Kyle Olson:
Welcome back to the Marvel Movie Minute, a weekly podcast where we disassemble a film from the Marvel Cinematic Universe into five-minute segments and examine them in obsessive and occasionally hilarious detail. I’m Kyle Olson from the Craft and Chaos Podcast.
Matthew Fox:
I’m Matthew Fox, aka The Ethical Panda.
Kyle Olson:
Pete Wright and Rob Kubasko will not be joining us today, as they are too burrito-brained to Winter Soldier. Today we’ll be sorting truth from lies as we examine minutes eleven through fifteen of Captain America: The Winter Soldier from 2014, directed by the Russo Brothers. As we get back into it, we rejoin our black ops baddies during their raid on the Lemurian Star. Rumlow is escorting the prisoners, including Jasper Sitwell. Cap is hunting for Batroc, aka Batroc the Leaper, and the Black Widow is missing in action.
Matthew Fox:
Dun dun dun.
Kyle Olson:
I was not able to be here last time. So is there anything you discussed last time that rolls over here into minute eleven?
Matthew Fox:
I’ll sort of address that, but I’ll say these five minutes are fundamentally different than the last five.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah.
Matthew Fox:
Because I described the last five as being fundamentally a whole bunch of punch-punch-shoot-shoot. Today, though, we do not have punch-punch-shoot-shoot. We have kick-kick-shoot-shoot.
Kyle Olson:
And boom boom.
Matthew Fox:
Yeah, and some boom boom. Not too much to discuss in terms of the other characters and stuff, but some fun pixels on the screen doing fun pixel things.
Kyle Olson:
Well, I have an appreciation for actual physical action as opposed to CGI. I will take Cap and Batroc fighting on a thing with actual people in the costume doing it, as opposed to, let’s say, the end of Black Panther, which has that final fight that is basically just two action figures slamming into each other.
Matthew Fox:
Right.
Kyle Olson:
Sort of a blemish on an otherwise nearly perfect movie.
Matthew Fox:
Let’s talk about that fight scene — not at the end, at the beginning.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah.
Matthew Fox:
For some reason I thought you were talking about Shang-Chi. I actually think the fight scene at the end of Black Panther is fantastic, but to me it’s the things they’re saying to each other.
Kyle Olson:
Okay. Well, we’re going to get to that in like six years whenever we get to that.
Matthew Fox:
But in this, I just fundamentally don’t understand this scene.
Kyle Olson:
Yes, there’s a lot more story there.
Matthew Fox:
And part of it may be that I don’t understand the biology and physics of Captain America’s body.
Kyle Olson:
There has long been an issue in the MCU of power waxing and waning. So how strong is Cap? Sometimes he is and sometimes he isn’t.
Matthew Fox:
I’m less interested right now in his power as I am in his hit points. And the degree of — if you’re a White Wolf fan — how many soak dice he has.
Kyle Olson:
Oh.
Matthew Fox:
Because we see him fall hundreds of feet into the water, no problem. We see him get blasted across buildings and slam into brick walls and iron walls, and he’s okay.
Kyle Olson:
Mm-hmm.
Matthew Fox:
Batroc is a human who doesn’t skip leg day. And yet he is frequently able to knock Cap down.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah, this is the weird thing of coming off of Avengers, where we’ve seen Cap doing all this amazing stuff and then having to be around Thor, who probably could lift a building, and an Iron Man who could do the same. And then having to come back here and have it be that a guy who trains really well is on roughly the same power level — it seems a little strange, because we know Cap is the peak human.
Matthew Fox:
Right.
Kyle Olson:
That’s how I always think of it too. The Super Soldier Serum made it so that he is the maximum human in all of the things. Like he could win every Olympic event. But not much more than that. So even when we get into Civil War where he’s holding a helicopter in place, you kind of have to go, is that physically possible, even by these standards?
Matthew Fox:
Yeah, so that’s why I just want the consistency. And I think this — I love this movie. I adore this movie. I’m not going to be overly critical of this movie. I think these are my least favorite five minutes because the fight just makes no sense. A, because of that, and B — so I want to ask you as the comics person: does Cap have a particular devotion to the idea of a fair fight?
Kyle Olson:
Yes. I would say that is a very consistent thing with him — wanting to not overpower, because we’ve seen the amount of strength he has. He really could overpower all of these things. And for him, we’re seeing the restraint. He could kill. Honestly, I don’t know that all the guys from the last five minutes made it, because he hits them pretty hard.
Matthew Fox:
We actually did a person-by-person analysis and concluded that two people are almost definitely dead.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah, or paralyzed.
Matthew Fox:
I think seven people are most likely dead, and then a whole bunch of people are quite possibly dead.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah.
Matthew Fox:
But going to this fight — what I’m asking is —
Kyle Olson:
Yeah. I like seeing Cap in this kind of situation — just the straight-up, almost street fight. And I think the Russo Brothers do a good job of: we get into it and then we get out of it. I love John Wick, but man, some of those scenes I was like, bro, half of this is fine. You don’t need to keep going.
Matthew Fox:
I guess if I’d been told that this guy had some superpower — but because I know he doesn’t, it just confused me. And I was asking about the fair fight because he definitely withholds his punches. He doesn’t want to kill. But I mean more — is he the sort of person who, if he has a weapon and someone else doesn’t, will be like, I’m going to put the weapon down and have a fair fight with you?
