Captain Marvel or How Marvel does everything better than everyone else

[Erttheking]

I thought it was just okay. Nothing special, but don't understand all the hate.

A large portion of the world is sexist against women. This movie stars a strong women, so it pisses people off.

The movie itself wasn't overbearingly feminist (although Just A Girl playing during a fight was corny as fuck).

I still think Brie Larson isn't a good choice for Carol. The movie really only works because of the supporting cast.

I think the actual concern is that it will be Captain Marvel and her alone that will the chosen one to ultimately defeat and kill Thanos.

I don't think anybody's gonna "kill" Thanos. He's gonna die from tapping into too much power or some blameless bullshit like every other MCU villain. Disney can't have their heroes kill the villain. Ever notice how all the MCU baddies either kill each other or otherwise kill themselves?

Uh. Tony ordered Pepper to overload a reactor in Iron Monger?s face. Tony and Rhodey overloaded their beams in Whiplash?s face. Pepper killed the Mandarin. Thor killed what?s his face from the Dark World. The Guardians of the Galaxy killed Ego with a bomb. Black Panther stabbed Killmonger. Vision fried the last Ultron robot.

From Wikipedia:
Killmonger "refuses to be healed, choosing to die ".
Malekith "is crushed by his own damaged ship."
Vanko "commits suicide by blowing up his suit."

As for the rest, everybody sort of gets an ironic punishment playing agaisnt their hubris that might as well be handed over by fate.
Ultron is a robot, killed by another robot.
Ego is a planet that destroys planets until it's destroyed itself.
Killian is infected with a virus that takes over and is killed by another person infected with a virus that takes over.
Stane is operating and unwieldy, unstable power-hungry machine that gets fried from too much power. Pepper pushed a button.
Bonus: Cross uses a suit to shrink in size, his suit shrinks him to death. Scott pushed a button.

Every villain either chooses to die, dies from "too much power!" or otherwise simply gets just desserts from fate by having the good guy push a button and watch. Death is usually played more as their fault rather than the hero's, who remains blameless. I think that's a very comfy, convenient way of ending a fight (or a movie for that matter). Nobody ever really makes a tough choice. It's as if the hero just has to run the clock down until the villain makes a mistake and kills himself.

Still died from someone else stabbing him, he was crushed by his own ship after someone else teleported it right on top of him. Vanko I'll give you that.

But your argument was "Disney can't have their heroes kill the villain." And you were pretty blatantly wrong on that front.

P.S. "Ego is a planet that destroys planets until it's destroyed itself." That is a big strech when it comes to irony. Also he tried to destroy planets. He never actually pulled it off.

 

[Here Comes Tomorrow]

Went to see it because there was nothing else on and the wife fancied going to the cinema.

Quick review: It was a okay film where the main character was also the worst character.

Extended thoughts: I didn't feel like Carol had an arc. Like in Spider-Man: Homecoming Peter went from being reckless and fool-hardy to learning that his actions have consequences. Carol didn't really learn anything even after finding out that she'd been manipulated and restrained. She just swapped sides and got more powerful. Most of her one liners fell flat and if I had to describe her personality it would be...I actually can't think of anything. I just asked my wife to describe her personality and her first response was "absent". Action scenes were pretty standard and bland. There were't any really interesting set pieces. During the black box flashback I wondered why they didn't do more dog fights, given that Carol being a jet pilot was a whole thing. If she'd been able to fly from the start they could have had some more interesting stuff going on.

The 90s thing felt weird. Like they weren't sure how to convey that it was the 90s so they just threw in some on-the-nose references and music and called it a day. The music was pretty jarring. My wife like Courtney Love over the end credits.

The supporting cast were the best part. The skrull dude interacting with Fury, Goose and Maria were my favourite parts of the film. I actually don't see why everyone is losing it over Goose. The cat stuff got the biggest laughs though and I'm not a big cat person these days but it felt like they were trying to mascot her too hard.

