Mark Hamill Is Totally Into The First Joker Trailer

Mark Hamill Is Totally Into The First Joker Trailer

A lot of opinions are flying around out there pertaining to just what to think of the new Joker film that’s set to debut this fall. While fans of the character are certainly one of the most of the most vocal bodies of response out there, someone quite close to the character has just thrown down their two cents. And as you’ll see in the tweet below, Mark Hamill himself is very much on the accepting side of this new film.

If anyone were to pass on the torch of playing this iconic prince of crime, Hamill would certainly qualify as one such party. Portraying the character on and off through voice-over work between 1992 and the present era, Mark Hamill is synonymous with the role of The Joker, as his work on Batman: The Animated Series only further entrenched the already popular character into the pop culture consciousness. So knowing how connected he is to the role, it’s particularly exciting to see him approve of this bold move forward for the character.

Seeing Mark Hamill approve of Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker, via this post in his personal Twitter, is kind of like when Tom Holland, the director of Child’s Play, piped up with his approval of Hamill taking over the role of Chucky for the MGM branded reboot. Though a closer analogue would be if actor Brad Dourif happened to chime in with blessing, that’s the closest example we have to how cool this seal of approval really is. And it is indeed, pretty damned cool.

With Joker’s new incarnation of the character, the proceedings look like they’re going to get grittier and possibly more disturbing than we’ve ever seen before. Or at the very least, the disturbing stuff is going to hit closer to home, as the iconic world of Gotham and its most infamous villain look as grounded as when Christopher Nolan unveiled his version of the character, played by the late Heath Ledger, in his Dark Knight Trilogy.

As history has taught us, this doesn’t always go over well with folks who are as associated with a character as Mark Hamill is. But, in true Hamill fashion, you could picture the man smiling in his chair, waiting to get a load of what Joaquin Phoenix and Todd Phillips will bring to the lexicon of lunacy that Arthur Fleck is about to enter.

Joker smiles for the camera on October 4th, with Child’s Play hitting June 21st. But if you want to get some villainy or heroism into your life a lot sooner than that, you should visit our 2019 release calendar to find it.

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Doc Ock Might Be The Main Villain Of The Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse Franchise

Doc Ock Might Be The Main Villain Of The Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse Franchise

One of the things that was readily apparent in last year’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was that this property is perfectly suited to be a franchise with its own cinematic universe. Fortunately, Sony seems to agree, and a spinoff and sequel are now in development. Although the Spider-Verse franchise is just beginning, it seems that it may already have a big bad in the form of Olivia Octavius, a.k.a. Doctor Octopus.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse co-director Rodney Rothman hinted at the character’s future in the franchise, saying:

In the end, we found the movie played fine without us tagging every single possible thing. But we definitely think of Liv as someone who is not gone from the story, and who in many ways, is our most powerful bad guy. She's manipulating a lot of things to achieve her own grand ambitions.

Based on his comments to Total Film (via Screen Rant), it seems that Rodney Rothman and the filmmakers of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse didn’t want to reference too much or do too much setting up for the future, but it is clear that Doc Ock is not gone and she may have a significant place in that future. The way he describes her as the most powerful bad guy implies that he sees her as a villain with serious potential in this franchise.

This is quite the turnaround considering that co-director Peter Ramsey previously said that there was a worry at one point (before Kathryn Hahn stepped into the recording booth) that Spider-Verse’s Doc Ock was going to be too goofy and quirky to seem like a real deadly threat that Miles and audiences should be concerned about.

Rodney Rothman’s comments about Liv evoke Thanos in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Although Miles Morales has already battled with her, the idea that she is still manipulating things behind the scenes, and pulling strings with her mechanical appendages to her own nefarious ends, is very reminiscent of the role Josh Brolin’s character played in The Infinity Saga. Over time we found out Thanos’ ambitions and what he was after, and finding out Liv’s will be something to watch for as this franchise continues.

In Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Kingpin was the main villain, but the gender-swapped Doc Ock was perhaps the scariest foe Miles Morales encountered. Kathryn Hahn’s deliciously diabolical villain had a positively killer introduction where she went full mad scientist and wanted to watch Peter Parker disintegrate from being in the wrong dimension like Game of Thrones’ Qyburn wanting to keep a decapitated head for research.

Doc Ock is a formidable physical opponent in her own right, but it is her unhinged brilliance and mental game that will likely elevate her above the fray to become the franchise’s big bad. In Spider-Verse, she was the CEO and head scientist of Alchemax, and if she is really manipulating events, I could see that company playing a major role in future films.

We’ll keep you updated as Sony’s animated Spider-Verse develops, and check out our 2019 Release Schedule to see all the biggest movies heading your way in a jam-packed summer season.

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15 Best Movies To Watch On Amazon Prime Right Now

15 Best Movies To Watch On Amazon Prime Right Now

Having a streaming subscription is only as good as knowing how to use it, and in order to get the most out of a service like Amazon Prime, you need a good starting point. That’s easier said than done, as the library of films and TV options is so voluminous that you could spend a whole day just browsing.

But that’s not what you should be doing. You should be watching things, otherwise you’re just paying for a really cool slide show.

To that effect, we’re going to show you 15 of the best launchpads into the world of Amazon Prime’s moving offerings. Now these titles are subject to change, so you may want to check on the availability of these titles yourself. But at this moment, these are the 15 best movies included with an Amazon Prime membership that are totally worth the time.

A Quiet Place

Writer/director John Krasinski’s big debut behind the camera, A Quiet Place, was an unquestionable success at the box office upon its release. Taking the world by storm, this tale of an apocalypse where the slightest sound may be your last is a thrilling exercise in tension and horror. But even more impressive is how Krasinski and his actual wife, Emily Blunt, use their own real life connection to not only tie their characters together in a realistic manner, but also to include their on screen children in a similarly effective manner. It just makes this already thrilling horror blockbuster all the more believable.

Cold War

One of the best films to come out in 2018, Cold War, also happens to be an Amazon Studios original film. Its big entry into the Best Foreign Language Race of this past Oscar race, the film tells the story of a complicated romance between a music teacher and his young pupil. That love story alone is intriguing, but seeing it weave in and out of the rise of Communism in Poland between the end of World War II and the sociopolitical era it’s named after is something that only enhances the conflict between these characters in Pawel Pawlikowski’s lush directorial follow up to Ida.

The Shawshank Redemption

Just because a movie like Frank Darabont’s classic adaptation of The Shawshank Redemption has been talked up to the high heavens doesn’t mean everyone’s seen it. To that effect, it’s important that streaming services like Amazon Prime make it available, as this classic tale of hope in a time of imprisonment is always a good bet for entertainment. Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman are the two faces mostly associated with this film, but an incredible supporting roster that includes Clancy Brown, Bob Gunton, William Sadler and James Whitmore Jr. are all present to lend powerful assists in bringing Stephen King’s cherished novella to life.

The Blues Brothers

Sometimes a musical is just a musical, and sometimes it’s a car-chasing, soul singing, blues-fueled adventure like The Blues Brothers. Born out of a recurring musical act/gag featured on Saturday Night Live, John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd star as Jake and Elwood, two orphaned brothers with a taste for mayhem. The story is technically about the boys trying to raise enough money to keep their childhood orphanage open, but don’t let that fool you. Director John Landis’ film is just as much about keeping the songs and celebrity cameos coming as it is about saving the day.

Eighth Grade

It’s an odd bit of symmetry knowing that writer/director Bo Burnham made a film about a young girl trying to become YouTube famous in her last days of middle school. Eighth Grade tells us that story through the eyes of Kayla, actor Elsie Fisher’s lead character in Burnham’s film. But knowing that Burnham became a sensation through the platform only lends more credence to his story about a young person trying to strike the very same sort of success, and why maybe it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. No matter what age you are or what era you grew up in, this movie hits home hard.

