captain marvel question time (spoilers in comments, probably)

[fiachairecht]

Okay so.

You know when Wonder Woman came out, and there were gifsets upon gifsets of General Antiope being badass on horseback and otherwise generally wonderful and everyone was all thrilled about girls being both princesses AND generals and she did stunts in fabulous Romanesque armour, and then I never actually saw the movie for assorted petty and practical reasons but I loved her from afar, and then a year and a half later found a one-sentence reference to her being treated terribly in some meta post and I looked it up and found out she was killed off like fifteen minutes into the movie?

(I still have not seen Wonder Woman. In fact, that information ensures I will never see Wonder Woman. There is no point to girls also being generals if you kill them off after ten minutes of screentime. Please don't try to convince me to watch Wonder Woman.)

Please tell me whether death also befalls the older lady superhero/mentor figure in Captain Marvel - I don't even know her name because I am None MCU, but if she dies then it falls permanently off my maybe-get-around-to list.

Comments

[snickfic]

Yeah, she's dead before the story begins. We only see her in flashbacks and when the AI impersonates her.

[fiachairecht]

Hmmmm I mind Dead Mentor As Tragic Backstory less than I mind being given someone and having them taken away practically before the story gets to properly start, I will take than under advisement ty!

[breathedout]

Haven't seen Captain Marvel, but IMO you're not missing much with Wonder Woman; the treatment of the female villain is super ableist. Also the depiction of WWI is bizarrely ahistorical and made flames happen on the sides of my face (essentially they wanted to set it during WWII so they could have her battling Evil Nazis, but that was too close to Captain America's plotline or whatever so they just pretended that the political dynamic in 1918 was identical), but that might bother most people less than it bothered me.

[havocthecat]

She is a dead mentor as a tragic backstory, but also due to Carol's amnesia, we don't realize at the start she's dead? But as I am a comics fan, I was pretty sure that she was dead from the start. Also they genderswapped Mar-Vell from a dude to a pretty fucking hot Annette Benning who got to express multiple ranges of emotion and character type, so I...had zero problems with this, but am totally understanding if other people have problems?

I was surprised that Maria her life partner/chosen family made it through the film not just unscathed, but covered in utter glory, but OH HOLY GOD MARIA RAMBEAU.

Really need to upload that Carol icon already, damn it.

[havocthecat]

Okay, so I am going to talk about my personal feelings on Antiope in WW, and am not going to tell you how you should feel about this tragically dead mentor, because I would never presume to do that. But! Because sometimes those two things can be mixed up, I wanted to be 100% clear that these are my feelings and I'm not expecting anyone to change their mind based on my feelings.

So with Themyscira, they set up this amazing island full of all these women, and these different types of women, and they had Hippolyta, and they had Antiope, who were sisters and kind of emblematic of the two different types of major influence on Diana's childhood and major outlook on life. Which is great! You had the nurturing and protective mother and the cool aunt who taught her how to fight and be something greater and more fiercer.

They "had" to have some kind of motivating tragedy in Diana's backstory, I guess? (I disagree, BUT WHATEVER, I'm not a movie writer, so I don't have a vote.) Dead moms are a super cliche, so I think they were trying to avoid having Hippolyta be the dead mother? Plus you can have oceans and realms of angst between an estranged mother and daughter. So the only other person she had significant emotional contact with was Antiope, and so did Hippolyta.

Which, ugh, fine. BUT ALSO, I think it's a world where Hades is a literal and actual figure and honestly, if he's not sitting pretty in the Underworld ruling over the dead (after death or not, whatever, or Persephone, I'm all up for Persephone being in charge of the Underworld), come on, we can resurrect Antiope, right?

No one expected Antiope to be as popular as she was. Bring her back! Come on! If they're bringing Pretty Blue-Eyed Chris Pine back, they can bring back Robin Wright. She's ten times more interesting than Chris Pine.

I totally don't mind you not wanting to see Wonder Woman. If it's not the film for you, it's not the film for you!

