#lee know cat alien or is he scully.... who is to say

[faunandfloraas]

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[aspiestvmusings]

MY REVIEW: CAPTAIN MARVEL

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR “Captain Marvel” (2019) FILM & MCU (A:E4) FILMS

SO ONLY READ IF YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY OK WITH BEING SPOILED BEFORE SEEING THE FILM. IF YOU DON’T WANT SPOILERS, TURN AWAY...RIGHT NOW! BECAUSE I’M LETTING THE CAT OUT OF THE BAG! I TALK ABOUT THE FILM, AND THE END CREDITS SCENES & EVERYTHING! 

Here are some of the bits from the early screening I got to see earlier this week: 

The biggest laughs from the room came during the scenes where the 1990s nostalgia kicked in for the audience (I’d say most of the people around me were old enough to remember those days, I did not see many teens being at the event that evening)  - the dial-up internet (taking forever to load) & during certain Goose scenes/moments. 

For me, personally (as someone old enough to remember the 1990s, which is when the film takes place - I was a kid/teen back then) it was simply a trip down on memory lane. The music! (how it was incorporated in the film made me think of GotG & the mixtapes!!), the little details - Blockbuster, Radio Shack, payphones, pagers, dial-up internet, arcade games, popular 1990s toys...  And I am guessing that “nostalgia” plays a big part in me actually finding the film quite likable. Because I am not a superhero film fan. Nor am I a fan of blockbuster films. 

What made the film for me? The 1990s music! The 1990s feel (nostalgia). The cat... Goose, the cat. Goose & Fury! Carol & Fury. The humour...cause unlike Yon-Rogg says to Veers...humour is good! Right from the start...with the Blockbuster crashing & the security guard in the car... to the 1990s references...to Goose... to... a lot more. And yes... every time a 1990s pop-song was incorporated into a scene I thought of GotG and the 1970s/1980s music  - Quills mixtapes.  

Note: If Captain Marvel/Carol & GotG/Peter should ever meet...in one of the MCU universes, then can I request a dance-off scene, or a karaoke contest or just mix-tape (80s vs 90s) contest between them? In whatever form? haha

The man who started it all: Stan Lee. We open the film with the Marvel sign/logo being made of images/scenes of Stan Lee. The pictures will the letters that make up the logo. And then the dedication... to him. 

The Stan Lee actual cameo scene happens pretty early in the film. It’s during the public transport scene. When Carol is looking for the shape-shifting aliens (the old lady from the trailer) she is looking at everyone  as she moves along. there is someone reading “the paper” (actually a script..that little fun nod was too much to reveal right away) & their face is not seen. When the man “peeks out” from behind the “newspaper”, we see that it’s Stan. But what makes the scene is the way “Carol” softly smiles at the man. #Truth

Carol Danver’s/Captain Marvel’s Kree-name Vers (veers... very Dutch) actually comes from her Earth-name. Her name tag was broken into two pieces during the crash 6 years earlier, one part Carol Den... was in Maria’s possession as “the only thing that survived the crash” & the other was in the possession of Yon-Rogg and it said “vers” (end of her last name), and that’s the origins of that name. 

There are several meant-to-be-for-fun-and-laughs scenes. One of them involves Fury & someone else talking about the characters names. Mar-vell or Marvel? One word/name or two words/two-part name? Other characters, too, had names that are well-known from history/literature, and just with adding a dash in the middle. e.g. Minerva Min-Erva

The film is filled with little nods, and details, and small things. There were too many to list them all. But the looks said it all. The props said it all. The set dressings/props (pinball machines, lunchboxes, baseball balls, payphones, pagers, 1990s pop-culture references everywhere) and little looks and facial expressions...that say more than any dialogue would. I don’t know how the younger audience will feel about those things, but those of us born before 1990, who can remember 1995 (the film is mostly set in that year... 6 years after 1989) & the 1990s in  general will most likely become kinda nostalgic & remember their childhood/youth when watching the film. So if nothing else... the film has that... The film is one big 1990s meme. I’d say that’s the most accurate description. 

And I liked how it showcased that it's important to pay attention to detail, and background. Like the scene where Carol finds/sees the photo of the moment before the fatal flight, and focuses on the background... finding herself on the photo. Behind others... 

Next to other details were small details connecting this film to the larger MCU. Nods & mentions of things & people we’re familiar with - the Tesseract, Ronan, Coulson... etc).  

