Random, extremely belated Cap 3 thoughts
Sep. 14th, 2020 12:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
potofsoupMy school's Marvel Club started a discord, where the kiddos would post occasional discussion questions, which is totally adorable! I'm trying not to fandom everywhere, but instead be a Very Respectable Teacher Advisor. Anyway, one question was "If you could go back and retcon or just generally change one thing from the MCU what would it be and why?" and I got a little carried away, so I'm posting my answer here, as well, especially since it helped me articulate some of my frustrations with Civil War.
I would make Tony's characterization in the post-IM3 movies more consistent to the character strides that Tony made in IM3 re: his anxieties and how he finds his self worth. I would also remove Iron Man from the third Captain America movie.
Iron Man had a nice arc in its trilogy about Tony eventually trusting himself and being genuine to himself and to his friends and loved ones. Captain America had an interesting arc in its first 2 movies about what is worth fighting for and what is worth living for, and I was really looking forward to a third movie that tied the arc together and resolved some character issues.
Like, we *know* that Avengers movies don't really have room for character arcs because there's 15 million boxes they have to check re: setting up the next 10 movies and wrapping up a bajillion threads. Everyone gets to say one line before the hour that is dedicated to punching. Which is why the individual movies are where the character arcs are supposed to happen. Except that RDJ/Feige hijacked the Cap3 movie to make it about the Avengers and the larger world stakes instead of the personal stakes of Steve Rogers.
Imagine a Cap3 movie where Zemo still frames Bucky for the UN bombing, and Steve still has to stake his convictions against the world, but this time, it's his convictions about a single person. And this is at a moment where Bucky himself feels the weight of his actions as the Winter Soldier. That, paired with the parallels of Zemo and T'Challa seeking revenge for his family... what is revenge, and what is justice? How do you figure out what's the right thing to do? How do you take responsibility for wrongs that you have committed? And do you choose the needs of the world for a Captain America, or the needs of Steve to finally stop being a soldier and come home? Those themes are in Civil War, sure, but it's all second fiddle to the "team cap" "team iron man" stuff. So much of Civil War is spent picking sides, recruiting unnecessary characters (Ant-Man, Spiderman, etc), and then having the whole Siberian base red herring with Tony. The movie's Civil War framing made it hard to actually explore Steve as a character, which should have been the point of a Cap movie.
Avengers level movies always end up picking the most generic form of a character -- Tony is a billionaire playboy genius who is underappreciated and always right. Steve is an ornery octogenarian who cares too much about doing what's right. Thor drinks beer and never does anything to show why he would be worthy of mjolnir, etc etc. The characters are always in service to the plot, and in service to "audience reaction." For example, initial audiences came out of Civil War too pro-Steve, and also shipping Steve/Bucky too much, so they added a kiss between Steve and Sharon that also does disservice to Sharon's character, and tweaked stuff until test audiences came out half-and-half. Similarly, Steve's ending in Endgame was apparently also repeatedly tweaked. Like, this is the studio changing main characterization beats based on the needs of the plot to generate the kind of audience reaction that allows them to achieve revenue goals.
Fine, I can accept that AoU, Civil War, and IW/Endgame regressed the character arc that Tony achieved through the Iron Man trilogy, even though it kind of sucks that there are more movies where Tony is the main character and where he *doesn't* resolve any of his issues, BUT at least IM3 exists as a way that provides that character resolution. Steve Rogers really doesn't have that. He never gets to truly come home, because all the movies where he should have been able to, he's been shuttled around for the sake of some larger MCU plot needs and not given a chance to really grapple with his personal issues. Civil War does a disservice to both Tony and Steve's characterizations, and I remain pissed that that's what happened to the third Captain America movie. I'm supposed to walk out of a Captain America movie with feelings about Steve Rogers -- his struggles and his convictions, and *not* some manufactured animosity toward half the Avengers.
Thankfully fanfic exists and I can just have Steve tell Tony that Bucky killed Tony's parents as the Winter Soldier, like, 2 days after the events of CATWS and not 2 years later. It's more consistent with Steve's characterization (why would he hide information, and he always goes headfirst into things), and with Tony's (he would have found the information and he hates not knowing something).
I would make Tony's characterization in the post-IM3 movies more consistent to the character strides that Tony made in IM3 re: his anxieties and how he finds his self worth. I would also remove Iron Man from the third Captain America movie.
Iron Man had a nice arc in its trilogy about Tony eventually trusting himself and being genuine to himself and to his friends and loved ones. Captain America had an interesting arc in its first 2 movies about what is worth fighting for and what is worth living for, and I was really looking forward to a third movie that tied the arc together and resolved some character issues.
Like, we *know* that Avengers movies don't really have room for character arcs because there's 15 million boxes they have to check re: setting up the next 10 movies and wrapping up a bajillion threads. Everyone gets to say one line before the hour that is dedicated to punching. Which is why the individual movies are where the character arcs are supposed to happen. Except that RDJ/Feige hijacked the Cap3 movie to make it about the Avengers and the larger world stakes instead of the personal stakes of Steve Rogers.
Imagine a Cap3 movie where Zemo still frames Bucky for the UN bombing, and Steve still has to stake his convictions against the world, but this time, it's his convictions about a single person. And this is at a moment where Bucky himself feels the weight of his actions as the Winter Soldier. That, paired with the parallels of Zemo and T'Challa seeking revenge for his family... what is revenge, and what is justice? How do you figure out what's the right thing to do? How do you take responsibility for wrongs that you have committed? And do you choose the needs of the world for a Captain America, or the needs of Steve to finally stop being a soldier and come home? Those themes are in Civil War, sure, but it's all second fiddle to the "team cap" "team iron man" stuff. So much of Civil War is spent picking sides, recruiting unnecessary characters (Ant-Man, Spiderman, etc), and then having the whole Siberian base red herring with Tony. The movie's Civil War framing made it hard to actually explore Steve as a character, which should have been the point of a Cap movie.
Avengers level movies always end up picking the most generic form of a character -- Tony is a billionaire playboy genius who is underappreciated and always right. Steve is an ornery octogenarian who cares too much about doing what's right. Thor drinks beer and never does anything to show why he would be worthy of mjolnir, etc etc. The characters are always in service to the plot, and in service to "audience reaction." For example, initial audiences came out of Civil War too pro-Steve, and also shipping Steve/Bucky too much, so they added a kiss between Steve and Sharon that also does disservice to Sharon's character, and tweaked stuff until test audiences came out half-and-half. Similarly, Steve's ending in Endgame was apparently also repeatedly tweaked. Like, this is the studio changing main characterization beats based on the needs of the plot to generate the kind of audience reaction that allows them to achieve revenue goals.
Fine, I can accept that AoU, Civil War, and IW/Endgame regressed the character arc that Tony achieved through the Iron Man trilogy, even though it kind of sucks that there are more movies where Tony is the main character and where he *doesn't* resolve any of his issues, BUT at least IM3 exists as a way that provides that character resolution. Steve Rogers really doesn't have that. He never gets to truly come home, because all the movies where he should have been able to, he's been shuttled around for the sake of some larger MCU plot needs and not given a chance to really grapple with his personal issues. Civil War does a disservice to both Tony and Steve's characterizations, and I remain pissed that that's what happened to the third Captain America movie. I'm supposed to walk out of a Captain America movie with feelings about Steve Rogers -- his struggles and his convictions, and *not* some manufactured animosity toward half the Avengers.
Thankfully fanfic exists and I can just have Steve tell Tony that Bucky killed Tony's parents as the Winter Soldier, like, 2 days after the events of CATWS and not 2 years later. It's more consistent with Steve's characterization (why would he hide information, and he always goes headfirst into things), and with Tony's (he would have found the information and he hates not knowing something).
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Date: 2020-09-14 08:45 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2020-09-15 04:17 am (UTC)And then later in Spiderman Far From Home with EDITH???? WTFFFFFFFF how is he any different from Project Insight?
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Date: 2020-09-15 04:40 am (UTC)EDITH does rather seem like Project Insight part deux. And didn't Tony already have something like that backfire on him with Ultron?
My husband convinced me to buy the EG disk, but I honestly don't know if I'll ever watch it. For every moment that I love, (and there *are* moments I love) there are two that make me want to commit violence. :(
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Date: 2020-09-15 04:47 am (UTC)Haha. I enjoyed most of the Time Heist, and of course Steve wielding Mjolnir and the other Avengers coming through the Dr. Strange portals (although I found the final battle sort of overdrawn and formulaic. Like the beats of when the good guys were winning vs when Thanos was winning was so predictable and therefore didn't make sense). But I REFUSE to give Marvel more money for that movie, so... yeah. >:/
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Date: 2020-09-15 04:55 am (UTC)I picked up EG at Costco, so it was as cheap as it's ever going to be, but still more than I should have given them.
Given that I knew Marvel was never going to, ya know, make Stucky canon, it honestly would have take very little to keep me from hating it so very much. Having Steve acknowledge his grief for Bucky, not to mention Sam during the group therapy. A battlefield reunion for Steve and Bucky. And, oh, I don't know, an actual conversation between the two of them at the end.
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Date: 2020-09-15 07:45 am (UTC)Oof. What did I want from Endgame, going in? It seems so overwritten by the disappointment of the actual movie. And I'd enjoyed Infinity War, too! Hmmm.... - I was looking forward to more of Thor's character arc, which I enjoyed very much in Infinity War -- it was great to see Thor's grief. They did a little bit of that in EG, but most of it was undermined by playing Thor as a fat stereotype - I was looking forward to something of similar thematic resonance that they managed to weave through IW, the idea of trading lives and what you're willing to sacrifice to protect what you love. I was hoping for some themes along the ideas of survival and perseverance, finding a way forward through the grief. Maybe having the lost ones and the new births both contribute to some sort of novel solution. I was hoping for a proper Steve and Tony team up and mending of Civil War bridges. Maybe something about rejecting the choice of one life for another altogether, perhaps captured by Gamora shanking Thanos with both sides of the double-sided blade. - I wanted to see a mourning but brave and maturing Queen Shuri! I was expecting Wakanda to be a much bigger part of EG, tbh, especially since it was where the final battle went down in IW. - I secretly wished that the plot involved Dr. Strange and Bucky, Sam, T'Challa and the other Disappeared people teaming up to open one side of a portal and the surviving Avengers opening up the other side, but I figured that probably wasn't going to happen.
I did not expect it to be an ode to Tony Stark's Noble Self-Sacrifice ::eyeroll:: and a celebration of Heteronormativity. Ugh.
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Date: 2020-09-15 01:02 pm (UTC)And then there’s that Nat problem. Reinforcing that good old heteronormativity by having her sacrifice herself so Hawkeye could reunite with his family is just so infuriating. Because of course the woman who kept everything together after the snap when all the men buggered off is less important than the guy who went off and became a mass murderer out of grief. Argh. Yep, still angry. 😠
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Date: 2020-09-16 08:48 pm (UTC)yeah, I came out of it being like "this is not my Tony, this is not my Steve". forced everything!