Tone: This is THE Cap we have always wanted to see come to the big screen. He is larger than life. His exploits and adventures, perils and triumphs are sweeping, uplifting, broad, colorful, powerful, emotional, patriotic, and HEROIC! Cap is heroic. He is not a brooding mishmash of moral uncertainty killing everything in his path that stands against him. Cap is a force for good, untiring and unwavering. He believes in God! Country (the constitutional kind)! Truth and Justice! He seems old fashioned even in his time but his simplicity and willingness to act make him a born leader. This is the story of his birth in WWII, his becoming a legend, and his death and subsequent rebirth in present day.
The Cap I want to see is brutally honest about the horrors of war, the death, the destruction, the rape, the corruption on all sides. He fights wars because they need to be fought. Americans have a responsibility not to shirk from difficult tasks. We must not turn away from the face of evil but stare it down and stamp it out. Cap's victory is one of the spirit. No surrender, no capitulation, no compromise in the face of certain defeat or death.
My Cap has a pistol. My Cap kills in wartime. My Cap knows compassion for friend and foe alike. Into each dark hour, he steps not to save the day but to lead by example, to make others find strength they had given up on.
BEN: I don't know if I like the pistol idea. I feel like the original wouldn't have one. Although, ironically I feel he would pick up a Thompson and riddle Nazi's with bullets. Hmm. Perhaps it's the pistol of a commander? Paths of Glory has one of the most amazing battle scenes I've ever seen. Perhaps not so much what I saw, but what the platoon was doing, what odds they were running into and then the visuals on top of that-- amazing and terrifying. Kirk Douglas leads (literally) his men into battle blowing a whistle and waving his pistol.
RICK: The "pistol idea." I wasn't sure about it either at first. But we are talking about WWII. It is one of the darkest periods in U.S. and world history. The fate and very survival of all mankind was at stake.
Cap (Steve Rogers) would most likely hunt as a boy, be familiar with guns and shooting. Wanting to get into service would have spurred him further into target and game shooting. All the patriots in the American Revolution fired guns. The idea of Cap brandishing a pistol does seem a little bit out there when compared to the clean cut, boy scout ideal of Marvel. Realistically, It is not too practical to have Cap going into fierce combat without a firearm. Cap would kill as well. He would be the one taking out the artillery nest or pulling the pin and dropping the grenade into the tank. He is not Superman, too powerful to use a gun. He is not Batman, scarred by his parents' death, vowing not to use a gun. Cap is down in the trenches, in the dirt, slime, blood, guts, fear and despair. He does not kill at random and takes more prisoners than anyone in the army. He is compassionate, spending time with both American and German wounded.
Anybody can become a writer, but the trick is to STAY a writer.
-Harlan Ellison
Happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected.
- George Washington
Would Captain AMerica carry a gun. I argue that he would and Ben not so much. If you set this film in WWII will Cap be packing heat?
ReplyDelete