[kore]

Yeah, I didn't get the "dead older mentor" vibe so much because it's not revealed until later, and that part is so....fragmentary? Annette Bening has a GREAT double role that a lot of women actors typically don't get, at least imhoe.

I was surprised that Maria her life partner/chosen family made it through the film not just unscathed, but covered in utter glory, but OH HOLY GOD MARIA RAMBEAU.

THAT MADE ME SO HAPPY

HOW MANY DEAD MOMS ARE THERE IN MCU WHO SERVE AS MOTIVATORS? AND SHE'S NOT DEAD

AND SHE'S NOT A MISERABLE SINGLE MOTHER EITHER! IT WAS AWESOME.

[kore]

Antiope is also how Diana gets the setup for that amazing line she throws at the Earth male generals, about how they're all actually cowards because they don't risk themselves in the field with the rest of the soldiers. I also ITA with your point that since Diana has at least a couple of mentors in the flick (there's also that senator, and her tutor?), it's not as horrible as if there was just her mom and we got Dead Mom Syndrome. (Not trying to convince kimaracretak to see it, I just personally was more okay with it.)

(yes there is AN ANTIOPE BARBIE, holy fuck I would have loved that as a kid)

[kore]

Hmm, for me it's a "yes but." Like everyone else is saying, there are more kind of extenuating circumstances -- we just see Lawson in flashes of Carol's memories, and then the Supreme Intelligence who is supposed to take the form of the person you most admire is identical to Lawson, and then way late in the film we get the payoff about who Lawson really is and also a big showdown with the SI. So it's not like she disappears completely from the film, or that it's a straight-up "this person is awesome, then dies in battle very early" scenario. Annette Bening is fabulous in the two roles -- her SI is a little like Hela in Ragnarok. It's more like a mystery the audience is given to figure out (hmmm, why are these two figures the same woman?) and also fits thematically into the movie (neither of them are who Carol thinks they are). So it might be less distressing/angering if it's based on that? (And of course whether or not you want to see either movie, ever, is entirely your choice and your business, and I got VERY sick of people being pushy at me about their Very Faves way back when the fucking Harry Potter books were coming out, so I know how you feel.)

[havocthecat]

Antiope Barbie? Hah, that's awesome. I love it.

I did forget about the senator and the tutor! You're right, but I do think the major ones are Hippolyta and Antiope.

[havocthecat]

OH MY FUCKING GOD. THAT DOGFIGHT. I was so scared for her! She's a black woman and a mother in a Marvel film!

Of course, there's also Monica, who's going to grow up and be Photon and another Captain Marvel and also amazing. Like, she's just the most adorable little girl ever.

I was originally mad that they were setting this film in the 90s, but. Uh. After seeing it, OKAY, FINE, NINETIES IT IS, MORE, PLEASE.

[kore]

Yeah, the senator has a brief bit, but Diana's very deferential and respectful to her, which was great.

ANTIOPE BARBIE: https://barbie.mattel.com/shop/en-us/ba/movies-videos/wonder-woman-antiope-doll-dwd84

[kore]

OH MY FUCKING GOD. THAT DOGFIGHT. I was so scared for her! She's a black woman and a mother in a Marvel film!

LOL, the very first time I saw Winter Soldier I knew nothing about Falcon, so I spent like the entire movie going "NO KILLING SAM!" This was worse tho, because Monica's mother is so inconsequential in the comics. "NO KILLING MARIA!" I kept desperately hoping in the theatre.

Of course, there's also Monica, who's going to grow up and be Photon and another Captain Marvel and also amazing. Like, she's just the most adorable little girl ever.

Photon was Maria's callsign! which was SO GREAT. And I loved that actress, she did a stellar job in a pretty difficult part -- she was mature and adorable, but never over the line into cutesiness.

[fiachairecht]

L O L 'did WWWI wrong' was the petty reason why I didn't get around to it that I mentioned in my post (well, that and the 'isn't it great how they got Real Women to play the Amazons, not Fake Hollywood People' sentiment tumblr had going on for a while, as if stuntwork isn't a real and dangerous job), so I totally feel you on that one!

[breathedout]

LOL *fistbump of annoyed historian solidarity*