(sorry it took me so long to reply to this neat comment -- my husband and I have been really sick)
I felt like it was structured a lot more like something like The Last Starfighter or even the first Star Wars movie than your average superhero origin story
Aha, now I see what you mean. Yeah, I guess the (awful) Batman movie with Christian Bale is like the template for the superhero movie -- we still got the parent-shooting and the bats and the training and so on and on, even though by now it's a VERY familiar structure. I did like that we didn't get that structure for Carol (not sure, but also, didn't they avoid that for Holland's Spiderman?).
she's spending pretty much the rest of the movie confidently using her powers to the best of her ability and never really doubting that she should.
I saw it a bit differently -- more like she's been very hampered by the doubt the outside culture (patriarchy) has been trying to instil in her since she was a very young girl. Her dad's response to her going too fast and crashing isn't "Try again," but "I won't let you do this." Her fellow recruits are all telling her she can't do it, it's an actual plot point that she and Maria aren't allowed to be fighter pilots (which I loved, and I also loved the actual payoff to that later), Yon-Rogg (Lordy I find that name ridiculous) is telling her she can't control herself and needs his guidance, & &c. She has to keep punching (sometimes literally!) through all that to keep unleashing the actual power she really has, that so many people are literally trying to convince her she doesn't have and shouldn't use.
even in her two one-on-one fights with Yon-Rogg, it's never really structured as being about her proving herself against a tough opponent; it's about her getting a job done
He wipes her out in the sparring, though, and IIRC also on the observatory lab when he uses the photon inhibitor whatsit (the Power of Patriarchy!) and it's not until she gets herself back, with the montage that the SI's trying to use to beat her back down, that she's able to burst through the bonds and remove the inhibition and really use her powers. Like she says, she's been fighting with one arm tied behind her back (and not just with the Kree -- all her life). It's not just the external circumstances that have been against her, but the internal barriers those external things set up in her own mind. (There's a John Stuart Mill quote I always try to find, that's something about how external chains become internal inhibitions, and I just don't know where it is anymore, argh.) She doesn't win against him until she basically goes "fuck you" and photon blasts him -- which is a nice mirror to when she does it by accident in their first sparring round, and looks anxious about it and then she's taken off to be re-educated by the SI or whatever it does.
So we don't ever really get the big climactic supervillain fight I've come to expect in these movies; even the final fight scene is never really structured as being about defeating the bad guys.
I really gotta disagree there, there was the fight with the SI, and Maria's dogfight with Minn-Erva, and then Carol's big final stand against the ships that look like they could wipe out a large part of Earth. When Carol talks about the ruins of Tathos (I think that's the name), Talos tells her she's wrong, it's what the Accusers did, and I think we're meant to think that Earth is in that much danger and Carol is protecting it. She gives the same message to Ronan and Yon-Rogg: leave with your tail between your legs, and tell your bosses I'm protecting this planet. It was a very Dr Who moment.
in Captain Marvel it sort of felt like the threats were continually decreasing in scale - we started with trying to keep an evil empire from getting a weapon which could destroy the galaxy and ended with trying to save some kids we'd never met before
I do disagree there because of the final big fight between Carol and Ronan's ships -- that happens simultaneously/right after Maria's big dogfight with Minn-Erva. Maria's the one who has the Tesseract, and also the refugees. Carol is way up in space.
(There was a Dark Phoenix trailer before Captain Marvel, and I actually found it really interesting to compare the two, because both of them basically have the plot of "woman has her mind messed with because of her vast cosmic powers" and yet Dark Phoenix is all about how dangerous Jean is and Captain Marvel is all about how awesome Carol is. Some of that is that CM was deliberately subverting all the tired misogynistic tropes in the Dark Phoenix plot, and you can totally still be a superhero movie while subverting that, but you gotta wonder what they were thinking sticking that trailer on this movie.)
HAH YES, we got the DP trailer both times before CM, and it was....interesting, because I still love the DP story, but it's the total patriarchal story about how the woman with power is dangerous and nothing but destructive and she must be destroyed (better yet, destroy herself) to save everyone else. And CM is about Carol awakening her power to save everyone else, nobody else can do it. Carol can't really unlock all of her powers until she gets rid of the inhibitor and fights back totally against the SI, though, and she gets the power through making a choice of her own -- shooting Lawson's engine so the Kree won't get it. Jean is basically possessed (women with power are demonic, &c &c). Whereas Carol has all golden light angel imagery in her movie, she's all about energy and flight.
