Captain Marvel MCU

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Scots Dragon
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Re: Captain Marvel MCU

Post by Scots Dragon »

Ares wrote: Fri Mar 15, 2019 6:48 am
catsi563 wrote: Fri Mar 15, 2019 6:26 am Oh to everyone who think she needs to smile more, watch the interview she does while playing with puppies, she doesn't stop smiling for the entire run.
Did anyone here even mention the smiling thing?
It has been mentioned a lot elsewhere, so catsi was probably just venting in general.
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Re: Captain Marvel MCU

Post by catsi563 »

Scots Dragon wrote: Fri Mar 15, 2019 10:10 am
Ares wrote: Fri Mar 15, 2019 6:48 am
catsi563 wrote: Fri Mar 15, 2019 6:26 am Oh to everyone who think she needs to smile more, watch the interview she does while playing with puppies, she doesn't stop smiling for the entire run.
Did anyone here even mention the smiling thing?
It has been mentioned a lot elsewhere, so catsi was probably just venting in general.
Pretty much yep.
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FuzzyBoots
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Re: Captain Marvel MCU

Post by FuzzyBoots »

I saw an interesting article about how the common complaint that Captain Marvel felt like a throwback, a Marvel Phase 1 Origin Story, is basically true. If this film had been released at the same time as Iron Man, Thor, etc, it probably would have fit in pretty well. It's this late introduction that hampers it, because now we're used to a more complex universe, where heroes don't just exist in a vacuum.
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squirrelly-sama
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Re: Captain Marvel MCU

Post by squirrelly-sama »

catsi563 wrote: Fri Mar 15, 2019 7:24 pm
Scots Dragon wrote: Fri Mar 15, 2019 10:10 am
Ares wrote: Fri Mar 15, 2019 6:48 am

Did anyone here even mention the smiling thing?
It has been mentioned a lot elsewhere, so catsi was probably just venting in general.
Pretty much yep.
I'm not sure I see how that's an answer to the complaint. the complaint I've heard is that she doesn't seem to crack a single smile in the movie or show much emotion, so I don't see how her smiling out of character and off set counters it.
Corrigon
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Re: Captain Marvel MCU

Post by Corrigon »

Seen the film; enjoyed it. She smiles loads and has a lot of normal interactions. She can be serious too. The basis of the complaint is utter rubbish.

By the way, she is Captain Marvel, not Miss Marvel as somebody posted earlier in the thread.
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Re: Captain Marvel MCU

Post by Jabroniville »

I think the "She doesn't SMILE!" thing stems from the heavy/serious early trailer, which contains no humor from the heroine. When peopled called this out, Larson tied it to the "You should SMILE!" comment that a lot of women get (as an introverted male who works in customer service, I get it ALL THE TIME, TOO, so this isn't a 100% woman-targetting thing... but I get how annoying it is), hence the blowback.

Marvel showed her smiling in the next trailer, in any case, and she's plenty sassy/snarky in the movie.
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Re: Captain Marvel MCU

Post by Corrigon »

She is full of snark and rags on Fury loads
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Ares
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Re: Captain Marvel MCU

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My understanding, which admittedly could be misinformed, is that most of the early criticisms for the early Captain Marvel trailers were regarding Larsen's wooden acting and lack of emotion, which I can't disagree with. To me at least, Larsen was the least compelling actor in the film, which was mitigated by pairing her up with people like Jackson, Law and Lynch. Then one internet user well known for being a shit-poster Photoshopped a smile onto her face and claimed to have "fixed the problem".

So of course the usual happened. The folks looking for outrage took offense and the usual buzzwords from their camp got tossed around. Then the folks that wait for the folks that get outraged watched them get outraged and got outraged themselves and hit back with their usual buzzwords. And then the vast majority of people, whether they heard about it or not, didn't really care, save perhaps to shake their head a little at the latest social media dust up.

Because, to me at least, everything after those Photoshop images hit the net just made me roll my eyes. If you think it was some important social event, you're free to feel that way, but just found the whole thing very silly. It just highlights what spending too much time on social media does to people.
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catsi563
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Re: Captain Marvel MCU

Post by catsi563 »

Well Criticisms or not she just passed the 900+ million mark putting her into the top 10 of marvel movies in her third week out
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Re: Captain Marvel MCU

Post by HalloweenJack »

Just got back from seeing it and I thought it was good.

