Captain America: The Winter Soldier Discussion Thread - SPOILERS

That's when she calls herself Agent 13.

 

I voted excellent. The Avengers is still my favorite of the MCU movies, but this one is close. I assume Zola survived (uploaded himself to a new location?) and will return. Perhaps he'll be involved with Ultron somehow. Looking forward to both AoU and Cap 3.

 

My take was that it was implicit in the "cut off one head, two more will take its place" quote that computerized Zola repeated that he'd already been copied and duplicated in anticipation of that bunker being wiped out. Plus, they said that the targeting algorithm was aboard the carriers. Good call on the possibility of Zola being involved with Ultron somehow.

 

I think it was more along the lines that you had HYDRA people who were the real bad guys who wanted to remove freedom and replace it with control who initially infiltrated SHIELD, and those types of people still exist, but HYDRA was able to exist so successfully within SHIELD because it corrupted good people like Pierce by appealing to their ultimate desire for a safe stable world with an ends justifies the means argument.

 

Will anyone miss Agent Sitwell? He had a nice run across Marvel film and TV.

Sitwell was forced to spill the names of SHIELD targets (including Bruce Banner and Stephen Strange). Odd that Sitwell didn't mention the names Reed Richards and Charles Xavier. Sitwell must have forgotten.

 

Pierce said that the heroes had "cost [him] Zola", so he seems to think he's dead, but I suppose the good doctor could have taken the opportunity to strike out on his own.

I really liked the movie. Definitely the best of the post-Avengers films, and one of my favourites to date from the MCU.

The pros and cons of Marvel's expansive, always-continuing, not-especially-auteur-friendly movie universe have been extensively debated, and I think this movie was a good place to show off the strengths of it. The world has a lot of depth by now, and lots of minor characters, which increases the feeling of it being a comic story (the reappearance of the Gary Shandling character, for instance). And I liked that they have the room to stay faithful to the Winter Soldier story as it was told in the comics and not have to cram everything into one movie.

While we're still waiting for that female lead superhero movie, I really liked that the MCU has developed a decent roster of female characters by this point, and we even managed to have a movie without a romantic subplot, though they're clearly setting up to do more with Sharon in the next one (though I'm a big Sharon fan, so I guess the lessened emphasis on a love interest in this works against me there, but whatever; I liked Emily VanCamp in the part).

I really liked Robert Redford as the main villain (though since the movie was clearly into in-jokes, as with Fury's tombstone inscription, Steve's list of pop culture should have included Three Days of the Condor. He was one of the better MCU bad guys so far.

 

There was an "allegedly in the works" reveal I was half-expecting that didn't happen. Surprisingly, I'm okay with that.

 

Sitwell? Yeah.

News is going to hit Coulson hard, isn't it?

 

I voted excellent. Avengers is still my favorite Marvel film but The Winter Soldier is a strong second.

The subversion of Shield by Hydra was an unexpected but really intriguing storyline. Didn't see that one coming and they definitely left the organization in shambles.

Chris Evans continues to excel as Steve/Cap. I'm glad ScarJo was back and I definitely hope we see a Black Widow solo film in the near future. Her character has gone over well with audiences and she would be the logical first choice for a female-starring superhero movie. Anthony Mackie is a welcome addition to the Marvel Universe as Sam/Falcon. They still haven't found a villain to top Loki but Redford was strong here as Pierce.

Sebastian Stan was effective as The Winter Soldier. I was sorry to lose some of the elements of the original story. Winter Soldier being a Soviet assassin, him and Natasha being former lovers (though I believe that was revealed later), etc. Glad to see that he'll still be around in the MU. Glad to see Haley Atwell show up again, her scene was Steve was easily the most emotional in the film.

Fantastic action and FX. Loved the tease at the end and looking forward to the future of the MU.

 

Movie had the wrong name.

Bucky was barely a drone hardly in the movie.

That and without the Soviet Union being behind Bucky (for the first 50 years), the name "Winter Soldier" isn't relevant to anything.

Captain America: Nest of Vipers?

And about the algorithm...

