Marvel Mondays: Captain America: First Avenger And The Avengers

Hello again and welcome to the newest installment of "Marvel Mondays!" As I talked briefly about last week, the format is a little different for the posts; instead of doing one movie per post, I'm going to be doing two per post in order to be caught up by the time Infinity War releases (speaking of which, did you guys see the Pop Funkos for Infinity War!?). This week, I get to talk about two very important movies to the MCU, and our very own Elizabeth's favorite character, Captain America: The First Avenger and The Avengers! Once again, here's the schedule of the coming posts leading up to Infinity War:

March 5th- Captain America: The First Avenger and The Avengers
March 12th- Iron Man 3 and Captain America: The Winter Soldier
March 19th- Thor: The Dark World and Ant Man
March 26th- Guardians of the Galaxy: Volumes 1 and 2
April 2nd- Avengers: Age of Ultron (exception 1; I'll explain why in the post)
April 9th- Dr. Strange and Thor: Ragnarok
April 16th- Captain America: Civil War (exception 2; I'll also explain why in the post)
April 23rd- Spider Man: Homecoming and Black Panther
April 30th- Infinity War Preview, Predictions, and MCU Review
May 7th- Avengers: Infinity War

With the new of Avengers: Infinity War being moved up to April 27th, I'm consulting the higher ups to see if we can have a special "Marvel Mondays" on that Wednesday or Thursday to preview the movie.

Before we can talk about The Avengers, we have to cover the final movie before the bug superhero team up: Captain America: The First Avenger!

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Coming off the heels of 3 box office hits (Iron Man, Iron Man 2, and Thor), Marvel Studios and Paramount Pictures teamed up once again to bring Cap to the big screen for the first time, and man was it another hit! Released July 22nd, 2011 and with an opening box office of over $380 million dollars, it's easy to see people were excited to see how Chris Evans would be as Captain America. The film begins during World War 2 and follows Steve Rogers on his quest to join the Armed Forces, defend America, and beat the bad guys! However, Steve is just too small to join the fight, until he gets injected with a Super Soldier Serum that's eerily similar to the one seen in The Incredible Hulk, but Cap doesn't turn green; he just becomes a super soldier and ultimately saves the day along with his special battalion. The casting for Captain America: The First Avenger was actually very anti-climatic. Chris Evans had worked with Marvel before as The Human Torch in the Fantastic Four series, and after declining the role a couple of times, ultimately joined the cast as Steve Rogers/Captain America; however, Tommy Lee Jones (Chester Phillips), Hugo Weaving (Red Skull), Hayley Atwell (Agent Peggy Carter), and Sebastian Stan (Bucky Barnes) all joined without hesitation as their respective characters. Samuel L Jackson would join the cast in the second of his nine picture deal with Marvel as Nick Fury. 

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The pre production of the film is somewhat of an interesting story. Originally set to be released as the first Marvel film, Captain America was actually originally going to be a comedy similar to Back To The Future, since it's about a superhero who is misplaced in time. Because of the 2007-2008 Writer's Guild of America strike, the film had to be put on hold, but when the strike completed Marvel approached Iron Man director Jon Favreau to see if he wanted to direct Captain America; when Favreau declined, The Incredible Hulk director Louis Leterrier offered his services, but Marvel chose not to accept. Instead, Kevin Feige chose Joe Johnston (October Sky and The Rocketeer) to direct the film. Originally, Feige wanted the film to be split in half. with half being during World War 2 and the other half being present day; however, Johnston thought it would be better as an origin story and then at the end of the film have Cap wake up to a world sixty years later. 

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Captain America: The First Avenger is one movie that takes a little bit of a break from Easter Eggs incorporated in the MCU, but it does have a couple of nods to other movies. When Red Skull is searching for the Tesseract, he finds it hidden in Norway in a monastery that has an image of a giant tree engraved on the entrance. The tree is Yggdrasil and is talked about extensively in Thor...a lot of people also believe this tree could be Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy. We're also introduced to HYDRA for the first time in the MCU, and it most definitely won't be the last, as they become a common villain in the movies, especially the Captain America movies. In the display case at the expo Steve and Bucky go to, there is a red suit in a case. This is actually a nod to the original Human Torch suit from the Fantastic Four; now, they aren't a part of the MCU, but Evans did play the Human Torch before becoming Captain America. We also discover that Captain America's shield is made from the strongest metal in the world, Vibranium; however, it's not explained where Vibranium comes from and who watches over it all. During the battle between Red Skull and Cap, the Tesseract opens up and reveals a portal that contains a very familiar nebula. This is the same image we see of Asgard in Thor, leaving the possibility open that Red Skull didn't fall to his death, but fell to Asgard or one of the other Nine Realms. 

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The post credit scene in Captain America: The First Avenger is actually a scene from The Avengers. It shows Rogers working out in a gym and breaking punching bags, while in the back Nick Fury walks up and presents Rogers with a folder to which Rogers asks "is this a mission, sir?" Fury goes on to tell Rogers that this mission will have worldwide ramifications. While this scene is actually in another movie, at the time it was actually really important.it all but confirmed who would be in The Avengers movie that was coming soon, and got us even more excited to see our favorite superheros coming together all on the same screen. All in all, it's not the most revealing scene, but imagine being in the theater and seeing Fury present Cap with an Avengers folder...it'd be pretty exciting. 

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Now let's talk about one of the biggest blockbusters ever!

