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Disney+'s the Falcon and the Winter Soldier

I wonder if the Shang-Chi trailer dropping today, and Sharon firmly staying in Madripoor with a scene of her wandering around a parking garage in the mid-season trailers, is gonna lead up to a stinger scene where she meets the Mandarin or one of his goons.
 
With the criticism of Karli and Flag Smashers motivations being weak. I have been thinking about certain plot threads were cut like the virus. That was when I realized why their characterization was weak, Disney cannot go full Coates in terms of politicizing the rammifactions of what the Snap would really be like given the events of Covid and the event of a global disaster

The reality of the Snap is while it won't result in chaotic anarchy will still result in hardcore capitalist exploitation as less fortunate countries force citizens to work harder to compensate for the labour shortages with half rations and double shifts, corporations will try and exploit deregulation of labor laws to make more money and perhaps the most uncomfortable issue is the fact civil liberties is most certainly gonna take a hit in the wake of Snap.

That's right, it means telling the Chinese and other oligarchies with an investment in Disney that there would be greater political persecution as right to assemble are banned, a sudden rise of political refugees fleeing the country in the wake of the snap to countries that has made an open borders policy

Then the Blip comes and the GRC promises to restore things to back to when they are .

And suddenly these dictatorships would want the political refugees back where they belong, where they would face the full judgment of the government who has not forgotten how they fled the country. Or oppressive labor laws passed stays in place in spite of half the world returning because things are so profitable. That is what Karli would had experienced before she made the run for it that gave her and so many others a second chance in life before the Blip undone everything and now she and 20 million is going back to an even worse situation than before that would radicalize her

Given that the director of Falcon and Winter Soldier also was the director a Handmaiden's Tale. I can say that Disney did not want to touch on that sensitive issue even for a show that was willing to touch on race politics
 
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I don't really think Zemo is weirdly woke, he's just an upper-crust European aristocratic Man of Culture. It's sort of like the depiction of Brits and other non-Americans in Civil War fiction, confused why all of these primitive colonials are fighting over race.
 
Yeah it's a fun gag, I'm just explaining how it could work from an in-universe perspective, and as a trope.

This miniseries mostly deals with race only when it comes to the Isiah Bradley subplot, though if someone was to try to really analyze it, Zemo would probably be an example of an enlightened outsider archetype who sympathizes with the plight of a minority without having any personal stake or connection to either the oppressed or the oppressor. He "knows better" without having to experience either side of the struggle, which can come off as condescending and presumptuous. His line "Only in America..." sort of lampshades/highlights it. Zemo being chased by Wakandans is kind of funny when juxtaposed against that role.

Speaking of him, how likely will

the Contessa turn Walker into the U.S. Agent, ask him to break Zemo out of the Raft, and then they form the Thunderbolts / the MCU gets its own Suicide Squad franchise?
 
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I thought that was a pretty meh ending.

Felt absurd that the Flag Smashers were able to infiltrate the GRC so easily.

Ditto that Bucky would just stop to have the conversation to let the Smashers leave the building with the GRC council. Them just being able to rip the doors on the armored cars open also felt like a bit much.

Also holy shit Sharon, that was a brutal way to kill that one guy :o

I like Sam's new costume, but his fight with Batroc taking so long, and then how long it takes him to handle the chopper, especially getting knocked out of the air by it felt like forcing him to act dumber to keep things going.

I really liked Walker showing up and choosing to keep the second truck from falling long enough for Sam to show up rather than keep going after Carli.

Holy shit, I just thought Sharon was working for the Power Broker, not that she is the Broker! :o

Sam not really fighting Carli, and still trying to get through to her, felt pretty dumb. I was glad to see Sharon shoot her.

Bucky and Walker using the Smashers app against them to capture the other group was great :D

I rolled my eyes at that one guard being a sympathizer, but then Zemo's butler neatly cut that off and blew them up :D

Sam getting an exhibit about Isiah and his comrades added to the Captain America exhibit was touching.

Hmm, not sure if Val is working with Sharon, or doing her own thing, but i like the colors for Walker's US Agent outfit.

The title changing to Captain America and the Winter Soldier at the end was great :cool:
 
Shanejayell said:
Pics have leaked of Sam in his Cap suit. They're blurry as hell, so not reposting them...
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It's basically him in the Captain Falcon suit from the comics.

So given Batroc is still a challenge, I presume there's no Vibranium-weave or any strength-enhancing cybernetics beyond the wings in that suit?

Show, please stop pretending Karli is some noble innocent soul who everyone desperately wants to protect in the middle of a terrorist attack she's committing with her omniscient infiltrators, all these speeches and appeals are getting on my nerves.

I wish they didn't take away John's Hero Moment seconds after it starts so Sam could instead save the people. And suddenly there's an entire crowd of black people right there to go 'Yeah!'.

Man, they're really not subtle about Sharon being EVIL. And Batroc is dead, what a fucking anticlimax.

'I'M NOT GONNA FIGHT YOU!' Fuck You Sam. Seriously there is no internal logic behind this insistence of treating her like a child instead of someone who already killed a bunch of people and just tried to burn a dozen more, none.

Finally, Sharon shoots that crazy bitch. And I'm just gonna skip away from this whole entire segment of pure cringe.

The Butler Did It!

"It's the same...just black." I wonder if that's supposed to be a meta comment about the show. So Bucky tells the truth, and Yori than goes happily drinking with the bar lady okay? Nice conclusion with Bradley.

And that was one hell of a waste of a stinger. We already know Sharon is the Power Broker, and her getting pardonened means what? Is she gonna be a deal in the movies or something? We already have Val.
Big Meh Ending to a Big Meh Show.

Hoping Loki will be better due to not having to deal with massive last-moment rewrites.
 
Well Fal...Captain America and Winter Soldier finally finished at last and it ends how I expected from a corporate show talking about left wing politics. Typical centrist sympathy that on one hand makes Karli and the Flag Smashers' cause justified yet won't go tries to neatly pack everything in a box by having all of them killed at the end of the series/movie to avoid having more political commentary.

Sharon being Power Broker is also another MCU act of genderbending popular villains that I felt was a wasted opportunity. I was hoping the reveal would be the Senator who wanted the terrorist attack to happen to justify the Patch Act and play things out in his favor. A callback to how Alexander Pearce was the new head of Hydra and make some rant about how children like Karli are meant to be used as pawns. But guess that would mean opening a can of worms that once again Disney is too scared to tell.

All in all it had the weaknesses of Phase 2 MCU with some of Phase 3's strengths. But a.part.of me wish they kept the spirit of Nahesi Coates brand of biting social commentary to it instead of just washing their hands of it. Hopefully if season 2 happens and we get Americops we will get that wish
 
A decent enough ending and about what I was expecting in terms of wishy-washyness. A decent head-on take of racism, too. That said, there's something extremely irritating that fundamentally decent people with legitimate grievances are unceremoniously blown up by Zemo (despite it being an extremely fluid situation he should have no way of knowing about and be incapable of planning for) because the mere existence of additional, non-villain supersoldiers is too distorting to the money machine Disney wants to make. Like, seriously? Fuck off with that shit.
 
prometheus110 said:
A decent enough ending and about what I was expecting in terms of wishy-washyness. A decent head-on take of racism, too. That said, there's something extremely irritating that fundamentally decent people with legitimate grievances are unceremoniously blown up by Zemo (despite it being an extremely fluid situation he should have no way of knowing about and be incapable of planning for) because the mere existence of additional, non-villain supersoldiers is too distorting to the money machine Disney wants to make. Like, seriously? Fuck off with that shit.
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He knew the cause would fail, he just wanted to make sure once it fails that their demise is unceremonious rather some grand display of police brand martyrdom they were going for. There is a difference between some Dissident getting shot in public vs a quiet taken out in the chaos scene that creates sympathy
 
gyrobot said:
He knew the cause would fail, he just wanted to make sure once it fails that their demise is unceremonious rather some grand display of police brand martyrdom they were going for. There is a difference between some Dissident getting shot in public vs a quiet taken out in the chaos scene that creates sympathy
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What a character wants and what a character should actually be able to know and do are two very different things. Realistically, Zemo had no way to plan or carry out the bombing, full stop. It didn't happen because it makes sense for it to happen in the story, it happened because their existence was inconvenient to Disney the company and killing them off is easier than trying to come up with a reasonable explanation for why they won't impact the metanarrative of the MCU after this point. It's bad storytelling and the longer I think about it, the more annoyed I get.

Also, it wasn't shot for sympathy. You can tell because Karli's death was shot sympathetically and had a whole speech follow it. These flag smashers were discarded unceremoniously with the boost to Zemo's character being a convenient side effect.


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Like, I assumed they'd be killed off anyway, but I figured their deaths would at least make sense within the world of the narrative. As it is, it's obvious that Disney/the show writers needed them gone but couldn't have Sam, Bucky, and the fascist kill them because it'd make the former's speech awkward and the latter irredeemably evil. Like, the fash murdered a surrendering man in broad daylight in Europe and got a better ending and framing than the refugees who were fighting back against people who wanted to force them out of their homes. It's just stupid and transparently, cynically, cowardly.

God, I'm so going to write something to steamroll over this dumb shit.
 
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Honestly it is still somewhat fascist like since Zemo killing them illuminati style reeks of the typical nobility old money elite getting what they wanted even as they were getting charged. Zemo got those pesky refugees out of his family palace, the rabble rousing peasant revolt survivors are dealt with before they can spread more of their rabble rousing in Karli's memory. Sure it wasn't Walker who did but it was the old money Zemo who did to remind us that his brand of power still exists today and nothing will change that
 
I mean it makes sense that Zemo killed the Flag Smashers the SpecOps team he lead in Sokovia was a literal Balkan War-style death squad he's probably done much worse before
 
I'm not disappointed in the Finale, but I get a distinct feeling that it wrote checks it can't cash. The whole show really could have done with another episode tbh.
 
Eh finale to an eh show. I respect what the creative team was trying to do, but the Mouse isn't exactly the company that's going to thread the needle of "fun superhero action" and "thoughtful meditation on race, class, and national symbols". They shot for the moon but they ended up somewhere between LEO and the roof of the Arby's down the block.

Might've been kinder to it overall if the finale didn't low key end with Sam imploring us to call our representatives and papering over John "I chopped off a man's head in public" Walker's redemption arc with some insert shots and fast editing. Very fucking surreal that he's quoting Lincoln and yukking it up with Bucky at the end with no mention of the whole "walking PTSD time bomb" the show set up.
 
Arthur Frayn said:
Eh finale to an eh show. I respect what the creative team was trying to do, but the Mouse isn't exactly the company that's going to thread the needle of "fun superhero action" and "thoughtful meditation on race, class, and national symbols". They shot for the moon but they ended up somewhere between LEO and the roof of the Arby's down the block.

Might've been kinder to it overall if the finale didn't low key end with Sam imploring us to call our representatives and papering over John "I chopped off a man's head in public" Walker's redemption arc with some insert shots and fast editing. Very fucking surreal that he's quoting Lincoln and yukking it up with Bucky at the end with no mention of the whole "walking PTSD time bomb" the show set up.
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Well Coates brand of politics and race isn't exactly marketable as much as I wanted Sam use that as the foundation of his speech. At least I now understand why Marvel Studios have a rep for being Military propaganda sometimes. Sam's speech about calling out how the GRC using terrorism as an excuse to not listen to what the refugees want is very bothsides even though it is clear that Karli was in the right even if she went in fast like so many revolutionary aspirants before she could learn to play the game and instead of just being a flash mob of resistance that crumble at people like Zemo or someone with the resources to take them down without considering PR.

The fact that Zemo, an old money aristocrat who hides his class struggle behind a hate for superheroes killed her friends in an extrajudicial manner felt Disney was nodding at the investors to remind Millenials not to challenge the political system that would crush them if they took their gloves off.
 
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Well just watched the finale

Absolutely fucking comical how badly the politics were handled beyond specifically the race stuff because holy shit the way Walker just seems to kinda slide into Bucky and Sam's DMs and pretend like nothing happened is straight-up like he came out of a different draft of the story and the way the show treats Karli as some kind of tragically misguided martyr is also hilarious when she does nothing but callously threaten and murder anyone who even remotely gets in her way such as that one time she blew up a building full of people for no reason other than The Clout.

It's so funny how Sharon and Zemo are the unnecessary additions that probably harmed the overall narrative by removing time that should've been spent actually fleshing out the Flag-Smashers' grievances with society and reasons for them to be radicalised so far, but they also turn out to be the most based parts because they just end up dabbing on everyone else out of nowhere. I laughed joyously when Sharon fuckin iced Karli (in a scene that was hilariously contrived because the show forgot that Sam's wings were also bulletproof and he was not in any danger from Karli brandishing a gun at him) and equally so when the stinger confirmed she's still gonna be the Power Broker just with government clearance this time. My girl really went from "i am generic woman love interest im baby please kiss me uwu" to "i am no longer baby i desire power", fuck it up Sharon.

I can only imagine what it would've been like for this show to be the first of the 'Phase 4' Disney+ content because WandaVision is like, out of sight the better product -and more consistently so- even up until its own uneven finale.
 
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I wonder if some shoulders were dislocated with all the self back patting the show got up to at the end.

I can't help but feel that Isaiah would want more than to be recognized, he would justice.
 
Not A Pipe said:
I wonder if some shoulders were dislocated with all the self back patting the show got up to at the end.

I can't help but feel that Isaiah would want more than to be recognized, he would justice.
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oh my god thank you I almost forgot thank you so much for reminding me that scene was the worst fucking thing and i lost my mind thinking about it for more than two seconds

not to get too topical but holy fuckin god there was a certain nancy pelosi energy in that scene as the show acted like it was super cool and touching that isiah was finally being recognised as some kind of war hero who fought for his country when he was fucking abused and experimented on and it ruined his life. he didn't fucking sign up for getting tuskeegee experimented, why are we supposed to be happy that he's enshrined as a golden idol as part of the proud legacy of captain america.
 
*Clears throat and takes a deep breathe in*
"I'm sorry" No. Your. Fucking. NOT! You're not sorry! You've spent a majority of this show making it clear under no uncertain terms that you have NEVER been sorry! In fact, why the fuck WOULD you be sorry?!?! You thought everything you did was completely right and justified, if you didn't then you wouldn't have done it! Actually, it would be so much worst if you were sorry! God, I hate your stupid fucking execution, your stupid fucking acting (no offense to the actors in question but if I was supposed to read hesitation or whatever when threatening Sam's family then I absolutely wasn't seeing it), your stupid ability to just be Hydra somehow, your stupid ability to make Sam forget his wings are bulletproof and that you like murdering people, and your STUPID FUCKING NAME YES I'M STILL ON THAT FLAGS ARE MADE PRIMARILY OF CLOTH YOU SHOULD BE FLAG RIPPERS!!
...anyway, I liked the episode, thought it was pretty alright. Liked the series well enough over all and I'm absolutely hype for new Captain America :).
 
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It's very telling that between the refugee activists and the American soldier, both of whom have murdered people, only the one with the US flag gets redemption.
 
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