It was really great! I'm not sure it's my favorite of the MCU movies -- I think Cap 1 and Iron Man 1 are stronger -- but particularly as a sequel and as a middle movie, it was SOLID.
And I'm going to give myself some hipster credit and say that I was saying the MCU has a deep distrust of the military/industrial/intelligence complex before it was cool. Seriously, way on back to Iron Man 1 and The Incredible Hulk, MCU has been consistently putting out the idea that these powerful systems are dangerous and harmful -- now they're just getting REALLY EXPLICIT about it.
Anyway, yeah yeah everyone has a lot of feelings about Sam and Nat and Bucky and I am still crying about Peggy oh my god.
ACTUAL BRILLIANT BRUISER AND CRACK SHOT PEGGY CARTER FOR ALL OF SPACE AND TIME. That TV show had better come through; her one-shot was fabulous, and just. Just think of what giving her her own show could be like. SO MUCH GOOD.
But yeah, it was really hard seeing her like that. Steve's "I couldn't keep my best girl waiting," augh.
I liked it about as much as I am likely to like an MCU film. Not as much as something from a more visionary director like Nolan or Del Toro, but enough to recommend it to all my fannish friends and to find a lot to talk about.
Loved the use of actual stuntpeople and real effects instead of CGI. Loved the way they brought Falcon into the story. Loved Nick Fury, and Samuel L. in his best MCU performance. Didn't entirely love the use of real world politics, but can't say it wasn't a good idea - it really matches the political stories Cap's been in over the decades. Loved Natasha. And why doesn't Redford play bad guys more?
As for Cap, Evans has grown on me, but he's still on the next level of superhero actors behind RDJ and McAvoy and Garfield and Reeve (and after this, Johanssen). About at the same place as Bale, I think, great with many aspects of the character but not entirely there. But certainly better than he was previously, and still getting better.
Okay, confession about Robert Redford: my primary reference for him is that Nicolae Carpathia, the Antichrist in the Left Behind series, is described as looking like "a young Robert Redford" because Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins are creatively bankrupt. So I, at least, was totally primed for him to be the secret villain, in the most obscurely hilarious way possible.
(Although also, honestly, MCU broadcasts that stuff -- if there's a venerable, well-known actor in a movie, that guy's the villain, even if you don't know the comics canon. Jeff Bridges, Mickey Rourke, Guy Pearce, Hugo Weaving, Tim Roth, William Hurt . . . it's amazing Anthony Hopkins wasn't actually the villain of Thor.)
Yeah, I mean, I love Chris Evans but in some ways I feel like his performance in Cap 1 was stronger? But he also had a lot more interesting stuff to work with in Cap 1, to my mind, so.
The freedom vs. security theme is hardly a new thing, though -- I mean, I feel like we saw a LOT of that in media during the Bush years, y'know? And the whole order vs. freedom thing is the foundation of the Assassin's Creed games. The Snowden/Manning style leak at the end makes for an interesting topical note, though.
I am still a mess of feelings and flaily hands and OH GOD EVERYONE'S FACES and plot and history and comics-nods and implications and things to tease out, and it's a movie that celebrates FRIENDSHIP, FRIENDSHIP, ALL OF THE FRIENDSHIP EVERYWHERE except also thinky thoughts because Steve, Steve, Steve you just asked SHIELD to die for you, and they did, and there has to be a reckoning and responsibility for that kind of power and CAPTAIN'S ORDERS. For a movie that was all about 'these structures are bad', dear god was it good with the 'but a lot of the people in these structures are human and idealistic and believe so strongly'.
And Natasha, Natasha at the end going 'come and get me' to the world, because she never does things by half-measures and ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Steve Sam NATASHA Bucky and his RIDICULOUS FACE and Hill and Fury and Sharon in her pink PJs and the tiny tech and EVERYONE
OKAY SO LIKE, a thing: I know a very little about the comics canon of Natasha and the Red Room and all that via general fandom osmosis, and Milliways, and so forth, and I have the impression that she's supposed to have a history with Bucky since they're both KGB? Something? And I thought the movies were gonna roll with that with the whole "Do you know what it's like to be unmade" thing? So I was actually somewhat disappointed that nothing like that showed up in this!
