That had more set up.
Spoilers Marvel Cinematic Universe spoiler-heavy speculation thread
- Thread starter bbjeg
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Not really. The idea of Steve and Tony eventually facing off had been building up ever since Avengers in 2012. Dent's whole thing in TDK was rushed, especially after he got scarred.
I watched the scene just fine and understand how conflict works. My point, which I understand is an unpopular one, is that the conflict between the members felt unearned to get to the point of blows. Especially with all the Avengers had been through before.
Agree to disagree. No, I don't think Steve and Tony facing off had been building since Avengers. I think they had it out in that film, and were able to work through it and form a team. The fact that the team can be torn apart by one guy manipulating them smacks of Phantom Menace levels of manipulation and it strains credulity to the breaking point for me.
They had out the main conflict in that film, but the underlying differences they had in the first place still existed.
Any worse than how Joker manipulated everything to a Godlike extent in Dark Knight?
Yes, but not by much.
You say that like they already haven't come to blows in literally every film they'd been in together prior to this point.
I'll rephrase-to the point of trying to nearly kill each other, especially the way Cap and Bucky go at Iron Man. Sorry, there is "to the point of blows" (my bad on phrasing) and gathering up all your friends to beat up on your former friends.
Suspension broken at that point.
That's definitely not what happened in Civil War.
As I said, in CW they were explicitly pulling their punches. Hell, Nat and Clint were practically just sparing and it was obvious enough for Wanda to tell him to knock it off.
On top of that, Tony explicitly says "the plan was to go easy on them", his instructions to Peter were to "go for the legs" & "web 'um up". We know from Endgame that if she had a mind to, Wanda could have ripped them all apart, but instead she just knocked people over.
Even War Machine was sticking to non-lethal weapons, with the sonic canon thing and the tazer club, or whatever that was. The only reason Rhodey got injured was because Vision momentarily lost his shit, and if all that wasn't enough, Sam's response was to immediately turn and dive to try and catch him. And that was the guy who had just 5 seconds ago been trying to shoot him out of the sky.
And it's not like literally every other option wasn't exhausted. Tony practically begged Cap to back down. Cap didn't because he thought they needed to get to Siberia to stop the Hydra super soldiers, and he tried to tell Tony as much. Tony didn't listen because he had less than zero trust in the word of a brainwashed Hydra assassin that had just murdered the king of Wakanda, and believed Cap was letting his feelings get the better of him.
Both sides had legitimate reasons for doing what they did and neither side could let the other continue as they were. Given that scenario, I really don't see how they *don't* end up coming to blows. It has "collision course" written all over it.
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Oh, the ripping Bucky's arm off was not meant for that?
Sorry, it escalated too quickly for me to believe it.
It's a bionic arm. It can be reattached. Didn't you know that?
Yes. Doesn't make it less violent or escalated. Certainly not believable for me in the story.
I'm confused. I thought everyone was talking about people trying to kill each other in the airport scene (which is obviously nonsense), but the arm thing is from the Russian base, isn't it?
Of course Tony is trying to kill Bucky in that scene. It's literally the whole point of the scene: he snaps because he just found out his father (his primary emotional achilles heel) didn't die in an accident, that the man who murdered his father is literally standing in front of him, and that possibly his best friend in the world has kept this information from him and is definitively siding with his (Tony's) father's murderer over him. All in the space of about 30 seconds.
How is that not enough to make a rather unstable man like Tony Stark snap? I don't get what's unbelievable about that motivation.
Of course Tony is trying to kill Bucky in that scene. It's literally the whole point of the scene: he snaps because he just found out his father (his primary emotional achilles heel) didn't die in an accident, that the man who murdered his father is literally standing in front of him, and that possibly his best friend in the world has kept this information from him and is definitively siding with his (Tony's) father's murderer over him. All in the space of about 30 seconds.
How is that not enough to make a rather unstable man like Tony Stark snap? I don't get what's unbelievable about that motivation.
Apparently some folks wanted something disgustingly misogynistic like Pepper getting killed to set Tony off.
Well 1) It's not like Bucky & Tony were friends, 2) Bucky damn near shot Tony in the face at point blank range just a day or so prior, 3) it was a prosthesis, not an actual arm, and 4) Bucky killed him mum.
And that's right at the end of the movie. How is *almost the entire movie* in any way "escalating too quickly". That's pretty much what the whole thing was building towards since the bombing. Literally all of act 2 and 3 was escalation.
To me, at every step, the conflict doesn't gradually increase. It goes from 10 to 20 to 30 and at each step I expected to believe these people working together are willing to beat on each (going easy or not) because they are being manipulated at every level. I left the film extremely confused, extremely annoyed and very much unconvinced that the conflict would escalate to the levels that it did.
It all feels too forced that when we get to that scene with Iron Man, Cap and Bucky, it feels like it shot to 100 with little in the way of escalation.
And before people insist upon restating what happened in to movie to me like I didn't get it let me be clear-yes, I know Tony is emotionally fragile, but every single step isn't a step in this movie. It's a giant leap to ensure this conflict continues on through the film.
Caveat: this is just my opinion. I get it-people love this film. I don't. It's confusing and burned me out on the MCU pretty much since then. Haven't see a film since, other than GOTG 2.
Of course it does. Prosthetic arms are designed to come off. We saw during his time in Wakanda that Bucky was able to get along just fine without a prosthetic arm attached. Ripping off Bucky's bionic arm is no more violent than, say, ripping off Tony's helmet.
Tony just got shown a video of his parents' murder *at the hands of the dude standing not 5 feet away*, and if that wasn't enough about 5 seconds later he finds that Cap (Mr Self-Righteous himself) the guy Tony had spent the whole movie trying to talk sense to, not only already knew but flat out LIED to him about it. That'd get anyone going from 0 to 100, even if they didn't just happen to be wearing a state of the art weaponized suit of armor. This is as close to white hot rage that any character in the MCU has been pushed to that point.
I mean what more do you want? Have Bucky kill his puppy too? Shove Pepper's body in a fridge? Murder everyone at his wedding and leave him in a coma for 4 years, only to wake up and find his baby is gone?
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Hey, hey, hey, don't spoil the Disney + show for me.
Agree to disagree at this point. In the presentation in the fight it felt deep violent and personal. The only difference was that Bucky wasn't screaming in pain. The act itself was similar enough to me as presented in the film.
Again, the facts all add up as you present them. As they come across in the film it doesn't.
I'm sure I'm sounding very obtuse and stubborn at this point. That's not the intent. I walked away from this film going "This makes no sense." I've read stuff, listen to podcasts and the like, and the takeaway I get is that something doesn't work for me and doesn't click in my brain.
But, please keep repeating it over and over again. I'm sure the 10th time will be the lucky one and it will finally click!
ETA: In the spirit of fairness I will rewatch this film and see if second viewing is any less confusing.
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