Were they trying to get rid of the smart people or the stupid people?

Stupid people work hard, drink beer and go to sleep.

Smart people have so much money that they don't want to rock the boat.

I suppose that's why they needed an algorithm and not a multiple choice quiz in cosmo.

 

Bad title for the film? Fine. At least we're past that old debate about the word "America" being harmful in the global market.

 

I didn't really like the film. It was ok for most of the running time. I liked how CA didn't really agree with SHIELD's methods. Reminded me of the conversations between Bashir and Sloan.

But the Heli-carriers are (as CinemaSins puts it) Heli-stupid. Having them in the film was just an excuse to put in Avengers-level action for the fanboys. It gutted the message of the film. The best action scene was on the high way bridge.

Remember the Dark Knight. The action scene in the abandoned Pruent building was good, but it certainly didn't didn't take away form what people remembered about that film: Ledger's performance, the unpredictability, the unease we all felt, the fact that each character represented a different point on the morality scale. The action scene didn't feel the need to give the audiences more than what the film was... which was something that had good points to bring up.

The Helicarier and all that crap was jsut a way for us to have a stupid action scene.

"We are firing tin three seconds"
(Cap gets up, puts in chip).

"Fire. I'm not leaving."

This is the same old stuff...

 

America became ridiculous to me when the denied entry to Cat Stevens because he was a likely terrorist.



But there are so many Americas.

An America for All Seasons... OH!

You mean the America in "Captain America" (I avoided the massive thread until I saw the movie, forgive the speed of my uptake.)

In New Zealand, in the 80s, GI Joe was "A Real American Hero" but in Australia, it was "A real national Hero" and for some reason in Britain the entire brand was "Actionforce" ...Never Mind.

The movie was about %80 about Hydra taking over, and %5 about the Winter Soldier, so why make a movie not about the Winter Soldier called the Winter Soldier?

You think my math is bad?

Also, just because Scarlett is fantastic and Black Widow is impressive to a fault... Her part should have been done by Agent 13, who is "supposed" to be one of the great loves of Steve Rogers life... Setting up a new epic love story seems way more important than placing one of the most beautiful women in the world face first, in a skin tight outfight gymnastically killing people and shooting stuff...

I hate you lowest common denominator.

Yes it works as a buddy movie, but when it's a buddy movie starring a guy and a girl, you start to ask questions about why they are just buddies?

(Harry met Sally quote/rant.)

If he was interested in 13, we should have seen more of her and fell in love with the girl too (5 seasons of Everwood almost killed me.), and if she's still into Hawkeye, there should have been a reminder that that's where her heart is.

But we got to the end of Captain America Winter Soldier and did they French after all that bonding and connecting during numerous life threating situations? No, we had to be reminded about some blond blip that hadn't been seen for 2 hours, that he should ask on a date, even though... Hey, it's the opposite of what happened in the final episode of How I Met your Mother!

Maria and Tony sleep together in the comics. I think they did it in a bunker under a nuclear explosion... But Tony can't end up with Maria, because his mother's name was also Maria and that's just creepy.

Tony and Pepper?

Pull the other one, it's got bells on.

 

I almost wonder if they would have been better off giving Hailey Atwell old lady makeup instead going digital. I mean, it looked real, but I couldn't really see Hailey Atwell in there anywhere. If I hadn't seen pics of Atwell with CGI markers on her face and an old lady wig, I wouldn't have believed it was her.

 

While we are on the Subject of the title.

In Germany apparently The Winter Soldier wasn't a title the studio had much confidence in.

The changed it to

Captain America: Return of the First Avenger

to bank on the Avenger's popularity and name recognition.

 

I was watching a news video on IGN the other day and they mentioned that Sebastian Stan has a nine (!) picture deal.

 

That is correct. Which leads to heavy speculation about what might occur in Captain America 3.

 

Actually, the German title is simply "The Return of the First Avenger" - No "America" anywhere in the title.

 

Ah, probably depends on the movie theater then how it is marketed.

Either way, I am still annoyed with saying "The German title is..." and than follow it with an English title. *facepalm*