I forgot to comment on the Captain Marvel trailer in my last post. It's more of a teaser than an actual trailer, which makes sense since the film is six months away. It's better than the Ant-Man and the Wasp final trailer and about on-par with its first. It is not, however, on the level of the opening trailers for Infinity War, Black Panther, or Thor: Ragnarok (definitely better than the awful Spider-Man: Homecoming trailers and about on par with Guardians of the Galaxy 2). As a trailer its fine, but perhaps not as mind-blowing as hoped (granting it had a lot more heavy lifting to do than all the aforementioned trailers since she's a new IP).
In terms of substance the trailer does less to overtly set-up the plot than it does to establish who Carol Danvers is (which is exactly what it needs to do since, despite her longevity, Captain Marvel has never been a particularly popular character--with a 23-issue run as Ms. Marvel in the 70s, then a series of brief runs when she took over her current moniker in 2012--14, 15, and 10 issues respectively; I wrote about her origins here). What's hard about depicting characters this powerful is making their powers feel earned and making them feel threatened (Wonder Woman doesn't have to earn her powers, but rather decide to give up her isolation and use them, echoing Thor in some respects)--a trailer can't really delve into that though, that's a challenge for the film itself.
From the teaser it seems as though Carol was taken (or rescued) by the Kree when she's an air force pilot and through that process either loses her memories or has them taken away (very Winter Soldier if that's the case). With the Kree she becomes part of a team, Star Force, which in the comics are a group of villains (and the involvement of Ronan suggests they still are; it's not clear if he or Jude Law's character are in charge). How or why Carol leaves that group isn't clear (is it her choice or by accident?), but she winds up back on earth, meets Nick Fury, and her memories start coming back. We're shown the Scrulls, who are ostensibly the enemy of the film, but not much is said about them. It seems like the film will have Carol recovering her memories, figuring out who she is, and then deciding who she wants to be (presumably rejecting Star Force if, indeed, they are enemies in the film as well). It's left ambiguous whether Jude Law is good or bad--he was announced as playing Walter Lawson, who is Captain Mar-Vell in the comics, but many people are proposing he's actually Yon-Rogg, the villain responsible for giving Carol her powers. I think his character will remain Lawson, but it's possible he'll be given a more ambiguous role (I doubt he's evil however, as Ronan fulfills that role for the Kree already).
People have been losing their collective minds since Chris Evans Tweeted a thank you for playing Captain America. The general impression is that he's hanging up the shield and likely dying in Avengers 4 (Charlie, via the link, still thinks he's dying, but leaves the door open to flashbacks etc). I have a problem with this which is shared by Jeremy Conrad:
I don’t necessarily mean that Cap is going to die in Avengers 4, but it could mean he is retired in such a way that we won’t see Chris in the spangly outfit again for a long time.The reason why interpreting Evans' comments should be treated with caution is that neither Kevin Feige nor the Russo's would want Evans to spoil the film by revealing his fate. Evans is not known for spoilers, so there's little doubt that the sentiment was approved (tacitly at least) by those involved. Cynically I'd want to call this a ploy to bump his pay, but it's so early in the process (we're months away from the release of Avengers 4), that I think it's simply an earnest expression from the actor.
I do think, incidentally, that the intent is for Captain Marvel to take over the leadership role (how many Captain's do you want on a team?), or at least share it with Doctor Strange or Black Panther, as I think most of the Avengers' characters are retiring after the film. I believe this eventuality for three reasons: 1) most of the actors are older, 2) so that phase four can launch with a mostly new team, 3) to make room for the X-Men/Fantastic Four. It's simply too difficult to keep such a huge roster in play--secondary characters will be sent to the streaming service (ala Scarlett Witch) to make room for the newer IP. I do think (as I say in my Avengers 4 Speculation post) that very few will actually die so that they are available for cameos etcetera.
For quite some time I thought we might get successor heroes in the MCU like we've seen in the comics--perhaps a Falcon version of Captain America, or an Amadeus Cho version of Hulk, etc. I'm much less convinced of this now and think Kevin Feige is trying to avoid this because it forces a comparison--which version of X do you prefer? There's also a fear that the successors would simply be derivative (how different, really, is one Hulk from another?). It's much safer to go with original characters and with the Fox properties returning there's only so much screen time regardless. That doesn't mean we won't see these versions elsewhere (via streaming or what have you), but that I'm dubious Ironheart etc will be appearing on screen any time soon.
Conrad is pushing the idea that the title of Avengers 4 is Avengers: Annihilation, basing it on the photo the Russo's released not long ago. While Conrad may indeed be correct his reasoning is incredibly weak--you can see two A's in the picture? There are actually four, definitively, with another potential four added to the mix. What I think is happening is Conrad's source has confirmed the title, but Conrad can't see anything more definitive within the picture to confirm it (you can see him wrestling with this problem with even further stretching to rationalize it--he should have just said "a source told me" and left it at that).
We've had more information come out about Daredevil season three:
- It's an original story inspired by Frank Miller's "Born Again" and Kevin Smith's "Guardian Devil"
- No other Defenders will appear
- Fisk spends at least some of the season under FBI house-arrest
- Matt feels unworthy of the Daredevil identity
- Karen's secret past will be revealed
I wasn't familiar with Smith's "Guardian Devil" (98-99), but it has a strange plot (DD caring for an infant who might be the Antichrist; Karen has HIV via the "Born Again" storyline and winds up being killed by Bullseye (!)). It's a preposterously silly story, but what I think is being referred to is the Foggy storyline--he's accused of murder, gets fired, and goes to jail. Nothing else seems related except, perhaps, the Catholic themes which also appear in Miller's story.
