Old and new fandoms weekend extravaganza!

[gwyn]

So, a year ago a little movie came out and totally changed my life. I had been slowly getting back into the feeling fannish again thing with Pacific Rim, writing fic for the first time beyond Yuletide (well, I wrote one Pepper and Loki hanging out keeping vigil with a girls' night story after Avengers), but I had no idea the tsunami of fannishness that would sweep me away with Winter Soldier.

I should have guessed. I mean. I loved the comics, I love Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes more than I can coherently render (SebStan's been ruining my life for years, OMG his mouth, his eyes, his voice, his everything), and I had fallen in love with Steve Rogers somewhere along the line totally against my will, but such is the power of Steve and Chris Evans. My adoration of Natasha Romanov is boundless, and Scarlett, and so they are two great tastes that taste great together and she fucking owned that movie. And then there was the casting of Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson--when they announced it, I might have squealed to a level only dogs can hear. I'm not admitting to anything. Because I adore Sam in the comics and I adore Anthony Mackie and it was kismet, I'm telling you. Kismet.

But then. It was a '70s political thriller. Maria was in it! Sam Jackson got to be a major badass! Robert Redford was eeeeviiiillll. Frank Grillo! And Peggy fucking Carter still being awesome just lying in a bed, calling Steve on his issues. That flashback. To the end of the line. I just. I still cannot. I love this movie more than I can even say. I saw it 23 times in the theatre alone, and that doesn't count all the watchings in between of crappy cam copies until the DVD came out. I watch it at home all the time. It still hits me just as hard as it did then. I read fanfic at night before I go to bed--I hadn't read fanfic much at all for the past decade outside of Yuletide. I write. So many words, and I still have ideas to chase. I vid. It just hasn't slowed for me at all, though I'm sure at some point it will, and then I will be sad. I see people moving away from it already, and I get sad, because I'm just as head over heels as I was back then.

And speaking of fandoms, one of my old loves, Fast and Furious, came out yesterday. I'm sure I'll go see it, but I have a lot of pain, with Paul Walker being gone. I know it's gonna be hard. It'll be easier because the last two movies weren't quite as important to me as the first and the fourth, but I did enjoy a lot of the fifth one (caper!). So spoil me, if you've seen it. I know I can't go until I know what to expect.

Comments

[par_avion]

I've seen FF7. BRIAN DOESNT DIE. He is in the whole movie, and at the end he decides to retire and be a family man. In what is probably a rewrite, Mia is pregnant with a 2nd baby (girl). There is a sweet montage at the end (I cried) that is as much about Paul (and Paul/Vin) as it is about Brian, and no post-credit tag scene.

Gal Gadot and Sung Kang are credited at the beginning but they are not it the movie (other than as photos) ... but they do show Han die again.

If you have any other Q just ask. I am actually really sad about Paul (re-watching 5 & 6 this week was hard) but I'm glad they finished the movie with his scenes intact.

[gwyn]

Oh, this is exactly what I needed to know, thank you. (Most people never believe me when I say I want to be spoiled, so they give me these vague statements and I'm like NO I NEED SPECIFICS.)

So I guess I'll bring copious amounts of Kleenex.

I was so hoping that Han and Giselle were going to be "psych! we're not really dead" since it's not like the movies haven't done that before. ::cries forever::

No tag! I'm kind of surprised, especially after Vin's comment about there being more to come.

[escritoireazul]

I was surprised by no tag, too, but I think it makes sense, because the end of the movie is such a beautiful good-bye to Paul Walker that I think a tag would have just taken away from it. And that ending is heart-breaking; I'm not a Brian fan, and I don't really have any feelings for Paul Walker, but it had me crying in the theater. For people who love the character and/or the actor, I can't even imagine how much weight it carries. It's a gorgeous good-bye.

[gwyn]

Yeah, it sounds like the tag would have just been overkill.

I expect to bring lots of Kleenex.

[amalthia]

I think the Winter Soldier was one of the best movies that came out last year.

[gwyn]

Absolutely positively. I'm a pretty fucking picky movie watcher, having been a film critic for a long time, and I think this was one of my favorite movies of all time. I know a lot of that is the fannish connection, which most movies won't have, but the Russos just made a damn fine film.

