Civil War is Definitely Not a Captain America Movie
The most accurate summary of Civil War I’ve seen was provided by Sweethoneysenpai when they said it attempted “to cram Cap 3, Iron Man 4, Avengers 3, and origin stories for Spiderman and Black Panther (all without really deciding if they were writing a mystery thriller, a political commentary, an emotional drama, or an action comedy) into one shittily-paced and emotionally truncated 2 ½-hour mess.”
The fact that Civil War ended up taking the place of a real Captain America 3 is quite tragic. The First Avenger did a reasonably good job of starting off Steve’s story: and this was followed by The Winter Soldier, which is an awesome film, and nicely set up what could have been a really interesting and equally awesome Captain America 3. But all that potential ended up being thrown in the garbage when Civil War was produced. And not only did Civil War brutally stamp out so many possibilities, it also hijacked Captain America 3 into being more of an Iron Man movie than anything else.
There are many, many reasons why Civil War should not have been Captain America 3. To start off, the Civil War concept in general is more suited to an Avengers movie than a Captain America movie. The comic version of Civil War was part of the Avengers storyline, and with good reason. A document meant to control enhanced individuals showing up is something that has profound ramifications for every one of the Avengers; some Avengers would obviously be more affected than others, but the impact of such a document would be clearly felt by all of them. This leaves a lot of different viewpoints to potentially explore, so it is not the optimal choice for a movie whose main focus is supposed to be one specific character. But if Marvel had absolutely no choice but to do Civil War as Captain America 3, if they were completely backed into a corner, the very least they could have done was explore the concept specifically from Steve’s perspective. However, not only did they not do that, Steve’s viewpoint was actively suppressed in favor of Tony’s!
I have seen multiple different people claim they read an article where the Russo brothers outright admitted they purposefully trimmed Team Cap’s scenes and dialogue until more people supported Team Iron Man. Now, despite valiant searching, I have been unable to locate this source. However, two things I found while I was searching have led me to believe these claims are true. The first piece of evidence is an interview that was conducted with the writers of Civil War while the airport scene was being shot, in which McFeely said, “We want people walking out of this movie going, Tony's right. And half the other people going, Steve's right. That would be a dream if we got 49-51 split.” This shows that the creative team was aware that Team Cap was in the right, and that audiences would naturally be skewed toward them, but were nonetheless determined to elevate Team Iron Man. The other piece of evidence is in the audio commentary of the movie, when one of the Russo brothers says, “That was the hardest thing to do in the film, without question, was to balance the characters, and constantly recalibrate, through the writing, through the acting, through editorial, to make sure you could walk out of the movie, and really be conflicted.” This shows that the creative team thoroughly overhauled all parts of the movie in their frenzied efforts to evenly divide the audience. And the aforementioned statement from the writers, combined with the fact that the finished movie is so heavily biased toward Tony in all the ways mentioned in this quote, very clearly shows that these changes were made to make Tony and his team look better. So it is not at all hard to believe that in the earlier stages of the movie, Team Cap had more scenes and dialogue that were subsequently cut in the quest to make audiences evenly split.
The fact that so much effort had to go into evenly dividing the audience should have caused the creative team to take a look at their story. Viewers so consistently backing Team Cap should have made them realize that if they had to so unabashedly exalt Tony and turn the movie against Steve to even get somewhat of an even audience-split, they either should have abandoned trying to make Tony look good, or chosen a different story. But instead, they doubled down and made the utterly despicable choice to silence Steve and his friends. Purposely stifling Steve’s side of the story to make whoever is opposing him look better would be bad all of the time, but the fact that this is happening in what is supposed to be his own film is especially sickening.
Another reason Civil War is not a Captain America movie is that it is more of a sequel to Age of Ultron than The Winter Soldier. Other than a few brief references to Captain America 2, that movie is completely ignored, despite the fact that Civil War is ostensibly Captain America 3. Pretty much all the plot threads started by The Winter Soldier, save for Steve trying to find Bucky, are pushed aside and forgotten. And this is especially bizarre considering Civil War’s circumstances. As Sunny noted in her analysis, “It is baffling to do a Civil War plotline that unironically has Tony Stark suggest we all trust the government coming off The Winter Soldier where we learned the government is corrupt and crawling with Hydra.” And Civil War’s studied ignorance of Hydra’s existence is especially irritating because Hydra is the main villain of the Captain America movies. In the first movie, Hydra was the main force of evil Steve and the Howling Commandos were fighting against, and Steve ended that movie sacrificing himself to stop them. In the second movie, Steve learned that Hydra was still active and had in fact infiltrated SHIELD, and ended the movie risking everything to save Bucky from them. But then in Captain America 3, there is a ringing silence regarding Hydra, which again is especially grievous considering the plot is about governments trying to gain control over superpowered individuals. That really seems like something Hydra would do.