(Anyway, hope it's not annoying I wound up disagreeing, it's a very interesting take on the movies anyway!)
no subject
I felt like it was structured a lot more like something like The Last Starfighter or even the first Star Wars movie than your average superhero origin story
Aha, now I see what you mean. Yeah, I guess the (awful) Batman movie with Christian Bale is like the template for the superhero movie -- we still got the parent-shooting and the bats and the training and so on and on, even though by now it's a VERY familiar structure. I did like that we didn't get that structure for Carol (not sure, but also, didn't they avoid that for Holland's Spiderman?).
she's spending pretty much the rest of the movie confidently using her powers to the best of her ability and never really doubting that she should.
I saw it a bit differently -- more like she's been very hampered by the doubt the outside culture (patriarchy) has been trying to instil in her since she was a very young girl. Her dad's response to her going too fast and crashing isn't "Try again," but "I won't let you do this." Her fellow recruits are all telling her she can't do it, it's an actual plot point that she and Maria aren't allowed to be fighter pilots (which I loved, and I also loved the actual payoff to that later), Yon-Rogg (Lordy I find that name ridiculous) is telling her she can't control herself and needs his guidance, & &c. She has to keep punching (sometimes literally!) through all that to keep unleashing the actual power she really has, that so many people are literally trying to convince her she doesn't have and shouldn't use.
even in her two one-on-one fights with Yon-Rogg, it's never really structured as being about her proving herself against a tough opponent; it's about her getting a job done
He wipes her out in the sparring, though, and IIRC also on the observatory lab when he uses the photon inhibitor whatsit (the Power of Patriarchy!) and it's not until she gets herself back, with the montage that the SI's trying to use to beat her back down, that she's able to burst through the bonds and remove the inhibition and really use her powers. Like she says, she's been fighting with one arm tied behind her back (and not just with the Kree -- all her life). It's not just the external circumstances that have been against her, but the internal barriers those external things set up in her own mind. (There's a John Stuart Mill quote I always try to find, that's something about how external chains become internal inhibitions, and I just don't know where it is anymore, argh.) She doesn't win against him until she basically goes "fuck you" and photon blasts him -- which is a nice mirror to when she does it by accident in their first sparring round, and looks anxious about it and then she's taken off to be re-educated by the SI or whatever it does.
So we don't ever really get the big climactic supervillain fight I've come to expect in these movies; even the final fight scene is never really structured as being about defeating the bad guys.
I really gotta disagree there, there was the fight with the SI, and Maria's dogfight with Minn-Erva, and then Carol's big final stand against the ships that look like they could wipe out a large part of Earth. When Carol talks about the ruins of Tathos (I think that's the name), Talos tells her she's wrong, it's what the Accusers did, and I think we're meant to think that Earth is in that much danger and Carol is protecting it. She gives the same message to Ronan and Yon-Rogg: leave with your tail between your legs, and tell your bosses I'm protecting this planet. It was a very Dr Who moment.
in Captain Marvel it sort of felt like the threats were continually decreasing in scale - we started with trying to keep an evil empire from getting a weapon which could destroy the galaxy and ended with trying to save some kids we'd never met before
I do disagree there because of the final big fight between Carol and Ronan's ships -- that happens simultaneously/right after Maria's big dogfight with Minn-Erva. Maria's the one who has the Tesseract, and also the refugees. Carol is way up in space.
(There was a Dark Phoenix trailer before Captain Marvel, and I actually found it really interesting to compare the two, because both of them basically have the plot of "woman has her mind messed with because of her vast cosmic powers" and yet Dark Phoenix is all about how dangerous Jean is and Captain Marvel is all about how awesome Carol is. Some of that is that CM was deliberately subverting all the tired misogynistic tropes in the Dark Phoenix plot, and you can totally still be a superhero movie while subverting that, but you gotta wonder what they were thinking sticking that trailer on this movie.)
HAH YES, we got the DP trailer both times before CM, and it was....interesting, because I still love the DP story, but it's the total patriarchal story about how the woman with power is dangerous and nothing but destructive and she must be destroyed (better yet, destroy herself) to save everyone else. And CM is about Carol awakening her power to save everyone else, nobody else can do it. Carol can't really unlock all of her powers until she gets rid of the inhibitor and fights back totally against the SI, though, and she gets the power through making a choice of her own -- shooting Lawson's engine so the Kree won't get it. Jean is basically possessed (women with power are demonic, &c &c). Whereas Carol has all golden light angel imagery in her movie, she's all about energy and flight.
(Anyway, hope it's not annoying I wound up disagreeing, it's a very interesting take on the movies anyway!)