The past is another movie, they do things differently there

[selenak]

I think trobadora put her fingers on why I enjoyed the new Captain Marvel movie without loving it in her review here. It got me thinking about another example where a set up that was, in theory, ideal to explore torn loyalties, inner character conflict, identity issues, fleshing out the antagonists (without excusing their deeds) was simply ignored because that wasn't what the movie wanted to be about, to wit: Star Wars: The Force Awakens with Finn.

It bears repeating: making one of the main characters a deserting storm trooper was, by itself, a brilliant idea. But then the movie went out of its way not to do anything with it. It gave us a throway line of dialogue to make it clear that despite having been raised a storm trooper, Finn never before the opening assault of the movie took part in any battle but worked in waste extraction. (So there's no blood on his hands.) The only other storm trooper we see him interact with in two movies so far is Phasma, and there's nothing but mutual loathing between them. He doesn't appear to have made a single friend throughout his life pre movie, and yet the way he interacts with Poe and Rey isn't that different as if he'd had Luke's backstory of growing up a farmboy on a backwater planet instead.

Now, I don't think I'm being unfair if I speculate that the reason for this is that the sequel producers and writers wanted to keep the storm troopers as easily killable canon fodder. (For similar reasons, I bet that whatever this new Amazon series set in the Lord of the Rings universe will include, it won't be a single orc deciding to go vegetarian and/or to hell with fighting.) If they'd shown Finn conflicted about going up against his former comrades, despite having come to regard their cause as utterly wrong, if they'd shown some of his former comrades hesitating before shooting, then you get Kevin Smith's famous "how many workers on the Death Star when Luke blew it up?", but in earnest. They wanted a feel good action movie without any divided feelings about the heroes' victory at the end, not something that goes "good that the day and the innocents were saved, but how sad that these characters who maybe could have changed sides just as Finn did in other circumstances are dead, too". (And they definitely did not want Finn pondering his personal responsibility for having served a fascist regime in the past, complete with flashbacks to him as part of a unit bullying and shooting people.)



With MCU Carol, you also have a set up that's ripe for angst, but that's not the route the movie chooses to go. I don't want to repeat trobadora's excellent observations re: Carol and the other Kree (not just Yon-Rogg) in that regard, so let me just add: of course Carol was being brainwashed and maniplated into her Vers identity. However, said brainwashing mainly seems to have consisted of taking her real memories and telling her basically "Krees good, Skrulls bad". No one took away her powers of observation, her natural intelligence, her ability for empathy. And she was part of a Kree unit for six years. If, during all that time, she never once doubted the information she was given, never once tried to find alternate news sources (the same woman who has no trouble rigging an earth 1990s phone in a way that makes it useable for space communication) , doesn't that say something about Carol which is not "natural rebel" ?" If I had to write her, I'd let her wonder whether a part of her wasn't comfortable with a set up where she's given a clear enemy to fight, and to hell with alternate povs. Whether her joining the air force was just about her wanting to fly or whether it wasn't also part of that same instinct that wants to be part of a whole, wants a clear enemy, and does not want questions. Whether Vers wasn't always a part of her, pre-Kree, and always will be. It would have made me emotionally invested in Carol beyond just liking her (and invested in her movie beyond just liking it).

But it's not that kind of movie, and it does not wish to be. Which is okay. But it's why, say, Aeryn Sun or Bialar Crais from Farscape (which has a big anniversary coming up, yay Farscape!), both of whom were both complicit, active fascist soldiers and victims of a Fascist upbringing and characters who change (at different points and for different reasons and in different degrees) while also having ties to people from their past still on the other side engage me on an emotional level that Carol and Finn won't.

Comments

[chelseagirl]

To be fair, Aeryn and Crais also had a great deal more screentime to explore those issues than Carol and Finn will, even in multiple films. I kind of feel like there's been a switchout -- when I was growing up it was clear TV was inferior to films in every way. But now, at least with a select few shows, Farscape among them, long form storytelling means the opportunity for more depth.

FWIW, and admitting that my icon gives away that I'm still giddy about Captain Marvel, my engagement with the MCU generally is that I sit semi-bored through the fight scenes waiting for scraps of character development. One of many reasons I'd rather see more Jessica Jones or Luke Cage or Agent Carter . . . and alas, won't.

