Thanks for the read!!! Always open to critique!
*This is just a fun and specualtive pitch. I figure my ideas won't be for everyone.
Yes, it’s one of those. The old re-imagining. I'm sure you've had a fantasy about re-imagined versions of your favorite characters or universes. Yes, you have. Don’t lie to yourself, you know it to be true. Search your feelings. This is what I do in my head when I can’t help but visualize the number of different stories, adventures and plotlines characters can become involved in. I've recently been thinking about the MCU and how it all began. Primarily, PHASE 1 and the narratives that introduced us to these beloved characters and ushered in this cinematic universe.
My re-imagining has the MCU kicking off with the introduction of Steve Rogers aka Captain America. I feel as if the Sentinel of Liberty should’ve been the first hero that audiences connected with as this universe began. My Cap film is a tad bit darker. I really love TFA, especially how it has a real "old-timey" pulp genre feel and tone. I would keep that tone for my re-imagining, but also blend in the tone of a war epic.
COLD OPEN
The opening of the film would be a cold open in the style of the Bond films. Cap has been working with S.H.I.E.L.D., a U.N. peacekeeping outfit that toes the line between being the C.I.A for the U.N. and a global security agency. Our hero has been taking part in dangerous international conflicts of interests. He’s been defrosted for about 6 months. We meet Cap, leading a black ops unit in an extraction mission. Basically, this is to showcase his new role in the world. He’s a soldier and doesn’t know how to be anything else. During this cold open, Cap has earbuds that play old jazz classics from his heyday. As he’s taking out operatives, the music of Count Bassie or Dizzy Gillespie is ringing in his ear. Thought this would be a nice touch to hint at his past. We’ll learn that this extraction means something later.
Chapter 1:
THOSE WHO WOULD SACRIFICE LIBERTY FOR SECURITY DESERVE NEITHER
Cap is first and foremost, a solider. He served in an era where America was about freedom, and the war that he fought in was about defending the freedom of the West from the Nazi threat. Keep in mind, Cap didn't live through Korea and Vietnam, through Watergate or the Clinton years, nor either Iraq war, or even the 9/11 attacks - he's a throwback to the days when "freedom" actually meant something, and was worth dying for. That world no longer exists.
In my introductory Cap film, that kicks off Phase One, the beginning of the film would have Cap going on USO type tours, visiting soldiers. Splice this with him reading up on himself, from history books, watching documentaries, as well as studying the history of the U.S. and the world since he froze.
Cap will often inquire the soldiers about how they’re handling war. A world, full of violence, fear, and extreme scarcity, often turns into an extended lesson in morality. Cap learns how one must balance one’s duty to secure the larger community versus the individual need to be a good husband and parent. This has Cap think on who he is without the army. He becomes especially friendly with a Civil Air Patrol officer by the name of
Sam Wilson. Wilson resonates with Cap since he left the Air Force Reserve, where he was knee deep in the field, because he felt like he was actually saving lives as opposed to just fighting whomever was deemed the enemy, no questions asked. Cap has encountered this kind of thinking while working with S.H.I.E.L.D. the last few months. Sam mentions how he does great work with his new division and has recently been commissioned to test
special protoype
tech developed by
Tony Stark, famed weapons manufacturer, to use in search and rescue missions, air raids, and national disaster emergencies.
Cap wrestles with what the modern military, and world, has become. A world full of grey morals. A world where everyone is the enemy. Where security is more important than liberty. The end of this first act of sorts, would have us follow Cap on a mission for S.H.I.E.L.D. to take part in a coup led against the democratically elected Juan Elmirez, president of Costa Verde. Elmirez set about instituing reforms aimed at making his country more self-sufficient. This meant giving govt land back to the people. This rubbed the U.N the wrong way as a few high ranking members were tied to Alchemex, a company that owned much of the land. In other words, non-dependece on the U.N. and its allies was not to be tolerated. Cap thinks, when did soldiers become errand boys? When did freedom take a backseat to security? Esepcially the security of dependency through intimidation? This makes him think back on his time in the war.
