Captain America: The Winter Soldier - SPOILER THREAD

[Goblin19]

Really entertaining movie. The Cap franchise is my favorite of the Marvel individual movies. They really nail his character.

[hedrap]

The writers said they were looking at a 70's storyline of Cap vs Cap for the third film and rumor is Skull returns for the third. That seems to fit with Taskmaster, Crossbones and Bucky taking over. I'm beginning to think Taskmaster will be an AoS character in season 2.

Oh, and AoS is getting a second season with or without ABC.

[thunderbolt]

^^^ Is Netflix the backup plan for AoS?

[hedrap]

^Apparently they're first in line. SyFy is actually an option, too. When a network passes on a show, even when part of the same company, that show can be shopped outside the family. So it comes down to the production model. Can they make more with SyFy selling ad buys, or is Netflix a better deal since the season is contained to X amount of episodes like a mini-series for a flat price?

[ScottA]

Saw it today. Loved it.

[samurainoir]

According to IGN, he's crossbones. Never heard of the character.

Don't blame you... he's a nineties guy.


they made him pretty cool when they brought him back in Brubaker's Winter Soldier era run on the title a few years ago.


I hadn't thought of the Bane comparison before, but I can totally see that... Crossbones even becomes romantically entangled with The Red Skull's daughter, just like Bane does when he becomes a follower of Ras Al ghul and hooks up with Talia.

[samurainoir]

Did you guys know this was the international title?

Kind of clunky. you think they would go with First Avenger: Winter Soldier.

[Earth 2 Chris]

Where's Cap's shield? Did someone retrieve it from the Potomac for him? Is it lost? Or does Bucky have it?

I'm pretty sure we didn't see it again.

Chris

[Operation:Mego]

that was in there. he picked it up when fighting cap in the street.

I mean when he walks up to the camera and picks it up, as the camera pans up to reveal his maskless face. I don't think that was in there.

Where's Cap's shield? Did someone retrieve it from the Potomac for him? Is it lost? Or does Bucky have it?

I'm pretty sure we didn't see it again.

Chris

"You couldn't have gotten my shield too?"
"Be lucky I saved you!"

[MegoSteve]

That article also shows why Marvel has has so much more success than WB/DC in putting their characters and story on the big screen. Marvel believes in its characters and stories, but at their heart WB/DC doesn't.

I just saw the movie tonight so this is the first time I've looked at this thread. This is such an astute observation... one gets the impression that the arrogant corporate types at WB/DC are ashamed of the comics and purposely try to run away from the pulp heritage of the characters when they try to bring them to the mainstream. It is an absolute miracle that we got Justice League Unlimited and the Batman and Superman animated series from them, probably because they see cartoons as low stakes when compared to the movies. They just do not get the characters like the people in charge at Marvel do, and it breaks my heart as a DC fan that I am more entertained by Marvel films, which capture the spirit of the comics, than by DC ones, which just seem flaccid and soulless because they lack the basic foundation the great comics stories provide.

[spacecaps]

As I mentioned in the "I Just Watched Captain America" I wasn't really awed like most of the members here. So someone asked me in that thread to break down what I didn't like about it and here goes...

The pacing was off and at times the movie came to a screeching halt. For example, the scene where Cap visits the English woman in the hospital, (I can't remember her name) who shows up in an interview in the video during Part One of the worlds longest catch the audience up so they know whats going on in this movie museum tour at the Smithsonian, should have been a cut scene. What exactly was the payoff there? It was five minutes of B.S. all so they can go, "Look there's her picture hanging next to Tony Starks dad." later on. Another lag issue was the the Nick Fury failed kidnapping attempt. Lots of action there but the build up to that scene was painful and Fury GPS coordinate dialogue to his car was some of the worst in the movie. Why even have countermeasures in a car like that if your just going to refuse them anyway. Between that, the fake your own death, rouge agents against the agency, the good guy in charge of everything is really the bad guy, your old friend who you thought was long dead is alive and just like you only evil, the movie was just cliche after cliche. I don't think Winter Soldier had one original idea and speaking of dialog, some of the scenes with Redford and his Jedi council like board members stopped the movie dead too. I thought that scene was lifted right from The Phantom Menace and along with what they were talking about and whenever something is compared to Episode 1, it's never a good thing. Even the credit cuts scene was just dry dialogue. Sure the payoff was good but getting there was so slow it was like when Homer tunes out Marge and just hears blah blah blah, blah blah, blah. Oh, Scarlet Which and Quicksilver!

