Captain America: Civil War – BIG RANT and many plot spoilers inside (you should save your time and money and not see it now)

[farlaff]

JWeinCom said:

farlaff said:

I take none. And I really wanted to like this movie, especially after what TAoU was. But YOU do much a better job at getting points explained than the movie ever tries to, so my view stands.

The reason I do a better job of explaining things than the movie does is because... I'm not a movie.  I don't have to be exciting and engaging at all times, I don't have a plot to convey in a limited amount of time, I don't have to make sure my dialogue flows naturally, and so on.  I don't have to be the least bit subtle about it.  My only job is to explain it to you.  If Iron Man and Captain America sat their spitting out exposition, it would make for a really clunky and boring film.

But, I didn't have some special ability or anything that allowed me to get these points.  I think that they were all pretty easy inferences to make from the film.  It's far better when movies show you instead of telling you, and respect their audience enough to not bludgeon them with exposition.

Man, sorry to say that but you really lost a golden opportunity to take a compliment and just be nice about it. I'm happy you enjoyed the movie and can see your work at trying so hard to defend it, but it is just so bad it doesn't help your cause. And even though those conclusions of yours can indeed be drawn out from the picture, it simply is not what the movie has shown us.

I totally agree with the assertion that it's  better when movies show you instead of telling you, and respect their audience's intelligence. Movies are about the images and what you make of them. That's why I have always been critic of The Lord of the Rings cinema versions, for not trusting the public's intelligence and insisting in explaining what was obvious (like, some guys light the Beacons and someone shouts "the beacons are lit" - aargh). See some Brian de Palma movies like "Dressed to Kill" and "Blow Out" so you will get an idea of what I'm talking about.

But what you infer is really kind of a push. Let's recap a bit: you said I was "ignoring the fact that Tony and Cap shaking hands and agreeing to disagree wouldn't have solved much.  There were other forces at play.  If Iron Man says 'hey you're right Cap' then they're all fugitives from the law, and their are going to be a lot of people after then, not least of all the US government (Ross tends to be very stubborn on these things) and the Wakandan army (which has crazy technology and just had two national tragedy involving Avengers members).  Then the Avengers spend time running from the government instead of doing anything productive.  With 170 nations against them."

Of course that can be a reasonable way of thinking, especially if you try hard enough, and the fact that you seemed to imagine I needed that explanation for such a simpleton flick is kind of offensive. What you seem to not want to notice is that the movie itself doesn't create half the tention for your thesis to be sustained and doesn't do half the effort that you do to make us believe that the conflict is justified. THAT was just me trying to be nice with your will to debate, not any need from my side to get explanations.

Interpretation is free, I'll always defend that. Anyone sees what he/she wants to. But you are trying to give the movie a depth that it simply doesn't have.

Again, no offense.