Civil War parody: did Bucky's apology to Tony fix the film?

How It Should Have Ended's spoof of Captain America: Civil War (2016), starring Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr., is a good one. The jokes poke at the film's logic, but the bit that stayed with us was a quiet apology from Bucky that we think the movie could have used.

Why no other heroes step in across the Marvel films

The parody opens on a gag about someone else turning up to handle the threat. That hit on what we see as the prevailing issue through many Marvel films. When everything is connected and there's an end of the world crisis, or any major issue, we wonder how come no one else with these crazy powers steps in to assist. It doesn't make sense to us.

The Sokovia Accords meeting and its logical gaps

The spoof's Accords meeting has the heroes point out what the government is ignoring: the Earth was under attack, there's a record of them saving the day, and someone fired a nuke at the city. Tony suggests crossing out the title and calling it the Tony Accords.

Spoofs like this always find logical fallacies in a film, and the Accords meeting is a good example. Pointing out what Tony and everyone else generally does, we asked: "are we in a vacuum like how does no one know what's been going on leading up to this point." There had been a record of them saving the day leading up to that moment. Still, you go along with it for the drama.

Team Iron Man versus Team Captain America at the table

Instead of a big fight, the parody has the heroes stay split and pick seats. Tony brags that his team has Spider-Man, who asks him whether he's going to date his aunt. Black Panther calls the whole thing "very childish."

We loved that. The whole time you're thinking, are they really going to separate and fight? It's so dramatic and immature, but it's a funny concept.

Bucky's apology to Tony Stark felt like a missed opportunity

The spoof has Bucky tell Tony, "i know what i did i know i hurt you but i want you to know i'm sorry," and insist that he accepts responsibility. We found that interesting because it's what you would normally see.

We understand Marvel was building out its stories for later chapters, with characters separating because they're at odds, only to come back together later on. Bucky does own up to his past in Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and it gives him nightmares. But this seemed like a missed opportunity to start that journey here, with Bucky admitting these things haunt him, and Tony not being able to kill him.

The fight in Captain America: Civil War was awesome. We just wish they could have done both. Maybe there's more conversation woven into the fight, or a moment at the end where Tony has Bucky on the back foot, is about to kill him, and Bucky says what he says here. Maybe it's very cliche, but we thought it was a good moment, so good it was hard not to get emotional over a spoof. "They did a really good job with that." That's probably what should have happened in the movie, but we wanted the fighting and the carnage.

Zemo's keys and the closing table scenes

Zemo's reveal ends in a gag about keys, which we called "a really good one." We also love the table scenes after the part you wait for, because they nail those two characters so well.