Basement X

So, thoughts?
I loved it. Had less humor than Thor 2 but the action was better.
Oh and obviously, there will be spoilers in this thread.

Headed off to see it now. Will let you know what I think later tonight.

Great action, great wonderful easter eggs and cameos, and I liked seeing Cap & Falcon together. Overall though, I don't think it fit the hype I've been reading in reviews and the like. It definitely had some big changes for the future of the Marvel films but I wasn't blown away by it.

In fact, I felt like the plot was pretty predictable after the first 30 minutes. Only a couple things I expected didn't actually happen so that was a bit of a let down. But still a fun movie and worth seeing.

First post credit scene was the absolute best part though. I was sold there.

Well, it's a super hero movie, you've been reading comics for god knows how long so of course i's predictable.
If I were to make a complain about it, it wouldn't be the predictability, it's more that the build-up of the The Winter Soldier does not make him threatening enough.
In my opinion, this is the best post-Avengers Marvel movies.

I have a question for you, at the beginning, when Cap writes down cultural stuff he needs to catch up on, what's written in the notebook? Because here, it was all French stuff and I thought first "WTF?" then realized the text on the notebook is probably different in each country (which is stupid, I think).

Also, what were your favourite Easter Eggs? I didn't see that much.

Also, post-credit was cool but the twins have mostly been used in X-books, no?

Cap's notebook was changed for each country the movie is shown in. This is what the US version said. I know for Mexico it specifically had 2 Mexican celebrities. It was a way to appeal to every country and show that Cap was trying to catch up on everything in the whole world, not just the US.

Here's a website with all the "easter eggs".

I loved that Whedon directed the mid-credit scene, that one blew me away and made me so excited for AoU.

It's predictability is of course based on my reading for years so I can't fault it too much for that really. But it did take away from it for me.

I loved the Stephen Strange comment the most. Big hint at what's coming.

As for the twins, the majority of their characterization has been done in Avengers titles. While they appeared in X-Titles first and Quicksilver jumps back and forth but Scarlett Witch is primarily an Avengers character anymore.

OK, so that's 2 post credit scenes characters I got wrong.
First, there was Avengers when I was wondering why they made the Skrulls purple and found out it was actually Thanos afterwards.
And now, thanks to you, I realize it was Pietro and Wanda and not the Fenris twins. Very silly me, I am not worhy.

*forever ashamed*

So we'll have 2 different Quicksilver. One in the Marvel movies and one in the X-Men movies. That sucks.

That's film rights for you. Those two are weird examples where more than one company has the rights to those characters due to technical definitions.

I really liked this film. Lots of action, a good pace, every character got their moment to shine, the plot was a straight forward as it needed to be and of course the main subject of espionage and extreme security measures is very topical.

I too thought that the Winter Solder didn't feel big enough and nor did Zola for that matter. Loved all the easter eggs you guys mentioned and in particular the very simple ones like mentioning the name Stephen Strange.

I love the version 2 Cap outfit. The midnight blue one. Just wished they would do away with cycling gloves though.

Are we to understand that the twins have received their powers as a result of surviving some experimentation with Loki's pokey stick?

Oh, just a continuity thing. How come Cap's old uniform now has a red stripe down the middle?

XIII wrote:OK, so that's 2 post credit scenes characters I got wrong.
First, there was Avengers when I was wondering why they made the Skrulls purple and found out it was actually Thanos afterwards.
And now, thanks to you, I realize it was Pietro and Wanda and not the Fenris twins. Very silly me, I am not worhy.

*forever ashamed*

I'm guessing the fact it was Strucker that made you think it was the Fenris Twins? Because otherwise your thought baffles me.

As to the twins powers, as Marvel can't even mention the word Mutant in their films due to Fox's rights I would assume there will be some genetic tampering mentioned. It came off like they were a decades long experiment for Strucker so I don't know how they'll handle it.

Was anyone else bothered by the fact that Strucker had Loki's staff? How did he get it? I assumed Thor took it but since we didn't see him with it, should we assume SHIELD had it and Hydra got it that way? That's a huge huge thing to just suddenly have.

