The Marvels , you know that new superhero movie

[DaedalusMkV]

Saw me something that reminded me of Shrek on the net today

when are we going to get a good CGI anti superhero parody like Shrek was for Disney Renaissance, or Austin Powers was the Kill the James Bond to the point they had to reinvent and reboot?

Yes I know they are dozens of parodies, but I am talking a good Superhero Parody that is bitter yet still fun on its own terms.

It was called Megamind, and was released in 2010. It didn't get as much attention as it maybe should have because of Despicable Me being released at roughly the same time. It is getting a 'sequel' soon, which looks pretty awful. But it is precisely the thing you're talking about right now.

[Trixie_One]

It was called Megamind, and was released in 2010. It didn't get as much attention as it maybe should have because of Despicable Me being released at roughly the same time. It is getting a 'sequel' soon, which looks pretty awful. But it is precisely the thing you're talking about right now.

Megamind was superb. It's genuinely got a better romance than many actual romance films which is just wild. Something I've said a lot is that when it comes to films getting the comicbook appeal of superheroics right it says something that the films that did it best after so many live action attempts were the animated ones using pastiche characters of Flash and Lex Luthor. Specifically Dash realising he can run on water for superheroes, and Megamind's "Presentation!" for supervillains.

[Ramza00]

It was called Megamind, and was released in 2010. It didn't get as much attention as it maybe should have because of Despicable Me being released at roughly the same time. It is getting a 'sequel' soon, which looks pretty awful. But it is precisely the thing you're talking about right now.

I remember Megamind and I love it, I just feel it was critiquing other generations of Supeheroes comics and movies, mostly 70s to early 90s. Thus it felt safe for those things were already 10+ years dead when 2010 came along

( sidenote I hope we can resurrect some of the earnest Clark, Lois, Jimmy, Alex Luthor such as that recent Carton Network my adventures with superman )

=====

I feel I am talking more the Buffy stuff of the 90s, the 2000 X-Men, the MCU, etc … which perhaps the new sequel may do 🤔

But yeah I adore Megamind and did not know about the sequel so thanks for telling me that.

[Palanan]

Megamind was a lot of fun, though pitched very young. But it had some great moments (Arachnus deathicus!) and I was surprised how much I was rooting for the blue guy by the end.

I was also tickled, rather sadly, by the dimwitted would-be superhero who couldn't even spell his own name.

[warty goblin]

I mean how do you make fun of the MCU? It's so anodyne and safe and pre-soaked in irony while also being painfully, smarmily, sincere* I'm just not sure how you can satirize it effectively. You can't go ridiculously over the top, because the movies have already done that. You can't go self aware, because half the time they're already nudge-nudge wink-winking at the camera. You can't just make a sincere thing ridiculous because the movies are already ridiculous and don't take themselves seriously enough for that sort of genre spoof to work - you can't make a Galaxy Quest for a Star Trek that's already constantly making jokes about how Star Treky it is. But at the same time they take themselves seriously enough that it'd be really hard to do the thing where you take a ridiculous thing and play it absurdly straight. The parody version of an MCU movie I think just ends up looking like a very slightly different MCU movie.

*Not really as contradictory as it seems. You just need to oscillate between the two states at a reasonably high frequency, which the MCU can achieve because the overall tone is comedic, and comedy works well with both smarm and irony.

[Psyren]

I mean how do you make fun of the MCU?

Ask Deadpool in July, because he's definitely going to.

[Infernally Clay]

The real question is what kind of cameos can we expect? I'd imagine a fair few MCU stars would love to actually be in the movie, not just stock footage.

[DaedalusMkV]

Megamind was superb. It's genuinely got a better romance than many actual romance films which is just wild. Something I've said a lot is that when it comes to films getting the comicbook appeal of superheroics right it says something that the films that did it best after so many live action attempts were the animated ones using pastiche characters of Flash and Lex Luthor. Specifically Dash realising he can run on water for superheroes, and Megamind's "Presentation!" for supervillains.

It's definitely one of my favorites. One of the dozen-odd movies I happen to own on DVD... Though in retrospect the only working DVD drive I have left is on my PS4... Megamind is both an extremely solid deconstruction of the superhero movie and the concept of superheroes in general, and just a great story in general. I agree it has probably one of the most convincing romances I can think of (no love at first sight, no nonsense, just two people realizing they actually like each other and want to spend time together), and makes a lot of great points.

I remember Megamind and I love it, I just feel it was critiquing other generations of Supeheroes comics and movies, mostly 70s to early 90s. Thus it felt safe for those things were already 10+ years dead when 2010 came along

( sidenote I hope we can resurrect some of the earnest Clark, Lois, Jimmy, Alex Luthor such as that recent Carton Network my adventures with superman )

=====

I feel I am talking more the Buffy stuff of the 90s, the 2000 X-Men, the MCU, etc … which perhaps the new sequel may do 🤔

But yeah I adore Megamind and did not know about the sequel so thanks for telling me that.

