How Important Maria and Monica Rambeau Can Be To The MCU After Captain Marvel

How Important Maria and Monica Rambeau Can Be To The MCU After Captain Marvel

This article contains major SPOILERS for Captain Marvel, so turn back if you haven’t yet blasted off with the high-flying hero in theaters yet.

Amidst a grand introduction to the all-powerful Captain Marvel into the Marvel Cinematic Universe before the Avengers gear up for round two with Thanos, there was a subtle introduction to another key Marvel Comics superhero. Monica Rambeau, the daughter of Carol’s best friend Maria, has an intriguing history in the comics, which most certainly could be in plans to be explored in Phase 4 – that is if the MCU decides to act on those nudges and hints sprinkled throughout Captain Marvel.

So let’s recap who the Rambeau’s are in the comic books, how they were introduced in Captain Marvel and how they could tie into the MCU moving forward:

What Are Their Comic Book Origins?

In the comic books, Monica Rambeau held the title of “Captain Marvel” before Carol Danvers did when she appeared in 1982’s Amazing Spider-Man Annual #16. Danvers’ first alias was Ms. Marvel, but she did take over the name of Captain Marvel in 2012. When we meet Rambeau, she is a lieutenant for the New Orleans Harbor Patrol as a cargo ship captain. She is on board with a special device capable of tapping into energies from other dimensions, which is intended to be used to create a dangerous weapon. Rambeau aids in destroying the device, but her exposure to the energy arms her with the power of a superhero. Sound familiar?

Monica Rambeau has the power to turn into a being of pure energy, shoot energy blasts, phase through solid matter (just as Vision does) and fly. Besides Captain Marvel, the hero has also been named Photon, Pulsar and Spectrum as well. She became the first African-American female to join the Avengers, where she was mentored by Captain America and Wasp, and once took on the mantle of Avengers leader in Wasp’s place. After a fight with sea monster Leviathan, Monica’s powers became depleted, and she has sat out an Avenger’s membership for some time, but her powers did come back eventually. Her most recent team up was with the rogue superhero squad Nextwave, alongside Black Panther, Luke Cage, Blade and Brother Voodoo, who fought vampires in New Orleans.

Her mother Maria, however, has a completely different backstory than the one introduced in Captain Marvel. Maria is a successful seamstress who owns her own dress shop and is the wife of a former fireman. The mother is much more concerned parent, who, while proud of her daughter’s role as a superhero, often expresses her concerns for her safety.

How Does Captain Marvel Hint At The Characters’ Futures?

In Captain Marvel, Maria and Monica Rambeau play a large part in Carol Danvers rediscovering her identity and becoming the badass superhero she transforms into by the end of the movie. The mother-daughter duo is Danvers’ chosen family who help jog her memory when she and Fury visit them to get answers about a mysterious fighter jet crash. Maria is not a seamstress, but an Air Force pilot, and she is not a wife, but a single mother. Monica (a.k.a. Lt. Trouble) can’t help but get in on the action, help Captain Marvel with her suit and encourage her mother to be co-pilot to the final mission to set a “good example” for her. Monica already looks up to Carol, and then she becomes a superhero. I can’t help but think this is a defining moment for her that the MCU just has to come back to.

Maria’s callsign is also “Photon”– one of Monica’s superhero names. When you look at how important Carol Danvers’ callsign ended up being to the franchise (it was ‘Avenger’ and inspired Fury to name the initiative), then you know how the importance in the details. At the end of the film as Carol prepares to journey across space, they have a conversation about how Monica may have to build a spaceship of her own one day to visit her Skrull friends.

The factor of time also plays a part here. Captain Marvel is set in 1995 and Monica is eleven years old, and we know Carol will appear next in Avengers: Endgame, which takes place in present day. If Carol’s story continues after the events of Endgame, Monica would be in her mid-30s, the perfect age to fix right in with the rest of the Avengers and assume her rightful comic book role.

How Monica and Maria Rambeau Could Tie Into The MCU?

