Special Edition Podcast

Special Edition – Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Show Notes

The past has returned to haunt Captain America (in more ways than one) in Captain America: The Winter Soldier… and iFanboy has returned to talk about it! Conor Kilpatrick, Paul Montgomery, and special guest Jeff Cannata from DLC and Newest Latest Best are called into duty to talk all things Captain America, speculate on where the story will go next, and contemplate the possibility of a Civil War film!

Running Time: 00:43:44

Captan America_The Winter Soldier_Still2

Music:
“A Hazy Shade of Winter”
Simon & Garfunkel

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Comments

  1. This was a wonderful movie. Enjoyable from beginning to end. I’m definitely going back to see it again.

  2. I loved the joke about Scarlett Johansson playing an OS in Her.

  3. Such an awesome movie. Sadly now I must wait for Guardians and especially Avengers: Age of Ultron.

  4. I saw on IMDB that there’s a Punisher show coming to ABC. Idk how true that is, but it seems like we’d have heard something by now. Also, by what they’re doing on Agents of SHIELD it seems like they’re setting something up for the Kree, so Captain/Ms. Marvel may happen soon.

  5. Lots of fun but I have no desire to see it again. I was kind of shocked at the violence. Lots of people got shot.

  6. I can’t wait to see this movie again, pretty much loved everything about it. Easily one of my favorite comic book films, might be my favorite Marvel film other than Avengers.

  7. I noticed one interesting point in the film that will make comic fans go, “hmmm.” Arnim Zola identifies Black Widow as being born in 1984! Widow must have fooled even Zola. She could not possibly have been a KGB agent if she were born in ’84, since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989. Geeks know that Widow is almost as old as Captain America, which made her jokes about his age dramatic irony. The comics also gave Widow a history with the Winter Soldier that this movie didn’t reference. Perhaps this history will be taken up in the next Avengers or Cap movie.

    • I don’t get the feeling they are going down that route with Widow, think she probably was born in ’84 in the movie universe. The KGB wasn’t dissolved until 1991 and even then it still pretty much existed by many accounts, and as she mentioned in The Avengers she was recruited as a young child, so technically it could work.

    • The KGB still exists — it just got rebranded as the FSB.

    • Cubman987 could be right, but in “Iron Man II,” Tony Stark says that Natasha is an “old soul.” I thought that comment was a clue as to Marvel’s intentions. ScarJo has said that the Widow character gets more fleshing out in “Age of Ultron,” so perhaps we will learn some of her origin story in that film.

    • Avatar photo Paul Montgomery (@fuzzytypewriter) says:

      I don’t see it. Plenty of potential to flesh out her origin without introducing the Woman Out of Time element at this late stage in the game.

    • Would Natasha be ‘the woman out of time’? She never had a Sleeping Rumplestiltskin phase like Cap, did she?

  8. I thought the pacing of it was great, and all of the scenes seemed to contribute something–I was never bored and never did a watch check. That said, there weren’t any moments that I found particularly poignant or any that were laugh-out-loud funny. Both of these are things that the other great Marvel Studios movies have tended to have. Moments like little Steve Rogers jumping on the (fake) grenade, Hulk flailing Loki like a rag doll, or the ‘I am Iron Man’ scene. This film needed one or two truly awesome moments that I take away with me when I leave the theater. Other than that, it was nearly flawless in my estimation. And a perfect cast to boot.

    • I’m happy it didn’t got for too much comedy. Thor and Iron Man were both Action-Comedies and, honestly, suffered from the over abundance of jokes and the lack of story development (at least from my perspective).

  9. Loved this movie. Great from beginning to end. I’m a big fan of Brubaker’s Cap & Winter Soldier storyline and they did a great job with this film.
    Liked the after credits shot with Bucky at the Smithsonian. For a moment I thought they were going to have a kid spot him and that he would turn to the camera (and the kid) and go “shhh” like Steve had done earlier in the movie.

  10. Jeff! If Josh really isn’t coming back, keep Jeff 😉

  11. It is canonical that Captain America and Bucky speak languages that they learned during WW II. But I thought having Cap speak French in this film was a convenient play for an international audience.

    • If that was the point of Cap speaking French then they would have had him speak Chinese or Russian. Those are the two largest international markets for American films. France (and French speaking countries) is tiny in comparison.

