One of the more enjoyable 2019 movies I seen was Captain Marvel.* It is a great sci-fi flick! What makes Captain Marvel so great? She is a noble hero. Her nobility comes because out of ignorance she becomes enlightened with the truth and then takes actions to do the right thing. She defends the defenseless and opposes the oppressor. This is the redemptive element to Captain Marvel.
(Spoilers hereafter.)
Captain Marvel is set in the midst of a clash between two extraterrestrial civilizations — the Kree and the Skrull. The Skrull are being hunted down and exterminated by the Kree. To escape the genocidal Kree, the Skrull use their shapeshifting abilities to hide in plain sight, and some of them shapeshift to appear human and take refuge on Earth.
Fighting for the Kree is Vers (alias Carol Danvers or Captain Marvel). She has been endowed with superpowers from contact with energy from the Tesseract, a device containing an infinity stone, albeit the experience left her with amnesia. The Kree transform Vers into a human-Kree hybrid, and while she possesses extraordinary abilities, her superiors constantly tell her to keep the powers in check. They even implant a device in her to suppress the powers.
Vers winds up on earth in 1995 to hunt down the Skrull. It is on earth where she meets Nick Fury, an agent with S.H.E.I.L.D (Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division). Fury’s assignment is to keep her under surveillance.
It is on earth that Vers regains her memories as Airforce test pilot Carol Danvers and the events leading up to being transformed by Tesseract energy. Her eyes are open to the realization that the Kree empire was actually deceiving their people with false propaganda to spur on the masses to carry out the Skrull genocide. Having realized the truth about things, Vers turns against the Kree to defend the Skrull from annihilation. She fights as Captain Marvel, using the full potential of her powers to defend the innocent and defeat the real enemy. Not even the Kree implant designed to bind her abilities can stop her from victory.
Out of the ignorance of being duped into fighting for the evil Kree, Danvers comes to learn the truth that the Skrull were being hunted to extinction, and she takes action to correct the problem. This is what makes Captain America a nobel hero.
The same motif is played out in the Nick Fury subplot. In Captain Marvel, Fury’s eyes are open to a larger universe and future potential threats to life on Earth. “We have no idea what other intergalactic threats are out there…S.H.I.E.L.D. alone can’t protect us. We need to find more…more heroes,” says Fury. As the result of the adventure with Captain Marvel, he begins to draft the Avengers’ Initiative. Out of ignorance, he too comes to a truth about the universe, and takes appropriate action.
Both Danvers and Fury are noble because the truths they came to realize were hardly trivial but substantial, as they concerned the life and well-being of multitudes of humans and Skrull, and they took action. They came to know the truth in a way that made all the difference in the world. They never allowed apathy, fear or stakeholder interests to keep them from following through on their beliefs.
There are parallels to the noble hero Captain Marvel and the Christian life.
Christianity actually has much to say about coming out of ignorance, discovering truth, and truth making all the difference in the world for those who believe. The Apostle Paul wrote about Christians being rescued out of the domain of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of the Beloved Son (Col. 1:13). Ignorance is characteristic of the former life in darkness, but Christ’s followers have a new life characterized by righteousness and truth (Eph. 4:17-24; 1 Pet. 1:14-16). Since they were transferred out of darkness into light, they were to walk as children of Light (Eph. 5:8). Conversely, stern warnings are given to those who despise and reject the truth revealed to them (Matt. 7:24-27; Heb. 6:1-8; 10:24-31; James 4:11).
The Gospel or good news about God being incarnated in this world a Jesus Christ to save sinners and reunite them in a relationship with the Triune God of the universe is a most precious of all for the Christians. Moreover, the kingdom of God is likened to pearl of great price or treasure buried in a field both of which being so precious that a person will give everything of worth just to lay hold of them (Matt. 13:44-46). This knowing of the truth is the kind of knowing that makes all the difference in the world.
Overall, I found Captain Marvel to be a great movie for 2019 with positive redemptive elements.
— WGN
* I know Captain Marvel has been out for a while, and Avengers: End Game has already been released, so this is sort of late coming.
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