How would you write a Captain America movie?

Cafe Society
21

There’s an Avengers novel (non-canon, I know) in which the leader of the Eskimos comes after Cap to reclaim him as their god. Kang is somehow involved, it’s been years since I read the thing. I wish Marvel would reprint some of those 70s/80s novels…

As for a CA movie, if it were going to be true to the character it would have to be completely above ideology. CA isn’t about American politics but American idealism as he understands it. He’s quit at least twice. I don’t recall exactly what was behind the Nomad interlude but when he became The Captain it was because he refused to be forced into represnting someone else’s ideals.

22

[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
:dubious: The storyline rjung lays out is neither anti-American nor pro-terrorist.
[/quote]

As far as RikWriter is concerned, anything less than 100% unquestioning admiration for the Bush Administration qualifies as “anti-American.”

That said, I still feel that the best writing on the Captain America comic book was Mark Gruenwald’s work, where he deftly handled the difference between Cap being pro-America (as Rik believes) versus Cap being pro-American-values (as Gruenwald wrote). The two are not the same.

23

Really? What makes you think that would be a hard sell? While the peak might be a few years past, WWII is still an insanely popular source for pop media. And superheroes are bigger box office now than at any previous point in history. “Superheroes in WWII” sounds like a license to print money, to me.

24

If the entire movie was set in WWII, it might work. I was simply referring to the idea that a movie which starts off with Cap in WWII, then throws him into the Arctic to freeze for 40 years was a bit too much for the market.

25

[QUOTE=rjung]
If the entire movie was set in WWII, it might work. I was simply referring to the idea that a movie which starts off with Cap in WWII, then throws him into the Arctic to freeze for 40 years was a bit too much for the market.
[/QUOTE]

Oh, yeah, I can see that would be tough, but brianjedi was talking about a trilogy of films, and not a single, three act drama in his post. In his version, the whole first movie would be set in WWII, ending with the Nazis defeated, but Cap frozen in ice.

26

I wouldn’t.

I’d ask Mark Millar to isolate the Captain America elements from The Ultimates series and adapt it into a screenplay. He did an unbelievable job at updating the mythos and making it relevant to contemporary sensibilites. His writing is cinematic in its treatment, and Bryan Hitch’s uniform update is perfection.

27

[QUOTE=rjung]
As far as RikWriter is concerned, anything less than 100% unquestioning admiration for the Bush Administration qualifies as “anti-American.”

[/quote]

Actually, that would be an outright lie, but I won’t bother to get into it on the subject as that would be doing the same thing you’re trying to do…start a political argument in Cafe Society.

28

[QUOTE=RikWriter]
Of course it is. And I don’t know why you bother…you’re not going to convince anyone of anything other than that you should stop trying to start political arguments in Cafe Society.
[/QUOTE]

No, Rik, that was you. Post #4.

29

[QUOTE=rjung]
That said, I still feel that the best writing on the Captain America comic book was Mark Gruenwald’s work, where he deftly handled the difference between Cap being pro-America (as Rik believes) versus Cap being pro-American-values (as Gruenwald wrote). The two are not the same.
[/QUOTE]

Which is why Cap hung up his shield for a period in the mid-'70s at the end of the “Secret Empire” story arc, when it turned out that

the head of the criminal conspiracy was some figure never named, nor his face shown; but Cap, when the man’s hood was was astonished and cried “You! But you’re . . .” The mastermind replied, “Yes, but it wasn’t enough. My power was too restrained by legalities!” He then commits suicide. The implication is that the mastermind was POTUS and this was Marvel’s take on the Watergate scandal. Cap was so disillusioned he could no longer play the role of a crimefighter-cum-national-symbol. Don’t recall if that was Gruenwald’s work or not – I never paid attention to the credits.

30

[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
No, Rik, that was you. Post #4.
[/QUOTE]

Nope. That was rjung, post #2.

31

[QUOTE=RikWriter]
Nope. That was rjung, post #2.
[/QUOTE]

rjung addressed the OP, and quite impressively. You threw in a political criticism, and when you do that you have absolutely no business admonishing any other Doper for rising to the bait.

32

BrainGlutton, The story arc you referenced wasn’t Mark Gruenwald. It was Steve Englehart & Mike Friedrich. Gruenwald didn’t come on board until the 80’s.

You may be confusing this era with the one in which Gruenwald wrote an arc in which Cap reliquished the role as Captain America for the second time; this time due to the “Commission on Super-Hero Activities” declaring the Captain America identity as government property and attempts to conscript Rogers back into government service. After much soul-searching, Rogers gives up the mantle again to prevent compromising his dedication to American ideals rather than the policies of any given administration.

33

[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
rjung addressed the OP, and quite impressively. You threw in a political criticism, and when you do that you have absolutely no business admonishing any other Doper for rising to the bait.
[/QUOTE]

Nope, I threw in a criticism of the plot, which said plot was laced with partisan politics sure to turn off a large section of the potential audience. Both you and rjung can’t separate the politics from the criticism (well, you can’t separate politics from ANYTHING apparently) but that is most certainly your problem, not mine.

34

I’m not hip to all the current rules. Are we allowed to eat popcorn in CS?

35

[QUOTE=rjung]
Doing a Cap movie in WWII sounds like a tough sell for the mass market, IMO. In fact, any mention of Cap-fights-Nazis-then-gets-frozen-until-modern-day is already too convoluted for a first movie.
[/QUOTE]

I disagree. It seems like a simple premise to me. It didn’t leave many folks behind when Mike Myers copied the treatment for Austin Powers.

