Pete Wright:
Welcome back to the Marvel Movie Minute, a weekly podcast in which we assemble to explore the films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe five minutes at a time. In this, our ninth season, we’re looking at Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I’m Pete Wright.
Kyle Olson:
I’m Kyle Olson.
Pete Wright:
And today we’re talking about minutes 96 through 100, which begins with —
Kyle Olson:
The triple-digit cameo.
Pete Wright:
Cameo! And ends with a fall, a flip, and bad guys with guns. Kyle, we’ve talked about it before, and I think it’s important we begin right off the bat with a quiz.
Kyle Olson:
Oh, fun.
Pete Wright:
You might have heard me mention in the intro just now that we have a cameo. We are talking, of course, about Danny Pudi.
Kyle Olson:
Yes.
Pete Wright:
Danny Pudi — Abed, from Community. There are a lot of actors who are at the Russos’ beck and call and become cameos in the films of the MCU that they’ve worked on. And I would like to know just how much of a completionist you are. How many cameos can you name, and what films were they in?
Kyle Olson:
Oh. Okay. Wow. I’m going to have trouble coming up with all the actor names, because when I see them in my head for Community, I immediately go to the character name.
Pete Wright:
It’s okay, I will help you.
Kyle Olson:
So obviously, from this movie we’ve had Danny Pudi, and we had one of the other actors just a couple of minutes ago — that’s how long ago it’s been. So I guess we’ll not count this movie, because we’ve been digging deep on this one.
Pete Wright:
Right.
Kyle Olson:
But Jim Rash is in Civil War.
Pete Wright:
Nice. Yes, he plays an MIT staff member.
Kyle Olson:
He’s part of that — that’s right — when they’re talking about BARF.
Pete Wright:
Yes.
Kyle Olson:
And I think you might see the back of his bald head in Spider-Man — there’s that thing where we now know that Quentin Beck was there.
Pete Wright:
Yes. What does the crash zoom on Quentin Beck — I think we passed his head.
Kyle Olson:
Maybe. So I don’t know if that counts or not.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Kyle Olson:
I can’t remember the name. Shirley?
Pete Wright:
Yvette Nicole Brown.
Kyle Olson:
Yvette Nicole Brown, yeah. She’s in Endgame. She’s in the elevator, where they’re going back and forth.
Pete Wright:
Yes. She’s the tattletale in the —
Kyle Olson:
That’s right. She’s the one — I can’t wait to get to that one, because it’s such a great moment that she has. Just a look. She has this “uh-huh,” and she does this sort of look back, and you’re like, oh, I know exactly what’s going on here.
Pete Wright:
Yep.
Kyle Olson:
I don’t think any of the others — Donald Glover, I guess, is in Spider-Man. Oh, shoot — which one’s Far From Home? No, it’s Homecoming.
Pete Wright:
He is in Homecoming.
Kyle Olson:
Homecoming, that’s right.
Pete Wright:
He plays Aaron Davis.
Kyle Olson:
Yes.
Pete Wright:
Why is Aaron Davis important?
Kyle Olson:
Because he’s the Prowler, and the uncle of Miles Morales.
Pete Wright:
He’s the Prowler and the uncle of Miles Morales.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
Yes, we’re in-universe, people.
Kyle Olson:
So then if you take that slightly out, he also has a cameo in Beyond the Spider-Verse as that character, as the Prowler — so whatever universe that comes from, we don’t know.
Pete Wright:
There are so many.
Kyle Olson:
But he’s also in that one.
Pete Wright:
It’s universes all the way down.
Kyle Olson:
Chevy Chase has not been in any of them.
Pete Wright:
Who else you got?
Kyle Olson:
I wonder why.
Pete Wright:
No, it’s so weird. He’s so likable.
Kyle Olson:
Of the principal cast, that’s kind of all I can think of. What else have I missed? Has Starburns been in something?
Pete Wright:
Well, no. I’m going to give you Joe Russo, because we’ve had the Russos in general playing themselves.
Kyle Olson:
Oh, okay — yeah, it’s the Russos, they’ve been in themselves, yeah.
Pete Wright:
And we have Ken Jeong.
Kyle Olson:
Oh, Ken Jeong, that’s right.
Pete Wright:
Señor Chang. Do you remember where he was?
Kyle Olson:
No, I don’t.
Pete Wright:
Ken Jeong played the security guard in Endgame, when Ant-Man came back.
Kyle Olson:
That’s right. He’s the one who was watching when it came back. The rat that saved the universe.
