Iron Man 3 ! Now with interchangeable action armor!

[Bard The 5th LW]

Just got back from watching. I mostly enjoyed it! I even didn't mind the twist, in fact, I thought it was a good decision because why would you write what everyone who read the comics has already seen? It seemed to me like a good choice to make on paper because it leaves every viewer -actually- surprised.

The only thing that bugged me was how they played the Mandarin at the start. He was a villain entirely removed from Stark in every way. Tony didn't seem to really care about him at all. And then SUDDENLY once Tony's friend gets caught in a bombing 'its personal'. But, like, the bombing wasnt even meant to target his bodyguard at all. The dude was just there on his own volition. And after that they all act like Tony and the Mandarin actually have anything to do with eachother, and it makes Tony really seem like a jerk because it took someone that he knew personally to motivate him to stop the terrorist that had killed a shitload of other people.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Originally Posted by Bard The 5th LW

it makes Tony really seem like a jerk

Have you met Tony Stark?

[mauve]

And to be fair, Tony does say that he's only interested in protecting the people close to him after what happened with the aliens in New York. He's pretty done with saving the world. The government has their own Iron Man suit anyway.

[Lumenskir]

Man, that last action setpiece was just absolutely delightful, especially after the last two movies had been so dead set on "One robot dude punching another robot dude." Just when you might have started to get tired of FINISHING MOVE being met with "Ruh-roh-nope" you got 42 coming back wrong and mid-air suits getting derailed and it was all just fantastic.

Everyone here has seen Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, right? Because the whole middle section (and especially the "Two thugs glower over a captive RDJ") was basically a welcome KKBB quasi-sequel. At the very least, Shane Black for all future Iron Man dialog forever, this we can all agree on.

And while we're at it, James Badge Dale for all bad guys.

[Bells]

Also i think we kinda have to agree that a movie version of the Comic book mandarin would be racist as fuck... actually, to NOT make Comic-to-Movie mandarin a super racist caricature would be a destiny of never making the character as it really is.

I mean, the entire goddamn character is a huge stereotype to begin with! To play him straight would break the consistency of the entire trilogy (Iron Man still has to be it's own thing...) because of that and all the "suddenly, MAGIC!" stuff...

i WOULD like to see they somehow connecting Mandarin's rings to the Infinity gauntlet. That would be super awesome... but alas, it was not so.

[Lumenskir]

Has anyone been able to make a clean, downloadable version of Kingsley saying "Sum people call me a turrurist, I prefer to be called a teacher-rrrrrr" yet? Need it for my friend's new ringtone and my new everything.

[Glass Pencil]

Are we still doing the spoilers thing in this thread? I mean, its a thread to talk about a movie, I'm not really seeing the point in reading the thread about a movie that you haven't seen yet and then getting all jazzed up because somebody said something that you didn't know because why would you.

Guess I'll talk about the movie and see what shakes loose.

Ok first of all, I was a little bummed out with the way the suits were handled in relation to the other instances we've seen Tony throw down. The whole remote control thing was cool, the mind-control suit thing was cool, but in general the suits were set on wussy mode for the whole movie for some reason. I mean come on, I saw last year's model take a THUNDERBOLT IN THE CHEST FROM THE GOD OF THUNDER and keep ticking, how come a bunch of security guards on fire-roids can now manhandle suits that are at least a generation ahead of that one?

I can see how the climactic battle was something that people ostensibly wanted. The ending of iron man 2 really left me unsatisfied, I really could have watched Mickey Rourke being condescending in Russian for at least 10 more minutes. The whole ordeal was a bit too brief, but the battle royale ending in 3 really felt disconnected to me. I liked how they kept Tony out of the suit for the majority of the movie and the reasoning didn't feel too terribly contrived, but for goodness sake when he gets back into the suit can he please be Iron Man? Why is he wrestling with a dude who's superpower is being an exploding republican for a half hour? It should have been a tense sort of chase scene, running around trying to avoid getting one-percented and then BAM he's in the suit and the badguy is a charcoal briquette.

Although I did like Pepper saving the day at the end so it wasn't all a waste.

I was really curious as to how they would handle the Mandarin and to be honest they certainly didn't disappoint. The character as originally conceived is a terrible caricature with no real value. I thought, after seeing the trailers, oh hey they seem to have traded one thing scary to white people 30 years ago for a thing scary to white people right now. I was really apprehensive that they'd drive the whole franchise screaming back into anti-muslim fervor again like the first movie (which I'll admit I overlooked because OHMAHGERDZ IRON MANZ!!!!11!) but man, that twist was perfect. I never really conceived of simply throwing the entire character away in amazing, dramatic fashion as an option. Easily the best part of the movie for me.

