#i just rewatched winter soldier

[lungthief]

listen. i know it's not 2014 anymore and i know it's just a throwaway line and that the russo brothers didnt intend for marvel action blockbuster captain america the winter soldier to become the tragic gay love story that never was but man. having steve say "it's kind of hard to find someone with shared life experience" in a conversation about romantic relationships right before the bucky reveal is so cruel. it's not just about steve and bucky obviously having the shared experience of being "out of time," it's the fact that they've both been stripped of their humanity in opposite directions. steve is a legend, he is an american hero and a national icon before he is a human being the same way that bucky is a weapon and a killing machine before he is a human being. steve knows that anyone who falls in love with him in the 21st century fell in love with captain america first, and that's just not him. but then the one person who knew him first and knew him best and loved him (not captain america, that little guy from brooklyn) so much he died for it is alive, impossibly. and it's a miracle because he's back and it's horrific because he's back under the worst possible circumstances. but to steve, the winter soldier is worth tearing the world apart for because he's always been bucky first. they find each other and suddenly they're human again. and maybe, despite it all, being "out of time" becomes a blessing, because in this century they'd finally be allowed to love each other the way they've always wanted to. like real people do.

like. no. the captain america trilogy isn't about two queer men traumatized and alienated by war and modern life rediscovering and reclaiming their humanity through their love for each other. but. i mean. it couldve been

[imposterogers]

DO NOT get me wrong. I love any sam wilson content we get. but the first scene in winter soldier will always b my favorite. the NUANCE. he, a veteran and counselor at the VA, takes one look at steve rogers and doesn't see captain america -- he sees a traumatized, ill-adjusted, lonely man and reaches out. 

[imaybeabear]

Pre 2015 mcu- what a time to have lived

[samaspic31]

Am i rewatching winter soldier again in fucking 2023 ?? Perhaps. Am I ok ? Unsure

[buckys-metal-arm]

Y'ever think about how in Winter Soldier Pierce mentioned he has a daughter who was a political officer when he tells Steve about Bogota? Sure would be wild if that became important

[scuopsie]

I can't decide if sebastian stan just isn't aging that fine(ly?) or if he's that good at portraying gross characters...

[future-oscarwinner]

I forgot just how many Korean husbands I have

[lesbian-batgirl]

DCeased #4

[god-of-jotunn]

on todays agenda: a discussion of why sam wilson is the best

in this thesis....

[francesderwent]

I do like Marvel, and it saddens me to say this, but Spiderman: Far From Home is just not a good film.

it’s seriously confused about whether it is a Spiderman film or an Iron Man film. I know, I know. that’s the point, that it’s Peter realizing he doesn’t have to “live up” to the mantle of Iron Man because even Tony struggled to do that (???). but my point is it doesn’t work. it tells you that Tony didn’t intend for Peter to “be” Iron Man and then it shows you Peter...being Iron Man. it plucks Peter out of NYC (and then switches locations so often you get whiplash). the villain is Tony’s villain, Peter merely caught in the crosshairs of an old feud. after they have a nice heart-to-heart about Tony’s expectations, Peter turns around and picks up Tony’s tech like he was born to it while "Back In Black” plays and Tony’s old assistant gazes on fondly. is this Spiderman coming into his own or is this the new Iron Man? the audience is getting VERY mixed messages.

Mysterio is a weird choice for a supervillain without any superpowers (especially because, again, this puts him in the realm of typical Iron Man supervillains and not Spiderman ones). the sequences where Peter is trapped in an illusion don’t work for me because I keep thinking “wait, how is this working with drones??” those sequences might have been okay if Mysterio had initially claimed to have illusion powers. but he doesn’t make that claim, and even after Peter finds out it’s all illusion, there’s no point at which he thinks it’s “real” magical illusion, so he knows it’s drones, too. drones and projections laid onto real people? so when a whole crew of spidermen jump on top of Peter, smothering him, that’s just regular people jumping on top of him for the Aesthetic? what???

Mysterio’s desire to “become the next Iron Man” makes very little sense. the movie candidly admits that if there were any other avengers around he would get his ass kicked five ways to wednesday, so Mysterio’s plan is only going to work for as long as they’re off-world. and even if the avengers stay off-world, what’s Mysterio’s plan for when something actually bad happens? and you can’t tell me he’s just unhinged, because he got dozens of people to sign onto this plan with him, so the plan ought to make sense.

as previously stated by others more insightful than I, the whole conceit of who “ought” to have EDITH is absolutely insane. nobody ought to have EDITH. all those weaponized drones should be launched into the effing sun. Captain America didn’t almost drown taking down the hellicarriers for Project Insight for this kind of bs to continue--and Tony didn’t repent of creating Ultron to just turn around and create something like this! it’s bad character writing! and it’s bad morality!!

the plotline with Peter’s spider sense not working (??) needed to be way more spelled out. this could have been at the center of the film, Peter’s exhaustion and uncertainty of whether he’s Spiderman or Iron Man leading to the loss of his spider sense. they could have showed it slowing him down in the fights, and letting him be tripped up in his regular life, making him look even more awkward than usual. but as is, it’s just a plot device which allows him to get stuck in those aforementioned illusion sequences, and magically disappears just in time for Peter to stop Mysterio from shooting him in the head.

the final post-credits scene with Nick Fury being not the real Nick Fury is an absolutely off-the-wall terrible decision. in a movie which is in some sense about Peter learning to see through illusions to what’s underneath, to what’s real and what matters, to then turn around at the end and say “but not this, haha, you were all fooled!” leads to just feeling cheated, and for no good reason. and the movie is already struggling to deal with the loss of Tony as Peter’s mentor figure, so to replace Tony with Happy and Not-Even-The-Real-Nick-Fury is a crazy move.

the Happy and May subplot drives me nuts. the writers dance around it--do they have a thing? don’t they?--but then they refuse to commit at the last second because it’s only interesting to them insofar as it’s funny, they don’t want to actually have to deal with the emotional implications of Peter’s aunt having a new relationship, which is LAZY and CHEAP. and it’s worsened by the fact that Ned and Betty break up at the end of the film, too. everything is played for laughs, not played for keeps.

