Captain Marvel with spoilers

[slikmar]

41 minutes ago, zslane said:

My problem--and it is a relatively minor one, to be fair--with the personality of Carol Danvers is that she spends the entire movie being so annoyingly smug. That's different, in my view, from being supremely confident or competent or "badass". Smugness is being way too satisfied and impressed with oneself, and it is a bit off-putting if you ask me. But other than that, I had no problem with her character. I certainly had no problem with her actually being supremely confident, competent, or "badass". I just didn't care for her being so bloody smug about it the whole time. It detracted somewhat from her likability, which is a shame, because I really want to like the character as much as I liked Wonder Woman.

So, exactly like Tom Cruise's character from Top Gun, which, I am pretty sure, is exactly what they were going for. She was, for all intents and purposes, a female version of that character. So, given you read that, it means she acted the part perfectly. I took that as being both a Kree thing AND her original personality fighting to get to the surface against their brainwashing. And, as the movie went on and she interacted with Fury and then the Rambeaus, you saw more humanity and confidence as opposed to the smugness.

[Christopher]

5 hours ago, Bazza said:

Plenty do. It's called military chain of command. ?

The once tried to order him to sign the Zokovia Accords.
It did not work so well...

 

2 hours ago, novi said:

But does Cap outrank an ordnance technician at a full sprint? 

Please. Steven Rogers outranks an ordonance technician

 

Of course with his superbody and the option to put the shield over it, he can counter or survive most explosives to begin with

[zslane]

I was thinking about that last night, and I kinda feel that Tom Cruise played Pete Mitchell as your typical full-of-himself naval aviator, but the plot saddled him with a crippling lack of confidence (and a considerable amount of guilt) in the second act with the death of Goose. It was the turning point in the film where he went from being an obnoxious pr*ck to being a relatable human being you started to feel something for.

 

Carol Danvers, on the other hand, never really went through a similarly "humbling" experience. Sure, she started to doubt her own personal history, but that smug sense of self-satisfaction was always there. I never really felt she showed a vulnerable side, the way Pete Mitchell did, both in terms of his somewhat awkward pursuit of "Charlie" and in terms of his psychological journey back into the cockpit.

 

So while she might have been modeled on Pete "Maverick" Mitchell to some extent, I don't see her as a perfect analog, and certainly not in terms of the arc their personalities and character development.

[Old Man]

1 hour ago, zslane said:

Carol Danvers, on the other hand, never really went through a similarly "humbling" experience. Sure, she started to doubt her own personal history, but that smug sense of self-satisfaction was always there. I never really felt she showed a vulnerable side, the way Pete Mitchell did, both in terms of his somewhat awkward pursuit of "Charlie" and in terms of his psychological journey back into the cockpit.

 

This!  This is what's missing.  Carol is smug in the beginning, but what she isn't is a true believer.  She needed to be a hardcore anti-Skrull fanatic, dying for a chance to get out there and waste some Skrulls in retaliation for their galaxy-spanning atrocities.  Then the revelation later in the film would have carried some weight. 

 

Also, she should have been a reverse-Maverick--starting out short on confidence after five years of amnesia and mansplaining that she needs to "control her emotions", and only fully coming into her power when she allows herself to take joy in using it.

[Ranxerox]

2 hours ago, Old Man said:

 

This!  This is what's missing.  Carol is smug in the beginning, but what she isn't is a true believer.  She needed to be a hardcore anti-Skrull fanatic, dying for a chance to get out there and waste some Skrulls in retaliation for their galaxy-spanning atrocities.  Then the revelation later in the film would have carried some weight. 

 

Also, she should have been a reverse-Maverick--starting out short on confidence after five years of amnesia and mansplaining that she needs to "control her emotions", and only fully coming into her power when she allows herself to take joy in using it.

 

So you think that in Marvel's first female led movie, the POV character and audience stand-in should spend a significant portion of the movie insecure, brainwashed and gaslighted?  Really?

[Old Man]

Well, she already spends a good portion of it brainwashed and gaslit, so it didn't seem like a huge change.  (Admittedly I only have 45 X-shaped chromosomes so I freely admit I could be off here.)

