summercomfort (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
summercomfort) wrote2014-04-17 11:53 pm
summercomfort) wrote2014-04-17 11:53 pm
In which I accidentally end up re-writing the movie???
Thinking about Winter Soldier movie and why it was so "meh," from the perspective of conflicts and stakes.
There's first the default "no duh" stakes: will the world be saved? yes. Will Captain America be the one on the last helicarrier facing off with Winter Soldier? yes. Is Nick Fury alive? yes. Can Steve trust Natasha? Everything on this level just isn't even a conflict, and showing any of that in the film is just eye candy.
Then there's the plot/external conflicts: Who are the bad guys? What are their motives? What obstructions are they going to put in the heroes' way? How does that tie into the theme of security from fear and surveillance state? This is like the grease that keeps the story moving, but it should be as straight-forward as possible, so that the audience can clearly follow it. (This is not to say red herrings shouldn't exist, but red herrings should be properly dealt with.) I'd like to think about this stuff equivalent to reading the word "said" in books -- it's there to facilitate the dialogue, but isn't obtrusive. Bad writers use a lot of "gulped", "barked", etc, in ways that actually distract from the dialogue.
Then there's the character/internal conflicts: Can Steve fight for something that he doesn't quite believe in? Can Steve trust anyone? Can Steve actually fight his best friend? Can Steve find a connection in this world? Should people follow SHIELD or follow Captain America? I think of this as the butter that adds flavor and depth to the story. The plot stuff is to put the main characters into these internal conflicts. However, this is also the hardest to show narratively -- a look here, a word there, all subtext.
From this perspective, I think the problems with Captain America: the Winter Soldier are that:
(a) The default "no duh" things undermine a lot of the other conflicts.
When you know Natasha and Sam are trustworthy and Fury has backup plans, the whole "Can Steve trust anyone?" going rogue part loses its tension. It's like "well, time to collect your posse and kick some butt.
When you know the heroes are going to win, all of the plot-related fight scenes lose their tension and become eye candy -- Winter Soldier stops being an actual threat. Imagine if "getting the team together" wasn't a no-duh thing -- what if Winter Soldier actually takes out Natasha during the street scene? What if Winter Soldier's crazy property damage puts HYDRA's or SHIELD's plans at risk? ("Oh hey there's a massive shootout on the streets of DC, how about let's shut down the entire city and SHIELD and call in the actual US military?" Or "Oh hey there's a massive shootout, I hear you guys have some helicarriers, want to launch early to help us?") But no, the heroes must never get into any REAL trouble.
Fine. Another way to add tension back in is by making those scenes about character instead of plot. The Winter Soldier fight scenes should actually be about "when will Steve find out?" and "What will the reaction be?" But those scenes aren't played that way. If you use that as the real conflict, Steve would have found out much sooner, or there would have been fewer fight scenes in the 2nd third of the movie. As it stands, this character angst doesn't get addressed in the last third of the movie, during the most plot-chaotic time.
(b)The plot-level conflicts are overly convoluted and is often orthogonal to character-level conflicts. Why 3 helicarriers and not 1? What's with the international SHIELD council? DNA targetting? Field trip to 1970s Zola-ville? Why isn't anyone who's not SHIELD giving a fuck about all this? How is Steve feeling about all this? Steve's 5 minutes of "I don't trust Nick Fury, this surveillance stuff is all wrong" was quickly forgotten after the Nick Fury chase scene. Then his "I don't know who to trust, but I trust Nick Fury for some reason" lasts about 2 seconds. Then it's confusing plot for about 30 minutes until "I don't know how I'll react to facing Bucky, if he still *is* Bucky," but that is also distracted by another 30 minutes of scampering and fighting.
In a movie where a lot of tension has already been subverted due to the fluffy superhero-ness of it all, there are plenty of opportunities to simplify and streamline all this, so that plot scenes can have more emotional weight. How about if the Winter Soldier assassinates the SHIELD higher-ups in addition to Nick Fury? That would trigger the fear/freedom theme within SHIELD itself, and better justify the Captain America manhunt in the "he's aiding and abetting!!" way, and also jumpstart the "let's get helicarriers in the air now!" thread, all in the 1st act. It might even explain why the remaining SHIELD higher ups are suddenly in DC.
How about if Winter Soldier attacks Cap/Natasha in the Zola bunker and they chase him and find the brainwash chair? That would give much more weight to the Winter Soldier character and add tension to future fight scenes and his inevitable reveal, and also skip all the weird public violence stuff that never gets followed-up on, as well as the random targetted missile.
Then they break into US military base to nab the Falcon wings and the military is like "WTF, knew we shouldn't have trusted the Capsicle, we shouldn't have doubted SHIELD/Pierce" and then Winter Soldier is there, AGAIN, because once he gets a mission he doesn't stop. He ignores Sam because Sam's not his mission, but Sam keeps getting in the way anyway, because he's Sam, and so you get a nice illustration of both Sam's deal ("I got outta the war and I lost my wingman but I'll follow you anywhere, Cap") as well as the broken-ness of the Winter Soldier. Then Winter Soldier reveal. This reveal would have more weight, given the comparison to Sam, and also Steve knowing about the chair, which would then make him hate HYDRA more. Maybe when he hears about HYDRA's plans with the helicarrier from the scientist dude, he asks, "can it be reprogrammed to target HYDRA?" -- thus bringing home the core issue of surveillance power/security. He'll have to choose to destroy the whole thing instead of becoming Galadriel with the One Ring, but at least there'd be character tension.
