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Thread: Black Widow
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2021-07-16, 11:19 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Black Widow
Agreed. Hadn’t really thought about the first one, but it does kind of feel like they threw it in just so they could use it in the trailers.
Spoiler
Maybe if Nat had showed up wearing one of those facemask disguises it would have worked better?
*shrug* I’ll be happy to spread it to the writers or Feige or anyone else responsible, it’s just that so far the director is the only one I’ve seen come out and say ‘yes, that terrible idea was mine.’
I’d be more forgiving if it were due to a scheduling conflict, or someone getting sick or other things outside of the production’s direct control, but to leave that jarring transition in there on purpose was a shocking display of ineptitude in an MCU movie.
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2021-07-16, 12:27 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2010
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Re: Black Widow
Plague Doctor by Crimmy
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2021-07-16, 12:33 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2020
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2021-07-16, 12:35 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Black Widow
SpoilerThat would have helped, I think. And also served as foreshadowing for later...though honestly the trick later was more to fool the audience than anyone else. Not a great deal was accomplished by the ruse.
Who is the primary character or characters is certainly about a great deal more than who they beat up. Narrative arc, focus, and how much each character gets to do. Also...agency.
Spoiler
Yelena kicks off the plot. Yes, she involves Black Widow to do so, but ultimately she discovers the red vials, and she's the one with information and a mission. She pulls Black Widow into her story, not vice versa.
Now, does Nat also have a connection? Sure. But Yelena is arguably the central character.
This may be intentional, in that Disney plans to transition to her as the new Black Widow. A lot of recent plot has been done specifically with the intention of lining up replacements for actors that have been in the MCU for quite some time.
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2021-07-16, 02:04 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2010
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Re: Black Widow
Agreed
Right, but the antagonists in a film like this are the physical embodiment of the external and internal conflicts facing the hero. Overcoming them in a fight is the culmination of that arc and the resolution of the narrative question.
This logic is pretty odd to me. In New Hope, Leia pulls Luke into her story, she's the one who discovers the Death Star plans, she's the one with the information and a mission. By your reasoning, Luke is the secondary character, which doesn't make sense.
This outing was absolutely Yelena's debut, and I don't think this story has just one primary character. But concluding that Natasha isn't, doesn't work for me.Plague Doctor by Crimmy
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2021-07-16, 06:58 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Black Widow
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2021-07-16, 07:55 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2010
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Re: Black Widow
I'm not even talking about "main" though, just primary vs secondary. Movies can have more than one primary - see Neo and Trinity, or Elsa and Anna, or Ian and Barley, or Luke and Han, or Tony and Steve, etc. You could argue for one of a given pair being the "main" character, but both are primary.
Plague Doctor by Crimmy
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2021-07-16, 08:12 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Black Widow
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2021-07-16, 08:20 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2010
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Re: Black Widow
Plague Doctor by Crimmy
Ext. Sig (Handbooks/Creations)
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2021-07-16, 08:46 PM (ISO 8601)
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2021-07-16, 10:29 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Black Widow
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2021-07-17, 09:54 AM (ISO 8601)
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2021-07-17, 10:49 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2020
Re: Black Widow
Actually, now that I think about it, is there any point to Han's presence in Jedi beside the fact we like him and we like to hear him bounce with the other characters, there's no real importance to his character in that story.
The closest contribution he has to the plan is the deception to open the bunker doors, and it's more of a post-climax shennanigan than actually turning the tide of battle. Chewbacca was a lot more material to the flow of the movie than Han Solo.
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2021-07-17, 12:48 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2014
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2021-07-17, 01:05 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2020
Re: Black Widow
Last edited by Cikomyr2; 2021-07-17 at 01:05 PM.
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2021-07-17, 03:21 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2020
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Re: Black Widow
It would have been out of character for Luke and Leia to leave Han behind after ESB, and once they rescued him he needed to be involved somehow. Really I think he should have been in the Millennium Falcon with Lando, and Leia should have gotten a bit more spotlight leading troops on the ground.
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2021-07-17, 03:24 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2020
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2021-07-17, 04:15 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2006
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Re: Black Widow
Last edited by JadedDM; 2021-07-17 at 04:17 PM.
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2021-07-17, 05:17 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2014
Re: Black Widow
I gotta say that the whole premise of
Spoiler
Dreykov and the Red Room still being in operation because Natasha didn't confirm her kill
was borderline insulting for Natasha.
Spoiler
We've seen she's hyper competent otherwise, so it seems rather wildly out of character. Especially with the whole 'never found the body' cliche.
