Spoilers Captain America: Civil War - Grading & Discussion

[Tempest]

Oh, I can believe they might be created, I just meant that it might not be quite as simple and straightforward to administer them as we saw in the case of the already de-powered and disorientated Thor. Would a needle or dart normally penetrate Asgardian skin so readily, for example? Would it need to be constructed of a super-strong material? We haven't really seen that scenario come up, so we don't really know for sure, is all I was saying there.

I agree with this. In AOS there was this Asgardian who grabbed Ward's knife by the blade and bent it. He was not hurt by that

 

[Sci]

From Agent Carter's second season it looked like the MCU was headed away from Defense/War Department with the SSR/SHIELD. The SSR was defense related but in universe the world was about to go through the reorganization which created the CIA and at that point the SSR seemed to be mostly a law enforcement agency.

Captain America: The First Avenger established the SSR as an Allied agency, implying it was an international agency set up by treaty between the World War II Allies (though probably join U.S.-U.K. given the lack of a Soviet representative at the Project Rebirth facility). So my guess is that the SSR in the Agent Carter era is the legal continuation of that joint U.S.-U.K. agency, and that there are probably SSR bases located in major British cities, too.

I suspect this at least in part because I think it is improbable Peggy's casket would have had a Union Jack over it if she had become a United States citizen, which to me implies that the SSR and SHIELD were both nominally not U.S. agencies.

ETA:

Hey, Tempest, you've been posting a lot of different replies in a row, but that's not good etiquette at the TrekBBS. You're gonna want to start doing things in one big post instead of a bunch of little ones.

 

[Tempest]

You should have also bolded "in the most uncharitable view" because I was not suggesting that it was in fact an accurate view of Howard. What I was saying is that Obadiah embodies many negative qualities which are also prominently attributed to Howard, that he actually is the stereotypical war profiteer which Howard (and Tony) have been conspicuously accused of being, whether fairly or unfairly.

I see. OOPS

That's the attitude

You're new which means there won't be one until you've earned it.

Aah, why wasn't I told that in the announcement you can't sent PMs now

 

[Set Harth]

Widow punched him in the crotch. That would definitely hurt.

I'm talking about whatever she was doing when she was on his shoulders. That looked silly.

Also, what is it with these superhero movies and choking never accomplishing anything? What's the point of having a metal arm if it's no more effective at choking than a normal arm would be? Isn't it supposed to be, you know, stronger? Like Ultron: if you're a seven-foot-tall robot and you've got someone by the throat, a member of a group you've sworn to destroy, how do you not crush his windpipe? Is Cap's neck really that strong? This also applies to

Spoiler: Apocalypse

Apocalypse.

 

[LJones41]

How is it that Tony never knew that HYDRA was responsible for his parents' deaths in the two years between "The Winter Soldier" and "Civil War" . . . especially since Natasha Romanoff had exposed HYDRA's files by leaking them to the Internet near the end of the 2014 movie?

I cannot imagine someone like Tony not examining those files, especially since his father was one of the founders of SHIELD.

I get the feeling that the writers of "CIVIL WAR" either failed to realize this or decided to ignore this possibility in order to have their Steve/Bucky v. Tony fight near the end of the film. After all, the filmmakers had to make this movie mainly about Tony . . . even if it was supposed to be a Captain America film.

 

[Guy Gardener]

In Civil War, Rogers said that they decided that Stark should never know, and if you want to hide stuff from Stark, deleting files on the subject is a good start, or maybe moving them offsite, which is why it was so hard to find them in Civil War. There wouldn't be any files left on the SHIELD Mainframe to have been leaked in Winter Soldier.

 

[Sci]

How is it that Tony never knew that HYDRA was responsible for his parents' deaths in the two years between "The Winter Soldier" and "Civil War" . . . especially since Natasha Romanoff had exposed HYDRA's files by leaking them to the Internet near the end of the 2014 movie?

I cannot imagine someone like Tony not examining those files, especially since his father was one of the founders of SHIELD.

Either Hydra's assassination of the Starks was not in those filed Natasha leaked, or any Hydra-authored files she leaked were encrypted and no one was able to unlock them. (There was a sequence in the film where Zemo talks about Hydra files being encrypted and unlockable.)