[jesuswasbatman]

I was thinking about that after watching the film , because by fannish osmosis I gather that in recent Marvel comics storylines Carol has repeatedly been on the "bad", authoritarian side of intra-hero conflicts, and you could argue that a tendency to militaristic conformism is her character flaw. But that's been very unpopular with her comics fans, and it would go badly with her seeming MCU role as key "girl power" role model.

[kore]

That started with Civil War original flavour and in my opinion had next to nothing to do with her actual characterization. But then again I hate Civil War, Civil War II, and Secret Empire, so. But I do think giant events which warp the characters in comics happen really frequently and it's not fair to ignore their own books in favour of giant events that're just designed to sell a huge amount of tie-ins.

[kore]

Yeah, it's kind of amazing how the two formats have basically switched since I remember growing up on TV -- that was always episodic to the extent that order got shuffled in series a lot when they were rerun in syndication, and it often didn't make that much difference, and many movies had a lot fewer action sequences and were slower-paced and had room for characterization. Now, a lot of the movies squeeze in characterization moments in between action sequences, and the limited TV series have a lot more time to expand on that.

(I'm fully expecting to see the nuanced gritty "adult" stuff about "but I was a brainwashed assassin and now I'm fighting for good" in the Black Widow movie, if they do it right. I'm already hopeful just because Whedon won't be directing/writing it.)

[selenak]

Well, yes, they benefitted from the format, but: you can do "comic-book based, action movie" and "torn loyalties, trying to find own way and own ethics" at the same time within a movie format as well. I know it's very much a matter of personal likes and dislikes, but I thought Mystique the prequel/alternate timeline X-Men movies gets a believable arc in this regard. In the first one, she's young, a bit naive (though in a different way Charles Xavier is), and her joining Magneto at the end is brought about not because she thinks he's hot but because of what she believes. In the second movie, she's not with either Erik or Charles but is a rogue agent forging her own path, though emotionally connected to both sides, and the decision she makes at the end is key to the entire plot, and in the third movie she becomes the de facto team leader of the X-Men and they adapt her views, if anything, while she also manages to talk Magneto down from, literally enforcing (the) Apocalypse. Speaking of Magneto, he, of course, in all the X-Men movies is the archetypical sympathetic antagonist who sometimes is a protagonist. And then there's good old Logan, who gets the angsty past (with and without amnesia)/blood on his hands/atonment/mixed feelings about (some) old teammates thing at different points.

[monanotlisa]

*nod*

Selena's observation is great, but television series can, especially over the course of several seasons, explore characters in far deeper ways, write longer character arcs, and generally do a better job than movies, even if we are talking a series of movies. So the comparison is difficult.

This is not to say this particular movie couldn't have explored fascist identity; the Marvel writers chose to not focus on that aspect of Carol's brainwashing. So I think Captain Marvel is relevant from a Superhero Who Is A Woman perspective, but not much from a Political perspective -- I'm still positively surprised by what a political movie CA:TWS was, unfortunately not a repeat experience so far.

[selenak]

I suppose one could call Black Panther political, not just because of the "first black superhero movie not just because of the main character but (nearly) all the characters and the crew behind the camera, too" factor, but because it has "how should a rich state react in a world where refugees and war are everywhere?" as one of its themes, and some of the lines are pretty specific here, but Wakanda as a fictional country with an absolute monarchy as its system of state removes the immediacy which shooting a 70s style conspiracy thriller in the Marvel US had, for all that Hydra in any era makes no sense by itself.

[trobadora]

Glad to know you feel the same way about Captain Marvel!

If, during all that time, she never once doubted the information she was given, never once tried to find alternate news sources (the same woman who has no trouble rigging an earth 1990s phone in a way that makes it useable for space communication) , doesn't that say something about Carol which is not "natural rebel" ?

Yes! That would have been such an interesting question to explore.

Here's hoping that the success of Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel will mean more female superheroes, some of whom hopefully will explore themes like that.

(And I have no real feelings about Star Wars, but that's a good point about Finn's story.)

