Captain America: Civil War

[janne_d]

Saw the latest Marvel offering last night, and I feel a mighty need to ramble about many things. This is not a review so much as me working out various ideas as I think through them but

Comments

[emeraldsword]

I kind of agreed with this when I saw it, I think - but thinking back on it (probably with fandom-glasses on!) I was thinking about how nobody was able to make an impartial decision without their own personal feelings driving it. Yes, Tony is the main example of that, both in wanting to sign the Accords to lift the burden of responsibility off his own back and onto the communal back (and as a sop to Pepper) and also in making the decision to fight Bucky at the end despite the villain telling him that that's what he wants to happen. But although Steve said all the right things in the meeting, about the risks of not being sent where they need to go and being subject to powerplay and so on, in the end his decisions seemed largely based on what is happening to Bucky. Which, obviously, incredibly important, but to say that his is the right perspective when he kind of backed himself into a corner because of the way he reacted when Bucky was threatened is...interesting.
I thought the film did fairly well balancing both sides, really - I am not sure that you were really supposed to agree more with one side than the other, and as I've said, while the Accords were the initial point, the final fight was entirely personal rather than political. Even the people each man called in - Clint didn't say 'anything for the cause', he said 'anything for you' and Spider...boy, are we calling him now (OMG, I loved that bit!) was in it for the Stark tech really - I'm not sure how much Tony would have told him about Steve's side of the argument. Definitely Cap versus Iron Man rather than independent operation versus authorised operation.

[janne_d]

I... don't think Steve had the right perspective, and I absolutely didn't mean to imply that he is impartial. He has a different perspective on the Accords than Tony does, and I think their motivations are both very in character given their recent experiences. The film did do a very good job of making it difficult to be fully on either side of the argument! Annoyingly, since Steve is the Avenger of my heart... Most of my musings about Steve's reaction are me trying to think into his perspective, largely because the Team Tony response is easier for me to understand and agree with.

Though I'd like to make a distinction with this:
in the end his decisions seemed largely based on what is happening to Bucky
I would say his decisions about how he personally was going to act once the frame up occurs are clearly about Bucky and then trying to stop Zemo. But all of that occurs after he has already decided not to sign the Accords, and in my view has nothing to do with the issue of the Accords other than it limiting Steve's options and putting some rather large obstacles in his way. Which is the point you made about the final fight being personal - once Zemo is in the driving seat the plot stopped being about the Accords at all other than them being the reason why the Avengers are at odds instead of working together.

[janne_d]

So I was thinking about this some more (because this film has eaten my brain) and thinking that the film doesn't really show how Steve would have dealt with the Accords, if he would have tried to challenge/protest them before breaking them if he hadn't been overtaken by the Bucky-Zemo plot, and it occurred to me that may have been what you meant about him being backed into a corner, so sorry if I misread that.

I've been thinking of the Accords as a separate issue from the what happens with Bucky and Zemo's plot because I don't think that would have changed much in a world where the Accords don't exist - the manhunt for Bucky would still happen and Steve would have reacted to it the same, and while Zemo's objective certainly gets a boost from there already being discord in the Avengers, I don't think that was something he necessarily needed to pull it off. But the coincidence of events mean that within a very short time Steve's already gone too far over the line to come back and take a reasoned (and not-illegal) stance to oppose the Accords, and then he's stuck in his corner with nowhere to go!

(Though now I'm wondering if Steve could have pulled it back if he had brought Bucky again in after his Winter Soldier escape...)

Which is all very sneaky of the film, because for everything after the Bucky plot kicks off I get and sympathise with how Steve acts, even though I rationally think the Accords are actually necessary from a societal viewpoint.

Oh, also meant to add before that my favourite Spider-Man bit was him complaining that Steve's shield doesn't obey the laws of physics!

[emeraldsword]

Yes, I think that's what I meant. I didn't mean to accuse you of being too much of a Steve fan! I basically feel the same - that the Accords are necessary because everyone needs to be accountable in some way, but in the battle I was really rooting for Steve because OMG they can't take Bucky! Whereas logically I should be hoping that Tony's legal eagles would take down Steve's vigilante posse.

I kind of agree and kind of don't about the manhunt. Several years had passed and although they did seem to be looking for Bucky, they weren't hunting him at the 'SWAT team through the door in 2 minutes, shoot to kill' way until Zemo framed him for them bombing. I think Bucky could and would have been able to keep running for years, and it didn't sound as though he was killing a swathe through Europe or anything like that. So although I think that they would have kept looking, I think that without Zemo turning him into public enemy number 1, they might not have looked too hard, and/or, they might have let Steve look (ok, he's compromised as anything, but...)

I did love that bit! Also the 'in that really old movie, 'The Empire Strikes Back' *dies*

[janne_d]

Oh, I meant if Zemo went with the same plan of framing Bucky the manhunt would have gone down the same way even without the Accords. (I really should start putting all the words I'm thinking into sentences.)

It threw me a bit in the film that the Winter Soldier being Bucky Barnes and Steve's old friend was apparently public knowledge, just being mentioned in passing in the news. I guess I've read so many fics where the reveal of that is a big deal, it was weird to have it not be! It is an interesting question, how much effort the authorities were putting in to finding Bucky before the UN attack - maybe the hunt was more intense just after Hydra was revealed and then as time went on and Bucky didn't cut that swathe it got mostly put on a backburner or left to the Avengers.