Falcon & Winter Soldier -- SPOILER THREAD

[Tsyroc]

NO ONE wants to recast Black Panther, unless it's Shari picking it up. That's already been announced.

I've seen one video where they are trying to push for the recasting of T'Challa because the character is too important to lose so soon. They don't necessarily want him to still be the Black Panther but to still have him around.

That seems to have died off pretty quickly so I'm thinking T'Challa isn't going to be recast.

[Tsyroc]

In the post Endgame world I'm waiting for Pym particles to become a major issue. (More stuff for Sharon Carter to get involved with.)

They were already important because of the growing and shrinking thing but now that they can be used in a form of time travel the dangers of just anyone having Pym particles has massively escalated, even with the science behind making the time travel work being extremely high level.

There's been enough time travel fiction about people/governments etc... trying to change the past to their liking. Perhaps Loki will be addressing this somewhat with the Time Variance Authority?

It's really turning out interesting that the MCU went with a 5 year gap for the blip. I think in the comics everyone was back much sooner. The 5 year gap really makes for a lot of chaos in the universe and certainly makes it difficult to keep the stories realistically relating to our world (aka "the world outside your door").

[LadyTevar]

Isn't it the "Global Resource Council" that was rounding up people and forcibly resettling them?

Yes. However, the majority of the GRC seems to be people who were "Blipped", so their answer was to placate the Blipped by giving them back their homes/jobs/lives, and moving the non-Blipped to 'settlements' until they could figure out what else to do.

So we have Refuge Camps... which are more like the Japanese Internment Camps. And just as with the Japanese Citizens of the US, some of them did NOT want to move. They'd been there for 2-4 years by that point. So there was a lot of resentment that THEY who survived are being pushed out by The Blipped.
And I'm betting it's not just Earth having that problem.

[Batman]

The situation could certainly have been handled better but those lives and homes and neighbourhoods and careers belonged to the Blipped because they were the ones who built them. Basically the Flag Smashers were angry they were kicked out of nests they had no part in making.

[Gandalf]

And that's what makes it interesting when examined postcolonially. The people who survived the blip built their new world on top of the remains of the previous one, and some fought to defend it. Similarly, countries like Australia and the US now exist on the lands of conquered First Nations people, and when said nations ask for their lands back, they're met with more than some resistance.

[Batman]

Aaah now I get what you're getting at

[GuppyShark]

The situation could certainly have been handled better but those lives and homes and neighbourhoods and careers belonged to the Blipped because they were the ones who built them. Basically the Flag Smashers were angry they were kicked out of nests they had no part in making.

The Blipped didn't build the world, the non-Blipped and Blipped did together. The non-Blipped then spent five years trying to put it back together again when the Blipped vanished.

Yeah, there would have been squatters, but also there would also have been people who legitimately purchased property with all the correct paperwork over the next five years, and that would still be a nightmare to sort out legally.

[LadyTevar]

Just for comparison:
The Black Death killed 1/3-1/2 of Europe. Entire *Towns* were left empty. There was a sudden shortage of laborers in all walks of life. So, a lot of the survivors suddenly became a lot better off, by taking over the empty spaces. There is a wealth of letters and complaints about servants demanding better pay or they'd leave, and they did. There's farmers who doubled their land by taking over a dead relative's, or just the neighbor next door. There were mass migrations of people to places that were offering good paying jobs. People started to prosper, because there was room to improve themselves. This fueled the "Enlightened Age" of the late 1600-1700s.

That is what happened with the UnBlipped -- a chance for total upwards-mobility. A start towards a new prosperity.
And then, everyone came back, and all the gains the UnBlipped had won crashed and they were now usurpers and squatters and refugees.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I guess Thanos was onto something after all, if he'd been selective in who got dusted things would have turned out very differently.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

[LadyTevar]

FrigidMagi doesn't post on here anymore, but he does have a website where he reviews Books and TV Shows.

He finally got around to seeing F&WS eps 1-3. He's former US Marine, and his take on John Walker is the best I've seen so far. Bolding is mine, because Frigid has yet to see the full show, but he's hit the nail on the head.

John Walker is the government-mandated Captain America 2.0: Blonde, blue-eyed, physically and mentally in the top 10 to 5% of humanity. A decorated soldier, a good friend, and a loyal husband... And walking proof that a government committee has no business picking Captain America. I had a friend tell me that John Walker is total butts and frankly he does seem widely hated as a character. Strangely, I don't hate John Walker, which is weird because I completely loathe the comic version. Instead, I take one look at John Walker and go 'oh no buddy you should not be in the field at all.' John Walker wants to do a good job, all his life all he's wanted was to do a good job and he's suffering for that. He's not emotionally stable nor is he mentally all there. In some ways, he almost seems to be tweaking as if the government doped him up with something before handing him the shield. Worse, he only seems to have two supports in his friend Lemar Hoskins, Battlestar, a fellow veteran who is tapped to be Cap 2.0's partner, and his wife, who he honestly doesn't seem to completely confide in. This is realistic - When you're a vet telling the person you love everything that happened on the battlefield is a hard ask. There are things you simply do not want them to know. You don't want them to know about the smell or the sounds or the aftermath. You don't want to risk that they'll look at you with that same flicker of doubt you see in the mirror sometimes. Lamar, having been part of his unit, was there and now provides extra support but you can't just have one pillar of support. What if it cracks? Or isn't there one day? I look at Walker and I see a guy who wants to be good but his whole idea of good is externally enforced and he's only now coming to grips with that. On top of that, he hasn't had a chance to come to grips with what he's already suffered or done. Whoever put John Walker in that damn suit did him no favor and may have set a perfectly decent man on the road to destruction. One thing though that Bucky and Sam can come together over is that Walker isn't fit to carry the shield and they want nothing to do with him. I can't blame them as Walker seems to breeze in and expect everyone to treat him as if Steve has returned from the dead and frankly when you're talking to veterans of a war against a Mad God? That ain't happening.

