Captain America! Does the General Public get it?

Captain America! Does the General Public get it?

This is just an observation I made from the people that I work with and how they have reacted to the recent trailer.

Editorial Opinion
By LMFAO - Feb 07, 2011 02:02 PM EST

Now, i want to start this off by saying this article is not my personal opinion, at least not fully. Since last night i have been so pumped from the trailers we saw and how awesome they were. So, in my excitement, i talked about them to almost everyone I saw a work today. I work as a personal trainer in a pretty popular gym in a big city so i see a lot of people during the day. This is what i observed.

I would saw about 90% of the people i talked to today were more impressed with the Thor trailer over that Captain America trailer. From what i got out of the conversations with people, the guys liked the action, the girls liked the fact that Natalie Portman was in it. Now, this doesnt really mean that Thor will do better but from the people i talked to, they were more excited about Thor.

Next, and this one scared me, almost half of the people, men and women, didn't know they were watching a Captain America trailer until they saw the shield! Now i have some problems with the costume myself, but these people didn't even recognize him because the costume was changed so much. I would even say that at least 25%, mainly men, were mad that such a huge change was made to the costume. That being said, they did think the movie looked "fun" but i didn't get a huge vibe that this one one of those movies that people really wanted to see. Another thing, most people, and this will tell you how much they dont know about the comics, didn't know who the Red Skull was and when i explained, they generally were surprised, obviously not knowing how Captain America's greatest villain was also greatly disfigured.

Now here's something that might shock you. i asked people if they had seen the Green Lantern trailer, trying to continue with the conversation. The people that had, about 60% of them, seemed more interested in that movie over Captain America also. This surprised me since i thought it looked kind of crappy and what not. But, like Thor, a lot of people saw Ryan Reynolds and Blake Livley and i guess that is going to be a big draw to that movie. None of them knew Mark Strong was in the movie (most people didnt know Hugo Weaving was in Cap either) but surprisingly more people seemed to not only know more about Green Lantern, but they also liked the fact that there was humor in the trailer.

So, out of the 200 or so average people i talked to today(ages between 18 and 40), it seems that the majority cant wait for Thor and Green Lantern but aren't sold on Captain America just yet (heres hoping they change their minds after seeing more stuff coming out in the next few months). Before i end this article i would like to add that a lot of people were also extremely excited about the new Transformer movie and said it was the best trailer of the night.

Let me know what you think about this. I'll be very interested to here what you think

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Exiles
Exiles - 2/7/2011, 3:32 PM
honestly no one knew wtf iron man was and that worked out pretty well iron mans well known character 30 seconds is never enough to judge a movie, so many people were saying how TF3 was going to be as bad as TF2 but the same people were having orgasm over the 30 seconds because it looked "cool".

I think thors going to do much better over here in europe then it will in America.
TayDee
TayDee - 2/7/2011, 3:46 PM
The general public isn't stupid and they will understand whats going on in the movies if the story is told right of course. The only thing that may confuse the general audience are reboots; they may be like oh there's a new spiderman movie coming out but where's tobey and who is this new kid playing spiderman.
SmokinIndo
SmokinIndo - 2/7/2011, 4:40 PM
"Next, and this one scared me, almost half of the people, men and women, didn't know they were watching a Captain America trailer until they saw the shield!"

In the trailer, we see the shield before we see the costume. So does your analysis adequately measure people's opinions about the costume? I would also argue that nobody realized that they were watching a Thor trailer until they saw the hammer. Thor's movie costume looks about as different from his classic look as Captain America's does.
mawilli4
mawilli4 - 2/7/2011, 5:11 PM
I saw the opposite reaction. A lot of my friends who knew nothing about comics loved it. I asked them about it after the game, and they said they wanted to see it and thought it looked good.

personally, i thought it looked phenomenal, but i might be biased since cap is my favorite hero and i'm desperately wanting something better than the '90s one.
Denn1s
Denn1s - 2/7/2011, 5:38 PM
the cap spot reminds me of XMOW trailer. starts with an experiment that gives someone powers and goes on...
golden123
golden123 - 2/7/2011, 6:30 PM
The general public I talked to, beleive it or not, said that Green Lantern would be the best out of the three superhero movies, that Captain America looked okay, and that Thor looked silly. I'm being completely honest. We complain that GL looked like a romatic comedy, but when I brought that up they replied with how spider-man has Mary jane, Superman has lois, and such. Basically they were implying that a superhero film is supposed to have that romance to it, it's just the way people think it goes. I think the reason they thought Thor was silly was they didn't get the character. The whole giant magical hammer kinda made them laugh. As for Captain America they weren't that impressed by it, yet there still probably going to watch it because it looks decent and a fun movie.
golden123
golden123 - 2/7/2011, 6:38 PM
Also, were you implying in your article that you thought the general public knows who Red Skull is? Dude, there is not a single villain out there that everybody knows that isn't in a movie already. Actually most of the house hold villains were made famous by the movie not by other means.