Goose, the cat. For me, someone who is not familiar with the comics & not aware of MCU (outside the films IronMan has been in), that twist was unexpected. When some characters early in meeting Goose suggested that it’s not a cat, but a Flerken (an alien species that has long octopus-like-tentacles coming out of its mouth & can eat anything...no matter the size... and material), I did not expect that to be the truth. So... when it turned out that the Skrull being “afraid” of the “cat”  was not just scenes made to be funny, I quite liked it. Yeah, that’s not a sweet cat..all the time. When Goose wants, she can eat anything (Tesseract) or anyone (bad guys) - it’s like Gooses inside can fill entire universes in it.. 

So... Goose ended up being the shapeshifting alien... and in a way “foreshadowed” the twist reveal about the skrulls - that not all is as it seems, and you can’t judge a book by it’s cover. Goose being not a cat as we saw her, but a flerken was a nice “hint” at how the truth can change with new info added...

Which makes me now think that there is one more possibility of how Thanos can be beaten in MCU/AE4. Goose can just eat him... and all’s done? ;)

The Skrulls: Now...that’s another twist that will most likely be unexpected to others like me, who are not familiar with the Marvel comics/cinematic universe. Though it’s not as unexpected, and there are kind of hints throughout the film telling us that the narrator (Yon-Rogg) cannot be trusted to tell the truth, it was still quite interesting to find out the real story. The Skrulls motives turned out to be not what Jude Law’s character wanted Carol think they were. That was a nice “twist”. And it tied all into Vers training..where Yon-Rogg had been manipulating her mind...in order to keep her true powers under control (think with your head instead of heart - and though I generally don’t agree - I always say mind/facts before heart/feelings, then in this case its fitting... for this character’s story). But...in general... that twist/reveal kinda meant a sudden & bland end to the Kree/Skrull wars storyline idea. That was..IMO... a missed opportunity, and a letdown. It shouldn’t end with “that was it? and there was/won’t be nothing more to it?” 

More 1990s thoughts: the aliens & the secret underground labs & the vaults filled with shelves of files... all made me think of The X-Files...so much. Those visuals... so much like moments from Mulder & Scully’s investigations into “secret government projects”. I found those visual parallels quite... similar. 

Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers vs IronMan/Tony Stark parallels. This was one of the things I personally saw in the film. In Ironman/Avengers we’ve seen & heard it being implied by some characters that Tony is nothing without the suits & the toys/technology. In this film similar thing was suggested about CM/Carol and her “suit” (the powers she literally holds in her hands/palms). But both assumptions are incorrect. Just like Carol proved that she is even more powerful when she isn’t limited by the “in the box” thinking, same applies to Tony - he is more than his suits. I found those parallels to be... interesting & telling. Both characters have humanity, and strength. They both get up every time they fall/fail (as demonstrated, visually, in the montage scene of Carol getting up...every time she “failed”...through the years). So... just like Jude Law’s character is wrong in this film about Carol. certain characters in MCU are also wrong about Tony, when they make similar claims. IMO

I even kinda liked the way the film was set up. How it started with her/Vers unable to sleep (”nightmares” - memories from the time she wads Carol) & knocking on her “friends” door early in the morning.... and later we learn that she used to do the same back on Earth, when Carol used to wake up Maria early in the mornings...to go flying...when they were pilots. To the way the flashbacks/memories from another life were incorporated into the present day events (via “memory extraction”, via dreams, via old photos, via “daydreaming”...) It was kinda fitting for this film and story and character. 

And I liked Carol & Maria’s (and Carol/Monica) friendship/scenes. And all that. The part of the story that revealed who she used to be, and what really happened six years ago... what was that plane crash all about, who was her “mentor” - Mar-Vell and what she really did and what was she working on (that secret technology), who she herself was/is, what’s the deal with skrulls and the technology they were after, who were the team she’d been part of for the past 6 years... etc. There was a lot of content fit into those two hours. 

Other than that...there were also many many unexplained things. And many unanswered questions..and even new questions were raised that fans are trying to find answers to now. Goose’s fate - what happened to Goose - how will Goose’s non-appearance & non-mentioning in the past be explained in future films? The Tesseract and it’s fate - what we know from past MCU films & what we saw in this film... how do these stories fit? ... to name a few bigger ones. The film messes with the MCU timeline & it’s possible that  it’s full of continuity mistakes, because unless some things are explained in future films, then the name Avengers Initiative, the tesseract’s location, SHIELD’S beginning & naming time, and other things... are confusing. 

