Special Edition Podcast
Special Edition – Captain America: Civil War
Show Notes
It’s Captain America: Civil War! Is it a third Captain America film? A third Avengers film? A sixth Spider-Man film? All of the above? Josh Flanagan, Ron Richards, and Conor Kilpatrick investigate without coming to too many serious blows!
Running Time: 00:48:10
Music:
“Love and War (11/11/46)”
Rilo Kiley
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I’m glad Josh and I are on the same page about Pete’s apartment.
To ease everyone’s concerns about the Parker’s financial situation, I THINK the aerial shot of Queens was showing Lefrak City, which is right by Forest Hills and despite it’s looks, it’s not public housing.
@EricAbington: Interesting!
I’m from Elmhurst, unless the renovations are really as nice as the ads make them out to be that’s not how I think of LeFrak apartments.
I work right by them in Rego Park, the renovations are actually pretty legit.
Do you think a new hero will assume the mantle of Captain America? The movie didn’t end in a way whereby Winter Soldier was in a position to be “Bucky-Cap.” Nor is it a likely persona change for Sam Wilson, either, but there was a maneuver Falcon pulled when he folded his wings in front of himself to stop a barrage of bullets that made be wish he’d be given the red, white, and blue shield. In this movie, his drone weapon nicknamed Red Wing looked a lot like Skeets from Booster Gold.
John Wick directors Chad Stahelski and David Leitch were brought on board as 2nd Unit Directors basically taking care of all the action sequences…probably the shaky cam action scenes.
I thought this movie was better than all of the other MCU movies and i like almost all of them (not a fan of Thor Dark World or Iron Man 2-3)
For weeks I’ve been wishing and hoping upon every star in the sky that you guys would see fit to use Guns and Roses’ Civil War as the intro for this podcast. Another dream turns to dust.
You are not alone in this. Just as the POW is not the ‘Best’ book of the week but the book that was liked the best, so it goes with the intro song.
Movie was OK. Big plot holes and shaky cam runed good action scenes. I give it a 6.5 out of 10. Good Podcast.
my biggest problem: is why did Tony Stark get so stupid.
Movie was a lot of fun and I’d see it again, but can they stop with the “Superhero Pose”? Several times someone landed on one knee, head down, then lifts head dramatically. It’s overdone and needs to go!
I. Absolutely. Loved this movie! And I can’t wait to see it again. And I haven’t thought that about a comic book movie since pretty much The Dark Knight.
This was definitely a fantastic movie though, and definitely up my alley. And best yet, it’s renewed my interest in CBMs in a way I really haven’t felt for the last couple efforts from a few other studios :S
Great stuff.
I really liked it! I didn’t think it was as great as “Winter Soldier,” but I still had lots of fun with it. And like everyone else, I’m now even more eager to see the solo films for Black Panther and Spidey 🙂
Since most of the free world is praising “Captain America III: Civil War” (and it does deserve tons of praise), I’ll go ahead and play devil’s advocate, and list some things which bothered me about the movie.
– The villain. While I love Daniel Bruhl (who totally deserved an Oscar for his work in “Rush,” and is great in his scenes here too) I was really underwhelmed by what we finally learn is Zemo’s modus operandi, and mustache-twisty plan. Essentially, it boils down to: “To get revenge, I, Helmut Zemo – with a name that’s a total cocktease in this film – anyway, I am going to frame Captain America’s psycho pal for murder, in the fiendish hopes that it will turn Iron Man against Cap, and then somehow cause the Avengers to choose sides / fight each other / destroy themselves from within! Muah-ha-ha!!!”
CONTINUED: Turning our heroes against each other is pretty much Lex Luthor’s plan from the first half of “Batman v Superman,” except Zemo is motivated by revenge, whereas Lex is motivated by his massive ego. I dunno, it’s just… when Zemo conveniently explains all at the end, it kind of soured it for me.