[selenak]

I wonder whether it's a cultural thing with us (you and me, as well as a German audience in general), because to me, someone joining the military without either economic necessity (i.e. lack of possibilities to get an education/job otherwise) or a dire emergency situation (draft, or something like WWII) signals this someone is more likely than not of a conservative mindset. Doesn't have to be authoritarian, let alone fascist! But I mean: do you personally know anyone either left or centrist-to-left leaning in the German or US military? I don't, and one of my cousins is married to an American soldier while another did join the army. Both are definitely on the conservative side of things. Basically: to me, if you're independently minded and not comfortable with hierarchical structures, chances are you don't join the army (unless, again, you're drafted, or you're so poor that you need the cash and the college).

[sholio]

if you're independently minded and not comfortable with hierarchical structures, chances are you don't join the army (unless, again, you're drafted, or you're so poor that you need the cash and the college).

That definitely bears out my experience with the US military. I think this is a case where this movie kinda wants to have its cake and eat it too (and it's not alone in that; a lot of US media is like this), because the American thing for valorization of the iconoclast/rebel, which is very much a thing in the MCU movies as elsewhere, runs headlong into its valorization of the military and the fact that rebel iconoclasts tend not to end up in the military, and they certainly don't tend to stay there.

The movie ducks around this by having Carol rebel against the "evil" military rather than her own, but it's a total ethical dodge that gracefully slides past the fact that she was perfectly okay with working with the Kree or the US military as long as she thought they were in the right and/or was getting what she wanted out of it, and didn't really question that, regardless of what her orders were. She's a Gryffindor-type who doesn't seem to ask questions as long as someone in authority assures her that she's Doing Right (all Mar-Vell has to do is tell her they're saving people, no details given; all the Kree have to do is tell her that the Skrulls are the Evil Invaders).

... Which doesn't make her evil, or anything more than human. But it doesn't make the other Kree soldiers evil, either, and I think that was the biggest issue I had with that plotline in the movie, the sudden switch-flip to mustache-twirling evil as soon as we found out that her teammates were on the "bad" side, while Carol gets all the narrative momentum of being on the "right side" not for having to question her underlying beliefs or motivations, but simply because of having new information provided to her by other characters.

[sienamystic]

This makes a whole lot of sense about something that was niggling at me about this particular plot line, thanks.

[selenak]

She's a Gryffindor-type who doesn't seem to ask questions as long as someone in authority assures her that she's Doing Right (all Mar-Vell has to do is tell her they're saving people, no details given; all the Kree have to do is tell her that the Skrulls are the Evil Invaders).

Yes, that was my impression based on this movie, though to be fair, you could also phrase it as "someone she trusts tells her" etc.; she trusted Mar-Vell and Yon-Rogg, respectively, until presented with evidence by third parties. And yes, the way not just the MCU but a lot of the US media wants to have its cake and it it by adoring rebels and the military at the same time being at the root of this problem was what I was trying to get at.

Mind you, this is not anything new and recent in the MCU, it was there right at the start, and Captain Marvel at least doesn't pull a stunt like introducing An Evil Liberal Senator Who Pushes For Gun Control (there were a surprising amount of things in The Punisher I liked, but those three episodes made me really black out with rage, and I couldn't bring myself to watch the third one after the first ten minutes), but - it's there.

[maidenjedi]

It played really weird, too, to notice they were making some clear indications that Carol attended the Air Force Academy.

Also, enlistees don't become pilots. Both Carol and Maria are officers and had to have gone through ROTC or the Academy, unless they are a lot older and spent a lot more time in the enlisted ranks before going to OCS.

[kore]

The tie-in book canon is apparently that they went to the Academy straight out of high school, and they could have gone for JROTC (Junior Reserve Officer’s Training Corps) in US high school for the Air Force (I haven't read the book yet).

[trobadora]

Oh yes, that's an excellent point. I'm completely with you on the join-the-army business and what it signifies, and the way Carol's Air Force past remains entirely uncomplicated and unquestioned reads as very American to me. I don't think you'd get that here.

(I mean, there's a reason why the first issue of Perry Rhodan ends with Rhodan removing his rank insignia: "Major Perry Rhodan hatte seinen Abschied genommen.")