    • They DID actually do something to target international audiences, though. The shot of the list of things to catch up on in Cap’s notebook as he wrote down the Marvin Gaye album contained a different list in different territories.

    • Winter Soldier did use a couple of words of Russian. I think international audiences realize that Hollywood can’t please everyone in every movie. I think the strategy of filming “Age of Ultron” in different parts of the world is also aimed at pleasing an international constituency. But it can’t be filmed everywhere. So far, they have chosen Italy and South Korea. Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are convenient to introduce, because they are European. Originally, I thought the characters were supposed to speak with “Eastern European” (Perhaps Russian or Polish?) accents. Since only Meryl Streep can do a convincing Polish accent, I think Wanda and Pietro are going to use a British accent.

    • Well, it makes sense for The Winter Soldier to speak Russian since he’s a Russian agent. If they really wanted to overtly pander they would have originally had Black Widow speak with a Russian accent.

    • “Age of Ultron” is also filming in South Africa.

    • Black Widow is a spy. She was trained to speak English with an American accent so that she could blend in while working.

    • Correct…

    • And, actually, “Winter Soldier” never clarified that the Soviets had captured Bucky. The movie implied that Winter Soldier was a tool of Hydra.

    • That’s true about Hydra, though I thought that Black Widow mentioned something about him being a Soviet legend. I guess it’s somewhat murky.

    • She mentions he’s a legend in “the intelligence community,” but he’s using Soviet ammunition. Also, the red star on his shoulder makes more sense if he’s of Soviet origin. We know who found him after the fall, but who’s to say he didn’t defect to the Russians for the duration of the war?

      Also, I don’t really understand the criticism from some reviewers that Bucky’s role is a little superfluous in the grand scheme of the movie. The bunker scene kind of makes it clear that he’s been a HYDRA lackey, sowing chaos and helping to build to the environment that lets HYDRA do what it’s doing. Fits the plot quite nicely in my opinion.

    • I really think you’re reading way too much into Cap speaking a few words of French, Invasionforce, it was simply Cap addressing an enemy in a language he speaks – hardly pandering to international audiences. We’re quite used to watching US movies, there’ve been a fair few zillion released worldwide by now.

  12. I agree with you guys totally. This was the Best Super Hero Movie to date, but I have high hopes for GOTG.

  13. I was really looking forward to you guys reviewing this film. I think it was released in the UK earlier than US for some reason. So i have been sitting on it a week or so. I totally agree with pretty much everything you said. I think this maybe the best comic book translated to film. I love the Dark Knight but think of that as a adaptation to film, this was a straight up Comic film. I thought it took a lot of inspiration from Nick Fury vs S.H.I.E.L.D. for all the hydra hidden amongst us stuff. as well as the Cap books. 9 year old me was so happy and waited 30 something years for this. Really nothing to say that you had not covered but wanted to chip in as this film made me so happy.

  14. Avatar photo ochsavidare (@ochsavidare) says:

    A question from someone who hasn’t really read that much Captain America, what is Captain America’s power level? I thought he was supposed to be peak, or maybe slightly above peak, human, but jumping from planes without parachute and jumping from high buildings? That just seems to be another ball park.

    • Originally that was the case, even in the early Avengers books he was referred to by villains as the “weakest Avenger”. As time went on though he has kind of become more of a low level super-human, I’m not sure if there is a clear reason for that story-wise or if it’s just the direction writers just decided to take him in.

  15. Avatar photo ochsavidare (@ochsavidare) says:

    Oh, and by the way, did you see the inscription on Fury’s tombstone?

    “The path of the righteous man” – Ezekiel 25:17

  16. Thanks for a great podcast, have Jeff back sometime.

    I loved this film to bits, it’s possibly my favourite superhero film ever. And you lads nailed it on the podcast, the movie doesn’t feel all awkward and apologetic about being a superhero film. The Nolan Batman lost me in the first one’s car park scene, in which ‘realism’ means Bale can barely move his head, or jump around after bad guys. What a bore.

    I heard somewhere that there’s an Easter egg in here, a reference to Millie the Model; the Smithsonian seems the obvious place, perhaps on the back of a warplane. Did anyone spot anything because, well, Millie the Model!

  17. I enjoyed the movie but i dont get why this movie that is also filled with a lot of violence and collateral damage is ok and Man of Steel is hated on.

    • This is how I distinguish the two: in MoS you have things like Superman taking a fight out of a cornfield and into Smallville as opposed to the other way around, and never doing much to show he cares about limiting damage or civilian casualties. Here they aren’t given much choice but they make specific points to show the heroes trying to limit civilian casualties. Also, the collateral damage in CATWS is nowhere near the scale of MoS, really in this a few buildings and streets are destroyed along with SHIELD HQ, where in MoS a significant part of Metropolis and most of downtown Smallville (needlessly) are destroyed.

    • Conor, I read that article and I don’t buy the premise. Zod wouldn’t have stopped until he’d conquered Earth and made it into Krypton. Winter Soldier would have been put back on ice until needed again. Also, the key villain character was killed, maybe not by Cap but still killed. Finally, the limiting of the destruction falls as much on the bad guys as the good – they weren’t trying to destroy everyone and everything (even their grand plan involved targeted death). It’s an apples/oranges comparison.

    • Okay.

    • I agree with the point made by @BC1 about the article trying to compare apples and oranges. There seems to be a lot of equivocating necessary to compare the films–and the author even cops to this. But I did think the concluding argument was spot on: that regardless of the difficulty comparing them on a 1 to 1 basis, the fact remains that the writers made certain choices that resulted in those outcomes. A lot of the pro-MOS arguments seem to be that Supes did the only thing he could do under the circumstances. Granting that argument, the fact remains that these are circumstances that the writers put him in, and they didn’t have to do that. Just don’t write a story in which Superman has no other choice but to murder his enemy. Write something better.

    • Avatar photo Paul Montgomery (@fuzzytypewriter) says:

      Collateral damage isn’t the sole reason I left that Man of Steel screening so crestfallen. I won’t apologize for disliking it, but we’ll try not to make it a point of contrast every time we discuss a movie.

  18. I agree with Conor; Winter Soldier was heads a shoulders above Avengers. And it will definitely hold up in the future. Captain America 3 is set up perfect for a “Cap on the run”, or Cap retiring, recalling the period where he adopts “The Captain” moniker and someone else takes over as “Captain America”. If he’s trying to hunt the Winter Soldier with Falcon, and the U.S. government doesn’t want him to, it sets this up very nicely. They could bring in John Walker. You could even have Bucky take over in the Captain America role in order to redeem his actions while being mind-controlled. I don’t think even the Marvel movie magicians can make the Death of Captain America story-line work as a movie. A time traveling gun is too much. I’d love to see Nuke or the Punisher come into play. The brilliance is that there are a ton of directions to go in.

    • “I don’t think even the Marvel movie magicians can make the Death of Captain America story-line work as a movie. A time traveling gun is too much.”

      Oh, I don’t think they are going to do a literal version of the comics’ Death of Captain America story, rather the Marvel Cinematic Universe version of the “Crossbones kills Steve Rogers and Bucky takes over the mantle plus Sharon Carter is in there somewhere” story.

    • Considering Chris Evans is just about done with his contract and Sebastian Stan signed a 9-picture deal, the writers don’t need a gimmick to eventually bring the original Cap back – planned obsolescence and all that. However, I’d hope they wouldn’t kill him, just send him off into the sunset so he could come back for one last big Avengers throw-down.

      But I like the idea of John Walker – I vote Adam Baldwin.

  19. this is right up there with Avengers as one of my all time favorite Marvel films. for sure in my top 10 of all time favorite comic book movies. May see it again in theaters but really looking forward to the blu ray so I can pause and rewind on all the easter eggs that are in there.

  20. All in all its great time to be a comic book fan. I loved Cap 2 and I loved MoS. I’m looking forward to Amazing Spider-man 2 & Guardians of the Galaxy.. It seems to be a thing now for people to hate on anything DC related and I’m not sure why.

    • Avatar photo Paul Montgomery (@fuzzytypewriter) says:

      That may be true for some, but not for us. Do we have problems with the overall direction of DC/Warner Bros? Sure. But we still evaluate each project on its own terms. I didn’t dislike MoS because it’s a DC product. I disliked it because I thought it was bad. Simple as that. Hell, I liked Dark Knight Rises more than a lot of people did. It’s not a conspiracy against DC. If you want to know why I didn’t like MoS, I wrote a pretty extensive review.

