Captain America not so patriotic?

found this article interesting..



Should We Now Call Him 'Captain England'?

by Mike Ryan · May 19, 2010

Based on this news, it would only seem appropriate that Steve Rogers be demoted to at least Lieutenant America.
First, budget constraints forced producers to move "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" production from its titular tropical location to the tax-friendlier confines of Hawaii and London. Now, the same money concerns have sent "Captain America" overseas: the movie about the most patriotic of comic-book heroes will, ironically, not be filmed in America.
The loss of production business from "Captain America: The First Avenger" is another blow to the city of Los Angeles, which has seen its share of big-budget films flee to escape the heavy tax burden its state levees on films. California offers tax credits to smaller films but, considering "Captain America's" budget is $140 million, it didn't qualify for a break. London offers tax credits up to 25 percent. When faced with the current economic climate, it's hard to argue with those numbers -patriotic or not.

Sure, some of the "Captain America" adaptation is literally set in London; for those scenes, that location makes perfect sense. But it also makes perfect sense for Captain America, once he's done fighting Nazis, to also show a little patriotism and film seems in his home country. But, as any American knows - including its Captain - money talks.
Also ironic: California's taxes have been a boon to the British Columbian city of Vancouver, which in recent years has seen a boom of what would've otherwise been big Hollywood business (films such as the "Twilight Saga" have found a production home north of the border).
But there is an added sense of loss - not counting the hundreds of Hollywood jobs that will disappear - because it is, you know, Captain America. This was a character that was created a full year before Pearl Harbor was even bombed by Japan. Cover art of early Captain America books showed the hero punching Adolph Hitler in the jaw as a way of showing America's support for its European allies.
Big budget movies being filmed overseas to avoid costs isn't an entirely new phenomenon. George Lucas filmed all three "Star Wars" prequels in Australia to avoid union costs (Lucas has been a stong opponent to unions after a disagreement between him and the directors' guild over the title sequence of original "Star Wars" not listing the cast). Of the six films, only "Return of the Jedi" featured live-action scenes filmed in the United States.
Considering the recent rash of films switching from locations that actually includes the location in the film's title, it won't be too long before it's discovered that "Sleepless in Seattle" was actually filmed in Albuquerque.
"Captain America: The First Avenger," starring Chris Evans as the title character, is slated for a Summer 2011 release.

already a thread on this, but I'm too lazy to track it down.

While I'll admit I'm not exactly an expert on "Captain America" I do know that many of his first comic appearances placed him fighting overseas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_America :: http://marvel.com/universe/Captain_A...teve_Rogers%29

So really, for a movie to be made about Captain America that stays true to his comic roots, I would actually have thought that overseas locations would have been scouted long before any US sites were scouted.

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That aside: I will point to another recent movie, Zombieland. Zombieland was filmed in the state of Georgia, and according to the producers, the actual production costs were pretty close to the production costs if they had filmed in an non-US location.

So, if cost is a factor, and LA / Hollywood is just too expensive, there still are places to film in the US that offer expansive mountain ranges, scenic ocean fronts, and metropolitan areas... that aren't LA, Chicago, or New York.

He does pretty much fight Nazis in Europe till he gets frozen. Besides, if LA wants to gouge the hell outta big business, it's their duty to go elsewhere.

He was against the registration act. Which was made buy the gov. Nuff said.

Makes good business sense. Cali's loss for taxing so much.

While not American myself, I'd have to concur that patriotism is generally defined as love or devotion to one's country, and a government does not necessarily represent the ideals upon which a country is built (though perhaps in an ideal world, it would do so).

One article I read that summed it up rather nicely in my mind cited that J. Peter Euben (paraphrasing Socrates, I believe) once wrote "patriotism does not require one to agree with everything that his country does and would actually promote analytical questioning in a quest to make the country the best it possibly can be."

I'd say that sums up Captain America rather well, actually - not necessarily always agreeing with the government or its policies, but rather promoting and attempting to inspire the ideals that he felt represented what he sees as being the best qualities of America, and questioning or even defying any actions or policies that he felt were not in alignment with those ideals.

I think the sad, sorry and rather cynical truth of the modern world is that under that definition of patriotism, being a patriot often means believing in what can be, not necessarily what is, no matter what country you live in.

Lets see, problems with the article. 1) Spelling and grammer in it tend to be more of a high school variety. 2) A lot of movies and TV shows get shot out of country due to financial reasons, oh and probably my biggest beef with the article...

woah wait what? Pirates is going to have a FOURTH movie? Shrek is too....what happened to trilogies?

I think the base production deal tends to be for trilogies (or at least, a maximum of three films) - if memory serves Brosnan and Craig were each signed to a three Bond film deal, and no one really expects that franchise to go trilogy format. It's probably a "standard contract" sort of arrangement, so many film-makers pitch trilogies to the companies, but as mentioned if the money is there, they will make more afterwards. X-Men is now also rumoured to be going into a fourth film, the Origins films not withstanding.

I don't know that where something is filmed necessarily is that big of an issue; television and film have been showing us places that aren't what they appeared to be for decades, after all, and they will always go where it makes the most financial sense to go - which I approve of, really, because I'd rather see the bulk of the money going into the film itself (casting, effects, etc.) rather than to taxation, etc. that won't really do anything to improve the quality of the viewing experience.

It shifts back and forth, too, I think - X-Files moved *from* Vancouver to California midway through the series, I think, and back in the days of M*A*S*H*, "Korea" was in back of the Hollywood sign, if memory serves. As costs and economies wax and wane, the film-makers will travel to wherever best suits their needs, be they financial or aesthetic (usually the former, but some moviemakers will pay the extra costs just to suit their own personal inclinations).