Pete Wright:
Yep. The rat that saved the universe.
Kyle Olson:
He was watching that — he wasn’t the rat, but he was watching on the monitor.
Pete Wright:
We have Randall Park. Randall Park was —
Kyle Olson:
Randall Park was in Community?
Pete Wright:
He was in season five, and he played Jimmy Woo in Ant-Man and the Wasp. He’s been a recurring feature in a couple of films.
Kyle Olson:
Wow. Okay. Yep.
Pete Wright:
How about Martin Starr?
Kyle Olson:
Oh, Martin Starr was in Community. Wow. A gift that keeps on giving.
Pete Wright:
He played a teacher — he was in the —
Kyle Olson:
He was in The Incredible Hulk.
Pete Wright:
He was in The Incredible Hulk, and the Spider-Man films.
Kyle Olson:
Yes, he was in Spider-Man. “I can’t lose another student.”
Pete Wright:
He was the —
Kyle Olson:
Yeah, that’s in Homecoming.
Pete Wright:
“I can’t lose anything.” And the Model UN — he was the teacher in the Model UN episode, which was hysterical.
Kyle Olson:
Yes. And they’ve said that the character he played in The Incredible Hulk is also —
Pete Wright:
Not principal cast, but —
Kyle Olson:
— the same person who went on to graduate and become a teacher at Spider-Man’s school.
Pete Wright:
Yes. I have one more — again, not principal cast, but a full character in Community. She played Rachel, a love interest for Abed, before starring as Captain Marvel. Brie Larson, yes, for sure.
Kyle Olson:
Oh, that’s right, that’s Captain Marvel. I forgot — Brie Larson. She had a very small role. We all thought she was going to be a major part of the show, and then I think her career blew up right after that, and she sort of got bigger than the show.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, for sure. Let’s see — have we not talked about Aaron Himmelstein?
Kyle Olson:
We have, and we will again, I believe.
Pete Wright:
Okay, and we will again. Walton Goggins.
Kyle Olson:
Yes.
Pete Wright:
In “Cooperative Polygraphy” he was the lawyer executing Pierce’s will, and ended up, of course, as the villain Sonny Birch in Ant-Man and the Wasp.
Kyle Olson:
Yep. Underrated. Another underrated one.
Pete Wright:
Totally. There are a couple more that I’m going to be digging into, which we’ll hold off on. They’re bit upon bit, but those are the big ones. And thus endeth our quiz on Community cameos in the MCU. You did very well.
Kyle Olson:
Thank you, thank you. There’s a couple of those where you sort of forget that Community was on — it was that cult show that went on for a long time, with a lot of really, really good people.
Pete Wright:
It was so good.
Kyle Olson:
So whoever’s casting that show — shout out to the Community casting people, because, man, they’re batting some high numbers there.
Pete Wright:
They absolutely are. And of course, now we’re in the control room as we pick up minute 96.
Kyle Olson:
Yes. In the intro, the council is now here, and we hear a helicopter, and we follow it into the control room where two guys are talking. I love when they do this — to say, hey, this is happening at the same time, then we follow the helicopter. And it’s Danny Pudi, from Chicago, Illinois — shout out to Chi-Town. 102 acting credits on IMDb. IMDb?
Pete Wright:
Oh no.
Kyle Olson:
Why does that sound familiar?
Pete Wright:
Oh no.
Kyle Olson:
Oh, that’s right — I think that means it’s time for the IMDb Game, Pete!
Pete Wright:
No, no, no, no, Kyle.
Kyle Olson:
Danny Pudi — you just said a hundred and three —
Pete Wright:
A hundred and three?
Kyle Olson:
A hundred and two, I can crest, and then he’s got more on the way. So by the time you listen to this, there might be more. I can tell you, obviously, there’s four. Three of them are television shows, so Community is the gimme — I’ll give you that one already. So he has three more: two television shows and a movie. This will be a tough one. I don’t expect you to get it, because I did not know he was in the movie that’s listed there.
Pete Wright:
Do I know the movie?
Kyle Olson:
You probably do, more than I do, because you are much more cinematic than I am. But I can tell you it’s starring a person who was not part of the game you just played.
Pete Wright:
It was not —
Kyle Olson:
Yes. This person had never made the crossover from Community to the MCU, but it’s another name from Community.
Pete Wright:
Really?
Kyle Olson:
Yes. But that’s the last one, that’s the hard one. Community is one — so what are two and three?
