Another Pass at Another Pass at Captain America Civil War
Let’s look back at the time Dr. Tom Obrzut joined Case to talk about Captain America Civil War!
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Meeting summary:
● Meeting focused on critiquing the episode "Another Pass at Captain America Civil War" with discussions on the movie's plot holes, character development, and overall enjoyment. Analysis of character dynamics such as Iron Man and Captain America's motivations, Captain America's romance with Sharon Carter, and the portrayal of Black Panther and the Wakandans. Review of timeline inconsistencies, suggestions for improving the collateral damage event, and discussion on Zemo's plan execution. Action items include addressing time and spatial inconsistencies in future discussions, analyzing Wakanda's portrayal in Marvel movies, and evaluating character motivations in complex narratives like Civil War.
Notes:
🎥 Episode Critique and Overview
● Discussion on the quality and format of the episode.
● Discussion on the movie Captain America: Civil War, focusing on plot holes, character development, and overall enjoyment.
🦸♂️ Character Development and Dynamics
● Critique of Iron Man's and Captain America's motivations and relationships.
● Analysis of the romance angle between Captain America and Sharon Carter.
● Discussion on the portrayal of Black Panther and the Wakandans.
📅 Timeline and Plot Inconsistencies
● Review of time and spatial inconsistencies in the movie.
● Suggestions for making the collateral damage event more impactful.
● Discussion on Zemo's plan and its execution.
Action items:
Case Aiken
● Review the time and spatial inconsistencies in Captain America: Civil War and propose how they could be addressed in future podcasts or discussions (02:32:00)
● Consider incorporating a discussion on the portrayal of Wakanda and its leaders in future analyses of Marvel movies (02:46:00)
● Evaluate the effectiveness of character motivations and relationships in MCU movies, especially in complex narratives like Civil War (01:48:00)
TRANSCRIPTION
00:06
Case
Hey, everyone, and welcome back to another pass at anotherpass podcast. I'm case Aiken, and as always, on these trips down memory lane, I'm joined by my co host, Sam Alasea.
00:17
Sam
Hi, Sam.
00:19
Case
So we have come to one of those movies that I've been sort of wondering how you would respond, because back.
00:27
Case
In the day, I was way more.
00:29
Case
Open to just saying, like, yeah, we can talk about anything, right? Like, you can polish even, like, the shiniest of diamonds as the premise for the show. And so I was really willing to engage with movies that I think are pretty good and were commercially successful and critically acclaimed. So today we're talking about Captain America's civil war.
00:53
Sam
Wow, you are.
00:54
Case
Yeah. Before we get into the. The flashback to that episode, because, again, this is another pass at another pass where we look back at the first hundred episodes of the show before Sam came on as a co host and get her opinion, but at the same time, also kind of go into the history of the show a little bit, you know? Cause, yeah, our navels, we love to gaze at them.
01:19
Sam
How glorious they are.
01:21
Case
Yes. So, yeah, this is with Tom Obergoot, who this, I think, is his only time on the show. He is a friend of mine and a D and D player that I, at the time, was his dungeon master, but he's probably been my dungeon master more often at this point. Really, really clever guy, but also not like a content creator type person. So I'm really excited to have him on this one because I think he's rather smart, even though he's coming from a very different standpoint than I am with you in general.
01:54
Sam
Yeah, I think it makes it interesting, too, because, well, listeners, you will see that he is not a big comic book person. So it's nice to get that perspective. I think, of a film when you don't have all the ground information. It's very helpful.
02:13
Case
Yeah. Like the layman's perspective in this one. And there's a big chunk of our dynamic because he's one of my friends, and thus, this is the dynamic we all have, which is that friend asked me for comic book insight, not knowing what they were about to.
02:27
Sam
Oh, boy.
02:28
Case
Begat upon themselves.
02:32
Sam
It all started.
02:35
Case
Exactly. That is the relationship I have with all of my friends. You all know this. This is the show. This is especially a bit of steel, but so it's a lot of me explaining background stuff from the comics and us having, I'd say, a pretty good conversation about the movie. So it feels like we are a little bit less tight on the format. And that is because we recorded this in chunks while people are coming in and out. Like, his wife is making dinner in the background. At one point, you can hear people come in and grab a soda or a beer. I can't remember which, but probably a beer. Now that I said that out loud, it was weirdly, we would do 15 minutes here, 15 minutes there, and that all came together over this, like, weird Saturday of hanging out, podcasting.
03:27
Case
And unfortunately, I think you can tell from the audio I had gotten to be a better editor by this point. So I was particularly good at isolating out background noise when I didn't have to have it. But this was back when I was using that task amp where there was something wrong with one of my mics. And I was always so goddamn dumb that I just never tested it outside of recording it. Like, I just didn't think to, like, be like, oh, I should just, like, record myself using each of the mics in isolation and figure out which one's the crappy one and then replace it.
03:57
Sam
Right, right.
03:58
Case
I just didn't. And I just kind of lived with it. And so my audio is much clearer than his. And, like, I don't know if it's because it's an omni and it's picking up, like, all this room tone or something, like. Or it's just not picking up that much. And thus, like, maybe like, it's one track or something. I don't. I don't know exactly either way. Yeah, it. I'm sorry, listeners, this is going to have, like, a little bit of roughness to me, at least. Like, I I'm hearing it. It's probably not going to be that bad, and I'm going to try to clean it up on the final edit.
04:30
Sam
Yeah, it is better than some of the episodes we've already listened to audio wise. So, like, my opinion, some of the.
04:38
Case
Early ones were more, oh, definitely the. The stuff of the task game in general, like, might as well have been me doing, like, remote interviews as opposed to, like, having, like, any kind of, like, proper recording setup. Yeah, it. Yeah, it's just what could have been better. But that's what we're looking at on this show. We're seeing how the show grows with that. Why don't we actually get into the episode for sure and go.
05:10
Case
Welcome to certain point of views, another pass podcast.
05:13
Tom
Be sure to subscribe, rate and review on iTunes. Just go to certainpov.com dot.
05:21
Case
Hey, guys, thanks for tuning in to another pass podcast. I'm case Aiken and today we are talking about Captain Civil war. I am joined by my friend, Tom Objut. Did I pronounce that right? No, you polish names. Every guy who has a polish name has always been like, no, that's close enough, but you're totally wrong.
05:46
Tom
So it would help if you practice. But my wife still can't say, I.
05:50
Case
Guess we forgive you. Fair enough. So, Tom, tell us a little bit about yourself.
05:55
Tom
Yeah, so I'm Tom. I'm here to make my very first podcast about Captain Civil War. And I'll start by saying that even though I've enjoyed every single Avenger, Iron Man, Batman, Superman, movie, cartoon that I get my hands on, I have not read a single comic book in my life, so I'm not providing that.
06:15
Case
Well, no, that's fair enough. I think the problem sometimes with these movies is that the fans will go in and know too much. I think there's a couple characters in particular in this movie that rely a lot on the fans knowing who they are and what the broader implications are. So I walked away from the movie when I first saw it, really liking.
06:35
Tom
It, which is interesting, because I, having watched all the bad movies before, came out with the exact opposite perspective. I actually really did not like it the very first time I saw it, and it was only the second time, because we have just finished watching it, that I feel like on my second viewing, I liked it a lot more.
06:54
Case
Than on my first viewing.
06:55
Case
Gotcha. All right, so, yeah, let's get into it. So, like, pros and cons of the movie. I mean, I've actually done a whole podcast over at a certain point of view, talking about things I loved about the movie. We did, like, a late night reaction right after watching it. Let's give it to you. Like, what are your thoughts when you first watch it?
07:15
Tom
It's very, very hard to follow. It really is. Like, you know, even I have seen, like I said, all the background movies. I had a hard time actually following certain plot twists, and I had a hard time keeping track of all the copious characters.
07:29
Case
There are a lot of characters in this movie.
07:31
Tom
There's a lot of characters in this movie. And, I mean, I don't feel like you need to make a backstory on Tony Stark. Obviously, you don't have to make a backstory about Captain America, but when you throw in 17 other characters, somebody who doesn't have necessary perspective is gonna get lost.
07:49
Sam
Really?
07:49
Tom
Really.
07:51
Case
Yeah, I could see that. I mean, the. The comparison I was making a lot was to the first Avengers movie and the second Avengers movie, the first Avengers movie did a really good job of introducing all those characters. If you had never seen any Marvel movie before, or if you'd only seen one, like, if you'd only seen the Iron man movies, they did a pretty good job of setting up every other major character in that movie. But then you get to Avengers two, and they just sort of start with a team together, and they do character establishing bits, but then the movie is just a go. Like, we've established that they're who they are.
08:25
Case
Really quickly, we introduced some new characters, but the characters that we have are the team, and it's expected that you know who they are, and this movie kind of goes the same way.
08:36
Tom
But I would argue that the difference is that in Avengers two, between Avengers one, having seen both of them, you didn't start off with a completely new team. You had your team from Avengers one. It sort of continued onwards to Avengers two, with a few modifications here and there. And you introduced some new villains and a new plot.
08:55
Case
But when you go here, you start the movie with the team that they have at the end of Avengers two.
09:02
Tom
Yes, you do. But then all of a sudden, everything starts shifting, where all of a sudden, you introduce a host of new characters. You introduce almost no backstory to any of them, and you're kind of left. You know, I think it's very telling that I didn't really start understanding this movie until after the first time I saw it. You actually explained to me the backstory on several.
09:29
Case
The one in particular, which people who are not familiar with the comics will have the hardest time with, is the Black Panther.
09:35
Tom
Yes.
09:36
Case
Yes. And that definitely comes into, like, some of my notes on, like, how this movie could have been stronger. Well, so let's.
09:42
Tom
I think that, like, this is a good plug into getting into that. So let's start with the very beginning of the movie. I honestly thought that the beginning of the movie, that first scene, is a very nice bridge between Winter Soldier and the current Avengers movie, because you have the.
10:01
Case
We've got Rumlow, who is crossbones. Like, he was hinted or he was a reference to a supervillain from Marvel Comics in Winter Soldier. And in this movie, he full on has become that supervillain character. Yes, I dug his look. I thought he had a very nice, fully supervillain kind of aesthetic to him. Like, in the comic, he just wears, like, a black tank top with, like, the crossbone symbol and, like, a luchador mask with, like, a skull face. But the look that they gave him in this, I thought worked really well. They gave us a compelling reason for him to be a threat physically to Captain America. Even though this Captain America can just kick a car and knock people on the other side of it over or, like, fling people across buildings.
10:40
Tom
Absolutely. And I thought the action was well shot. I thought actually, even the angles of the way they shot it was very compelling. And, I mean, let's face it, when you go to see one of these Avengers action flicks, you're looking to see some good action, and they.
10:53
Case
They do cool stuff with it. Like, they use scarlet witch in a cool way to, like, bring the gas out of the building. They're like, oh, this is why we have these super powered beings that are less conventional. Like, why? Like, what is their use in a fight? You know, beyond just being like, all right, well, I'm gonna knock out the bad guy. Like, oh, it's like, okay, I can suck this stuff out. I can prevent casualties. This way I can do all these support things. And she's also pretty terrifying on top of that, Bo. Yes.