Kyle Olson:
Yeah. I would say that’s very much within his own character.
Matthew Fox:
Does Iron Man point out how stupid that is? Because this is the thing I have with movies in general — if it is just you and me and we’re just trying to prove ourselves, fine. But in that moment, if somehow Batroc defeats Cap, fifteen hostages are going to die. And so when I see him — Batroc teases him and is like, oh, I think you’re just a shield. And he’s like, fine. Somehow my desire to rescue these fifteen hostages is less important than my idiot masculinity. I have to prove I’m a fair fighter. I’m going to put my shield and helmet down.
Kyle Olson:
I sort of saw it more as Cap is confident in his team. Like, they’re handling it. Black Widow is MIA, but he knows Rumlow has the hostages and they’re on their way out. This is the leader — the guy who’s been running all of this. He is the mini boss above the regular ones. So he is now engaged with the mini boss, and now all focus is on him and not on any of the hostages. So I kind of saw it more as a holding action — okay, well, as long as I know Batroc is here, he’s not killing all the hostages.
Matthew Fox:
Well, but even if it’s not these hostages — if Batroc wins this fight, which granted is a very small possibility, but if he does, he goes off and takes some other people hostage. And again, I’m not blaming Captain America. This is a common conceit in movies like this. I just think it’s really, really dumb. And if you want to make it a fair fight, get Rumlow to fight him, because it’s never going to be a fair fight — you’re a super soldier.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah. But it literally is one minute — he defeats him by minute twelve.
Matthew Fox:
Sure. If I was just discussing the movie, I’m not going to bring it up. But if we’re discussing it minute by minute, then what happens in one minute matters.
Kyle Olson:
Well, do you think a minute of screen time was a minute in their world?
Matthew Fox:
I don’t know.
Kyle Olson:
Because I read it as that. I read it as us watching this almost in real time.
Matthew Fox:
Yeah, I think so.
Kyle Olson:
I mean, I can give Cap a minute.
Matthew Fox:
But to me, it’s not the time at all. It’s more just — your mission isn’t to defeat him in a fair fight so that people will know you are a good and upright Cap. Your mission is to stop him from hurting people.
Kyle Olson:
But I actually think that goes to the whole theme of this movie, which is Cap not being accountable to anybody else. He’s only being accountable to himself. And so he would know. This goes right to the theme of Captain America that we’re going to see throughout the whole thing — even though there are no witnesses, he’s still following the rules. He’s still trying to be the good person. He is holding himself to that standard. By not killing him, by not doing this, by not compromising. We’re already seeing him do this stuff, not as a performance, but literally for his own internal code.
Matthew Fox:
But it literally is a performance. I agree with you on not killing him, but for me there is no purpose except your own ego in taking off the shield and the helmet. There’s literally no reason to do it except that this guy says, oh, you’re just a shield, and you feel insulted, and you want to prove you’re more than a shield. Which is the exact most dangerous thing a hero can do — because you’re allowing the villain to get under your skin.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah.
Matthew Fox:
You’re allowing your ego to control things. To me it’s the exact opposite of the rules, which are: you don’t compromise, you rescue the hostages, you fulfill the mission, you don’t let idiot macho nonsense get in the way. And that’s exactly what he does here.
Kyle Olson:
Well, maybe that comes along with the fact that this is not where he belongs. He’s literally in the wrong place. And so then doing the wrong things. I think the helmet coming off was kind of funny, because it’s well known that Chris Evans hated that helmet. So I think it was — I needed an excuse to get this thing off my head.
Matthew Fox:
Fair, fair. And granted, we’re paying a lot of money to see Chris Evans’ face, and I get that.
Kyle Olson:
Right, yeah. That was always my wife’s point with Spider-Man movies too, because it always bothered me whenever Spider-Man’s mask came off.
Matthew Fox:
I just —
Kyle Olson:
And I was like, I’m here to see Spider-Man.
Matthew Fox:
Right.
Kyle Olson:
She’s like, I’m here to see Andrew Garfield.
Matthew Fox:
Yeah. That’s fair. Anyway, it’s not a huge deal.
Kyle Olson:
Well, but in terms of action sequence, it is a well-done action sequence. So we can see Batroc comes leaping in — so there’s that, what he’s famous for. And so there’s George St-Pierre, which we’ve talked about on the previous episode. And we’ve got to give a special shout-out to Sam Hargrave. Sam Hargrave is the stunt double for Chris Evans, and has been for all of Captain America. By the time we get to Age of Ultron, that super cool flippy thing — that’s Sam Hargrave. He has 83 stunt credits on IMDb. He started out on Supernatural as a stunt double for Jensen Ackles. So shout out to all the Supernatural fans out there. And now he is a stunt coordinator for Marvel, and he has made his directing debut with Extraction, starring one of the other Chrises of Marvel, Chris Hemsworth.
