Captain Marvel (2019)

Discussion in 'Science Fiction & Fantasy' started by Skywalker, Jul 24, 2016.

  1. JD

    JD Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    That's a good sign.
     
  2. kirk55555

    kirk55555 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Yeah, because when I think of Carol Danvers and her origin story, the first thing that comes to mind is fucking Robocop :censored: Its like this was just a random screenplay someone wanted made but then painted over it with Marvel properties to get Disney to fund it. Actually, that's probably exactly what it is, because the writer(s?) sure as hell didn't even bother to do more then glance at Carol danvers wikipedia page before writing this pile of crap.

    Just as the general audience were finally starting to reject Michael Bay's Transformers, which had me regain a bit of faith in humanity (or at least the general movie audience part of it), this slaps me in the face with the reality that shit movies will still make a crap ton of money. I mean, its Marvel. People actually paid to watch Ant-Man & The Wasp, so obviously even the rare MCU failure will still make money. But Civil war is a top 5 MCU movie in my opinion, so this is almost unbelievably pathetic. Maybe people just saw Wonder Woman and thought "If even the DCEU can do a great female lead superhero movie, just think of what the MCU Can Do!", which would be a fair assumption if this wasn't one of the few Marvel movies to get made by people who not only don't give a shoit, but who actively hate the source material.
     
  3. Timelord Victorious

    Timelord Victorious Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I am surprised you like Civil War. Didn’t that movie totally shit on the source material by not being a frame by frame reproduction and sort of telling it’s own story.
     
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  4. Awesome Possum

    Awesome Possum Moddin' Admiral

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    It's referring to her memory, not her origin. I actually quoted that part. RoboCop is about a cyborg slowly recovering his humanity and memories from before his death. Tiny details begin to flash for him, gradually beginning to make sense as he regains his humanity and get revenge on his killers. So I take it as meaning that instead of just randomly showing flashbacks, they make it part of her character arc like RoboCop's. We discover who Carol really is along with her and instead of the movie being about her gaining confidence to be a hero, it's about a hero regaining her humanity. So story structure instead of whatever you seem to imagine it to be.

    You can also wait and judge it after you see it because you've been proven to jump and overreact over every single thing in life.
     
  5. Anwar

    Anwar Admiral Admiral

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    Would you like some cheese with your whine?
     
  6. LJones41

    LJones41 Commodore Commodore

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    I thought so. I'm a big Evans/Captain America fan and "Civil War" was a major disappointment for me. Especially the narrative, which seemed to have so many flaws.
     
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  7. fireproof78

    fireproof78 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I did not enjoy Civil War at all. It was one of the few Marvel films that I stopped watching in the middle and had to revisit later on. Everything felt shoehorned in.
     
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  8. CorporalClegg

    CorporalClegg Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I think Civil War is the worst of the bunch. The plot is stupid and the conceit is ridiculous.

    They do the thing where the bad guy is of mediocre standing and yet he predicts and manipulates future events he couldn't possibly have any knowledge or control over with extream precision. Meanwhile, the Avengers arbitrarily split into two teams and fight over questions of oversight of their unchecked power and ability to destroy things and obliterate an entire airport in the process.

    I like how this film seems to be trying to keep things simple.
     
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  9. Awesome Possum

    Awesome Possum Moddin' Admiral

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    Steve’s and Tony’s split works based on all that they’ve gone through and there has always been some tension there, but the rest of the Avengers could have gone either way. It mostly seemed to hinge on who hangs out with who.
     
  10. theenglish

    theenglish Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I'm unclear. It seems that this argument could apply to the comics story line as well (perhaps moreso) than the film.
     
  11. Awesome Possum

    Awesome Possum Moddin' Admiral

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    The film is far more coherent than the source material. The movie had the good sense to keep the fighting to small areas away from civilians, the comics just had them fighting in the streets and wrecking the place.
     
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  12. Grendelsbayne

    Grendelsbayne Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    They really don't. Like at all.

    Zemo barely 'predicts' anything over the entire film. Most of what he does predict (that Cap would stand up for Bucky, that govts/people in general are tired of letting the Avengers run themselves and would enforce the accords to the letter, that Tony is feeling so guilty about Ultron that he'd put all his weight behind the accords, and that Tony's parents being murdered by Bucky is enough to drive a permanent wedge between Cap and Tony) are things that would be very easy to predict for anyone with the right skill set and a decent knowledge base.

    90% of the things that people claim Zemo 'predicted and manipulated with extreme precision' were things that did not need to be part of Zemo's plan at all in order for his plan to work, because all he was trying to do was destroy the Avenger's reputation, destroy their cohesion as a unit and also kill the back-up winter soldiers. Objective number 1 was already complete as soon as Cap protected Bucky (with more icing on the cake when Zemo convinced Bucky there was a global conspiracy afoot leading to more avengers fighting each other in defiance of the accords). Objective number 2 never required anything other than the revelation that Bucky killed the Starks and Steve would still choose to protect him from that - yeah, Zemo 'imagined this moment' or however he put it, but he never needed to do any of that face to face. It was just satisfyingly dramatic for it to happen that way. If nobody showed up in Russia, he could still just e-mail that video straight to the news and let the cap/tony fallout happen just the same. Objective number 3, of course, never needed anything other than 5 minutes alone with Bucky to determine the exact location of the base and a good head start (which Zemo happily put to use and just killed all the winter soldiers off camera).

