Coulson's presence during the Kree-Skrull War in The '90s may seem inconsistent with his lack of knowledge on the former during the early seasons of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. It turns out in this film that he never actually met them and he can only trust Fury's words about them since Fury is the one who met them.
Not to mention that all his knowledge of the "Guest Host" Kree corpse and the biotech derived from it were wiped out of his brain when he was "resurrected."
Since the movie is a 90's period piece that features a younger Nick Fury as a supporting character, Fury's line in the original Iron Man movie about Tony not being the only superhero in the world takes on a whole new meaning. Similarly, Coulson stating that the events of Iron Man isn't his "first rodeo" likely takes on a different meaning since he's involved with the events in this movie.
In Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), after learning that Gamora was beaten by Star-Lord, Ronan noticeably calls Quill a cretin. This can easily be taken as Ronan having a low opinion of humans, who are seemingly viewed in the intergalactic community as inferior. However, considering in this film Carol seems to betray the Kree, it's likely that his experience with her has left him with a noticeable dislike for her species.
Fury compares Carol's Kree armour to laser tag gear. Considering that Carol belongs to an alien race that is in constant combat with the Skrulls (a race that are in possession of laser weaponry), their armour is probably built to withstand laser gun shots. With that in mind... Fury's not technically wrong.
Although Fury has no experience with the Kree or the Skrulls, Carol showing her power does prove she isn't a Skrull in a way. Although Skrulls are powerful physically, they have to hide and blend into society to influence the world while Carol wouldn't have to because of her powers. Also, her showing her powers to Fury is a way to gain trust by showing and not hiding her capabilities and showing she doesn't have to hide. It also makes the point that if she were his enemy she could have easily taken him down by now.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier revealed that Nick Fury had an intact if non-functioning eyeball under the eyepatch, hinting that the Eye Scream isn't nearly as gruesome as it could have been (worth noting is that a past version of Nick Fury played by David Hasselhoffused the empty eye socket to hide C4). Turns out it was literally just a scratch.
On a related note, Fury saying he lost his eye the last time he trusted someone may seem a bit odd now that we know what actually happened. But think about it: he probably trusted that Goose wouldn't hurt him as they were friendly with each other, and Goose betrayed that trust. So he's still right...it's just not as serious as he made it sound.
The fact he lost his eye in such a manner also explains his Crazy-Prepared mind set: The last thing he expected was for Goose to be an alien, and it was even less expected that Goose would attack him in such a manner after they worked together. Having been caught unaware twice in such a short timespan would leave anyone a little paranoid.
On the subject of Captain America: The Winter Soldier... fans have joked and complained about how similar Carol Danvers seems to Steve Rogers, before the movie's release, but her final confrontation with Yon-Rogg highlights a major difference between the two characters. Early in CATWS, one insignificant lackey quips to Steve, "I thought you were more than a shield," and Steve takes the bait, pausing his rescue mission of 20 hostages to prove he can beat this henchman without his shield and helmet. In the first CA film, Bucky even says sarcastically to pre-Serum Steve, "Because you got nothing to prove," highlighting one of Steve's major motivations. But with Carol, it's Yon-Rogg, someone who she has an important personal history with, who tries to taunt her into putting aside her powers. He reminds her that she has never, in all these years, beat him without her powers, and then begins a dramatic speech—that wouldn't be out of place in a Captain America movie—about how this is her one chance to prove she can win a fair fight. Carol blasts him mid-sentence, and says loud and clear, "I don't have to prove anything to you." It could have been interesting to see that fight, even with Carol still speaking those words before/during/after beating Yon-Rogg (without the special powers)...but by NOT taking the bait and simply blasting him away, she is finally able to not just suppress her emotional reflexes in the moment.
In short, she is not just Captain America with breasts... unless perhaps this ability to put aside one's pride, and/or to keep one's ego independent of one's fists, is a gender-related difference.