Matthew Fox:
I’m honestly baffled. It feels to me like you just said a really badly made piece of guacamole and marshmallow pizza — TM, and a shout-out for those who are following Magic: The Gathering — but that is good. I guess for me a fight is good if it has a good context. And so the idea that someone enjoys this fight scene — I mean, I love that you enjoy it, but it’s utterly baffling to me.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah, I love it. We barely ever get to see Cap sort of at this level. That’s one of the things I love about this movie — he’s on that same sort of playing field. Sometimes you take him out of this stuff and suddenly in the Avengers you’re surrounded by screaming hordes of aliens and space gods and there’s just like, I can punch hard and I have a shield. And it’s like, oh yeah.
Matthew Fox:
Right. I definitely have that feeling when it gets to the punching fights with Winter Soldier. I think just for me — coming right after he’s just rampaged all those other guys. That’s a word I got to teach Rob earlier, by the way. And I guess because I just never feel like Batroc is a worthy opponent for him, it always just felt silly to me. But I’m glad it comes across well to you.
Kyle Olson:
I mean, like I said, by minute twelve it’s over.
Matthew Fox:
Yeah, it’s over.
Kyle Olson:
So, I want to talk a little bit about Cap’s shield. Did you guys mention that in the last one?
Matthew Fox:
We did. And actually we brought up a question — I wonder if you have a thought on it. Because apparently I’m the nitpicking police — I apologize. But we talked about how it’s been established that the vibranium shield does not conduct vibrations.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah.
Matthew Fox:
And so when force hits one side of it, the force doesn’t go through. That’s why you can stand there and get shot by a lot of bullets and not break your arm. By those rules, if I hold the shield up against your face and punch the shield from the other side, you should be fine. And yet he does exactly that in the minute before — which I wasn’t going to bring up again, but you’re actually bringing it up now. So that was the main thing we talked about in terms of the shield.
Kyle Olson:
True. Oh, I was actually going to talk about design, because I was interested in the fact that we have a darker shield.
Matthew Fox:
Okay, cool.
Kyle Olson:
It’s literally the same shield because we know it’s one of a kind, but now he has somehow darkened it.
Matthew Fox:
Right.
Kyle Olson:
So what kind of — it gets into the whole thing of: is there some special paint they have to use? Because when we see it originally in The First Avenger, it’s just steel. So we know that the red, white, and blue are paint that is put onto it. So did they literally get a different set of paint and painted it in muted colors for stealth?
Matthew Fox:
Yeah, it’s a good question. A bright shield would stand out in these circumstances.
Kyle Olson:
Sure. Thematically I understand, but I was literally imagining — was there a night where Cap had it up and was listening to big band music and was just like —
Matthew Fox:
I love that image. That’s the takeaway — cut the Batroc fight, give us that. That would make me happy.
Kyle Olson:
Right.
Matthew Fox:
You know? Well, I want to go back and ask one more question about the Batroc fight.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah.
Matthew Fox:
Because we’ve talked a lot about him as the Leaper.
Kyle Olson:
Yes, yes.
Matthew Fox:
And I was thinking about that in that context. There is this one sequence where he kind of does a series of kicks, but it didn’t really feel like a feet-focused fight from his perspective. Do you feel like we got enough to make you feel the writers understood — this is the Leaper, this is the leg-day guy, this is super strong leg man?
Kyle Olson:
I think so. I think they did — not only did they do the color scheme, but it’s sort of about fitting him into the grim, gritty world of The Winter Soldier. There’s a certain level of seriousness in this. A lot of these characters can be played really dramatically. Even if you go back to the Iron Man 2 discussion, Black Widow originally was literally like a femme fatale — black dress with a veil and a cigarette, sort of like the Black Widow.
Matthew Fox:
Yeah. Oh my god.
Kyle Olson:
So taking the completely seventies ridiculousness — I even went through and read a bunch of Batroc stuff, and everything is written as zee — like it’s Z-time, all of it is written that way. So to take that and mold it into this world — I think they did a pretty good job of having it not be completely — because if you showed up with the giant curly black mustache and the thick French accent, it just —
Matthew Fox:
Okay. It would have ruined it.
Kyle Olson:
It would break it. It would break this.
Matthew Fox:
So you’re saying there’s a bad version of this movie where the director has him leaping around like Yoda in Revenge of the Sith?
Kyle Olson:
Oh yes. Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, that’s a good one.
Matthew Fox:
Like —
Kyle Olson:
Yeah, or like, ha ha, take this, Captain, you cannot stop me. No.
Matthew Fox:
Oh, and maybe this answers my question — because I asked the others and they weren’t sure. We’ve got a French guy who’s the Leaper. And we know Stan Lee is not above a couple of ethnic stereotypes.
Kyle Olson:
Oh, yes.
Matthew Fox:
And French people are often derivatively referred to as frogs.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah.
Matthew Fox:
Do you think there’s a connection there?
Kyle Olson:
I don’t think there is.
Matthew Fox:
Okay, okay.
Kyle Olson:
But who knows? I mean, the sixties were a wild time in Marvel Comics.
Matthew Fox:
It’s never — okay, we can move on then.
Kyle Olson:
Seventies, yeah, whatever it is.
Matthew Fox:
We can move on. I’m satisfied.
Kyle Olson:
He takes out Batroc — handles him — and then goes in, and he suddenly finds Natasha doing her own thing on her own. And then Scarlett plays this absolutely wonderfully — just like, well, this is awkward. She just rolls with it. She’s not guilty, she doesn’t stop and look panicked. She just absolutely clocks it and then continues on with her work.
