Pitch Meeting - The Falcon & The Winter Soldier

[Techwright]

Somehow Ryan has managed to voice all my concerns about The Falcon & The Winter Soldier, while doing so in a very funny way.  I loved the show, but was really surprised about how viewers glossed over some pretty big implications.  And then there's the whole helmet, or lack thereof, bit. 

 

 

[Ulysses Dare]

That's a pretty good summation of my issues with the show. It was fun and had some nice character work for both Sam and Bucky but they really botched the big picture stuff. The different ways the show treated Zemo and Karli highlight that pretty well. Zemo's charming and has a clear, even somewhat sympathetic, motivation but the show still treats him like a villain. Sam and Bucky clearly don't like him and his murders are treated like murders. When he's hauled off to the Raft that's portrayed as a good thing.

Meanwhile, Kalri's motives are murky. She's mad at the GRC for some things they've done which we're never shown. Nor are they really explained beyond a few buzzwords like "refugee". When she murders people it's brushed off even though her body count is on par with Zemo's. Yet at the end the show wants us to be sad she's dead. And we're supposed to accept that, yes, the GRC really are kind of the bad guys. Even though their major contributions to the plot were hiring John Walker and getting kidnapped.

Edited May 2, 2021 by Ulysses Dare

[DougGraves]

I was really impressed with this takedown.  They called out Karli as a terrorist, with a plan of being cause terror and hope that makes things better.

 

My daughter was thrilled with the ending call out about the name The Winter Soldier.  He's her favorite character and she was hoping they would rename him The White Wolf.  And the renaming of Falcon in the credits without renaming Bucky really annoyed her.

[Techwright]

5 hours ago, DougGraves said:

I was really impressed with this takedown.  They called out Karli as a terrorist, with a plan of being cause terror and hope that makes things better.

 

My daughter was thrilled with the ending call out about the name The Winter Soldier.  He's her favorite character and she was hoping they would rename him The White Wolf.  And the renaming of Falcon in the credits without renaming Bucky really annoyed her.

 

Yeah, I didn't get the whole "Karli was just misunderstood and was a patriot" spiel.  The car/building bomb alone should have ended that discussion. 

 

The continuing name of The Winter Soldier is a more complex issue.  Technically, the title The White Wolf was given to T'Challa's adopted white brother:  a child adopted by King T'Chaka, after he was the sole survivor of a plane crash into Wakanda.   But the MCU has been referencing Bucky this way.  Which leaves the question of whether they'll ever bring the white brother story to the screen.  If so, that may be why they're reserving the name.  The character was something of a wanderer/rogue, and in the MCU the Black Panther may have taken the name back when his brother left the country. He may yet return to claim his title.  There's also a fan theory I read that Bucky may go through his own process of coming fully into a new identity, and they've held back the name for that reason.  It doesn't help that Chad's real life tragic death threw the whole Wakanda storyline future into chaos.  Who knows what happens now?