More than that, even if she was unable or unwilling to check for Dreykov's corpse, why didn't SHIELD (or anyone else associated with the side she was trying to join) check? Sure we know, with the benefit of multiple movies, that Natasha was sincere in her desire to join the good guys, but no one in their right mind should just assume she's being honest about it, she's a super spy! Moreover, Dreykov still being alive and running the Red Room could have caused lots of problems for SHIELD (and Hydra, too, since it was their data the Red Guardian stole they're apparently not allied with the Red Room) - they had no way of knowing in advance Dreykov was going to avoid messing with them to avoid attention. So even if they were planning to punt Natasha into a volcano immediately afterwards and didn't care about her loyalties at all, they should have checked.
The only reason for this to happen was to spare Dreykov, but they could have easily killed him off in the backstory and had the guy running the whole mess be his brother instead, or maybe his son - he only shows up for maybe fifteen minutes in the whole movie!
The more I think about this movie, the worse it gets.
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2021-07-17, 05:21 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2020
Re: Black Widow
There is an explanation, but it's not necessarily a good or satisfactory explanation
SpoilerDidn't they immediately were in the run for 10 days, fighting off loads of security agents, and that fight was what BW refers to as "Budapest"
Like.. They had one shot and then book it and go dark immediately.
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2021-07-17, 05:55 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Black Widow
SpoilerIt was out of character, but it was supposed to be out of character. Nat was so traumatized from killing a child that she didn't act as competent as she normally does. As for Shield, I'm guessing Dreykov immediately went off the grid and stopped making moves that would get him caught until now. Since he apparently saw Nat's plan coming, maybe he had decoy corpses prepared ahead of time to fool anyone who checked.
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2021-07-17, 09:49 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2013
Re: Black Widow
I thought this was a good movie and am glad that I went to see it at the theater*. The actions scenes were well done, the character interactions between the "family" members were good, David Harbour was funny, and it did a good job addressing the dark parts of her backstory without wallowing in grimdark. I would rate this in the top half of MCU movies, though I will probably need to see it again to figure out where I wish to place.
*-Disclaimer: I like the theater experience and generally prefer to see movies in theater rather than stream them.
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2021-07-18, 01:33 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2010
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Re: Black Widow
These. Between the
Spoilerimmediate and prolonged need to go into hiding, and the guilt over murdering a child
Nat was understandably off her game.
Ehh I'm not sure anyone had much to do in RotJ other than Luke and Vader. It really wasn't a good movie.Last edited by Psyren; 2021-07-18 at 01:36 AM.
Plague Doctor by Crimmy
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2021-07-19, 09:33 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Black Widow
Spoiler
Taskmasker is largely only held off and then unmasked and freed from mind control. I think the mind control in particular makes it difficult to frame Taskmasker as her nemesis...also the lack of history between them.
The big prison fight, Black Widow honestly doesn't do much. She drops out of the helicopter, punches a lot of guards, and then goes back into the helicopter. She's certainly no more central to the fight than Yelena is. In any case, it feels more like "we needed a fight scene here" than a significant character moment for anyone.
The Black Widow vs Yelena fight is just odd and doesn't really support either. Neither's motivated to kill the other, and there isn't really a need for either to defeat the other long term. I'm not sure it fits either narrative.
Ergo, the final boss is Drakov.
Drakov is killed by Yelena. He escapes Black Widow, and Yelena takes the aircraft down by destroying its engine.
This logic is pretty odd to me. In New Hope, Leia pulls Luke into her story, she's the one who discovers the Death Star plans, she's the one with the information and a mission. By your reasoning, Luke is the secondary character, which doesn't make sense.
This outing was absolutely Yelena's debut, and I don't think this story has just one primary character. But concluding that Natasha isn't, doesn't work for me.Spoiler
Sort of. Leia is absolutely a main character. That said, the plans discovery is an offscreen thing. Just as it was for the nameless Widow that exposed Yelena to it. The nameless Widow isn't the protagonist, despite having made the discovery and presumably wanting to do something with it. We *see* Yelena learn of it.
Leia, if she only did the initial kickoff of the movie, would be in this role...but she has enough screen time, agency and goals that she absolutely does become a main character. If she didn't need to be rescued so much, she certainly would have been the singular main character. They're reasonably well balanced in the original Star Wars, but I'd argue that we don't see the same even balance in most films, to include newer star wars movies, where some stories, like poor Finn's, become distinctly secondary.
I don't think Nat was pushed out to that same degree, but Yelena definitely has more of these things than Nat does.
Neo's the protagonist, Trinity is not.
Someone can be important to the story without being a primary character.
