D&D, CA: Civil War
Nov. 5th, 2016 11:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
schneefinkThis was the first D&D session in a while after which I didn't have the immediate urge to tell people about it. It was shorter than usual because we had to start later, and it would have been the ideal opportunity to introduce the new character of the player whose character died last session except the player wasn't there. Basically all we did was talk with two NPCs, find out some non-critical information, and then we stopped because it was late right when we would have had to roll initiative for the next encounter. Let's see how it goes next time, it'll depend on who'll be there to fight…
(At first I was pretty confident because my sorcerer is fully rested and we have some cool new weapons – among other things I Shrunk two trees and party members made arrows out of them, that'll probably do quite a lot of damage – but our opponent is likely aware of our abilities, she is very confident, very good at hiding among the trees, and has a mysterious magical weapon with an area effect…)
DD and I finally watched "Captain America: Civil War" today. We didn't expect it to be a good movie, and it wasn't. I don't even know where to start criticizing.
- Instead of being about two different ideologies/positions on an issue, the climactic fight was about "he killed my mom! Vengeance!" *facepalm* Completely separated from everything else the movie was about so far. Well, actually Tony just proved his own argument that the Avengers need supervision because they act on their own without jurisdiction. Tony knows this about himself and this is why he wanted supervision in the first place, because with good reason he doesn't trust himself the way Steve trusts himself and others.
- The arguing about the Accords was way too short on background details and it mixed too many way different situations together. The Avengers acting during the alien invasion of NYC or against Ultron, which are alien/supernatural threats that they are the only ones equipped to handle, is completely different from them fighting terrorist groups, which other authorities could do too. Why did they go after these terrorists in the first place?
What happened in Lagos was an accident, however, and having someone authorize the operation would not have changed anything. It's nice that Wanda and Steve feel guilty, but accidents happen. (By the way apparently everyone forgot that Wanda set the Hulk on an entire town last movie? She's forgiven just like that and it's not even mentioned?)
- Really, 117 countries agreed on the Accords in, what, a few weeks? And the Avengers hadn't even heard about it before it was finalized, so presumably neither has the public? Don't make me laugh.
- Where they doing a city bingo? No reason for them to place the action in so many different cities.
- The fight at the airport was so stupid and pointless. Tony has twelve more hours to bring Steve and Bucky and Sam in, so he has more than enough time to listen to them first. Steve needs to stop someone from releasing more evil super soldiers (he thinks) so he can't let himself be locked up, but for some reason he thinks Tony wouldn't understand that? He barely even tries! Later we even get proof when Tony tries to help. In twelve hours they could have flown to Siberia together twice and taken care of the threat. That fight was unnecessary, it was extremely dangerous and they're lucky "only" Rhodey was "only" paralyzed, and the property damage was enormous.
- Small detail, I think I saw a sign that the Russian underground supersoldier factory was in Oymyakon, that made me laugh. One of if not the coldest place on Earth, where the ground is permanently frozen, really?
- Another detail, one of the Soviet supersoldier candidates was black. That surprised me a lot, because black people are not that common in Russia and there's quite a lot of racism. However quick online research told me that apparently in Soviet Russia there was considerably less racism against black people than in the USA during that time, so it wouldn't have been that strange.
The movie had four black men in speaking roles, three of them with several scenes, and one black woman who had one line. Everyone else that I could see looked Caucasian, though two of them were supposed to be Sokovian, i.e. presumably Eastern European. No surprise that in the US, diversity means "mostly white, with a few black people," not to mention the male/female "balance." They had Martin Freeman for a two minute scene (at most), DD and I joked that they needed him to up the blond blue-eyed male Caucasian quota.
- Ant-man was pointless and not funny. Spider-Man was also pointless, but at least funny, we liked him.
- What exactly did Clint and Wanda and Ant-man think they were fighting for? Did Steve even have time to explain it to them?
- Wanda is extremely powerful, the only one on her level is Vision. That was some very awkward flirting, by the way, Vision in general is very strange, it was odd to see him in everyday clothes too. Yes Wanda house arrest is no fun, but don't you think you're overreacting? Remembering your background, no wonder they're careful.
- Steve and Sharon Carter was even more awkward and the kiss to me came out of nowhere.