[Lord Revan]

Yeah from what I've seen Walker was pretty much the example as why Steve Rogers was picked over a more "traditional" soldier, where Rogers was a naturally good natured person, Walker isn't he's more of good because that's how people are suppose to be, but it doesn't quite come naturally to him.

He also has the "Good soldier follow orders" issue there where he is very rigid about follow the mission, yes but excellent soldier adapt order and don't just blindly follow them.

[Gandalf]

Given that point, I'm surprised that the US is even pursuing Captain Americas, as opposed to trying to make more in house Iron Men. In IM2 Iran and North Korea were considered to be about a decade away IIRC, so I would expect a production line of even basic ones to be running by now in the US.

[LadyTevar]

Given that point, I'm surprised that the US is even pursuing Captain Americas, as opposed to trying to make more in house Iron Men. In IM2 Iran and North Korea were considered to be about a decade away IIRC, so I would expect a production line of even basic ones to be running by now in the US.

The US plan had two MAJOR set-backs. FIRST, the test-suit broke the back of the soldier inside (IM2, mentioned again in Dr. Strange just before the car wreck). Then, Hammer was arrested and convicted for his role in releasing the Iron 'Bots (amongst other corp misdoings).

[Elheru Aran]

Yeah, the implication of IM2 was very much that Tony Stark was pretty much the only guy who could successfully create Iron Man type suits. At least after Whiplash died, anyway. Probably due to some bullshit like repulsor technology being exclusive to Stark or whatever. Hammer *could* probably have created powered armour... after a bunch of deaths/injuries, which would have been very bad PR.

It's quite possible that just after IM2, Stark might have sued the US government to prevent them from creating more powered armour suits. As for Iran and North Korea... easy, their tech just isn't on the US/Stark's level, and their projects fizzled without repulsors for small self-contained power supplies. Or maybe Tony just quietly paid them off to stop, who knows? Either way it seems to have been a non-issue after that point.

[Gandalf]

The US plan had two MAJOR set-backs. FIRST, the test-suit broke the back of the soldier inside (IM2, mentioned again in Dr. Strange just before the car wreck). Then, Hammer was arrested and convicted for his role in releasing the Iron 'Bots (amongst other corp misdoings).

The first test guy busted his spine, and Hammer left a whole bunch of working parts around after a major incident. But it would be odd for the US (or any other major power) government to stop there, given what's at stake, especially after the first Avengers film, and so much of Earth's defence is in the hands of Nick Fury's wacky team of misfits, the most useful one apparently being a more likeable Elon Musk.

The penchant for drones that we've seen over the last two decades should dovetail pretty well with Vanko's weird one man factory. It's a loose end that apparently nobody else is trying to make even the most basic versions of these suits, or drone versions thereof.

[Crazedwraith]

The US plan had two MAJOR set-backs. FIRST, the test-suit broke the back of the soldier inside (IM2, mentioned again in Dr. Strange just before the car wreck). Then, Hammer was arrested and convicted for his role in releasing the Iron 'Bots (amongst other corp misdoings).

The first test guy busted his spine, and Hammer left a whole bunch of working parts around after a major incident. But it would be odd for the US (or any other major power) government to stop there, given what's at stake, especially after the first Avengers film, and so much of Earth's defence is in the hands of Nick Fury's wacky team of misfits, the most useful one apparently being a more likeable Elon Musk.

The penchant for drones that we've seen over the last two decades should dovetail pretty well with Vanko's weird one man factory. It's a loose end that apparently nobody else is trying to make even the most basic versions of these suits, or drone versions thereof.

It's true it's a missed opportunity. On the other hand I believe one of the upcoming projects is an "Armour Wars" series with Rhodey which may follow up on it.

Otherwise I'd handwave it as Tony overestimating other people's changes of duplicating his work, or alternatively it's like comic book time, it's always 'ten years away'.

[Coop D'etat]

Even if they are building an Armor corps, Captain America is too potent a political and propaganda symbol to leave lying around. Look at how they tried to replicate some of that energy with the Iron Patriot rebranding.

As soon as Rogers was off the scene unable to enforce his own control of the symbolism, the institutions would be looking to horn in on his legacy. That's I think largely the point of the overarching plot of the series, the Captain America symbol is a weapon somebody is going to wield and Sam's original efforts to just bury it wasn't an option.

[Cykeisme]

Totally not canon, since this dialogue was only used in Robert Downey Jr's screen tests and never actually appeared in the film:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JH4B_ARJdcY

4:20 and 4:33 have some dialogue that are interesting, nevertheless, if we give ourselves the pleasure of assuming it gives us some insight into the intent of the same scriptwriter(s) who also wrote the final script.

[GuppyShark]

Thought that just occured to me. Giving Falcon a new suit was a real masterstroke from Wakanda. Now Captain America is reliant upon a Wakandan flight suit they can turn off at will (as they did to Bucky when he inconvenienced them).

[Batman]

This has been discussed upthread. Having seen what happened to Bucky Sam hopefully had someone (suggested were Professor Hulk or Hank Pym as Tony is out and Reed Richards isn't in yet and the Wakandans can't be trusted) check the suit for something like that and have it removed

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I found this part to be particularly prophetic:

Lamar, having been part of his unit, was there and now provides extra support but you can't just have one pillar of support. What if it cracks? Or isn't there one day?

And of course that's exactly what happens: Lamar gets killed and Walker goes crazy, takes the serum and beats some guy to death with the shield.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Spoiler

And Valentina Allegra de Fontaine pops up again at the end of Black Widow, setting up future conflicts...