 

There could also have been an early scene where she's actively encouraged to kill a Skrull but can't bring herself to do it for some reason.  At first this would seem like weakness, but she'd be proven right by the end.

 

Still a good movie, I'm just driven to fix what isn't broken sometimes.

[Scott Ruggels]

6 hours ago, slikmar said:

So, exactly like Tom Cruise's character from Top Gun, which, I am pretty sure, is exactly what they were going for. She was, for all intents and purposes, a female version of that character. So, given you read that, it means she acted the part perfectly. I took that as being both a Kree thing AND her original personality fighting to get to the surface against their brainwashing. And, as the movie went on and she interacted with Fury and then the Rambeaus, you saw more humanity and confidence as opposed to the smugness.

  Some traits we admire in men are unattractive in women.

[Dr.Device]

1 hour ago, Scott Ruggels said:

  Some traits we admire in men are unattractive in women.

 

So, sexism, then.

[Old Man]

I prefer the term "misogyny", as it's harder to understand and almost sounds cool, even though it's actually worse.

[massey]

Just got back from seeing it.  Haven't read the thread yet.

 

I thought it was a nice, mid-tier Marvel movie.  Nothing controversial about it at all.  The ending had a little too much CGI -- her full power mode pulled me out of the film a little bit because everything was so glowy.  Still, I enjoyed the movie.  I'd put it in the same tier as Dr Strange, Black Panther, and the Ant Man movies.  Pretty good, an enjoyable way to kill 2 hours, but not something I'll rewatch a lot.

 

The tribute to Stan Lee during the Marvel opening caught me completely off guard though.  Brought a tear to my eye.

 

The Tesseract and the cat made me want to rewatch First Avenger, because I thought they got it out of the ocean at the end.

[Scott Ruggels]

57 minutes ago, Dr.Device said:

 

So, sexism, then.

Yes, and...?

[massey]

Skimmed through the thread.

 

I wasn't really impressed by Brie Larson's acting.  The character is just kind of generic.  I get that she's not really sure what her own backstory is, but I never really got a lot of real emotion from the character, one way or the other.  She was just sort of boring.

 

There's a change in tone part way through the film.  When the Skrulls are revealed to be the good guys, it becomes a lot more comedic.  What had been a pretty standard action movie turns into Thor Ragnarok-Lite.  The cat thing was funny, the Skrulls became funny.  I enjoyed it, but the humor did make it hard to take a lot of it seriously.  As the chuckles came, it removed any real tension.  You know the Skrull family isn't going to get killed because the tone had become too light hearted.

 

Certainly not a bad movie.  I had a good time.  There were a couple of plot problems, things that happened earlier in the movie that no longer made sense once new info was revealed.  Why were the Skrulls trying to kill her when she first got to Earth?  Why were the Kree letting her run around with some random squad?  Still liked the movie though.

 

Edit:  I just realized what it reminded me of.  Men in Black.  Once it became a comedy in the last reel, it felt a lot like Men in Black.  Samuel L Jackson might as well have been Agent J.

[Grailknight]

2 hours ago, Dr.Device said:

 

So, sexism, then.

 

No, because the reverse is also true. Just standard human emotional inconsistency.

[Starlord]

4 hours ago, Grailknight said:

 

No, because the reverse is also true. Just standard human emotional inconsistency.

 

I'm glad you said that, although it probably is sexism to a degree.  The wife and I discussed it and she agreed she found the smugness appealing in the character but definitely unappealing in men.  She also admitted she looked at it as cockiness in appealing characters and smugness in unappealing ones.  I think I do the same as well.

[Old Man]

So does she view you as cocky or smug? 

[Starlord]

Yes. 

[Christopher]

19 hours ago, zslane said:

Carol Danvers, on the other hand, never really went through a similarly "humbling" experience. Sure, she started to doubt her own personal history, but that smug sense of self-satisfaction was always there. I never really felt she showed a vulnerable side, the way Pete Mitchell did, both in terms of his somewhat awkward pursuit of "Charlie" and in terms of his psychological journey back into the cockpit. 

Maybe it is just the most recent interpretations, but the Charater Captain Mavel seems to be rather..arrogant.

