The Winter Soldier WWII Flashbacks - Do you think there should have been more/Alternate Opening?

[speno94]

Hi everyone,

I just received my 'The Art of Captain America: The Winter Soldier' book today and inside was something interesting in the Smithsonian section of the book and Kevin Feige said this:

"Originally, the movie opened with a World War II sequence. It was in the script early on and we boarded and did concept art for it to try and remind the audience that he is from the past, reestablish Bucky as a character, and use that to transition into the world. Before production, we were going through it, we realised the Smithsonian served that purpose, and the best thing for the movie would be just to throw the audience into the modern world with Cap. Then everything we needed to know about his experiences in World War II we could get out of his discussions with Sam and Peggy and the Smithsonian trip, which is why the WWII sequence fell out of the film."

My question is, would you liked to have seen this as an opening or do you prefer the opening in the final film. If we got the WWII opening though, we probably wouldn't have got the fantastic Lumarian Star scene. What do you think?

EDIT: Here is the concept art for the alternate WWII opening of the film.

 

[yllum]

hey buddy, the movie started with the " on your left" scene with falcon not the lumarian star scene

I think it would be interesting to start with the ww2 opening.
but definitely keep the lumarian star scene ! that whole sequence is just awesome.

 

[BullMcGiveny]

I think it could have worked. Definitely would have loved return cameos from the Howling Commandos, but not torn up that it wasn't. Maybe for Cap3.

 

[speno94]

hey buddy, the movie started with the " on your left" scene with falcon not the lumarian star scene

I think it would be interesting to start with the ww2 opening.
but definitely keep the lumarian star scene ! that whole sequence is just awesome.

Sorry, my bad! I sometimes forget that because the Lumarian Star scene is so good and yeah even though it would have been cool to see, I wouldn't want the WWII scene to replace the great scene we already have.

I wonder if the WWII scene was originally going to be the "on your left" scene or the Lumarian Star scene?

 

[Windows]

I thought the same thing, actually. I really wanted to see a WWII opening scene, at least to refresh the audience on Steve and Bucky. I think it would have actually been really cool to start and end with a WWII scene so that CA2 would be the inverse of CA1, which was, of course, bookended by modern scenes. (But I guess they wanted to avoid taking a page from the X-Men series, in which almost every movie starts in WWII.)

 

[yllum]

Sorry, my bad! I sometimes forget that because the Lumarian Star scene is so good and yeah even though it would have been cool to see, I wouldn't want the WWII scene to replace the great scene we already have.

I wonder if the WWII scene was originally going to be the "on your left" scene or the Lumarian Star scene?

buddy! totally agreed with you on Lumarian star scene.

hmmm. they can't replace the "on your left" scene as they need to establish the falcon and cap relationship. that my take.

I think they could have just inserted the WW2 scene infront of the "on your left" scene. The WW2 scene could further emphasize the great friendship bucky and steve had. haha i am no expert in film and stuff.

What do you think?

 

[speno94]

buddy! totally agreed with you on Lumarian star scene.

hmmm. they can't replace the "on your left" scene as they need to establish the falcon and cap relationship. that my take.

I think they could have just inserted the WW2 scene infront of the "on your left" scene. The WW2 scene could further emphasize the great friendship bucky and steve had. haha i am no expert in film and stuff.

What do you think?

Yeah, you could have the Marvel logo, then maybe the WWII opening, then Steve wakes up in the morning in his apartment realising it was a dream, then you could see Steve on his morning run, meets Sam, then the Lumarian Star scene something like that?

 

[MysticRain]

The WWII scene would have been a nice touch. Maybe we'll get it in CAP 3.

 

[speno94]

I think the Smithsonian was a genius idea for the film because it makes sense that a character/hero like Cap would have his own section in a museum because he is a living legend and one for the history books.

It serves the purpose of meaning something for Cap because he goes there to remind himself, but at the same time, it reminds and SHOWS the audience what he has been through with all the WWII imagery, artefacts and subtle museum narration in the background without being an exposition dump and having flashbacks because the golden rule of storytelling in film is 'show don't tell' and the Smithsonian works great in that regard.

Sure, a flashback with one more battle scene with Bucky and The Howling Commandos would have been a nice touch, but the film didn't NEED it, so that is the main thing. Plus, I think we will see more flashbacks in Cap 3 because I think they wanted to keep it focused on modern day in this film and not distract it too much with WWII flashbacks.

 

[Nilso]

I would love to have seen that scene. Maybe integrate his morning jog with the flashback just like the punching bag in Avengers (not as quick though). Then transition to him seeing Sam and saying, "On your left!"

