f13.net

First trailer for Captain America: The Winter Soldier is out now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLWsK1ZFunA

I am quite satisfied how it looks thus far.

SPROING!

Hot damn that looks good.   :awesome_for_real:

I wasn't thrilled about the whole Bucky thing (I haven't bought a new comic in ages, and I'm just against it in principle) but I'm looking forward to seeing this now.

Our house is divided.  I'm teased, teaser trailer didn't tease wife.

Um.

Oh wow Robert Redford!  Falcon!  Black Widow!  Mask...dude..

Looks shit hot.  The elevator scene was great.  For some reason I really like that Widow is in this.  I guess I'm glad to see Avengers sticking together here, none seem to be helping Thor fight the 'Dark World'.

But Thor has Loki which will give it a HUGE boost.  

Widow finally gets a bigger role in this movie compared to the others.

Looks great, I'm in!

Though really?  Do they really need to keep up the trend that the Helicarriers only function in life is a prop to be destroyed spectacularly?  Can't they break Stereotypes!?   :awesome_for_real:

The tone of this movie seems right.  No crazy supers and a slightly darker tone but not grim dark either.   I am enthused greatly.

Marvel said they are trying to change the overall feel of the movies so they don't feel like just another superhero movie.  Thor: Dark World is supposed to be like a war movie and where the original Cap was a period piece this is more like a modern spy-thriller.



And to add.. I'm really glad they didn't go with the traditional Falcon outfit.  I like this one better I think.

Who knew you could give a franchise like this to a couple of Community directors? Looks good.

Who's supposed to be the villain in this?

Winter Soldier is the main villain with Crossbones and Batroc the Leaper playing secondaries.  At least that's what I think.

Yeah, I'm in.

Very teaserish. Apart from the tone (which could be entirely trailer) I don't see much to get excited about. Yet.

Batroc reads like an anagram of a better villain name. Like Brocat.

Point, the first:
Is anyone ever going to point out to SLJ that helicarriers are bad idea?

Point, the second:
They are promising a lot of relatively dark thriller stuff in there. If they can cash that cheque, great, if not this is going to be IM3 all over again.

And the third:
Really making no effort outside of the male teen plus manchild demographics with that trailer. Kind of surprises me.

I kind of wonder if they are seeing if they can develop her into something that could carry a movie.

You'd think Johansson can pull box office but then I can't think of a film she has been the genuine lead in. Maybe the Island.

I'm not too sure she can act, but I'm down with moar Natasha.

I believe, based on next to nothing, that this movie will be a Winter Soldier + original Nomad arc, only w/o the switch to Nomad. Redford = Number One.

So this looks like something I definitely want to see, but I'm confused because I never read CA and have no clue who most of the people running around are supposed to be.  Besides BW and Fury and Cap, that is.  Anyone want to fill me in quick?

Did they make the Falcon look almost not lame? Amazing!

Bucky (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucky)
Falcon (http://marvel.com/universe/Falcon_(Sam_Wilson))
Bob Woodward (http://marvel.wikia.com/Alexander_Pierce_(Earth-616))

Who is the villain?

<Hero>: <Villain>

They're moving farther and farther from the comic book versions of secondary characters.  For example, the guy from the S.H.I.E.L.D. pilot was named after a character from the comics, but had nearly nothing in common with that character. 

I'm looking forward to Thor and Cap IIs.  I have high expectations.

Not that much further than the comic reboots do.

I guarantee 80% of people will walk into the film thinking it means Captain America is the winter soldier.

Well, it's what I'd assumed until I read the wiki entry on Bucky that was linked above. 

Yeah, as I knew nowt really about Cap, this has now been totally spoilered for me.  Not that I'm bothered, since they'll give it away in the next trailer anyway.

True.

*raises hand*

I'm assuming Robert Redford doesn't pull on some spandex in this.

No spandex. But, halfway through the movie, he pulls off his mask to reveal his bright red skull face.

I think something along those lines is in store, but Redford trying to imitate Hugo Weaving's Skull would not really work IMHO.  I would think the reveal would be him being the son of the Skull or Baron Zemo or something along those lines...

Good lord.  Branaugh directs Thor, and now Redford's in the Cap movie.  What's next?  Derek Jacobi in a vampire movie?

Well Glen Close is in Guardians of the Galaxy.

Dame Judi Dench in a Vin Diesel sci-fil film.

I get the feeling "the winter soldier" is going to have a double meaning in the movie and not just mean the name of the villain.

He's actually Snow Job from GI Joe in disguise.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qu51vkm0SuQ&noredirect=1)

Turns out the Captain looks best in rich vibrant tones, solid colors rather than patterns, and fabrics with refined finishes rather than textured surfaces.

The long preview shown with Thor 3D was pretty darn snazzy.  I have very high hopes for this movie.

Yeah, I liked that scene too because you are with Cap, figuring out what is happening.  Also shows Cap using his noggin as well as his super abilities.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around Robert Redford being in the film.  Dunno why, but it seems like the last thing he'd do.