I actually think a lot of what Megamind pointed out had a great deal of relevance even after it came out. If anything, it was a little bit before its time on things like incel culture and a bunch of socioeconomic and political topics that I'm not going to discuss on this forum. I'd say if you show someone the movie today it probably speaks to them a lot more than the average audiencegoer of the time. On the comic book side of things I suppose it's probably true that the tropes Megamind looks at were probably dated by that point in comic books, but they're also extremely iconic, which makes them quite relatable for the general moviegoing audience.

As for the sequel... Don't thank me. Please don't. It's not a Dreamworks production, the original voice cast is not returning, the trailer looks awful and it clearly has basically nothing to do with the original. It exists, or will soon, but I suspect that it's going to be a total abomination against the original...

[Ramza00]

I actually think a lot of what Megamind pointed out had a great deal of relevance even after it came out. If anything, it was a little bit before its time on things like incel culture and a bunch of socioeconomic and political topics that I'm not going to discuss on this forum. I'd say if you show someone the movie today it probably speaks to them a lot more than the average audiencegoer of the time. On the comic book side of things I suppose it's probably true that the tropes Megamind looks at were probably dated by that point in comic books, but they're also extremely iconic, which makes them quite relatable for the general moviegoing audience.

so I am doing this from memory, but it is because it is tackling loneliness and anger power fantasies and they are kind of timeless but also different.

As for the sequel... Don't thank me. Please don't. It's not a Dreamworks production, the original voice cast is not returning, the trailer looks awful and it clearly has basically nothing to do with the original. It exists, or will soon, but I suspect that it's going to be a total abomination against the original...

OH NO

[Trafalgar]

I mean how do you make fun of the MCU? It's so anodyne and safe and pre-soaked in irony while also being painfully, smarmily, sincere* I'm just not sure how you can satirize it effectively. You can't go ridiculously over the top, because the movies have already done that. You can't go self aware, because half the time they're already nudge-nudge wink-winking at the camera. You can't just make a sincere thing ridiculous because the movies are already ridiculous and don't take themselves seriously enough for that sort of genre spoof to work - you can't make a Galaxy Quest for a Star Trek that's already constantly making jokes about how Star Treky it is. But at the same time they take themselves seriously enough that it'd be really hard to do the thing where you take a ridiculous thing and play it absurdly straight. The parody version of an MCU movie I think just ends up looking like a very slightly different MCU movie.

*Not really as contradictory as it seems. You just need to oscillate between the two states at a reasonably high frequency, which the MCU can achieve because the overall tone is comedic, and comedy works well with both smarm and irony.

I don't think Deadpool 3 is going to be a satire but it will make fun of the MCU. I don't know if you have seen the trailer yet but it uses the words "pegging" and "Disney" in the same sentence. Which is remarkable in a product sanctioned by Disney. I wonder what Walt would think.

Deadpool also says that he is the "MCU Jesus" in the trailer. After watching Endgame, I thought Iron Man was the MCU Jesus. But I guess Wade Wilson, with his regenerative powers, has a better chance of coming back from the dead than Tony Stark.

[Ramza00]

I mean how do you make fun of the MCU? It's so anodyne and safe and pre-soaked in irony while also being painfully, smarmily, sincere* I'm just not sure how you can satirize it effectively. You can't go ridiculously over the top, because the movies have already done that. You can't go self aware, because half the time they're already nudge-nudge wink-winking at the camera. You can't just make a sincere thing ridiculous because the movies are already ridiculous and don't take themselves seriously enough for that sort of genre spoof to work - you can't make a Galaxy Quest for a Star Trek that's already constantly making jokes about how Star Treky it is. But at the same time they take themselves seriously enough that it'd be really hard to do the thing where you take a ridiculous thing and play it absurdly straight. The parody version of an MCU movie I think just ends up looking like a very slightly different MCU movie.

*Not really as contradictory as it seems. You just need to oscillate between the two states at a reasonably high frequency, which the MCU can achieve because the overall tone is comedic, and comedy works well with both smarm and irony.

The MCU share many fathers, many origins which help originate its humor. Yet

One of the daddies of the MCU is Diehard 1988 with its wounded masculinity. A wounded masculinity which the character talks to himself, does quips, is a complete and utter [censored] … yet

1) John McClane is still there at the end of the day, he still helps his symbolic kin network, his family both biological and the community for he is a cop, a hero
2) There are worse people out there like the cocaine guy, yet we are also supposed to sympathize with cocaine guy yet he makes John look better by proxy
3) John talks to himself so he gets to be his own worse critic, which allows the audience to see the writter does not support the actor for 30 seconds later, or 30 minutes later their is consequences of John’s own making. Furthermore we see John as having a good heart for he suffers, he is the wounded masculine hero who tries to do good. Likewise this is a screenwriting crutch for sometimes you are moving the hero through the world allowing show not tell and this decompressed time can be filled with light drama anyway for the person is communicating with the other, they are talking to themselves instead of fast travel to the next scene.
4) John does the quips just like harrison ford does. Note these quips in Die Hard and also Empire Strikes Back are much better than the MCU (there are some exceptions like Iron Man.) It is not what is said but how the person says it with rhythm, tone, charisma, etc.

