Literally only came back to the thread to post this, its awesome
The only other thing I'll say about the Snap is that they really should've stuck to the original motivations of Thanos wanting to bang Death. It wouldn't have fixed the problems listed above, but at least it would have made more sense than some vague "kill half of all life as a permanent solution to overpopulation" bullshit.
if Endgame came out a decade before it did. i'd agree with you much like why people say you couldn't have had the barbie movie of 2023 in 2015, an incel Thanos wouldn't have been accepted by audiences the way "overpopulation destroyed everything" thanos was. People straight up were memeing #thanosdidnothingwrong and still do because the culture of the last half century has portrayed him as such.
, and I'd always say, Guardians was obscure to normies, but they were extremely popular with nerds.
If we want to be more honest, James Gunn made such a good fucking movie that it didn't matter that the IP was unknown prior to being released. Stuff like the soundtrack which are synonymous with the group was created entirely by him, if he wasn't given the go ahead to use them but given the same budget he'd still have given us the iconic team audiences know and love, You don't even have to take my word for it, even the writers guild all but admitted Gunn changed so much from the original source material heavy script that he got a writers credit and the original writer had to fight tooth and nail to keep hers.
In some alternate universe James Gunn's Troma Squad 3 would have been released last year instead by Paramount and been the only superhero movie that grossed a billion dollars instead, those films are so fucking original compared to how cookie cutter the rest of the MCU is they barely feel like they're part of the same universe as it is.
It's no wonder that audiences weren't clamoring for more Captain Marvel after Endgame. She wasn't offering anything particularly new or interesting.
I don't know if i said it ITT, but i always thought it would have been neat if Captain Marvel had total imposter syndrome, she could be the little miss badass you see in the avengers films, but when she's not playing hero she's a necrotic mess. The amount of women, especially in managerial roles that fake the brave face but turn into the most feminine, scared, non-confrontational, no self confidence messes once out of earshot of their underlings is huge. Every "strict" teacher or principal you had would leave work to go hug stuffed animals and cry. You saw a similar thing with medical professionals during covid, and you see it in the social media of many of our people in government and law today.
It would also give Brie something to do with her acting skills, she was one of the queens of /tv/ because she was so good at playing the weirdo in stuff like community. Say what you will about Iron Man or GOTG, a big reason those did so well compared to say Hulk/Thor/CapAm movies at the time was because they weren't by the book. the performances and bathos didn't make them feel like the marvel movies of the 2000s. You could easily see Thor 1+2 or Captain America being connected to Elektra or The Punisher from the 2000s. Iron man or GOTG notsomuch.
Also had a fun looking and novel trailer.
i'll admit to that trailer turning me. it seemed doomed to fail and then it really gave you everything you needed: a unique trailer, a bit of the characters schtick, fun
everyone talks about how movies revel the whole plot nowadays, but what did we learn about GOTG before it got released? nothing people went because they wanted to see a bunch of A-holes on screen for 2 hours.
Carol... learns that she's being held down by others and she's just impossibly powerful and cool she just doesn't know it.
if i had a shot at that film, it would have been to get her to believe in herself, using the example of everyone else not questioning the idea that she's actually impossibly powerful and cool so why does she not believe it? As for the music, it was horribly done, to add into the humor it would have been better if she wasn't a huge fan of top 40 but some weirdo into adult contemporary like Anne Murray. I know Deadpool already did that joke but i like it.
she had to have at least one scene where she was singing, so that if she ever wanted to take on a role that needed singing, she had something for her sizzle reel. She's not a particularly good singer, but whatever, apparently.
exactly, there's something i find really cute and endearing about a woman that does something badly but she loves anyways. White women dancing when they can't turns me into the central park 5 with how much i enjoy seeing it. Having Carol be a woman that sings but is clearly barely good at it would be delightful. You could even make the karoke bit work, while everyone else is singing normal popular songs for their day she busts out some Linda Ronstadt while her black friend tries to be supportive. Something that i feel had a lot more play in the late 90s along with "girl power" is that the girls/women were allowed to be weirdos in a way you don't see from our modern mary-sue feminism. Look at She-Hulk vs Ally Mcbeal. One of those is a lot more fun and way less obnoxious despite them almost the exact same show. even SNL in the late 90s showed women being just as goofy as the men. the Sandler-led group of bad boys that dominated snl in the first half of the 90s vanished and were replaced by "the girlie show" of the late 90s where the women (and will ferrel) seemed to be the biggest stars of the cast.
Thats why it seems so jarring for Captain Marvel to have so little going on, they really needed to change the entire character because she just sucks so much. Making her some barrier breaking badass jet pilot just ruins her character, as someone that actually does know a 90s woman jet pilot badass, thats not what makes people like her, but her oddities. her relationship struggles or struggles at doing new hobbies like pottery and welding or her trying to save money on a cell phone plan that leads to her signing up for some weird company no one has heard of that works really well.
You need the struggle before people accept your greatness, and the generic badass backstory didn't help. they really fucked over Brie with the character too, there's a reason direct to video films cast people who sometimes didn't even know the language and its because of how easy those roles are to play. You had a woman that could play a cheerleader, a nutcase, a nerd, a narcissist and a damsel and they gave her less than nothing. they could have easily cast Neil Breen and gotten the exact same performance.