11:18
Tom
And I even like the way that she blocked that explosion from Captain America, which would have killed him, and instead tried to redirect it, but didn't do it in the right way. And so took out part of the building, which created casualties that she felt upset about.
11:32
Case
Yeah, I always felt that the damage from that explosion should have been more severe. It felt like if it had gone off on the first floor, all those people in the market would have died. And by going up, it probably only killed, like, a handful of people relative to the amount that would have been on the first floor. And I really wish it had, like, caused the building to collapse or something like that, where it's, like, much, like, much worse.
11:55
Tom
I was expecting a little bit more. I was expecting, like, a partial building collapse. Or even better still, had she just redirected it? I mean, it was nice that the building caught on fire, but had she just lost control of it, maybe.
12:07
Case
Yeah.
12:07
Tom
Redirected from Captain America. So he survives, but half the market dies in a magnificent explosion that actually might have been.
12:15
Case
Yeah. What if it was, like, a funnel or a flashlight with a reflector? So it burst through one direction, and as a result, all of it went to one thing and was much more destructive in that one direction than it would have been otherwise.
12:28
Tom
And I think that would have been. And if anything, she would have felt more guilty because she had redirected the explosion away. They killed innocence of building.
12:37
Case
Yeah.
12:37
Tom
More directly, as opposed to college structural damage to a building. But you never actually see anybody dying in that explosion. You see a building that's caught.
12:45
Case
Yeah. And that was part of the problem. Later when they go through the footage of different incidents with Avengers that were big public, you know, escapades, they show, like, New York, and then they show DC and they show Sokovia, and they're these huge set pieces, and they do a really good job of moving the camera angle from being the hero's angle that we saw in those movies to being men on the streets. And that was really cool because the trailers didn't do that. They showed footage from the actual movies. And this is like, oh, it's a person looking up at the hulk, dropping foot like debris and killing that person. And presumably, but then they cut to this incident in Nigeria, and it's like a fire. It's just not as, like, compelling a reason as anything that has come before at this point.
13:32
Tom
Absolutely. I mean, if you look at age of Ultron and you see how much just raw destruction, like, lifting up the better part of the city into the air and then free falling it with countless casualties. I mean, her brother died, but she didn't get upset. And now, because she caused, what, a 10th of a building to catch on fire, all of a sudden she's really upset. Yeah, this is a little bit suspect.
14:00
Case
I feel like we're missing some sort of play there.
14:02
Tom
Yes. But nonetheless, I mean, I will give the opening sequence good marks because I thought the overall action, which is why we're seeing the movie, was very good. And I'll cut to the first introduction of Zemo, the villain. And I have to say another good point about this movie. I thought that opening sequence where he cons his way into that other russian agent's door.
14:25
Case
Yeah, that was a nice touch. Like him. Like jumping the curb to hit it, to give a convincing reason to, like, let have the guy let his guard down. That was pretty good.
14:34
Tom
He's like, no, I don't want any cops. I'll let you in. And then just knocks him out and then ties him upside down to a water sink and starts pouring out the water faucet. And that's like, what? Waterboarding 2.0? Yeah, it was.
14:47
Case
It was a very good introduction for the character. I'm a little torn about his ultimate portrayal because I love Baron Zemo in the comics. I think he's one of the best conflicted villains, or in some lights, a hero that Marvel has put out in a long time. The backstory for people who aren't aware there have been two. Baron Zemos, the father, was a Nazi in the forties who was a villain of Captain America's and started the masters of evil in the sixties. And it was like a very classic red skull. When you don't have Red Skull, like the dimester Red Skull. And then they had his son come back after he was killed for a while. And at first, he was a straightforward villain, not that successful, even.
15:29
Case
And he had one really awesome mission where he got together a group of supervillains that was about three times larger than the Avengers. They stormed Avengers mansion. They beat up their butler. They put Hercules in a coma. They knocked out Captain America. And when he came to, he was chained up. And Baron Zemo had taken all of Captain America's personal effects and slowly, piece by piece, destroyed them, including the last photo Captain America had of his mother. And then he just sort of kept on popping up in comics after that. Did a really cool story where he pretended to be a superhero with a bunch of other supervillains and then were revealed to be. Not as such, but it was a really well written story because at first, we actually thought it was just a new team of superheroes.
16:15
Case
And then eventually he got superpowers and became enlightened and realized that there were better ways to do things. And then he hasn't really been seen for a while because he got lost in time. But for a stretch, he actually went through, and he was fixing these huge metaphysical problems because he was in the higher than Superman power set group, where. And upon becoming that powerful, he was like, oh, shit, I had really screwed up. I could have done way better with my brains.
16:40
Tom
We have an editing process, right?
16:42
Case
We can edit all that out? Yes. I don't know if we will.
16:49
Tom
No.
16:49
Case
But I love the character, and I love that now, I was conflicted because this is not the character we get in the movie.
16:54
Tom
And this is, again, brings me back to, you know, I haven't read any of those comics. I was not familiar with any of that scene. And I actually like the introduction of this character. I take him for what he is in the movie, not what he's supposed to be in the comics. And that, I think, is the difficulty with these movies. You're either going at it as I want to stay true to all the canon of the comics, or I want to create a movie for your average guy who maybe has seen some, maybe not even all of these.
17:23
Case
Yeah, well, and that's why I'm saying I'm a little conflicted. Because the. I thought this was fine, but he wasn't as grandiose as he could be. Like, I don't need fidelity.
17:31
Tom
I need.
17:32
Case
If you're going to deviate in a big way, I would like it to be relevant to the story or really good. And I thought the background for him was really good. I just think that I have a lot of questions about his plan, and I would have liked to see a little bit more of that. I don't feel that he was as active an agent as he could have been.
17:51
Tom
I feel that.
17:52
Case
And I think I can get more into my notes on that. But he's a good character in this. But he could have been great. He could have been great. And there's a little bit of the dark knight Joker syndrome where it's like, this was all part of my master plan, but we don't see how that makes sense. That is true.
18:10
Tom
That is true. But nonetheless, we've got the good introduction.
18:14
Case
So here's the thing that I thought was weird.
18:15
Tom
Okay.
18:16
Case
They don't talk about Hydra at all. Like, they mention it for the Winter soldier stuff.
18:21
Tom
Yes.
18:22
Case
But they don't talk about how Hydra had infiltrated and taken over shield and presumably a good chunk of the United States and possibly other governments.
18:31
Tom
Yeah. I mean, I feel like they went from, if you look at Winter Soldier, where essentially that a little floating aircraft carriers crash into DC, which they cut to as one of their justifications.
18:44
Case
Yeah. They reference it a lot, but they don't actually talk about Hydra taking over everything.
18:48
Tom
Right. So you got to keep in mind, it's a movie. They can't address everything, but it's sort of. They're using this as a justification for why they're making this big un scene, to rein in the Avengers, whereas on the other side, they're also praising the Avengers for saving us from Hydra, but they don't really ever fully reconcile.
19:13
Case
Yeah, I feel like that's actually one of my big questions, which is that I feel like the events of Winter Soldier are the exact reason why the Accords don't make sense in this universe. Yes. Like, the. The concept that, oh, we're gonna be okay with running like our government's running all our superhumans, is exactly where they were to begin with. Cause at the beginning of Winter Soldier, Cap was just an agent of S H I E l D. That's right. And just going off and doing missions. And then he finds out that, oh, no, he's actually been working for, like, secret Nazis. Yes.
19:41
Tom
And, in fact, we're gonna have this government oversight, which is gonna enforce some sort of world order on everything from these aircraft carrier gunships that are now floating around the world. But then that's, you know, that ends up being an agent of Hydra, a ploy of them to take over the world. But now that we've taken that down, all these ships crash. We have a scene where the Avengers are doing their thing. But no, no, that's not good. Now we have to put them again in a box.
20:12
Case
Yeah. They make passing references, but it seems like. Wait, hold on. We know very clearly that regimes change. They talk about that as a possibility. But we have a very concrete example. And it's really weird that we don't talk about the impact that Hydra had on, like, government control over these, like, metahuman assets.
20:33
Tom
Right. And Samuel Ljax. I mean, they brought in every other actor they could find from any movie remotely related to Marvel, but they don't bring in Samuel Jax's character. Sure.
20:44
Case
Right.
20:44
Tom
Well, the only one that doesn't appear in any of this.
20:48
Case
Yeah. He had no part of this little conversation, which you would think that.
20:53
Tom
Which is how the criticism. If you're taking the Avengers and you're trying to put them into a box, would you not think that he would have something to say about that?
21:04
Case
Well, yeah, I mean, it's interesting to think if this movie had come before Winter Soldier, that would actually be a really logical setup if Captain America was cool with it. Like, if he was the one who was, like, pro accords signs up for it, and then at the end of the movie, he's working for the government, and then we find out that Hydra's controlling everything. Yes, because, like, Gary Shanling's character in Iron man and then in Winter Soldier, I forget the senator's name, but he's the one in Iron man two, is trying to have Tony Stark come and have the Iron man armor just work for the government. Right. Which is exactly the scenario. And then we find out that he's actually a Hydra agent.
21:40
Case
And so the implication of Winter Soldier was that, oh, Hydra was just trying to make it so the us government had complete control over all these superpowered assets. And then this movie is Iron man being like, no, we should let the government have complete control, which it.
21:52
Tom
Feels like the complete opposite of his character in general.
21:54
Case
I mean, I could see it as being, like, a sign of growth. But there is generally, at least what I've seen, a fan sentiment that the motivation that he had in Iron man three and then in Avengers two is the justification for him in this movie that he saw that Earth is so vulnerable to outer space threats and that he doesn't want the Avengers to be split up, because that is the natural defense from those outer space threats that are coming. But he never says it exactly in the lies.
22:26
Tom
Isn't that something you're actually inferring based on your perception of watching all these movies, reading all these comic books, whereas the movie never actually addresses where he actually comes from. So another one, my criticism was, all of a sudden, you go from very big action scene, then you go into a somewhat sappy recreation of one of Tony Stark's initial traumatic memories, which I get. Sets up the backstory.
22:51
Case
I like that scene.
22:53
Tom
I thought, I thought they could have maybe looked at the dialogue a little bit more. But anyways, that's fine. I'm okay with it. I can live with it. But then you go from that scene into Tony Stark all of a sudden being this big proponent of this plan to box, you know, sort of the Avengers into signing this accord. And I feel like he was sort of, you know, even. Just not even leading the guy, but just watching the movies. You see this guy who's always been rogue anti government, his entire movie canon moving into, we should sign this accord. We got to sign this accord.
23:37
Case
Yeah, it does seem like a weird shift, but, you know, he does do it.
23:42
Tom
He. He makes the shift. He starts being. Trying to get all the Avengers into his little. Signing the accord, create unity deep for whatever reason.
23:53
Case
Yeah. And he teams up with Secretary Ross. And I liked that they brought back William hurt as Thunderbolt Ross. Like he was the general who was chasing after the incredible Hulk in the Ed Norton incredible Hulk movie. Yeah, no, so he's a recurring character at the time. He was just a general. That's why they referenced him having a medal of Honor. He's a major character in Marvel comics, or at least in the Hulk mythos. So him being the face of this, that was nice continuity, like tying the universe together.
