Infinity War Captain America|Steve Rogers - Chris Evans

[Aximili86]

Yep, nailed it Pete. ^

Bull, you're conflating stylistic choices with the film, with the character himself. Steve hasn't changed over the two years between Avengers and TWS. He's the same as ever - kill if you have to, but avoid it if you can. Hard to say if the guy he knocked overboard on the ship would have died or not, S.H.I.E.L.D might have got him in the aftermath/cleanup, but he's acting non-lethally and as minimalistically as possible with all the other mercs.

He's not "brutal", he doesn't willingly brutalize people any more than necessary to get the job done. Guy's knocking people down/out, choking them unconscious, smacking them around with the shield. That's about it, other than the guy getting knocked over the ship. Guy never even picks up another non-shield weapon in TWS or CW, and we know he's not opposed to doing that from the other films.

The "we didn't get a close-up of the knife in TFA" thing means nothing. That's stylistic. The Russos changed fight co-ordinators and wanted a more modern action movie feel to the thing, and they shot it like a Bourne movie. That has nothing, nothing at all to do with Steve and his mentality at all, it's just the way the movie's presenting the tone.

TFA: Raiders/Rocketeer in feel, WWII but a pulpy adventure-movie take on it. TWS: Bourne/Craig Bond etc, mixed with 70s conspiracy thrillers.

Steve's still the same guy, though. Avengers 1 Steve would have nailed one of those Helicarrier-mercenaries' hands to a wall if he had to, and he did throw them out of a flying vehicle to their doom. He does fire back at a merc with an automatic rifle, with intent to kill.

Not because it's "brutal or not brutal", but because it was necessary. Steve's the same attitude to killing people now, wirh CW & Infinity War, as he was right back with Erskine in the enlistment room. He doesn't want to hurt or kill anyone, but he will if it comes to it. Nothing "brutal" about it.

 

[BullMcGiveny]

The style is precisely the point.

He never seems to lose control or do anything out of personal anger.

Well he did shove BW against a wall.

The "we didn't get a close-up of the knife in TFA" thing means nothing. That's stylistic. The Russos changed fight co-ordinators and wanted a more modern action movie feel to the thing, and they shot it like a Bourne movie. That has nothing, nothing at all to do with Steve and his mentality at all, it's just the way the movie's presenting the tone.

Bourne and Bond are both assassins. Their movies heavily emphasize emphasize their lethality and the violence of their actions.

Don't get me wrong, the action in those movies looks cool. But like it or not, style matters, and is a component of storytelling.

 

[Aximili86]

Steve Rogers...isn't...

an...

assassin.

They shot the movie with a more kinetic & visceral feel, a more modern take on things. That's a whole different thing to Cap having changed in how he deals with the opposition between TFA/TA and TWS.

They basically said it themselves at the time of release, think it was Markus & McFeely, something to the effect of "we find it interesting that the world changes around Steve but he's this constant".

More in-your-face photography and flashier fight scenes doesn't mean the guy's suddenly changed. They're just looking at him through a different prism.

 

[BullMcGiveny]

Okay, it is starting to look like you're holding style and story as two separate things.

I don't. I think the style says more than what the writer might claim in an interview outside the movie.

 

[Spider-Fan]

Steve has been very consistent in both movies. The style of the movie may be different, but he isn't. You point out the part where he throws the knife through the guys hand. He knifed someone in the back in TFA, threw a guy out of Red Skull's plane and did the same in The Avengers. But I want to note, Cap did not kill that guy. He knocked him out with a non-lethal measure that ensured they would not hit a signal. Further, how is this any different than Cap in the comics? Cap even spends like all of TWS emphasizing why he hates the world of spies and rejects being one (saying he is a soldier and not a spy to Fury at the end).

Cap is still the same Cap from prior movies.

 

[Aximili86]

Yep. And we're not even getting into the acknowledgment from Steve on Fury's comment about how Steve's generation did some particularly nasty stuff back in the war.

Basically, if the Russos had made The First Avenger instead, he'd probably be snapping necks and knifing guys and other stuff on-screen. Johnston's Cap did all that stuff too, they just chose not to get into it on-screen, the one knife-throw aside. But it's implied Steve's worked up quite the body count over those years.

And before someone does the "it was war!" thing, Steve's not opposed to killing people in the Russo flicks either - he's just been in situations where he can kinda get away with not doing it.

Johnston's Cap is Joss's Cap is The Russo's Cap. Core's the same, they just play up different things for emphasis because they're directors, and directors have tonal styles.

