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AKA Secret Invasion: A Special Presentation
Secret Invasion was pretty widely disliked, and I think a large part of its problems involved the creators not really knowing what to do with the series or the characters. Marketed as a Winter Soldier-esque spy thriller, we instead got a bunch of ideas thrown at a wall. Too much was revealed right away, removing any sense of tension from the traditional Secret Invasion story they wanted to tell. At the same time the show was thematically at odds with Captain Marvel’s introduction of the Skrulls - no longer are they refugees of a galactic war, looking to survive, they’ve become more of a scary Other. And then Fury dramatically does nothing, meaning the two deaths they made happen felt pointless.
Obviously I have feelings about this show. Feelings that led me to do a complete overhaul of the series into a 1 hour, 20 minute Special Presentation style feature. Heavily restructuring the show, we drop several subplots designed to pad out the series, and move some events forward. If you were disappointed by the series, this may be what you’re looking for.
The major pieces I wanted to do when starting this edit was to make Gravik seem like a lower-tier villain, rather than the leader of all Skrulls, and make Ritson’s declaration of war happen earlier. The tension of an MCU Secret Invasion should never have been about “Who’s a Skrull? Who can I trust”(Not that the series made much of an attempt at pulling it off). Instead, I wanted some teeth behind Ritson’s declaration. This keeps the MCU’s themes with the Skrulls consistent between movies, as now we can have them be Scapegoats for Gravik’s crimes.
To do this, we need to do a few things first:
- The Skrulls need to be humanized. To this end, G’iah is implied to be undercover from the beginning, and Talos gets more agency in the beginning, moving story forward. Varra is also introduced in a cold open, to help solidify her prominence as a character in the second half of the edit. Notably, Rhodey is implied to be replaced after the attack on the president, rather than from the beginning.
- The real villain of this edit ends up being the setting. Gravik creates the problem, but Ritson makes for a more compelling villain. His speech needs to have consequences outside of just a montage. Varra no longer works for Gravik, and the people attacking her and G’iah are implied to be humans - vigilantes emboldened by the president’s speech, as we see in montage-form at the end of the series. Sonya becomes an uneasy ally for Fury, and also very much anti-Skrull.
- In service to the above two points, the Moscow Bomb and London Submarine subplots are dropped(and as a result, Maria Hill doesn’t get fridged). Parts of these plots remain, but changed up in a way to drive forward both Gravik’s attack on the President and the rocky relationship between Talos and G’iah.
Key Changes:
- Special Presentation & Full Length Marvel Fanfare added
- “Cold” open of Varra & Fury
- Post-fanfare opens on President Ritson’s convoy being attacked
- Dropped Neptune Submarine, Moscow dirty bomb, and Super Skrull subplots
- Ritson’s speech comes at the halfway mark, 40 minutes in
- The coup against Gravik succeeds
- Varra no longer works for Gravik
- Varra’s house is implied to be attacked by human anti-Skrull vigilantes, not Skrulls
- Sonya is given a darker role
- Fury doesn’t travel to Finland for his eyepatch. That’s in England now
- Skrulls are now more in line with Captain Marvel’s depiction, improving consistency
- Fury is implicated in the attack on Ritson
- Rhodey is implied to be replaced after the attack on Ritson
Resolution is 1080p, with 5.1 audio, and subs are present.
