Emails #25: Tempering the Steel

RICK: I had this shot in my head where Cap and Red Skull are fighting on the wing on a German biplane...

Okay, this has no budget. So live a little.

BEN: Wow, now that's going back to early cinema! I think the unfortunate thing with the first Spider-Man film was that Spidey and Gobby didn't actually have many scenes together. Gobs asks Spidey to join forces? Why? Is he Darth Vader? They (sorta) try to convey that time has passed and they've had time to build a rapport, but it's pretty flimsy. Not to mention, when Spidey finally does a little trash talk, it's the climax and isn't supported in the rest of the film. Anyhow, with that in mind I'd want to have enough motivation for Skull to really hate Cap-- I mean, it has to be personal. That would likely mean that Cap has to humiliate him. Real good. Creating a real conflict between two foes is really tough in a origin film since they probably won't have too many scenes together-- you have to spend time on the hero especially since Skull didn't have anything to do with Cap's creation. Skull is Cap's right of passage. Cap defeats him in WWII, but just. And Skull makes him pay by killing Bucky. Essentially, Cap thinks that he's an adult now, but nope. He's not a man until he defeats the guilt. And Skull.

I am starting to wonder if maybe we aren't trying too hard. There was a very simple movie called Time After Time. HG Wells creates a time machine and chases Jack the Ripper through to the present day. Catch me if you can!

Isn't it humiliating enough that Red Skull is on the losing side of the War?

Emails #24: The Black Wall

Steve Rogers sees a group of vets kneeling at a wall. He goes to talk to them. It is the Vietnam War Memorial- a black wall listing the fallen from that war.

BEN: I like that. He should probably walk through the cemetery of foreign wars first, the familiar, then to the unfamiliar.

RICK: Or... From older to present day to tie them together by association.

Steve Rogers is sitting at a bar knocking back shots of Kentucky Bourbon. A group a tough looking bikers come in. "That your bike out front?!"

Cap fights with bikers. Cap befriends bikers who turn out to be vets from wars he knows nothing about. It is battle which binds them. Each in turn feels betrayed and let down by their country, the people. Caps understands this... I think this kind of scene is kind of cliche, but I totally like the idea behind it.

Emails #23: He Licks the Blood From the Blade

Red Skull pops an expensive bottle of French champagne. He sits at a table heaped with caviar, lobsters, shrimp and a roasted pig with an apple in its mouth. On each arm are hot German fashion models sporting chains and collars and red flowing evening gowns. They are snorting cocaine and licking the leather of his Nazi uniform. He is surrounded by industrial big wigs and their coke snorting, eye candy mistresses. All are laughing.

"There is money to be made gentlemen, untold piles of it. A candidate for President that I have hand picked for you. The initial startup money of two billion dollars each will be repaid a hundred times over in the first year." Red Skull lights and puffs on a cigar for emphasis. "This alliance shall be known as the Red Axis. Do I have your attention gentlemen?" Applause and laughter.

"What about Captain America? Reports indicate that he has also been reanimated."

"Captain America is a symbol of an older time, a simpler time. A symbol who has outlived his usefulness and no longer has the power to inspire." Red Skull draws a Luger pistol and fires a clean shot through the head of the man who posed the question. The revelry stops. "No more talk about Captain America. He's washed up..."

Red Skull gets up from the table and all eyes follow him. "There is only one true superman, one master race, one destiny. Join me now or join him." He draws and throws a knife into the chest of the fearful man next to the guy who spoke up. He puts a boot on the guy's chest and pulls the knife out. He licks the blood from the blade.

Emails #22: Cap: American Style

LOVE AMERICAN STYLE

"Cap, your feet are icy cold."

"I have been suspended in a block of ice for fifty years."

"Maybe this will help break the ice..." Kisses Cap full on the mouth then again more passionately.

"Call me Steve."

Hahaha... good one.

