Captain America: Civil War (with SPOILERS!) Discussion and Whatever Thread

You're right. T'Challa even stops wanting to kill his father's murderer because he realises he was caught in this vicious circle. And because he sees how revenge is tearing a friendship apart. It's a fitting end to his arc for this film given how single minded he was in his quest for revenge before finding out the truth.

"Phase 2 was all about fear vs trust and I kind of expected this to be a theme in Civil War, too, but looking back at it is was more about "revenge vs justice" as well as "betrayal vs redemption"."

Is morethey changed the expectation, everyone thought of freedom vs control consider this follow the aftermath of Ultron and because of the acord but when Bucky tell about the other soldier is clearly that is not the reason people are fighting.

Also Tony want revenge is true, but Cap hide that truth from him, not matter how you saw it, he did the same thing he blame Bucky and I think he figured out as much in end,granted that latter scene was weak for me so whatever.

One day I have to take the airport fight apart and figure out who was where at any point of it.

It did feel like some people were absent for stretches of it.

Vision seemed to mostly flying around doing damage control to make sure no one was killed.

Vision isn't around for the start of the fight because he apparently guards the plane Cap's people want to use, but after the X-men style "two groups run towards each other" scene he is an active participant.

BTW, the movie deserves a lot of credit for making the whole thing with the running against each other NOT goofy by one group actually wanting to reach something behind the other group.

Spider's lampshade of it was brilliant "uh guys, they're not stopping"

Thinking on it, there weren't many flashy super powers in that super team fight compared to, say, the X-men franchise. Only Vision, Ant-man, Scarlet Witch and Spider-Man were fantastical, with the Iron Bros as a middle ground.

But it managed to be far more interesting than any X-men team fight. Mostly because they didn't all pair off. Damn I hate that.

I've been thinking about the mid-credit scene where we see Bucky choose to go back into cryosleep in Wakanda. That just seems terribly sad to me; that after everything they all went through to keep him free, he felt like that was his only real option (even though I understand his reasoning, and the fact that he's concerned about the safety of others if his programing gets triggered should be proof he's not the mindless killer certain people made him out to be).

I was also thinking about Steve, and how he was there for him, and supported him through it even though everybody had to know he was Not Okay with this. But that makes sense; besides his whole outlook being about people having the right to choose their own fates, it actually ties in nicely to something else: Peggy dies at the start of the film (or somewhere thereabouts). Besides being even more emotionally compromised that he already would've been (because let's face it, he'll always be compromised when it comes to Bucky), he probably would've been thinking a lot about her, and all the things she said to him, and advice she gave him. If we go all the way back to The First Avenger, when she was talking to Steve right after Bucky fell, what did she say to him? "Allow Barnes the dignity of his choice". The context was slightly different, but I'm sure those words would've echoed loudly in his head if he thought of trying to talk Bucky out of probably the biggest decision he's made for himself after decades of not being able to do much more than exist without someone else's permission.

True....granted, the fight might have ended slightly differently if not for both sides (save for Black Panther who REALLY wanted to kill Bucky) being set on not killing anyone. War machine could have easily shot Scott directly instead of shooting just the truck he was swinging. Also, I think Black Widow more or less decided to stop fighting after Wanda took her down.

Yeah, I know, the whole thing makes me sad, too. (Though technically the others didn't fight for his freedom, but for his life and in order to prevent more people dying).

I like how Zemo pulled Panther's arc together at the end.

Just watched it.

Initial reaction: This is a very, very good movie. Marvel has made a great many comedies so far (in the older meaning of the term, i.e. the film starts out with a problem which is then happily resolved over the course of the plot). Civil War is their first tragedy, and it's exceptionally well done. Despite none of the major characters dying, I call it a tragedy because both 'sides' of the protagonists failed to achieve what they wanted, and the antagonist succeeded. It shows the value of having antagonists with comparatively small goals rather than "conquer the world" or "destroy the universe", because a smaller goal means the antagonist can win.

That came as a shock to me. I was prepared for the possibility that one of the protagonists might die (probably to be brought back at a later date by comic-book-movie magic), but on a subconscious level I expected that at the end the heroes would be more or less reconciled. Having them split at the end of it - with most of them being fugitives - changes the whole tenor of Phase III.

And saying "the heroes" brings up another point - the writers did an excellent job of making both sides sympathetic. I wasn't entirely on one side or another for the whole movie, and all the characters had understandable and sympathetic motivations - which were partly philosophical, but mainly emotional - for their actions, and the main motivations were set up early on. Cap opposed the Sokovia Accords from the beginning, but Peggy's death added additional emotional power because Bucky was now the only person from his previous life who remained alive. Tony's intro established that he was trying to be more responsible, do valuable non-combat things with his money, and that he was motivated partially by guilt (over Ultron, among other things), and that he still had some serious remaining emotional issues regarding his parents' death; all of which played a major role in his decisions. T'Challa was an intelligent, thoughtful, responsible man having what was literally the single worst day of his life, and at the end he still managed to show the most maturity of any of them. The image of him actively choosing to spare the life of the man who willfully murdered his father, while Tony was beating up a friend in order to be able to kill a man who'd been mind-controlled into murdering Tony's father, was powerful. I was concerned about the movies trying to make T'Challa too much of a paragon, or some kind of emblem for Africa generally, at the expense of writing him as a person. My concerns on that note have been considerably alleviated by his portrayal, and I'm now looking forward even more to the Black Panther movie.

