#like that’s a whole chunk I have to reimagine with a different Loki

[wakandapedia]

I can't DM you because you don't follow me, but I am curious about the break down.

hey no prob

this is the most accurate and fitting leak description I have heard so far, and it falls in line with all the set photos, toy leaks and even the Captain Marvel post credit scene....

so potential SPOILER ALERT

so potential SPOILER ALERT

so potential SPOILER ALERT

Endgame 1st and 2nd Act Spoilers from 4chan

“Original text:

I have a good chunk of information regarding the first two acts of Endgame:

-The first act of the movie isn't very action heavy but moves very quickly and covers a lot of ground.

-Tony and Nebula are trapped in space.

-The whole opening is a spiritual reimagining Tony's "escape from the cave."

-He uses pieces of Nebula to repair the ship and escape to Earth.

-Title card

-Thanos is on Titan 2, alone and meditating.

-Gamora appears to speak with him. She forgives him for his actions, and apologizes for her own.

-Gamora disintegrates to reveal he's using the gauntlet to do some weird-ass puppet show for himself with the image of Gamora. This shows the audience that while damaged, the gauntlet still works.

-Ant-Man is falling through the quantum realm. He trips through time, seeing the past and future laid out before him. He sees himself becoming Ant Man, going to prison, and even gets a glimpse of his daughter years down the road.

-He tries to exit the realm as close to the present as possible but lands a couple of weeks later than intended. How convenient!

-He exits on the roof next to the van and Pym's equipment. No one is to be seen.

-After some NYC post-snap establishing shots, we catch up with Captain America and Rhodey at the Snap support meeting.

-The scene makes it clear that Cap has absolutely no intention of moving on.

-Thor has found a place for his people to live and Rocket has joined him as Rocket doesn't really have anyone else.

-Short Valkyrie cameo here. Thor wants to find Thanos ASAP and avenge the dead by killing him. Valkyrie insists it's dangerous for the Avengers to strike back before they're ready.

It's at this point that Rocket receives a signal from the Benatar headed toward Earth.

-He and Thor intercept the ship as it lands. Rocket is super bummed to see that everyone but Nebula is dead.

-He comments on Stark's impressive modification of the ship and the two hit it off immediatley.

-Widow and Banner speak at Avengers HQ. They still aren't really sure where they stand with each other. Steve and Rhodey eventually join the group at HQ.

-Steve and Natasha want to try to do something to avenge the dead. Rhodey and Banner are ready to give up and don't believe anything can be done.

-Tony makes a stop at home to see Pepper. He makes it clear that he needs to fix what happened and she has to accept it. He leaves.

-A computer alarm sounds at Avengers HQ and the group go to see that Fury's beacon has stopped transmitting the message that lead them to it in the first place. Marvel shows up looking for Fury and they begin to explain things to her.

-Tony, Thor, Nebula, and Rocket approach the Avengers HQ. Thor senses an Infinity Stone nearby and they prepare for a fight with Thanos as they soar into the compound.

-Marvel engages in a skirmish with the understandably trigger happy Tony and Co. before Steve, Rhodey, and Widow break up the fight.

-Thor tells the rest that Marvel gives off the same energy as an infinity stone. Banner asks her if he can take some scans.

-Tony and Steve reunite. They don't speak about their differences, and only engage in awkward small talk.

-Thor expresses his wishes to go after Thanos, and Tony doesn't think it's worth the risk. Tony explains that he wants to fix things just as badly as they all do, but that's he's made the mistake of running into things headfirst too many times and if they're going to attempt anything, it needs to be done carefully.

-The next day, Ant Man shows up at Avengers HQ. His daughter and family have all disappeared and he's freaked out.

-Rhodey makes a joke about how many people have shown up at the door in the last day.

-They tell Ant Man what happened with Thanos.

-Ant Man explains the breakthrough they had with the quantum realm. Scott is convinced that they can go back in time to change the events of the past and stop Thanos, but Tony makes it clear that changing the past drastically is too dangerous.

-Ant Man is hysterical and begs Tony to try anything, telling him about how he saw his older daughter in the quantum realm and believes that some reality where she is alive must exist. This strikes a chord with Tony.