Pay the bills ?

I'm afraid this is going to be another evil corporation movie, with a second-rate lex luther.

Right down my alley. Going to take the wife to see this, she loves Captain America.  We are going to get a baby sitter and stuff ourselves with overpriced movie snacks and turn off our brains for a couple of hours. It will be great.

He's got the skills.

He likes the pills.

Have people really forgotten Sneakers? Or, hell The Sting or Butch Cassidy? Sure, Sting and Butch Cassidy are both probably much better films, but this is not exactly left field territory for him.

I know he characterized his character as a villain previously, but unless he is the Red Skull in disguise, I predict he'll just be a man in a position of power that is trying to do the right thing... even if it costs a lot of lives.  That can be a good role. 

Besides, look what they have Glenn Close doing...

If it follow the Winter Soldier from the comics, he'll sort of be the Red Skull.

That probably should have spoiler tags.

And I would not be so sure it will follow the same storyline that closely. 

The first 11 minutes are available online http://www.movieweb.com/movie/captain-america-the-winter-soldier/first-10-minutes (http://www.movieweb.com/movie/captain-america-the-winter-soldier/first-10-minutes)

Pretty darn good.  Very high expectations, now.

(http://www.ioffer.com/img3/item/139/911/989/nick-fury-david-hasselhoff-lisa-rinna-dvd-marvel-comics-2913.jpg)

I know basically nothing about this movie.

I just saw part of a commercial for it and my first thought was "cool, a movie based on Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance."

Bah. It's been removed.

It was released by Marvel and is available in other locations: http://sploid.gizmodo.com/heres-the-first-11-action-packed-minutes-of-captain-am-1546970500 (http://sploid.gizmodo.com/heres-the-first-11-action-packed-minutes-of-captain-am-1546970500)

None of you Euros have seen this yet? I hate you all.  :angryfist:

Also removed. Apparently marvel did not release this.

I'll try to get my better half to want to see this this weekend. If that works, I'll keep you posted.

Saw this tonight.

Disorganised thoughts:

It isn't dark, it isn't really a conspiracy thriller.
It is a boys own adventure set in an 80s action movie.
The action I thought was a step above what they've done before.
But the dialog scenes are slow, flabby, but not outright ridiculous like IM3.
First half promises something different, then you get the reveal, which I admit is pretty awesome in its own way, and from there its explosions all the way.
Was impressed with how captain America and his shield didn't look ridiculous in a modern setting.
Black widow was awesome.
I don't know why the winter soldier is in this - he really didn't need to be.
Falcon was pretty neat.

It is the best of the marvel sequels, but struggles if you put it next to any of the origin stories.
Oh, and for the love of God avoid the 3d.

I think these two are connected.  When you have a 'big reveal' movie, you have to either hint at the reveal in marketing or put out an alternative selling point.  They sold us on the B story to preserve the reveal.

I'm pretty disappointed to hear that it's not really a conspiracy thriller. (Not a joke, in case I have to make that plain.) I'm still going to see it on Friday though.

I have not seen it, but from what I hear, it is a conspiracy story, but only for half the movie.  The resolution to that aspect occurs earlier than in true conspiracy movies.

As you suggest, the first half tries to sell itself as a thriller. But there is no twist.

Considering the plot lacks almost all of the core elements of a thriller, they actually do a decent job on atmosphere for around 40 minutes.

As for the winter soldier, I suspect the explanation is more prosaic, it felt like on each rewrite they realised he was less and less relevant, but they had already committed to a title. His subplot lacks any thematic link to the main plot, and also has no impact on the general direction of events.

The guy that plays Winter Soldier got signed for a bunch of movies.  My guess is that since Chris Evans is quitting acting after his Marvel deal is up, you are looking at the Cap replacement.

I looked at too many Cap making of/previews and spoiled who the Winter Soldier was.  :heartbreak:

Still looking forward to it.

He's not quitting
http://m.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/chris-evans-not-quitting-acting-2014313

Though the quote makes it seem like it, yes.

Well that's good then.  I like Chris Evans as Cap.  I had only skimmed a couple articles about him quitting to direct.  Glad he clarified it.

Yeah, I think his point was, "Um.. I'm not doing this unplanned and spontaneous approach to taking any role thrown at me anymore. I'm going to go in to contracts so I can plan a life outside of acting 24/7"

Being Cap as long as his body holds up should give him 3 movies every 6 years for a while and a lot of money - allowing him to do whatever directing he wants and can land.

Just saw this.  It was entertaining.  I think I offended the comic nerds I was seeing it with when I said "wait, is that what happened in the comic too?  Wow, that's really dumb."

Very little of what happened in the comic book happened in the movie.

Just came back. Liked it quite a bit.  My favorite easter egg is on a certain tombstone at the end so look at it closely as it is a very brief shot.