After these hints to the hero’s origin, how could the MCU not explore the Rambeau’s in future films? They are particularly close to Carol Danvers’ heart (just like Bucky Barnes is to Captain America) and could serve as the key story element to future Captain Marvel sequels (which I don't doubt is on the way considering that Earth shattering box office debut). I imagine after Endgame, Carol finds herself back on Earth and either can’t help looking the Rambeau’s up or is approached by an all-grown up Monica. While I hope Maria appears again, I don't think she'll have as vital of a role as Monica.

Considering theories that heroes such as Captain America and Iron Man will be hanging up their role post-Endgame among others, a mentorship between the characters might be part of how the franchise moves forward and starts buffing up their heroes back up as other longtime heroes head to the door. While we know little about what’s coming next for the MCU until after Endgame and Far From Home (and all plans are being held until then), the inclusion of Monica certainly hints at plans to a new generation of the Avengers, who could be completely different then the main crew we already know and how key Captain Marvel could be to the development of them.

The MCU’s continuing focus on diversity following the monumental success of Black Panther is glimmered into the DNA of Captain Marvel, as the team’s first official female African-American hero could soon take flight. The character has infinite possibilities, all the way up to becoming the next Captain Marvel and leader of the next Avengers team. I wouldn’t doubt that this is the direction the MCU is going, thanks to the subtle introduction of the Rambeau’s in the Marvel film that touches so deeply into the Avenger’s roots. Fury will certainly vouch for her.

What do you think about the potential of the Rambeau's in the MCU? Would you like to see their story continue in future movies? Would you particularly like to see Monica become Photon, the next Captain Marvel or even the leader to the new Avengers? Marvel's Phase 4 certainly has a lot of possibilities in store which will certainly become more clear after Avengers: Endgame hit theaters on April 26. Until then, feel free to share your thoughts below in the comments.

Read More

A Ton Of Thought Went Into Godzilla's Appearance In King Of The Monsters

A Ton Of Thought Went Into Godzilla's Appearance In King Of The Monsters

Given that this week’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters is the sequel to Gareth Edwards’ 2014 Godzilla, you would think that the titular lizard looks exactly the same in the new film. That isn’t the case though, at least not entirely, because Godzilla underwent a bit of a makeover for his latest epic monster clash. A lot of thought went into Godzilla’s appearance in Godzilla: King of the Monsters, as the film’s director, Michael Dougherty, explained:

His back spikes are closer in alignment to the original 1954 film. I really loved their design. They sort of almost look like frozen fire. And the thing that I’ve always believed is that Godzilla’s spikes are his literal crown. If Godzilla’s swimming straight at you, there is a great silhouette created by his spikes, and they look like a crown sitting atop his head. It was important to me that they be larger and, since five years have transpired, [I] like to imagine that, much like the antlers on deer or elk they have simply grown larger over those years.

Frozen fire is a really cool way to describe Godzilla’s spikes, and for the new movie, Michael Dougherty sought to tweak those spikes from the last film to bring them a little more in line with the monster's first big screen appearance, as he told Entertainment Weekly. That adds another nice little nod to the titan’s past in a film that has been teased as being chock full of Easter eggs for fans of the property.

Michael Dougherty also views Godzilla’s spikes as his crown, making him the titular king of the monsters. So in addition to tweaking their design, he wanted this crown to have greater prominence in his movie that sees multiple titans contend for the throne. Apparently Godzilla is still a growing lad, and in the time since the first movie, his spikes have grown even larger.

Bigger spikes just make Godzilla look even cooler and it’s quite appropriate that the spikes that form his crown have grown because heavy will be his head as he attempts to save the Earth and contends with Ghidorah for the title of king. I also really dig the idea that he’s still growing in some ways. To paraphrase another property featuring epic battles, this isn’t even his final form!

This all goes to show how much thought went in to Godzilla’s look in the film and how much Michael Dougherty cares about the property and wanted to put his own stamp on it. Godzilla’s appearance in King of the Monsters isn’t purely formal though it’s also functional. The titans get new looks when fighting and charging up for their attacks, as the film's production designer Scott Chambliss explained:

What we did was bring something new to the monsters themselves, a visual physical manifestation of how each of the monsters charge up before they let their highest voltage energy blasts rip. In our version, his breath starts down at his very base and goes up his tail, and courses through his body, and you see it kind of radiating through his flesh, and finally comes out in a big blast. It’s not that every monster has the same thing, just a different color, they’ve all got something where we see their bodies gearing up before they let go.

