Captain Marvel (2019), dir. Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck

who cares, there are human-looking ones

this is the stupid crap that gets chalked up as “plot holes” by fastidious idiots now but are just points not specifically spelled out

they show a Kree that looks human in Jude Law, so we know some look human. whatever!

Er, did you guys miss the fact that Djimon Hounsou's character wasn't blue either, nor was he in Guardians of the Galaxy? So clearly the Kree have a variety of skin tones.

I already forgot (clearly)

I mean this kindly, but this isn't really the movie's fault? The answer is yes, though, they establish that she thinks it's the source of her power early on (as Neanderthal said in response to your first question)

All in all, I thought this was pretty good. It was a very classic superhero origin story, with the introduction of her background, her supporting cast, her main conflict, etc. It didn't much of the tongue-in-cheek humour, where they make gentle fun of superhero and sci-fi tropes, which has been a trademark of most recent Marvel movies... But I thought that was fine. This was a fairly serious story about identity, war, and racism, so too much humour and lightness of tone wouldn't have worked.

Agree with people who said the fight scenes didn't work that well... This also suffered from the original sin of 2000s speculative fiction of making everything look pointlessly grey and darkly lit, even though the GotG and Ragnarök had already shown to glorious effect how much better sci-fi can look with loads of colour. That said, I did like the final action scene with Cap Marvel just crashing into the huge Kree warships, that was exhilarating!

I think the biggest problem with the movie wasn't the action scenes though, cos this was mostly a story-driven flick, and the main story with the Kree/Skrull war was nicely done (and I liked how they subverted the comic book readers' expectations of what the Skrull are like). I think the main flaw was that in wanting to present Carol Danvers as a good-hearted and indomitable hero, they didn't really give her any, you know, flaws. Which ultimately made Fury a more interesting and fun character in the movie than its actual protagonist.

IMO the Wonder Woman movie had the same issue, and it's kinda understandable, when you're doing your first superhero movie with a female lead, the desire to make her into a role model little girls and other fans can look up to must be strong... But that can also make her boring. The other Marvel female heroes, such as Black Widow or Scarlet Witch or Jessica Jones, were written as flawed right from the start, and that worked fine with them. And I don't mean they should just add any flaws into Cap Marvel's character as if that automatically makes it better (please don't introduce her alcoholism from the comics into the movies), but I do hope later movies will make her more rounded.

I mean this kindly, but this isn't really the movie's fault?

Every single JiC “saw this movie” post is “Pretty good! But I noted 19 glaring plot holes, and on the walk to the car my kids detailed that 12 of them were explained onscreen or never happened, but then they got fed up and refused to address any more of my observations, so here are 7 whopping plot holes that I don’t get why nobody else is talking about?”

(Followed by someone explaining six of them, and Josh going “well, I don’t remember that at all. Therefore [continues to talk about one of those six]”)

Fair enough! I still think the movie was dull, and that aspect I remember.

The only reason I bring up my kids, btw, is to share their perspective, seeing as they are ostensibly a significant intended audience of films like these. So yeah, if my 11-year old girl has an opinion or observation about a superhero movie that's partly being marketed to girls, I'm gonna share it. But I don't have to, that's cool, too.

I think we pretty much all agree this movie is "fine."

I am absolutely not discounting your kids’ contributions to the discourse!

Ha, I wish she had more to say! Though to be fair, apple doesn't fall far from the tree: when the first mid-credits sequence popped up and we see Captain America, she turned to me and whispered "who's that?"

She didn't know Black Widow, either, and yet weirdly, she did recognize Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk. Go figure. I guess it's a lot to ask anyone to keep track of all these people and plot threads across x number of movies that kicked off when she was born.

Hah, to me actually the biggest plot hole was that in the scene after Carol crashes to Earth, and she's phoning Yon-Rogg, on the background you see promo posters for various albums that came out in 1995... But there's also several shiny-and-new looking posters for Leonard Cohen's The Future, which came out in 1992, and AFAIK wasn't that successful except in Canada. So why would there still be pristine posters for it around in 1995?

huge if true

Lol

Well, it is called "The Future!" Anyway, plausible hand-wave: a couple of songs from "The Future" played a big role on the "Natural Born Killers" soundtrack, released in 1994 and curated by Trent Reznor. So there's your connective tissue!

