xcziel:

I was re-watching The Avengers recently and something occurred to me that I hadn’t thought of before.

You know how people have criticized Joss Whedon’s characterization of Cap? They felt he was written too brusque, too harsh and unlikable for such a charismatic character.

Well, I just realized that those scenes were all written as a counterpoint to the deleted Steve Rogers scenes that were originally meant to frame the movie.

From the beginning of TS the scenes we see feature Cap, not Steve. Sure, Steve is the one frustratedly destroying punching bags, but then Fury shows up to talk to “Cap” and that’s the last we really see of Steve Rogers. When he’s meeting Coulson, Bruce, and Natasha, he’s Cap. When he’s fighting with Loki, when he’s sniping at Tony, all the way to the end of the movie, he’s Captain America. There’s little glimpses of Steve sass – “it seems to run on some kind of electricity” – but Cap does have a sense of humor, he just doesn’t allow himself to falter or show weakness. And in this instance, that comes off as kind of prickly or dour and overbearing.

But think back to the deleted scenes. Those were just Steve. Steve Rogers alone, drifting around New York. Moodily sketching in a café, riding the subway seemingly separate, not really a part of the world around him . Those scenes had a sense of melancholy, showing him not really acclimating to what he’d lost or the future he found himself in. Of course he threw himself into Captaining full force – it’s the one thing he knows he can do.

Since these scenes were meant to be Steve’s real introduction to the TS audience, it’s no wonder that the Cap scenes that made the cut make him seem a little one-note and martinet-ish. They were written to offset the “softer side of Steve” the audience had already met. We were supposed to empathize with Steve from the beginning, but thanks to the cutting room floor, we didn’t get to really see that guy – just Cap being Cap.

So basically Whedon wrote a more balanced Steve Rogers into the film, but sort of sabotaged his characterization when the framing of the film changed direction in editing. And I agree that the original script would probably have come off a bit too maudlin for a big summer action movie. But some of those scenes really should have been worked into the finished film somehow, just for Steve Rogers’ sake.

Because the reason a lot of people weren’t so enthused or impressed with Captain America in The Avengers is because they were never really introduced to Steve Rogers at all.