The King of Comedy

As the new Joker film seems to be pulling a lot of influence -- and possibly even lifting whole plot points -- directly from Martin Scorsese’s The King of Comedy, it’s a good time to experience one of the legendary director’s lesser-known films. With even Robert DeNiro himself stating that this film feeds pretty heavily into the DNA of Joker, this film will set you up for what could be one of DC’s most experimental films ever. But even without the connection to that new film in the DC Comics line of cinematic storytelling, it’s a damned treat to watch DeNiro’s Rupert Pupkin go from mere daydreaming to full-blown psychosis, under the trusted hand of one of his most trusted collaborators.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is a rather interesting title to discuss, as it’s an intersection between two subjects we’ll discuss in this rundown. Much like The King of Comedy, it has ties to a more modern version, thanks to The Hustle being a remake of this very film. On top of that fact, director Frank Oz’s ‘80s comedy classic is a remake itself of the David Niven/Marlon Brando comedy romp Bedtime Stories. So substitute Niven for Michael Caine, Brando for Steve Martin, and unleash this combination on the French Rivera, in the name of racing to a $50k swindle that proves who runs the show and who’s got to go. That’s Dirty Rotten Scoundrels on paper, but the execution is so beautiful to behold on screen.

The Big Sick

Real life can be funny, but it can also be pretty sad. Both are pretty powerful emotions and they’re difficult to nail when taking a true story like The Big Sick and bringing it to the big screen. Based on the real life courtship of writers Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon, and how a mystery illness brought them closer together, this particular story understands the balance between those emotions perfectly. The funny and the sad radiate throughout this film with beautiful clarity, creating a film that truly understands the humanity in its source, while still being quite entertaining.

Kick-Ass

Without Kick-Ass’s success, we probably would have never gotten X-Men: First Class or either of the Kingsman films to feast our eyes on. That’s because director Matthew Vaughn honed his comic adapting skills on this indie book, showcasing a normal high school kid’s rise into a street-level vigilante. Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Chloe Grace Moretz made a pretty big splash as the high school kid who gives the film its name, and the young Hit-Girl who becomes a friend and sidekick to Kick-Ass’s crime fighting crusade. But if you’re a Nicolas Cage fan, you’ll want to partake in this particular film, as it has one of his best performances to date.

Hereditary

Horror movies live and breathe on word of mouth, quite possibly more than any other genre out there. While we all want that occasional good scare, we also want to know if said scare is going to be within our comfort zone before taking the trip. As such, when a film like Hereditary is talked about to the extent that it did during last summer’s box office heatwave, that sort of hype can be scary in and of itself. But you shouldn’t fear Ari Aster’s slow burning film, as it ramps up to the truly terrifying stuff in such a way that you’re freaked out, but you’re only jumping out of your seat every so often. Think less of a jump scare parade and more of an atmospheric dimming of the lights of safety, and you can begin to understand what Hereditary has in store for you.

The Thomas Crown Affair

Good luck creating a remake as awesome as The Thomas Crown Affair. Two years before Oceans’ Eleven would take another piece of ‘60s pop culture and turn it into a sharp and witty ride for the new millennium, director John McTiernan got the jump on the game and made a caper as sexy as it is funny. Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo anchor the tale of a millionaire who steals things for the fun of it, and the investigator who wants to make him pay in the name of the hunt. Though with all of those elements acknowledged, Michael B. Jordan’s proposed remake of this very same film does have a good chance of bringing this particular property back into the pop culture fold in similar style.