[azira-fells]

Shield your eyes. (x)

[death-rebirth-senshi]

Actually really funny how easily I've let go of Chris Evans Captain America.

[sharktles]

bucky barnes

[rainbowsuitcase]

The Winter Soldier - Rewatched

I decided to rewatch CA:TWS after about five years and I have some thoughts.

1. There’s "moon landing" written on Steve's list of things to catch up on. This movie is happening two years after the first Avengers and Google says Steve woke up a year before that. What the hell has he been doing for three years that he hasn’t had the time to catch up on moon landing? Moon landing!

2. Again, Steve's been living in this century for three years and yet, when Sam asks him what makes him happy, he doesn’t have an answer. He doesn’t know how to not be a soldier. He doesn’t know how to be anything but.

3. Regarding Civil War, people say it's ironic that Steve is the one against the accords because he’s always the one following orders (and similar crap) but that’s literally not true? In CA:TFA, Captain America as a hero is literally born from Steve going against orders to save Bucky. In this movie, he disagrees with project Insight from the beginning and later, he’s the one to decide to take SHIELD down with it, because the organization cannot be trusted anymore. Steve Rogers was never "a good boy following orders." He was always a man who did what he thought was right.

4. Also, this movie is practically a PSA that you can’t trust these authorities, but people still expected Steve to just sign away his free will as a hero to one, just a movie later? bfr

5. I am convinced that if he went shield first, Steve could easily run through a wall. At least in America, walls are made of paper there.

6. If I remember correctly, the Winter Soldier is the only enemy of Captain America that uses the shield against him in such capacity, and that’s just a really nice touch.

7. On that note, the Winter Soldier on his own is such a cool character that I would definitely want to see more of if there wasn’t, you know, tortured and brainwashed Bucky under there.

8. If one of them was a woman they'd end up together. I know the fandom says it a lot but I completely forget how painfully true that is. We spend a third of the movie, at least, with Natasha trying to find Steve a girlfriend and wondering why he doesn’t have one, and that’s a plotline that doesn’t get resolved in the movie. Steve says he doesn’t date because it’s "kinda hard to find someone with shared life experience," in the very same movie where he finds out that his lifelong best friend, possibly the only person on earth with "shared life experience," is still alive. If Bucky was a woman, this would be called foreshadowing.

9. And to end on a positive note, Sebastian's face acting is literally perfect. He had like five lines in the whole movie and yet he brought Bucky to life so well. He gave the character a soul.

This scene is literal acting gold and Sebastian deserved an Oscar for these five seconds alone.

[comicaurora]

Just finished rewatching first avenger and was kinda thinking about some of the detail diatribes. In the most recent, you said something about marvel failing to give Cap a real purpose in recent media, and now I can't help but think what could be a plausible motive. At some point I started thinking about superman and how marvel and DC have a tendency to parallel, and I was wondering if you think maybe Cap is Marvel's superman equivalent, in that he sets the bar? As a symbol of hope in a sense?

I'd say that's accurate. Captain America is a paragon with a capital P, and the best versions of him play that to the hilt. He won't just always do the right thing, he'll always find a way to do the most right thing. What he brings to the table isn't military experience or tactics, although on a basic power level that is most of what he can contribute to a fight - he brings an unshakeable moral compass and a clarity that cuts through the noise.

I think his portrayal in Earth's Mightiest Heroes does a very good job of getting that across. It's explicit that Cap is the team leader despite being the most underpowered fighter because he's just that good.

And it's not just lip service. Cap works as a leader because the Avengers trust him to lead them right - something that everyone else is too volatile or self-motivated to handle. For instance, Cap is one of the only people the Hulk unconditionally trusts, because Cap cuts through 100% of the bullshit around him and reads him like a book.

There are episodes where Cap gets depowered, weakened, captured, etc - none of it slows him down or makes him unable to contribute to the story. It's very carefully written to prove that the serum didn't make him Captain America, and its super-strength are not what he brings to the table, even if it does help him a lot.

Cap is characterized as a living legend, with all that entails - not a mythological hero with all their atrocities and downfalls, but an inspiration that sets a nearly impossible standard. He's a legendary hero, a paragon of goodness and nobility. He doesn't compromise his morals, he doesn't leave people behind, he will always choose the most heroic course of action no matter what it costs him. He's the definition of "hero" and all the heroes he inspired are constantly aware of how much he really does embody that legend.

The MCU doesn't know what to do with him because they're torn between "Iron Man has to be the most coolest specialest guy" and "the Avengers only exist onscreen together for five movies and they spend four of them breaking up" and there is absolutely no way to do Cap justice in that environment. I think Winter Soldier comes the closest, but of course we still only see Cap leading the B-team. If the MCU can't understand why it needs heroes, there's no way it'll understand why they need the hero.