Currently scheduled for May 6, 2011.
The working title is The First Avenger: Captain America. I'll change this board's title when it becomes more definite.
Jonathan Frakes once portrayed Captain America. He said, "I wore a tight outfit and carried a garbage can lid for a shield"
(2007 Chicago Convention)
DiCaprio? And if they can't get DiCaprio, the story says they might want Brad Pitt, which, in light of the story that they want Pitt for Thor, makes it seem as if Marvel is hot to get Pitt into at least one of their films.
Well who wouldn't want Pitt? He has enough 'hunk appeal' to get women who despise comic books into the theaters while having enough tough guy appeal ('Seven' & 'Fight Club') to get guys into that same theater.
A director and producer have been named.
The main villain and time setting have been confirmed.
There's also information on the co-stars.
Also, actor Ryan McPartlin of Chuck recently read for the lead role.
It's settled. Chris Evans is playing Cap.
So long as he doesn't play Cap the way he played Johnny Storm, we're good. But honestly, I don't see Chris as being able to play someone who can gain the respect of Thor, Iron Man and the others he'll need to for the Avengers movie.
It'll be up to the director to get Evans to play Rodgers/Cap totally different from Johnny Storm, which shouldn't be a problem. There's no reason to believe Evans can only act one way.
That's Steve Rogers, by the way, not "Rodgers".
British actress Hayley Atwell is Peggy Carter.
Hugo Weaving confirmed as Red Skull.
Most excellent, Mr. Anderson
He definitely has the prominent eyes and chiseled features that would lend themselves to that role's look.
According to Ain't It Cool News, this is the costume. I like it!
Stanley Tucci as Dr. Abraham Erskine
Some set pics. Since that guy doesn't look anything like Chris Evans, I'm assuming that's a stuntman.
Pics of Chris Evans and Haley Atwell from the set, along with some videos of the shoot, possibly shot by amateurs, though quite clear.
While I wasn't thrilled by the casting of Chris Evans as Steve (I didn't condemn it, mind you, just wasn't thrilled), I must say that it looks like he bulked up quite well to properly capture Steve Rogers' physique.
On the other hand, I'm not too confident that the director is Joe Johnston. While I enjoyed Jumanji, his other films, The Rocketeer and October Sky, while well-liked by most critics who saw them (I missed them), did not do that great at the box office, with the former having been a box office bomb. Jurassic Park III was an adequate popcorn movie that made back its budget twofold, but that doesn't inspire me with great confidence with respect to Captain America.
While the screenwriters include those who worked on the Chronicles of Narnia films, the fact that Joss Whedon also worked on it may be the biggest positive going for the film, at least from the point of view of the creators' track records, though I wonder how much of the script is Whedon's.
Let's cross our fingers.
I have a feeling that no matter how this movie turns out, at least we won't be harkening back to the good ol' days when Reb Brown was in the role in the 2 movies from the '70's!
Chris Evans on the cover of Entertainment Weekly.
I've got a bad feeling about this(I know-wrong series).
Why does the cover photo look so little like Chris Evans???
I've noticed in the new animated 'Avengers' series that they have a small tie-in with this movie, as they have Cap riding a motorcycle in a helmet, like those photos I've seen for this movie.
The trailer for 'Green Lantern' is out there-- anybody know when this one might show up?
Production began in June, with filming scheduled to have begun on June 28, so I'd give it another month or so, since the film comes out in July, and I'd imagine that they'd want to start whetting audiences' appetites no later than the beginning of 2011, like maybe January. Just my guess.
The story will involve the Cosmic Cube.
Pic of Evans in full costume, now with helmet, shield, background mega-soldiers, and more bulge.
To quote another movie--" I've got a bad feeling about this".
The costume definitely stinks. It looks too much like the Ultimate version of Captain America, and I don't like the fact the helmet seems to be a combination helmet and mask, rather than a helmet worn over a mask. But that's just for starters.
Good news, though, is that there is some concept art out there for the Red Skull (sorry, I don't have a link handy), and from what I've seen it looks good. One outfit is even evocative of the drab green coveralls he used to wear (but thankfully isn't actually coveralls).
What I hate the most is:
1. There doesn't seem to actually be any Nazis in this. The bad guys are apparently HYDRA.
2. The Cosmic Cubs is involved.
Good to hear from you again, Brian. (Wow, you and Mark Morgan showing up again within the same week!)
Me, I like the Ultimate line's approach to the more campy elements of the 616 universe, such as costumes, especially those stories envisioned by Bendis and Millar, and those artists who worked with them. Outlandish spandex costumes were properly de-emphasized in favor of plot, character and theme, with clothing being practical more than arbitrary. In some instances, of course, the costumes are inalienably linked to those characters, and cannot be abandoned, as in the case of say, Spider-Man and Cap. With Spidey, an additional rationale is his costume is practical for swinging around the city, and is comparable to what acrobats wear. With Cap, however, it's a bit harder to keep such a brightly colored and designed costume for a soldier, but Bryan Hitch did the best he could, IMO, when he drew The Ultimates, and it seems like that's the version of the costume they adapted.
There's no reason for a soldier embodying the United States to be wearing buccaneer boots, wildly loose fabric gauntlets, or medieval-looking chain mail, and by removing those elements (adding straps and buckles to the gloves and boots, changing the chain mail to more modern-looking body armor, making the wings a design on the helmet, instead of attachments), the costume is at least a bit more restrained from the 616 version.
Even Jim Cheung's rendition of the 616 Steve Rogers costume (in the current miniseries Avengers: The Children's Crusade, for example), is more plausible, making the pieces of his upper body tunic interlocked hexagons, rather than overlapped semicircular bits of mail, making it look more like modern armor.
Brian Floyd: The Cosmic Cubs is involved.
Luigi Novi: And that would be the Silver Surfer's favorite baseball team, right?
Yeah, Luigi, but they always lose the World (series) to Galactus.
