Captain America 3 or How Marvel Won the Comic Film World

Movies
624

Zemo’s plan isn’t as convoluted as people have criticized it for being. It’s not one of those crazy villain schemes that relies on a zillion things falling into place in a way that looks like what the heroes wanted but turn out to be all part of the master plan.

He wants the files on Bucky killing Tony’s parents, so he can use that the break up the team (specifically cap/Tony). He tries to get what he needs in the simplest way possible first, torturing the colonel hydra agent. That doesn’t work, so he moves on to framing Bucky to capture him and infiltrate for the interrogation. Not that crazy or complicated in this world. You could complain about the logistics of actually being in the right place at the right time for that once Bucky’s captured, but everyone’s all over the world in a matter of hours in this film; that’s not really a silly villain scheme, just playing fast and loose with the speed at which he can pull that together. EMP bomb to knock out power and get to Bucky unsupervised, and he has what he wants: the information on the Winter Soldier facility to go get the files on that mission himself.

Once he gets there, he exposes the frame job on Bucky to make certain he gets some Avengers there to actually reveal the truth to about Bucky’s involvement. Mission accomplished.

Several things break in Zemo’s favor that he couldn’t control, sure. But they’re just coincidences that increase the drama, they’re not anything his plan relied on; he didn’t need preternatural prediction of his enemies moves three moves ahead for things to work. It’s not a Skyfall/Dark Knight situation.

If he’d gotten the colonel to break, he’d have what he needed right away. Once he goes with plan B (for Bucky), he heads to Siberia and just needs to get someone there for the revreal; it’s good for the movie that it’s Tony, Steve, and Bucky, but the plan would’ve basically worked no matter who showed up as long as he could get the secret out.

As far as I can tell, Zemo isn’t responsible for Brock’s suicide mission at the start where Wanda gets blamed and the Sokovia Accords are brought into the mix, and again, that’s good for the drama of the movie that the team’s relationships are put under that additional strain, but again, Zemo’s plan relies on none of that.

So I don’t know who was upset about that, I skipped several pages of discussion, but Zemo’s plans are simple enough and believable within the larger context of the film.

625

Agreed on it not being to crazy. What I don’t understand is how Zemo knew about the killing in the first place. I walked into the theater a couple minutes into the movie—was it shown then?

626

When he’s interrogating the hydra guy he explains that when the Winter Soldier stuff went down, Black Widow dumped all of S.H.I.E.L.D./Hydra’s files for the world to see (which did happen in that movie, not just a retcon). Much of it was encrypted, but with time and determination that’s where he got all his info.

627

Saw this after buying a cheaper ticket for Batman vs Superman. I was ready to write the whole thing off until the big fight. It’s only when Spiderman shows up that it stops taking itself so goddamn seriously.

So, I thought the Avengers already answered to the US government? Countries need a UN accord to arrest paramilitary foreigners that show up uninvited(Status of Forces anyone)? We really need to bring in the boring “debate” the X-Men franchise has run into the ground for half a century(I know they crossover in the comics, that’s no excuse)? Like BvS, we have to acknowledge the internet morons who pretend super heroes were never hurled through buildings before 2013? If you don’t want folks thinking too much about this stuff, don’t spend so much time dwelling on it!

At least Star Wars fans won’t have to worry about the whole talking heads on MSNBC/CNN thing that’s so popular now(Jon Stewart: “The Jedi have operated without Congressional oversight for too long!”). Then again, there was the prequels.

Also, memo to screenwriters: If you have a high school whiz kid character, he should taking AP Calculus, not algebra.

628

Written out. Its set up in Ultron. At the end Thor goes offworld because of those other Infintiy stones to set up Ragnarok. Hulk disappears in the jet because he feels like such a threat when he becomes the Hulk. Also if they had included those two then you really do have to call it an Avengers movie. Plus you could make the point whoever gets Hulk on their side gains a distinct advantage.

629

What a disappointment.

Spoilers

[spoiler]I didn’t for a second take seriously the conflict between the characters. Even in the middle of the fight there were quips like “we’re still friends, right?”. There was no gravity, no stakes, just people having a bit of a disagreement. None of the heroes died, and even in the end the situation remained the same as in the beginning. Sure, I guess there are now “factions”, but really, they set up the co-operation already, so what’s the real difference?

And the reason for the conflict was absurd, I couldn’t take it seriously that the world would really look at the disasters as if it was somehow the heroes’ fault. It doesn’t even matter if you’re for teamcap or teamironman, the whole division felt silly. And again, no actual gravity behind the conflict.

