You own Marvel comics (RAR!)

[Gandalf]

I think I'd keep the HYDRA influence, but implicitly rather than explicitly. The Robert Redford guy doesn't have to actually say "Hail HYDRA" to be an evil dickhead who tries to abuse SHIELD's powers. Zola the '70s supercomputer upload doesn't have to have been secretly building a HYDRA conspiracy inside SHIELD to have had a disturbing amount of influence over SHIELD's evolution into what it is today. You could pretty much keep the plot and change the flavor and still get the desired result.

Exactly. Fear makes people stupid. But making them members (or associates?) of a specific organisation is needless. The clash becomes factional rather than ideological.

I mean, Fury already has characterization that he will reject solutions that involve collateral damage or Hydra-esque "tyranny through technology," as demonstrated by his reaction to the Shadowy Council ordering his forces to nuke New York during Avengers. Making Fury the villain in a story where SHIELD suddenly goes crazy and starts planning to kill people with floaty death platforms then takes that characterization and burns it.

He didn't seem fussed about turning everyone's mobile phones into a surveillance network in Avengers, so he can't be too averse to using technology for tyrannical purposes.

Also, I thought the point of the floating death platforms was that they didn't have a lot of collateral damage, kind of like the promises made about the US' various modern tools of war. At any rate, given that the idea of collateral damage would distract from the central question of "We can identify a lot of potential villains, and bump them before they can get anywhere near anything." Oddly, Insight would have stopped Stark before he could go on to build Ultron and get a whole lot of people killed. So that's something.

Having Black Widow be on the side of, um, bad SHIELD instead of good SHIELD at first would be a good idea, though. Because conflicting, ambiguous loyalties is entirely how her characterization works and playing it up is almost always advantageous.

An idea I had long after I wrote the posts above was to have Insight not revolve a comic book version of the American drone regime, but something more like SHIELD having hit squads (led by Winter Soldier and Black Widow) going around shooting various potential villains. Winter Soldier is there for the pay, and Black Widow's idealism has led her to see this as the better choice, lest another potentially world ending invasion occur. That could even set up Civil War a bit. A much cheaper film, but fucked if I can think of that act III setpiece.

[Simon_Jester]

I mean, Fury already has characterization that he will reject solutions that involve collateral damage or Hydra-esque "tyranny through technology," as demonstrated by his reaction to the Shadowy Council ordering his forces to nuke New York during Avengers. Making Fury the villain in a story where SHIELD suddenly goes crazy and starts planning to kill people with floaty death platforms then takes that characterization and burns it.

He didn't seem fussed about turning everyone's mobile phones into a surveillance network in Avengers, so he can't be too averse to using technology for tyrannical purposes.

I don't think that's a valid argument.

Fury was turning cell phones into a surveillance network because Loki was on the loose, having already stolen a tremendous power source and already boasting of his intent to conquer the world. Remember his quote? "How desperate am I? You threaten my world with war, you steal a force you can't hope to control, you talk about peace, and you kill 'cause it's fun. You have made me very desperate. You might not be glad that you did."

I can't just assume that what people do when they're desperate to stop an overpowering threat is exactly the same as what they're comfortable with doing by default. Or that a willingness to commandeer huge resources to prevent alien conquest of the Earth is identical to a willingness to rule the Earth as a tyrant. These are just not the same thing.

Fury had the opportunity to decide whether to be "good SHIELD" or "bad SHIELD" in the climax of the first Avengers movie, and he chose 'good.' He rejected the idea of nuking Manhattan to stop the alien invasion, to the point of openly breaking with his own command structure. He simply does not show the sign of wanting SHIELD to be an organization that dominates the world. He wants power, yes, but there are good reasons for him to want that power- because he's responsible for defending against threats that mere bullets are useless against. He's dealing with enemies out of science fiction and high fantasy, and he needs science-fictional tools to cope with that, and he doesn't show much sign of desiring technological power except as an instrumental good.

I don't think it would be good art to pretend that an organization like SHIELD, or a leader like Nick Fury, is bad by definition. The problem with such organizations is the tremendous potential for abuse, not just the fact that the organization exists in the first place. Remember, the alternative is a sort of superheroic feudalism, and that has its own problems (like trying to let Tony Stark privatize world peace, which eventually led to Ultron).

Also, I thought the point of the floating death platforms was that they didn't have a lot of collateral damage, kind of like the promises made about the US' various modern tools of war. At any rate, given that the idea of collateral damage would distract from the central question of "We can identify a lot of potential villains, and bump them before they can get anywhere near anything." Oddly, Insight would have stopped Stark before he could go on to build Ultron and get a whole lot of people killed. So that's something.