Wounded Masculinity is many genres but one of the most famous is a western. Die Hard is not 1:1 a Western but we can see its roots and how it gets inspiration there. Likewise MCU Supeheroes is many genres but we can see it is a Western with many famous stories.

I mean how do you make fun of the MCU? It's so anodyne and safe and pre-soaked in irony while also being painfully, smarmily, sincere* I'm just not sure how you can satirize it effectively. You can't go ridiculously over the top, because the movies have already done that. You can't go self aware, because half the time they're already nudge-nudge wink-winking at the camera. You can't just make a sincere thing ridiculous because the movies are already ridiculous and don't take themselves seriously enough for that sort of genre spoof to work - you can't make a Galaxy Quest for a Star Trek that's already constantly making jokes about how Star Treky it is. But at the same time they take themselves seriously enough that it'd be really hard to do the thing where you take a ridiculous thing and play it absurdly straight. The parody version of an MCU movie I think just ends up looking like a very slightly different MCU movie.

*Not really as contradictory as it seems. You just need to oscillate between the two states at a reasonably high frequency, which the MCU can achieve because the overall tone is comedic, and comedy works well with both smarm and irony.

So want to know what else came out of Die Hard? Well Tony Soprano with that Gangster tv show, and Breaking Bad.

And those are satirizing the whole Die Hard and western thing. Dr. Melfi is Tony’s magic mirror (who also can not see directly only notice the inconsistencies in the stories, or how Tony’s body language and emotions change) Melfi is the person Tony talks to much like John McClane is talking to the cop over the walkie talkie

Tony is there for his community. Yet at the same time HE IS THE PROBLEM.

We the audience see Tony as bad but we also sand off his edges by showing even worse Mobsters and other aspects of the Unsavory world where we are all implemented. We all enjoy.

And the Sopranos is full of all this kind of humor, these dynamic reversals of fate and fortune, but also language and quips which do not make sense yet we laugh anyway for we are scared or people are foolish.

The satire for Die Hard is to make John McClaine icky and disgusting yet still draw us in. The same has to occur with the Superhero if one wants to KILL JAMES BOND via Austin Power-izing him.

[Palanan]

Back to The Marvels itself...I just watched this. And loved it. It’s lightweight and completely ridiculous, and falls apart every so often, but still a ton of fun.

Unlike virtually everything on Disney+ for the past year, I don’t regret watching this one bit. It’s hopelessly silly, but the movie knows that about itself, so you just roll with it and embrace the goofy. And the mid-credits scene is priceless.

[Ramza00]

Back to The Marvels itself...I just watched this. And loved it. It’s lightweight and completely ridiculous, and falls apart every so often, but still a ton of fun.

Unlike virtually everything on Disney+ for the past year, I don’t regret watching this one bit. It’s hopelessly silly, but the movie knows that about itself, so you just roll with it and embrace the goofy. And the mid-credits scene is priceless.

Palanan uses their superpowers and swaps positions with someone else in this thread

[Eldan]

Back to The Marvels itself...I just watched this. And loved it. It’s lightweight and completely ridiculous, and falls apart every so often, but still a ton of fun.

Unlike virtually everything on Disney+ for the past year, I don’t regret watching this one bit. It’s hopelessly silly, but the movie knows that about itself, so you just roll with it and embrace the goofy. And the mid-credits scene is priceless.

Hooray, I'm not the only one anymore!

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Eldan
Hooray, I'm not the only one anymore!

Originally Posted by KillianHawkeye
Anyway, I just saw The Marvels a couple days ago, and I actually really liked it.*

_______
* Way back on p. 12, post #347. - Ed.

.

[BloodSquirrel]

I was stuck on an airplane the other day, so I wound up watching about 30 minutes of this movie, and that's probably about where I'm going to leave it. This movie was straight-up bad, and definitely deserved it's box office failure.

I'll start by saying the one nice thing I can about it: there's an attempt here to make Carol more of a character instead of the block of wood she's been so far. She's deliberately characterized as impulsive, both in big and small ways, and is more personable and outgoing. The banter between her and Nick Fury, well, it's not good, but they're trying to do a thing at least, which is more than they've managed with her character so far. I could get behind this version of the character if they added a layer of depth or two and put her is a less all-around-terrible film.

But as for the rest, ho boy-

The MCU's disregard for basic continuity really hurts this movie. I've mentioned before that the MCU has been bad a worldbuilding, and here we see it in full force: apparently Fury has a space station and Earth is monitoring the jump network now? When did that happen? Carol's powers are "light-based"? Who is this woman in charge of the Kree, and how did the Skrulls get on that planet, and what in general is the **** going on here? This movie is supposed to be part of an established universe, but it doesn't remember or care about settings details. It feels like there's an entire movie missing in-between this and Captain Marvel, without the kind of bare-minimum exposition that a new setting would use to orient the viewer.

Carol's character has the same issue. Yes, she needed a new personality grafted onto her, but that's something that we needed to see established. We need some connective tissue there to make this feel like an actual development, rather than "just ignore what we were doing with her before, this is her now".

