Captain Marvel: Where's the Love

Finally getting around to reviewing this. I caught an early version a while back and this has been immensely improved with the audio quality. I really disliked this movie the first time I watched it and I left it out whenever I wanted to watch Marvel movies again. Tremault did an amazing job of making this movie enjoyable! I was actually invested in the movie instead of wanting to go on my phone.

I always praise edits of Marvel movies that trim down the over the top humor and it's done perfectly here. The serious moments have their time, and the better humor gets to breath and land.

Pacing of the movie for the most part is great. Everything up until we get to Earth flows so nicely. I think the Earth scenes could have been trimmed some as it still slows when we are there, but I'm not sure what could be trimmed. The end fight feels a lot better when you actually like Carol. The movie starts and ends strongly.

Overall tremendous work, I'm looking forward to watching your Shang Chi and Thor edits!

Welcome to the Try Not To Get Political when mentioning this movie challenge spectacular!!! With your host me, myself and I. Many lives were accosted during The Great Captain Marvel war of 2019. It is always a good sign when the fanbase is divided/alienated, especially when some just wanted to get to Endgame. Brie Larson CAN ACT (i.e. Scott Pilgrim), despite some moments in this movie. So here is my stance on her politics.... Jude Law is so very handsome and hunky.

Now, where were we? This edit is a triumph of MCU fan editing. It is on par with macmillan's Avengers: Asssembled, Kikanator96's Age of Ultron: De-Whedoned and Bobson Duggnutt's TASM2/Homecoming edits. Captain Marvel as an idea isn't a bad one, the way the do the flashbacks are great rather than exposition dumping. Thank Kang that the editor cut the "cockpit" moment and moments of Vers being unlikeable. The first chunk with all of the cringe cut, made me realize how much I love the sci fi elements in the Kree home world as well as some of the world building.

My problems arise when they get to Earth, to no fault of the editor. I was reminded of the continuity errors in this movie. For example, S.H.I.E.L.D. already has the acronym when they were coming up with it in the first Iron Man movie coupled with the tesseract ending up where it is in this movie. Don't get me started on the Nick Fury eye loss. Spider-Man: Far From Home retconned his eye scar to have claw marks on it. Anyway, with all of the negatives out of the way, I was reminded how great most of the character moments are with all of the condescending moments cut. I found myself routing for Carol Danvers and her journey.

I also was reminded how great Nick Fury was in this movie, aside from a few quibbles. I even don't mind the Skrulls-are-good twist, I can head canon myself in saying that it is not the Skrull race as a whole. Also replacing "Just A Girl" with "Violet" by Hole was the best decision. Is this my go-to version of this? Maybe. I might even give it a few more watches. If it is any consolation, I would absolutely show this to my daughter if she were to turn out just as nerdy as me. Thank you for this edit, you made me find the love for this movie. This should have gotten FEOTM or even FEOTY.

Overview:

The movie establishes very early that the Skrull expansion threatens the universe, and that the Kree are all that stand in their way. The MCU often makes the mistake of presenting these world-ending stakes at scale, which make them hard to relate to. In Captain Marvel, this is expressed through Vers’ personal grief and what the Skrull have taken from her. This is an important point for a movie with a central theme of individualism versus nationalism.

For this to work, the audience needs to find the protagonist relatable. In the original release, Vers comes across as arrogant and stand-offish. While this might have been by design for Vers to put a wall up between herself and her Kree allies, it also put a wall up for the audience. The edit creates a more sympathetic character, allowing Brie Larson’s facial expressions to carry more of the subtext. The edited down humour shows Vers as brash, but not cold and insulting. The addition of the teaching scene early on also helps create a more caring mentor dynamic between Yon-Rogg and Vers.

In the original realise, we are told men -and specifically men- are what stands in the protagonist’s way. What I see in this edit is that controlling forces and the lack of agency are the enemy. While with the Kree, Vers Is told to let go of her emotions and unknown past, and to submit to the collective. By the end of the movie, Carol has reconciled her individuality, and adapted within that concept the Kree motto of putting others before herself. That’s a broader, more accessible arc that doesn’t alienate anyone nor take away from what the original release tried to achieve.

Through the edit, Captain Marvel tells a story less focussed on outside influences telling Carol she is a failure, and more on her internal conflict of failure, determination, and success.


What I liked:

Only 45ish seconds were shaved from the original before the Kree arrival on Torfa, yet I found the edit better paced with better exposition.

Adding the scene with Yon-Rogg teaching the children is a good choice. In addition to what I previously said about the scene, it also added some more sympathetic humour from Vers as we do tease each other in a more direct way when appealing to a childhood audience.

The scene of Yon-Rogg talking with the Supreme Intelligence was a good addition and adds more weight to his later line about going back to Hala empty-handed.

There were some very clever editing choices during the Skrull memory search scene.