You can see what he is talking about in the latest Godzilla 2 trailer, in which we see Godzilla charging up to use his atomic breath. His spikes glow with blue energy starting at his tail before coursing up his back and to his head where he spits out his attack. There’s even a great humming sound that isn’t entirely different from the sound a lightsaber makes while he’s doing it.

It’s a very cool visual that shows the amount of energy Godzilla has inside him and it adds a nice build to his most potent weapon. As Scott Chambliss said, the other Titans have visual representations of their charging as well, each unique to that creature. We’ve seen Ghidorah crackling with electric energy in the trailers and presumably the ethereal glow around Mothra is her deceptively beautiful precursor to violent attack.

You can see Godzilla’s new look when Godzilla: King of the Monsters stomps into theaters on May 31. Check out our 2019 Release Schedule to keep track of all of this summer’s biggest movies.

Read More

The Toy Story Scene That Inspired Bo Peep In Toy Story 4

The Toy Story Scene That Inspired Bo Peep In Toy Story 4

The next adventure in the Toy Story franchise will reunite our hero Woody with his old flame Bo Peep. However, if you've seen any of the new trailers, you'll know that Bo Peep is going to be a very different character this time around. She's been missing in action since the events of Toy Story 2, and in those years, she's seen a lot that has changed her a great deal.

However, it has to be said, that while Bo Peep will be key to the plot in Toy Story 4, she never been particularly relevant to the story before. This means that when the story and animation team behind Bo Peep "nicknamed "Team Bo" at Pixar, began work, they didn't have a lot of previous ideas to refer to. What sort of character was Bo Peep really?

I spoke with some of Team Bo during a visit to Pixar last month and asked them what they saw in Bo Peep's previous appearances that helped inspire who she would be in the new film. Story Supervisor Valerie LaPointe, remembered one specific scene in Toy Story 2 that showed the sort of relationship that Woody and Bo Peep actually had...

I always liked the scene where Woody’s freaking out and she tells him to just look under his boot. It’s when he’s fearing that Andy doesn’t love him anymore. It’s this voice of reason that she has. And in that moment, you get this sense that they have this intimacy that he doesn’t have with Buzz. You know, she was in the room before Buzz entered so she in a way was potentially his best friend in a way that Buzz wasn’t. So I was just very curious when I came on to the project how could we explore that and stay true to that seed of her personality.

The scene in question comes early in Toy Story 2. Woody has lost his hat and he's freaking out that without it Andy won't take him along to Cowboy Camp. Bo Peep is the one that gets Woody to relax, knowing that the hat has nothing to do with Andy's love for his favorite toy. You can watch the exchange between the two as part of the clip below

The Toy Story movies are, at their heart, essentially buddy comedies starring a cowboy and an astronaut. We see Woody and Buzz Lightyear meet, learn to become friends, and work together to overcome the various obstacles that get in their way.

Woody's relationship with other toys before the first movie begins isn't really made clear, he's certainly the leader of Andy's room, but if he has close relationships with anybody, we see little of that. Valerie LaPointe saw this moment in Toy Story 2 as evidence of something deeper between Bo and Woody. It wasn't simply that the two had a romantic relationship, but that she could talk to him and get through to him in a way that others couldn't.

The other important piece of Bo's character that the team pulled from the previous films, according to Directing Animator Becki Tower was Bo's sense of humor. She's sarcastic

If Bo Peep and Woody were once truly best friends, what will seeing this old friend again mean for Woody's relationship with his current best friend? It seems that may be the central question the new film is looking to answer. We'll find out next month when Toy Story 4 arrives in theaters.

Read More

Former Bond Girl Halle Berry Has Some Suggestions For Who Should Replace Daniel Craig

Former Bond Girl Halle Berry Has Some Suggestions For Who Should Replace Daniel Craig

The next James Bond movie is currently in production and Daniel Craig is on board to play the role one more time, but once the film is over, the world will need a new James Bond. Dozens of names have been thrown around, dating back to before Craig confirmed his return. Everybody has an opinion, and that includes former Bond girl Halle Berry.

