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A project from June ’23, which has been my only Phase 1 project so far, and set me on the path to tweaking WandaVision afterwards.
This one was mostly me adding extra content to, in my view, enhance the story by clarifying key details, though I did cut or change a few details I found irksome, as I do. I also made two versions of the film depending on the inclusion of one particular deleted scene – the extra details are spelled out below.*
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My main gripe/push to edit the film was the war montage in the middle of the story: Cap and the Howling Commandos are fighting HYDRA all across Europe, but we as the audience just get a bunch of mindless action with no specifics. In fact, the whole passage of time throughout the entire film can be very unclear at times, which does work against the story in some ways – so every time there’s a large time jump, it’s now specified and laid out.
To the end of enhancing the war action specifically, I added in the locations of these battles (and some headcanon dates since it’s not specified at the source) to actually give the action some depth. Now, when you see all the places they fight, you really get the impression of just how widespread HYDRA’s grip on Europe is, which frames them as a much bigger and more powerful threat than just a bunch of generic uniformed bad guys shooting at the heroes in some factories and forests.
I also took the liberty of adding those same kinds of annotations to other locations, for similar enough reasons. For example: Camp Lehigh, New Jersey is an important location in the CA mythos, and is returned/referred to repeatedly in later stories, but I don’t think it’s ever actually referred to by name in this story: the quintessential Captain America story in the MCU – so that was addressed. Also, HYDRA’s main headquarters in the Austrian Alps, not referred to specifically on screen again, so this just adds depth of the world they’ve built for the story and such.
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The first actual change I made to the story aside from the annotations is after the Project Rebirth scene around 37 minutes in. When Steve comes out of the Vita-Ray Chamber, the pec touch from Peggy is an involuntary reflex by the actress, not part of the script. As with my work on Black Panther and removing Shuri’s “white-boy” line, would that same action in that same context be permissible the other way around? I very much doubt it for obvious reasons – so I excised it.
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Now it’s zoomed in on Steve’s face more to cut out the action of Peggy’s hand, so the background music of the scene isn’t interrupted by a jarring cut. And it zooms back out to the normal view when she notices the towel the nearby nurse is holding, snapping herself back to reality somewhat. Also, when it’s zoomed, you do see Steve’s face more closely, and how the effects of the procedure are shown in his reaction to stepping out of the chamber.
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The second major change in the story, annotations aside, is 73 minutes in at the SSR main HQ in London. I reimplemented the deleted scene where Howard Stark talks about the tech Rogers recovered from HYDRA, really framing how dangerous their new weapons are and how powerful the Tesseract they’re working with is.
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I had to match the colour of the scene to the colour grading in the theatrical release of the film, which isn’t 100% perfect because there’s not really a way to directly get the colour enhancement data from the studio to replicate it directly in my editor. But I think the result of what I pulled off is good enough at least, and hopefully not too jarring at all.
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Shortly after that at ~78 mins is another tweak, I took out Peggy shooting at Steve in the bunker. Iconic? Yes. Incredibly stupid if you think about it for more than two seconds? Also yes.
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You have a car ride with the man in Brooklyn and ascertain he’s probably even more clueless with women than the usual man, and show him no open signs of liking him before or after the serum. Then, when you see someone else taking the initiative and kissing him first, you have a problem with it – and blame him and not her –to the point of firing an actual loaded gun at him for it? Yeah. No. Get out of here with that.
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Now, when Steve shows her the new, unpainted, Vibranium shield, she just coldly walks past him and says nothing.
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Around 80 minutes in is where the main bulk of the annotative enhancements are found:- each war location is spelled out by country in the canonical order the respective battles happened, and a reasonable enough amount of time spacing them apart. Now the gap of time between November ’43 when Rogers goes on his Solo mission to rescue the 107th, to the capture of Arnim Zola and losing Bucky in February ’45 is much more clearly laid out.
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The rest of the film plays out unchanged until the very end in Times Square, where I put most of the deleted scene ending back in – I say most because it seemed to drag on for just one line/question too long.
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Now in this (mostly) extended ending, Rogers and Fury meet and the connection between the modern SHIELD and the older SSR is made clear. As is where Rogers is standing – he’s in the same city but recognises none of the streets anymore as you’d expect, so it’s an understandable question. Steve asks about the war, which was a big part of his life for the last few years of him being conscious (before and after the serum) and Fury confirming the result and stating how Rogers himself helped bring that about feels like it really vindicates the main/20th century bulk of the film. I did cut Fury’s line about the world not changing all that much, though, Rogers just made the ultimate sacrifice and one of the first things he’s told is that the world is still largely the same? Bit of a slap in the face in my opinion.
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Again, as with the deleted scene in the SSR bunker, I made sure to match the colour grading to the theatrical release as best I could, though this was a little trickier now with the colours and lighting being outdoors in this scene. But I think I did a good enough job regardless.
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*As for the details on the second version of the film, it all hinges on the Azzano deleted scene around 51 minutes in, where Bucky, the future Howling Commandos and most of the 107th are taken captive by HYDRA in Italy. The reason why this deleted scene is such a bone of contention is that the VFX work from the studio towards the end of the scene is not complete.
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When the HYDRA Uber Tank aims at the Allied forces – the 3D model is untextured, and while the polygonal geometry is animated for the action, there’s no background in the scene either. As far as I know, this is the only version of this scene out there, if there is one with the completed VFX, I’ve yet to find it anywhere. The deleted scene is 75 seconds total and the incomplete VFX is only there for about 3 – if that’s something you can overlook and enjoy it all with the rest of the film, then that’s great – but if it’s untenable next to the rest of the film, then that’s fine too.
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This scene is good to include because, firstly, you get some frontline war in an actual war-era film and that doesn’t hurt, plus it fills in the gaps with Bucky and the Howling Commandos’ capture – and, lastly, shows the reality of Schmidt’s regime. Red Skull killed the Nazi officers sent to check on him and his work at ~45 minutes in, and now on the battlefield you clearly see HYDRA forces firing on the Nazi troops AND Allied soldiers, very openly showing their independence against both sides as their own radical splinter faction.
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Footnote: I’m merely a self-taught editor/VFX artist here, so some areas may well be mostly good as a result, since I have to be realistic with the footage in front of me and what I can do with it, respectively. If you do have any particular notes and feedback, feel free to give me your thoughts, but please be constructive and don’t be an ass about it.