The movie was great, but it's probably going to bite them in the butt that they retconned The Mandarin (Iron Man's longest standing nemesis) from a world superpower villain into this nerdy spaz whose primary motivation to becoming a villain was having been played by Tony Stark back when he was drunk and irresponsible.
The comics had this whole cool idea that the Mandarin was actually a megalomaniacal fascist prodigy (not unlike a Chinese Dr. Doom) that found an alien ship and these power rings, but the movie just threw it out, merging this extremis idea (and apparently mutant fire powers) with it instead.
Ugh. This guy I know was just complaining on Facebook that there are too many "plot holes" in this movie, most importantly "where are the other Avengers?" Maybe it's just him, but I'm worried things like this could turn away other fans who aren't used to the temporary team-ups of the comics.
Edit: But the more I think about it, he has a point. In one of the earlier Avenger comics, Iron Man went off and fought his own battle and was temporarily suspended from the team for not alerting them. It now seems weird that they're throwing the Avengers all back into their own storylines. Once the team formed, they stayed a team for the most part, with some members coming and going but for extended periods of time. This whole "get together for one fight, split up for a while, and rejoin for the next huge threat" thing sounds much more like the Defenders, who noted this method as being their biggest difference from the Avengers, thus making them a non-team. This is bothering me now.
But here's the weird thing. Go back and look at the end of Avengers. They didn't coalesce into this big permanent uber team. In fact just the opposite. They basically told Shield to kinda go screw themselves and went their seperate ways. Widow and Hawkeye remained Shield operatives. Cap may or may not have still been working for the government, but it is safe to say that he probably went to figure out who and where he was, Thor left the planet, and Stark and Banner drove off to go back to civilian life. Fury said or assumed they would reform for a large enough threat, but there is no indication that they even for the most part have each others cell phone numbers. The only ones we can assume Stark would even have the capabilities of calling would be Widow (who he doesn't really trust at this point) and Banner, who he is telling the story to after the fact. And probably was not something he would want to bring into this sort of thing. You don't bring a WMD to a knife fight. (Remember the phrase "The last time I was in New York I broke Harlem". Global threat of alien invasion = Hulk Good, Ossama bin Laden type terrorist = Hulk does more damage than the terrorists. It would be like nuking Boston to get the Tzarniev brothers.)
The bigger question is not why weren't the Avengers in this. It was more why wasn't War Machine in the Avengers? A legit question can be asked of why we didn't see SHIELD in this? The actual reason probably has more to do with timing. The SHIELD TV show and Captain America movie are both probably at a stage of production where Shield is solidly involved in them, but the exact details aren't hammered down enough that they could avoid causing problems by slipping them into this movie. So to avoid future conflict they just steered around them and Let Rhodey fill that role.
XDravond said:
(Not sure I saw the same movie as MovieBob because I didn't get the same "yey great" so my thoughts)
Not a bad movie per see but well I were quite disappointed... The whole movie felt like they just tried to cram as much as possible in to it but not giving even a second to think about for example "why is the villain evil?"... But I guess that's just because "he's evil" and they don't want to explain it to the people whom haven't read the Iron Man comics because it would take to long... And they seem like they have run out of good jokes for Downey Jr, because they seemed a lot more lame than they used to...
However the action is great and really cool explosions, so ok watching but don't expect to much from story and the like...
And the ending is really clever since they could make more movies but don't have to and all would be fine anyway...
Strange fact. The whole motivation / "Why is the villain evil" thing is not really a flaw in this movie. It is actually a flaw in the underlying villain. Long Time Iron Man/SHIELD/Captain America foes AIM. They are and always have been generic terrorist mad scientists bent on world domination. But there never has been a clear underlying reason. Digging too deep into it is like asking Why exactly is COBRA evil in GIJoe? What is Destro's motivation, etc. There isn't a lot of deep underlying reasoning or motivation there in the source material beyond a bunch of very very smart people in yellow suit swho really like to watch thing sgo boom, just for the heck of it. They tried to give them a little more depth with Killian (Slighted Nerd cripple with revenge fantasies seeks to impose strength of everyone else by manipulating both sides) but it's still not great. It really makes no more or less sense than the motivations of Whiplash in the last movie, or the Joker in Dark Knight, or pretty much any James Bond villain. It's a popcorn movie, appreciate it for what it is.
