Captain Marvel Directors Reveal Why They Made Skrulls the Good Guys

Throughout all of the Captain Marvel advertising campaign, it was made abundantly clear that the alien race known as the Skrulls would be the main antagonists of the film, with Ben Mendelsohn’s Talos leading the way. This wasn’t much of a stretch for Marvel fans, considering the Skrulls have been major villains in the comic books for some time. However, we were all deceived, as the major twist of the movie revealed that the Kree were actually the villains, and the Skrulls were simply fighting for their lives, trying to escape and live in peace.

This was a massive turn of events given the long history of the Skrulls, one that almost no fan would’ve expected going in, but it worked incredibly well for the film’s narrative. In fact, it was one of the most important parts of the movie to directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck.

Captain Marvel is now available on Blu-ray, and the home release includes a feature commentary from Boden and Fleck. When the twist of the movie finally arrives, and Talos is seen reuniting with his family, Boden explained why they wanted to turn the tables in this way.

“This is another one of those scenes, you know, besides the one you mentioned before Ryan, the scene that we shot at dusk, that’s kind of the heart of the movie to me,” Boden said. “She kind of finds her humanity in that scene. Carol finds her humanity in that scene and we really see the humanity of the Skrulls in this scene and it’s like these pointy eared weird looking shape shifting aliens that we assumed were the villains for the first half of the film and to like open up our hearts and see that they have families and they care about the same things that we care about, that was one of the really exciting things about this movie us and Jonathan Schwartz and Kevin Feige and Lou (D’Esposito) and Victoria (Alonso) and Geneva (Robertson-Dworet) who we’re writing with all got really excited about and really wanted to bring to this movie. Taking these Skrulls who’re like the villains from the comics and being able to see another side of them, and then her reckoning with warring with these people who she didn’t understand and was fighting on the wrong side of the war”

So all of those theories about the Skrulls in the MCU setting up an Annihilation storyline might not turn out to be true, but this twist did allow for some great comedic moments for Ben Mendelsohn, a muscle he doesn’t get to flex as often as he should.

What did you think about the Skrull twist in Captain Marvel? Let us know in the comments!