Spider-Man 2.1 is Spider-Man 2, as far as the story goes, so there should be very few huge surprises if you've seen Spider-Man 2. There are several stories here -- the origin story of Doc Ock, development of Harry Osborne's hatred of Spider-Man and the strain it has on his long-standing friendship with Peter Parker as well as Harry's sanity, the strained and unprofessed love between Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson and the struggles of Peter Parker with his identity -- which seem to have a physical manifestation when the very powers that make him Spider-Man become untrustworthy.
However, with the Audio Commentary, the Trivia Track (similar to a "pop-up" video treatment, at times) and the Multi-Angle Featurette about Danny Elfman's score, there are a lot of new details to learn about the making of Spider-Man 2.
Those who, like me, are intrigued by computer graphics and post processing, will enjoy the Visual Effects Featurette which shows how actors, stuntmen and computer models were blended together to form shots that present action that is, "incredible, but not unbelievable".
I was unable to find any place that lists specifically what comprises the 8 minutes of never-before-seen footage, but there were a couple of scenes that stood out. My favorite is a scene that occurs after Spider-Man has thrown away his suit and someone has brought it to J. Jonah Jameson at the Bugle. Jameson tries the Spider-Man suit on and jumps around his office, making "thwip-ing" sounds, much to his staff's amazement. I don't remember this scene from Spider-Man 2, but I thought it was great -- very comical and suggesting that J. J.'s obsession with Spider-Man may go beyond hatred or even just good newspaper sales... there may be a bit of jealosy in there somewhere. This would make sense, in a city where everything J.J.J. prints is gospel, it would have to be a bit aggravating for some masked upstart to gain the praise and adoration of everyone in your city.
Another comical scene that was different in the original cut of Spider-Man 2 is a scene when Spider-Man has temporarily lost his ability to spin webs and has to take the elevator down from the top of a building -- only to have a marketing guy interact with him on the awkwardly-long trip down. Too funny. The original had this same guy thinking it was a guy in a Spider-Man suit, rather than thinking that it was Spider-Man. I have to say, I love both cuts, and don't know which I prefer, but I was glad to see this other one.
In a side-by-side comparison with Spider-Man 2, I found that the extended scenes included the first scene in the pizzaria, the pizza delivery scene, Peter Parker's birthday celebration (including some evidence of Peter and Harry's relationship), the conversation between Peter Parker and Mary Jane in the backyard (after the party), our first view of Peter's apartment (with him turning on a Police scanner radio), Peter Parker's introduction to Doctor Octavius (with more development of the doctor's wife), the chase scene with the two goons in the convertible, Peter's interaction with the obnoxious usher (Bruce Campbell) at M.J.'s play, the elevator ride down in the Spidey suit, an added scene (or part of a scene) where Peter Parker is unable to pay attention in class, because he's thinking of Doc Ock's experiment and then M.J. (right before we see him call M.J. on a payphone) and an extended fight scene when Doc Ock has Aunt May hostage. And that list is only the additional content found in the first 22 (out of 52) chapters.
Sometimes "director's cuts" feature deleted scenes that are added back in, even though the original decision to cut a scene was a sound one. Spider-Man 2.1 seems to actually be a better cut of the movie; the additional content seems to be great content that was removed as part of the effort to reduce the run time. There was never a scene that felt like it was longer than it should have been. In fact, for the most part, I would have preferred that this version had been the one released in theaters.
I would have to say that Spider-Man 2.1 provides an excellent version of the Spider-Man 2 movie, along with a lot of new documentary and extra-feature content that is different from that of the DVD release of Spider-Man 2, making this a must-have for Spidey fans, and even worth picking up for those who already own Spider-Man 2 on DVD. Watching Spider-Man 2.1 and its special features is a great way to prepare for the soon upcoming theatrical release of Spider-Man 3.