The movie was great, but it's probably going to bite them in the butt that they retconned The Mandarin (Iron Man's longest standing nemesis) from a world superpower villain into this nerdy spaz whose primary motivation to becoming a villain was having been played by Tony Stark back when he was drunk and irresponsible. They had this whole cool idea that the Mandarin was actually a megalomaniacal fascist prodigy that found an alien ship and these power rings, and just threw it out, merging this extremis idea with it instead.
The traditional Mandarin may still be out there. Nothing in the movie invalidated that as a possibility. Heck there may still be a true 'Master" in the wings. Killian never directly equated "The Master" with the actor playing The Mandarin character.
The actual comic book version of the Mandarin would work better as an Avengers villain than a straight Iron Man one. The whole Alien Magic Rings thing just doesn't go well with the tech heavy aesthetic of the IM movies. AIM was a better choice there. Doing the fakeout with Mandarin as a fake Ossama Bin Laden was actually a pretty cool twist. Something new and unexpected. The Iron Man movies are more about seemingly normal men fighting with brains. Mandarin was more a mystical super powered slugfest that would blend better with someone like Thor. This happens a lot in Marvel comics. Villains don't always seem paired up with the right heroes. Mandarin would probably be better as a Thor or Avengers foe. Dr. Doom is way better when put against Iron Man than the Fantastic Four etc.
I was more surprised that Maya didn't turn out to be Monica Rappaccini, the AIM Scientist Supreme. Although such a plot twist would have swung way too close to The Dark Knight Rises.
But here's the weird thing. Go back and look at the end of Avengers. They didn't coalesce into this big permanent uber team. In fact just the opposite. They basically told Shield to kinda go screw themselves and went their seperate ways. Widow and Hawkeye remained Shield operatives. Cap may or may not have still been working for the government, but it is safe to say that he probably went to figure out who and where he was, Thor left the planet, and Stark and Banner drove off to go back to civilian life. Fury said or assumed they would reform for a large enough threat, but there is no indication that they even for the most part have each others cell phone numbers.
If you look real quick at the last pull-out shot where Stark and Pepper are playing around with the 3D model of the rebuilding of Stark Tower, you can see A.) A handful of color-coded data folders tagged with icons representing each of The Avengers individually and B.) a space below the observation-deck of the tower is being converted into a hangar for a Quinjet; the implication apparently being that while they're not interested in working under the direct auspices of S.H.I.E.L.D., at least one of them is planning to keep the band together in some form.
Meh, I actually didn't like it. Mostly because of the motivations of the villian, they were so flimsy and "yeah, because I wan't to fuck things up" compared to the other two movies, especially the second one.
The villain's motives weren't conventional, but they were explained enough.
The true villain had that chip that gave people fiery superpowers that often caused self-detonation. To cover it up, he made people place the blame on Mandarin. He could have it no other way, since no reasonable person wants explosive supersoldiers around.
What I had a problem - though not a big problem - with was how the "extremis" kept showing up to thwart Iron Man/Bots. It seemed to drag out the action scenes, and their invincibility and persistence annoyed me.
As a comic adventure I thought it was great. As a story... meh. I was a little annoyed at the "twist" in the middle since it seemed like a big f-you to the comic fans as did the final fight at the end. With the first Iron Man I got the feeling that Jon Favreau actually liked the comics and the character and I sort of feel like Shane Black didn't and took the time to flip off everyone who did.
Some teenagers spoiled it for my group when we were waiting to get into the show. Reaction was split on the film, the non comic members loved it and the hardcore Iron Man hated it and the big twist. To me, it was right in the same solid level it seems all of these recent Marvel films are at. Not special, but enjoyable enough.
The movie was great and most of the complaints I've seen are already explained in the films.
PTSD: "I'm just a man in a can". Tony fought aliens and gods, almost dying in the process, is it any wonder he's damaged? When he's out of the suit he's just a man, when he's wearing the suit he's powerful, it makes sense that being without the suit causes him problems.
By forcing him to fight without the armour it allows Tony (and us) to see himself as more than a smartass in a tin can - to see that he is Iron Man, with or without the armour.
AIM/ The Mandarin: You control Al-Qaeda and Lockheed Martin. You now control how often, and what kind of, terrorist attacks happen and you have the technology there for governments to buy to fight it.
Panic causes people to demand action and companies make money off of that, look at companies that sell bulletproof bags to school children. Imagine they were the ones behind the shootings to make sure parents and schools will keep buying their products.
That was the point of AIM controlling the Mandarin - they can make sure governments will keep coming back with weapons contracts - it was pure greed.
Damaging Iron Man: Thor uses blunt force to fight, it's just like crashing into a wall really hard - Iron man's built to survive getting knocked around. The Extremis guys could generate an instant temperature of 3000C - high enough to melt the metal of the suit and overload any electronics.