Big Bad Toy Store has begun allowing pre-orders of Halloween costumes based on the movie. Because their Captain America costume is clearly based on the film version of that suit, and not the comic book version, this arguably gives us our first idea of what the Red Skull will look like.
There's also a drab green costume with black piping that there's a concept art picture of for the Red Skull, so he may have more than one outfit. Reportedly, his head is going to be cgi, or cgi and a mask, rather than just a mask in the film.
Obviously, I meant the Cosmic Cube. And I believe the Silver Surfer's favorite baseball team is actually the Comet Dodgers.
(Note for ScottN: I posted a new Chish & Fips commercial just for the heck of it in the LICC section on the 16th.)
First shot of Bucky Barnes, along with some shots of Nazi soldiers.
"Nazi soldiers?" Those are Hydra agents! Look at the armband of the soldier at the far left.
"Hail Hydra!"
Oh yeah. I got my megalomaniacal groups with dreams of world domination mixed up.
lol
"Hail, Hydra!"
Here's a better shot of them together, and details on how Bucky will be adapted for the film. His backstory will have a darker edge to him, more in line with works like Band of Brothers, and he'll be almost the same age as Cap.
This makes a lot of sense, since brightly colored heroes smiling as they knock Nazi heads together doesn't seem right, given the WWII setting, IMO.
That's basically Ed Brubaker's take on James Buchanan Barnes. When he resurrected Bucky, he made him older and less cheerful, sprightly. Unlike Robin, the Boy Wonder in the early days. (I admit, however, this could also have been the Ultimate Universe take on Bucky. Hell, given how grim the Ultimate U. is, it probably is. To the Nth degree.)
Cool teaser poster! I like the tagline.
I just hope this movie is NOTHING like that other "Captain America" movie....or the Captain America TV movie
I think it's safe to say it won't be, John.
Lines You Will Never, Ever, EVER Hear On The Captain America; The First Avenger:
"Aw, man, why didn't they cast the fantastic Reb Brown as Captain America instead of a no-name like Chris Evans?!"
"Red Brown; the best Captain America...everrrrr!!!"
"I liked the special effects of the Reb Brown Captain America movies a hundred times better!"
"Reb Brown's plastic see-through shield is cooler than Chris Evans's shield!"
"Hello, this is Reb Brown's attorney. Just wanted to inform you that Mr.Brown is suing you for 900 billion dollars for infringement of the character he created."
"Reb Brown's character of Steve Rogers was so much cooler than Chris Evans's version because he sat on the beach and did water color painting!"
"I guess Stan Lee feels like he was ripped off because he didn't have say in the matter of casting when they went with Chris Evans instead of Reb Brown who owned that role!"
"Oh, riiight! Reb Brown isn't cast as Captain America, so once again he loses a chance at an Academy Award! Rigged!"
"Reb Brown is 8 letters long...Chris Evans is 10...coincidence?!"
The trailer will debut today during the Super Bowl. Paramount paid $3 million for the spot.
Other trailers debuting will include ones for the new Pirates of the Carribean and Transformers films, and J.J. Abrams' alien-invasion pic Super 8.
I just saw it. Pretty cool, though I would've liked to see more. Can't wait until an extended trailer appears online. I didn't know Stanley Tucci and Tommy Lee Jones were in it.
Yeah, it looked good. Can't wait to see it.
And here it is, for those of you who missed it.
It's also up at the official site, though the YouTube version takes less time to load.
Interesting to see how they used CGI to make the pre-serum Steve look scrawny.
Awesome pic of Hugo Weaving as the Red Skull!
So good to see you... Mr. Anderson -- oops I mean, Captain Rogers...
Seriously, every time he has a line in practically any film, I have to append "Mr. Anderson" onto it.
It made watching the LOTR films... interesting.
"Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague, and we are the cure." certainly would've been apt for Megatron to say to Prime.
Trailer for an Entertainment Tonight piece, as well as a gif of Cap throwing his shield at the camera.
I had not realized that Tony's daddy would be a character in this movie. Very cool! Both his presence and the trailer as a whole, that is.
Was he part of that super soldier program in the comics or is this another movie connection thing?
I think it's more of a later retcon. It wasn't part of the original origin story for Captain America.
Well, judging by the trailer I saw before Thor, it appears the Howling Commandos are in it. However, given that Samuel L. Jackson is playing Nick Fury, I doubt the Commandos will be lead by a Sgt. Fury. Although there was one member of the Howlers who looked like he could have been Nick Fury.
New poster and trailer!
The poster is a super hi-res shot of Evans in profile without the helmet.
As for the trailer: I liked it. New shots and scenes that we haven't seen before, including characters and actors that I didn't know, or had forgotten were in it.
Watch it!
The film will simply be called "The First Avenger" in Russia, the Ukraine and South Korea.
Huh?
I thought Russia and South Korea were our allies? Why is there anti-American sentiment there?
They very often abbreviate titles here just for economy, especially when transliterating rather than translating. 'First Avenger' (they'll drop the 'the') will have five syllables when rendered in Hangeul which is more than enough to fill movie posters. The full title would have 13 syllables which way too much.
I assure you this is not political.
The term "allies" doesn't really mean what it use to IMO, but I agree with Kevin that it probably isn't political in this case
Minor mistake: First Avenger would have six syllables if transliterated rather than five.
Well yeah, obviously. Everyone knows that.
40 cool stills.
The Hydra costumes and equipment look cool.
And I really liked that snazzy four-headlight car in Image #26.
Four really cool clips!
One of them is of Cap, in uniform, using his shield on a number of Hydra goons, and if this year's past crop of superhero films had me doubting whether this would be another mediocre one, these clips have renewed my optimism!
A few comments on the film:
It was a bit odd that Stan Lee does have a cameo in this movie. Normally, Stan appears in films about characters he created or co-created. Thor, Iron Man, Daredevil, X-Men, Spider-Man, Hulk, Fantastic Four, etc. Stan, while he did write many of Cap's earliest stories, is not one of the Star-Spangled Avenger's creators. Joe Simon and Jack Kirby were.