The characterization of the actual villain was incredibly lacking however. I thought, immediately after watching the movie, that perhaps the presentation of such an obvious villain framework might have had some merit. The character of the villain is somehow intrinsic to the audience, I'm quite sure we all knew who he was the moment they introduced him. He is an archetype, an uncomfortable and two dimensional figment of consensus. He is the vengeful, angry outcast that men make fun of and women find creepy. In a lot of ways that is, of course, terribly lazy writing. However I think given the context (a superhero movie) its probably not the greatest sin to derive your villain wholesale from the subconscious of your audience.

Bland villain aside a liked a lot of the quippy dialogue and, surprisingly enough, I didn't want to punch a baby when they introduced the sidekick kid. The interaction between the kid and Tony was genuinely interesting and I think helped develop the character in new ways heretofore unseen.

I really felt thoroughly trolled when during the climactic battle the amazing new super awesome mind-controlled battlesuit managed to fail more spectacularly than it had all throughout the movie. There was no point in the entire movie when that thing actually worked properly, I kept expecting to see that moment when everything was totally cool and it worked the way it was supposed to, with lens flare and everything, but it never materialized and for that I'm kind of grateful. The most interesting aspects of this movie were the little middle fingers it was giving everyone watching it throughout. the entire film was an exercise in subversion in my opinion, it kept throwing your idealized outcomes and expectations back in your face until, by the end, you respond exactly like the character.

Oh fine whatever.

But in a good way, I guess.

[Mr.Bookworm]

Originally Posted by Hawk

Have you met Tony Stark?

Yeah, I think Tony is supposed to come across as an asshole throughout a good chunk of the movie. He's incredibly stressed out and suffering from PTSD. It's a different sort of dickishness than the one portrayed in the prologue, but it's dickishness all the same.

Originally Posted by Glass Pencil

Ok first of all, I was a little bummed out with the way the suits were handled in relation to the other instances we've seen Tony throw down. The whole remote control thing was cool, the mind-control suit thing was cool, but in general the suits were set on wussy mode for the whole movie for some reason. I mean come on, I saw last year's model take a THUNDERBOLT IN THE CHEST FROM THE GOD OF THUNDER and keep ticking, how come a bunch of security guards on fire-roids can now manhandle suits that are at least a generation ahead of that one?

The suits were all prototypes of various sorts that Stark quickly made while he was sleep-deprived. He likely didn't run any sort of quality control on them, he just mindlessly churned them out and then stuck them into deep storage.

His previous suits were made while he was at the top of his game and he presumably took a great deal of care while making them.

The characterization of the actual villain was incredibly lacking however. I thought, immediately after watching the movie, that perhaps the presentation of such an obvious villain framework might have had some merit. The character of the villain is somehow intrinsic to the audience, I'm quite sure we all knew who he was the moment they introduced him. He is an archetype, an uncomfortable and two dimensional figment of consensus. He is the vengeful, angry outcast that men make fun of and women find creepy. In a lot of ways that is, of course, terribly lazy writing. However I think given the context (a superhero movie) its probably not the greatest sin to derive your villain wholesale from the subconscious of your audience.

I thought it was pretty interesting that Killian (rather off-handedly) says that the reason he became a supervillain (instead of just turning AIM into a defense contractor or whatever and making billions) was because of what happened in New York.

Gods, aliens, and monsters are running around the world, why can't an otherwise normal dude shoot himself up with experimental superserum and try to take over the US?

Oh, and I'll add my voice to the chorus saying that they liked the Mandarin twist. That was genuinely clever, I think.

[Lumenskir]

I don't think he wanted to "take over" anything though? I mean, didn't he say his end game was controlling the two sides of the War on Terror so that he could just set the supply and demand for his wares? His entire motive was profit + kicking Tony in the nards just cause.*

*Well, and because Iron Man and War Machine could undercut his monopoly.

I think the reference to Thor and the aliens was just to say that if his whole plan had been "Diffuse threat from Middle East" he wouldn't have gotten any public traction, but "Bombastic and clearly idiosyncratic capital-S Supervillain" was an easier sell in a crowded threat marketplace.

[Bells]

Yeah, Killian's plan was like a Kojima draft for a metal gear game (the only thing missing was NANOMACHIIIIIIINNNNNNESSSS instead of Parasite Eve powers). He is pretty much creating war economy by creating supply and demand.

He makes people regenerate limbs, when they explode everybody think it's weird, so he creates a "mystical villain" to justify, so he can make super soldiers with his stuff to fight off the invisible treat.

In a world of Captain America, Hulk, Thor, Iron Man and SHIELD... that is actually a sound plan for a super villain.

...beats Lex Luthor in Superman Returns...