Matthew Fox:
She strikes me as — the thing that I love so much about her interactions is they are work colleagues.
Kyle Olson:
Mm-hmm.
Matthew Fox:
Like, that is correct. But she interacts with him as though everything they do is just normal workplace shenanigans. And she’s watched a lot of episodes of The Office.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah, yeah.
Matthew Fox:
The boss asks you to do a task that the other person isn’t supposed to know about, but there are no real consequences. Oh, this is awkward. You mess up something that might get the other guy a little bit of ink on their shoes.
Kyle Olson:
Uh-huh, yeah.
Matthew Fox:
Oh, you know what? That one’s on me. The language she uses is so out of place for the consequences of what they’re actually doing. It feels like she read Office Politics for Dummies and that’s what she’s applying. It is so perfect for the role she has here.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah. She just absolutely is doing it as like, oh hey, there you are. And yeah, even saying, like, oh, our mission is save the hostages. She’s like, well, that’s your mission. And you get that thing of Cap going, I don’t understand this world. I’m doing what I was told.
Matthew Fox:
For me it’s brilliant because it works on so many levels. It’s just disarming and it’s funny. So it adds some humor to the movie. But also, I think it makes someone who’s suspicious of you a little more like, oh, that’s just my buddy being silly.
Kyle Olson:
Mm-hmm.
Matthew Fox:
But also it’s distracting. And as we talked about last week — she always asks him about the cute girl in marketing or whatever, right when he’s starting to ask uncomfortable questions.
Kyle Olson:
Mm-hmm.
Matthew Fox:
And so “this is awkward” is actually a good distraction from, I’m committing crimes here while you’re —
Kyle Olson:
Or covering them up, yeah.
Matthew Fox:
Yeah, exactly.
Kyle Olson:
Now, I know you love a good deep dive. Did you do anything on freeze-framing the shots we get of the intel as it’s downloading?
Matthew Fox:
I tried to, but everything I found was just like “file uploading” or something generic.
Kyle Olson:
Okay.
Matthew Fox:
So I couldn’t find anything with specific numbers or codes or locations or anything.
Kyle Olson:
It just seemed to be — did you find anything?
Matthew Fox:
No, I didn’t get a chance to. But I do know that in general, MCU computers work a lot like our own. Except they have this feature where if you’re trying to move a bunch of picture files from one disk to another, all of them will open on the screen in rapid succession — which is not a feature I’m used to, but maybe IBM is owned by someone else in their universe.
Kyle Olson:
Absolutely true.
Matthew Fox:
And we do see a couple of things on maps pop up and things like that, but yeah.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah. But nothing really that — I’m sure it’ll come back though.
Matthew Fox:
Yeah.
Kyle Olson:
I also like the fact that they do the insert of the drive and we see that there are SHIELD-branded thumb drives.
Matthew Fox:
Mm-hmm.
Kyle Olson:
I love the fact that somewhere in the basement of the base we’re going to be talking about in the next minute, there’s somebody fashioning drives and putting logos on them. Because branding is important, especially when you’re doing black ops on stuff. But they have the glowing shield symbol on them. So I assume that is meant to make us think these are highly encrypted — these are powerful drives, not just the typical SanDisk ones you can go and buy at Walmart. Look at the shiny silver case and the glowing thing. This is much more high-tech than what you can order from Amazon.
Matthew Fox:
I want to back up one second to one of my favorite lines in this — probably my favorite line in these whole five minutes — both because it’s just hilarious, but also because it really sets up, it kind of foreshadows something. Right before Cap has his big fight with the Leaper — the other agents, in a very quick, very coordinated session, take down all the people guarding the hostages. They’re all just shot within half a second. None of them has a chance to get a shot off. And then Jasper Sitwell says to a very dead body — I mean, this is very clearly a one-sided conversation Jasper’s having — he says: “I told you, SHIELD doesn’t negotiate.” And it’s very dry, it’s very funny, but also in that moment you’re like, yeah, SHIELD is super badass. And then you’re like, wait a minute, Phil Coulson would have negotiated all the time. To me it was like, this is not Agent Coulson’s SHIELD anymore. It’s a nice reminder that SHIELD is getting a lot more aggressive. And that might be good. That might be foreshadowing of what we’re going to learn later.
Kyle Olson:
That’s right.
Matthew Fox:
But yeah, it just —
Kyle Olson:
They’re a lot more dangerous. They’re not coming in to save the day — they’re coming in to take you out.
Matthew Fox:
To me it’s a moment that I think happens a couple of times in this movie where my first thought is, wait a minute, what are you talking about? SHIELD negotiates all the time. And so at first it’s like, is this bad writing? And then, oh no, this is actually showing us this is not the SHIELD we’re used to. Granted, Coulson was always a little more bumbling with others than he actually is, but still — shoot first and ask questions later is not what SHIELD has been to this point.
Kyle Olson:
Right. Yeah.
Matthew Fox:
So something’s changing somehow.
Kyle Olson:
It’s almost like there’s something behind the scenes making them a little bit more aggressive. And obviously — before Cap can really get his dander up — they are interrupted when an enemy bursts through the door. A grenade comes flying in and Cap uses the shield to knock it. And then the two of them leap through a window. So we get to see probably Sam Hargrave and, I expect, Heidi Moneymaker — probably the two of them leaping through there. And then instantly — this is what’s fantastic — a grenade explodes, they launch through a window, they pop up, and Natasha is already at the same level and she goes, “That one’s on me.”
