Captain America: Civil War

[jgsugden]

Trailer looks good (especially the beat down at the end), but I'd like to know where jgsugden ranks this as far as MCU trailers go.

Right behind the trailer for your mom's amateur porn. I Marvel at what she does with a baseball and a bat... a live bat (at least before it goes in).

[MahrinSkel]

I call for a ruling from the referees, Mom/Sex insults are uncreative and useless, and this one is trying way too hard.

--Dave

[jgsugden]

Fair enough. Nothing related to his Mom's porn should be hard.

[Rasix]

[NowhereMan]

I can see them tying in Cap's opposition heavily to the events of Cap 2, where approval of massive oversight and governmental apparatus to improve people's security nearly led to Hydra taking over. Basically any large government oversight in the name of security is going to be screaming Hydra to Steve for a while. I'm not sure why Tony would be so in favour though, Iron Man has been all about him keeping his toys secret and personal unless it's about pulling capes under the aegis of the Avengers programme and he would have control. I could buy Tony seeing putting him in charge as an overall good thing.

[Ironwood]

Much like the retarded comic, the motivation of Tony Stark makes fuck all sense.

Which is why I like watching him getting the shit kicked out of him.  Frankly, if it's a full 3 hours of RDJ getting the shit kicked out of him, I'll be happy.

[eldaec]

I can see them tying in Cap's opposition heavily to the events of Cap 2, where approval of massive oversight and governmental apparatus to improve people's security nearly led to Hydra taking over. Basically any large government oversight in the name of security is going to be screaming Hydra to Steve for a while. I'm not sure why Tony would be so in favour though, Iron Man has been all about him keeping his toys secret and personal unless it's about pulling capes under the aegis of the Avengers programme and he would have control. I could buy Tony seeing putting him in charge as an overall good thing.

I'd assume it isn't about bringing it under the Avengers given the choice they made to have IronMan declare he was leaving the Avengers at the end of that film.

Of course, he declared he was retiring from being Iron Man at the end of IM3 as well, then promptly forgot all about it, so who the fuck knows.

[Lantyssa]

Watching again I notice the 'legislation' is has a UN stamp on it and describes itself as an 'accord'.

Yeah, pretty sure it's a global thing.  The team is made up of a lot of non-Americans and the police initially after Bucky weren't American either.

[jgsugden]

Tony agreeing to the idea of oversight might have something to do with his unchecked actions nearly resulting in the end of the world in Avengers 2.

[Teleku]

Oh man, trailer makes it look like War Machine dies (and thus puts Tony over the edge).  Going to be kind of mad if they do that.   

Looks pretty good overall though.  It's going to be hard to do the Civil War story line without looking silly, but the angle the trailer takes might work out.

[sickrubik]

Oh man, trailer makes it look like War Machine dies (and thus puts Tony over the edge).  Going to be kind of mad if they do that.   

War Machine is part of the new Avengers team, as of the end of A2, so I doubt he dies.

[Teleku]

Decent point, but that could just mean he sides with cap, and Ironman ends up accidentally killing him while they skirmish, and pushing him into "So was I" territory.

Hopefully not!  But who knows what they're doing.

[eldaec]

I'm still assuming bucky is the next Cap. Ergo, not dead. Otherwise I don't understand why they carried his character this far. Neither of the films he has been in needed him, and nor does this really, we aren't short on Avengers already or potentially responsible for bad shit.

The trailer seems to imply Bucky stays in nondescript street costume for CA3 instead of a good-winter-soldier outfit, which you can either take as evidence, or as Latino Review level speculation, your choice.

[eldaec]

Oh, you mean war machine, which you clearly stated.

Reading comprehension is hard after a couple of bottles of red.

[HaemishM]

Tony agreeing to the idea of oversight might have something to do with his unchecked actions nearly resulting in the end of the world in Avengers 2.

I'm thinking this may be his motivation and if so, it's a fuckload better than anything the comics had. Of course, there could also be some Infinity Stone influence as well so I'm reserving judgement on that until I see it. Given how good Winter Soldier was, I'm willing to give these guys the benefit of the doubt.

[Ironwood]

No, come ON.  This is a guy that broke the fucking rules about oversight TWICE in Avengers 2 and GAVE NO FUCKS WHATSOVER.  This is a guy who built Ultron and then said 'Hey, let's try again'.  This motivation is fucking stupid, stupid, stupid.  I would think he would feel MORE vindicated because he actually managed to make Vision, rather than agreeing to this bullshit.

Just a film constantly punching him in the dick.  That's all I want.

[Lantyssa]

It still fits his personality.  He wants everyone under control, limits applied, and quantities known, but will rebel himself when someone tries to do the same to him.

That hypocrisy is his major flaw.  It's also why I'm going to be rooting for team Cap the whole time.  Bucky doesn't give a "it's him or me" ultimatum, either.