And then there's Kamala and Monica. I've seen people claim that you don't have to watch the Disney+ shows to understand what's going on, and that's only true in the bluntest sense. Yes, I can follow the plot, and they establish the literally one thing about Kamala's character which they will proceed to beat to death, but the movie expects me to have an emotional investment in these characters which it just is not interested in building on its own. Every scene with Kamala's family falls painfully flat because I don't know who these people are and I don't care. I have no idea who Monica is supposed to be.

The first 30-35 minutes of a movie is generally where it does some work to establish its characters, their relationships, some overall themes, etc. This movie plows forward, heedless of any of those things, and just throws stuff happening at the viewer. None of the character interactions are meaningful or are given room to breath. Important facts about the setting and conflict are not established. The movie is too impatient to get on to the next action beat when it really, desperately needs to be doing some bare-bones first act stuff.

The result was a jumbled half-hour of events that accomplished nothing of value. People have defended this as "light adventure" or called it "mid", but I can name a lot of dumb, fun movies that still knew that they needed to spend a minute or two establishing a character or framing out the plot to us. The Marvels just tells us space magic is happening and leaves it at that. The armbands are a thing that do a thing, the villain is doing... something, idk, and a bunch of characters have powers that do stuff. This movie really doesn't deserve to have excuses made for its sloppy, lazy, uninspired construction, even if it manages to avoid being actively offensive.

[Wookieetank]

Watched this over the weekend, and it wasn't terrible, but definitely had some rough edges.

Spoiler

Show

Not 1 but 2 worlds destroyed, and completely glossed over. The Skrulls are still the Kree's punching bag (and got their world destroyed). Dance planet was a fun concept, but super rushed (and then destroyed). Quite entertained by the Flerken shenanigans, and the overhead announcements during it were hilarious. Villians had some rather flimsy motivations, and blaming someone else for you destroying your own planet seems a stretch at best. The teleporting fight scenes were rather fun at least.

Overall I'd put it in the neighborhood of Thor 2, watchable, but nothing spectacular.

[Dargaron]

Overall I'd put it in the neighborhood of Thor 2, watchable, but nothing spectacular.

Man. I remember when Thor 2 and iron Man 2 were neck and neck for "worst MCU movie."

How times have changed.

[Wookieetank]

Man. I remember when Thor 2 and iron Man 2 were neck and neck for "worst MCU movie."

How times have changed.

And even then Thor 2 has Loki and Iron Man 2 has Warmachine as highlights, where The Marvels has...flerkens as the highlight.

[Tyndmyr]

And even then Thor 2 has Loki and Iron Man 2 has Warmachine as highlights, where The Marvels has...flerkens as the highlight.

Iron Man 2 also has little moments like the speech in congress, which I feel add an interesting texture to the world. People react to the existence of superheroes in ways that feel more real than just someone watching mouth agape.

In fairness, one could probably skip Iron Man 2, and not miss much of the overall plot of the early MCU, but it wasn't actually bad.

[Ramza00]

one can not skip Iron Man 2, Justin Hammer played by Sam Rockwell is going to emerge from Red Shirt #6 role to be the one who saves the day in Iron Man Quest: The Journey Continues

*DANCES ON THE STAGE*

[gbaji]

But as for the rest, ho boy-

The MCU's disregard for basic continuity really hurts this movie. I've mentioned before that the MCU has been bad a worldbuilding, and here we see it in full force: apparently Fury has a space station and Earth is monitoring the jump network now? When did that happen? Carol's powers are "light-based"? Who is this woman in charge of the Kree, and how did the Skrulls get on that planet, and what in general is the **** going on here? This movie is supposed to be part of an established universe, but it doesn't remember or care about settings details. It feels like there's an entire movie missing in-between this and Captain Marvel, without the kind of bare-minimum exposition that a new setting would use to orient the viewer.

I don't completely disagree with some of your complaints, but it's a bit odd to only watch the first 30 minutes of a film and then complain about things missing from the film, which were clarified later on. You've never watched a film in which characters are introduced who have a history which affects how they interact from the start of the film, but the details of that history aren't filled in until later on? Or conditions/things are presented to the audience and, once again, the details of the whys/hows are explained later? That's a pretty standard film writing technique.

The only thing you mentioned in that paragraph that is a valid complaint is the whole "her powers are light based" bit. Everything else is either established previously (seriously, the Carol taking the Skrulls to a new world was a plot point/resolution at the end of the Captain Marvel film, so "Skrulls on a planet somewhere" should not be at all confusing) or is explained over the course of watching the entire film. There are plenty of other things to complain about though...

The first 30-35 minutes of a movie is generally where it does some work to establish its characters, their relationships, some overall themes, etc. This movie plows forward, heedless of any of those things, and just throws stuff happening at the viewer. None of the character interactions are meaningful or are given room to breath. Important facts about the setting and conflict are not established. The movie is too impatient to get on to the next action beat when it really, desperately needs to be doing some bare-bones first act stuff.

