Well. I'm about to jump into some boiling water.

The "Women of Marvel" scene in Endgame...(I refuse to call it the "A-Force" scene.)

I'm not going to lie here: I didn't like it.

It's undoubtedly cool to see the ladies together but, God help me, it was cringe.

For the record, I think overly large "hero shots" are a bit much, but some do work.

The team shot from the 1st Avengers movie and the Trinity shot in BVS work well.

(This is not an invitation to discuss BVS. I will dropkick you into the sun. I'm not in the mood.)

These 2 moments work because they're emotional high points that the entire film has been building to.

The WoM scene is clunky and doesn't quite fit.

It's unearned. With the exception of Captain Marvel and *maybe* Wasp most of these women have been glorified extras.

Well, "glorified extras" may be a bit much.

But the women of the MCU are usually the "straight man" to a goofy or arrogant male protag.

In these instances she's usually smarter than he is, but that's played for a laugh. Somehow.

Or they're Gwyneth Paltrow. Boo.

On the rare occasions where there is a relatively grounded male protag she's more of a "badass" than he is, but she only gets 2 badass scenes.

Because, badass or not, she can't outshine him.

And many of these cases she's almost always a love interest.

With the exception of Captain Marvel, it's a girl gang of sidekicks.

Widow is the woman given the most agency in Endgame but she yeets herself off of a cliff for a guy and is mourned for a half a second.

I digress, when I say it's unearned this is what I mean.

These women haven't had a lot of solo development and the scene isn't an emotional high point.

One could argue the WW in BVS had no development, and fair, but the Trinity shot *is* an expected emotional high point.

She had to be there for the shot to work.

The Captain Marvel vs Thanos scene was a late addition to the film. It was added as a response to the success of Captain Marvel.

So, I'm inclined to believe that the WoM scene was a late addition too.

Both scenes don't quite fit with the rest of that battle.

The context also completely takes me out of the scene.

It centers around Captain Marvel.

1. Many of these women have no idea who she is.

2. She doesn't exactly need the help. She just destroyed a massive space crusier by herself.

I think the scene could have worked really well if it had slightly more build up.

Another 15 seconds of dialogue or CM even saying she needed backup.

"Get their attention while I make the run" or something.

But she speeds past them and does more damage than they do.

It's like when Batman pulls aggro for Superman. It makes no goddamn sense.

Unless it's Doomsday made entirely out of kryptonite there's really no reason for it.

I've tried to make this not sound like some YT bro going "Well, actually" after having shotgunned a 4th Code Red.

Because, it is a cool scene.

But a cool scene can be cringe and not work for some people.

I think it's a shamelessly unearned girl power scene.

To summarize: Bunch of sidekicks. CM doesn't really need the help. Too much Gwyneth Paltrow.

Look, I get some people will be very angry with me and some will accuse me of mocking these characters.

I'm not. I like a lot of them. I'm frustrated because I want them to have more development.

The scene would have been so much cooler if these women had been given their due.

But the MCU had 1 solo lady film in 10 years and give a scene that says "Look at all these amazing women that we ignore."

I'm allowed to be grumpy.

Oh.

There was also waaaaaay too much Gwyneth Paltrow.

Way too much.

One final thing:

Before someone accuses me of playing the franchise game or something...

I thought the whole spear thing in BVS was dumb.

Yes, yes, Death of Superman.

But, Supes, you just fought alongside someone who did more damage to Doomsday than you did.

She also currently had Doomsday in her lasso.

Take the lasso and give her the spear made out of the 1 thing that can kill you.

I knew it was going to be him, but the whole time I was mumbling "Give the spear to Wonder Woman."

I loved the rest of the fight, but emotional high points should never overrule the obvious.