-Banner finished analyzing his scans of Marvel and speaks with Tony. He tells him that Captain Marvel is almost a perfect replica of an infinity stone herself (even more powerful than Scarlett Witch,) and this leads Tony to the idea that he may be able to replicate the stones with the right tech. This would enable them to retrieve the stones in the past without drastically upsetting space/time.

-Tony goes to Wakanda with Banner, Marvel, Rocket, Nebula, and Rhodey to look into some of Shuri's research and her scans of Vision.

-They are able to get some useful information that will help them create something to control the stones.

-M'Baku pledges to help them should the need arise. Tony asks him to continue using their tech to help the world deal with the repercussions of the snap.

-The rest of the group go look for Clint. They run into him showing off his new combat skills as Ronin. They manage to recruit him.

-On Titan 2, Thanos has another conversation with young soul stone Gamora. She shows him all of the souls he snapped.

-Now the group begin to plan their assault on Thanos.

-The plan is to copy each of the stones in the past via the quantum realm and form a new gauntlet.

-The info from Shuri's computer helps them understand how to build a receptacle for the stones.

-Captain Marvel's composition helps them understand how to copy the stones.

-Once they get the new gauntlet, they will undo the snap and then attempt to kill Thanos to keep him from doing more damage.

-Ant Man will help one team enter the quantum realm and Marvel will help the other team pass through it.

-We get a timeskip montage that brings us into the second act of the film. They aren't explicit about how long the skip is, but it isn't nearly as long as other leaks have suggested.  Maybe a few weeks max.

-In the montage, Tony reworks some old tech with Banner and Rocker to make devices for copying the stones. They also make suits for everyone. We get a sneak peak at the War Buster Armor. Cap gets his shield back.

-Before they set off, there are some character moments.

-Thor and Ronin discuss the loss of their families.

-Natasha and Banner talk about Banner being unable to summon Hulk.

-Tony and Steve have an awkward conversation about working together again.

-The team heads out in two groups. One will get the Space and Mind stones, and one will get the Reality and Power stones. They will regroup after that and move onto the final two stones.

-Space and Mind: Tony, Ant Man, War Machine, Natasha, Banner. Battle of NYC. The Tesseract is in plain sight, mind stone is literally inside Stark tower at one point with only Loki defending it.

-Banner is tasked with copying the Tesseract while Natasha and War Machine help defend it.

-Banner struggles to bring out the Hulk still and Natasha tries to help coax him out but is unsuccessful.

-Tony and Ant Man go after Loki and the scepter, running into past Cap, who they have a brief comedic interaction with.

-They disarm Loki immediately after his conversation with Past Tony and copy the scepter before giving it back to him, much to his surprise (evacuating the situation after copying stones to the shock of past characters becomes a bit of a running joke.)

-Banner comes face to face with the past Hulk after Hulk saves him from some Chitauri. They share a silent state amd Banner has some kind of visible mental epiphany.

-With both stones copied, they ditch the city, much to the confusion of the old Avengers.

-Reality and Power: Thor, Cap, Marvel, Rocket, Clint, and Nebula. Rocket and Thor's combined knowledge tell them that there were two stones on Nowhere at one time.

-They intercept the Guardians showing the stone to the Collector and demand he bring them the Reality Stone.

-He brings them to the massive receptacle he keeps the reality stone in and they prepare to copy the stones.

-Unfortunately for them, they still need to deal with Ronan. Rocket figures that preventing him from showing up entirely will affect time/space too much.

-Marvel, Thor, Rocket, and Nebula fight alongside the past Guardians to hold back Ronan's army while the stones are copied, mostly playing defense so as not to change the past too much.

-Ronin and Cap defend the stones up close.

-They manage to copy the stones and abandon the Guardians, much to their confusion.

-During the copying scenes, we see Thanos on Titan 2. While the stones are being copied, the stones in his gauntlet begin to flicker as if they're being activiated. Thanos notices this and puts on the gauntlet. He pauses for a moment and says "Stark."

-The group meet back at HQ. On the way through the Quantum Realm, Tony sees that he and Pepper have a daughter in the future. They repair equipment and Cap congratulates Tony on a clever plan. They send Thor and Cap to go find Wong for the next phase of the plan.

-Natasha and Banner discuss Hulk. Banner realizes that he hasn't been appreciate of the Hulk saving his ass and treats him like a child.

