My not very thorough reaction post to CA: Civil War
This is the first film with Tony and/or Steve where I haven't felt possessed to write fic immediately after. (I guess IM3 I didn't, either.) I came away from the movie quite disappointed. Perhaps disproportionately so. It's probably a film I'll need to see again and parse through what was good, because right now the major problems I have with it overshadow pretty much everything else.
If you haven't read my fics and couldn't tell from previous reactionary posts, know that I'm a massive Iron Man fangirl. Years ago before I got into Marvel, I never thought I'd care for the guy. But Tony, with all his ridiculous flaws, became dear to my heart. I know I have very particular headcanon built up about him, but I feel like I can usually give myself a filter when thinking about what's actually been presented in MCU and what's colored by my personal interpretations and integration of comic lore.
CA:CW? Utterly failed Stark in key scenes. Tony's reason for backing the Accords works great, a lot of the matters regarding the Accords and his position in terms of the politics makes sense. Awesome. But the massive problems with Tony's characterization, and honestly my overall problem with the film, lays in the shit of (sorta)Ancient History.
1) What the fuck was that presentation shit at MIT? (Or the "Uncanny Valley" bit, as my friend termed it.) Tony at MIT giving a presentation - great! Scholarship fund - great! Facing a mother who blames him for her son's death - spot on! But the presenation itself? What? Just... WHAT? Why the hell would Tony ever open up about personal doubts like that - truly, deeply personal issues - with a large group, let alone strangers? (See? I'm filtering out my canon to deal with what comes out in MCU canon. Toss in my headcanon and I get all pissy about Howard Stark, who I hate and basically can only see as an awful father.)
2) The goddamn culminating end fight. What. The. Fuck. Seriously, what is that bullshit? I felt nothing besides incredulous at that bullshit fight with Bucky, Steve, and Tony. Again - REALLY? That wasn't what the film was leading up to, for one thing, and for another... Well, here's where this canon shit seems to fall apart and utterly fail the characters, IMO.
Firstly, I look at the video footage of Winter Soldier killing the Starks and watched Tony be shocked and was like - what? Given that SHIELD's files were all dumped public, I've always been of the mindset that Tony got through all that information. Thus, with MCU pressing the Soldier killing the Starks ((which does not fit with my accepted headcanon/meta)), I figured that Tony or JARVIS came across that info. My friend pointed out, when I said this, that the information came from Soviet files (or more accurately, I realized later, the scene with Zola in CA:TWS).
Secondly, I initially did not accept Tony's flying off the handle in reaction. My friend pointed out, and I calmed a little, that Tony's always been highly reactionary and emotional throughout MCU. We agreed that it was way over the top how much Tony flipped out. So I've come around to accepting that Tony would probably have to take some swings and have a bit of a physical fight with Bucky, then an all out shouting match with Steve. But there is no way in hell this should have been the knock-down, drag-out, culminating battle of the film fight. This should have been a side story.
I at least appreciate it that Tony only emphasizes "He killed my mom."
Thirdly, going beyond the highly questionable motivations of our heroes here (Tony, Steve, Bucky), there's the fact that apparently throughout the entire film Zemo was searching for solid evidence of the Starks' assassination in order to turn Tony against Steve and Bucky. I mean... what? WHAT? I can't get my head around this. So many pieces, an elaborate scheme, carried out in order to get to that one moment that's only going to really boil down to a confrontation between a couple of people? How could he even be sure that would work? How did he know that the Winter Soldier had killed the Starks? (If it's from SHIELD/Hydra dumped files, we go back to my initial thoughts that Tony would have found the information himself.) How did he know Steve or someone else hadn't told Tony about the Soldier's culpability already? How did he know that the revelation would be enough to utterly distract every superhero chasing him to let him get away (to go commit suicide)? How did he know it would only be Stark, Rogers, and Barnes at the moment of revelation? I can keep going on, because this is something that's now irritating me even more than the fail of Tony characterization.
See, if more thought had been put into creating Tony's motivations to get into a massive physical battle with Bucky (and Steve), I could accept things even if I was still unhappy. Make it an accountability thing. Make it a projection of Tony's own guilt complex. That would make some actual sense. But even if we had that... what the fuck would be the point of Zemo, then?
ARGH. Maybe I should stop typing. Now I'm getting mad about other things. Like I said at the start, the bullshit end fight left me feeling pretty bitter and extremely disappointed in the movie. Maybe upon a later rewatch and more consideration I'll be able to better accept it. (It took me a while before I accepted IM3 as a good movie, though, and even that I accept it as something divergent and not actually fitting into my accepted MCU canon.)
I have to say, this is doing a little to motivate me to getting back to writing some alternate or post- Age of Ultron stories that I have ideas for.
Edit: Additional comments
WTF abrupt kissing! The kiss between Steve and Sharon played out like a child playing with dolls and smacking them together: "Now kiss!" Sharon isn't a character that's been developed enough for there to be kissing. She and Steve barely interact between when they last saw each other in CA:TWS and the kiss. Also, were there no family photos in Peggy's room? And how did Steve not see Sharon at the funeral until she stepped up to speak at the pulpit? (Hitting on my headcanon - why wasn't Tony there? C'mon, he had to have met and sorta known Peggy...)
It's actually a big irritation rather than a "lesser issue" - but I had to roll my eyes over the fact that the iconic and rather horrific image of Steve with shield raised above a prone Iron Man was used in such a lousy excuse for a fight. It's not as bad as Star Trek: Into Darkness' decision to have Spock scream "KHAAAAANNNN" (I burst out laughing in the theatre when that happened), but it's still pretty back. Iron Man blasting Cap's shield at least fit alright. But the raised shield doesn't fit when Steve wasn't wanting or trying to kill Tony. (I can accept the film's setting the stage of setting up Tony to want to kill Barnes, but even fitting in with what the film establishes, neither Tony nor Steve were aiming to kill each other.)
I had some issues about missing characters, too. I'm disappointed Fury didn't make an appearance, though he wouldn't have fit too well I suppose. Maria Hill, though, was a weird absence, IMO. My friend said Pepper got Hill in the divorce. :p I replied that perhaps Hill and Pepper are off coming up with a plan to clean this shit up.