Yeah, that tombstone was my favorite joke in the movie too.   :drill:

I missed the joke :/

I liked the movie. I wasn't quite what I'd hope for, but overall I thought it was a good movie.

Stop doing that.

The movie is definitely loaded with subtlety, which for me was my only complaint.  By the time something started to register in my mind, the scene was over and something else was taking my attention.  It's probably the most lore-dependent (and divisive) of all the Marvel movies.

If you dont get the subtlety, the movie turns into a simple action-flick.  Albeit a very very good one.  Actually, it's probably the most actiony of all the Marvel films.  Even the music was suitably A-Teamish.

If by 'loaded with subtlety' you mean 'loaded with more nerd culture references than a whole season of the big bang theory' then I agree. But I wouldn't call it subtle.

Compared to the other marvel films this was aimed more squarely at the teenage nerd and overgrown manchild demographics. I liked it for that, but it was also why the GF found it tiresome and formulaic.

Yah, that's kinda what I mean by subtle.  Though reason I said subtle is because like I said, the references were quick.  They didnt beat you over the head with it; was more like machine-gun fire all over the movie.  Ditto the formulaic-ness if you didnt pick it up though.

Movie was made to bolster MAoS and vice versa quite obviously.

Eh......

Don't use the word subtle when this is what you meant and admitted as such. 

Eh what?  You think Marvel et. al. didnt factor that into their biz plan?  Dont be daft.

If you think the makers of the movie give two shits about the series you are woefully mistaken about how these things work, the movie is looking to make more money then the series ever will.  The show of course was made to bolster the movies and keep them fresh in peoples minds, unfortunately it's been doing a terrible job of it.

That said I have no doubt the movie will help bolster the show and give them the opportunity to start fresh and it will be interesting to see where season two goes.

My wife doesn't know any of the references but she still liked it a lot. It's a pretty well-paced action film with some good sequences and emotional hooks.

I also think it more or less walks up to Man of Steel and kicks it in the junk in terms of showing you how to make a character who is basically a boy scout at heart still be dramatically interesting without having to make him a grimdark 'it's not a battle if you don't kill a whole city' character. The best scene in that regard is


The biggest Easter Egg imho was

Saw it last night with the husband.  He basically went along because he knew I wanted to see it (and it was his turn to let me pick) and he enjoyed it without knowing anything about the character/lore other than seeing Avengers.  Neither of us saw the first movie, either.

I agree that they did a good job of making Rogers a boy scout without having him be pretentious and over-bearing about it.  He did good things because that was what he did, full stop.  

I thought the action scenes and fights were all pretty damn good, actually.  Like, nice choreography and plausibility for amped up characters beating each other up, and Falcon's flight wings didn't come off as outlandish, either.

Heh, forgot to mention that I enjoyed the movie a lot and the two credits scenes were good.

First film was good.  You should take a look.

One thing I'll add is that the two Cap movies seem more cohesive than most of the other Marvel movies in the way the second movie brings back a lot of stuff from the first, and also does a lot to set up the next movie (they managed to successfully set up the Winter Soldier and introduce Falcon, Agent 13, and Crossbones). The Iron Man movies don't really have much of a narrative arc that goes across the three of them, and while the end of Thor 2 looks to set up Thor 3, the whole plot with Malekith didn't really have much to do with any sort of greater story arc between the movies.

This knocks it out the park and than some. I mostly blame this movie and Caps universe in general being well within Hollywoods ballpark and the writing, action, and the plot shows.

Really enjoyed this BUT I think I still like Cap 1 better.  WW2 is a fascination of mine.  Having said that, I thought the action scenes were done very well with a good storyline.  When I got into comics Cap and Falcons were a team so it was cool to see them here.  Loved Falc's old red and white costume!  I know it's Caps film, but I wish we had JUST a bit more on Black Widow.  Evans was good, hell everyone was good, but....Redford phoned it in.  Yeah I said it.


Also a big THANK YOU to the MCU for using practical effects whenever possible.  Big thanks as well for the look of Winter Soldier, nice costume along with Cap's. It felt like Cap's version of 'Dark Knight Rises' with the (mostly) gritty street combat. 

The time flew by and I was very entertained.  Second extra scene was a waste of time though.  Marvel is still kicking ass.  If GotG bombs it will be its own fault.

Saw it. Loved it. Thought it was actually a better Marvel movie than Avengers, in that the plot was tighter and made more sense. Falcon is just fucking awesome. Stay through all the credits, all the way to the end even though the final post-credits thing isn't as important as the first.

How does Falcon's suit actually work?  Some kind of mind-machine interface that articulates his wings and engines?

A wizard did it.

In a world that includes Iron Man and Thor, you boggle on a winged jetpack?

--Dave

^ That. ^

Seriously, how do repulsors work, or giant fucking turbines that drive the Helicarriers? Or how does Cap know exactly where his shield will bounce when he throws it?