- Has everyone forgotten that there is such a thing as a court system. Which handles people who committed crimes. Not secret underground prisons, or vigilantes. (DD pointed out that we don't know what the court system in Wakanda looks like, but everyone else…)
I couldn't even properly enjoy the action scenes because the set-up was always so bad. I think I'm mostly done with MCU canon by now, fic is at least ten times better anyway.
(At first I was pretty confident because my sorcerer is fully rested and we have some cool new weapons – among other things I Shrunk two trees and party members made arrows out of them, that'll probably do quite a lot of damage – but our opponent is likely aware of our abilities, she is very confident, very good at hiding among the trees, and has a mysterious magical weapon with an area effect…)
DD and I finally watched "Captain America: Civil War" today. We didn't expect it to be a good movie, and it wasn't. I don't even know where to start criticizing.
- Instead of being about two different ideologies/positions on an issue, the climactic fight was about "he killed my mom! Vengeance!" *facepalm* Completely separated from everything else the movie was about so far. Well, actually Tony just proved his own argument that the Avengers need supervision because they act on their own without jurisdiction. Tony knows this about himself and this is why he wanted supervision in the first place, because with good reason he doesn't trust himself the way Steve trusts himself and others.
- The arguing about the Accords was way too short on background details and it mixed too many way different situations together. The Avengers acting during the alien invasion of NYC or against Ultron, which are alien/supernatural threats that they are the only ones equipped to handle, is completely different from them fighting terrorist groups, which other authorities could do too. Why did they go after these terrorists in the first place?
What happened in Lagos was an accident, however, and having someone authorize the operation would not have changed anything. It's nice that Wanda and Steve feel guilty, but accidents happen. (By the way apparently everyone forgot that Wanda set the Hulk on an entire town last movie? She's forgiven just like that and it's not even mentioned?)
- Really, 117 countries agreed on the Accords in, what, a few weeks? And the Avengers hadn't even heard about it before it was finalized, so presumably neither has the public? Don't make me laugh.
- Where they doing a city bingo? No reason for them to place the action in so many different cities.
- The fight at the airport was so stupid and pointless. Tony has twelve more hours to bring Steve and Bucky and Sam in, so he has more than enough time to listen to them first. Steve needs to stop someone from releasing more evil super soldiers (he thinks) so he can't let himself be locked up, but for some reason he thinks Tony wouldn't understand that? He barely even tries! Later we even get proof when Tony tries to help. In twelve hours they could have flown to Siberia together twice and taken care of the threat. That fight was unnecessary, it was extremely dangerous and they're lucky "only" Rhodey was "only" paralyzed, and the property damage was enormous.
- Small detail, I think I saw a sign that the Russian underground supersoldier factory was in Oymyakon, that made me laugh. One of if not the coldest place on Earth, where the ground is permanently frozen, really?
- Another detail, one of the Soviet supersoldier candidates was black. That surprised me a lot, because black people are not that common in Russia and there's quite a lot of racism. However quick online research told me that apparently in Soviet Russia there was considerably less racism against black people than in the USA during that time, so it wouldn't have been that strange.
The movie had four black men in speaking roles, three of them with several scenes, and one black woman who had one line. Everyone else that I could see looked Caucasian, though two of them were supposed to be Sokovian, i.e. presumably Eastern European. No surprise that in the US, diversity means "mostly white, with a few black people," not to mention the male/female "balance." They had Martin Freeman for a two minute scene (at most), DD and I joked that they needed him to up the blond blue-eyed male Caucasian quota.
- Ant-man was pointless and not funny. Spider-Man was also pointless, but at least funny, we liked him.
- What exactly did Clint and Wanda and Ant-man think they were fighting for? Did Steve even have time to explain it to them?
- Wanda is extremely powerful, the only one on her level is Vision. That was some very awkward flirting, by the way, Vision in general is very strange, it was odd to see him in everyday clothes too. Yes Wanda house arrest is no fun, but don't you think you're overreacting? Remembering your background, no wonder they're careful.
- Steve and Sharon Carter was even more awkward and the kiss to me came out of nowhere.
