How MCU complicates the idea of ​​the extraterrestrial – who owns and who does not – Entertainment News, Firstpost

For our full cover of Avengers: Endgame, click here

(Editor's note: Before the release of Avengers: Endgame, here is the fourth part of a five-part series understand the relationship between the Marvel film universe and the state of the world today.This series will seek to engage in a critical dialogue with the MCU and explain how its films are anxious in the world. Part Two and Part Three)

Here's a fun question: what is the most common denominator in the films that make up the Marvel film universe? We could say, the superheroes. But this answer is really bland and unimaginative. Think harder. If there is a theme that has always dominated the MCU, it is well the presence of an outside character.

In the MCU, this outsider takes different forms. In Iron Man 3 for example, the character of Aldrich Killian – who later turns out to be the supervillain – begins first as your outsider par excellence. He meets Tony Stark at first, where he is introduced as a nervous and mousy guy. He desperately wants to integrate. Therefore, when Stark tells him to wait outside, he does it all night and Stark never shows up. In Captain America: The First Avenger Steve Rogers is also an underdog. Slim, devoid of the conventional notion of male beauty, physically weak, he is constantly bullied and abused, and must rely on Bucky Barnes to save him. Even when he becomes Captain America, he ends up being frozen in a thick layer of ice towards the end, to be saved 70 years later. So, when he wakes up in modern times in New York, like Rip Van Winkle, he remains an outsider, unable to comprehend the tremendous societal changes that occurred while he slept.

How MCU Developed the "Alien" Idea

But at that time, the concept of outsider was very subtle within the MCU. Thor really frees things. Because with him, we are literally faced with the scenario of a "stranger" who suddenly falls to earth. In fact, this part is mentioned several times. In Avengers: Age of Ultron Tony Stark himself says how things changed after Thor landed on Earth, leading directly to Loki's last arrival in Avengers and with him , abroad Chitauri. Horde, which wreaks havoc in New York.

But if it is certainly tempting to read movies with the MCU as a direct struggle between those belonging to those who belong to those who do not, a closer look reveals that things are much more complicated. . Thor is a great example. It really does not belong. He comes from a completely different planet and yet, despite his extraterrestrial status par excellence, he is embraced by the Avengers, becomes himself a part of the team and begins to play an important role in the safeguard of the planet. This belonging of Thor to the Earth becomes so acute that the Earth becomes the last resting place of Odin, his father. He also becomes the final destination of his people towards which he is heading, after the destruction of Asgard in Ragnarok before being intercepted by Thanos.

The invasion of the Earth by the extraterrestrial horde, then the arrival of Thanos, becomes complicated when we arrive at Captain Marvel in 2019. It is about the thematic subtleties present in the first and second phase of MCU, becomes even more amplified when we come to phase 3. The very question that lies at the heart of the entire MCU taken together is: who are we? Where are we? And who does he belong to?

The Alien is complicated by Captain Marvel

Captain Marvel is a beautiful culmination of these questions that are only teased in previous films. If from Thor to Avengers the question of who we are and who belongs to is more or less simple. When Loki arrives in Avengers and in this scene in Austria where, after the opera, Loki reveals his identity and asks the people to kneel and that a person does not kneel. MCU seems to indicate that we define as human race, so we stand up against authority and totalitarianism, and the heroism inherent in all, whether it is endowed with superpowers or mere mortals.

Captain Marvel complicates the situation. By situating the film in the battle between the Kree and Skrull (the latter being first described as evil and the first as heroic), Carol Danvers believes that the purpose of her life is to defeat the Skrull. Because in the beginning, it seems like the moral thing to do. In fact, the character of Jude Law, Yonn-Rogg, as a Danvers mentor, spares no effort to remind Danvers that she must control her powers and that serving the Kree is the only thing to do, and that nothing else matters. It becomes for her the moral compbad in which she must fix herself.

Her true powers are unleashed and she only "frees herself" when she is captured by the Skrull and returns to earth to learn the truth about herself and where she belonged. We finally understand that she's never been a Kree, that she always thought that part of her life was real, that she was exactly the opposite and that her memories that she had always dismissed as mere dreams, without any real foundation, to be reality. This reversal of order also becomes the overthrow of morality; good suddenly becomes evil, and evil is good.

The idea of ​​who we are and the question of belonging becomes more complicated. The film reveals that we humans, and the idea of ​​morality is in itself a carefully constructed Russian doll, with superimposed layers. And the Us-versus-Them question is no longer as simple as binary. In fact, the characterization of Skrull is very interesting. We must note that one of the powers of a Skrull is to become someone else. Literally. In short, they change shape. It becomes even more difficult to distinguish who is who. When they take on the characteristics of a human being – like Talos and becomes the boss of Nick Fury, Keller – they become acceptable. The idea of ​​accepting someone who is not like us becomes the important moral lesson, when Fury and Danvers learn that it was the Kree who unleashed the war by enslaving the Skrull, and that they were only avenging themselves. It becomes a plea to accept the difference, be it nationality, race, bad, and we could add, even baduality

While Endgame seems to be the last of Avengers However, Marvel Cinematic Universe would continue. It would be incredibly interesting to see how Marvel develops the idea of ​​the extraterrestrial in their films. Because it seems certain at this stage, the complications in the themes that we have seen all this will only continue. The ink on this subject is far from over.

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Publication Date: Apr. 24, 2019 16:56
| Updated on Apr. 24, 2019 5:08 PM

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Date Updated: April 24, 2019 17:08:21 HIST

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