I get the feeling that the writers of "CIVIL WAR" either failed to realize this or decided to ignore this possibility in order to have their Steve/Bucky v. Tony fight near the end of the film. After all, the filmmakers had to make this movie mainly about Tony . . . even if it was supposed to be a Captain America film.

Captain America: Civil War was mainly about Steve, even if it featured Tony as the second most important character.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

I just don't have the time to deal with the laziness of such terms. Take the damn five seconds to spell it out. At this point, I simply ignore any posts, messages, comments, etc. anywhere that use them.

Don't forget to tell those kids to get off your lawn.

I do every time but they never listen. *shakes cane in the air*

How is it that Tony never knew that HYDRA was responsible for his parents' deaths in the two years between "The Winter Soldier" and "Civil War" . . . especially since Natasha Romanoff had exposed HYDRA's files by leaking them to the Internet near the end of the 2014 movie?

I cannot imagine someone like Tony not examining those files, especially since his father was one of the founders of SHIELD.

Either Hydra's assassination of the Starks was not in those filed Natasha leaked, or any Hydra-authored files she leaked were encrypted and no one was able to unlock them. (There was a sequence in the film where Zemo talks about Hydra files being encrypted and unlockable.)

And yet Zemo was able to decrypt them on his own time with limited resources. I would think Stark would have the ability to do the same. I think it's more likely those particular files weren't leaked.

 

[Tom Hendricks]

I'm talking about whatever she was doing when she was on his shoulders. That looked silly.

Also, what is it with these superhero movies and choking never accomplishing anything? What's the point of having a metal arm if it's no more effective at choking than a normal arm would be? Isn't it supposed to be, you know, stronger? Like Ultron: if you're a seven-foot-tall robot and you've got someone by the throat, a member of a group you've sworn to destroy, how do you not crush his windpipe? Is Cap's neck really that strong? This also applies to

Spoiler: Apocalypse

Apocalypse.

Umm, she was doing what she has done in every movie. She wraps her legs around the head and tosses them over. It has worked every time, up till Buckey. He was faster and strong enough to stop her before she had a chance to do her move. Also dismissing both Sharon Carter and Black Widow, as someone who shouldn't have gone up against Bucky is weird. They were there, they needed to stop him and there was a lack of others to do so. Even when you're outmatched, you still fight.

 

[JD]

I'm pretty sure the leg flip thing is a real move that they're really doing (more or less) while filming.

 

[LJones41]

And yet Zemo was able to decrypt them on his own time with limited resources. I would think Stark would have the ability to do the same. I think it's more likely those particular files weren't leaked.

The only HYDRA files that Zemo was able to get his hands on were those leaked by Natasha. And through those files, Zemo learned how Howard and Maria Stark were killed.

Either the writers screwed up, or decided to pretend that Tony never had access to those files or that he just didn't bother to look through them. And knowing Tony Stark, I find that hard to believe.

Captain America: Civil War

was mainly about Steve, even if it featured Tony as the second most important character.

That movie was more about Tony than it was about Steve. The latter almost became a supporting character in his own solo film. Robert Downey Jr. literally forced Marvel to make his role bigger so that he would become the CO-STAR in a movie that was mainly supposed to be about Steve Rogers. Worse, Marvel had some scenes between Steve and Bucky edited out to make room for more scenes about the "great" Civil War. Because of this, the writing regarding Steve's relationship with Sam and especially Bucky and Sharon, suffered, due to this build up over that damn fight at the airport in Berlin and the other fight in Siberia.

I'm sorry, but I do not like this movie. I doubt if I ever will. And my feelings for the Tony Stark character has reached the abyss.

 

[DimesDan]

The only HYDRA files that Zemo was able to get his hands on were those leaked by Natasha. And through those files, Zemo learned how Howard and Maria Stark were killed.

Not exactly otherwise he wouldn't had to have gone to such extreme lengths to find out exactly what happened that night. He may have seen a date that Bucky got defrosted and then the date the Starks were murdered and decided, rightly so that Bucky killed them.

Interrogating a former officer of the facility that Bucky was being held and also the man himself and asking for a debrief implies he had a fair idea or what happened, just not the full picture.

 

[Set Harth]

I'm sorry, but I do not like this movie. I doubt if I ever will. And my feelings for the Tony Stark character has reached the abyss.

It's a big improvement from his portrayal in the comic arc.