The only thing that kept me entertained was Spiderman, I wish the whole movie would’ve been about him. And it was all about having personality and heart. Black panther was boring as hell, with his singular expression through the whole movie; I wanted to see some actual energy from him after his father got killed, but he ended up being this “brooding with contained anger” bore which we’ve seen a billion times. In a weird way, Spiderman was the only one who felt “human” to me, everyone else was just the classic superhero cliche collection.[/spoiler]

630

Spiderman was irritating. The CGI was pretty good. But I found the actor to be to whelp-ish and his dialogue like nails on the chalkboard.

631

Sure, I can see how he can be divisive in that regard. But at least he made an impact, unlike many of the other things going on.

632

you just described spider-man and why most heroes hate him. job well done by the actor.

633

You seriously don’t think the world powers, or even world citizens, would have an issue with a team of a dozen or so folks operating autonomously, making calls about what is right and wrong? Ultron for example was, unequivocally, an Avengers created problem. Vision’s speech laid it out well—conflict has escalated in the wake of the Avengers.

I think the problem is very, very legitimate. As to seriousness—for most of the movie, they’re all obviously pulling their punches. It took Zemo’s plan to bring out true, emotional conflict. The Sakovia accords are, essentially, an academic disagreement.

634

Yes, you are describing the plot, which I’m aware of. Pulling punches being part of the plot is what makes it shitty. Them pulling their punches made it feel like there were no stakes, and actually, there weren’t. The whole thing was just this abstract construction of a contrived “problem”, making even the avengers themselves not sure whether it was a problem or not, as can be seen in their flip flopping. They weren’t really fighting for anything. Not even at the end because mind control explained Bucky’s behavior.

So yeah, the whole thing just felt like hot air, or, as someone said, a shitty reason to get avengers to fight each other, but not really tho.

If they wanted to do this for real, they should’ve built this up in earlier movies by clearly demonstrating shitty calls, or negligence. But I don’t think that happened either since the heroes need to stay heroic who always make the best calls in hard-to-predict situations.

Or make each side really, like fucking really, believe that the other one is a danger to the world, and behave like it. I didn’t buy it for even a second.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

635

You mentioned that government historically is oppressive and dominating, and then now you say that people will spontaneously cooperate because of evolution. There is a connection perhaps you missed: perhaps people being oppressive and dominating each other is ALSO the result of evolution. It is still an open question whether humans are intrinsically cooperative, intrinsically dominating, or somewhere in between, because we are still evolving.

You think people left to their own devices will tend to cooperate? Perhaps you may want to visit Syria.

I’ll just leave it at this. This is too far off topic.

636

pulling punches was because they wanted to stop the other side but not kill them, odd disconnect here. they don’t think the other side is a threat right now, but they do think it can easily end up that way.

637

My issue is that it never escalates, the whole movie is essentially pulling punches with an unsatisfying resolution. My issue is with the plot, not the execution.

To put it as clearly as I can: I think the story wasn’t very good.

638

This. So much this.

I’ve been keeping quiet on this movie because so many of my friends are gushing about it hard, but personally I didn’t care for it much at all. I’m not sure what it is about the movie’s plot but it seems to evoke a real love/hate thing with few in the middle.

639

Can be, and to a degree that ought to give someone who’s gung-ho about the virtues of government pause.

You think people left to their own devices will tend to cooperate? Perhaps you may want to visit Syria.

Which has a government, that was misused.

I’ll just leave it at this. This is too far off topic.

Sure.

640

Saw it for a second time today. For me, it’s better the second go-around. I started looking more closely at Zemo’s plot and realized that it really wasn’t that “comic-booky”. Although his entire plan would have fallen down if Bucky would have been killed by the German special forces in Bucharest.

641

You and I remember Bucharest very differently.

-xtien

642

Hoo boy, that’s what you think this issue is in Syria? The government being “misused”? No offense, but I’m having a hard time taking anything you say about governments seriously, not to mention the whole concept of social contracts. Maybe the UN can have it’s own Arab Spring and then you’ll think they’re worthy of regulating The Avengers.

-Tom

643

I saw the movie today, and I had the same reaction. I just never felt that the stakes mattered. And since the stakes didn’t matter, and the heroes were pulling their punches because they didn’t really want the other to get hurt, it all felt a bit… empty.

A disappointment to me, especially after the excellent Winter Soldier, which took my breath away.

Incidentally, I took my wife with me, and this was her first Marvel movie, and boy, what a horrible introduction this is to the Marvel movies. She had no idea who any of the characters were, and the movie didn’t do a good job of introducing them to anyone who might not have seen previous movies. The movies also kept referencing previous events from older movies almost constantly, which hadn’t really been the case for a lot of the other movies so far.