THE “RANTY” PARTS (IN SEPARATE POST), LINKED  HERE & HERE & HERE

THE END: 

The film ends with Carol using all of her powers ( she was fighting with one hand behind her back until now), not being restricted (to think she has to control or hold back her powers...so she’s able to use them all...and be extremely powerful). And we see her blast off to space... taking the skrulls spaceship...  far away... somewhere in the universe...

And then we...maybe...find out what happened to Fury’s eye. Not really.... cause the official report is made up. As Fury is typing on the computer... and we see him type something... important.. regarding the MCU... Coulson enters with a box of glass eyes...for him to choose (to replace the eye he “lost”, and reveals the official story... but Fury doesn’t really confirm or deny..so I am not completely sure if it’s not just a cover story, and the backstory to the eyepatch is the other one... the one with the cat that the scene implies to. 

Pros: 

The 1990s music & props - nostalgia! (for those of us who are over 25 years old)

The cat!/Goose! (because I like cats) 

Nick/Carol “friendship”

The CGI (as with most current films, the VFX is good quality)

Cons: 

Possibly...Messing up the MCU timeline (Tesseract, Ronan...etc) Though it can be explained in A4/future films via time travel and/or alternate universes. It’s not great, but they can make it believable & not a continuity error.... that it looks like at this point. 

The marketing (I have issues with marketing in general. The hollywood sjw-marketing strategy that does no good - focusing on the cover of the book, not the storytelling & character (development) 

People, who might like this film: 

people, who grew up in the 1990s (kids, teen, youth). The 1990s nostalgia hits you 

people, who like cats 

people, who like (1990s) music being strongly incorporated into scenes

people, who want just a typical mindless blockbuster entertainment from their cinema experience 

People, who most likely won’t like this film that much:* 

comic book fans/people who are familiar with MCU & Marvel comics 

people, who are not fans of continuity issues in film/TV 

people, who prefer the film versions to honor the book/comic canon (not change names, characters, events, locations...etc) 

* have issues with some things 

AND I’LL FINISH WITH THE TWO END CREDIT MCU SPOILERY SCENES 

1. MID-END-CREDIT SCENE

Avengers Headquarters. Captain, Black Widow, Bruce Banner & Rhodey in a room, looking at the device (Furys pager that Carol upgraded in the CM film to have a wider signal range...of at least a few galaxies), trying to figure out what it is & how it works #wedontevenknowwhatthisis

2. POST-CREDIT SCENE: 

Nick Fury’s office. His name  plate on the table. Goose, the cat jumps on the table. The cat looks like its about to “throw up a hairball”... and sure enough...the cat “spits out” something... the blue cube...aka Tesseract. The end. 

ETA: REVIEWS BY OTHERS: 

Brent Hankins @ SpoilerTV   (this review describes the film the best, IMO)

[lyndsaybones]

In Dreams 17

Chapter 1...Chapter 2…Chapter 3…Chapter 4…Chapter 5 …Chapter 6…Chapter 7…Chapter 8 …Chapter 9...Chapter10… Chapter 11…Chapter 12…Chapter 13…Chapter 14…Chapter 15...Chapter 16

Scully and Diana both look stunned and based on that alone, he can’t ascertain what’s happening.

No, no, no, no, no....

They are stock still, all three of them and the only sound in the room is raspy, terrified breathing. He closes his eyes and sees the little girl on the beach, she disintegrates like a pillar of sand in a windstorm.

No, no, no, no, no....

Diana wavers and pitches forward ever so slightly, reaching for a wound under her shirt cuff. He lets out a long, relieved breath. Scully is okay, safe, safe, safe. He immediately feels guilty for it as he watches Diana’s eyes go distant and unfocused.  

“I’m...something’s...I can’t,” she stammers.

“She must have an allergy,” Scully says as she picks up the phone.

“I don’t,” she responds, her voice breathy and constricted.

He finally realizes that he has to do something and moves toward the unfolding crisis. He helps her to the bed, the one he and Scully shared the night before. He can feel her muscles twitching violently, as if an electric shock has been applied. She falls against the scratchy hotel comforter, looking as though she is fighting her own body. Absently, he notes that it’s the first time he’s touched her in nearly a decade.