Not among my top Marvel movies, but firmly a good movie....and what's this? *GASP* She smiled?! I don't know what to believe anymore man!
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Re: Captain Marvel MCU

Post by catsi563 »

Believe that Flerkins should be the next great pet craze *nod nod*
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Re: Captain Marvel MCU

Post by Corrigon »

Just don't leave them near your desk
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Re: Captain Marvel MCU

Post by Chris Brady »

So... This film is boring. It goes through the paces, but it's a terrible story, typical of modern Marvel Comics, mind you. But I'd give it a 5/10 as a standalone film.

As part of the MCU? This is The Last Jedi of the the last 10 years of work, unraveling three key parts.

Incoming spoilers:










First, Howard Stark's contribution to the Tesseract, thus retconning First Avenger. The second is Avengers, the entire plot of the movie is undone due to the fact that SHIELD has no idea what the Tesseract is capable of, which is why the Thor Movie science team is on the scene to understand it, but apparently, in the 90's while FURY is there knows that it's a powerful item (and according to Anna Boden, it was just lying around SHIELD HQ probably as a paperweight on someone's desk.) and what it does.

And speaking of Nick, apparently, his statement about having 'trust issues' was a lie to cover up the embarrassment that an Alien CAT scratched his eye, which if you look at the damage in Winter Soldier, it doesn't look like a cat's claw mark. So that's the third film retconned.

Score from me (which is totally subjective) as part of the MCU: 2/10
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Re: Captain Marvel MCU

Post by Ares »

I'd say comparing Captain Marvel to The Last Jedi is a bit unfair. Despite its issues, Captain Marvel is decent superhero action film that follows the MCU formula well enough, and good chunk of said issues are in how it adapts its content and what its placement in the MCU does to what's established in the franchise. The Last Jedi, even if you try to view it just on its own and ignore the ramifications of what it does to the Star Wars franchise, is still pretty bad in terms of pacing, story structure, plot holes, stupid decisions, failed comedy, etc. Taken as a part of the Star Wars franchise, the Last Jedi becomes and utter shit show. It has actually killed interest in Star Wars to the point that it hurt the next Star Wars film that came out.

Whatever problems I've got with Captain Marvel, it's not a potential franchise derailer the way Ghostbusters 2016, Batman and Robin, Superman 4, Superman Returns and similar films were.

Getting into said issues, I'd have to look at the movie from three different lenses: As its own film, as part of the MCU, and as an adaptation of the source material. And fair warning, I'm going into Term Paper mode, so I'm going to break this up into multiple posts.


As A Standalone Film

As a standard superhero film, Captain Marvel is slightly below your average MCU film, but since most MCU films are above your average action flick, its still a decent film. The directing was solid, the action sequences were well choreographed, the special effects were spot on for what you'd expect of a MCU film, etc. There were some laughs to be had, some very touching moments, all of what you'd expect from a MCU film not called Iron Man 3. Generally speaking, they make solid superhero films.

The use of the mind machine by the Skrulls on Carol was actually a good way to build mystery and get exposition out of the way, being one of the more creative concepts in the film. Her fight scene in the Skrull ship was also probably the overall most entertaining one in the film.

Casting was mostly positive. Sam Jackson was great as always, Lashana Lynch did a solid job, and the only problem with Jude Law is that it's a shame they cast him as someone with so little importance to the MCU. Maybe he's just really expensive, but if you're going to bring Jude Law into the MCU, make him . . . I don't know . . . anyone who could potentially be in a recurring role. Hell, make him the Black Knight. That'd raise interest in Dane, having Jude Law play a modern paladin. Even the girl who played Monica did a decent job. And the Skrulls were largely all entertaining, and there were some genuine heartwarming moments when Talos was reunited with his family.

The only actor I really had an issue with was Brie Larsen, who honestly felt miscast here. She'd occasionally get a funny line here and there, but every time the film focused just on here it seemed to slow down unless she was in an action scene. She just wasn't very charismatic, and it really helped to have actors like Jackson, Lynch and Law around to lend energy and emotion to the scenes and saved it from being a mess.