Or a cultural one, given the radically different time periods each character grew up in. The bigotry Steve could've faced "pre-serum" in the 1940s (he almost certainly would've been targeted by the eugenics movement) could certainly have been far worse than the casual sexism Carol is seen putting up with; however, we just don't see it. Pre-serum, Steve's motivations are seen as purely personal and not as a feared "if I don't fight this war, I will be killed off for being too weak and small, as will everyone around me who is also weak and small"...mostly because he doesn't see himself as such. He, in fact, basically has a catch-phrase of "I could do this all day". And after he's thawed, we don't really see anyone challenge his outdated views of heroism or masculinity. Instead, he's usually praised for it. Carol is seen dealing with casual sexism in the film, both in civilian life and in exposition about her and Maria's Air Force training in the 1980s; however, even in 2020, the U.S. military has a major problem with sexual harassment/assault and general sexism that could have been explored more in the film had it not needed explicit military approval on scripts.
Also, Carol's come to realize her powers are now a part of her, there's no separating them. After unlocking her full potential, she's able to take a blast from a Kree fighter to the chest with no reaction (other than gleeful surprise she's not dead), and strong enough to punch her way through a Kree battleship, and later on Sanctuary II. These abilities would have let her flatten Yon-Rogg in a fistfight, but it would have taken a bit more time, and more importantly, she'd be playing his game by his rules. Carol's on a whole other playing field now, and has no need to stoop to Yon-Rogg's level to prove a point.
More Fridge Brilliance: Both Captain America and Captain Marvel were trained with heavy doses of war propaganda. But with Steve, that propaganda was more honest, since America was fighting the war for just reasons. Being a world-renowned war hero and icon of moral purity is also sure to go to one's head. Carol, on the other hand, was misled into straight up working for bad guys. The blow this delivered to her world view, combined with the fact that her allies were all telling her she was wrong, would obviously help her develop better self-reflection skills than someone in Steve's position. In fact, it's not until Captain America: The Winter Soldier, when Fury is first on his way to showing Steve the helicarriers, that we see Steve and Fury grappling with "some shady stuff" Fury knows U.S. military did in WWII...even though we were the "good guys" and it was ultimately a "just war".
Carol received her abilities from an explosion of a lightspeed drive powered by the Tesseract itself. Not only is she empowered to the point she can handle it and play around with it with no protection, as The Avengers (2012) ("You can't defend against yourself") and Avengers: Infinity War showed, if the energy signature of just one Stone matches hers, she can destroy it and other Infinity Stones all by herself which is why she is there to help defeat Thanos in Avengers: Endgame.
Fridge Humour or Heartbreaking, depending on your sense of humour: Fury and the director both look under the sheet at the dead skulls genitals, but the Director is actually Talos. Humorous interpretation: He was forced to look at his fellow soldier's genitals to keep up the act. Heartbreaking interpretation: He's having to go along with the desecration of the body of one of his oldest friends, as evidenced by his private mourning ceremony when he's alone with the corpse, just to preserve his cover.
In this film the Kree are ruled by the Supreme Intelligence, a genocidal, warmongering A.I., while in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) they are ruled by an Emperor pacifist enough to sign a treaty putting an end to the war between the Kree and Xandar. At first glance this seems like a retcon or a discrepancy... until one remembers the message Carol sends back to Hala with Yon-Rogg, to put an end to the Supreme Intelligence and its wars. By all appearances, Carol will make good on her threat before 2014.
It also places a new spin on why the Kree would now be willing to sign a peace treaty with one of their ancient enemies, and why Ronan would have been willing to go rogue in order to continue the war. Presumably, Carol has been a very big problem for the Kree Empire over the last ~25 years, possibly to the point that they can't continue the war even if they wanted to.
It could also be that the Emperor is just a physical form that the Supreme Intelligence takes to commune with outsiders, taking a generic Kree form with instead of tailoring its appearance to please its viewer, because the Kree are fantastic racists who wouldn't care whether or not other races are at ease in its presence, instead just taking an appearance that represents the Kree with diginity.
The Marvels would later reveal that Carol killed the Supreme Intelligence, meaning that the Kree Emperor was the new ruler of the Kree in the aftermath of the SI's destruction.
On the train, Carol is shown punching a Skrull posing as an old lady in the face. To the passengers, it looked like Carol was attacking an innocent person. The fact that we saw said Skrull show his manners when boarding the train (letting said old lady off before boarding) foreshadows the real twist that the Skulls are innocent people, and the Kree, represented here by Carol, are actually the aggressors in the war.