Near the beginning of the film is an interesting cameo/in-joke. At the World Expo that Steve Rogers and James "Bucky" Barnes attend, is a display labeled "Dr. Phineas Norton's Synthetic Man" or something to that effect. It is clearly Jim Hammond, the original 1940s Human Torch. The joke lies in the fact that Steve Rogers/Captain America is played by Chris Evans, who previously appeared in the first two Fantastic Four films as Johnny Storm, the second Human Torch.
Thought the film was okay. Wasn't too thrilled with all the sci-fi elements added to it, via the Cosmic Cube. The Cube wasn't really portrayed as it normally is in Marvel Comics. It doesn't grant the owner the power to warp reality. It's more like a source of energy instead. Moreover, one cannot physically touch the Cube, although I believe Johann Schmidt/the Red Skull did so when the Cube first appeared onscreen.
In the comics, Cap is portrayed as being someone who has seen a lot of combat, a veteran of numerous missions during World War II. While it's possible that Rogers and the Howling Commandos saw more action and had more missions than shown in the film. The only ones we really Cap involved in are the ones that had to do with destroying the Red Skull's bases. There were five or six altogether.
I really hated how they handled the whole Cap in suspended animation: It was a throwaway line delivered by Nick Fury: "You've been asleep for the last 70 years." Nothing said about Cap having been in suspended animation or how it might have occurred. I also didn't think it made sense that they put Cap in a room reminiscent of one from the 1940s, replete with a broadcast of a 1941 baseball game.
The film also resolves (in a way) a debate some comics fans have had: Did the Super Soldier Serum grant Steve Rogers superpowers or merely build up him to peak human levels? In the film, Cap is clearly superpowered.
Stay for the very end of the movie. There's a trailer for next year's The Avengers film.
In brief: An concept inherently difficult to translate to the big screen is nonetheless enjoyable.
This year’s superhero films have given me cause to wonder if there is an inherent limit on which comics can be successfully adapted (narratively and creatively speaking) into feature films, and whether there is something fundamentally different between that small group of properties—Superman, Batman, Spider-Man and the X-Men—whose greater success are built into their identities, which sets them apart from every other spandex-to-celluloid project. What I perceive about these four is that they either tap into a basic aspect of the human condition to which all people can instantly relate to allegorically (Spidey and X-Men), or invoke a modern mythology that imbues otherwise normal-seeming people with a some type of larger-than-life quality into which the imagination of the viewer can be projected (Superman and Batman).
I’ve observed that being able to make the transition to live action feature film from comics, which are often filled with elements of camp and silliness, may be more than just a matter of replacing yellow spandex or gray spandex with black leather or body armor. I think that the adaptations that work the best do so they possess something at their core that isn’t specific to the comics medium or its stereotypical nerd-kid audience, and lends itself well to live action. Comics, after all, especially the ones of decades ago, demand far less from their audience than the most timeless and well-made modern TV shows and feature films. A good origin story that might be told today by Brian Michael Bendis in about five issues was told fifty years ago in eleven pages. Such an amount of space makes it impossible to maintain modern, sophisticated standards of depth, subtlety, detail and realism, but that was okay back then, because it was enough for kids. Adapting it into a modern film works because at its heart are ideas that aren’t age-specific or medium-specific.
---But watching other adaptations makes me realize that the same doesn’t hold true for all of even the most popular comics characters. The concept of Green Lantern is inherently hokey, even for science fiction. (Willpower is the color green…….why, exactly? And where does the power to generate all these constructs come from?) Thor is a property that can have the potential for an epic scope, but mixing it with comedic fish-out-of-water scenes in the New Mexican desert seems to diminish that scope. This is in stark contrast to the easy-to-identify archetypal tragedy experienced by Spider-Man when he discovers who the guy is who killed his Uncle, or the allegorical bigotry experienced by the X-Men. We get those ideas easily.
With Captain America, it occurred to me that having a guy running around in a red, white and blue costume in the middle of World War II, has the effect of taking a subject matter dripping with blood, pathos and gut-wrenching historical pain that continues today and—dare I say it—trivializes it a bit. Again, this didn’t matter for the comics of decades ago, because they were for kids. They were a way to present the war in a way that kids understood. So in a big screen feature intended for a greater swath of the public, could this work? Is it really possible for a Captain America movie to move the audience in the same way that Spider-Man 2 did, or even the first couple of X-Men movies?
I couldn’t help that these thoughts kept coming back to me while watching this film, particularly the first half. I’m not sure what it was, maybe it’s just that I had trouble feeling Steve Rogers as a fully-formed, believable person. The film’s Steve Rogers is a strange marriage of clichéd Aw Shucks Can I Have Another Piece of Apple Pie Americanism and early 21st Century Hollywood PC (“No sir, I don’t want to kill anyone, even Nazis, I just don’t like bullies. Yeah, that’s it. Bullies.”) was hard to swallow. I could imagine how a real 1940s soldier would’ve responded: “Yeah, Doc, I wanna kill me some krauts some real bad, and I mean RIGHT NOW. I’m so aching to chop the head off a German, s#!+ down his neck, and use his skull as a soccer ball, that I almost beat the snot out of the guy running the deli down the street for offering me some bratwurst at half off.” Only in an era were you can’t say the n-word, the gay f-word, and now even the words “gay” or “retarded” to mean something you think is stupid, would anyone think this a believable answer from a guy begging to join the U.S. army in the middle of WW2. Granted, depicting his MacGyver-esque logical approach to solving a problem no other soldier had ever been able to, and his selfless instinct to take a grenade to save others did a good job of establishing explaining what sets him apart from other soldiers, but to paraphrase Tommy Lee Jones, he’s still cardboard.
