Captain America: The Winter Soldier

[Bunk]

I have made a thread about a movie that is more than a year away simply to share with all of you the following news:

Georges St-Pierre has been cast as Batroc the Leaper.

I had a small nerdgasm.

I have no idea why I became such a fan of that character...

[HaemishM]

Because Batroc is just such a silly comic-book-y character that bringing him into a movie shows the people working on it have some affinity for the comics, even the sillier ones?

[K9]

I read this, and my initial responses were 'who?' and 'who?'

[Bunk]

Ok, Batroc I can forgive, but who the hell doesn't know who GSP is?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_St-Pierre

[Pezzle]

People who do not pay attention to fighting?  Most of the world? 

[HaemishM]

I knew Batroc but not Geores St-Piere. 

[K9]

My dual ignorance of MMA and Comics has exposed me once again!

Is there any rational process behind this though? It seems that the whole genre of movies based on comic book adaptations seems to be riding on an assumption that because people like the few major well-known franchises (Spiderman, Batman, Iron Man for example) they'll buy into any comic book film.

[Evildrider]

I bet Batroc is just used as a minor villain that Cap roflstomps in the first act.

[Bunk]

I'm sure he will be. The guy's entire range of powers is that he's skilled in Savate and has a really cool mustache.

Also, I appear to have overestimated just how far reaching the power of the UFC is. Those of you who have never heard of St-Pierre, can you name any current UFC champs? Or any former ones for that matter?

I'm honestly curious, being as I thought it had worked its way in to universal sports coverage more. I'm not a big MMA fan at all, but when a guy gets named your country's top athlete three years in a row, you tend to remember him as a sports fan.

[Shannow]

I know who Randy Couture? and Brock Lesnar are...I had no idea who GSP was.

[RhyssaFireheart]

I'm sure he will be. The guy's entire range of powers is that he's skilled in Savate and has a really cool mustache.

Also, I appear to have overestimated just how far reaching the power of the UFC is. Those of you who have never heard of St-Pierre, can you name any current UFC champs? Or any former ones for that matter?

I'm honestly curious, being as I thought it had worked its way in to universal sports coverage more. I'm not a big MMA fan at all, but when a guy gets named your country's top athlete three years in a row, you tend to remember him as a sports fan.

Nope and nope.  Don't watch any form of MMA/UFC, nor do I care to.  It's simply not on my radar at all.

[Fordel]

Shamrock! 

[kaid]

I'm sure he will be. The guy's entire range of powers is that he's skilled in Savate and has a really cool mustache.

Also, I appear to have overestimated just how far reaching the power of the UFC is. Those of you who have never heard of St-Pierre, can you name any current UFC champs? Or any former ones for that matter?

I'm honestly curious, being as I thought it had worked its way in to universal sports coverage more. I'm not a big MMA fan at all, but when a guy gets named your country's top athlete three years in a row, you tend to remember him as a sports fan.

Honestly if you are looking for a frenchish villian who is good at savate george St pierre is a pretty damn good candidate for it.

[Trippy]

Ah those were the days. No weight classes. No stupid time limits. Many fewer rules

[Nebu]

I won't be happy until the Falcon makes an appearance.  

[HaemishM]

Also, I appear to have overestimated just how far reaching the power of the UFC is. Those of you who have never heard of St-Pierre, can you name any current UFC champs? Or any former ones for that matter?

Nope, can't name a one. I liked boxing - cage fighting never really appealed to me at all.

[Merusk]

I know the UFC is a thing and "TAPOUT" stickers are plastered across the rear windows of the biggest redneck trucks around here and that you should avoid those because they're assholes on the road.

That's it.

[Evildrider]

I won't be happy until the Falcon makes an appearance.  

Falcon is in Winter Soldier.  Anthony Mackie was cast a few months ago.

[Khaldun]

I feel really certain that Batroc will be, as noted above, roflstomped in a cold open. Which is awesome. Batroc ZE LEAPAIR strikes against LE CAPITAN D'AMERIQUE! Incroyable!

They'll probably try to stick in the Millar "The A on my helmet doesn't stand for FRANCE" line in some way. I think it'll probably be a bit like the USO dance number scene in the first film, which was great.

[Shannow]

I feel really certain that Batroc will be, as noted above, roflstomped in a cold open. Which is awesome. Batroc ZE LEAPAIR strikes against LE CAPITAN D'AMERIQUE! Incroyable!

All that did was make me think of this.

[K9]

I'm sure he will be. The guy's entire range of powers is that he's skilled in Savate and has a really cool mustache.

Also, I appear to have overestimated just how far reaching the power of the UFC is. Those of you who have never heard of St-Pierre, can you name any current UFC champs? Or any former ones for that matter?

I'm honestly curious, being as I thought it had worked its way in to universal sports coverage more. I'm not a big MMA fan at all, but when a guy gets named your country's top athlete three years in a row, you tend to remember him as a sports fan.