 

[Sci]

The only HYDRA files that Zemo was able to get his hands on were those leaked by Natasha. And through those files, Zemo learned how Howard and Maria Stark were killed.

Either the writers screwed up, or decided to pretend that Tony never had access to those files or that he just didn't bother to look through them. And knowing Tony Stark, I find that hard to believe.

Is it really that hard to believe that former intelligence officer might be able to pull something off that Tony didn't? Or that he might know to look somewhere that Tony didn't know to look into?

That movie was more about Tony than it was about Steve. The latter almost became a supporting character in his own solo film.

Not really. It was about Captain America deciding to rebel against the world's governments to save his friend from a world that won't give him a fair shake. Tony's arc is secondary to to Cap's promise to be with Bucky "until the end of the line."

Robert Downey Jr. literally forced Marvel to make his role bigger so that he would become the CO-STAR in a movie that was mainly supposed to be about Steve Rogers.

Yes he did. If you want Downey in your movie, you make him the primary co-star after the title character. That's perfectly reasonable of him -- there are seventy years of Cap stories to adapt, after all.

Worse, Marvel had some scenes between Steve and Bucky edited out to make room for more scenes about the "great" Civil War.

Yeah, I wish there had been more Cap/Bucky scenes.

I'm sorry, but I do not like this movie. I doubt if I ever will.

That's fine. But it isn't primarily a movie about Tony. It's primarily a Cap movie that has Tony as the primary costar. If you think the third Cap movie should not have had Iron Man in it, that's cool -- I can see how an Iron Man/Civil War-less Cap movie could work just fine. But that doesn't make this movie Iron Man 6.

 

[Marsden]

I think Black Widow's move, to wrap her legs around her opponents head, is less about flipping them and more about stunning them, like they are stunned to have Scar Jo's legs wrapped around their head.

Bucky just isn't in to that, with his Hydra-Leviathan programing.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

We do not know that, actually. We have no information one way or the other as to the consequences of the launch of the nuclear missile. Although we do know that the missile probably saved thousands more lives by allowing the Avengers to defeat the Chitauri who had already made it through the portal.

We do know there were no consequences suffered by the WSC, as no on-screen reference or evidence was even hinted at in the films following The Avengers.

...and talk about misplaced credit: the WSC gets no feather in its cap for launching a nuclear missile at Manhattan; the intent was to destroy the Chitauri--and full awareness of the mass death along the way. They made a conscious decision to play lord and master over the lives of millions, and this shadowy organization was not punished for it.

So does the fact that government abuses exist mean you think governments should not have control over the exercise of executive authority or control over the organized use of violence? Do you think the Army should not answer to the President? That the New York City Department of Police should not answer to the Mayor? That the State Police should not answer to the Governor?

Government abuses with no internal checks / preventative measures or legitimate external analysis / control is not operating in the service of the people. By the way, your "answer to" is a cute observation, as history reveals a different relationship--one of collusion between several levels of state and/or city authority in association with the FBI, as in the 1969 assassination of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton and associate Mark Clark--dead as a result of a joining of FBI, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, & the Chicago police. Only independent investigation brought the set-up, assassination and cover-up to light, but the point is: who answered to anyone in that case? No one, as none of the government bodies or individuals were ever officially prosecuted.

Needless to say--but I will--that was not an isolated case in U.S. history.

Another example: even when official investigations such as the Church Committee attempted to expose the abuses of the CIA, the Ford administration--and Ford's own Chief of Staff Donald Rumsfeld & Deputy Chief of Staff Dick Cheney (yes, Rumsfeld & Cheney--part of that patriotic gang leading the U.S. into a war based on something other than truth) had information on CIA assassination activities largely blocked from congress--the ultimate point is that at the highest levels, no one was truly answerable to anyone else. The tradition continues to this day.

So, ask yourself for purposes of the fictional MCU: how is one to trust any government (from any nation) authority when said authority (certainly stories influenced by real world history) is free to do whatever, whenever across the world, yet the people should be expected to trust their (nonexistent) reasoned, benevolent control over / use of super-beings?

You are equating the corruption of one intergovernmental agency (the World Security Council) with an entirely different intergovernmental agency existing as a division of an entirely different intergovernmental organization. This is like being pissed at the EPA for something the FBI did, or pissed at your local police department for something your local Parks and Rec department did. It is absurd.

