kate_nepveu | Captain Marvel (movie) (Reply)

Non-Spoiler Reaction

I have simple needs, I just wanted a movie that earned the climatic moment from the second trailer, you know, the one starting here where she goes all glowy and flies through space? And I got it. And I'm really fucking happy about it.

Where the Cameos Are, How Many Post-Credits Scenes

Stan Lee's cameo is really obvious, he's on the train reading a script. But you can see Kelly Sue DeConnick in the train station after, though I think I was the only one in my theater who spotted her, alas.

There are two post-credit scenes; you don't have to stay for the second, it's inconsequential (but enjoyable).

And now for the SPOILERS.

CAROL FUCKING DANVERS!!!

I had high hopes for her characterization from the trailers and I think they got it totally right, the cocky and the hot-tempered and the funny and the getting back up. I love her so much.

I enjoyed the Nick Fury buddy-movie aspect, and I love the explanation for the loss of his eye. I'm so glad that they went all in on Goose the Flerken, the audience reaction to that was the best. (But has she laid eggs yet?!?!)

I wasn't expecting the Tesseract to show up, I didn't think we'd need the old conservation of power-origins to hold true, but there we go, all the superpowers on Earth still originate from the Stones or the serum.

(Edit: wait, I have no idea about Ant-Man. Make that most, anyway.)

I love that Mar-Vell was a woman and admired scientist; I honestly didn't remember the full details of the character Yon-Rogg when they finally said his name, but it was fairly clear that he was up to no good by that point anyway, so it didn't matter that much. I did not expect the Kree as a whole to be on the wrong side, and the Skrulls to be the victims? That is a pretty major divergence from the comics.

And yes, I will accept "resettling the Skrulls and/or single-handedly overthrowing the Kree leadership" as acceptable reasons for Carol to be gone all that time.

(Give me a Monica Rambeau as Photon movie! Establish her in Endgame please and then SOLO MOVIE. Let Maria still be around and be awesome, too!)

I graduated high school in 1994 and while I laughed at the Blockbuster and whatnot, I did not expect such a strong hit of nostalgia from the soundtrack? Admittedly the fight scene to "Just A Girl" is a bit too on-the-nose. But the songs in the flashback sequence, "Crazy on You" and "Kiss Me Deadly"! Talking to the security guard to Salt-N-Pepa! And as the cut text indicates, I absolutely walked out with "Celebrity Skin" stuck in my head.

Speaking of music, I could not even hum the Avengers theme unprompted, but I love recognizing it when it comes up at the end as Fury's hunt-and-peck typing the Avengers proposal.

Interesting that we don't get "Captain Marvel" said out loud at all. Do you think that's how she'll self-identify when she comes back? Will she just go by Carol Danvers? (Over at Entertainment Weekly (auto-playing video), it's confirmed that the post-credits was filmed by the Russos during the Endgame filming.)

(Did anyone spot what rank she was in the Air Force?)

Elsewhere I saw someone saying that they thought this was a really complicated movie, plot-wise, because of starting with the Kree and all that necessary exposition, while still signaling the unreliability of the narrators? And honestly I was a bit surprised by that, because to me it felt pretty straightforward. Though I suppose "Jude Law's character is a bit dodgy" was established very early for me by knowing that the Kree didn't give her powers via the thing in her neck—yes, I suppose they could have changed that from the comics, but it just seemed so improbable I never really considered it, you don't get as powerful as Carol with a thing stuck in your neck, so that's a limiter not an amplifier. I did like starting with the Kree, though, I thought it was very effective in bringing you into Carol's perspective.

And I think that's about all I've got. I loved it, it was very satisfying, but I don't feel like I have a ton to chew over about it. I dunno, I'll probably see if SteelyKid wants to see it (it would be her first MCU movie!) and maybe I'll have more to say then.

Comics

Finally, what comics do people like? I read all of Kelly Sue DeConnick's Captain Marvel and related Avengers volumes, but that's it. If you liked the movie, I would recommend that with qualifications, mainly that I find the art of the 2012-2013 run actively off-putting (the first main artist, Dexter Soy, has a tendency to do more boobs-and-butts that I'd like, and the coloring is horrifically muddy; and then the second main artist, Filipe Andrade, is all Delirium pixie-deformed-waif?). And there were definitely times when I felt the weight of the backstory pressing, unlike either Unbeatable Squirrel Girl or Ms. Marvel (the latter of which I am not remotely caught up on). However, DeConnick gets specially name-checked in the credits for a reason (as does David Lopez, the artist on the second run), so if you can roll with the art and a little Googling, go ahead.

Comixology is having a sale, as it should, and the ones I've read are the first six collected volumes (plus Avengers Assemble: Science Bros): the 2012-2013 run, collected as In Pursuit of Flight and Down; Avengers: The Enemy Within, which picks up right after; and the 2014-2015 run, collected as Higher, Further, Faster, More; Stay Fly (which has a lot of stuff about the cat!); and Alis Volat Propriis.

So what else should I read, comics-reading friends? Captain Marvel and the Carol Corps sounded awfully tied-in to bigger-picture stuff, so even though it was co-written by DeConnick, I didn't read it. Obviously I'm not reading anything that's Civil War II, and neither should anyone else.(Really! I had to suffer through it via Ms. Marvel and nope nope nope.) But how's Margaret Stohl's run?