--- Tommy Lee Jones helps things on the character front by stealing every scene he’s in, but I failed to understand why Sharon Carter was changed to a Brit or why a female Brit in the 1940s was giving orders to U.S. troops. I also couldn’t perceive her “romance” with Steve as anything other than a Hollywood script obligation. As for the Red Skull’s insistence to Rogers that they two were “superior” to other people? Meh. Been there, done that. I know it's hard to create a truly evil character, but that’ s what was needed for RS, and the movie. The whole "you're just like me" trope only works when the villain saying this can point to some reason why the good guy might actually feel like this has any truth to it, and begin to doubt himself, like when Aragorn feared he'd become like his father in Lord of the Rings, or when Riker or Picard were taunted with the question of how much like their duplicates/clones they were in Second Chances(TNG) and Star Trek Nemesis. Here, there's nothing for Steve (or the viewer) to put any stock in the Red Skull's taunts.
Was the movie bad, though? Well, no. Once the actions scenes picked up, I was still able to enjoy it. I was particularly impressed with the tone of the film near the end, when Captain America had to make his suicide run on the Red Skull’s flying fortress, which recalled Bud typing his goodbye to Lindsey near the end of The Abyss. While the movie could’ve used more down-to-earth character moments like that earlier in the film, ones that would make us care more about these characters, I felt that the movie was still better than Thor in convincing me of the high stakes of the protagonist’s actions. It’s no Spider-Man 2 or Superman, but it was way more enjoyable than Green Lantern.
What also interested me was how this movie seemed to answer a couple of questions/predictions that have swirled around in my noggin in recent years about filmmaking in general, and a Cap adaptation in particular. The first occurred when observing that while CGI was being used to create entire characters from scratch, including both cartoony characters in successes by Pixar movies, and dismally poor attempts at realistic ones in dreck like Final Fantasy, it wasn’t being used in areas where it could simply alter live-action actors. Being able to do this might've made Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis’ appearances in the Enterprise finale less ridiculous. While the opening scenes of X-Men 3 indeed employed such a technique, its effects were subtle. Captain America, on the other hand, makes a massive use of such an effect to render the pre-transformation Steve Rogers as a 90-lb. weakling, and the effect is flawless, such that this will be remembered as a watershed moment in the history of CGI effects, one that will aid both directors and save actors like Tom Hanks and Christian Bale from having to lose life-threatening amounts of weight for their roles.
---The second point was my having wondered how to credibly adapt Captain America’s costume into the movie, and I don’t just mean how it looks. Chain mail or not, there just isn’t a reason for a solider to wear just a ridiculous costume, not only because it’s ridiculous and serves no clear purpose, but because it paints a giant target on him. I once figured that one possible avenue for a film adaptation to address the logic of the suit would be to employ as sort of an updated Uncle Sam poster boy, and that a soldier for whom the suit was not originally intended could steal it in a spur-of-moment decision to go into battle or sneak behind enemy lines without his superiors’ knowledge. Well, guess what? This is precisely what happens in the film, in scenes in which Cap, reduced to a poster boy (or worse, a “chorus girl”, as he puts it), pay homage not only to the character’s real-life origins, but also the cheesiness of previous live-action adaptations, in particular that cloth costume that looks like it was made to mirror the original 1944 Captain America serials starring Dick Purcell. This doesn’t entirely solve the problem of why Cap keeps wearing it after his rescue of the Howling Commandos and he’s given official missions, but then, this goes back to the Camp Catch-22 alluded to above: Keep it, and it will unavoidably add some silliness to the film. Remove it, and it’s just not Captain America. I lean towards the latter reasoning.
There are plenty of the usual in-jokes and continuity nods that the comic book nerds—er, I mean aficionados—will enjoy. The use of the badge-shaped shield is yet another way the creators have found a way to compress early and modern versions of a character in their adaptations (much like Iron Man’s original gray armor).
Bottom line: It was an enjoyable film that was capped off (no pun intended) with a final scene that not only includes a somewhat somber payoff to an earlier setup, but serves as a lead-in for the franchise’s next big step.
---NITS & NOTES
When Cap gets into the Red Skull’s flying fortress near the end of the film, he sees bombs labeled “Chicago” and “New York”. I know the creators did this in order for Cap and the viewer to understand what they were for, but it doesn’t make sense. Flight crews are known to scrawl psychological taunts or jingoistic slogans on bombs or missiles, but to simply label them to denote where they’re going? Also, isn’t Chicago spelled Chikago in German?
Benn: Nothing said about Cap having been in suspended animation or how it might have occurred.
They kinda alluded to his being in suspended animation when he is found in the Arctic in the beginning of the film. I'm assuming more details will be given in The Avengers.
Benn: In the film, Cap is clearly superpowered.
Yeah, that’s definitely another of the Ultimate Cap elements used. Nick Fury, Cap’s costume and his freaking out when waking up in the 21st century being others.
Nice essay, Luigi. I enjoyed reading it.
While, yeah, they did allude to Cap being in suspended animation at the beginning of the film, I think it's something that only we comic book geeks..., er, aficionados, will get right off. Those watching the film with no knowledge of Captain America's history might not catch on to that or dismiss it as being a stupid idea. It was set up too well for the average movie-goer, IMHO. That's where my concern for the subject comes from.
One thing that bothered me during the scene when Rogers wakes up in modern time. It's how he's dressed. Steve Rogers wore that exact same outfit the night before he underwent the Super Soldier treatment. (Of course, he was smaller then, so the t-shirt and pants would have been smaller, too.) The problem is: How does Colonel Fury, in order to help ease Cap's transition to modern times, know to dress Rogers in those clothes? The only photograph taken of Steve Rogers was just before he began the treatments and IIRC, he had his shirt off at the time.
The appearance of Jim Hammond/Human Torch is kinda frustrating since we never see him in action. I mean, from what we see in the film, "the World's First Synthetic Man" is no different than a mannekin and thus no more unique.
It's a shame they didn't tie the Red Skull in more with Hitler. Originally, Johann Schmidt was a lackey der Fuhrer saw and decided to turn him into the ultimate Nazi. In the movie, he's the original beneficiary of the Super Soldier Serum.
