No worries and no harm done. Communicating through text can be tricky.
I may agree with you that a comic book movie that was half political thriller would be elevated above the norm, but that would be predicated on the conspiracy making sense. My problem with the plot is not so much that half of SHIELD is HYDRA (although youre correct that that is rather silly) but more in the entire project Insight conceit. After all, Zola essentially reveals that HYDRA already conquered the world many years prior. They have manipulated historical events to their advantage through all sorts of means, including presidential assassinations if I recall correctly. Theyve successfully infiltrated some of the highest echelons of government from the senate to the world security council and furthermore, nobody even knows they exist anymore. By any reasonable metric, they have everything they want, and yet, the film turns entirely on this notion that their master plan is to use three cumbersome helicarriers to physically shoot everyone they dont like in the most obvious manner possible. They were already killing anyone that threatened them via the Winter Soldier in an untraceable way, hell, Zola even explicitly states that trying to conquer the world through overt force was a mistake they had supposedly learned from. Insight offers nothing other than a lazy and stupid way to give Cap something to punch at the end. Political conspiracies/thrillers dont resolve with the conspirators blatantly shouting to the world that theyre evil and blowing their cover for no reason. The film has only the barest, surface level similarities to the films it wishes to homage and ends up looking far worse for the comparison. Theres a good film in there somewhere, the ideas are used much better in Hickmans Secret Warriors comic from which they were cribbed, but the desire to blow the finale up into a huge explosive battle tarnishes everything that comes before, to my eyes, almost irredeemably.
Okay, those are some very fair comments, I can see where you're coming from. I don't necessarily agree - but I see your point. To be honest, TWS was the first Captain America film or comic that made me actually sympathize with Cap - as he's one of my least favorite comic book characters. As such, I have some affection for the film. Civil War is a different story, it made me actually cheer for Cap, and at the same time sympathize with Tony's rage - I guess I'm easy to manipulate but to me CW is the best Marvel film to date, and something quite special.
I have quite a different take on things - and I did find it ridiculous that Hydra could infiltrate Shield so completely (and also, it felt like Shield had only been around for five minutes before they destroyed it, whereas if TWS had occurred after Age of Ultron it would have felt more earned - again, that just my opinion).
Anyway, as for the use of political conspiracy in TWS as a story element - I think that as it's a superhero film, such story elements are subordinate to the superheroic elements.
The superhero genre - like every other genre - has conventions and let's face it is solving the world's problems by punching them is one of those conventions. While TWS has elements of thriller/intrigue films, ultimately it's still a superhero film, and we go to these films because want to see Cap and Widow smack someone who deserves it.
Sure, it would have made sense for Hydra to stay behind the scenes and gradually make all of the loyal Shield employees redundant via downsizing/budget cuts - until only Hydra employees remained. It's kind of similar to Bruce Wayne realizing that the best way to clean up Gotham would be to put his money into job-creation , drug treatment and affordable housing schemes rather than Batmobiles and Bat-planes (I think Christopher Nolan was hinting at this a bit, a tiny bit in TDK, and a little more in TDKR).
But these are real world solutions, and dont' make for a kick-ass viewing experience (which is what most folks want to see when Cap straps on his shield).
Dr Strange successfully subverts that expectation to a degree, by using magical trickery to resolve the final problem -and manages to do it in a way that doesn't feel like a rip off.
When it comes to Abrams Trek vs Wars, Id argue that his Trek films abandoned everything Trek stood for in order to poorly imitate Star Wars. Gone are any notions of Roddenberrys idyllic future, replaced with the most generic violent action fare with nothing on its mind other than the next explosion. While the TNG films were far from great, even they seemed to understand what Star Trek was and didnt seem preoccupied with making Trek cool to an audience that wasnt interested. Ill respectfully disagree with the notion that Abrams reversing the Kirk/Spock death was clever. There was meaning to Spocks death in the Wrath of Khan and it therefore resonated with the themes of the film. Abrams redux in Into Darkness by contrast means nothing. It only exists to reference the better film, its so meaningless that the death is reversed 20 minutes later so the film can end happily.
I recently re-watched Wrath of Khan (which is my favorite Star Trek film, hands down), and you're right that the death scene in Into Darkness doesn't hold a candle to it - it's probably the best scene Nimoy and Shatner ever did together.
