Techfiction: The Falcon Soars In Captain America: The Winter Soldier

I was lucky enough to see a free screening of Captain America: The Winter Soldier last night and the movie is full of awesome tech. There are three highly techciting key elements to the story that I will refrain from going into, as they would be massive spoilers. We’ve previously covered Cap’s shield and the Black Widow’s stings, and the principals remain unchanged.

Except one thing: If it’s made of vibranium, why does it make noise or bounce?

You know who we haven’t covered before though? The Falcon. Sam Wilson appears in the trailers and the ads, so we’re not revealing anything here. In the comics, Sam Wilson is a man with the ability to talk to birds (really) and a flying suit. Wilson has had some interesting costumes over the years and some horrible retcons. The Falcon is actually Marvel’s first African-American hero — the Black Panther, who predates him, is 100 percent African — and has the added bonus of being the first superhero of color to not have “black” stuck in front of his name.

His fashion sense though? Terrible.

The Marvel ciniverse version of the Falcon has a completely different background and origin, which is a good thing. Instead of starting out as a castaway who talks to birds, the focus is on the suit. Oh, and what a suit! The Falcon has traditionally worn several variations of red-and-white themed costumes, generally with “underarm wings”.

And plunging neckline.

There were some other interesting costumes, including one in the early 2000’s that used “hard light” wings and had offensive capabilities. For the most part, Falcon stuck with the red and white underarm look. The movie version sports a costume based on the Marvel Ultimate Falcon, an alternate universe Sam Wilson who’s a SHIELD agent. Ultimate Falcon will soon be appearing in the new Ultimate FF comic, but we don’t care about that. What we care about is the harness.

The word you are looking for is badass.

Impressively, the movie version of the suit is almost a direct translation of the above, and doesn’t feel ludicrous. There are a few scenes where you have to wonder how Wilson’s body stands up to the physics of the device, but you don’t sit there and think “Wow, that looks stupid.” By eschewing the underarm wings, yet invoking them stylistically, the movie/Ultimate version solves a major issue of the original Falcon outfits. That being, the complete loss of use of his hands for anything but flying. The movie rig is more of a jet pack with wings for gliding/steering, and the combat scenes with it feel right.

That’s really as much as I can say without spoiling elements of the film. There are elements that will make IT workers sigh, a few overused tropes, and more than enough awesome to make up for it.

One final word though: Don’t leave the theater until after the entire credit roll. I can’t believe I have to say this in 2014, but people were walking out and missed something extra special, with the movie’s two different post credits scenes. It’s like they’d never seen a Marvel movie before.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier opens this Friday, April 4th