[Grailknight]

43 minutes ago, Christopher said:

Maybe it is just the most recent interpretations, but the Character Captain Marvel seems to be rather..arrogant.

 

She  should be in character. In the comics, she's a fighter pilot who moved to Air Force Intelligence and  did covert ops and security. Then she got super powers(and is in the top echelon of the power scale) and now she works for the government. I can't think of a way for her character not to come across as arrogant especially as a woman who fought her way to near the top of a mainly men's club.

[RDU Neil]

15 minutes ago, Grailknight said:

 

She  should be in character. In the comics, she's a fighter pilot who moved to Air Force Intelligence and  did covert ops and security. Then she got super powers(and is in the top echelon of the power scale) and now she works for the government. I can't think of a way for her character not to come across as arrogant especially as a woman who fought her way to near the top of a mainly men's club.

 

My problem is that the comics don't display enough of the arrogance and extreme competence she should have. Heck, as ham-fisted "this is what old men think a feminist is" as it was, the '70s Ms. Marvel gave her a lot more decisiveness and confidence. I was really disappointed in the comics after the shift to Captain Marvel where they failed completely to have her demonstrate rock solid competence, and instead spent time dealing with crap like "living in a brownstone with normal people and a cat and trying to make money"... like WHAT? That's what a strong, independent woman is about? And when she was finally in charge of Alpha Flight as space-defenders, it was again a series of catastrophes and self-doubt, rather than Carol kicking ass, taking names and running a tight ship. I'll give the movie the thumbs-up for making her extremely competent... it was just the movie sucked otherwise on every level of movie making. 

[zslane]

Well, arrogance and smugness are unappealing traits to me no matter which gender expresses them, which is why it bothered me a little in the movie. I feel it is one of the aspects of pre-Avengers Tony Stark that makes him unlikable, and it has the same effect on Carol Danvers, in my view. I'm not saying these traits aren't consistent with their comics counterparts; I'm only saying that I don't care for them a whole lot, and I would have probably liked the character more if the screenwriters had balanced her out with a bit more vulnerability and relatability.

[Trencher]

It does not matter if a character is smug or confident or insecure or afraid. What matter is if its done well in the movie. Its all subjective. 

 

I think lot of the apprehension against Cpt Marvel comes from people thinking she will fly into Avengers Endgame as a deus ex machina and one shot Thanos while all the other heroes the fans have grown to love over ten years stand by twiddling their thumbs. 

 

I really doubt that. I am very sure that it will be a cooperative effort from all involved and each one will be an important part of the final victory. 

[Bazza]

As Carol had to break so many glass ceilings to be the pilot she knew she is; she has to be supremely confident in her own abilities and talent. It is no different to anyone else who makes it at an elite level. 

 

And Trencher is right. I've read potential spoilers for Endgame. 

[massey]

1 hour ago, Trencher said:

 

I think lot of the apprehension against Cpt Marvel comes from people thinking she will fly into Avengers Endgame as a deus ex machina and one shot Thanos while all the other heroes the fans have grown to love over ten years stand by twiddling their thumbs. 

 

That was exactly my worry.  Some of Brie Larson's statements about the movie (not going to go back and dig for them now) kind of gave me that impression.  It was just a general feeling of "uh oh".  I really didn't want the new character to come in and steal the spotlight from these heroes we've grown to love over the last decade.

 

I don't think they're going to do that, but she managed to put that sliver of worry into my mind.  

 

At the end of the day, I think there's enough handwavium explanation for how she could have destroyed the Kree ship to not worry about it.  As far as I'm concerned, she was mainlining pure Tesseract juice when she did that.

[slikmar]

14 minutes ago, massey said:

 

At the end of the day, I think there's enough handwavium explanation for how she could have destroyed the Kree ship to not worry about it.  As far as I'm concerned, she was mainlining pure Tesseract juice when she did that.

They did show that when she battled the SI, the Tesseract was sitting there increasingly glowing and feeding her power. So part of endgame may be that she is on a "limited" amount of power, with the stone being gone again.

[Grailknight]

It would have been better if she had fought a Sentry robot and just shot down the missiles  and crippled the ships.