The amount of back-and-forth in escalating the Civil War conflict was also strong. The first battle was almost friendly up until the end, with the different sides trading banter and occasional admiration of each others' moves (especially Spider-Man, who had no personal stake except being a fanboy of everyone), and respecting each other as having views that were legitimately held and merely incorrect. And then Rhodey got crippled. And then the losing side got locked up in a supermax prison in the middle of the ocean. Then we got a switch back, where Tony realized Cap's claims regarding the frame-up were correct, and immediately admitted he was wrong and sought to help his friend. And then the final revelation that broke everything apart.

It's strange, but this is the first MCU movie where I haven't disliked Tony, and actually felt sympathetic to him. He still had some comments that raised my ire ("we don't issue visas for weapons of mass destruction", re: Wanda), but he was more serious than we've ever seen him. He wasn't the arrogant playboy who acted without considering consequences any more. He spend maybe half of the movie thinking about people who weren't Tony Stark, which is some kind of record. He agreed to the Sokovia Accord because he believed, on sober consideration, that it was the right thing to do, and the Sokovia Accord did have genuine merit: an American force fighting a war in the middle of a third-world city and wrecking up a fair portion of the city in the process, with zero involvement from the nation's government and zero coordination with the nation's police force, is the essence of imperialism, and is deeply problematic. His choice to try to stop Cap was motivated by a desire to minimize damages; and given the knowledge that he possessed, Cap going on the run with a still-brainwashable supersoldier was legitimately dangerous. Bringing in a teenager was a dubious decision, but he was operating on the idea that Spidey would just be able to take Cap's shield and remain out of danger, and that the others would be pulling their punches, and by the end of the fight he clearly realized he'd made the wrong call. He was clearly regretful when he saw the others in prison. And when he did realize that his information was wrong, and that he was wrong, he copped to it immediately and tried to fix it. In the last fight he was genuinely in the wrong, trying to kill a guy for something he had no control over doing, but it's not hard to see where his emotions were coming from. We all know the Princess Bride quote. And on top of that, here is is, going in to back up a friend who decided to fight against him and who could be considered partially responsible for one of his friends being crippled, and Steve isn't willing to give him an inch.

Cap wasn't wrong either - he initially wanted to prevent Bucky from being killed by overzealous security forces and/or Black Panther, and to prevent Bucky from killing anyone; both legitimate choices, and there was no one other than him who had the emotional foundation to form a rapport wiht Bucky. Then his friend was further framed and he learned of (what he thought was) a legitimate threat that the Sokovia Accord-bound Avengers couldn't address. (Seriously, they wouldn't have been able to even if he'd told them everything. Russia is extremely protective of their sovereignty and would never have authorized the Avengers going in.) Plus, without Zemo he had no hope of any way to demostrate Bucky's innocence. So he goes off to Russia, only to find out that it's all a deception - and now his recent sort-of-friend is trying to murder his oldest friend in the world.

So the conclusion of this much-too-long post is that the movie did a great job of weaving together several different plot threads, making all sides sympathetic (even the antagonist to some degree, although it's easy to see the problem with "I'm going to kill innocent people in order to punish the Avengers for killing innocent people"), effectively establishing the personality and skills of new characters without neglecting those of the older ones, and creating an ending with real emotional punch. I've heard some people say the movie was overstuffed, but I found that everything fit together extremely well (although Tony's long conversation with Peter Parker slowed down a lot of the momentum when it should have been revving up); there was nothing that felt extraneous, nothing that didn't feed into the main storey. And as a tangential note to the emotional impact: the big fight scene at the airport did a great job of showing off everyone's powers and personalities.

I think this may be Marvel's best movie yet, with Winter Soldier as the only real competition. The Russos and Mc Feely really know what they're doing.

From now on Iron Man shall be known as Tony Stank.

Just got back. I was the only one who cheered about the Spider-Signal, then everyone else cheered when it said "Spider-Man will return."

edited 5th May '16 10:44:08 PM by FoxBoxKid

I swear I was the only one in my theatre who geeked out so hard at the Spider-Signal's first ever live action debut too!

In my opinion some of motivation are weak: Black panther go a standar revenger story" Tony seen almost guilt trick into pro reg and everything goes wrong from him after that, Cap is right from start and Tony trying to kill bucky is pretty much MY PARENT ARE DEAD!!!!!!! and Vision falling because he get distract....damn.

Granted I enjoy Black panther fight, Antman was awsome and Zemo is good but...I dont know I not that invested in the conflict

Great movie. I give it an 8-8.5. Zemo was a stronger villain than most but it felt like maybe the film would have been stronger if there wasn't anyone egging them on. The letter at the end felt unnecessary, the airport scene felt a little dissonant. The Sharon/Steve stuff and Spidey's introduction could have used work. And I liked Peter a little less than everyone else, while I know he's a teenager, even at that age I've always seen Peter as being a little more adult. Plus I like the idea of Pete establishing a career more by himself throughout his early years rather than get help from older heroes.