Chapter 2:
THE KID FROM BROOKLYN
Steve Rogers is an artist in Brooklyn circa 1940. He’s an extremely thin, frail guy. Short, about 5’7. Weighs about 130 lbs. He’s modest but never afraid to speak his mind. He’s just buried his mother as she unfortunately passed from pneumonia. He’s been working as a cartoonist for a local NYC paper. He’s passionate about his work, but he’s lately been conflicted about what he’s doing in life as the war has caught his attention. Many men he knows have left to serve. Cap’s reasons for joining the war vary. He sees joining as a means of doing the right thing, but also as a means of the U.S. steadily moving towards the ideal nation he wants it to be. A nation that fights for the oppressed. We see that Steve works part time at a factory where he's befriended a few African-American workers. I think it’s important to show that Steve is empathetic to the woes of what’s going on in the homeland and not just abroad. He witnesses racism and doesn’t tolerate it. He’s a poor Irish kid, who’s sickly. He’s special enough to understand what it’s like to be ostracized.
By enlisting, he’s fighting in a battle about freedom, one that he hopes will lead the nation to rethink how it treats some of its own citizens. This will be a brief and subtle point of the narrative, but it will stick.
Most of this part of the film would deal with Steve trying to enlist but running into roadblocks due to his size. He tries and tries but only encounters failure. During one of his attempts to get through, Howard Stark, a young up and coming arms industrialist, is present and gives a rousing speech thanking those who are going to battle. Along with him, is an older man by the name of Phillips. Phillips notices the small and frail Steve and approaches him. Inquiring him about why he wants to join, Phillips is moved. It turns out he’s a general and he and Stark were visiting enlistment stations to recruit a small number of individuals who were interested in taking part in a special test. Steve agrees if it means he gets to serve.
Steve would be put through weeks of tests, after being taken to a secret laboratory in Washington D.C. Operation Rebirth, a joint venture between the U.S. and England, was in full effect now. He won out against the other applicants, after the scientist in charge,
Erskine, was moved by his dedication and goodwill. Erskine was a former German scientist who developed a super serum after years of experimentation. This serum would turn men into the peak human being. Erskine was forced to experiment on German soldiers by Adolf Hitler. He was sickened by the cruelty and defected. He would only aid the U.S. and England under the condition that no one be forced or coerced into the experiment. Howard Stark, would help fund the project as well as consult.
Steve would later on be injected with the serum and transformed into the peak human man. The event was watched by senators, joint chiefs of staffs, high ranking military and the president himself. A Nazi spy, who observed the experiment, murdered Dr. Erskine mere minutes after its conclusion. The secret of the serum died with Erskine. Rogers was then put through an intensive physical and tactical training program for 6 months. He would recieve a
Vibranium shield (constructed by Howard Stark) in an official ceremony from President Roosevelt. During his training, he falls for British spy
Peggy Carter, a woman who ran a sort of underground railway from her flat in Marseille, France. She was helping hundreds of downed Allied servicemen and would-be political prisoners escape to England.
Fast forward a few years later and Cap is leading battalions on the ground. His singular unit, the
Howling Commandos, a special unit of the 1st Special Service Force, do deep cover
shock and awe missions, attacking Nazi installations, camps, weapons depots etc. Cap befriends a member of the group,
Bucky Barnes, a kid he grew up with, but also lost touch with after they became teenagers. They would form a brotherly bond during the war.
The job of the Commandos is that of terrorizing the Third Reich underhandedly. Mostly, they contend with Hitler’s fanatical Nazi combat division of the Schutzstaffel, the Schädel-SS, led by the radical Johann Schmidt, aka the Red Skull. He viewed war as a game and the toppling of countries and regimes was what he did best. But he also saw humanity as something that needed to be ruled with an iron fist to sustain stability. The Red Skull had never been seen by anyone and he had built up a legend for that. He was considered Hitler’s “crazed wild dog” whom Hitler even feared. It’s also rumored that he has a strange red face due to lethal Nazi experiments with the super soldier serum in gaseous form. It’s said he was once a high-ranking SS soldier who had an affair with a Jewish woman. He was punished by being subjected to the supposed failed remnants of the serum experimentation, but somehow survived. Cap and his crew later discover that Skull and his unit were raiding not only Jewish riches, but occult artifacts for Hitler.
Bucky would seemingly fall to his death in Russian territory at one point of the film.
This section of the film, the war part, would feature a lot of striking WWII imagery. Ashes falling like snow, injured and dead soldiers, trench warfare, etc. Visuals to create a tone of desolation when need be.
Chapter 3:
PAST MEETS THE PRESENT
We soon find out that Cap’s cold open mission was tied to the Red Skull. When Cap was brought out of the ice, so was the Red Skull who crashed with him in an aircraft back in 1944. The aircraft was carrying a payload of nuclear warheads. A recent global warming incident caused a large mountainous ice range to collapse. A team of scientists studying the event find the two men. Both men were brought back to S.H.I.E.L.D. to be thawed out. Red Skull managed to escape during the process. Cap’s mission that opened up the film, involved him extracting/kidnapping a HYDRA agent suspected of harboring the Skull.
Past meets present as we discover that back during the war, Skull aspired to survive the war unscathed. As the war ended and defeat was near, Skull enacted a plan. He recruited a renowned military officer Baron Wolfgang von Strucker, who had a falling out with Hitler, and sent Strucker to recruit as many Nazi war criminals and other allies as possible. They took whatever Nazi plunder they had to fund their activities and the group grew over the decades. In modern times, HYDRA has grown into a neo-fascist organization that topples governments hoping to reach the goal of reshaping the world in their image. The interesting thing about HYDRA, is that its members hide within the very governments they wish to overthrow. They use blackmail and subterfuge to place themselves within govts, corporations etc. They use the assets of these organizations to their benefit. So they're very hard to stop.
Cap wonders when and how the good guys and the bad guys became so similar. He argues with Nick Fury, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., about the parallels between the facisit agency and the one he currently works for. Cap has done his homework and knows what S.H.I.E.L.D., the C.I.A., FBI and more have done over the decades. Carryng out coups on foreign govts when their interests didn't align with the U.S., dirty interrogation tactics, corporate espionage all for a
better world.
Steve argues, "You become what you allow yourself to get into. Win or lose Nick, you bring yourself down to their level, while they get the satisfaction of watching you fall in the process."
Skull was pleased with how his idea had developed over the years. He was also searching for one of those occult artifacts that Hitler had commissioned him to find all those years ago: The Tesseract. Rumored to be a totem of great power, Skull had found it in an old castle in Norway many years ago. It was said that the Tesseract had the power to open
gateways to unforseen worlds. Cap, Agent Quartermain and a special squadron of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents go on the hunt to find this item before Skull. The rest of the film would encompass a chase to get to the Tesseract. Cap would face off against Johann. Skull would even activate long dead Sleepers, mechanized warfare mechas; very
Rocketeer like. Skull would be stopped but it turns out he’s an LMD; this tech was stolen from S.H.I.E.L.D some time ago by HYDRA. Cap would retrieve the Tesseract and hand it over to S.H.I.E.L.D.
The end of the film would have Skull meeting with the now ruler of HYDRA, Baron Zemo. Zemo warns Skull that they must retreat to the shadows for a bit as this is the closest S.H.I.E.L.D. has ever come to them. But, Zemo also informs Skull that HYDRA has a new initiative in order. Skull awakening the arachaic, yet somehow advacned WWII Sleeper machines piqued the interest of HYDRA's greatest minds. It was time to start a scientific research division: Advanced Idea Mechanics.
Finally, Steve comes to terms with his new life, having a renewed determination in stopping his old foe, Red Skull. He's still very suspicious of S.H.I.E.L.D but working with them is a means to and end, for now; he needs them in his quest to stop Skull. He soon meets up to spar with a special someone who's just got back from an assignment: Natalia Romanoff aka Black Widow, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s resident top spook.
Post Credits Scene One
The end of the film would have Nick Fury being summoned by his U.N. superiors. They inform him of how the Captain has proved to be a wonderful asset. Fury agrees. The panel suggests possibly re-starting Operation Rebirth. Fury explains that the last person to have dabbled in that area is in the wind. The panel suggests that he finds them. Somewhere in the Mojave Desert, we hear a giant crash come upon the earth. A large shadow illuminates the earth's crust. It slowly reduces in size. Its the shadow of a massive beast, that steadliy withers into that of a skinny man. The man falls to his knees as his face meets the rough ground. As he raises his head, we see his bright green eyes glow with rage and then revert back to brown.
Post Credits Scene Two
A man sipping a glass of scotch sits at a desk. A bright hologram screen lights up before him. He’s getting a phone call. He answers and receives thanks from a man he lovingly calls
Rhodey. Our receiver of thanks is Tony Stark, son of Howard, who's continued the family armaments business. Rhodey, a Lieutenant Colonel and a friend of Stark’s since college, thanks him for taking part in the new Defense Forces Special Weapons Project for the Air Force. According to the Colonel, the new prototype
winged tech is working great and the pilot is handling it well. Rhodey then reminds him of their trip next week to Afghanistan, for the military demonstration of his new centrifugal gun technology.