Pete Wright:
Okay, was it animated? I know he’s done a ton of voice work.
Kyle Olson:
One of them was animated, yes.
Pete Wright:
Okay.
Kyle Olson:
And this is why Danny Pudi is a meme — because of this show. In addition to having a career and being beloved, he’s also a meme because he was talking to Mr. Suspenders himself.
Pete Wright:
Oh — what was the duck one? Didn’t he do, like, DuckTales?
Kyle Olson:
Yes. DuckTales — yep, the reboot of DuckTales. He has a meme from when he was on Larry King. Larry King was talking to him about, “What do you consider a luxury item?” And he’s like, “I don’t know, I like fancy coffees.” And Larry King is like, “That’s not a luxury item — like a private plane, that’s a luxury item.” And Danny Pudi says, “Larry, I’m on DuckTales.” I don’t do it justice, but find that clip — it is so good. It’s one of those things that has lived on. It’s this beautiful disconnect.
Pete Wright:
That’s awesome.
Kyle Olson:
Okay, so Community is one, DuckTales is two — and the third is another television show.
Pete Wright:
Okay, so two. Oh, wait a minute — he did the video game one, where he played the janitor after playing the bit essentially Scrooge McDuck, the gruff man of this video game company. What was it called? Oh my God, it was on Apple TV.
Kyle Olson:
Yes — it was called Mythic Quest.
Pete Wright:
It was Mythic Quest.
Kyle Olson:
Ah, you got there. You got there. I thought I’d have to give it to you. Mythic Quest.
Pete Wright:
Okay.
Kyle Olson:
So those are three. And the last one — you could take a shot, but I hadn’t even heard of this movie.
Pete Wright:
I can’t even think, besides this one we’re talking about, of anything else he’s been in. I have no idea.
Kyle Olson:
Okay, it’s starring Alison Brie, and it’s called Somebody I Used to Know.
Pete Wright:
Oh, I’ve never seen that movie.
Kyle Olson:
I hadn’t either. I was really surprised — of all of his things, that’s the one the IMDb Game went with. But that’s the fun and the madness of the IMDb Game: why?
Pete Wright:
Wow.
Kyle Olson:
Why that one? Of all his roles, why that one?
Pete Wright:
No idea.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
Well, there you go.
Kyle Olson:
And then, as another fun thing — if you’re looking for more Danny Pudi in your life and you’d like to see him playing, let’s say, Han Solo —
Pete Wright:
I should see it.
Kyle Olson:
— then clicky-clack your way over to YouTube and look for Minox from Space, which was the Star Wars live read of The Empire Strikes Back, where Danny Pudi got to play Han Solo, and he did a phenomenal job of it.
Pete Wright:
Yes.
Kyle Olson:
It’s really funny, and it’s for free, so go check it out and give them some support. He is in a conversation in this movie with Bernard Zelinkis — I’m sorry, Bernard.
Pete Wright:
Good job, I’ll take it.
Kyle Olson:
From Boston, Massachusetts. He has 1,390 credits on IMDb. This was his last listed thing on IMDb, so I could not find what had happened to Bernard — or Bernie, as he is sometimes known. So wherever he is, I hope he’s doing well and is very happy in his life. We’re happy that he got to do this and have this one fun little scene. And it would be — so they seem to be arguing about a parking spot.
Pete Wright:
He looks just like Sebastian Stan in this clip.
Kyle Olson:
He does, yeah.
Pete Wright:
And maybe that was his big problem. He was iced out by the Stan, because he’s a doppelganger.
Kyle Olson:
They’re like, all the parts of me — well, we’ve already got… I mean, he’s already been the title character.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, we’ve got him already. Okay. So they’re talking about parking?
Kyle Olson:
So they’re arguing about a parking spot.
Pete Wright:
I think they are.
Kyle Olson:
When we come into the conversation, it sounds like Danny Pudi’s character — I believe he’s just Tech Number One, and Bernie’s is Tech Number Two; they don’t have actual character names that we can tell — he’s been parking in someone’s spot, and now the person has come back and is very angry that he was parking in their spot. And the reason the person hadn’t been around is because they’d been deployed to Afghanistan. And that’s about all the surface — we’re coming in at the end of this conversation.
Pete Wright:
But, boy, it takes you back, right? Remember when people were deployed to Afghanistan? And then they dropped it as a cameo line in this movie, of all places.
Kyle Olson:
Right. The times, they are a-changin’.
