Captain America

[Donatella]

8 minutes ago, Da Cap'n 2099 said:

I can agree with that statement too, BUT we're talkin about trilogies.

 

Yeah, I found all three movies totally forgettable. I didn't think any were particularly strong. So I'll take 2/3 great films over 0/3. I've seen all the Cap movies multiple times and couldn't tell you much about them without Wiki'ing the plot. 

[Da Cap'n 2099]

Seriously? "Cap Punches Nazis," "Bad Bucky," and "Tony Was Wrong" are way easier to remember than "Bane Voice."

[Donatella]

9 minutes ago, Da Cap'n 2099 said:

Seriously? "Cap Punches Nazis," "Bad Bucky," and "Tony Was Wrong" are way easier to remember than "Bane Voice."

 

Haha! Yeah, I can't even pinpoint why. They just didn't resonate with me, at all. 

[The NZA]

because you hate america

 

cap 1 didn't resonate because you don't like historical pieces, i guess.  winter soldier is absolutely badass, and you cosplayed from it!  it's a love letter to spy marvel/S.H.I.E.L.D. stuff and so much universe building.  3 is literally civil war, or avengers 2.5 & panther's intro. 

 

bats 1 is cool cause we get his ninja training, and look past his bad gravely voice.  scarecrow's a good villain but we spend more time throwing the camera around because while neesy's a great ra's, he's decades past his rob roy years and no good action shots were made in that movie.  i don't know how much it holds up.

 

TDK is great, the one non-WW movie DC can say that about.  it shits the bed in its closing act, but it's a comic film, and people are still too scared to critique it most times cause we're currently holding ledger on an even higher altar than we did nicholson's joker in the day.  

 

TDKR has some great ideas but is a mess of forgettable moments & missteps that get worse the more you think about them. 

 

bats = 1 good, 1 great, 1 ehh

cap = 2 good, 1 great 

 

i'm just using maths here 

[Donatella]

43 minutes ago, The NZA said:

bats = 1 good, 1 great, 1 ehh

cap = 2 good, 1 great 

 

i'm just using maths here 

 

 

 

Also I kinda do hate America right now.

 

[The NZA]

okay yeah let's skip that point 

 

i think there's layers to why the cap movies (even with a change in director) are better, starting with character development:

 

cap 1 - nails steve right out of the box & just builds on a skinny kid from brooklyn with a good heart & hates bullies 

 

winter - gets his power level down, shows his loyalties while questioning/going against his gov't (a big part of him from the books)

 

civil - he's a master combat strategist, dealing with a team (on both sides) where arguably half their rosters could wash/destroy him. wont compromise his values even when losing everything 

 

now bats 

 

begins - this is easily one of my favorite things from the trilogy, cause bruce is in prison from scene 1 learning criminal minds & combat. the fights were shaky-cam/weak and the "i don't have to save you" copout likewise but for some reason folks think its okay when movie-bats murders folks 

 

dk - this movie is about the villains; specifically, jokes 

bats...i forget if it was the end of begins or here, but he gives up his secret identity quicker than spider-man. he spends a chunk of this movie being a sucker for love, even trying to sacrifice the DA turning his corrupt city around (and in the process, making another villain). his ineptitude wipes out 2 interesting villains in the end 

 

dkr - so after a few summers, our boy loses his love interest and hangs up the cowl, only returning after bane took over with the help of his armory

we get the triumphant return! ...and then he dips out to france with his next love interest quick as he can 

 

we never see the world's greatest detective. no real evolution down the fascist path, hell for all its many faults, batman vs superman had better fights/crowd control.  bruce effectively stopped evolving after begins 

 

TL;DR cap comes out his trilogy a hardened leader, culminating in what i imagine to be avengers 4

 

batsy basically did a bat-internship and left it to his sidekick of like 2 days as quick as he could. worse yet, the movies made boatloads so DC decoded that was the vibe/aesthetic for him and sadly supes too...meaning, nolan is partly responsible for snyder 

 

apologies if the light of that truth burned any eyes 

[Donatella]

What if I told you I really didn’t care about this that much and just wanted to ruffle your Cap-lovin’ feathers? 

