Since the announcement of Captain Marvel back in 2014, people have been comparing the film to Green Lantern, the infamous 2011 film that continues to disappoint seven years after its release. It's not a random comparison. The two superheroes are similar in more ways than one.
That's something the filmmakers of Captain Marvel are aware of, which is why they've made every attempt to distinguish the film from Green Lantern, as revealed by co-writer Nicole Perlman back in 2016. What that essentially means is that some of the smaller details of Carol Danvers' origins were rewritten for the film.
Audiences were finally given a proper look at the character in the recently released Captain Marvel trailer, which provided a brief look at the world, characters and story of Brie Larson's titular hero. Right now it's still anyone's guess as to what the film will be like, but one thing is clear: Aside from the obvious -- such as color, tone and all the superficial qualities -- Captain Marvel will be nothing like Green Lantern.
There may be a few apparent similarities here and there (they're both pilots inducted into a team of intergalactic enforcers), but their stories are quite different now, especially since the trailer hints that Danvers' memories of a life on Earth aren't real. The two superhero stories differ greatly in complexity, with respect to their films.
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Where Green Lantern faced off against one big, evil villain to test his strength of will, Captain Marvel seems to be going up against an entire race of aliens, the Skrull, in a delicate situation concerning the Earth and the Kree Empire. That means there's far more to test the strength and qualities of Danvers' character than just a single threat she can defeat with sufficient punching.
With both films being set at least partially among the stars, there was always the risk that people would compare the two films for their visual depictions of space and alien technology. One of the reasons why Green Lantern is so infamous is because the visual effects were just plain bad and film relied so heavily on them. Even Hal Jordan's mask was CGI.
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Thankfully, Captain Marvel's suit in the upcoming film appears to be completely real, for the most part. The film itself evidently has quite a serious tone, and everything shown in the trailer seems to have been rendered to fit that tone. You won't find any goofy looking aliens or poorly rendered light constructs in this film. Speaking of which, we haven't yet received a good, solid look at Captain Marvel's powers, which might be a good thing, indicating that Marvel is taking Danvers' character seriously and not trying to entice audiences with cheap, flashy effects.
Even if you compare the film's depiction of aliens to the world presented in Guardians of the Galaxy, you'll see that there are a lot of differences. Guardians was fast-paced and full of color, while Captain Marvel seems to be much more grounded and, visually, a little more focused.
But why all the effort? To answer that, we have to look at the history of Carol Danvers as a character and her significance in the comics.
When Carol Danvers was introduced back in the 1960s, she was written as a strong female character, which was appallingly rare at the time. Throughout her earlier stories as Ms. Marvel, she stood up against sexism and became a feminist icon. Her character was tragically misused in the 1980s in such comics as the infamous Avengers #200, and it wasn't until the 2000s that Marvel began to rectify that problem by turning her into a more prominent superhero and writing worthy stories for her.
She's more than just another superhero. If people are busy comparing the film to Green Lantern, they'll miss everything that makes Carol Danvers a great character. Making changes to her story for the adaptation ensures that people get to appreciate Captain Marvel as a singular hero with a unique story, a combination that might allow the film to ultimately have the same impact on the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Wonder Woman.
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That film's critical acclaim and box office success got audiences discussing the depiction of powerful women in mainstream cinema. It also proved to studios that female superheroes can succeed if depicted properly, which was the kind of impact Marvel was going for in the '70s.
People are slowly starting to see that Captain Marvel as a character isn't just Marvel's answer to Green Lantern. The release of the trailer has proven that the MCU's depiction of the character is so different that it no longer makes sense to compare the two, if it ever did. It's safe to say that Marvel Studios has finally distanced Captain Marvel completely from Green Lantern.
Debuting in theaters on March 8, 2019, Captain Marvel is directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck and stars Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn, Djimon Hounsou, Lee Pace, Lashana Lynch, Gemma Chan, Algenis Perez Soto, Rune Temte, Mckenna Grace, Clark Gregg and Jude Law.