- Has everyone forgotten that there is such a thing as a court system. Which handles people who committed crimes. Not secret underground prisons, or vigilantes. (DD pointed out that we don't know what the court system in Wakanda looks like, but everyone else…)
I couldn't even properly enjoy the action scenes because the set-up was always so bad. I think I'm mostly done with MCU canon by now, fic is at least ten times better anyway.
no subject
Date: 2016-11-05 10:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-11-05 11:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-11-05 11:32 pm (UTC)Captain Marvel's so far down the road I can't even see it, man.
no subject
Date: 2016-11-05 11:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-11-05 10:59 pm (UTC)Huh. That makes sense. Tony is absolutely someone happy to farm out the boring responsible tasks to someone else to do if it means he gets to keep having fun. I kept thinking it was weird that someone who basically wanted to privatise world peace, who wanted it out of government / military control so readily went along with the accords, but maybe Tony saw it as a superhero equivalent of getting Pepper to run the company -- frees him up for the fun things.
Also, I liked Antman. I mean, so nott necessary but I liked him.
no subject
Date: 2016-11-05 11:23 pm (UTC)I think they portrayed it as Tony having had a wake-up call when his Ultron experiment went so wrong that it destroyed a country. Even Tony realized that he went way too far, and I can see that being a catastrophe big enough that it would get him to agree to a certain amount of outside control. (And only about deployment - the Accords said nothing about giving anyone access to his technology.)
no subject
Date: 2016-11-06 11:31 am (UTC)I enjoyed this movie in the same way that I enjoyed the Transformers movies I saw. It was a fun ride while I was watching, but afterwards my logic circuits switched back on and went WAIT WHUT?
(Although my cynical side says it felt mostly like an 8 year old boy putting his toys on teams and making them fight each other.)
- Instead of being about two different ideologies/positions on an issue, the climactic fight was about "he killed my mom! Vengeance!" *facepalm* Completely separated from everything else the movie was about so far.
Yeah, I wanted a movie about accountability and responsibility, the questions of freedom for the individual vs. restriction for the good of society, and a whole bunch of other things that weren't even mentioned in the movie. ARGH.
no subject
Date: 2016-11-06 07:35 pm (UTC)The only fight that is actually about different approaches to a problem was about Barnes, when Steve and Sam interfered with the official operation (for some reason apparently German commando troops in Bucharest?) because the operation had orders to shoot to kill on sight, while Barnes was a) innocent of this particular crime, b) more importantly, Steve's friend. That was an example of exactly what Steve was afraid would happen, but it didn't even come up again in discussions. (Also, if he'd signed the Accords, he could have still done the same thing anyway and then there would have been a trial afterwards. It's not like signing the Accords would literally shackle him.)
I remember that after the movie came out fans had heated discussions on Tumblr about who was right, and they spent fifty times more time and energy on discussing the actual Accords than the movie did.
no subject
Date: 2016-11-06 09:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-11-06 10:42 pm (UTC)- fic research
- unbearable curiosity
- unfortunate undying attachment to the MCU characters
- the airport fight has a few funny Spider-Man moments
- Sam Wilson has one or two nice scenes, and there is very short but good Rhodey h/c.
That is all. Forget about the rest. They fridged Peggy Carter.
no subject
Date: 2016-11-13 04:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-11-16 11:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-05 10:56 pm (UTC)I'm definitely suffering from franchise fatigue for the MCU, which is a shame since I really, really enjoyed it at one point.
no subject
Date: 2017-01-05 11:10 pm (UTC)I hope the Black Panther and Captain Marvel movies will be good, but other than that I will only watch another MCU movie if the reviews are truly excellent (and that would surprise me.)
no subject
Date: 2017-01-05 11:20 pm (UTC)What was the core idea that interested you most, if I may ask?
no subject
Date: 2017-01-05 11:33 pm (UTC)I was interested in the "outside control" question: who does Captain America answer to, now that SHIELD is gone? But it's kind of... You have the dramatic version, which gives you movies, and the non-dramatic version, which is that Steve Rogers is a citizen of the United States and subject to the same laws every other citizen is, and so are most of the Avengers. Bucky should get a trial.
Wanda and the Hulk are the most interesting cases here because they're both too powerful to put in prison, but while Bruce seems relatively stable and therapists could confirm that, Wanda is... not, so what do you do with her? (Also not a US citizen, which makes it extra complicated, because I'm sure other countries would not be happy of the US being given custody of her, but otoh nobody can really tell her no.)
no subject
Date: 2017-01-05 11:40 pm (UTC)