24:23
Tom
Yet another one of those plot points that I should went over in my head because I missed that part.
24:27
Case
But weird point. What a waste of Martin Freeman to come in and basically play the same type of character, but an underling version of him, but with the same last name. So they kept on being like, Secretary Ross. Everett Ross. Secretary Ross. Everett Ross.
24:42
Tom
Absolutely.
24:43
Case
All of the scenes that Martin Freeman was in could have just been William hurt playing Secretary Ross with maybe like, a few changes in the power dynamic, but not like, major shifts in the scene.
24:55
Tom
Well, but we do have actually made a change. So, so far we've gone through the initial action scene, which we both liked. With maybe a few minor tweak edits. Maybe blow up the entire building. Otherwise, we cut scene to a recreation of Tony Stark's initial memory of his parents dying. In order to grant money to a lot of MIT think tank.
25:16
Case
Yeah. Well, I like that, because we see. We see Tony Stark being more than just a hero.
25:21
Tom
He's.
25:21
Case
Or rather being a hero for the real world. Like, he's. He's not just Iron man. He's Tony Stark. Who can behind a lot of, like, cool technology. And then, like, fund research. And, like, push forward big ideas to change the world. Like, that's the broader Tony Stark.
25:36
Tom
Which I thought was actually a fine use of his character and such. Then we cut to where he meets with all the Avengers. After their, mishap, shall we say, in,
25:49
Case
In Africa, in some nigeria, I think is what they said. But, yeah.
25:54
Tom
Where they create a lot of havoc and kill a supervillain. And at that point, Tony Stark is trying to get them to sign the accord to limit themselves. Would you have changed anything up to this point?
26:08
Case
Yes. I mean, if we. Yeah, I would have actually had more information about the accords. And I would have had Tony Stark be a player in it. We have this scene that echoes the comics. Where, like, a woman comes up and is like, you killed my son. Yes. That all. And that's showing him having this face to face confrontation. With the repercussions of his actions. I would have liked if that was the jumping off point. For him to have that conversation with Secretary Ross, with T'Chaka. With all the different nations who are talking about the Sokovia Accords. And have him be sort of the face of the Avengers. You know. Cause he's the guy who pays for everything and, you know, makes everything run. Yes. Where he's negotiating the whole thing.
26:53
Case
So that when he shows up with the secretary of state, we understand why he's there and that he had a part of it.
27:01
Tom
So I. So it's too much of a leap for you to go from one little scene where, you know, somebody takes him after a little presentation that he makes, to MIt suites and say, you killed my son in the last age of Ultron movie. You are to blame. And you get to go home. And I live with my grief. It's too much. A lean to go from Vax to putting the Avengers at about three.
27:26
Case
I don't think it's too much of a leap, but I think that it is one where I would have appreciated, even if it wasn't him fully forming the accords, but having that conversation with Ross or with someone setting up a little bit of the dialogue before it's brought forth to everyone else, because you see that moment and then Ross shows up. The fact that they came together as part of it, like, if he had just been there dealing with his own mental thoughts of, like, well, I'm responsible for this kid dying. And then Ross comes forward and like, well, you know, a lot of people died. Here's a thing that we have to do. And then he agreed with him. I think that would have been also a viable scene.
28:07
Case
The fact that they came together makes me feel that he was already briefed on everything. And I would have liked to see either him being briefed on it and his feedback separately or him participating in the initial conversations about it. If he felt like more of a hand in forming those accords, then it's not just him being, like, the public speaker trying to keep everything together, but him actually being active participant, which right now, he's not enough of one in that element of this plot.
28:33
Tom
Well, do you feel that actually brings up the issue of, you know, the title of the movie is, you know, Captain America Civil War, right?
28:44
Case
Yes.
28:44
Tom
It's not the Avengers civil war.
28:48
Case
Right. It's definitely focused around Captain America.
28:51
Tom
Do you think that, you know, I agree with your criticism that taking, you know, if they. If they do the cutscene where Tony Stark has his MIT moment, meets the one, has a change of heart, realizes there's consequences to his actions, therefore wants to put a box on the Avengers, you're arguing. Put a middle scene where he actually has an input on the UN.
29:16
Case
Yes. Because ultimately he plays the role of the antagonist. Sure.
29:20
Tom
But does that make it more of now, instead of saying, calling the title Captain America Civil War, does that mean now we should call it the Avengers Civil War?
29:31
Case
No, because the Captain America is our viewpoint character for this. Yes. The fact that we're coming with him after the. After the Winter Soldier and the Hydra thing and a lot of the drama has nothing to do with the accords, but rather stuff to do with Bucky. Yes, it's Captain America's movie, but Iron man is the antagonist. The ultimate fight is between Iron man and Captain America. They're not antagonists. Like, he's the bad guy and Cap's the good guy, but they are the direct rivals in the story time and that their goals and their missions are the things that are directly at odds. Zemo is a manipulator at large. Thunderbolt Ross is a pest. But it is the relationship between Cap and Iron man that is ultimately the thing at play.
30:18
Case
Everyone else sort of sides with one or the other, but those are the two beacons of the Avengers. So setting up your antagonist with developing scenes is not deriving interest or, pardon me, it is not taking the movie from being a Captain America movie to be in the Avengers. It is just being Captain America. But this movie is about Captain America versus Iron man.
30:45
Tom
That is true, but at the same time, I almost feel like you need to come to a decision, because one of my biggest criticisms with this movie was it tried to be a little bit of everything. You tried to bring in Captain America, you tried to bring in Tony Stark. You tried to bring in, heck, every other superhero that you could think of, with the exception of maybe the Incredible Hulk.
31:08
Case
Yeah, Hulk and Thor.
31:09
Tom
Those are the only two missing. Yeah, we'll get into it, but we've even brought in, like, ten other people that we've never even seen before.
31:16
Case
Well, I mean, they were all in Avengers two, sure.
31:19
Tom
But, you know, you almost have to. When you have a cast this big, you almost have to decide what direction are you going in? And I feel like one of my biggest criticism of this movie is they tried to do it all at the same time. If you so think about it this way, let's say you recast this as truly Captain America, only his perspective. So you don't cut scene to where Tony Stark has his MIT mode because you're not interested in his part of the plot on it.
31:48
Case
Then you would feel much more betrayed by every choice that he makes in this movie.
31:52
Tom
Which one?
31:53
Case
By every choice that Tony Stark does, because he's a very established character. Like, if it wasn't Iron man, who has had his own movie series, maybe you could make an argument for it. But at that point, we're just talking about Thunderbolt Ross and his cronies, not its own hero, who you are at odds with.
32:10
Tom
You know, maybe. But at the same time, when a group of characters have gone so big bad to actually cover, all their perspectives are cutting and cutting. People who are not familiar with the intricacies get lost in the play. And that's. I think what happened is really. It took me two times. Dungels.
32:30
Case
Right. No, I get that. I mean, the interesting thing with the Marvel movies is you have this big, sprawling world where you can set up a lot of characters in a lot of movies and have them show up in each other with minimal exposition. It is difficult to imagine any other series doing that airport fight where you get all these characters who have different opinions and different motivations face to face with each other. Now, that said, some of those are just parts of this larger pantheon. Like, we don't get Thor and Hulk, which would have probably changed some of that dynamic, like, how they relate to each other would have been better set up. We know a little bit about how vision and scarlet witch relate to each other, but not nearly to the degree that we see some of the other characters.
33:15
Case
We know a little bit about how Hawkeye relates, and he's been in a lot of movies at this point, but he hasn't been the front runner for any of them. And most of the people he's facing aren't people he really knows when they square off. For example, Black Panther fights Winter Soldier, and that made sense. Of course, he's going to go for that one, and Falcon is going to get up there and is going to try to deal with one of the other flyers. And that made sense from a tactical standpoint, actually, it's funny to note that Iron man and Captain America both have their black military best friend, and they both come from the different perspectives where Iron man has a colonel who technically outrage Captain America. He's brass. He's higher up on the military.
33:59
Case
He's not the top pecking order, but he's up there. And Iron man is a military contractor. He's already up there, too. Captain America is out in the field, and his buddy is someone who is a pilot. Not literally a pilot, but, you know, who run, like, air missions and stuff like that. Like, they're. They're soldiers that are out versus the people who are, like. Like, actually, like, manipulating and controlling the field. I don't mean, like, philosophical fight on.
34:22
Tom
That standpoint, but what I was actually, or we're jumping out a little bit before we go to that fight. Let's go to that fight. It made me wonder because it was a great action sequence sort of. Vision doesn't even play a part in that fight until the second half. Now.
34:40
Case
He really doesn't want to.
34:41
Tom
Does he stay on the sidewise, like, watching, or is he truly involved in this?
34:47
Case
Yeah, it's curious. I mean, vision is so powerful that he, you know, so I had made this joke before on CPO V that throughout that fight, Scarlet witch kind of just shows up and saves everyone's asses, like, periodically. It's like I'm about to get punched. Oh, Scarlet witch saved me. Oh, a building's about to follow me. Scarlet witch saves me. Envision could have been that on the other side. Like, they're the two most powerful players in this fight.
35:12
Tom
Yeah, and close. I mean, he's got. What is it, that energy crystal.
35:15
Case
He has one of the Infinity Stones. Like, he has one of the things that he has the stone that is the Macguffin of the first two Avengers movies, and that they're making a whole movie about having the five of them and that being enough to control the world.
35:30
Tom
Yes. And he's got one of them.
35:33
Case
Yeah.
35:33
Tom
But he's sort of just sitting on the sideline, and the only time he really takes action, what does he do? He paralyzes. Yeah, because he misses.
35:46
Case
Yeah. Like, it was a good fight. Like, the action scenes were great. I loved Spider man in that fight. I thought Spider man made no sense being there, but the actual use of him in it was great.
35:56
Tom
The fights themselves, I actually thought. And again, you go to see these movies for the action sequences. The action sequences were really good. And the special effects, they spent their money very well. Even in person. I hated the attrition of Ant man.
36:13
Case
Into this movie, but the way they.
36:15
Tom
Actually used them was pretty cool.
36:16
Case
Yeah, well, he also had his own movie. Like, the thing was, that would make this more of an Avengers movie, where guy from a movie who has never interacted with the others shows up to be an active participant. Sure. Up until this point, everyone else, aside from Black Panther, who has not had his own movie yet, has been established in the other Avengers movies, if you had seen Avengers two, theoretically, you know who everyone knows, right? Except for Ant Man. Ant man just kind of shows up. I thought it was used. Well, I noticed a detail. So in the. When they're at the raft, he, like, calls out how Hank Pym said, like, never trust a stark. And that.
36:50
Case
That scene I caught before, but I noticed earlier, before the fight happens, it's like, Stark's here, and he's like, Stark, and then they move on to the next scene. But I was like, oh, I actually forgot about that part. Or, like, did. Or didn't notice that he reacted even before the fight, that he had been told and warned countless times that Starks are not to be trusted. So he was going into that fight with that knowledge. It wasn't even. It wasn't just after the fight. I'm going to taunt this guy.
