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Falcon & the Winter Soldier
I watched Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
I really wanted to like this show, and I really didn't. It didn't feel coherent at all to me; the characterization for Sam seemed off, and I didn't really get where they were going or what they wanted to say.
* Sam being from Louisiana? That is not the background I would've picked for this character. He seems like a city boy; he seems like someone who grew up right next to people more privileged than him, saw them take all the money and all the luxuries while he went empty-handed. I think in the comics, he's from Harlem, which feels much more "right" than a Louisiana fishing background.
* I really hated that they completely ignored the fact that underprivileged (especially Black and underprivileged) people in the US often join the military due to financial pressures. Sam being from a poor background and then having a conversation with his sister about him "running away to join the air force"--no. He would've used his paycheck to support his family.
* I didn't understand his emotional arc at all. The part where he didn't want to take the Captain America shield, that I got. Anything after that? Nope. He starts out not wanting to be Captain America, and all the input he gets throughout the show, primarily from the Black supersoldier he talks to about this, confirms him in this choice. Bucky's input is useless, he's just mad and doesn't get what Sam's issue is. Who else or what else convinces Sam to change his mind? If it was there, I didn't see it. Seemed to me like he just decided to be Captain America because the plot said he should be.
* Moving away from Sam, what the hell was the fake Captain America all about? I hated him from the start, and I thought I was meant to hate him. The scene where he brutally murders one of the Flagsmashers seemed to me like a "point of no redemption" for this character--except it somehow initiated his redemption arc? As much as there was any coherence to his arc at all. They never made me care for this guy, and they never made me feel properly vindicated for hating him--he just vaguely wobbled through the plot without any clear motivation, and in the end fell into a set-up for another superhero/villain/what have you. Maybe I would've gotten more out of this if I knew who the US Agent is? I dunno. This character was weird as hell, and very off-putting.
* Bucky. I should probably have an opinion on Bucky? I don't, not really. He was there. I will say, Bucky never quite registers for me. I was hoping to maybe care about him a bit more after this, but no dice. He's there. He looks nice in a leather jacket?
* The Flagsmashers were, uh. Well. I didn't understand until the last ep the details of what the hell they were even fighting for. I had no sense of their suffering or pain that seemed to be meant to have been their motivation--I've never seen the world during the blip, and I was not shown anything concrete about injustices that were done in the aftermath. Why did they even use the supersoldier serum? They barely ever used it, not in a way that convinced me that they couldn't have done what they did without it. I dunno. Generic villains, I guess.
Anyway, I wish this whole thing had worked a bit better for me. I was quite looking forward to the show, because I really like Sam. This didn't feel like movie Sam, though. He didn't have any of the dry humor and the self-reliance and the worldliness bordering on world-weariness that movie Sam has. The thing I like about movie Sam is that he seems like a guy who knows that shit's complicated, that morals aren't black and white, and that, if you're absolutely sure you're doing the right thing, chances are you're doing the wrong one. Show Sam didn't have those qualities. He reacted to morally iffy stuff in a naive and shocked way that felt more like Steve Rogers. Which I really hated. I was so looking forward to someone like movie Sam trying to take up the mantle of a superhero. Ah well.
I'm told I should watch Wandavision and that I'll probably like it more, so I guess I'm not quite giving up on the MCU yet!
I really wanted to like this show, and I really didn't. It didn't feel coherent at all to me; the characterization for Sam seemed off, and I didn't really get where they were going or what they wanted to say.
* Sam being from Louisiana? That is not the background I would've picked for this character. He seems like a city boy; he seems like someone who grew up right next to people more privileged than him, saw them take all the money and all the luxuries while he went empty-handed. I think in the comics, he's from Harlem, which feels much more "right" than a Louisiana fishing background.
* I really hated that they completely ignored the fact that underprivileged (especially Black and underprivileged) people in the US often join the military due to financial pressures. Sam being from a poor background and then having a conversation with his sister about him "running away to join the air force"--no. He would've used his paycheck to support his family.
* I didn't understand his emotional arc at all. The part where he didn't want to take the Captain America shield, that I got. Anything after that? Nope. He starts out not wanting to be Captain America, and all the input he gets throughout the show, primarily from the Black supersoldier he talks to about this, confirms him in this choice. Bucky's input is useless, he's just mad and doesn't get what Sam's issue is. Who else or what else convinces Sam to change his mind? If it was there, I didn't see it. Seemed to me like he just decided to be Captain America because the plot said he should be.
* Moving away from Sam, what the hell was the fake Captain America all about? I hated him from the start, and I thought I was meant to hate him. The scene where he brutally murders one of the Flagsmashers seemed to me like a "point of no redemption" for this character--except it somehow initiated his redemption arc? As much as there was any coherence to his arc at all. They never made me care for this guy, and they never made me feel properly vindicated for hating him--he just vaguely wobbled through the plot without any clear motivation, and in the end fell into a set-up for another superhero/villain/what have you. Maybe I would've gotten more out of this if I knew who the US Agent is? I dunno. This character was weird as hell, and very off-putting.
* Bucky. I should probably have an opinion on Bucky? I don't, not really. He was there. I will say, Bucky never quite registers for me. I was hoping to maybe care about him a bit more after this, but no dice. He's there. He looks nice in a leather jacket?
* The Flagsmashers were, uh. Well. I didn't understand until the last ep the details of what the hell they were even fighting for. I had no sense of their suffering or pain that seemed to be meant to have been their motivation--I've never seen the world during the blip, and I was not shown anything concrete about injustices that were done in the aftermath. Why did they even use the supersoldier serum? They barely ever used it, not in a way that convinced me that they couldn't have done what they did without it. I dunno. Generic villains, I guess.
Anyway, I wish this whole thing had worked a bit better for me. I was quite looking forward to the show, because I really like Sam. This didn't feel like movie Sam, though. He didn't have any of the dry humor and the self-reliance and the worldliness bordering on world-weariness that movie Sam has. The thing I like about movie Sam is that he seems like a guy who knows that shit's complicated, that morals aren't black and white, and that, if you're absolutely sure you're doing the right thing, chances are you're doing the wrong one. Show Sam didn't have those qualities. He reacted to morally iffy stuff in a naive and shocked way that felt more like Steve Rogers. Which I really hated. I was so looking forward to someone like movie Sam trying to take up the mantle of a superhero. Ah well.
I'm told I should watch Wandavision and that I'll probably like it more, so I guess I'm not quite giving up on the MCU yet!
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