Why were there retro '70s toys on the space lab, like an old pinball game, a Nerf gun and a Fonz lunchbox? I saw some online commentary from someone too young to know who referenced those things as among the '90s signifiers.

Oh, here's some more (this time honest) confusion from me: how did she get to earth? I thought she was captured in some other galaxy, and that the Skrulls didn't have FTL engines? At least, that's what I thought happened. When she called Jude Law from the payphone I could have sworn he mentions how far away he/she was.

The Skrulls were orbiting Earth because they knew the FTL engine was somewhere there. They just needed to pick Carol's brain to get the exact location.

Previous Marvel movies like the GotG ones have established that FTL is possible, but they need to use something called jump points, and you can't use too many in a row, so travel to other parts of the galaxy still takes time, cos the distances not covered by the jump points need to be covered with regular engines. We see Carol's team use a jump point in the beginning of the movie, and in the finale it's a plot point that it takes hours for Ronan's starships to arrive after Yon-Rogg calls them, because there is no jump point in Earth's vicinity.

Presumably a FTL engine powered by the Space Stone would allow for spaceships to travel much faster, and without relying on jump points.

" a Nerf gun" apparently that nerf gun model was introduced in 1992.

Also in the final battle Carol is clearly holding a Pred ship

Mar-Vell’s ship notably used predator-derived cloaking tech

In one of her flashbacks Carol was also shown playing the Street Fighter II arcade, even though she was kidnapped in 1989 and that game came out in 1991 or 1992, IIRC?

w/r/t pretty much everything above i think this movie might have been specifically designed to make nerds mad and for that alone it is Good

I know the Skrulls were hanging around Earth. I just wasn't sure how Carol got from that first Kree/Skrull skirmish, where she was captured, which I thought was in some other galaxy, all the way to a Skrull ship near Earth, without fast travel, since I thought the head Skrulls main issue was that his people lacked the ability to cross the Galaxy and get away from the Kree like that.

Unless It was in a Predator ship, in which case, yeah.

I know the Skrulls were hanging around Earth. I just wasn't sure how Carol got from that first Kree/Skrull skirmish, where she was captured, which I thought was in some other galaxy, all the way to a Skrull ship near Earth, without fast travel, since I thought the head Skrulls main issue was that his people lacked the ability to cross the Galaxy and get away from the Kree like that.

I explained that in my post above. Seems like they were able to use the jump points, but most likely that's risky effort, because they're not controlling the points and/or their movements could be tracked. So for a solitary mission they might take the risk, but not for trying to transport their entire diaspora.

xpost There was a xenomorph skull inside of it so ya pretty sure that's what it was.

they really need dialogue like “well, after ten hours of torture, we discovered that the macguffin is on earth. that was 12 hours ago, so we should make it there at least 20 earth hours before the kree are able to arrive”

so was I supposed to know about jump points?

they said it in the movie man

on several occasions

looks like none off the magic used in this movie actually exists irl

if you all think it's incredible I missed all this, imagine how I feel.

turn in your FOOM card at the door

(Followed by someone explaining six of them, and Josh going “well, I don’t remember that at all. Therefore [continues to talk about one of those six]”)

I enjoy that you apparently also never remember that this is how every thread goes after you watch something :)

https://i.imgur.com/zRmkOSN.jpg

well, I know that you always correct me, at least I remember that much.

Nah, I tried watching Avengers #21 last night and gave up confused ten minutes in

I am, coincidentally enough, just about to read Kree/Skrull War as part of my suuuuuuuper slow chronological Marvel read-thru project, will let u all know how it compares to this thing (not loving early Roy Thomas, so my hopes...they are not high, but I'm thanking christ that at least it isn't early Gerry Conway).

The Kree/Skrull War arc (which isn't really an "arc" in the sense we speak today, because for most of its duration the actual war is on the background and other plots are happening) is a mess, like most Roy Thomas comics. I would say he's overrated, but I dunno if anyone actually rates him these days? It also has one of the most ridiculous deus ex machina endings I've ever read; I actually thought it was cool when I first read it as a kid, but rereading it as an adult, it's just incredibly silly. I don't think the movie really used anything from that story, beyond the fact that there's a war between the Kree and the Skrull, and Captain Marvel (the original one, not Carol Danvers) is involved?