Anyways, I started thinking about all this because I was thinking about why all those fanfics have redeemed the movie for me, and the answer is that the fanfics brought back the character conflicts and ignored all the crappy plot stuff. I'm also hoping this can help me think more about Tisquantum's conflicts and narrative flow.
There's first the default "no duh" stakes: will the world be saved? yes. Will Captain America be the one on the last helicarrier facing off with Winter Soldier? yes. Is Nick Fury alive? yes. Can Steve trust Natasha? Everything on this level just isn't even a conflict, and showing any of that in the film is just eye candy.
Then there's the plot/external conflicts: Who are the bad guys? What are their motives? What obstructions are they going to put in the heroes' way? How does that tie into the theme of security from fear and surveillance state? This is like the grease that keeps the story moving, but it should be as straight-forward as possible, so that the audience can clearly follow it. (This is not to say red herrings shouldn't exist, but red herrings should be properly dealt with.) I'd like to think about this stuff equivalent to reading the word "said" in books -- it's there to facilitate the dialogue, but isn't obtrusive. Bad writers use a lot of "gulped", "barked", etc, in ways that actually distract from the dialogue.
Then there's the character/internal conflicts: Can Steve fight for something that he doesn't quite believe in? Can Steve trust anyone? Can Steve actually fight his best friend? Can Steve find a connection in this world? Should people follow SHIELD or follow Captain America? I think of this as the butter that adds flavor and depth to the story. The plot stuff is to put the main characters into these internal conflicts. However, this is also the hardest to show narratively -- a look here, a word there, all subtext.
From this perspective, I think the problems with Captain America: the Winter Soldier are that:
(a) The default "no duh" things undermine a lot of the other conflicts.
When you know Natasha and Sam are trustworthy and Fury has backup plans, the whole "Can Steve trust anyone?" going rogue part loses its tension. It's like "well, time to collect your posse and kick some butt.
When you know the heroes are going to win, all of the plot-related fight scenes lose their tension and become eye candy -- Winter Soldier stops being an actual threat. Imagine if "getting the team together" wasn't a no-duh thing -- what if Winter Soldier actually takes out Natasha during the street scene? What if Winter Soldier's crazy property damage puts HYDRA's or SHIELD's plans at risk? ("Oh hey there's a massive shootout on the streets of DC, how about let's shut down the entire city and SHIELD and call in the actual US military?" Or "Oh hey there's a massive shootout, I hear you guys have some helicarriers, want to launch early to help us?") But no, the heroes must never get into any REAL trouble.
Fine. Another way to add tension back in is by making those scenes about character instead of plot. The Winter Soldier fight scenes should actually be about "when will Steve find out?" and "What will the reaction be?" But those scenes aren't played that way. If you use that as the real conflict, Steve would have found out much sooner, or there would have been fewer fight scenes in the 2nd third of the movie. As it stands, this character angst doesn't get addressed in the last third of the movie, during the most plot-chaotic time.
(b)The plot-level conflicts are overly convoluted and is often orthogonal to character-level conflicts. Why 3 helicarriers and not 1? What's with the international SHIELD council? DNA targetting? Field trip to 1970s Zola-ville? Why isn't anyone who's not SHIELD giving a fuck about all this? How is Steve feeling about all this? Steve's 5 minutes of "I don't trust Nick Fury, this surveillance stuff is all wrong" was quickly forgotten after the Nick Fury chase scene. Then his "I don't know who to trust, but I trust Nick Fury for some reason" lasts about 2 seconds. Then it's confusing plot for about 30 minutes until "I don't know how I'll react to facing Bucky, if he still *is* Bucky," but that is also distracted by another 30 minutes of scampering and fighting.
In a movie where a lot of tension has already been subverted due to the fluffy superhero-ness of it all, there are plenty of opportunities to simplify and streamline all this, so that plot scenes can have more emotional weight. How about if the Winter Soldier assassinates the SHIELD higher-ups in addition to Nick Fury? That would trigger the fear/freedom theme within SHIELD itself, and better justify the Captain America manhunt in the "he's aiding and abetting!!" way, and also jumpstart the "let's get helicarriers in the air now!" thread, all in the 1st act. It might even explain why the remaining SHIELD higher ups are suddenly in DC.
How about if Winter Soldier attacks Cap/Natasha in the Zola bunker and they chase him and find the brainwash chair? That would give much more weight to the Winter Soldier character and add tension to future fight scenes and his inevitable reveal, and also skip all the weird public violence stuff that never gets followed-up on, as well as the random targetted missile.
Then they break into US military base to nab the Falcon wings and the military is like "WTF, knew we shouldn't have trusted the Capsicle, we shouldn't have doubted SHIELD/Pierce" and then Winter Soldier is there, AGAIN, because once he gets a mission he doesn't stop. He ignores Sam because Sam's not his mission, but Sam keeps getting in the way anyway, because he's Sam, and so you get a nice illustration of both Sam's deal ("I got outta the war and I lost my wingman but I'll follow you anywhere, Cap") as well as the broken-ness of the Winter Soldier. Then Winter Soldier reveal. This reveal would have more weight, given the comparison to Sam, and also Steve knowing about the chair, which would then make him hate HYDRA more. Maybe when he hears about HYDRA's plans with the helicarrier from the scientist dude, he asks, "can it be reprogrammed to target HYDRA?" -- thus bringing home the core issue of surveillance power/security. He'll have to choose to destroy the whole thing instead of becoming Galadriel with the One Ring, but at least there'd be character tension.
Anyways, I started thinking about all this because I was thinking about why all those fanfics have redeemed the movie for me, and the answer is that the fanfics brought back the character conflicts and ignored all the crappy plot stuff. I'm also hoping this can help me think more about Tisquantum's conflicts and narrative flow.