The film does a decent job of being about showcasing a superheroine lead. The scene where Carol breaks free from the Supreme Intelligence by showing that Carol always got up whenever life knocked her down was well done, reminiscent of Steve's "I can do this all day", but allowed to be a bit more dramatic due to happening in Carol's head. Her dismissal of Yon-Rogg at the end was perfect, as she rightly states that she doesn't have anything to prove to him. She kicks a lot of butt, gets an occasional snarky one-liner, and she gets her powers through a deliberate act of heroism.

At the same time, Carol probably has the least amount of character growth of a solo hero in a Marvel movie/origin story, which is to say she doesn't really have any. Tony Stark, Thor and Stephen Strange all had the hubris slapped out of them, and in learning humility became heroes. Steve Rogers always was a decent person, but his struggle was about learning how to gain the confidence to be a hero, and then in figuring out how to best be a hero in world constantly limiting him. Bruce Banner had to struggle with the monster inside him and learn how balance the monster and the man. Scott Lang had to learn to be more responsible and not take the easy way out of his problems. T'Challa had to learn to be his own man and not be shackled by the bad decisions of the previous generations, learning when to break with tradition. Peter Parker had to figure out how to balance his life as a hero with his normal life.

Carol doesn't really go through anything similar. It could be argued that her struggle is one of identity, but what that usually means is the character is trying to figure out who they are, what their strengths are, where they fit in with the world, etc. Carol doesn't really do that. It's really more about discovering her past, but the mystery and discovery really don't contribute anything to her character. The Carol we see at the start of the movie is basically the same Carol in the flashbacks and at the end of the film. There was nothing about her past that was wrong with her from a personality standpoint, she learned no lessons, realized past mistakes, or anything. It wasn't even really about learning to not let people control her, because she frequently ignored what other people told her to do from the get go. Rather than a character arc, it's really more an affirmation that Carol was always perfect just the way she was.

There's also moments of genuine cringe where film becomes almost a parody of female empowerment. Until Nick Fury, all of Carol's interactions with men are treated as basically a nightmare of constant sexual harassment and belittlement. There's literally a moment where a guy tells her that men fly jets because "it's called a cock pit". I've got no problem believing that a guy might have said that to Carol once, but that's meant to represent her entire time with the Air-Force. That they felt the need to include the "Smile, honey" line as a reference to the guy who photoshopped a smile onto her posters literally made me roll my eyes, because it clearly bothered some people involved in the film enough to include it. Instead of ignoring it, they basically elevated the meme to immortal standards.

Basically, Carol receives nothing but criticism from the men in her life and nothing but support from the women. Her dad is framed as a horrible person because he was obviously worried about his daughter who might have just gotten killed and wished she hadn't been in that situation. The closest we get to the idea that Carol's mom didn't support her was a line that lumped her in with Carol's dad, when Monica said, "You didn't get along with your parents, so we became your real family". Monica's father is never mentioned in the film, which creates its own problems.

The idea of a hero having to prove themselves against people that don't believe in them is nothing new. Captain America was basically about Steve Rogers having to prove himself when even his best friend didn't believe in him. But most of that was because Steve was literally a 90 pound asthmatic, though even after he got his new body, Steve still had to fight tooth and nail to prove that he could serve his country. No one believed in him until Peggy and Dr. Erskine, but he earned the respect and faith of those around him through his actions and personality. By the end of the film, Steve's harshest critic has become one of his most ardent supporters.

With Carol, there's never a moment where she wins over any of her fellow soldiers, no moments where its clear that their lack of faith is due to her physical capabilities, no reconciliation with her family, it's basically the entire world is against Carol because of irrational sexism, and no one that didn't immediately have faith in her is allowed to change their minds.

There's also a few logical hiccups as well. For one thing, women were allowed to fly fighter jets by 1993. For another, the military does not allow single moms to join the armed forces because the US government does not want to turn the children of American soldiers into orphans. Maria Rambeau would not have been allowed to fly, not because she was a woman, but because if she died, her child would have no one to take care of her. In the same vein, Monica was more than happy to tell her mom to go risk her life when Maria is doing the sensible thing and wants to, you know, be a mother for her child. The film basically plays the concept the concept of wanting to take care of your kids and not get killed for laughs. Which could have been avoided if Monica's father was in the picture.