Matthew Fox:
Yeah.
Kyle Olson:
Day at the office.
Matthew Fox:
Again, it’s the — I’m sorry some ink spilled on your shoes. Just a day at the office.
Kyle Olson:
Day at the office. Right.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah. Then from there immediately we’re leaving the Lemurian Star. So now we’re back in Washington, D.C., and we reveal the Triskelion. This is the SHIELD base that we’re going to be seeing a lot of over the rest of the movie. Its first comics appearance was in Ultimates number two by Brian Hitch and Mark Millar, and we don’t have time to get into the Ultimates — I know you know, and you know I know.
Matthew Fox:
Mm-hmm.
Kyle Olson:
That’s a whole other thing. But that’s where it was first introduced, and it gradually made its way into the 616 and then into the MCU proper. We see it on the banks of the Potomac. Do you know, in your research, why this building could never actually be constructed the way we see it?
Matthew Fox:
I don’t. I assume it’s something — I know that Washington, D.C. is basically a swamp and that the area right by the Potomac is probably very muddy and not very good for huge underground caverns that could hold an aircraft carrier, but — is that it?
Kyle Olson:
Yes. And also, you can’t have a building higher than the Washington Monument. That’s one of the rules. The fact that this is twenty stories tall makes it so they would never allow that.
Matthew Fox:
Oh, interesting. Okay.
Kyle Olson:
Like the fact that this is twenty stories tall makes it so they would never allow that.
Matthew Fox:
Right. Now what does the word Triskelion mean? I have some knowledge of it, but I’m curious about the naming of this building.
Kyle Olson:
I think it’s Greek, right?
Matthew Fox:
Yeah, it is. As I know it, it’s a symbol that is originally Greek, very common in Ireland and particularly in Irish mythology. It’s three in one. I actually have a tattoo that is a version of a Triskelion, and it was — in Irish mythology it was very popular pre-Christian because they had a lot of God and Goddess ideas that were three in one, which then obviously becomes adopted by the Trinitarian Christian folks. And I think — we never see it directly from above, but I think it is three buildings like that, with three also kind of underground spaces for the helicarriers that we’re later going to learn about.
Kyle Olson:
That’s right. Yeah.
Matthew Fox:
Three recurring.
Kyle Olson:
Three. They’re recurring threes.
Matthew Fox:
But yeah, is that the same image in the comics?
Kyle Olson:
Yeah, pretty much. This design is almost exactly what Brian Hitch originally designed.
Matthew Fox:
Okay.
Kyle Olson:
So it’s almost translated directly. Whereas a lot of things get highly adapted, there are some images that come straight out and go right in.
Matthew Fox:
Mm-hmm.
Kyle Olson:
This is one of them. So yeah, when they go inside — then, it seems like almost like poetry, like lyrics come to me. All this energy calling me, back where it comes from. It’s such a crude attitude, it’s back where it belongs. All the little kids growing up on the skids go, Cleveland Rocks. Because when they cut to the interior, that is the Cleveland Museum of Art. The lobby that you see and we’ll be seeing again — they shot most of the movie in Cleveland, and that is actually the Cleveland Museum of Art. I looked it up and it turns out general admission is always free. So if you’re in the area, you can go and visit. And you can take your selfies right there at the base of the Triskelion. The SHIELD symbol is not there, but the rest of the roof and the wall and everything are all still the exact area.
Matthew Fox:
Pretty cool. I will ask — for those who are not quite as cool as you — what in the world song were you quoting?
Kyle Olson:
That is a song called “Cleveland Rocks,” most famous for being used as the theme from The Drew Carey Show. But it was actually a song written by a native of Cleveland to celebrate a town he really loved. It was written by Ian Hunter in 1979 and then covered by The Presidents of the United States of America, which was a nineties pop band —
Matthew Fox:
I remember them well.
Kyle Olson:
— now defunct, but they’re still out there doing solo projects.
Matthew Fox:
We’re now deep into Tangent Land, but that’s very much what this podcast is about. I love this because I’ve never heard any of that, but I do know another song written about the beauty and wonder of the city of Cleveland, featured in a movie that was very important from my childhood — perhaps yours — which is “Cleveland, City of Light, City of Magic” by Randy Newman, in the movie Major League.
Kyle Olson:
Yes. Yeah.
Matthew Fox:
So, yep.
Kyle Olson:
Do you have a Randy Newman impression on hand that you want to try?
Matthew Fox:
Cleveland, city of lights, city of magic. That’s — I don’t know if that’s right. Randy Newman would sound — [laughter]
Kyle Olson:
I thought that was way better than what I would have expected Randy Newman to sound like.
Matthew Fox:
It’s probably right. Anyway, back to these five minutes.
Kyle Olson:
That’s right. So yeah, we get to see — as we hit minute fourteen — hey everybody, it’s Nick Fury!
Matthew Fox:
Here we go, here we go.
Kyle Olson:
Samuel L. Jackson back on the big screen. So he has been out for more than a minute. Now we have him, and we see him for the first time in what we might call his natural environment.
