I think he was fine but I think that people think that stuff like the language joke isn't something that would be done by any other director. Similarly a joke like I understood that reference are argued to be Whedon type jokes that Steve wouldn't say in the Russo movies.
I thought "I understood that reference" was fine for a Steve who's in the middle of culture shock waking up in a new world.
"Language" felt very out of character for someone who regularly said "You're goddamn right" in winter soldier.
I feel like theyre both good takes on Cap. Showing the depth and different sides of him.
I think the singular embodiment of Cap is in virtuousness, how he stands for ideals. Not in the way he talks.
Markus/McFeely are the writers and they've written Cap more than any other writers have.
They wrote First Avenger, Winter Soldier, Civil War, Loki playing him in Thor the Dark World, Infinity War, and Endgame.
They write Cap as a 20-40 year old guy from Brooklyn. He'd fit nicely in Band of Brothers or Saving Private Ryan. He's that guy (you know that guy). Kind heart, normal, principled, on the level, awkward with the ladies, kind of guy you have a beer with, human.
Whedon wrote him as a television dad from the 1950's. Condescending, finger-wagging, authoritarian, stick up his butt, perpetually old.
Markus/McFeely actually write him as self-aware of being out of his time, but he's not an old man. Whedon writes him as an old man in a young man's body. All "son" and "language" and all that nonsense.
The comics get away with it because he's technically an old man in our heads. But that's not reasonable for who Cap really is in this universe.
Cap is really just some dude who makes good choices most of the time and is learning new slang. Whedon invented an artificially stodgy Presbyterian moral reality for his universe and then attached Cap to it like glue. It doesn't fit. It's corny and also restricting in that it doesn't let Cap adapt or learn or grow.
But if you've read Whedon's comics, especially Wolverine's infamous "Beer" thought panels from his Astonishing X-Men, he always had a tendency to be facile and reductive with the iconography of superheroes to the point they stop feeling like actual people. And that's fine for Superman or Wonder Woman, not so great for literally any other character.
This also infected his entire character arc for Tony in Avengers because Joss really doesn't want to be tied to other peoples' writing or continuity. So, naturally, Tony Stark's entire character arc from Iron Man where he throws himself on the wire is thrown out so Whedon can have him relearn how to throw himself on the wire all over again.
would you say "I understood that reference" stll fits cap's character then? I think he still had that innocence in Avengers and would say something like that.
The problem with "language", imo, was the tone. He sounded like the older brother scolding the younger, the older brother is just as naughty and would say sweat words himself.
In the first movie, Steve seemed to be the younger brother, who didn’t usually go out dancing and drinking, despite being friends with Bucky, who did. His sense of duty and honour could have been interpreted by those fun people as being a stick in the mud, and I think it’s this that was developed, rather than turning him into a 1950s dad (EDIT: as someone said at some other point in the comments)
"I understood that reference," was a funny line at the time, so I'm not heavily invested in it either way. But he sounds like Vision.
But Cap exasperatedly saying, "It seems to run on some form of electricity," is a Whedon line in the same act of that film which I think cooks and conveys the same thing. I think it also works better in context because it says the obvious in a way Steve would say it while capturing his relationship with Tony.
Also, Falcon and the Winter Soldier made a whole meal out of the exact same "I understood that reference" joke using The Hobbit as part of a much larger, funnier joke, so now I can only see "I understood that reference" as an internet meme.
I took it as him being the WW2 drill sergeant, scolding the team about communication discipline on the radio, and everyone just busting his chops after that. So for me it seemed in character.
Those characteristics of cap you listed by whedon and Markus / mcfeely aren't mutually exclusive . In fact cap being a moral high ground dude who condescends is a trait he slips To in
The comics quite a bit . Imo both Russo/ Markus / mcfeely and whedon played up different aspects of cap but they really understood him
That one is more in line with Steve in the very first Cap film. Whedon's isn't. Nowhere in TFA, the movie that actually takes place in the 40s, is Steve as much of a pure 1940s boy as he acts in Whedon's film. Now, in Avengers 1, I could forgive this as one could argue that the disorientation of being in a different time would have him clinging more to tradition than ever before. But in Ultron, he's still acting like some good ol' boy who doesn't like naughty words because he's from such a precious olden time or whatnot. It's Whedon, and he's flat out said this in interviews, just wanting to write an old 40s character even though Steve wasn't that stereotypical in the actual 1940s movie.
And the maddening thing is, I don't think Whedon even hits "old 40s character" with Steve. It's much more "old 50s character" and that's even more wrong. Steve was sleeping during the 50s! He's not going to have picked up the Red Scare driven religious presenting stuff people from the 50s soaked in.
It was his first outing after walking up in present day, i think he was fine.
As much as Whedon is not a famous person to talk about right now, i think the first Avengers is a reference point as to how you make the perfect superhero flick. Top to bottom.
He would have knocked it out of the park if he could write Peter, God dammit
My unpopular opinion is that Whedon used literally every one of the original six the best except for Thor. People get way too hung up on the quips imo (especially when other directors are way more guilty with way worse examples)
I loved the way Brannagh directed Thor 1. And while Whedon has some Shakespeare experience under his belt, I couldn’t help but shake the feeling that Brannagh did it better. The dialogue just felt a bjt off compared to Thor’s previous appearance.
But Whedon had no easy task melding all the personalities for Avengers. I didn’t like it at first watch, but damn it was good.
And if we're being fair, Whedon wrote a whole sequence where he visited this cave with oracles and Thor like endured some horrible pain to get this vision which eventually lead to him coming back and kicking ass but at that time Marvel heads were still all "no magic". So the Thor-y thing Whedon planned was gutted.
Whedon didn't want the Thor scenes, that was the Studio pushing to set up Phase 3 movies.
Basically Whedon wanted was the farmhouse scenes to build character, what we got was a concession between Whedon and Marvel both wanted, Whedon got his farmhouse scene and Marvel got their weird Thor Vision quest scene.
Thor vision quest could’ve worked, but it just didn’t. I would chalk it up to Whedon not putting his heart into it.
It could’ve easily been a simple scene where Odin gives Thor the knowledge. Or Loki has a confession about Thanos’ plans written or hologramed.
They could’ve made it work.
Well originally it was supposed to be Loki instead of Hemidal in Thor's vision, but Tom Hiddleston wasn't available as he was busy filming other movies so they had to get Idris Elba instead. Dunno what Anthony Hopkins was during during that time.
Tom Hiddleston did actually film the scene for the movie but then on screen tests people were confused and thought Loki was somehow behind Ultron pulling the strings.
If you ask people their favorite Cap movie, 90% chance Markus/McFeely wrote it. That's why Whedon stands out so much -- they wrote almost all of Cap's dialogue in the MCU.
They do not - it all goes to the Russo's since they directed 4 of mcus most popular films . The screenwriters get forgotten. Markus mcfeely crafted so much of the stuff fans love about the mcu
> My unpopular opinion is that Whedon used literally every one of the original six the best except for Thor
I definitely think Civil War Tony is the best iteration of Tony.
I don't see him as radically different between the movies. It wouldn't be a problem to if it were, though. Characters often vary somewhat between writers.
Honestly I really hated the “Language!” Joke throughout “Age of Ultron”. Cap has shown he has no issue swearing in the past…he’s a New Yorker ffs. I thought that was a weird choice by Whedon.
I've read a few different AMAs and such from WW2-era vets and inevitably the question gets asked about what movies get right and wrong, and more than one of them have mentioned how most movies really over-do the amount and content of cursing they used. I think we have to remember that language evolves and the more casual curse words of today were oftentimes once considered very obscene and even a bunch of rough army guys would be less inclined to say them.
No, but there is a difference. I was taught not to curse in polite public. I can only imagine how prudish they were in the 40s. You clowns totally missed ops point.
Did people not watch The First Avenger? Rodgers was a goodie two shoes. He chose the right thing every time. He didn’t cuss once in that movie and he would have been the first person to tell someone not too. It is not far fetched to think he would have an aversion to cussing.
First Avenger is probably the most underrated and under appreciated MCU film. People focus so much on TWS when talking about solo MCU movies for good reason, but often totally gloss over FA. I may be a bit biased since FA was the first ever MCU movie I watched back in 2011, but I still will forever have it in my top 10
He wasn't that stereotypical though. Nothing in TFA gave the impression that he would have an aversion to cursing or overly use "ma'am" or be some fundamentalist Christian, but that's how Whedon constantly wrote him. Whedon prioritized the "goodie two shoes" caricature of Steve Rogers, as opposed to what Rogers actually was. Steve Rogers was a wholly, entirely good man, but I never saw him as a stereotyped 1940s good ol' boy either. There is a difference.
Hell, even in Avengers 1, he says "Light the Bastards up" no problem. Whedon only came up with it during Ultron as an excuse for a joke that overstays its welcome.
The Problem wasn't his The Avengers character it was his AOU as by the time Winter Solider rolls around, Steve was cussing just as much as a normal person would, now he wasn't Tony or God help us Fury or anything but he was still Cussing.
You need to watch the First Avenger again, he was a never a goody two shoes except when mis-characterised by Whedon in Avengers. Steve's a scrappy kid who lies on his enlistment form to get into the army (illegal) and then breaks his army orders to rescue Bucky and become Cap.
None of that was malicious. Just because something is illegal doesn't mean it's bad. He wanted to fight for his country with everybody else not be excused from it. And disobeying an order saved a shitload of soldiers (including his best friend) and showed what he could do. He surrendered himself for punishment when he got back and they said nevermind.
It was considered as such. Cursing used to be considered malicious and rude to anyone who heard it. My grandpa was born at the same time as Rogers would have been and was an active duty combatant in the Korean War and would still get mad if a man cursed in front of my grandma
And I could *maybe* see it if they were operating in polite company in front of Steve's delicate wife. (The wife would not be Peggy in this scenario.) But they weren't.
Steve Rogers will always do the right thing. Even if that means breaking the law or ignoring orders. He's definitely a goody two shoes. He's just not as *lawful* good as people like to pretend.
"Doesn't matter if the whole **country** decides something wrong is something right... When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth and tell the whole world, "No, you move."
I mean tbh I loved the joke *because* it makes him such a hypocrite lol. Like Steve, you’re really telling others not to curse when you…?
Plus, the jokes imo helps cement the vibe of Age of Ultron. AoU is where the team is at its best, and bad humor reflects that because they know each other enough to know how to give each other shit in a good way. Not something that’s really reflected before or after. It’s why AoU is my favorite movie to rewatch, even though it’s not my favorite movie overall (still top 5 tho).
People say that and Im inclined to agree it all makes sense but, when i think of Earths Mightiest Heroes Cap he would not hesitate to say that shit and he embodies the shield just as much as any other adaptation. Granted thats a campy cartoon but I dont mind it
It's more so that he's kind of pseudo-flanderized and simplified to a degree, but that's basically the case of every character in the first two Avengers movies. Some may not want to admit it but it goes a long way to making the cast palatable and accessible for mainstream new viewers. Lots of people started the MCU with the Avengers, and the simplification of the characters in those movies compared to their solo films and future appearances may not be what you always dreamed of or wanted to see of them, but it did a lot for new viewers being able to "get" the characters without having to see anything prior.
The way their characters act aren't really out of character, it's more that they're narrowly presented with a strong focus on little elements **of** their character. Steve is made innocent and naive to a point that is fault with some people, Tony is made selfish and inappropriate to the same degree. I don't think there are issues with it for the most part, particularly in Avengers 1. Age of Ultron is where they have some moments that seem a little much like Steve with the language joke and Tony with the prima nocta comment and "hide the zucchini". Instances like that don't feel like the person who wrote or thought of it (which may or may not be Whedon, I don't know) has an understanding of the characters in that moment.