Scully is in full doctor mode, checking Diana’s pulse, assessing pupil dilation, relaying all the information into the receiver pressed between her shoulder and ear. He knows that he should feel...something. Something other than gratitude that Scully is okay. But he just doesn’t.

She is unconscious by the time the paramedics arrive and take her away. The blue and red lights of the ambulance reflect off of the wet pavement.

He watches it pull off from the doorway, Scully hovering somewhere behind him.

“Do you want to go to the hospital?” she asks.

He turns and finds her picking up the trash left behind by the medics.

“I’ll get that,” he says softly. “It’s late, you need to rest.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” she says. It’s not an accusation, which he is grateful for.

“I probably ought to, just to make sure she’s alright,” he answers with a shrug.

“I think you should,” she says, a yawn eating the last of her words. The bed creaks softly when she sinks onto the edge of it. “Whatever happened here, we need to know what it was.”

“You’re right,” he says, watching her settle onto her side. He reaches out and lets his finger tips weave through her hair. “Try to rest, okay?”

“Hmm, I don’t know if the little interloper is going to let me,” she says, her voice becoming quiet and mumbly.

He finds himself suddenly overcome, the notion that a bee sting could have taken everything away makes his gut churn.

The door closes with a gentle snick and her eyes fall shut simultaneously. She didn’t think she’d be able to rest, especially with the baby performing some sort of interpretative dance against her bladder. But sleep comes and pulls her into the undertow. She’s glad for it, ready to stop the film loop of Diana Fowley twitching and gasping on her bed.

She feels the soft wave wash over her, pulling her down, down, down. Until it isn’t so soft anymore, it is pushing, bearing down on her belly. She gasps, realizing that it is not a wave, it’s a contraction. She fights her way up, up, up, back to the surface, back to the light. But when she opens her eyes, she’s not in the hotel bed anymore. The room is too bright, too sterile. She tries to move, but is unable to will her dead limbs to do anything.

“She’s awake,” a voice says.

“Help,” she chokes as the contraction grows tighter and tighter.

“We can give you something for the pain,” the voice says.

“It’s too soon,” she gasps.

“On the contrary, right on time, I’d say,” the voice replies.

She looks down and her belly is distended far beyond what it was just an hour ago. She looks full term. Beyond full term. The panic rises as the contraction fades and she looks frantically around the room for the source of the voice. She can’t see anyone, just vast, dark corners, like someone has created a delivery room in the middle of a warehouse.

“Dana? Are you ready to push?” a kinder voice asks.

Seemingly out of nowhere, she sees familiar blue eyes, paper thin skin crinkled around them.

“Dr. Kurtzweil?” she breathes out.

“It’s going to be okay,” he says softly. “Just push with the next contraction.”

The pain is building again. She can feel the solid mass of the baby moving down into the slip-sliding bones of her pelvis, there is no way she can survive this kind of white hot pain. Screw how many millennia women have been birthing babies, this isn’t going to work. No way.

“Help me, please,” she begins to sob.

“You’re doing just fine. Your baby is fine, you can do this,” he soothes as he slips into a paper gown.

“I…” she groans, “I need Mulder. Where’s Mulder?”

“He’s not here,” another voice says. A woman this time. Recognition lands like an arrow dead center.

Diana.

“Push through the pain, Dana. That’s the only way,” Kurtzweil says.

“I can’t.” It comes out like a harsh whisper, the grinding pain stealing her breath.

Diana is approaching out of the darkness, slowly. She moves like a cat, measured liquid steps. Whether out of malevolence or indifference, her face is stoic and stern. She’s not here to aid or comfort. When a predator hears screaming, it comes running, but not to help.  

“Why are you doing this?” she cries, looking between the two of them desperately.

“They use all of us, Dana,” Diana says, almost sadly.

“Help me, please help me!” she cries out.

“It’s going to be okay,” Kurtzweil says again. “Just push.”

“Cut it out if she won’t cooperate,” the first voice says from somewhere deep in the shadows.

She draws in a breath to scream, but she can’t, nor can she force her voice to comply. Terror is choking the air right out of her.

Help me, help me, help me…

A litany of prayers flitting like ashes into the heavens.

“Scully?”

She looks around in the darkness, but there’s no sign of him. She knows it was his voice.

“Mulder?”

“Scully, look at me,” he says.

“Where are you?” she asks frantically.

“I’m right here, it’s all right,” he says.

