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So, the day before yesterday Darcy & decided to watch The Winter Soldier (it was on Netflix, we hadn't seen it).
I'd taken a good deal in by fannish osmosis, so was expecting a bromance (well star-crossed in that Bucky was 'evil').
This proved incorrect.
The main friendship was Cap/Natasha (I love Natasha, so this was A-OK with me). But I had no idea that she was even in the film.
The secondary friendship was Cap/Falcon (Sam?). I sort of wish they'd done more with it, rather than The Falcon deciding to help out because... he could. He looked vaguely familiar, but didn't realise who he was until he put the wings on and I waved my hands around 'cause he had like a 3 second cameo in Antman.
As for Bucky, then... Well Darcy thought him way cooler than the Cap (all emo with his dark hair, and he had a cool arm too!) and I wish we'd gotten more of him? Like, it's his name on the film, but he's barely onscreen. And the Steve/Bucky friendship is covered in two blink-and-you'll-miss-it flashbacks. (This is of course where tropes are very handy, cause goodness knows male friendship is something so fundamental to stories generally that we can fill in the whole thing without knowing anything beyond the fact that they'd always be there for each other.) (I am sure the whole thing is beautifully fleshed out in the comics. But as a viewer, it felt a little... basic.)
Their actual interactions don't take much more than 5 minutes (maybe 10?) and most of those they spend fighting.
Sidebar: Who was the massively cool lady with the dark hair? Fury's right hand woman? Don't even know her name, she seemed more together & smarter than all the rest put together. Give her a film!
Plot... um. IDK. A thing. Stupidly ridiculous as these things always are, and I think I got the main gist, but mostly through knowing how these things work.
So is there more Bucky somewhere? Does Mr tortured & memory wiped & turned into a weapon get an actual story at some point?
Oh and it was fun to see how it built to Age of Ultron (which I have seen), with the twins at the end.
Mostly though, then this fantastically well-organised group of Nazis is just... too unreal? In the actual world, they're 'alt-right' keyboard 'warriors', not hyper-fit soldiers or massively scheming uber Bad Guys. (I mean, they do scheme, and cause a lot of damage, but it's just ugly and horrible and every day.) Give me Kylo Ren any day, he's more plausible than Hydra. The angry young radicalised white guy hung up on the past, who in another world would wear a MAGA hat and yell about the 2nd Amendment online.
Plus (BLACK PANTHER SPOILERS below)
Am I right in thinking that Shuri fixed Bucky?
I'd taken a good deal in by fannish osmosis, so was expecting a bromance (well star-crossed in that Bucky was 'evil').
This proved incorrect.
The main friendship was Cap/Natasha (I love Natasha, so this was A-OK with me). But I had no idea that she was even in the film.
The secondary friendship was Cap/Falcon (Sam?). I sort of wish they'd done more with it, rather than The Falcon deciding to help out because... he could. He looked vaguely familiar, but didn't realise who he was until he put the wings on and I waved my hands around 'cause he had like a 3 second cameo in Antman.
As for Bucky, then... Well Darcy thought him way cooler than the Cap (all emo with his dark hair, and he had a cool arm too!) and I wish we'd gotten more of him? Like, it's his name on the film, but he's barely onscreen. And the Steve/Bucky friendship is covered in two blink-and-you'll-miss-it flashbacks. (This is of course where tropes are very handy, cause goodness knows male friendship is something so fundamental to stories generally that we can fill in the whole thing without knowing anything beyond the fact that they'd always be there for each other.) (I am sure the whole thing is beautifully fleshed out in the comics. But as a viewer, it felt a little... basic.)
Their actual interactions don't take much more than 5 minutes (maybe 10?) and most of those they spend fighting.
Sidebar: Who was the massively cool lady with the dark hair? Fury's right hand woman? Don't even know her name, she seemed more together & smarter than all the rest put together. Give her a film!
Plot... um. IDK. A thing. Stupidly ridiculous as these things always are, and I think I got the main gist, but mostly through knowing how these things work.
So is there more Bucky somewhere? Does Mr tortured & memory wiped & turned into a weapon get an actual story at some point?
Oh and it was fun to see how it built to Age of Ultron (which I have seen), with the twins at the end.
Mostly though, then this fantastically well-organised group of Nazis is just... too unreal? In the actual world, they're 'alt-right' keyboard 'warriors', not hyper-fit soldiers or massively scheming uber Bad Guys. (I mean, they do scheme, and cause a lot of damage, but it's just ugly and horrible and every day.) Give me Kylo Ren any day, he's more plausible than Hydra. The angry young radicalised white guy hung up on the past, who in another world would wear a MAGA hat and yell about the 2nd Amendment online.