In a meta sense, Mallrats was one of Stan Lee's first movie cameos, so it makes sense that a movie going back to the origins of the Avengers Initiative also goes back to the origins of Stan Lee's legacy of cameos.
Carol gives Stan Lee a little smile and stares at him a suspiciously long time. Maybe she knows he's an informant of the Watchers?
Since she was with Yon-Rogg when they first abducted Carol, one realises that Minn-Erva probably only thinks of Earth as a "shithole" because she only knows it as the planet that helped Mar-Vell save the Skrulls from the Kree empire, and thus she only thinks of the Terrans as technologically-lesser enemies to the Kree.
Ronan's shock when Star-Lord does his Dance-Off is more meaningful now he has seen just what a single 'human' is capable of. And almost 20 years later, another human uses the power of another Infinity Stone against him. No wonder he is in full on "This Cannot Be!" mode; poor guy got some really shitty luck to go up against people like that from such a lesser species.
Animal inflicted injuries, and especially cat scratches, tend to get rather infected if not properly treated. Nick Fury seems to have waited to get his eye treated. So it wasn't the scratch that took his eye but the subsequent infection. Even with this explanation, Fury's initial apathy towards the scratch and Talos' concern are both still valid; Fury probably thought he had time to get back to Earth to disinfect it, and make sure that his eye was fine, but bacteria from alien life probably works faster than the stuff from Earth, a fact Talos probably knew.
Yon-Rogg mentions he gave Vers a blood transfusion to save her life. In Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Kree blood can be used to heal any human wound, up to and including death. This process also sometimes gives the human some of the Kree's last memories, which might explain some of Carol's bad dreams.
Of course Mar-Vell would have a flerken as a pet. It doubles as a guardian for the Tesseract. As the movie shows, not only can it defend itself, it can also swallow the Tesseract whole in case of emergency and spit it back out just fine.
Notice you don't see a Skrull kill a person after taking on his or her form. In fact, you don't see them harm human bystanders or take hostages. They will only harm/kill you if you stand in their way, or interfere in their mission. That's because they are not really bad guys.
Carol not taking Yon-Rogg up on his offer to trade hands not only shows her refusal to earn his approval but is also a smart move because Yon-Rogg has shown twice in the movie that he is superior to her in hand-to-hand combat and curb-stomped her in a real fight. Not using her powers would put her at an unfair disadvantage because they wouldn't be equals. Without her powers, Yon-Rogg is still much more experienced in combat.
The situation of the Skrulls makes sense considering how the MCU seems to follow an abridged version of the comics timeline. Following Civil War, we have had Annihilation, World War Hulk, and finally Secret Invasion. Not many of the characters featured in Annihilation were featured in the MCU (and what few were did make it into Infinity War), Sakarr didn't get destroyed, which was the entire reason why the Hulk declared war, and lastly, the Secret Invasion involved Skrulls impersonating characters for who knows how long. Given how doing a Secret Invasion storyline would mean undoing a lot of character development (or justifying them in certain cases), especially given how long ago this movie takes place, it's pragmatic to have the Skrulls not get involved.
It would make sense for the Kree not to hold Carol (as Vers) in high regard. It makes sense that she had problems controlling her emotions, but not only does it turn out she's not actually one of them, but that she was also affiliated with a traitor.
The Avengers initiative really was the intended first response to any possible extra-terrestrial species bringing their conflict to Earth after Fury witnessed the Kree-Skrull war first hand. It only got put on the backburner when, at the time of Thor's fight with the Destroyer, the only viable candidates at the time were Bruce, Tony, and Steve. The former two were untrustworthy at the time, given the Hulk's nature as a wildcard and Tony's self-destructive nature, while Steve was in recovery. Until Loki came to Earth personally at Thanos' behest, Fury simply decided it would be best to be Crazy-Prepared by developing energy based weapons to defend Earth with, in the event that the Avengers initiative didn't work out and Carol was too far away to help.
For those wondering why quinjets are called quinjets, the lights might finally come on after seeing this film. The characters fly in a prototype called the quadjet, which has four engines (two in the rear and two in the wings) as opposed to the five quinjets have (three in the rear and two in the wings).
The episode "Who you really are" of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. had already introduced a Kree weapon that allows its user to erase memories from a subject. Not create new Fake Memories, just delete the old ones and leave the subject with amnesia. This fits perfectly with the events of the film, and may be the same technology used on Carol. In fact, it would also explain why the Kree didn't reinforce their hold on Carol by giving her fake memories of a life in Hala.
When Carol arrives on Earth, she wonders if her Translator Microbes are working, but doesn't look further into it after successfully communicating with the security guard. This gives her a handy excuse in the narrative for not realizing that she already speaks the local language, saving the revelation that she's human until later.
While it isn't said when and how Mar-Vell got the Tesseract after Howard Stark found it, it is possible that she revealed her secret to Howard and he entrusted the Tesseract to her because he knew HYDRA had infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. and knew the Tesseract was safer away from Earth.
The explosions resulting from Carol destroying the Kree Ballistic Missiles seem weirdly muted for weapons that are meant to devastate entire continents, until one considers that Carol intercepted them high in the atmosphere, so the warheads probably hadn't armed themselves yet and the explosions solely the result of the missiles' propulsion systems blowing up. Also, high in the atmosphere, there's less oxygen, ergo smaller fireballs.
Carol describing the Kree as "noble warrior heroes" sounds like a bit of cringeworthy self-flattery, but as the truth comes out it seems more like an example of how she's been indoctrinated.
In the Blockbuster, Carol picks up a copy of The Right Stuff and looks at it before setting it down. Since the movie is about test pilots and the origin of the US space program, it's not only appropriate but also might have been a favorite of Carol's.
Goose is the perfect pet for Mar-Vell. Not only can Goose safely touch and swallow the Tesseract, making her the perfect hiding spot, Goose can identify shapeshifted Skrulls like she had when Talos was disguised as a Kree soldier, making her indispensable for a Kree who can't easily distinguish her allied Skrulls when they're transformed. In addition, her managing to stick around inside of the Pegasus base six years after her "owner" dies may suggest a significant degree of intelligence.
In Guardians of The Galaxy, at first it would seem like it would not make a difference if Nova Corps knew Ronan was after the orb, especially since they failed to stop his genocidal campaign. But, it wasn't the Nova Corps he was worried about, but rather them finding out and calling in Captain Marvel, because if she found that out, she would not hesitate to go after him and if Captain Marvel found him (at least before getting an Infinity Stone), he'd be finished, and he knows how it went the first time.
No wonder Asgard dominated the Nine Realms a few thousand years ago—they had instantaneous transportation. If every other species had to spend days transiting between jump points, then Asgard's ability to land troops instantly on any target world would have been a huge military advantage. It might have also contributed to Odin becoming more peaceful—if he realized there was no world that could stand against him, he might have decided to be magnanimous.
Fury holds up Goose, expecting him eat the Kree guards that showed up. However, he doesn't and then proceeds to rub up against one of them. Goose recognized the guard as Talos just before Talos revealed himself to Fury using a callback.
In the original comics, Chewie (Goose) is female. Early in the film, Mar-Vell refers to Goose as “she”. So why does Nick Fury insist on referring to Goose as a “he” for the rest of the film? Because he thinks Goose is a regular orange tabby cat, and the vast majority of orange tabby cats are male.
Goose was also played primarily by a male cat named Reggie; therefore, Goose has the slightly stockier body, neck and face typical of male cats. In-Verse, female flerkens may simply look more like male cats than female ones in their bodily proportions.
This movie explains why Ronan was so quick to take the Power Stone for himself once he realized what was in the Orb. He’s seen first hand how powerful an Infinity Stone can make someone, so he took the power for himself immediately. Also that power would allow him to stand up to Carol, as she will stand in his way if he continues his planet killing.
Looking closely at the dinner scene at the end of the movie will show that the bonds between everyone are full of this as every member is in someway familiar with prejudice and bigotry just for how they are.
Carol had to deal with outright sexism throughout her life.
Maria knew Carol's troubles well and related them to Monica, may have had to deal with similar problems as a military pilot and is also black.
Fury is also black and while he hasn't been seen to mention any hardships about his race did have a grandfather that he implied had to face such troubles.
The Skrulls have been near decimated by the Kree and painted as monsters by their tormentors just for resisting Kree rule. And they can all recognize and bond over this fact.
Back in The Avengers (2012), Nick Fury says that the reasoning behind the creation of the energy weapons was because of Thor's fight with the Destroyer, mentioning it as a hostile First Contact. Why didn't he mention the events of this film instead outside of meta reasons? Because thanks to Carol, he knows that the threat posed by the Kree are being handled by her while at the same time as a fellow human, he knows Carol herself isn't a threat to Earth. At the same time, general knowledge of it wasn't widespread, making it look simply like a one-time incident which can be easily swept under the rug for the public. Meanwhile, Asgard's power/threat might not only outclasses that of both the Kree and the Skrulls, but also Thor's incident alerted Earth that there are even more deadly aliens out there; and thanks to the internet, it made the existence of aliens general knowledge. Now take a good look at this particular exchange when we only knew of Asgard in The Avengers (2012), are you really sure Fury forgot?
Thor: My people want nothing but peace with your planet.
Nick Fury: But you are not the only people out there, are you? And you're not the only threat.
Carol "upgrades" Fury's "state-of-the-art" pager, telling him it should reach "a couple galaxies." Even with her knowledge of Kree science, how can she make an Earth-originated piece of electronics have such a range? She simply interfaced it with the jump-point that is outside C-53 (Earth).
A lot of criticism was raised over the scene where Carol steals the random guy's motorcycle because he was a jerk to her, calling it a moment of the hero being surprisingly unsympathetic. It makes perfect sense when you think about it though. At this point in the movie while she is having more insecurities about who she really is, Carol still thinks of herself as Vers, and from what we see from the Kree in this movie reacting in the manner she did is perfectly in character. Most likely had it been a different Kree, like Minn-Erva that guy would have been a lot more sorry.
During Carol's initial flashback before the Once More, with Clarity scene one of the Skrulls she sees looks it bit more human like than the others which is foreshadowing that it wasn't a Skrull but was in fact Yon-Rogg.
After Ronan saw Carol single-handedly take out so much of his fleet before running away, it now makes perfect sense that by the time of Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) his room on his ship would be so ridiculously well-defended.
Fridge Horror
No matter how it happens, Carol returning to Earth after 20-odd years come Avengers: Endgame being physically the same age as she was in the 90s, whilst her family, friends, and co-workers have aged about a quarter century, will be quite the shock to her. Add onto that the cosmic genocide that happened while she was away means that there's a good chance that there will be no one left to reorient her to the world. At least Steve Rogers had Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. to help him get reacquainted with the world; Carol will be launched headlong into a battle with Thanos in order to protect a home that's moved on without her.
Carol has no memory of her life on Earth aside from brief flashes of her childhood and her career as a fighter pilot, nor does she remember who she is now. Temporary amnesia from the violence of her crash? Or the effects of whatever the Kree did to turn her into a member of Star Force?
In The Stinger, Carol shows up to ask the Avengers where Nick Fury is. Her appearance is messy and her expression tells that she's clearly not happy. The last we heard of Carol, she was guiding the Skrull survivors to find a new home and it's implied she stayed with them until the present day. It's most likely that she had to witness the result of Thanos's snap wiping half of the Skrull's population offscreen, and some of the casualties might include the Skrulls that she personally knew like Talos and his family.
Given the fact that Talos's group is comprised solely of males, it's reasonable to assume that they hide their families elsewhere. By the end of the movie, Talos is the only survivor of the group. How many Skrull widows and orphans were made that throughout the course of the film?
Ronan:
It's quite painfully obvious why Ronan took an interest in Captain Marvel—he definitely intended on using her power against Xandar later on. One would shudder to think how he'd accomplish this.
This movie also provides an additional reason why Ronan was so hell-bent on getting the Power Stone: he expected that it would give him abilities like the Tesseract gave Carol, not just to destroy Xandar, but to help him take her on directly. Indeed, seeing her rip through his Accuser fleet like she was swatting flies would explain Ronan's confidence that even Thanos would become easy prey, once Ronan had an Infinity Stone of his own.