The target list for Insight was in the many thousands, if not the millions. And the system works by firing cannons from aerial battleships. It's not a particularly pinpoint vehicle of assassination. Of course...

Having Black Widow be on the side of, um, bad SHIELD instead of good SHIELD at first would be a good idea, though. Because conflicting, ambiguous loyalties is entirely how her characterization works and playing it up is almost always advantageous.

An idea I had long after I wrote the posts above was to have Insight not revolve a comic book version of the American drone regime, but something more like SHIELD having hit squads (led by Winter Soldier and Black Widow) going around shooting various potential villains. Winter Soldier is there for the pay, and Black Widow's idealism has led her to see this as the better choice, lest another potentially world ending invasion occur. That could even set up Civil War a bit. A much cheaper film, but fucked if I can think of that act III setpiece.

That very thing I just said actually makes this a promising idea.

Alternatively, you can just do both- have Black Widow and Winter Soldier going around killing people, and Cap moving to stop them, and the Insight superweapons are a looming threat in the background.

[Gandalf]

I don't think that's a valid argument.

Fury was turning cell phones into a surveillance network because Loki was on the loose, having already stolen a tremendous power source and already boasting of his intent to conquer the world. Remember his quote? "How desperate am I? You threaten my world with war, you steal a force you can't hope to control, you talk about peace, and you kill 'cause it's fun. You have made me very desperate. You might not be glad that you did."

I can't just assume that what people do when they're desperate to stop an overpowering threat is exactly the same as what they're comfortable with doing by default. Or that a willingness to commandeer huge resources to prevent alien conquest of the Earth is identical to a willingness to rule the Earth as a tyrant. These are just not the same thing.

Fury had the opportunity to decide whether to be "good SHIELD" or "bad SHIELD" in the climax of the first Avengers movie, and he chose 'good.' He rejected the idea of nuking Manhattan to stop the alien invasion, to the point of openly breaking with his own command structure. He simply does not show the sign of wanting SHIELD to be an organization that dominates the world. He wants power, yes, but there are good reasons for him to want that power- because he's responsible for defending against threats that mere bullets are useless against. He's dealing with enemies out of science fiction and high fantasy, and he needs science-fictional tools to cope with that, and he doesn't show much sign of desiring technological power except as an instrumental good.

I don't think it would be good art to pretend that an organization like SHIELD, or a leader like Nick Fury, is bad by definition. The problem with such organizations is the tremendous potential for abuse, not just the fact that the organization exists in the first place. Remember, the alternative is a sort of superheroic feudalism, and that has its own problems (like trying to let Tony Stark privatize world peace, which eventually led to Ultron).

Fury was amassing power for SHIELD before Loki showed up in Avengers, as this dialogue (concerning their Hydra weapon stockpile) shows.

"Last year Earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge mass that leveled a small town. We learned that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly, hilariously outgunned."
"My people want nothing but peace with your planet."
"But you're not the only people out there, are you? And, you're not the only threat. The world's filling up with people who can't be matched, that can't be controlled."
"Like you controlled the cube? Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it, and his allies. It is the signal to all the realms that the earth is ready for a higher form of war."
"A higher form?"
"You forced our hand.We had to come up with something."

After Avengers, Fury (and whoever else makes decisions) has to deal with the reality that the next Loki shaped problem might appear at any second. Maybe two or three show up simultaneously. He doesn't know. He can't know. Loki only lost because he really wasn't very good at what he did. So while nuking New York City might have been a few steps too far to stop the invasion (at least while the Avengers were there), there's a whole lot of grey between your "good/bad SHIELD" binary. Then what does this fear look like after a few years? I would write this story as that fear taking its toll on Fury, SHIELD, et al. Cap would save the day not through just punching things, but by refusing to give into that fear. Maybe Senator Larry Sanders could be an almost McCarthyist figure.

But I just realised my version of this story is going to be about three hours long, have maybe two fight scenes, and depend entirely on the acting ability of Chris Evans and Samuel J Jackson.

Batman v Superman dealt with this idea way better;

"Nothing's changed."
"Oh. Yes it has, sir. Everything's changed. Men fall from the sky, and gods hurl thunderbolts. Innocents die. That's how it starts; the fever, the rage, the feeling of powerlessness that turns good men... cruel."

[Simon_Jester]

Fury was amassing power for SHIELD before Loki showed up in Avengers, as this dialogue (concerning their Hydra weapon stockpile) shows.

"Last year Earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge mass that leveled a small town. We learned that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly, hilariously outgunned."
"My people want nothing but peace with your planet."
"But you're not the only people out there, are you? And, you're not the only threat. The world's filling up with people who can't be matched, that can't be controlled."
"Like you controlled the cube? Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it, and his allies. It is the signal to all the realms that the earth is ready for a higher form of war."
"A higher form?"
"You forced our hand.We had to come up with something."

