so your character isn't really a talky sort but you need to do some important
exposition. You need to establish a history between two characters but you
don't want to take too long about it? maybe hint at some stuff going on under
the surface but very subtly. You want to set up your initial bookend which will
call back to you at the end of the movie? maybe you just want to give the people
who are only here for the explosions something to look at right at the start
of your movie well in that case: "wanna fight?" oh heck yes by which I mean it's a
very efficient way to establish links between characters without seeming to
slow the pace down too much and on closer inspection it can be a clue to
the real nature of their relationships my name is Jill Bearup and my interest
even during these times when I have to attend classes on Zoom and try not to
knock over my tripod with my Escrima sticks is stage combat, which is to say
the art of pretending to fight for screen or stage without actually hurting
people. important point. which is obviously a pretty vital skill if you're
performing on stage or in TV or in a Marvel film so let's talk about Captain
Marvel and we are gonna spoil the heck out of this movie you have been warned
Captain Marvel is the story of Carol Danvers who spends the first half of the
film thinking her name is Vers and the Supreme Intelligence has given her
special powers which she is using to protect Kree civilization from the evil
doing Skrulls turns out the Kree are kind of genocidal
jerks Vers is actually a human with powers that came from an accident
with Kree technology developed by an nice Kree lady who is now dead and oh hey I
don't have to do what you tell me I'm gonna help these green people find a
home and then I'm gonna come and tell everyone the truth about the supposedly
noble heroic war they're fighting. it's a movie where our protagonist is told
multiple times that her emotions are getting the better of her they're
getting in the way of her being a great warrior and she is told this frequently
by people whose emotions often get the better of them emotions like anger
"This is that moment Vers! Turn off the light show" or indeed pride "you do know
why they call it a cockpit" because that was the place where the
coxswain was pride goeth before a fall man who confidently said things before
the existence of Wikipedia. And nobody is more supposedly committed to turning her
into a great warrior for the good of all Kree than her mentor Yon Rogg he's the
Kree Starforce commander he's Vers' commanding officer and he also her
friend or so think if we're unfamiliar with the comics which I was. their
relationship is friendly and even kind of tender which makes it quite a shock
when it turns out he's actually the kind of person who does a lot of bad things
for what he probably thinks are good reasons and one of the ways we set up
this close bantering trusting relationship well trusting on Carol's
part anyway is with the very first action that she takes in the movie which
is to wake this dude up at don't even think about it o'clock and ask to spar
with him. so we establish that he'll answer the door to her at ridiculous
o'clock he's willing to spar with her she's willing to ask and he knows about
the nightmares. "dreams again" and then by the two minute thirty mark punching is
happening this is an action movie after all. we establish in the course of the
fight that he's willing to ask her about her nightmares "tell me about this dream"
he thinks she should stop dwelling on the past because it makes her vulnerable
he thinks she's too emotional he's a better fighter than her but also he's
afraid of her powers which is actually pretty sensible. and on subsequent
viewings there are little bits of not quite right which you can spot right at
the start. Now the fighting while talking about your feelings trope is one
that I admit is kind of ridiculous but it's very common in film and I really
love it to be fair a lot of people myself included find it easier to talk
about difficult things while doing something else and since this is an
action movie they're not going to be talking about their feelings while, you
know...quilting. so kicking punching armbars and feelings it is and there's a
dual advantage for filmmakers first you can slide a fair amount of exposition
and character development in to a fight and people won't really notice second
fights are choreographed in sections which make them both easier to
storyboard and film and also easier to learn. Around here we call these sections
phrases and if you'd like a fuller explanation of what they are and what
you can do with them you should watch my Witcher video. at the end of each phrase
there's a pause in the combat and you can use this for all kinds of things
including dialogue and when your characters are speaking it's only
natural that you will cut in closer to their faces which makes it easier to
seamlessly swap between fight performers and the actors in your edit. Brie Larson
had two stunt doubles on Captain Marvel and I don't know whether it's one of
them or both of them in the scene but they do good work. so we use the scene to
establish that Vers/Carol is pretty good at hand-to-hand combat but
Yon Rogg is better and that she has a tendency to get frustrated and use her
powers. at which point she can beat him easily. which also helps to emphasize how
they're deliberately keeping her contained rather than actually letting
her fulfill her full potential Yon Rogg tells her that emotions are a
weakness and he's not exactly correct because as it turns out emotions can be
very helpful to Carol but he is right that anger can serve your enemy and make
you do stupid things so half the point I guess.