    And in fact, even the few things which Zemo actually did manipulate quite clearly did not go 'exactly according to his plan', either, since he literally had no idea Black Panther existed, meaning everything BP did in the movie was entirely unaccounted for by his plans (which is how he wound up captured).

    As far as the Avengers 'fighting over questions of oversight of their unchecked power and ability to destroy things and obliterate an entire airport in the process'...

    They fought over the ability to leave the airport because one side was convinced they absolutely needed to to save the world and the other side was trying to uphold the law. You may take issue with the level of build-up that brought them there. Personally I've generally found the 'they had no reason to fight!/why didn't they just talk to each other?' arguments to be massively overstated as the movie does set up clear reasons for them to fight and there are multiple conversations preceding that scene which just fail to solve the problem (not to mention a definite countdown clock for both sides), but I honestly do understand how some people would've liked a bit more in terms of that preparation. Especially in regards to the secondary characters (ie, everyone other than Tony and Cap), who for the most part don't get much in the way of motivation for why they're on the side they're on.

    There definitely could be some improvements there, but to claim that none of it served any purpose other than destroying things and obliterating an airport over questions of oversight is just laughably and, given how obvious these things are, I can only assume intentionally misrepresenting the entire scene.
     
  13. Reverend

    Reverend Admiral Admiral

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    Yeah, I have noticed some people rather failing to grasp the notion that Zemo wasn't in control of *everything* going on in 'Civil War'.

    Most of what he did is identify a weak point the Avengers armour (Bucky killed Tony's parents) and jabbed a red hot poker in it. This didn't require some super elaborate scheme that could have been derailed at every turn, just a nudge here and there at the right moments.

    One of the things that the movie did sooooooooooooooooo much better than the comics was to create a credible conflict without either Steve or Tony suddenly becoming an unreasonable idiot in the build up. All the way through you can tell Tony is utterly desperate not to have everything fall apart and most of the first two acts are him trying to talk Cap around and is actively seeking to find the middle ground. It's not until the very end that he abandons that and with very good reason.
     
    Last edited: Jan 12, 2019
  14. Turtletrekker

    Turtletrekker Admiral Admiral

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  15. Nerys Myk

    Nerys Myk A Spock and a smile Premium Member

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    Total waste of the Zemo character.
     
  16. JD

    JD Fleet Admiral Admiral

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  17. Reverend

    Reverend Admiral Admiral

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    Yeah, a cackling Nazi in a pink balaclava would have been so much more interesting than the former black-ops wetworks operative turned covert mastermind able to out-think Stark that we got... :lol:
     
  18. Nerys Myk

    Nerys Myk A Spock and a smile Premium Member

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    Movie Zemo wasn't all that interesting. Generic Bond villain with an evil plan #2.
     
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  19. CorporalClegg

    CorporalClegg Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    And that's the whole point. He - or anyone - isn't control of anything.

    Yet his endgame is to manipulate two specific people to be at a very specific and remote part of the world at a very specific time through a series of his actions.

    To put it into perspective, only look at the very last link in the chain: Tony finds the body in the hotel room and puts two and two together quickly (which in and of itself takes Tony's ability of deduction on a lot of faith) enough to fly off to their dinner date on time.

    But a million infinite number of butterfly effects could have happened in between, anything from Tony having a slight pang of ennui and ultimately deciding to go home and give Pepper a hug, to the concierge calling in sick that day so the cleaning person unknowingly walks into the room. Or here's one: Rhodey probably should have died which would have changed Tony's psyche completely - let alone his ability to give a crap.

    I'm pretty forgiving when it comes to contrivance being a necessary evil in popular fiction, but there comes a point where it completely breaks immersion for me. Which is unfortunate because it completely spoils what would have otherwise been a fun romp.

    Here's the thing though, it could be argued that had T'Challa not been there, that Steve and Bucky might have gotten away. Most of that entire chase sequence is Steve staving off T'Challa, not the Interpol (or whoever they were) guys. BP's interference cut off any alternative escape route available to them. More importantly, it gave Steve someone of equal skill to combat. They may not have escaped, but I like to think the odds of Steve and Bucky against all of Deutschland's finest are pretty good. They may not have been able to elude capture forever, but they might have held out long enough or gotten far enough out of the city (or country) to have them sent to a different detention center with a different doctor.

    OR

    T'Challa was always part of the plan. The bomb's yield and position and time of detonation were specifically chosen to target the podium and kill T'Chaka. Then we're right back into Zemo is a prophet territory. I mean what if the King had some bad room service the night before and had to make an emergency pit-stop and the start of the conference was delayed 15 minutes.

    **And just to clarify, I don't "hate" the film by any means. Hell, I've seen it five or six times. I just think, for being the pivot point of the entire franchise, it could have used a much tighter script and plotting.

    And when I say "worst," I do so on the grounds that I have to often remind myself of Thor 2's existence. And I also like IM3 a lot more than most see to - I think Pierce's performance is brilliant.
     
    Last edited: Jan 12, 2019
  20. Anwar

    Anwar Admiral Admiral

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    Oh, so it's fine for TDK Joker but no one else?

    And his plan didn't hinge on Steve and Tony both reaching that base at the same time, that was icing on the cake. All he wanted was the tape there and to kill the other Winter Soldiers. Once he had the tape he could release it onto the Web or send it to Tony directly. Tony showing up and fighting Steve then and there was a welcome surprise.
     
    Last edited: Jan 13, 2019