 

[BullMcGiveny]

Steve has been very consistent in both movies. The style of the movie may be different, but he isn't. You point out the part where he throws the knife through the guys hand. He knifed someone in the back in TFA, threw a guy out of Red Skull's plane and did the same in The Avengers. But I want to note, Cap did not kill that guy. He knocked him out with a non-lethal measure that ensured they would not hit a signal. Further, how is this any different than Cap in the comics? Cap even spends like all of TWS emphasizing why he hates the world of spies and rejects being one (saying he is a soldier and not a spy to Fury at the end).

Cap is still the same Cap from prior movies.

I'm not talking about whether or not Cap does or should kill people, but in the style of how it is presented. And I already addressed why each case is different.

 

[SteveRogers41]

To be fair, I think a difference in interpretation of Cap's actions in the movies vs. comics comes from how long one has been reading Cap comics. Up until around Rieber's run Do Not Kill was a part of the Avengers charter. Anyone remember the Galactic Storm event? The one were Iron Man et all wanted to kill the supreme intelligence on get the Kree war over and done with while Cap insisted that part of the Supreme being was a living thing (which was true, he did have organic material grafted to him) and that instead of killing him they should make him stand trial as a war criminal?

Those who wanted to just outright kill were so adamant in their stance that they abandoned Steve on a unstable planet, and knocked Clint out when he protested them leaving Steve behind. If you've been reading the Cap comics for a long time and remember a time before Rieber, Brubaker, etc. then the whole 'thou shalt not kill' thing was indigenous to Cap at one point, it did exist. Especially in the Gruenwald era and Gruenwald wrote Cap for ten years. He probably has the longest reign on Cap (although if you piece together all of Waid's separate and sporadic Cap storylines, and he's written several over the course of almost twenty years, he might give Gruenwald a run for his money... Waid is my favorite, I'm going to miss him, though I am looking forward to Coates).

But the point is at one time Steve didn't kill at all unless he was absolutely backed into a corner. And if he did he felt really bad about it. If you read Gruenwald, it's not a stretch to see the more modernized Cap in any form of media as a bit more violent than the one who came before. Although I always just attributed this to Marvel trying to modernize Cap.

Cap is a pretty transformative character, that's why he's lasted 77 years. That's why Marvel repeatedly has him say he defends 'The Dream' and not the government, because what the American Dream means changes from generation to generation and the mythos of Cap can adapt along with it. Unfortunately film has gotten progressively more violent as time goes on so it's not so much a Cap thing as it is a sign of the times.

 

[ernesth100]

I've heard an interesting theory

Spoiler

Cap dies but Tony goes back in time to get help from Avengers Cap so they can find a way to reverse the effects of what happened. Afterwards he sends Cap back into the past where he loves with Peggy for good and they also prevent the entire Ultron scuffle from ever coming to light because they know not to incidentally create it. Vision is still made however albeit by Tony Stark and Banner. And an entirely new MCU timeline takes over.

 

[SteveRogers41]

I've heard an interesting theory

Spoiler

Cap dies but Tony goes back in time to get help from Avengers Cap so they can find a way to reverse the effects of what happened. Afterwards he sends Cap back into the past where he loves with Peggy for good and they also prevent the entire Ultron scuffle from ever coming to light because they know not to incidentally create it. Vision is still made however albeit by Tony Stark and Banner. And an entirely new MCU timeline takes over.

Preventing Ultron and sending Cap back to the past is an infinitely bad idea as it messes with the space-time continuum. For example: say Cap did go back to be with Peggy. Peggy, in the normal timeline married someone else and had children with that other person, if she marries Cap instead, that may not happen. What if one of those kids develops the cure for cancer in the future?

...This is just an example of what I'm trying to say. In the comics, during the House of M event, before Wanda took out the Mutants, she created a world where everyone received their heart desire, for Cap that meant never going on the ice, and he did end up marrying Peggy in that timeline... only to get very unhappily divorced a few years later because Cap quit being Cap to focus on his life-long dream of being an astronaut and Peggy couldn't reconcile that decision, she wanted Steve to continue being Cap and eventually President. She ended up hating Steve for his lack of ambition. Brubaker, the Russo brothers favorite, wrote that comic, it was a Cap comic but a tie-in to that event.

So, no offense to whoever came up with that theory, but I hope it's false because messing with the timeline opens a huge can of worms.

 

[Spider-Fan]

I've heard an interesting theory

Spoiler

Cap dies but Tony goes back in time to get help from Avengers Cap so they can find a way to reverse the effects of what happened. Afterwards he sends Cap back into the past where he loves with Peggy for good and they also prevent the entire Ultron scuffle from ever coming to light because they know not to incidentally create it. Vision is still made however albeit by Tony Stark and Banner. And an entirely new MCU timeline takes over.

I don't see that happening. Sounds Fan Ficish.

 

[KevTravels]

so what's the future of Falcon and Bucky once Cap bites it?

are Mackie and Stan signed on for more films?

 

[SteveRogers41]

so what's the future of Falcon and Bucky once Cap bites it?

are Mackie and Stan signed on for more films?

It is not confirmed that Cap bites it. None of us has seen the movie.

 

[TalismanRing]

Preventing Ultron and sending Cap back to the past is an infinitely bad idea as it messes with the space-time continuum. For example: say Cap did go back to be with Peggy. Peggy, in the normal timeline married someone else and had children with that other person, if she marries Cap instead, that may not happen. What if one of those kids develops the cure for cancer in the future?

...This is just an example of what I'm trying to say. In the comics, during the House of M event, before Wanda took out the Mutants, she created a world where everyone received their heart desire, for Cap that meant never going on the ice, and he did end up marrying Peggy in that timeline... only to get very unhappily divorced a few years later because Cap quit being Cap to focus on his life-long dream of being an astronaut and Peggy couldn't reconcile that decision, she wanted Steve to continue being Cap and eventually President. She ended up hating Steve for his lack of ambition. Brubaker, the Russo brothers favorite, wrote that comic, it was a Cap comic but a tie-in to that event.

So, no offense to whoever came up with that theory, but I hope it's false because messing with the timeline opens a huge can of worms.

I love how being an ASTRONAUT in superhero comic book land denotes lack of ambition.

 

[SteveRogers41]

I love how being an ASTRONAUT in superhero comic book land denotes lack of ambition.

I thought the same thing when I first read that! I mean as a Trekkie, I side with Steve, here, being an astronaut would have been The Dream. But alas...

 

[RoastBeast]

That's just... so wrong.

 

[TalismanRing]

That's just... so wrong.

I don't know. Spying on citizens for the gov't sounds way more heroic and Captain Americany than wanting to be a measly astronaut.

 

[TalismanRing]

https://***********/2STNYC/status/986645269021429760

Congratulations to our @dramaleague nominees! #LobbyHero and #TorchSong have been nominated for Outstanding Revival of a Broadway/Off-Broadway Play! @ChrisEvans, #BrianTyreeHenry and @michaelurie have all received Drama League Distinguished Performance Award nominations!

 

[SteveRogers41]

https://***********/2STNYC/status/986645269021429760

This is so cool! Go Chris!

 

[muscaremy]

Paper boi paper boi all about that paper boi... sorry had to.

 

[TalismanRing]

Yesterday at Lobby Hero stage door - Chris with kids is too cute

Video: https://***********/Edgouh/status/986623418027184128

 

[parkerpete]

The style is precisely the point.

Well he did shove BW against a wall.

The style is not the point when you are using terms to describe CHARACTER TRAITS. You described Captain America's 'newfound brutality'. That is not a statement about the filmmaker's style of presentation. It is a statement about character development. Stop moving the goalposts.

However I'll grant you , style does matter in how violence is presented. One of my biggest problems with Zack Snyder's 'Watchmen' is how lovingly glossy and slo-mo the violence is presented, as well as how hyper-choreographed it is. It clearly undermines Moore's humanistic message about the messy, unsatisfying consequences of violence in the book and becomes all about 'hey isn't all this violence super badass?'. It's awful.

The Russos clearly use a more naturalistic, handheld modern approach to presenting action than Joe Johnson, but they don't do anything to undermine Cap's character or make the character more violent. In fact, the most heroic acts in the movie are all non-violent in nature: The SHIELD tech refusing to launch the 'oversight' helicarriers. Cap delivering a speech over the intercom. Cap refusing to fight Bucky after successfully replacing the targeting blades.

As for 'Cap shoves BW against a wall'-- That's about as weak as weak sauce gets. Cap grabs Natasha by the arm because she has stolen the intelligence that Fury died trying to deliver to Steve. He grabs her and moves her closer to the wall to interrogate her away from prying eyes. He doesn't even remotely try to hurt her, which he easily could.

On top of which, she is not some government secretary. She's an elite assassin. She can handle a squeezed bicep. C'mon, man.*

*does that sound familiar? 'C'mon man' is what Cap says to Buck when he goes out of his way to save the life of the German special ops guy who is attempting to use lethal force against them. 'Brutal' my a$$.

 

[KevTravels]

It is not confirmed that Cap bites it. None of us has seen the movie.

Oh we all know

 

[KevTravels]

Paper boi paper boi all about that paper boi... sorry had to.

where's Darius? does this mean ATLANTA is in the MCU

 

[SteveRogers41]

Oh we all know

I’m not convinced he’s going to die, so...