She can’t see him, only Kurtzweil and Diana, staring at her expectantly. She begins to sob again, a hopelessness settling over her like a dense fog.

“Scully, open your eyes. I’m right here,” he croons.

She blinks and finds him looking down at her. The only light is coming through the large hotel windows.

“Oh God,” she cries as she reaches for him. “They were trying to take it.”

“No one is going to take anything,” he says as he wraps his arms around her.

Her heart is thumping like a jackhammer and the baby is rolling and kicking in response. The adrenaline kicks in and she is suddenly struggling to keep control.

“Sh-he was th-there. She wa-was helping th-them,” she chokes as she clings to him.

“Who was?” he asks.

“D-diana. Diana w-was th-there.”

“She’s not going to hurt you. No one is going to hurt you or the baby,” he says, pulling her closer.

“She can’t come back. You can’t talk to her anymore,” she says, feeling more steady all of a sudden.

“I don’t think that’ll be a problem,” he says softly. “She wasn’t at the hospital.”

She pulls back and looks at him, as if a deeper explanation might be somewhere in his face.

“Maybe they took her to a different one,” she suggests with a sniffle. Had she been crying?

“I’ve spent the last four hours checking with every hospital in the metro, she’s not at any of them.”

“Four hours?” she asks, blinking blearily as she looks around the room. A shiver chases down her spine and her hands still feel numb. “I gotta go, I have to get back to the morgue.”

“Hey, hey, slow down,” he says, gripping her by the shoulders. “We need to get the hell out of here,” he says.

“I can’t just leave, Mulder,” she says.

“I think that’s exactly what we need to do, as soon as possible.”

“Why?”

“What you found, what I saw last night and what happened to Diana is all connected,” he says sternly. “The sooner we get the evidence out of here and someplace safe, the better.”

“If I go AWOL on this, it’s going to look suspicious. You take the slides and go back to DC.”

She stands and wavers, the aftereffects of the dream still making her shaky. He quietly steadies her.

“Diana was hauled out of your hotel room, it already looks suspicious. They have to know that we know something. Besides...” he trails off.

“Besides what?”

“I don’t want to leave you,” he says simply.

“What if she was showing you exactly what they want you to see? You’ve been wary of her from the start,” she reasons.

“All the more reason for us to go,” he pleads. “Pull the ailing pregnant lady card and let’s get out of here.”

“What aren’t you telling me?” she asks cautiously.

“Nothing, let’s just go, okay?” he pleads.

She deflates a little, the tight muscles in her neck releasing by a small fraction. There’s more, she knows, there’s always more.

“Okay, let’s go,” she acquiesces.

What aren’t you telling me?

There’s a lot he hasn’t told her. That the origins of all this madness are connected not just to the grand, capital “C” Conspiracy, but to a coordinated alien invasion. He’s not even sure he believes that part himself.

Oh, and I might be a little psychic too, so there’s that.

He draws in a deep breath and pushes that particular thought down. Diana pulled down the portrait of his self-image and took a Sharpie marker to it.

“You really didn’t think that those intuitive leaps of yours were just your top notch profiling skills, did you? You see what you do because you’ve got a gift.”

Getting into a killer’s head was one thing, poking around in there because of a psychic connection, that’s another thing. He flashes on John Lee Roche and squeezes his eyes shut. It couldn’t be true, could it?

She’s fast asleep against his shoulder and all he can think about is shielding her, her and this baby, from all of this madness.

When they land, she is slow to rise, wincing softly and pressing her palms into the small of her back.

“Had enough fun for one day?” he asks as the head into the jetway.

“For a one year,” she counters, her voice cottony with sleep as she fumbles in her pocket for her ringing phone. “Hello?...Oh no, is everyone alright?...Uh-huh, of course...Thank you.”

A creeping panic tightens his stomach.

“What’s up?” he asks, keeping a false levity in his voice.

“There was a fire at my apartment building,” she says as they enter the constant movement and chatter of the terminal.

He stops cold, mouth bobbing. She’s still walking ahead of him.The noise turns to a hollow emptiness, like a wind tunnel. The bustle around him becomes a blur and all he can see in perfect focus is her.

“It’s not a big deal, just some smoke damage. He just needed permission to go in and check my apartment.” She realizes that she’s left him behind and turns around, eyebrow arched.

“What is it?” she asks.

There’s a lot he hasn’t told her.