I had no particular problem with the original “biker” scene or its extended version, but throughout the movie we don’t see Vers/Carol seek any personal satisfaction in causing harm. For someone who sees herself as a Noble Warrior Hero, this was out of character. The edit better expressed her need in that moment. There’s a memorable scene in the pilot of Alias that plays out in a similar way.

The edits to remove some of Vers/Carol’s coldness result in better payoffs for when she’s deliberately untrusting or arrogant. Such as when Carol is talking to Maria’s neighbour, or during the fight between Carol and her former Kree allies in the finale.

Replacing the “Carol stands up for five minutes” scene with one of Carol experiencing her recent memories with Fury, Maria and Monica was one of the best parts of this edit. It showed that while Carol doesn’t have any old memories, her few days among humanity let Carol know herself more than six years with the Kree did.


What I might do differently:

Some of the scenes on Torfa were quite dark and I found it difficult to follow each character as their faces were shadowed. I compared the Torfa scene side-by-side, and the original release was already pushing the limit on lighting. I think some of the colour-correction during flashbacks were a little distracting, also.

The small flashback we get on meeting Goose near the records room was probably unnecessary. It doesn’t do any harm, but it might be a case of needing to trust your audience more.

While I agree that Just a girl by No Doubt was a little on the nose, it left the editor an interesting problem. Do you replace it with 90s rock? Grunge? Maybe a girl-power jam that could leave you with the same original problem? The editor went with Violet by Hole which is a solid choice. I think the only options were to find a rock song to match the beats of that fight (like Rebel Girl by Bikini Kill), or lean so hard into the kitchy contrast and go with an extremely era pop song (something like Wannabe by the Spice Girls). I can imagine Marvel tried to go with the second option with their original choice.

Some of the cuts were rough which isn’t a criticism of the editor as they can only work with the material given. In particular, the cutaway after Goose scratches Fury’s eye is jarring. Considering the effort the movie went to create red herrings for how Fury loses his eye, leaving the line “It’s just a scratch” and editing out Talos’ reaction would have played equally as well.


Final thoughts:

This edit shows us the movie we could have gotten. A more widely relatable lead, while still representing the original message that was likely targeted towards young women. Tremault should be very proud of this effort as it shows what a love of the source material and more ruthless editing can accomplish.

Ok I have to say this is definitely the best version of this movie. I never thought it was possible, but I truly enjoyed it! I disliked the TC version, since it focused too much on making her strong and cool as a sock in a refrigerator. But that made her unrealistic, unrelatable and even at times unlikable. I was really hoping that I would like this edit since I could not stomach the original version and never could finish watching it, since I just simply could not enjoy it.

The insertion of the deleted scenes were brilliantly picked. The audio / video is great and they blend perfectly. This version removes / changes all the right spots, which now makes me forget all about the massive amount of hate the original version got, which is a huge compliment since it means I immersed in the movie.

Oh and I forgot about funny. Now that the bad jokes were cut, the good ones actually can be and are funny :)

I recommend this edit to everyone who previously - like me - disliked the TC or actually wanted to watch the film, but instead listened to the critics (of which many were not wrong) and did not even want to try afterwards. This movie proves also a point: The problem of the original version was not that the hero was a woman, but that the movie (at least the cut) was bad. And that's it. Anything beyond that is just frustration about unmet expectations in my opinion There was so much hype around this movie at its release and the final TC just did not feel right and dissapointed many fans.

But NOW this feels like a really good superhero movie that is entertaining and even exciting to watch.

Focusing on the emotions and friendships in this movie made me care about the characters and made them more real since - duh - humans are emotional beings and we do not want to watch a long movie if it does not make us care or trigger emotions that we like.

That's the magic that I love: Watching a fan edit (fan fix rather!) which makes a good movie (good cut) out of a bad one (bad cut)!

Many thanks and much applause!

This review is from the outdated version where the deleted scenes weren't in HD which is okay since this movie isn't the most visually impressive entry of the MCU in the first place LOL! This is a very good fanedit so that I would not only watch this in place of the original but actually watch it between Avengers Infinity Wars and Endgame instead of skipping it like what most people like me did because it was forced in there to make you watch it just for the post-credit scene. But Tremault wisely edited out the scene and made this movie more of a prequel where you can watch it without having to see all or any of the of the MCU movies since this is supposed to be an origin story of the avengers and filmmaking wise is the most basic looking superhero movie by Marvel standards making it a must-see for beginners. The biggest improvement that fixes this movie is toning down Captain Marvel's Misandry towards men and fleshing her out to be a sympathetic heroine who wants to find the truth about her war and her identity while doing the right thing. As an OP character similar to Superman and Wonder Woman (her superior DCU counterpart and rival) it is hard to make them relatable and likeable characters no matter what gender they are unless you make them a blank slate for the viewer to identify with or relate to them with a universal story/character arc that humanizes them. Such as Captain Marvel being forced to let go of her emotions/womanhood to become a cold-blooded weapon but instead turned her weakness into a strength in the form of empathy(femininity) to become a better person and a hero too for example.
Good job on this Fan Edit Tremault looking forward to your future projects!