Marvel Movie Minute • Captain America: The Winter Soldier

These are the last minutes of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and Pete skips the name game to ask a bigger question instead: where does this film sit in the canon, and what did the rest of the MCU take from it?Matthew's answer is that this is where Batman enters the chat. Not the character, but that sweet Batman-shaped argument — that the institutions can't be trusted, because the rot is already inside them. Washington as Gotham. Kyle picks that up from the other direction: SHIELD was functionally synonymous with the Avengers one movie ago, and now it's gone, one institution eating another to take its place.They also get into the action grammar the film reset, and how it shares 2014 with John Wick. Whether the MCU's genre flexibility survived on the big screen or moved to television. Whether this is the best thing the Russos have made. And the question of when, exactly, all of these movies started looking so brown.The post-credits scene gets three readings. Pete sees forty quiet seconds about identity being whatever other people remember about you — Bucky needs a museum placard to be told who he is, while Steve had to reject the museum's version of himself to stay who he is. Matthew hears the score and hears chaos instead of clarity, which is what makes Civil War possible. Kyle is all about no handler, no mission. He went on his own.Also in this one: the Sam Wilson introduction that still holds up against most of Phase Two, the #WheresNatasha problem waiting one CapVengers movie ahead, and Matthew making a confident argument about a shot that turns out to be in a different film entirely.We're taking a short break before Guardians of the Galaxy. Thanks for hanging out with us. ---Learn more about supporting this podcast by becoming a member. It's just $5/month or $55/year. Visit our website to learn more.

Fury burns the past and hands everybody a clean slate that Ultron will repossess within a year. Natasha kisses Steve goodbye, and the room cannot agree whether that closes a door or concedes there was never one. Pete has blocking complaints about the cemetery. Matthew has an in-story defense. Kyle has scheduling. The movie still lands the best closing line in the MCU.Then the credits, where Erin Sarofsky built the title sequence twice, once flat and once stereoscopic, with every depth cue in it metered against Chris Evans's chest. Then Joss Whedon's stinger, where Marvel introduces the Maximoff twins under a rights agreement forbidding anyone from saying the word mutant or naming their father. Kyle knows precisely what that costs. He refuses to explain until Age of Ultron.Links & NotesThe filmCaptain America: The Winter Soldier on LetterboxdThe title sequenceSarofsky's full case study on the main-on-end titles, including the David Mack storyboards, the stereoscopic pipeline, and Erin Sarofsky on spending days discussing Chris Evans's eyelashesArt of the Title's in-depth interview about the sequenceCBS Sunday Morning: "Giving credit: The creators of movie title sequences"Sarofsky Corp.'s studio profile at Art of the TitleThe stingerBaron Strucker's comics history, starting with Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos #5Wanda Maximoff at Marvel.comQuicksilver at Marvel.comJim Steranko, the Silver Age Nick Fury artist Sarofsky drew fromThe full cast of Private Parts (1997), featuring Henry Goodman and TruStory FM's own Mandy FabianThe showMarvel Movie Minute---Learn more about supporting this podcast by becoming a member. It's just $5/month or $55/year. Visit our website to learn more.

Bucky hauls Steve out of the Potomac, looks at him, and walks off without trying to drain his lungs. Everybody else gets a montage exit: Sharon at the CIA, Hill in a Stark Industries HR chair, Stern in FBI custody, Fury torching his own supply shed.Then Natasha sits down in front of Congress and tells them they need her. Matthew figures that's the same argument that let HYDRA live inside SHIELD for seventy years, and he was braced to be alone on it. Pete beat him there.Also: what's carved on Fury's headstone, and whether the Russos grabbed the wrong half of the Pulp Fiction quote.Links & NotesThe FilmCaptain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) on LetterboxdReferenced On AirPulp Fiction (1994) on LetterboxdA Few Good Men (1992) on LetterboxdA Time to Kill (1996) on LetterboxdAvengers: Age of Ultron (2015) on LetterboxdMarvin Gaye, "Trouble Man" (1972)Steven CulpThe ShowMarvel Movie MinuteMarvel Movie Minute on TruStory FMMore From The HostsThe Ethical PandaSuperhero EthicsStar Wars GenerationsTruStory FM---Learn more about supporting this podcast by becoming a member. It's just $5/month or $55/year. Visit our website to learn more.

