Falcon and The Winter Soldier (spoilers)

[john]

54 minutes ago, Karlbear said:

No one knows about Isaiah. They know about three - steve, bucky (who most people think sucks) and red skull. 

Sam and Bucky know about Isaiah. That’s part of what I’m talking about, that conversation with Zemo when they're like, would you take the serum? Hell no, I wouldn’t take the serum. If it was up to me I wouldn’t even have the serum in my body. I’m gonna crush all the serum. No diss on Steve of course, he’s just one of a kind.

If that’s what they really think, you’ve got to give me more - like the time for super soldiers has passed, it’s too dangerous in the current climate, or whatever. Seems to me on the info we’ve got, you could give the serum to a fairly wide selection of broadly heroic people and it’d be nothing but a boon to society.

[Rhom]

I know they’ve essentially wiped Incredible Hulk from existence, but having Isaiah and other fully functioning Super Soldiers just walking around really does negate all the testing they did with Blonsky. 

[A True Kaniggit]

31 minutes ago, john said:

 Seems to me on the info we’ve got, you could give the serum to a fairly wide selection of broadly heroic people and it’d be nothing but a boon to society.

Or just mass produce it and give it to everybody.

[Jaxom 1974]

3 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

 

The scenes of them just casually walking around the city are a bit odd, just that guy who everyone thought blew up the UN with the metal arm and the guy who turned out to be responsible (who you’ve gotta assume is now widely infamous as a result) and oh there’s that Avenger that saved billions of lives and just next to him there’s Captain Fucking America. How are they not swarmed wherever they go? And also, does Cap have some jurisdiction that I missed? Is he allowed to go from country to country and arrest people? Is he on a UN mandated mission, in line with the Accords (although, we did previously discuss that they might have got a bit forgotten after the snap).

As odd as it seems, it wasn't as thought they went unnoticed. Walker even states that two Avengers just walking around couldn't go unnoticed.  

2 hours ago, Karlbear said:

He did take the serum.

 

I'm not sure why they needed him to take it off screen though.

13 minutes ago, Rhom said:

I know they’ve essentially wiped Incredible Hulk from existence, but having Isaiah and other fully functioning Super Soldiers just walking around really does negate all the testing they did with Blonsky. 

One thing they seem to be getting wrong is the whole concept of the Super Soldier. That they've created the exact same thing that created Steve Roger's? That's not the quite right.  It shouldn't be that way. The comics are littered with failed experiments to recreate the process, and the Hulk movie playing into that idea was one of the few good ideas of that movie.  I mean, they keep calling Bucky a Super Soldier, but he's not. Not really.  They never state what experiments Zola conducted on him after he was captures in WWII...these "Super Soldiers" are also all extra strong, in a manner that Steve Roger's never really seemed to be...really, they shouldn't have said it was the same process, just another attempt to recreate...Also, they've dropped the ball with Isaiah by putting his time as a Super Soldier set during the Korean War, rather than a precursor to Steve. 

Right now the show is suffering from pace and time. Six episodes is maybe two two short.  They needed more time to establish the Flag Smashers. They needed a little more time to establish Walker before he broke bad.  Maybe he takes the serum, on camera, in episode 4, then we get a couple episodes with the descent into madness. They need a little more time to deal with the Power Broker and Sharon. 

There is a lot of really really good stuff here.  Maybe there will be a second season to work some of this out, but six episodes is feeling just a touch too short.

 

[DMC]

1 hour ago, Rhom said:

I know they’ve essentially wiped Incredible Hulk from existence, but having Isaiah and other fully functioning Super Soldiers just walking around really does negate all the testing they did with Blonsky. 

Well, you could argue this was already negated by all the "winter soldiers" Zemo killed in Civil War.  Alternatively, it's just different scientists/governments experimenting and trying to perfect the same basic formula and getting different results.

[ithanos]

Still an enjoyable tune in, but not much of an improvement over last week. That the Super Soldier serums and their analogs also amplify the keenest traits of its recipient makes it sound like they added in some regular drugs to balance out the physical changes.

I don't know which now becomes more valuable - that final John Walker CA autograph before he became Murder Cap, or the extremely rare Battlestar logo autograph.