The characters were at times well, out of character starting with the stupidity of the Black Widow. No less than three times she came off as totally incompetent. The first being "That was on me." can be shrugged to establish the frailty of a non-super powered superhero in a Super Hero world but that kind of character complexity would be asking for too much. Instead of deepining her character, it was just a precursor to some bad moves on her part later on. It felt out of place for a character they built up as someone who was always in control of the situation and knew exactly what she was doing in the Avengers movie. Being in control and one step a head of everybody is kind of her superpower and vital to her usefulness as an Avenger since she um, doesn't have any superpowers. The worst of this comes at the end where she goes all Mystique like and disguises herself as a member of the Jedi council knowing full well that at this point Pierce is a villain but has no problem putting on his exploding death pin. On her blazer. Which she could have just taken off. The blazer, not the pin. But why even put that on in the first place? Falling for something like that should have been beneath her. Also kind of out of place for a character was when Pierce kills the maid. Clearly that was there to illustrate that he is also a bad guy for anyone who didn't understand that he was a bad guy when he was shown meeting the other bad guy hiding in the shadows Stridor style at his house. So he's meticulous about crafting his image and hiding his intentions for years and risks ruining his plans for no reason. Think about it, he clearly has employed this maid for sometime based on the repore they have with one another and then on a whim just offs her when she sees he's talking to a man that's so well hidden in the shadows she couldn't have possibly have seen clearly. What exactly happens to the body? Ok, the Winter Soldier (talk about your clunky names) takes care of it. Maybe he cleans it up and makes it disappear but unless he's employing an illegal alien to clean his house there's a paper trail of her employment, someone knows her schedule, knows who she's working for, and when she doesn't come home is going to be looking for her last known whereabouts for answers. Captain America doesn't have to worry about taking Pierce down, some homicide detective will take care of it. I know it's a comic book movie but come on. Convenience for the plots sake is no excuse. And while I'm on convenience for plots sake, I'm pretty sure retina scanners don't work on glazed over dead eyes since there's you know, no retina to be scanned. But whatever, the same franchise also unleashed the "I'm always angry" secret of the Hulk which no matter how many ways I've heard that one explained still makes no freakin sense.

So how about Falcon. He sure was cool. Does the military let you take home their equipment after your done using it in the war? How the heck did he have access to those wings? What happened to his PTSD that he was in THERAPY for? That went away like Mikey's asthma disappeared at the end of Goonies. Nothing like being back in combat to get rid of all the anxiety you had from combat I guess. Now I know your not going to create the look of the comic book exactly but could you maybe try to come close with your minor sidekick characters. Could they at least give this guy a little bit of armor? Maybe just a helmet? Something that makes him a little more than an extremely vulnerable Iron Man. Seriously, one shot and the guy is done for. I bet he had at least a helmet in Afghanistan. Maybe a gun too.

The logistics were off. Remember that scene in the building that Cap notices is out of place. "Why would you hide the elevator in an already hidden building." That one. Well, they take the hidden elevator down to a a basement or a sub-basement where they find the bunker left over from the Terminator movie with Claire Daines. Either way they go down into the ground. Then the plot has to be painstakingly explained to us (again) to keep the movie moving forward but SURPRISE! it was just a decoy to kill the heroes because here come a missile. Didn't see that coming. Anyway that missile explodes to the side of them but it's shown hitting the top of the building and unless it fell through several floors before detonation, it should have exploded on impact causing the floors above them to cave in on Cap and Black Widow. How's that work? When they crawl out of the rubble of newly exploded building, they get out from the ground floor. How did that happen? They were underground for crying out loud.

Another scene that didn't fit right was the scene where Cap takes down that hovercraft on the bridge. That scene was so over the top the only thing that was missing was for him to finish the hovercraft off and jump back onto the motorcycle while it was still up on two wheel and keep on riding. I know he's a comic book character but he was pulling off moves that Spiderman would have trouble doing.