In terms of which is the main character in the MCU, well, that demands on the movie. In Infinity War, it was Thanos. He's the protagonist. Everyone else is secondary at best.
Han is absolutely a secondary character. A very popular one, absolutely, but he tends to function as the cavalry, not as the protagonist. Even in famous duos, there's often one character that takes the lead. It's not strictly necessary all of time, and pretty much every rule has an exception if you dig hard enough, but it is remarkably common. Even in documentaries, it's common to focus on singular people who were influential decision makers driving the events. It's a structure for stories that seems pretty baked in to humanity.Last edited by Tyndmyr; 2021-07-19 at 09:37 AM.
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2021-07-19, 09:56 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2014
Re: Black Widow
SpoilerI can’t help but think that if they’d switched Yelena and Nat around for some of this it would have improved the movie. Have Yelena in the fight with the mind controlled Widows, because she’s not guaranteed to survive the movie, and then the fight has some actual tension. Have Nat save her with the antidote grenade, then kill Dreykov. They can even keep Nat’s entire conversation with Dreykov if they have Yelena intercept the Widow squad before they get to her.
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2021-07-19, 10:08 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Black Widow
Mmm, that's not a bad change. Yeah, I definitely think that would increase tension.
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2021-07-19, 10:25 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2010
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Re: Black Widow
I wouldn't have minded this reversal either - but it wouldn't have really helped anything, since
SpoilerYelena was ALSO guaranteed to survive the movie. We already knew going in that she'd be reprising her role in Hawkeye.
I'm not sure where you got "nemesis" from anything I said. The words I used were antagonist and dragon, neither of which require someone to be a nemesis.
Big Bad fits the bill, but we're in agreement about who that is here, so I'm not seeing the source of the disconnect.
Once again, "the protagonist" and "primary character" are not synonyms.
Agree to disagree.Plague Doctor by Crimmy
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2021-07-19, 12:43 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Black Widow
SpoilerEh, I'd imagine that substantially more people have watched Endgame than have looked at casting for Hawkeye.
I'm not sure where you got "nemesis" from anything I said. The words I used were antagonist and dragon, neither of which require someone to be a nemesis.
Big Bad fits the bill, but we're in agreement about who that is here, so I'm not seeing the source of the disconnect.
SpoilerThe fact that it's Yelena that gets the kill means that your own argument is an argument in favor of her being the primary character.
Once again, "the protagonist" and "primary character" are not synonyms.
You can certainly have multiple protagonists, but it's uncommon. The vast majority of movies have exactly one. Other roles may be considered important, either to the plot, or because they cast a star, or whatever else, but the story isn't about them in the same way that it's about the protagonist. To use your example, the Matrix is the story of Neo, not Trinity. We see her story only where it overlaps with his. We see his story where it doesn't overlap with hers. Without Neo, there's literally no story. Trinity's role is akin to Agent Smith or Morpheus's. Relatively important secondary characters who illustrate how this world works through their relationship with the main character.Last edited by Tyndmyr; 2021-07-19 at 12:44 PM.
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2021-07-19, 02:00 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Black Widow
SpoilerI hadn't seen the cast list for Hawkeye, but I still assumed Yelena would replace Nat as Black Widow and would therefore have to live.
SpoilerYelena gets the kill, but Nat is the one that directly confronts him, overcomes his "invincibility", and foils his evil plan. Dreykov is already defeated, Yelena just finishes him off.
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2021-07-19, 02:47 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Black Widow
SpoilerThat's fair I suppose. I have to admit, I don't expect a lot of lasting deaths from any of the heroes in MCU films unless it's specifically due to a casting swap.
Spoiler
The "invincibility" thing was pretty dodgy. Also, doesn't seem to affect Yelena in any way. That whole thing feels...confused. In any case, Dreykov is not yet defeated there. He makes his escape, and clearly has the ability to control others, as seen by Taskmaster still being under his control, and the widows needing to be freed via the red vials. By the time he exits the fight with Nat, she has only delayed him, not actually defeated him.
One could say the same thing about Taskmaster, in that Black Widow only ends the fight, Taskmaster was primarily fought by Red Guardian, etc. It feels weak, though. Red Guardian is clearly not a primary character, and he's mostly just participating in fights because, well, he's there, he needs to be in the fights because it wouldn't make sense otherwise. It's not really about him, and it's not really his victory even if he did help lay the groundwork.
The same is true for both.
Now, yeah, Nat is closer to the narrative than Red Guardian, he's clearly the less central character of the two, but Yelena is definitely closer still.
Last edited by Tyndmyr; 2021-07-19 at 02:47 PM.