37:17
Tom
So, actually, again, I didn't see. I missed Ant man.
37:23
Case
How dare you?
37:24
Tom
Yes, I know. Yeah, I think it's on. Was it like nine man since a giant.
37:30
Case
It's pretty good. It's. It's not the best Marvel movie ever, but it's pretty good. It. It's worth checking out for fun. It is a big city destroying fight, but it's actually all like a little Lego playset. Yeah, it's actually really funny for that reason.
37:45
Tom
Here's the podcast, so we can queue that one up next. But in any case, what. What brings me to is that one of my big pet peeves of this movie, and the thing that made me really upset is, like, I'm all right with the way that movies are changing these days, is that you. You plug. You place products into the movie. Like, for example, in this movie, I thought that they did it very subtly and, well. Well, except for the end scene, is the Audi car placement in almost every single car chase scene. I mean, that's just the way it's going these days. You want to make commercials without simulating commercials. So you place products.
38:29
Case
It's like the Truman show.
38:30
Tom
Yeah. Except now we're living it. But I'm all right with that. But there is. There's a subtlety to. All right, so I'm plugging Audi. So the cars are all Audi. I mean, that's been going on for a while, and now it's just more prominent than it was before. You know, Rolex, watches, whatever you want to case it. But there is something to be said about. We found a little golden goose, which is these superhero movies have tapped into something in the public at large where everybody wants to see them. Every one of them, with few exceptions, made a lot of money.
39:07
Case
Yeah. And now, because they're all so interconnected, it means you really can't miss them. Or else you feel like you missed something big, like, who is the Sandman guy? What does he do? Why is it Paul Rudd? That's a weird choice for a superhero.
39:18
Tom
Right? And so now, all of a sudden, you're in the middle of a movie where there's a division between your superhero team and both sides look at each other at the same time, decide, wait, we need more people. Let's pick up another superhero. Or. And.
39:37
Case
Yeah, or another couple.
39:39
Tom
So now let's take who is apparently in Europe, and he's got 36 hours to reign in Captain America. So what does he do? The right move is to go to Bronx and pick up, what?
39:51
Case
Queens. He flies to Queens? Yeah. No, he picks up Spider man. And it's dumb. I don't understand. Geography in general is a lot of weird choices in this movie. Like, they are things that are happening simultaneously, and then all of a sudden, people go from one country to being there, and it's not a big deal. Like, when that un bombing happens, they leave from London, they get there, they're still putting out the fire, and it's like the bombing just happened. And, like, Captain America's all of a sudden there with, like, entire team. Yeah. When they, after that fight or the big airport fight, they're all taken to prison. And, like, set up in prison. Iron man shows up, and, like, all these big trips that they do that should take hours, seem to take minutes.
40:34
Case
It's like if you're just driving around the same city.
40:36
Tom
Well, the biggest temporal argument that I would make is in the big scene where it's civil war, where they're all fighting each other. Finally, at the very end, black widow lets them get away in the plane somehow. Tony Stark has the time to take a conventional helicopter, some secret prison fortress, which I can only assume is North Atlantic. But who knows? Maybe it's Arctic Antarctica.
41:03
Case
Maybe it's like the Black Sea. Maybe that's actually on the way.
41:06
Tom
Let's hope so, because he's taking a conventional helicopter to some sort of secret ice prison where they've already processed the prisoners and gotten them into cells and restrained them, interrogates them, manages to get into his suit and somehow makes it to northern Russia in a Ironman suit that couldn't catch up with the plane in the first place when it was getting away from.
41:30
Case
Yeah, that's pretty weird.
41:30
Tom
That's an error.
41:31
Case
It's a little weird. Yeah. Well, there's, I think that's my biggest grievance. Like, the travel time for everything and just the circumstances for how they can be everywhere at once just never made sense to me. Like, they want to do this global story, but it seems to be really more set around, like, if this was written around being in Manhattan.
41:52
Tom
Yes.
41:54
Case
If this was a classic marvel comics superhero story and they wanted it to be, like, New York region, and then they were like, we should make it international. That makes more sense. And so all the travel time is like, oh, well, I guess if we take the tunnel, it'll only take 30 minutes. It's like, well, I guess if we fly to space and down, it'll only take 30 minutes.
42:13
Tom
There is, I mean, you sort of give a little bit of leeway, but at the same time, it's. It's just a sloppy error to have Captain America, when a soldier arrived, when Captain America is done interrogating the prisoners, finding out their location, getting into his suit, lying away, and somehow arrives 30 seconds after they arrive. I mean.
42:34
Case
Yeah, no, I agree. So here's my question for you. All right, so how would you fix it?
42:40
Tom
So it's very simple. Instead of making the Un bombing in Europe, you just make it in the Un building in New York City.
42:48
Case
Yeah.
42:48
Tom
Heck, you're already there. Then it makes sense that Spider man would even be there.
42:52
Case
Yeah. Then the airport fight is like, kennedy or LaGuardia. Like. Yeah.
42:55
Tom
And that's a simple, easy fix. That's really doesn't change anything. I mean, I don't know how much the european audience really gave them to make it set in Germany. With some german accents, he could have easily had the russian agent on Long.
43:10
Case
Island, and then the secret Hydra base could just be up in Binghamton.
43:14
Tom
He chose that at random. That's where I grew up.
43:16
Case
All right, I'll tell you a few.
43:18
Case
Things that I would do. My two biggest issues with this movie are Wakanda and Zemo in terms of their explanation for the role they play in this movie. So the two big tweaks I would make is I would make Wakanda way more bellicose, like, when their citizens are killed, I would make T'chaka. Instead of, like, this, like, super compassionate, diplomatic, like, wise king. I would make him actually kind of aggressive. And I would set up that everyone has to listen to Wakanda because they are so scientifically advanced. Like, the idea in the comic book is that this is the most advanced nation on the planet, that they have weapons and resources that no other nation has, and they're super territorial and isolationist, and this is why they haven't really influenced the rest of the world.
44:12
Case
But if you ever tried to go to war with them, they'd wipe you off the map in a second. And if that. And if they were trying to, like, remove that policy, and then their citizens got killed, and then they're like, oh, hold on. Your superhumans. Shut this shit down. We are. Hold on. No, we are done with this. Hold on. You guys are going to listen to us right now, because I am the king of Wakanda, and I actually make the rules here. And if the US government was like, okay, we understand. And every other government was like, okay, we understand. Yeah. All right, Captain America, you're not allowed to do this anymore. That creates a much more dynamic introduction for the nation.
44:46
Case
You know, as referenced in Avengers two, they go to, like, the outskirts of it in Avengers two, but we don't really see much of it and if we. We set them up as. As that, and maybe have T'Challa, the Black Panther, be a little bit more compassionate and have him talk to his father, being like, we don't need to be so aggressive. These people are smart, and they're just trying to do what's best. They don't know what some of the dangers of their powers are. Then you can set him up as actually being that more compassionate voice in contrast. And then his father's death pushes him onto the path of his father in this more bellicose nature. And then he finds redemption at the end and returns to his true, balanced self.
45:27
Tom
And I can see that. I think that if you take the initial scene where they are in Africa, they create a scene. They destroy building marketplace. There's a lot of casualties. Instead of cutting onwards towards some sort of accord, you actually have a scene in the fake country of Wakanda. Yeah, whatever. And you have that scene between father and son where they actually debate this issue, and they come up with, we need to restrict these crazy agents of chaos, also known as the Avengers.
46:06
Case
Right?
46:07
Tom
And then they bring in Tony Stark. Right?
46:09
Case
And this is why I feel Captain America, Tony Stark, being at a meeting with T'Chaka, what helps set up T'Chaka's role, it's not just setting up Tony Stark's role. It sets up. This is the role that the Black Panther and that Wakanda plays in this world.
46:23
Tom
And you add to that the fact that you have this meeting between father and son, and you show up scenes of an advanced nation. You know, you've got. Maybe you start off with a very serenity scene, you know, very clean marketplace. Move on into them, turning their, like, focus to their war machine, which outstrips anybody else and looks very intimidating. That it sort of creates a scene of a society that not only has a lot of order and values that, but also is powerful, and people need to listen.
46:59
Case
And they could have, like, genetically enhanced soldiers, which is not quite what they have in the comics, but they could establish, like, that the serums that they have that are kind of similar to the super soldier serum. Like, that's where Black Panther gets his abilities. They could establish that as being a thing that they have. And that's why Black Panther is so goddamn impressive. If you just sort of establish that this is a eugenically amazing super race kind of nation, then when Black Panther shows up, you're like, oh, this is not just one of the plebs who are all super soldiers. This is the crown prince. Like, this is now. He is now the king of this nation.
47:37
Case
He is someone who has clearly been bred to be the best of the best, and that's why he can just take down the winter soldier who is just saw take down an army.
47:45
Tom
Which would definitely eliminate. One of my criticisms of the movie is that you see this. You're introduced to this random leader who is, as far as I knew, head of the UN, leading a resolution. They have a, we'll get into the issues of the bombing if you want to get the bombing. And then all of a sudden, you see his son say, oh, I'll take care of this. I mean, for me, I mean, does that mean you hire some special ops group? I mean, what do you do with no backstory, calling his way and beating up both winter Soldier and Captain America.
48:24
Case
Which shouldn't be possible. Like, we've seen, that's really difficult not be possible.
48:29
Tom
And yet he does. There's no backstory to that. And there isn't a backstory until the. I don't even know. The final scene really covers it.
48:37
Case
No, they never really explain. They don't. They definitely don't explain how he's capable of so much stuff. They. They mentioned that his armor is vibranium, which at least explains how he's so durable and gives him a few abilities, but that's it. Like, it's not that much. Now, my other thing that I would shift is I would make Zemo's plan a little more on the forefront. It feels like he kind of gets lucky for a few circumstances, and that's it. When he's torturing that Hydra guy, he says, oh, I have another plan that's going to be a lot bloodier. What was his other plan? If the guy had just given him all the information, what was plan A? Because we're seeing plan B in this movie. What is that? Plan A? I would have loved if maybe we introduced the Winter Soldier killed the Starks.
49:23
Case
Bang. Earlier. If the reason why Iron man and Cap are at such odds and Iron man is so down to take this guy out is that he found out earlier on that the winter Soldier is the one who killed his parents. And it's not just, like, push him into a fight at the end, but that's why he's not like. Like the one who's personally really after the Winter Soldier, then this is a thing that Zemo does. Like, Zemo reveals this detail, and that pushes cap and Iron man to, like, go into this rift, but, like, they have that airport fight with basically no machinations. From Zemo. Aside from. Well, let's get Bucky. Let's blame Bucky for a bombing, which is a really minor plan.
50:01
Tom
And I'd like to say that is really a stretch. I mean, here you have Zima, who has access to, at the very least, an EMP device.
50:08
Case
Yeah.
50:09
Tom
Which, by the way, you know, when I set up my un prison, I won't have a backup generator. I mean, I've got these crazy superheroes in lockdown, but I'm gonna rely on the power grid. And then, of course, our. Since we have super suits, we have Iron man, we have vision. I mean, surely a little trench coat and a wig is gonna make people believe that the winter soldier did the bombing.
