The Falcon and the Winter Soldier

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Maskripper
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The best thing about the Super Bowl?
New trailers!

Here is the fresh one:

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An older trailer:


Seems like there is a masked villainess in that one! :-)
Image

...who gets kicked in her right breast here:
Image


....and also german actor Daniel Brühl (from Inglorious Bastards).

IMDB says it will be a 6 episode show.
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Looking forward to this one!
First episode March 19....and then at a weekly rate.
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New trailer:


Some nice scenes with our masked villainess.
First episode will be out this week!

The season will have 6 episodes with a budget of 150 million $!
Pretty crazy.... 25 million for one(!) episode.
Guess that's more than other TV shows of that genre have for a whole sesaon..... :hmmm:
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I would like her to be the focus.

As opposed to making one of Cap's foes the focus
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Make them gay Disney do it you cowards
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I thought the first episode was pretty good but I'm going to wait until it's finished and binge it like I did with WandaVision.

I thought the bit at the start with the baddies having wingsuits was pretty great. Although it seemed weird to me that you've got this gang of super-high-end mercenaries that use wingsuits and they meet a guy with a jet powered flying suit and they're completely nonplussed. That's usually the sort of thing that the MCU writers play with.

Getting Daniel Brühl back in the MCU is great news too. He's a brilliant actor and having raised the bar with Thanos the MCU really needs to step up its villain game.
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Spoiler
I like that the new Cap's jaw looks all wrong under the helmet.
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The first episode was ok for me. Not the biggest fan of first episodes, but it worked as an introduction.
I wonder where the story will be going.
Quite a spectacular/insane action sequence at the beginning. Works great if you don't think too much about it.
You can clearly see the crazy budget that they can invest in this show.
Hope to see much more of the masked villainess soon.
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I thought it worked pretty well for a first episode. The opening action sequence was pretty great, and I got a kick out of Bucky trying to get back on the dating scene. *Minor spoilers* The whole financial subplot with Sam and his sister doesn't really make sense. Sam is a veteran, has worked for the VA and is currently a government contractor. You're telling me he has no income? At all? There are also programs to help veterans get loans. It doesn't really matter, but I thought that part was weird.
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Loki wrote:
3 years ago
*Minor spoilers* The whole financial subplot with Sam and his sister doesn't really make sense. Sam is a veteran, has worked for the VA and is currently a government contractor. You're telling me he has no income? At all? There are also programs to help veterans get loans. It doesn't really matter, but I thought that part was weird.
If we really wanted to flex our mental muscles and try to come up with an in world explanation it doesn't seem like it would be too hard. Sam didn't sign the accords (or at least ended up in prison at the end of Civil War). That probably went a long ways towards fucking all his veteran stuff up.

But I'm not very clear WHAT Falcon's working relationship with the military is at the opening of the show. During the opening scene he doesn't seem like he's being treated like a soldier, more like a contractor. And the military guy he was working with doesn't seem to be working with him "officially" through the rest of the episode. Most likely his lines in the bank about being volunteers supported by good will is all the explanation we'll get.
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I get the impression that this is very recently after the Blip -- so half the working-age world doesn't have much employment history, and the other half has new uncertainty.

Even if the US government is swift to authorize assistance, it probably doesn't start with ready capital for small businesses through small banks. It didn't last year.
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Dear lord! This is a middle- aged- man conversation if ever there was one, lol
:giggle: :lol:
How strange are the ways of the gods ...........and how cruel.

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In the comics, in the 70's, the Avengers were paid a stipend from the "Maria Stark Foundation" which allotted them each $1000 a week in payment for sundries like food, clothing, and travel. Now that was in... 1974. Even Tony Stark understood that if you're going to be saving the planet from world conquerors, a stipend of $52,000/year for each person is very affordable, all things considered.

My guess is that Sam Wilson got the same pardon that Bucky got, but yeah... they probably denied him all veteran's benefits the moment he turned against the U.S. government. They can be pretty fickle about things like that. A pardon doesn't mean that you necessarily keep your vet benefits. The VA probably wants NOTHING to do with him after he went onto the Raft (and subsequently escaped thank to Captain America at the end of Civil War) so being an independent contractor is pretty much the only work he's likely to get from the U.S. government. Expendable mercenary work utilizing their own tech (which he did steal from them.)
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tallyho wrote:
3 years ago
Dear lord! This is a middle- aged- man conversation if ever there was one, lol
:giggle: :lol:
* *
*
Meanwhile -- in the Phantom Zone...