Matthew Fox:
Yes.
Kyle Olson:
Like, the bridge of the helicarrier was one thing, but now it’s like, oh, this is his office. And apparently he does not decorate.
Matthew Fox:
Now, I have to ask you — is this scene a reminder that we later get a continuity break?
Kyle Olson:
It’s pretty sparse.
Matthew Fox:
Because in this scene, one of the things that happens is Cap and Fury are going at it — Cap is saying, you don’t tell me the whole truth, that’s basically lying. And Nick has an answer for everything: compartmentalize. And when Cap finally pushes him and says, “You have to trust me,” he says, “The last time I trusted someone, I lost an eye.” Which is not my Samuel L. Jackson impression, because I don’t do a good one of those at all.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah.
Matthew Fox:
We do later see when he loses his eye.
Kyle Olson:
Yes.
Matthew Fox:
Which is what he —
Kyle Olson:
There’s a trope in writing where you put in something that alludes to another story, to let the audience know that the character has had a life, has had depth, has had different adventures. One of my favorite silly examples of this is in Kim Possible, where at one point the town is being attacked by a giant dog, and Ron Stoppable says, “That is the second biggest poodle I’ve ever seen.”
Matthew Fox:
Yeah, yeah, that raises the question.
Kyle Olson:
Meaning somewhere out there he’s seen a bigger poodle, and you go, what’s that story? So you have this line from Fury, and it’s a great line. And then they decided they wanted to revisit it and show it to us, and I wish they hadn’t.
Matthew Fox:
Yeah. For those who don’t know what we’re talking about —
Kyle Olson:
Spoilers for Captain Marvel if you haven’t seen it.
Matthew Fox:
A movie that I love, that I know has some controversy attached to it, but I think it’s great. We meet this species of aliens that look an awful lot like adorable kittens, but they’re called —
Kyle Olson:
Flerkens.
Matthew Fox:
Flerkens, yeah, thank you. And they have these horrible claw things. And Nick picks one up and is being really cute at it, and it claws his eye out.
Kyle Olson:
I mean, honestly, if it had happened just like you said it, that would have been okay.
Matthew Fox:
And —
Kyle Olson:
But it claws him and then slowly over the course of weeks his eye rots. It’s so much worse.
Matthew Fox:
Oh yeah, that’s right. So I think one of three things is happening here. If I have to explain it in canon —
Kyle Olson:
Oh, are you going for a No-Prize? So I’ll introduce the tangent off your tangent off your tangent. In Marvel Comics lore, whenever someone would figure out a continuity problem — like, oh, how was Cap in France at the same time he was in New York in your issue? — they would write in their own fan theory, and if the writers liked it, they would give them what’s called a No-Prize. It was basically like, you get no prize — but it was a way of honoring the fans.
Matthew Fox:
Right. Congratulations, you just made my job easier and I’m getting paid and you’re not.
Kyle Olson:
So it looks like you’re going for a No-Prize now — go for it.
Matthew Fox:
All right. So here are my three possible explanations. One is that Nick Fury, being a man of the galaxy — not just a man of the world — that his definition of “trusted someone” extends to Flerkens. And he trusted the Flerken, he thought the Flerken was cute, the Flerken clawed his eye out, he’ll never trust someone like that again. Doesn’t really work. Second — maybe, given yours — is that there was some doctor involved and he trusted the doctor to help him with the eye. But as we saw, it just didn’t work out very well. He lost the eye. Plausible, but I don’t like it. The one that I kind of do like — and I don’t think they were thinking about this with Captain Marvel, I think they were just thinking, let’s have a cute story and who cares if it doesn’t really fit —
Kyle Olson:
Yeah.
Matthew Fox:
— but what I think I can retroactively shove into canon and make work: Nick Fury is a person who doesn’t like to talk about his mistakes. Nick Fury is a person who has carefully cultivated a reputation for being a badass.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah, yeah.
Matthew Fox:
And so “I trusted a guy and I lost my eye” sounds badass.
Kyle Olson:
Mm-hmm.
Matthew Fox:
“A cat clawed my eye out because I thought it was really cute” does not. So do I think Nick Fury could have slowly adjusted that story over the years to make it sound a lot more badass than it is? Yes. That is my headcanon.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah. If I was writing the fan fiction, I would have it set after Captain Marvel where the eye is injured, but then he actually has someone who literally damages the eye beyond all recognition. So you can have both things.
Matthew Fox:
Mm-hmm.
Kyle Olson:
Because yeah, that’s the dissonance. I cannot get myself to accept that when he says that, he’s talking about Goose the cat, the Flerken.
Matthew Fox:
Yeah, the Flerken. That’s fair.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah. So now we get to when they’re having their intense political discussion. We get to have one of my favorite lines from this movie come up. Because Nick Fury is explaining about the compartmentalization and how it all works. And he says, “I know you’re not comfortable with this.” And then: “Agent Romanoff is comfortable with everything.” A-plus, Marcus and McFeely, A-plus on that line. First of all, you can make it dirty, but it also is —
Matthew Fox:
We are gentlemen. We would never do such a thing. If you and the audience are doing that, you are dirty, dirty people. And hopefully you enjoyed my saying that. But whoever goes on.
