Category: Musings

So I finally got to watch the teaser trailer for the upcoming Captain Marvel movie and my initial reaction was meh. Wasn’t excited, wasn’t depressed, it was just a thing that I watched and moved on with my life. I gave it another quick watch just a short time ago and my tune really hasn’t changed all that. This will probably be straight-to-Netflix for me if it gets to that point and that’s been the case with a lot of the Marvel output aside from Infinity War, which we did get to see in theaters. It also doesn’t help that the film is featuring the Carol Danvers character; a character that I was never too keen on in either her Ms. Marvel or Captain Marvel phase. If anything, the best use of Carol Danvers was to be the sacrificial lamb for Rogue, a much more interesting character and member of the X-People.

So, apparently, there’s a big stink being made by the fact that Carol Danvers (played by Brie Larson) doesn’t smile enough in the trailer. More than likely, this stink was brought up on Twitter because Twitter is populated by stupid people. Unfortunately, there’s enough stupid people in the world to turn this into a big deal for some reason. I watch the trailer and yes, for the majority of the trailer, Danvers doesn’t show much emotion, if any. There’s a couple hints of a slight grin during the airfield scene or a pained expression when she’s shooting laser beams, but for the most part, it’s just this stone-faced expression that, upon second viewing, made me wonder if this was an actual human actress in the role or another of those digitally CG mock-ups without the facial expressions programmed in. I mean, at this point, it wouldn’t surprise me considering the efforts they went into de-aging SLJ and that other guy named Phil.

I don’t know; maybe the people who made this teaser figured we needed more impressions of Lt. Commander Data and save the emotional bits for the actual movie.

And that’s just the thing; it’s a teaser. It’s just a brief snippet of a much larger playfield. You have these scenes which take place, but no context to go with it. Why is Captain Marvel punching some old lady on a bus? Unless you’re familiar with the comics, you wouldn’t have a clue and assume that Captain Marvel is an asshole. There’s a scene where Carol’s on this alien world and there’s no sense of wonder or astonishment or any sort of subtle emotion… but on the flip side, what makes you think that this was her first time? For all we know, she may have been on that world for who knows how long. Maybe it’s something that’s taken from the end of the movie. After all, we need to explain why this person has been non existent during the entirety of the Marvel Cinematic Canon.

Look… I don’t know if this is going to be a good movie or not. Nobody can assume such a thing from a teaser trailer. Right now, the teaser trailer is a thing that happened and not much more than that. I’m neither excited nor enraged; I’m just like… whatever. I’ll just wait for the next trailer to come along and provide a little more light on what this Captain Marvel movie is all about. Maybe the trailer will show more emotion than this trailer did. Or maybe they’ll just add more stone-faced Brie and then Twitter can complain about it… and I stop caring entirely because Twitter ruins everything.

And that’s all I’ve got to say about that, really.

P.S. Maybe in five to ten years time, if they decide to reboot Captain Marvel, they can go with the Monica Rambeau version instead. Not only is she female, but also a female of color; two checks off the diversity checklist. Also, a much better character than Ms. Cannon Fodder For Rogue.