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Captain America: The First Avenger
166 Plays5 years ago
To ring in the New Year with a bit of optimism, Perry and Derrick discuss Captain America: The First Avenger! Listen to why they both believe Chris Evans is THE definitive Steve Rogers, how the Cap movies gave a first in superhero cinema, and why people who dismiss characters like Cap and Superman are wrong.
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Transcript
Exploring Arrogance and Power
00:00:27
Speaker
Arrogance may not be a uniquely American trade, but I must say you do it better than anyone. But there are limits to what even you can do, Captain. Or did Askin tell you otherwise? He told me you were insane.
00:00:52
Speaker
He resented my genius and tried to deny me what was rightfully mine, but he gave you everything. So... what made you so special? Nothing. I'm just a kid from Brooklyn.
10th Episode and New Year Celebrations
00:01:41
Speaker
and a very happy new year to you, my friend. I am delighted, more than delighted to see that you're with us here in 2020, and I wish a happy new year to all of our listeners out there, and I hope that your New Year's Eve was very special, and everybody came through all right, and we're here ready to start a brand new year on Superhero Cinephiles. Absolutely, and we got, speaking of, 10 episodes, buddy.
00:01:48
Speaker
I can do this all day.
Black Superheroes for Black History Month
00:02:10
Speaker
This is our 10th episode. This is our 10th episode. Wow. We broke double digits. It doesn't seem like it. It's amazing how short. Okay. It seems like
00:02:24
Speaker
really a short amount of time since we started this and yeah uh when you tell me that or when i go over to the website and actually look and i see how many episodes i said wow you know we've done we've done quite a lot of work in the short amount of time to be honest yeah yeah and um more coming because we still got um crisis on infinite earths is wrapping up this week and then we still got to do a in-depth discussion of the watchman tv show that just wrapped up as well
00:02:51
Speaker
Yeah. And I wanted to mention to you next month, of course, February's Black History Month. And I wanted to discuss with you the possibility of us focusing on Black superhero movies for that month. Yeah, I'd be totally fine with that. Sounds like a good idea.
00:03:09
Speaker
OK, and folks, if you guys got any suggestions out there for Black superhero movies you'd like for us to talk about, besides obvious, because of course we're going to talk about Black Panther. Yeah, you know, we're going to talk about that. And we'll probably get in the blade as well. But if you got any suggestions or recommendations for other superhero movies you want to see, Black superhero movies you want to see us talk about in February, then go to our Facebook group.
00:03:39
Speaker
and leave your suggestions there. Yeah, absolutely.
Captain America's Relevance Today
00:03:43
Speaker
But today, we're talking about your pick, which is Captain America, the First Avenger.
00:03:49
Speaker
Absolutely. My man, Captain America, the first adventure. I picked this because, as I said, I wanted to start the new year talking about optimistic superhero. And I think that outside of Superman, you don't get a more optimistic superhero than Captain America.
00:04:10
Speaker
No, I totally agree with that. Because we didn't plan this, obviously, but it is fitting that Captain America is the first movie we're talking about after all this stuff going on between the US and Iran. Oh, yeah. Yeah, exactly. You know what? I was just talking about this with somebody else. It's funny how
00:04:34
Speaker
things like that kind of work out and hooks up when you don't plan it. But yeah, it's a very, but once again, we are having a political situation where we're once again having to question the
00:04:50
Speaker
place America has in the world and on the world stage and Captain America is a character who embodies that whole entire concept of America and what America is supposed to be and what it could be and what it is
Captain America: Past and Present
00:05:08
Speaker
and
00:05:08
Speaker
Can we make it better and how we can make it better and all of that stuff that goes in with it? Yeah, and this is actually the fourth No, maybe fifth I think because there's a serial as well. So this is like the fifth Captain America movie that's been made. Oh Yeah, yeah, there was all there were two made for TV movies back in the 70s right starring red brown and
00:05:34
Speaker
Red Brown, who actually played the son of Steve Rogers. And he had a cameo in First Avenger during the awards ceremony when you see Stan Lee's cameo and he says to the guy next to him, I thought he'd be taller. That guy sitting next to him is Red Brown.
00:05:52
Speaker
Oh, really? OK, that's right. And see, I watch that movie today. And of course, I'm sort of Staley Camille because how can you miss a Staley Camille? But I had no idea. But that's nice. I always like when they can bring back people who were involved in these movies.
00:06:12
Speaker
And, you know, even if they give him like a small cameo, like not to derail the conversation, but I love how they gave the guy was named John Wesley ship who played the original Flash back in. Yeah, I love how they gave him a major role in The New Flash. Two major roles, in fact, because first he was Henry Allen and then later he came back as Jay Garrick. Yeah. Yeah. Jay Garrick. So then he even got to reprise his role as the original Barry Allen.
00:06:42
Speaker
Yeah?
00:06:43
Speaker
Yeah, in the crisis, which we'll get into, you know, later on. But yeah, he got to come back as the original burial. How often does that happen? See, I'm telling you, folks, we live in the age of coolness when it comes to these superhero movies and TV shows. Yeah, absolutely. And then the other one, so there was the red brown ones and there was the the Matt Salinger one in 1990. Yeah, that's the one we don't talk about.
00:07:13
Speaker
Well, it's interesting, because some of the elements of it actually make it into this movie, because you have the whole idea of the Red Skull being the first recipient of the Super Soldier Serum. That comes from that Matt Salinger movie. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Which really I thought is one of the many touches of this movie, because I know a lot of people, they complained about various things when they changed the origin and stuff like that.
00:07:41
Speaker
I thought that some of the changes that they made in this and I don't even call them changes. I call them tweaks because I feel pretty sure that if Captain America was created today and in a way that's what they did. They were creating a Captain America for today in the form of this movie that there were things about the origin. They said, okay, well, let's, you know, tighten this up a little bit and let's give this a fresh coat of pain and you know,
00:08:08
Speaker
which all work together as a whole. And yeah, making the red skull the first recipient of the super soldier serum. You know, that's good. That's excellent idea. Yeah. And they take elements from a bunch of different cap types of origin.
MCU's Realistic Portrayal of Bucky
00:08:24
Speaker
So they've got some aspects of the ultimate stuff in here, too. What with Cap and Bucky being the same age and being childhood friends. And instead of Bucky being a costume sidekick, he's one of the soldiers who works with Cap instead.
00:08:39
Speaker
Yeah, the howling commandos. Yeah, which I didn't know it was a brilliant change. I thought it works really well. It makes it makes the whole Bucky situation much more realistic and it sets them up much more believably for the Winter Soldier. Yeah, I mean, oh,
00:08:58
Speaker
It adds a whole new dimension to their relationship by making them roughly the same mage. Because now it's more like a brother type of relationship, whereas in the original relationship between Captain America and Bucky, when he's a kid, of course, there's a whole other dynamic there. But in this one, yeah, the dynamic between the two characters is a lot better. And I appreciated it a lot more.
Tailoring MCU Films to Characters
00:09:28
Speaker
Oh, who was it? The guy that played, uh, Bucky, what's his name? Sebastian Stan. Yeah. Yeah. He was, he's, he's, he's great, but everybody is great in this movie. I mean, every, but I mean,
00:09:44
Speaker
A lot of people have said that this is their favorite MCU movie, and I can understand why. Simply because of the excellent casting choices and the way that the story is told. I mean, I gotta calm down. My excitement for this movie is getting bigger. No, really, because you know what? This is like five different movies in one, and they all work together. Yeah.
00:10:10
Speaker
Yeah. It's got to work as a part of the MCU, because while chronologically this is actually the first movie, because when I re-watch the MCU movies, I always watch this one first. But it was like the fifth one that was made. Yeah, so there was Iron Man, Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, and Thor, and then this one.
00:10:31
Speaker
Right, right. But chronologically, this one, of course, as it takes place during World War II. But yeah, it's got to work as a part of the MCU as a whole.
Captain America: WWII and Pulp Style
00:10:41
Speaker
It's a it's a legitimate World War II war movie. It's a superhero origin movie. It's science fiction and it's a pulp action adventure. You know, there's there's a lot of elements of the 1930s and 40s serials in here.
00:10:55
Speaker
And a lot of that is down to their choice of director for this because they picked Joe Johnston, who directed The Rocketeer, which was, you know, about as pulp as you can get. Oh, I mean, Joe Johnston, he he directed he directed that The Rocketeer. He also directed the 1995 Jumanji.
00:11:20
Speaker
Jurassic Park 3, which a lot of people don't like for one reason or for whatever reason, I don't understand. I'm one of those people. The Raptor dream sequence alone just drives me nuts every time I see it.
00:11:38
Speaker
Oh, okay. I mean, you know, it's not a perfect movie. Know what it is? It's not so, to me, it's not so much that it's a bad movie, that it's, that it's an unnecessary one. Yeah. I mean, nobody really needed a Jurassic Park three, you know, but at least they got Joe Johnston who did it, who is a director that a knows how to tell the story.
00:12:00
Speaker
knows how to tell a story visually, pays attention to characterization, which is one of the best things about Captain America the First Avenger, in that there is nothing lost in characterization in all of the action. He knows how to slow things down for a bit, let us get to know the characters, and then he knows how to ramp back up the action, seemingly effortlessly.
00:12:22
Speaker
You know, it's like he has no problem doing that, whereas some directors, once they get into a situation where they slow down the plot and they slow down the action, then it takes them a while to get back up to speed, not this guy. No, no, he does a really good job of keeping that balance.
00:12:41
Speaker
Yeah, he keeps an excellent balance. And like I said, he knows how to tell the story visually. There is absolutely no point in Captain America where you don't know what's going on. You don't know why people are doing what they're doing. You're never lost in this movie. You know exactly what's going on at all times, which I think is very important for this type
Captain America in Various Media
00:13:02
Speaker
of story.
00:13:02
Speaker
Because there's a lot that goes on in here and a lot of people don't realize about this movie is it spans like probably the longest amount of time of maybe maybe aside from Endgame, but this movie spans the longest amount of time of any of the MCU movies because it it starts in 1942 and it ends in 1945 like the main story is Happens over the course of those three years which a lot realize
00:13:31
Speaker
And I remember when it came out, Johnston actually said that, you know, we did that intentionally because we just wanted to present this story of Cap versus the Red Skull. But we also wanted to leave open the possibility because Cap was active throughout all of World War II. So you really could go back and do more movies set in this era with Captain America or with, you know, the invaders who are teased at with the scene at the World's Fair when you see the human torches body.
00:14:00
Speaker
Right, exactly. As a matter of fact, I've always said that they actually could, because there's like a whole sequence there where we see is clips of Captain America and the Howling Commandos. They're raiding the Hydra bases and, you know, and there's all these hints that there are all these missions that they went on. So there actually should have been another movie after this called Captain America and the Howling Commandos that should have just been about their wartime adventures.
00:14:30
Speaker
Because there's plenty of room for it. And many of those actors are still willing to work for the MC. I mean, obviously, Sebastian stands there. But you've got Neil McDonough, who reprised the role of Dum Dum Dugan several times. Oh, my god. When I first saw him on screen as Dum Dum, so help me. And I'm not lying here, folks. I wept.
00:14:59
Speaker
Really, rarely do you see a character from the comic books embodied, so you say, oh my God, I said, that's dumb dumb. I didn't realize who the actor was at first, but I knew it was dumb dumb. Yeah, he was perfect. And you also had Jim Morita, who reprise, now plays his own grandson in the Spider-Man movies. Yeah, yeah. Which was also a nice little nod they threw in.
00:15:29
Speaker
And it was a really good choice for them to have a multicultural group of howling commandos. Now, rather than because, of course, in the original, when they did, they were all white guys with just one black eye. But now there's Jim Morita, which I which I so given.
00:15:49
Speaker
the nature of the attitude toward Japanese Americans at the top. That's what he's playing, the Japanese American. And they referenced that just in the very subtle way when Dum Dum says, what are we taking everybody now? And then he pulls out his dog tags like, hey, I'm from Fresno. Right. Exactly. Exactly. They do that. And I don't know if
00:16:11
Speaker
What's his name? We're trying to think of a black guy's name. Hold on. Let me pull it up. I think it's Derek Luke or something like that. Derek Luke. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. He is playing Gabe Jones. Yeah. He is playing Gabe Jones and, um, yeah. And there's one guy I think he's the, he's the polyglot among the, among the group. Cause he can speak, he can speak English. He can speak German and French.
00:16:34
Speaker
Right. Because when they climb into the tank, when they're making the big break from the Hydra base and dumb, dumb sitting there and he can't read the instructions, that's on the control board. And James Jones is telling them, you know what it is, you know, he's oh, wow, you speak German, too? He's like, yeah, well, of course I can. He's at four years at, you know, some university that he went to and he speaks something like six languages. So, you know, he says, you know, he's like, he spoke German and then I switched to French because the girls were cuter. Yeah.
00:17:05
Speaker
But yeah, a lot of these people, Hailey Atwell, as Peggy Carter, who is absolutely brilliant in this movie.
Agent Carter's Missed Potential
00:17:13
Speaker
Right. So in the comics, she did become kind of a presence in the comics. She ended up working with Cap as an older woman and being part of his support crew in the Avengers.
00:17:25
Speaker
she never really had much of a major role outside of that in the comics. Like she wasn't involved in the creation of S.H.I.E.L.D. or anything like that. And especially relative to Sharon Carter, who was originally her sister and then later it was retconned that she was her niece, you know, becomes Cap's love interest in the comics and is a huge part of his adventures even now.
00:17:51
Speaker
It's the opposite in these movies because there was such a huge, you know, there was so much appreciation for how Atwell played the character that she became such an integral part to these movies.
00:18:06
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and then of course she had, uh, um, I think it went for two seasons. She had the agent Carter. Yeah. Yeah. Which even more dealt into the origins of how she'll got started and how she was involved with Howard Stark and, and, uh, you know, it was her and dumb dumb and a few others of the howling commandos were,
MCU's Comic Connections
00:18:31
Speaker
you know, really the guys that founded SHIELD and they started it along with Howard Stark, you know, and to me, it is one of the major crimes that ABC canceled Agent Carter and stuck Haley Atwell in this
00:18:51
Speaker
Pitiful little show that they were trying to do. It was like a knockoff of a Shonda Rhimes show. They were trying to do a Shonda Rhimes show without Shonda Rhimes. And it was a terrible show that nobody watched because of course, everybody who knew Haley Adler wanted to see her as Agent Carter.
00:19:08
Speaker
and if she wasn't playing Asia Carter then they didn't want to see her and anybody who hadn't seen her or anything else well they said well we don't know who this British chick is so we don't want to see her you know it was a dumb move when they're part period because really Asia Carter could still be running today based on the ratings and the popularity there was nothing wrong with the ratings they just wanted to stick her in another show yeah that makes no sense I mean you've got a good thing why are you gonna mess with it
00:19:35
Speaker
the show.
00:19:52
Speaker
you know, concepts from the comics in there, too. So they had the Red Room program, which created Black Widow. They had like the early version of that in there. They also introduced Dr. Faustus through that.
00:20:06
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I mean, Agent Carter, I mean, I'm glad that I signed up for Disney Plus. I go back and watch it again. But at the same time, it makes me mad because when I think of all the potential of that show that was squandered, you know, it just makes me. It was a decision that, you know, I have no idea
Challenges with 'Inhumans' and 'Iron Fist'
00:20:28
Speaker
why they made that, and then they go off and they make something like the Inhumans, which nobody was asking for, which nobody wanted, and which went nowhere. Oh, there was someone. The only person who wanted that show was Ike Perlmutter because he wanted to make the X-Men without the X-Men, and it didn't work at all.
00:20:49
Speaker
And you know, to this day, I've still never seen the humans. It's not really. You're not missing anything. Well, yeah, that's why I didn't watch it. You know, everybody said, don't worry about it. You're not missing a thing. You know, I and I looked at the advanced things that they had and I said, you know, the advanced photos and stuff like that. I said, no, I don't think no. I don't want to be bothered with this.
00:21:12
Speaker
You know, I, I gave it a shot. And you know, the weird thing is it had, it had the same show runner as the first season of iron fist. And I'm like, why do they keep hiring this guy? Your guess is as good as mine. I have no idea. Iron fist is also another one of show right from the start.
Captain America's Comic History
00:21:33
Speaker
I said, well, you know what? If you're going to hire, if you're going to do a show,
00:21:38
Speaker
and your lead character is a master martial artist, then that's who you hire to play the character. And you teach him how to act rather than getting an actor and then teaching him martial arts. Or if you have to do the actor route, at least have him use the mask then so then you can just put in a body double.
00:21:56
Speaker
a thank you, which is because I was talking to somebody not too long ago and they were talking about how they had to get the right actor to do the martial arts if they have a Moon Knight series. I said Moon Knight wears a full face mask. No, Moon Knight you're fine. You can put anybody, yeah, the actor, yeah, you put any kind of stuntman or martial artist in there. It don't matter. What are you talking about?
00:22:19
Speaker
Well, I mean, look at Daredevil. I mean, you telling me that that was Charlie Cox doing all those highway fight scenes? I don't think so. Oh, absolutely not. No, of course not. But but that's one of the reasons why you do these type of movies in that, you know, you could put a mask on the stuntman.
00:22:37
Speaker
and nobody will ever know, which brings me to another point that I wanted to make, that, you know, in past episodes, you and I have complained about how, like, at fight scenes or something like that, there's always some contrived method that they use to remove the hero's mask. Well, in Captain America, you don't have that problem because Captain America is not exactly your typical superhero per se, so he doesn't have to wear a mask.
00:23:08
Speaker
The whole movie which he really for most of this movie we see Chris Evans face, you know Something else they did here is they took a line from the the more recent comics and from the Ultimates where Cap does which they did the same thing with Iron Man which they got rid of the whole idea of the secret identity and I think it actually works for both those characters because you know
00:23:34
Speaker
Tony Stark's already a celebrity in his own right, and with his ego, it would make sense that he'd want the world to know he's Iron Man. And with Captain America, I mean, I've read some of the comics, you're probably more familiar with them than I am, but I've always felt the stuff that dealt with his secret identity was always kind of weak and always felt like it was a bit tacked on. Yeah, yeah, I mean...
00:24:00
Speaker
Every once in a while Marvel would do this thing where Steve Rogers would have like a crisis of conscience and he wouldn't have a normal life and he would go off and try to have a normal life, which never really worked out because it's not like, okay, you have Batman and Bruce Wayne who are like two different personalities.
00:24:26
Speaker
Okay, it's not like that with a lot of the marvels to be like a lot of DC heroes. They're almost like split personalities and that the superhero persona is different from You know, their everyday
00:24:42
Speaker
But with the Marvel superheroes, it's not like that. It's not like, OK, there's Tony Stark and Iron Man. When he says that in Iron Man, I am Iron Man. Well, yeah, he is. That's who he is. He doesn't see Iron Man as being a separate identity. It's who he is. It's the same thing with Captain America. Captain America is not a separate identity from Steve Rogers.
00:25:06
Speaker
OK, that's who he wanted to be. The super soldier formula made him more of what he already was inside. You know, so it's not so really. Yeah. And yeah, I mean, I think in a lot of ways.
00:25:24
Speaker
the whole secret identity thing, we've moved past that because most of the time you have these superheroes, this appears all the time. It's not like, okay, well, unless you're somebody like Peter Parker. Right. Well, it does make sense for some characters. It makes sense for Peter Parker because he's a high school kid. He's got his aunt and everything. He's got his own personal life. So it makes sense for him to have a secret identity or any kind of character who
00:25:53
Speaker
you know, isn't rich like Tony Stark or doesn't live in or doesn't, you know, live off a government salary like, like Steve Rogers, you know, it makes sense for like the street heroes, like Daredevil to have a secret identity. Right. Exactly. But I mean, you know, Steve Rogers, okay. Like back in the sixties and seventies, he was either doing one of two things. He was either working with the Avengers or when he wasn't working with the Avengers, he was working with shield. Yeah.
00:26:20
Speaker
He was, I mean, I don't know. I would have to do some research about this. I don't know if he ever was an actual agent of S.H.I.E.L. But half the time, you know, he was popping up in Nick Fury, you know, and he was going on missions for Nick Fury and, well, where's Captain America? How come we don't have him? Well, he's doing something for S.H.I.E.L. Oh, well, and then S.H.I.E.L. would need, well, no, he's worked with the Avengers. So there was really no reason for Steve Rogers to have a secret identity where
00:26:47
Speaker
You know, it was like, yeah, but this movie, it does away with all of that. And yes, we all benefit greatly. Well, that's actually brings me something I want to talk about is the comics. So how how how invested were you in the cap comics in the past or even or up until now?
00:27:06
Speaker
Uh, I was invested in them during the era. Well, of course I got involved in it when Jack Kirby was doing it. But then back then I got it. Listen, if Jack Kirby was drawing it, I was reading it. Uh,
00:27:22
Speaker
Then I went through the whole period where he got the Falcon as a sidekick slash partner. So, of course, when Jim Staranko was doing it, he briefly, you know, he did a couple of issues of Captain America. Oh, I didn't know he did a few camp issues. Yeah, yes. Yeah. Jim Staranko did a couple of cap issues. That was one of those times when Steve because in one of them, Steve Rogers actually fakes his death.
00:27:48
Speaker
so that, you know, because he doesn't want to be Captain America anymore. Which, like I said, every couple of years, they would do that thing like, you know, like Spider-Man no more. Well, they would do Captain America no more. Uh-huh. Like when he became the nomad.
00:28:01
Speaker
and somebody else took over the Captain America. I did it. Every once in a while they would give the identity of Captain America over to somebody else because one of the more interesting things about it was that they would tell Steve Rogers, well, listen, you don't own the costume or the shield that belongs to the United States government. If you want to be Captain America, we're going to give it to somebody else and let them be Captain America.
00:28:25
Speaker
If I'm remembering the history, Craig, I haven't read these issues. So most of what I know is just from like secondhand sources. But from what I remember, he gave up the cap identity. It was his choice to give the cap identity after the Secret Empire story. And then he became Nomad.
Goody-Goody Heroes vs Anti-Heroes
00:28:43
Speaker
And then in the 80s, the Commission on Superhuman Activities, they took the identity away from him because he wouldn't do what they told him to do.
00:28:52
Speaker
Right. Exactly. Because they told him, they said, well, as Captain America, you're an agent of the United States government. So you got to do what we tell you to do. I said, yeah, I don't know about that. I'm not doing that. You know, I do. Well, of course, because you know what? He's had 50, 60 years of doing what he want to do. You know, he's not going to turn over and do what they want. So it's OK. Well, we got to take the costume and we got to take the shield. Right. Because it belongs to us.
00:29:16
Speaker
Yeah. And so they gave it to John Walker who later became US agent and Steve took on the captain identity wearing the costume that John Walker would later wear. And of course, eventually he always goes back to being, you know, Captain America, but you know, but again, it is good to explore
00:29:38
Speaker
these type of aspects in the character, because every once in a while, Steve Rogers has to redefine who he's supposed to be as Captain America and what he's supposed to represent. And much like Superman, which is why I compare the characters all the time,
00:29:57
Speaker
And let me just say this really briefly in that, and you and I have discussed this privately and on, you know, this podcast about how one thing that I really don't like about comic book fans nowadays is that whenever you talk about characters like Captain America and Superman, oh, I can't stand them. They're Boy Scouts. They're unrealistic. Oh, no. Oh, they're too goody-goody.
00:30:21
Speaker
Well, you know, there is nothing goody-goody or unrealistic about superheroes or heroes, period, or just plain human beings who do the right thing because it is the right thing to do. You know, I never got this attitude of all superheroes must be like a certain way.
00:30:39
Speaker
I like violent anti-heroes like Wolverine and the Punisher. I love those characters as well. But I also love the Goody Two Shoes characters too. You've got room for both. You don't have to have one or the other.
Captain America's Moral Code
00:30:52
Speaker
right exactly and i mean yeah i mean listen wolverine and the punisher i'm not crazy about them as characters but they do have their place because they have because any good character period has their own worldview and their own way of looking at things and their way of doing things and if we didn't have these different types of characters to clash together
00:31:12
Speaker
because that's what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to put Captain America up against somebody like the Punisher or Wolverine and let them bump heads and, you know, their idolatry.
00:31:23
Speaker
are supposed to be at war. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Well, you know, cause Captain America, and that's another thing that people have said. Yeah. Well, captain America, I don't understand why he doesn't keep on killing people. You know, he killed people during world war two captain America. Yes. He killed people, but he's not a killer. Right. It's a difference. Wolverine is a killer. Yeah.
00:31:46
Speaker
But Captain America is not a killer. Yes, he has killed people in the past. And and if he deems it necessary in the protection of other lives, he will kill again. But it's not like he goes out. It's not like it's his first choice. Like Wolverine is just OK. He pops a closet. Wow. That's it. You know.
00:32:07
Speaker
No, no, Cap uses lethal force as a last resort. And he's, one of the things that, I don't want to get too much into Superman territory, but one of the things people complain about with Superman is his code against killing. But it makes sense for Superman because he has all that power and he has to put those restraints on himself.
00:32:31
Speaker
Cap doesn't have all that power, so it does make sense for him to have those situations when he would have to resort to lethal force. Right. And you can't get around the core of what the character is because he is a soldier. Right.
00:32:47
Speaker
He is a soldier, so he has been trained to use lethal force, but he's also been trained in knowing when to use that lethal force, and he doesn't just use it indiscriminately. As you point out so accurately, he only does it when he has no other recourse to do it. So yeah, but it really gets on my nerve when people talk about, and mind you, a lot of people, okay,
00:33:17
Speaker
If that's the case that Captain America is too goody-goody or he's too much of a boy scout, then why was this movie so wildly successful? You know, it's funny because I remember in the lead up to this movie, everybody was saying that, you know, Cap's an anachronism.
Critics and Captain America's Success
00:33:31
Speaker
It's not, it's gonna be, it's gonna fail. It's not gonna, he doesn't work in the modern day. And also the fact that it was Captain America,
00:33:39
Speaker
The reason this was the first Marvel movie that had a subtitle, they had the first Avengers subtitle, is because at the time, they were worried because this was, you know, we're still in the aftermath of Iraq and everything. People were worried that, well, if we put out a movie called Captain America overseas, people aren't going to see it.
00:34:03
Speaker
so instead or people are going to go in with the misconception that it's going to be you know jingoistic or something like that so they plan to they released it overseas just under the title the first avenger yeah which makes sense but you know something when you watch the movie you realize that the story is really not so much about
00:34:28
Speaker
Okay. It doesn't have that jingoism that you were talking about. It's much more character study about this one guy who, as he says, when he goes to the professor and the professor has asked some questions about that, oh, well, why do you want to go overseas and kill Nazis or anything like that? He says, well, no, I don't want to kill Nazis. He says, I want to go to, he said, cause I don't like bullies.
00:34:51
Speaker
Chris Evans is the perfect distillation of who Captain America is. There was an essay I read a few years back which talked about what kind of person
00:35:04
Speaker
Captain America is, because people who aren't familiar with the comics, they go in thinking, well, you know, Cap's this soldier from World War II, so obviously he's gonna be like a certain type of character, right? He's gonna be like kind of like this macho, alpha male, jingoist type of character, is how a lot of people who don't know the character, that's their image of what Captain America should be, just based on that.
Steve Rogers' Brooklyn Roots
00:35:27
Speaker
But, you know,
00:35:29
Speaker
Steve was a guy from Brooklyn. He was an artist. He went to art school. He grew up in the artistic world of New York City. He wasn't some roughneck or something like that. Well, no. He had asthma. He was a scrawny guy. He was a typical 98-pound weakling. Yeah. Yeah.
00:35:51
Speaker
So it always drives me nuts when people think that that's what Captain America should be, or even more maddening when they portray him after he's woken up in the modern day, and they always portray him like he's an old man in a young man's body. When really, he still is a young man, right? His being frozen in ice for 70 years didn't age his mentality. He still has the mentality of a guy in his 20s.
00:36:17
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, yeah. And yeah, the company did. OK, they had that tendency to portray him as like he would say, oh, I'm 80 years old. But no, he's not, you know, yeah, OK. He was he was frozen in ice for 80 years, but he's not 80 years old. Actually, he's like, you know, you're frozen when he was still in his 20s.
00:36:41
Speaker
Not to get too much into Winter Soldier, but I did like how they handle that, where he's not this guy who's confused by everything, but he's a young guy, so he's exposed to this world with all this technology, all this history. So what's the first thing he does? He starts making a list, and he starts learning how to do things. Yeah, he starts catching up. He says, oh, wow.
00:37:04
Speaker
OK, here's a guy who is literally living in the science fiction world that he saw in the first movie when him and Bucky when they go to the pavilion. Right. It's World's Fair and everything like that. OK, not OK. By the end of the movie, he wakes up, he's in that world. So, yeah, he's say, wow, this is you know, this is cool. Yeah. And he talks about it when he's talking to Falcon. He's like, you know, food's much better. He's like, you know, we used to boil everything. You know, there's no polio now. The Internet's so helpful.
00:37:34
Speaker
Yeah, but going back to what you said about the whole thing with, yeah, that they were worried how this movie would be perceived overseas. But the script is clever enough that it sidesteps that whole issue by giving us a reason for the Captain America post, the whole thing, in that it was a propaganda tool to sell war bonds.
00:38:03
Speaker
You know, it wasn't a political thing. It was, you know, they, you know, they told Steve Rogers, okay, well, listen, we're going to put you in the suit and you're going to go around the country and tour and you're going to inspire people again. So that's how Captain America starts out as a propaganda. And I remember it isn't until later. Yeah. And I remember when also when that information came out that Captain America was going to be going on USO tours in the movie, you know, people were like, why are they doing that? That doesn't make any sense. And now you watch the movie and you're like, oh, wait, no, it makes perfect sense.
00:38:33
Speaker
It makes perfect sense that we see that he makes, you know, Captain America movies and you see the comic books, you know, you see the comic book that has the famous drawing of Captain America punching, you know. So, yeah, when you present Captain America in that light that he starts out strictly as a propaganda tool and something that's used to entertain troops and stuff like that, and then he transitions
Propaganda Tool to Hero
00:39:01
Speaker
into being this frontline soldier that inspires other soldiers. Then you said, okay, Captain America now is not just a political idol or symbol. He's inspirational, simple to the troops and the people back home and everything. And I think that it was a clever move on the part of the script writers to go that route and give us that rationale for why Captain America
00:39:29
Speaker
uh... is the way he is and how he came about and also they managed to get in the original costume with the funny looking wings on the uh... his bill and the original shield too and the original shield because he he has that on the tour and then and that's what's great about that transition is he's there because he's there to entertain the troops and then when he finds out that bucky and the rest of the hundred and seventh are still captured
00:39:54
Speaker
All he has is that suit, right? So he doesn't have like a uniform or anything. And the only weapon he can get is he gets a gun, but he still needs, so he takes the shield with him. And so it all works really well. And then he comes back and everyone now knows him as Captain America. So now they're like, no, we want to keep that symbol. That's a great, they realize, you know, this is a great symbol we can use. They kind of stumble upon it by accident. And then they find a way to incorporate it into his regular uniform.
00:40:24
Speaker
because it's a great scene when he first gets there and he's at the Army camp, he's trying to do his show and everything like that. And the soldiers are making fun of him, of course, because they say, oh, you know, well, we're out here getting our asses shot off and you're back home, you know, you're having fun with the dance of girls and everything like that. And they call him Captain America, but they call him that as an insult, right? You know, the right of him, but after he rescues all the soldiers and bring them back,
00:40:51
Speaker
then they start calling captain there's a less here for captain america they mean it for real now it's a you know that's her actual title now that they bestow upon him you know they say yeah man you are captain america you know it's a great scene well also when he sees the when he frees the prisoners and they're like who are you and he's like i'm captain america and they're like um what
00:41:15
Speaker
The one who says it is John Fallsworth, who's the original Union Jack, who's one of the Howling Commandos, when he's just like, he's like, excuse me?
00:41:27
Speaker
But it's, yeah, but it's a great, and like you said, when he goes to Stark and he says, okay, well, I got some ideas, you know, for the suit. And then he incorporates part, because when he goes out, the rest of the soldiers, he gets the helmet that's got the A on it, and he has leather jacket, and he incorporates, he gives it to Stark who incorporates all of that into the new outfit that he makes for himself, which is a lot more realistic. It looks like something that you would actually wear in the combat.
00:41:57
Speaker
Well, yeah, that's the genius of this. And this is kind of a credit to Brian Hitch when he was doing the Ultimates. Because the first issue of the Ultimates was Cap in World War II. And so instead of putting him in a regular superhero costume, they put him in a military uniform that was colored with, that was colored red, white, and blue, basically. And they use that as the inspiration for Cap's look in this movie. And it's done perfectly well. It makes sense. It's utilitarian.
00:42:26
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I mean, you would think that Captain America costume, you say, well, yeah, well, why would somebody wear that bright red, white, and blue that's on a battlefield? And it's still red, white, and blue, but the colors are sufficiently muted that he doesn't stand out really. I mean, the brightest thing about him is the shield that he carries.
MCU's Genre Blending Strategy
00:42:52
Speaker
actually, that's the brightest thing he has. And again, I guess that works just like the bat symbol on Batman's chest is that that's what the enemy shoots at. They shoot at the shield. They don't shoot at him.
00:43:05
Speaker
Yeah. But one of the great things that the MCU has done is they find practical reasons for these costumes to make sense. They tailor them towards the individual character. They don't go in with one sweeping generalization like they did with the X-Men movies where they all have to have one look. No, they look at each individual character. They're like, well, Iron Man's
00:43:27
Speaker
high-tech suit of armor, so we can go get away with using that just like it is in the newer comics. Captain America's a soldier, so we're gonna take his uniform and we're gonna make it a soldier's uniform just with the regular colors. Black Widow and Hawkeye are spies, so we're gonna give them suits that reflect that and are suited to their specific strengths and skills. Okay, one of the major things I like about all the MCU movies is that
00:43:56
Speaker
They're not just superhero movies. Mike Pence says, okay, we got this movie. Like I said earlier, it's a World War II movie as well as being a superhero movie. Then you have Thor, which is not just superhero movie, but it's like a Ray Harry housing type of fantasy movie, you know.
00:44:17
Speaker
You have Iron Man, which are these high tech thrillers. It's like every movie is tailored. Like you said, there's nothing cookie cutter about the MCU. They're all movies that are tailored to the strength of the individual characters, which gives them their own unique look and tone and style or whatever. They're not just saying, OK, well, we're just not going to follow this formula for every movie. They don't. It's tailored for every separate different character.
Winter Soldier: A Political Thriller
00:44:48
Speaker
Because one of the things we talked about before is that Hollywood, when it comes to superhero movies, Hollywood loves the origin story because the origin story, it's very simple. It's very easy for Hollywood executives to understand. It fits the basic hero's journey structure. The problem is when you get into sequels and then Hollywood's like, well, what do we do now? We've already done the origin story. But but Marvel has figured out and they're like, well, what you do is you don't think of them as superhero movies. You think of them as genre movies that have superheroes in them.
00:45:18
Speaker
A bingo, exactly. Exactly. And that allows you to then go beyond the origin story movie. So you have the first Captain America. It was set in World War II. So it's a pulp war adventure.
00:45:35
Speaker
Exactly. That's what it is. But then you bring it into the modern day and suddenly, well, you can't do the World War II pulp adventure anymore. That's going to seem very anachronistic. So what do you do now? What do you do in the 21st century? You make it a political thriller and it works so well.
00:45:53
Speaker
Oh my God. Yeah. I mean, you know, the winter soldier, we're going to get into that one of these days that that is like, as much as I love Thor and the black Panther and all those other movies, I would have to say that if you're going to point at something that is like the crown jewel, it would have to be the soldier. Yeah.
00:46:17
Speaker
Definitely, yeah. I mean, yeah, like you said, that took superhero movies to a different type of level in that year. You could do a political John Frankenheimer type of paranoid political thriller in there and still have plenty of superheroic stuff all going on at the same time.
00:46:42
Speaker
as well as bringing up, you know, pretty heady questions about like, what's the role of government, government surveillance, all this kind of stuff is worked into that movie. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I mean, yeah, stuff that you would never expect to find in a superhero movie. But again, that serves the whole idea of Captain America trying to figure out who Captain America is supposed to be in this world he's found himself in. When he was in World War II, he knew who he was supposed to be as Captain America.
00:47:11
Speaker
Now, because if you remember when the Winter Soldier starts, he's on this covert mission, you know, for S.H.I.E.L. and he's having a conversation with the Black Widow, who all throughout the movie, that's one of the best things about it, that they're talking about, you know, okay, well, this is our government, but should our government be doing this? Should we be helping our government doing this? You know, they're getting into some pretty deep discussions that, yeah, would, like I said, would be more suited for John Frankenheimer, paranoid thriller than a superhero.
00:47:40
Speaker
hero movie. Yeah, absolutely.
Captain America's Role in MCU's Success
00:47:43
Speaker
And something that you know, it's kind of funny when you think about it, because when the MCU was beginning to start, everyone assumed that the Iron Man movies would be the backbone of the whole universe.
00:47:56
Speaker
And in some ways, you know, Robert Downey Jr. is kind of a linchpin, but more than that, the Cap movies really became the backbone of it. So much stuff in the MCU as a whole derived from events that happened in the Captain America movies. In the Iron Man movies, after you get done with the first Iron Man movie, the stuff that happens in Iron Man 2, Iron Man 3, that doesn't really have any noticeable impact on the rest of the universe.
00:48:23
Speaker
Yeah, it's all personal stuff that really affects Tony Stark. Right. Really.
00:48:28
Speaker
more than anything else, especially Iron Man 3. It's really all about him. Yeah, like you said, it's not really events. Whereas in the Winter Soldier, well, I mean, that thing just turns a whole Marvel universe, the whole MCU. I mean, forget about it. It just throws a lot of shit that we knew out the window. Yeah, and Iron Man 3, pretty much everything that didn't directly involve Tony has ended up getting changed back to the way something else.
00:48:56
Speaker
roadie became iron patriot and then immediately the next time we see him he's back to war machine um the mandarin is revealed to be fake and now we're getting him as shang chi's father in the upcoming shang chi movie and no something okay just let me throw this out there real quick and i know that van allen plexico whose birthday it is today you know as we're recording this happy birthday van
00:49:18
Speaker
He's gonna get on me fair. But I never understood why people got so hostile about the, because you know what, I always figured that the Mandarin that was presented in that movie, that wasn't the real Mandarin.
Mandarin Twist in Iron Man 3
00:49:28
Speaker
Well, they didn't, at the time we didn't know that. It was intended to be that it was always, the Mandarin was never a real person. That was Shane Black's intention. And then after that, they retconned it in the, in the one shot, all hail the king.
00:50:01
Speaker
I mean, you know, got out there in front to be this buffoon so that nobody would take the real Mandarin seriously. He's somewhere in his lair in China, you know, plotting overthrow of the Western world or whatever, you know, but OK, well, we'll get into that when we get to Iron Man 3. Yeah.
00:50:05
Speaker
when they revealed that there's a real Mandarin.
00:50:21
Speaker
Now back to this movie, my whole thing with the Cap comics, I didn't really start reading Captain America regularly until the Brubaker stuff, when he brought back Bucky as the Winter Soldier. I'm not sure if you've read any of the Brubaker stuff.
Ta-Nehisi Coates on Captain America
00:50:37
Speaker
And I have not read it. Matter of fact, I have not read much Marvel since the turn of the century. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, yeah, I mean, like I picked up the occasional issue here and there, but, uh, I read civil war. I read civil war. Well, that was a mistake. Yeah. Well, what can I tell you? But I'm, but like, I'm, but like I haven't read DC or Marvel.
00:51:02
Speaker
on a regular basis since I would say, like, the late 90s. You know what? Once comics got to be too expensive, and they got to be where I could read them in the time it would take for me to leave the comic book shop and walk to my car, you know, once they got like that, I said, nah, you know, this is a habit that's, you know, too expensive. I do recommend checking out the brew baker stuff, though. It's really like the gold standard of Captain America, I think. And it's, you know,
00:51:32
Speaker
Basically, the movies, you know, not so much First Avenger, but definitely Winter Soldier and to a lesser extent, Civil War. Like the way they portray Cap and the types of stories they tell with Cap, that all comes straight from Brubaker's stuff. And it's really, really smart, like political thriller type stuff. OK, we'll see now, especially now.
00:51:58
Speaker
now that digital comics are so cheap now, what I'm doing is going back. And I am reading a lot of stuff that I missed out on because yeah, I can get it for digital. And you know, they're always having these great sales on all these graphic novels and it, you know, so I could just go and like buy like an entire run.
00:52:17
Speaker
yeah it only cost me like a couple of bucks you know so yeah so that's what i've been doing i've been going back and actually i've been rediscovering a lot of great stuff and a lot of new stuff that i wasn't reading all this time simply because you know now the digital
00:52:31
Speaker
all world is you know and like we mentioned before who those people they're always having these great sales and it's like oh my god they're breaking my bank yeah yeah comixology oh yeah comixology yeah they're always having sales and but i can't help it because you know what it's so cheap that i feel bad for not buying it
00:52:56
Speaker
So the Brewbaker stuff is amazing. You definitely want to check out Brewbaker's cap. But also, now Ta-Nehisi Coates is doing it. And he's got the first two. I think it was just the second trade. It's up to two trades right now. And that's also really good.
00:53:17
Speaker
You know, it's, I mean, it's Ta-Nehisi Coates, so he brings in like a whole different perspective of what America is and what it means to be, you know, a symbol of America as compared to other writers, because... Now, I could be wrong, but I think as far... I know Christopher Priest did, you know, a Captain America and the Falcon series in the early 2000s, but other than that, I'm pretty sure that the Cap's main title has always been written by white guys. Am I wrong?
00:53:46
Speaker
As far as I know, yeah, mostly Captain America is written by white guys, as were most comics at one time. I mean, people of color writing comic books really is something that, unfortunately, at least when it comes to Marvel and DC, is still regarded as something newsworthy and something to be marveled at, if you forgive the pun, whereas we should just be saying, okay, well,
00:54:16
Speaker
Okay, such-and-such a writer is now writing so-and-so title. And we should just say, oh, wow, good. But then they got to make, oh, it's a black writer that's writing this type now. I mean, okay, so what is he supposed to do? Is he supposed to be representative of all black people just because he's writing this title, which gets it to this whole, and I guess people always expect.
00:54:41
Speaker
that whenever a black writer steps in and writes something like Captain America, they're gonna bring a racial political angle.
00:54:52
Speaker
Well, I think in the case, if you're talking to someone like Christopher Priest, then yeah, you're right. You probably don't expect a whole lot of political angles going to be touched on in there a little bit. But when he was writing Black Panther, he got into some pretty interesting political stuff. But when he was doing other stuff, he was just doing more straight up superheroes, like when he was doing Deadpool or something like that. Yeah.
00:55:16
Speaker
But when it comes to Ta-Nehisi Coates, because he's probably one of the smartest political commentators out there right now, putting him on Captain America, and with his perspective on America and American history, it's created a really unique voice for that title. And I think it's just been a really eye-opening thing to read.
00:55:38
Speaker
Well, that's why you put a writer like him on any title that you're going to do because, as you said, he's going to bring that unique perspective to anything he does because that's what he does. Right. But it's like I've read his I've read I think I think all of
Potential S.H.I.E.L.D. Revamp
00:55:53
Speaker
his black. I'm not sure if he's still writing Black Panther or not, but I've read at least some of his Black Panther stuff and it's good, but it's not as it's not as good as priest stuff, I don't think.
00:56:03
Speaker
But when you put him on, I think part of it is because someone like Ta-Nehisi Coates, you'd expect him to write Black Panther. But him writing Captain America is a bit more unexpected, and he brings a whole different dimension to it that really makes it stand head and shoulders above his other work, I think.
00:56:23
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. And like I said, you don't put him on a title like Captain America and expect him to do straight superhero stuff. Right. Because let's face it, he's not a straight superhero guy. Yeah. You know, that's not where he's coming from, but he's bringing a unique new voice.
00:56:41
Speaker
to this whole superhero stuff. And like you said, with his background, his knowledge of American history, American politics, his intellectualism, that's the stuff that you hire him for. You don't hire him to write, okay, bam, bam, flash, pow, zap, bing, boom. You don't hire him to write that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. You wouldn't put him on something like,
00:57:08
Speaker
like the Avengers, because that's just more big league superhero stuff. That's not going to fit him. No, no, you wouldn't put him on something like that. In fact, you put him on something like a street level hero. Or something like Latin America, where he can where he can explore the political ideas. Right, exactly. Or also something like X-Men really well, I think.
00:57:32
Speaker
or let him do something like a S.H.I.E.L. book. Yeah, that's a good one too, especially in the current age and the age of war and terror and surveillance. Yeah, he'd be amazing on something like that. That's what I'm thinking. That's what I'm thinking of. But give him the concept and save him. Listen, how would you reinvent S.H.I.E.L. for our age now, for the world that we should be in? What is the role of S.H.I.E.L.? What are they supposed to be doing?
00:58:00
Speaker
And if I recall, right now in the comics, SHIELD is actually defunct. They're going through one of those periods where they don't exist. So it would be the perfect time to do a SHIELD book with Ta-Nehisi Coates redesigning it.
00:58:16
Speaker
Well, yeah, because you know what?
Chris Evans as Captain America
00:58:18
Speaker
I'm kind of a traditionalist at heart as much as I fight it. And Marvel, to me, ain't Marvel without certain things such as S.H.I.E.L.D. These things go through cycles. S.H.I.E.L.D. gets dismantled and destroyed every 10 years or so.
00:58:33
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They always, you know, like you said, they always dismantle it and stuff like that. But then, you know, somebody brings it back and they say, OK, well, you know, we got to have some before we have Sheila's some kind of form of fashion. Yeah. And Nick Fury has died like 50 times.
00:58:53
Speaker
Personally, I like to see shield brought back and be more something like, uh, you know, like a small unit, kind of like the mission impossible team. Okay. That'd be, we see in the Tom Cruise movies, something like that, you know? Yeah. You know, just like a small curve, you know, a small covert, you know, type of you. Cause I think we move past.
00:59:15
Speaker
Excuse me, SHIELD being this big multinational uncle type of organization. I think that we've moved past that, that an organization like that just wouldn't work.
00:59:32
Speaker
in a MCU now, but a small covert team that, you know, goes in, does what they got to do and then get out. I think that that I think that would be interesting to see someone like the like the season two era of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Yeah, something like that. Yeah. OK, yeah. Yeah, basically. Now, taking it back to this movie,
00:59:56
Speaker
Chris Evans, I was kind of surprised going in when they cast him as Captain America, because I'd known him more as the Human Torch. So I knew him as this cocky, egotistical guy playing that kind of role. And also, he played something similar in The Losers or in Scott Pilgrim.
01:00:19
Speaker
He had that kind of vibe and I'm like, can he really pull off Captain America? And that ended up Captain America ended up being like his best role ever. You know why I trusted him playing Captain America? Because
01:00:35
Speaker
in watching the Fantastic Four movies. I paid attention to him and I'm hoping I get his last name right, Michael Chickles. Yeah, yeah. Because watching the two Fantastic Four movies, something soon became apparent to me that Chris Evans and Michael Chickles were the only guys who read the original comics and knew who they were playing. Yeah, absolutely.
01:00:59
Speaker
they were the only ones that knew what the fuck they was doing and in them two I'm sorry folks but yeah they were the only two that knew what they would do because they had their characters down pat yeah that's why I didn't have a problem with Chris Evans I said okay because you know what he's gonna go back and he's gonna read the comics and that's exactly what he's playing he's playing
01:01:19
Speaker
the Steve Rogers Captain America that I know from the Jack Kirby era. That's who he's playing. He's playing the Jack Kirby Steve Rogers Captain America. This was actually his sixth comic book film. So by the time, even before the MCU really kicked off, he'd already been in more comic book movies than most of his co-stars.
01:01:42
Speaker
Yeah. Because he did the first, he did the two Fantastic Four movies. Then he did Push, which I guess is also based on a comic book. He was in The Losers, he was in Scott Pilgrim, and he did the voice of Casey Jones in the animated TMNT in 2007. Okay, okay. None of them which I've seen except for The Losers and the Fantastic Four movie. But he was good in all of them. And you know what, again, we see
01:02:09
Speaker
the value of casting the right people much like as we said before you know we go back to our man Christopher Reeve in the original Superman you know even after all this time the movie's what 40 years old and when people think of Superman who they think of they don't think of Dean Cain or you know any of these other guys that play they think of Christopher Reeve they don't think of Henry Capil they think of Christopher Reeve you know much in the same way it is
01:02:36
Speaker
They are not going to be able to make another Captain America movie for about another 10 years. Because you know why? Because they got to give people time to forget Chris Evans. Well, they can make another Captain America movie, but it would probably be with Sam as Captain America as opposed to. But but as far as Steve Rogers goes, yeah, you're right. It's going to be a while before they can do another one of those. Oh, yeah, that's what I mean. It's not like a case where
01:03:04
Speaker
You have like four or five guys play Batman in the space of a decade or something like that, you know? It's not, you gotta give people time to forget Chris Evans. That's how good he is, you know?
01:03:16
Speaker
He's amazingly good. You made me think of something when you brought up Christopher Reeve's Superman, because when I think of the ideal Superman, I think of the Christopher Reeves.
Definitive Portrayals of Superheroes
01:03:28
Speaker
The specific origin story he had in that movie, that is what I think of with the Fortress of Solitude being all made of crystal. That's the image I have in my head of Superman. That's the definitive Superman.
01:03:42
Speaker
Not the stuff, none of the comic book origin stories I think of as definitive as that one. And it's the same thing with Chris Evans in Captain America. He's just slightly different from all the different portrayals of Captain in the comic books. But when I think of the quintessential Captain America, I think of Chris Evans in these movies. Yeah, exactly.
01:04:09
Speaker
Well, again, I think this, first of all, folks, I think, and Perry, I think this movie is absolutely genius on so many levels. One of those levels is that we get to, we get so much time to get to know Steve Rogers before he gets injected with the Super Soldier Serum and he gets to bite a raise and comes out. I was watching the movie and I took note. Like he doesn't actually become Captain America until about halfway into the movie.
01:04:34
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. We spent a lot of time with him before he actually becomes Captain America. So you know what? We have time to get invested with this guy. We feel like we know him by the time that he's become Captain America and we buy it.
01:04:53
Speaker
simply because we've come along this journey with him as his 98 pound weakling. He meets the scientists and the scientists, you know, they have a relationship. They forge a bond. And then I was not expecting to be as attached to Abraham Erksine as I was in this movie.
01:05:12
Speaker
Again, this movie, a large part of it works because of the relationships that is built up and they get a tangible relationship in a short amount of time. Yeah, I mean, Stanley Tucci sells this so hard in this movie and he does it. He's incredible in this.
01:05:30
Speaker
He's you know, he's he's endearing he's he's caring but he's also funny like there's that one of my favorite scenes is when Before the operation and he comes and he brings Steve the schnapps and he's like, oh wait No, no, you can't drink you have an operation. You have procedure tomorrow And he says so I guess we'll drink it later.
Enriching Narratives Through Relationships
01:05:50
Speaker
He's like, it's like no, why am I gonna drink it later? I'll drink it now I don't have a procedure tomorrow Quietly, you know
01:05:59
Speaker
He doesn't go for the big bombastic moments in this.
01:06:06
Speaker
He makes the character memorable through little small things just like that. You know what's something else I realized as I was watching it is when Steve asks him, where are you from? And he says, Queens. But before that, Germany. And then in Civil War, when he fights Spider-Man and then he asks him, you got her kid, where are you from? And he says, Queens. And he gets this kind of little smile on his face. And he remembers, I never caught that until just now. Yeah.
01:06:34
Speaker
Like I just thought it was, he was just, I just thought that smirk was about like, you know, New York borough rivalry, but really it's because, you know, he's remembering Erskine. He's remembering Erskine. Yeah. And he's saying, wow, you know, people from Queens, you know, and, and he's like, say, okay, well I trusted that guy. He's from Queens. I could trust this guy. Yeah. That's what it is. Yeah. It's a nice little more, it's a nice little moment in,
01:06:59
Speaker
And I always treasure those little moments that you see in movies such as this, because a lot of that is what goes into building characterization. And even though you may not, even though you may not get it the first time, like you said, it takes a couple of times. Like today, I did not notice
01:07:18
Speaker
I watched the movie today and there was like a whole lot of little things like that. Like you said, that I caught, I hadn't seen before, but I was looking at the movie with a critical eye today, whereas before I was watching it just as entertainment. But now when I was watching it today and I was watching with a little bit more critical eye and I was being a little bit more objective and I said, okay, yeah, that's kind of cool. Yeah, and this is kind of cool.
01:07:46
Speaker
One of the things that I always get into arguing with about people is that they
01:07:52
Speaker
complain about Hydra being a stand in for the Nazis. You know, like, you know, we never see any actual Nazis in the movie until the scene where the red skull is like showing him the weapon that he's built. Right. And then he's declaring that Hydra is going to break off from the Nazi party and it's going to become its own thing and stuff like that.
Hydra and Nazi Imagery
01:08:13
Speaker
But we never see any swastikas, anything like that. And people also say, oh, yeah, well, that's unrealistic.
01:08:19
Speaker
Oh, so you mean you've got a movie now with a guy that can got a shield that he can throw all over the room and it hits nine or 10 people and comes back to his hand. That's okay. But you, you know, you freak out because there's no Nazis in the movie. I think that was a smart move. Yeah, I think that was a smart move myself. Yeah. Okay. We hear the name of Hitler. We hear the Nazi parties being mentioned, but it is clearly established. They said, well, Hydra is like its own cult within the Nazi party.
01:08:48
Speaker
Part of that could also have been done for international distribution because in Germany, the swastika is banned. Yeah, exactly. That's another reason why. I think that was a good move myself.
01:09:04
Speaker
This movie, per se, it's not like, say that, okay, it's not like, hmm, what can I compare it to? It's not like Indiana Jones, where it is necessary that the actual Nazi Party and Hitler be an integral part of the adventure. It's not that necessary for Captain America, enough that we get
01:09:25
Speaker
Hydra, and we know that that's the scientific division of the Nazi Party, and that's what Captain America is fighting here. Basically, that's all we need. Right, right.
01:09:37
Speaker
And so going into some of the other performances here, we talked a little bit about Sebastian Stan.
Bucky and Steve's Relationship
01:09:43
Speaker
And this is something that, because when Drew Baker came on Cap in America, he looked at the relationship between Cap and Bucky. And he did the math in his head, because he figures, all right, well Cap was a young guy when he went into World War II. He was like, what, maybe 19, 20 years old tops? And Bucky.
01:10:01
Speaker
sorry go ahead i believe i'm as a matter of fact i do believe that in the movie he does say he's only nineteen to twenty years old yeah yeah so he did the math because bucky was you know it's pretty obviously stated that bucky was like sixteen when he started become working with as with with caps partner correct so
01:10:21
Speaker
So the way Brubaker looked at it was the whole father-son dynamic didn't really make sense because they were only about a few years apart in age. So instead he took it more of like a sibling relationship and that's kind of how he portrayed them in his run. And then that carries over into this movie and it gives so much more to their relationship as opposed to having them be like a second-rate Batman and Robin.
01:10:49
Speaker
And actually, you know why it works even better? It works even better because when we first meet Steve Rogers and Bucky,
01:10:58
Speaker
It's like Bucky is the big brother. Right. Because of course, Steve hasn't taken the super soldier serum and he's like the scrawny 90 pound weakling and he's getting his ass kicked in the alley, which in the nice little bit when the bully is beating him up, he picks up a trash can lid and he holds it like a shield to defend himself. You know, which again is a nice little moment.
01:11:20
Speaker
And we also get that moment when he says, you don't know when to state out, do you? And he says, I can do this all day. And that's something that the series keeps coming back to so many times throughout. Right, yeah. Every time he gets into a fight and he's getting his ass kicked, he says, yeah, I could do this all day long. And then he makes fun of himself in Endgame when he says, I can do this all day long. He's like, yeah, I know.
01:11:46
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. I know that line. Oh, but yeah, but Bucky is like his big brother in that part of their relationship. But then later on in the movie,
01:12:01
Speaker
after he's you know he's become all big and buff and he's rescuing the soldiers and everything like that then Steve Rogers it's like he becomes a big brother now yeah and I love their interactions when it first happened when Bucky's like he's all disoriented from the experiments and he says didn't you used to be did you were you always this tall
01:12:20
Speaker
Yeah, he said, wait a minute, weren't you smaller? Yeah. And he's like, and he says, like, what happened to you? He's like, oh, well, I joined the army. I joined the army. He's like, is this permanent? He's like, well, so far it is. Yeah, you know, so far. I don't know if it's going to take, but it's working for me so far. Yeah. Like Bucky can't get over it. He said, well, what happened to you, man? But also the film avoids.
01:12:48
Speaker
which is something i worry when i first saw it like i thought it was going to go into the standard the obvious the obvious route would have been bucky becomes jealous of steve now that steve is a super soldier and they give you kind of a little tease like they're going to go down that route when um after they get rescued and they're in the bar and peggy comes in wearing that dress which i looked from the trivia that dress was actually originally made for um
01:13:16
Speaker
Melanie Lauren in in glorious bastards Really? Yeah, and they never they never actually ended up using it in that movie. So they had Haley Atwell wear it in that scene instead But but that scene, you know where he's trying to hit on Peggy and Peggy's just ignoring him and she's only looking at Steve and then afterwards, you know Bucky goes, you know, you know, it's like I'm you he's like this is a nightmare and
01:13:45
Speaker
And they could have so easily gone down the very cliche but very easy route of doing a cap and bucky jealousy thing. And they didn't. They had the sense to avoid doing that. And it works so much better that they didn't do that.
01:14:02
Speaker
Yeah, because after a while, you get the impression, at least I did, I got the impression that Bucky was actually happy for him. Yeah. You know, because this is best friend, and he has finally gotten what he always wanted to be. More than that, he's getting the recognition that Bucky's always felt he deserved.
01:14:19
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And like you said, if you had a movie with lesser talents doing this, that's the route they would have went. He would have gotten jealous of them. That whole thing with him falling in the ice, he would have blamed Captain America for it.
01:14:40
Speaker
But no, they don't go that route at all. They say, you know what, this movie doesn't have time for that BS. And Bucky proves that it's not Cap that he's going after, but it's not following Captain America. He's not taken with the whole pomp and circumstance and the mythology of Captain America, right? That scene when he says, are you ready to follow Captain America under the jaws of death? And he goes, no, hell no, I'm not following Captain America. I'm following the little scrawny kid who was too dumb to walk away from a fight.
01:15:10
Speaker
Exactly. That's it. It goes back to the whole, hey, listen, I knew you win. Yeah. You know, yeah. Okay. These people think you're Captain America, but I remember, you know, I know who you really are, which, which is the core of their relationship is that, yeah, they knew each other when. Yeah. Yeah. You know, they knew each other before all of this happened, you know, and that's what they never forget.
Symbolism of Captain America's Shield
01:15:33
Speaker
All throughout these movies. All throughout all these movies. Like in Civil War when he says, he's like, your name is Steve. You used to wear newspapers in your shoes. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the thing. Bucky doesn't let him forget it by him saying that. You know, when he says that, no, I'm not following Captain America. I'm following the scoring little kid. Didn't know what he...
01:15:55
Speaker
He's reminding him also of who he was. It's, it's, it's reinforcing what Eric Sine told him before the operation. He's like, you know, no matter what happens, always, you know, remember who you are. He's like, you know, not a good soldier, but a good man. Exactly. Don't get a swelled head now, you know, let this Captain America shit go to your head. You're still the scrawny kid from book, which is at the strength of Captain America in the MCU in that
01:16:23
Speaker
That's who he really is. He doesn't really think of himself as lightening.
01:16:29
Speaker
this big, inspiring figure that everybody looks up to. This is who he is at his core. He's the scoring little kid from Brooklyn who never gave up, who doesn't like bullies. Well, Elaine, a line that you've always pointed to in discussions you've had, I've seen you have this movie many times, is the line when he says, when Red Skull asks him, you know, what's so special about you? And Steve just says nothing. I'm just a kid from Brooklyn. Yeah, that's it.
01:16:58
Speaker
That's it. That's how he sees himself. You know, he leaves the Captain America stuff for other people. And I think that Steve Rogers has enough self-awareness to not identify who he really is with the symbol of what Captain America is. He realizes that that's a symbol and he protects that symbol. And that's what he,
01:17:24
Speaker
sees his role as being somebody who protects that symbol, which is also why he doesn't confuse, which is also why he doesn't get possessive over it when at the end of civil war, when Tony tells him, you don't deserve that shield. My father made that. And, you know, Steve just says, you're right. I don't need that. He's like, you know, I don't need the shield at all. So he just drops these like this is this isn't who I have to be.
01:17:49
Speaker
Right. Exactly. Exactly. It's not like Tony Stark, whose identity is bound up with his technology because he doesn't have the technology. And even Captain America says that, you know, we'll take away that tin suit and what are you? Yeah. You know, he tells him that at one point and he's absolutely right. You know, if you take it away from it, if you take Tony Stark, if you take all that technology away from him, then who is he? He does. He
01:18:15
Speaker
He doesn't know because that's how he defines himself. That's how he defines his place in the world is through his technology.
01:18:24
Speaker
Whereas Captain America isn't like that, he's defined himself by who he is as a man. And yeah, here, you can have the shield, you can have the costume, I don't need that. Which is also why he doesn't have the kind of identity crisis that Tony has when he loses the suit in Iron Man 3, or that Thor has when he loses Mjolnir in Ragnarok, right? He loses the shield, he's still the same guy when he comes back in Infinity War.
Depth Beyond Action
01:18:51
Speaker
Yeah, he's still the same. Right, exactly. Now, now, Thor, he loses the hammer. He's always shit, you know, he's like, but as, as Odin tells him, he said, wait a minute, are you the God of Thunder or the God of Hamlet? Right, right. I cracked up so much. I love that lie. You're not the God of Hamlet, the God of Thunder. That's the hammer is not you. Right. Right.
01:19:14
Speaker
And that's something Steve understands. He knows that the shield is not him. It's a symbol, but it's a symbol that he protects, which is why when Tony gives it to him in Endgame, he's like, I'm not so sure about this. Because he sees that as a symbol of unity with the Avengers and like a leader of the country. And after everything that's happened, he's not sure if he's still the person to do that. Well, you know what? The shield is just like Thor's hammer.
01:19:40
Speaker
You know, he doesn't think he's worthy at that point to have the shield. Right. In other words, you got to be worthy to carry the shield just like you got to be worthy to pick up the hammer. Oh, speaking of just a minor digression, but remember in an endgame when he gives him the shield and he says, look, I got to give it to you or else Morgan's going to take it sledding. Yeah. There was a photo released of the actress who played Morgan on a Captain America shield sledding.
01:20:18
Speaker
Yeah. All right. But just see how deep these movies can get folks with the, you know, with the symbols. And you thought it was just a shield. No, it's not just a shield. It's a scalloper.
Hugo Weaving as Red Skull
01:20:30
Speaker
So we talked about, you know, some of the performances. We talked about Haley Atwell, Chris Evans, Sebastian Stan, Stanley Tucci. What about Hugo Weaving, who plays the Red Skull?
01:20:36
Speaker
See, that should have had that in the movie.
01:20:44
Speaker
Well, Hugo Weaving is brilliant, period. I mean, you know, whatever he does. And he strikes the right note with this character in that, you know what? Who's the guy that played RM Zola? Toby Jones.
01:21:03
Speaker
Yeah, Toby Jones. I love the relationship. Again, I go back to relationships in this movie. I love the relationship that they have. It's not your typical, okay, chief bad guy and chief lackey type of relationship. It's almost like a marriage. Yeah, very much. It's almost like a marriage. That's how he treats
01:21:30
Speaker
Toby Jones, he treats him almost like insignificant wife that, you know, he has a slap around every once in a while, you know, to make himself feel good. Toby Jones is like very nervous around him and everything. And you go weeping. I like the fact that here's a guy that's not afraid to, you know, go through a movie. Well, he did it in V for Vendetta, where, you know, he wore a mask for the whole movie. He doesn't mind doing that, you know, putting on a mask and, you know,
01:21:55
Speaker
Because he knows how to act through the mask. Exactly. And he does a great job, too. And with a character like the Red Skull, he's such a tough character to portray or to write because the Red Skull, as originally created, is basically almost cartoonishly evil. Yeah, right. Yeah.
01:22:20
Speaker
And somehow Hugo Weaving is able to make him work. And
Red Skull vs Dr. Doom
01:22:25
Speaker
you know, we wrote the guy when we were writing Fanfic together. He's such a hard character to write because he's a cartoon. Yeah, yeah. The Red Skull is one of those guys that, yeah, you've got to get a handle on him in that he's not like, OK, like say Dr. Doom. Dr. Doom is bombastic.
01:22:49
Speaker
But that's because he's supposed to be bombastic, and he's bombastic in a way that you could put, well, also because, okay, Dr. Doom has got a lot of other things that's going for him. He's got that inherent nobility thing going for him that if he went one way, he could have been a hero. You know, he's got that tragedy that works for him. The red skull is just an asshole. Let's face it.
01:23:12
Speaker
I just read, um, uh, one of the, uh, one of the Epic collections, the Avengers Epic collections. And in it, it had the, uh, the emperor doom graphic novel when he uses the purple man to take control of the whole world. And what does he do? He, you know, he doesn't subjugate everybody, but he eliminates crime. He eliminates poverty. He eliminates hunger. The like doom
01:23:36
Speaker
is actually, you know, he can be altruistic, but his ego demands complete loyalty in order to do that.
01:23:50
Speaker
Well, his thing is that, listen, the world would be way better if everybody would just obey me and worship me and do what I tell them to do. And that's something the world, because I believe in Emperor Doom. Was it Emperor Doom or was it in the Avengers? Well, he actually does take over the world, but nobody knows it. I don't know about it. I think that must have been in that might have been in the Avengers because Emperor Doom, everybody knew he was he was in charge.
01:24:16
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. That was the one where, um, wonder man, uh, comes out of, um, stasis and is the only one who hasn't been affected by it. Oh, okay. Cause there was one where he actually did take over the world, but nobody knew it. And so he had to release the Avengers to fight him because he couldn't live with nobody not knowing that he had taken over the world.
01:24:40
Speaker
There is some aspect of that. I think maybe your memories are mixing two things because there was an aspect in Emperor Doom where he finds out that Simon Williams has convinced some of the Avengers to break free of the conditioning and he lets it happen because he's bored with just ruling and he wants to conquer.
01:25:04
Speaker
Okay. Well then that was okay. Then that is temporary doom that I'm thinking of. Yeah. Cause he gets bored because there's nobody left to fight because everybody is under his mind control, but nobody knows that. Yeah, that's probably, but yeah, but you've got that aspect with him. You've got the thing where once a year he goes down to hell to fight for the soul of his mother. You know, he,
01:25:25
Speaker
He's got all of these other aspects that make him an infinitely more interesting character than the Red Skull, who is just basically, listen, I just want to take over the world. That's all. That's it. I'm a Nazi. Also, he has respect for Susan Richards, right? And he said that no harm will ever come to Susan Richards' children. Yeah, exactly.
01:25:53
Speaker
Yeah. He's got a tremendous amount of respect for her. You know, whereas, you know, Reed, he could, he could push him down a flighted, uh, stairs in a wheelchair in a minute and don't lose any sleep over it. But, but you always get the impression that the doom here is that Sue is in trouble. He's going to come halfway around the world and never help whoever's
01:26:15
Speaker
whoever is messing with her. But yeah, but you, yeah, but you go, we, because what, what part of this movie, I just got to tell you about because when I thought I said I got to mention this to Perry because you saw the Mandalorian, right? Yeah. Okay. You don't crack me up. Remember the scene where
01:26:37
Speaker
Okay. It's where Captain America, he releases all of the prisoners and you go weaving. He's up in the control booth and he sees something, you know, and he said, what the hell is that? He looks at Captain American over there. So that Zola comes over there and said, Oh man, what's going on? He said, we got a problem. Everything like that, you know, sort of red and snow goes, yup. Right.
01:26:57
Speaker
He starts flipping the switches and he says, what are you doing? He said, I'm making the self-destruct. And I thought of IG88. That was his go-to mode. Whenever she got to it, OK, I got self-destruct.
01:27:11
Speaker
And Artemzova goes, wait a minute, aren't you gonna get the troop? Well, we're out now, but click, click, click. I mean, that's his default mode. He doesn't even fight for the bait, he just blows it up. Well, it's like you said, you know, the red skull's an asshole, that's all he really is. Oh, man.
01:27:30
Speaker
And I mean, this cat was ready because he had about like a dozen red buttons. He did not skip by the explosives. No, he was ready, man. He said, OK, if I got to blow this sucker up, it's going up. And it's like he's almost cheerful about it. And Artem Zola is going, wait a minute, wait a minute. Get the troops and get, no, no, no, we're outnumbered. Click, click, click, click, click.
01:27:56
Speaker
That's what I thought of. I thought of the Mandalorian. The IG-8 hate that. Anytime she got to, nope, I got a self-destruct. And the Mandalorian said, wait a minute, wait a minute. Just give me a minute, OK? OK. But I'm ready. I got self-destruct any time you want. Oh, that had me cracking up today. I was laughing so hard I had to pause the movie.
Tommy Lee Jones as Colonel Phillips
01:28:21
Speaker
And then the other performance that I really liked in this movie, which is kind of small when you take it in line with everything else, is Tommy Lee Jones as Colonel Phillips. Now, I'm glad you mentioned that. If I have any problem with Captain America, not with Tommy Lee Jones as the actor, because you know what? In a movie like this, any time you have an actor like Tommy Lee Jones,
01:28:51
Speaker
It gives the movie solidity. It gives it a certain gravitas. It gives it a certain... How can I say this? Okay. Subconsciously, when you see somebody like Tommy Lee Jones in a movie like this taking it seriously, you take it seriously. Right, right. Which is why he's there. But... Unfortunately, that didn't work so well in Batman Forever.
01:29:26
Speaker
Every time I hear him referred to as Colonel Phillips in my mind, I always hear.
01:29:34
Speaker
Colonel Sawyer, because to me that's who he should be playing, Colonel Happy Sam Sawyer from Sergeant Fury and the Howling Commandos. Okay, so see, this is interesting because I don't know, I don't think I've read really anything with Phillips in the comics, so I don't have that perspective going into it. Right, which is why I'm saying, well, wait a minute.
01:29:58
Speaker
somebody should have said, well, you know what, there's, there's this character that is tied to the howling commandos and captain America called happy Sam Sawyer. He was the commanding officer of the howling commandos. And, you know, it just surprised me that somebody just didn't say, well, you know, well, let's just make this character captain, you know, Colonel Sawyer, you know, cause to me, that's who Tommy Lee Jones is playing because
01:30:25
Speaker
Because if you go back to the original Sergeant Fury, you know, the comic books that were done in World War II, this character, the Tommy Lee Jones, that's exactly who it is from the comic book. So I'm wondering, did Tommy Lee Jones read the comic book and say, okay, well, this is the guy I'm gonna play, or if he just fell back on his default gruff character that he's played in so many other movies.
01:30:52
Speaker
But actually, or it could have been maybe maybe the screenwriters because obviously they, you know, these, you know, Marcus and McFeely, they're guys who did their homework, they've written all the Captain America movies, they threw in tons of references to the comics. So I wonder if they just combined Sawyer and Phillips.
01:31:15
Speaker
OK, well, well, listen, I don't know because I've never heard of Phillips. Like I said, whenever I hear him referred to as Colonel Phil, I just hear it as Colonel Sawyer. You know, that's just me. OK, so you know more about the Cap comic books. How does he compare to Phillips in the comics? Who? Oh, Tommy Lee Jones portrayal portrayal because Phillips is a character in the comics as well.
01:31:41
Speaker
Oh, but I don't know that character. Oh, okay. Okay. I see. I see. I just know Sawyer. Okay. You know, Earl Sawyer. That's the, that's the character that I know. And that's the one that I see Tommy Lee Jones. I have no idea who, you know, Colonel Phillips is. I assume that he's part of, you know, that he's from some run of the comic book that I don't know about.
01:32:04
Speaker
Yeah, he was part he was just like in this in this movie. He was, you know, the soldier in charge of the commander, whatever, in charge of Operation Rebirth. Oh, OK. All right. Cool. All right. I can see that. Well, OK. If he's from the comics, OK, I got to go with it, you know. But like I said, I'm a traditionalist. I would since they had Dum Dum Dugan in the movie, I would have liked to see Happy Sam Sawyer as well.
01:32:33
Speaker
So, yeah, I was known as who was known as happy Sam because he was never happy. That was the whole thing. He was always pissed off. He never smiled. He never laughed. He was always yelling at Sergeant Fury, you know, calling him a knucklehead and threatening to bust him down to private and everything like that. And that was Sergeant Fury's nickname for him. Happy Sam because he know, you know, the guy was never happy. OK, OK. So I wonder if maybe it was just that
01:33:01
Speaker
because they could have both been very similar in the comics then, just because that's like the standard image of a commanding officer. Well, yeah, that's what I'm saying. I mean, Tommy Lee Jones has played that type of character in other movies, so that's like his default gruff character.
01:33:20
Speaker
But again, like I said, he he works for me in this movie, no matter what he's playing, because, as I said earlier, whenever you see an actor like Tommy Lee Jones in a movie like this, it's at least for me. There's a switch that flicks in my head because that's OK. Well, he's taking this shit seriously. So I could take it seriously, too. He's also got some really.
01:33:41
Speaker
funny moments like that just like really dry funny moments like when he's When he's in when he's introducing himself to the men and he says like we're gonna win this war because we have the best Men and then he pauses and notices Steve who's just looking stoic as hell Yeah, and then and then Steve comes to him when you know, he's heard that buck has been done, you know captured everything like that He says oh he comes to Star Spangled Man with a plan. Yeah, so what's your plan?
01:34:10
Speaker
Or when he says to Peggy, he's like, you and I are gonna have a conversation later that you won't enjoy. You will not enjoy. And then when he starts spelling his name, he's like, well, I can spell, I'm fine. And he says, at this one point he says, listen, if you have anything to say to me, keep it to yourself.
01:34:29
Speaker
I do love to when he's talking to Erskine and he says, you stick a needle in his arm, it's going to go right through it. And he says, look at him. He's making me cry. You know what? And I kind of suspect that half of what he says in his movie was ad libs he just throws off. I can't believe that it was scripted. You know, for some reason, I just get the feeling that a lot of what he said, a lot of little lines he throws off were ad libs. Yeah, and he throws them off so naturally. He does a really good job in there.
01:34:57
Speaker
Right. Yeah. I mean, listen, if they were scripted, then it's just a testament to his talent as an actor, his talent as an actor, that the way he says them makes them sound like he just made it up right on the spot. Although speaking of ad lib, do you know what moment in the scene was in the movie was totally ad libbed? And it's not involving Phillips.
01:35:18
Speaker
What's that? So after Steve gets the super soldier serum, when the chamber opens up and Peggy comes up to him and she kind of reaches up and she's about to touch his chest and then she pulls her hand away, that was not scripted. Haley Atwell actually had that reaction.
01:35:41
Speaker
Listen, I can't blame because the guy did some serious work and out for this movie. Yeah, man. A lot of steam chicken there. Whoa, he is. When you talk about impressive musculature. Yeah. Yeah.
01:35:58
Speaker
I mean, I mean, listen, that is no CGI. I mean, when he's Steve Rogers, yeah, that's all CGI because they had to put his head on a smaller guy's, you know, body. But I mean, after he comes out of the thing, after he's done got, yeah, yeah.
01:36:15
Speaker
yeah that's impressive yeah yeah that's not like because in the first spider-man movie when peter looks at himself in the mirror after he's been bitten he sees that he's um all buff now that was toby mcguire's head slapped on a body double that this though that is chris evans stepping out of that chamber yeah yeah oh yeah that's him that's him
01:36:39
Speaker
Like I said, this cat did some serious working out for the movie, which I can appreciate and it shows, but yeah, but I mean, with all of the stunt work, cause I don't know, to me, it looks like he did a lot of his own stunt work, you know, in this movie, you know, maybe I don't know, I'm not an expert, maybe, you know, they did have an adequate body, but I figured that the reason he got that buff was so that he could do a lot of his own stunts, you know, do a lot of his own stunts.
01:37:06
Speaker
Also, they, Evans turned down this role three times. Really?
Chris Evans' Journey to Captain America
01:37:13
Speaker
Yeah, because he was worried about being in such a high profile movie and what it would do for his private life. And it was finally, it was Downey who convinced him to take the part. Downey was like, Downey told him, look, if you take this part, you'll have the freedom to do any project you want for the rest of your life.
01:37:34
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. And so that happens. You know, he thought about that and then he went to meet with Joe Johnston and the producers again. And then at that point, they finally convinced him to take the role. Which which kind of dovetails into a conversation I was having with some people on Facebook a couple of days ago. I'm sure you heard about the statements that the filmmaker Terry Gilliam
01:38:02
Speaker
who did Brazil and Time Bandits, and he made about the Black Panther. Yeah, yeah, I heard about that. The disparaging remarks that he made about that. Now, I love the guy. I love the guy. I love Brazil, one of the most brilliant movies ever made. Time Bandits, one of my favorite movies about time travel. 12 Monkeys. Baron, you know, Baron Munchausen. Yeah, 12 Monkeys. And he was also in the Money Python movies.
01:38:32
Speaker
Yeah. Matter of fact, he's the only American member of Monty Python. And I used to wonder why he never spoke in interviews and stuff like that. But you know what? If this is the type of stuff that he was going to come out with back then, maybe that's why everybody else said, listen, you just stay in the background and don't talk. But just let me say this real quick. Brilliant as he is as a filmmaker. There's one thing that Terry Gilliam never understood.
01:39:00
Speaker
Terry Gilliam never understood that in order to keep making movies, your movies have to keep making money. Yeah, yeah. And he's never made a movie. Yeah, they've been. I think maybe the one movie of his that made a lot of money was The Fisher came in 12 months. Those two were like, you know, but he never really made. OK, how can I put he doesn't have a track record for making commercially successful movies.
01:39:27
Speaker
Which is why I guess he spent the last 20 years wasting his time making a Don Quixote movie that apparently nobody wanted to see except for him. Yeah. I say that to say this. Robert Downey Jr. gave him great advice because that's what a lot of filmmakers understand. They understand, okay, if I want to make this personal movie for me, I got to do something that everybody wants to see.
01:39:54
Speaker
So they'll go and make a commercial movie. And that's what Robert Downey doing. Listen, you do this. You're set for life, bro. You can do whatever you want to do, which is what you do. You go ahead and you make a commercial project. And I get so tired of hearing people talk about, well, they sold out. They just did it for money. Well, yes, that's why most of us do what we do. We do it for money.
01:40:17
Speaker
Well, do you remember in, do you remember Jane Silent Bob strike back the conversation between Ben Affleck and Matt Damon about the different projects they're doing? And Affleck tells Matt Damon, he's like, how many times I tell you, you do the same picture, then you do the art picture. Bingo. That's what you do.
01:40:36
Speaker
And yeah, so, and I know that Chris Evans, I've heard like a lot of things about these various projects that he wants to do. And he has said that, well, he couldn't have done it without the safety net financially that, you know, the MCU movies have afforded him. And he also built up a lot of goodwill in the industry, you know, by doing these movies. So, you know, he can walk into any studio and say, well, listen, I want to do this.
01:41:05
Speaker
Well, you know what also is amazing about him is just like Christopher Reeve, like he is Captain America, or just like Ryan Reynolds is Deadpool, like he is Captain America in his personal life too. Like you read about the stuff he says on social media, like when he speaks out against injustice and that kind of stuff. Like he is, this is the kind of stuff you would hear coming out of Steve Rogers' mouth.
01:41:31
Speaker
Well, I think that, you know what, I don't think that. Okay. My thing is that you have to be a really good actor to play a role like that. If you're totally unlike that character, like some actors can do that. Yeah. They can play like these really morally upstanding characters, but in their real life, they're like real sleazebags.
01:41:53
Speaker
but then you have other people that they play these roles. And I do believe that to a certain extent, they start to internalize the qualities of the characters that they are playing.
01:42:06
Speaker
And I think that that, you know, that that's the case here with, like you said, with Christopher Reeve and, you know, with Chris Evans and, you know, some other characters that have played these superhero characters, because you see that now they do a lot of socially conscious things. You know, they're always doing stuff for charity and everything. And so it's like they've internalized some of the qualities of these characters that they are playing, which, hey, is a good thing. Yeah, absolutely.
01:42:35
Speaker
Also, one other thing I wanted to just very briefly touch on is, you know when he comes in to meet with Howard and Phillips about his gear after he's rescued everyone and after he talks to Peggy in the bar? There's that secretary or whatever, the woman who's sitting there, and she comes on to him. Do you remember the part I'm talking about? I remember. So do you know who played that character?
01:43:05
Speaker
That's supposed to be the mother of Star-Lord, I believe. Yeah, that's the same actress, Laura Haddock.
Speculations and Minor Roles
01:43:11
Speaker
So probably not Star-Lord's mother, but might have been. But his grandmother. Yeah, Star-Lord's grandmother was sitting on Captain America. Yeah, yeah. I remember somebody else had mentioned that. And somebody else had actually mentioned that to me that they said, yeah, well, you know, that's the same character. I said, really? So yeah.
01:43:32
Speaker
So I know I don't know if it was intentional or not, but it is a nice little thing to think about. Right. It probably wasn't intentional. It's just, you know, they had her in the movie, so they decided to bring her back for for Guardians of the Galaxy, you know, just like. And but sometimes, you know, there are these little happy accidents that happen, like with an Iron Man to the little kid who's wearing the Iron Man helmet and he's standing up against the robots and then Iron Man comes in and saves him and says, thanks, kid. Uh huh. Like later when they got
01:44:01
Speaker
Spider-Man in the universe, Kevin Feige said, oh, yeah, that little kid, that's now Peter Parker. Right, yeah. OK, I remember hearing that, yeah, that that's supposed to be Peter Parker, yeah. Now, at the time, they wouldn't have intended that, because if they had the opportunity to use Peter Parker, they would have done it a lot sooner than they did. Right.
01:44:24
Speaker
like you said it's like he's a little happy coincidence like you said that actress okay that scene I think is only like barely like a minute yeah or something like that but you know it's not enough to affect the overall thing but if that's what you want to believe that that Star Wars
01:44:41
Speaker
You know grandmother, which is who I think it is, you know, you know, I like to believe it is. Yeah. Yeah. All those grandmothers on Captain America. It's a nice call me sleazy, folks, but it's a nice thought. All right. So anything else to wrap up with on First Avenger? Only that.
01:45:09
Speaker
When it comes to sheer entertainment, I have no problem with any of the MCU movies, as everybody well knows. I own them all on Blu-ray. I binge watch them occasionally. Matter of fact, I believe that after we get through with this later on tonight, I'm probably going to go watch Thor or The Avengers.
01:45:34
Speaker
you know, maybe even probably
Consistency in the Trilogy
01:45:36
Speaker
I watched Winter Soldier. Since I watched Captain America, I'm probably gonna finish watching other Captain America movies, you know. But this is absolutely one of the best of the MCU movies. And if any, okay, just like with all the other movies, if anybody had ever told me I would see a Captain America movie done this well, and I think it's done this well because
01:46:02
Speaker
You put your finger right on it. They made a World War II pulp action adventure movie first and a superhero movie second. Yeah. That was their sense of build. That's what they started with. They said, no, this isn't a superhero. This is a World War II action adventure. Absolutely. Yeah. And then they put on the superhero, you know, stuff afterwards. And it works. It works superbly. It's one of my it's one of my favorite movies. It's one of my favorite movies, period.
01:46:32
Speaker
Now, see, it's not one of my favorites, just because that's not a commentary on the movie itself, just like more how many good things Marvel has come out with since. Like, as far as the Cap movies go, this is my least favorite of the three. But that's not to disparage this movie at all. This movie is still amazing. It's just that Winter Soldier and Civil War were so much more, so much as superior, so better. But it's, I mean. Yeah, well, you know what? Yeah.
01:47:01
Speaker
It's like what I tell people when people always come at me and talk about, oh, Godfather 3 is such a horrible movie. I say, well, no, it's not. I said, the only problem Godfather 3 had is that it had to follow Godfather 1 and 2, which was a very hard double act to follow for any movie to follow. If we just had Godfather 3, everybody would be talking about how amazing it is. But no, we can't do that because we have 1 and 2. Yeah, if you want to take all three of the Captain America movies,
01:47:30
Speaker
and if I'm being objective about it, yeah, Winter Soldier is, forget about it, that's like, yeah, the main one, and Civil War is crafted so amazingly, amazingly, and it works as not only Captain America movie, but an Avengers movie as well. It's like two movies in one. You get two movies in one. This is an amazing movie, yeah, but out of the three, yeah, it's not as,
01:47:55
Speaker
is not as good as those two, but yeah, it's still an amazing piece of work. That being said, it still holds its own against those two. It's not like... Oh, Shira! Yeah. I mean, it's this... In fact, I think this is probably the first superhero trilogy that was good from beginning to end.
01:48:17
Speaker
Yeah and you know you look at all the other one because you look at all the other ones you look at you know Superman you had Superman you had Superman 2 and then you had Superman 3 you look at you know you had Batman Batman Returns and then came Batman Forever X-Men you know X-Men X2 and then the Last Stand they shit the bed same thing with Spider-Man and
01:48:36
Speaker
Iron Man, even. Who thought that would have happened with Iron Man? But it did. And then they came out with Captain America. And at the time, if you had said to me that the Iron Man trilogy is going to peter out in the third one, while the Captain America trilogy is going to keep improving with each entry, I would have told you you're insane. Because there's no way that based on those first movies, that the Captain America series would end up being superior to the Iron Man series.
01:49:05
Speaker
And you're absolutely right in that this is like the only superhero trilogy that I could think of here where every movie is strong. Yeah. I mean.
01:49:15
Speaker
You can't point at any one of the Captain America movies and say, yeah, well, you can with Iron Man 3 or Spider-Man 3. You always say, well, there's one movie that kind of let you down. Captain America movies, none of them do that. Right. And yeah, the Avengers series, now that's all been consistently enjoyable, but Cap did it first. Yeah. This is the first superhero series from beginning to end that was satisfying.
01:49:45
Speaker
And just like you said, every movie got better. Yeah. Every one of Captain America movies got better. Absolutely. Yeah. So I think that's basically all we have to say about First Avenger. I mean, it's.
01:49:59
Speaker
You know, going back and watching it again, I sometimes, because this movie kind of gets lost in the shuffle because of everything else that the MCU's been doing. And, you know, a lot, some of these are, with the exception of Iron Man, everything that came out between Iron Man and Avengers kind of gets, you know, lost in the shuffle. People don't really have as high opinion of it looking back. But you go back and you're watching them individually, they're actually really well done.
01:50:25
Speaker
Well, that's why we're doing this because my hope is that when people, when they listen to episodes such as this, they'll say, Hey, you know what?
01:50:36
Speaker
Is it? You know what? It has been a couple of years since I've seen Captain America, the first Avenger.
MCU vs DC: Film and TV Focus
01:50:41
Speaker
Let me go back and watch it again because it deserves to be, you know, excuse me, movies like this deserve to be like, I don't know about anybody else, but they're like certain film series that I do like a marathon like every year, you know, just watching the MCU movies, Star Trek movies and Indiana Jones. I like
01:51:03
Speaker
you know, rewatch, I have my own personal marathons in a little movie every year. And because every time I watch them, I see something new. And I'm reminded of how good these movies work. And like you said, after a while, it tends to get lost in the shuffle because you got new movies coming out all the time. And, you know, you forget how good those older movies were. I mean, especially now, because it's insane to think that it took
01:51:27
Speaker
what like five years to get from Iron Man to Avengers and have like five movies come out in that time span of span of time and then now you extend it out and the series has been going on for 10 years and they've had over 20 movies. Yeah.
01:51:45
Speaker
Yeah. So it's, you know, so it is worth, you know, every once in a while going back and looking at these movies and reminding yourself of where the MCU started at and what it built on and how these movies have got the reputation because let's face it, the MCU period, uh, is what 22 movies in the whole infinity saga.
01:52:07
Speaker
That is a feat that will probably never be duplicated in our lifetime. Well, at least not in mine. But I mean, that's an extraordinary achievement in 22 movies that told one whole comprehensive story. Yeah, yeah. And it all comes back to these original movies because they were so strong, because they did provide that foundation to build up on.
01:52:34
Speaker
Exactly. Which is why the MCU has been successful while the DCEU has fumbled because the DCEU didn't have that strong foundation. The MCU did. Well, you know what? Their problem was they tried to play catch up. Right. Instead of going off and doing their own thing, they tried to play catch up. And I think that what they have finally done is that they've abdicated the movies
01:53:02
Speaker
to marvel they say well okay well you know they can have it and they're basically like concentrating on the tv universe now right which is smart because the tv shows did it the smart way they built the foundation first and then they really expand so much on based on that yeah which is why we got crisis and which is why crisis is so good because you had you know
01:53:26
Speaker
they had all these different TV series that built up, you know, the crisis. Right. Okay. All right. So speaking of, um, now next, our next episode, I know we talked about doing crisis, but this next episode that we record would probably come out at the beginning of February. So, uh, what do you want to do? Do you want to do crisis or do you want to jump straight into black history month movies?
01:53:51
Speaker
Oh, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Because we can always extend Black History Month into March. No one's going to. We make the rules.
01:54:00
Speaker
Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. I mean, we could always extend it and take another month and everything there because, uh, because prices is going to end this week. So we should do that while it's still fresh in our minds. Yeah. And you know, and we can do that and then we'll jump into, you know, black history, uh, with the black superhero movies after that. Okay. All right. So, um,
01:54:21
Speaker
That actually works out perfectly, because this is my pick this week. So next week, we'll be going back and watching. Well, I don't know about you, but what I'm going to do is I'm going to get all the episodes, and I'm just going to marathon them as one big movie, probably this weekend with you. That's what I'm going to do, too. Yeah, that's what I'm going to do, too. So really get the full effect of how it's intended to be.
Conclusion and Community Engagement
01:54:47
Speaker
All right, so next episode we'll be talking about Crisis on Infinite Earths. Happy New Year. Thanks so much for following us and helping us get to 10 episodes. If you want to help support us at all, we've got a Patreon page. Just go over to superheroescinephiles.com, or you can look for us on Patreon. You'll find us that way.
01:55:09
Speaker
and join the Facebook page to join the group. We've got a bunch of discussions going on there. People posting reviews of superhero movies, all sorts of good stuff. Okay. Derek, do you have anything you wanted to add or plug right now or are you good for now? Well, I had two books come out in the month of December, Dylan the Odd Jobs and the Dylan annual collection for 2019, which
01:55:38
Speaker
which was published literally on the last day of the year. But that's how these things work out. There was some technical things that were going on, but it is out now and you can buy it and you can relive all the Christmas goodness because they're all Christmas. They're all dealing Christmas stories in that book, which is why it came out in December. But it was supposed to come out early and it didn't, but hey,
01:56:05
Speaker
This story's you can enjoy any time of the year. So, by all means, go to Amazon and pick that up, as well as any of the other books that I've written. Just go to Amazon, put in Derek Ferguson, and you'll see everything I've got up there. Also, enjoy. I've got nothing yet, but probably the next episode, I'll have something to announce, so we'll keep you waiting for that. Cool.
01:56:29
Speaker
All right, that does it for us. Happy New Year, and we'll talk to you guys next time. Happy New Year. Thank you for listening, and God bless. Talk to you later. Bye-bye.
01:56:45
Speaker
Thanks for listening to the Superhero Cinephiles podcast. If you have any questions or comments about this or any other episode, or if you have a superhero movie or TV show you'd like us to cover in a future episode, you can email us at superherocinephiles at gmail.com. Or you can also visit us on the web at superherocinephiles.com. If you like what you hear, leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. Each review helps us reach more potential listeners.
01:57:12
Speaker
You can also support the show by renting or purchasing the movies discussed, or by picking up our books, all of which can be accessed through the website, as well as find links to our social media presences. The theme music for this show is a shortened version of Superhero Showdown, a royalty-free piece of music, courtesy of Pheasantlionstudios.com.