---

Rick and I continue our sketching of a spec film outline using our previous concepts and ask more burning questions about how we'd write a Cap film! Read on, we have a question for YOU!* -Ben

Act II

(continued)

Pinch 1

• Cap is used as a celebrity, finds conflict with that. He has "handlers" ushering him everywhere. He rides in limos.
• Starts to save people (against orders)
• New President is almost too good to be true.

Midpoint

• 9/11 or like event. Pres takes war powers
• Red Skull returns. Says terrorists are poo compared to the master race. (maybe make him the right hand of the world ruling society.)
• Cap starts to patrol DC and leaves Marvel for Bucky to oversee...
• Cap is called back to military service.
• Pres. suspends Habeas Corpus in the name of security. Government has imprisoned "domestic terrorists."

Emails #21: Sweet Land of Liberty

This is an example of how Rick and I began work on a film outline. It's an incomplete sketching out of events as well as questions. Although it's incomplete you'll see many of the musings you've read over the last two months begin to gel together. Remember, I'm green while Rick's notes are blue. -Ben

ACT I

• Cap’s WWII battlefield entrance
• Cap participates in or a news reel tells of Normandy
• Cap fights with the men

Flashback to...

• Cap’s Creation Myth(s)
  
• Red Skull’s Creation Myth(s)
• Cap meets Bucky
  

Return to current time...

• Cap on battlefield
• Cap flag waving scene

Plot Point 1:

• Cap’s Frozen Vegetable Entree (by fate or intention?)

Emails #20: Frozen Vegetable Entrée

Cap takes the flag from an injured soldier and rallies the troops.

Cap on the top of a hill standing proudly with the flag. The sound of explosions and gunfire are loud. He is calm, steady. Smoke wafts passed him. Tumultuous clouds roil behind him. Black smoke rises in the distance.; An explosion blasts in the near distance. Tracers spray through the air glowing in the twilight.

"For freedom! For liberty! For justice!" He waves the flag and plunges headlong toward the enemy... original post

In some films, like Superman Returns, the perspective changes slightly to where the hero is watched from afar, then we join him, then we watch from afar... Do you see us doing that here? I ask because the flag waving scene would only work if it was from Cap's POV. (He sees the guy go down.) I'm thinking we should sometimes take the POV of other soldiers so we can feel some of the honor and respect they feel for Cap. If we cut away from Cap and see a wide master of the battlefield, some shots among the soldiers and then we're with the kid as he goes down. We can experience the scene from his POV and feel some of what he feels being hoisted up by Cap. Those are the parts of Superman Returns that choke me up. I saw him fly through the city from the POV of people on the street and got choked up! How long I had waited to see that!

In Highlander the movie, there was a scene cut where Connor finds a little girl and he blows a Nazi away. (She ages into the old lady who works for him.) Connor was very cool and even had a one-liner. Do you see Cap as being like this or perhaps more somber? I mean, he'll have different moods, but I'm wondering what his prevailing attitude might be. A serious chap with a hate for Nazis? Or, perhaps a more fun-loving adventurer?

Emails #19: Torture During Wartime

RICK: Cap wanted prisoners treated humanely. No water boarding. No beatings or retaliation. He would even know a few phrases in German to speak to his enemy face to face.

These are the logical ideas of Captain America born in WWII.

BEN: I feel there is a propaganda angle to explore here, too. I wouldn't want to slow down the story any more than the substantial amount of ground we have to cover especially in WWII era, but I'd like at least for Cap to have a newspaper blow up the street with "American Devil!" or similar.

Nope. The propaganda should be thick and furious. Radio! People on the street. The German's will do anything to deflate the image of the Americans. Let us not forget the distinction between Cap's WWII and the real WWII. Part of Cap's angle is that he must find himself in a position of being crushed, defeated, demoralized, marginalized, ignored, hounded... He must feel the full weight of the hatred against him, the distrust even among allies. In one terrible moment he must doubt himself and his country and think bout folding it up. It is only then, when we are about to break him, when he is on the verge of collapse that Cap finds his true fighting spirit, an unquenchable flame that can not perish!