Why Falcon And Winter Soldier Left Out Isaiah Bradley Flashbacks Revealed

The Falcon and The Winter Soldier covered a lot of ground in its six episodes but at its core the show remained grounded in emotions often rooted in racial issues in America. Many will agree, the heart of the show came from Carl Lumbly and his portrayal of Isaiah Bradley, a Black super soldier who had been experimented on, tortured, and imprisoned despite heroic efforts many years ago. As it turns out, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier considered giving audiences a look at Isaiah Bradley’s past a super soldier, one which mirrored that of Steve Rogers at tmes. However, head wrter Malcolm Spellman and director Kari Skogland have now explained why they stayed out of the character’s past on screen.

“For storytelling, you have to be true to where it needs to be,” Spellman told ComicBook.com. “I think we made the right choice and I don’t know… Wouldn’t that maybe have been a distraction for the people who felt what Carl did with that role? I think anything beyond that would have been a distraction from it. You know what I’m saying? I mean, he just, he broke my heart.” Rather than putting any of Isaiah Bradley’s past on screen, the character laid it all out to Sam Wilson as they sat together n his Baltimore home through a few emotional sequences with Lumbly and Anthony Mackie. Watch ComicBook.com’s full interview with Spellman on YouTube!

Skogland opened up about the subject, as well, telling The Direct why she was only interested in keeping Isaiah’s scenes in the present. “It was always going to be a modern-day retelling because I think you want to see the man telling the story. How it affected him. To flashback is a cinematic paradigm that we’re all used to, but it takes you out of the emotion of the person,” Skogland explained. “In this case, that compelling story had to be told by him, and we had to see the effects on him, because I think just to flashback and see it would be just another series of images that might not have had the same impact as the heartfelt storytelling.”

Skogland expounded upon Isaiah’s legacy in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and how it was brought to life on ComicBook.com’s Phase Zero podcast which is a new episode available now on all major podcast platforms. Links to subscribe and listen to Phase Zerofor free are below!

• Phase Zero on Spotify
• Phase Zero on Apple Podcasts

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