I still feel like inverting that was a neat idea - although Pine and Quinto didn't quite pull it off. I think it's mostly Quinto's "KHAAAAAAAANNNNN !!!!" it's just not the same intensity as Shatner's. Also, you're right that Wrath of Khan set up the themes of life and death nicely, so that when Spock's death occurs it makes complete sense and feels at home within the context of the film - it feels like the movie earned it, rather than it's an out of place shock.
And of course, you're completely right that it's not even really "death" just temporary incapacitation- whereas for all intents and purposes at the end of Wrath of Khan, Spock had gone to the hereafter.
On the subject of Roddenberry - he was effectively sidelined from creative control in Wrath of Khan, after the unwatchable mess that was Star Trek the Motion Picture. Wrath of Khan was conceptualized and designed to be a Swashbuckler "Hornblower in space" sort of thing ( I tried to read some Hornblower books but the nautical jargon made it go a bit too slow for me).
It's arguable that what made Wrath of Khan so successful was that GR had very little to do with it.
I know that GR's idyllic future was a big part of original Star Trek, and certainly had strong influences in early TNG. I understand why it appeals to so many people, because it's noble and aspirational.
The problem is.....it's bollocks. Human beings have been greedy, selfish, violent and treacherous for the entirety of our time on the planet. That's not going to change. The future (if there is human life in 500 years) will probably be a lot more like Joss Whedon's Firefly. The rich will still be rich, the poor will still be poor.
In the later seasons of TNG, and certainly in DS 9 we see that the future is not all idyllic - more civilized for sure, but those base instincts are still around. Some of the best stories in those Star Trek series revolve around the conflict between pragmatism and the supposedly evovled principles of Star Fleet...... what I liked about DS9 is that Cisco surrenders the moral high ground in the face of necessity (something Picard doesn't do and Janeway does inconsistently). What made the Klingons such great characters, for me, was their constant blather about honour, when their conduct was often mere pragmatism ( it was the show pointing out the irony that the ultimate Klingon, who's more Klingon than Klingon, was effectively raised by humans).
The best TNG film is arguably "First Contact" and that's pretty much sci-fi action (good guys against killer cyborgs ). Sure there are some elements of the idyllic future, but what makes the film enjoyable is that the characters are so human (even the Borg Queen !).
I felt that Into Darkness was a fair reflection of Starfleet morality and the tension between that morality and pragmatism I mentioned earlier. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the larger movie going audience (other than Star Trek fans) wouldn't be too interested in Roddenberry's idyllic future.
This is of course, my opinion too.
TFA echoes many parts of A New Hope and is poorer for it in many respects, Hans death being one of them. However, the echoes are largely broad stroke stuff with nothing quite as blatantly lazy as directly copying the death scene in Wrath of Khan. I also think Kylo Ren is one of the best parts of the new cast, basically because hes a massive loser fanboy. I think Abrams actually is clever in playing him as a Vader knock off at the very beginning before he peels away the layers and reveals him to be an emotionally unstable individual desperately constructing his self image in Vaders shadow in a fruitless attempt at self respect. Not only is there a real emotional hook there, something Star Wars villains usually lack, but there is also some sly meta commentary on the franchise as a whole.
I doubt we will agree on much of this, but its all discussed in good fun. Hope you had a good Christmas and enjoy your new year!
Yeah, totally disagree on Ren, but your take on it is interesting - particularly the meta concept of Ren's characterisation, I need to go away and think about that a bit.
In the meantime, I get that Ren is trying to be Vader (so hard that he murders Han) but I don't feel like a massive loser fanboy is the kind of villain the series needs. Oh, I mean I'm going to cheer when Daisy Ridley eventually kills him - we all know that's coming, but more because he's a detestable villain than an engaging one.
Darth Vader first appears as the ultimate badass, he's on the screen for about a minute and he's strangled someone. Later he kills Luke's teacher and then out-dogfights a bunch of hapless rebel pilots. Even the destruction of the Death Star doesn't kill him.
It's not until the Empire Strikes Back that we get a hint that he's not as all-powerful as he seems. And in ROTJ we finally learn that despite his mastery of the Force he's not some invincible monster but really a severely crippled middle-aged man and for all his ostensible authority he's effectively a slave.
Because that unravels over 3 films, it really works and is probably why DV is still held up today as one of the ultimate movie villains.
For me Kylo Ren is still just a *****e bag with a lightsabre and a mask. I imagine he'll probably stab Luke Skywalker in the back in the next film but that will only make him a bigger *****e bag, and not one I want to invest any interest in. But that's just me.
Hope you had a merry Christmas too !