If you hear en enormous amount of happy shrieking and jumping, it’s just me, watching this Captain Marvel trailer again:
Carol Danvers, our titular hero, isn’t even mentioned by name here. Instead, directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck have filled the trailer with emotional imagery that provides a thematic throughline and aims to show us who Carol is as a person. We see young Carol at the beach, an adult Carol training in the Air Force and flying in jets, and finally, Carol as Captain Marvel. In each of these moments during the trailer, our hero falls, and the trailer cuts between these three versions as if to show just who Carol is: a woman who may be knocked down but she always gets back up (references to that 90s song unintended). Furthermore, they seem to be telling us one woman’s origin story completely from her own perspective, not anyone else’s.
The trailer also delivers on the action and humor front. Captain Marvel shows off her signature laser fists, she has super strength, and I’m sure future trailers will show her impressive flying abilities. No doubt some will get a chuckle out of Carol crashing into a Blockbuster video and punching an old woman (shapeshifting Skrull or a bad bus rider?).
Captain Marvel also offers us a glimpse of younger versions of Samuel L. Jackson and Clark Gregg, reprising their roles as Nick Fury and Agent Coulson, respectively. We also see Ben Mendelsohn in full alien makeup as a Skrull leader, as well as Lashana Lynch’s Maria Rambeau.
Marvel also released a teaser poster:
It should be noted that with the inclusion of “HIGHER / FURTHER / FASTER” the movie is leaning even more on Kelly Sue DeConnick’s iconic run of Captain Marvel, essentially the run that made Carol into a massive hit with comics fans (most of whom are women). DeConnick’s work showed Carol as not only a leader, but as a caring friend and someone who would do whatever it took to save others. It was also the run that gave us the now-iconic suit. It looks like Marvel has taken the right lessons from the comics.
The movie synopsis is here:
Set in the 1990s, Marvel Studios’ “Captain Marvel” is an all-new adventure from a previously unseen period in the history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe that follows the journey of Carol Danvers as she becomes one of the universe’s most powerful heroes. While a galactic war between two alien races reaches Earth, Danvers finds herself and a small cadre of allies at the center of the maelstrom.
Captain Marvel punches old ladies on March 8, 2019.