We again have no guest appearances by other heroes (Netflix continues to fail to understand the medium as well as they should).
I'm a bit worried about Daredevil's storyline--him having qualms that prevent him from embracing his identity are the heart of both his first season and The Defenders--there's a worry about it being overly repetitive and going down the road of Jessica Jones 2's failures (we will, I hope, at least not break show continuity the same way).
We've learned that Chloe Zhao will direct The Eternals and we've been offered some hints about what the story is:
one aspect...involves the love story between Ikaris, a man fueled by cosmic energy, and Sersi, who relishes moving amongst humans. ... The project also allows Marvel to assemble a diverse cast of various shapes and sizes.I think the latter comment is in reference to how obscure (and short-lived) the title is, giving the MCU plenty of room to cast any role with anyone (likely adhering to gender, however). This sort of freedom existed for Guardians of the Galaxy as well--an existing IP, but little known (granting there's a much bigger backlog of GotG material). I don't know if the comment, incidentally, is the reporter's or from Marvel.
The trailer for the delayed Dark Phoenix came out--it's more of a teaser given how short it is. The Fox X-Men reboot-that-isn't-a-reboot (I think the term 'Singer-verse' is probably the best label for all the films) has generally been bad (Days of Future Past being the exception), despite a good cast. Unfortunately, nothing about the teaser indicates it will be better than the trainwreck that was X-Men: Apocalypse.
Bizarrely, the day after the trailer was released the film's date (proudly displayed as February on the trailer) was moved from February to June (even John Campea, of all people, picked up on how weird this was). This, like New Mutants before it, is the second time the release has been shifted and makes it a virtually certainty that Disney will be able to decide what to do with the film. For awhile I was following the conventional wisdom that the movie would come out as expected (unlike New Mutants, which I expect to be buried on the Disney streaming service), but now I believe it will also disappear. I see no reason why Kevin Feige (who we know will have complete control over the Fox Marvel properties once they arrive at Disney) would want the Fox films to muddy the waters of the characters (and put yet another nail in the coffin of the Dark Phoenix Saga).
Shockingly (or perhaps not) The New Mutants re-shoots haven't happened yet. The re-shoots were announced in January, so it boggles the mind that in ten months literally nothing has happened (as far as I can ascertain they haven't even been scheduled). I have to think this is Fox tacitly abandoning the film to Disney's mercy (which, given the horror-tone, may never see the light of day).
Deadline is reporting the Fox deal could close as early as the end of 2018, but is supposed to happen no later than early 2019. Back in July I mentioned the 12-18 month window originally reported in December and nothing suggests that's going to be anything other than 100% accurate.
While it seems even more pointless than usual, Gambit was given a new release date (March, 2020) with filming set to begin in February. If the latter happens I'll eat my hat.
More DCEU shuffling as the release date for Birds of Prey has been finalized for February, 2020.
This is a pure aside, but I'd never heard anyone else make the comparison I had in my head when I saw Wonder Woman, which was that the film was a mishmash of the first Captain America and Thor. I've now stumbled across at least one other person has now made it, a Youtuber called HiTop Films.
Opinion
I don't discuss entertainment shows very often, but I did want to comment on them briefly. I started this blog just a couple of years ago, but it was earlier that I started paying attention to entertainment news (looking for MCU and Marvel Netflix information).
Initially I was drawn to Emergency Awesome (Charlie Schneider) and Collider; both are big channels and both post daily content. As it happens neither are particularly good sources of news and I stopped watching the latter some time ago (I still watch Charlie as he's a good barometer of what the average fan thinks).
Collider has changed drastically from when I first found it--initially it was John Campea, Jon Schnepp, Kristian Harloff, and Mark Ellis commenting on news introduced by a presenter (Ashley Mova or Natasha Martinez). The show wasn't perfect, but this formulation (minus the presenters) was the best Collider had.
Campea left (twice!) and now sustains his own channel (throwing a bone to Robert Meyer Burnett, who is also no longer with Collider). Campea is a shill, but has some use as a barometer of industry opinion (his personal opinions on films are awful). Schnepp has passed away, but prior to the that the site picked up all the entertainment dregs from the unwatchable Popcorn Talk. Current Collider is plagued with cringy hacks (they are only missing New Rockstar's Sam Bashor to have the complete set of the worst commentators available). Why are they bad? They are lazy (commenting on properties they know little or nothing about) and agenda-centric--whatever hobbyhorse they are riding outweighs genuine discussion or news dissection--I don't want my news vetted in that way. This makes the show unwatchable (it's pretty clear Red Letter Media's "Nerd Crew" segments are riffing on Collider). Their catastrophic fall in views (via Socialblade) show that a time is coming when it will simply implode and Harloff (the best personality remaining there) will sail off to success elsewhere carrying with him the dead weight of his buddy Ellis. I will note: the website isn't as terrible as the YT-element.
Are there similar channels with better content? No. Grace Randolph covers the same kind of topics, but she hates her former employer Marvel so much that it colours all her coverage. Midnight's Edge does fantastic video essays, but these are infrequent and very specific (it's companion channel, Midnight's Edge After Dark, is a mixed bag at best and not very good for comicbook media). Otherwise there's nothing providing regular content that is rigorously researched and features interesting opinions--it just doesn't exist.
This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)
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