Again. This is a strange thing to complain about. I could probably name off like 20 very very good films, all of which failed to fully introduce the characters and their backstory in the first 30-35 minutes of the film in favor of "getting the audience into the action". Your comments kinda remind me of one of my cousin's girlfriends back in the day. We were all sitting around watching a film (murder mystery film I think), and there's like a scene of a dark figure sneaking in somewhere and doing something mysterious. And the whole time she's like "who is that?" "what's he doing?" "why did he open the desk?" "What did he just take?" "Who's that dead person lying on the ground?". And we're all like... um... we don't know either. How about you watch the film. I'm sure we'll find out along the way (and... amazingly enough, we did).

It's pretty darn common to not learn about the villian and their motivations until later in a film. Ditto for the protagonists a good portion of the time. Did you actually expect them to do origin story/rehashes for each of the three main characters in the first 30 minutes and then launch into the plot? Good writers sprinkle the stuff you need to know about the characters along the way. IMO, that's one of the few things the actually did kinda right here.

There are plenty of other problems with the film, but if you hated it so much after the first 30 minutes, then you probably don't want to watch the rest just so you can see them (I guess?). To me, it was far more about a serious lack of consistency in the "feel" of the film itself. Were we supposed to take this as a light hearted space romp? Or a serious drama where serious things happen? But that's not a problem with the first 30 minutes. Well, that and that they couldn't decide if the villian was the equivalent of a silly Bond villain, or we were supposed to feel some sort of empathy for her cause or something. It was just... off. Again though, nothing you get into in the first 30 minutes of the film. It takes a bit to build up to those problems.

Obviously, I'm not going to recommend that you watch the entire film, so you can see that many of your complaints were resolved/explained, only to have a whole host of other problems appear, so...

[Tyndmyr]

I don't completely disagree with some of your complaints, but it's a bit odd to only watch the first 30 minutes of a film and then complain about things missing from the film, which were clarified later on. You've never watched a film in which characters are introduced who have a history which affects how they interact from the start of the film, but the details of that history aren't filled in until later on? Or conditions/things are presented to the audience and, once again, the details of the whys/hows are explained later? That's a pretty standard film writing technique..

Memento this movie was not.

It doesn't do a lot of flashback to establish setup. Any, really.

If someone hates the first thirty minutes of this film for being nonsense, the rest of it only makes that problem worse.

[BloodSquirrel]

I don't completely disagree with some of your complaints, but it's a bit odd to only watch the first 30 minutes of a film and then complain about things missing from the film, which were clarified later on.

No, it really isn't. There's a reason phrases like "three act structure" exist, and it isn't because you can just have anything happen whenever in whatever order and have a functioning story. I'm not complaining about the mystery not being solved in act 1, I'm complaining about characters having been given entirely new personalities off-screen and major settings details not lining up without explanation. Most movies that start with an in media res action sequence slow down afterwards.

Again. This is a strange thing to complain about. I could probably name off like 20 very very good films, all of which failed to fully introduce the characters and their backstory in the first 30-35 minutes of the film in favor of "getting the audience into the action".

If you named one of them (that I've seen), then I'm guessing that either:

A) I could point out where the movie does a better job of introducing the foundationally important information earlier than The Marvels
B) I would disagree with it being a "very very good film"
or
C) It would be a far more experimental project which is not being described as "light adventure".

Even something like Pulp Fiction, which contains scenes which are largely out of chronological order, is still very deliberately put together so that the scenes are in the correct thematic order (thus the movie ending with Jules' revelation in the cafe). Hell, even Lost Highway which is deliberately intended not to make very much literal sense still knows that scenes in the beginning need to be more literal and comprehensible to set the stage for the movie's devolution in surrealism later on.

There are plenty of other problems with the film, but if you hated it so much after the first 30 minutes, then you probably don't want to watch the rest just so you can see them (I guess?). To me, it was far more about a serious lack of consistency in the "feel" of the film itself. Were we supposed to take this as a light hearted space romp? Or a serious drama where serious things happen? But that's not a problem with the first 30 minutes.

That is, in fact, the exact kind of thing that a competently made "light adventure" movie would use the first 30 minutes to sort out. In fact, most well-written movies will do something very deliberate to establish the tone within the first minute of the film, sometimes starting with the opening credits. Case in point: Look how quickly Infinity War tells the audience "Hey, **** just got real". They literally start with the opening logo, forgoing the standard Marvel intro for something darker and more serious.

EDIT: In fact, this is such boiler plate stuff that I can describe exactly what a competently rewritten version of this movie would do: Start with showing Carol destroying the Supreme Intelligence, showing her as her old stiff and arrogant self, end with showing the main villain's reaction to this, then jump forward to one of Carol (or Kamala's) modern light-hearted adventures. This would establish what the range of tone is in the movie, establish that Carol's personality shift is an in-universe thing that can be addressed in-conversation with Nick Fury (have him note that she's been calling him a lot since End Game), and let us know what parts we're supposed to take seriously.

This is very basic, very formulaic stuff, but it works, and there's no excuse for a very basic, very formulaic action-adventure movie to get it so wrong.

[gbaji]

Memento this movie was not.

Uh... Sure. But this film didn't have any plot components where the characters were trying to figure out who they were either. Just that audience members who have not seen the WandaVision or MsMarvel series may not know who those characters are, so they need to be introduced, powers explained, etc. And I think the film did a good enough job of doing that.

It doesn't do a lot of flashback to establish setup. Any, really.

It uses some flashbacks to Monica as a child, specifically Carol promising to come back, as a major character point existing between the two. And then follows up with significant amount of dialogue between the two of them, about the fact that Carol did not come back. It uses this same dialogue to both explain why Carol is so disconnected *and* to explain the backstory as to why the Kree villian hates her so much. So... you know. They explain all of that stuff over the course of the film.

There's also a (admittedly brief) bit by Monica explaining how she got her powers (which is short, but to be fair, not much shorter than the actual scenes of her getting her powers in WandVision, so I think "I encountered some strange energy field and it gave me powers" is sufficient). Kamala also speaks about her powers, but not really about how she got them (at least not that I recalled), and that the bangle has some interdimensional powers as well. And honestly, they do quite a bit in this film to go futher in explaining what the bangles are (Quantum bands) than the Ms Marvel series did, so there's that.

Most films don't use flashbacks to do that either. And most films don't start out giving us full dossiers on the history of the main characters either., We learn who they are along the way. I just found that to be a really strange criticism of the film. If you watched the entire film and still had questions about the characters, then we can rightly say that the writers/director didn't do their job properly. But that's not at all a fair critique to make after watching just 30 minutes.

How much do you know about Sarah Connor 30 minutes into the Terminator film? Heck. You don't learn the significance of Kyle Reese until the very end of the film either. Was it bad writing that they didn't tell you in the opening scroll that he and Sarah are the parents of the man who saves humanity in the future? Or was it better that you don't realize this fact (or the reason why John Connor picks Kyle to go back in time in the first place), until the very end? Imagine how horrible the film would have been with an opening scene of John Connor telling Kyle Reese "Ok. I need you to go back in time to get my mom pregnant so that I can exist. Oh, and stop this terminator thing while you're at it. Spoiler alert: You're going to die doing this". I mean. We'd know who all the characters are, and why they are doing what they are doing right off the bat, right?

If someone hates the first thirty minutes of this film for being nonsense, the rest of it only makes that problem worse.

Sure. Everyone's got their own reasons for liking or disliking things. And I've certainly watched some crappy films where I thought "this makes no sense" at around the 30 minute mark as well. But if I stop watching at that point, I don't assume that, had I continued watching, that those same things would still make no sense to me. I'd say something like "Nothing about the plot and characters really grabbed on to me, I was getting bored waiting for it to develop, and just stopped watching". Which is usually more something I might do in a film that has little or no action, and where the character interaction *is* more about what the film is supposed to be about (but it's just not there maybe, or is too slow to develop).

Certainly, this is about personal taste, but I'm usually ok with watching along while action sequences are occuring, and things are blowing up or whatever, while the exploration of the characters and their various aspects are revealed over the course of the film. As long as there is *something* going on, that's fine with me. And I suspect that meets the expectations of most people who are watching a super hero film in the first place. And while I find a lot of flaws in this film, IMPO that was not one of them.

[Ramza00]

sidenote, I hate when flashbacks reuse the scenes from previous movies to re-establish family relationships between characters

film new family moments that do not need previous context. Yes you use flashbacks to get old users up to speed if they did not see the previous movie, yet it fails for you are showing them a montage. Meanwhile it is less interesting for people who saw the movie from 5 years ago.

It is okay to show a new scene of a niece and her aunt with a different memory that came before. Kids have many birthdays, many movie nights, many bike rides and other first experiences. Show me a different new one.

[gbaji]

No, it really isn't. There's a reason phrases like "three act structure" exist, and it isn't because you can just have anything happen whenever in whatever order and have a functioning story. I'm not complaining about the mystery not being solved in act 1, I'm complaining about characters having been given entirely new personalities off-screen and major settings details not lining up without explanation. Most movies that start with an in media res action sequence slow down afterwards.

Except this was in the first paragraph of "complaints":

The MCU's disregard for basic continuity really hurts this movie. I've mentioned before that the MCU has been bad a worldbuilding, and here we see it in full force: apparently Fury has a space station and Earth is monitoring the jump network now? When did that happen? Carol's powers are "light-based"? Who is this woman in charge of the Kree, and how did the Skrulls get on that planet, and what in general is the **** going on here? This movie is supposed to be part of an established universe, but it doesn't remember or care about settings details. It feels like there's an entire movie missing in-between this and Captain Marvel, without the kind of bare-minimum exposition that a new setting would use to orient the viewer.

Space station, and what it's about, is explained later on (sufficiently enough anyway). When did that happen? This is the first work showing it (it's not actually shown in Secret Wars). So... There's a space station. Why do you need to know more about this? They never took the time to explain the helicarrier Shield had in Avengers either. They just had it. Why is this a problem? Secret government funded organization has high tech toys. This is the same thing. It's there. That's literally all you need to know for the film to work. It's certainly not some kind of continuity error.

The villain, and her motives, are explained during the course of the film. Exactly like we usually discover why the bad guys are the bad guys over the course of films and rarely right at the beginning.

