Fandom: Captain America: Civil War
I have not been so happy about a movie in a long, long time. I walked out saying I liked it almost as much as Winter Soldier, but the more I've talked about it with friends, I think in many ways I liked it even more. And unlike a lot of people, I thought it fit much more as the follow-up to Civil War than as Avengers 2.5, at least in terms of tone and storytelling strengths. (Obviously, Age of Ultron had to happen just to get the characters in, but still.)
+ So many characters to juggle through so many action sequences, and yet the majority of them felt real, deeply embodied, with great characterization and some fantastic character arcs.
+ For the majority of the movie, I was able to really understand why people on both sides supported the side they were on. (For the most part. I'm still not sure I buy Natasha being on the side of UN oversight because she would be well aware of how little gets done in situations where a giant group like that controls. Also, I do not think that Tony's characterization has believably gone from where he was in Iron Man 1-3 to where he is in Civil War, RE government oversight and whether there are enough checks and balances to make it work. However, I do find it believable that Tony Stark is reacting from a deeply irrational and emotion-driven place. (Not that emotion-driven places are necessarily irrational, but his specific place is right now.) But in the end, I do not understand how anyone can choose to give that group this power and claim that things will be better for it after so many reveals of how corrupt everyone in power is, from the World Security Counsel trying to nuke New York to SHIELD and their weapons from the tesseract to all the Hydra sleeper cells and secret agents in places of power -- how can you trust any conglomerate government? HOW?
+ Since the first Iron Man movie, I have loved RDJ's portrayal of Tony Stark, but after his arc in IM 1-3, I really wish the character had become less central. The story seems forced now to include him; he really should have pulled back after IM 3. Also, I really dislike Tony when he's not balanced by Pepper and/or Rhodey. (In part, because I do still deeply identify with him, and I don't particularly like some of my own tendencies when I'm not balanced by the people who make me a better person.) Civil War was a complicated movie for me when it came to how I feel about Tony Stark.
+ Spider-Man was cute and all, but I am still deeply angry that we got another Peter Parker white boy instead of Miles fucking Morales.
+ I could have used a billion percent more T'Chaka. I loved the brief scene between T'Chaka and T'Challa, and I am sad we didn't get more of them. (I also hate watching a black man killed in these oh so white movies, but at least in Civil War, there's not just one black man standing for them all. There are enough black men for them to have different personalities and have different character arcs and it doesn't feel quite so much a commentary on how the MCU views black men, just individual characters doing their thing. That was pretty awesome.)
+ Women of color still getting the shaft in this fucking universe, though.
+ I have zero interest in Ant-Man. Give me the Wasp any day.
+ Everyone else was goddamn amazing, though. During most of the fight scenes I was literally clutching my hands together and (internally) shouting about how amazing each character was as they got their little moments of awesome. Particularly highlights for me: T'CHALLA OH MY GOD T'CHALLA. I was afraid the suit would be cheesy but noooooo, it was amazing, and he was amazing, and I love him so much. Sam Wilson is a fucking badass. RHODEY OMG RHODEY. Natasha continues to own every second she's on screen. Rhodey and Tony are the most amazing together. THE ABSOLUTELY MOST AMAZING. SAM WILSON IS MY EVERYTHING. LOOK AT HIM BE BADASS AND COMPETENT AND FUNNY AND WONDERFUL. WANDA FUCKING MAXIMOFF. She's so amazing fragile and hurting and yet still so, so strong and so brave.
+ Actually, I need to talk a little about Wanda separately. I am still so angry that they whitewashed Wanda. She's not Jewish. She's not Rom. I understand she can't be a mutant in the MCU (fucking IP lawyers, man), and can't be Magneto's daughter (fucking IP lawyers, man), but she didn't need to be fucking whitewashed.
But the moments I can separate that anger from the character we were given, I really fucking like this portrayal of her, hurt and angry, broken and strong, scared and brave -- but she's not the fucking amazing Wanda Maximoff she should have been.
