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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Amph "On your left." - Captain America (Brave New World)

Discussion in 'Community' started by gonzoforce, Nov 9, 2008.

  1. beezel26

    beezel26 Jedi Master star 7

    Registered:
    May 11, 2003
    I want to see the captain in a special episode of Agents of Shield. It will so make for a good episode or arc of episodes.
     
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  2. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    May 4, 2003
    So then, Captain America Number Two. First off, I have no idea who was trying to pitch this as a "spy thriller." This had more things blown up in more spectacular fashion than Arnold Schwarzenegger's entire filmography combined. Both the original and remade Robocop seemed more conservative about the use of force. Can we just admit that this was nothing other than an action movie? That said, it was mercifully less frenetic than the remade Total Recall, so kudos there. It also happened to have a few reasonably choreographed action sequences.

    It wasn't, though, without its problems:

    1. Why did the bad guy reveal his whole plot unprompted? Seriously, why? Why did he reveal himself at all, instead of just pretending to be a computer program? Was there any point to that besides clearing the way for another 45 minutes of things blowing up?

    2. What a stupid plan. They claim that people have to be tricked into giving up freedoms, or else they will fight against it and win. This, just before inaugurating a plan to simultaneously kill "20 million people" at once. This list explicitly excludes civilians, and well-respected public figures. No one will notice that? They're still tricked? Really? Where are they going with this?

    2b. Why does everything hang on three airships? They planned for three quarters of a decade to lead up to that? Even thought one of those things could easily be downed by Thor, or Iron Man, or the Hulk? We literally saw that last scenario happen in an earlier film. That's leaving aside the fact that a conventional military strike could probably remove them, too. Their simultaneous target coverage didn't even get the entire Eastern seaboard. It would be incredibly easy for NORAD to have crushed them, or any other nation that cared to. What makes these ships so special?

    3. Most disgusting of all was the high speed retreat from any notion of an actual message. Early on, Captain American confronts Samuel L Jackson about the limits of morality. Jackson throws back the abuses of World War II in his face. Yeah! A good point, movie. What about those? Not that I was expecting a McNamara style repentance for fire-bombing Tokyo, but what about the grossest abuses, that everyone acknowledges were wrong? The Japanese-American internment camps, maybe? Does the movie dare make an actual critique? About that time, Captain America responds self-righteously "We did what we had to in order to keep people safe." And the movie never challenges him on that view. So apparently not, then.

    3b. Likewise, they suggest SHIELD was compromised, and several people talk about it as "two sides of the same coin." Were they trying to say the whole concept of such an organization is wrong? Apparently not, since they went out of their way to show how good and righteous both the founders and the day-to-day operational leaders were. In fact, in both cases the villains target those people for assassination because they're being too effective. So how is it true that they are both doing enough good that the bad guys have to stop them and that they're "just the same" as the bad guys? I don't know, and I'm not sure the film's makers did either. One increasingly suspects they were just a few lines thrown in lazily to gesture towards a wholly insincere theme.

    3c. At the end of the film, Samuel L Jackson solemnly burns his eyepatch and false documents. Is he repudiating his life as a clandestine officer? Perhaps realizing that these things aren't the answer to making the world safer. You'd almost think so, but then in the very next scene he reveals his intention to covertly murder a bunch of people in Europe outside the auspices of any governmental control. So the message of the movie is that doing clandestine activities with even less oversight would be a good thing? Or???

    3d. After giving Congressional testimony, someone asks the Black Spider if she shouldn't be in jail. She agrees that absolutely she probably should, but that no one will because they "need" what she and the others can do. Then the movie lets her walk off triumphantly. Let's pause here a moment. First, this is a bit like an alternate ending to "A Few Good Men" where, after giving his "you want me on that wall" speech, the judge decided to drop the charges and give him the Medal of Honor. It's just completely abhorrent logic on its own. But even worse, it's exactly the opposite of the "don't sacrifice everything for the sake of security" argument they pretended they were going to make earlier in the film. Is it even clear how the good guys disagreed with the bad ones, except on the issue of killing those specific 20 million people?

    3e. For that matter, was there ever really an specific repudiation of the bad guy's philosophy? Not really. They just said that killing so many people at once was dumb.

    4. If the bad guys were going to make a super-soldier, why not get someone who actually agrees with them? There are apparently thousands, after all (how?) and that in spite of the circular vacuousness of their "ideology." What was so urgent about using Captain America's half-dead friend? Why would you brainwash someone over to your side instead of using one of many assets who was sincerely devoted to your cause? Even if you were to pick someone from outside your own ranks, why one of the half dozen people who spent their whole careers fighting you, and eventually died in pursuit of that goal?

    There are other things, but people always accuse me of nit-picking, so I've tried to stay big picture here. Anyway, yeah.
     
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  3. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    May 4, 2003
    Also, sorry for the double post, but this bothering me a lot. They said that Black Spider was born in 1984. However, in both in this film and others, they make several references to her long career with the KGB. The KGB, specifically. By name. Not the FSB. Not "Russian intelligence" services. Not "the communists." The KGB.

    She had a long, storied career by the time she was 7 years old? Is she the main character in a Capcom video game, too?
     
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  4. GenAntilles

    GenAntilles Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 24, 2007
    In Avengers she used a small child to lure Bruce Banner out. She admitted she started her career around her age. So she was in the KBG as a child.

    Also it's Black Widow. Not Black Spider.
     
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  5. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    May 4, 2003
    Are you honestly telling me that you think it makes sense for everyone to act like the primary point of reference for her pre-SHIELD career is something that last an absolute maximum of 4 years? It would be one thing if they just said she worked their at one point. But they are constantly referring to her as ex-KGB, as if that's the defining period of her life. She was learning how to use a sippy cup and her most valuable lessons about spycraft at the same time?
     
  6. GenAntilles

    GenAntilles Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 24, 2007
    I don't know, the cartels use kids as assassins in real life, so honestly her being a KGB agent at 4 doesn't bother me.
     
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  7. burrisjedimaster1

    burrisjedimaster1 Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 31, 2002
    network tv and total spoilers
     
  8. Juliet316

    Juliet316 Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Apr 27, 2005
    Yeah, there are a lot of reports/rumors that the KGB recruited/trained their agents at very young ages, so this isn't something that would necessarily pull me out of the story.

    Plus it's entirely possible that we may find out down the road that her birthdate maybe a bit fudged... [face_whistling]
     
  9. SithLordDarthRichie

    SithLordDarthRichie CR Emeritus: London star 9

    Registered:
    Oct 3, 2003
    Oh yeah that will work, because everyone will believe ScarJo is really 40 years old if they say she is.
    Yeah, no.
     
  10. VadersLaMent

    VadersLaMent Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Apr 3, 2002

    Fixed.
     
  11. gezvader28

    gezvader28 Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Mar 22, 2003

    ... ok , so - you think the movie would've been better without that stuff ^ ?

    .
     
  12. Darth_Invidious

    Darth_Invidious Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 21, 1999
    In the comics, Natasha was a child during 1941, so due to retcon BS she's much, much older than she looks. I can't be bothered to look for the particulars so perhaps in the MCU, she may also be much older than she seems because, well, comic book movie.
     
  13. Dingo

    Dingo Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 23, 2001
    You say she worked for the FSB, the vast majority of movie going public will not understand what is meant. You say she worked for "Russian Intelligence Services" and you know she was a Russian spy but that's all.

    You say "KGB" and people are going to draw a line with working for Russia and being involved in spying, assissination, espionage and all manner of nefarious activities without any prompting. It's about tapping into people's stereotypes to save time. Just like villianous organisations are labelled "Nazi-like" in order to paint a picture without needing to show much backstory.
     
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  14. The2ndQuest

    The2ndQuest Tri-Mod With a Mouth star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Jan 27, 2000
    I don't think they're going to make her that old- the Mu comics do it because you have characters that were introduced in publication only a couple decades from WW2 having to be still around in the modern era so their backstory had to be adjusted.

    The MCU, on the other hand, goes in knowing that not all of these characters should have been around in WW2 so they can tweak thing without stretching credibility.
     
  15. pronker

    pronker Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 28, 2007
    Taking a meta step backwards, 'FSB' would be known to fewer viewers than 'KGB', which makes us think James Bond, a franchise which, I'll wager, is even more in the public consciousness than Marvel anything.
     
  16. Moviefan2k4

    Moviefan2k4 Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 29, 2009
    In some instances, yes. There's a fine line between that kind of thing being used to fuel Tony's ego, and the filmmakers just doing it to boost ratings.
     
  17. I Are The Internets

    I Are The Internets Shelf of Shame Host star 9 VIP - Game Host

    Registered:
    Nov 20, 2012
    Black Widow is a time traveler obviously.
     
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  18. darth-sinister

    darth-sinister Manager Emeritus star 10 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jun 28, 2001
    Pierce did do because it was time to move. Cap had the data and since he wasn't going to give it up willingly, he was going to forcefully take it.

    The point is to scare the people into giving more authority to S.H.I.E.L.D., just like Palpatine used the assault on Coruscant to gain more political power.

    The Avengers weren't part of the plan. Cap was believed dead and as far as they knew there would never be another like him. Once the battle of New York occurred, they were added to the list. Hence Avengers Tower was a target as Tony has relocated there following the destruction of his home and Bruce Banner is also there. Two birds with one stone. Thor is on Asgard. They don't know about Heimdall.

    The point was that things weren't as black and white in the 1940's as it's been since 2001. That's why the conversation ends there.

