Yeah, for this one they straight up said “this isn’t a good movie to watch if you haven’t seen the others”. Really though, I don’t fault them for that, being as this is Captain America 3 and would seem to imply that you see at least 1 and 2 first. Seeing the new Jason Borne movie is likely to not make any sense if you hadn’t watched the original 3 first. Marvel takes it to a new level though, by having it rely on series outside of the other you’re watching; you had to see Winter Soldier, Avengers 1 and 2, and Ant Man or you likely were lost for at least a few parts of Civil War.
Of course she didn’t. You’re a savvy filmgoer, Rock8man! What in the world made you think this was a good idea?
-xtien
To be completely fair, there is one other Marvel movie I went to see with her, and that was The Avengers. And she enjoyed that a lot. But it’s been a while, and she’d forgotten the characters. I just thought the movie would set it up to remind the audience a little about past events. They did that in Captain America 2, for example, so even if you missed the first, they caught you up in a brief scene or two. Same with Avengers 2, they had some recap scenes to remind the audience about the important things they should remember.
I don’t recall much recap in Avengers 2, unless you’re referring to the Tony PTSD stuff. Civil War did do a lot more pulling from other Marvel films, as JFrazer mentioned. I think that was unavoidable, given the premise—it is essentially a huge crossover movie. I don’t think they could have pulled off the necessary recapping, given the existing length, which I found to be pretty efficient, given the number of characters in play. They could have cut Black Panther and/or Spiderman, I guess, but I admit to enjoying those new additions, very much.
The more interesting thing is whether someone who skipped most of those other movies would feel truly lost. I think they did a good job of characters like Ant-man not being critical for the plot. He’s muscle for that fight, but it’s not like required his thieving skills to move the plot or anything like that, where you’d need to know his backstory.
I’m not sure if any movie studio has interconnected their movies as much as the MCU. Civil War is essentially the pinnacle of that effort to date. Not a good intro movie to the MCU (or even the 2nd entry into).
I can somewhat believe Cap going from a soldier used to oversight, a chain of command, and fighting for a coalition of Nations against evil, to somewhat questioning that model.
But I just can’t buy the maverick, loose cannon, spoiled rich guy used to doing whatever he wants changing his basic philosophy based upon what appeared in the movie to be one conversation with a lady in a hallway. Now, if they had Pepper on stage in the movie breaking up with him unless he changed and accepted oversight, maybe I could buy it better.
Agreed that Cap getting to where he’s at was much more believable and well setup than Stark. Cap has been setup as being suspicious of authority since at least the Winter Soldier. The woman in the hallway was way too weak. I thought they could have played on the whole “you created Ultron” to justify Tony’s decision. He seems to have gotten off relatively scot-free for that huge SNAFU.
Forgive my dry delivery.
Bashar Al Assad’s US-supported (and, be it not forgotten, somewhat socialist-flavoured) tyranny is the root cause of the conflict. So you tell me: is that a failure of anarchy or a failure of government?
Or is it just that those darn towel-heads are too dumb to live without tyrannies that survive by exploiting sectarian tensions?
I thought it was o.k. I wasn’t really wowed aside from Spiderman (such an effing awesome debut) and the final scenes in Siberia. Also, the Black Panther was awesome, great choice in actors.
Otherwise the beginning and middle of the film felt really slow. The stakes were never high enough, especially where the comic books had gone (where the stakes were probably cartoonishly too high)
And not having a character die? C’mon.
You stopped short of “damn” but were okay with “towel-head”?
I love Black Panther too. His costume, his delivery, the way his views makes him standout from the others. I can’t wait to see what they do with him.
I had no problem with Steve Rogers. He’s always given me a hint of distrust for the brass. In essence there is a reason he’s Captain America and not General America. He’s a front line leader with more of a tie to his men, and to the idea of America, than to the chain of command.
For that matter Tony didn’t seem that much of a stretch. He’s an egotistical technocrat. The ideal of an organization running things seems like something he’d be fine with especially since he imagines that he can swing a major role out of it. With Pepper leaving him and the woman hitting him with an emotional sucker punch in the hallway he’s also primed to accept some guilt. The idea that he’d jump on the Accords as a way to both satisfy his guilt and make sure he came out on top made perfect sens to me.
I’m anxious for a Black Panther movie because I both like the character (and what they did with him in this film), and I want to see Wakanda. A nation of super science that still adheres to tribal customs, while surrounded by vast jungles on all sides? That’s going to be one hell of an adventure film.
On Black Panther, my recollection was that they were showing some sort of weird interaction between his signet ring and the Winter Soldier. In several fights, the Soldier’s arm seem to do strange things around the Panther.
Did I miss something there?
I’ve seen the movie three times. I noticed the same thing you did on the first viewing, and on both subsequent viewings I tried to watch carefully to understand it and I’m still no closer to figuring that out.* I can’t decide if it’s just supposed to be yet another shot of watching Bucky’s arm slowly overpower something (shown in close ups of almost all of his fights across two movies) or if there really is some connection with the ring.
I don’t believe his arm is supposed to be vibranium or anything, so I really have no idea, but you’re not the only one wondering.
*also still can’t figure out exactly what Vision is saying/meaning to Wanda in their kitchen conversation. Something like everyone around her can’t help but like her, but is also afraid of her? I don’t understand exactly what he’s getting at.
I think he says “no one dislikes you, Wanda” meaning that she shouldn’t confuse fear of her powers with dislike of her as a person. I agree the scene needed more setup with normal people reacting negatively to her. They don’t show enough of her appearing fey to, and being ostracized by, non-Avengers to have the line make sense.
On the Scarlett Witch note, I love how Olson portrays her power use. It’s got a great sense of occult creepiness to it, despite her powers basically being forced mutation.
Oh, that makes sense. Something about the tone of the way Vision says it had me reading it all wrong.
I was trying to express more of a hick flavour.
Is this another attempt at dry delivery? I’m glad you’re not on my side.
-Tom, #teamironman
I meant to respond to this last week. My initial post wasn’t as coherent as it should’ve been, since it was written sort of in the frame of mind of me jumping in and responding to podcast conversations as if I was in the room with you as they were happening.
And then the thread got away from me and at this point I’ve sort of lost track both of what I was saying, what specifically on the podcast I was trying to debate/refute/clarify, and what everyone else has since covered in this thread. So thanks for the response, you didn’t sound like a dick. I think I wasn’t clear enough in how we agree to articulate the merits of my side where we disagree, but I don’t really feel like going back to the podcast or even rereading my own wall of text right this minute to dive into it.
I’ve seen the movie three times now and still love it though, so in your face #TeamIronMan.
He had a line where he basically did just that, only without her being on screen. He said she wanted him to ditch the suits, he couldn’t really make himself do it on his own so he was willing to sign and change his tune and let the government help him cut back on the use of them.