQ portion, and that's how I would do it: let Miles be reunited with his WHOLE TEAM, let him feel like he's truly gotten everything he wanted before Miguel smashes his dreams.
Not only would this improve the pacing of the story and give the former cast a little more love than the brief cameos they ended up with, it would make a place for all of Peter B.'s 'family moments' instead of constantly shoehorning them into everything else going on. I may be alone in this, but I don't care about his cute baby and his loving wife when Miles' (and Gwen's!) life is falling apart. =/

3. Just...cut stuff out: I don't know why the film had to be 140 minutes, the logic behind runtime decisions in media constantly eludes me. :T But if it were at all possible for the film to just be shorter, instead of artificially extended to its own detriment, I think that would be the best course of action.
My dream edit would go like this:

• Most of the movie would be the same, up until Miles does his counterattack on Miguel after the big Spider-Chase. I would rewrite this scene to feel more triumphant, like this is the final battle of the movie (because it would be) and the semi-conclusion of Miles' character arc-- he has decided that he will do whatever it takes to save his dad, no matter what 'canon' dictates.

• As the 'falling action' after that climactic moment, Miles uses the Go-Home machine to try to go home, while Miguel tries and fails to stop him. This scene can also be pretty much the same as it was.

• Cut straight to Miles arriving "home", no mirror-scenes with Gwen (save the reunion with her dad for the next movie), no pointless fluff with Peter B., no false "I'm Spider Man" confession either. He just gets back to his room, feels safe for a bit, then runs into his still-alive uncle and in that moment realizes that he is in the wrong dimension.

• He tries to play along, goes up to the roof with him, yadda yadda, then The Prowler knocks him out and right there, maybe after a few lines between him and Uncle Aaron to make it clearer, we do the face reveal showing who Miles became in this universe. END OF FILM!

You'd lose like 20 minutes of runtime, possibly more, but you'd have a much more satisfying story that actually felt like something got finished before the cliffhanger. Like, that's what a good cliffhanger feels like, a brief bit of exciting extra setup AFTER you thought the story had already reached a good stopping point. Unfortunately, what they actually did was neglect to create a stopping point, and then drag out the cliffhanger portion for so long, it felt more like they were going to continue the story but decided not to at the last second. Which is just a disappointing betrayal.

...Anyway, that's really all I wanted to say. ^^; If you have anything to add feel free, and if you had issues with the pacing too, I'd love to hear your thoughts, at least so this'll feel less like an 'emperor has no clothes' situation. I honestly don't mind that 99% of viewers seem to love this movie unquestionably; considering how the Spiderverse series/concept has revolutionized the 3D animation industry, I'm more than willing to forgive its flaws...but at the same time I feel like someone should be talking about this...

I think it might be a particularly toxic-positive twist on the idea that "these tragic events in my past made me who I am today"-- when you see this story repeated across dimensions, it's a short leap in logic to "these tragic events are NECESSARY to make me who I am today" if you're not thinking straight, especially with Miguel's weird backstory as added context.

However, I still think you're right; that the way they ran with it was a bit...contrived. Like, for one thing, there's a large difference between what Miguel did (straight-up impersonating a version of himself from another dimension) and what Miles wants to do (go back to his OWN dimension and try his best to save his OWN father, like any Spider would normally do).

For another thing...this 'anomaly' definition is really strict, to the point of bending storytelling logic. Like, I don't think anyone really thought of Miles as an 'anomaly' for having a slightly different story than the usual; I think we all just figured it was the thing comic writers usually do, switching up story elements and making changes to put a fresh new spin on a very old character. Now we're suddenly told that such things are a danger to the multiverse, and we're supposed to accept that as a legitimate viewpoint serious enough for the main antagonist to wrap his life around, rather than a silly delusion that should've been rejected immediately.

Like, with all the different Spider-stories out there, are we really meant to believe that Miles' spider is the only story element that ever came from "another dimension" (an extremely common sci-fi trope)?? That all the Spiders had the exact same bad things happen to them (unless Spectacular Spider-Man had a comic series I don't know about, I know for a fact that he never had a chance to have his "captain character" die. So...is 'series cancellation' considered an anomaly)? Are all the Spider-animals really going through the same arcs that the human Spiders go through (I find it hard to believe...)? What about the kiddified versions of Spider-Man sold to pre-schoolers whose stories simply don't cover tragedy??

Normal audience logic will lead you to the conclusion that all Spiders are different, because each one has a story meant to do something different. Some are meant for drama, some are meant for comedy/parody. Some are meant to act 'spidery', some of them have a totally alien set of powers and abilities. Some of them lose loved ones, some of them don't, and some of them don't even have loved ones to lose.
We understand these differences, and even enjoy them (the series itself encourages this!). So it's hard to get behind a plot that claims any deviation from the "basic Spider-Man story" is some kind of threat.

I feel like, either they're going to have Miguel do an "oopsie, I never considered that I might be wrong" in the next movie, which would be very silly and disappointing, or they're gonna have to introduce a larger villain pulling strings behind the scenes to put the proper tragedies into the Spiders' lives and convince them that it's 'fate', or whatever. Which...might be a bit difficult to squeeze in, considering that we've already set up 3 different antagonists...
...OR, they'll just do the thing where an otherworldly Deus ex Machina goes like "Miles, it's true that your dad should die, but because I like you/because you're special and you deserve it, I'm going to make a special exception to let him live...!" Which I would also be disappointed with, but I could live with it. ^^; It kinda fits the tone of a Marvel story.