The Birdcage

It’s not easy to adapt a stage play into a film, much less remake that adaptation into something equally as funny as it source. And yet, La Cage Aux Folles not only translated perfectly into its initial French film offering in the ‘70s, it also made the comedic genius that was The Birdcage. When your cast consists of a comedic battle royale that includes Robin Williams, Nathan Lane, Gene Hackman and Dianne Wiest, it’s up to the creative team to screw things up. Not only did the legendary team of director Mike Nichols and writer Elaine May deliver the perfect playground for all of these legends to play ball in, they dropped Hank Azaria in for an extra dose of spice.

Child’s Play

Yes, that Child’s Play remake is happening this year, and if it does well, we’ll have another variant of Chucky to run and hide from in pop culture. As the prospect of Mark Hamill being the newer, more digital Chucky is pretty damned exciting, it’s still going to be hard not to think back to the original film. That’s not a knock to the Child’s Play for the modern era, but Brad Dourif’s original incarnation is still pretty iconic, and always worth a revisit; especially in the pre-comedic state that this very first film embodies so perfectly.

Cloverfield

While it was released a little over a decade ago, Cloverfield still has a pretty strong following of fans and theorists that dig into its humble origins for clues to the future. What started as a clever viral marketing sensation became yet another franchise that has spurred on a fresh round of detective work with each passing film. And no matter how many sequels are made, it all seems to lead back to this modern legend.

Arrival

The 2016 sci-fi hit Arrival made a huge name for itself as a contender for Best Picture in its Academy Awards class, but the film seems to be settling into a newer, bigger role since its upsetting loss. Director Denis Villeneuve’s tale of linguistics in a first contact scenario seems to be on the track to becoming a classic, as the beauty of its story is only outdone by the perfect performances from Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner and a supporting cast of notables. Just be prepared to cry more than a little while watching this one.

Amazon Prime has a ton of options for anyone looking to entertain themselves through the medium of the movies. So when you’ve exhausted your best options on this list, don’t forget to venture deeper into the waters the company provides. You might just find a new, lesser-known favorite that’s dying to get its moment in the sun.

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Emperor Palpatine Might Not Be The Only Surprise Star Wars Character Returning For The Rise Of Skywalker

Emperor Palpatine Might Not Be The Only Surprise Star Wars Character Returning For The Rise Of Skywalker

Up until a little over a week ago, the biggest Star Wars alumnus who was set to return to a galaxy far far away through Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was Billy Dee Williams, playing Lando Calrissian for the third time on the big screen. Then the first Rise of Skywalker trailer capped off with Emperor Palpatine’s sinister laugh, and it was confirmed soon after that Ian McDiarmid is reprising the hooded Sith Lord.

You’d think that nothing could surpass the man also known as Darth Sidious somehow being thrown into the Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker mix, but a new rumor is out claiming that there’s an even bigger character return on the horizon. Just to be safe, those of you who don’t want to be potentially spoiled heavily on Episode IX might want to turn back now. I’ll give you a moment…

Are the rest you settled in? Okay, supposedly Harrison Ford is back as Han Solo, who we last saw being killed by his own son, Ben Solo, a.k.a. Kylo Ren, in The Force Awakens.

Making Star Wars claims to have heard from multiple sources that Han Solo will have a role in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, although it’s difficult to 100% piece together how he’ll be used. According to the outlet, Han will appear in a sequence with his Kylo Ren in what is described as a “surprise intervention of sorts.”

Remember in The Force Awakens when Kylo Ren was talking to the charred Darth Vader helmet? This sequence between Han Solo and Kylo Ren might take place when the latter is conversing with his grandfather’s helmet again. But here’s where things get extra weird. Luke Skywalker is said to be the “twist” of this encounter, and rather than being a traditional Force ghost, Han is part of a “vision” or “dream” type moment that Luke brings forth.

The report also notes that the sequence has a “tone of forgiveness and understanding to it,” with Han solo telling his son that “it isn’t too late.” Whether this is really Han speaking from the great beyond or just a simulation that the also-deceased Luke has conjured, it fits that he’d be wanting to draw his son back to the light since that’s what he died doing in The Force Awakens.