-Tony goes home to see Pepper before they finish the mission. He's attacked by several Outriders at his home.

-He kills them and rushes back to HQ.

-Cap and Thor are also attacked while recruiting Wong.

-Everyone returns to HQ. Thanos attacks.

-Thanos is kicking ass. Marvel holds her own. Banner manages to Hulk out and evens the odds.

-Wong tricks Thanos and traps him in an alternate dimension. He's clear that it won't hold Thanos for long.

-The group begin hunting the last two infinity stones after this. Unsure what happens past this point.”

[thoughts-of-loyalty]

Captain Marvel (2019) Review

So, I saw the Captain Marvel movie recently (on 3/9, as this’ll likely end up posted a bit late) and as the big movie that’s set to bridge the gap between Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, as well as the big-screen debut of Captain Marvel (not to mention the first Marvel female hero to get the limelight), there was a lot of excitement and hype built around this film.  Starring the titular Captain Marvel, real name Carol Danvers, and set in the 90s - before any film sans Captain America 1 - we’re given a look into the origins of the “Strongest Avenger,” the one Nick Fury sought to call upon at the end of Infinity War to fight against Thanos.

Full movie spoilers and my opinions below.

Synopsis: This film focuses on the origin story, so to say, of the future Carol Danvers/”Vers” (as she’s known among the Kree), in the adventure that sets her on the path to become the superheroine known as Captain Marvel.  Believing herself to be a part of the Kree due to memory loss, she is part of a group tasked with investigating the reported abduction of a Kree agent who was captured by the Skrulls (an alien species capable of mimicking the appearance of any human they view, one which is supplemented by their poorly-elaborated-upon talents at learning a lot about their targets).  Due to events beyond her control, she is separated from her Kree allies and ends up stranded on Earth.  Discovering details about her past life while there, she teams up with a young Nick Fury to discover the truth about her past and how intimately tied she is to the current Skrull-Kree conflict...

The Good:

The Visuals: To be sure, Captain Marvel - like all other big budget Marvel films - is a visual spectacle.  The CGI is very on-point for this film, the fight scenes are generally well handled, and it generally managed to capture the 90s look and vibes that the film is set in fairly well.  The Skrull are also made to look great for their big screen debut, with amazing work put into the transformation scenes, and Captain Marvel’s abilities are a visual delight.

Not Bogged Down by Continuity: One good thing about Captain Marvel in the relative sense is that it doesn’t bog itself down much with a desire to connect itself to the other films.  While some things will certainly make more sense in context of other movies (such as the importance of the power source everyone is fighting over and who exactly Phil Coulson is in relation to Nick Fury), the movie is self-contained enough that one can enjoy it without feeling they need to see everything Marvel-related prior to keep themselves informed.  This is in contrast to, say, Ant-Man 2 or Spider-Man, which require one to have seen Captain America: Civil War to understand all the ongoing character dynamics.

A Straightforward Story: Tying in to the above, but Captain Marvel never loses itself in trying to tell an overly-complex narrative with a million different plot-lines at once.  While there is certainly a twist or two to be had, the movie kept itself focused on the important characters and most of it’s attention was on Captain Marvel and her personal journey.  It told the story it wanted to tell and never did it veer into pointless sub-plots or give focus to truly meaningless characters.

A Lack of a Love Story: In what is something of personal gripe, I appreciate the complete lack of a romance story in this film.  A common criticism that has been directed at many other Marvel films was the inclusion of romance between the male lead and a major female character (usually inspired by one of the comic romances), usually to the detriment of the film as the romances were rather out of nowhere and had little purpose beyond just having one.  This film didn’t have any of that, and while one could make arguments or ship as shippers are wont to do, there was never a “These two are suddenly in love and kissing because there needs to be a romance” moment and I am glad.

The Cast is Well-Acted: A bit of a weird one, I suppose, but most of Captain Marvel’s cast is just as enjoyable to watch as any other Marvel movie’s cast.  I never felt a single cast member wasn’t giving the role their best, and while the dialogue could be cringe-worthy at times, it was only ever due to the script, not the actor/tress in the role.