[QUOTE=rjung]
Despite the sterotypical nature of the beast, I think the only hope for a Cap movie would be to couch it in the modern day. Steve Rogers is a scrawny soldier performing supports operation in Iraq when he gets “volunteered” to test a new nerve gas vaccine. The formula gives him superhuman fighting skills (not to mention a sudden infusion of muscle mass), but during the experiment the lab – and all of its research data – is destroyed in an insurgent mortar attack. That’s Act I.
[/QUOTE]

Strongly disagree. Legendary WW2 hero is central to the Captain America mythos. It’s one of the only events that Marvel doesn’t subject to their “sliding timeline.” Moreover, there are so many themes that can be explored by viewing today’s society through the lens of the “Greatest Generation.”

[QUOTE=rjung]
Act II is your standard action-hero fare, with Steve fighting insurgents in disguise as Captain America. He starts off taking a simplistic “all terrorists are evil” outlook, but as he battles the enemy and actually meets them, the more he realizes that many of them are simply defending their country from a foreign invader, and the matter isn’t as simplistic as it first looks. His development is aided by an Australian journalist who serves as an interpreter while simultaneously questioning the pretense for the war.

In Act III, he discovers classified documents that confirm the whole premise for the invasion was a bunch of nonsense, that the government leaders used the pretense of WMDs as an excuse to secure the nation’s oil supplies and hand out juicy overpriced government contracts to cronies. Cap ends up passing the documents to his journalist friend, igniting a political sh*tstorm at home, but stays in Iraq to fight on, out of a sense of duty to help his brothers in arms survive the quagmire they’re now in and return home.

Yeah, Act III would be a tough sell, but given the populace’s growing discontent for the war and distrust for the Bush Administration, it might not be as tough as it first looks. Especially if the movie ends on a support-the-troops note, which is a very Cap attitude.
[/QUOTE]

I feel your storyline seems more concerned with anti-Bush liberal politics than it does exploring the character of Captain America. Quite honestly, I feel like there have been a healthy dose of films — fictional and documentaries — that have explored the motives for and execution of the overseas campaigns. I don’t know why drowning a super-hero movie in to such a divisive subject is neccessary.

The Captain America I (pretend to) know transcends “right” and “left” politics and is not a subversive.

Don’t get me wrong and please don’t lump me in with RikWriter. I’ve got liberal leanings myself and I’m sure I would pay to see a movie like the one you pitch, but not as a Captain America movie.

36

[QUOTE=RikWriter]
…anti-American, pro-terrorist propoganda flick…
[/QUOTE]

This is a gross misprepresentation of rjung’s plot. You are confusing anti-administration with anti-American. And I couldn’t find anything in his synopsis that advocates terrorism.

37

Why would anyone want to take something as good and pure as a comic book movie and sully it with politics?

No, I’m no being sarcastic. Partisan politics are important, and occasionally you have to take the time to deal with them, but they’re never, ever fun. Comic book movies, on their part, are the very essence of fun - that’s what makes them one of the finest thing in life. Comibing the two would be like giving someone a chocolate sundae and then making him take a rectal exam. What’s that good for?

38

The idea of Captain America finding that America’s greatest enemy is operating within its own government is an interesting one, but I agree that something as blatantly partisan as the Iraq war would be poorly shoehorned into that role. Here’s how i’d do it:

At the end of WWII Captain America is cryogenically frozen (not in a block of ice) due to grave wounds suffered during his final battle with the Axis. He’s awakened in “the near future”, into a US on the brink of civil war - domestic insurgents taking up arms against the government in every major city, lead by a charismatic scientist and former high-ranking government official. The Cap is equipped with a high-tech, 21st century “upgrade” of his original gear and wholeheartedly joins the fight against the terrorists, but as the fight wears on he starts to notice something isn’t quite right - the government has become fascist in all but name, imprisoning innocent people, terrorists and “accused” terrorists are being executed in the streets, and before long the Cap even finds himself killing fellow Americans in cold blood for no reason he can imagine. During one battle where he finds himself within a hair’s breadth of killing an unarmed woman trying to surrender to him, Cap blacks out. When he awakes, he finds himself the “prisoner” of the terrorists, who take them to meet their scientist leader - a descendant of the man who developed the original Super-Soldier serum. The leader tells Cap that he had been employed by the government to recreate the serum for the purpose of creating an entire army of Super-Soldiers, capable of steamrolling over the armies of all the rest of the world, and when he learned the truth he turned against the government to stop it from happening. Cap’s new suit, he learns, was a prototype for the armor those soldiers will use, and equipped in it were neural interfaces that blocked out his capacity for mercy and caused him to kill people he didn’t want to. Horrified by what he’s learned, Cap swears to help the “terrorists” stop the new Super-Soldier program and oust the people responsible for it. He discards his armor and the leader offers him a gift - his original suit from WWII, recently “liberated” from a vault in the Smithsonian. The final act of the film would feature Cap leading an assault on the president’s bunker and confronting him one-on-one, and probably a stirring speech about truth, justice, and the American way, followed by an epic battle between Cap and one (or more) of the government’s new Super-Soldiers. Cap wins out in the end possibly due to an act of sacrifice by the rebel leader, the president dies somehow (killed by one of his own bodyguards?), and the movie ends with the lesson that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

(My apologies if any of this has already been done in the comics.)

39

[QUOTE=Hey you!]
This is a gross misprepresentation of rjung’s plot. You are confusing anti-administration with anti-American. And I couldn’t find anything in his synopsis that advocates terrorism.
[/QUOTE]

No, it’s an accurate capsulization of the plot and how it would be received by many, many people. I am not confusing anything with anything else. And if you couldn’t find it in the syniopsis, you weren’t reading it very carefully.

40

Sorry, but rjung’s first post (#3) looks like a standard Bush-bash to this Brit.