But seriously,
I bet the Sokovia Accords include a framework for financial compensation.
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First episode was good, as people have said. It was testosterone-heavy with not very much female content, but that makes sense for the subject matter. As far as women,there was just Bucky's therapist, his Asian love interest, and Sam's sister, and they were all strong characters. The action sequence was extremely bombastic - if I'm not mistaken, wasn't Batroc the leader of the terrorist group with the wingsuits that captured the army colonel?

I, too, was perplexed by the trouble that Sam had getting the loan, although even more so, I wondered why that plot was even there in the first place. It seemed like the episode's main concession to recent politics - i.e. the writers wanted to find a way that Sam, an otherwise privileged individual with a powerful suit and amazing fighting skills who almost became Captain America, could be shown as being oppressed by the system...and they found it.

I'm also wondering about the overall change to Sam Wilson's back story. In the comics, Sam is not from New Orleans, he's from Harlem.
In fact, it is actually Monica Rambeau who is from New Orleans and was a lieutenant in the Harbor Patrol before acquiring her powers.
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I, too, was perplexed by the trouble that Sam had getting the loan, although even more so, I wondered why that plot was even there in the first place. It seemed like the episode's main concession to recent politics - i.e. the writers wanted to find a way that Sam, an otherwise privileged individual with a powerful suit and amazing fighting skills who almost became Captain America, could be shown as being oppressed by the system...and they found it.

Your privilege is showing. It's all I can do not to roll my eyes at it.

Wow, and spoken with utter confidence like a truly entitled white person. I'm so glad to know that racial discrimination in the financial world doesn't really exist, except in the fanciful dreams of Hollywood writers who feel the need to add that little bit of overt drama in order to liven up the series and make a bit of juicy social commentary for blacks. I'm so glad entitled schmucks and borderline people are here to point these silly inconsistencies out to the rest of us. (Slow clap.)
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Shakeshift wrote:
3 years ago
Your privilege is showing. It's all I can do not to roll my eyes at it.
Please don't do that kind of argument.

Just leave this as a Marvel discussion.
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"Superhero having trouble with money" is a classic plotline. Spidey was doing it back in the 60s.
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Damselbinder wrote:
3 years ago
"Superhero having trouble with money" is a classic plotline. Spidey was doing it back in the 60s.
I remember the first fantastic four Mr. Fantastic had financial problems trying to keep the Baxter building.
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Shakeshift wrote:
3 years ago
the fanciful dreams of Hollywood writers who feel the need to add that little bit of overt drama in order to liven up the series and make a bit of juicy social commentary for blacks.
In fact, the creator of the F&WS series, Malcolm Spellman, is black. He learned his lesson about being edgy, or "borderline" as you like to call it, when he was a producer on the aborted TV series "Confederate" back in 2017. The Twittersphere pounced on that Civil War alternate history show as "slavery fan fiction" and cancelled the living hell out of it, just crushed it to dust. So now he colors his political statements safely within the prescribed Hollywood lines.
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Episode 2:
Yeah, an entertaining episode.
Enjoyed the fight on the 2 trucks next to each other on the Autobahn that was already presented in the trailer months ago.
Not as spectacular as the flying action from episode 1 but it had the (masked) villainess in it, so it was very interesting for me.
Will make a post for my blog about it tomorrow.
I do like that the good guys aren't overpowered and have a tough time in the fight with the bad guys.
Quite an odd scene where the 4 were driven around at really slow speed in the weird Bundeswehr car (don't know if that thing even exists in the real world).
Would be interesting to know more about the big masterplan from that organization, but I guess we will get that in episode 3.
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So far so good. I think it's thus far been doing a really good job of not falling into a lot of the pitfalls something like this would. New Captain America... not just a foil villain to easily write off as a bad guy. I like that, I don't want that guy as Captain America xD, but I like that they didn't just introduce him as an asshole who DESERVES to be stripped of the title in favor of the character we are rooting for.

I also feel like its thus far got one of the more nuanced takes on America's racial problem we've seen on TV in a while. Doesn't make a huge thing of it, doesn't pretend like its not there, pretty much portraying it 'as it is'. Woulda been pretty easy to cast the new Captain America as a racist psycho killer, instead his best friend is black, he's interracial relationship etc.

In the meanwhile the plot is is working up to a fun spy thriller type action drama with super soldiers and a buddy cop-esque duo who have always had pretty good chemistry for a pair of characters who so rarely have a lot of screen time together. Action is good, acting is good.

It's been a good start!
Spoiler
I feel like the way the show is building up a conflict based on a bunch of criminals who feel like people returned from the SNAP (fuck the blip!) have been getting preferential treatment all the while illustrating that those people are actually being marginalized on account of a system that no longer knows what to do with them speaks to a very real phenomena in the world right now where opposing sides are so often blind to what's actually happening with their opposition. No way to know if the show will maintain how well it has handled all these elements or if it even means to elaborate on it much, but I appreciate the nuanced approach regardless.
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I must disagree about John Walker.
Spoiler
His introduction feints at being sympathetic, but then they lean into Swaggering Jackass way too hard. They're PUSHING him as an antagonist. The audience is already primed to dislike him, so a nuanced approach would be to play against that. But they don't. He doesn't apologize for co-opting Falcon's mission, makes taking up the shield about him ("Look, I've done the work"), and sucks at empathy. He keeps up the swagger when it clearly doesn't work. And when Sam lays out why he and Bucky should operate apart, all Walker sees is that they don't fall in and he reacts like a spoiled child: "then stay out of my way." The subtext might make him sympathetic -- he's clearly unfit to be Cap (indeed, better suited to be an American Winter Soldier) and shouldn't have been set up to fail -- but
the narrative paints him with a cartoon brush.

It hasn't ruined the show or anything -- the show's not about him, and this world is thick with melodrama -- but the show *is* in no small part about Being Without Steve Rogers, so as a thing the other characters are conflicted about, Replacement Cap's portrayal is, for me, disappointingly hamfisted in Episode 2.

But there's a lot of other stuff to like. Pretty much everything else Femina mentioned. And for me, Henry Jackman's score is wonderful. He did the music for Captain America: The Winter Soldier, still my favorite Marvel score, and while he also did Civil War, that was dominated by different themes, and the Cap2 leitmotifs went basically unused in subsequent films. No disrespect to Alan Silvestri around whose Avengers work Marvel finally developed a recognizable theme, but it's been marvelous to hear the soaring Falcon heroics, the Winter Soldier mystique, and even a tender rendition of the "Taking A Stand" theme.
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Imagineer wrote:
3 years ago
I must disagree about John Walker.
Spoiler
His introduction feints at being sympathetic, but then they lean into Swaggering Jackass way too hard. They're PUSHING him as an antagonist. The audience is already primed to dislike him, so a nuanced approach would be to play against that. But they don't. He doesn't apologize for co-opting Falcon's mission, makes taking up the shield about him ("Look, I've done the work"), and sucks at empathy. He keeps up the swagger when it clearly doesn't work. And when Sam lays out why he and Bucky should operate apart, all Walker sees is that they don't fall in and he reacts like a spoiled child: "then stay out of my way." The subtext might make him sympathetic -- he's clearly unfit to be Cap (indeed, better suited to be an American Winter Soldier) and shouldn't have been set up to fail -- but
the narrative paints him with a cartoon brush.
Spoiler
That all just seems like good ol' fashioned human failing to me? There's a HUGE gap between a person with flaws that prevent them from approaching situations with the right care and a mustache twirling monster. They obviously mean to cast him as the foil, there was never going to be any doubt about that, I guess what I'm saying is, if this were any other property, we wouldn't have a brash swaggering flawed man one huge failure away from being the villain, we'd just have 'the Iron Patriot' right out the door.

I don't think he's been painted cartoonish just because he's not perfectly sympathetic? Making him Steve Rogers 2.0 would be problematic to the story arc. They need him to eventually illustrate why he doesn't deserve to be Captain America, otherwise the story runs into the roadblock of 'well we were gonna make Sam the new Captain America, but people ended up liking our interim plot device Cap too much' sort of trouble. Instead they've taken what I think is about as deft a brush stroke as they reasonably CAN with a character who is by his very nature in the plot an 'antagonistic force' for our heroes EMOTIONALLY even while he's not their enemy.

