i hadn't watched thunderbolts until yesterday, and gosh, i have so many thoughts on how they treated bucky in this movie. so, i’m going to use this post as a jumping-off point. please OP don’t take this personally at all, i just really need to get this off my chest.
about what you said regarding his eyes: bucky has always spoken with his eyes, especially when he was the winter soldier, but what happened in this movie?? and no, i don’t think sebastian is to blame for that, quite the opposite, i feel like he tried his best. actually, it feels like the director didn't know the first thing about the character and just limited him. it felt like bucky was being forced into everything: being in congress, being part of a team he didn't even want to be on.
regarding the point about him almost hitting valentina or something like that, i don’t think he’d actually do it, but i do believe he’d take her into custody, just like they say at the beginning of the scene. so much so that when walker tries to draw his weapon, bucky is the one who stops him. now, don’t even get me started on the post-credits scene, ugh, i HATE it so much! first off, bucky would never stand on the opposite side of sam like they showed, especially when it comes to something like the creation of this group, not after everything they’ve been through together. on top of that, the bucky we know would NEVER be in a group run by a manipulative woman like valentina, a U.S. government rep, let alone with a guy like john walker, who represents everything he and steve despised in a 'soldier': arrogance and blind nationalism.
i felt like it was total false advertising. they said we’d get 'more bucky,' but in a 2h07m movie, he showed up for maybe, what? 15-20 minutes?? coming from marvel and disney, i’m sure it was just a marketing ploy, but it felt like a total sign of disrespect to the fans who have followed his story. and what’s with 'congressman bucky'? i'm sorry, but to me, it makes zero sense. for someone so introverted and traumatized, joining congress, the ultimate snake pit of politics, feels completely out of character. if it weren't for sebastian’s interviews, we’d have no idea what the motivation was, and even then, it still doesn't click for me.
bucky’s story has always been deep. he could have just a 2-minute cameo, and we’d know it added something to his arc. but for the first time, i felt like they treated everything so superficially. it made me so angry because he’s always been the emotional core of the captain america movies, and now they treat him like this??? they gathered ex-villains or morally grey people looking for redemption, but here’s the thing: bucky never chose to be the winter soldier. he was a victim of decades of torture and dehumanization. putting him in a group of 'misfits' to do the government’s dirty work is, once again, failing to understand that he’s already paid a debt that wasn't even his.
i have issues with how bucky is being treated not just in thunderbolts, but in tfatws as well. requiring him to go to therapy and follow 'conduct rules' just to get a pardon from the U.S. government??? the same government that failed to protect him when he was an american soldier on a mission in the 40s, allowing him to be captured, tortured, and left for dead if it wasn't for steve? bucky was always a victim who had his memories wiped, he was used by HYDRA as a weapon through decades of torture, pain, and brainwashing. bucky never had a choice. it’s the U.S. government that owes him an apology and historical reparations, not the other way around. treating him like a criminal in rehab ignores that he was, above all, a victim of the system itself.
and i’m not even going to get into cabnw, honestly. steve’s captain america never represented the U.S. government because he understood that institutions have agendas, and agendas change. because of that, he never represented governments, he represented an ideal. seeing sam working directly under a man like ross just doesn't sit right with sam’s character, or with the legacy steve left behind as captain america.
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