This Deleted Scene From 'Spider-Man: Homecoming' Has a Cool Connection to 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier'

When Spider-Man: Homecoming swung into theaters, we were delighted by its joyful tone, along with the film's homages of famous Spider-Man moments and its liberal quantity of Easter Eggs. Yet on it's journey from script to screen it seems that one, particularly large reference was left on the cutting room floor. However, thanks to the recent digital release of the film — which comes complete with copious amounts of deleted scenes — we can now view it for ourselves! Scroll on down to check it out!

The scene in question sees Peter Parker and Ned (Jacob Batalon) en-route to the national science decathlon finals. As we now know, Spider-Man’s inept tracking of the Vulture (Michael Keaton) means that Peter accidentally misses the event itself. However before all of that trouble — and shortly after Peter finishes his phone call with an ever-irritable Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) — Peter and his fellow students get a glimpse of one very familiar building.

Yup, it might be an unfinished special effect, but that’s definitely the Triskelion — the old, and mostly destroyed headquarters of S.H.I.E.L.D. How is this significant? Well, the Triskelion only hosted one of the most formative events in the MCU thus far! Cast your minds back to the end of #CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier, which featured a huge battle between Captain America (Chris Evans) and HYDRA, after the latter tried to launch the nefarious Project Insight. This then culminated in the fall S.H.IE.L.D. and the literal descent of several, very large Helicariers. Indeed, this deleted scene even references the carnage of that conflict, since one of these massive aircraft is still stuck in the tower on the right-hand side of the shot.

This is a cool in-universe reference in itself, but there’s even more that we can note from this short clip. Aside from the fact that it muddles Homecoming’s continuity up a little bit more (seriously, why are Damage Control still cleaning the Triskelion up after three years?) we also get a cool little reference to Thor’s technophobia (“ I don’t think Thor uses a phone”) that we also saw in Team Thor. Plus, Ned and Michelle’s (Zendaya) talk about what went down at the Triskelion is pretty interesting in itself.

Ned correctly asserts that Captain America was “trying to save us from tyranny”, but Michelle cynically retorts “that’s what they want you to think,” which highlights something that made Spider-Man: Homecoming so successful. The film’s small scale ensured that Peter Parker’s stomping ground felt very lived-in and molded by events like those at the end of The Winter Soldier. Ned and Michelle’s mini-squabble further contributes to this realistic theme, since it’s just the kind of conversation we would have if we had lived in the #MCU ourselves. Heck, how many debates are there about the legitimacy of the Moon Landings? Of course there would be conspiracy theories about superhero showdowns, if they were a natural phenomenon that is.

Sad though we may be that this deleted scene didn’t make the final cut, it’s clear why it was removed from Spider-Man: Homecoming . As much as we’d like the Marvel movies to reference each other for hours on end, this little scene ultimately doesn’t add much to the main story, so the snip is admittedly justified.

Nevertheless, it’s still a great visual treat for Marvel movie enthusiasts to consider, and especially so for fans of Spider-Man’s many #comicbooks. After all, Homecoming notably took point from the Ultimate Spider-Man series, a comic book that saw him visiting the facility on a fairly frequent basis. Therefore, it’s cool to see this facet of those famous stories being referenced, albeit in a small and subtle fashion. Yet whilst Peter Parker came close to this famous building in Spider-Man: Homecoming, it’s doubtful that we’ll see his webbed alter-ego swinging towards it in any upcoming movie. After all, unless the shadowy #AgentsofSHIELD go public, and the (mostly) disbanded peace-keeping organisation is reinstalled at its old Washington base, it seems unlikely that #SpiderMan would have any real reason to visit the building any time soon.

Not that we’re complaining though, since it’s clear that Peter is going to be too busy to sight-see anyhow. Not only will Spider-Man have another high-tech costume to get his head around — courtesy of Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) — the young #superhero will also have the threat of Thanos (Josh Brolin) to contend with in #AvengersInfinityWar. As such, we’re bound to be getting even more news about our favorite superhero soon, so make sure you keep web-slinging back to Movie Pilot for all your Spidey-related goodness!