The only absurdity here is your blinders-on insistence of separating the corrupt nature of governments, agents within or larger associations comprised of members from various world governments--like the fictional WSC.

You are avoiding the question of how organized violence may be made legitimate.

The crucial question is: how can you trust any organized violence to be legitimate when those in control of authorizing it have generations' worth of self-interest & corruption (at the expense of citizens) within its ranks--and not some "rogue element of the government" as the media loves to use as a write-off?

I am sorry to hear that it bothers you when people interpret works of art in the context of the culture and time period in which they were produced.

It does not bother me at all, as I see Cap's reaction as the culmination of all on-screen events he's participated in, not some utterly fantasized implication of racism or insensitivity.

Again, your.:

And, yes, it bothers me very much that Cap is depicted as arguing that he should not be regulated after his actions lead to the deaths of innocent black people. Hard for that not to in the age of Ferguson. I don't think Cap is racist -- but I think that writing decision carries unfortunate implications the writers did not intend.

But I don't like it when filmmakers depict Cap as accidentally killing innocent black folk and then argue he shouldn't suffer any consequences for it.

That's creating a situation that does not exist for audiences by treating the CA:CW Lagos sequence as an isolated situation for Cap, and misapplying it to real world situation bearing no resemblance to Ferguson, etc. One cannot watch the film and edit overall intent (i.e. reactions to the deaths caused by the heroes) unless you have a tendency to frame all situations--no matter how inapplicable--to fit a preexisting narrative.

The Civil Rights Movement demonstrated that a segment of the people where no longer willing to be oppressed. It demonstrated the refusal of a segment of the population to be excluded from demonstrating the will of the people. It did not tell us the will of the people as a whole who should lead the country, or what policies should undertaken

One, no one said the CRM reveal the will of the people regarding who should lead the nation.

Two, in terms of what they wanted regarding Civil Rights policies, again, you are incorrect. For one example, in 1965 a Gallup poll found 76% supported the proposed law for voting rights. That did not happen as a result of a vote, but due to years of on-the-street activism, lawsuits, etc. which made voting rights a center stage issue for the nation.

If your problem is a lack of accountability and collateral damage, letting the Avengers answer to no one and accidentally kill people without taking responsibility for it is not the answer.

You are not providing an alternate solution.

And we do not know that the WSC members were not charged with war crimes.

Once again, what films are you watching? In every MCU film after the Avengers, there's not a single scene indicating punishment for the WSC's launching the missile at Manhattan. Your "we do not know" is of no value in the face of several movies post-Avengers, where every opportunity was available to explore that--but it did not happen, because there were no consequences for the WSC...but plenty for those responsible for saving the lives of humankind--including those seeking to collar them.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Well, it certainly seems that neither Gideon Malik, played by Powers Boothe nor Council Woman Hawley, played by Jenny Aguter suffered any consequences for attempting to nuke NYC.

ETA-- there is a deleted sequence from the first Avengers movie, the framing sequence with Maria Hill, where she throws some shit the Council's way for that particular decision.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Well, it certainly seems that neither Gideon Malik, played by Powers Boothe nor Council Woman Hawley, played by Jenny Aguter suffered any consequences for attempting to nuke NYC.

Correct--it was not in the released film, so it never happened.

 

[JD]

I'm talking about whatever she was doing when she was on his shoulders. That looked silly.

Also, what is it with these superhero movies and choking never accomplishing anything? What's the point of having a metal arm if it's no more effective at choking than a normal arm would be? Isn't it supposed to be, you know, stronger? Like Ultron: if you're a seven-foot-tall robot and you've got someone by the throat, a member of a group you've sworn to destroy, how do you not crush his windpipe? Is Cap's neck really that strong? This also applies to

Spoiler: Apocalypse

Apocalypse.

I think Black Widow's move, to wrap her legs around her opponents head, is less about flipping them and more about stunning them, like they are stunned to have Scar Jo's legs wrapped around their head.

Bucky just isn't in to that, with his Hydra-Leviathan programing.

I just rewatched the clip of the fight scene, and I don't see what was so silly about what Natasha was doing. There are plenty of leg chokes like that in martial arts.

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

It's kind of a signature move of hers, and it's what instantly tipped me off to Dottie's having been trained by the same people when she first did it in Agent Carter. Not that others don't do it, of course. I even remember Coulson trying it on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. once! That made me chuckle.