Come anticipate CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR with me

That was the "uncanny valley moment" I referred to upthread -- at first I was like, "OK, this is weird and kind of unreal, we all know what RDJ looked like in 1991 and this looks like an RDJ Realdoll or something." Then it's revealed as some kind of sophisticated VR/hologram thing that Tony Stank is demo-ing for MIT students and was like, "Oh, well that makes sense then."

I can't believe Roger Slattery and Hope Davis are the same age. He must have gone gray Steve Martin-style.

I'd kinda wondered if/how they were going to do Redwing and I guess that was an elegant solution to a character that would probably not work in this universe.

I'd told my gf before that they were making a Black Panther movie, which meant nothing to her at the time (she's watched all of the MCU stuff but knows nothing about the comics), but she was definitely excited about the prospect after seeing him in action. Between that and her similar excitement at seeing the trailer for the previously "who is that?" Doctor Strange (which looked fantastic on a big screen), it's clear these folks are doing their jobs well.

they gave us a 3-D trailer for Dr Strange. at a 2D showing.

Because Dr. Strange operates on, like, a higher dimension, man. It's a metaphor, do u see?

After the Dr. Strange trailer my daughter turned to me and said "wait, I thought he was a doctor?"

can we have a week of her posting to ilx for you? I like her style

I thought this was great, the slow burn of what happened back in 1991, what could possibly be so important, and then when it appears it's what flips the switch from "We have become grudging allies because I, maverick millionaire Tony Stark, have fucked up yet again" to "I am going to take your head off".

yeah, one of the things I liked most about this was the reveal of the team of dead winter soldiers followed by zemo's playing the video. after the huge battles at the end of the avengers movies and the previous cap movie it was cool that they swerved an earth-shattering threat in favour of something more character-based. compare and contrast w/ the stupid sudden appearance of doomsday at the end of batman vs superman

I've got to admit, I was totally expecting a rote face off between our heroes and a team of Winter Soldiers.

exactly! it was a nice bit of misdirection

slow burn? they basically imply what happened about twenty times!

well, I guess the "how will this play out when Tony finds out" is the slow burn

If they implied it, it was lost on me. I guess I can see it in retrospect, but I'd say it counts as a slow burn.

winter soldier kills someone in a car in 1991
tony stank replays the memory of his parents dying in a car accident
zemo repeatedly asks for an incident report of that date in 1991

I could be wrong, but I don't think that we're told it's a car accident, or what year it is - there's stuff in Iron Man / The Winter Soldier that says the date, but not (I think) here.

(I could have been just distracted by how uncanny valley retro-aged RDJ was, followed by the realisation that his dickery is of such an advanced degree that he'll wank around with his dead parents telling him they're proud of him in front of the MIT graduating class)

incredibly self-indulgent, but very telling in that the memory he wishes he could change the most (even after all that post-traumatic alien wormhole crap) is the time he was a dick to his parents when they were leaving for a trip because they died on the way

From IMDb trivia:

Originally Iron Man was only going to have a small role in this movie. However, Robert Downey Jr. asked for more screentime and a higher paycheck. Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter planned to have Iron Man written out of the film completely, in which case the Russos had backup plans to adapt another story in the event that happened. However, Kevin Feige persuaded Marvel Pictures/Disney that Robert was fundamental to the film and this in turn led to Ike Perlmutter no longer being involved in the feature film side of Marvel Pictures..

So I'm wondering how much Zemo & Siberia was just left over from before, which is sorta why we get two movies here

I'd enjoy a version with less RDJ and fewer ALL THE HEROES battle scenes, but it turned out reasonably well for all the shoehorning

Civil War: Less Iron Man, More Black Panther Special Edition

that cgi young RDJ was so weird...esp because he looked super-healthy & not strung out lol

Haaaaa, I had not heard that about Perlmutter.

very much appreciated ant man revealing what he'd been trying with his suit

never liked iron man

i find it funny how casual science-inclined people tend to favour him and are slightly surprised to hear me hating on him

(probably just around me though)

I enjoy the movies but he's a jerk, that's his deal

shouldn't it be tory stank?

i guess i don't really like tony/IM either, but agree that he's not really supposed to be likable. more just entertaining. RDJ seems to be having such a good time in the part that it's hard not to get swept along.

However, Robert Downey Jr. asked for more screentime and a higher paycheck.

dude is already the world's highest-paid actor, he must be trying to put together his own moon colony or something.

I thought he looked a lot like Weird Science RDJ:
http://assets.rollingstone.com/assets/images/story/robert-downey-jr-s-weird-science-of-acting-19880519/20130319-rdj-x624-1363720997.jpg

^^ bingo. kinda figured it was intentional

Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter planned to have Iron Man written out of the film completely, in which case the Russos had backup plans to adapt another story in the event that happened

i hope it was capwolf

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RS6aELT1uKw/VFK9ymbrPSI/AAAAAAAA1BA/fUKYOC4OSUk/s1600/wolf4.PNG

I seem to remember them talking about doing something with the insane '50s Captain America right after Winter Soldier came out

Wat. I don't know which is more insane, the '50s Captain America manque or the idea of making a movie featuring that character. That's something you save for maybe like the nineteenth Captain America movie.

But I support Captain America IV: Capwolf.

Well I normally liveblog these things in comic strip form for the benefit of my brother, but tonight I am too tired and too drunk and too old and I tapped out after one scribbly attempt at an early scene:
http://i.imgur.com/21LtQKn.jpg
but yeah, this was entertaining, everyone involved is clearly having a lot of fun, even RDJ counting his monies...

Steve kissed a woman, I guess that means one of them will disappear for at least 50 years now

When Cap kissed the grandniece of his former flame and one of them said "that was...", I was sure the next word was going to be something entirely different.

dude is already the world's highest-paid actor, he must be trying to put together his own moon colony or something.

iirc he's said something in the past to the effect of his asking for more helps the rest of the cast get paid more too? idk I'm probably mis-remembering that.

those shiny brand new blank-ass baseball caps are way more conspicuous than the russos seem to think

Vision/Scarlet Witch mansion scenes were touching, that's what's really missing from this and Avengers 2. The action is fine, but without enough non-action setup it gets boring.

The whole thing hinged on worldwide anger at Avengers-related destruction, but they didn't spare a minute to debate that, like "we destroyed an entire city because the alternative was destroying the world, duh."

uh yeah but they created the dude who was destroying the city!!

Here was the other bit of older version mixed with Civil War trivia I was looking for, in terms of changing scripts:

Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely's original idea for Captain America 3 was a vastly different and much smaller film without the other Avengers, but Kevin Feige suggested they adapt Civil War instead. Certain parts of their original idea still made into the movie, such as the emphasis on Steve and Bucky's relationship, as well as the use of Baron Zemo as the villain.

uh yeah but they created the dude who was destroying the city!!

a city here, a city there

The whole thing hinged on worldwide anger at Avengers-related destruction, but they didn't spare a minute to debate that, like "we destroyed an entire city because the alternative was destroying the world, duh."

― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Monday, May 9, 2016 8:31 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

tbh this is really it for me. not this point in general but any point at all i guess. i was 'with' the movie until it suddenly ended and i realized they never really went anywhere with the central argument, didn't really develop it much at all let alone offer some sort of conclusion. it mostly felt like a plot point to get to the emotional character stuff. i liked the emotional character stuff -- the russos are so, so much better at it than whedon that it's embarrassing -- but, like, civil war. i wish they went somewhere with it. the ending really seems like it got committeed or something.

they also made pretty much no attempt to make iron man's side seem tenable, and then validated cap's side later on by making the government guy a jerky bureaucrat. everyone watching these movies knows the earth would be dead and shit without the avengers and also that government programs should never be trusted because sometimes they're secretly nazis. have to give a little more effort to make iron man not look completely irrational.

they left out the destruction in an African country (forget where) during the Ultron affair when the Hulk went crazy and Iron Man went full hulkbuster to take him down! for some reason that really bugged me, like things being destroyed in Africa only mattered when it was in this movie

The comic Civil War that used Hulk going apeshit on innocents makes a lot more sense, but I guess they didn't want to introduce that kind of gray area to any of the MCU heroes.

Hulk going apeshit as a pretext*

i was 'with' the movie until it suddenly ended and i realized they never really went anywhere with the central argument, didn't really develop it much at all let alone offer some sort of conclusion.

The Russo bros have stated that this was intentional, that they wanted the issue to remain unresolved within the universe of the movie and to some extent within the mind of the viewer. And it makes sense, as we're likely to see a new paradigm similar to the comics' post-Civil War Avengers (wherein there was an official, government-sponsored Avengers team and a rogue, off-the-grid team), and I'm sure some of the upcoming movies will deal with how the respective sides of the argument actually play out in terms of dealing with different threats.

sounds right. Doctor Strange will probably be its own thing, but definitely a good chance Captain Marvel, Black Panther and Ant-Man and the Wasp all play into this

uh yeah but they created the dude who was destroying the city!!

Not w/ New York or DC, tho
― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Monday, May 9, 2016 8:39 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the point wasn't Ross saying that they didn't do the right thing in NY or DC (remember - he did acknowledge their heroics before he began criticizing them), but that there was civilian cost to some of their destruction in these melees.

and well, the Ultron fuckup was a pretty huge fuckup. and the deaths in Nigeria were probably avoidable (if they had perhaps not chosen to engage in the midst of a civilian population - maybe track em further down the road and strike when necessary).

anywho just saw this again - enjoyed it even more the second time around. not really sure what kind of 'conclusion' anybody was looking for. I would have hated it if they had some simple resolution after beating the shit out of each other for 2.5 hours. this somewhat leaves the future films in flux (who will retire, who is butthurt, etc).

also think there were plenty of dramatic moments in this.

have to give a little more effort to make iron man not look completely irrational.

err - because he agreed to government oversight of his team's initiatives? it isn't as if the accords were to *disband* the Avengers! weren't the Avengers part of the UN in later comics?

can't fathom how anybody wouldn't be (I apologize for this in advance) #teamironman after seeing this. Captain America's M.O. was purely emotional, resting on a few clumsy "what ifs" and his unyielding devotion to his childhood friend.

i mean he was pretty much the "regulation hurts more than it helps, maaaaaaan" guy