For the record, while I like this film better than Green Lantern, I still think Thor was better. I've never liked Thor and yet, the movie actually made the character interesting to me for the first time ever. It deserves credit for doing that as far as I'm concerned.
Speaking of Steve's surroundings when waking up in the 21st, I almost forgot to mention this one: When we see the "set", we see that even the "buildings across the street" seen out of his hospital windows are a backdrop. What good is this when he will eventually look out the window and see this? Wouldn't it have been better to just put him in a room without windows?
One of the things lacking in the film is... well, in the comics (at least the non-Ultimate Universe ones), Steve Rogers/Captain America is portrayed as a natural leader of men. He's authoritive, the one the others look up to and look to for instructions. I didn't really get that impression of Rogers from the film. The closest is when Cap busts Bucky and the Howling Commandos out of the prison camp. And that seemed more a matter Dum Dum and the others following Rogers because he was the super human freeing them. Not because of some natural, innate leadership quality Captain America had.
Even when you look at Steve's relationship with Bucky earlier in the film, it was Bucky Barnes who came across as the dominant partner in that friendship. I mean, sure Bucky, Gabe, Dum Dum, etc. agreed to work with Cap after he rescued them, but that seemed more out of gratitude than anything else. I would have liked to have seen some signs during bootcamp - beyond Private Rogers jumping on a grenade - that Steve had what it takes to be a leader of men, to be Captain America. Cap isn't just about being brave.
I would have also liked to have seen Cap fight the Nazis instead of HYDRA. HYDRA in the film was a stand-in for the Nazi Germans, I realize, but... in the comics, in the Golden Age comics, Cap was a propaganda tool - but only when he actually fought the Germans. He was a symbol of the country during World War II and was helpful to the Allied Forces battling the Axis powers. Other than "punching out" a fake Hitler, we never see Cap at war with the Nazis. He only fights HYDRA. (Incidentally, in the comics, it is Baron Strucker who is associated with HYDRA during WWII, not the Red Skull.)
This leads me to a question: Since Steve Rogers was exposed to Vita-Rays (they had to keep that. :T ) and the Super Soldier Serum, and was an unqualified success, why didn't the Army immediately send him to the front to help fight the War? Or conversely, why wasn't he sent to a lab so he be used to reverse engineer the Super Soldier Formula? I know Colonel Phillips gave Rogers the choice of either being used by Senator Brandt for propaganda or being experimented upon to relearn the Super Soldier Serum, but really? Cap is a living weapon. The whole point of Dr. Erskine's experiment was to create a better soldier. Steve Rogers is it. No way the Army is simply going to let him become a "chorus girl". He'd either be sent to the front or used to recreate the serum. Period. No choice in the matter. Yet, he's allowed to sell war bonds instead. Fail.
By the way, unlike in the comics, Captain America apparently does not have a secret identity. It seems like it was very well-known that Steve Rogers was Captain America.
Although this pains me to adimit, I already like CA better then GL and I haven't even seen this movie yet! I really wanted to love the GL movie but TPTB made too many unnecessary changes to make it a poor adaptation, in particular the main character. I'm more excited to see this movie than I was after I saw any of the other comic-hero movies this year.
I too enjoyed your review Luigi, especially the section about Steve not being written to fit the times, which is something that would likely stand out to me as well. From the trailers I also thought it odd that a British woman would be involved in a top secret US Army program, though I'm not complaining about who was cast for the role
Oh, I know that in the comics, it was stated that the Super Soldier Formula only existed inside of Dr. Erskine's mind. It was never written down. This meant that Steve Rogers' DNA was the only place the formula was "written" down. As far as I know, the movie does not mention that Erskine did not make any notes on the creation of the formula. (And surely Howard Stark has a few of his own.) If Erskine did leave behind notes on the formula, this means there shouldn't be any reason Steve Rogers is the only Super Soldier around.* That being the case, why didn't the military create more Super Soldiers? I'm sure it would have helped the Allied Forces to have a few meta-humans fighting in the trenches.
*Okay, Rogers is not the only Super Soldier. There's also Johann Schmidt/the Red Skull.
Thanks, AWhite.
I agree with your thoughts too, Benn.
Another point on the superpowered matter (again): Have they made Marvel 616 Cap superpowered too? I don't know if it was through an explicit retcon or just subtle movement in that direction with the way writers and artists depict him, but in the current Captain America #1, which launches a new monthly series to tie into this film, Cap is able to leap over a stone wall at least ten feet high, land on a moving car and then jump onto other cars traveling down a highway, without any injury to himself.
Whether Cap has superpowers or not has always depended on who was doing the book. Jack Kirby, during his 1970s run on the book, certainly depicted Cap as having superpowers. From what all I've read of Ed Brubaker's run on the book (which is most of it so far), Cap has been portrayed as being at peak human condition. That could have changed recently, given I haven't read an issue #615.
Let me add to my comments about the lack of leadership qualities in the film version of Cap. To me, it's even worse: Captain America has generally been shown to be a master tactician. He's a great strategist. There is no evidence that Rogers has any real understanding of strategy other than allowing himself to be punched on all day.
The problem to me is that the movie spends entirely too much time showing Rogers as propaganda tool selling war bonds. It works only to show us the origin of Cap's costume. But it goes on too long. These scenes should have been cut shorter, with the military quickly deciding it needs Rogers as a soldier, a super soldier. Or at least a Super Soldier propaganda tool of their own. The costume could have been kept with the idea that Rogers is meant to be merely propaganda. Sure, he can be shown involved in staged combat, but he's not really meant to actually see real combat. This makes him a joke with the other soldiers, the ones doing the real fighting. Then, embarassment from the jokes from the real soldiers causes Rogers to decide step up to become a real soldier. He then begins work to become a true soldier, to become Captain America. (Why Rogers would decide to become a chorus girl is beyond me. Earlier in the film he says he wants to join the Army to stop the Nazis [because they're bullies]. Then all of a sudden he's a Senator's chew toy, selling war bonds. Did Steve Rogers get discharged from the Army after he was made into a Super soldier? Why the hell does the Army allow its first Super Soldier to be used to sell war bonds?! Really?)
(A common failiing in comics is someone suddenly gains super-strength - Peter Parker, Richard Rider, Steve Rogers (in the film), etc. - and even though previously they were nerds, costantly bullied, they suddenly are able to kick ass and take names. Even though they've never been in a fight before. If I gained super-strength, without proper training, anybody who really knows how to fight would still be able to kick my ass, just from the skills they have. Unless I ended up getting Ben Grimm/Hulk level of strength. Then you're in a category where training wouldn't really matter.)
If the military ordered him to do the chorus girl bit, would he have the ability to decline, or would he have to follow those orders? I think it might've been a good idea if they showed him being told, "You can be a poster boy, or request a discharge", and he remained because he couldn't stomach not remaining in the military doing something during the war.
I thought about the fighting skills thing myself too. They should've shown him training with a brief montage. With Spidey it's different, because his speed and Spider Sense compensates for the lack of fighting experience at the time of the spider bite.
IIRC, the military gave Rogers the option of either joining Senator Brandt's propaganda machine or being a guinea pig. Being a "chorus girl" should never have been an option. Not for Rogers. Not for the Army. It's a waste of Rogers' newly acquired powers and negates Steve's claim to wanting to join the Army to fight the bullies (Nazis).
That brings up another point. You kinda touched on it, Luigi, when you spoke about why Rogers wanted to join the Army. His response was because he doesn't like bullies. You said it should've been that he wanted to kill Nazis (to paraphrase). But really, Steve Rogers' true response should have been, "I want to serve my country, Sir!" When all is said and done, Steve Rogers is a patriot. A true believer in the United States of America. That's why he's Captain America, for Crom's sake. He not believes in the American Dream, he represents it. He's an American Icon. That, however, is completely lacking in the movie. Understandable considering how that might work in the foreign markets. Not to mention how cheesy it might seem to modern audiences. But it still should be there. It's not Captain America without it. (The more I think about it, the less I feel this film gave us Steve Rogers, Captain America and instead gave us a generic superhero who wears red, white and blue.)
About Spider-Man: Spidey is also aided by the fact that many of his opponents, Doc Ock, the Vulture, Electro, etc., aren't really fighters either, so it's the unskilled battling the unskilled. However, in this year's Free Comic Books Day issue of Amazing Spider-Man, we learn that Shang-Chi is supposed to train Spidey in the martial arts in order to give the Webslinger some real fighting skills. I have no idea how that's been going.
Agreed on all points, Bennmeister.
Shang-Chi is going to train Spidey? Wow, learning about that must've required to you to go change your underwear.
I kind of agree about the "showgirl" plotline. While this led to my favorite aspect of the film (Cap's theme song), it also added an odd dilemma that never should have happened in the first place.
My feelings about the film were:
-the wartime Cap has never really interested me that much. He becomes a more compelling character as a man slightly out of step with the times, haunted by the death of Bucky. I realize that a youthful sidekick would have seemed odd, but the decision to make Bucky a contemporary (heck, even OLDER than Cap apparently) robs the character of feeling guilt at letting his surrogate "son" die.
I liked the period setting and most of the performances, but my ideal Cap film would:
-use an extended prologue to introduce Cap, see him in action, and then put him on "ice." The rest of the film (perhaps after about 30-45 minutes of period action) would then see them in the modern era tracking down a revived Red Skull (who might be perhaps immortal or something), who would make more sense as leader of HYDRA in this timeline. We would see Cap adjust to the modern era and the death of Bucky. I realize that some of these plotlines might be picked up in the Avengers film, but that might get too cluttered. You could if necessary use some extended flashbacks or so to further advance the story.
Personally, I think the first Captain America film should have shown Rogers becoming Captain America, the great leader and strategist. The Red Skull could have been alluded to, maybe even shown, but not the main villain. Much as I, too, am not too fond of Cap's WWII adventures, I think they are necessary to show who he is and how he became a great soldier, etc. We need to see this development in Steve Rogers, I think. (The growth into a great leader of men and tactician.) So I think his wartime efforts should have been highlighted and shown more. Cap was a well-respected and beloved war hero. We don't get that in Captain America: The First Avenger. And we should have gotten it. Movie 2 could then have dealt with the Red Skull and HYDRA. But instead, they chose to do the Red Skull, Cosmic Cube and HYDRA to hurry up for The Avengers film. That's just my opinion anyway.
But what would've been the villain and conflict for Movie 1? This is a summer action movie, after all. We can't have two hours of him reading Sun Tzu's The Art of War, now can we?
Maybe Baron Zemo? Baron Strucker? With Herr Skull popping in at the end?
Or you could even have Peggy Carter and Colonel Phillips and his unit captured by the Germans and Cap leads the Howling Commandos and Bucky in their rescue? Even Mike's suggestions of Barons Zemo or Strucker would have been good. Zemo or Strucker could have been the ones to have captured Carter and/or Colonel Phillips' unit. Or even have the villain be Baron Blood. I mean, hell, with vampires being so popular these days, it might've worked.
BTW, Luigi, the biggest surprise was not that Shang was teaching Spidey martial arts. It was that the Wallcrawler no longer had his spider-sense. Besdies, as far as I'm concerned, the Shang-Chi that now appears in Marvel Comics is not the one presented in the old Master of Kung Fu comics. That Shang-Chi was too much a pacifist to allow himself to become a common superhero the modern Shang-Chi is. Shang was the victim of character derailment back when he joined Marvel Knights. Besides, his father's name is "Fu Manchu", not "Zheng Zu".
Have to say, I agree with a lot of the points these guys make about the film.
Ooh, Red Letter Media did a review of it? Yes! Can't wait to watch it. I love those guys.
I've only recently discovered them. I've seen their reviews of Star Trek (2009) and STAR TREK: Generations. Or rather, Mr. Plinkett's reviews of them. I have heard about Mr. Plinkett's reviews of The Phantom Menace and the other Star Wars prequel. I've just gotta take time out to watch them.
Yes, you DO.
They're even better than the Trek reviews, and are the best ones on that site.
Yeah, in watching it, they touch upon things that I might've wanted to mention, but had trouble articulating when writing my review, as well as a couple of things I hadn't noticed or considered at all, like the dearth of swastikas and American flags (aside from Cap's uniform). The one comment that put the finest point on what was wrong with the movie was when the guy on the left (who normally does Plinkett) said that it was not a movie about World War II, even if it was set during it. This is spot-on, and goes directly to what I said in my review about that setting being trivialized, in a manner that I found somewhat offensive.
The one distinction between my thoughts on the film and RLM is that they (or least Plinkett) thought that the first half was good, and not the second, whereas I thought the movie really picked up in the second.
When they talked about the politically correct makeup of the Howling Commandos, and "Plinkett" suggested having a guy in a wheelchair, or that the Asian guy who said he's from Fresno should be in an interment camp, I was laughing out loud.
Ironically, the Howling Commandos did have a black man, Gabe Jones, and if you believe Word of God (Stan Lee), a homosexual was also in the unit - Percival Pinkerton.
The RLM guys definitely articulated my annoyance with the sci-fi elements during the fight scenes in the latter half of the movie better than I could.
I FINALLY saw this movie and although I liked it I agree with Benn, far too much war bonds stuff while TPTB just breezed over most of the action, destroying all the HYDRA bases. I was also a bit disappointed by the fact that this movie seemed like it was all just filler for The Avengers when it could've been so much more. Is today's Hollywood afraid to make a bona fide American icon? It appears so because that is who Captain America is! So what if you don't make as much money overseas because of it! Captain America is a true American out of the era when that actually meant something, and TPTB robbed him of that. Now we are suppose to believe that he'll be just as effective in 'modern day'? I don't for one minute believe that somebody from "the greatest genereation" would for one be anywhere near as iconic as he was in the 1940s, and two care about the plight of America and go back to selling bonds or something.
A couple of things (nits?) that caught my eye, aside from the the incredible lack of historical accuracy that is mentioned by the RLM guys, is why was Steve afraid to fly Red Skull's plane a little closer to NY when he clearly saw that the bombs had to be piloted and the cosmic cube had fallen out of the plane? Also, why couldn't Stark, who is a technical genius and quite wealthy, find that crashed plane? He found the cube, and radar is fairly accurate by this point, all it would've taken is a short line about location from Steve and I have no doubt he could've been found easily, but of course he had to "sleep for almost 70 years."
Benn: Moreover, one cannot physically touch the Cube, although I believe Johann Schmidt/the Red Skull did so when the Cube first appeared onscreen.
I don't think he did, just hold it in the wooden box he found it in.
Benn: As far as I know, the movie does not mention that Erskine did not make any notes on the creation of the formula.
After the orderal following Steve's transformation they took a large blood sample and said something to the effect of 'this is our only way to create another you'.
The only swastika I recall in the movie is during the movie Steve watches before he tells that other guy to shut-up and then goes to an alley for a pounding. There may have been a few in the OSS map room, or whatever that's suppose to be, but I'm not sure about that.
On a different note; I think the Rocketeer is a very enjoyable movie
Oh, I know that in the comics, it was stated that the Super Soldier Formula only existed inside of Dr. Erskine's mind. It was never written down. This meant that Steve Rogers' DNA was the only place the formula was "written" down. As far as I know, the movie does not mention that Erskine did not make any notes on the creation of the formula. (And surely Howard Stark has a few of his own.) If Erskine did leave behind notes on the formula, this means there shouldn't be any reason Steve Rogers is the only Super Soldier around.* That being the case, why didn't the military create more Super Soldiers?
This kinda ties into something that bothered me. Kruger had good cover, a gun, and a bomb. Does he kill all the VIPs at the super serum test? Does he disrupt the test in process? No, he blows up an empty room. Perhaps his orders were to see if the serum works before stealing it (why was there one unused vial of serum in the bank with the other vials that were necessary for the procedure, anyway?). He still could have used his bomb more effectively. If he had blown up the lab, perhaps started a fire, then there would have been a good excuse for saying that all of Erskine's notes were destroyed.
NNAN, but after drawing lots of Rogers's (super) blood (which will clearly reappear in a future movie) the phlebotomist (nurse? scientist?) comments to the effect that that Rogers's "DNA" is all that is left of Erskine's serum. I know very little about biology, but my five minutes with Google makes me question why she would use the term "DNA", especially if she was trying to be helpful. Near as I can get, the term wasn't even coined until c. 1930, and it was just being connected to genetics at about this time (1942--3); it wouldn't become a term familiar to the layman, I suspect, until Crick and Watson got their Nobel in 1962 (for work done in the 50s).
The "secret lab" had the usual "entrance disguised as something mundane" that we see over and over (The Andromeda Strain and Men in Black, for example) with the same problem: the disguise doesn't doesn't fit a work environment. The secret area is revealed to be crawling with people and equipment. Do all these people happen to visit a dusty antique store every morning, and leave every evening? Does this antique store regularly get crates of antiques from Stark Industries? You can credibly hide something like this in a subbasement of a high-rise office building, hotel, or train station---a place where lots of people and stuff go in and out all the time. Not here.
When Steve burst out of the lab in pursuit of Kruger he was barefoot. He proceeded to run over half of Brooklyn. At one point he broke through a store window. In the real world, store windows aren't make of candy glass and, quite aside from the nasty cuts from breaking through, the glass on the ground would have been one of many things tearing his feet to shreds. (And his skin isn't magically tough, or how did they draw all that blood?)
In the final battle both the Army guys and the Hydra guys seemed to run around in the open a lot, and were almost entirely light infantry. Hydra is inside a base; they should have cover, pillboxes, etc. The Army is attacking a base, but on their own terms as much as possible; air support? artillery? vehicles? In the Army's defense, they somehow got a bunch of soldiers some distance across Europe within their 24 hour time frame in the middle of World War II; moving tanks would strain suspension of disbelief even further.
Not a nit, but killing Nazis/WWII Wehrmacht guys does not actually count much towards establishing your evilness. The scene was not necessary and set up an unneeded conflict between Hydra and the Third Reich that was never paid off, since apparently Hitler decided to just ignore the Red Skull after he killed his emissaries.
Any time, in any movie or TV show, when a character is shown going through a plate of glass bugs me anymore. It's extremely unlikely anybody can do that without getting several cuts, many are likely to be severe lacerations.
Overall, some very good points, Thomas.
I'm kind of surprised S.H.I.E.L.D. would be that careless with the baseball game. They couldn't get a random game from 1945 or something, from a year after they knew Rogers had disappeared?
Watching it again, it didn't seem like the best tactical move for Steve to try to run around the Nazi, erm, Hydra base with a red, white, and blue shield. Hard to get around that, sure, seeing as he needed something to protect him from bullets, but it still seemed like an unfortunate thing to have to bring when he was trying to be stealthy.
When Kruger steals the serum and runs out of the room, there's clearly an MP at the bottom of the stairs. He's not the one Kruger shoots yet he seems to do nothing to pursue the guy. Was he not armed?
quote:Benn: I also didn't think it made sense that they put Cap in a room reminiscent of one from the 1940s, replete with a broadcast of a 1941 baseball game.
quote:Benn: Even when you look at Steve's relationship with Bucky earlier in the film, it was Bucky Barnes who came across as the dominant partner in that friendship. I mean, sure Bucky, Gabe, Dum Dum, etc. agreed to work with Cap after he rescued them, but that seemed more out of gratitude than anything else. I would have liked to have seen some signs during bootcamp - beyond Private Rogers jumping on a grenade - that Steve had what it takes to be a leader of men, to be Captain America. Cap isn't just about being brave.
quote:Benn: Oh, I know that in the comics, it was stated that the Super Soldier Formula only existed inside of Dr. Erskine's mind. It was never written down. This meant that Steve Rogers' DNA was the only place the formula was "written" down. As far as I know, the movie does not mention that Erskine did not make any notes on the creation of the formula. (And surely Howard Stark has a few of his own.) If Erskine did leave behind notes on the formula, this means there shouldn't be any reason Steve Rogers is the only Super Soldier around.* That being the case, why didn't the military create more Super Soldiers? I'm sure it would have helped the Allied Forces to have a few meta-humans fighting in the trenches.
quote:Luigi Novi: Yes, you DO.
They're even better than the Trek reviews, and are the best ones on that site
quote:inblackestnight: A couple of things (nits?) that caught my eye, aside from the the incredible lack of historical accuracy that is mentioned by the RLM guys, is why was Steve afraid to fly Red Skull's plane a little closer to NY when he clearly saw that the bombs had to be piloted and the cosmic cube had fallen out of the plane?
quote:Tgarrison: Not a nit, but killing Nazis/WWII Wehrmacht guys does not actually count much towards establishing your evilness. The scene was not necessary and set up an unneeded conflict between Hydra and the Third Reich that was never paid off, since apparently Hitler decided to just ignore the Red Skull after he killed his emissaries.
After seeing The Avengers (a great film, BTW), I'm even more disappointed in this film as it is effectively a very long origin story/trailer for The Avengers. Since the Avengers movie did little with the idea of "man out of time"/"guilt at failing Bucky," I still think it would have been cool for this movie to do it. It wouldn't have hurt The Avengers plot at all--have the Skull surface in modern times and use the tesseract. SHIELD could get it after the Skull is defeated and it can grab Loki's attention. I agree that the period setting is cool and could have been great if there was a full investment in it, but since Marvel clearly wanted to get to the Avengers, I'd rather see a more interesting film in the present day. Maybe I'm just grumpy.
There's going to be an Agent Carter short debuting at Comic Con? Fantastic! I kind of wish we'd get an entire Carter-centered feature-length movie.
I mentioned above how the Hydra missiles intended for New York and Chicago on the flying wing plane have those words written on them in English near the end of the film. In a similar vein, the Red Skull and Arnim Zola speak English to each other and to their soldiers instead of German. I would've preferred the authenticity of German language with English subtitles. Even more bizarre, RS speaks English with the Norwegians he confronts in the beginning of the film, and the Norwegians understand English too!
Regarding the two plot holes that I and others have pointed out, I've thought about ways they could've been avoided: First, the costume. I pointed out above it made no sense for Cap to wear the costume when rescuing those POWs. I think it might've made sense if on some mission that required his fellow soldiers to concentrate their efforts on some stronghold, Cap decided to create a diversion by attacking another part of the Hydra base, and so the bright, colorful costume could've been used by him to deliberately draw attention to himself, and away from the others on his team. Another explanation might've been that when he went AWOL to rescue the POWS, he took the costume because all the other body armor on base was under lock and key, and it was the only one with armor he could abscond with.
---The other plot hole was how Steve is suddenly given a tactical role in the attack in the film's final act, when he's really just a soldier. What they could've done was establish that Steve is a speed reader with a great memory (perhaps in that scene when he first goes to Erskine's lab and is seen taking books out of his suitcase), and that when freeing the POWS, he saw maps or enemy plans at the enemy base, which gave him some extra value to his commanders in the latter mission. They could've also established that he was well-read in military tactics, and then had the technical consultants on the film provide him with some insight into the plans he saw or their interpretation that allowed him to form a plan that his superiors wouldn't have thought of.
In the climax of the film, Cap jumps on one of the mini fighter planes that drops down from the big flying wing craft flown by the Red Skull. He dispatches the soldier that was clinging to that little fighter with him, and then its pilot, before taking to the cockpit to commandeer the plane. After he does this, the Red Skull begins opening fire on the fighter. How does he know that Cap is in that plane?
JoshM: Though I do disagree with them on the point that it's all that hard to identify what type of character Qui-Gon Jinn was.
Luigi Novi: How so?