– Tony’s blundering. Forget about the fact that this is the second Avengers vehicle in a row built on the plot of “Tony’s good intentions get out of hand and wreak havoc for everyone”… let’s just look at what drives him through this movie. Tony ushers in the Sokovia Accords because he is sick of heroes acting on their own with no oversight, and recklessly risking innocent lives. He even gets guilted out *in an entire scene* where Alfre Woodard blames him for the death of her young son in Sokovia. So what does Tony do? He flies to New York, charms/blackmails a 16 year old kid into coming back to Germany with him, and smacks him right down into the middle of a violent, superpowered war. Was it fun to see Nu-Spidey, and to see him finally with other Marvel heroes? Of course. But it also makes me hate Tony even more, who doesn’t know how stable this boy’s (6 month old) powers are – yet he still tosses Peter into the middle of a riot anyway. Not for nothin’, but I also cringed when the script had Spidey shout “holy shit.” As funny as that is? These Marvel superhero films are supposed to be family-friendly :-/
– No character growth. Part of why I bring it up is because BvS was slammed for this (when that film actually did have arcs for each of its three heroes). But out of the 12 heroes in Civil War? There is only one – Black Panther – who undergoes any definitive character growth by film’s end. Even our title character is exactly the same at the end as he was at the beginning. Tony – also the same. Bucky? Well, I guess by film’s end he is more trusting of Cap (not enough to stop from putting himself back into deep freeze though). But the end of “Winter Soldier” already showed me that Bucky was opening up to the idea that Cap is a good guy. As for everyone else here… I sometimes felt they were just fun, glorified extras. Warm bodies for the airport fight, to run at each other in line formation, so we could call this movie Civil WAR and not Civil Duel.
– Ignoring MCU continuity. Why didn’t ANY of our Avengers raise a hand during William Hurt’s big “look what destruction you cause!” speech, and say “In the first Avengers movie, the U.S. government is the one who *launched a nuclear missile at Manhattan* hoping to destroy all life and every building within a 5 mile radius. We’re the ones who neutralized your death missile, staved off the alien attack, and saved hundreds of billions of dollars in property damage let alone countless human lives, so… why are you blaming us again? Also, in Avengers 2, would you have preferred it if we let the near-omnipotent robot destroy Sokovia and then *all life on Earth,* instead of us intervening and killing the robot?”
– Other things that bugged me: While you guys on the podcast thought the movie successfully walked the line of overstuffed-ness, I do think there was way too much on this plate. Avengers sequel + Cap sequel + Civil War subplot (too sub, imho) + Black Panther setup + Setup/maintenance of other MCU characters. It was all done well. But it often felt like a Vegas buffet to me, instead of a perfect three-course meal… Also, who exactly shot that convenient video of Bucky killing Howard and Maria Stark? How on earth could Zemo know Tony would joining Cap & Bucky in Siberia toward the end, so he could show Tony the convenient video? Tony’s arrival was totally spontaneous… Am I the only one weirded out by Cap’s romance with the 25 year old niece of the love of his life?? haha
Okay, that’s it. Regardless of all my gripes above, I truly did have a blast with “Civil War.” I give it a B+ 🙂
Id like to make one argument to your character growth point. Captain America is the one character who doesn’t need to have any growth. He was chosen to be a super soldier because he already had the perfect character to go with it.
He also has the Sharon Carter/Peggy Carter speech of “No, you move.” as a character tent pole, he isn’t going to budge on his convictions.
The only major growth the character will ever see is coming to terms with his time period. You could argue his entire philosophy is outdated, but that was the entire point of Cap 2, that he was right about “getting with the times” as Nick Fury described it.
Top 5 things I liked about Civil War:
1. Wise cracking Spider Man
2. Black Panther- can’t wait to see his movie
3. When Black Widow flipped sides it always bothered me that she wasn’t team Cap.
4. Fanboy Ant Man
5. Cap, Bucky, and Falcon in the Slug Bug
5 nit picks
1. What was with all the Pepper not being around all about?
2. Tony’s too in control and too smart to flip out on Bucky and Steve when he found out about his parents deaths. He knew that Bucky was being brain washed.
3. Was it just me or did Scarlet Witch’s accent come and go?
4. Can’t think of anything else
5. Can’t think of anything else
I think Tony’s loss of control can be summed up with “He killed my mom!”. I don’t know that many people who’d be perfectly stable after finding out their mother was brutally murdered when they spent the last 30 years thinking her death was accidental.