Skruls are on a planet because that's where Captain Marvel relocated them after the events in the film of the same name. This should not be confusing to anyone who watched that film. And even if you didn't, "aliens on an alien world being attacked" isn't terribly confusing, and the reasons for it are... wait for it... explained later in the film.

None of these are the film somehow ignoring or failing to follow the established universe. All of them are plot points in the film itself, some of which are introduced in the film, and some are building directly off of previous things already established, but all of which are explained sufficiently for the plot in the film to work.

And yes. There's like 30 years of time gap between the Captain Marvel film and this one. That's intentional. This is the film that tells you about some of the things she did during that time. And yes, once again, you learn these things over the course of the film. At least part of that reason is that these are quite painful memories for Carol, since she made some mistakes along the way. Which, again, is part of the plot relevant reveals that occur over the course of watching the film.

I'm not sure how you can say that the characters have "been given all new personalities", when in your initial post you said you didn't know who Monica or Kamala are (so could not know what their personalities were supposed to be). Um... So this is your introduction to both characters. How did they change from previously when you knew nothing about them?

And again, if you watched more than just the first 30 minutes, you would have gotten to the "slow down and talk" portion of the film, where the three main characters do exactly what you are complaining isn't there. It's during the time period after the first action stuff (with the Skrull world), and while they are traveling to the second world (song and dance world). There's a bit where they introduce themselves to each other. Then, after the action sequence there, there's more conversation where more details about the main villain and how she relates to Carol are explained (and more reveals about Carol and Monica and why there's so much tension between them).

There are a lot of flaws in this film, but the pacing and how they introduced the characters and had them interact with each other through the course of the film was one of the better handled parts IMO. They followed a pretty standard sequence:

1. Characters are thrown together via an action sequence, and initially fumble along since they don't work well together.
2. Characters have to rush off to deal with crisis revealed in first action sequence.
3. Characters spend a bit of time learning about eachother, and we learn there's some tension between two of them due to past events we don't know about yet.
4. Next action sequence, where they work a bit better together, but are still not in sync.
5. Additional character converstation reveals, where we learn what the tension was about, and the history behind it is given to the audience (and some healing/resolution occurs).
6. This leads to the characters actually finally working together as a team, leading to the final conflict they have to deal with.


The character interaction bits were actually quite well done and well paced. There are a few kinda "smooshed together" bits (like the somewhat flimsy "they have similar powers, so they're swapping places" bit). But the development and reveals about the characters themselves worked just fine IMO. And the only change to any character was Carol, and her change is completely explained in the film itself. It's not like we got a ton of her personality in the brief bits of her appearing in Endgame anyway. The whole point is that the Carol of today is a different person than the character of 30 years ago that we saw in the Captain Marvel film. And yes, this is very clearly explained and a significant plot and character development point in the film. It's not explained in the first 30 minutes, because it's one of the "reveals" that comes later (and which explains the villain's actions as well).

She's hesitant to tell anyone about this, because she's ashamed of what she did, and the impact it had. That's the whole point. But you have to kinda watch the film to learn this. Yes. She behaves differently in this film than in the previous one. That's by design.

EDIT: In fact, this is such boiler plate stuff that I can describe exactly what a competently rewritten version of this movie would do: Start with showing Carol destroying the Supreme Intelligence, showing her as her old stiff and arrogant self, end with showing the main villain's reaction to this, then jump forward to one of Carol (or Kamala's) modern light-hearted adventures. This would establish what the range of tone is in the movie, establish that Carol's personality shift is an in-universe thing that can be addressed in-conversation with Nick Fury (have him note that she's been calling him a lot since End Game), and let us know what parts we're supposed to take seriously.

Hmmm... Because that would be the equivalent of giving away the film plot reveal in the opening sequence. Not a great story telling technique.

I also think you missed the changes in Carol's personality. Yes, she's less stiff, but she's also distant. She jokes, but that's a cover for her not getting close to anyone or forming any relationships with them. She rationalizes this as "it's a big galaxy and I have to take care of a lot of things, and be in a lot of places", but there's an actual reason for it. There's a lot more to the changes in Carol than you got in that 30 minute view. And if some of it felt jarring, that was intentional, which is supposed to make you ask "what happened?", and then the film answers that question over the course of viewing it.

This is very basic, very formulaic stuff, but it works, and there's no excuse for a very basic, very formulaic action-adventure movie to get it so wrong.

It would also step on the plot of the actual film they are showing us though. It's one thing to show us, in the course of this film, some flashbacks to things she did previously (and some dialogue talking about a past more lighthearted adventure), and an entirely different thing to actually show us those events as a separate mini film at the beginning of the one we are watching. To do this the way you seem to want, they'd have to do three seperate origin and recap stories, which is not going to leave room for the story they are telling.