Even worse: considering the variety of alien species seen on Xandar, it's entirely possible that they are more open to other races, and thus took on some Skrull refugees, maybe forming a secret alliance, leading to a hatred from the Kree simply through "The friend of my enemy is my enemy".
This Word of God from Kevin Feige on how Talos's faction of Skrulls were just one faction and there are other Skrulls out there with more questionable morals.
Kevin Feige: Just like not all humans are bad, and not all humans are good, I think Skrulls probably have a variety of moralities amongst them. When they can do what they can do, it probably gets very tempting. So, it's fun to have introduced this concept and see where it goes.
We never get to know how long Goose has been on Earth. How many people has she eaten? There was no owner around: did she eat him? And now she's in S.H.I.E.L.D., in Nick Fury's office. Even if we assume that she only eats bad guys, S.H.I.E.L.D. is infiltrated by HYDRA; so how many people will she continue to eat?
Also, if Goose is anything like Chewie from the comics, how many broods of eggs has she laid during her sojourn on Earth? Are there flerkens all over the place that humans have been mistaking for cats for decades? Could it be that all those fans who were anticipating a secret Skrull takeover of Earth were right about the alien infiltrators, they were just wrong about which alien species would be invading and what it was they'd pose as...
At the end of the film Nick Fury orders to search for the Tesseract, as it is missing after the adventure. Of course, he knows that it isn't, that it is in Goose's stomach (and saying the truth would be laughed at as a Cassandra Truth at best... or lead to someone trying to kill and open the "cat" to retrieve it only to then be swallowed in the attempt at worst). And, in the stinger, Goose finally hacked it up on Nick Fury's desk, as if it were a hairball. Fine, the tesseract is available again... but how will Fury explain that a lost 0-8-4 was found at his desk, without sounding suspicious?
Carol received her powers from a combination of Kree DNA and an experimental light speed engine filled to the brim with energy siphoned from the Tesseract, aka the Space Stone (which has remained in S.H.I.E.L.D. custody up until the first Avengers film). We later find out that HYDRA has infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. ever since WWII ended. It's not unfeasible that they found out about Carol's circumstances and powers between the time of her abduction, return and departure. Come Age of Ultron, we get Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. In short, HYDRA has been trying to recreate Carol's circumstances ever since. Imagine if they'd succeeded completely...
This adds a new layer to why the World Security Council (infiltrated by HYDRA) was so upset by Thor taking the Tesseract back to Asgard back in The Avengers. If Fury knew about or suspected HYDRA's infiltration of S.H.I.E.L.D., he probably realized the importance of keeping the source of Carol's powers as far away from HYDRA as possible, which is why he "didn't argue with the god" who took it; Thor gave him plausible deniability.
Carol sent Yon-Rogg back to Hala with a message for the Supreme Intelligence that she vows to end all its unjust wars. Such an encounter would not end well for him, and he'd have to go through Ronan next; between Ronan not taking Yon-Rogg's failure at Torfa very well, and Carol costing him the battle over Earth, Yon-Rogg will likely face execution by Ronan, and we all know how brutally Ronan executes his victims.
It was bad enough that Carol found out the Skrulls are desperate refugees about to be wiped out by the Kree and that she's been beating them up, but this film took place during a time when the Kree were also at war with Xandar; and if the Kree portrayed the Skrulls as bad guys, they could've done the same to the Xandarians. The Kree were likely the aggressors to the Xandarians, just as they were towards the Skrulls. Who's to say Carol, under the Starforce, hasn't been beating up and/or killing innocent Xandarians, as well? That wouldn't sit well with Carol, who already felt guilty harming the Skrulls.
On related note, since stopping Ronan from destroying Xandar made the Guardians of the Galaxy enemies of the Kree, how do we know the Kree also make the Guardians sound like the bad guys too.
Since Skrulls did infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D. and impersonate agents, that incident might have only helped the HYDRA infiltrators' cause for their plans and become one of the factors that pushed them to develop Project Insight years later. The prospect of alien infiltrators would make it easy for HYDRA to persuade others in developing a controversial weapon, as the whole point was to prevent potential threats before they could happen, and convincing the public that their freedom is worth giving up their safety would be easy to do. It is a good thing the Skrulls didn't stay on Earth, because Zola's algorithm would've identified the Skrulls as a threat.