    What it means is that while S.H.I.E.L.D. is the good guys, they're not above crossing moral lines to get the job done. The question is how far will they go. This was demonstrated with the Tesseract weapons, using the Avengers and how Coulson was resurrected.

    It means that Fury is going off the grid. He's not going to be taint what's left of S.H.I.E.L.D. by going after Von Strucker as an active agent. Fury has a history of faking his death to do things that his superiors would not approve of.

    Natasha was making a point that with S.H.I.E.L.D. gone, they're going to need the Avengers now more than ever to deal with HYDRA and whatever else may show up because of what Loki did. The government and the UN won't risk leaving themselves vulnerable to attack.

    It's the same as it was in WWII, which was control over everyone.

    Because of what happened with Johann Schmidt and Emil Blonsky. The formula is too random to find someone who meets certain a psychological profile that makes them ideal willingly. That leaves using others who can be controlled such as the Maximoffs which can be advantageous as we saw with Hawkeye and the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. In the case of Bucky, he was used because Schmidt had ordered his use in the first place as a final giant middle finger to both Cap and the Allied forces. HYDRA continued because of that.

    Initially this was due to the fact that there was only twenty four years between those eras. In later years, Marvel writers have wrote that she underwent genetic modifications which slowed her aging down. So one of two things can be done her. They can have Natasha as an agent dating back a number of years, with some type of suspended animation being used from time to time. Or they can have it come out that her DNA was modified to slow her aging.
     
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  19. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    May 4, 2003
    I realize why it was done. But I still find it very lazy. For instance, if you said "black ops" people would've gotten the idea of the type of work she was doing. In the film herself, she even refers to having worked for "the wrong side" and "the bad guys." Even if they had simply left it that vague, the audience would've gotten the point of her character's history. There was no need for an anachronistic reference.

    Sinister: I'm not sure you grasped what I was trying to say. For that reason, I'm going to be fairly brief.

    Yes, and my point is that is a stupid, awful reading of history. The two periods aren't really so different. Things were complicated, then and now. There were some high stakes, then and now. People did awful things, then and now. To white wash all their misdeeds as necessary "to keep people safe" is stupid. Most importantly, though, it completely ruins any "message" in the film. Think about it. How can you criticize the indefinite detention of a few hundred people in Guanatanamo in the same sentence that you defended the indefinite detention of every single Japanese-American in the United States for the duration of World War II? Those two points completely contradict each other, and if anything, the thing you're okay with is worse than the one you claim to have a problem with. It's grossly hypocritical.

    To continue, most of the rest of your post is your attempt to give in-universe explanations to why various characters did things. But that's not what I have a problem with. Every so often in this film, they pretended like they were trying to say something about the dangers of taking concerns about national security too far. But they constantly contradicted that by asking us to cheer for the "good guys" doing the same thing. It's just like what we saw with the example I highlighted in the paragraph above.

    Far from being thoughtful, it wasn't even coherent. It was just a bunch of lazily slapped together dialogue to offer the most tenuous linkages between scenes with super karate and explosions. That's inexcusable.
     
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  20. Darkslayer

    Darkslayer #1 Sabine Wren Fan star 7

    Registered:
    Mar 26, 2013
    So Jabba-wocky I am curious what movies you do like. Not nit-picking/being a jerk, just curious.
     
  21. GenAntilles

    GenAntilles Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 24, 2007

    You are getting Caps dialogue wrong. He didn't say he and the 'greatest generation' did what they did to keep people safe. He said they did it so people could be free.

    Also Fury isn't questioning everything in WWII, he only brought up actions Cap and the SSR did fighting Hydra. Cap had no say in the internment camps or the fire bombings, etc...thus they were not needed to be brought up.

    Also WWII and the modern age are not the same. If the same tactics were used then instead of internment camps the US government would've killed every possible threat with giant floating death zepplins like they planned to do with the helicarriers.

    As to your point about conflicting messages. The point is you can't trust organizations with too much power as organizations are always susceptible to corruption or misuse of power. And as the movie showed they are hard to take down. Compared to a few isolated individuals who do the same stuff, but by themselves. So if they do go rogue or are corrupted... eliminating one person is easier than taking down an organization with giant flying death machines.
     
  22. Sarge

    Sarge Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Oct 4, 1998
    Does anyone remember the MST3K mantra?

    It's just a movie.
     
  23. beezel26

    beezel26 Jedi Master star 7

    Registered:
    May 11, 2003
    Welcome to the internet Sarge where nothing is just a movie.
     
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  24. Jedi Ben

    Jedi Ben Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Jul 19, 1999
    Maybe I'm misreading but are you really intending to convey there is no difference between the 1940s and WW2 and the present situation? As that's the sense I'm getting but I can't really credit it.
     
  25. Adam of Nuchtern

    Adam of Nuchtern Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    Heaven forbid someone applies critical thought to a movie.
     
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