 

Spoiler

 

 

Edited July 6, 2018 by Donatella

[The NZA]

i spent all morning onna pooper working on that

[Da Cap'n 2099]

At least I agree with you, The Nick.

[Keth]

What if I told you that the Iron Man trilogy is better than both of those?

[The NZA]

[Keth]

Part of me just wants to leave that statement there and never touch it again.

 

Tony Stark has continued to grow as a character, and remained engaging and interesting as the series progresses.

I'll use the Custer Model as the basis for movie breakdowns

 

IM1- Great intro, not just for Iron Man but for the MCU as a whole. We get a dynamic shift in Tony's character in this one movie alone. Going from selfish business mogul to peacekeeper. Showing us the trauma he endures and he lengths he will go to to stop further atrocities. 

 

IM2- weaker than the first entey to be sure, but we get some Demon in a Bottle. Tony's struggle with his legacy and the impact it has on others. Here he goes from Lone Ranger, thinking he has to be he only one to help others to eventually realizing it's the reliability of his friends that he can't fight alone. The villains are criticised here, but the dynamic between Whipmaster Flash and Sam Rockington is fun. I think the villains were good, but the final battle itself was rushed all to hell.

 

IM3- This one I firmly believe is the best of the bunch. Tony has seen things that further his resolve. He comes to grips with his mortality I think, and RDJ gives a great performance here. Alot of people didnt like him outside of the suit so much, but it worked really well. Plus the Mandarin twist will go down as one of the more memorable moments in MCU history.

 

Compare this to The Dark Knight trilogy. Yes they are good movies (I dont deny TDK is the best one. It's fantastic). But the Nolan trilogy is overlong, drab and predictable. Bruce Wayne and Batman don't really grow here. Not much more to be said here than already has.

 

As for Cap, I know technically we have a trilogy, but Civil War feels so much more like an Avengers movie. Or even an event if we go by comic jargon. I always forget its a Cap movie because it gives the cast so much to do.

And Steve himself, let's be honest, is kinda bland and static. Yeah here is the coming to terms with the future stuff, but all of that just kind of feels played up for a few jokes here and there. I don't think they capitalized on his heartbreak from losing Peggy/friends/family from the past. 

Steve is one note. He is a hero through and through. In Civil War he does the right thing every step of the way (I feel). He is fighting for justice, and in the end trying to save his friend. And that's great and all, but Tony is more layered than this. He is doing what he thinks is right despite knowing it is probably not in his best interests. He wants to save the most lives. And, in the ends, when all is revealed and has that outburst of pure anger toward Bucky it's relatable! 

Many say he overreacted. Maybe? But you put yourself in his shoes. He saw his mother get killed on screen, by the he man standing in front of him. That's gonna fuck you up. 

And that brings me to this, whether you agree with Tony or not in his methods (I certainly don't), I truly believe he his a much more dynamic character. He is more interesting, better written and that makes for better movies. I've thought more about Iron Man's adventures than I have about Cap's. 

 

TL;DR Batman is Batman, you know what you're getting here. Except with DKR. It really does get more disappointing the more you think about it.

 

Captain America is a boy scout and kinda stays that way.

 

Iron Man can be a roller coaster of a character, but that is why I think it makes him more fun to watch and think about at the end of the day.

 

My thumbs hurt and I have a feeling I'll regret some of this.

[The NZA]

that was good, man 

ill come back to the bits i take umbrage with, but i appreciate this writeup!

[Da Cap'n 2099]

Nah, here's how we determine which is the best trilogy once and for all:

 

We can all mostly agree that the 3 weakest films of the bunch are Iron Man 2, Cap 1, and DKR. Ok, so how do you rank those 3? For me?

 

Cap 1 > IM 2 = DKR

 

Cap trilogy wins. It's math.

[Iambaytor]

I'll second Axel's Iron Man Trilogy is Best trilogy.  For one it's the only one where its main character actually goes on a journey (one that has continued through every movie he's been in past the end of the trilogy), for two The Dark Knight has not aged well (it's still a near flawless 90 minute movie but that other hour is pretentious mess) and both Batman Begins and Dark Knight Rises are fucking garbage.  Captain America feels almost as loose a trilogy as the Wolverine movies did and the first one is too montage-heavy and feels like a pre-2000s super heroes movie (the worst Marvel movie, whichever you estimate that to be is still better than any comic book superhero movie made before X-men that isn't Blade) and while it's got a lot going for it it suffers from having the least enticing villain in the entire Marvel franchise (infinity guantlet thrown) and the biggest wet fart of an ending (should've covered Caps WWII escapades in the first hour then jumped to the future).  It's better than what it's emulating but it's pretty dull and coasts a lot on the charisma and strength of its main character.  Cap 2 and 3 are great, fucking spectacular, love them but of these three the most cohesive and best trilogy is still Iron Man.  Yeah, Iron Man 2's third act is kind of a dud and it suffers for not giving Tony a proper nemesis but the entire thesis statement of the movie is that Tony's his own worst enemy so that doesn't bother me.  I'll hear no bad words about Justin Hammer, he's great and I hope someday they make a Thunderbolts movie and bring him back as their Agent Coulson figure.

Edited July 9, 2018 by Iambaytor

[Da Cap'n 2099]

But math.

 

Yeah, can't take you seriously for that Batman Begins is garbage crack. It's a good thing you don't review movies for money, Baytor.

[The NZA]

i think it's pretty interesting to say the iron man trilogy was best, because the villains clearly felt like the weakness in most of those - but i pushed this discussion into a character evolution bit, so this is good stuff 

 

9 hours ago, Axels said:

IM3- This one I firmly believe is the best of the bunch. Tony has seen things that further his resolve. He comes to grips with his mortality I think, and RDJ gives a great performance here. Alot of people didnt like him outside of the suit so much, but it worked really well. Plus the Mandarin twist will go down as one of the more memorable moments in MCU history.

 

As for Cap, I know technically we have a trilogy, but Civil War feels so much more like an Avengers movie. Or even an event if we go by comic jargon. I always forget its a Cap movie because it gives the cast so much to do.

And Steve himself, let's be honest, is kinda bland and static. Yeah here is the coming to terms with the future stuff, but all of that just kind of feels played up for a few jokes here and there. I don't think they capitalized on his heartbreak from losing Peggy/friends/family from the past. 

Steve is one note. He is a hero through and through. In Civil War he does the right thing every step of the way (I feel). He is fighting for justice, and in the end trying to save his friend. And that's great and all, but Tony is more layered than this. He is doing what he thinks is right despite knowing it is probably not in his best interests. He wants to save the most lives. And, in the ends, when all is revealed and has that outburst of pure anger toward Bucky it's relatable! 

Many say he overreacted. Maybe? But you put yourself in his shoes. He saw his mother get killed on screen, by the he man standing in front of him. That's gonna fuck you up. 

And that brings me to this, whether you agree with Tony or not in his methods (I certainly don't), I truly believe he his a much more dynamic character. He is more interesting, better written and that makes for better movies. I've thought more about Iron Man's adventures than I have about Cap's. 

 

Captain America is a boy scout and kinda stays that way.

 

Iron Man can be a roller coaster of a character, but that is why I think it makes him more fun to watch and think about at the end of the day.

 

your post makes me wanna re-watch iron man 3 sometime.  i just saw 1 again recently and came off not just loving it like i did in the theater, but akin to baytor's post, thinking hammer wasn't a terrible villain - he was prolly the best of the 3, and that's cause i thought they kinda wasted extremis in the last flick.  

 

i obviously don't agree with steve as "one note" (though i get the russo brothers pushed the next 2 films into much broader territory, civil war as an avenger flick is, again, more than fair) - again, i know i'm biased as hell from reading so much of his stuff & seeing bits of it come through here, but so many people would have had him pegged as the gov't go-to boy (over the billionaire former arms dealer), so seeing him stand up to fury in 2 about preemptive strikes & then seeing tony's side in civil war, but backing off when commenting that they could be sent to war at the gov'ts whim...i really do think that's character development, for a kid who literally dreamed of being a soldier, then got that wish for a while before being put on ice.  like, talks about power & responsibility, but i got the feeling that rogers really had a moral dilemma in civil war & didn't want to go against tony.  

 

yeah, they made a few jokes about the "man out of his time" bit - but that was a blessing, because i can't stress to you how very many writers dead-ended on that point.  i thought steve was given room to breathe, and again, maybe just me, but by civil war where he wasn't the star of the show - this only added to his myth.  

 

i concede that because of the depths of where he started, we saw tony climb further over his 3 movies, though.  you make some good points here man. 

 

5 hours ago, Iambaytor said:

I'll second Axel's Iron Man Trilogy is Best trilogy.  For one it's the only one where its main character actually goes on a journey (one that has continued through every movie he's been in past the end of the trilogy), for two The Dark Knight has not aged well (it's still a near flawless 90 minute movie but that other hour is pretentious mess) and both Batman Begins and Dark Knight Rises are fucking garbage.  Captain America feels almost as loose a trilogy as the Wolverine movies did and the first one is too montage-heavy and feels like a pre-2000s super heroes movie (the worst Marvel movie, whichever you estimate that to be is still better than any comic book superhero movie made before X-men that isn't Blade) and while it's got a lot going for it it suffers from having the least enticing villain in the entire Marvel franchise (infinity guantlet thrown) and the biggest wet fart of an ending (should've covered Caps WWII escapades in the first hour then jumped to the future).  It's better than what it's emulating but it's pretty dull and coasts a lot on the charisma and strength of its main character.  Cap 2 and 3 are great, fucking spectacular, love them but of these three the most cohesive and best trilogy is still Iron Man.  Yeah, Iron Man 2's third act is kind of a dud and it suffers for not giving Tony a proper nemesis but the entire thesis statement of the movie is that Tony's his own worst enemy so that doesn't bother me.  I'll hear no bad words about Justin Hammer, he's great and I hope someday they make a Thunderbolts movie and bring him back as their Agent Coulson figure.

 

few things to ask here 

1) really?  cap's trilogy felt far more cohesive than - you get one historically bad flick, 1 that at least got the vibe right (but was a mixed bag), and then logan.  i mean, they barely feel connected, even as a fan of dude 

2) which hour worth of TDK are you pointing at?  just curious if we're thinking of similar stuff here 

3) begins is terrible, though?  really?  i feel like you're describing x-men 1 here 

4) i still really like the crow

5) i also still think hugo weaving (sp?) was an inspired cast for red skull...he just seemed like he had somewhere else to be by the end there.  just missed opportunities, a few more scenes/encounters and he coulda been great.  also this may not register for non-cap fans, but the dude they plays armin zola is good too.  

6) i honestly didn't think my recent viewing of first avenger relied as much on montages as a lotta folks say...but i can see what you're saying, if we were gonna hang around WW II as long as we did (and i'm not sure where the story would've gone in the present with more time in that one), i could've gone for more big battles with the howling commandos

actually, the big WW I scene that stands out from Wonder Woman is a perfect example of something i'dve love seeing here 

7) "it's pretty dull and coasts a lot on the charisma and strength of its main character" would kinda be the tagline i wrote on the box of an iron man blu-ray set if we're being honest here, specifically for half of 2 and most of 3 

[Iambaytor]

So long as I live the praise heaped on Batman Begins makes less and less sense.  I get that on a cinematic scale Batman was a joke at that point (neither the Schumacher or Burton films are good movies, they're weird cult films that somehow got massive budgets and big-name actors and they're a lot of fun but they're basically parodies of themselves) but Batman Begins is so wrong-headed in so many ways.  They have to justify everything about a dude who dresses up as a bat to the point where there's a scene where Christian Bale and Morgan Freeman have a serious discussion about the little horns on his mask.  But don't worry we have two underdeveloped villains (especially Scarecrow) who never really have a moment to shine, an action finale that crawls to a conclusion, and a half-hearted romantic subplot that treads water.  It's half overwritten origin story and half under-written super hero movie and it just wants you to take it sooooooo seriously, you guys.

 

The supplemental hour of Dark Knight involves the epilogue with Two-Face, hospital explosions, the two board sequence, the long diversion to Hong Kong, and so much speechifying.  This movie wasn't even bad like the first one but Nolan had to take it far too seriously anyway.

 

 

See I'd accept the dull but coasts line for the first Iron Man.  It's making a hero out of a character few people liked who doesn't have much in the way of noteworthy villains.  But 2 and 3 are very much about Tony's personal struggles, Steve is pretty unflappable in his moral center and conflict comes when the ideologies of other characters conflict with what he knows to be right.  And that's fine its the Superman ethos, he's an incorruptible force for good and the conflict comes from the fact that he'll never be able to save everyone.  The villains of Iron Man 2 are there to show Tony he's not invincible and that he can't stagnate and take his talents and friends for granted.  Iron Man 3 (I couldn't care less how it adapts the extremis storyline) is answering the question posed by Cap in the Avengers "What are you outside of that suit?"  Suddenly a man in a suit of armor has to live in a world of gods, aliens, super soldiers, and giant radioactive monsters AND deal with a serious case of PTSD stemming from his near-death experience in The Avengers.  And to top it off he has to face a group of people among whom the weakest can destroy his armor singlehandedly AND his armor is broken.  The weird parallels between Iron Man 3 (shadow terrorist organization, hero broken, big late-movie plot twist) and The Dark Knight Rises show the strength of Iron Man's willingness to buy into its silly concept and have fun with it vs. Nolan's need to makr everything so serious and make it seem real.  Also unlike Captain America, Iron Man 3 has an end to Tony's arc. tot leaves the story open for more but it's a complete story with a beginning middle and end that fit together neatly.

[The NZA]

that's good, yeah. i can see tonys story wrapping up in the 3rd act moreso, sure

 

i just thought that half-hearting extremis (instead of exploring it a little like they did demon in a bottle) was a shame, for that very same question of who he was outside the armor - extremis was ellis giving tony a real window at actually being metahuman, and all the consequences that brings. glossing over that & only using it for a forgettable group action scene felt like a missed opportunity 

[Iambaytor]

I get that but it's not the story this Tony needed.  Movie Stark should never actually be metahuman because that undercuts who he is in this universe, he's a normal human with a great intellect and that's his superpower.

 

As for alluding to the Wolverine trilogy re:Captain America.  What I meant is that tonally and stylistically they feel like three very different movies, they have a connective tissue but it's superfluous to the movies at large.

[Da Cap'n 2099]

*throws a Thor toy into the fray*

[The NZA]

did anyone else think CW being about tonys daddy issues feel a little regressive after that development though? i get we needed more reason for he & cap to fight, just wasn't sure about that direction 

[Iambaytor]

The Thor trilogy is fine.  The first one's delightful, the second one is goofy fun, and the third one is one of the best MCU films but it's only okay as a trilogy.

 

I didn't find that bit regressive because Tony is still battling with his PTSD as well as his vision from Age of Ultron, it affects his decision making and makes him rash.  If you watch all the movies with Tony in a town you can see the way the story degrades his character bit by bit until he's the twitchy mess he is in Infinity War.  He's hiding behind his sarcasm but the man is a wreck.

[The NZA]

man, age of ultron is one of the few i wasn't super eager to revisit, but they referenced tony's vision in infinity war as well, and i just don't remember it. 

 

and yeah, i loved thor 1 and don't remember enough from 2 to comment on it (wanna rewatch it sometime), 3 easily being the finest but it's even more of a break from the others than civil war was for cap, i thought 

[Donatella]

12 hours ago, The NZA said:

man, age of ultron is one of the few i wasn't super eager to revisit, but they referenced tony's vision in infinity war as well, and i just don't remember it. 

 

Don't watch the whole movie for that one part! It's on YouTube. At least, I think this is what people are always referring to: