You Can’t Just Watch Certain Marvel Movies
It’s all or nothing. No clarifying questions should be asked. *SPOILERS
It was towards the end of Black Widow when my sister turned to me to ask, “who's in prison?” I waited until the credits rolled because:
1. It is a movie and it is Marvel so shush
2. If you have to ask questions you ask them at the end.
It was then that I was reminded that she had not seen Captain America: Winter Soldier or Captain America: Civil War and it was like my heart was stabbed in the chest again. For someone to have been committed for so long, this was not okay.
Listen, we can fight over which order to see Star Wars or which is the favorite Doctor in Doctor Who, or which generation of Star Trek is the best, but there is something about Marvel that is just a different beast. Maybe it is because it is the most of a fan I have been for anything so I’m biased, but generally, if you are committed to anything, you will most likely read/watch all of it. Now you may not enjoy every single piece of information that comes out of that franchise, but you are a fan and you are committed and that is bound to happen. I personally wasn’t geeked about Ant-Man or Guardians (initially) and I could really care less about Captain Marvel, but did we see them all? Yes. Can I let you slide if you didn’t see Thor 2? Fine. Is it passable to not have seen Black Panther? A little bit of a diss for the culture, but alright. But CAPTAIN AMERICA WINTER SOLIDER? CIVIL WAR?
And then she has the audacity to tell me that she saw the Falcon and Winter Solider show.
Captain America: Winter Soldier and CA: Civil War are pivotal films for not only the end of phase 3 but some really fantastic movies.
Captain America: Winter Solider changed the game for everything in the MCU going forward
Without writing a whole essay, the Russo Brothers had their directorial Marvel debut with Winter Soldier, and if you’ve been following since, you know that they went on to make nearly the rest of Phase 3. Just as a movie in general, the style, the tone, the slow beats to show the relationship between Bucky and Cap after all these years is everything. You see Cap in this real tug of redefining who he is and what he stands for and it is paralleled to the newly introduced Sam and foiled with the back from the dead Bucky. The action is more in the style of a Jason Bourne than the more whimsical fighting we’ve seen in the past because at the end of the day Cap is a solider and so you see more of that gritty realistic style which is much more relatable. While the plot is standard, the characters within it go through so much and are surrounded by this darker version of Marvel. This formula is replicated so many times after the fact because of just how well it was delivered.
As a plot point in the MCU, it is a critical setup to Civil War and shifts in how these characters interact as a team going forward.
There isn’t much to add to that. I will say here this would be a great time to point out that since she watched Falcon and Winter Soldier, she did not get the full scope of Bucky and Sam’s characters, especially the complete arch both of them went through get the endpoint of the show. She wouldn’t understand: who are they, why do they do what they do, and how did they get to that point. And while you can say Bucky isn’t exactly the main character, he has much more plot devices in the movies than you realize.
Captain America: Civil War literally sets up the totality of Infinity War
Otherwise known as the third Avengers, Civil War really poses the question: how the hell is the team getting back together after this? Another Phil Coulson moment wouldn’t have done the trick to recover from what damage was done after Civil War. But if you missed it, you wouldn’t understand how big of a deal it was to see them all together again. Better yet, you probably didn’t understand why the first hour of Infinity War was spent just trying to get the gang back together! The way that Civil War ended, left you almost nervous if you could salvage what was lost, especially between Cap and Stark.
Civil War was gut-wrenching for the relationship between Cap and Stark. Centered around the fallout of Ultron, Civil War was layered in not only the actions of the Avengers but becoming divided based on their morals. Not only were Cap and Stark’s (who are basically the team leaders) tested, but ultimately fractured permanently because of it. It brings me to tears every time I watch the relationship fall apart in Civil War because they never truly recover after that. Meanwhile, my sister is sitting in Infinity War and Endgame like
0_o
These points are not only important for character development but for the plot going forward.
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I’m going to end it here and get off my soapbox. I believe (mostly) every Marvel movie has a purpose and by that I mean, something that will be used or said for the next one. These give us a little more than that. Just a smidge. And I personally just think, if you’ve gone this far to watching them, just watch those too.
There are worse ones to be required to see just to check off your list, we both know that one sister.
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