@exiles:The Transformers 3 movie looks cool? news to me.
superotherside
superotherside - 2/7/2011, 9:41 PM
@Aguaman most people that i've met only see captain america in media they don't know any thing about his back ground or story, they just know he's a guy dressed up in a flag suit and throws a shield around sometimes, that's about it... on making cap's costume more recognizable, i think that in avengers tony stark should give it some updates, put a bit more red on the gloves (like dark red, but the red they have now is closer to brown, although CBMers might recognize that it is slightly red most of the audience won't), the star needs to be slightly larger, the black straps need to be taken of, and instead of the two red stripes it needs to be 3, idk how they could do this with the strips and make it look real... still i think they could do it... if they work hard enough... also it is only a 30 sec teaser so probably in the coming months ask the same questions and you'll probably hear better answers...

@certainCBMerswhostartedhateaboutthisarticle
chill this guy is only relating what happened...
skidz
skidz - 2/7/2011, 11:39 PM
You should have asked which war Captain America takes place in. I bet if you go back a do a survey just on that question you'll probably be surprised by what you hear!
Shua
Shua - 2/8/2011, 12:24 AM
When the commercial came on I had to be restrained... but I was in a room with 20 college kids (mostly men) and they gave a resounding 'wow, that was kinda lame' which almost broke my heart. I hate to say it, but they have a point. I loved every second of watching Steve Rodgers transform into Captain America, but for anyone that doesn't know his storyline that was the majority of the trailer which left them lacking what they really wanted: action.

Do I have hope for this movie? Absolutely! I love Hugo Weaving and I have faith that Evans will really bring Cap to life but I am very very VERY concerned that the general public won't go see it.

I'm sorry all, but I just can't get on the bandwagon with this costume. I want to sooo bad cause the Avengers will be basically the climax of my life but that helmet... I can't lie it really adds the cheese. Here's hoping and praying that the soon to be released full trailer will quell my fears.
Kaedus
Kaedus - 2/8/2011, 1:37 AM
Of course this is how the general public react. They're made up of people who think a good movie requires the biggest stars, the hottest girls, funny jokes, and random explosions to be amazing. Most people don't give a [frick] about cinematography, the script, intelligent casting, and direction of movies anymore. Like you said, they preferred the look of Green Lantern and Transformers, both of which look like they're going to be just how I described above. Green Lantern will sell because of Ryan Reynolds, and Transformers will sell because of the giant random explosions (notice how the trailer had one about every 2 seconds! [frick]ing Michael Bay!). God damn I hate the modern mainstream view on movies.
Coldblood6
Coldblood6 - 2/8/2011, 2:56 AM
This was exactly my point in the comments for the CA teaser.

It looks cool to CA fans. His transformation is cool to CA and CBM fans. However quite bluntly the action was MEH. It looked like eighties movie type action rather than 21st century movie action.

As someone who is a Marvel fan but not an out and out CA fan I was able to see it from both angles. I loved a lot of what I saw. As someone who is really looking forward to spectacular fight choreography with Cap's shield and acrobatics I have to say that the action shown did not wow me. I could see why the casual viewer is unimpressed.

Now this doesn't in any way suppress my rabid anticipation for this movie but it needs to be much much much better than CA runs and bumps someone out of the way with his shield.

I am sensible enough to realise that this could simply be because its just a teaser and we are still very early in preproduction but I am wary.

Like Kaedus said the general public is quite uninspiring. These are the people that think that Shia Leboeuf's mother getting high on marijuana and acting like a fool is funny and belongs in a Transformers movie.

But directors need to understand how to please both fans and the general public. THE ACTION IN THIS MOVIE AND THE FIGHTING IN PARTICULAR NEEDS TO BE SPECTACULAR!!! If that is not the case in the completed film at this point Marvel need to get on the ball now and get reshoots done!
Coldblood6
Coldblood6 - 2/8/2011, 3:07 AM
The initial question, i.e., the title of this editorial is a good one.

I believe that not every major comic book character is accessable to the general public otherwise comic books would be a lot more popular that they are.

Whether that applies to CA I don't know. We will have to wait and see.
Angelus
Angelus - 2/8/2011, 3:27 AM
No.
TwoToGo
TwoToGo - 2/8/2011, 4:25 AM
Even though I like comics, neither Thor nor Captain America ever interested me as characters. Neither did Iron Man until the movie came out and I loved it. The Avengers movie got me interested in Thor and Cap and, movie-wise, I am much more interested in Thor. To someone who isn't a hardcore fan of CA, the teaser looks very boring. And I think that is how the character himself is generally perceived as well.