Pete Wright:
A-changin’, yeah. Okay. Then he stands up, because there’s a shriek at the door.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah, there’s some kind of weird, squelchy sort of thing, and then the door opens, and there’s Captain America — flanked by Maria Hill and Falcon. I would assume he knows who Captain America is. He has no idea who the guy in the wingsuit is, but I would really expect he’d know who Maria Hill is.
Pete Wright:
Yes. She’s probably been in that room.
Kyle Olson:
I would expect Maria Hill has been in there, yes, exactly.
Pete Wright:
What is the building out the window? We already mentioned we’re following the helicopter. There’s a building out the window. Is that part of the Triskelion? That looks like the Triskelion. Is that what that is?
Kyle Olson:
I believe it is. I think the idea of the Triskelion is that it’s three individual towers.
Pete Wright:
Yes, and it looks like they’re tied together.
Kyle Olson:
So we’re looking out of one, connected to another one. I think we’re seeing another part of that same building.
Pete Wright:
Which we’ve already covered is about a thousand stories. It sits over what we’re going to see.
Kyle Olson:
Yes. Way larger than a building should be.
Pete Wright:
So this thing where we are — this command center — when I’m looking out the window, it looks like I’m looking at all three of the curved pieces together, and we’re separate from it. This is like the control tower for the riverfront landing bay that is about to be revealed.
Kyle Olson:
Yes. It looks like this is looking out over it — so maybe sitting sort of in the middle of the three, looking out over the water. And then where we adjust would be below, or at least slightly out, because we don’t really get a good sense of how this is constructed. We know Cap goes from out the elevator the hard way, to the ground, to the entryway where the council currently is, and then out the front, where he fights with the Quinjet.
Pete Wright:
Right.
Kyle Olson:
But I don’t know exactly where this command center sits in relation to that domed area, because obviously that has sunlight coming in, so you’d think there’d be nothing above it — but this feels like it is above it.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, I think it’s down the waterfront a little bit. So we’re above it, but it’s deeply compressed in this couple of clips, because Pierce starts in the lobby. We’re up on the helicopter in this control room. The lobby is down the river a little bit. And then we cut immediately back to Pierce and crew, now on the top floor of the Triskelion, in Pierce’s office.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah. So they had been going while Cap was working his way into the building, after — as we assumed — swimming across the Potomac.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, right. Because the last we picked him up, you’re right, he was in a field across the river.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah. Maybe there’s a side story of how he found a local fisherman who had been in the war, and they ferried him across.
Pete Wright:
I’m sure there’s a picture, and he’s pulling the full George Washington.
Kyle Olson:
If not — hey, if fan artists out there are listening, I’d like to see that. The three of them in the boat.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, we’d like to see that.
Kyle Olson:
So Pudi, I think, knows full-on — as soon as you see, oh, that is one hundred percent Captain America, and then this classic look — and then immediately puts his hands up, like, oh, immediately surrenders.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. This is what I do. I do this now.
Kyle Olson:
And then that’s when Cap starts his big speech.
Pete Wright:
What do you think of the speech?
Kyle Olson:
The speech is great. I love that — flash to the end — Sam’s like, “Did you have that planned, or did you just make it up?” And he does not answer.
Pete Wright:
And he does not answer.
Kyle Olson:
No. I think Cap has made a bunch of these kinds of speeches. He was storming the beaches — he’s used to this. It’s not the first time he’s addressed things, never in this context, but he is a captain and he’s used to giving commands. So this is a really rousing thing to say: hey, you’ve been lied to. And he’s not asking — he’s not saying “rise up, join me, fight back.” He’s saying there’s a lot more going on here, and basically, don’t get in the way.
Pete Wright:
Kyle, I can’t believe I’m about to take this sidebar.
Kyle Olson:
Okay.
Pete Wright:
Cap is an excellent speaker.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
We know that. He must have had some training. And where do our greatest speakers get a platform to practice their speaking, even today?
Kyle Olson:
The Dale Carnegie Center.
Pete Wright:
No, Kyle. No, they don’t. That would be Toastmasters.
Kyle Olson:
Oh, Toastmasters.
Pete Wright:
Now, here’s a thing you might not know. Toastmasters began as a series of speaking clubs organized by Ralph Smedley during his time working for the YMCA in the early — I’m not messing with you right now — nineteen hundreds.
Kyle Olson:
Wow.
Pete Wright:
There’s a chance that Cap learned to speak in Toastmasters.
Kyle Olson:
Wow.