Fury was amassing power in the form of futuristic ray guns and missiles, which present a totally different order of problem than mass surveillance.

Mass surveillance doesn't make aliens think about invading. Correspondingly, futuristic ray guns and missiles don't actually do much to enhance your power to oppress people if you already had machine guns and bazookas.

After Avengers, Fury (and whoever else makes decisions) has to deal with the reality that the next Loki shaped problem might appear at any second. Maybe two or three show up simultaneously. He doesn't know. He can't know. Loki only lost because he really wasn't very good at what he did. So while nuking New York City might have been a few steps too far to stop the invasion (at least while the Avengers were there), there's a whole lot of grey between your "good/bad SHIELD" binary. Then what does this fear look like after a few years? I would write this story as that fear taking its toll on Fury, SHIELD, et al. Cap would save the day not through just punching things, but by refusing to give into that fear. Maybe Senator Larry Sanders could be an almost McCarthyist figure.

But I just realised my version of this story is going to be about three hours long, have maybe two fight scenes, and depend entirely on the acting ability of Chris Evans and Samuel J Jackson.

See, I can work with this, my main objection is simply that Fury has mixed characterization on the "running a security organization makes you into a tyrant" trope. He is not unambiguously a fascist or totalitarian figure in any meaningful sense, he has shown in the most concrete way possible that he's willing to take the ethical road rather than the "damn the collateral damage, make us safe again!" road.

And in a real sense, writing him falling down that slippery slope wastes something valuable about the character. At least to me. I feel like it's oversimplification to say "all security officials go down this slippery slope" rather than, say, "some go down the slope, and others go along for the ride out of misplaced loyalty, and others resist going down the slope because they actually do believe in stuff like individual rights and even an organization like the CIA or the NSA doesn't consist entirely of people who believe people don't have rights.

Batman v Superman dealt with this idea way better;

"Nothing's changed."
"Oh. Yes it has, sir. Everything's changed. Men fall from the sky, and gods hurl thunderbolts. Innocents die. That's how it starts; the fever, the rage, the feeling of powerlessness that turns good men... cruel."

Yes, but on the other hand it did kind of screw up Batman's characterization by turning him into a torturer. And into an anti-Superman zealot so determined that he didn't really stop to think about the wisdom of his actions. Batman went too far in that movie, much more so than Superman, and it was kind of a necessity in order to set up the conflict in the first place.

[Darth Yan]

Winter Soldier stuff

How would you end that film and keep the security/liberty ambiguity intact? Or would you still have Cap come down on the side of liberty while keeping the villians ambiguous somehow?

Off the top of my head;

I'd make SHIELD (Nick Fury, Black Widow, Redford guy) the villain, as opposed to having Hydra be some sort of evil presence within the otherwise benevolent SHIELD. Make it clear from the start that following the events of Avengers, people are fucking terrified and are planning against all sorts of unexpectable things, going so far as to look at the old "Operation Paperclip" stuff from when they scoured Nazi Germany for science to use against communists.

SHIELD's universal surveillance that everyone was so nonchalant about in Avengers is more of a permanent presence, and that surveillance will help them decide who to shoot with the floating death platforms (so no Hydra algorithm). I'd do this with a scene that shows how they could have identified Selvig before he became an instrumental part of Loki's scheme, or Vanko before he did whatever he did, and so on. Winter Soldier himself would have been just Captain America for the USSR, someone who they sent around the world to shoot people who needed shooting. Since the fall of the USSR he's something of a nihilistic mercenary as opposed to a perpetually brainwashed goon.

I would have Winter Soldier and Captain America team up to take down SHIELD and their new death platforms. They've each taken on a little of each other's idealism/pragmatism and decided that "burn it all down" is the best idea. Various people go to trial. No Hydra necessary.

Except the thing about fascism is that all to often it tricks you into thinking it's benevolent and noble when really it couldn't care less. It also ignores that no not every "well intentioned extremist" is genuine. Some are just power crazed monsters who would let the world burn if they can't get power. I think a lot of people forget that. Having Hydra as the bad guys demonstrates that no the "greater good" angle is a load of crap. It also kinda ignores how Black Widow is trying to redeem herself and wouldn't just go into being an assassin like that (she already did that for the russians and felt horrible for it) and as said before Fury.

Also as I said before the "Security" side of the debate really just wants power rather than genuine security; at the same time it's fun to just have villains who are evil.

[Gandalf]

Fury was amassing power in the form of futuristic ray guns and missiles, which present a totally different order of problem than mass surveillance.

Mass surveillance doesn't make aliens think about invading. Correspondingly, futuristic ray guns and missiles don't actually do much to enhance your power to oppress people if you already had machine guns and bazookas.

