Tearjerking moments in Captain Marvel (2019).
- Maria expressing her shock at seeing Carol, her best friend, alive for the first time in six years and with alien powers. When Carol does come back, she doesn't even remember Maria, her family, or all the time they shared together.
- Additionally, because the crash Carol 'died' in was classified, Maria could never talk about it to anyone.Carol: I know this must be hard for you.
Maria: Oh what, this part right here? No. No, Mmm-mmm. No, what's hard is losing my best friend, in a mission so secret they act like it never even happened. Hard is knowing you were out there somewhere too damn stubborn to die. And now you come up in here after six years with your supercharged fire hands, and you expect me to call you... I don't even know what, Vers? Is that really who you are now?
Carol: (Quietly) I don't know.
- Additionally, because the crash Carol 'died' in was classified, Maria could never talk about it to anyone.
- At the autopsy of the Skrull that disguised himself as Coulson, Talos quietly mourns his fallen comrade and wishes him luck in his afterlife. It's especially bad after discovering that these so-called "terrorists" are actually desperate and scattered refugees hounded by the Kree for not submitting to their collective.
- The early scenes with the Skrull become much darker when you realize that every dead Skrull mook drives the species closer to extinction.
- The funny moment from a minute ago where Fury and the disguised Talos look at the dead Skrull's genitals become less funny once it's clear that Talos had to play along with degrading and humiliating his deceased friend just to keep cover.
- Talos's emotional reunion with his wife and daughter, which drives it further just how much the Kree have taken from the Skrulls.
- Upon seeing the Skrull refugees, and learning the truth that the "war" between the Kree and the Skrulls is just a one-sided genocide, Carol briefly and visibly breaks down in guilt.
- After a (relatively) light-hearted action film, the first stinger throws us right back into a post-snap world with a simple exchange:Steve: This is a nightmare.
Natasha: I've had better nightmares.- This includes Steve watching counters of the missing people that are in the billions...and counting.
- In a sense, Carol's whole storyline is as sad as Star-Lord's/Peter Quill's. She loses her memories of her old life on Earth, and never gains them back. By the end of the movie, Carol is essentially a woman with no home or family of her own, and no idea of her place in the universe.
- On top of that, either her powers, the changes to her body that have made her partially Kree, or both, have slowed down Carol's aging, to the point she looks to have not aged at all since 1989. It means she cannot hope to go back living as a normal human anymore; she may also be fully aware of that and it may have played a part in her decision to leave at the end.
- Sad still is the implication that, beyond Maria and Monica, she really didn't have anything to come back to. Her family life was bad, the military men around her weren't friendly, and her mentor was dead. Even before this she had little holding her around.
- Kevin Smith reported that he had Manly Tears at Stan Lee's cameo, referring back to Smith's time working with him on Mallrats.
- Likewise when Carol looks at Stan Lee to see if he's a skrull, unlike everyone else, she gives him a warm smile
◊. - A little moment when Talos reunites with his family. Soren greets him affectionately, but G'iah is in the shadows and does not come immediately until her mother tells her it's okay. He's been gone at least six years, and there's a good chance G'iah may not have even recognized him at first.
- The fact that the people Carol thought were her friends for six years turned out to murderous monsters who kidnapped her and have no problem killing defenseless refugees (only one of them hesitates the slightest when it comes to hurting Carol herself).
- There's also Carol's encounter with the Supreme Intelligence again. Now that she remembers who Dr. Lawson/Mar-Vell was and what she did, seeing the genocidal, war-mongering Supreme Intelligence wear the face of someone so noble who wanted to end all unjust wars in front of Carol now feels like an insult both to her and the deceased scientist.
- A Tear Jerker that can only be inferred by the way the plot is set to go in the future. Carol was back for all of a few days after being missing and presumed dead for six years, and now Maria and Monica have to say goodbye to her again. And this time, she doesn't come back home for the better part of a quarter-century. And when she finally does, there's a chance that one or both may have been victims of the Snap. And what if she goes to their place herself and finds out it's empty?
- An episode of WandaVision shows that Monica was snapped but Maria survived. Unfortunately, the latter succumbed to cancer two years later.
- Related to this, while she almost certainly knows the Snap happened - after all, given the universal nature of this horrific disaster, how can she not? - there's absolutely no way she could know Fury specifically was a victim. The first thing she says upon encountering the surviving Avengers, who are investigating what is to them a weird pager displaying a bizarre symbol that only meant anything to Fury, is "Where's Fury?", and the answer is probably going to be devastating.
- Three words, just before the film opens: "Thank you, Stan."
- Right before Mar-Vell's death, she begs Carol to leave, so that Carol won't end up on Mar-Vell's list of regrets now that she's been dragged into the Kree situation. It's clear that Mar-Vell cared a lot about Carol (and Maria), so knowing that one of her last wishes ended up failing is heartbreaking. To make it worse, it fails primarily because Carol, noble to the end, tries to complete Mar-Vell's other last wish by doing a Heroic Sacrifice to destroy the engine- and, as a result, she's turned into a prisoner of war and brainwashed into helping commit genocide.
- Carol's breakdown in the yard outside the Rambeau home, after she hears the black box recording and realizes that not only have the past six years of her life been a lie, but she's a human who was stolen from her family and turned into a weapon. Her desperate attempts to debate Talos, to have something real to hold on to, just get more broken and angry, until she finally spits out that she doesn't even know who she is anymore. Seeing Carol, who has been cocky and confident and joking throughout the film until this point, crack under the weight of what she's done and what's happened to her truly drives home what the Kree put her through.
- Thankfully, Maria steps up to the plate to talk her down, firmly reminding her that she is Carol Danvers. Carol subsequently breaking into tears and hugging Maria is a tear jerker of a whole different kind.
