Captain Marvel is a huge financial success, grossing over $US 1.1 billion at the global box office. The movie received mixed to positive reviews with many calling it a fun filler Marvel movie, while others found it bland and uninteresting. The first Marvel female lead superhero movie was also on the receiving end of trolls who constantly downvoted the film on the user section of Rotten Tomatoes, prompting the popular review site to change their entire system.
The film was of course inspired by its comic book counterpart. However, as with any adaptation, the scriptwriters and director definitely changed up some things in the characters transition to the big screen in order to make it more palatable for the wider audience. In fact, if it were up to comic book writer Kelly Sue Deconnick, the film would have played out much differently. In an interview with io9, she had this to say:
“In the Pursuit of Flight [comic], it was actually supposed to be that she goes back to the moment of the explosion and it’s a time paradox where she’s witnessing her own origin story right? So her origin story in the comics is the machine blows up and she’s there. She’s being held hostage, and Mar-Vell, he picks up her body and is trying to take her out of the cave when the machine explodes, and the power of the explosion transfers his DNA into hers and (claps) she’s superpowered.”
What I wanted to do is have Carol time travel, so she’s in the scene where she’s getting her powers. She’s there with Helen Cobb who’s another pilot hero of hers, and she and Helen are watching the moment. Helen wants those powers, so she intentionally runs into the scene to be caught in the explosion. I wanted Mar-Vell to grab Helen, which would leave Carol needing to go in and rescue her younger self so that when the machine exploded it would transfer Carol’s powers from Carol to Carol, so that she would become the source of her own power. So it was an intentionally feminist reboot.”
In the same interview, Captain Marvel producer Mary Livanos went on to mention that the filmmakers definitely drew huge inspiration from Deconnick’s story beats and ideas.
“And you see the broad strokes of that storyline in Captain Marvel. Helen Cobb, huge inspiration for Wendy Lawson, our update of Walter Lawson who was the male Captain Mar-Vell, but we wanted Carol…that had to be a moment where she made a heroic decision that resulted in her powers. We couldn’t have a male Captain Marvel swoop in, save her. We wanted the source of her power to come from her own decision making.”
While the aforementioned story ideas are exciting, ultimately we’re fine with how the film played out as a whole.
