Captain America; Civil War
May. 12th, 2016 04:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackThat was pretty good. None of the MCU were perfect for me, but this one did a lot of good stuff. (And some awful stuff as usual :( )
Set up
I know time was tight, but it could really use a little bit of recap, not of the facts, but of what people care about. As various people have pointed out, could we have maybe a brief flashback showing Steve and Bucky in 40s as young men together.
And maybe a flashback showing Pepper's concern for Tony stemmed directly from him getting involved in operations and drove his "yes, we need oversight" message.
The accords
The argument about signing on to make the Avengers answer to the UN was a lot better than it sounded from people ranting about it. Tony didn't just randomly become authoritarian, despite being the creator of like, the last five world-endangering killer-robots, he was seeking oversight *for himself* as much as anything else. It's more like, he went along with the status quo, but many of the others refused to.
Frankly, some legal oversight for the avengers by the UN is a freaking fantastic idea! It seems like most of the time (Tony "Oops, I build a killer robot, ok, lets build another killer robot to fix it" Stark aside), they've made the right choices up till now. But they need oversight *now* in case they're less responsible in future, and to *protect* them from allegations.
However, it seemed odd there weren't more mentions of specifics. You could easily imagine an argument like:
Steve: I've worked for a government in war, it didn't go well.
Tony: No, look. Blah committee, blah trustworthy countries, chaired by blah ambassador we trust. It looks pretty good. We should give it a chance.
Steve: Do they have provisions for due process for anyone we bring in? And us? Or are we accountable to the world AND to megalomaniac American military leaders who'll say things like "lawyer? Hahahaha!" and drag us off to a secret illegal underwater detainment facility.
Tony: Uh... I'm sure it'll be ok.
Steve: Screw that. Blah blah blah anti-fascism.
The ambiguity of "will it work or not", would make a much more realistic argument. Whereas none of them were shown even READING the things. And how come none of them knew this was coming, no-one got involved with the committees drafting this? Ideally, someone would mention they'd lobbied for better provisions for blah, and it's a bit better but not as good as they'd hoped.
But hey, I'm the one who wants to watch superhero movies about jurisprudence, maybe no-one else wants that :)
They didn't give enough consideration to "sign, and THEN bend the rules when they have to, and hope they'll get away with it". Someone points out that's basically what Natasha did.
Speaking of which, another thing they COULD have included in those procedures, would be specific guidelines for when to "kill on sight". Like, they said they were going to kill Bucky, which is pretty understandable. But I wasn't clear if, if Cap had talked him into surrendering, they'd have executed him, or not. If that had been more clear, say, Stark had promised due process, but whats-his-name[1] had countermanded him, it would have been more urgent for Cap to get to him first.
[1] From comments on Jim Hines' blog:
A: Who the hell decided to make Ross secretary of state and thought he'd be any good at policing superheros? Did you all forget he's the one who turned Hulk and Abomination loose on NY in The Incredible Hulk?
B: Yes we did completely utterly forget that.
Other things
Yay vision! He didn't get to do much, but I just love him.
Natasha's big speciality in the first avengers film was infiltration, her introduction turning the interrogation against the interrogators, and then tricking Loki, were great. But she hasn't really had a chance since, she's done amazingly well at holding her worth in the Avengers with martial arts and motorcycle stunts, but I wish she had more chances to show off.
I didn't see all of winter soldier, so I wasn't clear why the winter soldier was so much scarier than any other metahuman, like, would six more winter soldiers be so bad, or just another gang to take down?
I was also unclear about the anti-avengers sentiment. Did the antagonist know Stark was responsible for Ultron? If so, why didn't he focus more on him not Cap? If not, why is everyone so focussed on the avengers? As far as I remember, Ultron ALREADY lifted a giant piece of city into the sky, and the avengers stopped it before it killed everyone on Earth -- it's not like the bio-weapons raid, when if they'd left well alone the consequences might be kicked down the road a bit, as far as I could see, they didn't kill anyone who wasn't slated to die in minutes anyway, they screwed up lots, but why hate them for *that*?
Speaking of human rights, do they have a rule about who gets put in the giant glass box, or who gets sent to the illegal underwater detention facility? As far as we know, the antagonist was a normal human. As are several of the avengers (Stark, Sam, Pym) when deprived of their suits. Who decides who's put where? And is there a trial of any sort? And is it UN-run or just on the nod-and-the-wink from the American govt?
The big fight
It did pretty well at a big chaotic fight, all the way through it felt like people were getting to show off their strengths, but everything changed up enough it felt realistic no-one was permanently knocked out of the fight.
It did feel a bit contrived the big guns didn't have more play, in that sort of fight, you'd ideally get the others bodyguarding vision or scarlet witch, who'd take out as many of the opposition as possible, rather than getting 1-on-1 fights. Both disappeared for a bit, giving others time to fight.
I loved Spiderman in this scene (less so at home), how he was so eager :) Though I still find it hard getting my head round him being in the same universe as the others.
I loved the way all the heroes really cared about each other even when they were fighting each other.