A Good Message: It was made no secret that Captain Marvel would be a primarily feminist film and have messages about gender equality and women not needing the approval of men to be who they are.  And the film delivered it with only a minor heavy-handed approach.  The female characters were all competent and never eye-candy, but at the same time the movie never used the “machismo men who talk big but are actually pretty lame” trope other less-subtle movies used, all the characters were as competent as they were implied to be.  It was occasionally blunt during some portions of dialogue, but it never felt forced and it carried its message well.

The Bad

A Tonal Disaster: The movie was unfortunately bogged down by an overindulgence, so to say, on comedy.  Now, this in and of itself is not an issue, as Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor: Ragnarok can prove - a movie can be primarily comedic in nature but still have great stories and be serious when they need to (though one could argue both had tonal issues, I wouldn’t deny that).  That said, where this movie most falters is in how it tries to be primarily comedic at times where characters necessarily shouldn’t - for example, there’s a earlier on moment where Carol blasts open a door some time after Nick Fury had done secret spy stuff to open a prior one, making him incredulously ask why she hadn’t done so before and her responding she didn’t want to steal his thunder.  This is at a time when Carol knows there’s a time limit of sorts (the Kree are due to arrive in less than 20 hours to rescue her) and Carol is learning about events that may intimately involve her and her lost memory, but they let the cast wait around so they can have this joke.  This is around the point I started to worry for the movie, as well, because I could tell the movie would be willing to let it’s mood go to waste for a quick joke.

A return to basic villains: One common issue held with many of the earlier Marvel films was the very weak villains in their movies.  They could look cool or be menacing, but Loki was pretty was really the only one who was complex for the longest time.  It took until arguably either The Winter Soldier or Age of Ultron to buck this trend and give us memorable or complex villains.  This continued for most of Phase 3, with their villains being complex, sympathetic at times, or otherwise memorable presences.  Spoilers: the Skrulls were build up as that, but plot twist, the Skrulls aren’t the villains, the Kree are.  And the Kree do nothing to establish themselves as memorable villains - you could arguably have even forgotten two of them were main antagonists in the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie.  The only relatively memorable one is Yon-Rogg, Carol’s mentor, and the two spend so little time properly interacting after he’s revealed as a villain that any complexity he could have is never properly utilized.  For that matter...

The Supreme Intelligence is kinda pointless: Tying into how the Kree are an unfortunate return to basic villains, the Supreme Intelligence - the Artificial Intelligence ruler of the Kree - is an exemplar of this aspect of the Kree in this movie.  The Supreme Intelligence is something of a recurring presence in this movie (though I use that term lightly, given that it only appears before Carol for a grand total of five minutes if I’m being generous), and as the guiding force behind the Kree, it is technically the main antagonist of the film (Yon-Rogg is the most present of the Kree antagonists, but his actions are ultimately guided by the Supreme Intelligence).  As noted above, though, Carol and the Supreme Intelligence only spend about five minutes together, and only half of THAT time is spent as them on opposing sides, where it is little more than a generic overlord-emperor type, giving us a nothing driving force for the antagonists as a whole. Which is unfortunate, because...

The Kree are very underdeveloped in general: This is an issue because for a chunk of her life, after receiving amnesia, Carol considers the Kree her people and becomes part of a Kree task force.  While somewhat understandable that she’d be willing to stand against them as they’re responsible for her predicament in various capacities, the movie spends so little time developing the relationship between them and the other Kree.  Neither she nor the named Kree she battles seem to hold any strong emotion about coming to blows, to the point that they could have been replaced with a random Kree task force she never knew and nothing would have changed.  This goes double for both Korath and Ronan, who were incredibly flat villains in Guardians of the Galaxy - any hopes one might have had that they’d receive stronger characterization was misplaced, as they’re just as one-dimensional as before.