Other than these everything was on point. CW was in some ways the anti-Age of Ultron. While Ao U felt hampered by a lot of the MCU's worse points, this one refreshingly (though unsurprisingly) avoids them. there's no status quo snap back, the quips while a little more than I'd like never became too much.it managed to stay serious when it needed to. It made me more sympathetic towards Stark than I'd been for a while. Although if they'd built up Steve's and his friendship more in the previous movies it'd have been stronger.

Eh the signal was always too silly for my taste.

edited 6th May '16 12:37:09 AM by thatindiantroper

While I agree that you could have told the story with no villain at all, Zemo serves an important function in this particular story by showing that if you go down the path the revenge, more people will suffer. Also, with no villain there, there is also no one there who would deliberately trigger Bucky, and without that, the ending would be very different.

Also Zemo brought us something we had been missing since Loki: a compelling villain who isn't wasted as a one-shot.

I've been thinking about the mid-credit scene where we see Bucky choose to go back into cryosleep in Wakanda. That just seems terribly sad to me

To me it didn't make any sense. The problem is he can still be controlled by HYDRA's programming. So why go into cryo sleep? Just stay in Wakanda, or just stay in whatever secure place they're living in where there are no people who will have access to that information.

She was angsting already enough as it were about Lagos...and that was really not her fault.

Kiiiinda is. I mean she did end up throwing the exploding Rumlow too close to the building.

edited 6th May '16 3:38:17 AM by thatindiantroper

The problem is partly that they don't know who else might have the trigger phrases, or how many other surprises Bucky might actually have in his head. And aside from obviously afraid of being used again, he also literally doesn't trust himself not to go off at some point, so making sure that can't happen because he's basically offline may be a drastic measure, but from his point of view it certainly makes a lot of sense. (Also, to do a little armchair analysis, he's probably feeling safer in giving up autonomy, as fucked up as that may be, and is also likely kind of punishing himself with this. I suspect watching yourself kill the parents of the guy standing right next to you just isn't all that hot.)

Regarding Zemo: He also works great as a foil to both Tony and T'Challa. His desire for revenge is so great, he comes to view other people as acceptable damage - it's nice that he apologizes for T'Chaka's death, but what about the shrink? What about everyone else at the summit? He also has no qualms at all to view Bucky as little more than a thing, which is sort of where Tony ends up, in order to have a target for his (understandable, but still misguided) wish for retribution. And then of course, we have T'Challa chosing the opposite path because of Zemo, and ending up protecting the guy he spend most of the movie chasing.

It's not that I find T'Challa's or Zemo's storylines so original, it's that they work because of the way the characters are presented, and because they are expertly weaved into the tapestry of the film. All the motivations are connected, and they present different sides of specific themes - how you deal with sorrow and vengeance and guilt.

edited 6th May '16 5:36:34 AM by hollygoolightly

maybe, but I fond the compellingness of the villain and their relation to the hero two different things.

It worked for me, but I'm usually not fond of scenery-chewing villains. I also don't find Loki very compelling, if for different reasons.

I like Loki and I love the hammyness of Ronan, but I also appreciate more understated villains like Pierce and Zemo. I also don't need complicated motivations (though, again, I really appreciate that about Loki), because emotions tend to be a very simple theme. And the heavy emphasis on revenge in this movie is actually quite clever. In the end, Cap can't be wrong about anything, because he is Cap, it is practically in his genes that he is always standing up for what is right. Consequently the Sokovia accords have to be worded in a way that he has believable grievances with them and the movie has to demonstrate that he is right to not budge. At the same time, though, it ALSO shows that while Cap really doesn't need oversight, he is the exception, not the rule. As soon as emotions are involved, even heroes can slip up and go for revenger instead of justice. So while Cap doesn't really need someone to look over his shoulder, Tony actually does. This someone shouldn't be Ross, though.

Zemo is a nice change in a genre where 95 percent of antagonists are dosed in hammy narm. For a superhero story, he isn't over top. Helps neither are the protagonist s. Everyone is very casualized. Well almost all the protagonists have been for the duration of the MCU because they would never get away acting like Ronan.

edited 6th May '16 5:45:28 AM by FictionWriterKing

Was anyone else weirded out hearing Martin Freeman talk in an American accent?

Like, 'Okay i see him talking... but did they dub over his lines?' weird.

You should watch the first season of Fargo then.

As for this movie, I thought it was a great deconstruction of a typical MCU movie. I'll write up more complete thoughts later. But I also thought Zemo was a great villain and I loved that he both didn't die and also kind of won.

I mean, technically, I think this movie should have been the end of Phase 2, because not only does it explicitly reference Empire Strikes Back (which all the other Phase 2 had shout-outs too with hand-chopping), it also was a series of downer endings, much like Empire Strikes Back.

edited 6th May '16 6:42:34 AM by alliterator