How do Doc Ock and Sandman know that the Green Goblin and Norman Osborn are one and the same? That was never public knowledge in the Raimi films. Peter removed the Goblin outfit from his corpse before dropping him off at Harry’s house.
Edit: Ok, it’s more of a continuity error than a plot hole.
Riiiiight
His own son didn’t know until he discovered his dad’s secret lab
Octavius died right after that
Marko was a common thug, unlikely to know or care about the identities of Green Goblin or Harry/Hobgoblin
Sandman definitely knew too much and his explanation wasn't right no one knew Goblin was Norman and Ock just knew Norman died probably at the hands of Spiderman but him recognizing Goblin as Osborn was a mistake.
shareBig plothole definitely. Also, how did Sandman or the newspapers know he was killed by his own glider?
There's no way they could have possibly known this information.
I enjoyed the movie myself, but it was full of continuity errors and plotholes, which prevented from being the perfect comic-book film for me.
That's also a good point -- it took the butler to tell Harry that Norman's wounds were from his glider.
I think, though, that Norman was already unmasked when Otto first saw him in the dungeon, so that at least is excusable
Beyond that, the only explanation is that they come from alternate universes close to the Raimi and Webb films, but not necessarily exactly.
It's weak and a cop-out, but it's consistent. It's also one of the problems with the multiverse as a plot device -- if anything's possible, where are the stakes?
I think it's clear that in the universe from which they came, Osborn's identity had been revealed at some point. Keep in mind there are infinite universes, many only slightly different from others, and some drastically different. Dr. Octopus and Sandman obviously came from one in which the Green Goblin's identity had been made public.
Or, Sandman had been living out his life in the Spider-Man 3 universe, and at some future point, maybe after Harry's death, all was made public.
Or, Dr. Octopus worked for Oscorp and he knew Norman's secret, in which case he is the Spider-Man 2 version.
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shareI don't think it was the same exact Osborn that we saw in the Raimi film.
In fact I think they were all slightly different from their original films.
It's definitely a plothole the writers overlooked. It could have easily been fixed with just a few small tweaks to the script as well, you'd think Kevin Feige would have picked up on that.
shareIt doesn't fit the definition of a plot hole, and it's highly unlikely it was an oversight. If a handful of people on Moviechat have pointed it out, it's certain that Feige et al. were aware of it.
shareMore of a continuity error then. If they haven't overlooked it they've hoped audiences wouldn't notice, heck even I didn't notice whilst watching the film as I was so caught up in what was going on. Having Otto explain to Tom Holland's Peter that Norman Osborn is the Goblin except he's dead in his universe was helpful exposition to either jog people's memories or for the benefit of anyone who hadn't seen the Sam Raimi films.
Otto says a line describing Osborn as a "Brilliant scientist. Military researcher." It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to say that Otto recognized the tech Goblin used as that of Oscorp's and he put the connection together being as smart as he is.
As for Sandman knowing maybe by the events of Spider-Man 3 it really was public knowledge that Osborn was the Goblin and Harry took the goblin formula and just deluded himself into thinking it wasn't true.
Either way it doesn't really matter, it doesn't detract from my enjoyment of the movie, the movie does far too much brilliantly to be letdown by one tiny continuity error.
In Spiderman II (w/Tobey Maguire) there is a very quick shot of a newspaper with a headline reading "Spiderman connected to Osbourne's death" (something like that, it's been awhile).
Since this headline was shown in the film featuring Doc Ock, we can assume that the good Doctor saw it and made the connection (since he also came to know Peter Parker was Spiderman).
The same assumption would apply to Sandman I reckon, though he doesn't come along until SM III.
That's the best I can come up with, without going all multiverse-y for an explanation.