I can't think of anyone I know in the UK who has any interest in UFC. I don't even know if it's on TV much (if at all). I couldn't name anyone mentioned in this thread, although the name Brock Lesnar rings a bell for some unknown reason, probably lifting-related not MMA related though.

[Evildrider]

I'm sure he will be. The guy's entire range of powers is that he's skilled in Savate and has a really cool mustache.

Also, I appear to have overestimated just how far reaching the power of the UFC is. Those of you who have never heard of St-Pierre, can you name any current UFC champs? Or any former ones for that matter?

I'm honestly curious, being as I thought it had worked its way in to universal sports coverage more. I'm not a big MMA fan at all, but when a guy gets named your country's top athlete three years in a row, you tend to remember him as a sports fan.

I can't think of anyone I know in the UK who has any interest in UFC. I don't even know if it's on TV much (if at all). I couldn't name anyone mentioned in this thread, although the name Brock Lesnar rings a bell for some unknown reason, probably lifting-related not MMA related though.

Brock Lesnar was also in the WWE for awhile.  Also he was huge and demolished people in UFC til he had unrelated medical problems. 

[Zetleft]

Demolished?  Comeon all of his wins consisted of a bull rush and lay on top on someone till the round ends.  He was lucky to have an above 50 win percentage and he had less than 10 fights.   But yeah GSP is a badass in the ringso good choice as far as casting goes.  He hasalot of timeoff since pretty much owning his weight class.

[Teleku]

Demolished?  Comeon all of his wins consisted of a bull rush and lay on top on someone till the round ends.

Ok, I haven't even tried to watch UFC/MMA and all that for a long time, but you basically described every single match I ever saw.  Its just two guys who tackle each other, then slowly grope each other for awhile till somebody gives up.  Its like a far less exciting version of wrestling.  Or in short:



If they made a rule that you aren't allowed to grab anybody longer than it takes to throw them across the screen cage while making street fighter sounds, it might be interesting (and maybe they have, its been years since I attempted to watch).

[Trippy]

[Tannhauser]

He just got knocked the fuck out!

[Rasix]

Demolished?  Comeon all of his wins consisted of a bull rush and lay on top on someone till the round ends.  He was lucky to have an above 50 win percentage and he had less than 10 fights.   But yeah GSP is a badass in the ringso good choice as far as casting goes.  He hasalot of timeoff since pretty much owning his weight class.

Eh, Lesnar had only one fight go to decision.  His dick punching typically led to stoppages.   On the other hand, GSP decisions about half of his opponents (not saying he doesn't shit kick them along the way) and has for the last 6 fights.

Of course, I don't really watch MMA anymore.  The novelty has worn off for me. 

[Evildrider]

MMA just got boring.  I liked it more back in the old days of Shamrock and the Gracies.

[pxib]

It turned out that once the rules were set, there was an ideal set of moves which everyone should attempt regardless of what their skills are. The people who chose them won, so future winners emulated them until now every single fighter is more or less indistinguishable from every other. Like any of the olympic fighting sports.

[Surlyboi]

In other words, the min/maxers stepped in and fucked it up for everyone else. Plus ca change

[Khaldun]

This is genuinely an interesting problem in games: what makes that small subset where there is constant variety in strategies possible? Such a small subset of games (digital and analog) but when you see one that has that magic "it", you always know it.

Anyway, Captain America! Will be interesting to see how they keep him optimistic and gee-whiz and yet let him wrestle with melancholy about being a man-out-of-time. Always a problem for the comics too--Rick Remender just did an interesting riff in Uncanny Avengers where the Red Skull genuinely tempts Captain America with some Tea Party fantasies about the good ol' days.

[kaid]

It turned out that once the rules were set, there was an ideal set of moves which everyone should attempt regardless of what their skills are. The people who chose them won, so future winners emulated them until now every single fighter is more or less indistinguishable from every other. Like any of the olympic fighting sports.

Yup pretty much. Basically at one time you had boxers, martial artists, wrestlers, kick boxers and juijitsu fighters. Now anybody who wants to compete at high levels in MMA pretty much has to do all of the above well. Some are strongest at one portion of that but if you have to much of a weakness in any of those areas you get owned hard and often.

So a lot of the younger fighters now have a fighting style that is called mixed martial arts pretty much the taking all the legal moves from the above jamming them together into a fighting style.

Just the fact the go in wearing nothing but shorts and don't have weapons and has some basic rules to prevent crippling/killing your opponent yes everything tends to distil down to a form that works best.

[Pennilenko]

I would watch MMA again if it was with weapons and to the death.

[Fordel]

I wouldn't. Fights would be even more boring then. 

[angry.bob]

MMA is for people who aren't classy enough to appreciate NASCAR. It's sole redeeming feature seems to be pumping up drunk white guys in bars to the point where they think they can do that stuff too, talk loud shit, and then discover quickly that they can't.