“Subverting Audience Expectations” ruins the Skrull: Many have (supposedly?) praised the Skrull for their role in the movie as a red herring antagonist who are actually sympathetic, with many bringing back the old praise of “This movie is great because it subverts audience expectations” that popped up during Star Wars: The Last Jedi.  I have a much longer rant about that, but that isn’t the issue I mean to address here.  And before anyone gets on my case, I have no desire to argue “the Skrull are ruined because they don’t follow their comic book selves;” the MCU is perfectly allowed to reimagine the Skrull as they desire, and if they wish to make the Skrull sympathetic, then that is their prerogative. In this case, the issue is that they’re so intent on making the Skrull red herrings that the Skrulls pre-reveal and post-reveal are essentially entirely different beings.  Before the reveal, Skrulls are making an proactive effort to discover what they need, capturing a Kree agent and luring Carol in with deception to read her mind and learn where to go, and when they get to Earth, they immediately install themselves so that they can best discover what they need to know - which isn’t necessarily bad, because that can still be played as sympathetic but willing to do whatever is necessary to get what they need to survive.  But post-reveal, the Skrull we knew as antagonists are almost entirely different beings - Talos and his “Science Guy” are almost comic relief after the truth is revealed, albeit with a few moments of competence (for a prime example of their newfound incompetence, it’s revealed the Skrull couldn’t find Wendy Lawson’s lab because their “science guy” didn’t realize the coordinates they were trying to figure out were directing them to space).  Talos in particular goes from “Leader of the Skrull remnant doing whatever is necessary to save his species and his family” to “Leader of the Skrulls who wants to save his people but never wanted to hurt anyone while doing it.”  Sure, Marvel subverted our expectations, but when your red herring is essentially two different characters before and after the reveal, it’s no wonder audiences ended up surprised.

Nick Fury backstory is now a joke: Now, this in and of itself isn’t an issue - there’s no rule stating Samuel L. Jackson NEEDS to be badass in every movie, or we can’t have a “Younger Nick Fury who is comedic due to being new to it all.”  Like I noted above, Nick Fury is generally competent - as are most characters in this film, even the Skrull post-reveal - and does well enough in his role in the film.  But there’s an elephant in the room: how Nick Fury lost his eye.  Namely, he lost his eye to Goose the Cat/Flerken after the cat decided is was being messed with and scratched his eye.  Yes, you read that right.  Nick Fury’s lost eye was due to him essentially getting scratched by an alien in cat form he pissed off.  And no, it wasn’t “rampaging alien form that hit him with a massive claw,” no, it’s “small house cat claw to the eye.” Now, if it isn’t clear why exactly it’s bad, let me explain it in a bit better detail.  This isn’t just an issue of “We wanted to subvert audience expectations, so Nick Fury lost his eye in a funny way because no one saw it coming” - though it still is that, too.  Rather, the issue here is that what happened here is now canon, and is retroactively canon for the whole of the MCU up to that point.  Nick Fury justifying why he hid secrets to Captain Freakin’ America as because “Last time I trusted someone, I lost an eye.” - that’s the story he tells everyone because he’s too embarrassed to admit the truth.  That big reveal at the end of the Winter Soldier, where he reveals he had a backup retinal scan of his scarred eye because he was just that prepared in case someone tried to lock him out of the S.H.I.E.L.D. systems by removing the retinal scan of his good eye?  Thank goodness he had that eye scarred by a cat, otherwise, there’s no way that plan would’ve had a chance of working later on.  Him calling Coulson, his most loyal supporter, “His good eye?”  Thank goodness a cat clawed out his eye so he could make it clear how much Coulson meant to him with that distinction. That’s the big gamble you take when you retroactively introduce a character’s backstory in a prequel - everything that happened there is now canon to everything since.  And now Nick Fury’s backstory in the MCU will forever be “He lost it to an annoyed cat,” because Captain Marvel decided that it was better to make a joke of it.

And now, for a minor gripe: This is a bit of a lesser example, but y’all recall what S.H.I.E.L.D. stands for?  Don’t recall off the top of your head?  You could rewatch Iron Man, because it tells you in recurring joke form - Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division.  Someone really should shorten that, right?  Something the characters note anytime the full name is brought up.  And at the end of the movie, Coulson tells Pepper - who is going to recite it by name - that it’s S.H.I.E.L.D. for short now. If only Coulson was around back in the 1990s, where Nick Fury makes reference to how he’s “Nick Fury, S.H.I.E.L.D.” and namedrops S.H.I.E.L.D. a few times. *ahem* Yeah, it’s a minor continuity error in the grand scheme of things, but it was something I figured should be mentioned because that was something that I noticed and wanted to bring up.

