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Thread: The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (Marvel)

  1. #51
    Replacing Luck Since 1984 Dukefrukem's Avatar
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    If it's one thing these series has taught us, its will dive deeper in background on some smaller characters. Don't expect anything special.
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    Quote Quoting D_Davis (view post)
    Uwe Boll movies > all Marvel U movies
    Quote Quoting TGM (view post)
    I work in grocery. I have not gotten sick. My fellow employees have not gotten sick. If the virus were even remotely as contagious as its being presented as, why haven’t entire store staffs who come into contact with hundreds of people per day, thousands per week, all falling ill in mass nationwide?

  2. #52
    A Platypus Grouchy's Avatar
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    Eh, I hate to be a bummer, but this might be the worst piece of Marvel media in the last decade, together with Defenders. I have to admit I rarely dislike a MCU movie - even the really slight ones like Ant-Man and the Wasp are decent fun.

    Sebastian Stan and Anthony Mackie have great chemistry together and so the "buddy cop" scenes work quite well, particularly the therapy scene (I'm a fan of self-aware, blatant exposition), but as mentioned before, the action is badly shot and the dramatic scenes just don't work. Every scene with Wilson's sister or dramatic moment between Wilson and Bucky I found fake and underwritten, like they weren't even trying to make them believable characters. I was a fan of the supporting characters (the extended role for Baron Zemo was just awesome, and the Contessa was a wonderful surprise, both great actors having fun) but the storyline is pretty much bollocks. The sixth episode is unbelievable lame, and continues the WandaVision trend of teasing big ideas and original concepts early on, only to end the show with clichéd battle and epilogue scenes. Also, I have to agree with Skitch - I get that Walker committed the murder on camera, but who the hell are Falcon and Winter Soldier to be outraged about this, when they spent the entire series executing goons left and right? A single throwaway line remarking the hypocrisy of this might have been enough to make it less ridiculous.

    By the way, I recommend reading Truth: Red, White and Black, where the Isaiah Bradley character was created. Kyle Baker is a God. As a nerd, I'm very happy that the MCU is incorporating so much comic book lore, I just wish the dialogue and plotting aimed a little higher.

  3. #53
    Second star to the right [ETM]'s Avatar
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    I would disagree on the action being badly shot... *CGI* set pieces are bad, but pretty much all of the hand to hand combat is great and the stunt people are working their asses off.

  4. #54
    Replacing Luck Since 1984 Dukefrukem's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting [ETM] (view post)
    I would disagree on the action being badly shot... *CGI* set pieces are bad, but pretty much all of the hand to hand combat is great and the stunt people are working their asses off.
    Aside from the fight at the bar, I really wanted to see more of the POWER the super soldiers have. Mainly with Bucky. It all seems very soft human fighting.

    I want to see The Winter Soldier movie fight fighting. Brutal.
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    Quote Quoting D_Davis (view post)
    Uwe Boll movies > all Marvel U movies
    Quote Quoting TGM (view post)
    I work in grocery. I have not gotten sick. My fellow employees have not gotten sick. If the virus were even remotely as contagious as its being presented as, why haven’t entire store staffs who come into contact with hundreds of people per day, thousands per week, all falling ill in mass nationwide?

  5. #55
    Second star to the right [ETM]'s Avatar
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    Yeah, the super soldiers were inconsistent, all their fights were indeed meh.

  6. #56
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    Lotsa rough edges, dodgy action scenes, and one corny speech aside ... I thought this was legitimately great. I don't know what you guys are saying.

    The show took some real risks and also played into the inherent goofiness of the material. Most Marvel product is far too chickenshit to do either; it's my biggest beef with them.

    There were subplots straight out of a pulp magazine (the crazy weird Indonesian cyberpunk episode) and shots and framing that could have been lifted straight from a comic book panel (Neo Cap with blood on his shield).

    And most other Marvel stuff (*cough*Guardians*cough*Endgam e*cough*) reaches far too hard for emotion it never quite earns, because the characters are always horribly and awkwardly written, and so it plays as maudlin and treacly and, frankly, cringeworthy. But I think by episode 5, when Falcon and Bucky are throwing around the shield in Falcon's back yard and talking, finally, about real shit, the emotional beat lands well and feels genuine.

    I liked that the show wandered a bit and let the characters breathe, and that it wasn't about the action sequences. Major studio, Triple-A anything means a shitty story burning time between set pieces and that's it. That's the whole show, every time. The most interesting parts here were 2 characters just talking. That's a first, for me, with Marvel. I almost couldn't believe how well the dramatized various themes and tied them directly to character arcs.

    My only complaint is that the politics were legitimately weird. The entire plotline is authoritarian, anti-refugee, anti-immigrant, anti-working class. A bunch of "good guy" reactionaries running around using violence to put down some multi-national, multi-ethnic hippies talking about "one world, one people" (which is a line that sounds ripped from 1950s red scare propaganda). It repeatedly takes U.S. imperialism in stride and sorta hand waves away public murder by a trusted official. Then you have Falcon's crazy speech in the last episode which directly contradicts every thing the show has been saying for the last 5-ish hours.

