I’ll be the first to tell you that it is virtually impossible to pen any script, or to tell any story, without forming a bias. Storytelling by default has a slant, not to mention, an agenda, and there’s really no getting around it. It’s just the nature of the beast. And this rule just doesn’t apply to the movie industry. It applies to stories of all types: from personal private conversations to journalism, yelp reviews, all the way to your Uncles Big Fish story. Of course, how interesting would a big fish story be without a few exaggerations, right?
There is no doubt that Captain Marvel was produced, written, directed, and even marketed to fall in line with the WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT movement. Most of the Creative Top Brass for this movie was female, except for the co-director. It was released on International Women’s Day. And the script was definitely all about girl power.
There’s honestly nothing wrong with producing a movie that features a girl power agenda, as long as it’s written well. Alita was great. Wonder Woman was probably one of the best DC movies ever to be recently released. And don’t we all love Ripely, in Aliens? How about Sara Conner, in Terminator?
So, why is there such a big backlash against this Captain Marvel’s movie?
Well, it has nothing to do with President Trump supporters “hating” on women. It has nothing to do with men trying to hold back the female empowerment movement. And it has nothing to do with flat out sexism.
It’s the script.
So what’s wrong with it?
CAPTAIN MARVEL IS A PERFECT CHARACTER
Let’s start from the beginning.
They always told her to stay down, that she wasn’t good enough, that this wasn’t for her. Yet she didn’t listen and stood tall in the face a male-dominated world. This continued to her days in the Air Force when she was told by a fellow male pilot “there’s a reason why it’s called a cockpit.” It was obvious that men were still attempting to stop her from succeeding even in her adult years. But she didn’t listen.
Fast-forwarding to the 3rd Act when she gained her full powers as Captain Marvel, all it took was for her to blink, to learn how to fly. Even Superman didn’t pick up flying on the first attempt, but she did. Captain Marvel flew as though she had been doing this for decades.
Captain Marvel’s only flaw was that she listened to a man. And as soon as she remembered that she shouldn’t be listening to any chauvinistic male, even if they were from another galaxy, she became indestructible.
Was Captain Marvel flawless? I’d say so. It’s the reason why Brie Larson’s performance was so flat. She truly had nothing to work with.
SOLUTION: CAPTAIN MARVEL’S CHARACTER NEEDED A REWRITE
Now, it’s okay to write a strong Heroine. It’s just more responsible to write a strong honest character. It would be a lot more fun for the audience and it would give more for Brei Larson to play with.
Let’s say if I were to rewrite her character. I would start with her Alpha-Female persona. Strong personalities can sometimes have trouble following rules. Maybe Caro Danvers was compulsively pushing the rules in every aspect of her life. Was she running away from something? During a dog-fighting exercise, she broke a minor rule yet won. She was grounded because she broke the rule, but also because her commander was sexist – apparently past male pilots had also done the same thing and had not been penalized. She could also have abandonment issues from having a bad relationship with her father, which affected her relationship with men in her adult life. This would translate well into her having trust issues with Nick Fury, something which she would need to overcome in order to save the day. When it came to the last fight scene, I wouldn’t make her that powerful as well. She shouldn’t be able to control that power on her first attempt in my opinion. Right now, it looks as though she can beat Thanos with one hand tied behind her back.
THE ANTAGONIST IS WEAK
A strong protagonist requires an even stronger antagonist. It’s pretty much a golden rule in storytelling. And Yon-Rogg, even though he was a skilled fighter, was just normal.
Having Captain Marvel beat up Yon-Rogg is like the schoolyard bully picking on the undersized weakling. It’s just not fair and it’s not interesting from a storytelling angle. How does one choreograph a good fight scene when the heroine can disintegrate an intergalactic star-destroyer, and their nemesis only has a good right cross?
SOLUTION: THEY NEEDED TO CHOOSE A BETTER CHARACTER
I’m not sure which character in the Marvel Universe can teach Captain Marvel a lesson, but there has to be one, right? Yon-Rongg is not it.
NICK FURY IS WEAK
In the comics, Nick Fury takes shrapnel to his eye during the war and slowly loses his sight over the years. This is when he starts wearing his signature eye-patch. In Captain Marvel, he loses it from a cat who scratched his eye. He then lies about the incident throughout his life.
Nick Fury didn’t seem like the leader of S.H.I.E.L.D. we’ve all come to love. It’s okay if he didn’t start out that way. But maybe we could have seen here why he became such a one-dimensional “my-way or the highway” guy?
SOLUTION: NICK FURY’S CHARACTER NEEDED TO BE REWRITTEN TO IT’S ORIGINAL FORM
I don’t understand why Nick Fury was emasculated.
THE FINAL CONCLUSION
If you’re writing screenplays in Hollywood, you’re part of the WGA, and you know what you’re doing. Someone like me, shouldn’t be able to out think them or even out-write them. I’m a nobody who had one pinky in the door when he was 19 and that’s it. I’m still a storyteller, but that’s not my profession.
So why is it that I can easily come up with rewrite ideas that work?
It’s not because they didn’t know any better. They know better. It was done on purpose.
The creative team of Captain Marvel was stuck in an echo chamber of feminist agendas. They couldn’t write a flawed female, because they didn’t want to project a narrative that females could be weak. They couldn’t write a strong male antagonist because feminist didn’t view men as strong. They had to craft a story that fell in line with the feminist agenda. Doing anything opposite just couldn’t be done, especially since Captain Marvel, from the beginning, had a girl power agenda.
Unfortunately, it affected them from telling a good story.
There are a lot of other flaws to the movie that I won’t get into. I still gave this movie a solid C because the 3rd act was fun to watch, even though it was not written well. My review can be found by clicking here. And I still do recommend that you see it.
Agree or disagree? Let me know. You can can always comment below.
Steve Young