[Ironwood]

In The Dick.

[NowhereMan]

Yeah I think they can sell the pro-reg side being the wrong side much better by going with a hypocrisy angle. If the kind of people (Tony, SHIELD, etc.) who have consistently been doing dumb shit that nearly wiped us all out are the same ones saying heroes need to be registered and they need more control because of X (which is likely a false flag type operation by bad guys) it makes Cap's side look far more reasonable.

One of the big issues the comics version of this had is that with their continuity and set up, really, the pro-reg side had it right. The whole thing felt kind of like a set up by someone who was really in favour of NSA wire tapping and thought Watchmen was an awesome story that should totally be realised in Marvel managed to sneak a pitch past the editorial board who half-way through realised that this would fuck their whole universe up and hit the 'maximum evil' switch for Tony's side.

[Fordel]

Yeah I think they can sell the pro-reg side being the wrong side much better by going with a hypocrisy angle. If the kind of people (Tony, SHIELD, etc.) who have consistently been doing dumb shit that nearly wiped us all out are the same ones saying heroes need to be registered and they need more control because of X (which is likely a false flag type operation by bad guys) it makes Cap's side look far more reasonable.

One of the big issues the comics version of this had is that with their continuity and set up, really, the pro-reg side had it right. The whole thing felt kind of like a set up by someone who was really in favour of NSA wire tapping and thought Watchmen was an awesome story that should totally be realised in Marvel managed to sneak a pitch past the editorial board who half-way through realised that this would fuck their whole universe up and hit the 'maximum evil' switch for Tony's side.

That's more or less what happened. The lead writers/editors have said as much in interviews after the fact, that they went overboard on the pro-reg side because without it the argument was oversight and regulation vs. consequence free vigilantes. Where if you really thought about what and how Superheroes operate, it is in fact utterly fucking insane. 

[Teleku]

I've brought that up with a bunch of people recently when discussing the upcoming civil war movie.  How, in reality, its totally silly not to force people who can punch buildings to death to register and act under regulated authority before they go out beating up people they personally think are 'bad', without any oversight.

Everybody seems to think that's dumb, the vigilantes are just helping with stuff the cops ignore/can't do anything with, and it's similar to registering Jews or Japanese or some shit.

So I guess I'm actually the strange one.  

[Ironwood]

You are.

[Rendakor]

It's dumb because alien invasions are cool, and sentient, destructive AIs are cool but bureaucracy isn't cool. It's the sort of neckbeardy nonsense I expect to see in comic books, and not the ZOMGEXPLOSIONS I want in my summer blockbusters; I expect the movie will still be decent because none of the MCU movies haven't been, but I doubt it will one of the best.

[Teleku]

You are.

[NowhereMan]

I want to point out again that in (movie) comic land, the massive fuck ups we've seen have come equally from large institutional bureacracies with oversight as they have from costumed crusaders. We've seen nothing in the movies to indicate that rogue superhumans are more dangerous than easily manipulable, overly empowered government bodies. Stever Rogers has always been that quintesentially American ideal that the lone individual needs to have a level of freedom of action to prevent the worst excesses of democracy. Without dragging this into politics (because there's a lot of real world stuff there no-one likes) that ideal rubs up pretty well with superheroes.

In a universe where the government agency tasked with overseeing global security has come within a whisker's breath of handing the whole globe over to HYDRA and was only stopped by the actions of a small groups of individual heroes, I can see why Captain America might not respond favourably to being told that all small groups of individual heroes need to come under the surveillance and control of a government agency tasked  with overseeing global security. Honestly CA2 and A2 set up Civil War a lot fucking better than the comics ever came close to. We'll see how they actually handle it. I laughed at jgsugden when he first talked about the rumour but I think they've done a good job of setting up a fundamentally worthwhile plot concept. I continue to hope they only share the name and plot concept with the comic book version.

[Lantyssa]

Registration in a super hero universe is kind of silly anyways.

Local governments aren't going to be happy with a world government telling their heroes what to do.  Anyone that doesn't exactly toe-the-line is going to be on the outs and forced to oppose this world government so it will be an ever growing list.  The only people who can contest such an extraordinary person is another super-powered being, which is just going to lead to more violations in their apprehension.  What happens if a world leader is also a super and they refuse to register, do you invade a sovereign nation with other heroes or are they granted diplomatic immunity?  If the latter, then what's stopping any of these questionable heroes from going out and taking over a country?

Then what do you do about aliens?  "Hi Mr. Thor who isn't a member of any nation on Earth.  Can you please register and submit it government regulation?"  Does the whole Kree battleship in orbit need to register, and if they don't, do you declare war on them?

All it does is create a never-ending downward spiral.  Make a book with some guidelines and ask heroes to try and follow it?  Sure.  Try to make literal gods take an oath and sign their name to a stack of forms?  Not likely.