[selenak]

Verily. BTW, have you read Andreas Eschbach's Perry prequel yet? His way of on the one hand providing PR with a believable career in the ranks yet on the other hand showing the independence of mind that will one day make him able to decide not to hand over the tech and the aliens but to call it quits is something that does work for me, but of course imho, etc.

[trobadora]

I haven't yet, but it's definitely on my list to be read sooner rather than later. I've been looking forward to it for a while. And that's very good to hear!

[kore]

Basically: to me, if you're independently minded and not comfortable with hierarchical structures, chances are you don't join the army (unless, again, you're drafted, or you're so poor that you need the cash and the college).

In the US at least, post-desegregation, joining the army has been a way for black men and women (and other minorities too) to pay for college, get a big up in terms of a later professional career, or both. Fury says to Carol in the diner scene that he joined right out of high school, and made it to Colonel, and the backstory is Carol and Maria both did too.

[reverancepavane]

Part of the military's basic training is designed to change you from a civilian to soldier. There is a distinction in the mind set, and it is a difficult bridge for those who have not experienced it to understand the differences. And some of the differences are in perceptions of values.

That soldiers do tend to have a more conservative and authoritarian mindset, but it also depends on the military (which often reflects the cultural matrix). For example most British officers were quite outraged by the insouciance of Australian soldiers which they considered to be quite insolent. If it wasn't for the influence of Monash, a large number of Australian soldiers would have undergone barbarities like Field Punishment #1.

Worse is the cultural poisoning that can happen in military organisations, especially when the majority of your soldiers tend to be very young men that are just out of school. For example the reaction to Vietnam profoundly shifted the US military away from liberal viewpoints. It doesn't help that new recruits are generally drawn from this same hereditary cultural background. [But most reasons for soldiering that a civilian is exposed to (in recruitment for example), are a lie, but not as big an example as the lies used to go to war, which serving soldiers are far more familiar with.

[A big problem is that most media is written by civilians and tends to be written from the civilian mindset. Which means that most media portrayals of the military tend to be very gung-ho. In fact I can't watch a lot of shows because the portrayal is so bad. There are exceptions, and shows that get it right. The Stargete franchise being one of them.]

But Ms Danvers was an Air Force Academy graduate, which means she was an elite in a service that already considers itself pretty elite. [At a talk given by a former US Secretary of Defence he pointed out the problems with coordinating such an organisation by saying that if he gave an order to "secure that building," he'd: have a Marine assault party formed up to storm the building; have a platoon of Army rifleman occupy the building and ensure no one approached it; have a Navy yeoman turn up to ensure the lights were switched off and the doors locked; and, have a 10 year lease with option to buy from the Air Force.] Initiative and personal responsibility is a much bigger thing with fighter pilots. They are officers because they are supposed to make decisions.

Actually what strikes me is the mythology the Kree have built up about their noble warrior heroes. You generally only build that sought of culture into your armed forces if you are losing or hiding something.

We already knew that Kree culture was very authoritarian with invasive mind control techniques for the "treatment" of wrong thoughts. The level of indoctrination of the Skrull threat and Skrull massacres was heavy. And Skrulls are also very much an existential threat - when you can't trust the person next to you (because they could a shapeshifter or a host of a mind control parasite) society tends to break down. Even if they were the nicest people in the world and just popped over to lend you a cup of sugar.

[selenak]

At a talk given by a former US Secretary of Defence he pointed out the problems with coordinating such an organisation by saying that if he gave an order to "secure that building," he'd: have a Marine assault party formed up to storm the building; have a platoon of Army rifleman occupy the building and ensure no one approached it; have a Navy yeoman turn up to ensure the lights were switched off and the doors locked; and, have a 10 year lease with option to buy from the Air Force.