[amalthia]

I'm kind of looking forward to what the brothers do with the Avengers movies after Ultron. I must have watched the Winter Soldier about 5 times at least in the movie theaters. :)

[sholio]

Ahhhhh~! This movie! :D I had no idea it would get me like this. I've loved the MCU movies from the beginning, to the "seeing them on opening week" point from Avengers on (and since I only watch a couple movies a year in the theater, that's a big deal), but this is the first of them to jump up and punch me in the fannish feels, and it hit hard. And beyond that, it's just a damn good movie. Early to tell yet, but I expect it'll be one of my favorite movies of all time.

I'm not in the deepest throws of fannish love anymore (I think the trouble is, I kinda burned out on various permutations of Bucky-recovery fic after the first few months, and yet, you can't really write post-movie Bucky/Steve or Bucky & Steve without dealing with that -- leaving me in a sort of fannish bind) but I'm not really out of fannish love with it either. I still rewatch your vids a lot. ♥

[gwyn]

Yeah, you know, I think we've talked about this a bit but I still am in this place where I can't get enough Bucky recovery/stop writing it, and what surprises me is just that normally, by now? I'd be burnt out too. I'd be applying my extreme picky fic bitch standards and turning my nose up at everything. And yet. Here I am. And I think a lot of that is just the movie gave us such a deeply layered story that there's so many things we can write.

I am nervous about Avengers 2 and Cap 3 because I fear that a lot of those layers will be collapsed and the stories we can write will be really limited or have to be pretty AU. Right now, we have this almost wide open story that we can still write within canon and that's so rare. There are just so many ways to go with it.

UGH SO GOOD.

[kore]

I should have guessed. I mean. I loved the comics, I love Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes more than I can coherently render (SebStan's been ruining my life for years, OMG his mouth, his eyes, his voice, his everything), and I had fallen in love with Steve Rogers somewhere along the line totally against my will, but such is the power of Steve and Chris Evans. My adoration of Natasha Romanov is boundless, and Scarlett, and so they are two great tastes that taste great together and she fucking owned that movie. And then there was the casting of Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson--when they announced it, I might have squealed to a level only dogs can hear. I'm not admitting to anything. Because I adore Sam in the comics and I adore Anthony Mackie and it was kismet, I'm telling you. Kismet.

But then. It was a '70s political thriller. Maria was in it! Sam Jackson got to be a major badass! Robert Redford was eeeeviiiillll. Frank Grillo! And Peggy fucking Carter still being awesome just lying in a bed, calling Steve on his issues. That flashback. To the end of the line.

SO MUCH WORD.

[gwyn]

\o/!!

[kore]

I....dunno how I feel about Age of Ultron, because for one thing it seems to joss everything I loved about the duology. BUT WINTER SOLDIER. TIME FOR AN ANNIVERSARY REWATCH! YES.


(also endless love for skinny!Steve)

[kass]

♥ ♥ ♥

[ranalore]

Dear god, this movie. I won't say this movie is single-handedly responsible for dragging me back into Western media fandom after a good fifteen years away, because I was still dabbling via Yuletide-level fandoms and there was that whole Harry Potter thing, but this took the promise of the first Cap movie and delivered on it about a thousandfold, and it punched me hard in Marvel feels that had been re-awakened by First Class, and it got me invested in a fandom in a way I swore wasn't going to happen for at least another five years, and it makes me sad to see so many people drifting away already, because I am so full of love and I've just barely started to get some writing mojo going, and I am not even close to saturation point on reading and meta and I want to know where all the discussions are, the character analysis and the DVD commentary, and I want more vids and fanart and all of it, everything, I'm not done. I'm nowhere near done, and I want more of these stupid boys with their stupid eyelashes and their stupid feels and my stupid feels and Natasha, who I cannot even jokingly call stupid, and Maria, I want more of all of it. And this movie, this perfect, beautiful movie. I have my trepidations about Cap 3, and I am really not looking forward to AofU, but I have this movie, and I'm clinging to it.

[kore]

FUCK YES. I am so not done with all the fic ideas and headcanon and stuff!

[gwyn]

Even as crazy as I was for Pacific Rim (and I was, oh boy), it was nothing compared to this. I...honestly didn't think I could ever feel this way as a fan again. I never expected to ever have feels at that level again.

And yes, word, to your last sentence. That is exactly how I feel.

[fiercynn]

it's so awesome to hear stories of fannish rejuvenation, so thank you for this! I'm currently doing the fandom drifting thing, where I adore a lot of media but have no greater creative feelings about it, and frequently feel sad about that, so it's really nice to know there's hope. Which sounds completely melodramatic, wow, but hopefully you know what I mean!

Also, though I'm not feeling fannish about Cap 2 at all, I loved the movie to death, so much of this rings true with me even if it's in a different way! Particularly the part about it being a 70s political thriller because YES, SO MUCH YES.

[gwyn]

Yeah, and that meta casting of the '70s political thriller golden boy Redford as the villain just...SO BRILLIANT. They deserve all the awards just for that.

[sperrywink]

OMG, yes! I didn't think CA:TWS would hit me so hard because to be honest I was only mildly interested in Cap from Captain America: The First Avenger and Avengers Assemble.

But Bucky as the The Winter Soldier totally sucked me in hard. It was and remains glorious.

[hafital.livejournal.com]

So spoil me, if you've seen it. I know I can't go until I know what to expect.

It was sad, but not wrenching, imo. I still cried but I thought they did as loving a job as they could on it. I wrote about it in my lj. The movie itself, aside from how they handled the Brain storyline, was as OTT as you'd expect. I love all that so I had no problem with it. I loved all the movies, the more ridiculous the more I liked them? I don't know. I think this one is actually probably not as good as the others, or more ridiculous in any case in terms of the stunts and the plot devices, but none of that bothered me, ymmv.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

I saw your post--how do they actually handle Brian/Paul being gone? Does he walk off into the sunset or something, or does his character actually die in the movie? I was hoping to hear that Han and Giselle were magically not killed in the last movie. That really, really depressed me. I'd had this fnatasy that the death we saw in Tokyo Drift would have been a total fakeout.

[hafital.livejournal.com]

His character does not die in the movie. He lives, Mia lives, their kid lives. Dom very much lives. He's immortal! Han and Giselle are sadly not magically not killed, which I was hoping for, too, at least for Han to not be dead. They did it with Letty! Why not with Han! I'd be happy to hand waive away any weird plot devices. But alas, at least not in this film.

So, to be more specific, they have a very light subplot of Brian struggling with domesticity and life as a Dad driving a minivan, etc, after all the adrenaline of his life before. So, Mia's like, you have to help Dom and the team with this Deckard Shaw business, and then come back to me. She's also pregnant again, but afraid to tell Brian for fear that he'll choose to stay with her instead of help Dom. So, all the movie then happens, lots of stunts, no major characters die or even get seriously injured except for Hobbs (injured, not dead, and that happens first thing). After all of the main events of the plot are done, and the bad guy is taken away, and everyone is safe, then they have a scene at the beach where Brian and Mia and their kid are playing in the surf while Dom and Letty and everyone else watches. They, Dom and Letty, etc, say something like "look at him, he's happy," and then Dom decides to leave without saying good-bye. So he gets up and goes in his car, but Brian follows and they line up at a light. Brian says something like "Thought you could leave without saying goodbye," and he's smiling and his usual goofy charming self. They then sort of race, but the camera pulls way way back and up and we see Dom drive off in one direction and Brian drive off in another. That part got me. And there's a montage. The montage was a little heavy handed, but I understand why they had that there, and I can't say I blame them for it.

The use of Paul's brothers and some cgi was pretty subtle. I only caught it a couple of times and only in the final last scene between them, and the part with Brian playing in the surf with his kid.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this! I haven't got as much invested in it lately as I once did, but it's still really powerful to me and Paul's death really affected me in a way I couldn't have predicted, so seeing this is something I have to be really prepared for.

[hafital.livejournal.com]

I too was surprised by how Paul's death affected me. I still cry about it, and while I love the films I've never been uber fannish about them. I think we're not the only ones who feel the same way though. Personally, I am of the opinion that with the films' focus on found family, the audience becomes the silent member of that family especially with several films to cement that in, so even if you're just a casual consumer of the films his death felt more personal than what would normally be expected.

For what it's worth, all the reviews and online commentary I've read so far to the film's ending and how they handled their tribute to Paul has been pretty overwhelmingly positive.

[nwhepcat.livejournal.com]

I am hip-deep in a Clint/Phil fic, but I still do have my fannish adoration for Winter Soldier. Hell, I am driving out to Ft. McCoy, formerly Camp McCoy, WHERE BUCKY DID HIS BASIC TRAINING, later this month.

Cause I do want to write some fic.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

OMG PLEASE REPORT ON CAMP MCCOY. I mean, doing research is one thing, but having a fannish report will be so much better. Squeeeeeee.