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THE VILLAIN - [THE RED SKULL] CAPTAIN AMERICA FIRST AVENGER



Earlier this year, Hugo Weaving signed on to portray the villainous Red Skull opposite Chris Evans in The First Avenger: Captain America but he has faces a tough rebirth and reshaping of a character.
The 1990 version of Captain America is, by all accounts, pretty bad. Made on a shoestring budget, there isn't a damn thing in the movie that works effectively. Counted amongst these sins is the treatment of The Red Skull, one of Marvel's classic villains who was reduced to a bad German accent and a Halloween mask. It will be quite hard for Joe Johnston's upcoming adaptation, with Hugo Weaving in the role, to do any worse, but Marvel President Kevin Feige is here to raise our expectations. 

Total Film recently sat down with Feige to discuss the upcoming films on Marvel's slate, and, in addition to talking about filming in the UK (most of the movie takes place in Europe, after all), he also talked about Hugo Weaving in the role of the villain, saying, 
Hugo Weaving has been in the Red Skull effect, in costume for a couple of weeks now and it’s a hell of a lot of fun. We gave people a little taste in San Diego about what his character will look like but now that we’ve started to work with the actual skull it’s going to be a lot of fun and a rather frightening villain.

Many are going to call foul at the fact that the Red Skull is a CGI effect, but I'm choosing to hold my tongue until I see the result. In the comics, Hitler gives Johann Schmidt an actual mask to wear, and if the CGI makes it look in any way artificial it will be a detriment. That said, the further we get away from this the better. 

History
Johann Shmidt, the Red Skull, was the son of a coarse, drunken German villager named Hermann Shmidt and his reportedly saintly, longsuffering wife Martha, who for years endured abuse and beatings from her husband. Martha died giving birth to Johann, their only child. Driven to madness by the death of the woman he both loved and hated, Hermann Shmidt tried to drown the newborn infant, accusing him of murdering Martha. The doctor who had just delivered the baby saved Johann from his father, and the next morning Hermann Shmidt committed suicide.
The doctor took Johann to an orphanage, where the child led a lonely existence. Johann ran away from the orphanage when he was seven years old and lived in the streets as a beggar and a thief. As he grew older he worked at various menial jobs but spent most of his time in prison for crimes ranging from vagrancy to theft.
As a young man Shmidt was from time to time employed by a Jewish shopkeeper, whose daughter, Esther, was the only person who had treated Shmidt kindly up to that point. Seized with passion for Esther, Shmidt tried to force himself upon her, only to be rejected by her. In unthinking fury, Shmidt murdered her. Shmidt fled the scene in terror, but also felt ecstatic joy in committing his first murder. In killing Esther he had given vent to the rage at the world that had been building up in him throughout his young life.
Shmidt longed for a master who would show him the way to achieve power. Years later, after the Nazis had come to power in Germany, Shmidt was working in a hotel where the dictator of Germany's Third Reich, Adolph Hitler, came one day to stay. That night Shmidt brought refreshments to Hitler's suite and found Hitler berating the chief of the Gestapo (the secret police of Nazi Germany) for letting a spy escape. On hearing Hitler's voice, Shmidt decided that Hitler was the master he had sought. When Hitler ranted to the Gestapo chief that "I could teach that bellboy to do a better job than you!" the dictator then looked closely at Shmidt arid saw the bellboy's hatred, of all mankind, an emotion that Hitler asserted he himself shared. Shmidt saw in Hitler's eyes all of his own fears and frustrations, the embodiment of evil, and a model after which he could pattern himself. Inspired, Hitler declared that he would make the bellboy into a "perfect Nazi" who would serve as his right-hand man. Shmidt eagerly agreed to do what Hitler wished.
Trying to carry out Hitler's orders, his subordinates at first attempted to train Shmidt to become a perfect German soldier wearing an ordinary SS uniform. Enraged, for he wanted to turn Shmidt into something quite different, Hitler personally took over Shmidt's training. Hitler gave Shmidt a lifelike red skull-like head mask and named him the Red Skull. The Skull was answerable only to Hitler himself.
 
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