The concept of the Lightspeed Engine Mar-Vell was designing was also just really dumb. The movie makes it clear that Mar-Vell was designing a ship that could fly at the speed of light, so that the Skrulls could use it to escape the Kree. The problem there is that a ship that can fly at the speed of light is monumentally SLOW compared to the spacecraft we've already seen in the MCU. The various aliens of the MCU can travel around the galaxy in a matter of days, where it would take over four years of lightspeed travel just to get to the nearest star to us. I mean, congrats Mar-Vell, you managed to get your hands on a cosmic artifact that can literally warp space itself, and you used it to create a vastly inferior travel system to what already existed. I know the intent was to have an engine superior to what the Kree, Nova Corps, Guardians and the like have, but that isn't what was said.

Once Carol had her powers unlocked entirely, the film basically loses all tension where she's concerned. There's nothing any of the Kree can do to her at this point, and there's more worry if Fury and Maria will escape from Minerva in the one jet scene they get. That they had "I'm just a Girl" playing me facepalm. It's amazing how the Guardians of the Galaxy could set a fight scene to Fleetwood Mac and make it work and Captain Marvel just failed here.

I know I went into far more detail about the problems of the film than the positives, but that's sort of the nature of critique. Overall, while those elements are distractions from the film, it remains a decent superhero action movie.
"My heart is as light as a child's, a feeling I'd nearly forgotten. And by helping those in need, I will be able to keep that feeling alive."
- Captain Marvel SHAZAM! : Power of Hope (2000)

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Ares
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Re: Captain Marvel MCU

Post by Ares »

As A MCU Film

Within the greater MCU, there's a few more issues.

The Stan Lee tribute was not one of them, however. Both the opening tribute and his cameo in the film were fantastic.

But due to its placement and what happens, there's now some issues with the MCU timeline.

Before Captain Marvel, the timeline of the MCU basically went:
- Odin prevents Frost Giant invasion, leaves Cube on Earth.
- Cube is discovered in 1940s by HYDRA, used to create super weapons. Captain America is created as first public superhero to stop them.
- Cap is lost to sea, Cube is regained by SHIELD and placed under tight security.
- Antman works as a secret government agent during the 80s. Peter Quill is kidnapped by the Ravagers during the same period.
- Bruce Banner attempts to recreate Super Soldier Serum, creates the Hulk instead and goes into hiding.
- Tony Stark becomes the first public superhero of the 21st century as Iron Man. Hulk reappears in the public eye.
- Thor returns to Earth, resparks interest in the Cube. Captain America is found.
- Cube summons Loki to Earth. Avengers are formed to combat him.

So, the Cube / Tesseract. It was originally found by Howard Stark at the end of the first Captain America film, and while it provided Howard with the inspiration for the ARC Reactor, SHIELD didn't actively research too deeply into it due to the dangers involved. This changed when Thor first showed up, as the his obvious connection to Norse Mythology inspired SHIELD to re-examine the Cube, especially since Jane's team had the scientific and mythological know-how to probe more deeply into it. Hence its relocation to Project: Pegasus.

Now apparently Mar-Vell came to Earth, infiltrated Project: Pegasus (which has now been around for a lot longer), somehow got access to a cosmic artifact that nearly changed the course of World War 2, and managed to steal it so she could develop a less effective travel system. If Mar-Vell was a Skrull, it might have worked, but this just creates a lot of issues solely so that they could have the Space Gem be a second-hand source for Carol's powers.

For that matter, it creates an issue of why they waited until after Thor showed up to start trying to weaponize the Cube. In Avengers 1, Fury clearly states that it was Thor's fight with the Destroyer that made Fury decide to break the Cube out of storage and start developing weapons. The fact that two individuals could show up and cause that much devastation was clearly an eye-opener (no pun intended) and made Fury ramp up things like the Avengers Initiative, Tesseract Weapons and Project: Insight.

Now it makes no sense for Fury to have waited that long to do any of that, because he knew for an absolute fact that there were hostile aliens out there with weapons beyond anything they had. The second the cat coughed up the Cube (which was stupid), they would have been working on all kinds of alien countermeasures or trying to weaponize the Cube to at least the degree Zola had.

This also creates the issue of why Fury never called Carol earlier. There's no reason he wouldn't have summoned her the first time Thor and the Destroyer showed up, because they clearly showed how outmatched Earth was by the rest of the Universe and that an invasion was imminent. And once Loki showed up and stole the Cube, there was again no reason NOT to call her for help, especially given how much they tied the Cube to Carol's origin. Now, AFTER the Avengers are formed, sure, the Earth has a stable group of champions, but a literal alien invasion seems like the prefect thing to call Carol in on, given how good she was at thwarting the last one.