The Die Another Day actress was asked on Today who she would like see take on the iconic role after Daniel Craig steps down. She's got a pair of gentlemen she'd like to see, saying...

I’d want to see Hugh Jackman or Idris Elba. I would go for him.

Halle Berry would probably have a lot of support when it came to either of these two names. Idris Elba's name has been rumored as a Bond possibility for quite some time, there were even rumors at various points that he was in talks to take the part, but Elba continuously denied those reports.

As far as Hugh Jackman goes, we know the actor had a shot at auditioning for the role back when it was last available, but turned down auditioning because he was already working on the X-Men franchise and didn't want to get buried in two major film series at once. It's unclear if he would be at all interested now that he's done playing Logan.

If there's one major stumbling block to either of Halle Berry's choices here, it's probably age. Daniel Craig is currently 51 years old. Hugh Jackman is only a year younger than that and Elba is only slightly behind at 46. When Craig was cast he was in his late 30s and one assumes that the plan would be to cast an actor at that age, if not younger, so that they can make several more movies over the next decade or so.

Still, there's no reason James Bond couldn't be an older character. In the same way that some have campaigned to see James Bond change race or gender because, in addition to the benefit of opening up the character to a more diverse cast, it would also open up the stories that could be told, allowing James Bond to age could potentially do the same thing.

Halle Berry is potentially also one of the people interested in seeing James Bond change genders. When she's initially asked who she'd like to see take over the James Bond role, she says "a woman." While she laughs it off at first and claims she was joking, many who have suggested the same thing haven't been joking.

We almost certainly won't hear anything about the future of James Bond until after Bond 25 is released. The studio won't want to suck all the air out of the new film, so even if a replacement is already being considered, and there's no way to know if that's the case, it will likely be at least a year, and probably much longer, before we know who the next James Bond will be.

Read More

Why Star Wars Can't 'Do What Marvel Does' With Film Releases, According To Kathleen Kennedy

Why Star Wars Can't 'Do What Marvel Does' With Film Releases, According To Kathleen Kennedy

When Disney bought Lucasfilm is was made plain that the plan was to bring the franchise back in a big way. A new trilogy was announced and following that, additional films were confirmed and several others began to be rumored. It looked like Disney was getting ready to launch another massive franchise to rival their own Marvel Cinematic Universe, but now, it appears things won't be happening quite like that.

While Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker will mark the fifth Star Wars movie in five years, after that, Star Wars will be taking a brief break. The next movie, from the creators of the Game of Thrones series, will be arriving in 2022, and we'll only be getting one movie every other year, rather than getting one movie or more in a year like Marvel now does. Lucasfilm chief Kathleen Kennedy says that this is necessary, as Star Wars simply won't work the way Marvel does as a franchise...

I think there is a larger expectation that Disney has. On the other hand, though, I think that Disney is very respectful of what this is, and right from the beginning we talked about the fragility of this form of storytelling. Because it’s something that means so much to fans that you can’t turn this into some kind of factory approach. You can’t even do what Marvel does, necessarily, where you pick characters and build new franchises around those characters. This needs to evolve differently.

It's hard to imagine that this response from Kennedy in Vanity Fair isn't a direct response to the fact that the last Star Wars movie, a film designed around a set of characters picked out from the franchise, didn't do well. While Solo: A Star Wars Story still made good money in an absolute sense, it still didn't make nearly as much money as the other new films have done, and its behind the scenes issues made the film more expensive than it was supposed to be, resulting in the first Star Wars film to reportedly lose money.

It's also true that because of the way that Star Wars has existed in the past, with two, and now three, movie trilogies, each separated by decades, there's a feeling that Star Wars is something special, that it needs to be handled slowly and with care. One of the reasons that has been given for Solo's poor performance is that it was released only six month after Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and fans didn't like to see so much happening so fast.