Robert Redford watches twenty years of work break its own back in the Potomac and says "what a waste," which sets the hosts arguing about whether Alexander Pierce is a true believer or just a very well-tailored mustache-twirler. Then Nick Fury shoots him — was Pierce actually a threat in that moment, or did Fury just want him off the board before a trial aired everything Fury ever did? — and Natasha pulls off the biggest sacrifice play of her arc in roughly three seconds of screen time, which the movie promptly edits past. Elsewhere, Falcon and Rumlow beat each other around an office, and the fight is won decisively by a building.The last two minutes are the ones that hurt. Cap drops the shield, refuses the fight, and gets "you're my mission" screamed into his face — which detours the conversation into the paperclip maximizer problem and a true story about an AI that fixed a cluttered inbox by deleting the inbox. Matthew asks the harder question: when Cap gambles he can talk Bucky down, he isn't gambling with his own life. He's gambling with everyone's. Then the floor gives out. Picture wrap on Robert Redford, and on Frank Grillo.Links & ReferencesThe film and its neighborsCaptain America: The Winter SoldierCaptain America: The First Avenger — the Red Skull comparison, and the original fallAvengers: Age of Ultron — Strucker, and the fear that builds a robotEverything else the hosts dragged inDr. No — the Bond monologue Pierce never gets to finishSpeed — "Yeah, but I'm taller"The Wolverine — the CGI body nobody wanted to give RedfordZombieland — double tapThe Empire Strikes Back — one falls, one hangs onWidow's Bay — where Pete found his favorite trolley problem answerConceptsInstrumental convergence (the paperclip maximizer)The trolley problemCharactersBlack WidowCrossbonesMore from the hostsMarvel Movie Minute — and MarvelMovieMinute.com to support the show and get episodes ad-free, a week earlySuperhero Ethics and The Ethical Panda with Matthew FoxCraft and Chaos with Kyle OlsonThe Swashbuckling Ladies Debate Society — Kyle's audio drama, in which Pete has two lines and dies twice---Learn more about supporting this podcast by becoming a member. It's just $5/month or $55/year. Visit our website to learn more.

Nine seasons in, the fight finally arrives: Cap and Bucky, under a helicarrier, no exits. Kyle's read is that only one of them is actually in this fight — the Winter Soldier is throwing kill shots, while Cap is running an errand. So what were Bucky's orders? He's holding the chip in a hand that has demonstrably torn a man's wings off, and he never closes his fist.Pete's heresy for the week is that this is the least satisfying big fight in the movie for dumb architectural reasons. The dome set (production actually nicknamed it the "salad bowl") is the one room in a proudly grounded thriller that looks like an Ed Wood soundstage with a real budget. Kyle traces a direct line from here to Black Widow's blimp and Black Panther's train — Marvel's third-act habit of taking the movie out of the actors' hands and giving it to a render farm.Elsewhere: name-tag immolation and whether Marvel's own math on those badges holds up, a Charlie Bridge one pointy hat away from Star Wars, a 1996 UPN detour with an absurd guest list, and a scream in the last two seconds that Pete cannot unhear.Links & NotesThe filmCaptain America: The Winter Soldier on LetterboxdWinter Soldier (Bucky Barnes) at Marvel.comThe "salad bowl" and the VFXfxguide: Captain America: The Winter Soldier — reaching new heights — production built the partial dome, dubbed it the "salad bowl," LIDAR-scanned it, and ILM extended everything else.Third-act comparisonsThe Avengers (2012) on Letterboxd — the helicarrier engine sequenceBlack Widow on LetterboxdBlack Panther on LetterboxdThe Charlie Commander tangentJon Sklaroff — born in New York City, 1967Swift Justice (1996) — Dick Wolf on UPN, thirteen episodes, canceled for being too violentJames McCaffrey — Mac Swift, and later Max Payne, Thomas Zane, Zachariah Trench, and Alex CaseyScreamsThe Wilhelm scream — which this is notList of changes in Star Wars re-releases — for the record: the scream added to Luke's Cloud City fall in the 1997 Special Edition was lifted from the Emperor's death in Return of the Jedi, and Lucas removed it again for the 2004 DVDElsewhere in the networkCraft and Chaos with Kyle Olson — on hiatus, ideal for bingeing---Learn more about supporting this podcast by becoming a member. It's just $5/month or $55/year. Visit our website to learn more.