[Margalis]

The Marvel villains are terrible so they need an excuse to have the heroes fight each other instead. It happened in Avengers 1, Avengers 2 and GOTG, now there's an entire move predicated on it. Overthinking the logic seems silly to me. Iron Man is just plot device guy, he does what the plot requires - there's no larger explanation.

It will almost certainly turn out that some lame supervillain is pulling the strings and making them fight each other anyway, and the finale will be them all teaming up or some shit.

[Kail]

I want to point out again that in (movie) comic land, the massive fuck ups we've seen have come equally from large institutional bureacracies with oversight as they have from costumed crusaders. We've seen nothing in the movies to indicate that rogue superhumans are more dangerous than easily manipulable, overly empowered government bodies. Stever Rogers has always been that quintesentially American ideal that the lone individual needs to have a level of freedom of action to prevent the worst excesses of democracy. Without dragging this into politics (because there's a lot of real world stuff there no-one likes) that ideal rubs up pretty well with superheroes.

The problem is that the issue highlights a lot of stuff that's generally brushed over in comics to make a better story.  Real life vigilante actions are not like comic book superhero stories, and as comics have tried to move away from goofy stories for kids and towards complex dramas for adults, they've held on to a lot of those weird conventions that don't make sense in a more realistic context.  In real life you need oversight on this kind of stuff because people fuck up, but in fiction the main character is always right because the viewpoint character always wins in the end, and the government is always evil because it's more dramatic when vast sinister forces are arrayed against our outnumbered brave heroes.  By making this a main plot point the author is essentially just writing a story about how unrealistic their previous writing is, more than they are highlighting any real issues with regulation or bureaucracy.  The only reason the anti-registration side seems even REMOTELY plausible is because we know that the main characters all have plot armor and won't make significant mistakes.

It would be like if we got an Indiana Jones movie where Indy was accused of collaboration with the Nazis because there's no way one guy could have beaten up all those Nazis by himself.  Yes, we know it's not realistic, stop drawing attention to it, dammit.

[HaemishM]

That's where things like the DC grimdark movie shit just goes so wrong. The creators hate the very concept of superheroes because superheroes are SILLY in any sort of realistic context. If you can't reconcile the fact that superheroes require a certain level of "Ahh fuck it, not important to a fun story," you really shouldn't be writing them. Looking at you, David Goyer/Brian Michael Bendis. Just accept the conventions of the genre and have fun with it. Since Watchmen/Dark Knight, there have been a TON of superhero stories that have dry humped the meta concept of superheroes to death. None of these twats are going to suddenly redefine the genre like Watchmen did and frankly most of them should stop trying. It's no longer original and the number of writers in comics that are just trying to do good superhero stories without worrying about all that bullshit is dangerously low.

[NowhereMan]

Actually I think Civil War as a storyline in the Marvel (or DC) universe has the potential to be entertaining by subverting the 'realist-subversion of comic book tropes' trope. Basically in any kind of realistic look at the universe of course we would want heroes registered but in MCU large government agencies have been responsible for a fair bit of terrible stuff happening due to subversion, etc. One of the bases of Watchment was that masked vigilantes might need a body to oversee them but that body was just as liable to corruption or immorality as those they oversaw. Comics are, basically, about good winning out, happy endings, etc., etc. so it doesn't actually stretch incredulity that in that context you'd want some level of oversight but you'd also want to allow individuals the freedom of action to challenge any such authority in case of subversion by hostile forces like HYRDRA. To sell an anti-registration case you just need to tone down the basis for a pro-reg movement (ideally having it be suspicious and working as an ultimately false flag situation) and have a non-coercive alternative to offer.

The comics didn't really do either, which mean the pro-reg side were the good guys until they started performing unholy science experiments and killing random people just because. I think the movies are set up to actually play with the Watchmen style tropes that DC seem unable to move past or really even understand and I think they could do a good job with the concept. We'll see if that faith is misplaced but having Steve and Buck beat the crap out of Tony could be fun enough to ignore the rest of it.

[jgsugden]

Optimism Rising... http://www.cinemablend.com/new/James-Gunn-Has-Seen-Civil-War-Here-What-He-Thought-103157.html

[MediumHigh]

Literally the only movie I'm looking forward to in 2016 the fact that the trailer screaming "NOT THE SHIT COMIC NOT THE SHIT COMIC" is giving me some joy.

[jgsugden]

Literally the only movie I'm looking forward to in 2016 the fact that the trailer screaming "NOT THE SHIT COMIC NOT THE SHIT COMIC" is giving me some joy.

Not looking forward to Rogue One, or Dr. Strange?

[Merusk]

Or Deadpool, or Zootopia, or Zoolander 2?

Aaand that really looks like it for movies in 2016. Gonna be a shitty year.

[Evildrider]

I dunno I have some hope for X-Men: Apocalypse.  Also Hail Caesar could be god damn amazing.