Also I liked how when we first saw him, Sam was in green and yellow shorts, a (possibly unintentional) reference to his original costume.

Tragic Angelus wrote:I'm guessing the fact it was Strucker that made you think it was the Fenris Twins? Because otherwise your thought baffles me.

Yes, it was Strucker. Also, I didn't recognize that it was super speed. I thought the dude was teleporting. And that the girl had telekinesis. The red light should have been a sign for me.
I DID think "Well, that's strange, the Fenris twins don't have powers like that, and they only work when they touch hands".

As I said earlier: unworthy.

Tragic Angelus wrote:As to the twins powers, as Marvel can't even mention the word Mutant in their films due to Fox's rights I would assume there will be some genetic tampering mentioned. It came off like they were a decades long experiment for Strucker so I don't know how they'll handle it.

Was anyone else bothered by the fact that Strucker had Loki's staff? How did he get it? I assumed Thor took it but since we didn't see him with it, should we assume SHIELD had it and Hydra got it that way? That's a huge huge thing to just suddenly have.

I'd have to rewatch Thor 2 to answer that. Which reminds me I still need to get the DVDs for Iron Man 3 and Thor 2 to complete my Marvel collection.

I don't recall the staff being in Thor 2, but the Tesseract is. I don't see why Thor and the other Avengers would leave the staff with SHIELD to begin with. SHIELD tried to use the Tesseract to make next generation weapons and it acted as a homing beacon for Loki and his army to dial in and take it from them. So why leave them the staff that was another power source? Doesn't make sense to me.

Doesn't really make sense to me either. But, I'm willing to go with it just because of where it leaves us in the overall Marvel Movie Universe story - a group within Hydra have their hands on a recognisably dangerous device and have been learning and experimenting with it.

I currently think that the experiments that Strucker's Hydrea subset have been carrying out were tesseract/Pokey stick related. I'm guessing Marvel Studios are going to get around the mutant angle by suggesting that powers can be awakened terregen mist style with the power gems.

I agree. Or just switch to the term metahuman and leave it at that.

Question: We know the Tesseract is an infinity gem. Are we to believe the staff is another one, or a weapon powered by the Tesseract?

I was under the impression the latter was true but it's possible they're two different gems since Thanos have the staff to Loki to use.

I like the term metahuman. I think that's the term they used in the Wildstorm universe. The only issue with it is it doesn't distinguish between those born with powers and those who acquired them. I suppose though that you could always used the term, 'born metahuman' if you wanted.

I think they explained in Avengers that Loki's pokey stick had a piece of the tesseract in it rather than it being a separate infinity gem. That's what you're thinking as well isn't it?

I also think Marvel Studios would want to distinguish between the different gems with colour, since it makes it easier for the audience and sort of gives each gem a bit of personality.

I wonder what names they are going to come up with for the others, if they name them all.

We've got:

Light Blue - Tesseract - Space

Red - Aether - Power

http://marvel-movies.wikia.com/wiki/Infinity_Gauntlet

Guardians of the Galaxy will feature another one. I wonder which?

Yeah, I was thinking that the Staff and Tesseract were powered by the same Gem (Space), but you have the fact that the staff allowed Loki to take control of people when he touched it to them, possibly making it the Mind gem as well. So I wasn't really sure.

I was bummed they didn't try to tie the Time Gem into Winter Soldier, saying that's what Hydra had been using for years to keep the Winter Soldier frozen in time to keep him from aging. Sure they could say cryogenics, but maybe it was the Time Gem powering a cryogenic tomb he was placed in all those years. Oh well.

It was a good movie and definitely the best of the post-Avengers movies. Decent enough action and probably more story than in most other Marvel-movies.

XIII wrote: If I were to make a complain about it, it wouldn't be the predictability, it's more that the build-up of the The Winter Soldier does not make him threatening enough.

True. A friend of mine never read the comics and he also noted that the subtitular character got a bit shafted in this. Definitely not enough build-up on the threat that he's supposed to be.