[TrueMetis]

44 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

One thing they seem to be getting wrong is the whole concept of the Super Soldier. That they've created the exact same thing that created Steve Roger's? That's not the quite right.  It shouldn't be that way. The comics are littered with failed experiments to recreate the process, and the Hulk movie playing into that idea was one of the few good ideas of that movie.  I mean, they keep calling Bucky a Super Soldier, but he's not. Not really.  They never state what experiments Zola conducted on him after he was captures in WWII...these "Super Soldiers" are also all extra strong, in a manner that Steve Roger's never really seemed to be...really, they shouldn't have said it was the same process, just another attempt to recreate...Also, they've dropped the ball with Isaiah by putting his time as a Super Soldier set during the Korean War, rather than a precursor to Steve.

I don't recall them saying it's the exact same thing though? Even if they said it it's clearly not. Steve's formula included putting him in a chamber to expose him to vita rays and required multiple injections. Whereas here there's no chamber involved here and one (much smaller) vial is enough.

Though they also don't seem to be particularly stronger than Steve. Steve threw guys around like they did all the time and makes those kind of leaps. (Similarly Bucky is clearly a super soldier, regardless of what experiments were used even without the arm he's clearly much stronger than the average human. Indeed if he wasn't the arm would be kind of useless.)

Also I like the change with Isaiah, both because Erskine is clearly not someone who would have allowed those type of experiments, but also it means Isaiah was almost certainly created using Steve's blood which add an interesting dimension to the set up. It's just a pity that Steve isn't there to react to it.

On the episode, it was alright. Sam's convo with Karli was good. Walker is exactly the kind of asshole he needs to be to make him work, bringing up jurisdiction as though he's been paying any fucking attention to that. Even though he does have a pretty damn good point it doesn't work as well coming from him. No one ever really seems to bring up that if anything that they act even worse than the US when it comes to respecting other countries sovereignty. Anyway Walker's an asshole but I find him surprisingly sympathetic in the "trying and failing to live up to an impossible ideal" thing.

Do feel bad about Lemar, though his character was definitely underdeveloped and it felt like a "this hit normally would do much but it's time for Drama" thing I mentioned earlier. Not really much way to avoid that though cause if people normally reacted naturally to hits the fight scenes wouldn't last very long.

Hell of an ending shot though.

[briantw]

2 hours ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

I'm not sure why they needed him to take it off screen though.

I mean, did they need it to happen on screen?  He got his ass kicked by the Wakandans, then questioned Lemar about whether or not taking the serum was right, then showed up in the next fight as a super soldier.  I don't think it needed to happen on screen.  We knew he was going to take it.

Honestly, I think it humanized him a bit that he didn't take it immediately.  He questioned it, and almost had to have his best friend talk him into it, even if it was unknowingly on Lemar's part.  

It all boils down to Erskine.  Erskine said that he didn't want a perfect soldier to take the serum...he wanted a good man.  John Walker is a perfect soldier, but he's a flawed man.  

[RumHam]

34 minutes ago, briantw said:

I mean, did they need it to happen on screen? 

Only to see him google "how to use super serum" 

I'm not sure why all the Flag Smashers seemed to be like "ooooh shit" when they realized Walker had used the serum. Sure he's got the shield frisbee, but like otherwise he's only as strong as they are, and there are more of them. 

I appreciated that the one Wakandan wanted to reclaim the shield because it is ultimately stolen vibranium. "Leave it." 

 

 

[DaveSumm]

Well I totally missed that he took it. He didn’t seem to be doing significantly better in that fight, he was just using his shield a lot. We could’ve used a shot of him jumping a flight of stairs like Bucky did. Unless I missed that to...

2 hours ago, RumHam said:

I appreciated that the one Wakandan wanted to reclaim the shield because it is ultimately stolen vibranium. "Leave it." 

Well, that leads us back down the rabbit hole of where exactly Cap got that second shield from. It might not be stolen.

[DMC]

I'm offended we're all assuming Howard Stark stole the vibranium of the original shield in the first place.  An industrial tycoon stealing (in)valuable minerals from an African country during WWII?  Well, I never!

[DaveSumm]

OK, just watching an Easter eggs video and I see now why Sam says ‘what did you  do?’ to Walker. Still think it could’ve been highlighted better.

27 minutes ago, DMC said:

I'm offended we're all assuming Howard Stark stole the vibranium of the original shield in the first place.  An industrial tycoon stealing (in)valuable minerals from an African country during WWII?  Well, I never!

I don’t know that Howard stole it, but somebody must’ve for the US to get hold of it. Some kind of 1940’s Ulysses Klaue character.

[mormont]

7 hours ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

One thing they seem to be getting wrong is the whole concept of the Super Soldier. That they've created the exact same thing that created Steve Roger's? That's not the quite right.  It shouldn't be that way.

Nagel says that it's not the exact same, in fact. This version avoids the physical changes of the original and I think he suggests it's more powerful too, though I may be misremembering.

7 hours ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

The comics are littered with failed experiments to recreate the process, and the Hulk movie playing into that idea was one of the few good ideas of that movie.

Oh, no. No, no, no. That's one of the worst missteps of the Hulk movie, for two reasons:

1. Tying everything in to the Super Soldier Serum makes the MCU feel very small. And at that time, the MCU was small. The MCU needs a weird and wonderful plethora of ways to get super-powers. That's one of the things that makes the comics work.

2. The comics origin of the Hulk is pretty much perfect. I have a whole essay I could write about how it hits all the important character beats and themes and why it has to be a gamma bomb to do that: a serum doesn't work at all. Plus, the existence of the gamma bomb would enrich the MCU plotline-wise.

7 hours ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

 Maybe there will be a second season to work some of this out, but six episodes is feeling just a touch too short.

AFAIK none of these shows are intended to have a second season at present.

[john]

1 hour ago, DaveSumm said:

OK, just watching an Easter eggs video and I see now why Sam says ‘what did you  do?’ to Walker. Still think it could’ve been highlighted better.

That scene where he bends the metal bar, the flag smasher says ‘oh shit’ and Sam says ‘what did you do,’ I thought was pretty lame. I also think it would be better if they just showed him take it but apparently it was supposed to be a surprise.

[williamjm]

7 hours ago, RumHam said:

I'm not sure why all the Flag Smashers seemed to be like "ooooh shit" when they realized Walker had used the serum. Sure he's got the shield frisbee, but like otherwise he's only as strong as they are, and there are more of them.

Even if they're cynical about it they're probably not immune to the symbolism of someone with super-strength wearing the Captain America uniform.

Also, he is a highly trained soldier which probably makes him much more dangerous with super-strength than the average person. Admittedly we don't really know anything about the background of the flag smashers so some of them could have had some training.

[Maltaran]

3 hours ago, mormont said:

Nagel says that it's not the exact same, in fact. This version avoids the physical changes of the original and I think he suggests it's more powerful too, though I may be misremembering.

Oh, no. No, no, no. That's one of the worst missteps of the Hulk movie, for two reasons:

1. Tying everything in to the Super Soldier Serum makes the MCU feel very small. And at that time, the MCU was small. The MCU needs a weird and wonderful plethora of ways to get super-powers. That's one of the things that makes the comics work.

2. The comics origin of the Hulk is pretty much perfect. I have a whole essay I could write about how it hits all the important character beats and themes and why it has to be a gamma bomb to do that: a serum doesn't work at all. Plus, the existence of the gamma bomb would enrich the MCU plotline-wise.

AFAIK none of these shows are intended to have a second season at present.

The Hulk origin wasn’t serum-related, it was Blonsky who took it, and then got a Banner blood transfusion as well to turn him into the Abomination 

[mormont]

https://marvelcinematicuniverse.fandom.com/wiki/Hulk

Quote

Doctor Robert Bruce Banner, M.D., Ph.D., is a renowned scientist and a founding member of the Avengers. Highly respected for his work in biochemistry, nuclear physics, and gamma radiation, he was commissioned by Thaddeus Ross to recreate the Super Soldier Serum which created Captain America, although Ross elected not to inform Banner what he was creating. However, when an exposure to high levels of gamma radiation instead of vita radiation went awry, the mild-mannered scientist had found that when angered, provoked or excited, he would transform into the huge, rage-fueled, nearly mindless creature known as Hulk.

 

[Maltaran]

I watched the film last weekend and that is not at all clear.

[DaveSumm]

1 hour ago, mormont said:

https://marvelcinematicuniverse.fandom.com/wiki/Hulk

That sounds like he happened to be working on the serum, but the gamma accident might not have been related. Or at least, there’s wiggle room in that wording if you don’t want it to be connected.

I’m guessing this is all from the newspaper cuttings at the start of the film? That was about as much ‘origin’ as we got as I recall (I didn’t watch it on my recent rewatch, it’s not really in my head-canon anymore). 

[Jaxom 1974]

13 hours ago, DMC said:

Well, you could argue this was already negated by all the "winter soldiers" Zemo killed in Civil War.  Alternatively, it's just different scientists/governments experimenting and trying to perfect the same basic formula and getting different results.

Honestly this is how I understood it, though TFATWS really seems to want to equate "super soldier" with an analog of Steve Rogers.  IMHO, it's muddied the waters as to what is going on. 

12 hours ago, TrueMetis said:

I don't recall them saying it's the exact same thing though? Even if they said it it's clearly not. Steve's formula included putting him in a chamber to expose him to vita rays and required multiple injections. Whereas here there's no chamber involved here and one (much smaller) vial is enough.

Though they also don't seem to be particularly stronger than Steve. Steve threw guys around like they did all the time and makes those kind of leaps. (Similarly Bucky is clearly a super soldier, regardless of what experiments were used even without the arm he's clearly much stronger than the average human. Indeed if he wasn't the arm would be kind of useless.)

Also I like the change with Isaiah, both because Erskine is clearly not someone who would have allowed those type of experiments, but also it means Isaiah was almost certainly created using Steve's blood which add an interesting dimension to the set up. It's just a pity that Steve isn't there to react to it.

 

 

 

 

11 hours ago, briantw said:

I mean, did they need it to happen on screen?  He got his ass kicked by the Wakandans, then questioned Lemar about whether or not taking the serum was right, then showed up in the next fight as a super soldier.  I don't think it needed to happen on screen.  We knew he was going to take it.

Honestly, I think it humanized him a bit that he didn't take it immediately.  He questioned it, and almost had to have his best friend talk him into it, even if it was unknowingly on Lemar's part.  

It all boils down to Erskine.  Erskine said that he didn't want a perfect soldier to take the serum...he wanted a good man.  John Walker is a perfect soldier, but he's a flawed man.  

Minimal expositon really could clean up the distinctions.  Might also strengthen Walker's motivations...though I would have preferred something a little more comics accurate having him have strength and such before becoming Cap.  Have his attitude and his lack of fitness be there from the get go and his snapping being the result of his realization that it isn't the serum that made Steve Rogers worth and that he, Walker, never can be.  Right now, even though the character isn't popular in general, the taking of the serum can be used as an excuse for the homicidal rage.

6 hours ago, mormont said:

Nagel says that it's not the exact same, in fact. This version avoids the physical changes of the original and I think he suggests it's more powerful too, though I may be misremembering.

Oh, no. No, no, no. That's one of the worst missteps of the Hulk movie, for two reasons:

1. Tying everything in to the Super Soldier Serum makes the MCU feel very small. And at that time, the MCU was small. The MCU needs a weird and wonderful plethora of ways to get super-powers. That's one of the things that makes the comics work.

2. The comics origin of the Hulk is pretty much perfect. I have a whole essay I could write about how it hits all the important character beats and themes and why it has to be a gamma bomb to do that: a serum doesn't work at all. Plus, the existence of the gamma bomb would enrich the MCU plotline-wise.

AFAIK none of these shows are intended to have a second season at present.

1. I don't think that tying some of the experiments of Banner seeking to recreate the original super soldier serum shrinks anything.  I think it allows for the creation of all kinds of weird ways to expand the MCU. In any case, the idea of Banner becoming the Hulk as a result of the experiments is right out of the Ultimate Universe line, gamma radiation being a part of it too...I do get your point, I just see it the opposite way.

2. I agree with this. His comic origin is pretty darn well done.  I also enjoy Warren Ellis's take on the Hulk origin from Planetary that, I believe, emphasizes the points you allude to.  But again, the MCU isn't the lesser if Banner's experiments with using Gamma to stabilize what is thought of as the recreation of the super soldier serum, much like Stark's machines did...

Though based on other posts about the Hulk movie...I may be conflating parts of it and the Ultimate Universe into one whole thing and making less sense...