By contrast, a sizeable portion of the plot revolves around the events that transpired in Age of Ultron. Tony Stark’s guilt from that movie is the primary focus of and driving force behind this film, and what happened in Sokovia was a significant contributing factor to the Accords’ appearance, to the point that they were named after it. This bias is quite frustrating for two main reasons. First of all, given that Age of Ultron was so Tony-centric, Civil War’s plot drawing heavily from that movie helps contribute to it being Iron Man 4. Also, however, Tony’s journey as a character in Age of Ultron was nothing new; as Sunny said of it, “We were too deep in the game at that point for Marvel to have been debating the virtues of Tony Stark building a robotic police state, killing hundreds of civilians with it, and then realizing weapons kill people for the twenty-some time in a row.” Tony never seems to learn his lesson. Repeatedly throughout the Marvel Cinematic Universe, he does whatever he wants, ends up causing trouble, something happens that makes him feel guilty, and he then tries to make up for what he did (but only briefly). Age of Ultron was the first half of this repetitive arc, and because Civil War was so closely tied to that film, it ended up being the second half. The fact that Tony has to constantly relearn the same lesson over and over is annoying by itself, but the fact that this recycled arc is this time playing out in a place where it doesn’t even belong is especially maddening.
The justification of Tony’s actions was a major part of Civil War, further proving that it is not by any means a Captain America movie. In fact, this justification was such an integral part of the movie that it affected near to all the character arcs. This influence starts with Tony himself. Despite the fact that he ended up being the main character of the movie, Tony really doesn’t have a character arc. As Sunny outlined, “Tony Stark starts this movie believing the Accords were right and the government was trustworthy, he then finds out the Accords were full of human rights violations and the government lied to him, but then does nothing to right his wrongs? He finds out the government used the Accords to unjustly lock up the Avengers, but then he never makes any effort to help them!…And he ends the movie trying to murder Bucky, so.” While Tony did a bunch of things throughout the movie, he really didn’t grow at all or learn anything. This can be attributed to the fact that because the creative team was so obsessed with defending Tony’s actions, to ensure that the audience would be evenly divided, the film bent itself backwards to provide this defense. And since the film was so concerned with making the reasoning behind Tony’s actions seem solid, the fact that he was making serious mistakes was never acknowledged, so there was no opportunity for him to learn from them and grow.
Steve’s character arc was also affected by this staunch defense of Tony’s actions. Sunny nicely summed Steve’s arc up: “At the beginning of the movie, Steve’s conflict was like, become a super-cop for the corrupt government, or don’t do that. [In the middle of the movie, it was like, save the world from multiple winter soldiers, or don’t do that.] At the end of the movie, it was, let Tony Stark kill your best friend, or don’t let him do that. Those aren’t complicated decisions, especially if you’re going to back him into a corner.” Because Tony ended up being the driving force of the movie, Steve was just left reacting to the things he did. And on top of this, nothing Steve said or did could cast Tony’s actions in too negative a light. So since so many constraints were imposed on him, there was no chance for Steve to have any sort of character arc either. The fact that the necessity of Tony being seen in the best possible light derailed almost everyone’s character arc is bad enough as it is, but the fact that Steve was prevented from having a meaningful arc in what is supposed to be his own movie is especially shameful.
Even the side characters’ arcs were affected by the need to elevate Tony. The only character who escaped unscathed was T’Challa. He alone was able to go through a substantial journey. Sunny provided a good summarization of it: “T’Challa starts this movie with his father’s assassination and wanting to get revenge for his father’s death, T’Challa ends this movie finding out the man he was hunting for his father’s death was being framed by the man who actually killed his father, and realizes he let his sadness and anger cloud his judgement. And in the end of this movie, he overcomes that and doesn’t stoop to murder.” Interestingly enough, this journey has basically nothing to do with Tony, which is probably why T’Challa was allowed it. Every other character’s arc got flattened by Tony. The other members of Team Cap got no substantial arc because their side of the story was suppressed, and they too could not hurt Tony’s image too much; Rhodey and Vision got no substantial arc because they were only in the movie to support Tony; Peter got no substantial arc because he was manipulated by Tony but was not allowed to realize this because that would make Tony look really bad; and Natasha got no substantial arc because even her reason for switching sides could not reflect badly on Tony.
But Bucky’s lot was the worst of anyone. Bucky wasn’t even treated like a character. Despite the fact that Bucky is literally Steve’s best friend, and this is supposed to be a Captain America movie, he was treated as nothing more than a plot device. As Sunny pointed out, “Bucky was in this movie just so they could pretend this was a sequel to The Winter Soldier, when it clearly is not.” His only role in the film was to keep the plot moving. In the beginning he enabled Zemo to jumpstart his ridiculous plan; in the middle he was used to make Steve aware of the other winter soldiers; and in the end he was used as Tony’s punching bag. We were never given more than the barest hints of what Bucky was thinking or feeling at any point in the movie, even during moments that heavily involved him. One example of this would be when Natasha let Steve and Bucky go during the airport fight. Although she was letting both of them go, it was portrayed as a moment exclusively between her and Steve; the only time we got a good look at Bucky was when Natasha shot T’Challa, despite the fact that he was right there the whole time. Another instance would be the final battle. Even though there was much to be explored from Bucky’s point of view, as Sunny noted, “That entire scene was about Tony’s man-pain. Bucky got tortured and brainwashed by Hydra for seventy years, but Tony Stark got his feelings hurt, so hard to say which one is more compelling.” The fact that Steve’s best friend was done so dirty is yet another glaring indication that Civil War is no Captain America movie.
Then there is just how thoroughly Civil War was corrupted into an Iron Man film. The previous points show hints of this, but there are much more overt signs. For example, even though this was supposed to be Steve’s movie, Tony got more lines and only one minute less screen time than him. Additionally, while we saw two whole flashbacks of Tony’s family, and learned a lot about them, the only mention of Steve’s family that occurred was when Bucky told him what his mom’s name was. There is also the way the movie was rearranged to be more favorable to Tony. As previously shown by the character arcs, the film went to great lengths to make sure Tony was seen in the best possible light, and everything else was subservient to this goal. Gibbs_yeah supplied a good summarization of the effect: “As one commenter described the result (paraphrasing), Everyone in the film is hurting, but only Tony Stark gets to bleat about his manpain and make weepy cow eyes at the camera for minutes on end.”
Increasing sympathy toward Tony was a major aim of this film. One example of this is the fact that his face is constantly visible. Even when he’s wearing the Iron Man Suit, the helmet is often retracted. This allows the audience to clearly see his emotions and sympathize with him more easily. By contrast, Steve is frequently seen in his helmet, which makes it harder for the audience to see what he’s feeling. Now, the inequality here could have been easily avoided if the directors had just had Tony wear his helmet, and occasionally done the glance-inside-the-helmet thing that the film also does anyway: but given that the directors wanted to give him all the sympathy points possible since there wasn’t much else going for him, that possibility was ignored. Tony also snagged most of the emotional scenes of this movie, while Steve was given next to none. For example, Tony received a scene where he got to realize he caused an American kid to die and be guilty about it, thus providing insight into why he supported the Accords: but Steve wasn’t allowed a scene where he was able to express his realization of the amount of danger the Accords would put everyone in. And Tony got a full emotional scene of helping Rhodey at the end—when he was a large part of the reason Rhodey was paralyzed in the first place, no less—but there was no similarly emotional scene of Steve and Bucky after Siberia, when Tony tried to kill and severely wounded them both. Regardless of the fact that this was supposedly Steve’s movie, he was deprived of emotional scenes in favor of Tony.
From beginning to end, Civil War showed heavy bias toward Tony. Examining Steve and Tony’s opening scenes reveals the favoritism that was present from the start of the movie.
Steve’s opening scene serves only to advance the plot. Unlike the opening scenes of the actual Captain America movies, it gives us no new information about Steve and no opportunities to get to know his character better. It also gives us almost no backstory, with the one bit of backstory that does come up—Rumlow speaking of Bucky to Steve—being there just so the story could continue, so that Steve had no chance of noticing Rumlow’s bomb before it went off. And while the opening scene does provide Steve a chance to show off some of his skills, it’s showing off everyone’s skills, and Wanda’s actions during the fight are what end up being most important to the story. So Steve’s opening scene in his own movie isn’t really even about him.
Now, Steve’s first scene being a fight scene didn’t have to be problematic. After all, there were multiple movies leading up to Civil War that Steve played a significant part in, so many viewers would already be fairly familiar with his character. And if Captain America 3 was actually a Captain America movie, the remainder of the film could have helped make up for the lack of information and characterization in the first scene. The problem is that Tony then gets the treatment that Steve was robbed of. Sunny aptly described the result: “Whereas Steve’s opening is this mostly impersonal fight scene with no time for introspection, or character establishment, or any substantial backstory save for Rumlow mentioning Bucky at the end, Tony Stark’s opening scene in Captain America 3 has every single one of those things and then some.”
Tony’s first scene lavishes him with everything Steve was denied, beginning with a full character-establishing scene before the plot advancement commences. The scene starts off with a memory of the last time he saw his parents, which not only provides some backstory, as well as allowing him to flaunt his new invention, but also helps evoke sympathy for him. Tony then announces he’s funding everyone’s engineering projects, which allows him to be cast in a very positive light. And then, as if this wasn’t enough, Pepper’s name shows up on the teleprompter, and Tony gets a moment to be quietly sad before he walks offstage.
Right off the bat, Tony is the main focus of his first scene. Whereas Steve’s first scene has to balance him with everyone else on his team, after the flashback it’s just Tony talking to an audience. Tony’s first scene also allows the audience to learn a lot about him. We learned about his parents, got a sense of his family’s dynamic, were told about his reaction to their death, discovered a lot about his invention, and found out about his grant. A great deal of pity for Tony was also drummed up in this scene; not only does the audience learn that his parents were killed, and he never properly said goodbye to them, but we also get the hint that he is no longer with Pepper, as there would be few other explanations for why seeing her name made him sad. And his first scene not being a fight scene allows him to be featured at an event that makes him look good. So in Captain America 3, while Tony got a very personal scene in which his character was treated with consideration and adoration, before any scene that drove the story forward, all Steve got was just another fight scene that didn’t even care about him all that much and did little other than advance the plot.
Taking a glance at the end of Civil War also reveals the unmistakable bias toward Tony. While Tony got a long, emotional scene helping Rhodey and then reading Steve’s letter, all Steve got was a few snippets of freeing his friends from the Raft while his letter was being read; he didn’t even get a full scene. And the one part of Civil War that was actually relevant to Steve’s storyline, what happened to Bucky, was relegated to the mid-credits scene; it wasn’t even a part of the main movie. And it didn’t even get to end Civil War: the post credits scene was Peter examining a gift from Tony!
There are many, many other instances of blatant Tony favoritism and even outright anti-Steve propaganda throughout the movie. But it would be quite an effort to list them all at once, so I will address them as they come up in the story.
Just how thoroughly Steve was robbed can be seen by looking at the other two trilogies of the Infinity Saga. Sunny put it well: “What Thor: Ragnarok and Iron Man 3 did for their respective trilogies, and those respective characters, whether you like those movies or not, they brought them full circle in a substantial way. Steve never gets that. To this day, the Cap trilogy has no actual conclusion, because Marvel wanted to do Civil War instead of an actual Captain America movie.” Tony’s trilogy started with him becoming Iron Man, and ended with him giving it up. (Which ended up lasting for about five seconds, but he did do it.) Thor’s trilogy started with him being unworthy to rule Asgard, and ended with him earning that right. Steve’s trilogy, however, started with him becoming Captain America, but ended with Tony tearing up the Avengers and forcing Steve to go on the run. Now, one might argue that Steve’s trilogy’s arc was the same as Tony’s, that it ended with him giving up the mantle of Captain America, but this isn’t really the case. Steve had no problem being in full Captain America regalia and using his shield throughout the movie—the only thing he did was scrape the Avengers patch off his arm—and even him dropping the shield at the end was more a refusal to descend to Tony’s level of pettiness than it was an actual rejection of the Captain America mantle. And in Infinity War, he was wearing the Nomad outfit, which is a Captain America uniform. (If he had resolved to no longer be Captain America, he could have easily had T’Challa make him a new suit.) Even him ultimately choosing to defy the government doesn’t mean he gave up on being Captain America, because he was never a symbol of what America is; he is a symbol of what it’s supposed to be. Captain America is only great because of Steve Rogers. So Steve’s journey through his trilogy did not end with him rejecting Captain America; it was completely thrown out the window to make room for more Iron Manpain.
In short, it is quite evident that Civil War was not actually a Captain America movie. Civil War is an exceedingly disgraceful film, and its crimes simply keep piling up on each other. It’s shameful enough that Steve was robbed of an actual conclusion to his trilogy, one that was set up so wonderfully by The Winter Soldier: but it’s even worse that it was turned into an Iron Man film, especially because Tony already received a complete trilogy, and was the largest focus of both the Avengers movies. And it’s even worse that this was achieved through the movie shamelessly propping Tony and virulently hating on Steve. Nitya provided a fine summarization of this topic: “I will absolutely die mad about the fact that the Cap trilogy was really just a Cap duology because Cap 1 and Winter Soldier are some of the best movies Marvel made and they shit on that for a fake Avengers Iron Man 4.”