Following the weekend of its initial release, MCU fans are still talking about everything that went down in the debut episode of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier on Disney+. Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes didn't miss a step as they returned to action, facing a new, post-Blip world in stride as they both adjust to life without their leader and friend Steve Rogers.
"Episode 1" of this new series, which went under the title "New World Order," spent most of its runtime catching up with Sam and Bucky's personal lives more than focusing on the action that fans have been itching to see. That's not to say the entry was completely devoid of action though; the sequences that did find their way into the premier episode showed the very same level of quality and excitement as anything Marvel has brought to the big screen.
Taking a look back at that action, the director of this series had some interesting comments on how and why it was brought to life in the way that it was.
KARI SKOGLAND TALKS DISNEY+ ACTION
In a recent interview with the AV Club , director Kari Skogland explained some of her reasoning behind the action sequences in "Episode 1" of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier on Disney+.
Speaking on the most difficult set piece for her to complete, Skogland explained that "all the action sequences have to serve character and story and character story, " which led her to look at all of them "as having a unique angle and a unique perspective" during production:
"I think all the action sequences have to serve character and story and character story. So I looked at every one of those as having a unique angle and a unique perspective. I wanted each action sequence to have its own unique DNA at its core. So we really looked for how to mix that up in a way that was not only satisfying visually from a certain perspective, but really from a character place."
Skogland went on to reveal that she looks at the action sequences she works on "much like you look at a drama sequence;" all of them have "a beginning, middle, and end," just with some violence in there that relates back to the scene's characters.
Addressing the lack of certain guns and weaponry in the series' debut episode, Skogland wanted "to have (the show's) characters be clever and interesting and not just rely on the go-to" in order to avoid using the available weaponry as "too much of a crutch" :
"I guess one of the things that I did as a sort of overview was that we reduced weaponry. That does mean that all the things we choreographed come from sort of a different mindset, and that just by definition brings a different flavor to a scene. For obvious reasons. I think that we need to look at weaponry in entertainment as being too much of a crutch. We wanted to have our characters be clever and interesting and not just rely on the go-to."
NOT YOUR AVERAGE MCU ACTION
As many fans noticed in the first episode of the MCU's second Disney+ series, there were only a couple of major action moments sprinkled in amongst a story with plenty of character development. That being said, the action that did shine through brought the same level of excellence that the MCU's biggest blockbusters bring on a regular basis.
Skogland very much understands that a series like this needs to have the right balance between these elements rather than just having heroes and villains constantly beating each other up. For Sam and Bucky, their scenes did just that, giving depth to their journeys even while Sam fought the LAF and Bucky is haunted by his past as the Winter Soldier.
Now that Wyatt Russell's U.S. Agent is in play and Daniel Brühl's Helmut Zemo is on the horizon , the new show's action sequences should become much more prominent in the coming weeks. Fans all over should be excited to see how the fighting and flying of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier will continue to mix with the MCU's new standard of story development in its streaming shows.
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier will continue with "Episode 2" on Friday, March 26.