The movie owes much more to Kelly Sue DeConnick's revamp of Carol/Cap Marvel, and she and artist David Lopez (who designed Carol's new superhero look) did got a dedication in the end credits, unlike Roy Thomas and Gene Colan... I think Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning got a similar credit in the GotG movie, which also makes sense, since even though most of the characters weren't created by them, it's clearly their version of the Guardians that the movie is based on.

Though of course Marvel could and should do more to acknowledge and compensate for the original creators of the characters as well, like with Bill Mantlo and Rocket Raccoon. It's a shame they only do something when threatened with bad publicity, which the Mantlo situation obviously could've caused.

I think you mean artist Jamie McKelvie there, Tuomas - I don't remember if he's in the credits, but it's definitely his design.

she and artist David Lopez (who designed Carol's new superhero look)

I haven’t read any of these, but I’ve been under the impression (from being on message boards with him c. 2001-13) that McKelvie did the modern designs?

xpost, lol

crossref Kieron with whatever that “famous ppl who posted on ILX three times back in the day” thread was recently

Oh, ok. Since Lopez was the original artist in the revamped Cap Marvel book, I thought he also designed the new costume, but I guess it was McKelvie then. My bad.

But anyway, my main point was that even though Thomas technically created Carol Danvers, I dunno how much credit he deserves, because the current version has little to do with the character he created, and much more to with what DeConnick, as well as Claremont, did with her later on. They even included Claremont's amnesia subplot, which defined the character for a long time, even though in the movie it obviously wasn't caused by Rogue.

Heh, occurred to me that another reason (besides clearly not paying attention) that I have trouble following some of the details and beats of these films is that unlike many of you fine folks who can cite Marvel chapter and verse, as a kid in the '80s I was at best a casual comics fan. When you mention Roy Thomas, my first thought is Roy Thomas Baker, and when someone says Gerry Conway I think, the drummer from Fotheringay and Fairport Convention? I'm not sure I knew Captain Marvel at all before this movie, and only loosely knew of the Kree and Skrull by name. I didn't read any comics stuff save for maybe a short run of the X-Men (and spinoffs) and honestly forgettable stuff like the Transformers and GI Joe comics when I was maybe a bit younger. So ... yeah.

I mean...yeah, familiarity with the source material probably doesn't hurt, but they're pretty good about avoiding unnecessary intertextuality. References to the comics which might fly over the heads of casual audience members are only there as in-jokes and easter eggs for the true Zombies. And there's so much reconfiguration of that source material in the translation to the screen that one's familiarity doesn't really pay that many dividends.

(Although it is a nice treat for those in the know when e.g. the identity of Liz Allan's stepfather or the nature of the Skrulls takes a hard right from what we were expecting.)

I would advise those who were previously unfamiliar with the character to go take a peek at the Wikipedia page for Carol Danvers and see how much of a favor the filmmakers did in streamlining her painfully convoluted history 4 u.

Oh along the lines of the undermined expectations I mention, I appreciated that (unless I missed it) they waited for some time before revealing the name of Jude Law's character, which allowed those in the know to go on believing for a while that he was in fact a whole other character with whom they were familiar (and who I believe he had long been reported as portraying in the film). Because had I known, the twist would have announce itself much much earlier.

I think the big difference is that for those in the know, hearing a referenced to Admiral Dingus or whatever might cause you to pay closer attention, but for those not in the know a passing reference to an important character might vanish like a shimmering exposition mirage. I did know the Skrulls were handled differently than they were in the books, as far as I could tell. But I still had to google Ronan the Accuser (like I did with GotG?), and I still don't know why he dresses like that, carries a hammer, acts differently from the other Kree, was helping Thanos, etc. I had no idea who Jude Law's character or characters were supposed to be, in terms of Marvel mythology, other than the leader of her team.

Also Josh (since I'm just going to flood this thread now apparently), I should just note that you're far from alone. My gf has watched every single minute of MCU filmed entertainment alongside me (yes, including all of the shows...well, except for Inhumans, admittedly) and she has the same 'wait, who is that person (who's been prominently featured in five movies previous to this one)?' issues. These details are of more importance to some of us than others, and that's okay, and here's why.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAyKJAtDNCw