Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

[major_clanger]

The Marvel Cinematic Universe does Three Days of the Condor style 1970s political paranoia thriller, and succeeds impressively well. It doesn't hurt that Robert Redford plays a major role, but in that respect so does Washington DC, a city that, via a hundred political thrillers and dramas, has become a character in its own right. In one very nice visual reference, SHIELD headquarters' placement on the Potomac leads gives us a scene where a central character stands in a glass-walled lift against a backdrop view of the Watergate complex.

Other people who saw the film earlier have done better analyses than I could, and I'll point to

http://emperorzombie.dreamwidth.org/379306.html

http://ffutures.livejournal.com/1026392.html

as just a couple.

Oh, and one very nice in-joke that, taken literally, adds another movie to the MCU...



Nick Fury's faux grave has a headstone with an inscription that is shown only for a moment, but is clearly legible:

"The path of the righteous man..."
— Ezekiel 25:17

This is, of course, a shout-out to Samuel L Jackson's most famous other role, as Jules in Pulp Fiction, and the biblical quote Jules delivers before carrying out his hit:

"The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee."

Except of course that Ezekiel 25:17 doesn't say all that; the actual verse is a shorter version of the last two sentences of Jules' speech, but its first two sentences are cobbled together from other bits of the Bible altogether.

Now it could be that Jules has just made all the extra stuff up, although he does seem to believe in Pulp Fiction that it's the genuine word of the Bible. Maybe he read it somewhere else and just thinks it's an actual Biblical verse. Or, perhaps, Pulp Fiction is set in a universe where that is how Ezekiel 25:17 actually reads.

But if that's the case, that must be true for Winter Soldier too. After all, the line on Fury's headstone is a nice joke for the audience, but in-universe that's presumably the actual, real, Biblical quote.

The logical explanation for all of this is that "The path of righteous men..." is how Ezekiel 25:17 reads in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Pulp Fiction is set in that universe.

There. Pulp Fiction is part of the MCU. QED.

Comments

[rmc28]

The thing is that the Ezekiel 25:17 of this world is entirely appropriate for the creator of the Avengers Initiative.

Maybe Fury just really likes Pulp Fiction ...

[major_clanger]

Oh, it certainly is.

Perhaps in the MCU it's a standing joke at SHIELD that Fury looks like Samuel L Jackson. (In fact, in the Marvel Ultimate continuity that MCU's Fury is based on, Fury is quoted as wanting to be played in any film of his adventures by Samuel L Jackson, at which point words like 'meta' and 'recursive' start to be appropriate...)

[rmc28]

I'd understood that that reference was why the makers of Iron Man invited SLJ to cameo as Fury in the post-credits scene ...

[major_clanger]

He's certainly got a good deal out of it!

[clanwilliam]

I think he gave an interview where his agent said "Sam, you might want to audition for this role" and his reply was "I don't have to audition; they'll call me".

Marvel explicitly drew SLJ as Fury in Ultimates because they wanted him for the films.

Also, the Ezekiel quote was what I spoiled G on (with his permisson). As I said "yeah, there's a Nick Fury gravestone, but we all know Fury is a lying liar who lies".

G's only comment was a hopeful and vengeful "did they send him to Tahiti?"

[rmc28]

I forgot to mention that I completely missed the visual Watergate reference (not ever previously having had any reason to know what Watergate looked like), so thank you for pointing it out :-)

[major_clanger]

I was wandering around Washington DC a few years ago (day off during a work trip) and noticed this very sixties-looking block of apartments and offices on the banks of the Potomac. I looked it up in my guidebook and thought "oh, that's Watergate."

(I don't know if you've ever been to DC, but if not and you have the chance it's well worth it. The central area is surprisingly compact and you can see all the main sights in a day, although you may want to devote another day - at least - to the various Smithsonian museums.)

[clanwilliam]

DC is fabulous. I am eternally grateful to the tour bus driver who effectively threw us off the bus with orders to visit the FDR memorial. I took G there a few years later and told him that crying was a perfectly natural response when he got embarassed.

I also love the tracking of Sam's jogging route at the beginning - he's doing a perfectly respectable pace and it really highlights how fast Steve is.

And, since G finally had time to see it last night, was very amused at him sitting up at the Air and Space Museum bit. It was really nice to see a film that paid attention to actual geography, to the extent of putting the special exhibition in the space where the special exhibitions go!

(Or at least did, last time I was there, which was quite a while ago.)

[makyo.livejournal.com]

Now it could be that Jules has just made all the extra stuff up, although he does seem to believe in Pulp Fiction that it's the genuine word of the Bible.

Jules has a bit of an epiphany towards the end of the film, during which he remarks that he originally chose it as something cool to say just before he killed people, but now he's had a bit more of a think about what it means. Which suggests to me that it wasn't something he thought particularly deeply about before, and at the very least he didn't put much effort into checking his sources. So maybe he cobbled it together himself from half-remembered bits of Bible, some of which did come from Ezekiel 25:17, or maybe he read it somewhere else. (There are now presumably lots of people who know that passage off-by-heart because they've seen Pulp Fiction and aren't aware that the Bible doesn't quite say that.)

But if that's the case, that must be true for Winter Soldier too. After all, the line on Fury's headstone is a nice joke for the audience, but in-universe that's presumably the actual, real, Biblical quote.

Or maybe Pulp Fiction exists as a film in the Marvel Universe too, and Nick Fury is enough of a fan that he wanted it put on his gravestone.

There. Pulp Fiction is part of the MCU. QED.

Probably. There's a good chance that the whole lot (Pulp Fiction and the entire Marvel canon) is happening inside Tommy Westphall's imagination, anyway.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

There's a good chance that the whole lot (Pulp Fiction and the entire Marvel canon) is happening inside Tommy Westphall's imagination, anyway.

Let us not go there, it is a silly place.

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

I hadn't spotted the Watergate nod, nice. I liked the DC setting - is the Triskelion in a totally made-up place, or is there another building in that location but not SHIELD headquarters?

This is my favourite review so far.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

It's on Theodore Roosevelt Island, which is actually parkland. Presumably after the events of The Avengers the National Parks Service was told to take a hike. (SHIELD also presumably got a waiver from Washington DC's draconian no-tall-buildings law.)

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Something I forgot to mention in my review - one of the people mentioned on HYDRA's enemies list is Steven Strange! Will be very interested to see if he's in the next Avengers flic or another in the MCU

REALLY like the Pulp Fiction idea, though my theory is that the contents of the glowing box there are whatever was in the boot of the car in Repo Man. Certainly doesn't rule out Repo Man being part of the MCU, of course, it could have been alien tech or an early model repulser.