Kyle Olson:
But the fact that, as we’ve seen and are going to keep seeing in this movie — that’s kind of how Natasha is. Her moral barometer is on a much different calibration than Cap’s is. She doesn’t see any of this as being evil or wrong. It’s just, for her — she is very comfortable living in the gray and doing all those things. She doesn’t judge herself or anybody else for it. And that is one of my favorites in this because it really establishes exactly who she is.
Matthew Fox:
Right.
Kyle Olson:
Oh yeah, yeah, that’s true.
Matthew Fox:
Yeah, I mostly like it. I want to go back because I remember — particularly I think in the second Avengers movie — there’s a lot of talk about, I’ve got a lot of red in my ledger and I want to fix that.
Kyle Olson:
Yes.
Matthew Fox:
And if I remember, some of that’s in the first one too. And that to me indicates that she has started feeling guilty. She has started asking questions. And it may be that I do think there’s a sense of, I know that those other people are bad and I didn’t trust myself because I was making bad choices. So now I’ll listen to Nick Fury, because he’s at least better than them. So I kind of get it. It feels a little out of place for her, but I do think it’s a very nice contrast — it really contrasts well with Cap and what we’re seeing of him. And I understand Nick Fury’s frustration.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah, yeah.
Matthew Fox:
He wants the super soldier who will do everything he needs to do, but the super soldier has morals in a way that the others do not. And I think it helps really show Natasha as being in this middle space. To me, it kind of helps explain how it is that Hydra has taken over — in that Nick Fury and Natasha are better than Rumlow.
Kyle Olson:
Mm-hmm.
Matthew Fox:
I don’t think there’s any question of that. But I think they’re closer to Rumlow at this point in the movie than they are to Cap. And in that way, maybe they don’t notice that Rumlow is actually a little even darker than they are.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah, and once we’re talking about threes — I think three is going to be a recurring theme in this — we get to the point where we see Cap, and when he’s contrasted with Falcon on one side and Natasha on the other, there’s a very different moral alignment that goes along with it. You have Sam Wilson, a soldier who follows orders and doesn’t do any of this black ops stuff — being like, no, that’s the enemy, we go. And then Natasha being like, well, but you know, there are ways, you don’t have to. And then having Cap in the middle, between these two.
Matthew Fox:
Right.
Kyle Olson:
So there’s another three. It’s interesting. And then Nick sort of decides he’s going to let Cap in on the big project that’s going on.
Matthew Fox:
Yeah. And you see again how Nick is just a master manipulator, because the way he frames it is — no, no, look, I’m going to prove to you that I’m not trying to compartmentalize. I’m going to tell you all about this. The reality is that what he’s doing is confirming everything that Cap said, which is that you only tell people when you need to. The fact is that my pushing him so much has meant now he needs to tell me. And I just love seeing that because that’s who Nick is. Nick is a hero, but he fights dirty.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah.
Matthew Fox:
He’s a manipulator. He’s going to use all the people around him and use every lever he can to get them to do what he wants.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah. He’s the one who, in his mind, is willing to do anything to protect the country. He’s willing to get his hands as bloody as he feels is necessary. But obviously Cap is not. So here’s my question to you, before we even get to the elevator: do you think Nick intended to show Cap this when Cap came in? Like, he had to know Cap was coming in hot. Was this all part of the plan — had he always intended to do this? Or do you think in this moment he really decided, all right, I’m going to show you the bigger picture?
Matthew Fox:
The wheels within wheels. My first thought is that he clearly didn’t intend it, because the elevator still thinks Cap isn’t supposed to go there.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah.
Matthew Fox:
But then I realize that showing Cap the elevator thinks he’s not supposed to go there, and then telling it to override, is a great way to show Cap: look, I’m letting you in. So I think he had it in his mind as a break-glass-in-case-of-emergency. I think he was hoping he could talk Cap out of how upset he is, because on some level he’s still used to black ops soldiers. That’s who he works with. He’s never worked with a Cap before. He’s worked with Tony Stark, he’s worked with a lot of people who play things from a lot of angles. I think he thought there was a good chance he could talk Cap out of it, but I think he was thinking: if worst comes to worst and I can’t, I can at least show Cap the tip of the iceberg and let him partially in.
Kyle Olson:
Oh, that’s interesting. Yeah, that’s good. I hadn’t thought about it that way. Because even the whole story he tells — which we’re going to get into — is all part of the plan. So yeah, because they’re so close to it going live — this is his way of being like, look, this is the train that’s about to leave the station. You’re going to need to get on board or you’re going to need to get off. This as opposed to waiting until the Potomac splits open and these things start coming out and suddenly Cap is in a very different place. So maybe bringing him in at this point was a way of doing damage control — hoping he could get Cap on his side.
Matthew Fox:
I think so. Especially — and I think part of that is the story he tells. Granted, we only hear the beginnings of it, but this story of: oh yeah, we’re in an elevator, and Cap’s like, these used to have music. And Nick immediately goes to, you know, my grandfather operated one of these things for forty years.
Kyle Olson:
Grandfather, but yeah.
Matthew Fox:
That image of a Black man being the elevator operator for a building where it’s probably mostly white people — that’s a very real, if also stock, image of racism. And a stock image of look how far I have risen.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah.