I mean, there may have been nods, but they were lost on me as a non-comics reader. Every time Natasha talked about the Winter Soldier I was expecting "And I knew him" and I never got it. I can't blame the movie for that, though; that's judging the movie on the Black Widow movie I wanted it to be what I wanted it to be rather than what it was trying to be. (Honestly, it wasn't even really a movie about Bucky, to my surprise!)
GOD, CAPTAIN'S ORDERS, LEAVE ME HERE WITH MY HEART BURSTING, FFFFF.
So I was actually somewhat disappointed that nothing like that showed up in this!
I honestly think that's on the cutting room floor - there was way too much conversation about how this movie was going to show Natasha's history with Bucky in the lead up for them not to have planned things. But I think as they edited the movie, they decided to cut it to concentrate on other things.
So, to me the hints and tells that MCU is keeping the history:
- Bucky's picked up by a Russian soldier in his flashback - that Red Star, plus his speaking Russian - for someone who doesn't give a single shit about collateral damage, Winter Soldier shot Natasha very carefully that time outside Odessa to give her a chance of surviving. - the way he concentrated on her in the attack; his team can handle Cap, but he's going to go after her, and she's his focus until Steve crashes into him. - Nat's level of gutpunch and !!! when she heard it was Winter, and then whenever she really talks about him. She looked less daunted facing down an alien invasion. - (which could also explain why she never goes 'well, actually, yes, I know him, too'; too many emotions in an already fraught mission, and she's not exactly someone who shows her history casually) - "You can't find him, I've tried": she has no time to do this AFTER he shoots her, because five years ago brings her to 2009 and she's working for SHIELD by then by all logical standards and is being given assignments. Her next major one, logically, is going undercover at Stark Industries. And she's there for months. So, she was looking for him BEFORE then. - and just for Natasha's age and Not Being Normal (No, Seriously, Fandom); Natasha heals faster than Steve does. She gets shot through the shoulder with a rifle, is in danger of bleeding out, and sixteen hours later, she can hold a gun on someone with zero sign of wavering or pain. Which implies her comics-age (she's born in 1928 in comics) isn't a far-off theory, which gives her time to be with Bucky in the NKVD + KGB - her mention of KGB. The KGB hasn't been around since I was three, and I'm turning 26 on Monday. The argument that 'oh, it's just action movies, you can't except them to acknowledge the FSB' is increasingly ridiculous. - (I'm assuming that if HYDRA got into SHIELD and the US government, they are in other places. Like, for instance, USSR. So it's pretty easy for him to just be moved from one cell to another over the course of the last fifty years)
Not actually related to the above, but something I found interesting; there's a twenty year gap between picking Bucky up, and Winter Soldier being active. That's more than enough time to be using him to help training agents as per comics (I guess in MCU while they sort out his arm?) before things go REALLY terrible for him.
ETA: I suppose I should mention actual history! Basically, he was training Natasha and the other Red Room students, he and Nat had a pretty intense affair, got found out, things went bad. Natasha once went looking for him, and found him in the cyro-machine, and I guess she pretty much thought he was dead. Also she ended up marrying someone else, but between retcons and whatnot, I have no idea on timeline on that (in M'ways, I have her being married, widowed, and THEN affair to get over the teacher-student aspect). In the modern day, they rekindled their relationship, and were the most adorable starcrossed soviet snugglebunnies on the planet. Except it's comics, so no one can be happy for long, sigh.
I REALLY WANT A BLACK WIDOW MOVIE, OH GOD. As I kinda flailed sadly about last night. I just. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, GDI, MARVEL.