Pete Wright:
And that delights me.
Kyle Olson:
That’s wild.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, I want to see that. I want to be at that meeting. I want to see him stand up and tell his origin story.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah. Maybe it was right before the flashback we saw here, where he was playing stickball, and then —
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Because you can imagine skinny Steve. Skinny Steve’s a guy who would go to Toastmasters.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah. And they would have to bring out the soapbox so they could see him above the podium.
Pete Wright:
Am I right? Yes, that’s exactly it.
Kyle Olson:
It probably was literally a soapbox, because of the time period.
Pete Wright:
There’s a Forrest Gump version of a montage that we get with skinny Steve, where he’s just — picture Ralph Smedley and crew standing over a white-tablecloth table, giving a speech. I would be there for that.
Kyle Olson:
Wow.
Pete Wright:
All right.
Kyle Olson:
And, to take it in a nerdy direction — Toastmaster was also the name of the handheld blowtorch used in DC during the fall of Superman. It was invented by John Henry Irons, and it’s one of the things that got him to become Steel.
Pete Wright:
Meanwhile, back to the speech.
Kyle Olson:
He was a weapons manufacturer; he did not intend for that to become public use, and he saw some gangs using it on the streets of Metropolis and was like, “I have to do something about this,” and he created a suit of armor in homage to his hero, Superman. The Toastmaster was the name of the weapon they were using.
Pete Wright:
Oh my God. And he became Steel.
Kyle Olson:
So, as opposed to drive-by shootings, they were drive-by flamings in Metropolis. And he’s like, “I have to do something about that.” And thus a Shaq movie was born. So it all comes back around.
Pete Wright:
It all connects. Meanwhile — the speech.
Kyle Olson:
But yeah — so, the speech.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, it’s a good speech.
Kyle Olson:
Cap gives this fantastic speech. “Shield is not what we thought it was.” It’s interesting that he immediately says it’s been overrun by Hydra — because, as far as we know in this thing, Hydra was a thing he fought back then. In the comic books, it was always a concern, always an ongoing thing. But in the MCU, as far as we know, it ended when the Red Skull was absorbed, or wiped away, when Cap went into the ice, and it has not been mentioned since then except as a thing of the past.
Pete Wright:
Right.
Kyle Olson:
It’s not like they’re still fighting Hydra. So it’s interesting that he says it like this — like everyone would go, “Oh yeah, Hydra, yeah, Hydra,” and not, “What? That one weird faction that existed seventy-some-odd years ago?”
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Which makes it seem like one possible response from the crowd is, “Cap, you are obsessed. I know you were fighting them before — let it go, old man.” But they don’t.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
This is an okay-boomer moment.
Kyle Olson:
Okay, boomer. Yeah.
Pete Wright:
And yet they don’t. And maybe that’s because Robert Redford gives us a — oh, here’s why we hired Robert Redford. While Cap is talking, he doesn’t even have to speak.
Kyle Olson:
Uh-huh.
Pete Wright:
All of the other council members look at him, and he’s pacing behind his desk, and his eyebrows go up, and he shrugs and looks at them. And it’s both: he could be crazy, but also he could be right, and this is just what we’re dealing with.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah. It’s such a great look. I watched it again getting ready for these, and it really does convey both things: “Oh, can you believe this guy?” and “Well, I guess my secret’s out.”
Pete Wright:
Yeah. “And I don’t care. It was coming anyway.” There’s an interesting thing that goes on here cinematically, because we start with this speech and it’s very much not montage. We’re listening — even though Steve is in voiceover, we’re looking at things happening in real time. And then it transitions as we introduce more and more angles of reaction, and we start seeing the machine that gets started up to get the Helicarriers in the air. That becomes the race — for some reason, get those in the air before anybody can stop them from lifting off. Apparently nobody can stop them from operating once they’re in the air.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah. Once they get to a certain height — so this is trying to stop that from even happening. Steve’s trying to stop the clock from starting, because once they start to lift off, the clock starts running. So he’s trying to stop it before it begins, stop it right here. And this is also where Steve is different from a lot of things, because he really is making this impassioned speech, giving away his location, giving away the element of surprise. Because he knows there are loyal Shield members there — people who are good, honest American operatives who are willing to do this — and he wants to give them a chance to leave, join the fight, or just get out of the way. I think a lot of other Avengers probably would not have used the same tactic. If Black Widow was running this operation, I don’t think she’d be staying there trying to give a speech. She probably would be working her way through the innards of the thing, not even being seen, to disable the systems. So this is a very Steve Rogers thing — giving up the tactical advantage to help the people.