Whether or not Star Wars is truly "fragile" and thus prevents the sort of approach that Marvel has been using or not, it does seem clear that Disney now believes that it is, otherwise you could be sure we would be getting exactly that. Kathleen Kennedy is honest about the "larger expectation" that Disney has, certainly the parent company wants to be able to do as much with Star Wars as possible because the brand is successful and that means profit for the company.

It's possible that the solution has been found in a sort of middle ground. A pair of new Star Wars series are set to debut on the Disney+ streaming service over the next couple of years, and so it could be that instead of releasing multiple movies over the next several years, the plan could be to supplement the few films we get with series like The Mandalorian.

I'm not sure that I buy that Star Wars can't work as a larger franchise. If Marvel can maintain a level of quality as it has, it certainly seems that Star Wars could as well, but if the feeling is that it needs to move slower to stay good, I'd certainly rather have fewer movies that are better.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker hits theaters in December.

Read More

Alita: Battle Angel Director Got Hundreds Of Pages Of Notes From James Cameron

Alita: Battle Angel Director Got Hundreds Of Pages Of Notes From James Cameron

James Cameron famously worked on bringing the Battle Angel Alita manga to life on the big screen for the better part of two decades, with the can getting continually kicked down the road due to development issues and Cameron's busy schedule. When the Titanic director finally handed off his passion project to director Robert Rodriguez to go hang out in the world of Pandora, he made sure that all the work he put in on Alita: Battle Angel was not for naught.

Robert Rodriguez told Digital Spy that James Cameron generously promised not to send him the 1,000 pages of notes he had done on Alita: Battle Angel, instead stating that he would only send him a meager 600 pages. Robert Rodriguez naively took this figure as a jest, only to find out that James Cameron was quite serious when a tome of notes for Alita: Battle Angel, 600 pages in width, arrived in the mail.

It just goes to show how much James Cameron cares about Alita and the ridiculous amount of work he put in over the years to get it right and bring it to the big screen. He obviously put a lot of thought into adapting the property and likely learned a ton of valuable lessons along the way.

So by giving Robert Rodriguez hundreds of pages of notes on the film, and a 15-minute presentation, artwork and story concepts, James Cameron gave Robert Rodriguez a head start and set him up for success. Robert Rodriguez ultimately was the one who directed the film, but all those notes had to help, even if they were somewhat overwhelming.

It’s like a group project in college: even if you’re the one saddled with writing the paper, it sure makes things easier when your group members do all of the research for you.

Intriguingly, James Cameron’s 600 of pages of notes, culled from 1,000, encompass a much larger vision than just one movie, as Robert Rodriguez explained:

There's like one whole document about the trilogy, because that's just part of his process. 'Here are three movies. Just so you know what to include in the first story and whatnot.'

James Cameron’s vision for Alita: Battle Angel extends beyond just one film and he already has it all laid out on paper, like what to include in the first movie and what will be saved for later. At a time when big franchises don’t always seem like they are operating with a firm plan or guiding vision in place, this is quite exciting.

The ending of the first film definitely whets the appetite to see what happens next and where the story goes. James Cameron knows the answer to that and has already mapped out a whole Alita trilogy, but whether he as producer and director Robert Rodriguez will get to tell it though is unknown.

Alita: Battle Angel is still Number 5 on the worldwide box office charts in 2019, but it’s unclear if that will be enough. Although domestic audiences did the film no favors, international box office elevated Alita’s worldwide run to $404.8 million. However, given its budget, the film may have needed $500 million to break even. So although it didn’t flop like it was suspected to, it isn’t an outright success either, making its sequel chances unclear.

If it doesn’t get a sequel, maybe James Cameron can just publish his notes as a very heavy book and we can all get a look at what might have been. If you’d like to see Alita: Battle Angel get a sequel though, it finally arrives on digital on July 9 and on Blu-ray, DVD and Ultra HD 4K on July 23.

Check out our 2019 Release Schedule to keep track of all of this year’s biggest movies.