It's not a case of the extremis guys being more powerful than Thor but just having a more effective power.
Extremis survivability: The abilities of the extremis guys to regenerate seemed to fluctuate but they make sense. For example the guy with the shaved head; survived a direct hit to the face but not to the chest. The headshot was a low power blast that would be fatal to us due to bleeding of the brain, that's not a problem for an extremis though. The chest shot however ripped out his heart - instantly fatal.
Forgetting powers:IT'S A MOVIE! They showed the power because it was cool and Rhodey's reaction was great but how shite would the fight be if Killian could just immolate Tony?
From an in-movie idea maybe the fire breathing is energy intensive and Killian didn't have enough power after regrowing an arm.
Most of the issues are either explained in the movie or are explained if you actually think about it for more than a second.
Far superior to Iron Man 2, but I maintain that the first is the best of the trilogy; it had a really tight script and keeping the action down to 1v1 worked so much in its favour. Any finale that increases the number of suits in play weakens their impact. But otherwise it was very good.
I definately get where people are seeing loose plot threads dangling, but I had an enjoyable experience with this movie and I'm holding out enough faith in Marvel that some of these plot threads were left dangling deliberately. Keep in mind that this movie was the capper to a trilogy and the starting pistol for the race to Avengers 2. That's a lot for a single move that is also supposed to be standalone entertainment. Here's hoping that the next movies manage to organically ick up some of these loose ends and start weaving them into a badass cape.
Okay thread I haven't read riddle me this or rather explain this to me, why the great uncle in the skyplane was it Christmas time ?
Am I missing something subtle here ?
Was this movie slated for last year or am I just making a big deal out of nothing, can you just release a Christmas movie during summer these days ?
I liked the whole Mandarin reveal. Bin Kingsley is a great actor and I had a few good laughs when he revealed who he was.
My only problem is that the villain they replaced him with was uninterested and kind of pathetic. I mean he turned evil because Tony wasn't nice to him. That alone was enough for me to lose all interest I had in him.
Unless that Marvel movie happens to be Amazing Spider-Man, which he's STILL making occasional digs at every once in a while because he hates it so much, and for reasons that aren't even valid, at least not the reasons he actually gives, most if not all aren't actually true.
Well that's because it's not a Marvel MOVIE, it's a Sony movie with a Marvel character. And because they messed with the source material. I can still see Bob sitting in the theater, "This isn't the Spider-man movie I wrote when I was ten!"
Unless that Marvel movie happens to be Amazing Spider-Man, which he's STILL making occasional digs at every once in a while because he hates it so much, and for reasons that aren't even valid, at least not the reasons he actually gives, most if not all aren't actually true.
Well that's because it's not a Marvel MOVIE, it's a Sony movie with a Marvel character. And because they messed with the source material. I can still see Bob sitting in the theater, "This isn't the Spider-man movie I wrote when I was ten!"
Heh... "messed with the source material." That's funny because ASM has been more faithful to the source material than any other Spider-Man movie, and is one of the more faithful among comic book movies in general. ASM is also no less of a Marvel movie than Iron Man 3, or the Avengers, or the first 3 Spider-Man movies for that matter. Bob is just grasping at straws to justify a hate for a movie that can't actually be justified.
Besides, ASM led to one of the best Superhero games yet, the one based on it is up there in quality with the Batman Arkham games, and that alone would justify the movie's existance even if the movie actually was crappy.
I saw it last night. It had a mix of things I liked and things I didn't like, so I guess I would overall rate the movie as "okay."
Firstly, it kinda bugged me that Tony was carrying the idiot ball [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IdiotBall] for a good chunk of the beginning, first, issuing an open threat to the Mandarin and telling the Mandarin where he is, and doing so without being prepared for an attack, and then relying very heavily on an incomplete, non-combat-ready, non-flight-ready suit when he apparently has a number of them to choose from. Of course, the fact that Tony does this can be explained away by the fact that he hadn't slept in over 72 hours and probably wasn't thinking clearly, but still, having a plot which can only move forward due to a character's stupidity isn't especially enjoyable for me.
Even with a non-functional suit which he wasn't even wearing for most of the fight, he was able to take down two of the three helicopters; if he had been even slightly prepared, he would've been able to stop them all easily, and certainly before they destroyed his mansion.