Pete Wright:
Right. And it ends up playing — it is written convincingly. It doesn’t take me out of the movie. I like that he gets a chance to monologue a little bit. And then that takes us, of course, to Rumlow.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
Still no bruises.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah. One little piece in that speech I wanted to highlight: he’s talking about standing up and doing this fight, and he says, “If I’m the only one, then so be it.” And they cut to Maria Hill —
Pete Wright:
Yeah, right.
Kyle Olson:
— standing there like, “I’m right here.”
Pete Wright:
“Screw you, man.”
Kyle Olson:
And then his next line is, “But I’m willing to bet I’m not.”
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Kyle Olson:
And it cuts back to her, and it’s like, “Oh, okay, gotcha.” She’s like, “You’re not alone. I was with you on the boat.”
Pete Wright:
“I was in that field in New Jersey, man. I just swam across the river for you.”
Kyle Olson:
“My hair is still wet.” Yeah. But then we see Rumlow comes in to take control and make sure the launch goes off — skip all the pre-flight checks and just get them in the air.
Pete Wright:
Because this is where the blocking is a little bit interesting, right? We’re in a control room, that’s where Cap goes in, where Danny Pudi is. But then where they launch the actual Helicarriers from is a different control room, with no windows.
Kyle Olson:
Yes. It seems like this maybe is a Triskelion control room — their internal security area — as opposed to the mission control for Project Insight. Because all the screens on there are about that, even though we did see Cap’s picture. And there was actually a deleted scene we didn’t even talk about that happened in that control room as well, where Pierce was telling everybody, “Hey, Captain America’s a bad guy now.”
Pete Wright:
Yes, right.
Kyle Olson:
Um —
Pete Wright:
And there is a shootout, because guess what? Some people are on Cap’s side and some people aren’t. And Rumlow has a move here, right?
Kyle Olson:
That’s right. Yes, it’s a power move.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Kyle Olson:
But before we get to that part, we have Aaron Himmelstein’s big — so, as another Shield tech, he’s told by Rumlow at gunpoint to launch the things, and he does it. Another very small but powerful move, because he says he is not going to do it, and then there’s a moment on his face where you can see him going, “I’m about to be shot in the head. I’m about to die.” You see it pass over his face, and he says, “Captain’s orders.”
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Oh, that’s good.
Kyle Olson:
It’s such a great moment. Directing, acting — what a fantastic choice he makes, taking that second between those lines. Because — I even wrote this in my notes — it is easier to be brave when you’re Captain America and you have the super-soldier serum, but this guy is just a regular guy, and he knows this will probably be the last thing he does. And even knowing that, he’s not going to be the one that defies it. This is a hero moment right here. And it goes directly from the speech to this: “I’m following the Captain’s orders.”
Pete Wright:
Yeah. It’s chilling.
Kyle Olson:
Oof. So good.
Pete Wright:
Who knew old Soul Patch from Community season one could pull that off?
Kyle Olson:
Yeah, that’s right. Big shout out to Aaron.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Kyle Olson:
What a great moment. And then we have Agent Carter — I’m sorry, the other Agent Carter. I was thinking Agent 13, I should say.
Pete Wright:
Right, Agent 13.
Kyle Olson:
She pulls her gun, and then all of a sudden everybody pulls guns, and we have a Mexican standoff. Now, it turns out that term is not racist.
Pete Wright:
Do go on.
Kyle Olson:
So many of these things, they come back and I’m like, oh no, that’s racist too. I’ll say something and go, oh, it turns out that’s racist too.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Kyle Olson:
So I was like, thank goodness. So the earliest use of the phrase was from a short story on March 19th, 1876.
Pete Wright:
Okay, that’s pedigree.
Kyle Olson:
It was a short story about Mexico, and it had the line — because this is how they wrote in 1876 — “said he sternly then —”
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Kyle Olson:
“— we will call it a standoff, a Mexican standoff. You lose your money, but you save your life.” That was written by F. Harvey Smith, in the Sunday Mercury, from the great state and city of New York. So from that, it has become a thing. It was never connected to any type of —
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Kyle Olson:
So many times you look at a phrase and you look at the history and go, oh —
Pete Wright:
I know — can’t say that anymore. But you know, at some point over the last hundred years, a lot of people have kind of believed that it’s racist. And does it just become racist when people believe it isn’t, hard enough? Oh, we’re all in trouble.
