A Forgotten Tie-In Game Changed The MCU For The Better
Captain America: The First Avenger was the film that showed Chris Evans could play something aside from a douchebag. (Even though he's really great at it.)
Although punching Micheal Cera is a little hard to put 100% into the d-bag camp …
The first film, while good, wasn't exactly a tour de force, then the guy who co-produced Elektra hired the directors of Community, and they made the single best MCU film, featuring: Robert Redford, a plotline about how Homeland Security is evil, and some of the darkest moments of the MCU to that point. It's the film that landed the writers and directors Infinity War and Endgame and redefined what the MCU could be -- both in-universe by destroying SHIELD and also out of universe by showing the MCU had stories to tell post-Avengers.
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One of the most remarked upon bits were the fight sequences -- scenes that, unlike the first film, feature incredibly imaginative and fluid battles. One of the most famous scenes in the entire MCU came from this film.
Not the one, I was talking about, but look, feet; you love feet, right?
And basically, the only reason it or the other intricate fights in the film exist is because of a shitty tie-in video game.
Yeah, back when Captain America: The First Avenger came out, a video game was released -- Captain America: Super Soldier. Don't remember it? You're not alone. But Chris Evans did. See, he was the voice for Cap in the game and actually played it. It was a bland action game, but one thing that stood out to Chris (we call him Chris) was the fighting was much different. Cap is basically a pugilist in the First Avenger film, with very quick 1940s-esque fight scenes -- no fluidity, no dance-like motions, just rock 'em sock 'em robots.
But the game, being a ripoff of Arkham Asylum, features very fluid combat, Cap moving constantly, shield flying around, always moving, kicking, punching, in a beautiful dance.
Evans pretty much went, "Hey, why can't I do that?" and entered Winter Soldier with a mission -- to get it to more closely resemble a forgettable tie-in game to the first. In a weirdly anti-Jason Bourne interview, Evans said that the game showed Cap as more of a superhero and got the Russos to " up his power ... so the fights are a lot more grisly and impactful." He said the first film was just "punch, punch, kick, kick. That's fine, but this has to be more than The Bourne Supremacy." In this one, it's punch punch kick punch.
And he got his wish. The fight scenes became fluid dance sequences that helped make Winter Soldier feel different from any MCU movie before it and gave the world the coolest elevator scene since The Shining.
Top Image: Marvel Studios