Needless to say that the above information is anything but official, so for now, take it with a grain of salt. However, assuming all of this is true, it also remains to be seen if Kylo Ren will cross back to the light side or if he’ll ignore Han and Luke, and continue being an agent of the dark side.

Before The Force Awakens came out, Harrison Ford hadn’t been shy taking about how he’d wanted Han Solo to die in Return of the Jedi, and over 30 years later, he got his wish and the beloved smuggler finally bit the dust. While Alden Ehrenreich did play a younger Han in Solo: A Star Wars Story, most have logically assumed that The Force Awakens would be the last time we’d ever see Ford in the role. But if this new rumor proves legitimate, then fingers crossed that Ford’s true last performance as Han is a worthy and emotional inclusion for the last chapter of the Skywalker Saga.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker opens in theaters on December 20, so keep checking in with CinemaBlend for more coverage about it. For now, you can learn what this year’s other big movies are arriving by looking through our 2019 release schedule.

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New Once Upon A Time In Hollywood Trailer Has Bruce Lee, Playboy Bunnies and More

New Once Upon A Time In Hollywood Trailer Has Bruce Lee, Playboy Bunnies and More

With Quentin Tarantino’s latest film Once Upon A Time In Hollywood debuting today at the Cannes Film Festival, there’s a new call from the director himself not to spoil the picture for the public who have yet to see the film. As if to shower the general public who have yet to see the film with some more love, Sony has released a new trailer for the long anticipated 9th film of Tarantino’s 10 film limit. The results are as hilarious and nutty as you could expect, and you can see them for yourself below:

The story of Once Upon A Time In Hollywood shows Leonardo DiCaprio’s character, Rick Dalton, starting to slip into a professional slump. With his worries of being a has-been in full gear, it’s up to his stunt double Cliff Booth, played by Brad Pitt, to try and lift his spirits. Though the friends look to have trouble headed their way, as Sharon Tate, Bruce Lee, and The Manson Family are all about to make their lives a lot more complicated.

Interestingly enough, this second look at Once Upon A Time In Hollywood shows us more glimpses of Margot Robbie’s performance as Sharon Tate, the actress whom the Manson Family would claim as a victim in the true history that this film seems to be playing around with. But as we all know, and have been reminded by Quentin Tarantino’s sly Inglorious Basterds nod through Rick Dalton’s film career, history is something he loves to mess around with.

Between the theories that Once Upon A Time In Hollywood will actually prevent this infamous murder from happening, plus the chairman of Sony Tom Rothman talking up the spoilerific ending that the film needs preserved, we’re inclined to believe that this ninth film is going to be as bonkers as the eight that came before it. And that’s meant as high praise.

Leonardo DiCaprio looks like he’s having the time of his life in this movie, and pairing him with Brad Pitt is one of those historical events that you wish would have happened a whole lot sooner. But no matter how long we had to wait for it, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood actually went and did it, and history is presumably all the better for it.

With a colorful cast that includes Al Pacino, Kurt Russell, Dakota Fanning, Timothy Olyphant, and the late Luke Perry, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood has a lot of promise in what we’ve seen so far, but promises a lot more once audiences unwrap the experience for themselves. So be sure to uphold that spoiler ban, you viewers at Cannes!

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood kicks its way into theaters on July 26th.

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Why DC Is Making An Aquaman Spinoff About The Trench, According To The Producer

Why DC Is Making An Aquaman Spinoff About The Trench, According To The Producer

DC's live-action universe has had plenty of peaks and valleys, although the massive property seems to be on the upswing lately. Warner Bros. is currently surfing on the massive success of James Wan's Aquaman, which cleaned up at the box office, on top of being a critical success. We'll have to wait a few years for the film's sequel to arrive in 2022, but there's another underwater adventure in development by the studio: the spinoff The Trench.

