Re: Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Jan. 10th, 2015 07:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rainwatersparkI already spent more than a bit of time nitpicking this movie, but on my second watch-through I started thinking about how the movie could've been better, as a movie about the Winter Soldier/adaptation of the Winter Soldier comic storyline.
The basic problem was that the Hydra-in-SHIELD/Project Insight storyline was too massive for the Winter Soldier story to be incorporated meaningfully into it. And it's a good storyline, honestly. But the Winter Soldier story, when done right, is emotionally devastating, and it sets up a lot of critical things for when Bucky later becomes a prominent character (and the future Captain America). You know you've got a major problem when your movie is subtitled "The Winter Soldier" but the Winter Soldier himself could've been removed and the plot would've remained intact. I just don't know what could've been sacrificed to make more space for the Winter Soldier plot.
It says something that when I went into the movie, I was already invested in the Steve and Bucky relationship, I had already read the comics, and I still didn't feel moved by the Steve and Bucky friendship as presented in the movie. Bucky is simply way too minor of a character in the MCU. The lone flashback scene in CA:TWS didn't cut it in terms of establishing Steve and Bucky's relationship, and having Steve throw out lines like "Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky" doesn't mean much if the audience isn't shown that was the case.
I would've liked to see more flashbacks—or at least a few establishing, emotionally powerful flashbacks to make the Big Reveal gut-wrenching. Hell, in the comics, Steve has a mini breakdown when he learns about what happened to Bucky. In CA:TWS, the feeling is more like "Oh, Steve's old army buddy is now a killing machine, how sad." It should've been "Oh my God, Steve's best and only friend since childhood is a brainwashed assassin working for the people he used to fight against oh nooooooo."*
The directors said they didn't want a lot of flashbacks because they wanted this movie to be focused on the modern day. Which is okay reasoning, but the problem is, this movie ended up being about the past as much as it was about the present. It was about characters' pasts coming back to haunt them, past choices and past mistakes having consequences in the present. Zola even stopped the movie to give a goddamn infodump about Hydra/SHIELD's history.
(This is why, as much as I enjoy reading meta about this movie, I don't actually trust that the directors conveyed a lot of the subtleties as a conscious choice.)
I wanted Bucky to be more competent. He is a terrifying but tremendously terrible assassin in the movie. He doesn't kill a single person he's supposed to have killed and he decides to try to kill people in broad daylight in crowded public areas with a 0% effectiveness rate. The comics start with him assassinating the freaking Red Skull for an immediate "oh s***" reaction on the part of the reader.
I would've wanted Bucky to talk more. I know it would've given up the game in terms of his identity, but (a) 50% of the audience already knew the Winter Soldier was Bucky, (b) having suspense instead of mystery wouldn't have been a bad thing, and (c) I'm sure they could've used a mask/voice distortion device. In the comics, Bucky and Steve had an argument while they were fighting during the climax, and I thought that was really heartbreaking. The mostly silent "conversation" between MCU Steve and Bucky was sad for a different reason—as a friend put it (paraphrased), "Bucky was such a hollow shell, I just wanted Steve to put him out of his misery."
* (And I'm going to plug my own fic exploring this because why the hell not.)
The basic problem was that the Hydra-in-SHIELD/Project Insight storyline was too massive for the Winter Soldier story to be incorporated meaningfully into it. And it's a good storyline, honestly. But the Winter Soldier story, when done right, is emotionally devastating, and it sets up a lot of critical things for when Bucky later becomes a prominent character (and the future Captain America). You know you've got a major problem when your movie is subtitled "The Winter Soldier" but the Winter Soldier himself could've been removed and the plot would've remained intact. I just don't know what could've been sacrificed to make more space for the Winter Soldier plot.
It says something that when I went into the movie, I was already invested in the Steve and Bucky relationship, I had already read the comics, and I still didn't feel moved by the Steve and Bucky friendship as presented in the movie. Bucky is simply way too minor of a character in the MCU. The lone flashback scene in CA:TWS didn't cut it in terms of establishing Steve and Bucky's relationship, and having Steve throw out lines like "Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky" doesn't mean much if the audience isn't shown that was the case.
I would've liked to see more flashbacks—or at least a few establishing, emotionally powerful flashbacks to make the Big Reveal gut-wrenching. Hell, in the comics, Steve has a mini breakdown when he learns about what happened to Bucky. In CA:TWS, the feeling is more like "Oh, Steve's old army buddy is now a killing machine, how sad." It should've been "Oh my God, Steve's best and only friend since childhood is a brainwashed assassin working for the people he used to fight against oh nooooooo."*
The directors said they didn't want a lot of flashbacks because they wanted this movie to be focused on the modern day. Which is okay reasoning, but the problem is, this movie ended up being about the past as much as it was about the present. It was about characters' pasts coming back to haunt them, past choices and past mistakes having consequences in the present. Zola even stopped the movie to give a goddamn infodump about Hydra/SHIELD's history.
(This is why, as much as I enjoy reading meta about this movie, I don't actually trust that the directors conveyed a lot of the subtleties as a conscious choice.)
I wanted Bucky to be more competent. He is a terrifying but tremendously terrible assassin in the movie. He doesn't kill a single person he's supposed to have killed and he decides to try to kill people in broad daylight in crowded public areas with a 0% effectiveness rate. The comics start with him assassinating the freaking Red Skull for an immediate "oh s***" reaction on the part of the reader.
I would've wanted Bucky to talk more. I know it would've given up the game in terms of his identity, but (a) 50% of the audience already knew the Winter Soldier was Bucky, (b) having suspense instead of mystery wouldn't have been a bad thing, and (c) I'm sure they could've used a mask/voice distortion device. In the comics, Bucky and Steve had an argument while they were fighting during the climax, and I thought that was really heartbreaking. The mostly silent "conversation" between MCU Steve and Bucky was sad for a different reason—as a friend put it (paraphrased), "Bucky was such a hollow shell, I just wanted Steve to put him out of his misery."
* (And I'm going to plug my own fic exploring this because why the hell not.)
