Still thinking about Captain America:Civil War
Still mostly turning over
And having thought it about for a couple more days:
We know very little about what the Accords contain other than the very big picture of oversight, accountability and the Avengers' actions needing to be UN approved. And that big picture is what I agree with in some kind of framework for the Avengers being necessary. Even aside from the idea that powerful organisations need checks and balances, the fact that it might lessen fear of them from the public and be better for international relations than them just charging into situations would be good. (It occurred to me that of the 7 Avengers active at the start of the film, 4 are American, 3 of those are ex-military - or possibly still for Rhodey - and Tony was heavily involved with the US military, which may not engender a huge amount of liking/tolerance from various other countries when they interfere in things, and then I got distracted thinking about Team America: World Police...)
So, from that POV, Team Tony is taking the responsible and smart decision. But in the context of the MCU fictional universe, I think it is going to come back and bite them, for a couple of reasons.
1) The general MCU atmosphere is not one that encourages going along with "the authorities" (political, military, what have you) as being a good thing. Tony refuses to give a suit to the military, only to his personal friend, and that is seen as being preferable; the army is the antagonists for the Hulk; the WSC tries to nuke New York; within SHIELD Fury's morality is presented as pretty grey given he seemed to approve of Insight before the Hydra reveal; and of course it turns out Hydra has infested and corrupted all over the shop.
2) The Avengers have had no input or voice in creating the Accords, they didn't even know it was happening until they are fully written and ready to be signed and then they are given very little time to formulate any kind of response before the Accords are made law (it looked like a few hundred pages of bureaucratic and legalese documentation to plow through, which isn't going to be quick). It pretty clearly is about controlling them, not working with them.
3) Ross is the face of the Accords, and from what I can gather he has never been presented as an objective, just or even morally upright character. Even by the end of CW he is starting to lean on and threaten Tony, and I already mentioned in the previous post the way he classifies Thor and Bruce as weapons.
Also, Cesperanza posted here with a review that points out some of the creeping implications in the film that the Accords are going wrong that I hadn't thought of in that way, and also that Tony doesn't think about how bad being made a criminal could get for someone who is considered a dangerous weapon because of his privilege - people like the Starks don't go to prison - which I thought was a very shrewd observation. (As an aside, keeping someone apparently permanently in a straightjacket surely has to be considered inhumane?)
Leaving the Accords question alone, I had another thought about Tony and him not being a team player still - he doesn't give the rest of them a heads up, he walks in at the same time Ross which implies he is already with Ross and that he's separated himself from the rest of the team, and he has in fact made up his mind without discussion what the team should decide. How different would the initial discussion have been if he had called the rest together before the meeting with Ross and said "these Accords are coming, we need to talk about what to do, these are the reasons I think we should sign"? It might not have meant any agreement within the team still, but I think they might at least have been able to talk it out with less aggression and defensiveness.
(Also, did anyone else find the scene where he recruits Peter Parker to be on the creepy side? Tony flirts with May, gets Peter on his own to alternately flatter and threaten him, ending with sitting right next to Peter on the bed... I remember wondering in the cinema if they really meant it to come off as quite that dodgy.)
And having thought it about for a couple more days:
We know very little about what the Accords contain other than the very big picture of oversight, accountability and the Avengers' actions needing to be UN approved. And that big picture is what I agree with in some kind of framework for the Avengers being necessary. Even aside from the idea that powerful organisations need checks and balances, the fact that it might lessen fear of them from the public and be better for international relations than them just charging into situations would be good. (It occurred to me that of the 7 Avengers active at the start of the film, 4 are American, 3 of those are ex-military - or possibly still for Rhodey - and Tony was heavily involved with the US military, which may not engender a huge amount of liking/tolerance from various other countries when they interfere in things, and then I got distracted thinking about Team America: World Police...)
So, from that POV, Team Tony is taking the responsible and smart decision. But in the context of the MCU fictional universe, I think it is going to come back and bite them, for a couple of reasons.
1) The general MCU atmosphere is not one that encourages going along with "the authorities" (political, military, what have you) as being a good thing. Tony refuses to give a suit to the military, only to his personal friend, and that is seen as being preferable; the army is the antagonists for the Hulk; the WSC tries to nuke New York; within SHIELD Fury's morality is presented as pretty grey given he seemed to approve of Insight before the Hydra reveal; and of course it turns out Hydra has infested and corrupted all over the shop.
2) The Avengers have had no input or voice in creating the Accords, they didn't even know it was happening until they are fully written and ready to be signed and then they are given very little time to formulate any kind of response before the Accords are made law (it looked like a few hundred pages of bureaucratic and legalese documentation to plow through, which isn't going to be quick). It pretty clearly is about controlling them, not working with them.
3) Ross is the face of the Accords, and from what I can gather he has never been presented as an objective, just or even morally upright character. Even by the end of CW he is starting to lean on and threaten Tony, and I already mentioned in the previous post the way he classifies Thor and Bruce as weapons.
Also, Cesperanza posted here with a review that points out some of the creeping implications in the film that the Accords are going wrong that I hadn't thought of in that way, and also that Tony doesn't think about how bad being made a criminal could get for someone who is considered a dangerous weapon because of his privilege - people like the Starks don't go to prison - which I thought was a very shrewd observation. (As an aside, keeping someone apparently permanently in a straightjacket surely has to be considered inhumane?)
Leaving the Accords question alone, I had another thought about Tony and him not being a team player still - he doesn't give the rest of them a heads up, he walks in at the same time Ross which implies he is already with Ross and that he's separated himself from the rest of the team, and he has in fact made up his mind without discussion what the team should decide. How different would the initial discussion have been if he had called the rest together before the meeting with Ross and said "these Accords are coming, we need to talk about what to do, these are the reasons I think we should sign"? It might not have meant any agreement within the team still, but I think they might at least have been able to talk it out with less aggression and defensiveness.
(Also, did anyone else find the scene where he recruits Peter Parker to be on the creepy side? Tony flirts with May, gets Peter on his own to alternately flatter and threaten him, ending with sitting right next to Peter on the bed... I remember wondering in the cinema if they really meant it to come off as quite that dodgy.)