CAPTAIN'S ORDERS. SHIELD. YOU POOR, NAIVE, IDEALISTIC LITTLE IDIOTS. Captain America asked them for help, and they are going to follow him everywhere. I just. CAPTAIN'S ORDERS but dear god, does Steve need to deal with that. I am really uncomfortable with him using them and then abandoning them. I just. Oh, you poor tiny agents who believe in everything so, so, so strongly.
My favorite thing that I've read so far (and I was thinking about it today when I saw it for the fourth time :)) was a piece on Daily Kos about how the "Winter Soldier" could mean the opposite of the "summer soldier" in one of Patrick Henry Thomas Paine's pamphlets--I think it's the one that starts "These are the times that try men's souls." (And of course I can't find it now, so it may be on another site entirely.)
Anyway, I too have many feels and thoughts and they will probably come out more when we play through canon, so I will leave you with BUCKYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.
Edited (obviously i did not specialize in american history) Date: 2014-04-20 01:17 am (UTC)
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2014-04-19 09:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-19 11:43 pm (UTC)It was really great! I'm not sure it's my favorite of the MCU movies -- I think Cap 1 and Iron Man 1 are stronger -- but particularly as a sequel and as a middle movie, it was SOLID.
And I'm going to give myself some hipster credit and say that I was saying the MCU has a deep distrust of the military/industrial/intelligence complex before it was cool. Seriously, way on back to Iron Man 1 and The Incredible Hulk, MCU has been consistently putting out the idea that these powerful systems are dangerous and harmful -- now they're just getting REALLY EXPLICIT about it.
Anyway, yeah yeah everyone has a lot of feelings about Sam and Nat and Bucky and I am still crying about Peggy oh my god.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-19 11:47 pm (UTC)But yeah, it was really hard seeing her like that. Steve's "I couldn't keep my best girl waiting," augh.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-20 12:45 am (UTC)Loved the use of actual stuntpeople and real effects instead of CGI. Loved the way they brought Falcon into the story. Loved Nick Fury, and Samuel L. in his best MCU performance. Didn't entirely love the use of real world politics, but can't say it wasn't a good idea - it really matches the political stories Cap's been in over the decades. Loved Natasha. And why doesn't Redford play bad guys more?
As for Cap, Evans has grown on me, but he's still on the next level of superhero actors behind RDJ and McAvoy and Garfield and Reeve (and after this, Johanssen). About at the same place as Bale, I think, great with many aspects of the character but not entirely there. But certainly better than he was previously, and still getting better.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-20 12:56 am (UTC)(Although also, honestly, MCU broadcasts that stuff -- if there's a venerable, well-known actor in a movie, that guy's the villain, even if you don't know the comics canon. Jeff Bridges, Mickey Rourke, Guy Pearce, Hugo Weaving, Tim Roth, William Hurt . . . it's amazing Anthony Hopkins wasn't actually the villain of Thor.)
Yeah, I mean, I love Chris Evans but in some ways I feel like his performance in Cap 1 was stronger? But he also had a lot more interesting stuff to work with in Cap 1, to my mind, so.
The freedom vs. security theme is hardly a new thing, though -- I mean, I feel like we saw a LOT of that in media during the Bush years, y'know? And the whole order vs. freedom thing is the foundation of the Assassin's Creed games. The Snowden/Manning style leak at the end makes for an interesting topical note, though.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-20 12:57 am (UTC)And Natasha, Natasha at the end going 'come and get me' to the world, because she never does things by half-measures and ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Steve Sam NATASHA Bucky and his RIDICULOUS FACE and Hill and Fury and Sharon in her pink PJs and the tiny tech and EVERYONE
*hands of feelings*
no subject
Date: 2014-04-20 01:04 am (UTC)I mean, there may have been nods, but they were lost on me as a non-comics reader. Every time Natasha talked about the Winter Soldier I was expecting "And I knew him" and I never got it. I can't blame the movie for that, though; that's judging the movie on
the Black Widow movie I wanted it to bewhat I wanted it to be rather than what it was trying to be. (Honestly, it wasn't even really a movie about Bucky, to my surprise!)GOD, CAPTAIN'S ORDERS, LEAVE ME HERE WITH MY HEART BURSTING, FFFFF.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-20 01:25 am (UTC)I honestly think that's on the cutting room floor - there was way too much conversation about how this movie was going to show Natasha's history with Bucky in the lead up for them not to have planned things. But I think as they edited the movie, they decided to cut it to concentrate on other things.