Then there's The Winter Soldier himself. I'm pretty sure 99% of the audience had no freakin clue who he was in relation to Captain America when he revealed himself. He sure didn't look like Bucky and unless you just watched the first movie right before this one, you probably forgot who Bucky was. Incase you did, they spoon fed you a flashback scene to hammer in the point of Bucky's relationship to Cap but that scene was disjointed and confusing. Not nearly as confusing as the other flashback scene at the barracks. What exactly happened when Cap was reminiscing about the barracks and he saw his scrawny self falling behind the rest of the group in a real time flashback? Did his flashback self see his current self watching the flashback, because scrawny 1940's Steve Rogers sure makes it seem that way when he stops running and stares right at Cap having his flashback about himself being scrawny and not able to keep up with the group right before he fades away. You can't tell me that wasn't out of place.

Other pet peeves. Captain America watched War Games before watching Star Wars or Star Trek? Dude needs to get his priorities straight. Ever try on you Grandaddys WWII uniform? Chance are it didn't fit because old clothing tends to shrink with age. A lot. Caps old uniform fit like a glove though. I know minor detail and I'm nitpicking on that one but still but while I'm on that subject, Welcome to New Jersey signs are green, not blue and they sure as heck don't look like they did in the movie.

Was anyone else in the movie wondering why no one tried to contact any of the other Avengers? Like what was Iron Man doing? Maybe he could help taking down giant floating war machines that Hydra was trying to deploy or did he do enough of that in the Avengers movie. Actually he repaired a giant floating hovercraft in that movie. For 40 realtime minutes. What about Bruce Banner? He could have helped. Why didn't anyone suggest giving him a call? Since he's always angry he can Hulk out whenever he wants right. I mean even Brody mentions Hooper was too far away to help with the shark when Richard Dryfuss didn't want to be in Jaws 2 you'd think the Avengers could come around. Thor could have done some damage. No? Even Hawkeye could have pitched in. Well, maybe not, but you get my point. I know it's Captain America's movie but where were the Avengers here? They don't have to show up, just cameo them or at the very least explain why you didn't call your other Super Hero friends to help out when stuff got real.

So there you have it. I'm sure I'll get killed here for poking holes at this film but there sure are a lot of holes to poke. 'Nuff Said.

[MegoSteve]

I'm not going to go point by point, but this stood out to me as a particularly invalid criticism:

For example, the scene where Cap visits the English woman (I can't remember her name) who shows up in the video during the worlds longest "catch the audience up" museum tour at the Smithsonian earlier should have been a cut scene. What exactly was the payoff there?

The payoff is several things:

1. Continuity-wise, his relationship with Peggy Carter is a callback to the first movie, of which she was one of the main characters, and ties the two movies together. It's also a reminder that, without her, Steve Rogers wouldn't be Captain America.

2. Her presence as a very old, dying woman, underscores the idea of Captain America being a man out of his own time. Yes, it was repeated through dialogue and jokes, but there's a difference between telling and showing. That old dying woman was one of the last of his contemporaries and someone who shared his "old-fashioned" values; those values led to a rift between him and Nick Fury as Cap couldn't relate to Fury's modern way of thinking. The brilliance, though, is that her appearance both underscores how different he is from his modern partners Black Widow and Falcon on an emotional/values level, but how different he ended up being from one of his contemporaries on a physical level, who is in a bed dying while he is still vital, young-looking, and athletic.

I honestly thought his visit with her was one of the better parts of the film, providing an emotional underpinning for the Cap character.

[Earth 2 Chris]

^Very well said. And if you've seen the first film, you understand how important Peggy was to Steve. In a deleted scene from Avengers, he is going over the files on the Howling Commandos and his other allies, and they are all dead, except for Peggy. He sees her current address and phone number, and looks hard at the phone for some time. He ultimately doesn't call her, but the seed is sewn. I personally think that scene should have stayed in.

The final scene in the first film is Steve lamenting he missed their date, so a payoff to that was very welcome in my eyes, and gave this new film some heart. It's the type of scene that is missing from the DC films of late.

Chris

[boss]

Plus, there was a running theme/gag through the movie that Steve hasn't dated (or even kissed) anyone since the 1940s. She's the reason why. That scene was poignant (and important) for that reason alone (character development).

There was a real sadness at the end of it where she went blank for a second and then saw Steve again as if for the first time.

[Earth 2 Chris]

^Yeah, that was heart-wrenching. Such a great scene. The Steve/Peggy relationship put the first movie over for my wife, so she really appreciated her being in this one, as did I.

Chris