Kyle Olson:
At a certain point — if you believe it hard enough, it’s the Tinkerbell effect, right? If you just believe it hard enough, it too can become racist. But no — as far as I can tell. I strive to be corrected, but yeah. And so then we have — it looks like for a second Rumlow is going to stand down.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Kyle Olson:
He’s going to surrender. He drops his weapon — but, surprise knife!
Pete Wright:
Guess what — he’s not! Surprise knife. Because everybody has a surprise knife. That’s the important part. And Sharon Carter gets sliced and drops her gun, and Rumlow catches it. And that is almost Winter Soldier-level “I’m going to play with knives and guns” hand tricks — which is the gold standard, as far as I’m concerned, in a stunt. And Rumlow pulls it off, and it looks very, very good, and it’s fast.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah. And then all hell breaks loose. Then the strike team lives up to their name and starts striking out at everybody, and bullets are flying in that control room.
Pete Wright:
They do. As it’s happening, we start cutting exterior. First of all, at three minutes and forty-three seconds, we get a very wide shot of the river, and it explains some of the blocking now. On the far right, we have where the Danny Pudi control room is, and we’re looking across the shoreline of the river at the Triskelion.
Kyle Olson:
Yes.
Pete Wright:
And this scene is somewhere with no windows, so we don’t actually know where it is, but we assume it’s on the left, in the Triskelion itself.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah. And did you know that’s where they were? I sort of remember being surprised when the bay doors open and the waters part at the end of that. I’m like, oh, they’re literally under the river. I had thought it would have been a hangar somewhere, but no — they built it under the river.
Pete Wright:
It is the most sensorily satisfying sequence of this movie — watching the hangar effectively rise up and displace the water. I really, really do love it. And that they hide it there — it’s weird that it’s purportedly a Shield installation, but this seems like such a Hydra move.
Kyle Olson:
Right. Even just the small amount I know of fluid dynamics — this wouldn’t work.
Pete Wright:
This would not work.
Kyle Olson:
There’s so much water that would be getting in. How do you do something under that? But yeah, you just have to super-science it.
Pete Wright:
I know — we’re just drenching the deck of this carrier that is full of people and Quinjets and equipment. What’s going to happen as they start washing off?
Kyle Olson:
Yeah. You’d think that, if they were water-soluble that way, they would have just built them on water. But yeah, right.
Pete Wright:
I mean, these are supposed to be able to float, too, right? Their dry dock being underwater seems a little bit misguided, but that’s what it is. It becomes a low-key Hydra lair in the matter of just a few seconds, and I’m here for it. I think it’s really, really cool. And sometimes cool is better than smart.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah. And I’d say, even for being ten-plus years old, the VFX still look really good.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Really holds up.
Kyle Olson:
When you have something impossible and you make it look like, “Oh yeah, that’s totally believable” — yeah.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, a hundred percent. I feel like I’m right there fighting on top of it, Avengers. So cool.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah. And even Cap leaving — just kind of to get onto it — I had never really put together, like you’re saying, the geography of it. I’m like, oh, he runs out into the river, because he is on the edge of where this hangar bay door has come up, and then jumps from that onto — I think it’s number two, the first one to actually go out of the three.
Pete Wright:
Yes, Insight Two.
Kyle Olson:
He goes out of that, and then Sam lands right next to him, and that’s where they have their back-and-forth. There’s also a great outtake, if you look at them trying to get this right and not being able to get it right. So the two of them are running along, then Sam says, “How do we know the good guys from the bad guys?”
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Kyle Olson:
Cap says, “The ones we’re shooting at — those are the bad guys.”
Pete Wright:
Yeah, those are the bad guys.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
The jump is non-trivial, but we already know he can fall great heights and be okay. He has a good roll. Here’s another thing about the Quinjets on top of this thing: the Quinjets aren’t gray, they’re black.
Kyle Olson:
Yes — to show that they’re evil.
Pete Wright:
Is that a change? All of a sudden, the black vehicles now we know are evil?
Kyle Olson:
Yeah. I think because we know they’re baddies. The next time we see a Quinjet, if I’m right, is Avengers: Age of Ultron — when they’re coming back from their mission against Strucker, who is also another Hydra guy. They’re in a Quinjet, and it’s back to the silver. So I guess this is how we show a Hydra Quinjet: it’s black.
Pete Wright:
Yep.
