“Journalists are so mean,” the show’s creator and head
writer jokes before cheerfully pushing asides any concerns. “WandaVision threw
up the alley oops for us and I’m hoping we’re gonna slam it home.”
Spellman’s easy confidence is understandable after
watching the first episode of “The Falcon and The Winter Soldier.” While they
are a part of the MCU, the two shows are completely different.
Set after the events of “Avengers: Endgame,” “The Falcon
and The Winter Soldier,” follows Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) and Bucky Barnes
(Sebastian Stan) trying to steer through a world that is adjusting to the
sudden reappearance of half of the population of the universe. Both Sam and
Bucky are among the people that had been snapped out of existence five years
ago and are suddenly without one of their closest friends – Captain America.
Tracy Brown said in her review, “Unlike “WandaVision,”
whose experimental format saw its main characters inhabit various decades of
television, “The Falcon and The Winter Soldier” is more a traditional
action-oriented story set firmly in modern times.” Among the themes the
six-episode miniseries will mention are Captain America’s legacy and what it
means to be a hero in the world, and in this country, today.
Brown mentioned, ““We knew that we wanted these heroes
to feel extremely relevant when this was done,” says Spellman, whose previous
credits include “Empire” and “Hip Hop Uncovered.”” “We wanted them to feel like
they were of the times, meaning the heroes that step out of this series should
feel like they’re the right people for the next 10 to 20 years.”
The series starts after Sam, a.k.a. the Falcon, has
been given Captain America’s shield after Steve Rogers chose to retire from the
superhero life by traveling back in time. The suggestion is that the shield is
also Sam’s to carry on.
“Sam has had to process what that symbol means when it’s
in his hands,” says Spellman. “Because it’s a very different symbol in his hand
than when it’s in Steven’s hands. And he’s decided it doesn’t work. It’s not
appropriate. ‘As a Black man, I cannot carry this burden.’ [But] at the same
time, he’s thinking, ‘Why would Steven Rogers have given me [the shield] if I
wasn’t ready or right for it?’ And he’s got to deal with all of that.”
A story about whether a Black man does or doesn’t take
on the Captain America shield, as Spellman says, is “one of the most relevant,
if not the most relevant, superhero stories that you can tell when you
factor in the world we’re in today.”
On the other hand, Bucky is trying to process the trauma
that comes with being a former mind-controlled killer who spend decades
fighting for an evil organization.
“He’s been deprogrammed and he can no longer hide from
all that baggage,” says Spellman. “He’s engaged with trying to confront it but
he has too much guilt and too much regret to confront it the right way. His story
is embodied in a real person, and we get the feeling that if he fails to make
amends with this real person, he’ll never ever shake that burden off his back.”
The series is a two-person partnership and was one of
the limits Marvel set up before Spellman was hired for the job. However, he
says he knew the pairing would work after seeing their short talk inside the
car in “Captain America: Civil War.” Brown mentioned, “Spellman explains that
after Marvel creates story arenas to start the conversation around the
direction of the series, it also provides a list of characters that are
available to be pulled from (although, as the studio announces new projects,
that list can change). The focus is on telling an organic story, which means
any Easter eggs or any possible threads leading to other areas within the MCU
generally come later.”
Brown continued, “On the surface, “The Falcon and The
Winter Soldier’s” high-caliber action makes the series difficult to distinguish
from the tentpole films the MCU is known for. And that’s the point.”
“I don’t really differentiate between screens so much
anymore,” says series director Kari Skogland, whose resume includes both TV and
movies. “From the beginning we all said – in particular [Marvel Studios
President] Kevin [Feige] – we make movies. We’re filmmakers. So that’s what we’re
going to do, we’re just going to make it a big movie.”
Skogland directing all six episodes meant the shoot
could be scheduled like a movie and also allowed scenes to inform one another
as the characters and their dynamics were developed. Even though it’s still
uncommon for a sole director to control an entire series, Skogland believes it’s
“a wave of filmmaking that’s coming.”
“Whether it’s two hours, four hours, six hours, or 10
hours, it’s a bit about the stamina, you know, whether you can pull it off or
not,” says Skogland.
Still, Spellman explains, “it’s a completely different
kind of storytelling” between movies and TV shows.
“What Kevin wanted us to do was create a show where each
individual episode feels like a movie, but it has the deep dive of a series,”
Spellman says. “Movies storytelling is vertical storytelling – it’s compressed
time, in general, it’s urgent, it builds toward one event. That means the
character relationships and the character arcs have a rhythm to them that is
specific to that flow.”
“Series storytelling is horizontal and the character
journeys are completely different,” Spellman continues. “You’re not just
stretching it out. The rhythm is very, very different. And we worked hard to
find story mechanics that felt like it was a hybrid so that each episode feels
like a movie yet each episode connects to the whole in a way that is always
promising what’s next.”
Spellman credits the diversity of the creative team
for how timely “The Falcon and The Winter Soldier” feels.
“I think that was part of having a room that’s diverse
and has LGBT and Black folk – [a room] packed with people who have struggled as
not fitting into what’s mainstream,” Spellman says. “It allowed us to sort of
tap into big themes and ideas and storylines that was relevant to us already.”
One thing the team could not predict was a pandemic
that affect the show’s production timeline. However, the series was already set
as a story that is happening because of “the Blip,” which caused half
the world’s inhabitants to suddenly disappear and just as suddenly reappear
five years later.
“The Blip is a global problem that every single
person, whether they’re a superhero, rich, poor, Black or white has to deal
with,” Spellman says. “Because the pandemic shut us down, it gave us time to
draw those parallels even more clearly.”
“During the Blip, of course, you had sort of this
universal cooperation,” adds Skogland. “Borders changed. People were able to
cooperate in a different capacity because they were sharing grief at looses that
they had. Financial fortunes changed from good to bad, bad to good. Everything went
into sort of a chaos, sorted itself out, and people [are] moving forward.”
“And then boom, everyone comes back. The switch gets
flipped again. And the suggestion is that a lot of people, by definition, are
going to want to turn the clock back” to the way things were, Skogland says.
This is where Sam and Bucky have to process their
feelings around Steven and Captain America’s legacy. The show will question the
relevance of the type of hero the original Captain America symbolizes in the world
today. However, a journey to understand everything the shield previously
embodied is necessary before it can be made to embody anything else.
“I think having a Black man and African American be
presented to the world as a giant heroic icon is absolutely necessary for
making the world start to see us,” says Spellman. “It’s a way to make the world
understand that we are all connected. We are all capable of greatness,
including the people who have had the most crap thrown down on them. I just
think having a Black icon like this is absolutely necessary for these times.
And I’m grateful to be involved with bringing him to life.”
This is a great show to watch. I like the camaraderie
that Falcon and Winter Soldier have in this show that they have to develop and
build on. With all the issues they tackle in this show, it was really engaging and
kept your attention. Especially with the fast action that made you stay on the
edge of your seat. Check this out because you will love it, I promise. This film
will be a set up to the new Captain America movie that will focus on Falcon
becoming the new Captain America.
Tomorrow I will be looking at the next MCU show in
Disney 2022.
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