50:39
Case
Like, it was basically just like a cutout of his face on a stick that he walked by. It's like, it's the letters. It's Bucky Barnes. Like, that's what I'm saying. If he had revealed that information, like, if he had found in s h I e l d files that it was the winter soldier who killed Howard Stark, or if he had found just in that one dude's files. The motivation for Tony Stark to be at such odds with Steve Rogers is not very. It's not part of Zemo's plan.
51:06
Tom
No.
51:06
Case
And so it doesn't make sense that Zemo's like, oh, I'm pulling the strings. He's not the master manipulator in this scenario. He just happens to be able to push a few things to make it go the best case scenario for him. But even then, how does he know that he's going to be in that position? How does he know that they're going to arrive when they do? Or with the people that they do? He never does enough motions to really get the pieces in play that he wants there, that he ultimately needs. It's entirely luck. And it's. It's like I said, that dark knight, joker. Like, oh, it's all part of my master plan, but with so many more pieces. Like, Joker at least only had to deal with Batman and a couple cops. Like, we're talking about people.
51:45
Case
Like, how does he know that Thor's not going to be there? You know, like, we're talk. Like the God of Thunder could just show up and ask Odin, like, did this guy do it? Oh, let me send a raven. The raven came back. He said no, he actually didn't do it. It's actually someone else. Oh, okay. The gods say no.
52:02
Tom
Right? It seemed like a little bit of a scramble at somebody who spent whose mission it is to buy the Avengers? Who spent all this time studying the.
52:13
Case
Avengers and read through all s h. I. E. L. D files. There's gotta be a lot more useful information in there than just like, oh, this one.
52:21
Tom
Which. Getting to that. You're telling me that the entire plot rests on the fact that the Winter soldier killed Tony Stark's parents. He was ordered to do so by Hydra, this ex Soviet Union, and Vladimir Putin. And as this happened, somebody at this random location that the Winter Soldier himself chose put up a video cam.
52:51
Case
Yeah.
52:52
Tom
And the only copy is in Zemo's hands.
52:56
Case
Like, that's the thing. We don't know what Zemo had before. We don't know what Zemo actually got at this place. Like, how did he know that video file was going to be there? Was it in the shield files? Was it in the dudes files? Was it in the Hydra stuff? Like, we don't know. And so it doesn't feel like Zemo actually knew what he was using. Like, what tools he was using to break the Avengers apart.
53:15
Tom
But there is an easy fix for that, which I think is the point of what we're doing. And that is the winter soldier gets ordered to execute Tony Stark, this father and mother, but not just told in that beginning scene, when they bring him out of hibernation, he's told to execute them at a specific location. That's all you have to do, is you have to say, you will kill so and so. And you have to say it exactly. But you have to say, you have to bring in that four story as he has to do this mission at such and such location, because they want to use that maybe ahead of time. But even then, if you. Even if you did that, the issue becomes, is, are these people playing chess? And they're ten moves ahead? Then how do they ever fall as Hydra?
54:06
Case
Yeah, it's. It's really weird that we got. It's just some of the points that we got. Like, I was okay with the fake out about these other super soldiers. You know, the blue liquid. That was nice. I thought that was. No. Came a guffin to get people into position. But I just don't think that the tools that he had outside of that, like, that was a good, like, bait, but he didn't do anything really with that bait. And he, you know. Cause let's say he didn't have that video in the movie that we actually watched. Like, if he didn't have that video and cap and Iron man, just arrest him. Well, the Avengers are still kind of fucked. Like, a lot of people just went to jail.
54:43
Case
Cap is still split, or, like, Cap presumably is going to be arrested by Ross or go into hiding. Pretty much everything plays out the same way, except he and Iron man aren't it at such odds, and they kind of aren't at the end anyway. Like, that letter you. And it indicates that Cap definitely doesn't hold a grudge against Iron man. And that Iron man, it looks like, doesn't hold the same grudge against Cap. So really, that fight didn't do anything.
55:04
Tom
That's true.
55:04
Case
The only thing it did was it sort of confirmed that, like, oh, Winter Soldier did some fucked up shit. Cap, you can't necessarily rely on this guy, which we already knew, and, like, he knew and Bucky knew. Like, that fight doesn't do anything. So if that. If that motivation that he killed my mom, which was a great line and a great point, because this has been driving stark since the first movie. Like, he had, was this raging alcoholic, in part because of his dad's death and his, like, issues with his parents. And that's been this. The benefit of this long Marvel project that should have been the motivation more in the movie and not just in that last fight, because it doesn't do anything once he cools off, which makes.
55:42
Tom
Me think that the movie started off great, and then it sort of faded.
55:49
Case
You know, I think the Russo brothers are really good directors. I think the fights work really well. They do some great things in that. Like the Winter Soldiers escape when we first cut back to him from that, SWAT team. Yeah. Like, that's like a reverse raid that sets up, oh, this is how badass he is. And then we get into the real fight when Black Panther shows up, and we're like, oh, no, this is the real fight. And Black Panther is so much better. Like, we establish all these things. Like, every fight does tell us something.
56:19
Tom
About the people involved, but there's no background to it. Like, you don't understand. I mean, yes, I understand that reverse raid was. Was actually really great.
56:28
Case
What I'm saying is that the screenplay has a lot of scenes that had to happen that don't necessarily have the stitching to make it work as well.
56:36
Tom
Because maybe they don't go into the background. Well, maybe it's. They're trying to present so many viewpoints that they never finish any of them, which is my, you know, bigger point in this movie. That being said, that raid had a really good scene at a life where Captain America gets tired of chasing bucky. So he just sort of, like, gets into the suv and starts thriving.
57:02
Case
Oh, yeah. They make a reference in winter Soldier two. I think that's an allusion to the 1990 Captain America movie where he just keeps on stealing cars from people. It's a really bad movie.
57:15
Case
It's.
57:16
Case
JD Salinger's son plays Captain America in it. It's so weird. It's a movie where basically Captain America is the sidekick to the president of the United States of America. Like, who is the real hero? He's like, the one who ultimately beats the red skull and all this other weird stuff, but he just keeps stealing cars. He's like, I'm starting to feel woozy. And then runs and grabs someone's car and drives off. So they make an illusion. In Winter Soldier, where did Captain America learn to steal a car? And this one's like, well, we need to solve the problem. Stealing a car.
57:47
Tom
Stealing a car.
57:48
Case
It's just a weird detail for him.
57:50
Tom
It was. I actually really enjoyed that scene. I also enjoyed, speaking of car scenes, where he has that Captain America has.
57:57
Case
A little moment with the blonde chick, Sharon Carter.
58:02
Tom
Okay. And. But it was a little bit of a cheesy scene. But I actually like the dynamic between Winter Soldier, Captain America and Falcon. Yeah, Falcon.
58:15
Case
Well, they have a wonderful relationship because in, like, the big theme for Winter Soldier was, like, friendship and brotherhood. And, like, winter soldier represents Captain America's, like, foundational one, his old, like, his old school buddy. And Falcon is his new school buddy. And, like, their rapport with each other, it's like they're both threatening each other's turf.
58:33
Tom
Right.
58:34
Case
And that's what I love about those two and that dynamic and then the Peter Parker Tony Stark dynamic are such great relationships.
58:41
Tom
They are good relationships. And I think that if, and I understand, like, you know, they're trying to make it into all encompassing, the way that I would have made this movie better would have made a. What I think of now, having seen it, is a good movie better is if instead of trying to bring in everybody, they just focused on those relationships. Like, you didn't need to bring in.
59:08
Case
You really didn't.
59:10
Tom
Like, do you really need to bring in me? Like, do you have to?
59:14
Case
But. And here's me playing the studio advocate here. This was their chance to do that movie where you had the big superhero fight because it. You have to have established a lot of superheroes before you can have a big superhero fight. And this was the first time they thought they could do it. Now then the movie that was chosen to tell was a more character driven piece. And maybe it should have been Avengers civil War if they wanted to do this big fight, but they did. Captain America civil War. So it's about Captain America and his relationship with Bucky and his relationship with Iron man. And that's the driving force of this movie.
59:49
Tom
But you can, I don't think that in a movie which has so little time, you can have it both ways. You can't have a movie where you explore all these pretty complicated relationships. When you think about it, like, what you're talking about is relationships which go back multiple rubies, potentially even drift into comic books with the die hard fans. And at the same time, you're trying to bring in all these characters to have a huge battle. I'm actually comfortable with either one of those. Like, you could explore the complicated relationships between Tony Stark's and his parents at the same time, realizing Winter soldier killed his parents and Captain America is protecting Winter soldier, desensitize his friend ace, kind of torn because Witcher, so it was just under orders, didn't really realize what he was doing. That's a movie.
01:00:42
Tom
But you bring in that and a huge battle scene between every single Avenger and superhero, with the exception of a few like Thor and others, you start creating what I think of as a movie that could have been great into a movie that could be improved. I think you can have either.
01:01:02
Case
But not both.
01:01:03
Tom
But not both. This not in the timeline you're talking about, maybe in like a Lord of the Rings extended edition style, but.
01:01:11
Case
So this was a one off movie. This could have been a little bit better as it was written without even really sacrificing all the things that they put into it. If they kind of upped the power of action of the villain and also established one of the big players, which is the Black Panther, a little bit better. Now, you could have done a lot of big superhero stuff and made it even bigger, or you could have pared it down a little bit more and really focused on your characters. But I think either way, it was a well regarded movie. I think there's some really funny scenes in it. You walk out of it, you're like, those action scenes are good. There's good dialogue. It was a charming movie, worst case scenario. It was a good movie, but not great.
01:01:55
Case
And you could definitely push it to be even better. And if you made some, like, even harder decisions, make it great. But one thing I will say that's really good is they didn't just do civil war the comic, because that's not particularly good. And that relies on comics being around for 40 years, and not just eight years of Iron man, but at peace. That's fair.
01:02:14
Tom
And I think that having, I mean, I felt good walking out of it the first time. I felt good walking out of it, even better walking out of it the second time. And I think part of that is you walk into this movie, this certain expectation, certainly they met that expectation. They slugged a lot more their movies power to them. We certainly can make this a little bit better. And I think if you had either focused on either more plot or more action to have had them, you would. You would have had a better movie. You can't have both at the same time, not with this many characters and key symphony. The only thing that I'm gonna say is you come at it with a viewpoint of I read all the comics, and I intimately familiar with all the movies.
01:03:07
Tom
I come at it with a viewpoint of I'm familiar with most of the movies. I've read none of the comics, but somebody who's coming off, who's only seen one or two movies and watches this.
01:03:17
Case
I mean, to understand this movie, there's really four movies you need to have seen, which is cap one and two and Avengers one and two. Otherwise, they're not going to understand anything.
01:03:26
Tom
But I feel that if they had not tried to pack all this into one movie and made it into two movies, or focus on either all action or all plot, you could have actually had everybody happy. I really think so.
