Captain Marvel Writer Meg LeFauve Explains Why the Story Embraces Failure

Captain Marvel writer Meg LeFauve explained why the story embraces failure. Most fans noticed how central that theme is to the arc of the film. Discussing Film sat down with the writer to talk about all her work thus far. Communicating the struggles of a woman superhero is a bit of a departure for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so everyone wanted to get this one right. But, in probing the story and Carol Danvers' experiences, they figured out that her overcoming was a nice through-line to establish early on. Now, that isn't easy because Captain Marvel is wildly strong when compared to her fellow Avengers. It turns out, learning how to use that strength and not apologize for it set her on the path to being an even better hero by the end of the movie. LeFauve was extremely candid, and it's interesting to see her process play out during Captain Marvel.

"I remember sending Nicole [Perlman] an article I had read about trying to teach girls coding and how they were having trouble and girls kept quitting," LeFauve began. "I said, 'Let's have a discussion about this. Why is this happening? Why are girls taught that they can't make mistakes? Why are girls taught they can't embrace their own power?' And part of embracing your power is failure, the ability to fail and see it more as feedback instead of your character. All the things that we were curious about in terms of ourselves and our friends, there were many discussions. We used a lot of our own experiences."

Last year, fellow writer Kelly Sue DeConnick talked about a much different origin for Danvers than the one in the finished film.

"In Pursuit of Flight. It was actually supposed to be that she goes back to the moment of the explosion and it's a time paradox where she's witnessing her own origin story right? So her origin story in the comics is the machine blows up and she's there," DeConnick explained to iO9. "She's being held hostage, and Mar-Vell, he picks up her body and is trying to take her out of the cave when the machine explodes, and the power of the explosion transfers his DNA into hers and (claps) she's superpowered."

"What I wanted to do is have Carol time travel, so she's in the scene where she's getting her powers," she continued. "She's there with Helen Cobb who's another pilot hero of hers, and she and Helen are watching the moment. Helen wants those powers, so she intentionally runs into the scene to be caught in the explosion. I wanted Mar-Vell to grab Helen, which would leave Carol needing to go in and rescue her younger self so that when the machine exploded it would transfer Carol's powers from Carol to Carol, so that she would become the source of her own power. So it was an intentionally feminist reboot."

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