The best thing I can say is that the film was competent. While watching it I actually thought I would have rather seen a film about Monica Rambeau. Carol could have been the mentor figure and Monica being a black girl growing up in the South would have had much more interesting places for her story to go, especially with the Kree/Skrull thing going on. I dunno, thats probably too heavy for Marvel.

Interestingly my wifes take away was that they wanted Maria and Carol to be lesbians but couldn't write it that way because Disney. Her favourite bit was Stan's cameo.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

P.S. "Ego is a planet that destroys planets until it's destroyed itself." That is a big strech when it comes to irony. Also he tried to destroy planets. He never actually pulled it off.

At the risk of getting into a back-and-forth on the definition of irony... that sounds pretty ironic to me.

The argument is, a hero can never be burdened too much with the responsibility of a villain's death. There's always an element of fate fucking the bad guy over, a decisive blunder that has the hero react in self-defense or something amounting to suicide. Heroes are just running the clock until one of those things happens, and to me that takes away any suspense from the battle. It's a Disney thing - can't have the good guy murder a person, you need a morally squeaky-clean slate to keep things for the whole family. Not to say there hasn't been Disney movies that defy these rules back in the day, but nowadays with the intense moral scrutiny everything receives it's impossible to imagine a superhero do anything but run the clock and wait for the villain to undo himself.

 

[Erttheking]

The argument is, a hero can never be burdened too much with the responsibility of a villain's death. There's always an element of fate fucking the bad guy over, a decisive blunder that has the hero react in self-defense or something amounting to suicide. Heroes are just running the clock until one of those things happens, and to me that takes away any suspense from the battle. It's a Disney thing - can't have the good guy murder a person, you need a morally squeaky-clean slate to keep things for the whole family. Not to say there hasn't been Disney movies that defy these rules back in the day, but nowadays with the intense moral scrutiny everything receives it's impossible to imagine a superhero do anything but run the clock and wait for the villain to undo himself.

...The Guardians planted a bomb in Ego's brain.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

The argument is, a hero can never be burdened too much with the responsibility of a villain's death. There's always an element of fate fucking the bad guy over, a decisive blunder that has the hero react in self-defense or something amounting to suicide. Heroes are just running the clock until one of those things happens, and to me that takes away any suspense from the battle. It's a Disney thing - can't have the good guy murder a person, you need a morally squeaky-clean slate to keep things for the whole family. Not to say there hasn't been Disney movies that defy these rules back in the day, but nowadays with the intense moral scrutiny everything receives it's impossible to imagine a superhero do anything but run the clock and wait for the villain to undo himself.

...The Guardians planted a bomb in Ego's brain.

Yeah but for all intents and purposes they just blew up a planet. It felt more like stopping an evil force of nature (like Parallax and Galactus: a bunch of hazy space meanness) than actually killing a person, Kurt Russell avatar notwithstanding.

 

[Erttheking]

The argument is, a hero can never be burdened too much with the responsibility of a villain's death. There's always an element of fate fucking the bad guy over, a decisive blunder that has the hero react in self-defense or something amounting to suicide. Heroes are just running the clock until one of those things happens, and to me that takes away any suspense from the battle. It's a Disney thing - can't have the good guy murder a person, you need a morally squeaky-clean slate to keep things for the whole family. Not to say there hasn't been Disney movies that defy these rules back in the day, but nowadays with the intense moral scrutiny everything receives it's impossible to imagine a superhero do anything but run the clock and wait for the villain to undo himself.

...The Guardians planted a bomb in Ego's brain.

Yeah but for all intents and purposes they just blew up a planet. It felt more like stopping an evil force of nature (like Parallax and Galactus: a bunch of hazy space meanness) than actually killing a person, Kurt Russell avatar notwithstanding.

That doesn?t matter. They killed the bad guy. And I gave you other examples of this happening.

 

[CaitSeith]

We have a terrible film failing to beat an average film.