01:03:42
Case
That's an interesting thing to ponder. But on that note, I think we've sort of talked about this movie to death. Tom, it was great having you on. Thanks again. Absolutely. All right, fans, thanks for tuning in. And next time, we'll be talking about Highlander two. And until then, stay scruffy, my nerf herders. Thanks for listening to certain point of views. Another past podcast.
01:04:08
Tom
Don't miss an episode. Just subscribe and review the show on iTunes. Just go to certainpov.com dot. How political is this podcast?
01:04:37
Case
I have not addressed the fact that I'm a big old libtard, but publicly.
01:04:42
Tom
But I mean, this is, I mean, Trump has made some statements. Maybe we could show him this movie, maybe we could take some poignants, and that's it.
01:04:49
Case
Saw a great movie last night, great ideas. It's gonna be huge.
01:04:53
Tom
Hashtag, we're gonna get all the information from the prisoners. All right.
01:05:00
Case
Video games are a unique medium. They can tell stories, immerse us in strange, fantastic worlds, blur the very boundaries of our reality, but at the end of the day, video games are fun, whatever fun is to you. I'm Jeff Moonan. And I am Matt, aka Stormageddon. And on fun and games, we talk about the history, trends, and community of video games. It's a celebration of all the games we play and all the fun we find within them. And there's so many more games out there, so we hope you'll share in that conversation with us. Fun and Games podcast with Matt and Jeff. Find us on certainpov.com or wherever you get your podcasts and happy gaming.
01:05:40
Case
And we're back. So, Sam.
01:05:43
Sam
Yes.
01:05:44
Case
Where do you want to start on this one? Do you want to critique the episode, or do you want to give your opinions of Civil War and how you would have done anything?
01:05:51
Sam
Oh, you know, I'm going to talk about the episode first just because we're just coming fresh off of it. I actually thought this is a pretty decent episode. Like, even though this is not, like, the. We're not living the format, right? Like, we haven't fully embraced, like, what is going to become another pass. I think that there were some really, like, good points made and brought up because this movie is one of those films where I think, like, it's, like, one of the cornerstones, right? Like, of the whole MCU kind of thing. And I think that is really fun, which is, like, always a plus for a movie, but it definitely has flaws. Like, and the two of you go so that you just do such a good job kind of pointing out the little things that you're kind of, like, why? What?
01:06:42
Sam
Why doesn't time travel make sense? Why does spatial distance not make sense? Right? So I think, like, you know, sometimes when we go to see movies, sometimes when they're fun, we forgive the things that we just normally wouldn't if they're not fun. And that this movie definitely has that. There's a lot of things that I enjoyed this movie when I saw it. I really enjoyed, like, you know, Spider man and Black Panther being added and, like, oh, yay, new heroes. You know, good point is made. We did throw in a lot of new heroes. And for people who maybe not be familiar, I'm not Spider man because he's got a million movies right now. I mean, like, first time we're seeing Tom Holland. But Spider Man's story is kind of in the zeitgeist of probably most people, even if you don't read comics, right.
01:07:43
Case
It's the same deal with the Hulk. Like, the Avengers kind of felt fine not having to explain too much about him, right?
01:07:51
Sam
There's been a few movies. It's like, you know, there's. There's only so many times you can watch Uncle Ben die before you know that, you know, basically what Spider Man's story is. But, you know, I think that it's definitely. The MCU is always walking a fine line. I absolutely agreed on, oh, God, so many points. But, yeah, I thought the idea of moving the whole blow up to the Un in New York probably made more sense for where Spider man was. I was like, oh, yeah, that totally makes more sense. Like, why? Why are you going to fly, kid? How do you explain that to their guardian? There is a time difference between Germany and New York. Like, how. How do you just explain that he's going off and then, like, how's Aunt May? Not more how. Why is she so chill?
01:08:46
Sam
Really, honestly, why is she just so chill with this adult man coming into her nephew's life? Like, oh, he's rich. He makes weapons. He made weapons. I don't know why you're so chill about this, Aunt May. And so there's a bunch of that, I think, for me, my biggest issue with Civil War in general, and in case you were completely right when you were like, no, but it's Captain America civil war, because this is actually the civil war inside of Captain America. My old friend, my new friend, who will I choose being torn apart? But I think that, like, one of my big.
01:09:36
Sam
My big things and my big gripes with the MCU is that, like, there is, at a certain point, as these movies go on, because we're so reliant on the movies before, as the series goes on, there is not as much attention paid to character development, especially because there's so many freaking characters, and I have, like, a couple of different problems with civil war. And it's that, and you guys said it beautifully, is that the fight has no real consequence. And I think that it has no bite, really, because also, they're already fighting in Avengers two, Age of Ultron. Like, like Tony and cap. They're already, like, in an adversarial way. So we've. I don't know. I feel like I never really got to feel them be close in all of the MCU, like, their teammates, their coworkers.
01:10:36
Sam
But at best, they're, like real cool poll workers, I feel like. And the movie tries to do some heavy lifting in the very beginning to kind of be like, you know, we trust each other. We're a team. But, like, I don't know. Like, I know that they've been through stuff together, but I just never really felt that. And so, like, them fighting just felt like an extension of what they always do to me, if that makes sense. And so, like, I did, like, for.
01:11:06
Case
The sake of a movie, we see the arguments that they have, but we don't see the chilled downtime between movies.
01:11:14
Sam
Yeah.
01:11:14
Case
Yeah.
01:11:14
Case
Because it's movies and not comics, you know?
01:11:18
Sam
Right. And I think, like. And I think, like, here's the thing. I just felt like I needed something even in the beginning of them, just, like, chilling. Like, don't get me wrong. All of the. All of the fight choreography, the scenes, the Russo brothers are very good at putting that together. Like, they're. They're action scenes. You really can follow the action and what's happening even when it's, like, fast moving. And I think that's really great. I just feel like there's so much in this film and that can be, to the detriment of the characters. And as we heard in the episode. Right. Like, there's, like, this. If you don't understand exactly all the motivations coming into it can be a little confusing for just a layman who may have seen all the movies but doesn't really understand the interpersonal, further expanded relationships.
01:12:21
Sam
And so I wish that somewhere in there, even after everything happens in that first scene, and I do agree with you guys, that the collateral damage of that event needs to be bigger. For sure.
01:12:40
Case
It's kind of small, right?
01:12:41
Sam
Right. Yeah. It just, like, especially because, like, compared to what we just saw in Age of Ultron. Right. Like, and I know this is said in the episode, but it's true. Like, it's like, wait, this is the event. Like, not. Not the lifting the city. Like, not the breaking of. Like, not that. So I think that it needs to be, like, a little bit bigger, because it needs to be like, this is the second time that a giant catastrophe has happened. Like, this is clearly a dangerous person. This is clearly. This is, like, we really need to know who's out there, what they're doing. There's got to be someone overseeing people. There's a lot of damage is being done.
01:13:25
Sam
A lot of life is being lost in fighting these things, these problems from interstellar or intergalactic aliens or other dimensional, you know, and other powered beings. That's not going to go away. But, like, honestly, like, we have to stop some of the property damage. Let's be honest. If there is one thing that the american government cares about, it is property damage. Maybe not people, but definitely property damage.
01:13:51
Case
Their own property damage. Yeah.
01:13:53
Sam
Right, right. Yeah, for sure. So I think that, like, I think that very true, other countries don't really care that much about their property damage, but I think that in the grand scheme of things, it should have been bigger, so the loss is bigger. And then I think that maybe if there was, you know, I know that they wanted to do some, like, comforting of Scarlet Witch, and that's fine. And also, what you guys said about her not being quite as sad after her brother died, but being much more remorseful now. Maybe they could have thrown in a line, like, just one line, you know, like, I killed my brother. I killed all these people, or, like, my brother died, and, you know, I just.
01:14:41
Sam
I just feel like maybe to add to the instability of it all, might have been nice for her to reference her brother. Was that not allowed? Because I know they didn't have rights to him anymore, so, like, they couldn't just mention him in the script.
01:15:00
Case
They must have been able to mention Pietro, like, you know, they probably couldn't say, and quicksilver my brother.
01:15:08
Sam
Right, right. But Pietro probably. Right. Yeah. For sure.
01:15:12
Case
Yeah. I don't know.
01:15:15
Sam
It's all like, sometimes when you're looking at these, you have to think about all the different hands in the pot, too, and all the weird usage of characters, but, yeah, I just feel like I needed a little more. Just, like, pushback or just some friendliness or a remember. I don't know. There's just not enough in the film itself to kind of give me this feeling that, like, this fight is of consequence, and then they forgive each other right away. So, like, what is the actual fallout? And, like, although the. The battle together is really cool, like, it's just, like. And now we're going here. So superheroes can fight each other, but, like, it's just. I don't know. Listen, I loved it. I. I clapped and I cheered every moment of it. But, like, I was just, like, I. This is.
01:16:19
Sam
This movie is fan service, which is great.
01:16:21
Case
It's.
01:16:21
Case
It's nitpicking. I mean, like, yeah, let's be clear. Like, the movie is still a good movie. It's just there's a lot of, like, small details where you can kind of see the seams. Like, literally, this is like a scenario of doing another pass editing. One thing I remember about this episode is that it came out a fair amount of time later than the movie itself came out and phase three had progressed. I forget if we had actually gotten the trailer for Black Panther at that point. I feel like we hadn't yet, but it still felt like when this episode came out, it was like, oh, this is fairly dated because it was still so fresh in our conversation about Civil War. We recorded this pretty soon after the movie first came out. I think it was right when we could watch it.
01:17:11
Case
Streaming is when we did this episode, and it's the movie that made me sort of think about, oh, I should probably be wary of recording too far ahead for some of these. The show is kind of evergreen, but at the same time, like, the, like, just the cultural references we make and the way we talk and, like, this is even more so now. Like, you can't tell now because it's so far back that it just still feels like, oh, yeah, this was, you know, 2016 or 2017. Whenever it was, like, regardless. But, like. But. But at the time, it felt like, oh, this feels like it's six months old, which was one of those moments of, like, oh, I shouldn't go too far in the recording process.
01:18:00
Case
Like, don't jump the gun too much on that, because then you can kind of feel it, at least in the, like, when it's fresh.
01:18:08
Sam
I did, like, what you said in this episode, even though it's, you know, six. More than six months old, that you said that, like, this movie felt like it would feel more appropriate switched with winter soldier in terms of, like, where the characters were entrusting the government.
01:18:28
Case
Yeah, yeah.
01:18:30
Sam
And I was like, oh, yeah. That's, like, actually a really good point because, you know, I mean, like, you could. You could make an argument, and I'm sure people online have made the argument that, like, basically caps, like, adamant, I am not signing up for anything, is because he went through winter Soldier. You know, like, I went through this thing and, like, I don't trust, like, governments at all because they're so eat. They're such large entities that they can be manipulated by, like, you know, just a few dropples of plants of, well, Hydra or other organizations. And so you could make the argument that, like, oh, that's why he definitely cannot. They don't even really, like, kind of reference it. Like, I feel like.
01:19:22
Sam
I feel like I kind of wish that in one of the first, like, when Tony and he are talking, there was a little more of a conversation of them. Like, kind of, like. Like, I think, like, if the. If the language is a little better.