    But otherwise, yeah, it was brilliant. I couldn't believe they successfully drew a straight line between the Tuskegee Study and Marvel characters and didn't shy away from it, didn't underplay it, but embraced the whole thing completely.

    PS: Here's one pet peeve about online audiences (talking about twitter, not MC): Feels like "John Wick" set a high bar and now audiences expect every action thing to have that level of choreography, that level of frantic pacing, and that level of slick violence. When it doesn't, or it tries to do something different (a la that Charlize Theron Netflix action piece), they're disappointed and immediately shit on it --- instead of taking the the thing for what it is and what it's trying to do over what they expected or wanted it to be. Apparently some folks missed the graceful arcs of this show's 2 main characters, and how deftly it handled Captain America's legacy against a backdrop of a "realer" America.

  7. #57
    Replacing Luck Since 1984 Dukefrukem's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Irish (view post)

    My only complaint is that the politics were legitimately weird. The entire plotline is authoritarian, anti-refugee, anti-immigrant, anti-working class. A bunch of "good guy" reactionaries running around using violence to put down some multi-national, multi-ethnic hippies talking about "one world, one people" (which is a line that sounds ripped from 1950s red scare propaganda).
    I'm kinda shocked you enjoyed this. But your reaction here makes total sense since the series was heavily edited and cut short of a real threat. Marvel didn't want it to land to close to home with COVID, as it was released during the pandemic.
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    Quote Quoting D_Davis (view post)
    Uwe Boll movies > all Marvel U movies
    Quote Quoting TGM (view post)
    I work in grocery. I have not gotten sick. My fellow employees have not gotten sick. If the virus were even remotely as contagious as its being presented as, why haven’t entire store staffs who come into contact with hundreds of people per day, thousands per week, all falling ill in mass nationwide?

  8. #58
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    Quote Quoting Dukefrukem (view post)
    I'm kinda shocked you enjoyed this. But your reaction here makes total sense since the series was heavily edited and cut short of a real threat. Marvel didn't want it to land to close to home with COVID, as it was released during the pandemic.
    Ahhhhh, thanks! Makes more sense now.

    And yeah, kinda shocked I enjoyed it as much as I did, but then I also have a soft spot for Captain America and Evans in that role.

  9. #59
    Replacing Luck Since 1984 Dukefrukem's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Irish (view post)
    Ahhhhh, thanks! Makes more sense now.

    And yeah, kinda shocked I enjoyed it as much as I did, but then I also have a soft spot for Captain America and Evans in that role.
    There's a ton of really bad reshoots and ADR cuts in scenes. Also, that stolen truck of "vaccines" in Episode 2... never really explained. I suspect the original plot was the Flash Smashers were going to put the super soldier vaccine inside a vaccine meant to be delivered to refugees or something... building their super soldier army. But it tied too closely with COVID vaccine conspiracy theories.

    This one stood out the most. Clearly a reshoot as Erin Kellyman has braids in her hair. They tried covering it up with a hood but her hairstyle is definitely for some other role she was shooting at the time.

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    Quote Quoting D_Davis (view post)
    Uwe Boll movies > all Marvel U movies
    Quote Quoting TGM (view post)
    I work in grocery. I have not gotten sick. My fellow employees have not gotten sick. If the virus were even remotely as contagious as its being presented as, why haven’t entire store staffs who come into contact with hundreds of people per day, thousands per week, all falling ill in mass nationwide?

  10. #60
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    Quote Quoting Dukefrukem (view post)
    There's a ton of really bad reshoots and ADR cuts in scenes. Also, that stolen truck of "vaccines" in Episode 2... never really explained. I suspect the original plot was the Flash Smashers were going to put the super soldier vaccine inside a vaccine meant to be delivered to refugees or something... building their super soldier army. But it tied too closely with COVID vaccine conspiracy theories.

    This one stood out the most. Clearly a reshoot as Erin Kellyman has braids in her hair. They tried covering it up with a hood but her hairstyle is definitely for some other role she was shooting at the time.
    Whoa. Owe you rep bc that's insanely interesting. I think you're right.

    Too bad as that would have made for a helluva main plot with heavy implications --- the idea of making a workaday joe a superhero against his will. As they hacked it together, the villains are shallow, too passive, and their goals are ill defined for most of the series.

    But I'm still fine with it bc everything else around the leads and their ancillary relationships was so good.

  11. #61
    I'm the problem it's me DFA1979's Avatar
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    Even though I liked it a lot I thought this was the weakest of the three. Then again I really enjoyed the buddy cop stuff and when the show dealt with racial issues it was at it's strongest. I wish it had been more than just build up for the next Cap movie, though.
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