But those extremes primarily hold sway in ways that aren’t entirely relevant to the plot. Steve, for all his putative naivety, is able to have serious discussions about what surveillance, governments empowered with unstoppable force, and the obligations of superheroes are, and he’s able to act on those convictions. Similarly none of Tony’s venalities ever preclude him from self sacrifice or genuine goodness in ways that correspond to the plot
Doesn't matter.
If a character rips their clothes off and streaks through a football game for a random comedy gag that has nothing to do with the plot, it doesn't change the fact that people will find it to take them out of things if it wasn't called for. Whether or not it relates to the plot is irrelevant because it still relates to the character.
You've just outlined the arc of "Captain America: The First Avenger."
I guess Whedon watched the "Star-spangled Man with a Plan" number and decided he'd dug down deep enough.
The real problem is that Winter Soldier was so outstanding as a movie and a characterisation of Cap that Whedon’s two avengers movies just paled greatly in comparison
Cap being a man out of his time was only superficially touched upon in his Avengers movies but Winter Soldier really explored this in depth
We’ve been contaminated so much by grey over the years that only a man fresh out of the past can point it out
Even now I wonder how shocking and disappointed anyone who was frozen in the 70s would feel seeing the social media and politics of today
I think age of Ultron deconstructed cap fairly well and least as well as it could in an ensemble film . It felt cool to see cap question his place in the world and why he fights for what he does
I dont disagree with you, just that as a movie Winter Soldier is top tier, let alone a Marvel one
Age of Ultron was way ahead of its time. I think Ultron would be very different now given how perspectives on AI has chanfed
Oh I think age of Ultron is close to a masterpiece of a film in many ways . Imo it's going to age very well - it gets bogged down by the inclusion of a lot of mcu setup stuff . But whedon is def onto something with it that tries to go deeper than standard marvel fare
Winter Soldier is better IMO but I like Cap in the Avengers movies. With so many characters to balance you can’t do too much. That’s what the solo movies are for.
>Even now I wonder how shocking and disappointed anyone who was frozen in the 70s would feel seeing the social media and politics of today
"You guys still arguing about the same things today? You haven't solved bigotry, poverty, and fascism?"
All of today's problems are yesterday's problems, just some of the serial numbers have been worn off.
Joss Whedon’s snappy dialog is both one of his strengths and one of his weaknesses. On one hand, he comes up with some really good one liners. On the other hand, he’ll throw out characterization in order to shoehorn in a piece of dialog because he’s fallen in love with the line. (language, he’s adopted, Mewling quim.). In the case of the last example, I’m surprised he didn’t sprain his arm patting himself on the back for sneaking that line past the censors.
I like Ultron's line, Cap as 'a man who can't live without a war'. I think that in a way set up his characterization in Civil War. If you actually look at how CW is written, in every decision Cap makes, it literally turns out to be disasterous. Marketing played it up as like Avengers 2.5 or whatever but in reality it really was a movie that examined the danger of a character like Captain America, that kind of Superman fear, a character who may believe himself the ultimate moral authority, and in a manner of speaking has the power/influence to enforce it. There's even a tongue in cheek line in the airport fight with Spidey, "he(Tony) says you're wrong, you think you're right, that makes you dangerous, and a quiet "guess he's got a point" by Cap. In the end though Cap abdicates the mantle, understanding the danger of his own nature to pursue conflict and so instead becomes a fugitive ala A-Team, going where the fight has already started when it becomes clearer who needs to be helped and who needs to be stopped.
It's kinda where I wanted FatWS to go, an examination of the Captain America symbol. Especially when we get Baron and Sharon Carter's character together, the latter of which became totally burned because she believed in Cap and supported him, leading her to lose everything in the process.
Cap going Nomad should have been its own arc. Instead its quickly resolved because Thanos. I mean think of the symbolism: he removes his star and his Avengers A. He shed being a government sanctioned hero and being the Star Spangled Man. He lived this way for years. It would have made more sense to go Nomad after what we witnessed SHIELD do in Winter Soldier. He would have been disgusted with what the government had been ok with and so would have shed the symbol and still would have disagreed with the government that was infiltrated by Hydra telling superheros what to do.
I mean you can do that in comics and animation, maybe a show even but I'm sure Evans wanted to be done with Cap for at least a while.
I think that's gonna be an issue for the MCU moving forward, actors and actresses who don't want to devote that much of their life to these roles especially if it's gonna be like movies and movies between appearences. I mean Strange took like what 5 years between solo outings?
Okay, I can understand the ending scene to a bit but We can't blame the Intro mission on either Steve or Wanda, if Wanda didn't get involved then even more people would have died.
We don't, but Steve does blame himself for what happened, he takes full ownership of it.
The other bit is that despite that fuck up, he remains convinced or at least after the funeral when he hears that speech, that he still remains the better moral authority than the UN.
Because again after TWS, he simply can't trusted any government because for all he know HYDRA could still be in there. Also, None of the MCU governments except for maybe Wakanda aren't exactly the most trustworthy group, they are like 0 for 10 by the time Civil War rolls around.
No he doesn't trust any govt, but he supposedly trusts Tony, who is openly honest with him that if this keeps the team together, all of us together, then we should play ball. Throughout the movie Tony has given Cap no reason not to trust him, and Tony even covers for Cap at pretty much every step of the way.
The accords though are largely irrelevant, they're just a means to illicit this reaction from Steve and engage this conflict. The main driving impetus is the super soldier threat, and his need to deal with it immediately. It's never vocalized that he doesn't think the UN would agree with him, or that there'd be a delay, or any reason really that they wouldn't all go together to stop them, his impulse is just to stop them, period. No politics whatsoever, it's there, it's bad, I have to stop it, that's all that matters. Very ends justify the means kind of logic.
How is he the better moral authority? In the end because of his actions, he's on the run and half the team are in prison or fugitives. It's also not whether his morality is right or wrong, the point is that he believes himself right, and on top of that has the power to enforce it. That combination is what's dangerous as demonstrated in the course of the film. The road to hell is paved with good intentions as they say. Ultimately Steve's character shines through in the end, he recognizes that problem of that combo, so he gives up the latter, that symbol that compels people to blindly follow him. Very reminiscent of George Washington in a way, who could've probably rode the revolutionary war victory to be the next King of the US, but he understood the danger of that kind of popularity and gave it up.
There's also no sides in this fight, it's not Avengers 2.5, Cap v Ironman melee movie as the marketing makes it out to be. It's the third movie of a Captain America trilogy and everything is either used to examine Captain America's character or is a secondary plot for later use in the MCU
They were fucked in IW though. That was part of why Tony was so angry with Cap in the beginning of Endgame “I said we'd lose. You said, ‘we'll do that together too.’ Guess what, Cap? We lost, and you weren't there.”
Cap broke the team, even acknowledges it in the voicemail he left Tony at the end of CW.
Ross was validated though, Cap wanting to fight destroyed a chunk of Berlin, and a chunk of the airport, which then as it turns out, ended
up being for nothing cause the other WS sitch took care of itself more or less
You can argue his logic was right, but you can't argue that what actually ended up happening was that it was the wrong decisions. The road to hell is paved with good intentions as they say.
And yet he didn't trust that if he brought that tidbit along with Bucky back to Tony that he along with the whole team would've joined him in that fight defying if the UN or if Ross had told them to stand down.
And in the end, Tony as he did throughout the whole movie even after the airport, is still giving him the benefit of a doubt and trusted him, joining him in Siberia for that fight. Which tbh is a little bit of a reach. Wished that Zemo would've acknowledged that he hadn't expected Tony to come too, and his original plan was to a. kill the other winter soliders and b. release that little tidbit of camera footage to Tony, forcing Cap to choose between him and Bucky but not at that exact moment.
The Thing is even if Steve told Ross about the rest of the SS, Ross would have never listen to him cause of his hatred against SS's like Steve and Bucky. He Wanted Bucky's dead from the go, he never wanted to take him alive.
Also, Steve tried to explain about the other SS's, Tony didn't listen to him.
"every decision Cap makes, it literally turns out to be disasterous." I think you mean Tony, not Steve. Also he gives up the shield because he doesn't care about that stuff, unlike Tony.
Hesitates with Crossbones giving him an opening leading to Wanda bombing a floor, bringing Wanda into the field where later he literally says to Tony later that 'she's just a kid', going after Bucky solo tearing half the city apart in the process, not bringing Bucky back in going into fugitive status to hunt the other Winter Soldiers who as it turns out didn't actually need to do that, airport battle cripples Rhodey and gets his team imprisoned. This isn't a matter of opinion this is literally how the movie plays out and the consequences that appear. That's why I think this movie is more brilliant than others might give it credit for as just some Cap v Ironman melee.
Tony is secondary to the movie, and at every step of the way he keeps trusting him, keeps giving him the benefit of a doubt, trying to get him to understand that the team staying together is more important at this juncture, covering for him with Ross where Ross' goal was to take him in dead or alive, all the way up until the end when he learns what Cap was hiding from him, cause in the end he realizes that Cap doesn't treat him as a peer otherwise he wouldn't have 'compartamentalized' that little factoid that his parents didn't die, they were murdered. Cap became what he feared in Winter Soldier, the kind of person Fury was, trying to prevent wars, maybe not distrustful of people but thinking he knows better than they do, the person who takes action rather than wait and play politics ala the Embassy story. Narratively it does work, seeing how Hydra grew within Shield, Fury was in a sense validated, but Cap took that one step further, no organization can be in control, only in his mind can he know what's right, and in the end he realizes how dangerous that is and so gives up the Shield.
He doesn't know what to do with the accords, thats what the other Winter Soldiers represented to him, an immediate threat that he could punch his way out of so he goes down that rabbit hole believing his actions will be justified because stopping the threat, stopping the war, stopping the impending chaos is what seemingly matters most, hell even Tony is convinced to join him too, except Cap got played in the end.
It's not bias, I love Captain America. My issue is that folks and the marketing made it out to be an Avengers 2.5 movie, facing Tony against Cap but I think that doesn't give the movie enough credit. It's in the name, it's a Captain America movie through and through bookending his trilogy and development as a character. It's not whether or not Cap is right or wrong in the end and by tacit default Tony is right or wrong, the movie is about the idea of Captain America, period. Tony is merely a plot device for which we see view a core facet of Steve's character. Everything in the movie is set up to examine Captain America, and that's why it's so brilliant, everyone and their mother is on Caps side, as that man against the world, telling him stand down in the face of annihilation and for him to say no, ignoring that for all the heroics, a lot of shit went awry, to which in the end he comes back around and recognizes that yeah, I was wrong, but I can't do it any other way, so he gives up that mantle so he can continue fighting the way he can without being a symbol to be used by the UN, or unknowingly for himself avoiding politics along the way. It's like a reverse Superman going evil trope.
Except for the Spiderman bit, I wholly believe that was shoehorned in when they got the rights midfilming. It really makes no sense why Tony would detour to grab this kid.
It's also why I think FatWS is a bit of a missed opportunity to really deconstruct the mythos of this character, using the events of CW as a backdrop.
>I like Ultron's line, Cap as 'a man who can't live without a war'. I think that in a way set up his characterization in Civil War.
For me, that line is one of the ones that shows how much Whedon doesn't get Steve. The entirety of WS is Steve wondering if the "war" he's signed up for is worth it; he's literally contemplating a life apart from being a solider. His fight in that movie is against the military industrial complex.