Read More

Queen’s Brian May Thinks Bohemian Rhapsody Was Treated Poorly During Awards Season

Queen’s Brian May Thinks Bohemian Rhapsody Was Treated Poorly During Awards Season

Bohemian Rhapsody has mostly had a charmed awards season after its release in November of 2018, likely propelled along by the fact that Queen band members Brian May and Roger Taylor were actively involved in the press leading up to the release of the flick and the awards season that came after. While Brian May was actively engaged in Bohemian Rhapsody and its success, he recently revealed that the negativity from the media took a toll on him.

The actor was very blunt in his concerns about the way the awards season race is run, although he was also quick to point out that he is grateful Bohemian Rhapsody was in the conversation at all this awards season. In a lengthy post, May revealed how he felt about the long ride to the Oscars, noting:

I was, and I am, deeply grateful for our Freddie film being recognised in a way we never had the audacity to expect. But I found the public activity behind the whole awards season, and the behaviour of the media writers surrounding it, deeply disturbing. If you look at the Press and Internet discussions that took place over the last few months, you can see that 90% of it is aimed at discrediting one or other, or all of the nominated films by innuendo and smears, rather than discussing their merits and admiring the skills that went into making them. Vitriol and dishonesty, and blatant attempts to shame and influence the members into voting the way they, in their arrogance required them to.

Bohemian Rhapsody, despite being the lowest rated Golden Globes winner since Out Of Africa, stood up well against the naysayers during the latest awards season. The movie went on to win numerous accolades – most notably for Rami Malek’s performance—and even took home four statues at the recent 2019 Oscars event.

The Full List Of Oscar Winners 2019, See The Complete List.

During the Oscars, a performance from Queen + Adam Lambert really got the event off to a rocking start, and both Brian May and Roger Taylor seemed into being at the event. Apparently, that joy at performing was tempered a bit for Brian May, who revealed on Instagram that the politics and news noise surrounding awards season took a great toll.

It’s not the fault of the awards panels - they stood up well. It’s a kind of vindictive sickness that seems to have gripped public life. All through it, I’ve been biting my tongue, not wishing to influence the results of the ballots even by a hair. But, when the curtain came down, I was left with very mixed feelings

What Happened Leading Up To The Oscars

Both Green Book and Bohemian Rhapsody had to suffer through months of people complaining about how the movies didn’t fully stick to factual details concerning the real-life individuals the movie followed. For Green Book, this meant Dr. Donald Shirley was not portrayed accurately. For Bohemian Rhapsody, the focus was less on Freddie Mercury’s personal life than some would have preferred. In addition, some people were unhappy with timeline changes.

Of course, the differing takes surrounding Brian Singer’s exit from Bohemian Rhapsody, although he retained a director credit, took up some time as well.

On the bright side, Brian May did reveal after he performed at the Oscars that there was a bright spot that came from one of the people putting together the event. He mentioned of the Oscars,

The head of local production came up to me and shook my hand as we left the auditorium. He said, ‘I’ve been doing the Oscars for 40 years, and that was the best opening we ever had!’ A lovely moment.

Shortly before the Oscars aired, Brian May and Roger Taylor reacted to performing, with May noting he was ready to “make [Oscars people] proud.”

What Brian May Has Said When He Has Spoken On The Topic Before

This isn’t the first time that Brian May has spoken out regarding a lot of the criticism that Bohemian Rhapsody faced after its release. He previously said of the criticism that it has been steeped in “similar jealous righteousness” to what Queen faced when the band was producing new music. Ending on a positive note, he also said:

My feeling is … that on the whole, between Graham, and Fox, and the whole team — including DoP, Editor, Sound, crews, extras, and us — we made the right film. It makes me happy to see the fine work done by our team recognized, as it has been.

Bohemian Rhapsody may not have endeared itself to every critic out there, but at the end of the day, it certainly endeared itself to a wide swath of fans. The movie made a boatload of money worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing musical biopic at the box office ever. It's also already available on home entertainment, and was the #1 debut in those sales during its first week of release in February.

It's one of several movies this awards season that were more populist winners and went on to do quite well at the box office, including Black Panther and A Star Is Born, as well. We'll have to wait and see if this ends up being a pattern during awards season or if indie darlings will end up being the main contenders once more.

Read More