This is what I'm talking about. They never were meant to beat each other. Now Alita can't be its own thing as it was meant to be, and it will be known more as the loser to Captain Marvel in the "culture war" than just Alita: The Movie. Screw the edgelords!

 

[bluegate]

It was a fun movie, but it had a few instances that made me roll my eyes;

Why didn't Vers, who still very much thinks that the Skrull are a threat to the universe, kill the Skrull that was on the ground next to Sam Jackson? Oh yeah, they needed him to be a good guy a few scenes later.

Why did Sam Jackson suddenly start playing with a cat after breaking out of his make shift holding cell? Oh yeah, we needed some laughs with the audience and a way to introduce this cat monsters thing.

 

[Here Comes Tomorrow]

It was a fun movie, but it had a few instances that made me roll my eyes;

Why didn't Vers, who still very much thinks that the Skrull are a threat to the universe, kill the Skrull that was on the ground next to Sam Jackson? Oh yeah, they needed him to be a good guy a few scenes later.

Why did Sam Jackson suddenly start playing with a cat after breaking out of his make shift holding cell? Oh yeah, we needed some laughs with the audience and a way to introduce this cat monsters thing.

Fury felt very out of character for the whole film. Like he'd gone from a cynical wise-ass to just a generic Marvel side-character.

Maybe something awful happens to Goose later to make him more jaded.

 

[Marik2]

Looks like it's both for right now.

Strange, isn't it?!!! GGGGGGRRRRRRHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

...does that mean that one of us is going to jump up into the air, smash through a spaceship, and look up Carol or Alita's panties?

And again, how did we get here?

Jews.

(((They)))

 

[Palindromemordnilap_v1legacy]

It was a fun movie, but it had a few instances that made me roll my eyes;

Why didn't Vers, who still very much thinks that the Skrull are a threat to the universe, kill the Skrull that was on the ground next to Sam Jackson? Oh yeah, they needed him to be a good guy a few scenes later.

Why did Sam Jackson suddenly start playing with a cat after breaking out of his make shift holding cell? Oh yeah, we needed some laughs with the audience and a way to introduce this cat monsters thing.

Fury felt very out of character for the whole film. Like he'd gone from a cynical wise-ass to just a generic Marvel side-character.

Maybe something awful happens to Goose later to make him more jaded.

I mean, this is Fresh Fury. He hasn't yet seen half the shit that Director Fury has seen. The reason he's so unflappable about aliens who are also Norse gods turning up later is because he's seen aliens who are also shapeshifters show up in the 90s. Its his first step into the extraordinary

 

[Chewster]

Meh. It was enjoyable and I can dig the "girl power" message because it's both cool and pisses off the right people but it was a Marvel film. They're all noisy and fun and have a decent sountrack and are well produced but kinda forgettable. Nice twist half-way through that I guess was kinda interesting. Also, either Sam Jackson is looking good these days or else anti-aging CGI is finally getting good.

Actually, being an old Kevin Smith fan, the Stan Lee cameo was pretty damn funny and the highlight of the film for me. I won't spoil it but it seemed a fitting meta tribute for him to go out on.

 

[BrawlMan]

We have a terrible film failing to beat an average film.

This is what I'm talking about. They never were meant to beat each other. Now Alita can't be its own thing as it was meant to be, and it will be known more as the loser to Captain Marvel in the "culture war" than just Alita: The Movie. Screw the edgelords!

Who gives a fuck what they think? Alita is a winner in my books. The same goes for Captain Marvel, even though I hold no interests in seeing the movie.

I agree with you on the screw edgelords part.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

He obviously never saw the movie.

It's really sad how easy it is to tell between those who actually experience something and those who regurgitate talking points from anti-"SJW" youtube videos about it.

That was...not my takeaway from that movie.