that being said people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. we use the
opportunity of the fight to get Vers and Yon Rogg nicely in and close to
each other in a competitive fashion but not like a dangerous one probably
neither of them is actually gonna seriously injure the other person so we
use this as well as Carol's initial actions (waking him up to fight) to cement
that trust bond that they have. sharing space on screen in a state of
physiological arousal by which I mean your heart is pounding you're breathing
hard you're sweating your pupils are dilated
that kind of thing, especially when no one's actually in danger, is a shortcut
to tell you these people are close because they are geographically and it's
not a battle to the death so there's obviously some level of trust there and
we underline it with our banter back and forth and their discussion of the
serious issues that are keeping her awake at night literally. It's pure and
good and wholesome and mentory right? he's concerned about her keeping control
he tells her to let go of her past and that emotions will only serve her
opponents which you would expect from a race of self-declared warrior heroes and
he bests her until she unleashes a photon blast because she's angry about
that. which as he previously mentioned then requires that she go and see the
supreme intelligence. control you must learn control! it is on the
surface conventional it's expected. They set him up as trusted mentor with every
trope that they can chuck in there he spars with her he's her commanding
officer he jokes with her he cares about her and later on we find out that he
saved her life but it's all a lie a massive character shaking deception
because it's probably true that Yon Rogg thinks he's doing what's best and that he does feel
sorry for and care about Vers this poor lost soul with her special powers and he
probably thinks that he's acting for the good of all Kree but he's lying to her
he's lying to her about who she is where she came from how she got her powers the
extent of those powers a lot of very fundamental things and they hint that
something's not quite right right in this opening fight. because watch again
we come into the fight with Vers on the ground after Yon Rogg has punched her in the face
she is like Yon Rogg rather overconfident and not willing to admit
that she makes mistakes ever he pushes her about the contents of her nightmares
and she attacks him under usual circumstances that's pretty typical but
let's watch slowly he's letting her work out her frustrations on him but he's not
actually letting her land any attacks he evades or blocks all of them and then he
grabs her by the throat and then dialogue. he's not really trying that
hard right now he's just letting her wear herself out
she responds gets out of the hold and goes on the offensive again and he just
lets her go for a bit but again when he decides to go on the offensive he has
her in a hold almost immediately. But when we're here with her arm up behind
her head when he delivers his wise mentor like advice he doesn't let her up
he goes on the offensive again throws her to the ground and when she
instinctively tries to use her powers he stops her warns her about the supreme
intelligence and only then helps her to her feet. He's already pushed her she's
already close to losing control he has made his point they could just stop here
but instead of letting her break the tension by laughing he goes on the
offensive he pushes her and he starts to attack and while she blocks him a number
of times and fights back he is just better than she is and then he
straight-up punches her in the face again and she blasts him out of
frustration which means she now has to go commune with the Supreme intelligence
not a fun time. on the first viewing it's a typical sparring with your mentor kind
of match with the impulsive rookie and the more experienced master telling her
to control herself master your emotion and then you will master yourself and
then you can beat me second viewing it's obvious that he's pushing her and
whether that's intentional and he wants her to be checked out by the Supreme
intelligence before they next have a mission or whether it's accidental it's
still a clue that maybe maybe this guy is not quite as trustworthy as we think
he is and I love it now the other thing that I love that they do is this obvious
book ending of Yon Rogg's relationship with Carol at the beginning they fight
and then she blasted by the end she knows exactly how deeply he has betrayed
her trust and what happens she blasts him same action right but what a
delicious contrast. Carol starts out impulsive and angry and arrogant but
vulnerable she photon blasts Yon Rogg out of frustration when she can't beat him
hand to hand and as soon as she does it the look on her face
is guilt shame cringe oh no I messed up and by the rules of the game they are
playing she did. she finishes with enough information to know how she has been
lied to and by whom and to unlock the full extent of her powers to the point
that she can single-handedly take on her entire former team just to buy her
allies time to escape and then throw a planet-destroying bomb back into space
in order to save the earth we start with her smacking him away in a fit of
frustration which leads to her needing to go and commune with the Supreme
intelligence we end with her blasting him in an act of cool calculation which
ends with him having to go and commune with the Supreme intelligence we start
with a fight to establish to the audience who this character thinks she
is and we end with an entirely matter-of-fact statement "I have nothing
to prove to you" because now she knows look at how she's standing look at how
she's acting, that little 'hm!' Carol has never been a shrinking violet but she is
utterly confident in herself now and confident enough not to bother.
"This is that moment this is that moment Vers! Turn off the light show and prove prove
to me you can beat me-" And confident enough to offer him her
hand albeit to drag him off to a lifeboat to be sent home in disgrace. and
this is more satisfying to me than any sparring match could possibly have been
because the sparring match is what you expect right?
A sparring match was what I expected the first time I saw this movie it is so
ingrained as a trope that I thought "oh yeah that's what's going to happen she's
going to fight him hand-to-hand and she's gonna win no because she's learned
about herself and things" nope we expect that she will take him on in an amazing
display of rule-following hand-to-hand combat which she will win because she's
the winner now. you think or at least I thought that the bookend was this fight
but no the bookend is the use of her power. the demands of the plot which is
to say Yon Rogg is not the ultimate baddy why would you bother and just
straight-up common sense over cinematic convention and it genuinely unexpected
and I loved it she starts off the movie trusting this character so implicitly
that she will wake him up at goodness knows what o'clock to spar with her she
ends the movie with people around her that she can actually trust and frankly
more important things to do than gratify the ego of this dude who is not worth it
so long Yon Rogg. she is so far above you you're not even in the same solar system
hope to see you in the sequel though! so satisfying especially the first time
around when it's a surprise and then on subsequent viewings you catch those
little moments starting two and a half minutes into the movie which hint that
everything isn't quite as you thought it was.
so sneaky. But I like it!