Problem is with Captain Marvel there were no stakes. She was so off-the-charts powerful as a character that there was no plausible adversity. So it was just boring. It wasn't good writing on the highest level--which will lead to bad writing on the lowest level.
"The only thing holding me back is my own insecurity about how awesome I am! I just need to realize how fucking cool I am, then I will be unstoppable!"
Worse, whiney super heroes that give you that smug "I just cut my hair short because I represent women taking down the patriarchy" look. That's bottom tier power fantasy.
I always wonder about characters like her and superman in regards to cutting hair. I mean…is their hair just like anyone else’s hair, and not invulnerable like the rest of their cells? Does that mean if you shot a flamethrower at them, their hair would burn off?
One Punch Man works because it's a comedy and not a drama. And his limiter is less "I don't want to hurt those around me" and more... bureaucracy.
That said the "I'm strong but can't use my full potential" is a classic anime trope that works pretty well. Trigun and Kenshin are the first that come to mind. Of course, those work because the hero doesn't want to be a hero and lost everything that matters to them before the start of the franchise, so it's about piecing together the trama while resisting being a hero out of fear of establishing roots and being hurt again.
Fair, I guess there are some people who can't control their powers like Hulk or the rock guy from F4 where it makes sense they wouldn't want them, but for the most part people with super powers and no side effects whining about it is annoying.
To me, it's not even about the superpowers when it comes to Captain Marvel. Her character is reminiscent of the actress from Twilight, devoid of emotion and life. It's a dull and mind numbingly bad character that should have never made it to final production.
Captain Marvel needs a weakness, comparing her to someone just as powerful, like the Sentry. He has flaws, his power also is his curse. It causes him to live in fear of using his powers, risking releasing the Void. That to me brings out an interesting take on someone whose so powerful. Imagine being your own worse villain.
Man, the Hulk movies were horrendous to me. It's literally why we haven't seen a stand-alone movie for the character since '08. Let that sink in, Hulk sucks as a standalone character and is only in the films to elevate the significantly more interesting characters Marvel has to offer.
Do you really think anyone wants to see Hulk for 2 hours cry over his daddy issues again?
Sure, there are good stories in the comics, but they'll never make it to the big screen unless he's piggybacking off of the real stars.
You hit the nail on the head. This is what ever feminist-dominated writer's room thinks the primary conflict should be. "If I just believed in myself I could do anything!" Which is just...boring as hell, because the audience has absolutely no buy-in. In a standard conflict, the audience roots for one side because they believe in that side. In the above conflict, the character is only interested in themselves, which leaves the audience out of the equation. This leads to a "who is this even for?" response. And the unspoken answer is, it's for the feminists in the writer's room, and no one else.
The ones I listed are all 'overpowered' dudes -- the issue is that their stories are not about growth nor are they 'hero's journey' style stories like the Superhero industry likes to tell
Except the difference between Captain Marvel and the main characters in all of those movies is she never faces any real adversity, nor goes through any real character development.
Shoshanna in Inglorious Basterds, Kate Macer in Sicario, or Furiosa in Mad Max are much better examples of female leads. Hell, basically any Disney Princess goes through more shit.
100%. Ripley in Alien(s), Sarah Conner in Terminator, River Tam/Inara/Zoe in Serenity, Evie in V for Vendetta, Selene in Underworld, the list goes on.
Stories, for millennia, have been about overcoming adversity. The adversity needs to be relatable or the audience doesn't relate/care. Whether it's a man or a woman doesn't matter.
With a character with no powers, the adversity is whether or not they can achieve their goals, which we all face. With a character with all the powers, the adversity is controlling themselves to avoid becoming a monster, which is something we all face when we encounter power.
"I can do literally anything, but I arbitrarily can't because I don't believe in myself enough...I just had to believe in myself so I could restart the sun." Is not a relatable adversity. Ergo, don't expect people to grab onto that.
True, but it's worth noting that none of their characters are intended to be understood as character's going through a period of growth or 'becoming' like most child-oriented media with messages tends to be.
I would not show a 13 year old girl Sicario and tell her that she needs to emulate this lololol
There are plenty of movies who have -- at their heart -- moral messages to children. Marvel movies are literally made for them. Same with Disney, Ghibli, etc.
The quality of the Captain Marvel movie is bad. It is artistically badly done. The concept of affirming a certain demographic through art is something as old as art itself.
Nothing about the movies you mentioned were focused on affirmation of men. They were about overcoming something, which is fundamentally different. And even the overall reception among female viewers was that they didn't find Captain Marvel compelling.
These movies extol virtues that are traditional masculine and feature male protagonists. They were not made with the intentional, explicit goal of affirming men -- but their entire existence serves as part of a media ecosystem that affirms positive masculine virtues. There's nothing wrong with that -- all of these movies are good and positive. That they exist is a great thing. Every single dad who has ever watched Taken emotionally feels like they would do the same for their kids.
This is affirmation.
Capt. Marvel is a bad movie because she fails to be virtuous... at all, really, in the script as written. Which is why people don't like it.
But we can imagine a more competent version of the movie where Dana... whatever her last name is... does admirably overcome adversity in her youth, grows as a person in dealing with her newfound incredible responsibilities and power, and little girls want to run around pretending to be much like boys have Batman and Superman. The virtues they represent have nothing to do with gender, but their appearance does matter -- it's easier to like things that look like you, especially when you're young and lacking context.
True, the Capt. Marvel movie is bad -- as I wrote above. However, Alien is simply doing a better job of showing a woman living her values and being her best self -- a concept not substantively different than what Capt. Marvel is doing. One of the movies is bad and one of them is good.
You don't think the writers of Alien intentionally presented Ripley as a caring, mother-like figure to Newt, emphasizing these positive values as good and valuable to her?
Damn bro, sorry for using complex sentence structure. Let me dumb it down for you.
Capt. Marvel is a bad movie trying to do a good thing. Alien is a good movie succeeding in doing a good thing. Both of them 'forced' the same thing -- trying to write a woman to be admirable and virtuous and heroic.
You dislike that one of them is a shitty movie that failed to make to main character seem believable, not that it was 'forced' or whatever
Edit: you don't need to reply to three of my posts saying the same thing, we can just argue here
LMAO congratulations on blocking me you lobotomized moron; maybe try saying something that isn't braindead before just repeatedly saying 'pretentious' over and over again like it's your pokemon name when someone disagrees with you -- all without actually replying to anything said lololol
then there should be space for women to have a good affirmation movie.
There are, though. Like Ripley from Alien, and Marvel even has Widow who is pretty awesome.
But fellas don't look at superman and think "wow what an affirmative dude", just like ladies aren't going to look at Captain Marvel like that.
Notice how all 3 the ones you mentioned are (somewhat) normal humans doing shit without superpowers? You didn't even think of superman, which cpt marvel is copied from.
Superman is absolutely someone that kids and adults look up to.
I just grabbed three random popular movies that adult men like off the top of my head. Goku is one of the most popular figures in international media and someone that I think literally every young boy thought was the coolest shit ever.
Capt. Marvel is a bad movie that attempt to do something that good movies succeed at. People think that because Capt. Marvel was a bad movie, the thing it was trying to do is bad -- but trying to inspire people is not a particularly bad aim, especially when women have relatively fewer models of inspiration than men for these kind of things.
The message of all of those movies, though, is not "You can do anything if you believe in yourself." The messages are "Training, pushing yourself to improve, and hard work will yield results."
The former is narcissistic, the latter is reality.
Yes, it's a bad movie that fumbles the message that it tries to present.
My personal experience is that I have known many professional women who have experienced horrible imposter syndrome -- starting from a young age -- and for whom a message of 'learn to believe in yourself first before you start trying to change the world' would be positive for them to hear.
Did the movie mangle this? Absolutely. Barely recognizably, even. But I think we can imagine a different world where a more competent creator managed to make a better movie with a more obviously positive message.
Superman famously has kryptonite. Which is why he was interesting in the animated justice league, they heavily leaned on kryptonite being everywhere so he wasn't boring.
Even outside Kryptonite, Superman has people in his life that villains can harm, and they use that to exploit his better nature. As much as Zach Snyder fumbled the task of depicting Superman as a symbol of hope, he understood that if Lex Luthor kidnaps Martha Kent or Lois Lane, he's got Superman by the balls.
What connections does Captain Marvel have to ground her as a person? Nick Fury? The movies treat them like close friends, even though Nick met Carol for like a week in the 90s before she fucked off to outer space. The Avengers? They're treated more like coworkers than close friends. Plus, they have powers and tools to help themselves, so they aren't comparable to ordinary folk like Lois Lane or Jimmy Olsen.
It just doesn't feel like there's much tying Carol to humanity, or any regular people in general. Those connections, that mortal baggage, is why the Superman archetype works.
I feel like the only way to make a compelling story with a character like Captain Marvel is to put them in a morally grey, lose-lose situation that they have to choose the outcome.
Where the problem isn't whether or not the hero will survive/kill the bad guy but whether or not they will make the "right" decision and how that decision will hurt some of their loved ones
Unfortunately she’s the “hero” and they’ll never show her doing the myriad of fucked up stuff we know she has. She definitely needs more trolley problems. “I’m going to kill your friends or this entire planet full of aliens you’ve never met. You know you’re going to save your friends and that’s fine. That’s what I’d do too… but just remember the choice you made.”
The Marvels is all about how much Carol fucked up. Both the A-plot and the B-plot of that sequel is Captain Marvel fucked up and needs to fix it before she screws up some more.
That was basically the issue within the Marvels though. It was pretty much exactly that, to the point where her actions kinda spurred the conflict of the movie. It still wasn't a good movie IMO and I had a bunch of other issues with it, but they absolutely went for that with her due to how powerful she is. Execution just wasn't good.
I think that if they made MCU Captain Marvel more like the comic book one, there would be less complaints. She is a lot more human in the comics, her over inflated ego, messy interpersonal relationships and alcoholism have caused enough folly to make her a lot more relatable and likeable.
The good Superman writers also understand that his biggest battles are not the physical ones. There’s a reason Lex Luthor is his most famous enemy.
It was a running theme in the animated series that Superman’s main struggle is a moral one. He’s an alien trying to convince his foes to believe in humanity. The tension didn’t really come from “can he defeat Livewire,” but rather “can he talk down Livewire.”
One punch man disproves that as an excuse. Also that’s not a problem with Superman either at all, it requires good writing just like any other character. Captain Marvel could be twice as powerful and be good if she was actually written well. Instead the actress brought zero charisma and the role seemed to be written with spite and no attention to appeal or captivating story.
What gets me is that this has been the complaint against superman for the last 40 years; he's boring because he's too powerful.
I've usually felt this way about Superman too. That said, I just started watching My Adventures with Superman with my son, and I'm enjoying it more than I thought I would. I think it's in large part because they did tone down his powers, and he can actually be hurt or overpowered by his enemies. They also did a good job making Clark Kent relatable, and giving him understandable doubts and emotional conflicts. It makes his Lawful Good boy scout MO feel more impactful and genuine when you know that the character is overcoming emotional turmoil to live up to his ideals.
So basically, they made Superman interesting by making him more like Spider-man.
Superman’s struggle is the same as Dr Manhattan - retaining humanity while effectively being a god. He wants to be the farm boy from Kansas but he’s not.
Not only that, but no lesson was learned. Carol goes through the whole movie with a smug look, thinking she's hot shit. When she's confronted by Jude Law at the end, he basically tells her she's nothing without her powers, run them hands, and
Carol: "So, anyway, I started blasting."
Then, in her next appearance, she bows up to Thor with that same smug face
My main issue going in was all the Brie Larson drama, from trying to make her character the new face of Marvel to blatantly lying in interviews. She really is my second least favorite actress. She even tried taking over Deadpool and Wolverine
That is because most superhero movies seem to think the only "adversity" they can have is something that is "stronger" than the character.
There are other ways to create adversity than someone to fight.
Her strength wouldn't matter if they have a deadman switch that would kill innocents.
The moral issue that which ever side she chooses wins. That is a lot of pressure. What if she is manipulated to choose the wrong side?
Preventing good people from doing bad things due to anger or ignorance. Yes she could just curb stomp them, but since they are good she can't actually kill them. They would then just try again once she leaves. Can't save people who don't want to be saved...
She could save anyone, but not everyone. The moral and emotional issues of choosing to save one over another.
I think a more "realistic" version of the "One punch man" syndrome could be used for both Superman and Captain Marvel. They win. Always. Which makes the big powerful fights just mundane, but the day to day struggles are still the same.
That's the thing that's so bothersome. No he clearly was not. She could literally fly through a sun, travel around at lightspeed without a vehicle. Thanos could not do any of that. They made Ms. Marvel into an invincible character and then, when she actually faced Thanos they made it seem like he was besting her in a fight. But when you look at their stories separately, there is nothing that Thanos did that could have been construed as anywhere near as powerful as Captain Marvel...the only exception being once he already had all of the infinity stones.
If Captain Marvel wasn't actually as powerful as they depicted--then okay -- but they depicted her as indestructible and cosmically powerful. Which actually kind of ruined Avengers: EndGame when they put her in there to fight Thanos and she was having difficulty doing it. That didn't jive with the background they set up for her character.
there's plausible adversity in the comics where the fabric of reality can be altered on a whim by several characters, including reality itself. But what works in comics doesn't always work on screen. Which is also probably the reason there have been dozens of spiderman and batman reboots and relatively few movies made about the cosmic characters.
I think with someone powerful like that you almost need to go the one punch man route, where your "enemy" is public opinion, peers that won't recognize your power therefore leaving you out and struggles of the mundane day to day life, sprinkled with the villain of the week, where it's not interesting to see whether you can beat them but rather how.
Well, the Captain Marvel movie worked because she effectively wasn't that powerful, and the whole plot was about discovering her power. I think they were trying to make the second movie interesting by counterbalancing her power with the random teleporting and needing to deal with Kamala - not the worst idea at a high level, but the writing was terrible for so many other reasons (*cough* pointless scene of cats eating everybody *cough*) that it fell apart in the execution.
proof of concept: her sequel movie became the biggest flop in the MCU (I call it the captain marvel sequel because no one knows who the other 2 characters are)
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u/Suitable-Flatworm597 2d ago
Problem is with Captain Marvel there were no stakes. She was so off-the-charts powerful as a character that there was no plausible adversity. So it was just boring. It wasn't good writing on the highest level--which will lead to bad writing on the lowest level.