The Trench sequence was one of the most visually fascinating aspects of Aquaman, as James Wan's horror roots briefly reached the surface of the aquatic blockbuster. So fans were delightfully surprised when Warner Bros. green-lit a spinoff for the dark sea setting. Producer Peter Safran recently spoke to the decision to dive deeper into into The Trench with a spinoff, revealing:

We always, even from the early concept art days, loved the idea of a Trench movie. Then, when audiences embraced it in the movie itself the way they did, particularly that ant farm shot where the camera follows the Trench [creatures] following Arthur and Mera down into the deep, we just knew that we had something very special there and we knew what that movie should be. And consequently, I suspect that that’s one that will come out significantly before Aquaman 2.

Audiences may have been surprised, but it seems like the the groundwork for The Trench movie was being laid during the release of Aquaman. It ended up being audience engagement that made the spinoff truly become a reality. And as a reward to the fandom, they'll get another movie set in Aquaman's world before the film's actual sequel arrives in theaters.

Peter Safran's comments to THR illuminate the thought process going on at Warner Bros. regarding the future of the DC live-action universe. DC seems to be taking a much different approach than the competition over at Marvel Studios. Rather than revealing entire slates of movie scheduling, Warner Bros. can adjust its programming based on fan reception and box office performance. It feels like there's an exciting momentum in the shared universe, in stark juxtaposition to its state after the disappointing performance of Justice League.

The Trench is a mysterious part of the lore established in Aquaman. They're amphibious monsters who separated from the Atlantean Kingdom years ago. They attacked Mera and Arthur on their journey, before eventually joining their cause in an epic underwater battle against King Orm. It should be interesting to see how The Trench is expanded, and where in the overall timeline the spinoff will be set.

But perhaps the most important question is whether or not the great Julie Andrews will be back to play Karathen in either The Trench or Aquaman 2. Her inclusion in the first film was a delightful surprise, and she brought a ton of power to the behemoth creature.

Aquaman is available for digital download now, and you can purchase a physical copy on March 26th. In the meantime, check out our 2019 release list to plan your next trip to the movies.

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Captain Marvel Really Fumbled Two Important Characters And We Don't Get Why

Captain Marvel Really Fumbled Two Important Characters And We Don't Get Why

Warning: SPOILERS are ahead!

Just because Captain Marvel is set in 1995, 13 years before the modern events of the Marvel Cinematic Universe unfolded, doesn’t mean that the movie didn’t have ties to other corners of this superhero franchise. Unquestionably the biggest example of this was pairing Nick Fury with Carol Danvers and showing how the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent learned about superheroes and aliens, as well as how he lost his 20/20 vision. But he wasn’t the only familiar face who appeared in Captain Marvel: Guardians of the Galaxy villains Ronan the Accuser and Korath the Pursuer also popped in during Carol’s origin story. The movie could have been a platform to make both of those characters more interesting, but unfortunately, it failed to accomplish this.

It’s been nearly five full years since we first met Lee Pace’s Ronan and Djimon Honsou’s Korath, with Guardians of the Galaxy showing the latter serving the former in his quest to wipe out Xandar. Since Korath was Guardians of the Galaxy’s tertiary antagonist, it was hardly surprising that he wasn’t fleshed out during the movie, but even though we knew about Ronan’s radicalism and his disgust with the Kree empire signing a peace treaty with Xandar, he failed to come off as a fascinating villain. Ultimately both those characters were killed by the Guardians, and so naturally it was assumed for years that’s the first and only time we’d ever see them in the MCU.

Then it was announced around this time last year that younger versions of Ronan and Korath would appear in Captain Marvel, which made sense given that like her comic book counterpart, Brie Larson’s Carol’s origins are tied to the Kree. Since Captain Marvel takes place a little over two decades before Guardians of the Galaxy, that’s enough time for these two to be portrayed at least slightly differently than they were before. More importantly, Captain Marvel could foreshadow how these two are put on the path that ends with them being Kree outcasts set on destroying an entire planet.