Falcon's suit works by FUCK YOU, that's how. It's powered by pure goddamn awesome.

The name dropping was very cool.  The second I get the BR for this movie, I'm going to pop it open to those comnputer screens showing all the names and see how many 'potentials' are out there that we know from the comics.  Was Luke Cage, Matt Murdock, etc... on it?  What about some of the villains? 

Loved everything about this movie including Redford. Thought he did swarmy politician quite well.

My only disappointment about this movie was that

Actually, I was kind of glad they didn't do that,
Screen caps of the targeting so far show:

Wouldn't that have been too cliched though?  He shouldn't have been the head of HYDRA and it does give something for Fury to do when he's off tramping around Europe.  And for now, since the upcoming movies don't seem like they'll address it, looking for HYDRA and dealing with the Winter Soldier are the possibly setups for CA3 if/when that is ever made.

And Redford did a perfect smarmy politician.  

Oh, someone elsewhere pointed out that Shandling's senator character was also the one trying to get a hold of the Ironman armor, so that was a nice little tie between the movies.

As an aside, the years have NOT been kind to Shandling.

It is not the years that have done that to his face.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.

This movie was good.

I loved the movie, start to finish.  My only real nitpick would be not even name dropping Hawkeye.  There were perfect in-world explanations for every other Avenger not being around (Stark retired, you can't just call up Thor on your cellphone, Banner is as much a problem as he is a solution), but Hawkeye is an actual S.H.I.E.L.D agent and closely associated with both Black Widow and Cap and you don't even have a throwaway line as to why he isn't around?

Saw an interview with Kevin Feige where he says Hawkeye's whereabouts during this film are addressed very explicitly in Avengers 2 and in fact are part of the lead-in to the film's narrative.

Part of the plan, I noticed, was shooting Banner with the guns.  I kinda wondered how that would have fared for them.  Sure, hitting Stark and Strange and the President from Orbit is cool, but The Hulk ?

I think they chose poorly on that particular count.

Yeah, he even said on the avengers that he put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger and "the other guy spit out the bullet".

That's common knowledge to the audience not necessarily SHIELD/HYDRA.

Why would HYDRA care anyway? Just because handgun couldn't kill BB doesn't doesn't sub-orbital laser cannon won't. Worth a shot. They don't give shit collateral damage.

The Hulk can jump to the helicarrier, and destroy it in short order.

I'm fairly certain there's no chance that the weapons on the helicarrier would even scratch The Hulk.

Isn't that predicated on the fact that he's in Hulk form though?  I'd get the impression that the reason BB couldn't kill himself is that the Hulk is sharing his consciousness, kind of hard to kill yourself if the other mind in your head can stop you.  But getting hit by a sub-orbital cannon - he'd have to know it was coming in order to "defend" against the damage by Hulking out.

How would Hulk jump to something he can't see?

Does plot armour work during someone else's film?

Oh, goodie!  This is going to devolve into a Hulk mechanics discussion. 

Are there limits?  Can Hulk jump slingshot around the sun to time travel to 1982 and help ET return to Jurassic Park?

MCU Hulk, 616 Hulk, Ultimates Hulk, or Lou?

Gay Hulk from Endor.

Isn't that just Chewbacca?

Now really, really regretting bringing it up.

(But he'd get hit by a gun, hulk out and SMASH all 3 carriers.  Just saying.  The inference in Avengers was that Banner actually pulled the trigger in Banner form.)

That's my take; by staying angry all the time, Banner has found a way to keep the Hulk at bay and can turn him on fast by just letting his foot off the brake so to speak.

So, the theory is that Banner - who wanted to die - was too dumb to figure out a way to kill himself that would work?  The implication in the movie was that Banner couldn't kill himself... and I think he'd be smart enough to figure out a way to hire someone to kill him when he was not expecting it if that would have worked...  Banner can't die without Hulking.

I was disappointed in a couple things. 
A very good movie, but they had just a few wtf moments that bugged me.

Comic book logic and the same problem since comics began.  You simply can't factor in every character in a comic universe in every story otherwise superman shows up and ends every single batman story in 2min.  You can either try to address every possible continuity problem and fail miserably or just ignore it and let fans speculate.

Personally I'm glad they went with the latter because trying to explain everything(Even a bunch of throwaway lines adds up) makes for terrible stories both on film and in comics.

Um, how would they know who it was ?

You almost got me.  Almost replied to you.


Not making that mistake again !

I'm glad, in this second response to me, you've clarified that you do not respond to me.

With that out of the way, can we go back to talking about how good a movie this is?

Because it's really good.

It really is.

I'd actually go as far as to say it's the second best Marvel movie yet.

Which, as I've mentioned before, is some achievement given how utterly lame the characters and story potentially could be.  All the cast, with the exception of Redford, really, really went out the way to sell this one.  I couldn't believe that I was taking Falcon seriously.

It was brill and if you haven't seen it, you ought to.

I dunno... Was it as good as the new Star Treks? How does it compare to the Hobbit movies?

Mackie fucking sold me on Falcon. And any movie that has Marvin Gaye's "Trouble Man" in it is better than pretty much anything. Ever.

'Nuff Said!

That was a bad ass movie. The Falcon was awesome as was the rest of it, way better than the dude in the red outfit from the 80's. Cap and Buckey's interaction and fight was great too. Damn, now I want to buy a Harley....

Why you got to be like that ?

 :grin:

If I was going to be fussy I think the only reason this isn't as good as the dark knight, or cap1, is that they don't manage to carry the thematic content of the first half into the action at the end. It makes the end feel like a fairground ride and lacks threat.

They almost went there after Cap's speech where they hinted at a "trust the people with the truth" vs "fascist efficiency" battle, but it kind if fizzled out into explosions and replace-the-widget because Robyn from HowImetyourmother said so. The winter soldier was an irrelevant distraction here more than anywhere.

I'm at risk of getting piled on for criticising a comic book film, so will stress again. It is a good film. This is more a general niggle that I almost always have with marvel films. Makes the last half an hour drag in all of them. Captain America 1 seemed to handle it best, but probably by accident.

Without calling in the Hulk to take down the helicarriers, I'm not sure they could have done anything but a replace the widget type of narrative conceit to accomplish what they wanted. I think not doing a bombastic comic book fight scene to end the whole thing would have been a better film/story but would have been ill-fitting if you compare it to the previous movies in the cinematic universe.

I think though they should be applauded for taking the risk of stretching the Winter Soldier's individual story across two movies rather than wrapping it up in this movie. That part of it had a very Empire Strikes Back feel - yeah, we got this threat taken care of but bad shit is still out there and there are story threads that clearly are being left hanging for future movies.

Which is actually fine.  While the hanging plotlines aren't too in-your-face, it feels like there's enough there for another movie.  I didn't leave the movie saying to myself "but this, that and the other thing didn't get resolved" because there was a resolution to the movie.   Even if that resolution was a big cinematic fight scene.  Still, it does seem weird that the character the movie was named for doesn't have his resolution, it didn't feel like we were left completely hanging either.

I agree they have to have a bombastic action sequence, but the trick Marvel usually miss is the Dark Knight thing where the action is still asking the same questions the plot did earlier.

Early on the film is asking if shield, Fury, and Black Widow are making the right compromises to defend the planet, just as the Dark Knight is about (among other things) the relationship between the mob and it's heroes. In the Batman film that runs right through the action as well, which means I stay more invested in how they'll end it. In the marvel films they just end the plot and start exploding things.

But 'not quite as good as Nolan Batman' isn't a bad place to be. 

I really feel like you were not paying attention if you think the 2nd-half action is not answering the question "are we making the right compromises to defend the planet?"

The film answers, resoundingly, "No, no we're not." If you think about it, there really isn't a single thing that the Marvel Universe SHIELD has actually been right about *as an organization* in the history of the films. You could say, "well, that's because they were actually HYDRA and evil and shit" but that's not actually what the movie says. The movie says in the 2nd half action, "Even the 'good guys' went along with a plan that *stank* of HYDRA because they'd talked themselves into thinking it was good, until Captain America took a look at the plan and said, 'No fucking way are you doing that' and then took decisive action to act on that belief." 

I think the whole choice Widow has to make about disseminating the information at the end, despite the personal consequences it might have for her, is a pretty good way of taking the plot of the first half of the movie all the way through the action-y bits.

I'd agree with this. Everything that happened in that room I liked.

Actually Black Widow was the best thing about this really good movie.

But I struggle to compare everything else post-reveal with the scene you are talking about. The heli-carrier stuff was brilliantly directed action serving a mediocre plot.

Can I get a sense of what you think is a gold-standard plot?

Pacific Rim

I mentioned the Dark Knight on the last page.

Perhaps it's better to say it isn't the quality of the plot so much as the plot getting largely switched off at the end.

And despite that issue even the carrier stuff was much better than the carrier battle scene in avengers.

I didn't think the plot Dark Knight was that great. Mostly it was hot-topic button pushing; ridiculous plans that only would work in movies; and Heath Ledger though some acting miracle pulling it all together.

i love Dark Knight, but to say that it has an air-tight plot is...kind of weird. It works because the performances and the overall control over the vision sell it. Same as Batman Begins, really.

My troop/minion told me (she is 24 and an RN too), "Nice I loved Captain America I saw it the other day. Had to bring an extra set of underwear with me." And Natasha/Black Widow butt was smoking hot. Oh the gals say it is a toss up between Captain America and Thor but some do like Iron Man.

Ya for eye candy!

I only had one major gripe with the movie, and that stems more from the fact that I can't seem to work out the inconsistancy that is bothering me to some kind of logical conclusion:

I think Pierce just spoofed his clearance to hide what he was doing.

Right, but since that would still result in an equal level clearance (far as i know, Pierce and Fury share the same clearance level), that should not have prevented Fury from decrypting the files.

It would if he didn't have the key.  Think of the file having two properties ;  the unlock code and the 'last used'.  It says it was encrypted by Fury, but it doesn't have the key on record, so it has fuck all clue how to decrypt it.

If it helps.  Sure, it's technobabble, but it might get you over that mental block.

Because fucking flying surfer dude with a hammer, right ?

Also, by that time hadn't they locked him out of a certain level of the system except they left in his unknown "fucked up eye backdoor clearance activation magic."  It's a comics movie, just roll with it.

You are assuming level 10 doesn't have authority to classify something level 11. Under a textbook Bell-LaPadula access control model there is no reason why not.

But I interpreted the scene as the spoofed owner identifier (Fury Nicholas J) not matching the key used to encrypt the data resulting in a poorly worded error message.

It was not really secured by Fury, but looked that way so that if anyone else looked at it, it'd make sense that they would not be allowed.  Fury is well known for keeping secrets from the teams.

Saw it today. One week after the premiere, and the Sunday morning non-3D matinee was almost full.
I loved it, and it's clearly a hit.

Just saw this in 3D and it was a good fun movie. Definitely a Black Widow/Falcon movie though and could have done with a bit more of them as Cap is nowhere near as interesting in this flick. It didn't stop it from being good though. I did have a chuckle at the inscription on Nick Fury's tombstone.

Worth the money to see it on the big screen.

Saw it and really enjoyed it. Wasn't quite as blown away by Widow as you guys were, even if Cap is more whitebread I think I enjoyed his straightman routine more in the scenes they had together. The movie worked well together and while they did downplay the thriller tone of the movie completely for the finale I felt like they kept the main themes of the movie consistent. It would have been nice to put a little more focus on things like Widow's decision to publish the info (at least making he seem conflicted and emphasised some potential consequences) but it worked for me.

I felt like Winter Soldier was set up for something but couldn't tell if it was a bigger role in Cap 3 or even a TV show. Seems to me he could be getting into whatever AoS season 2 is going to be, there's definitely a lot of resolution needed for him but I don't feel the movie lacked for not having it.

I saw this today, and enjoyed it.

Scarlett Johansson was given better opportunities in the movie with her character. The best scenes were between her and Chris Evans in more traditional dialogue exchanges and character development moments. This includes two scenes of vulnerability in acting, subtle, that were surprising to witness from her . The comic book moments were the least interesting, but I agree that the final action set piece was well designed and flowed much better than, say, the initial shaky cam fights on the deck of the ship at the beginning of the movie.

Falcon was well-integrated, Anthony Mackie did a great job.

Fallacious arguments abound in this movie's work, and rule of cool in full effect.

This movie was great and as someone earlier in the thread noted, it showed a really good way for a 'boy-scout' type character to be in a current action movie. I am no Captain America fan at ALL, but so far the two movies have been, outside of Avengers, the best ones.

I didn't get most of the references though. I never really followed CA's comics since I found the character really dull.

I think Cap works because he's the typical Super spy/Supersoldier, but he's a complete Boy Scout.  There's never any ambiguity about what he'll do, it will be the Right Thing.  He'll manage to avoid having to choose between two evils, or his personal honor vs. the Greater Good, through the sheer purity of his own goodness.

After two generations of anti-heroes and flawed paragons with a dark past, seeing a Boy Scout kicking ass feels fresh.

--Dave

He asked if anyone wanted to leave the elevator.  He wasn't bragging, he wasn't being cool, he wasn't showing badassdom.

He was genuinely asking if anyone wanted to leave.

Seriously, for such a one note awful comic book character, he's really, really managed to come alive through these two movies.

It doesn't hurt one bit that Chris Evans has some innate charisma, or that the comics Captain America has some good stories in the last decade to draw from (the stuff written by Ed Brubaker and Mark Waid). But the screen writers also don't believe that a boy scout is a boring character. Though I liked Man of Steel, that's one thing that Zak Snyder really missed about Superman - good characters don't HAVE to be boring.

Alas, because I don't read many Cap comments, all I had going into this set of movies was that fucking awful 'Do You Think This A Stands For France' nonsense.  Offensive in every possible way.

So it was nice to get a human superhero.  Even nicer that he's now in this modern shithole and he's representing what America would like to be and trying to fight what it actually is.

Because in the real world, we'd have shot Fury years ago and blamed it on the brown folks.

That was part of Ultimate Avengers by Mark Millar. Ultimate Avengers, like a lot of Ultimate stuff,  was fan wank "interesting" only because it flipped the script on established characters.


I've seen this sentiment a lot and I think it has merit. Current DC comics are very much in the mid-90s "everything is dark and edgy" mindset as are their movies, whereas Marvel is often more fun and aspirational. So much of modern life is about snark and cynicism that being a Boy Scout is in some way more edgy than being edgy.

Mark Millar is a cunt.

Yes. I call him the Poor Man's Grant Morrison. He stopped writing interesting stuff in the early aughts.

Yeah, being dark and edgy in comics and comics movies is a lot like being negative and snarky on forums...

I actually meant personally, but never mind.  I didn't realise he wrote that shite.  Should have guessed.  Not all Scottish people are as fucking awesome and modest as me.

Sorry Iron, got to bump you to #3 Best Scotsman

1.  Grant Morrison-IMO the greatest comic writer ever.
2.  Craig Ferguson-Nuff said.
3.  Ironwood-uh 'fucking awesome and modest'?

Alan Moore will send snakes to eat you.  Soon.

Morrison only barely edges out Moore and I'm not sure if Moore's a Scot.  So I didn't mention him.  Please tell him to call off the snakes.

He never thought to seek those subtle arts that -- once the snakes have found the soulscent of their prey -- sate those same reptilian lusts that called them forth... and save the one they sought. Moore is a thing born without even the inkling of mercy.

That said, he's not too fond of the internet. Anything you say here is probably safe.

The thing is, you can't write a Boy Scout if you don't as a writer also have some strong opinions about what the Right Thing to do is.

So, on one hand, Zack Snyder can't do a Boy Scout because he wouldn't know the Right Thing was even if came up and gave him a blow job.

On the other hand, a lot of comic-book writers have written dull Captain America and Superman comics because their sense of "the Right Thing" was more or less cribbed from Boy's Life magazine circa 1955--not so much that this was Cap's inner life (which is fine in a way) but that it was also his actual world (which is dumb). Mark Gruenwald, who was otherwise a fine guy, is famous for the utterly dumb stories he kept writing about Cap where his agonizing moral dilemmas were things like "What should I do if a slinky villainness wants to make love to me and is willing to let us die in a fiery plane crash if I won't" and "Is it ok to shoot a terrorist if there's no other way to stop him killing a church full of people?"

You make a Boy Scout interesting not if you put him in situations where he's facing things that are a threat to his immaculate virtue but where he's facing things that are threats to OUR sense of what's right and wrong. Most of us wouldn't even think twice about schtupping a sexy person in a leotard if the alternative was dying in a fiery crash or shooting a terrorist if the alternative was fifty innocent people getting shot. But most of us wonder how to reconcile liberty and security. That's where we want to know what the boy scout would do--and where a good writer can't afford to temporize or try to split the difference. You have to make it really clear what you think the Right Thing To Do actually is.

Yeah, but they never lampshaded it.  Take the final fight scene:


The key to a good superhero movie is accepting the symbolic logic of the character as the primary driver of the plot, not trying to pick it apart and subvert it.

--Dave

Yes, that's exactly right.

Whereas Superman killed Zod.

 :uhrr:

These are all great comments. I've come away with a better understanding of the character and film. I hope they maintain the quality for whatever the third (Final?) film will be.

Final on his contract afaik.

If they have any sense I imagine they'll rest these characters and rotate in new ones after 3ish films.

They do not need to rest any characters.... if it made financial sense, they'd be great with weekly TV shows as there is so much source material to draw upon. What they need, financially, is to draw as many characters as possible into the public view. IM, Cap and Thor will stop getting their own movies because Doctor Strange, Guardians of the Galaxy, Black Panther, and the Vision need their own movies and they can't risk having too many on the screen.

I think their best bet with all of these movies is give the main actors 3 films, then recast the main role unless the actor wants to continue. Don't do fucking reboots, just recast the goddamn things and move on. I think people are willing to accept recastings as long as the new cast choices are good. Reboots get really messy especially when you are talking about 5 or 6 interwined properties. Soap operas do recasts all the time and few people bat an eyelash.

Yup.  Otherwise you'll end up with another fucking origin story.

Tony: I didn't expect to see you here.
Rhodes: It's me, I'm here, deal with it, let's move on. Drop it.

I can see why you would find that annoying.

One of the good things about how these movies tie together is it makes reboots pretty unlikely. You could have a new person take over for the character and have it be considered new person in the story, but you can't just press reset and start over like Sony is doing with Spider-Man.

I think they'll reboot sometime down the road when they get the rights back to some of the other characters.... but it may be a couple decades.  Until then, I think they'll stick with the actors as long as they can and then will replace them when they have to for cost reasons - or when an actor starts to age and the role (Thor, Vision, etc...) should not.

Took my son. He cried at one point. So emotional investment in the character was there.

He wants to watch it again. Falcon was much cooler than I anticipated. Roger Ebert from the grave says see it in a theater.

Count me in the no more reboot crowd. Reboots are a crutch for people who can't tell interesting stories so they rehash old ones. Marvel doesn't need it.

If they get the X rights back, I'd think a reboot would be good.  You could add mutants to the existing MCU,  but you'd be denying a lot of legacy stories.

