spindizzy | Reaction Shot: Captain Marvel (or, MY USELESS LESBIAN HEART)

I finally got around to seeing Captain Marvel again! Which is impressive because I thought my ability to watch films was broken somehow! (In retrospect, the fact that I was aggressively avoiding anything to do with the Avengers movie and also beating myself up for wanting to see horror movies when Us looked genuinely too scary for me? Probably what did it.) But yes, I love Captain Marvel, we're all shocked by this dramatic turn of events.

Unfortunately, this has manifested in mashing the theme songs for Captain Scarlet and Captain Planet together and replacing them with Captain Marvel, SO situation normal, really.

I love that you can TELL this wasn't written by men even before the credits roll. She's never infantalised! When people denigrate her for who she is, it's because she's a human, not because she's a woman! And when Ronan says they'll be back, they're not coming back for "the girl" like I expected, they're coming back for "the woman." IT'S SUCH A TINY THING AND WE SHOULD NOT HAVE TO BE GRATEFUL FOR THAT.

I saw some people (men) on twitter being like "Is the scene where she's told to smile a reference to Brie Larson not smiling in interviews?" and literally everyone who has ever been read as female has gone "No, that's just what existing around men is like." HOW CAN YOU BE SO OBLIVIOUS?! HOW DO YOU NOT NOTICE THIS HAPPENING EVERY DAY?! ... Also in retrospect I'm honestly surprised she only gets harassed twice.

SHE IS SO STRONG AND FUNNY AND BRAVE, I don't understand how anyone (men) thinks she doesn't emote? Because she IS emoting, she's just angry and not crying! How can people (men) not see that!

The way that Carol's memories of the crash have been modified to better reflect the narrative that the Kree want her to believe is chilling, to be honest.

I literally could never parse Jude Law's character name. I accept that he has one! I just never managed to untangle the sounds! (IMDB tells me it is Yonn-Rogg but also I'm disappointed to find that Minerva and Atlas are actually Minn-Erva and Att-Lass. It explains why they have mythology-sounding names though!

Every Kree appears to be blue except for Jude Law, who appears to be a slightly dark pink that COULD have plausible deniability for being a regular skin tone, and Djimon Honsou, who is not painted at all. Is this because they were assimilated into the Kree Empire rather than being from Halla? Is this because they decided that they couldn't justify painting Jude Law blue? Is it racism?

"It's funny because objectively you are quite handsome."

That bit where the Skrulls are playing through her memories is AMAZING and I love it! Especially the rewind, the way that they have Lawson and Carol have the same snippet of conversation and Lawson walking in, then away? Is so good. I want to steal that, but it could only work in a visual medium like this.

My useless lesbian heart beats hard for Lawson and I'm not ashamed.
- I find it interesting that when the Supreme Intelligence takes Lawson's appearance, it gives her grey hair and eyes that are unnaturally green. I love how that looks, but I find it an interesting character choice considering that Lawson as Carol knew her had brown hair. Is it presenting Carol with Lawson as she would have been? Or is that just how the Supreme Intelligence prefers to look?
- FEMALE CHARACTERS WITH FEMALE MENTORS, YES!
- Seriously, making Mar-Vell a woman gives this relationship a different dynamic and I kinda love it.
- "I'd say you're delusional but we just got shot down by a spaceship and your blood is blue."

(In retrospect, the insistence on the heroes, on the Noble Warrior Heroes thing, I just – I die.)

I am so happy about the fight scenes in Captain Marvel, because Carol looks like she's having fun! So much fun! Like, I don't think there's a single fight scene that doesn't look good? But this one and the fight against her old team are BEAUTIFUL.

Oh hey, it's Ronan the Accuser before his goth phase! ... I admit, I was sort of squinting at the movie like "I literally don't remember enough of Guardians of the Galaxy to say whether I need to be worried about the Kree, but the fact that Ronan the Accuser is right there is maybe a sign."

Yeah, I didn't see that coming, actually.

Hey look, imperialistic expansion is explicitly bad! That shouldn't be a surprising stance and yet The Darkest Timeline continues.

I find the trend of "This character was a soldier but defected on their first mission" to be an interesting way to escape culpability in whatever war is happening. Finn and Carol and probably some other characters I've forgotten do that, and it means that they are complicit, but not in an active way, and it's weird and interesting.

Maria Rambeau is just so good? That scene where she's telling Carol what was hard about her disappearance is so good? The catch in her voice and the way she keeps talking anyway? The way she just stares at Carol while Monica is the one who can actually react is SO GOOD. Also, when all of Carol's memories and all of the happy moments in her life settle around Maria and Monica? I ship it and also don't understand how Marvel have decided that this can't be an openly queer family.

fangirlpod posited Monica Rambeau in a Young Avengers movie, and while I'm pretty sure she's too old for that (By the maths, Monica would be in her mid-thirties in the current timeline? Older than me, anyway.) I do desperately want to see her become Captain Marvel.

HOW ARE YOU SPACE-PROOFING A PLANE.

"I just think you should think about what kind of example you're setting for your daughter."

I love that the Skrulls show affection by stroking their faces together! Also randomly I love that all of the different species we meet

Is Fury able to make friends who haven't nearly killed him at least once?

GOOSE IS GREAT. I LOVE GOOSE. Especially the way Goose solves many problems for Fury because look, this is Goose's human. (Plus, the way Fury explicitly tells Goose that he's going to pick them up, and holds them out at enemies? It makes me giggle.)

Man, I am so cross about Carol being on her knees for the Supreme Intelligence, because those wires could have held her on her feet, but no! She's on her knees to prove a point!

That montage of Carol getting up over and over – of choosing to get up over and over – just absolutely wrecked me. LOOK AT HER. LOOK AT HER.

It's not about Carol becoming a hero, because she already is. It's about her learning that after people have tried to tell her that everything that makes her strong is a weakness! The fact that Carol didn't understand what she's been thrown into, has just been blown out of the sky, is probably going to die, and she still steps up.

Right, okay, no, I need someone to explain to me how Telos managed to shapeshift into one guard when there were four there initially and NOT get busted.

"Just like in Havana." I die, help.

Telos specifically telling his partner to cover their daughter's eyes, oh no.

I love that they are both one hell on a pilot. The Kree didn't out-manoeuvre Carol when they shot her down; they just had abilities she didn't know about, like "being able to fire backwards." And Maria managed to outfly Minn-Erva when Minn-Erva was in a faster, more manoeuvrable ship, because she is GOOD AT HER JOB.

"I have nothing to prove to you" was a beautiful moment of "Wait, that's an OPTION?" and I love it.

I know there's been some judgement on the music, but I actually kinda like it? Although I guess it's easier for me to tune out the weirder choices because I only remember SOME of the nineties. I'm still convinced that that the No Doubt song did actually fit the mood for a fight where Carol knows this is a joke and also appears to be having a grand old time.

Yeah, me and hardlyaverage absolutely rocked out during the credits while singing along to Celebrity Skin. We spent A LOT of time at uni playing Singstar, okay, some songs we are absolutely conditioned to sing along to.