I noticed this as well. The best thing I can come up with was Raimi had an idea and wanted to do it, plot lines be damned!

I’m glad this bothered someone else besides me.

when you first posted, i was going to comment with this elaborate fanwank i came up with after i saw the movie. but on reflection, i think i’ll spare you.

I wondered about it too when I saw the movie and I came to two conclusions, neither of which are really workable, but it’s all I’ve got…

1. Ock just *knew* Parker=Spidey. Call it Octopus Intuition?

B. Given the neural connection between his brain and the Ock-Arms, the good Doc could chuck the car precisely to maximize the scare value and minimize the “death by flying car” value.

OR (just occured to me) Ock figured if he raised a big enough ruckus, Spidey would swoop in. Creating his own drive-through cafe seemed to be the best way to ruckusify the situation?

I tend to agree with the Raimi just wanted to bust up a window and use some slo-mo shots idea.

I love how you put SPOILERS above a post about a movie that I dunno about 100 million people before you have already seen.

Notice how long it takes pete and mj to see who it is that threw the car. i think that doc ock threw the car in the general direction to get their attention, and it just happened to come that close to them.

phhggghhhhhtttt

I think it’s an accurate piece of Silver-Age Spidey plotting. Throw cars now, think later. Can’t let too many frames go by without a fight! This isn’t a put-down of the movie or the comics; I love both.

actually there were a couple of variations, but here’s the one i found
the most credible with the passage of time:

first, consider that the (underexplained) artificial intelligence of
the mechanical octopus arms has varying degrees of sway over dr
octavius’ mind at different times throughout the story, from the moment
they are joined.
with no ai influence, octavius sinks into grief, so when he is
functional, all of his actions are controlled at least marginally. when
octavius is mentally absent (as in the operating theatre), the ai works
for self preservation *only*, with violent result.
it is in the ai’s interest to preserve the life of the dr, but keep him
confused in order to maintain at least marginal control. an important
part of that is to keep him distracted, and the bete noire of fission
(or whatever it was) made an excellent focus.
when he visits harry, his motivations, driven by a desire to vindicate
his project (rather than those of the ai) are ruling his actions,
allowing him to be pretty coherent during the discussion. he’s still
fairly violent, arrogant, and nuts, but he is comparatively ok.
however, the focus on the project cannot be maintained while he is
working on a tangential errand – and his mental engagement in an
interaction with parker, who would by association remind him of the
pleasant dinner/conversation about love/good memories of his wife/her
death (nominally at his hand) was something that the ai could not risk
- indeed, when octavius is focused and sees parker, he commits suicide.
so. he’s in the driver’s seat with harry, but the ai is in control by
the time he gets to the coffeeshop. and the ai has no interest in the
success of the project, and it is arguably better for it if the project
remains a frustrated task, one that can be used indefinitely to control
poor dr octavius.

so that’s sort of incoherent, sorry. but it gives you the idea. and
these things all make more sense in my head than they do with actual
words. see what curiosity gets you? nothing good.