Final Verdict

Captain Marvel is a... competently-made movie.  And I’m really sorry to say it, but that’s the most I can say about it.  It’s well-made, well-acted, tells a simple enough story to understand that isn’t bogged down by continuity, and it has good messages in it’s narrative.  But it loses so much of itself due to having an inconsistent tone throughout, and it’s plot goes from decent to bog-standard around the time it decides to “Subvert audience expectations” and give us some of the most boring villains this side of the Phase 3 MCU films.

Would I recommend others to watch it?  Somewhat.  It’s not exactly incredibly essential viewing for the MCU and I don’t think it’s really all that good, but it’s not a terrible movie, I can understand why one would like it despite all it’s flaws (people can learn to overlook nearly everything), and it does add to the MCU enough that it is worth seeing if you want to see all the Marvel films.  But if you want a good female superhero film with a feminist message, you’re better off watching Wonder Woman.

And now, to address the elephant in the room pretty much every male who didn’t enjoy the film needs to deal with:”You didn’t like Captain Marvel because the main character was a woman and it had a pro-women message and you must hate feminism.”  It’s a comment that tends to get directed at males who don’t enjoy films with female protagonists, regardless of quality of the film (see: Ghostbusters) or reasons for disliking the film (albeit not without reason, to some degree - after all, those biased against something would be much harder on it than something they aren’t even if their flaws are much the same).  Not helping matters were that trolls DID review-bomb its Rotten Tomatoes score before it even had a full day under it’s belt - which the movie didn’t deserve, it should be judged on it’s own merits, not targeted by insecure men angry about there being a Marvel movie starring a female hero.

And I don’t expect to convince anyone who isn’t willing to believe me otherwise.  I can point to all the video games (Metroid, Portal, Resident Evil, etc) I love that star female protagonists, or that I considered the Wonder Woman film to be excellent, and it won’t convince anyone.  If you think I’m sexist garbage because I’m a male who didn’t like the film, my reasonings above or thoughts below won’t probably won’t convince you.

Here’s my views on this, however: Marvel had taken much too long to give us a movie primarily starring a female hero.  Marvel has many great female heroes, Captain Marvel included, and any one of them would have been as worthy of a film as a male counterpart.  The MCU dropped the ball repeatedly when it came to giving their female heroes films - Black Widow would’ve been great for a film but never got made and the omnipresence of Scarlet Johansson has made many people not care; Scarlet Witch got primarily confined to Avengers-focused films; The Wasp is very enjoyable but still has to share screentime and billing with Ant-Man; Gamora was probably the best and still those films still spent more time with Star-Lord, not to mention she was killed of in Infinity War without certainty of her return, leaving that “Third Guardians movie focused on her” up in the air.

We finally have a Marvel film that’s starring a female, and it’s primary message is about how feminism is important - and it’s good we’ve finally got one, but it took us until Phase 3 to finally get it and the film was marred by so many other issues I would struggle to call it good even with its positive qualities.  And that’s not the quality it deserved - not as a Marvel film, as a Captain Marvel film, or as a feminist film.  And anyone who would say “Who cares if it was not all that good, we’ve finally gotten a feminist superhero film from Marvel”?  You’re settling, and you shouldn’t.  What we deserved isn’t what we got, and by defending it, you’re essentially saying that Marvel can get away with low-quality movies so long as they can say “Sure, but fans were asking for this and we gave them what they wanted.”

You want a film with a female superhero protagonist that has a feminist message that is, above all else, good?  You should watch Wonder Woman.  And I know how there’s all the issues with the DCEU as a whole, or the rivalry between Marvel and DC fans and the former who wanted this movie to be good so they could be proud Marvel made a feminist hero film that was better than DC’s.  And kudos to you who support brand loyalty.  But DC did what Marvel didn’t for the longest time, and for all of the DCEU’s issues, Wonder Woman had very few issues on its own, and the issues that were present were very minor compared to everything it had going for it.  Wonder Woman was what Captain Marvel wanted to be, and what it ultimately failed to be.

#marvel #captain marvel #captain marvel (film) #marvel cinematic universe #captain marvel (2019) #negative #Fair warning to y'all #This is a post I'm really unsure about posting #I'm certain that there'll be those out for my blood #but all the same #I do feel strongly about this movie #My hype for Marvel movies has diminished recently but I did want to see this because it was billed as an important movie #And the friends I saw it with and I spent hours afterwards discussing this #So I wanted to speak my part in this regard