It made more sense than I feared, it wasn't a "showdown for no reason", it was "Tony gets reinforcements in a last-ditch attempt to bring Cap and Bucky in safely".
Set up
I know time was tight, but it could really use a little bit of recap, not of the facts, but of what people care about. As various people have pointed out, could we have maybe a brief flashback showing Steve and Bucky in 40s as young men together.
And maybe a flashback showing Pepper's concern for Tony stemmed directly from him getting involved in operations and drove his "yes, we need oversight" message.
The accords
The argument about signing on to make the Avengers answer to the UN was a lot better than it sounded from people ranting about it. Tony didn't just randomly become authoritarian, despite being the creator of like, the last five world-endangering killer-robots, he was seeking oversight *for himself* as much as anything else. It's more like, he went along with the status quo, but many of the others refused to.
Frankly, some legal oversight for the avengers by the UN is a freaking fantastic idea! It seems like most of the time (Tony "Oops, I build a killer robot, ok, lets build another killer robot to fix it" Stark aside), they've made the right choices up till now. But they need oversight *now* in case they're less responsible in future, and to *protect* them from allegations.
However, it seemed odd there weren't more mentions of specifics. You could easily imagine an argument like:
Steve: I've worked for a government in war, it didn't go well.
Tony: No, look. Blah committee, blah trustworthy countries, chaired by blah ambassador we trust. It looks pretty good. We should give it a chance.
Steve: Do they have provisions for due process for anyone we bring in? And us? Or are we accountable to the world AND to megalomaniac American military leaders who'll say things like "lawyer? Hahahaha!" and drag us off to a secret illegal underwater detainment facility.
Tony: Uh... I'm sure it'll be ok.
Steve: Screw that. Blah blah blah anti-fascism.
The ambiguity of "will it work or not", would make a much more realistic argument. Whereas none of them were shown even READING the things. And how come none of them knew this was coming, no-one got involved with the committees drafting this? Ideally, someone would mention they'd lobbied for better provisions for blah, and it's a bit better but not as good as they'd hoped.
But hey, I'm the one who wants to watch superhero movies about jurisprudence, maybe no-one else wants that :)
They didn't give enough consideration to "sign, and THEN bend the rules when they have to, and hope they'll get away with it". Someone points out that's basically what Natasha did.
Speaking of which, another thing they COULD have included in those procedures, would be specific guidelines for when to "kill on sight". Like, they said they were going to kill Bucky, which is pretty understandable. But I wasn't clear if, if Cap had talked him into surrendering, they'd have executed him, or not. If that had been more clear, say, Stark had promised due process, but whats-his-name[1] had countermanded him, it would have been more urgent for Cap to get to him first.
[1] From comments on Jim Hines' blog:
A: Who the hell decided to make Ross secretary of state and thought he'd be any good at policing superheros? Did you all forget he's the one who turned Hulk and Abomination loose on NY in The Incredible Hulk?
B: Yes we did completely utterly forget that.
Other things
Yay vision! He didn't get to do much, but I just love him.
Natasha's big speciality in the first avengers film was infiltration, her introduction turning the interrogation against the interrogators, and then tricking Loki, were great. But she hasn't really had a chance since, she's done amazingly well at holding her worth in the Avengers with martial arts and motorcycle stunts, but I wish she had more chances to show off.
I didn't see all of winter soldier, so I wasn't clear why the winter soldier was so much scarier than any other metahuman, like, would six more winter soldiers be so bad, or just another gang to take down?
I was also unclear about the anti-avengers sentiment. Did the antagonist know Stark was responsible for Ultron? If so, why didn't he focus more on him not Cap? If not, why is everyone so focussed on the avengers? As far as I remember, Ultron ALREADY lifted a giant piece of city into the sky, and the avengers stopped it before it killed everyone on Earth -- it's not like the bio-weapons raid, when if they'd left well alone the consequences might be kicked down the road a bit, as far as I could see, they didn't kill anyone who wasn't slated to die in minutes anyway, they screwed up lots, but why hate them for *that*?
Speaking of human rights, do they have a rule about who gets put in the giant glass box, or who gets sent to the illegal underwater detention facility? As far as we know, the antagonist was a normal human. As are several of the avengers (Stark, Sam, Pym) when deprived of their suits. Who decides who's put where? And is there a trial of any sort? And is it UN-run or just on the nod-and-the-wink from the American govt?
The big fight
It did pretty well at a big chaotic fight, all the way through it felt like people were getting to show off their strengths, but everything changed up enough it felt realistic no-one was permanently knocked out of the fight.
It did feel a bit contrived the big guns didn't have more play, in that sort of fight, you'd ideally get the others bodyguarding vision or scarlet witch, who'd take out as many of the opposition as possible, rather than getting 1-on-1 fights. Both disappeared for a bit, giving others time to fight.
I loved Spiderman in this scene (less so at home), how he was so eager :) Though I still find it hard getting my head round him being in the same universe as the others.
I loved the way all the heroes really cared about each other even when they were fighting each other.
It made more sense than I feared, it wasn't a "showdown for no reason", it was "Tony gets reinforcements in a last-ditch attempt to bring Cap and Bucky in safely".