 

[The Caped Knight]

I like the opening because it unpredictable, yet simple and direct with the Cap theme. Sure i'd love a WWII flashback we can probably get it more flashbacks in Avengers: AOU and CapIII. But for me The Jog around Washington D.C. with Sam Wilson "On your Left" was prefect and funny.

 

[Human Torch]

I wanted another scene with Bucky and "skinny" Steve.We got one,but I really enjoyed seeing their relationship pre-super soldier.

 

[speno94]

I like the opening because it unpredictable, yet simple and direct with the Cap theme. Sure i'd love a WWII flashback we can probably get it more flashbacks in Avengers: AOU and CapIII. But for me The Jog around Washington D.C. with Sam Wilson "On your Left" was prefect and funny.

Well we know that there will be some kind of flashback or hallucination dream sequence that involves Steve, Peggy and Paul Bettany in a ballroom dancing in AOU so we are in luck!

 

[speno94]

I wanted another scene with Bucky and "skinny" Steve.We got one,but I really enjoyed seeing their relationship pre-super soldier.

I enjoyed that brief scene too! Even though I'm glad this film wasn't too flashback heavy, I can't help but wish we at least had one or two more either with skinny Steve, Bucky, Peggy or the Howling Commandos etc

 

[Silvermoon]

I think the Smithsonian was a genius idea for the film because it makes sense that a character/hero like Cap would have his own section in a museum because he is a living legend and one for the history books.

It serves the purpose of meaning something for Cap because he goes there to remind himself, but at the same time, it reminds and SHOWS the audience what he has been through with all the WWII imagery, artefacts and subtle museum narration in the background without being an exposition dump and having flashbacks because the golden rule of storytelling in film is 'show don't tell' and the Smithsonian works great in that regard.

Sure, a flashback with one more battle scene with Bucky and The Howling Commandos would have been a nice touch, but the film didn't NEED it, so that is the main thing. Plus, I think we will see more flashbacks in Cap 3 because I think they wanted to keep it focused on modern day in this film and not distract it too much with WWII flashbacks.

I agree with with this. Yeah, it would've been nice to get another flashback in there somewhere. But I don't think the film absolutely needed it/I think the change to limiting it to the Smithsonian sequence worked well as is. I mean, and there's also a question of if it would've affected the overall pacing of the movie too. Sometimes sequences sound really great and awesome on paper, but when you start thinking about it more (or if it gets even further and makes it to filming) it doesn't always fit with the flow (hence why we have deleted scenes and the like).

If that makes sense.

 

[cherokeesam]

While I think a WWII intro would have made sense, and helped out those few in the audience who hadn't seen the first movie, it seems like a Normandy invasion sequence is a bit too predictable. Been there, done that in tons of movies, TV shows, and video games.

Starting in the modern era makes more sense in trying to illustrate that Steve belongs to *this* world now instead of the past.

Also, minor nitpick, but a major one from a fanboy standpoint: it's Lemurian Star. That's a pretty big easter egg to comic-book Cap mythology --- Lemuria is an ancient undersea kingdom, close to Atlantis, and is famous for being the home to the Serpent Crown, which is a major artifact in the Captain America comics.

Easter egg or foreshadowing, take your pick.

 

[speno94]

I agree with with this. Yeah, it would've been nice to get another flashback in there somewhere. But I don't think the film absolutely needed it/I think the change to limiting it to the Smithsonian sequence worked well as is. I mean, and there's also a question of if it would've affected the overall pacing of the movie too. Sometimes sequences sound really great and awesome on paper, but when you start thinking about it more (or if it gets even further and makes it to filming) it doesn't always fit with the flow (hence why we have deleted scenes and the like).

If that makes sense.

I agree! Some scenes work better as great standalone deleted scenes rather than in the structure/body of the final film, but unfortunately they didn't actually film the alternate WW2 opening so we will never see it. We just have the concept art which i posted above to imagine what it would have been like.

Like I mentioned in another post, I have a feeling we will have a lot more flashbacks in Cap 3 because that film will probably be about Bucky remembering who he is by talking to Steve, looking at old files/videos etc and there is even going to be flashbacks in Age of Ultron too because of those set photos. I think they just wanted this particular Cap film firmly set in the modern day and not too much of the 40's past distracting from it.

In fact, I can't find the interview, but I remember the writers of Cap 2 a while back when they were writing early drafts of the script and they said that Cap 2 had a flashback heavy structure and the way they were talking about it reminded me a little of Man of Steel when Clark walks past something or sees something, he has a flashback of his past like the school bus etc and Cap 2 was probably going to be a little like that, but I think the writers decided against that and I MUCH prefer what they did with the script in the final film now with the whole political thriller edge etc.