What the Writers of Captain America: Civil War Learned From Game of Thrones

For ordinary people, it can only be imagined how difficult it is to write a movie with a scale such as Captain America: Civil War, but for scribes like Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, it's their job to make sure audiences can relate to all the Avengers in the film without leaving them confused in the end.

I've seen the movie, and while many viewers were left wondering which side they're really on after seeing the film during test screenings in February, the movie closed leaving people satisfied with the film in general. As for the little details in Civil War that left you a bit muddled, apparently, Markus and McFeely had a good reason for making them vague, and it involves the hit HBO series Game of Thrones.

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, the Civil War writers explained how they applied one lesson that they have learned from Game of Thrones – stories can still be entertaining despite not knowing what's really going on.

Markus explained one of the things that makes it difficult to write movies like Civil War. He said it's explaining an incomprehensible topic to viewers quickly. He told the LA Times:

[I'm] heartened by the popularity of things like Game of Throneswhere even the people who read the books and really love the show don't always know what's going on. Knowing 100% what a warg is, it's not essential to the enjoyment of the show.

Markus' argument certainly has a point. Sometimes, it's better, or even essential to simply give audiences a general sense of the plot rather than explain each tiny detail. Both Civil War and Game of Thrones have a ton of characters, each of which are complex and would take only a novel to explain well.

It's good that Markus and McFeely seem to be getting the hang of this, which is important since they will also be collaborating for the screenplay of the two-part Avengers: Infinity War films. In fact, they have elaborated in another interviewhow they plan to give 67 or so Avengers an appropriate amount of time on the big screen.

Captain America: Civil War is now in theaters. Meanwhile, The Avengers: Infinity War – Parts 1 and 2 are slated for release on May 4, 2018 and May 3, 2019, respectively.