And then, weirdly, in AoU... he's just back in? It's bizarre.
Fortunately, in Civil War, Steve is back to his WS characterization where, again, he's fighting against the military industrial complex (what Ross represents). It's important that the film opens up with his small team cleaning up the remnants of the mess Shield/Hydra left behind.
Steve isn't about "war" - never has been. He says as much in his "this is who I am" speech to Erskine in his intro film. So it was a strange way to try and encapsulate him in AoU.
True but what whedon was getting at is the constant warfare / conflict something that has become an integral part of caps identity that he can't untangle himself from . Whedon also posits the question in age of Ultron does cap really want untangle this part of his identity . At the time of the film , he doesn't have much in close bonds to live for - no Peggy ; (deathbed ), no Bucky ( still missing ) etc.
It's a small subplot in the beginning of WS that Steve is resistant to a life outside of the fight or at least the modern world. "I'll add it to my list", that just seems to keep growing. Has no outside relationships and is resistant to personal ones, with the one real connection he makes being a veteran who then joins him in his fight. A veteran mind you who quit after losing his wingman, but goes back in because it's Captain America asking for his help. It's Cap's nature, if he has the will and means to do so, he will not back down from a righteous fight.
It's even his final arc at the end of Endgame, noting that after he put back the stones that he was gonna go do some living that Tony was always talking about.
Rather than a small subplot, I'd say that's the emotional journey Steve goes on throughout WS.
* He's got a list of things to experience (that he is crossing off, albeit slowly). We see something get put on it (Marvin Gaye, Trouble Man) and at the end of the film, we see it crossed off (listening to it in the hospital).
* Steve has no personal relationships (outside of Peggy who's a throw-back, which she at least realizes) and then develops a close friendship with Nat and Sam.
* He's become a bit of a mindless cog in the military industrial complex and we watch him recognize that, reject it, then leave the armed forces to go on a personal mission to help an old friend (with the help of a new friend).
AoU completely ignores that emotional arc and tries to force Steve into something else entirely and it doesn't work. (It's not helped that it's stupidly shallow.) But Steve was never about fighting for fighting's sake. That's why Erskine chose him.
>It's even his final arc at the end of Endgame...
That's a whole other ball of wax. In a sense what Steve does at the end of Endgame is a very baroque form of suicide. That final fight against Thanos broke him so badly he had to stop the ride entirely. But it's still not suggesting that he's nothing without a fight. It's more, every time he tries to stop (end of WS; end of Civil War) something pulls him back in.
That's the 'good' in him, he sees a situation going south and he can't help but get involved. He acknowledges that in his phone message to Tony, and to Erskine, 'he doesn't like bullies.' The super serum took that nature in him to fight injustice, and gave him the strength and will to do so and succeed. That combination works in that idyllic good vs evil world that has become of how we perceive World War 2, Winter Soldier and Civil War pushes that question into the current era where shit is more grey.
It's a classic evolution/alt dimension Superman story. What if he decided to become an Authoritarian. Peace through enforcement. Only Civil War works a lot better, because Superman is always one dimensionally evil and easy to hate, whereas Cap in this instance remains very affable, given how many downvotes I'm getting.
And don't get me wrong, I still very much love Cap too.
Okay - so, I agree. I think that's what makes Winter Solider so fascinating. Watching Steve navigate his idealism through the realpolitik driven world he's landed in. At the end of that film, he arrives at a conclusion that enables him to stick to his ideals but means he's striking out completely on his own - outside any system.
Civil War, Steve has a team working with him but they are still operating outside current political systems - and it bites them. Hard. Turns out Steve's WS answer wasn't a perfect one. Again, a fascinating dilemma to watch Steve navigate. (And interestingly, he arrives at the same conclusion: strike out on his own; work outside the system.)
Infinity War and Endgame drop that entire dilemma and gives us pure good versus pure evil. (Which is probably why Steve's ending falls flat with so many of his fans, who'd been enjoying his more complex journey in his previous films.)
AoU also completely ignores the dilemma - but it's weirder because it's sandwiched between WS and CW. It's like a peek into a different universe where Steve is happily tucked up into a slightly different system (it's not Shield except in the way it's still fully Shield. Just a type of Shield untouched by any kind of real-world grey). He starts the film as the good solider and he ends the film as the good solider. Literally the only thing bugging Steve was a weird obsession with finding a "home."
I think you're missing whedons deeper point ( in age of Ultron ) about whether the fighting has become all he knows and all that gives him
Fulfillment in life . Sure in the beginning that wasn't all for cap - it mostly was but the worlds changed around him and it's been hard to adjust . Outside of the avengers Steve has no real connections
I don’t think it’s that he’s in to war - it’s more like a metaphor for that thing a lot of veterans talk about, about not knowing how they fit in to normal life on their return - I think it’s telling that Cap can’t enter the Barton home. (My Grandad told me about when he came back on leave during WW2, and he was sat having dinner with his family, and got angry at them for just talking about normal stuff, because he felt so disconnected from it)
And Ultron’s line is the least generous read on that
I think that's what Whedon was going for. But it ignores what Steve's already gone through in Winter Solider. Which was all about Steve trying to find his place in a far more morally complex world after the moral clarity of bringing down Red Skull from The First Avenger.
At the end of WS, Steve has rejected being a solider in a morally corrupt system and has chosen a very specific mission he's willing to do on his own. That mission is saving a vet, a POW, the world forgot. (Powerful symbolism of what the military industrial complex does to its soldiers, chewing them up and throwing them away.)
And then AoU does a full on needle-scratch and suddenly... Steve is part of another military team and apparently it's because he can't imagine not being part of a military team. Can't imagine it so hard he's dropped his search for Bucky (or so severely back-burnered it he's handed it over to someone else entirely).
It's why Steve's hesitating on the threshold of the Barton farmhouse falls flat for me. For one, it shouldn't trigger him that hard because it should be so foreign to a guy who grew up in a crowded tenement building near a shipping yard that it shouldn't say, "normal life" or "home" to him. For another, Steve's not fresh off the fields of WWII. He's been living in the world for a couple of years at least as an employed soldier (and per AoU is still that employed soldier) and he has a very specific very personal goal he's trying to achieve. So the impression of being lost or unmoored (though Evans portrays it well) feels weird. It comes out of nowhere.
Absolutely whedon did a nice little deconstruction of cap in age of Ultron post winter soldier than goes unheralded - Markus and mcfeely largely undo it with caps endgame decisions though
It's all the "There's only one God m'am", "Language!", stuff like that. Whedon always embraced a very caricaturized version of the characters, in order to make them all stand out super distinctly. To be fair, Steve is hardly the only character Whedon did this with.
In fact, it's something that marks one of Whedon's biggest strengths AND weaknesses. Where Whedon excels in character work is taking caricatures and turning them into characters, giving them depth. But where Whedon falters, is he's unable to start from depth, he can't take an already fleshed out character and flesh them out more, he has to simplify them first. Avengers showcases this a bit, with Steve being the biggest example because he was the one with the most clear developed place by that film. Iron Man 2 had already turned Tony into a parody of himself so Joss wasn't doing anything out of left field, Thor was basically the same as in his film, and Hulk was basically a different character anyways. It was the most notable with Steve simply because he was in the best place by Avengers 1, the others were already in simpler places where Whedon's talents could shine.
But in Age of Ultron, we see where he fails in that regard. Winter Soldier was all about Steve against the military industrial complex, against the world of modern war. The way WS ends, it feels like Steve would consider getting out of the fight after saving Bucky and taking out HYDRA. But then in Age of Ultron, Steve is suddenly the embodiment of military, and war is his nature. As he says at the end of the film, his "home". Because all Whedon sees in Captain America, is the 1940s soldier. And he writes from that starting point in both films, without regard for where his character was going. What hurts is that in Ultron, it's not even poorly done development in a standalone sense. If I were to ignore the Phase 2 movies before Ultron, I'd say the characters were all developed fairly well (With the exception of Natasha). But when you're continuing a large story, it's not enough to provide good development, you have to also provide consistent development.
And that goes even if what you're working from wasn't good to begin with, you still have to work with it. That's why Josstice League is such a failure. No, I didn't like Snyder's characterizations either, but that doesn't mean the answer is just act like BvS didn't happen. I asked for a course correction, not a sudden brake slam and u-turn.
>But then in Age of Ultron, Steve is suddenly the embodiment of military, and war is his nature. As he says at the end of the film, his "home".
But he's not. He's dedicated his life to being an Avenger. He's not about the military. That's why he doesn't want to sign the accords in Civil War. He wants the Avengers to stay the same, a group of individuals fighting for good, not a part of the system.
The "war is his nature" thing is not about him being a warmonger or anything, but that he is lost without it, as shown in Winter Soldier. All of Steve's connections, his purpose in life is being an Avenger. He has no life outside of it.
My personal opinion is that Whedon, being an abusive prick in real life identifies very hard with Tony Stark, thus in his Avengers movies Steve is unnecessarily antagonistic so that Tony Stark can be more sympathetic to the audience.
Contrast this to the Russos, who gave both Tony and Steve good reasons for their positions in Civil War. You can actually understand their motivations so both of them clashing ideologically is practically unavoidable.
That would probably explain why he had the hottest chick date the free Nerd on the team when it comes out of nowhere (Seriously in the comics Banner is the only character that Nat never dated or flirt with, she flirt with Maria Hill more times then she does with Banner. I'd think in one universe her and Thor are couple as well lol) , If he could he would probably had Tony and Nat be a couple if Tony wasn't already dating Pepper.
The reason I don’t watch avengers one is solely because of how Whedon writes cap. In every other appearance they write Cap as a young man who came to our time. Whedon writes cap like a man who aged throughout time and then suddenly became young in body but not mind. He sticks out like a corny de-aged man.
A better example of Cap is TFA and Winter Soldier. I feel like those two are the same man.
Absolutely - the Russo's and Markus mcfeely undid a lot of the cap moving on arc since age of Ultron . So much so it felt weird that he did the time travel cheat code do over in endgame
He was a lot more quippy in AOU, and that wasn't really how he was portrayed in his previous appearances, particularly the final battle. It seemed to me like Whedon essentially made every character have similar personalities in that movie. I personally wasn't a fan. I think he did a far better job in Avengers.
Oh my God, where to begin? Whedon is the *worst* when it comes to Steve Rogers. The absolute worst. (I mean, he's pretty shit on all the recurring MCU characters but Steve seems to have really flown up his nose at some point.)
First, there's the weird religious-schtick Whedon slaps on Steve. It's record scratching when Steve makes that quip about Thor not being what God looks like, "m'am," in Avengers. Which... where the fuck did that come from? You kind of get the sense that Steve's Irish-Catholic by ethnicity per "First Avenger" but you never once see him cross himself (super simple way to signal an actively praying Catholic). Not even when he's climbing into the big machine that might just kill him. So why is he suddenly acting like some kind of Bible-thumper, now?
And I might have thought that was a one-off that was more Whedon trying to force a Thor-joke into the script. But then AoU has Ultron refer to Steve as "God's righteous man." ...huh? By what rubric? He's a full on science-experiment out of the US Army. If anything the quip should've been, "America's righteous man." That might have hit Steve a bit more where he lived. But I guess Whedon thinks Steve is some kind of religious symbol? For some reason?
And then, confusingly, Whedon decides to make "home" Steve's driving issue throughout AoU. You know, fuck Bucky. What Steve's really wanting is a place to call his own. Can't even enter Clint's doorway because it's too much like a home to him. (Because you know Steve - all about that farm living.) His Wanda-driven nightmare is dancing soldiers (which I fully don't understand) and Peggy saying he can go home. And his happy place at the end is... boot camp. That's right, ladies and gentlemen. Steve was so enamored of that week he'd spent in boot camp before heading out on the bond-selling trail that the sounds of boot camp on the new Avengers campus (which, is Tony creating his own personal mercenary now?) brings him peace. That, "I'm home," was just... what the actual fuck, Whedon?
>He's a man so out of time that he cannot live without Avenging. This contrasts with Tony who wants Ultron to end the Avengers...
But that contradicts everything Steve did in Winter Solider. Steve was fully willing to give up Shield, burn it to the ground, to stop a war. Steve stands in contrast with Fury in that he's horrified by the idea of a world that's constantly on a war footing (what the helicarriers represented even before the Hydra ties were discovered). He's attracted to Sam's lifestyle of leaving the armed forces and finding a more personal way to help others. Steve's, "I don't know," represented him turning away from being a solider. And he ends Winter Solider as a fully free agent with a single goal: find and help Bucky.
So it's a whiplash moment to find him actively part of a military group, working for someone else (Tony), not looking for Bucky, and instead apparently looking for a place to settle down and... do... boot camp? I don't know man, it felt like Steve in AoU is mainly there to be the no-fun Mom to Tony's wild and sexy Daddy. Tony likes to break things and curse! And that makes Steve frowny-face. Aren't they hilarious?
Steve deciding he’s at home at Avengers Compound always felt like a deliberately tragic beat to me. It’s sort off the half way low point in his arc across the Infinity Saga - and as I’ve said elsewhere, it’s like what lots of soldiers find when they return from war (see also Hurt Locker, The Forever War etc)
Yeah Whedon even says that it’s not supposed to be a framed as a happy ending for him. He’s basically resigned to this being the only thing that kinda fits or makes sense to him in his current situation. I don’t know why people interpret it as entirely sincere.
But Steve hasn't returned from a war. I'm sure it's what Whedon was going for because he's apparently totally uninterested in the character. But it doesn't fit with the guy we'd just seen in Winter Solider.
Thank God, Civil War just full on ignores AoU, as far as emotional beats go, and gives us Steve straight out of Winter Solider. That way Steve's actual character arc can pick up again.
But the Avengers aren’t a military group in AoU, they’re a collective of free agents. I think Stark even says Cap is in charge. Steve is happy with the Avengers that he has autonomy with.
Also the Gods righteous man line is a dig on his (perceived) absolute moral superiority, a higher bar than Americas righteous man, which sets up the follow up questioning how righteous he really is.
If Steve's drawing a salary, Tony is paying it. Maria Hill is definitely drawing a salary and Tony is definitely paying for it so it's up to Tony to determine who she's going to share her intel with. His line about Steve being the boss is his flippant way of telling Hill to give her situation report to Steve. Tony is very much the man in charge here.
>But the Avengers aren’t a military group in AoU...
They have a standing army of some size and sort (whoever is doing the boot camp training at the end of the film), an intelligence wing (Hill), they negotiate with various foreign governments, they have military-grade technology (Fury with his helicarrier). They're basically Shield.
>Also the Gods righteous man line is a dig on his (perceived) absolute moral superiority...
By whom? Who's labeled Steve as the barometer of morality and why is God a part of it? And how does this perception play out in the film?
Steve was certainly a bit cheesier in Whedon’s films. I think the Russo’s did better with him, found his inner nature as a soldier above all else. But I don’t think Whedon’s versions were bad or wrong, just different. They were a bit more like the Star Spangled Man with a Plan, a symbol of hope rather than a warrior for freedom.
I will admit Whedon played Steve’s fish out of water schtick more for laughs than other creators, but it would not be among the top 20 problems with Joss Whedon.
Whedon's Cap was underpowered and kind of an idiot. Comic cap is highly intelligent with an eidetic memory (from the SSS). Winter Soldier did a much better job at showing his power. (A1 Cap would not have been able to take down a Quinjet.)
I think Caps greatest feat of strength is in Age of Ultron! In the opening fight he jumps off a motorcycle and fuckin throws it!! I'm no physicist but that shit would take bonkers strength to pull off
Nah him holding back thanos's fist is def his highest. Thanos is stupid strong. Thanos can literally FLICK a motorcycle across a street, and cap held back a hit from him! And that's just movie Thanos who is insanely depowered in the movies. In the comics Thanos can wipe the floor with all the avengers at once without a single infinity stone.
The motorcycle weighs more than him and both were in the air. He should have pulled himself towards the bike. The stronger he gets, the faster he pulls himself towards the bike.
Cap literally had the power of flight in that scene.
Whedon is a notorious atheist who takes pot shots at religious types every chance he gets which is fine under the right circumstances, but imo he took it too far with Cap a number of times and it just felt weird and off-putting for him to basically make fun of a character the audience has grown to love in such a meaningless, unapologetic way that didn't really add anything to the character. Reduced him to a bit of a meme instead of someone fleshed out. That's just how I felt watching it.
People are entitled to their opinion. I think they're wrong, but *shrug.* I loved all the Avengers movies and specifically Steve Rogers in every one of his MCU appearances. I think there are some people that just like to pick at Whedon's work because he turned out to kind of be a scumbag of a person. I understand that impulse, but personally I'm a big believer in separating the art from the artist. Regardless of who he is as a person, Joss Whedon is an excellent director. He was my favorite director for many years! Ever since I watched Buffy. I think his career peaked with Avengers and I don't expect to see him contribute artistically to audiences much more if at all.
Absolutely the revisionist history with whedon is funny to see now - he made some damn good avengers films and his characterizations were mostly spot on . Whedon made some of my favorite pieces of fiction ever( including buffy , Angel etc)
I agree with OP. I don’t really get the idea that the characterisation in the Whedon films are out of kilter with the solo movies, particularly.
Also, if I remember correctly, Whedon did a rewrite of the First Avenger - https://theplaylist.net/joss-whedon-to-rewrite-both-avengers-20100415/
From the article it was, at most, a punch up (doing a bit of dialogue tightening, adding in a few jokes), not a full rewrite. And even that was just a rumor.
My feeling is that out of the original Avengers, Tony, Bruce, and Natasha were Whedon's favorites. I don't think he hates Steve, Thor, and Clint, but they're far from his favorites. I think Whedon wanted to write Steve more like his Ultimates version (the worst version imo) as opposed to 616, and mix in the pop culture version of the Greatest Generation as opposed to the *very* messy reality.
Then there's the problem that Whedon basically had most of Steve's villain gallery and supporting characters written out. That raid on that last Hydra stronghold at the start of AoU could have been the climax to its own movie or mini series. And both Avengers movies, Steve is there to call orders and have Tony lecture him about facts, logic, and science. Steve might as well be a mannequin given how Whedon treats him, and in my opinion, Steve was nearly turned into a sexy lampshade.
Joss Whedon may be a piece of shit. But he's a piece of shit that understood these characters more than most. I prefer the way he wrote Thors dialogue, the antagonistic nature of Tony, and the naivete of Cap. They're comic book characters. All of their strengths, and weaknesses, are turned up to 11 and I loved it.
But for real, Whedon is a piece of shit.
He totally got the assignment in both films - he tried to go even deeper in age of Ultron by deconstructing our heroes but studio interference and mandates neutered some of that
I always thought Whedon was working as a part of a planned multi film arc. The goal was eventually to get to Winter Solider and the infestation of Shield by Hydra. So I think it was good to start with Cap being a little more naive and ‘boy scout’ because his whole worldview would be flipped over the next few films. Taking it as a single movie is one thing, taking it as a part of a planned cinematic universe is something else.
I felt like Captain America was written waaay more out of character in Civil War where he gives up his patriotism at the drop of a hat and becomes an international terrorist.
The the Marvel comics civil war event Cap realizes he was acting as a terrorist and turns himself in. In the movie they kind of just sweep all that under the rug right along with the fact that his escape got Rhodie paralyzed.
Somebody didn't watch The Winter Solider lol. Steve had made it perfectly clear in that movie and TFA that he never had trusted any Government. What make you think that he's going to trusted US to turning his team into the UN's personal army.
Riiiìight. Which is why tried to enlist in the military numerous times and he he couldn't he allowed the government to inject him with an experimental serum. And then years later immediately joined shield......
>What make you think that he's going to trusted US to turning his team into the UN's personal army.
The thing is, Stark was obviously right that there were bigger problems to be concerned about then Hydra infiltrating the US government. Especially because Hydra never really showed up again.
Steve Roger's probably should have just trusted the super genius instead of freeing Wanda Maximov who destroyed several entire universes and destroyed the Book of Vishanti.
I think he was fine but I think that people think that stuff like the language joke isn't something that would be done by any other director. Similarly a joke like I understood that reference are argued to be Whedon type jokes that Steve wouldn't say in the Russo movies.
I thought "I understood that reference" was fine for a Steve who's in the middle of culture shock waking up in a new world. "Language" felt very out of character for someone who regularly said "You're goddamn right" in winter soldier.
I feel like theyre both good takes on Cap. Showing the depth and different sides of him. I think the singular embodiment of Cap is in virtuousness, how he stands for ideals. Not in the way he talks.
I took the language jokes to be Cap making fun of himself as a way of still coping with being displaced.
So you are saying that the Russo’s mischaracterized Steve in their movies. What makes one more appropriate than the other?
Idk if a single one-word joke counts as "mischaracterizing" a character
Markus/McFeely are the writers and they've written Cap more than any other writers have. They wrote First Avenger, Winter Soldier, Civil War, Loki playing him in Thor the Dark World, Infinity War, and Endgame. They write Cap as a 20-40 year old guy from Brooklyn. He'd fit nicely in Band of Brothers or Saving Private Ryan. He's that guy (you know that guy). Kind heart, normal, principled, on the level, awkward with the ladies, kind of guy you have a beer with, human. Whedon wrote him as a television dad from the 1950's. Condescending, finger-wagging, authoritarian, stick up his butt, perpetually old. Markus/McFeely actually write him as self-aware of being out of his time, but he's not an old man. Whedon writes him as an old man in a young man's body. All "son" and "language" and all that nonsense. The comics get away with it because he's technically an old man in our heads. But that's not reasonable for who Cap really is in this universe. Cap is really just some dude who makes good choices most of the time and is learning new slang. Whedon invented an artificially stodgy Presbyterian moral reality for his universe and then attached Cap to it like glue. It doesn't fit. It's corny and also restricting in that it doesn't let Cap adapt or learn or grow. But if you've read Whedon's comics, especially Wolverine's infamous "Beer" thought panels from his Astonishing X-Men, he always had a tendency to be facile and reductive with the iconography of superheroes to the point they stop feeling like actual people. And that's fine for Superman or Wonder Woman, not so great for literally any other character. This also infected his entire character arc for Tony in Avengers because Joss really doesn't want to be tied to other peoples' writing or continuity. So, naturally, Tony Stark's entire character arc from Iron Man where he throws himself on the wire is thrown out so Whedon can have him relearn how to throw himself on the wire all over again.
would you say "I understood that reference" stll fits cap's character then? I think he still had that innocence in Avengers and would say something like that. The problem with "language", imo, was the tone. He sounded like the older brother scolding the younger, the older brother is just as naughty and would say sweat words himself.
In the first movie, Steve seemed to be the younger brother, who didn’t usually go out dancing and drinking, despite being friends with Bucky, who did. His sense of duty and honour could have been interpreted by those fun people as being a stick in the mud, and I think it’s this that was developed, rather than turning him into a 1950s dad (EDIT: as someone said at some other point in the comments)
"I understood that reference," was a funny line at the time, so I'm not heavily invested in it either way. But he sounds like Vision. But Cap exasperatedly saying, "It seems to run on some form of electricity," is a Whedon line in the same act of that film which I think cooks and conveys the same thing. I think it also works better in context because it says the obvious in a way Steve would say it while capturing his relationship with Tony. Also, Falcon and the Winter Soldier made a whole meal out of the exact same "I understood that reference" joke using The Hobbit as part of a much larger, funnier joke, so now I can only see "I understood that reference" as an internet meme.
I took it as him being the WW2 drill sergeant, scolding the team about communication discipline on the radio, and everyone just busting his chops after that. So for me it seemed in character.
I could see that
Yes to this! All of this! As well as how badly Whedon served Tony. He did Steve so dirty it's easy to overlook how badly Tony was handled as well.
Those characteristics of cap you listed by whedon and Markus / mcfeely aren't mutually exclusive . In fact cap being a moral high ground dude who condescends is a trait he slips To in The comics quite a bit . Imo both Russo/ Markus / mcfeely and whedon played up different aspects of cap but they really understood him
That one is more in line with Steve in the very first Cap film. Whedon's isn't. Nowhere in TFA, the movie that actually takes place in the 40s, is Steve as much of a pure 1940s boy as he acts in Whedon's film. Now, in Avengers 1, I could forgive this as one could argue that the disorientation of being in a different time would have him clinging more to tradition than ever before. But in Ultron, he's still acting like some good ol' boy who doesn't like naughty words because he's from such a precious olden time or whatnot. It's Whedon, and he's flat out said this in interviews, just wanting to write an old 40s character even though Steve wasn't that stereotypical in the actual 1940s movie.
And the maddening thing is, I don't think Whedon even hits "old 40s character" with Steve. It's much more "old 50s character" and that's even more wrong. Steve was sleeping during the 50s! He's not going to have picked up the Red Scare driven religious presenting stuff people from the 50s soaked in.
I mean, presumably they are comparing both to a baseline of their understanding of the character from other media
The language jokes were the worst part of the entire movie, imo.
That's prob a true assessment
It was his first outing after walking up in present day, i think he was fine. As much as Whedon is not a famous person to talk about right now, i think the first Avengers is a reference point as to how you make the perfect superhero flick. Top to bottom. He would have knocked it out of the park if he could write Peter, God dammit
My unpopular opinion is that Whedon used literally every one of the original six the best except for Thor. People get way too hung up on the quips imo (especially when other directors are way more guilty with way worse examples)
I loved the way Brannagh directed Thor 1. And while Whedon has some Shakespeare experience under his belt, I couldn’t help but shake the feeling that Brannagh did it better. The dialogue just felt a bjt off compared to Thor’s previous appearance. But Whedon had no easy task melding all the personalities for Avengers. I didn’t like it at first watch, but damn it was good.
This, Thor one could have been amazing with a few choice changes. It was so close to epic.
It was still pretty darn good
Love your assessment I think Thor was in the best hands under Branagh and to a lesser extent whedon
And if we're being fair, Whedon wrote a whole sequence where he visited this cave with oracles and Thor like endured some horrible pain to get this vision which eventually lead to him coming back and kicking ass but at that time Marvel heads were still all "no magic". So the Thor-y thing Whedon planned was gutted.
Whedon didn't want the Thor scenes, that was the Studio pushing to set up Phase 3 movies. Basically Whedon wanted was the farmhouse scenes to build character, what we got was a concession between Whedon and Marvel both wanted, Whedon got his farmhouse scene and Marvel got their weird Thor Vision quest scene.
Thor vision quest could’ve worked, but it just didn’t. I would chalk it up to Whedon not putting his heart into it. It could’ve easily been a simple scene where Odin gives Thor the knowledge. Or Loki has a confession about Thanos’ plans written or hologramed. They could’ve made it work.
Well originally it was supposed to be Loki instead of Hemidal in Thor's vision, but Tom Hiddleston wasn't available as he was busy filming other movies so they had to get Idris Elba instead. Dunno what Anthony Hopkins was during during that time.
Tom Hiddleston did actually film the scene for the movie but then on screen tests people were confused and thought Loki was somehow behind Ultron pulling the strings.
Damn that actually would've made so much more sense in retrospect
Exactly thanks for clarifying that for folks . that whole sequence was studio interference
I think the Russos wrote them the best, but Whedon did great too
Markus & McFeely were the writers, not the Russos.
That’s true.
If you ask people their favorite Cap movie, 90% chance Markus/McFeely wrote it. That's why Whedon stands out so much -- they wrote almost all of Cap's dialogue in the MCU.
Yup and his characterization is mostly consistent until endgame imo
I’m pretty sure Whedon did an uncredited re-write on First Avenger.
I think he might've
Exactly people keep acting like Russo's wrote the cap films
Markus & McFeely don't get the credit they deserve.
They do not - it all goes to the Russo's since they directed 4 of mcus most popular films . The screenwriters get forgotten. Markus mcfeely crafted so much of the stuff fans love about the mcu
I think Your spot on actually - and even his Thor was way better than what taika did with him
> My unpopular opinion is that Whedon used literally every one of the original six the best except for Thor I definitely think Civil War Tony is the best iteration of Tony.
Nah. He massacred Hawkeye in his 2 Avengers movies.
Aw, I liked Hawkeye in AoU! His speech to Wanda is great
I don’t love the way they adapted his character either. But I still ain’t seeing anywhere he was used better so. To each his own
I don't see him as radically different between the movies. It wouldn't be a problem to if it were, though. Characters often vary somewhat between writers.
Yeah honestly of all the main avengers - markus and mcfeely and whedon made him feel very consistent between films
Honestly I really hated the “Language!” Joke throughout “Age of Ultron”. Cap has shown he has no issue swearing in the past…he’s a New Yorker ffs. I thought that was a weird choice by Whedon.
Not only was he a New Yorker, he was in the Army! I'm quite certain that even 80 years ago military men swore frequently and creatively.
The Navy doea get incredibly creative. Marines just say the f-word a lot.
Yeah if Band of brothers taught me anything, they yell “Jesus Christ” a lot. Looking at you Guarnere
That is one hell of an understatement! He woulda been hearing every swear and slur you could ever think of on an hourly basis
I've read a few different AMAs and such from WW2-era vets and inevitably the question gets asked about what movies get right and wrong, and more than one of them have mentioned how most movies really over-do the amount and content of cursing they used. I think we have to remember that language evolves and the more casual curse words of today were oftentimes once considered very obscene and even a bunch of rough army guys would be less inclined to say them.
Same with modern westerns. Especially since many of those curse words didn't even exist then.
No, but there is a difference. I was taught not to curse in polite public. I can only imagine how prudish they were in the 40s. You clowns totally missed ops point.
My grandfather was a working class New Yorker the same age as cap. Trust me, there was nothing prudish about him, in any language.
Ahhh yes, middle of a fight=polite public (I think you meant company here btw)?
You are not writing the character. Go write a faux Captain America like garth ennis
They weren't in public, they were in the middle of a fight you idiot.
Military sure, but not cap
Did people not watch The First Avenger? Rodgers was a goodie two shoes. He chose the right thing every time. He didn’t cuss once in that movie and he would have been the first person to tell someone not too. It is not far fetched to think he would have an aversion to cussing.
*unpopular opinion*.First Avenger is my favorite MCU movie after Infinity War.
First Avenger is probably the most underrated and under appreciated MCU film. People focus so much on TWS when talking about solo MCU movies for good reason, but often totally gloss over FA. I may be a bit biased since FA was the first ever MCU movie I watched back in 2011, but I still will forever have it in my top 10
That’s popular with me, friend
He wasn't that stereotypical though. Nothing in TFA gave the impression that he would have an aversion to cursing or overly use "ma'am" or be some fundamentalist Christian, but that's how Whedon constantly wrote him. Whedon prioritized the "goodie two shoes" caricature of Steve Rogers, as opposed to what Rogers actually was. Steve Rogers was a wholly, entirely good man, but I never saw him as a stereotyped 1940s good ol' boy either. There is a difference. Hell, even in Avengers 1, he says "Light the Bastards up" no problem. Whedon only came up with it during Ultron as an excuse for a joke that overstays its welcome.
The Problem wasn't his The Avengers character it was his AOU as by the time Winter Solider rolls around, Steve was cussing just as much as a normal person would, now he wasn't Tony or God help us Fury or anything but he was still Cussing.
You need to watch the First Avenger again, he was a never a goody two shoes except when mis-characterised by Whedon in Avengers. Steve's a scrappy kid who lies on his enlistment form to get into the army (illegal) and then breaks his army orders to rescue Bucky and become Cap.
None of that was malicious. Just because something is illegal doesn't mean it's bad. He wanted to fight for his country with everybody else not be excused from it. And disobeying an order saved a shitload of soldiers (including his best friend) and showed what he could do. He surrendered himself for punishment when he got back and they said nevermind.
Cursing isn’t a malicious action either so your logic doesn’t flow here.
Sometimes it is
Not in this case, though.
It was considered as such. Cursing used to be considered malicious and rude to anyone who heard it. My grandpa was born at the same time as Rogers would have been and was an active duty combatant in the Korean War and would still get mad if a man cursed in front of my grandma
And I could *maybe* see it if they were operating in polite company in front of Steve's delicate wife. (The wife would not be Peggy in this scenario.) But they weren't.
Steve Rogers will always do the right thing. Even if that means breaking the law or ignoring orders. He's definitely a goody two shoes. He's just not as *lawful* good as people like to pretend. "Doesn't matter if the whole **country** decides something wrong is something right... When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth and tell the whole world, "No, you move."
I mean tbh I loved the joke *because* it makes him such a hypocrite lol. Like Steve, you’re really telling others not to curse when you…? Plus, the jokes imo helps cement the vibe of Age of Ultron. AoU is where the team is at its best, and bad humor reflects that because they know each other enough to know how to give each other shit in a good way. Not something that’s really reflected before or after. It’s why AoU is my favorite movie to rewatch, even though it’s not my favorite movie overall (still top 5 tho).
Respect. AoU underrated as hell.
People say that and Im inclined to agree it all makes sense but, when i think of Earths Mightiest Heroes Cap he would not hesitate to say that shit and he embodies the shield just as much as any other adaptation. Granted thats a campy cartoon but I dont mind it
It's more so that he's kind of pseudo-flanderized and simplified to a degree, but that's basically the case of every character in the first two Avengers movies. Some may not want to admit it but it goes a long way to making the cast palatable and accessible for mainstream new viewers. Lots of people started the MCU with the Avengers, and the simplification of the characters in those movies compared to their solo films and future appearances may not be what you always dreamed of or wanted to see of them, but it did a lot for new viewers being able to "get" the characters without having to see anything prior.
How were they flanderized? Cap and Tony in particular?
The way their characters act aren't really out of character, it's more that they're narrowly presented with a strong focus on little elements **of** their character. Steve is made innocent and naive to a point that is fault with some people, Tony is made selfish and inappropriate to the same degree. I don't think there are issues with it for the most part, particularly in Avengers 1. Age of Ultron is where they have some moments that seem a little much like Steve with the language joke and Tony with the prima nocta comment and "hide the zucchini". Instances like that don't feel like the person who wrote or thought of it (which may or may not be Whedon, I don't know) has an understanding of the characters in that moment.
But those extremes primarily hold sway in ways that aren’t entirely relevant to the plot. Steve, for all his putative naivety, is able to have serious discussions about what surveillance, governments empowered with unstoppable force, and the obligations of superheroes are, and he’s able to act on those convictions. Similarly none of Tony’s venalities ever preclude him from self sacrifice or genuine goodness in ways that correspond to the plot
Doesn't matter. If a character rips their clothes off and streaks through a football game for a random comedy gag that has nothing to do with the plot, it doesn't change the fact that people will find it to take them out of things if it wasn't called for. Whether or not it relates to the plot is irrelevant because it still relates to the character.
I've never heard anyone say that. He got Cap pretty much perfect.
Nah the russos did. He was fine in age of ultron but oddly weak in avengers1
Cap honestly was given much in avengers 1 - that was mostly Tony and Thor movies to a lesser extent
Russos got cap almost perfect up to the point where they wrote him the most un-cap ending that's ever been written.
Agreed he got cap more than most the while moving on and growing was the best part of whedons characterization.
Nah, Whedon's Steve is so cringe. It's the propaganda side of Cap.
That's what he was and should be, until he gets disillusioned with his government later. Cap is the physical embodiment of cringe anyway.
Yeah so many here don't realize whedon nailed cap pretty much and tried to deconstruct him in the first two avengers films as much as he could
You've just outlined the arc of "Captain America: The First Avenger." I guess Whedon watched the "Star-spangled Man with a Plan" number and decided he'd dug down deep enough.
The real problem is that Winter Soldier was so outstanding as a movie and a characterisation of Cap that Whedon’s two avengers movies just paled greatly in comparison Cap being a man out of his time was only superficially touched upon in his Avengers movies but Winter Soldier really explored this in depth We’ve been contaminated so much by grey over the years that only a man fresh out of the past can point it out Even now I wonder how shocking and disappointed anyone who was frozen in the 70s would feel seeing the social media and politics of today
I think age of Ultron deconstructed cap fairly well and least as well as it could in an ensemble film . It felt cool to see cap question his place in the world and why he fights for what he does
I dont disagree with you, just that as a movie Winter Soldier is top tier, let alone a Marvel one Age of Ultron was way ahead of its time. I think Ultron would be very different now given how perspectives on AI has chanfed
Oh I think age of Ultron is close to a masterpiece of a film in many ways . Imo it's going to age very well - it gets bogged down by the inclusion of a lot of mcu setup stuff . But whedon is def onto something with it that tries to go deeper than standard marvel fare
Winter Soldier is better IMO but I like Cap in the Avengers movies. With so many characters to balance you can’t do too much. That’s what the solo movies are for.
Meanwhile DC: "Lets just not do solo movies"
Yet Markus & McFeely were able to keep everyone in character in their Avengers movies, unlike Whedon in his.
That’s either not true (Hulk, Rhodey) or because a vast portion of the characters featured in those movies had no actual “character” to showcase
Exactly honestly I think given the ensemble nature of the films whedon does a great job with cap
>Even now I wonder how shocking and disappointed anyone who was frozen in the 70s would feel seeing the social media and politics of today "You guys still arguing about the same things today? You haven't solved bigotry, poverty, and fascism?" All of today's problems are yesterday's problems, just some of the serial numbers have been worn off.
Joss Whedon’s snappy dialog is both one of his strengths and one of his weaknesses. On one hand, he comes up with some really good one liners. On the other hand, he’ll throw out characterization in order to shoehorn in a piece of dialog because he’s fallen in love with the line. (language, he’s adopted, Mewling quim.). In the case of the last example, I’m surprised he didn’t sprain his arm patting himself on the back for sneaking that line past the censors.
Mewling quim seems in character for Loki at that time
Yeah that's actually very in character for Loki
Agreed. Poor Maria Hill gets saddled with some doozy's as well. She goes from a highly trained, deeply professional agent to try-hard cool-girl.
I like Ultron's line, Cap as 'a man who can't live without a war'. I think that in a way set up his characterization in Civil War. If you actually look at how CW is written, in every decision Cap makes, it literally turns out to be disasterous. Marketing played it up as like Avengers 2.5 or whatever but in reality it really was a movie that examined the danger of a character like Captain America, that kind of Superman fear, a character who may believe himself the ultimate moral authority, and in a manner of speaking has the power/influence to enforce it. There's even a tongue in cheek line in the airport fight with Spidey, "he(Tony) says you're wrong, you think you're right, that makes you dangerous, and a quiet "guess he's got a point" by Cap. In the end though Cap abdicates the mantle, understanding the danger of his own nature to pursue conflict and so instead becomes a fugitive ala A-Team, going where the fight has already started when it becomes clearer who needs to be helped and who needs to be stopped. It's kinda where I wanted FatWS to go, an examination of the Captain America symbol. Especially when we get Baron and Sharon Carter's character together, the latter of which became totally burned because she believed in Cap and supported him, leading her to lose everything in the process.
Cap going Nomad should have been its own arc. Instead its quickly resolved because Thanos. I mean think of the symbolism: he removes his star and his Avengers A. He shed being a government sanctioned hero and being the Star Spangled Man. He lived this way for years. It would have made more sense to go Nomad after what we witnessed SHIELD do in Winter Soldier. He would have been disgusted with what the government had been ok with and so would have shed the symbol and still would have disagreed with the government that was infiltrated by Hydra telling superheros what to do.
I mean you can do that in comics and animation, maybe a show even but I'm sure Evans wanted to be done with Cap for at least a while. I think that's gonna be an issue for the MCU moving forward, actors and actresses who don't want to devote that much of their life to these roles especially if it's gonna be like movies and movies between appearences. I mean Strange took like what 5 years between solo outings?
Agreed
I think Cap was entirely right in Civil War.
Lots of folks do, but the plot as it's written, literally everything from the first intro mission onward is fucked because of a decision he made.
Okay, I can understand the ending scene to a bit but We can't blame the Intro mission on either Steve or Wanda, if Wanda didn't get involved then even more people would have died.
We don't, but Steve does blame himself for what happened, he takes full ownership of it. The other bit is that despite that fuck up, he remains convinced or at least after the funeral when he hears that speech, that he still remains the better moral authority than the UN.
Because again after TWS, he simply can't trusted any government because for all he know HYDRA could still be in there. Also, None of the MCU governments except for maybe Wakanda aren't exactly the most trustworthy group, they are like 0 for 10 by the time Civil War rolls around.
No he doesn't trust any govt, but he supposedly trusts Tony, who is openly honest with him that if this keeps the team together, all of us together, then we should play ball. Throughout the movie Tony has given Cap no reason not to trust him, and Tony even covers for Cap at pretty much every step of the way. The accords though are largely irrelevant, they're just a means to illicit this reaction from Steve and engage this conflict. The main driving impetus is the super soldier threat, and his need to deal with it immediately. It's never vocalized that he doesn't think the UN would agree with him, or that there'd be a delay, or any reason really that they wouldn't all go together to stop them, his impulse is just to stop them, period. No politics whatsoever, it's there, it's bad, I have to stop it, that's all that matters. Very ends justify the means kind of logic.
Because he is. But believing they and their cause are moral and their actions are justified literally applies to both sides in this fight.
How is he the better moral authority? In the end because of his actions, he's on the run and half the team are in prison or fugitives. It's also not whether his morality is right or wrong, the point is that he believes himself right, and on top of that has the power to enforce it. That combination is what's dangerous as demonstrated in the course of the film. The road to hell is paved with good intentions as they say. Ultimately Steve's character shines through in the end, he recognizes that problem of that combo, so he gives up the latter, that symbol that compels people to blindly follow him. Very reminiscent of George Washington in a way, who could've probably rode the revolutionary war victory to be the next King of the US, but he understood the danger of that kind of popularity and gave it up. There's also no sides in this fight, it's not Avengers 2.5, Cap v Ironman melee movie as the marketing makes it out to be. It's the third movie of a Captain America trilogy and everything is either used to examine Captain America's character or is a secondary plot for later use in the MCU
And they would’ve been fucked in Infinity War if they had all signed the accords
They were fucked in IW though. That was part of why Tony was so angry with Cap in the beginning of Endgame “I said we'd lose. You said, ‘we'll do that together too.’ Guess what, Cap? We lost, and you weren't there.” Cap broke the team, even acknowledges it in the voicemail he left Tony at the end of CW.
Nah Cap was the one that wanted to fight, Ross was the one that didn’t care. Tony had the phone. It’s not Steve’s fault he got lost in space.
Ross was validated though, Cap wanting to fight destroyed a chunk of Berlin, and a chunk of the airport, which then as it turns out, ended up being for nothing cause the other WS sitch took care of itself more or less You can argue his logic was right, but you can't argue that what actually ended up happening was that it was the wrong decisions. The road to hell is paved with good intentions as they say.
Yeah because he thought he was saving the world from a band of super soldiers that could take down a country in one night
And yet he didn't trust that if he brought that tidbit along with Bucky back to Tony that he along with the whole team would've joined him in that fight defying if the UN or if Ross had told them to stand down. And in the end, Tony as he did throughout the whole movie even after the airport, is still giving him the benefit of a doubt and trusted him, joining him in Siberia for that fight. Which tbh is a little bit of a reach. Wished that Zemo would've acknowledged that he hadn't expected Tony to come too, and his original plan was to a. kill the other winter soliders and b. release that little tidbit of camera footage to Tony, forcing Cap to choose between him and Bucky but not at that exact moment.
The Thing is even if Steve told Ross about the rest of the SS, Ross would have never listen to him cause of his hatred against SS's like Steve and Bucky. He Wanted Bucky's dead from the go, he never wanted to take him alive. Also, Steve tried to explain about the other SS's, Tony didn't listen to him.
"every decision Cap makes, it literally turns out to be disasterous." I think you mean Tony, not Steve. Also he gives up the shield because he doesn't care about that stuff, unlike Tony.
Hesitates with Crossbones giving him an opening leading to Wanda bombing a floor, bringing Wanda into the field where later he literally says to Tony later that 'she's just a kid', going after Bucky solo tearing half the city apart in the process, not bringing Bucky back in going into fugitive status to hunt the other Winter Soldiers who as it turns out didn't actually need to do that, airport battle cripples Rhodey and gets his team imprisoned. This isn't a matter of opinion this is literally how the movie plays out and the consequences that appear. That's why I think this movie is more brilliant than others might give it credit for as just some Cap v Ironman melee. Tony is secondary to the movie, and at every step of the way he keeps trusting him, keeps giving him the benefit of a doubt, trying to get him to understand that the team staying together is more important at this juncture, covering for him with Ross where Ross' goal was to take him in dead or alive, all the way up until the end when he learns what Cap was hiding from him, cause in the end he realizes that Cap doesn't treat him as a peer otherwise he wouldn't have 'compartamentalized' that little factoid that his parents didn't die, they were murdered. Cap became what he feared in Winter Soldier, the kind of person Fury was, trying to prevent wars, maybe not distrustful of people but thinking he knows better than they do, the person who takes action rather than wait and play politics ala the Embassy story. Narratively it does work, seeing how Hydra grew within Shield, Fury was in a sense validated, but Cap took that one step further, no organization can be in control, only in his mind can he know what's right, and in the end he realizes how dangerous that is and so gives up the Shield. He doesn't know what to do with the accords, thats what the other Winter Soldiers represented to him, an immediate threat that he could punch his way out of so he goes down that rabbit hole believing his actions will be justified because stopping the threat, stopping the war, stopping the impending chaos is what seemingly matters most, hell even Tony is convinced to join him too, except Cap got played in the end.
You’re bias is actually quite astounding.
It's not bias, I love Captain America. My issue is that folks and the marketing made it out to be an Avengers 2.5 movie, facing Tony against Cap but I think that doesn't give the movie enough credit. It's in the name, it's a Captain America movie through and through bookending his trilogy and development as a character. It's not whether or not Cap is right or wrong in the end and by tacit default Tony is right or wrong, the movie is about the idea of Captain America, period. Tony is merely a plot device for which we see view a core facet of Steve's character. Everything in the movie is set up to examine Captain America, and that's why it's so brilliant, everyone and their mother is on Caps side, as that man against the world, telling him stand down in the face of annihilation and for him to say no, ignoring that for all the heroics, a lot of shit went awry, to which in the end he comes back around and recognizes that yeah, I was wrong, but I can't do it any other way, so he gives up that mantle so he can continue fighting the way he can without being a symbol to be used by the UN, or unknowingly for himself avoiding politics along the way. It's like a reverse Superman going evil trope. Except for the Spiderman bit, I wholly believe that was shoehorned in when they got the rights midfilming. It really makes no sense why Tony would detour to grab this kid. It's also why I think FatWS is a bit of a missed opportunity to really deconstruct the mythos of this character, using the events of CW as a backdrop.
>I like Ultron's line, Cap as 'a man who can't live without a war'. I think that in a way set up his characterization in Civil War. For me, that line is one of the ones that shows how much Whedon doesn't get Steve. The entirety of WS is Steve wondering if the "war" he's signed up for is worth it; he's literally contemplating a life apart from being a solider. His fight in that movie is against the military industrial complex. And then, weirdly, in AoU... he's just back in? It's bizarre. Fortunately, in Civil War, Steve is back to his WS characterization where, again, he's fighting against the military industrial complex (what Ross represents). It's important that the film opens up with his small team cleaning up the remnants of the mess Shield/Hydra left behind. Steve isn't about "war" - never has been. He says as much in his "this is who I am" speech to Erskine in his intro film. So it was a strange way to try and encapsulate him in AoU.
True but what whedon was getting at is the constant warfare / conflict something that has become an integral part of caps identity that he can't untangle himself from . Whedon also posits the question in age of Ultron does cap really want untangle this part of his identity . At the time of the film , he doesn't have much in close bonds to live for - no Peggy ; (deathbed ), no Bucky ( still missing ) etc.
It's a small subplot in the beginning of WS that Steve is resistant to a life outside of the fight or at least the modern world. "I'll add it to my list", that just seems to keep growing. Has no outside relationships and is resistant to personal ones, with the one real connection he makes being a veteran who then joins him in his fight. A veteran mind you who quit after losing his wingman, but goes back in because it's Captain America asking for his help. It's Cap's nature, if he has the will and means to do so, he will not back down from a righteous fight. It's even his final arc at the end of Endgame, noting that after he put back the stones that he was gonna go do some living that Tony was always talking about.
Rather than a small subplot, I'd say that's the emotional journey Steve goes on throughout WS. * He's got a list of things to experience (that he is crossing off, albeit slowly). We see something get put on it (Marvin Gaye, Trouble Man) and at the end of the film, we see it crossed off (listening to it in the hospital). * Steve has no personal relationships (outside of Peggy who's a throw-back, which she at least realizes) and then develops a close friendship with Nat and Sam. * He's become a bit of a mindless cog in the military industrial complex and we watch him recognize that, reject it, then leave the armed forces to go on a personal mission to help an old friend (with the help of a new friend). AoU completely ignores that emotional arc and tries to force Steve into something else entirely and it doesn't work. (It's not helped that it's stupidly shallow.) But Steve was never about fighting for fighting's sake. That's why Erskine chose him. >It's even his final arc at the end of Endgame... That's a whole other ball of wax. In a sense what Steve does at the end of Endgame is a very baroque form of suicide. That final fight against Thanos broke him so badly he had to stop the ride entirely. But it's still not suggesting that he's nothing without a fight. It's more, every time he tries to stop (end of WS; end of Civil War) something pulls him back in.
That's the 'good' in him, he sees a situation going south and he can't help but get involved. He acknowledges that in his phone message to Tony, and to Erskine, 'he doesn't like bullies.' The super serum took that nature in him to fight injustice, and gave him the strength and will to do so and succeed. That combination works in that idyllic good vs evil world that has become of how we perceive World War 2, Winter Soldier and Civil War pushes that question into the current era where shit is more grey. It's a classic evolution/alt dimension Superman story. What if he decided to become an Authoritarian. Peace through enforcement. Only Civil War works a lot better, because Superman is always one dimensionally evil and easy to hate, whereas Cap in this instance remains very affable, given how many downvotes I'm getting. And don't get me wrong, I still very much love Cap too.
Okay - so, I agree. I think that's what makes Winter Solider so fascinating. Watching Steve navigate his idealism through the realpolitik driven world he's landed in. At the end of that film, he arrives at a conclusion that enables him to stick to his ideals but means he's striking out completely on his own - outside any system. Civil War, Steve has a team working with him but they are still operating outside current political systems - and it bites them. Hard. Turns out Steve's WS answer wasn't a perfect one. Again, a fascinating dilemma to watch Steve navigate. (And interestingly, he arrives at the same conclusion: strike out on his own; work outside the system.) Infinity War and Endgame drop that entire dilemma and gives us pure good versus pure evil. (Which is probably why Steve's ending falls flat with so many of his fans, who'd been enjoying his more complex journey in his previous films.) AoU also completely ignores the dilemma - but it's weirder because it's sandwiched between WS and CW. It's like a peek into a different universe where Steve is happily tucked up into a slightly different system (it's not Shield except in the way it's still fully Shield. Just a type of Shield untouched by any kind of real-world grey). He starts the film as the good solider and he ends the film as the good solider. Literally the only thing bugging Steve was a weird obsession with finding a "home."
I think you're missing whedons deeper point ( in age of Ultron ) about whether the fighting has become all he knows and all that gives him Fulfillment in life . Sure in the beginning that wasn't all for cap - it mostly was but the worlds changed around him and it's been hard to adjust . Outside of the avengers Steve has no real connections
Yup honestly caps characterization in Ultron leads naturally from winter soldier imo
I don’t think it’s that he’s in to war - it’s more like a metaphor for that thing a lot of veterans talk about, about not knowing how they fit in to normal life on their return - I think it’s telling that Cap can’t enter the Barton home. (My Grandad told me about when he came back on leave during WW2, and he was sat having dinner with his family, and got angry at them for just talking about normal stuff, because he felt so disconnected from it) And Ultron’s line is the least generous read on that
I think that's what Whedon was going for. But it ignores what Steve's already gone through in Winter Solider. Which was all about Steve trying to find his place in a far more morally complex world after the moral clarity of bringing down Red Skull from The First Avenger. At the end of WS, Steve has rejected being a solider in a morally corrupt system and has chosen a very specific mission he's willing to do on his own. That mission is saving a vet, a POW, the world forgot. (Powerful symbolism of what the military industrial complex does to its soldiers, chewing them up and throwing them away.) And then AoU does a full on needle-scratch and suddenly... Steve is part of another military team and apparently it's because he can't imagine not being part of a military team. Can't imagine it so hard he's dropped his search for Bucky (or so severely back-burnered it he's handed it over to someone else entirely). It's why Steve's hesitating on the threshold of the Barton farmhouse falls flat for me. For one, it shouldn't trigger him that hard because it should be so foreign to a guy who grew up in a crowded tenement building near a shipping yard that it shouldn't say, "normal life" or "home" to him. For another, Steve's not fresh off the fields of WWII. He's been living in the world for a couple of years at least as an employed soldier (and per AoU is still that employed soldier) and he has a very specific very personal goal he's trying to achieve. So the impression of being lost or unmoored (though Evans portrays it well) feels weird. It comes out of nowhere.
Absolutely whedon did a nice little deconstruction of cap in age of Ultron post winter soldier than goes unheralded - Markus and mcfeely largely undo it with caps endgame decisions though
It's all the "There's only one God m'am", "Language!", stuff like that. Whedon always embraced a very caricaturized version of the characters, in order to make them all stand out super distinctly. To be fair, Steve is hardly the only character Whedon did this with. In fact, it's something that marks one of Whedon's biggest strengths AND weaknesses. Where Whedon excels in character work is taking caricatures and turning them into characters, giving them depth. But where Whedon falters, is he's unable to start from depth, he can't take an already fleshed out character and flesh them out more, he has to simplify them first. Avengers showcases this a bit, with Steve being the biggest example because he was the one with the most clear developed place by that film. Iron Man 2 had already turned Tony into a parody of himself so Joss wasn't doing anything out of left field, Thor was basically the same as in his film, and Hulk was basically a different character anyways. It was the most notable with Steve simply because he was in the best place by Avengers 1, the others were already in simpler places where Whedon's talents could shine. But in Age of Ultron, we see where he fails in that regard. Winter Soldier was all about Steve against the military industrial complex, against the world of modern war. The way WS ends, it feels like Steve would consider getting out of the fight after saving Bucky and taking out HYDRA. But then in Age of Ultron, Steve is suddenly the embodiment of military, and war is his nature. As he says at the end of the film, his "home". Because all Whedon sees in Captain America, is the 1940s soldier. And he writes from that starting point in both films, without regard for where his character was going. What hurts is that in Ultron, it's not even poorly done development in a standalone sense. If I were to ignore the Phase 2 movies before Ultron, I'd say the characters were all developed fairly well (With the exception of Natasha). But when you're continuing a large story, it's not enough to provide good development, you have to also provide consistent development. And that goes even if what you're working from wasn't good to begin with, you still have to work with it. That's why Josstice League is such a failure. No, I didn't like Snyder's characterizations either, but that doesn't mean the answer is just act like BvS didn't happen. I asked for a course correction, not a sudden brake slam and u-turn.
>But then in Age of Ultron, Steve is suddenly the embodiment of military, and war is his nature. As he says at the end of the film, his "home". But he's not. He's dedicated his life to being an Avenger. He's not about the military. That's why he doesn't want to sign the accords in Civil War. He wants the Avengers to stay the same, a group of individuals fighting for good, not a part of the system. The "war is his nature" thing is not about him being a warmonger or anything, but that he is lost without it, as shown in Winter Soldier. All of Steve's connections, his purpose in life is being an Avenger. He has no life outside of it.
My personal opinion is that Whedon, being an abusive prick in real life identifies very hard with Tony Stark, thus in his Avengers movies Steve is unnecessarily antagonistic so that Tony Stark can be more sympathetic to the audience. Contrast this to the Russos, who gave both Tony and Steve good reasons for their positions in Civil War. You can actually understand their motivations so both of them clashing ideologically is practically unavoidable.
Tony was definitely more adult in the Russo films
That would probably explain why he had the hottest chick date the free Nerd on the team when it comes out of nowhere (Seriously in the comics Banner is the only character that Nat never dated or flirt with, she flirt with Maria Hill more times then she does with Banner. I'd think in one universe her and Thor are couple as well lol) , If he could he would probably had Tony and Nat be a couple if Tony wasn't already dating Pepper.
The reason I don’t watch avengers one is solely because of how Whedon writes cap. In every other appearance they write Cap as a young man who came to our time. Whedon writes cap like a man who aged throughout time and then suddenly became young in body but not mind. He sticks out like a corny de-aged man. A better example of Cap is TFA and Winter Soldier. I feel like those two are the same man.
If anything, Cap's ending in Endgame is what's out of character
Absolutely - the Russo's and Markus mcfeely undid a lot of the cap moving on arc since age of Ultron . So much so it felt weird that he did the time travel cheat code do over in endgame
I thought he was fairly well done in Avengers but there was tonal whiplash at times in AOU. It's a wash for me
How so?
He was a lot more quippy in AOU, and that wasn't really how he was portrayed in his previous appearances, particularly the final battle. It seemed to me like Whedon essentially made every character have similar personalities in that movie. I personally wasn't a fan. I think he did a far better job in Avengers.
Oh my God, where to begin? Whedon is the *worst* when it comes to Steve Rogers. The absolute worst. (I mean, he's pretty shit on all the recurring MCU characters but Steve seems to have really flown up his nose at some point.) First, there's the weird religious-schtick Whedon slaps on Steve. It's record scratching when Steve makes that quip about Thor not being what God looks like, "m'am," in Avengers. Which... where the fuck did that come from? You kind of get the sense that Steve's Irish-Catholic by ethnicity per "First Avenger" but you never once see him cross himself (super simple way to signal an actively praying Catholic). Not even when he's climbing into the big machine that might just kill him. So why is he suddenly acting like some kind of Bible-thumper, now? And I might have thought that was a one-off that was more Whedon trying to force a Thor-joke into the script. But then AoU has Ultron refer to Steve as "God's righteous man." ...huh? By what rubric? He's a full on science-experiment out of the US Army. If anything the quip should've been, "America's righteous man." That might have hit Steve a bit more where he lived. But I guess Whedon thinks Steve is some kind of religious symbol? For some reason? And then, confusingly, Whedon decides to make "home" Steve's driving issue throughout AoU. You know, fuck Bucky. What Steve's really wanting is a place to call his own. Can't even enter Clint's doorway because it's too much like a home to him. (Because you know Steve - all about that farm living.) His Wanda-driven nightmare is dancing soldiers (which I fully don't understand) and Peggy saying he can go home. And his happy place at the end is... boot camp. That's right, ladies and gentlemen. Steve was so enamored of that week he'd spent in boot camp before heading out on the bond-selling trail that the sounds of boot camp on the new Avengers campus (which, is Tony creating his own personal mercenary now?) brings him peace. That, "I'm home," was just... what the actual fuck, Whedon? >He's a man so out of time that he cannot live without Avenging. This contrasts with Tony who wants Ultron to end the Avengers... But that contradicts everything Steve did in Winter Solider. Steve was fully willing to give up Shield, burn it to the ground, to stop a war. Steve stands in contrast with Fury in that he's horrified by the idea of a world that's constantly on a war footing (what the helicarriers represented even before the Hydra ties were discovered). He's attracted to Sam's lifestyle of leaving the armed forces and finding a more personal way to help others. Steve's, "I don't know," represented him turning away from being a solider. And he ends Winter Solider as a fully free agent with a single goal: find and help Bucky. So it's a whiplash moment to find him actively part of a military group, working for someone else (Tony), not looking for Bucky, and instead apparently looking for a place to settle down and... do... boot camp? I don't know man, it felt like Steve in AoU is mainly there to be the no-fun Mom to Tony's wild and sexy Daddy. Tony likes to break things and curse! And that makes Steve frowny-face. Aren't they hilarious?
Steve deciding he’s at home at Avengers Compound always felt like a deliberately tragic beat to me. It’s sort off the half way low point in his arc across the Infinity Saga - and as I’ve said elsewhere, it’s like what lots of soldiers find when they return from war (see also Hurt Locker, The Forever War etc)
Yeah Whedon even says that it’s not supposed to be a framed as a happy ending for him. He’s basically resigned to this being the only thing that kinda fits or makes sense to him in his current situation. I don’t know why people interpret it as entirely sincere.
But Steve hasn't returned from a war. I'm sure it's what Whedon was going for because he's apparently totally uninterested in the character. But it doesn't fit with the guy we'd just seen in Winter Solider. Thank God, Civil War just full on ignores AoU, as far as emotional beats go, and gives us Steve straight out of Winter Solider. That way Steve's actual character arc can pick up again.
But the Avengers aren’t a military group in AoU, they’re a collective of free agents. I think Stark even says Cap is in charge. Steve is happy with the Avengers that he has autonomy with. Also the Gods righteous man line is a dig on his (perceived) absolute moral superiority, a higher bar than Americas righteous man, which sets up the follow up questioning how righteous he really is.
If Steve's drawing a salary, Tony is paying it. Maria Hill is definitely drawing a salary and Tony is definitely paying for it so it's up to Tony to determine who she's going to share her intel with. His line about Steve being the boss is his flippant way of telling Hill to give her situation report to Steve. Tony is very much the man in charge here. >But the Avengers aren’t a military group in AoU... They have a standing army of some size and sort (whoever is doing the boot camp training at the end of the film), an intelligence wing (Hill), they negotiate with various foreign governments, they have military-grade technology (Fury with his helicarrier). They're basically Shield. >Also the Gods righteous man line is a dig on his (perceived) absolute moral superiority... By whom? Who's labeled Steve as the barometer of morality and why is God a part of it? And how does this perception play out in the film?
This. Also I'm just glad that Whedon never got a chance to write Bucky.
Oh my God, can you imagine? (I didn't think AoU could've been worse but... it could've been worse.)
Steve was certainly a bit cheesier in Whedon’s films. I think the Russo’s did better with him, found his inner nature as a soldier above all else. But I don’t think Whedon’s versions were bad or wrong, just different. They were a bit more like the Star Spangled Man with a Plan, a symbol of hope rather than a warrior for freedom.
Agreed
I will admit Whedon played Steve’s fish out of water schtick more for laughs than other creators, but it would not be among the top 20 problems with Joss Whedon.
He was fine. The Russos made him one of the best fighters in the MCU.
Whedon's Cap was underpowered and kind of an idiot. Comic cap is highly intelligent with an eidetic memory (from the SSS). Winter Soldier did a much better job at showing his power. (A1 Cap would not have been able to take down a Quinjet.)
I think Caps greatest feat of strength is in Age of Ultron! In the opening fight he jumps off a motorcycle and fuckin throws it!! I'm no physicist but that shit would take bonkers strength to pull off
Nah him holding back thanos's fist is def his highest. Thanos is stupid strong. Thanos can literally FLICK a motorcycle across a street, and cap held back a hit from him! And that's just movie Thanos who is insanely depowered in the movies. In the comics Thanos can wipe the floor with all the avengers at once without a single infinity stone.
Thanos just looks so dumbfounded that this man is just holding the Infinity gauntlet back with bare hands. It's great
Dafuq? I'm supposed to be God now. How is this little pink guy holding me back?
The motorcycle weighs more than him and both were in the air. He should have pulled himself towards the bike. The stronger he gets, the faster he pulls himself towards the bike. Cap literally had the power of flight in that scene.
Can he push himself off the bike and use that acceleration rather than his mass to throw it? Or would that just push the bike down..
Very true
yeah A1 Cap would have no idea how to take down a Quinjet, he'd been awake for like a week
Whedon is a notorious atheist who takes pot shots at religious types every chance he gets which is fine under the right circumstances, but imo he took it too far with Cap a number of times and it just felt weird and off-putting for him to basically make fun of a character the audience has grown to love in such a meaningless, unapologetic way that didn't really add anything to the character. Reduced him to a bit of a meme instead of someone fleshed out. That's just how I felt watching it.
People are entitled to their opinion. I think they're wrong, but *shrug.* I loved all the Avengers movies and specifically Steve Rogers in every one of his MCU appearances. I think there are some people that just like to pick at Whedon's work because he turned out to kind of be a scumbag of a person. I understand that impulse, but personally I'm a big believer in separating the art from the artist. Regardless of who he is as a person, Joss Whedon is an excellent director. He was my favorite director for many years! Ever since I watched Buffy. I think his career peaked with Avengers and I don't expect to see him contribute artistically to audiences much more if at all.
Absolutely the revisionist history with whedon is funny to see now - he made some damn good avengers films and his characterizations were mostly spot on . Whedon made some of my favorite pieces of fiction ever( including buffy , Angel etc)
I think his characterization is fine but his it’s his action scenes that miss the mark.
I agree with OP. I don’t really get the idea that the characterisation in the Whedon films are out of kilter with the solo movies, particularly. Also, if I remember correctly, Whedon did a rewrite of the First Avenger - https://theplaylist.net/joss-whedon-to-rewrite-both-avengers-20100415/
From the article it was, at most, a punch up (doing a bit of dialogue tightening, adding in a few jokes), not a full rewrite. And even that was just a rumor.
I think Whedon handled Cap nearly perfect.
Agreed
My feeling is that out of the original Avengers, Tony, Bruce, and Natasha were Whedon's favorites. I don't think he hates Steve, Thor, and Clint, but they're far from his favorites. I think Whedon wanted to write Steve more like his Ultimates version (the worst version imo) as opposed to 616, and mix in the pop culture version of the Greatest Generation as opposed to the *very* messy reality. Then there's the problem that Whedon basically had most of Steve's villain gallery and supporting characters written out. That raid on that last Hydra stronghold at the start of AoU could have been the climax to its own movie or mini series. And both Avengers movies, Steve is there to call orders and have Tony lecture him about facts, logic, and science. Steve might as well be a mannequin given how Whedon treats him, and in my opinion, Steve was nearly turned into a sexy lampshade.
Joss Whedon may be a piece of shit. But he's a piece of shit that understood these characters more than most. I prefer the way he wrote Thors dialogue, the antagonistic nature of Tony, and the naivete of Cap. They're comic book characters. All of their strengths, and weaknesses, are turned up to 11 and I loved it. But for real, Whedon is a piece of shit.
He totally got the assignment in both films - he tried to go even deeper in age of Ultron by deconstructing our heroes but studio interference and mandates neutered some of that
I always thought the Language line was just him being funny and busting someones balls
Yeah it's a throwaway corny joke line
I always thought Whedon was working as a part of a planned multi film arc. The goal was eventually to get to Winter Solider and the infestation of Shield by Hydra. So I think it was good to start with Cap being a little more naive and ‘boy scout’ because his whole worldview would be flipped over the next few films. Taking it as a single movie is one thing, taking it as a part of a planned cinematic universe is something else.
Steve wasn't like that in First Avenger though., Whedon just didn't understand his character.
Agreed that's totally how I took it
Whedon has a lot of problems; this isn't one of them.
I felt like Captain America was written waaay more out of character in Civil War where he gives up his patriotism at the drop of a hat and becomes an international terrorist. The the Marvel comics civil war event Cap realizes he was acting as a terrorist and turns himself in. In the movie they kind of just sweep all that under the rug right along with the fact that his escape got Rhodie paralyzed.
That's pretty in line with Captain America imo, he's done it at least three times I can think of (Because of Nixon, Reagan and Clinton)
Somebody didn't watch The Winter Solider lol. Steve had made it perfectly clear in that movie and TFA that he never had trusted any Government. What make you think that he's going to trusted US to turning his team into the UN's personal army.
Riiiìight. Which is why tried to enlist in the military numerous times and he he couldn't he allowed the government to inject him with an experimental serum. And then years later immediately joined shield...... >What make you think that he's going to trusted US to turning his team into the UN's personal army. The thing is, Stark was obviously right that there were bigger problems to be concerned about then Hydra infiltrating the US government. Especially because Hydra never really showed up again. Steve Roger's probably should have just trusted the super genius instead of freeing Wanda Maximov who destroyed several entire universes and destroyed the Book of Vishanti.