Captain Marvel
Mar. 14th, 2019 01:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jadislefeuI'm just going to put all of my thoughts under a spoiler cut rather than trying to sort them by spoilery or not. Also, I saw it over the weekend, so my recollection has inevitably fuzzed up a bit since. (Partially collected from my post-movie twitter ramble.)
I will preface this by saying that I went into this knowing nothing about Captain Marvel.
I did not trust Yon-Rogg from the very first second he appeared onscreen. This made me feel a bit smug, but also kind of skeptical--I called from the instant of their appearance that there was something up with both Goose and Yon-Rogg? Me? I am TERRIBLE at noticing conspiracies and things that aren't explicitly stated in movies. Hilariously notoriously terrible, I never guess who the antagonist in disguise of ANYTHING is. So if I called these, does that mean they were telegraphed like an anvil to the head?
I was really put off from the beginning by how it seemed to be focusing on being as quippy as humanly possible to the exclusion of all else--the bit in the ship where Vers is insulting the other guy about not being handsome and there's a bit where everyone on the ship except maybe Minn-Erva and Yon-Rogg are bantering? I found that meshed really weirdly with the KREE DO NOT HAVE HUMOR OR EMOTIONS, THEY DETRACT FROM BEING GOOD AT FIGHTING. If you're going to set up cultural mores, I expect you to stick to them? It really threw me out of things.
I also just had a problem through the whole movie with everyone being relentlessly quippy. It was a very funny movie! It was... too funny? People were making hilarious jokes instead of having human reactions to dangerous or emotional situations, and it made me believe in them less as people. I commented to Alex that it was like someone had gone 'oh, GotG was really popular, let's make every single character act like Peter Quill!' Everything felt very glib. The structure was good, the actors were great, the script was just... I said to Alex 'it felt like it was written by someone trying to channel Joss Whedon turned up to 11'. I mean, I dunno, maybe that's the intention and what audiences want--the last mainline MCU movie I saw was, uh, probably Avengers? No wait, GotG are MCU, I saw both of those. Point being I am not exactly the main audience here--but I had trouble connecting with it.
When the Skrull thing was revealed, my instant reaction was 'oh my god, it's the same plot as She-Ra'. (nb: I only watched like four or five episodes of She-Ra.) I wonder if stories like this about 'oh god, I'm on the wrong side of the war' are going to help any, culturally, or if the only people who will connect with them in a modern political context are people who already realize we're on the wrong side of the war(s)? It's not a trope I particularly enjoy, but it was reasonably well done.
Goose was AMAZING. I loved Goose. I was however significantly bemused to idly look Goose up on a Marvel wiki and discover that she's female, because almost all orange cats are male and I'd just automatically therefore assumed that Goose was male. And as mentioned above, from the beginning I was 'hm, something is not as it seems with that cat'.
The backstory for Nick Fury's eyepatch was AMAZING. Delightful, perfect.
Was it actually addressed whether all cats on earth are Flerkens, or just Goose?
Minn-Erva was EXTREMELY HOT. I've got a tab open I'm keeping an eye on with her character tag on AO3.
On that note, wow, the Supreme Intelligence was very... tentacle-y. I hope someone's writing fic about that.
Falling through the roof of a Blockbuster was a hilarious way to instantly silently establish that it was not set in the present, A+. I also found myself wondering just how much of a hassle it was to clear streets and then fill them with period cars for all that chase scene.
Also, hell yeah stealing that 'why don't you smile' dude's motorcycle. Serve him right.
Talos's family was ADORABLE. I really liked him.
Maria and Monica were so sweet and awesome, and I really loved Monica's complete devotion and faith to Carol. It was something of a relief that there wasn't a bunch of heartrending angst about Vers not being the Carol that Monica and Maria remembered, but it was also one of the things that made them feel less real--it was all too easy, too slick, too pat.
To my intense and ongoing confusion, I saw a tweet that said "she played it straight and humourless which kind of allowed Samuel L Jackson to steal it out from under her". Did that person and I actually see the same movie?
