Hooo, boy! Last night, Marvel Studios treated us to a brand new trailer for the 20th film of the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Captain Marvel. We’ve talked about Captain Marvel before on this site, and this extended trailer continues to promise a spacefaring epic about an amnesiac fighter pilot from Earth. Let’s take a dive into the trailer and see what we learned.
It’s Marvel. They’re all quippy.
And you’re Kree: a race of noble warriors.
— Heroes. Noble warrior heroes. *playful smirk*
My fear from the first trailer was that Carol seemed slightly robotic — stiff in her movements and fairly humorless. Carol is all business, but she’s not without a sense of humor. It’s good to see her attempt to crack a joke here, albeit a fairly terrible one.
A potential tie-in with Guardians of the Galaxy
Captain Marvel is not the first time we’ve heard of the Kree in the MCU. Big bad from Guardians of the Galaxy Ronan the Accuser promised to use the Power Stone to deliver 1,000 years of Kree justice to Xandar (no really, that’s a direct quote). Unfortunately, Ronan was a one-note villain, and we see the back of his signature headdress in the trailer. We also see Ronan’s henchman Korath the Pursuer (you know, the guy that says “Who?” when Star-Lord first introduces himself by his codename) as part of Carol’s squad of noble, warrior heroes.
Hopefully, we’ll see a subplot of Ronan’s fall from grace as a noble, warrior hero to a bumbling, religious fanatic that signed up with Thanos. We might even see a cameo from a young Peter Quill (he was abducted by the Ravagers in 1988, and Captain Marvel takes place in the early 90s), and perhaps a Yondu Udonta cameo as well. There have been no hints in this trailer, but we could also see cameos from the Nova Corps if Ronan is involved.
Skrulls!
Back in 2005, Marvel launched a popular, instant-classic storyline called Secret Invasion. This story revealed that a shapeshifting alien race called the Skrulls had been clandestinely and strategically infiltrating multiple levels of global governments, armed forces, and superhero groups to take over Earth. Skrulls impersonating humans could be laying the groundwork for a future Secret Invasion movie, but the main conflict appears to be the Kree-Skrull War, a fan-favorite storyline from Avengers comics in the early 70s.
We know that the old lady that Carol punched in the last trailer is a Skrull and got our first good glimpses of what the Skrulls look like up close. (The prosthetics look pretty good in the trailer, but the jury is out until we see how the finished products look on the big screen.) However, I’m intrigued by one line in particular:
So Skrulls are bad, but you’re Kree: a race of noble heroes.
It appears we’ll have an impetus for Captain Marvel to rebel against her commanding officers: nothing in the MCU is black and white, and I’m certain that Captain Marvel will explore redeeming and damning sides of both sides of the Kree-Skrull War.
The Next Captain Marvel
In the comics, Monica Rambeau is the second woman to take the Captain Marvel name and the first black, woman Avenger. This movie decided to change her first name to Maria for some reason. Rambeau’s gone through a bunch of aliases in her time in comics, but the first one after Captain Marvel (and one that stuck for a while) was Photon. Carol and Monica don’t have much of a relationship in the comics, so it’ll be interesting to see what Marvel invents here. Clearly, they were ride-or-die partner pilots, but their relationship will all be uncharted territory.
Project: Insight?
Astute fans remember that Project: Insight was the Hydra algorithm built by the digitally-preserved consciousness of Professor Emile Zola to deduce future threats to Hydra rule and mark them for assassination. We also remember that the base for Project: Insight was in a secret, underground base beneath SHIELD HQ. We have a big, secret base presumably underneath SHIELD HQ in this trailer.
Could this be Project: Insight? Maybe. Only time will tell. Also, that plane she flies out of the base? Totally a 90s version of the classic Avengers Quinjet.
The Mohawk
There’s nothing terribly special about the mohawk except that it’s her literal hairstyle from the rebranded Captain Marvel comics from 2011 and I’m just stupid excited that it’s making an appearance.
The Costume
It looks mostly pretty great. We’ve seen stills of the practical costume from filming, but this the first time we’ve seen the classic red-and-blue in action. If people ripped Black Panther for bad CGI, I can only imagine what they’re going to say about Captain Marvel. The sequence looks cool, but it’s a touch “video game-y.” Again, I’m not going to put too much stock into this. The movie is in post-production. They’ve got time to iron out details of how the suit is rendered in giant spaceflight sequences. I’m cautiously optimistic, but I like what I’m seeing.
The Cat
In the comics, Carol has a famously adorable cat named Chewie (named after Chewbacca) and it made its way to the big screen. They changed its name to Goose in the trailer, which makes some sense; Top Gun is still within a decade of its release in this movie’s timeline. In the comics, Chewie was revealed to be a Flerken, an alien race that can sprout tentacles and a private pocket dimension when threatened; they just look like cats. Pretty neat for a throwaway joke; I’m sure that plot thread is nonexistent in this movie.
What did you think of the new Captain Marvel trailer? Love it? Hate it? Let me know what you think!