Secondly, that whole PTSD thing didn't seem to go anywhere and didn't have any resolution. It was just there without really adding anything to Tony's character or to the plot. I had hoped that there would be some development that would make it significant, but then the movie just ends without it being mentioned again. (Unless you count the post-credit scene)
So, Tony could have called in an army of 20+ automated/remote-controlled suits at any time? Why did he go for so long without them, then? All of the tension of the first two thirds of the movie was based on the fact that his Mark 42 suit was nonfunctional and he was trying to get it working again, but it just makes it all kind of ridiculous when you realize how unnecessary it was.
But on the plus side, it had some pretty cool scenes. Being stranded without his suit meant that Tony had to rely on his ingenuity a bit more, improvising weapons to escape from Extremis guards, Macguyvering his way into the Mandarin's stronghold, and one particularly cool battle when he has an incomplete suit and has to improvise combat with a bunch of mooks with one arm and one leg.
And I, for one, really liked the twist, but I'll talk about that over on MovieBob's Big Picture page.
EDIT: And is it just me? Or was the way the Mandarin talked really reminiscent of Hugo Weaving playing Smith from the Matrix films?
Damaging Iron Man: Thor uses blunt force to fight, it's just like crashing into a wall really hard - Iron man's built to survive getting knocked around. The Extremis guys could generate an instant temperature of 3000C - high enough to melt the metal of the suit and overload any electronics.
Except that makes no sense. Iron Man has been hit by lighting, and lighting can generate an instant temperature of 30,000C approximately TEN TIMES THE TEMPERATURE OF THE LAVA GUY http://news.discovery.com/earth/is-lightning-hotter-than-the-sun.htm
So ITT: If instant melting was the issue, Iron Man would've been dead long before this. Sloppy writing, bad story telling, and an absolutely indefensible bit of sabotage simply to make the writer's job of creating tension "easier".
I still can't believe there's going to be an Ant-Man movie... But yeah, Iron Man 3 was pretty damn awesome, though I do agree with my dad in that the main villain's motivation was a bit foggy and I didn't quite get it watching it through the first time.
Unless that Marvel movie happens to be Amazing Spider-Man, which he's STILL making occasional digs at every once in a while because he hates it so much, and for reasons that aren't even valid, at least not the reasons he actually gives, most if not all aren't actually true.
Well that's because it's not a Marvel MOVIE, it's a Sony movie with a Marvel character. And because they messed with the source material. I can still see Bob sitting in the theater, "This isn't the Spider-man movie I wrote when I was ten!"
You still on that? I thought I showed you already that Bob doesn't rate movies based on how well they stick to their source. Just look at this very video for proof of that for God's sake. Bob hates ASM because he thinks it has legitimate problems with it's storytelling like completely dropped plot-threads, characters and over reliance on coincidence. I don't agree with most of it but his hate isn't based on fidelity to the source material. Find another tune to sing will you? It's really annoying when you get stuck like a broken record.
SixShooter said:
Karma168 said:
Damaging Iron Man: Thor uses blunt force to fight, it's just like crashing into a wall really hard - Iron man's built to survive getting knocked around. The Extremis guys could generate an instant temperature of 3000C - high enough to melt the metal of the suit and overload any electronics.
Except that makes no sense. Iron Man has been hit by lighting, and lighting can generate an instant temperature of 30,000C approximately TEN TIMES THE TEMPERATURE OF THE LAVA GUY http://news.discovery.com/earth/is-lightning-hotter-than-the-sun.htm
So ITT: If instant melting was the issue, Iron Man would've been dead long before this. Sloppy writing, bad story telling, and an absolutely indefensible bit of sabotage simply to make the writer's job of creating tension "easier".
The Avengers movie quite clearly showed that Tony's arc-reactor absorbed the lightning and that is why he was fine. Also, lightning rarely causes that much heat-damage because of how quickly it passes by. An already superheated material is a completely different thing entirely.
Okay thread I haven't read riddle me this or rather explain this to me, why the great uncle in the skyplane was it Christmas time ?
Am I missing something subtle here ?
Was this movie slated for last year or am I just making a big deal out of nothing, can you just release a Christmas movie during summer these days ?
I was wondering about the Christmas time as well, like it was supposed to come out 5 months ago.
People were wondering why he didn't call in reinforcements earlier, I kind of wondered too, but he didn't know what all is was going on and he needed Jarvis and Jarvis was acting wonky. I don't know, but that's kind of what I thought.
My friend asked me why he gave his address out. Do people really think no one knew where he lived? I think by saying the address he was just tired, angry and was pointing out the fact to come get him. At that time the bad guys weren't really focused on him.
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