It’s time to talk about everything that happens in Captain Marvel, so if you’ve not seen the film yet – don’t go any further!
Still here? Good. Let’s dive right in.
So there are several surprises in the movie, obviously: Carol’s backstory was completely unknown to us, so piecing it together is not only an incredible journey but also uncovers a lot of interesting stuff; the truth of the Kree-Skrull War; the history of the Tesseract; a surprise villain; and a very shocking end-credits scene. Not to mention some hints as to what might come next. Let’s break it all down.
For anyone who was confused during the movie, here’s what happened, in chronological order:
Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) was a USAF pilot in 1989 when she and her friend Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch) found work testing new aircraft designed by a member of Project PEGASUS: Dr. Wendy Lawson (Annette Bening). Lawson had created a lightspeed engine core for her aircraft which harnessed the power of the Tesseract, the Space Stone – it seems she worked for S.H.I.E.L.D and thus was able to get her hands on the powerful artifact, which allowed her aircraft to fly at seemingly impossible speeds, and even into space. What no one knew, however, was that Dr. Wendy Lawson was a rogue Kree agent, who had discovered that her people were fighting an unjust war against the Skrull shapeshifters: the lightspeed aircraft were designed to be powerful enough to end the war. The Kree found her, however, and intercepted Danvers when she and Lawson were flying one of the test-crafts. Forced to make a crash landing, Danvers and Lawson were injured, but Lawson attempted to destroy the lightspeed core before it could be taken by the Kree. Before she was able, Yon-Rogg (Jude Law) the Kree pilot who had downed their plane, shot and killed Lawson. Carol Danvers, however, was able to destroy the core – but not fully. She absorbed the power of the Space Stone when she blew it up, and was then knocked unconscious. Yon-Rogg, seeing this, took her back to the Kree planet of Hala to try and harness the power she now possessed. By the time we see her in Captain Marvel, Carol has no memories of her past life, and has been completely brainwashed by the Kree.
The obvious shocker here is that Carol Danvers received her powers from the Space Stone, which could mean that, like Vision and the Mind Stone, she is inextricably linked to that Stone’s power. How will her own powers be affected by the fact that the Space Stone now resides in Thanos’ Infinity Gauntlet? There are differences between this and the situation with Vision: Vision was created by the Mind Stone, given life by it, and when it was taken from him, he died. Carol, however, only got her powers from the Space Stone, and seems to retain them without needing the Space Stone at all. However, this does not rule out the possibility of a link between Carol and the Space Stone in Avengers: Endgame. She should be capable of wielding the Stone, for instance, and that would be quite an interesting possibility.
On a side-note, it’s cool to learn just a little bit more about the Tesseract, between its appearances in Captain America: The First Avenger, and The Avengers. Before Captain Marvel, we all thought it had just been in S.H.I.E.L.D hands up until the time Loki stole it. Little did we know it had started an intergalactic war, created the most powerful entity in the MCU, and been carried around in an orbiting laboratory, a lunchbox, and the insides of a Flerken, in between those two movies.
Speaking of the Flerken, that was one surprise I saw coming: it had been all but spoiled for me months ago, when toys were revealed that showed a muzzled Goose the Cat. Considering that there is only one species of alien in the MCU that takes the form of cats and has tentacles that explode from its mouth, it was pretty easy to guess that cat was a Flerken, especially when early reactions said that Goose stole the show.
The next surprise has to do with the Skrulls: throughout the first half of the film, we think we should be siding with the Kree, even if they are a bit warlike, and their leader, the Supreme Intelligence, is downright creepy. At any rate, it’s quite easy to see that the Skrulls are the bad guys: they’re green aliens who can shape-shift, and they take Carol captive in an ambush. They strap her into a device that makes all of her memories visible to the Skrull leader, Talos the Tamer (Ben Mendelsohn). Like, seriously, with a name like Talos the Tamer, how can you not be a villain?
But they’re not. Turns out, the Skrulls are the victims of brutal oppression at the hands of the Kree, and they have been scattered far and wide across the universe. Talos himself is looking through Carol’s memories because he’s trying to find Dr. Wendy Lawson’s laboratory, where she was keeping Skrull refugees safe from the Kree. Not only that, but the Skrulls are also incredibly funny, and Talos himself is just hilarious. The Skrulls become instantly likable, especially after we see Talos reunite with his wife and daughter, who have been waiting for him for years.
At the end of the movie, when Carol has defeated the Kree, she promises to help the Skrulls find a new home: we see them vanish into the darkness of outer space, but their destination after that is still unknown. Where will the Skrulls go? Will the Kree find them? And what about Secret Invasion, the comic-book storyline that everyone and their mother thought was going to be started in this movie: the story where Skrulls infiltrate the Avengers for evil purposes? Well, there are definitely still opportunities for that to happen, even with the Skrulls on the good side for now. It’s possible that other Skrulls could challenge Talos’ peaceful goals, and want to continue their war. It’s also possible, as Grace Randolph of Beyond The Trailer speculated, that Talos’ daughter, who was featured prominently in the film, could turn down a dark path and initiate the Secret Invasion.
Now let’s talk about some other things that I found noteworthy in the film: at the end, when Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace) has been foiled in his attempt to blow up most of the western side of the United States, Captain Marvel hovers above the earth, daring him to try again. This immediately brought to mind the Alpha Flight storyline, in which Captain Marvel and a team of other superheroes act as Earth’s first line of defense against extraterrestrial threats. Whether this will be expanded upon in a Captain Marvel sequel remains to be seen, but I would be here for it.
There’s also two things relating to Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) in this movie that are worth talking about: well, three, really, if you count the fact that we learn here that Fury cannot bring himself to eat toast that is cut diagonally. But we see how he lost his left eye, and how he came up with the name “The Avengers Initiative”. The answer to the first question is simple – perhaps too simple: his left eye was scratched out by that angry Flerken cat Goose. The answer to the second question – well, to call it a question is misleading, since I’m not sure anyone was really asking for an answer, but we got one anyway and I like it – is that Fury was inspired by the name of Carol Danvers’ plane, “Avenger”. It was a very cool scene, right at the end, when the Avengers theme started playing. A great way to finish a great movie.
However…it wasn’t technically the end. There’s a mid-credits scene and a post-credits scene, which we’ll talk about now: the mid-credits scene is actually from Avengers: Endgame. So firstly, you remember that in the post-credits scene for Avengers: Infinity War, we saw Nick Fury desperately trying to page Captain Marvel, before he was dusted. Turns out that pager was found by the remaining Avengers and brought back to the base, where we see it still beeping. Captain America (Chris Evans), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), War Machine (Don Cheadle), and Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) are all gathered together when the pager suddenly stops sending out its signal: but as Black Widow tells them to charge it up again, she turns around to find…CAPTAIN MARVEL! Yes, Carol Danvers, standing right behind her, looking very serious and no-nonsense. It’s a scarily good scene, and really sets us up well for Avengers: Endgame, where we know we’ll see Captain Marvel and the Avengers face off against Thanos.
Oh yeah, and the post-credits scene? Typical Marvel prank: it’s simply Goose throwing up the Tesseract, which he had been carrying around in his stomach during the final act of Captain Marvel. We know from that scene that Nick Fury will thus be able to recover the Tesseract and put it into the secret base where Loki, years later in The Avengers, would steal it, setting off a chain reaction of events. It’s amazing how much the Space Stone has caused in the MCU, and I am curious to see if there’s a reason for that. Could the Space Stone – and, by extension, Captain Marvel – be the key to defeating Thanos? Only time will tell.