Tony pretty much disliked or distrusted Winter Soldier. Then he gets to watch the Winter Soldier murdering both his father and his mother during a traumatic event that he’s been trying to write-off pretty much his entire life.
I don’t think it matters how ‘smart’ or ‘too in control’ someone is… if you saw your parents being murdered by someone you already kind of despise and that person is standing next to you, I find it hard to believe you wouldn’t flip out as well.
Very few human beings would keep their cool in that situation.
I thought it was great. Probably not as great as Winter Soldier but maybe just below it. The action scenes were AMAZING especially the airport scene but I also enjoyed the Crossbones scene and the Cap/Bucky/Black Panther scene. There’s a moment where the camera’s following black widow running through the streets right behind her that felt really immersive. I loved Black Panther’s movement but since I’m still not sure of his powerset I kept wondering how the hell he was keeping pace with the other dudes, though that’s not exactly a bad thing. And the final threeway fight was just so rad, just such great choreography and to me a real sense that they weren’t holding back and someone could get killed. I liked the simplicity of this villain and he’s pretty much a whole new creation that just shares his name with the comics Zemo.
I loved everything with ant-man in the airport scene and I actually think he’s pretty accurate to the Scott Lang I remember as part of Fantastic Four in the 90s, who who was always bewildered by everything strange going on around him when they’re going into space or other dimensions and he’s just a guy who can shrink. Originally I also thought spider-man name dropping Empire Strikes Back in that way was kind-of off, but I like the idea that he’s trying to mention it more casually because he doesn’t want to seem like uber-nerd around the “cool” kids, or there’s the idea that when you’re a kid you think the first time you see/listen/read something is the first time anyone has.
In regards to Hawkeye’s depiction, my understanding was he’s more the Ultimate version than regular, which is why he has the same family, kids and SHIELD agent background.
This probably sounds weird but my only gripe is I sort-of wish there was another Cap film that was a bit smaller in scale. I really love this character and his supporting cast and I’d love to see more of them together.
Great Ep guys.
I want to sit down for a rewatch before being too critical or agreeable but I thought the action looked great. I had no trouble following the hand to hand fight scenes and I especially loved the stairwell fight scene.
I saw it at a Thursday “early” screening with a pretty responsive audience (as those screenings tend to be), so I wanted to point out some of the big reactions our audience had.
Biggest applause was hands down Black Panther in costume. I think Spider-man would have stolen this feat if his initial costume scene wasn’t all up in the trailers.
We also got some good cheers for Giant Man, the action beat where Bucky stole the motorcycle, and a spattering of applause throughout the first minute of QUEENS.
One of our biggest reactions was to Rhodey hitting the ground. I think we all collectively assumed he’d have a rough landing, but the meteoric landing, seen in full frame, was gasp inducing.
Biggest laugh was the bro nods after Cap kissed Sharon. We had a few other big laughs, mostly spider-man related, but that VW bug sequence was very well received in my group.
Back to me.
Overall I loved the film, I think I like Cap2 better, but this was very well done. There is a lot going on here and it never feels slow, we’ve become invested in all of these characters and Fiege/RussoBros know this, and they use that investment to let the movie breath. We don’t mind serious sequences about Paprika and Mind Stones or a walk down memory lane about the last time Tony saw his parents. They work because after 9 years and 13(?) films, we can’t help but feel connected to this universe. I personally don’t think the boys on the other side of the street suffered too greatly by not having that build up, because honestly they HAVE had that build up, we are familiar with those characters in a way no one was with Captain America or Iron Man pre MCU. But I digress.
Something that surprised even me, was my gut reaction to the question I was inevitably asked, “What was your favorite part?”. Because my gut reaction to that question was The Vision. Paul Bettany brings such brilliance to that character that you can’t help but empathize with him. That and his casual wear.
Overall, I am very excited for Phase 3, this film leaves us in such an interesting place for the final leg of the (probable first chapter) of the MCU. Fiege NEEDS to work in a Black Widow film before the wrap up phase three, there has never been a more perfect time than now.