Re: What Did You Watch? 2025-02-08 (Saturday)

On Feb 9, 2025 at 1:54:37 PM PST, "anim8rfsk" <anim8rfsk@cox.net> wrote:

BTR1701 <atropos@mac.com> wrote:

 On Feb 9, 2025 at 10:26:35 AM PST, "Arthur Lipscomb"
 <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
 

 Captain America: Civil War (4K disc) 2016 movie set in the MCU.  After a
 mission goes bad Thaddeus Ross shows up with a proposal to reign in the
 Avengers. The last time we saw Ross we was a general, now he's the U.S.
 Secretary of State.  At this rate, maybe one day he'll even be
 President. Anyway, after the ultimatum is delivered one group of
 Avengers lead by Iron Man decide to sign on to the new restraints while
 another group lead by Captain America decide to go their own way.

 

I have a problem with this and a more basic level. Tony Stark should've
told these people to go fuck themselves. And Steve Rogers should've bent
over to take it up the poop shoot. I don't know who decided they should be
on the wrong side of things.

Yes, it does seem like they'd both have the opposite view than what was
presented in the movie.

 I re-watched this recently, too, and I have to say, the scene where Ross
sits
 them all down and lectures them always angers me, particularly when he
focuses
 on what happened in New York, implying that the Avengers are responsible for
 all the damage and (presumed) deaths that occurred.
 

Yeah, he watched a different movie than I did
 

 Excuse me? How is *any* of that damage the fault of the Avengers? If they
 hadn't been there, the city literally would have been completely destroyed
by
 the Chitauri (as well as the rest of the earth, eventually) and when Cap
 weakly tries to make that important point, Hurt responds with "But at what
 cost?"
 
 Cap should have responded, "Excuse me, motherfucker? I know you didn't just
 say that. Wasn't it you assholes in the government that launched a fucking
 *nuke* at Manhattan in response to the invasion? The only reason New York is
 still standing at all and isn't a radioactive slag heap is that we took the
 time-- in the middle of a pitched battle-- to *also* stop you assholes from
 killing millions of innocent people. Now you want us to let the same people
 who wanted to nuke New York to start calling the shots with us, too? GTFO."
 
 That whole scene just pisses me off, both for Ross's hypocritical arrogance

 
Well, I've always hated Ross all the way back to the mid 1960s. He was
designed to be the guy you hate.
 

 and for the way the team just sat there and took it rather than pointing out
 the gaping holes in his bullshit.
 
 As for the Accords, I want to know what justifies requiring Romanov and
Barton
 to register with the government. At least in these movies, they're not
 enhanced, either biologically or technologically. They're just people. One
is
 good with a bow/arrow,

 
I note your "at least" above, so I’m sure we’ve probably discussed this but
at some point, they've decided that Barton is in fact enhanced, as he
obviously has to be because the shots he makes are impossible otherwise. I
forget what they settled on if he's got magic eyes somehow or is actually
seeing three seconds in the future. I think the latter is what they had to
have in order for him to help brie Larson murder Bruce Banner.

Yeah, all these characters have undergone so many revisions and re-imaginings
over the years in the comics, that I only go with what they've shown in the
movies themselves.

 Seems like there'd be just a few constitutional issues involved there,  at
 least for the Americans who met the standards of the Accords.
 
 And since, per AGENTS OF SHIELD, the Accords weren't limited to just the
 Avengers but rather any "enhanced person", why was someone like the Son of
 Coul, who was technologically enhanced with that nifty bionic hand that
could
 do all sorts of tricks, not required to register,

 
Because per Josh Wheden, the son of Cole died in the first avengers movie.
In the movies he’s dead. In the TV show he’s only secretly alive. Either
way I can see where they can’t put him on the list.
 
but Tony Stark was? And how

 much tech assistance triggers the reporting requirement? After all, a gun is
 tech, so does merely carrying a gun require registration? If not, then
where's
 the line between a holstered gun and an Iron Man suit that imposes a
 submission-to-the-United Nations requirement on a person?
 

 
Maybe they registered Tony Starks heart and not the suit.

So people with hi-tech medical implants have to register, too?!?

Did they register war machine?

I assume so.

 And what qualifies as "enhanced"? Would someone with those kangaroo-like leg
 prosthetics be considered "enhanced"? I mean, they *can* run and jump faster
 and longer than people with normal human legs, after all.

 
Yeah, there has to be some sort of limiting scale. If your bionic legs let
you walk half as fast as I do you’re still enhanced, but does it count? If
you can walk twice as fast as I do, do you trip something?
 
And then there's

 Thor, who isn't enhanced at all. He's just not human. He's normal for his
 species.

 
Actually, Thor is not only top end of his species, but he also has a magic
belt given him by Odin that doubles his strength. And he’s got Mjolnir.
He’s definitely enhanced.

 
 Those "accords" presented so many legal and due process challenges, which
 both the show and the movies gloss over (for good reason--- most people
don't
 care about that stuff), but which the law geek in me would love for them to
 have addressed.

 
Yep.

I have these same questions whenever movies and shows (like the X-MEN) that
deal with government mandates for mutants to register themselves. How do they
define 'mutant'? Would Patrick Mahomes or Mozart be a mutant
because they can do things at a spectacular level that no one else can do? Is
possession of any ability above the human baseline norm a registerable
offense? What if someone's power is to be able to fart in color? Or play golf
better than Tiger Woods in his prime? Those are things that can never be used
to hurt anyone, so would they have to register and submit to constant
government surveillance? What would be the justification for tagging them like
an animal putting them under house arrest?

And how is any of this stuff legal? Have they done a wholesale shit-canning of
the Constitution?

Q: How many of the Bill of Rights does the government violate by locking
people up just for being able to do things they can't?

A: All of 'em, I think.

Short of a complete abdication of the Constitution and the foundations of the
government's relationship to the citizenry that has existed for 200+ years in
this country, how is the U.S. government even getting away with passing and
enforcing such laws on people?

I get why movies don't get into those weeds much because they only have a
couple of hours to tell the whole story, but a TV series has the time to
address some of these things so that people like me aren't constantly yelling,
"They can't do that!" at the TV.

I think the whole legality of it all would be fascinating. Of course none of
this makes for an exciting action movie, so it's
always all glossed over and hand-waived away to make room for the explosions
and CGI.