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The big question at the beginning of the creation of the MCU was what does this all lead up to? The answer came on May 4th, 2012 with the release of The Avengers. A collaboration unlike any other seen in the history of superhero movies, The Avengers set the bar for all comic book movies to follow. The anticipation for the movie began with the post credits scene in the first Iron Man and escalated as time went on; and it showed at the movie's dominating box office run in where it recorded over $1.5 billion. Being that this is a Disney blog website, it's also pretty important to note that The Avengers was the first Marvel movie that was owned, distributed, marketed, and financed by the Walt Disney Company. It's fitting that since Disney bought the rights to the film, the first official trailer was shown at the 2011 D23 Event. The film itself brings together Earth's Mightiest Heroes (Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hulk, Hawkeye, and Black Widow) to take on a threat to Earth made by Thor's brother Loki who, during the post credits scene, we see has the help of Thanos. This was Mark Ruffalo's first appearance as the Hulk, as Sir Edward Norton was not brought back to play the big green guy. Joining Ruffalo would be Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johannson, Jeremy Renner, Samuel L Jackson, Clark Gregg, Gwyenth Paltrow, and Tom Hiddleston to reprise their respective roles. Obviously the big thing about The Avengers is it was the first time we've seen that many superheros all in the same movie fighting side by side; it would set a new precedent for, not just Marvel movies, but also all comic book movies. 

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The pre production of The Avengers really isn't entertaining...at all. The film was originally set to be written by Zak Penn, but after Marvel Studios brought in Joss Whedon to direct the film, he saw the script and decided he needed to re-write the whole thing. When Downey Jr got wind of Whedon re-writing the script, he immediately pitched an idea that Iron Man would open the film; however, Whedon went with a different direction. The only stipulation Kevin Feige gave Whedon was that the film had to include Loki as the main villain, it had to have the heroes battling each other, and then the heroes would ultimately team up to battle the villains. After Whedon accepted the conditions, he began re-doing the script and storyline. He originally intended to not include characters from former movies such as Pepper Potts and Dr Selvig; however, after Downey Jr convinced him to add them into the story, they both made appearances in the movie. 

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The Avengers is the culmination of Phase One of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so there's plenty of nods back to the previous 5 films in the MCU, and some of the future moments as well. Let's start at the beginning when Coulson arrives at Stark Tower, Tony is preoccupied so he tells Coulson that Coulson is actually speaking to a Life Model Decoy. Now, why is this important? Well, Life Model Decoys (LMD) are actually S.H.I.E.L.D androids used to protect the actual person in dangerous situations...such as when a Hulk erupts aboard a Helicarrier and an Asgardian god breaks out of his prison cell. As Coulson leaves Stark Tower, he hands Tony a bunch of files. The one file that is clearly visible is "File 42." We see File 42 is containing information based on a Project 42 that we see in Civil War. It's a prison cell under the water that is used to hold bad guys...or rogue good guys who don't sign the Sokovian Accords. While Thor and Loki are on the mountainside having their discussion, you can see 2 ravens flying around them. What significance do 2 birds have in the MCU? Well, when Odin, Thor and Loki's father, lost his eye, he started using 2 ravens to keep an eye on everything in the Nine Realms. So while it may seem like it's just Thor and Loki on that mountain, their father isn't too far away. Moving on to a more dark scene, when Banner is talking about how he tried to kill himself with a gun and "the other guy" spit it out, we assume he's talking about the Hulk. But he could be talking about Sir Edward Norton! In the deleted scenes of The Incredible Hulk, Norton's Banner tries to commit suicide but his Hulk spits out the bullet. 

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But the big tie in to the MCU comes after the movie, and before the last post credits scene (which is just the Avengers eating at the local Shawarma place in New York.) After the credits play, we get to see the Other informing Thanos of Loki's failures. He tells Thanos that fighting the Avengers would be courting Death, to which Thanos turns around with a menacing smile on his face. Now, this important for a couple of reasons, but first and foremost, it's our first time seeing Thanos, who seems to be the big bad guy of the entire MCU as we know it. But we also get a hint at the reasoning behind Thanos' desire to end the world. He is in love with Death and want to impress her at any cost, which I'm sure will be harped on quite a lot during Infinity War. But this is also big because it creates a pathway for the Guardians of the Galaxy to meet the Avengers and them have a common enemy, as Thanos is featured in both the Guardians and the Avengers movies. Given what is coming next month, I can say this is a pretty huge post credits scene in the MCU.

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Now, to talk about where these movies rank on my list. Captain America: The First Avenger is a good movie, but he just isn't my favorite hero, so his films typically are a lot lower on my list than really anyone else's. While First Avenger is good and plays well into the MCU timeline, I find it a bit boring on the action front and the humor to be extraordinarily dry; unlike Iron Man. I think it's real easy to say that if you love the Iron Man movies, you probably won't love the Captain America movies, and vice versa. Overall though, I can't hate on Captain America too much, it's not the worst movie in the MCU for me, but it does come in pretty low at number 16 for the reasons I listed earlier.

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As far as The Avengers go, there's really no discussion needed. If you like Marvel movies, this is in your top five at least. It's a monumental film, and one that even people who don't like superhero movies can enjoy. It has the perfect amount of action and humor, and does an incredible job of building everyone's character arcs throughout the film, culminating with arguably the best action scene in the entire MCU in the Battle of New York. The cut where the camera pans around the Avengers in the street in slower motion is quite frankly one of the best in any movie of all time. The Avengers comes in at number 2 on my list because it literally is one of the greatest movies ever made in my opinion. 

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Kevin Scott is a contributing writer for The Mouse Knows Best Podcast. He is self proclaimed Disney addict and oftentimes annoys his family with how much he talks Disney. He enjoys walking around all Disney Parks and taking as many pictures as he can in one day. When he isn't at Walt Disney World, he is working to get back or re-watching Disney, Marvel, and Star Wars movies. His spirit animal is a mix between Simba and Kylo Ren with a dash of Tony Stark. He is an avid Pop Funko collector and enjoys reading any book related to Disney. You can find him on Twitter @doubleoh_kevin and on Instagram @waltdisneyduo.