To the best of my critical analysis, it passed no judgment on ethno-states in and of themselves. The closest thing to a thesis the film had, in that regard, was that extremism was bad...whether it's extreme isolationism, or extreme interventionism (i.e. colonialism or imperialism). Not to mention, the movie was an overt call-out of Western social activism and "woke" culture, and the paradox that pan-Africanism and afro-nationalism are of, by, and for the (sub-Saharan) African diaspora in the West and, scratching the surface, have vaguely colonialist notions all to their own and little regard for native African sovereignty and agency.

And with that context in mind...Captain Marvel. Funny enough, I had an hour-long discussion with a friend at my place of employment just this week about the movie, wherein I stated my lack of desire to see it nor my support for the movie, the character as she currently is, or the actress portraying her. Most of the hour was spent correcting his initial assumption I was being one of "those" people.

Carol Danvers is actually one of my favorite Marvel characters...at least, she was until 2012. Because, unlike most apparently, I understand the character and understand the backstory behind her creation. You know, a product of second-wave feminism, the character being given her own series in 1977 and the title "Ms. Marvel" (you know, as in Ms. magazine) being a marked feminist political statement, and the character in the comics having a quite outspoken feminist outlook.

None of which mattered in 2012, when certain folks slaving under "gaze theory uber alles", contemporary, post-social media, talking-point-fueled "feminism" decided the character having big tits and wearing a leotard made her problematic, and to Hell with the rest smeared their naked misogyny masquerading as gender transgressivism all over the comic's pages. Erasing the character that once was, and the diverse legacy of the moniker "Captain Marvel" along with it, without so much as a hint of self-awareness or irony of the act.

And, again without a shred of self-awareness or irony, this revisionist take on the character was the one brought to the big screen and given a privileged role in the MCU. Above, y'know, Black Widow, Scarlet Witch (one of my other favorite Marvel characters), Shuri, or Okoye. Especially Shuri, who should become Ironheart after RDJ's departure and you all know it.

No thanks. I'll go watch Wonder Woman again instead of putting a red cent of my own money on the line for that crap.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

The argument is, a hero can never be burdened too much with the responsibility of a villain's death. There's always an element of fate fucking the bad guy over, a decisive blunder that has the hero react in self-defense or something amounting to suicide. Heroes are just running the clock until one of those things happens, and to me that takes away any suspense from the battle. It's a Disney thing - can't have the good guy murder a person, you need a morally squeaky-clean slate to keep things for the whole family. Not to say there hasn't been Disney movies that defy these rules back in the day, but nowadays with the intense moral scrutiny everything receives it's impossible to imagine a superhero do anything but run the clock and wait for the villain to undo himself.

...The Guardians planted a bomb in Ego's brain.

Yeah but for all intents and purposes they just blew up a planet. It felt more like stopping an evil force of nature (like Parallax and Galactus: a bunch of hazy space meanness) than actually killing a person, Kurt Russell avatar notwithstanding.

That doesn?t matter. They killed the bad guy. And I gave you other examples of this happening.

Matters to me. I'm not saying the movies are "wrong" for being unlike how I'd prefer them. But in every villain death there's always an element of a "lucky parry" or split-second self-defense that absolves the good guy from actual murder. And if there isn't then it's like blowing up an obstacle or something like that. That's how I knew Thanos wasn't dead when Thor axed him. No MCU villain would get killed in a direct attack from the good guy.

Mark my words: Thanos is gonna die from a fall, some form of sleight of hand, an attack's gonna bounce back, he's gonna asplode from too much powah or some conveniently clean bullshit. At best he'll "let" himself get killed.

 

[Casual Shinji]

No MCU villain would get killed in a direct attack from the good guy.

...Ronan
Ego
Malekith
YellowJacket
Mandarin
Ultron

You forgot the one dude where Drax rips that piece of circuitry out of his head. Not a main villain, but still prominent enough. While we're talking, Scarlet Witch also throws that blue-haired chick into one of those big grinders in Infinity War.