r/CaptainAmerica • u/Several_Cattle_5197 • 1d ago
So I keep hearing arguments about civil war that are something like this « Why is civil war labeled as a Captain America movie even though Steve and Tony have the same amount of screen time »(here is my argument to this statement)
I personally think that despite the two sharing the movie in terms of screen time, it still worked as a Captain America movie nonetheless.
Steve still felt like our main guy because his half of the story was him being proactive and pushing the story forward, and having many plot threads continuing from his previous 2 movies, like his distrust of the government and his friendship with Bucky, while Iron Man was mostly reactionary to Steve’s actions, and they even tied his parents’ death to Steve’s story, as the Winter Soldier, aka his best friend, was the one who killed his parents. Plus, Steve does have 1 extra minute of screen time over Tony, which, yeah, I know it isn’t saying much, but I’ll take what I can get, I guess.
The movie doesn’t have many plot threads and characters from the Iron Man movies like they did with Cap. I mean, Happy Hogan isn’t in it, Pepper Potts isn’t in it, it’s just the parents stuff, which they related to Steve’s friend. Sure, War Machine is there, but he did become an Avenger at the end of Avengers 2, so Rhodey is the only Iron Man character in this movie.
The cast that has the most focus in Civil War are all Cap-centric (Steve, Bucky, Sam, Natasha, Sharon, and them addressing Peggy in the movie), plus Iron Man and Black Panther, which they both related to Steve’s best friend, as he killed Tony’s parents and T’Challa thought he killed his father, plus Rumlow at the start of the movie before he died, but yeah.
Bucky has more screen time than any Avenger outside of Tony, so it’s kinda weird that for an Avengers movie, a non-Avenger character surpasses the rest, as they all were removed from the movie after the airport battle until we see them right before the credits roll.
The movie just has a big focus on Steve and Bucky’s friendship, which is fitting for a Cap movie, since the previous two movies focused on the exact same thing and gave it a conclusion, as the mid-credit scene serves as an epilogue to the trilogy, with Steve knowing that Bucky is finally safe and under protection at Wakanda.
Baron Zemo felt like a Cap villain, as he was using the Hydra book (which, btw, Hydra is related to Cap’s movies) to take control over Bucky, who is his best friend, and we even got some lore on there being other Winter Soldiers out there, making the movie feel like a direct sequel to Cap 1 and Cap 2.
I think calling Cap 3 an Avengers movie is totally valid and makes sense, but I don’t think we should consider people being totally wrong for calling it a Captain America movie, even though he is toe-to-toe with Tony in terms of screen time.
But nonetheless, Steve still felt like the main protagonist of the movie.
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u/Chemist-3074 1d ago
I mean, the main plot revolves around Cap tryning to prove Bucky innocent, and everyone else going against it and Tony is typically only there to tell him to compromise (not in a bad sense, what Tony did was also very strategic from a diffrent angle).
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u/Thawne_23 1d ago
I sincerely never get the problem: this is literally the continuation of the arc plot of The Winter Soldier and the debate around freedom vs security. The film revolves around Steve's conflict bw choosing freedom over regulation, Bucky over The Avengers, so it's more than obvious for me that it is a Captain America movie and screen time doesn't have so much impact in defining who is the protagonist of a story IMO.
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u/InvestigatorJaded261 1d ago
Didn’t you already make this post, like a month ago?
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u/Several_Cattle_5197 1d ago
I did but everyone got the wrong message,they thought i viewed it as an avengers movie cause i forgot to put quotations on the argument that people use to say it’s an avengers movie so I bisacly deleted it and made this one more clear,but yeh nice observation there
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u/Dry_Branch_5775 1d ago
Why isn't Avengers: Infinity War named after Thanos since he has more screen time than any of the Avengers?
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u/Several_Cattle_5197 1d ago
Honestly should’ve been labeled as guardians of the galaxy 3 cause of how focus thanos and gamora have in the movie
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u/HavixComix 1d ago
Just to clarify, the Russos have stated that had things gone their way, the title would have changed to Avengers: Civil War. I think the box office proves that some money was left on the table, despite it's success.
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u/Several_Cattle_5197 1d ago
Yeh in the movie’s 10th anniversary they did say if they could change its name to avengers civil war but then knew that Chris evens doesn’t have another solo movie in his contract after civil war so they named it after him and i honestly think with the movie’s context it’s a pretty fitting title
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u/HortonDrawsAwho 1d ago
I can tell you from the production end that its titled Captain America Civil War because the amount of screen time Iron Man had in the film was constantly in flux for most of pre production. It was always a captain America led film.
The production of this movie was a mess and a tug of war between Ike Perelmutter and Fiege. Which resulted in Perelmutter being demoted and Fiege basically usurping his position at the company. If Perelmutter got his way Downey would have only appeared in 8 min of the film.
Ontop of all of this they were dealing with Sony being wishy washy with the use of Spiderman. At one point they pulled spiderman from the film entirely, and disney panicked and took planned elements from the black panther film and injected those scenes into civil war to fill the gaps made from Sony pulling Spiderman.
By the time Sony re agreed to let Disney use him, they were too far into production to go back on the black panther stuff. Which is why Spiderman enters the film so awkwardly (with Tony calling a time out and flying to New York to get him).
So yeah this whole film was a mess behind the scenes. It’s a fascinating story. And a prime example of how Disneys “fix it in post production” method of making films can sometimes work really well. Because all things considered Civil War is a good movie but it was ALWAYS a Captain America thing. It was never approached as an Avengers structured film with multi protagonists.