01:19:36
Case
Like, have them say, like, are you fucking serious? Like, we just saw Hydra take over the entire United States, right?
01:19:42
Sam
And just, like, also their points of view. Like, because. Because if you can, like, I feel like thesis is not quite stated. Like, you know, Tony's like, we gotta do it. The government wants us to do it. Right?
01:19:54
Case
Which doesn't make sense for this Tony.
01:19:56
Sam
Right, right. I think if he had been more like, listen. Like, yeah, we're saving lives, but, like, we need to have insurance, and we need to have something backing us up, because we're also causing collateral damage, and these people are dying. And if there had been at least one scene of the two of them kind of stating their. Their, like, thesis to each other the way that friends kind of do, I think this actually works for me for, like, the friendship thing. It would have been much better for Tony to be like, listen, like, I. Yes, we. We have saved lives, but, like, because of things that Wanda did, look at how many people have passed. Like, look at this tragedy. Like, we need more than just you and I can provide in terms of leadership. Like, we need real structure. We need.
01:20:47
Sam
And, like. And then, you know, can be like, no, because look at what just happened. Like, do you know? Like, can you actually trust these people? Like, can you trust them? Because I thought I could trust in something before, and I clearly could not, and I'm not going back to that. And I think, like, just having that one conversation would fix so much for me about this film. Even though this film is really about really cap's one true love reuniting with him. And I get it. It's really a romance between Bucky and him.
01:21:27
Case
Yeah, no, it is really weird that they don't bring up Hydra at all. And we talk about this in the episode. That's a very strange thing that would connect a lot of dots. Like, just. You can picture the conversations that both sides would have as a result of, like, of the Hydra incident or just anything with, like, Tony, you know, like, this Tony doesn't quite make sense as, like, a government stooge, which is why I liked my pitch of the Winter Soldier reveal as his parents killer being earlier in the movie. So you feel like, oh, he's in it for vengeance, as opposed to, like, loyalty to the government, which, again, this Tony does not have that in him. Like, that's just not who the character was. What did you think about my pitch for the Wakandans being more bellicose?
01:22:15
Case
It seems hard to picture a pre black panther interpretation of Wakanda now where they're a secret society kind of thing. But at the time, we certainly hadn't seen the movie. I don't remember if, again, if the trailer had dropped, but the idea of Wakanda being actually kind of known to be just very isolationist, but advanced and able to push around America. I am actually still rather happy with. And I'm curious for your thoughts.
01:22:54
Sam
Yeah, I mean, I. You know, I wouldn't mind that at all. I think that, you know, I wouldn't want. I don't know if it would necessarily fully affect, like, affect the black Panther movie, like, in such a way that it would structurally harm it. And, like, I say that because as someone who would want to, like, oh, yeah.
01:23:18
Case
I mean, the domino effect for. We can't stress about, like, what would this do to the Black Panther movie? Like.
01:23:25
Sam
Right.
01:23:25
Case
Ryan Coogler would figure out a cool thing with a slightly different setup. Like, we can't stress about losing a movie because of, like, a butterfly effect. Can't go there.
01:23:36
Sam
Yeah, I agree. But I do love that movie so much that I feel the need to say, I would absolutely want to protect it. And I don't think that it would damage it so much. I mean, I think it's, like, kind of an interesting concept because it would definitely make it, like, you know, technically, he was already a priority. I don't know if it really changes everything that much because he's. He's already a priority. Like, honestly, this movie basically treats the Un much better than we treat the Un real life. And he was very. He is Bucky still a priority. I don't know if it really affects it that much, because it's not like. It's not that they treated Wakanda like some weak nation. You know, it's.
01:24:52
Case
Well, it's how they treat Wakanda. Although there would be certainly, like, a degree of, like, it would be interesting to see the US, like, bow down to Wakanda. You know, that would certainly be a fascinating kind of element there. But also the. To have t'chaka and, like, the Wakandans in general be more shoving things around, like, their particular stance on stuff, rather than being, like, quite as, like, peaceful and, like, we just want to have the accords kind of, like, stance and be more like, we need to get these, like. Like, if they were the scary, like, secretary Ross character instead, at least in the first part of the movie, until.
01:25:35
Sam
Shoshaka dies, I think that it is possibly dangerous territory. And I only say that because there is a stereotype of. That is racist of black people being aggressive.
01:25:57
Case
Oh, like the african dictator kind of, like.
01:25:59
Sam
Right. And so I feel like. I feel like there's a reason why there is, like, a back there to, like, really show this country with restraint and respect and dignity. And so I do think that, like, there would have been possible because it's. It's. It's hard to handle it well without going overboard with it, you know, like. And I think that maybe depending on how it was played, it might play into some racist tropes.
01:26:34
Case
That's fair.
01:26:35
Sam
Yeah.
01:26:36
Case
And a thing that I didn't think about. So that's a very fair assessment, and I hope I was not presenting it from that standpoint.
01:26:46
Sam
No, no, I think you were thinking of it as have them be more of the driving force of the film. Right. Have them be the people driving the action and the need, which is not necessarily a bad thing. But I just think that, like, you know, depending on how it's presented and depending on. And especially because Ross himself has this, like, undertone of untrustworthiness. Right. Like, we wouldn't want to lend that to the Wakandans because of everything else that is kind of boiled into all of that stuff. But I don't think that's where you are going with it. I think you were just like, oh, we can, like, there's too many people here. We could eliminate or streamline some of these worlds too well.
01:27:36
Case
No, I was thinking more like, I was trying to play up, like, how interesting would it be for the tables to be turned where someone's, like, bossing the US around?
01:27:45
Sam
Yeah.
01:27:46
Case
Because that, you know, like, is the thing that I'm going to be more critical of. So that's where I was kind of coming from with it. Also, I feel like it doesn't actually change Tchalla so much because he already is on the path of vengeance once T'Chaka dies. So just, like, having T'Chaka be less of a positive influence for T'Challa, I thought was interesting, but that's also its own father son dynamic kind of thing that you'd have to decide how you want to play it.
01:28:16
Sam
Yeah, I think fundamentally that would. That would kind of think that would have be a challenge for Ryan because that would change some of the dynamics between the characters in his film.
01:28:32
Case
Oh, yeah. Certainly the movie wouldn't be about finding out that your father has flaws and then reconciling that with seeing them as a human being. The movie would have to be more about, like, seeing your father as flawed and then, you know, coming to understand, you know, XYz thing about them and, like, but at the same time, still, like, see them as being bad but also human. It would be. You just have to take it from the opposite side, basically.
01:29:01
Sam
Yeah. Can I just say, though, I know that cap and Peggy's niece do have a relationship in the comics, but I did think that it was very weird in this movie still.
01:29:15
Case
Yeah. The chemistry is just not right.
01:29:18
Sam
It's not. And it's just, like, not the right time to, like, it's. It's just. It's just not there. It's not there. And it was weird, and it felt forced, and I. There. There are always, there were rumors, even back when this movie came out, that Marvel only did it to stop all of the shipping between Sam, Bucky, and cap that was happening on tubular and ao three, and I was forced, but I think, like, in general. Well, that aside. That aside, like, the shippers and that kind of stuff, I just felt like it just. It just felt weird. It just felt off.
01:29:54
Sam
And that's, like, one thing that I really could have done without, not necessarily her helping or her being in the mix, because I think the scenes where she fought and all of that stuff, and there could have been a, like, a minor flirtationship continuing to go. But I just don't think this was the time, the movie or the moment to take that relationship to the next level. And the kiss was weird.
01:30:17
Case
It's one of those ones where, again, this movie is expecting nerds like me to do a lot of work, which is hyping up, like, oh, man, you think Peggy's cool? Check out her niece, Sharon. She's the one who's the really cool super spy lady character from the comics. She's the one who has this long history with Cap and this torrid love affair over the decades. So there's that. Then there's the fact that Hayley Atwell just knocked it so hard out of the park in the first Captain America movie. Their chemistry was, like, so good, considering the fact that it's also, like, a little underwritten. Yeah, but it's, like, their chemistry so good that you end up with Avengers Endgame, like, having them get back together. Spoilers for Endgame, a movie that is now many years old from this perspective.
01:31:14
Case
But, yeah, the Peggy thing is such an example of the ship being taken over by the larger fandom of the movies in a way that, again, the comics, it was just like, oh, he had this thing with Peggy, but that was just a precursor to his true love, which is Sharon. And so when they introduce her in Winter Soldier, you're like, oh, cool. But she's a pretty small part, and you're like, great. They're setting her up for a bigger thing in the next movie. And, like, this movie feels like. It's like, all right, well, we gotta make this happen because too many people are still fucking talking about fucking Peggy. We gotta make the Sharon thing. Like, we have to make it clear this is the relationship we're selling. And then immediately, they're like, no, that felt wrong. No, we're backing up. Backing up.
01:31:59
Case
Never mind. This is wrong.
01:32:00
Sam
Yeah. I mean, it doesn't help that they kiss and then, like, Sam and Bucky are in the car. Like, it's like a high school and it's like, all right, adults, like. And it's supposed to be, like, one of the light hearted moments, but it just feels weird and awkward and wrong. And again, such a good chemistry between Hailey and him that it's just. It was hard for the movie. The movie people with the MCU geeks without the comic geeks to kind of accept it. I just thought it was, like, oddly placed. Like, I knew about Sharon, but I was just like, it just feels off. Like, it feels forced.
01:32:43
Case
Like, my argument here is that this is a thing that just did not adapt to where the fandom and where the chemistry of the actors were. Because it makes sense from a writing perspective, especially, you know, it's the same writers for all three move all three Captain America movies. So it makes sense from the perspective of this is the arc that we are setting up with the romance for them. And, you know, to have a basic, like, sketch out of, like, this is how we build up to Sharon kind of thing for, like, for your arc for Captain America even if the specific scenes aren't written out. But then by the time we actually get to this movie, everyone had settled on, like, no, but, like, the stuff with Peggy was, like, truly epic.
01:33:30
Case
And, like, you know, they sold it even more in Avengers. Like, they cut, like, a love plot in Avengers that Captain America was supposed to go through because the peggy stuff just felt so good. And it's just not seeing that when you're getting to this movie and you're like, no, we actually have to get to the Sharon stuff.
01:33:52
Sam
Yeah.
01:33:55
Case
Again, me, as a nerd at the time, I was like, cool. You know, we're getting Sharon Carter. Awesome. Like, we're getting there. And it's like, in this movie, we're finally gonna get her with some action scenes and she's gonna have, like, a real romance with cap and she's gonna be a really cool super spy lady. And then you cut to Falcon and the Winter Soldier and they're like, fuck, we have no idea what to do with this character anymore.
01:34:19
Sam
Mm. Yeah. Or poor Sharon Carter.
01:34:23
Case
Yeah.
01:34:25
Sam
She did get a few good kicks in, though.
01:34:27
Case
Oh, yeah. She did great in this book because she was written. She was written to be the female lead, like, the cool lady super spy who can rival the black widow, the person who combines all the things we love about Peggy with all the things we love about Natasha, which was a little bit of a flirted, possible romance in winter Soldier, even though it ultimately turns into more of a bromance between the two.