So, to me the hints and tells that MCU is keeping the history:
- Bucky's picked up by a Russian soldier in his flashback
- that Red Star, plus his speaking Russian
- for someone who doesn't give a single shit about collateral damage, Winter Soldier shot Natasha very carefully that time outside Odessa to give her a chance of surviving.
- the way he concentrated on her in the attack; his team can handle Cap, but he's going to go after her, and she's his focus until Steve crashes into him.
- Nat's level of gutpunch and !!! when she heard it was Winter, and then whenever she really talks about him. She looked less daunted facing down an alien invasion.
- (which could also explain why she never goes 'well, actually, yes, I know him, too'; too many emotions in an already fraught mission, and she's not exactly someone who shows her history casually)
- "You can't find him, I've tried": she has no time to do this AFTER he shoots her, because five years ago brings her to 2009 and she's working for SHIELD by then by all logical standards and is being given assignments. Her next major one, logically, is going undercover at Stark Industries. And she's there for months. So, she was looking for him BEFORE then.
- and just for Natasha's age and Not Being Normal (No, Seriously, Fandom); Natasha heals faster than Steve does. She gets shot through the shoulder with a rifle, is in danger of bleeding out, and sixteen hours later, she can hold a gun on someone with zero sign of wavering or pain. Which implies her comics-age (she's born in 1928 in comics) isn't a far-off theory, which gives her time to be with Bucky in the NKVD + KGB
- her mention of KGB. The KGB hasn't been around since I was three, and I'm turning 26 on Monday. The argument that 'oh, it's just action movies, you can't except them to acknowledge the FSB' is increasingly ridiculous.
- (I'm assuming that if HYDRA got into SHIELD and the US government, they are in other places. Like, for instance, USSR. So it's pretty easy for him to just be moved from one cell to another over the course of the last fifty years)
Not actually related to the above, but something I found interesting; there's a twenty year gap between picking Bucky up, and Winter Soldier being active. That's more than enough time to be using him to help training agents as per comics (I guess in MCU while they sort out his arm?) before things go REALLY terrible for him.
ETA: I suppose I should mention actual history! Basically, he was training Natasha and the other Red Room students, he and Nat had a pretty intense affair, got found out, things went bad. Natasha once went looking for him, and found him in the cyro-machine, and I guess she pretty much thought he was dead. Also she ended up marrying someone else, but between retcons and whatnot, I have no idea on timeline on that (in M'ways, I have her being married, widowed, and THEN affair to get over the teacher-student aspect). In the modern day, they rekindled their relationship, and were the most adorable starcrossed soviet snugglebunnies on the planet. Except it's comics, so no one can be happy for long, sigh.
I REALLY WANT A BLACK WIDOW MOVIE, OH GOD. As I kinda flailed sadly about last night. I just. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, GDI, MARVEL.
CAPTAIN'S ORDERS. SHIELD. YOU POOR, NAIVE, IDEALISTIC LITTLE IDIOTS. Captain America asked them for help, and they are going to follow him everywhere. I just. CAPTAIN'S ORDERS but dear god, does Steve need to deal with that. I am really uncomfortable with him using them and then abandoning them. I just. Oh, you poor tiny agents who believe in everything so, so, so strongly.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-20 01:15 am (UTC)Patrick HenryThomas Paine's pamphlets--I think it's the one that starts "These are the times that try men's souls." (And of course I can't find it now, so it may be on another site entirely.)Anyway, I too have many feels and thoughts and they will probably come out more when we play through canon, so I will leave you with BUCKYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.