Matthew Fox:
And an image that’s kind of — I think — very calculated to connect with Cap on like, look at the salt-of-the-earth people I come from.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah, because — I tried to do the math, but it’s difficult because we don’t really know exactly how old Nick is. But I’m thinking that grandfather was probably around Cap’s time. So the story he’s talking about — over thirty years or something, his grandfather working there — would be kind of in the period before Cap got frozen. So it’s also another way of connecting back to like, hey, this is not the seventies, which you missed. This is back — the forties, fifties.
Matthew Fox:
Right. This is the kind of good working-class people that you believed in.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah.
Matthew Fox:
And look, I come from those roots.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah.
Matthew Fox:
And do I think it’s possible that Nick’s grandfather was actually an elevator operator? Absolutely. Do I think it’s possible that it’s complete nonsense and he’s making it up? Absolutely.
Kyle Olson:
Yes. I would not put it past Nick to absolutely lie about something like that.
Matthew Fox:
Yeah.
Kyle Olson:
But I don’t know. That’s also the strength of Samuel L. Jackson — the way he plays it, you honestly don’t know. Like it really could be a story he maybe has not told to a lot of people. I mean, it does seem pretty smooth — he’s not stopping and starting. It feels like a speech, but it takes a really good actor to do that and not have it sound like something you’re reciting.
Matthew Fox:
Yeah, yeah.
Kyle Olson:
So yeah. And we also see that when they’re going in — Fury is level ten security clearance, Cap is level eight.
Matthew Fox:
Yeah.
Kyle Olson:
So another power play thing of like, yeah, you’re pretty high up, but there are things in those two levels you don’t know exist.
Matthew Fox:
So this is a question: do you think Natasha knows about Insight?
Kyle Olson:
I was wondering the same thing. And I think we’ll probably have to see her reaction along the way.
Matthew Fox:
Yeah.
Kyle Olson:
But my suspicion at this point — just going in minute by minute without thinking too far ahead — is yes. I think she is aware of it. Because I would suspect she’s probably level nine.
Matthew Fox:
Mm-hmm. So that raises another question that I don’t think we can go into now, but I think we have to ask at a later point in the movie.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah.
Matthew Fox:
Hydra had to have tried to recruit her at some point, right? Or at least gently approached her.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah.
Matthew Fox:
And maybe they quickly realized she would be a bad candidate. If they went far enough along the recruitment that she figured it out, she would have told someone. So I’m guessing that she probably made them realize early enough that she wasn’t a good candidate. Because I don’t think she’s ideological. I think she’s just a soldier — I will do what you tell me. But it’s a good question. Did Rumlow talk to her at some point?
Kyle Olson:
Yeah. Yeah, that’s a good one. I would say probably, like you’re saying, they had made overtures.
Matthew Fox:
Mm-hmm.
Kyle Olson:
And then very quickly realized, oh no, she does have a specific code that she follows.
Matthew Fox:
Right.
Kyle Olson:
And they probably built almost like a firewall around her — to talk to Rumlow, to talk to all the other people, to be like, let Fury and her do whatever it is they’re doing with going to New York and fighting the Chitauri and stuff.
Matthew Fox:
Right. Yeah.
Kyle Olson:
Just keep her out of all of the stuff that we’re doing.
Matthew Fox:
Yeah. Well, I’ll be definitely really curious to see — when Cap learns about it, generally she is with him, and I’ll be curious to see her reactions and how much she knew.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah. Because she plays it as sort of a — mm, how interesting.
Matthew Fox:
Right.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah.
Matthew Fox:
She’s very poker-faced.
Kyle Olson:
So yeah, as we get to the end — and also, filmmaking-wise, kudos to the Russo Brothers: what a great way to set up this glass elevator, which will be so important later, and just have it be, oh no, this is just a regular setting for this conversation about Nick and his past and his conflicts with Cap.
Matthew Fox:
Right.
Kyle Olson:
Little do we know they’re actually foreshadowing that. This is literally Chekhov’s elevator.
Matthew Fox:
Yeah.
Kyle Olson:
They’re putting it right here.
Matthew Fox:
It’s so true.
Kyle Olson:
And later on it will be hugely important. It was like — oh, well done. Because they’re showing us the geography of the Triskelion and everything.
Matthew Fox:
Right.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah.
Matthew Fox:
And yeah, you’re right. And when we get to that scene, I think it’s a nice reminder of part of what makes Cap suspicious is this isn’t an elevator that just stops on every floor. This is kind of a VIP up-and-down.
Kyle Olson:
Right. VIP, yeah.
Matthew Fox:
Yeah.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah. And then when they finally get to the very bottom floor, we reveal there are three new helicarriers being created. A lot bigger than a standard one. So what are these? What do they mean? What is Project Insight? We won’t find out until the next couple of minutes. Is there anything else before we send these people on their way?
Matthew Fox:
No, I think that wrapped up these five minutes pretty well. I think we hit all the things we wanted to hit.
Kyle Olson:
Okay. All right. So yeah, we’ll have a different configuration when we come back. But make sure that you like, subscribe, do all the things you know by now. And we will be back in a week to talk about minute sixteen and what is Project Insight.
Matthew Fox:
Until next time, true listener.
Kyle Olson:
Enough said.