Additionally, he brings out the worst in our HEROES, whom we can't simply let off entirely for their connection to the shield and the man. Their behavior is understandable, but nevertheless their cold shouldering his attempts at a peace offering puts this new Captain America in a tough position that he hasn't necessarily properly earned. HE didn't steal the shield from the museum and campaign for a new Captain America... he's just the guy the government picked out and called upon. He just happens to be enough of an egoist to probably believe 'well I don't believe anyone else could do it better so I'll do it.'.... and the story NEEDS him to be that or it doesn't really work. He can't be a perfect, great, or even GOOD Captain America for it to be fair for us to still demand Sam have the shield over him... but that doesn't make him cartoonish in my opinion. I think the fact that he's clearly a bad fit for the role.... but also clearly not just an evil asshole... at least not yet, is a lot more interesting than what we sometimes get in a Marvel Villain... lest anybody forget the Dark Elves or Obediah Stain... or the false Mandarin etc.
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There's a difference between what we can fridge-logic about the character and the narrative beats a character has -- between the richness of a character's backstory and how they can influence the protagonists' growth.
Spoiler
The narrative is not subtle or nuanced about how we're supposed to feel about him. He may as well have twirled his mustache at the end of the episode, because he's been reduced to the jackass cop role, and that's not interesting. We're not at the midpoint yet and we've already written him off -- which I think could cheapen Sam's emotional journey. I'm disappointed that they didn't extend Walker the benefit of the doubt beyond a single episode -- to make us doubt the wisdom of our desire to see Sam take back the shield for a while.
I think they're playing Walker too safe and not trusting the audience enough. Or they're just playing to the cheap seats.

To be fair, there are only six episodes, and we've only seen two. Maybe when it's over this treatment will prove to serve the protagonists' journeys and the audience's emotional journey better.
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Well in that sense I'm afraid I'm always of the 'follow the narrative beats' frame of mind. "Fridge-logic' is about as good as you can expect for characterization in a show like this? I'm all for creating deep characters and, if you can pull it off, allowing them to run your story a bit... but while I used to subscribe solely to 'character oriented storytelling' my preference for that has cooled somewhat. A story tends to flow better with a certain adherence to the a narrative structure and 'fridge-logic' motivations than it usually does writing incredibly deep characters and seeing where they lead the story... and ordinarily speaking they don't... lead the story anywhere I mean... because they all want to take it their own way. The outline and the narrative beat is what separates your story from being an actual story and just like... a bunch of stuff that happens.
Spoiler
We can sort of assume at this juncture, that there are certain goals in the purpose of this series outing, one of those goals is... probably (and I'm sure we'll all have a lot more to say and feel a lot sillier or certain in our assumptions once its all done) to make Sam the proper 'Captain America' moving forward... they introduce a new Captain America to act as the foil. yeah the narrative beat is that he's the foil to the hero, we're predisposed to prefer Sam over him, and the story needs for our disposition in this instance to be valid... that means new Cap probably HAS to be the villain, or die, or end up just being inadequate etc. but I feel like taking that as a negative is where we bump in this? A story needs opposing forces, and as opposing forces go, I feel like he's a lot more nuanced than you give him credit for... even if that depth winds up being more 'fridge logic' in the pudding than narrative punch, there's quite simply nothing wrong with that in a medium where a story eventually needs to get told. If shoehorning all the depth in the world into a characters narrative impact is going to interfere with the narrative progression. Then don't do it.
I can't stress this enough, nothing is more important in your story than its structure. Sacrifice everything else before you start cutting up your narrative outline. It makes all the difference in the world. It's the difference between Lord of the Rings, a rigidly plotted tale so impactful that it still influences our modern concept of fantasy today... and Game of Thrones, a hyper realistic hard fantasy that sacrificed too much of its structure in preference to letting the characters and their consequences spiral out of control... and then ended so poorly that it brought a thriving fanbase to a grinding halt so hard and so fast that it's basically vanished from the public lexicon only a year or so after its finished. Nothing is more important than your stories structure, 'fridge packing' your characters to conform to the plot logically from the start is vastly more likely to produce a tale that people will love and adore long after it lands than providing a playground for a cast of deep and realistic characters that will eventually take your stories limbs between the lot of them and pull it every which direction until your story has lost any semblance of being a STORY at all.

Just to get ahead of it I acknowledge there are exceptions. Not every produced film or series is fictional, informative, historical pieces etc. all have different asperations and purposes. THIS isn't that, Falcon and the Winter Soldier is very much Marvel telling a story.
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I'm not sure who that Story 101 wall of text was for. I mean, no shift, Sherlock. Seriously. I tried to keep it simple and direct, and you've spun off lecturing.

Elaborate backstory is just series padding indulgence if it rapidly evaporates away and leaves narrative cliches.
Spoiler
The jackass cop is a cliche, and very quickly that's what they reduced John Walker to. And they didn't have to. The audience doesn't need it -- they want to dislike him -- and the writers are pandering.

The story can be better than that. The clever thoughtful touches everywhere else in this show makes that clear. Walker could have been less of a bull in a China shop; Sam's opposition could appear to be the system, higher-ups not respecting him or misunderstanding his value; Walker could have seemed a decent choice, and another source of tension between Sam and Bucky.

There are different ways to get to what we assume is the conclusion that aren't so obvious. Delay gratification just a little bit. Defy expectations just a little bit. Walker's fate didn't need to be sealed in one episode.

Unless New Cap isn't that important to the story, which I think would be a mistake.


We don't need to be spoonfed, and sometimes even if we want to be spoonfed, a less obvious path makes a more impactful story.

Of course, it could be that the story is going somewhere else entirely, in which case my cap's off to the writers. I am hopeful but not expectant.
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Just saw EP2 - this series works well because it seems to satisfy all corners of the audience.

The small vocal cadre of Twitterati appreciate the cultural depth (high-step marching band, Isaiah Bradley), the moral ambiguity (Flag Smashers portrayed as sympathetic Baader-Meinhof throwbacks) and the buddy-cop quippage with pop-culture references.

While the vast masses of normies appreciate that there are two full-blown action sequences per episode.

Everyone wins. Enjoy!
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Imagineer wrote:
3 years ago
I'm not sure who that Story 101 wall of text was for. I mean, no shift, Sherlock. Seriously. I tried to keep it simple and direct, and you've spun off lecturing.
Just my opinion. I'm not trying to say 'you're definitively WRONG!' or even 'Yeah but you don't know this!!!!?' or anything like that. Just expressing my disagreement with you, my point of view, and where it comes from. No need for it to get tense. I like to be as clear as I can be, sometimes that turns into a wall of text in the edit.

Agree to disagree on all of this. I could see a lot of the ways the character could have fallen into some very popular pitfalls that he just doesn't, but I've also got no particular preferences for what I think he should be to the story or anything either. To me he works fine THUS FAR. I definitely subscribe along with you on the wait and see approach as well. I have to make allowances in my perception of the character in relation to my awareness that we're only 1/3 of the way through and he's got more than half the series left to either further distinguish himself or fall deeper into any clichés.

We'll probably find out that it was Agatha all Along anyway. WandaVision didn't really 'click' all the way either until it was almost halfway through... this is just the sort of 'theorizing vs experience' that tends to happen with shows sprinkled out weekly instead of the good ol days of the Binge...
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Femina wrote:
3 years ago
Imagineer wrote:
3 years ago
I'm not sure who that Story 101 wall of text was for. I mean, no shift, Sherlock. Seriously. I tried to keep it simple and direct, and you've spun off lecturing.
Just my opinion. I'm not trying to say 'you're definitively WRONG!' or even 'Yeah but you don't know this!!!!?' or anything like that. Just expressing my disagreement with you, my point of view, and where it comes from. No need for it to get tense. I like to be as clear as I can be, sometimes that turns into a wall of text in the edit.

Agree to disagree on all of this. I could see a lot of the ways the character could have fallen into some very popular pitfalls that he just doesn't, but I've also got no particular preferences for what I think he should be to the story or anything either. To me he works fine THUS FAR. I definitely subscribe along with you on the wait and see approach as well. I have to make allowances in my perception of the character in relation to my awareness that we're only 1/3 of the way through and he's got more than half the series left to either further distinguish himself or fall deeper into any clichés.

We'll probably find out that it was Agatha all Along anyway. WandaVision didn't really 'click' all the way either until it was almost halfway through... this is just the sort of 'theorizing vs experience' that tends to happen with shows sprinkled out weekly instead of the good ol days of the Binge...
Oh, Femina, don't you know?

The Binge is cringe
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Anybody else not really feeling this one? I might just binge it at the end once it is known if it is good or not.

Just feels like a bit of a nothingburger after WandaVision. Maybe there'll be a twist or something but it feels like we know where it's going long before it gets there, as in everybody is pals and Sam is Captain America. Now maybe that won't happen, but if it doesn't, they need to suggest some reasons why it won't.
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Dogfish wrote:
3 years ago
Anybody else not really feeling this one? I might just binge it at the end once it is known if it is good or not.

Just feels like a bit of a nothingburger after WandaVision. Maybe there'll be a twist or something but it feels like we know where it's going long before it gets there, as in everybody is pals and Sam is Captain America. Now maybe that won't happen, but if it doesn't, they need to suggest some reasons why it won't.
Although I'm enjoying it a lot I can see how this would feel like such a let down after Wandavision. And imagine how bonkers Wandavision would have felt if it came after this like it was supposed to?
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Okay now it's got going and it's actually amazing. Just needed that one episode.
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Damselbinder wrote:
3 years ago
Oh, Femina, don't you know?

The Binge is cringe
What does that even meaaaaan! xD
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Anyone finish this? (I certainly hope so). It wasn't that hard to do.

There's literally no difference between the narrative of F&WS and real life, other than Stark Tech and Super Soldier Serum, and that's troubling to an extent, but not unexpected in 2021. It just makes it hard to justify qualifying such a show as "escapism".

Politics and constantly hamfisted messaging aside, though, the action and the effects were topnotch, and if you don't think about it, it was fun to watch the fight choreography. It's just too bad they couldn't put one good-looking female in a decent tight-fitting costume throughout this whole thing. I really wanted to at least see the Japanese woman return and hook up with Bucky, but even that didn't happen, as they had to spend time on a gratuitous "laissez les bon temps roulet" denouement instead.

Also, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss looks great. She's quite a bit older than the Contessa is supposed to be in the comics (where she is a sexy Emma Peel to Nick Fury's John Steed) but I appreciated her overall insouciance, and that we finally have a Seinfeldian crossover into the Marvel Universe (DC would have made more sense due to Jerry's Superman obsession, but we'll take it).
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Just finished the last episode minutes ago.
I think it's a decent overlong movie.....in 6 parts. Doesn't feel like a TV show for me. And with that kind of budget, I won't compare it to a TV show.

The action was fine, quite over the top here and there, but good fun.
I don't get the whole super soldier serum thing. I mean, yes, it is certainly a great thing to have that kind of strength...but if everybody with a pistol can bring you down....it's not so great after all. Quite odd how a bunch of such super soldiers are the big bads of the whole thing
Spoiler
and that they survived that long.
My enthusiasm for the leader Karli quickly faded as that mask is more like a symbol and combat protection. She pulls it down and up every few minutes....so sadly, no secret identity as I have hoped. But I do like how they wrote her character.....the end was fitting.

And yeah, as Shevek I wouldn't have minded some sexy chicks in costumes (and masks)......but well, no luck. Luckily there are other shows for that.
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I didn't feel like this was a particularly great show. It felt like homework, like, this is the stuff I'm going to need to know before the next set of movies or whatever, rather than anything especially interesting. Sort of a Wikipedia catchup turned into a show.

There were bits that were good, and bits where the show threatened me with a good time, but overall, meh.
Spoiler
The show really didn't do a good job with its subtext either. Like how all this effort was directed to catching a handful of supersoldiers who were ostensibly just petty criminals in the grand scheme of things, and more importantly they were right and the show even acknowledged this.So what was it all for? The exciting adventures of some incredibly well supported government operative-types chasing a bunch of kids, ultimately alienating them and provoking a lethal escalation? This isn't a heroic tale.

The Power Broker doesn't get caught. Captain Scumbag is redeemed. Zemo gets a coat, that's pretty cool, and off he goes back to prison. Sam is now Captain America, after his well intentioned wobble, but he was Captain America anyway. Bucky still basically in the same boat as the start. Boat got a new coat of paint I guess.

And now the MCU is a Veep crossover?

Honestly, I regret giving it the time. As has been mentioned, this could have been a movie a third as long and it still wouldn't have been much good but it wouldn't have been so much faff.

As a general point though, Covid is kicking the shit out of live action productions all over, so I'm not going to hold it too much against this show for being a bit weak. Remember that everything that's been shot since last March would have cost an order of magnitude more and would have been extremely difficult to produce. Nobody is able to do their best work right now.
Last edited by Dogfish 2 years ago, edited 1 time in total.
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Do you want to spoiler button the reveals in the above please for those of us who ain't seen it yet
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Donezel Washington.
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I didn't learn until today that the same actress who plays Karli Morgenthau also plays Enfys Nest in Solo: A Star Wars Story. This makes so much sense from the perspective of the casting agenda at Disney/Marvel.

Note: do NOT watch this hilarious takedown if you don't want to hear spoilers!

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Whatever the vaccine narrative was initially, I wish they'd just left it in.
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Erin Kellyman is good shit. The series was pretty predictable, I guess (I had zero surprise at the reveal of "the Powerbroker," it was obvious two episodes earlier), but she really delivered all the dramatic elements of her character well. That first encounter where
Spoiler
Sam and Bucky assume she's a hostage, and then she gives Bucky this kind of creepy smile and puts on her Flag Smasher mask
was a thing of beauty. Maybe not super-believable to have her going toe-to-toe with Bucky or John Walker, especially given they were all supposed to have basically the same power set, but hell... Marvel has been big budget Eighties cartoons since day one.
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I agree with HeelvsBabyface. This wasn't a good series.
Spoiler
Rewarding terrorists. And Walker is actually the most interesting person in the show. He did his job and the gov tosses him out when they trained him to do this exact stuff.
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Link to the review Mr. X is talking about. AZ is most popular British member of the "Fandom Menace" team, and can also be found guesting frequently on Nerdrotic's Friday Night Tights show.

Anyway, here is AZ (aka Heelvsbabyface).

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shevek wrote:
2 years ago
AZ is most popular British member of the "Fandom Menace" team
BIG PASS.
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I feel like we definitely need more people here if we have people openly promoting "Fandom Menace" on this forum like that's a normal thing to do. Like, WTF is that. Kinda makes me think looking back in here was a mistake.

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Spoiler
Pretty much sums up the series.
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Mr. X wrote:
2 years ago
....
Spoiler
Rewarding terrorists. And Walker is actually the most interesting person in the show. He did his job and the gov tosses him out when they trained him to do this exact stuff.
Spoiler
He killed an unarmed man, who already had surrendered. That was murder/manslaughter. Nothing else.
That wasn't what the government paid him to do.
And as it was even a public, recorded event.....it was the only choice to kick him out.
He was very lucky that he wasn't thrown in jail
I always imagine you as a kid cheering for the witch as fairy tales were read to you.
Nowadays I'm pretty sure you have a white cat and a globe on your desk. :hmmm: ;)
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NotUv2 wrote:
2 years ago
I feel like we definitely need more people here if we have people openly promoting "Fandom Menace" on this forum like that's a normal thing to do. Like, WTF is that. Kinda makes me think looking back in here was a mistake.

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All I did was link to the video that Mr. X mentioned (since he didn't provide a link) and then describe the person who is making the video by using well-established associative explanations, not subjective opinion about the person. My statement was entirely factual. That's not called promoting, that is called reporting. It is a completely normal thing to report facts.

"Erin Kellyman is good shit", in contrast, is pure opinion. I would disagree, and I explained why: "Karli" is almost exactly the same character as Enfys Nest, played by the same actress, which means that it is a Disney trope-in-trade (the murderous yet sympathetic political rebel) and the actress is being typecast. That, to me, is not "good shit". It is lazy shit, with a clear purpose in mind - to humanize the agenda of a real-life group which usually is seen as a leaderless, masked collective, if it is acknowledged at all. The overall thrust of this series is didactic - to dole out activism..not the escapism of the 90s action cartoons to which you compare it.

And in my opinion, they even fell short in that mission, because none of the other Smashers are given backstories. They might as well be wearing their masks the whole time with regards to how facelessly they are depicted. Karli's backstory consists of "I grew up in the camps, my foster mommy died, and I am angry, so I am justified in stealing valuable serums, destroying property, and killing people." That's it. District 9, for example, had more depth to its characters than that. And in any case, it's the arc of a supervillain.

Please discern the difference between opinion and fact, instead of responding with reflexive "pack the courts" sentiment. Whoever is here, is whoever is here. Use words and logic to argue and refute, not guilt-by-association. Let's enjoy the banter.
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Maskripper wrote:
2 years ago
I always imagine you as a kid cheering for the witch as fairy tales were read to you.
Nowadays I'm pretty sure you have a white cat and a globe on your desk. :hmmm: ;)
The witch is greatly misunderstood. Poor witch. All alone. People stealing her stuff. Outcast cause she's ugly. Sniff Sniff.
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so were they gay in the end or what
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