bucky was still campaigning during bnw right? and congressional elections are every 2 years, which means he wouldn't have gotten elected until 2028, and then it's only been a few months/half a year-ish something that is less than half a term in, then 14 months
also if sam SMART BOY THAT HE IS trademarked 'avengers' or 'the avengers' then that means they can probably still use 'new avengers' bc that's not the same brand, but if he trademarked new avengers they're fucked yeah
the fact that that didn't happen and they're trying so hard to push this "new avengers" thing when tbolts has been a comics thing in many forms for a longass time is very fucking frustrating
I also am just never going to get over how they massacred his hair, I don't understand, you've done the long hair right and this was so wrong, and also why did he grow it out again anyway
it's real funny how like. fatws was the first time I really truly gave a shit about bucky and liked him, so now that I see him in the movies again it's like 'who is this, is this the same guy, I don't buy it', ALSO BUCKY AND SAM ARE JUST BICKERING AND FIGHTING ABOUT WHO GETS TO BE AVENGERS WHICH IS DUMB
yelena's hawkeye-era blue mascara and eyeliner combo makes a return, and also, lena, did you know you're not alone bc you could go visit your archer girlfriend anytime, oh we're just not even gonna address kate and your connection to her cool cool cool
john's dumbass lil beret is also bad and that also has to be on purpose bc fuck john walker ALSO THE FACT THAT THEY ARE OFFICIALLY KNOWN AS NEW AVENGERS IN THE WORLD MEANS THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO CAN UNIRONICALLY CALL JOHN WALKER AN AVENGER AND THAT MAKES ME WANT TO DO ARSON but like I'll put the fire down bc it's an in-universe thing
antonia dies and he gets to live actually fuck that a little bit, let her and yelena really bond. I was glad yelena was trying to make a point of giving her respect tho
this is gonna sound like an insult and I promise I don't mean it that way (given the first several avengers movies, stones and glass houses etc): the comedy was very whedonesque, like classic heyday whedon
like every time the mcu sets out to do a specific genre they seem to knock it out of the park, and when they do a superhero movie it all gets kinda muddled. so. you know what. good on them leaning hard into comedy cuz somehow it worked
I have some very complicated feelings about the post credits scene and avengers branding, bc welcome to fandom, anti-sam racism is hitting hard and huge right now, and it's ... not great. BUT that aside
Like originally, Antonia/Taskmaster was gonna live, be part of the team, and have a storyline about how her memory keeps fritzing, so she keeps resetting to still thinking walker is her target, and attacking him again, with ava sort of big-sister-mentoring her to help her
which would've given ava more content, would have meant seeing walker get beaten up some more , and would have been both a funny and deeply tragic bit for them to lean into with antonia. I'm so sad we didn't get that
and I'm just so mad that bucky and sam are fighting about avengers when they can all be avengers (led by YOU GUESSED IT captain fucking america my guys) or, better yet, they can be thunderbolts while sam leads the avengers, like WE CAN HAVE MULTIPLE TEAMS /MOTIONS WILDLY TO THE COMICS
and I agree with you that I genuinely do not understand why bucky was in this movie. bc everyone else on the team was like.... isolated and lonely and miserable and being used by val, but Bucky was.... written as if he were, but canonically he isn't? as of cap 4 he had a healthy friendship with Sam, probably with Joaquin too, and we know he
like shit can we get the fucking west coast avengers up in this sometime? hey man when the fuck are we getting the young avengers movie? tbolts are just a THING and they can EXIST and we can STOP FIGHTING THE NAME
I mean I'm not gonna lie, I think what Sam's doing is smart bc like..... disregard the Tbolts for a second, it is WILD that the corrupt ass cia director can just decide to make an avengers team under her personal control and call it that? so I think Sam's right to be like "how about no" and seek to protect the name. that doesn't mean there can't be several
this is literally the director of the cia who is rich af and has tried to fuck over wakanda, fyi, BUCKY, if you'd like to stop stabbing your black friends in the back for a goddamn second pls, and she's gotten everett ross arrested for helping wakanda. she did human experiments, but bucky is like "yeah I'll take her money and pose for magazines"
yeah the congressman thing is so weird bc like.... in cap 4 I was like "wtf", but I thought they'd elaborate on that in tbolts, bc obviously cap 4 doesn't have the room to dig into that. but tbolts just fully..... doesn't talk about it
we never learn why he chose this, how he did it, we see that he apparently was working with another congressman to move against val, but then he's like "I'll bring in her enforcers" and just.... FULLY abandons all of that immediately??? and we never even get a moment of him struggling with that choice either?
also like.... as much as I liked the movie until its ending.....
the fact that cap 4 and tbolts both have their protagonists being cozied up by and then in conflict with a politicially influential villain who offers them the keys to the kingdom and also stabs them in the back, but in cap 4 that story ends with
the protagonist putting said politician/villain behind bars and standing on his own in order to reform the avengers while in tbolts the majority white protagonists end up being like 'actually we'll let the villain get away with it, take her money, pretend we're in power over her and profit from her riches, influence and agenda'
like dude go back to tfatws and watch the scene of walker getting announced as cap. watch the heartbreak on Sam's face, the anger on bucky's. then watch everything walker does in that show, to everyone, but also to sam. and then watch the tbolts ending with the press conference announced the new avengers, and bucky is just standing there with walker.