So what does the movie do with Ronan and Korath? Well, Korath is a member of Starforce alongside Carol, Yon-Rogg, Minn-Erva, Att-Lass and Bron-Char. Outside Korath talking about his experience with facing down a Skrull and the other members joking at the beginning of Captain Marvel about how he’s humorless, which Korath strongly denies (he laughs, just on the inside), he doesn’t get any focus. He’s with the other Starforce operatives as they carry out their missions on Torfa and Earth (the latter including Mar-Vell’s base in orbit), but there’s nothing that particularly highlights him compared to his Kree partners other than Yon-Rogg. Minn-Erva arguably stands out more because at least she was gunned down by Maria Rambeau while chasing after Carol.

As for Ronan, we find out why he’s called the Accuser: because he was part of the of the same-named division of the Kree military, which would see him ordering warheads to be dropped on planets to wipe out the enemy Skrulls. Although there’s a official still of Ronan in the same room as the Starforce, in the final Captain Marvel cut, he never had any direct face time with them. Instead, he communicated with the team over hologram, first blaming Yon-Rogg for their failure on Torfa and then arriving to Earth after Yon-Rogg contacted him about eliminating Talos and the other Skrulls. Still a dutiful servant of the Kree empire at this stage of his life, Yon-Rogg ordered that Earth be bombed, but the fully-powered Carol Danvers destroyed the warheads and one of his ships, prompting him to order a retreat and declare that he would return to capture Carol and use her as a weapon.

Given how things turned out for Ronan in Guardians of the Galaxy and that Carol Danvers is alive and well in the present day, obviously he didn’t fulfill this promise, but that’s beside the point. The point is that Captain Marvel failed to effectively use Ronan and Korath. Obviously these two were never going to be the most important players in this movie, but it’s a problem when you could replace either of them with other characters, be they also from the Marvel Comics pages or original creations, and the story wouldn’t be any different. There was nothing about these younger depictions of Ronan and Korath that made them more compelling.

Ronan in particular suffers as a result. Xandar doesn’t factor into Captain Marvel whatsoever, but it still would have been great if something laid the groundwork for Ronan to become the zealot we met in Guardians of the Galaxy. Maybe something could have happened during his mission on Earth that made him realize the Kree empire, more specifically the Supreme Intelligence, is not infallible. Instead, he’s just as loyal to his Kree superiors at the end of the movie, and now we’ve been teased about a goal of his that we probably won’t ever see. Although a hypothetical Captain Marvel 2 could take a page from Wonder Woman 1984’s book and be set in the interim decades between when she left with the Skrulls and when she returned post-Decimation, but that hasn’t even been rumored yet.

In Korath’s case, it would have been nice to learn how he became affiliated with Ronan, because while the two of them do technically share screen time since Korath is near Yon-Rogg as the Starforce leader talking with Ronan over hologram, Korath and Ronan never actually interact with one another. Korath presumably already knew about Ronan by reputation, but we get no sense in Captain Marvel in why Korath would be willing to abandon the Kree empire to serve Ronan years later. Maybe Starforce’s failure to eliminate the Skrulls and bring back Carol Danvers resulted in Korath, Yon-Rogg and the surviving members being demoted, which could lead to Korath’s own disillusionment, but there’s absolutely no hint of that by the time the credits roll.

Captain Marvel did a good job of telling Carol Danvers’ origin story, revealing how Nick Fury started to become the badass spymaster we know best, and delivering a welcome twist by not depicting the Skrulls as pure evil. Unfortunately for Ronan and Korath, they were underserved in the story, and their actions here don’t do anything to improve how they were shown in Guardians of the Galaxy. It was definitely a wasted opportunity.

Let us know what you thought of how Ronan the Accuser and Korath the Pursuer were used in Captain Marvel below. While it remains to if we’ll ever see these incarnations of the characters ever again, Carol Danvers will be back for Avengers: Endgame on April 26.

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