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Spoilers Captain America: Civil War - Grading & Discussion

Grade the movie...


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Lang mentions it's something they (he and Pym) had been working on in the lab. So it's just something developed between movies.

So, Miriam Sharp was laying in wait for Tony by that elevator? Because she was standing there but hadn't pushed the button. How did she know he would be leaving early and going that way? That was weird.
 
There's a puppeteer at work? In the same lines as Batman vs Superman or Watchmen?

G. Gordon Godfrey (Wow. I just got that. G. Gordon Liddy.) forced President Reagan's hand to criminalize Superheroes, but what was that? An executive order? Those still have to ratified by Congress. The presidents word is not law. It should have taken Glorious Godfrey years to take antisuperhero legislation from idea to practice, even with his mind control powers.

Point is that it would have taken months or years for a 117 countries agree on signing this massive document, before they told Stark about it. He was kept in the dark, and how Stark was brought into the light can't have been a random accident.
 
I would tend to agree, but that's a bad example, as Tony created Ultron, and there would have been nothing for the Avengers to save the people of Sokovia from if he hadn't.

But the woman wouldn't have known that Tony was responsible for the creation of Ultron, and for that matter Ultron's creation was an accident born from Tony's good-intentions. He didn't know the AI he was creating would be evil and go with the stereotypical notion of "in order to protect the world, all humans must die" notion. So blaming him isn't entirely fair, how much do we blame SHIELD (Hydra infection aside) for using the Tesseract to create WMDs, sending a message to "all the realms" Earth is ready for a higher form of war?

But the only people who'd know Tony was responsible for Ultron's creation would be The Avengers, Fury and maybe Culson's branch of SHIELD. The public would have no knowledge of it, otherwise everyone (like, literally everyone, would be calling for his head.)

But this woman's attack on Tony while unreasonable while at the same time makes perfect sense. Emotions aren't rational and even in our own world people irrationally attack those trying to help when there's collateral damage. It's foolish for this woman to criticize The Avengers for "just going home" when Ultron was defeated when they did all they could to save as many people as possible and I'm sure Tony sent the "Stark Relief Fund" in to aid the country in any relief and relocation efforts. But this woman lost her son, so she's not thinking rationally. Nor is our main antagonist who lost his family.

I would, however, expect the governments to think a little more rationally and realize that on the whole the Avengers still come out on top. I mean, is the military 100% guilt-free when it comes to their attacks and not leaving behind collateral damage? No they aren't. And they pay reparations to countries/people impacted by their actions which, hey, Tony does through his corporations and relief funds.

So, things did seem out-of-line here. I wonder if it wasn't more Ross and the UN using the whole thing as an excuse to get The Avengers under control. I wonder if those details will come out in future movies?

I went to see the movie again this afternoon and still really enjoyed it. Man, this version of Aunt May is really hard to really "feel" after past versions. :lol:

I did pick up a bit more on Tony being the "antagonist" here and his out-of-line douchey behavior. He kind-of goes full jack-ass when things heat up to max (when he calls in Spider-Man and the big fight starts), he nicely brings it back when he realizes Cap was "right" and what his goal(s) were then he -understandably- turns it back on again when he learns out Bucky is responsible for his parents' death. (Right in front of a conveniently placed security camera outside a power sub-station.... along an empty rural road somewhere in New York in a car that doesn't strike me as something billionaires would drive themselves in 1991.)

I wonder if in the aftermath of the truth of it all came to him in his clearer head and he realized Bucky's brainwashing and conditioning was more responsible for Bucky's actions than Bucky himself.

What happened to Black Widow in the end of it all? Was she allowed to stay on even though she let Cap escape?

Why didn't Cap use the Quinjet's cloaking device as he fled? (For that matter, why wasn't Black Panther using his single-occupant Quinjet's cloak?)

As good as the airport tarmac battle was, there was one thing in it that struck me as "hokey" that didn't fully work for me. When Ant-Man becomes Giant-Man we see his moving very slowly, his arms, his limbs, etc. I suspect there's a "degree" of "realism" to this when you take a person and make them 20-stories tall; normal movements may seem slower. But, I dunno, it looked goofy to me. Like something you'd see in a cheezy 1950s Sci-Fi B-Movie.

Anyway, still highly enjoyed the movie and think remains as one of the best of the MCU movies to date.
 
Why didn't Cap use the Quinjet's cloaking device as he fled? (For that matter, why wasn't Black Panther using his single-occupant Quinjet's cloak?)
.
I have seen three Quinjet models since this all begin, the Civil War model seemed to have a Su-35 like cockpit area. Judging from the problems Coulson's crew had after the fall of SHIELD needing to highjack a quinjet from US government interment to reverse engineer the technology for the rest of their fleet the bus and quinjets I will head canon that not all SHIELD equipment was fully gold plated. Second the quinjet at the airport may have been one of those ex SHIELD/Hydra siezed by a German equivalent of General Talbot or quinjet has become the MCU's generic name for a VSTOL jet with the big heliprops in the wings
 
I really liked the theme of regulation vs freedom of choice. However it did seem like no one asked the question that should have been asked which is how many people would die if the Avengers were NOT there. In fact, when that state defense person came to Stark and said her son was killed in the fight, I kinda had to roll my eyes. I get there are consequences to actions, but there are also consequences for inaction and it seemed like they were only focused on one side of the coin for the most part.

But you must remember its easier to blame people who seem to be uncontrollable (superheroes), instead of regular government forces who cause just as much deliberate and collateral damage, and rarely care what the U.N. says about it. I understood the mother's accusation, and it could not have been aimed at a more deserving character than Stark, who is quite the megalomaniac in his never ending, disastrous attempts to create some global safety net to do what man cannot--end all conflict aka "peace in out time."

Other than that, this movie was the avengers I wished we had. In fact this didn't feel like a captain America movie, it felt like an avengers movie and I was fine with that. The stuff between Stark and Rogers was really well done and fulfilled the emotional resonance I think it was going for. Also that fight at the end when Stark learns the truth of his parents was gloriously personal and really well done.

The reveal of the fate of Stark's parents illustrated just how anguished Bucky was over actions he remembers in full, but cannot control. That alone made him free of the kind of judgement Stark dropped on him (a point of reason reached by T'Challa), but as always, Stark is self-centered and ignores what facts render his position incorrect.

Going in, Spider Man was almost a turn off and to be honest, I still don't understand why the critics are praising him here. When I was watching the trailer, it sounded like Spider-Man was going through puberty. I liked him in the movie and it was a nicely developed character, but was he needed? I would have to say no. I am intregued though to see this guys Spider-Man movie.

That's all he was there for--to set up the Disney version. The film did not adapt the Civil War source to the degree where he was needed, so the only answer for his appearance is centered on Disney's launching of the third round of Spider-Man on film.

Overall, I enjoyed it and it was a great entry into the MCU. It's not as gripping as Winter Soldier, but I think I would place it on par with First Avenger.

Captain America on film serves the same grounding effect he did in the comics: his very nature is the moral compass and his WW2 background adds / opened the door to realistic political conflict the other characters are too fantastic to sell. The CA films are the greatest of all Marvel films, and to me, that is not a shocker, as the lead's character is the most appealing and intriguing (in his dealing with a world he barely knows) of all.

I do like the running theme of failed hubris smacking those who deserve it (usually centered on Stark) in this film--probably best displayed when the terribly outmatched Carter, Black Widow and armor-free Tony actually thought they had any hope of fighting/capturing Bucky. He tossed and slammed them around like rag dolls. Nothing about their career experience(s) should have made them believe they had a chance against an enhanced person / ex-soldier. But Stark is a hard learner, considering how Captain America nearly killed Stark in their final battle.
 
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Were people surprised when they "revealed" that Bucky killed the Starks? My theater gasped with shock at that. But they already revealed it in Winter Soldier, and they showed the car crash scene ?twice? before the revelation. I don't get it.
 
Were people surprised when they "revealed" that Bucky killed the Starks? My theater gasped with shock at that. But they already revealed it in Winter Soldier, and they showed the car crash scene ?twice? before the revelation. I don't get it.
The gasp was more a matter of oh shit Iron Man who we thought was going to help kill the Leviathan/Hydra Winter Soldier squad would react and try to kill Bucky. And since that has been the scene shown since the teaser trailer we knew now was the time
 
Zemo kept talking about how the Soviet Union fell and how Empire often destroy themselves from within. That could easliy tie in to a upcoming Russian movie about Soviet superheros created just before the fall of the Soviet Union. Imagine the Guardians fighting the Avengers. Guaranteed box office gold.

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Were people surprised when they "revealed" that Bucky killed the Starks? My theater gasped with shock at that. But they already revealed it in Winter Soldier, and they showed the car crash scene ?twice? before the revelation. I don't get it.
Well, at the theatrical screening of Troy years ago, a whole row of people behind me expressed shock and disbelief when the Greek soldiers emerged from the horse, so...:shrug:
 
That alone made him free of the kind of judgement Stark dropped on him (a point of reason reached by T'Challa), but as always, Stark is self-centered and ignores what facts render his position incorrect.

You seem incapable of understanding these things called "human emotions" and understanding what they do.

Keep in mind Black Panther's first instinct on what to do when his father died was to find the man who did it and kill him, reason didn't come into it at all and he would have gutted Bucky had he managed to catch him before CA did.

Here, Tony watches a video of this guy slaughtering his parents, I think he can be excused for being "self-centered" and reacting with emotions and not thinking that not-only was Bucky brainwashed into doing these things, but was remorseful over it. He's reacting on EMOTION not thought. By the time BP meets up with the man who really killed his father he's not only had a few days to "calm down" a bit and react with more thought but he also has the benefit of seeing this man sitting there in a very human moment.

Tony is a self-centered jackass, sure. But him going directly to emotions and gut-reaction rather than thought and rationality when he's looking at a man who choked his mother to death? I think he can be excused for his reaction here, especially since it seems he was much closer to his mother than he was to Roger Sterling, er, his father.
 
We also know from the previous Iron Man movies and comics that Tony has trouble dealing with grief, and his self destructive nature does stem from his own personal shortcomings and relationships with his parents. Discovering that his parents had been murdered and not died in a car accident, and that someone he considered a friend/close ally; as well as a person Tony grew up hear about (according to Tony in Avengers 1) had kept the truth from him. It's more than understandable why Tony flew off the handle at Bucky and Cap. Before, Tony was trying to bring them in because it was the law. After seeing the tape, it became bitterly personal.
 
It'd all be really tight, if Bucky also killed Spider-Man's parents too, since Richard and Mary were also murdered in a traffic accident staged by Hydra... Despite the fact that Stark assembled the Wallcrawler without knowing the eerie similarity to their orphaning.
 
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Heck even in this movie during the Nigeria scene and Scarlett collapsing the building.

I was really confused for a minute because I couldn't remember Black Widow collapsing any buildings, then I realized you meant Scarlet Witch and not Scarlett Johansson. :lol:
 
So, when they made Winter Soldier and revealed Bucky killing the Starks, were they planning that as the crux of Civil War even back then? That's some sweet forethought. It really is a great and natural motivation for Iron Man to want to beat the snot out of Cap.
 
Wouldn't surprise me if they knew that back in Iron Man 1.
But, since they said that Cap 3 only evolved into Civil War when they got RDJ on board, it was just a bit of background lore until now.
 
Brain washed weapon.

Stark can't be that big an idiot, once his blood cooled down.

The only way to explain to Stark what Bucky went through is to maybe hack Iron Man, and force Stark to feel his body go through the motions against it's will as he crushes the faces of innocent women and children (yes, men too, shut it.) by the score.

"Sigh"
 
Wouldn't surprise me if they knew that back in Iron Man 1.
But, since they said that Cap 3 only evolved into Civil War when they got RDJ on board, it was just a bit of background lore until now.
Cap 3 became Civil War because WB was making BvS.
http://screenrant.com/captain-america-civil-war-batman-v-superman-inspired/

Recall that RDJ said he was in talks to do a 4th Iron Man film on Ellen DeGeneres' show back in 2014. Then a few weeks later, it was announced that RDJ would costar in Captain America 3. It was right around the time that TWS blew up at the box office.

Very fortuitous for Marvel.
 
You seem incapable of understanding these things called "human emotions" and understanding what they do.

Let's not go into your upside down, cracked moral compass from the Walking Dead threads, because it would be too easy.

Keep in mind Black Panther's first instinct on what to do when his father died was to find the man who did it and kill him, reason didn't come into it at all and he would have gutted Bucky had he managed to catch him before CA did.

T'Challa learned the truth and accepted it. He was there to watch his beloved father die in front of him, but after that in-your-face tragedy, the hunt, and fighting, he accepted the truth, and ended his attempt to kill Bucky. On the opposite end, Stark learned the truth and like the unstable person he is, attacked the innocent, and yes, a brainwashed man is innocent.

This cannot be difficult to understand.
 
I was really confused for a minute because I couldn't remember Black Widow collapsing any buildings, then I realized you meant Scarlet Witch and not Scarlett Johansson. :lol:

I did mean scarlet witch, but it was so awesome to see Johansson also kicking ass during that scene.
 
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