Okay, that is hilarious and at the same time pretty enlightening about the way each branch is trained. :)

Re: the Kree's noble warrior mythology - wellllll, given that in my part of the world, we had our peak noble warrior worship leading directly into two world wars (not the only factor, of course, but heavily involved in it), I'd agree it's a sign of a society on the verge of tumbling into the abyss with a lot to hide. But leaving all rl examples aside, I agree that any society would respond with hostility to the existence of an entire people able to shapeshift, no matter how those people in question actually behaved. Now while I have read some Marvel comics where individual Skrulls were good (Paul Cornell wrote some in the British corner of Secret Invasion, I seem to recall, where the "Beatles" Skrulls were very sympathetic and not invasion-minded), most of them in the comics that I've read were presented in villainous roles and bent on invading. And of course DS9 had the Founders, with Odo as one of the few non-villainous changelings. In fact, I can't recall any media where a group of shapeshifters isn't used in an antagonistic way. That's why this new movie giving not just one or two Skrulls but the entire lot the benefit of the doubt and presenting them as sympathetic struck me as one of the most innovative aspects about it.

[kore]

I like the comparison of Carol to Finn, it's a lot more accurate than other criticisms of 'plot holes' and shallowness I've seen so far.

the reason for this is that the sequel producers and writers wanted to keep the storm troopers as easily killable canon fodder

Not only that, but Finn is clearly an integral part of the Power Trio and they want to keep him very sympathetic. He was raised in the Empire, and according to tie-in canon Carol and Maria go into the Force right out of high school, so she's maybe a little more like him in that respect.

And she was part of a Kree unit for six years

Apparently in the movie that's the first mission she's on with the team, but it's not that clear, and that seems contradicted by the rapport she has with some members. I've seen a lot of tie-in and promo stuff that says "first mission," though. (No idea what she was doing previously.) Like Finn, she fits in very easily with her peers outside that environment and seems more familiar with Earth culture than she might be.

I wonder why the time was that long? If it's six months or even one year, that makes more sense than six years. I guess part of it is they have to position it when Fury and Coulson are still SHIELD agents but in a position to start pulling together the Avengers team, although the chronology still doesn't work that well because that movie's in 2012. Part of the problem with the groaning, creaking structure of 22 movies in 10 years piling up and coming to a unified conclusion....

[selenak]

First mission? But that... makes no sense at all. I mean, even Minn-Erva's "no, I just never liked you" remark makes no sense if she's never been on a mission with Carol before. And what were they doing with her in between, did they keep her in bacta for six years?

Nah. Okay, I'm going with "only screen canon is canon" and am throwing this on the same dust heap as those trie-in comics that had Steve and Bucky raised in the same orphanage until the flashback in "Winter Soldier" directly contradicted it. Though it furthers my suspicion that they just don't want Carol complicit in and guilty of actions that she later realizes were de facto war crimes, just as the Star Wars folks wanted to keep Finn's hands clean. It's frustrating to me because in both cases, it reduces what I (could) find extremely interesting about the characters!

[kore]

First mission? But that... makes no sense at all. I mean, even Minn-Erva's "no, I just never liked you" remark makes no sense if she's never been on a mission with Carol before. And what were they doing with her in between, did they keep her in bacta for six years?

Yeah, it makes no sense, and I think the only support in the movie for it might be when the Supreme Whatsit tells her she's proved her worthiness and is getting a mission. I'd have to check what Jude Law says to see if it sounds like he means that as well (WHY is there no transcript yet), but that's not the impression I got from the movie either.

Part of the problem might be it was in development so long -- they started developing it in 2013, a while later Nicole Perlman and Meg LeFauve wrote a script and were developing it "for two and a half years," because the 2018 release date got pushed back, and then Geneva Robertson-Dworet was brought on, but Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck got story credit too, along with Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch. That's part for the course for Hollywood, but typically, the longer writers try to keep rewriting something, the more confused it can get.

Apparently a lot of the original slowness was due to them trying to figure out how to fit Carol into the existing MCU verse, which might explain both the lack of her backstory and the confusion about how long exactly she's gone and what she was doing during that time period. Maybe?

[jesuswasbatman]

My impression was that during the final part of her training, she'd been joining them in their practice sessions to build comradeship and get used to their tactics.

[kore]

That would make sense!

[trobadora]

Apparently in the movie that's the first mission she's on with the team

Wow, really? That's not at all the impression I got from the film ...

[kore]

I know! A lot of press outlets are repeating it, though, which makes me think it appears in tie-ins or promo materials. Or maybe tie-in stuff. IDK.