The cat scratching out Nick's eye was just STUPID. REALLY. REALLY. STUPID. And it now undercuts a very dramatic scene in Captain America: Winter Soldier. Cap and Fury are having a serious discussion on the nature of trust and leadership, with Cap being the soldier who believes in group unity, cooperation and loyalty, while Fury plays the spymaster, believing in compartmentalization, secrecy and lies. And his justification is the fact that the last time he trusted someone, he lost an eye. So now, every time I see that scene, I'm going to have to try and forget that Fury got his eye cut out by a cat, because it just kills any tension in the scene. If you weren't going to do something legitimately dramatic or important with his missing eye, definitely don't turn it into a punchline.

Fury deciding to name the Avengers after Carol just seems forced, like they really wanted to push her importance to the setting by making her the reason for the Avengers existence as well as the person the team was named after. That's just artificially inflating Carol's importance to the setting. Having Carol as a Thor-class powerhouse who is set up to return in Endgame is one thing. Making an Infinity Stone her power source, making her the reason for the Avengers, naming the team after her, it's basically Sentry syndrome all over again.


As An Adaptation

As an adaptation of the comics, Captain Marvel does okay for the most part. They thankfully ignored the recent retcon about Carol's mom being Kree, though they did keep some flavor of the intent of said retcon. The Kree Space Uniforms have a blend of Ultimates and Classic Marvel design, the Skrulls look pretty comics accurate, the set up to have Monica return as a superhero is in place, etc. Carol's costume was a bit busy for my tastes, the design on her shoulders didn't look right, but they were trying to emulate her current look. The fauxhawk still looks stupid, I rolled my eyes when they had her briefly in her classic color scheme, only to go "nah".

The biggest issues is Mar-Vell. The character is almost an afterthought in the film, and was genderswapped basically because then there would have been a man in Carol's life that was actually supportive of her. The only way I could really see this working would be if this was retconned into Mar-Vell's mother, and the classic Captain Mar-Vell is still in Kree space somewhere, maybe being a hero in his own right. Otherwise this was a fairly big disservice to Marvel's original Captain Marvel, as it was the character in pretty much name only. I mean, she bears less resemblance to Mar-Vell than Sylvester Stalone's version of Stakar does to comics Starkhawk.

The decision to make the Skrulls unquestionable victims of Kree aggression was a bad choice, IMO. What was nice about the Kree/Skrull War of the comics was that neither side was completely in the right. It was a shades of grey war where both sides felt they were justified, neither was in the mood for diplomacy, and they were using whatever means they had to conquer the other. It would have been nice to see a similar level of nuance here, where Carol learns that the Kree aren't any better than the Skrulls and kicks them both off of Earth, allowing the Skrulls to come back with Super Skrulls for a rematch. You could have even kept the movie mostly intact by saying that this one group of Skrulls was tired of the war and just wanted to live in peace somewhere, letting the rest of the Kree and Skrulls fight it out. Mar-Vell could have been sympathetic to these Skrulls and helped them out. You could have even gone so far as to show that most Kree and Skrulls are misinformed and aren't evil in and of themselves, showing there are innocents on both sides.

Instead, buy making the Kree 100% the bad guys and the Skrulls 100% the victims, you take away any nuance from the conflict and rob the MCU of some potentially fun antagonists. I also facepalmed when the Skrulls were referenced as being "refugees" that the Kree were eradicating because they were "infesting their borders". Very subtle. Though ironically, when Monica mentions the idea of the refugees staying with them, they immediately say, "no, they have to go somewhere else".

Monica's dad not being in the picture was another change I wasn't too fond of, as he was a part of her life well into the Busiek Avenger days and was a factor in her originally becoming a member of the harbor patrol, developing her leadership skills, etc. While Carol's relationship with her family was always complicated and frequently volatile, it seems a shame to deprive Monica of the stable family she enjoyed.

So at the end of this essay, I still feel like Captain Marvel is an okay movie, but it could have been amazing with a few tweaks. As it stands, my issues are more with some creative choices and putting too much emphasis on the wrong things.
"My heart is as light as a child's, a feeling I'd nearly forgotten. And by helping those in need, I will be able to keep that feeling alive."
- Captain Marvel SHAZAM! : Power of Hope (2000)

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