And this movie might have made things even worse. I thought I caught a glimpse of a cross hanging in her room, and some other people have said they thought they saw the same thing, but no one has been able to confirm either way. If this is true, my rage is going to be even worse. Fucking hell, Marvel, BE FUCKING BETTER.
+ I doubt the MCU is going to give it to us, but that little line Natasha said in the middle of her fight with Bucky, about him not remembering her, just makes me want a red room story where he's involved EVEN MORE. God.
+ Oh my god, Rhodey. GOD, RHODEY, I LOVE YOU. He is just -- I can't even talk about his part of this story, or how much I think Tony is reacting after he's hurt from a place of deep, deep guilt. He made that call that shot Rhodey down. Yeah, he wasn't trying to have Rhodey hit, but he made the call. It wouldn't have hurt Sam as much (I clocked the whole "make him a glider" part), but with Rhodey's much heavier suit -- god. Oh, Rhodey, I love you so much.
+ Tony Stank. Never letting it go. GOD I LOVE RHODEY AND TONY TOGETHER SO MUCH.
+ No, really, SAM WILSON. SAM FUCKING WILSON IS THE BEST. He is so great in the sky, and so funny, and so smart, and I just love him.
+ TELL ME SOMEONE IS WRITING A SNARKY, HILARIOUS BUCKY AND SAM (OR BUCKY/SAM) ROAD TRIP FIC. PLEAAAAAASE, SOMEONE, GIVE THIS TO ME, I NEED IT THEY ARE WONDERFUL TOGETHER.
+ Shipping: I came out of this movie shipping even more people than I did before. Ships I want to read about, old and new: T'Challa/Natasha (omg), Natasha/Steve, Natasha/Tony, Bucky/Sam, Bucky/Sam/Steve, Bucky/Natasha, Bucky/Natasha/Steve, T'Challa/everyone, everyone/everyone, oh my god, I love these fuckers so much.
+ I refuse to believe that Tony and Pepper are done, no. I want Pepper the superhero (she's a fucking superhero, guys), and I want Pepper and Tony making it work somehow, and I want them teaming up and kicking ass together in the field and continuing to make Stark Industries this amazing, badass company doing good.
+ Bucky. Oh, my god, I did not expect to love Bucky here so much. And his decision to put himself back under until what's in his brain is no longer a threat -- ugh, my heart and my brain. I identified hard with this part.
+ HOW MUCH AM I LOOKING FORWARD TO THE BLACK PANTHER MOVIE OH MY GOD
+ Peggy's death. I wasn't spoiled for it, but I wasn't surprised, either. It's been coming, a long time, but oh, man, my heart.
+ I love Sharon and how she follows her own morality and choices throughout the movie. I don't really see much chemistry between her and Steve, and I do find it a little weird, Steve hooking up with Peggy's niece (or great-niece?), but I love the things she got to do as a character, and I hope we see a lot more of her.
+ If I never have to watch Freeman or Cumberbatch in anything ever again, I will be so goddamn happy. (We got the Dr Strange trailer, of course, and I raged so much at its white-washing I missed the next couple trailers.)
+ In both Avengers and Age of Ultron, I thought some of the fight scenes dragged on far too long, but I never felt like that in Civil War. Not a single moment felt like it dragged, and I really enjoyed the pacing. Which is also unusual for me with movies lately.
+ The last quarter of the movie or so, when Tony's motivation is to destroy Bucky because he was the weapon used to kill Tony's parents, really infuriated me in a lot of ways. In some ways, I understood Tony's reaction, but at the same time, we just went through this same goddamn thing in Age of Ultron, where Tony's weapons were used to destroy Wanda and Pietro's family (and world), and yet he's not supposed to be the bad guy. Same in his own trilogy. Hell, same in this movie, in that he feels guilty for the deaths in Sokovia, but not in the way that he should be, you know, stopped or killed for it. Fucking hell.