    • Yeah, what Paul said. We have nothing against DC properties. That’s crazy. If anything, I (and Paul too) have been accused of being DC apologists in the past. We heap praise on the DC animations all the time while most people seem to dislike them. We heap praise on ARROW. We are psyched for all the upcoming DC TV shows (though I’ve heard some worrying things about a couple of them from people who know things). The comics are mostly problematic right now and the last two movies were not very good (in my opinion). But we take everything as they come, on their own merits.

  21. Ok, now in the endcredits scene why are the twins(Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch) referred to as miracles?

    I read somewhere that because of the movis studios Marvel could not use the term “mutants”. Is this accurate? If so,it boggles my mind that Marvel (I understand comics and movies go through different companies/studios) who birthed all these great characters and worlds, has to be limited in the phrases or words it may use.

    • That is accurate. Fox owns the term “mutant” in regards to Marvel’s characters. Marvel Studios/Disney can’t refer to those characters (or any characters) as “mutants”.

      That’s what happens when you’re bankrupt and you sell off licenses to movie studios.

    • Avatar photo Paul Montgomery (@fuzzytypewriter) says:

      I’ve seen a few people react quite strongly to the whole ‘miracles’ thing. I don’t think it’s being used as quite the proper noun it’s been made out to be. I doubt it’s a brand or species modifier so much as a term of endearment from that one villain. It’s not the new “M word.” At least that’s my reading.

    • I’ve seen that reaction too and I feel like it’s comics purists reacting to not having the word “mutant” applied to these characters. As a substitute, I actually quite like “miracles” as a descriptor.

    • Time Warner probably has “mute ents” on lock, but I wonder if anyone owns “moo tents” yet?

    • I had kind of assumed that the recent Inhumans push in the comics has been in preparation of Marvel studios using them as a substitute for the term “mutants” (understanding, of course, that the publishing and film-making arms of Marvel are separate) but I think “miracles” works just as well. Actually, since they were introduced in Fantastic Four, does Fox own the rights to the Inhumans?

  22. Loved it, thought it was a perfect or near-perfect movie when I saw it. Only two things I thought were odd, for different reasons. The HYDRA reveal I didn’t enjoy – if it had just been a rogue part of SHIELD operating without authority and was a recent infiltration, I’d have liked that. Also some of HYDRA’s decisions seemed designed for maximum exposure of this secret group with lots of collateral damage. I thought they’d be a bit more clandestine than that. But these aren’t complaints, I can see the reasons for why they were there and those actions scenes were the some of the best I’ve ever seen. I’ll be honest, I just totally want more Anthony Mackie Falcon. He was there for the right amount in this film but I hope we see more in the next one. Thanks for doing a great podcast!

    • Cap and the Winter Soldier drew me in. The scenes with the Falcon took me to fanboy heaven! Superbly done, I must have uttered “That was cool” at least 3 times

  23. I kept expecting the algorithm that was used to pick each of the Helicarrier’s targets to be revealed as being called “Ultron” by the end of the movie. It genuinely surprised me when that didn’t happen. Black Widow referred to it as “the algorithm” a few times, which seemed sort of a mouthful unless it eventually paid off. Looks like I was wrong.

    • That surprised me too Jeff. I’m wondering now if Tony Stark invents Ultron as a substitute for Shield…Kind of an internet spyware AI and a fleet of Iron Man-esque bodies to replace the peace keeping role SHIELD played.

  24. Avatar photo PymSlap (@alaska_nebraska) says:

    How do they top the AVENGERSS hellicarrier crash? 3 hellicarrier crashes! What a masterpiece. The continuity got a little knotty for my sister, but she hadn’t seen AVENGERS, and I bet that one would trip her up, too. Wow! It was good to see Agent Hill, again. Do you think we might get a Black Widow film before Cap 3? Her character is so key. So much respect about where she came from, so much intrigue. Have you iFanboy’s bought any Cap 2 souvenirs? I ordered a Funco bobblehead as a memento. This movie was special. It was funny like Joss Wedon. P.S. I’m watching AVENGERS right now, I think they’re going to visit and kick ass on that meteor where Loki schemes with the Chitari general, because it looks just like that amazing Jim Staling Infinite Gauntlet Issue #4. I use to think that Infinity Gems would just be a gross super hero snuff film, but not I think it can be an invigorating movie. iFanboy 4-ever

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