Captain Marvel Directors Explain Inspiration for Skrull Camouflage

As of Tuesday, Captain Marvel is finally available to own on DVD and Blu-ray. The first Marvel Cinematic Universe movie of 2019 comes with tons of exciting bonus features, including a commentary with the film’s directors, Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck. During the movie, the two discuss many aspects of the filmmaking process, including the inspiration behind the Skrull’s camouflage.

“There are references for those Skrull transformations,” Boden explained. “Octopuses…Octopi? What are they, Octopuses? Octopi (my son would know this, he’s only four)… Octopi camouflaging themselves and the way that they can camouflage under water and we look at all these amazing images of real animals and what their bodies can do and use that as reference for these Skrull transformations.” (For the record, “octopuses” is the official term, but “octopi” is universally accepted.)

Pronunciations aside, it’s very interesting that the Skrulls’ camouflage abilities were based on animals. We love learning more about what makes the Skrulls tick in Captain Marvel, especially since they ended up being the good guys. This was a fun twist for Marvel fans, who are used to the Skrulls being villains. Skrulls were always considered an “invasive and destabilizing force” due to the fact that they are known for invading planets and using their shapeshifting abilities to infiltrate worlds. However, in the new film, they were merely victims of the Kree.

Boden and Fleck also talked about the Skrull change in the commentary, which you can read about here.

Captain Marvel stars Academy Award-winner Brie Larson (Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel), Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury), Ben Mendelsohn (Talos), Lashana Lynch (Maria Rambeau), Annette Bening (Dr. Wendy Lawson), Djimon Hounsou (Korath), Lee Pace (Ronan), Gemma Chan (Minn-Erva), Akira Akbar (Monica Rameau), Algenis Perez Soto (Att-Lass), Rune Temte (Bron-Char), McKenna Grace (Young Carol), Clark Gregg (Phil Coulson), and Jude Law (Yon-Rogg).

Captain Marvel is officially available for home viewing. Other Marvel Cinematic Universe films include Avengers: Endgame, which is still playing in most theaters, and Spider-Man: Far From Home, which lands on the big screen on July 2nd.