It was a fun movie, but not one that I came out of with strong feelings or a significant desire to watch it again--which, to be fair, is my position on both most superhero movies and most movies in general. (Notable exceptions include Deadpool and Deadpool 2, both of which I've seen multiple times and we own copies of.)
I will preface this by saying that I went into this knowing nothing about Captain Marvel.
I did not trust Yon-Rogg from the very first second he appeared onscreen. This made me feel a bit smug, but also kind of skeptical--I called from the instant of their appearance that there was something up with both Goose and Yon-Rogg? Me? I am TERRIBLE at noticing conspiracies and things that aren't explicitly stated in movies. Hilariously notoriously terrible, I never guess who the antagonist in disguise of ANYTHING is. So if I called these, does that mean they were telegraphed like an anvil to the head?
I was really put off from the beginning by how it seemed to be focusing on being as quippy as humanly possible to the exclusion of all else--the bit in the ship where Vers is insulting the other guy about not being handsome and there's a bit where everyone on the ship except maybe Minn-Erva and Yon-Rogg are bantering? I found that meshed really weirdly with the KREE DO NOT HAVE HUMOR OR EMOTIONS, THEY DETRACT FROM BEING GOOD AT FIGHTING. If you're going to set up cultural mores, I expect you to stick to them? It really threw me out of things.
I also just had a problem through the whole movie with everyone being relentlessly quippy. It was a very funny movie! It was... too funny? People were making hilarious jokes instead of having human reactions to dangerous or emotional situations, and it made me believe in them less as people. I commented to Alex that it was like someone had gone 'oh, GotG was really popular, let's make every single character act like Peter Quill!' Everything felt very glib. The structure was good, the actors were great, the script was just... I said to Alex 'it felt like it was written by someone trying to channel Joss Whedon turned up to 11'. I mean, I dunno, maybe that's the intention and what audiences want--the last mainline MCU movie I saw was, uh, probably Avengers? No wait, GotG are MCU, I saw both of those. Point being I am not exactly the main audience here--but I had trouble connecting with it.
When the Skrull thing was revealed, my instant reaction was 'oh my god, it's the same plot as She-Ra'. (nb: I only watched like four or five episodes of She-Ra.) I wonder if stories like this about 'oh god, I'm on the wrong side of the war' are going to help any, culturally, or if the only people who will connect with them in a modern political context are people who already realize we're on the wrong side of the war(s)? It's not a trope I particularly enjoy, but it was reasonably well done.
Goose was AMAZING. I loved Goose. I was however significantly bemused to idly look Goose up on a Marvel wiki and discover that she's female, because almost all orange cats are male and I'd just automatically therefore assumed that Goose was male. And as mentioned above, from the beginning I was 'hm, something is not as it seems with that cat'.
The backstory for Nick Fury's eyepatch was AMAZING. Delightful, perfect.
Was it actually addressed whether all cats on earth are Flerkens, or just Goose?
Minn-Erva was EXTREMELY HOT. I've got a tab open I'm keeping an eye on with her character tag on AO3.
On that note, wow, the Supreme Intelligence was very... tentacle-y. I hope someone's writing fic about that.
Falling through the roof of a Blockbuster was a hilarious way to instantly silently establish that it was not set in the present, A+. I also found myself wondering just how much of a hassle it was to clear streets and then fill them with period cars for all that chase scene.
Also, hell yeah stealing that 'why don't you smile' dude's motorcycle. Serve him right.
Talos's family was ADORABLE. I really liked him.
Maria and Monica were so sweet and awesome, and I really loved Monica's complete devotion and faith to Carol. It was something of a relief that there wasn't a bunch of heartrending angst about Vers not being the Carol that Monica and Maria remembered, but it was also one of the things that made them feel less real--it was all too easy, too slick, too pat.
To my intense and ongoing confusion, I saw a tweet that said "she played it straight and humourless which kind of allowed Samuel L Jackson to steal it out from under her". Did that person and I actually see the same movie?
It was a fun movie, but not one that I came out of with strong feelings or a significant desire to watch it again--which, to be fair, is my position on both most superhero movies and most movies in general. (Notable exceptions include Deadpool and Deadpool 2, both of which I've seen multiple times and we own copies of.)