I predict a Rotten Tomatoes score of 64% for Thor by the way...don't know why. Not sure about Captain America. Green Lantern I honestly see at around 43%.

MARK MY WORDS (which are based on absolutely nothing)!
Jolt17
Jolt17 - 2/8/2011, 5:12 AM
It sure will...when people see the shield and an 'A' on his forehead then people will know who he is!

My mom even know who Cap is, and we are not even American!

Hell the fault of this movie is that it sends out its promotion so late!

But no worries, when people see the name Captain America in the cinemas, they will know and get a ticket!

His name foremost, has been famous!

And P.S. these three CBMs sure will rock 2011!

@TwoToGo I say...
Max 78% Thor
Max 76% Green Lantern
Max 76% Captain America

Don't get me wrong, GL and Cap are my fav heroes, I'm a hardcore fan of them.

However...Thor seems to hold so much epic battle scenes, epic CGI, etc.

That's why people are attracted; the trailer has shown hell lot of action scenes!

So from a general viewpoint, Thor will may be the best, unless it really is different from what is shown!

;)
Kaedus
Kaedus - 2/8/2011, 5:35 AM
@Coldblood6 That scene made me rage. The kids had no place in Transformers. Rather than having them as the main characters, it should have been the Transformersa themselves who were the main focus. [frick] romance. All you need to see from humanity is the military and lots of civillians running around scared. The plot should focus around the Autobots and their relationship with the Decepticons. No one cares about Shia LeBouef and Megan Fox.

Cannot wait to see Cap and Thor :D
I don't care how the public see it, I'm sure I'm gonna love them.
Even if people don't like it, the movie will make a hell of a lot of money. Enough for Marvel to continue to make more :)
ogawt
ogawt - 2/8/2011, 6:38 AM
Aren't sold on Captain America? Well hopefully this can give the movie a boost:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZgKEe6wxUc
thunderforce
thunderforce - 2/8/2011, 7:39 AM
That is something I think Marvel should do to help their movies they should have a special logo followed by a number say Thor would be MMU3 for marvel movie universe #3 and all the continuing movies should all have that mark just so everyone knows it is the next in the series it would get more people to go to say Cap even if they were luke warm about going because they watched the previous movies . Also they should introduce a new superhero in say a short before the movie as another selling point , it doesnt even have to be an origin but just an introduction maybe to set up an origin movie later on . Another thing they could use to sell Cap would be it is the set up for the Avengers movie the one we all are waiting for . It would also be cool to have stan lee come on after say Thor and say [ Don't miss the next chapter in the marvel movie universe the introduction of Captain America ]
Jackwagon
Jackwagon - 2/8/2011, 7:27 PM
Well, I'm just crossing my fingers at this point and hoping that the story is bigger than the costume. I'd give anything to read the script. I'm hoping for that Sargent York/Rocky/Superman/Band of Brothers all rolled into one, but I'm afraid it won't perform any better than the Hulk did all because of the outfit. Don't get me wrong, I know spandex won't work in a period piece such as this, but this really could have been done better and I see a mutiny on the horizon. Then again, maybe the backlash will be so big that they change it for the sequels and the Avengers. I guess what bothers me the most is they didn't do a whole lot of changing to the other characters and I'm sort of taking this a little to personally that they have decided to go full blown with Cap. Who knows, its only a thirty second trailer. One can only hope that thirty seconds is all I will have to see of this outfit on screen.
KeithM
KeithM - 2/8/2011, 7:30 PM
The Twittersphere disagrees with you.

The Cap teaser was the most Tweeted about of all the Superbowl spots, so clearly the 200 people you spoke to (you spoke to 200 people about it? In ONE day? Really? :hmm:) aren't representative.

And of course they don't know who the Red Skull is. They haven't seen the movie yet. Nobody knew who Indiana Jones was before that movie came out, or Luke Skywalker, or Darth Vader, or Tony Stark, or ... you get the point?

They'll know who he is when they see it, just like every other hero/bad guy in every other movie that isn't a sequel.

I think you're over-thinking this tbh.
NeoBaggins
NeoBaggins - 2/14/2011, 7:00 PM
"more impressed with the Thor trailer over that Captain America trailer." DUH. Just imagine if those people actually saw the full trailer on the site, or the super long comic con trailer that was band but that some people still have on their computer in HD =). They woulda shitted.

People at work joked about the Cap trailer and it was mostly the Transformers trailer that caught their interest and Thor pulling up a close second. I guess we thirst for punishment. The last Tansformers was retarded as sin but I can't deny the quality and polished production values of the series. THATS, why its the bigegst trailer- and of course, everyone knows who the transformers are.
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