Kyle Olson:
So there’s one poor low-level intern — a Hydra intern — who had to take a spray can and just spray all the black.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Okay, that’s all he’s doing, is spraying Quinjets.
Kyle Olson:
That’s his one job. He’s like, “I’m also evil.”
Pete Wright:
So there we are. And that takes us — this is not a perfect Winter Soldier Five. It ends in the middle of a flip, and we’re in —
Kyle Olson:
No. Yeah, that’s right. The Falcon has now taken to the air, so he is off there.
Pete Wright:
Yep.
Kyle Olson:
And then Cap does what he does great, which is running. And then he does this beautiful shoulder roll — I think, once again, that’s Sam Hargrave — the shoulder roll across the crates, and then, all of a sudden, as bullets are flying, that’s where our minutes come to an end.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. It is a great-looking set of minutes, and I’m still in the fight. I’m still in the fight. I’m still hanging on.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah. I’m curious — I’m trying to remember: is there a reason Maria’s not going after the third one? It seems like there are three. Why does she have to stay behind? Maybe I just don’t remember. I think maybe there’s a “I have to do control stuff, I have to run programs” thing.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, there’s buttons to be pushed.
Kyle Olson:
Yeah, exactly. There’s beeps and boops that they have to do.
Pete Wright:
There’s so many beeps and boops. This is very exciting.
Kyle Olson:
As we’ve learned from Spider-Man: Homecoming, you need the guy in the chair.
Pete Wright:
A guy in the chair.
Kyle Olson:
And in this case it’s a lady in the chair.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Yep.
Kyle Olson:
So that’s Maria’s job — to be the one coordinating.
Pete Wright:
We’re coming right down to it. There are only a hundred minutes in this movie, including credits, and we have just crested a hundred, and this is very, very exciting. Kyle Olson, what do you want to tell people about? Where can they find you?
Kyle Olson:
I mean, if you’re looking for creativity help in this turbulent time — no matter what you’re doing — I think if you listen to Craft and Chaos, you’ll hear some ideas and tips on how to stay creative in a time of tumult. Also, we get extremely weird.
Pete Wright:
And equestrian.
Kyle Olson:
And we’re having some fun along the way. It’s not medicine — we are definitely more sugar in that spoonful.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. But it is medicine for me, I’ll tell you. Being a part of that podcast helped me deliver a new plug today. As you listen to this —
Kyle Olson:
Oh yes. Why, Pete? Do you have something newly available that the people can purchase?
Pete Wright:
It is very exciting. As this episode comes out, a new book, Onset, is available for purchase in print and electronic formats wherever you buy books. And I’m very excited about it. It’s my first full-length novel, on the heels of my novella, Lattice, that was released a few months ago — and is also still available. It has not been pulled, as far as I know.
Kyle Olson:
Also still available.
Pete Wright:
And I’m very excited to be doing it. I directly attribute Craft and Chaos to getting me to finally figure out how to do this.
Kyle Olson:
Look at that. See — we got Pete to be a published writer. What can it do for you? The only way to find out is to listen. So this new book is YA, right?
Pete Wright:
It is YA. Technically it’s called a YA crossover thriller.
Kyle Olson:
Right. So — crossover with real life?
Pete Wright:
How about that? Yep.
Kyle Olson:
So you’re basically saying you’re coming for Ryan Dalton. You’re trying to knock the Year of Lightning trilogy off of —
Pete Wright:
I would never. Nope, stop it.
Kyle Olson:
— the —
Pete Wright:
Because I owe a lot to the inspiration of that guy, so please do not put me in that particular camp. I just exist in orbit of, like, Ryan Dalton’s. It is really fun.
Kyle Olson:
So if you’re looking for a good weekend’s reading, maybe pick up Onset, and then maybe pick up his last adventure. That’s a nice weekend’s reading right there.
Pete Wright:
That’d be a good balance. Yep, for sure. So thank you, everybody, for checking out Onset, and for checking out Craft and Chaos. We love doing those things and would not do it without people listening to them. So this is very exciting.
Kyle Olson:
That’s right. And we also love Marvel movies and Marvel Movie Minute. So we will be back to talk about the taking down of Project Insight. The unsight of Insight, now.
Pete Wright:
The unseat.
Kyle Olson:
I’ll work on that.
Pete Wright:
The unseat of Insight.
Kyle Olson:
The unseating of Insight is coming.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. It’s coming very soon.
Kyle Olson:
So we will be here — make sure you’re there. We love you all. Thank you for listening. We’ll be back soon. Enough said.
