Patterico's Pontifications

3/24/2011

Captain America Trailer

Filed under: General — Aaron Worthing @ 5:19 am



[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.  Or by Twitter @AaronWorthing.]

Update: Ugh, first the video didn’t work. Then when I fixed it, it turned out that the player launched automatically, which is annoying. But I replaced it with a youtube version that behaves itself. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Consider this a palate cleanser.  I have been leery about this movie, but this trailer makes it start to look good.

A few months back the director of the movie said this about the new Captain America: “He’s a guy that wants to serve his country, but he’s not a flag-waver. We’re reinterpreting, sort of, what the comic book version of Steve Rogers was.”  And more than a few conservatives gnashed their teeth at that, believing that they were trying to water down the patriotism.  But I stayed out of that, because of two things.  First, I wanted to see the finished product before I judged it.  Second, as patriotic as I am, sometimes Captain America could be a bit much…

Too much of anything can be a bad thing, and so I felt that the director might have just been talking about that.

Of course we still haven’t seen the full finished product, but here’s what you do see in the ad.  You see a young man who so badly wants to serve and defend his country he was willing to risk his body in a scientific experiment, and then goes on to put his life on the line for his country.  How much more demonstratively patriotic do you need him to be?

We can and should be concerned that our movies are being watered down in their support for this country and American values, generally, or that directors would feel pressure not to call out evil by name.  For instance this report indicates that the desire for Chinese money led the people remaking Red Dawn to change the villains from the Chinese to the Koreans.  As in, after the fact they used computer trickery to change the Chinese flags into Korean ones.  And sure, I haven’t seen the finished product on that, either, but the report doesn’t really leave a lot of ambiguity on their intentions–unless the report is inaccurate.

(Update: I am not saying that the original movie had the Chinese as the bad guys. I am saying that they shot this remake originally with the Chinese as the bad guys and then changed it after the fact. Sorry if I was unclear on this point.)

Ironically that means the new Red Dawn has the same plot of this recently released video game, Homefront (warning: it’s allegedly not very good, and the single player campaign is criminally short).

And it is worth noting that the script in Homefront was written by one of the minds behind Red Dawn.

We should be concerned about this cultural shift.  Hollywood has already gone as far as to create propaganda in the war on terror that drove a terrorist to kill American soldiers.  But we should be careful not to jump to conclusions, either.

——————-

P.S.: I am sure you noticed the reference to “Mr. Stark” in the ad. This is part of their ongoing strategy to set up an Avengers movie.

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]

18 Responses to “Captain America Trailer”

  1. ugh, video looks broken. let me try to fix…

    Aaron Worthing (e7d72e)

  2. I remember that movie. The bad guys were Soviets, Cubans, East Germans, etc – NOT Chinese.

    Amphipolis (b120ce)

  3. Actually one of the more sympathetic characters, in that film, was Ron O’Neal’s Cuban advisor.

    narciso (a3a9aa)

  4. Amphipolis, Aaron said that they changed the remake in post-production, NOT that the original featured Chinese as the bad guys.

    Icy Texan (a6f2b4)

  5. Well said.

    DohBiden (984d23)

  6. well, not quite well said, because you guys misunderstood me. when i said originally the chinese were the bad guys, i meant the original version of THIS REMAKE. of course originally in the cult classic, the bad guys were the soviets.

    Aaron Worthing (e7d72e)

  7. Anyway, updated the post to further clarify.

    Aaron Worthing (e7d72e)

  8. Yes, the original Red Dawn had Russians and Cubans as the main villains, but not the Chinese. In fact, the F-15 pilot who was shot down and joined the Wolverine militia says that the Chinese were actually allies of the US because they too were victims of the new war.

    “Who’s on our side?”

    “Half a billion screaming Chinamen.”

    “I thought there were a billion of them?”

    “There were….”

    EC (dda60e)

  9. That’s a good trailer, and Imma let you finish, but this is the best Captain America trailer of all time…

    OF ALL TIME!

    Possible NSFW due to a certain word.

    Scott Jacobs (d027b8)

  10. Libertas saw the uncut movie, so you should check out their post on it.

    http://tinyurl.com/624ormn

    Patricia (a2a157)

  11. This is on my “must-see” list for the summer. Joe Johnston did a good job on an earlier period piece called The Rocketeer – and now it looks like he has taken what he learned from that and taken this film to the next level.

    Brotherico (41d24a)

  12. Trailer looks very very very very good.

    deepelemblues (a78b16)

  13. I just realized something. In the Libertas review, it says the main motivation for the Chinese (before alteration) attack on the US was to “collect on debts”. Now that the film has undergone an edit to remove all traces of Chinese involvement and replaced with North Koreans, what is the reason for the NK’s attack? The producers would have to remove the other bit about debt collection if they want this to make sense.

    What a clusterfark.

    EC (b9a02c)

  14. brotherico

    oh, he did rocketeer? i enjoyed that. and it gave us jennifer connolly. yum.

    Aaron Worthing (e7d72e)

  15. This may expose me as an aging geek, but the soldiers backing Cap are Nick Fury and his commandos.

    Kevin M (73dcc9)

  16. I thought they would make Captain America into a charlie sheenesque character complete with tigerblood.

    DohBiden (984d23)

  17. What would most of us do without the brilliant strategies you share on this blog? Who has the perseverance to deal with vital topics just for common subscribers like me? I actually and my friends are very happy to have your web blog among the ones we regularly visit. Hopefully you know how a great deal we appreciate your work! Best wishes coming from us all.

    panties (b37956)

  18. I’m not sure where you’re getting your info, but great topic. I needs to spend some time learning much more or understanding more. Thanks for excellent information I was looking for this info for my mission.

    text message marketing (702d9c)


Powered by WordPress.

Page loaded in: 0.0899 secs.