That is a great way of looking at things. That makes me think differently about movies.

I'm not saying I completely agree, but it's something I will have to think about.

It's possible that he didn't mean a third party could describe it in one sentence, but that one character in the movie could have explained what happened to them in one sentence.

But that might be a distinction without a difference.

Yes, but if "Vader duels Luke and chops off his hand" was cut out entirely, the story wouldn't make sense. If the Paris sequence in G.I. Joe was removed, the story would not suffer at all. You could cut the Vader fight and just have Luke explain it later, but it's the climactic moment of that film, and it is essential, unlike the entire Paris scene.

This...I do agree with.

A. Good point.

B. Did you really just spoiler-text a Star Wars plot point on the Down in Front forum?

Heh heh heh. That's my point, tho. You can't yada-yada-yada the Vader-Luke fight. It's got THINGS in it!

I will say that, sometimes, action-for-the-sake-of-action is great. Because maybe it's the payoff to some build-up ("Don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry.") or speaks to character in a broad way ("Oh shit. Everybody HOLD ON!") or whatever.

Still, a GREAT action scene is certainly one that has THINGS in it. The hero unmasks the baddie, shows his mettle, saves somebody, stops the monster, or whatever.

That car is established in a previous scene as being in that location. Also, those characters have just as much of a right to be there as anyone else on that platoon. It's not out of nowhere. They're leading the mission/objective. Just because the movie doesn't bother with the shoe leather of them making their way to those locations, it doesn't mean it didn't happen. They're not teleporting, we just didn't see them travel.

I feel like Captain America is exactly what it should/wants to be. A throwback to classic adventure serials of the era it's set in, just like Indiana Jones. To me, the action montage totally fits in this movie. Captain America had many adventures in his day, and those were just glimpses of them. I like that they bothered. To make them more than a montage, well, then it's no longer a movie, but a TV miniseries. To compare it to Asylum by any means is quite the exaggeration and one I feel the movie does not deserve at all, but to each their own.

Wasn't the plane flying from the Austrian Alps to New York? I'm still trying to figure out how Greenland got between them. http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=jfk-inn

Anyway, I enjoyed Captain America about as much as G.I. Joe. It occurs to me that ShadowDuelist might be talking about some planes and missiles from G.I. Joe, not Captain America, which shows how much I remember about it...

I didn't hate it or anything. I love Asylum movies, so having cheesy campy stuff like that blows my whistles. The car was established, and them being there is established, but the shot of them blasting into frame in this car was hysterically cheesy to me. That scene felt like the sort of thing you see in movies where the characters in the movie are, themselves, watching a cheesy action movie.

The serial thing is interesting, tho, and I think that could explain some things, including the montage and the way the Cap has two separate character arcs one after the other. Thing is, if you think of this flick in terms of movie serials, then what you have is episode one, a montage of the climaxes of the next several episodes, and then the final episode. If you think about it that way, then I liked the series, but I loved the first episode. The last episode just felt a lot cheesier and hokier to me.

I agree. Captain America was a different movie from most superhero movies in that it is not dirty, gritty with a brooding lead. Instead, it is a genuine guy, who wants to do the right thing, and is hampered by the real world pulling him down, either because of his size, his being a gimmick, or the villain taunting him.

G.I. Joe seems to be more camp because it does not have a strong moral foundation like Captain America establishes. The fact that things go BOOM! in Captain America is not the heart of the movie. G.I. Joe seems to be founded on things exploding. It might have done better if Michael Bay had been in charge of it.

One of the panelists mentioned a blog post refuting the claim of "It's fucking transformers, what did you expect?" Anyone know where I can find that?

Ah thank you, and can someone please for the love of the gods put a comma in that image, it drives me nuts everytime I see it.