We only need to get "enough" of who these characters are, and why they are doing what they are doing, for the story to work. And IMO, they provided enough. Again. There's a lot of things to critique this film over, but "Didn't explain who the characters were and why they were doing what they are doing" wasn't one of them. But yeah, that information is doled out over the course of the film. IMO, exactly as it should be. We learn about the characters as they learn about each other, which is a very very common writing technique, commonly used precisely because it's an effective and efficient way to provide this information to the audience and to the characters through the course of the events in the story itself. Telling the audience via a min-film/flashback/sequence would give you the information, but you'd still then have to have a later scene where the other characters learn this information as well (which doubles the amount of time you need to spend on this). It's a far better technique to have this character information dump occur over the course of the story as the characters learn about eachother. Then you get both occuring at the same time (and to be honest, it feels more natural to do it this way).

Almost all films do things this way, so it's a strange thing to complain about.

[Infernally Clay]

Don't we first see the SWORD space station in Far From Home?

[BloodSquirrel]

Space station, and what it's about, is explained later on (sufficiently enough anyway). When did that happen? This is the first work showing it (it's not actually shown in Secret Wars). So... There's a space station. Why do you need to know more about this? They never took the time to explain the helicarrier Shield had in Avengers either. They just had it. Why is this a problem? Secret government funded organization has high tech toys. This is the same thing. It's there. That's literally all you need to know for the film to work. It's certainly not some kind of continuity error.

This isn't just a space station, it's a quantum leap in humanity's tech level that now has them monitoring the jump network.

The villain, and her motives, are explained during the course of the film. Exactly like we usually discover why the bad guys are the bad guys over the course of films and rarely right at the beginning.

You seem to have difficulty with this whole "things need to be set up in the beginning, not the last five minutes" thing. We do, in fact, usually learn more about the villains than "they're the bad guys" in the first thirty minutes. Again, Infinity War begins with a monologue by Thanos to help establish who he is. The tell us what he's after very early on. Godzilla vs Kong is literally a movie that's as straight-forward as "giant monkey fights giant lizard" and they spend more time in the first five minutes establishing characters and plot points than The Marvels did in the first thirty.

I'm pretty sure that Space Balls, which this movie steals the main villain's plan from, explains it more than The Marvels does in the first 30 minutes.

Skruls are on a planet because that's where Captain Marvel relocated them after the events in the film of the same name. This should not be confusing to anyone who watched that film. And even if you didn't, "aliens on an alien world being attacked" isn't terribly confusing, and the reasons for it are... wait for it... explained later in the film.

Captain Marvel was supposed to be relocating them to somewhere where they'd be safe from the Kree, and yet the first thing we see is the Kree showing up like the Skrulls are in their back yard.

And yes. There's like 30 years of time gap between the Captain Marvel film and this one. That's intentional. This is the film that tells you about some of the things she did during that time. And yes, once again, you learn these things over the course of the film. At least part of that reason is that these are quite painful memories for Carol, since she made some mistakes along the way. Which, again, is part of the plot relevant reveals that occur over the course of watching the film.

Then how about get to that stuff to let me know why I should care about what I'm watching earlier than 1/3 of the way through what should be the standard length for a light adventure movie?

Look, I don't blame you for not remembering- or not caring- much about the details of Captain Marvel, or where it left off, or caring much about whether this movie continues from there. It was released a long time ago, and it wasn't very good or memorable. But that's all the more reason that this movie should have been trying to make a fresh start, which means establishing a new status quo before it goes on about blowing things up.

There are a lot of flaws in this film, but the pacing and how they introduced the characters and had them interact with each other through the course of the film was one of the better handled parts IMO. They followed a pretty standard sequence:

1. Characters are thrown together via an action sequence, and initially fumble along since they don't work well together.
2. Characters have to rush off to deal with crisis revealed in first action sequence.
3. Characters spend a bit of time learning about eachother, and we learn there's some tension between two of them due to past events we don't know about yet.
4. Next action sequence, where they work a bit better together, but are still not in sync.
5. Additional character converstation reveals, where we learn what the tension was about, and the history behind it is given to the audience (and some healing/resolution occurs).
6. This leads to the characters actually finally working together as a team, leading to the final conflict they have to deal with.

No, actually, that's not the standard sequence. It's not even close. Movies generally don't throw and ensemble cast together in the first sequence, let alone continue through the first 2-3 before getting to the characterization bits. Guardians of the Galaxy is a much more typical example, where we get an action sequence with Peter Quill, then things slow down as the other characters are introduced and we get some setup before they fight each other. Then, after they're taken prisoner, we get even more setup before we get the next action bit.

Can you provide an actual example of this supposed sequence in action? Because I'm seriously wondering what example you can come up with that isn't going to compare favorably to The Marvels in this department.

[Tyndmyr]

It uses some flashbacks to Monica as a child, specifically Carol promising to come back, as a major character point existing between the two. And then follows up with significant amount of dialogue between the two of them, about the fact that Carol did not come back. It uses this same dialogue to both explain why Carol is so disconnected *and* to explain the backstory as to why the Kree villian hates her so much. So... you know. They explain all of that stuff over the course of the film.

There is the brief flashback, but that's very early in the film. He's already seen that, so it's not backstory that he's missed by only watching the first thirty minutes. If that doesn't do it for him, it's unlikely that anything later is going to change that.