Considering that in the same scene I quoted the phrases "weapons of mass destruction" and "nuclear deterrent" come up, I think there's more to it than their PG friendly rifles. The events of Thor led to SHIELD making some bigger guns. So the events of The Avengers should make SHIELD to get all of the funding in the universe, like a comic book powered version of the War on Terror.

See, I can work with this, my main objection is simply that Fury has mixed characterization on the "running a security organization makes you into a tyrant" trope. He is not unambiguously a fascist or totalitarian figure in any meaningful sense, he has shown in the most concrete way possible that he's willing to take the ethical road rather than the "damn the collateral damage, make us safe again!" road.

And in a real sense, writing him falling down that slippery slope wastes something valuable about the character. At least to me. I feel like it's oversimplification to say "all security officials go down this slippery slope" rather than, say, "some go down the slope, and others go along for the ride out of misplaced loyalty, and others resist going down the slope because they actually do believe in stuff like individual rights and even an organization like the CIA or the NSA doesn't consist entirely of people who believe people don't have rights.

If this was the Nick Fury film, I'd be inclined to agree with you somewhat and make him the lone voice of good amongst the muck of vulgar utilitarianism. But since it's Cap's film, Fury gets to be part of the wider cast, playing the role of the pragmatist for Cap's unstoppable idealism. At the same time, Winter Soldier's nihilism and Black Widow's idealism (which is different to Cap's) would all play off one another. Captain America and Black Widow both believe strongly in what they're doing, and for Fury represent different ways of being King of SHIELD. At the same time Robert Redford voices the concerns of the billions of people who aren't privy to the intricacies of these events, who see the Battle of New York the same way everyone saw the events of 11/9; bad amateur footage.

I really just hate it when characters agree on things beyond the most basic. Everyone wants Earth to be safe, but none can agree on how.

Yes, but on the other hand it did kind of screw up Batman's characterization by turning him into a torturer. And into an anti-Superman zealot so determined that he didn't really stop to think about the wisdom of his actions. Batman went too far in that movie, much more so than Superman, and it was kind of a necessity in order to set up the conflict in the first place.

That was what made it so great. He was so fucked up by what happened that he stopped being the Batman for a while, and through Superman's death at the end came redemption. Superman died that heroism might live.

[Simon_Jester]

Fury was amassing power in the form of futuristic ray guns and missiles, which present a totally different order of problem than mass surveillance.

Mass surveillance doesn't make aliens think about invading. Correspondingly, futuristic ray guns and missiles don't actually do much to enhance your power to oppress people if you already had machine guns and bazookas.

Considering that in the same scene I quoted the phrases "weapons of mass destruction" and "nuclear deterrent" come up, I think there's more to it than their PG friendly rifles.

Yes, but that's why I mentioned "and missiles."

SHIELD's weapons are already quite powerful and they show little sign of having used them oppressively to threaten rather than to protect the world. All stronger weapons prove that they're tooling up to fight stronger foes. Using them as evidence that Fury had aspirations to turn SHIELD into the secret police of a surveillance state or something strikes me as making an awful lot of soup from a very small oyster.

So the events of The Avengers should make SHIELD to get all of the funding in the universe, like a comic book powered version of the War on Terror.

Perhaps so- but funding to do what? Who asks for what kind of support, and where do they get it from? I think the idea of SHIELD fragmenting along the lines of "we're an international army that fights supervillains and alien armies" versus "we're the spy agency that watches everyone, all the time because you never know who might need to be controlled become a threat!"

Pretty much my entire position here reduces simply to "making Fury unambiguously a leader of the 'spy agency' side of this debate constitutes a major missed opportunity."

[Gandalf]

Pretty much my entire position here reduces simply to "making Fury unambiguously a leader of the 'spy agency' side of this debate constitutes a major missed opportunity."

Yeah, mine boils down to seeing Fury as little more than a portable authority figure for the MCU, so I'm largely trying to set him against Captain America so they can play off each other.

That said, an MCU Nick Fury film might be neat.

[Simon_Jester]

I feel like just because he doesn't get his own movie doesn't mean he can't or shouldn't have characterization. Black Widow doesn't have her own movie (yet) either, but she's got very definite characterization from appearing prominently in other characters' movies.

If Nick Fury exists purely to be an authoritative cardboard cutout, then that's a bad thing, not a good thing.

[MKSheppard]

As an addition, I'd also take advantage of Captain America having been from the age of FDR, and have him liken the actions of SHIELD to similar people in his own time whose fear overrode their good judgement.

Steven Harvey Rodgers was active during the latter stages of WWII, where we were firebombing cities to the ground with B-29s, so try again.

[Simon_Jester]

It happened. It doesn't mean he likes it.