[sholio]

However, said brainwashing mainly seems to have consisted of taking her real memories and telling her basically "Krees good, Skrulls bad". No one took away her powers of observation, her natural intelligence, her ability for empathy. And she was part of a Kree unit for six years. If, during all that time, she never once doubted the information she was given, never once tried to find alternate news sources (the same woman who has no trouble rigging an earth 1990s phone in a way that makes it useable for space communication) , doesn't that say something about Carol which is not "natural rebel" ?"

Oh, that's a particularly good point, I think. FWIW I agree with you.

I also agree with you on Finn and Star Wars. I really liked the movie but that was one of my biggest points of contention with it. They could have done so much with that premise, but it would've meant turning a faceless opposition into human beings, as well as admitting that the premise meant a sympathetic character was complicit in war crimes, and they just weren't willing to do that.

I think Captain Marvel has the same issue, that there was a much more nuanced and interesting movie inherent in the plot setup for this one, but digging into those nuances and contradictions would have prevented it from being the simplistic good vs. evil story they wanted to tell. I actually wanted the other movie, but that's clearly not where they planned to go with it. I enjoyed the movie a lot while I was watching it, but I think this issue bothers me more the more that I think about it, because it ended up not just glossing over but basically steamrolling the nuance out of the movie in the interests of delivering two hours of popcorny fun, to the point where the characterizations for Carol and her Kree teammates at the beginning of the movie vs. the end of the movie don't make sense to me. It's like ... I don't know how I'd go about writing them because you have to either ditch some of their canonical characterization or just start over with them as OCs.

It's a fun, charming movie, but I feel like it promised things in the setup that it wasn't able to deliver in the execution, and that makes it frustrating for me.

[selenak]

They could have done so much with that premise, but it would've meant turning a faceless opposition into human beings, as well as admitting that the premise meant a sympathetic character was complicit in war crimes, and they just weren't willing to do that.

Or weren't willing to do that for more than one per movie, if we count Kylo Ren as meant to be sympathetic, which is of course debatable.

Incidentally, that's one of many reasons why I liked The Clone Wars - the Clone Troopers, who are after all the original Storm Troopers, are individualized and presented as very sympathetic, so once you've watched five and a half seasons of that show (they cancelled when s6 was still in production), you see what happens in Revenge of the Sith as their tragedy, too. But to be fair, that's the different of tv versus movie format again.

[maidenjedi]

I figure Marvel was most interested in giving us a very basic intro to Carol, because Endgame is the jewel of this year's line-up. I'm not discounting the concerns here, because I do agree - Marvel seems to not be interested at all in emotional trauma or depth that isn't Tony's or Steve's (they even blew right past Thor getting any real reaction time in Ragnarok, going for laughs instead). And when other characters bump on emotional trauma (such as Natasha in Age of Ultron), they muck it up rather than strike it right.

I'm holding out hope that this improves as Carol and Natasha take on bigger roles going forward, especially if Tony is written out or given less time to process the same issues repeatedly.

I mostly enjoyed Captain Marvel as a nostalgia fest - it was hard overall to emotionally connect with Carol and I felt like we needed another half hour at the beginning, with just more time on Hala with the team or something.

[kore]

I think the emotional trauma, piecing-yourself-back-together, gritty &c &c background has pretty much been reserved in MCU for Black Widow, and I'd be really surprised if we don't see that in her movie adaptation which is supposed to be filming from June to Oct, last I heard. Or who knows, some of these issues might come up in a Carol sequel -- the bit about ending the Kree/Skrull war is a big setup and might be another arc in future movies. Thor started off pretty light in his first movie, and look where he ended up (poor guy). Or it might even pop up in Endgame re Thanos and mind games? Who knows.

I do think some of the structural flaws (especially timewise) are maybe due to trying to fit Carol into the overarching throughline of 22 movies AND the next one's the big payoff (something Tony, Thor, AND Steve were not required to do in their first movies). I don't think Carol's movie was as warped as CA:CW by the giant marketing effort the team movies turned into, but there are visible stress fractures, maybe.

[schneefink]

I like the comparison with Finn, you're right it's the same kind of issue. (And yeah there are time constraints but they still could have done a lot more.)