01:34:53
Sam
Yeah.
01:34:55
Case
But when they both come out of the shower at Falcon's place, there's some sexiness going on there. So it's like, okay, we get all the things that we like about Natasha, all the things we like about Peggy. So combine it all together, and then, hey, take that cute blonde actress from revenge, Emily Vancamp, and put her in this movie, because she looks like she'll be in a really cool leading lady type. That. That could be this take charge kind of spy lady.
01:35:22
Case
Cool, cool.
01:35:23
Case
Put this all together, and it just didn't click.
01:35:27
Sam
Yeah.
01:35:30
Case
And I don't know why. On paper, it should all work really well. Even me looking her up, I actually assumed she was younger than she is. So from an age standpoint, even that's pretty good match with Chris Evans. So she's 37 right now. She'll be 38, actually, in, like, a couple of days from when we're recording this. And Chris Evans is, what, like, 41?
01:35:56
Sam
Yeah, I want to say he's, like, 41. 42 around there.
01:36:00
Case
He's 42. So the age range is, like, okay, that's not a crazy kind of age gap, but he feels so much older than her, and part of that's the Captain America man out of time kind of thing, but.
01:36:11
Sam
Right.
01:36:12
Case
Yeah.
01:36:12
Case
You know, like, he just feels. It just kind of felt like it felt a little wrong. Like, it always was a little bit weird in the comics, but, like, the thing is, in the comics, it was always Sharon and then looking back in flashback to Peggy, as opposed to us being, like, front and center, like, really liking this relationship with Peggy first and then going to Sharon next.
01:36:35
Sam
Yeah. I think it also doesn't help that, like, they. They talk at her funeral, too, and then, you know, like, right.
01:36:45
Case
It's mere scenes before this.
01:36:49
Sam
It just feels like. It just feels like he waited till the body was cold to then, like, make a move on her niece, and that's, like, not what's happening. Like, Peggy's had a life. She's. She's got married. She's like, all of these things, and, like. Like, that's not. That's not what. But it feels that way because of the way that the movie structured, and so it feels like, oh, shit, we got to kill Peggy first so cap can move on and then kiss her hot niece that he's supposed to have a romance with. And I think maybe that's part of why it feels so weird and awkward, because I remember thinking, like, damn, Peggy just died. Like, I think. I'm pretty sure I did think that in the movie.
01:37:39
Case
Yeah.
01:37:41
Sam
So, yeah, I think that could be part of it. That could be part of it. And again, like I said, I would just kind of. Like, I would just kind of not do the kiss and let them still be flirty and still keep her in it and still keep her helping him. Right. And, like, leave. Leave something there as kind of, like, an inkling for something more or the possibility of something more and just kind of leave it as that and keep going with the rest of the film, because I just. It just. It just wasn't the time to put that kiss in.
01:38:19
Case
Yeah.
01:38:19
Case
And the problem is, like, they. They basically slow played the relationship too much, and then they kind of had to. Had to force it because it was like, oh, shit, it's the third movie. We're probably not getting a fourth.
01:38:31
Sam
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. They, like, rushed into that.
01:38:35
Case
Yeah, maybe. Which is so weird because it is against the same writers for. For all three, because, like, maybe it's, like, kind of forgetting that, like, you didn't start with Winter Soldier. Like, that. This is the middle chapter of the. Of the story.
01:38:52
Sam
Maybe. Maybe they just thought they'd get a chance to, like, throw her into endgame or something, and then everything fizzled out and, you know, like, in a more serious way.
01:39:05
Case
Yeah, I mean, it's true. Like, who saw Peggy Carter being in Avengers Endgame? Like, as a character? Like, yeah. In multiple parts. Like. Like, who anticipated that when they made the first Captain America movie? Like, no one pictured any of that. Like, no, it's. You know, it is honestly a testament to Hayley Atwell's performance as Peggy Carter that, like, she was brought back for the agent Carter tv show, that she kept coming back for flashbacks.
01:39:35
Case
She kept on being used just to remind us about all the stuff about cap because she had such a great chemistry and connection with him and really owned that part, considering that it was honestly supposed to be sort of the sacrificial lamb, like, a relationship, that it wasn't literally fridging because, like, she survives into, you know, all, you know, to be a character in all three Captain America movies, right? But to have that. But to have her potential to be his romantic paramour was effectively fridged because he. Because he was fridged. And so when he gets out of it, you know, she's way too old and she's, you know, to be his significant other. So it's just, like, kind of funny. Like, she was supposed to be like, oh, well, now she's too old. And so we have to, like, look to the modern.
01:40:21
Case
The modern ladies who will challenge this man out of time. But all of us, like, look back and be like, no, but we like the. We like the one from before.
01:40:28
Case
That was.
01:40:29
Case
That was the really good one.
01:40:31
Sam
And listen, she was so popular. She was in the Doctor strange movie the second with America Chavez. Right? Like, she was so positive alternative. We back lately. Bring her back. Yeah, we love her.
01:40:43
Case
Yeah.
01:40:44
Case
A fascinating career turn for this character. A lot of characters have blown up in the MCU, but very few have done so without the amount of material to really build this foundation. Harry Atwell as Peggy Carter, continues to be a well known character in the MCU, repeating, like, popping up all over the place, and there's no reason for it. It just happened to be a thing that we all kind of glommed onto.
01:41:13
Sam
Yeah.
01:41:14
Case
And so, like, bravo. Bravo. But, yeah. So to that end, though, that Sharon Carter, that relationship died on the vine, because for sure, it was not to be.
01:41:26
Sam
Not in the MCU, at least.
01:41:28
Case
Yeah. So let's see anything else that we want to go over from the episode, though.
01:41:32
Sam
No, I think you guys did a good job talking about all the villainous plotting. All that was good. So I think that the episode was very succinct in finding a few flaws in the film.
01:41:49
Case
Yeah, I think overall, the ideas were remarkably solid, and it's a little nitpicky at times, but at the same token, like, that is kind of what the show is about in ways. And, you know, we didn't. We weren't, like, shitting on the movie. We both were actually coming at it fairly positively. Like, Tom liked it less than I did, but still came around to liking it. And so the nitpickiness was just like, oh, here's the things that would have, like, really, like, you know, like I said, like, really polished it to, like, a find, you know, like, fine gym kind of level. But, yeah, I was pretty happy with this episode, despite the fact that it felt like it was, like, kind of dated when it came out and, like, the audio issues and all that. Like, I like the actual, like, content.
01:42:41
Case
I'm very good with.
01:42:43
Sam
Yeah, I think so. I think in general, you hit all the good points. You know, the criticism about the Tom had about bringing on extra superheroes, not explaining everything behind them, which I was like, I get that. I get that. And the ability to move around and also these slight changes to our villains here. Right. But again, I think it's hard to kind of transfer certain motivations from comic to film. So I thought it was fine for the most part.
01:43:30
Case
Yeah. So I'm glad that we looked at this episode again. It has been a while. And frankly, because it's a movie that I overall like and was successful, it's one that I haven't had as much of a reason to really think about. So this is one of the reasons why I'm glad that we do this sort of bonus viewing of everything that we've worked on. So on that note, what have we got up next? So the next. Another pass at another pass episode will be on Tron legacy.
01:44:08
Sam
Okay.
01:44:09
Case
Yeah, you're ready for that one because you accidentally listened to that episode when instead of the Dark Knight rises last time.
01:44:15
Sam
I did. I did. I am totally ready. Yeah, we cannot wait. Legacy, otron. So special.
01:44:27
Case
So on the main show, we just had Indiana Jones in the kingdom of the crystal skull.
01:44:33
Sam
Fun.
01:44:34
Case
Next up on the main show after this will be season four of reboot, where we are joined again by Red from overly sarcastic productions. Red, who is awesome.
01:44:46
Sam
Big fan.
01:44:46
Case
And we spent as much time talking about reboot season three as we do season four. So those of you who know reboot know why that is a good choice. So I'm looking forward to having that episode drop. And yeah, we've got cool stuff in the works, just in general. We've got a whole bunch of episodes already recorded that we're just waiting to get out the door. And, yeah, I'm excited for what we've got coming up.
01:45:16
Sam
Me too.
01:45:17
Case
So, in the meantime, Sam, where can people find you and follow you?
01:45:24
Sam
Sometimes I remember our discord exists and I check it. So there. And of course here. Whenever we drop this, wherever you get podcasts, and if you have any complaints about anything I said or anything I forgot to say, you can reach case.
01:45:45
Case
Well, of course you can reach me on all the platforms that have the symbols at case Aiken, except for Instagram, where I'm holding onto my aim screen name for dear life, which is Quetzalcoatl five, because I was pretentiously into mythology and the legion of superheroes when I was in high school, just to explain that one, because it's funnier when you explain it. Yeah. So you can also find me on the discord. You can find a link to our discord@certainpov.com. Or in the show notes for this episode all over the place. We've got links for our discord. You can also find this show wherever you get your podcasts, including now YouTube, where we have been posting all of our back episodes and all of these episodes up. So check out the certain pov media YouTube channel.
01:46:33
Case
It's grown a lot over the last couple of years and is now finally starting to really have some momentum behind it. So that's pretty cool. Check that out, unless you're listening to it there, in which case, check here. Out here is great. Hi. Hi.
01:46:50
Sam
We love you here. Thank you.
01:46:53
Case
That, I think, covers everything. So you should, in the meantime, pass it on.
01:47:03
Sam
Or stay scruffy nerdharters.
01:47:05
Case
Yes. Yes. Staying scruffy.
01:47:07
Sam
I think we should bring it back.
01:47:12
Case
It was living on in Scruffy Nerf herders, the D and D Star wars game that were running, but that has taken its own hiatus, because it's hard to do three podcasts simultaneously.
01:47:28
Sam
I believe you.
01:47:29
Case
I only do one, especially a let's play or, like, a real play, like D and D podcast. Like that. Editing was so much. I can't believe I used to do all of that.
01:47:41
Sam
Yeah, you're gonna have to wait for grace to get older.
01:47:44
Case
Yeah. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I can't even fathom that scenario. Ugh.
01:47:51
Case
Ugh. All right, Jose, let's go through our new comic day stack. We have a lot to review.
01:48:00
Sam
I know.
01:48:01
Case
Maybe we've gone too far. Let's see. Marvel, of course. PC. I got image. Dark horse. Black mask.
01:48:09
Sam
Boom.
01:48:09
Case
Idw. Aftershock vault, of course. Mad cave, Oni. Valiant scout. Magma behemoth. Wow, that's a lot. Well, all we need now is a name for our show. We need a name for our show about reviewing comic books every week. Something clever, but not too clever, like a pun. It's kind of cheesy. Yeah. Something that seems funny at first, but we might regret later on as an impulsive decision. A few dozen episodes in. Yeah, I would think of something. And Keith and hosway for we have issues. A weekly show reviewing almost every new comic released each week, available on geek elite media and wherever you listen to your podcasts.
01:48:50
Case
Oh, this is getting cut for time.
01:48:55
Sam
For sure.
01:48:57
Case
Cpov certainpov.com.