like negl it was satisfying to see that walker is still trash to the point where his wife got herself and her son the hell out of doge - good for her, I hope she's safe and thriving. but like, he in universe gets rewarded with a seat in avengers tower
like let that fantastic four ship actually house doom, and the tbolts take him into the tower, and he takes on tony's face bc of that, and then he claps them, kills walker, and the rest of them go to sam like "hey soooooo"
🌻 Tony Stank
: hey tony, Sam's gonna go have a seance so he can ask you why the fuck the avengers name isn't already protected from being bandied about by some cia agent :|
but like that's why I'm like did he get avengers or did he get new avengers bc then things get specific and tricky bc copyright law is wild like that but also yeah I think we all just. assumed?? that tony got "avengers" all lawyered up??
and I get that this is a comedy but turning the concept of the avengers into a branding fgight is like maybe that isn't a thing that we should. turn into a joke???
so the weird thing about tbolts is that it's a movie that has a lot of things that hinge on other properties that came before, and you do actually kind of need the context, but I could see someone uninitiated having a good time and perhaps in a way having a better time bc then you don't have to nitpick everything like we fans do-
like you'll miss out on why the tower is important BUT ALSO THAT DOESN'T REALLY MATTER, you'll miss out on what taskmaster's deal is NOT THAT IT MATTERS, you'll miss out on a bunch of context re: black widow BUT ALSO YOU GET ENOUGH OF A SENSE OF THINGS THAT YOU MAYBE ALSO DON'T NEED IT?
I'm sorry that this is part of a long running franchise with a lot of characters who have shown up in different things and continuity exists. if you decide to jump into the mcu in the middle and want to bitch about being confused then that's on you
I think the only issue in terms of lack of context is like... you don't really understand how trash walker is without knowing tfatws (thiugh tbf even people who saw it pretend he did nothing wrong bc fandom be like that), or the full impact of the ending without having seen BNW and knowing this is just a repeat of government stepping on Sam for personal gain
and you don't know how horrid val is without knowing she's seeking to destabilise wakanda from wakanda forever. so it all ends a little more "teehee haha" without context imho. which to be fair. many people prefer so like. maybe for the best?
in terms of the name thing I think the idea is just that the director of the cia shouldn't have the power to name anything avengers, new or otherwise. like I'm pretty sure Sam can't just go around calling his team the new CIA just cause he wants to.
so I see it currently as less of a petty squabble and more of a "oh great the government is trying to have its personal strike team again, but that strike team shouldn't run under the name of heroes who saved the world independently"
but also I'm probably overthinking it since the purpose of the post credits scene is mostly to get people riled up against Sam Wilson, which. has been a tragically successful outcome.
I do not believe val is actually running the tbolts bc they have zero reason to listen to her, but like if she is still the director of the cia, like, hey, what's up with that
the whole "ugh these packets are stupid" thing really just. exemplifies how unqualified bucky is for his position and the movie just kinda wants to. make fun of the way justice in the government works. legally.
lol I just went on the whole spiel to my bro about how There Is No Reason Bucky Should Be In This Movie And Even Less Reason For This Congressional Subplot That Went Literally Nowhere
his role in this movie is so weird. hes a congressman who wants to help impeach val, and he is like "I don't do the field stuff anymore", but then he immediately does that again, but still with the goal of taking down val, but then there's a bigger problem he's just kind of there for, and then val tricks them into a press conference and bucky just
rolls with the outcome of that passively??? forgets all about taking val down and presumably lets her bankroll them, whether as cia director or private security sector, either way why are we not throwing the movie's villain in prison like zemo, ross, sterns?
like og plans were - zemo is revealed to be pulling strings in the back - more void stuff, showing everyone's void rooms - antonia/taskmaster lives and has a plot around her memory being on the fritz, repeatedly reverting back to trying to kill Walker - Walker being revealed to be fully team Val, not team Tbolts
“Early drafts began with Yelena confronting Valentina about ordering the Clint Barton hit, which was one of my favorite scenes that eventually became not entirely relevant to the Thunderbolts* story,” Pearson explained
listen this one I do find to be perfectly understandable but at the same time given this is yelena the movie ft some other weirdos it feels like it should have come up even in just a line
the fact that cap 4 and tbolts both have their protagonists being cozied up by and then in conflict with a politicially influential villain who offers them the keys to the kingdom and also stabs them in the back, but in cap 4 that story ends with
while in tbolts the majority white protagonists end up being like 'actually we'll let the villain get away with it, take her money, pretend we're in power over her and profit from her riches, influence and agenda'
and then watch the tbolts ending with the press conference announced the new avengers, and bucky is just standing there with walker.
but also yeah I think we all just. assumed?? that tony got "avengers" all lawyered up??
- zemo is revealed to be pulling strings in the back
- more void stuff, showing everyone's void rooms
- antonia/taskmaster lives and has a plot around her memory being on the fritz, repeatedly reverting back to trying to kill Walker
- Walker being revealed to be fully team Val, not team Tbolts
“Early drafts began with Yelena confronting Valentina about ordering the Clint Barton hit, which was one of my favorite scenes that eventually became not entirely relevant to the Thunderbolts* story,” Pearson explained