Yes, I agree, I meant in the status quo.

The only reason that marvel doesn't need it is because as long as they keep expanding their character library, they should easily have 10-15 odd years of 3-5 movies a year before they exhaust the existing potential of their stuff.  Around that point, you would start considering reboots because you will want to refresh things for a new generation of marvel movie fans.

DC sort of shot themselves in the foot with the pre-nolan Batman movies since they had a pretty bad habit of killing off the villian of each one (hard to continue the franchise when every Bats villian anyone cared about was dead).   I think the original Spiderman set also suffered a bit of the same problem.    I am a bit of on the fence with the X-Men franchise, since they seem to be doing a pretty good job of expanding stuff, and Futures Past gives them potential Timey Wimey licence to "undo" the whole "everybody dies" ending of the last official "main" X-men movie.  However, they really need to get back to makeing "X-Men" movies, instead of the "Wolverine and some other mutants" movies they have been doing (at least First Class was a step in the right direction as far as that goes.)

Most of the mainstream Marvel characters could survive for decades just by taking storylines out of the comics without ever having to come up with original plots.

The Batman films were rebooted in part because the Schumacher films fucked the franchise. They were so panned by critics and audiences that more films considered part of the same series would have been pointless.

The issue isn't coming up with new plots. That would be easy with or without the comic book back catalog.

The issue is that the character becomes stale on the big screen once they've completed their own personal arc. Iron Man and Thor are pretty much there already.

Given there are so many characters to make films with I don't really see why they'd want risk the series goodwill by running characters into the ground. If people who think this will run for 20 years are right, it surely has to be based on continual introduction of new characters. If they try to make an iron man film every 18 months forever, they are going to come unstuck sooner or later.

Based on what I read from an interview with Kevin Feige, head of Marvel Studios, I foresee their strategy as exploiting different narrative genres with the character arcs being placed on the back burner or self-contained within the actors lifetime as the character. I don't foresee reboots, but I do see start and end points for multi-movie arcs, and I expect them to happen between phases (that is, all at once with all characters).

If you look at Garth Ennis's run on the Punisher: MAX, he took the Punisher as this absolute force used to explore different real world situations such as human trafficking. The interesting bits were in the character dealing with the situation in his way (and the Punisher had an extreme way of dealing with things). Frank didn't go through any major changes -- he did ask questions of himself that challenged his trauma-born ideology, but at the end he ended up being the hard-line stance to preserve his status quo. I loved that series.

The characters and what they represent won't get stale if Marvel's smart to mix up how they are presented and what they are presented in regards to. Their embodiment of ideals contained within them, such as Cap's Boy Scout attitude, will be used to explore the issues people care about and keep them relevant.

That's how it has always been, hasn't it?

Thor still needs to resolve the fact that Loki is on the throne, pretending to be Odin.

--Dave

A lot of these movies have avoided real personal arcs.

For example a good arc for Captain America would be when he became just "The Captain" and was replaced by US Agent. That's probably the most interesting thing that's ever happened to the character, because it speaks directly to what it really means to be Captain America. (Turns out the America part isn't the most important part)

For Iron Man there are a couple different arcs, mostly regarding recklessness in some form, be it drugs or technology. The movies have sorted skirted around these, without ever being about them. There still hasn't been a good Hulk movie.

Thor is the only one that I can't come up with an interesting arc off the top of my head, but I never read Thor comics so I don't have much to go on there.

Well, one of the biggest ones with Thor would have been the whole "I strip you of pretty much all of your powers (and memories) and banish you to Midguard where you will live the next 5 or 10 or whatever years as a human to learn some Humility" arc, which the movie promptly summed up in a week long vacation to earth that supposedly changed Thor's life.

Minor quibble but I think him giving up being CA and becoming Nomad was far more important, and IMO The Captain bit was sort of a rehash.

Which I'm fairly sure will be done after the next movie. Are you really all that excited to see more than another couple of hours of thor/loki hijinks? (and at this point this is simply a story plot, not a character arc)

On Margalis's point about the movies not really committing to character arcs, I really associate that with the way the third act if each movie just seems to disconnect from the characters and substitute in arbitrary explosions. There are plenty if hooks in the first half each film for character development, but at the end they just work out their issues through cathartic punching therapy.

The Nomad costume is so hideous that I block it from memory.

This was the first Marvel film to impress me. Possibly because I went in with low expectations, but it made CapAm and Falcon interesting characters.

I did dislike turning Shandling into a Hydra agent. Couldn't someone just disagree with Tony Stark on perfectly valid grounds rather than being an evil pawn?


Plus Fury didn't have a Macbook Pro - that was also important.

Lol.  Apple would like you to think so.

Just saw this.  Much better than a comic book movie had any right to be, and the action was great.  Tops Avengers in my books, as no Whedon dialogue making all the characters sound the same, and probably right around Iron Man.  Iron Man had a much better first half, but it's second half was kinda a let down.