Plus (BLACK PANTHER SPOILERS below)
Am I right in thinking that Shuri fixed Bucky?
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That said the MCU is definitely meant to be viewed as a serialized story, so there's more about Bucky in Cap 1 (and Ant Man follows Winter Soldier). I actually thought that the worst deficit in their bonding was in Cap 3 where it's so critical to the central plot yet it's more something we know than we actually get to see.
I think what's also underexplored, although there if one looks, is that Steve may have company but he's also alone and trying to adjust to his new life where everyone he's known and many things he used to know are dead and gone. Hence his first exchange with Sam and his visit to Peggy. So it isn't simply that he and Bucky were like glue growing up, but that Bucky is actually alive and in the same condition that Steve is. Bucky is, for all purposes, an unexpected chance to go home again.
Maria Hill was in Avengers 1,2, and 3 and Nick's trusted second.
Actually Hydra and the Nazis worked together during WWII but they're not the same groups -- though, yes, evil. (Agents of SHIELD spends a lot more time on them).
no subject
I remember my flist being awash in Steve/Bucky shipping/fic for months on end...
I think it's even worse for MCU storylines (or any film really) because there's so much less time for anything to get developed than in TV.
This. It's all very action-y, high stakes stuff, whereas I just want time for the characters to breathe... (Although sometimes it works well - I remember watching Iron Man 3 before The Avengers and being intrigued at Tony's PTSD and how well that was dealt with. And then curious as to what had happened in the previous movie. Guess I was hoping for more of that here.)
I think what's also underexplored, although there if one looks, is that Steve may have company but he's also alone and trying to adjust to his new life where everyone he's known and many things he used to know are dead and gone.
See I thought that was quite obvious? The plot sort of slowed to a crawl as it made time for him to sort of find his feet. (I wish I had liked the visit to Peggy more. It felt a little too generic and Hollywood-ised. Although my main fandom is time travel centric, and ending up in the wrong time/all your friends being dead is a well worn path.)
So it isn't simply that he and Bucky were like glue growing up, but that Bucky is actually alive and in the same condition that Steve is. Bucky is, for all purposes, an unexpected chance to go home again.
Again, we had this in Doctor Who in the S3 finale (and again the 2009 Christmas Specials, and again in S8) and BOY HOWDY did we get 1000% more than Steve/Bucky shippers did. Although of course the Master *IS* evil, not just brainwashed... /this was a sidebar.
Maria Hill was in Avengers 1,2, and 3 and Nick's trusted second.
Yes I recognised her, but in those films she just seemed to sit in front of a screen? This time she was just quietly and competently getting stuff sorted while the Cap was running around.
Actually Hydra and the Nazis worked together during WWII but they're not the same groups -- though, yes, evil. (Agents of SHIELD spends a lot more time on them).
I sort of conflate them, because Hydra is obviously the Avengers' metaphorical Nazis.
no subject
Ah, so Tony's PTSD made you wonder what had happened in Avengers 1? I also liked that aspect of it, as well as various other things about the movie which I had felt were lacking from IM1 and 2.
Re: Maria you probably forgot about her opening scene in Avengers 1 when she chases down Loki and Clint in the jeep. She has relatively little to do in Avengers 2 and only a cameo in the latest film.
You're not alone in conflating Hydra and Nazis, and yeah they do function that way in large part. While I liked the whole "enemy within" and "police state" aspect of Winter Soldier the fact that it was Hydra put it on more of a cartoonish level than the typical spy thriller. OTOH, it worked well enough as a metaphor and made Steve's world and outlook a lot more complicated than what he'd faced in Cap 1. I kind of see his attempt to find his way forward in a moral way a kind of version of Tony's PTSD since Tony had been jaded since childhood and the same plotline would never have worked for him.
no subject
IM1 was just a straight up fun movie. IM2 was... a rehash, and less fun. IM3 was great again, and you could trace his character growth through them (and then wonder what had happened to change him so).
You're not alone in conflating Hydra and Nazis, and yeah they do function that way in large part.
I get all my information from Twitter, where people point out that Cap was ALWAYS punching Nazis, and were very upset that he'd been working for Hydra b/c this was NOT WHAT HE WAS ABOUT...
I kind of see his attempt to find his way forward in a moral way a kind of version of Tony's PTSD since Tony had been jaded since childhood and the same plotline would never have worked for him.
Oh they're complete opposites. Bit like Spike & Angel. (With Spike as Tony and Angel as Cap, obvs.)