+ That moment when Steve strips down to his t-shirt before climbing back up the elevator shaft was amazing for the effect it had on the movie audience, but even better was his gun show on the roof with the helicopter. Everyone in the audience who finds men attractive was reacting, and then there was brainwashed Bucky in the helicopter reacting, and basically my takeaway is that Steve started to break Bucky's brainwashing by the power of his biceps. Bwahaha.
+ Despite how frustrated I get at Tony's hypocrisy (because it feels like sloppy writing and the creators' obsession with RDJ as Tony Stark), I love the various ways revenge stories are handled in Civil War (and how it ties back to earlier movies in some ways, too). God, T'Challa again, I love everything he is in this movie, and I need his movie NOW.
+ I was reluctant to ever watch the first Captain America movie, because I have no interest in a blond haired, blue eyed, jingoistic American Dream Superhero. I still don't. This Steve Rogers is far more interesting than I ever gave him credit for, and more nuanced, but I still have such issues with the presentation of this as the Ideal American Superhero, which the movies sometimes try to subvert, but don't always (and when they do, don't always succeed). Whether or not I think various characters would or would not agree with the Accords for all of their different reasons, I am really uncomfortable with the idea of an American-based team, UN supervised or not, being the ones who are called upon to save all the rest of the world. That is the kind of American Exceptionalism, Father Knows Best bullshit that I fight against in daily life, especially now that I'm back in a conservative small town in a conservative state. And I don't think the movie manages to address that at all, even as Tony is talking about them needing oversight. (Maybe especially because it is Tony talking about them needing oversight, Tony who has money and privilege, Tony who fucking locks a young woman in a room (an extravagant room, but still) because he thinks he knows best.)
marina has a really excellent post about this and the very real consequences of US Imperialism.
+
selenak says interesting things about Pepper Potts in light of the reason we're given for the split with Tony in Civil War. I don't agree or disagree with all of it, but I am really intrigued by enough pieces that I hope people explore it in fic, because I want to read.
This entry was original posted at http://escritoireazul.dreamwidth.org/429965.html with
comments. Reply here or there.
+ So many characters to juggle through so many action sequences, and yet the majority of them felt real, deeply embodied, with great characterization and some fantastic character arcs.
+ For the majority of the movie, I was able to really understand why people on both sides supported the side they were on. (For the most part. I'm still not sure I buy Natasha being on the side of UN oversight because she would be well aware of how little gets done in situations where a giant group like that controls. Also, I do not think that Tony's characterization has believably gone from where he was in Iron Man 1-3 to where he is in Civil War, RE government oversight and whether there are enough checks and balances to make it work. However, I do find it believable that Tony Stark is reacting from a deeply irrational and emotion-driven place. (Not that emotion-driven places are necessarily irrational, but his specific place is right now.) But in the end, I do not understand how anyone can choose to give that group this power and claim that things will be better for it after so many reveals of how corrupt everyone in power is, from the World Security Counsel trying to nuke New York to SHIELD and their weapons from the tesseract to all the Hydra sleeper cells and secret agents in places of power -- how can you trust any conglomerate government? HOW?
+ Since the first Iron Man movie, I have loved RDJ's portrayal of Tony Stark, but after his arc in IM 1-3, I really wish the character had become less central. The story seems forced now to include him; he really should have pulled back after IM 3. Also, I really dislike Tony when he's not balanced by Pepper and/or Rhodey. (In part, because I do still deeply identify with him, and I don't particularly like some of my own tendencies when I'm not balanced by the people who make me a better person.) Civil War was a complicated movie for me when it came to how I feel about Tony Stark.
+ Spider-Man was cute and all, but I am still deeply angry that we got another Peter Parker white boy instead of Miles fucking Morales.
+ I could have used a billion percent more T'Chaka. I loved the brief scene between T'Chaka and T'Challa, and I am sad we didn't get more of them. (I also hate watching a black man killed in these oh so white movies, but at least in Civil War, there's not just one black man standing for them all. There are enough black men for them to have different personalities and have different character arcs and it doesn't feel quite so much a commentary on how the MCU views black men, just individual characters doing their thing. That was pretty awesome.)
+ Women of color still getting the shaft in this fucking universe, though.
+ I have zero interest in Ant-Man. Give me the Wasp any day.
+ Everyone else was goddamn amazing, though. During most of the fight scenes I was literally clutching my hands together and (internally) shouting about how amazing each character was as they got their little moments of awesome. Particularly highlights for me: T'CHALLA OH MY GOD T'CHALLA. I was afraid the suit would be cheesy but noooooo, it was amazing, and he was amazing, and I love him so much. Sam Wilson is a fucking badass. RHODEY OMG RHODEY. Natasha continues to own every second she's on screen. Rhodey and Tony are the most amazing together. THE ABSOLUTELY MOST AMAZING. SAM WILSON IS MY EVERYTHING. LOOK AT HIM BE BADASS AND COMPETENT AND FUNNY AND WONDERFUL. WANDA FUCKING MAXIMOFF. She's so amazing fragile and hurting and yet still so, so strong and so brave.
+ Actually, I need to talk a little about Wanda separately. I am still so angry that they whitewashed Wanda. She's not Jewish. She's not Rom. I understand she can't be a mutant in the MCU (fucking IP lawyers, man), and can't be Magneto's daughter (fucking IP lawyers, man), but she didn't need to be fucking whitewashed.
But the moments I can separate that anger from the character we were given, I really fucking like this portrayal of her, hurt and angry, broken and strong, scared and brave -- but she's not the fucking amazing Wanda Maximoff she should have been.
And this movie might have made things even worse. I thought I caught a glimpse of a cross hanging in her room, and some other people have said they thought they saw the same thing, but no one has been able to confirm either way. If this is true, my rage is going to be even worse. Fucking hell, Marvel, BE FUCKING BETTER.
+ I doubt the MCU is going to give it to us, but that little line Natasha said in the middle of her fight with Bucky, about him not remembering her, just makes me want a red room story where he's involved EVEN MORE. God.
+ Oh my god, Rhodey. GOD, RHODEY, I LOVE YOU. He is just -- I can't even talk about his part of this story, or how much I think Tony is reacting after he's hurt from a place of deep, deep guilt. He made that call that shot Rhodey down. Yeah, he wasn't trying to have Rhodey hit, but he made the call. It wouldn't have hurt Sam as much (I clocked the whole "make him a glider" part), but with Rhodey's much heavier suit -- god. Oh, Rhodey, I love you so much.
+ Tony Stank. Never letting it go. GOD I LOVE RHODEY AND TONY TOGETHER SO MUCH.
+ No, really, SAM WILSON. SAM FUCKING WILSON IS THE BEST. He is so great in the sky, and so funny, and so smart, and I just love him.
+ TELL ME SOMEONE IS WRITING A SNARKY, HILARIOUS BUCKY AND SAM (OR BUCKY/SAM) ROAD TRIP FIC. PLEAAAAAASE, SOMEONE, GIVE THIS TO ME, I NEED IT THEY ARE WONDERFUL TOGETHER.
+ Shipping: I came out of this movie shipping even more people than I did before. Ships I want to read about, old and new: T'Challa/Natasha (omg), Natasha/Steve, Natasha/Tony, Bucky/Sam, Bucky/Sam/Steve, Bucky/Natasha, Bucky/Natasha/Steve, T'Challa/everyone, everyone/everyone, oh my god, I love these fuckers so much.
+ I refuse to believe that Tony and Pepper are done, no. I want Pepper the superhero (she's a fucking superhero, guys), and I want Pepper and Tony making it work somehow, and I want them teaming up and kicking ass together in the field and continuing to make Stark Industries this amazing, badass company doing good.
+ Bucky. Oh, my god, I did not expect to love Bucky here so much. And his decision to put himself back under until what's in his brain is no longer a threat -- ugh, my heart and my brain. I identified hard with this part.
+ HOW MUCH AM I LOOKING FORWARD TO THE BLACK PANTHER MOVIE OH MY GOD
+ Peggy's death. I wasn't spoiled for it, but I wasn't surprised, either. It's been coming, a long time, but oh, man, my heart.
+ I love Sharon and how she follows her own morality and choices throughout the movie. I don't really see much chemistry between her and Steve, and I do find it a little weird, Steve hooking up with Peggy's niece (or great-niece?), but I love the things she got to do as a character, and I hope we see a lot more of her.
+ If I never have to watch Freeman or Cumberbatch in anything ever again, I will be so goddamn happy. (We got the Dr Strange trailer, of course, and I raged so much at its white-washing I missed the next couple trailers.)
+ In both Avengers and Age of Ultron, I thought some of the fight scenes dragged on far too long, but I never felt like that in Civil War. Not a single moment felt like it dragged, and I really enjoyed the pacing. Which is also unusual for me with movies lately.
+ The last quarter of the movie or so, when Tony's motivation is to destroy Bucky because he was the weapon used to kill Tony's parents, really infuriated me in a lot of ways. In some ways, I understood Tony's reaction, but at the same time, we just went through this same goddamn thing in Age of Ultron, where Tony's weapons were used to destroy Wanda and Pietro's family (and world), and yet he's not supposed to be the bad guy. Same in his own trilogy. Hell, same in this movie, in that he feels guilty for the deaths in Sokovia, but not in the way that he should be, you know, stopped or killed for it. Fucking hell.
+ That moment when Steve strips down to his t-shirt before climbing back up the elevator shaft was amazing for the effect it had on the movie audience, but even better was his gun show on the roof with the helicopter. Everyone in the audience who finds men attractive was reacting, and then there was brainwashed Bucky in the helicopter reacting, and basically my takeaway is that Steve started to break Bucky's brainwashing by the power of his biceps. Bwahaha.
+ Despite how frustrated I get at Tony's hypocrisy (because it feels like sloppy writing and the creators' obsession with RDJ as Tony Stark), I love the various ways revenge stories are handled in Civil War (and how it ties back to earlier movies in some ways, too). God, T'Challa again, I love everything he is in this movie, and I need his movie NOW.
+ I was reluctant to ever watch the first Captain America movie, because I have no interest in a blond haired, blue eyed, jingoistic American Dream Superhero. I still don't. This Steve Rogers is far more interesting than I ever gave him credit for, and more nuanced, but I still have such issues with the presentation of this as the Ideal American Superhero, which the movies sometimes try to subvert, but don't always (and when they do, don't always succeed). Whether or not I think various characters would or would not agree with the Accords for all of their different reasons, I am really uncomfortable with the idea of an American-based team, UN supervised or not, being the ones who are called upon to save all the rest of the world. That is the kind of American Exceptionalism, Father Knows Best bullshit that I fight against in daily life, especially now that I'm back in a conservative small town in a conservative state. And I don't think the movie manages to address that at all, even as Tony is talking about them needing oversight. (Maybe especially because it is Tony talking about them needing oversight, Tony who has money and privilege, Tony who fucking locks a young woman in a room (an extravagant room, but still) because he thinks he knows best.)
marina has a really excellent post about this and the very real consequences of US Imperialism.
+
selenak says interesting things about Pepper Potts in light of the reason we're given for the split with Tony in Civil War. I don't agree or disagree with all of it, but I am really intrigued by enough pieces that I hope people explore it in fic, because I want to read.
This entry was original posted at http://escritoireazul.dreamwidth.org/429965.html with
comments. Reply here or there.