The Big Picture: The Big Spoiler: Iron Man 3

Sovereignty

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Henkie36 said:
The main reason I don't like this twist is because they do such a good job at building up this character of the Mandarin, they surround him in a lot of mystery, and then when he just turns out to be some drunken douchebag playing the Mandarin, it felt like an enormous let down. I guess Killian's reasonnig makes sense: rule the world from behind the scenes, because otherwise you'll make yourself a target, and just create a face that doesn't exist. Sure, but I still feel like they could have done something more interesting with this.

I agree with this.

The twist surprised me, and while it wasn't bad... I just feel like it should have been an alternate movie/ending thing. Killian was just a boring antagonist. They spent all this time building up this evil menacing 'terrorist' only to suddenly go, "lol no"

I guess it's all opinion, and at least the execution was good. Still I can't help but feel they just changed it up so they could have a twist.

Kind of like every single M. Night Shyamalan movie.
 

Gordon_4_v1legacy

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While I appreciate the need to move the Mandarin away from the the Dr. Fu-Manchu stereotype (one I'm sure the Chinese probably laugh at now) I still think there was potential to still create a great villain out of him.

I mean it would have tickled me pink that in the middle of Killian's monologue, he was stabbed in the back by the Mandarin with a witty line along the lines of 'Thank God, I thought I'd have to put up with him forever' and then sucker punches Iron Man in his armor. What ensues is a Kung Fu battle (allowing RDJ to show off his Wing Chun) between the Ring empowered Mandarin and Iron Man which could end with the Mandarin using one of his rings to get the perfected Extremis formula from Tony and promptly legging it. Or something.
 

Sean Deli

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I'll touch on a different subject here: Tony and the kid.
I am surprised people dismissing it as a "comic relief" or "teen sidekick" or "audience surrogate"

I loved that part, because in my mind it was more psychological then the rest of the movie combined.
See, Tony IS the kid. When Tony meets the child (by now you probably noticed, that I did not remember his name), they do not develop a usual "competent adult / helpless child" dynamic. They communicate as equals. They trade stuff, they share secrets, they play jokes on each other.
This is the part where two boys interact, just one of them is 40+ years old and is filthy rich.
And that's great, because it touches on the psychology of Tony's reflection. He experiences another bout of growing up. "Aren't you a mechanic? Can't you just ... make something? - Okay."
If you look into this period, Tony never teaches the kid anything (contrary to the usual "adult / child" trope in the movies) but he learns.

And that's essential, basically all 3 Iron Man movies are about Tony growing up.

Iron man 1 is just pure "exit the sandbox and enter the grown-ups world" movie. Tony learns that pain, suffering and death exist in the world. Safety blanket is off and the big boy pants are on.
Iron man 2 has the subplot of Tony accepting his father, resolving his daddy issues. The subplot reveals to Tony, that whatever perceived slights your parents conducted against you (in his case - neglect from his father) - you have to let it go and embrace the biggest gift parents can give: adamant trust in you growing up better and greater then they have been.
And Iron man 3 puts a cap on this, by teaching Tony not to be defined by his immediate successes or singular deeds (because, taken individually they can paint him as either a saint or a devil). Tony learns to define himself by his strengths and weaknesses.
What you can and what you can't defines you.
"A suit was just a shell. A cocoon" Things inside of the cocoon made the suit possible - not the other way around.

Iron man 3 ends with Tony growing up to be a man. With all of his mannerism, he still did grow up - and suit or not, he is a force for good in this world, not an oblivious child as in the beginning of IM1, not a emotional loose cannon as in the beginning of IM2, not a self-centered and self-absorbed maverick as in the beginning of Avengers.

He has his vices and has his virtues, but he is a force for good and a grown man.
 

franksands

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I loved the twist mainly because when I saw the trailer i thought "oh, here we go again with the war on the terror...". I loved this movie, I think it's the best of the 3, and I really don't think you could bring the comics mandarin to a movie today, and be serious about it.
Also I think Big Trouble in Little China was the major influence from the 80s, aside from Mandarin we also got the best rendition of Raiden.
 

Darth_Payn

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Bob, thank you for this video. Ignore the haters, I loved the twist! It was a real big surprise that blew my mind and upped the stakes. What doesn't jibe with me was how the Vice President was in on it. As soon word got out that The Mandarin was going to be the Big Bad of IM3, my friends (most of whom are Asian) were nervous about how he would be portrayed, knowing full well his roots in the '60's. My best friend, after the movie, pointed out they pulled a similar trick with The Mandarin in the Ultimate Universe, making him an A.I. or something.
Speaking of the Ultimate Universe, I never got into it. It looked like some hack writer's idea of a "realistic" (pfffft HAHAHAHAHAHA!) universe, but every hero who's not Spider-Man comes off as an unlikeable toolbag, whose flaws and dysfunctions make those of their main Universe counterparts look tame in comparison. Which is why, in the context of comic books, I refer to "realism" as the "R" word. And I don't need the R word to get in the way of my movie fun!
 

Keith K

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Just got back from watching it tonight and I looooooved the twist. Kingsley was great. I'd love to see that character return; If not as a villain, then maybe in some other bumbling helpful or harmful capacity.

I also thought the kid was a nice touch in this one.

I'll be very interested to see how they go forward with Stark/Iron Man in subsequent films.
 

MB202

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Oh God, that ending, I so want to see that, as well! More Mandarin, please!
 

Darth_Payn

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OK, I just had a thought related to the true-villain twist: Killian is a member of A.I.M., which in the comics had a history of working with HYDRA, who were the bad guys under the Red Skull in Captain America's movie. Would it sound too far fetched to say that A.I.M. is a modern-day offshoot of HYDRA?
 

cthulhuspawn82

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I cant believe so many people liked the twist, I saw it as a huge disappointment.

I'm not one of those guys who demands the movies be like the comic, but when you promote that your movie will have an iconic villain that the fans have been waiting to see for years, then not actually feature said villain, that's false advertising and lying to your audience.

Imagine if you went to see the Dark Knight and learned that all that promotional material and trailer footage for the Joker was a scam, he isn't in the film, there is just a 5 minute scene of some crazy guy pretending to be him. The real villain is Black Mask or something. Even if it was still a good movie, wouldn't you be outraged?
 

kardar233

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I liked the movie a lot. More than the first, even.

Looking back, though, I cottoned onto some implications I really liked. For example, the way the guards said "don't look him in the eye if you don't want to get shot in the face" implied that that had actually happened at some point, something that doesn't quite fit into the twist. My theory is that "The Mandarin" was a double-bluff; the Trevor identity was an invention of the real Mandarin to keep Tony on Killian's trail and duck any suspicion.

Also, the mention of getting Pepper "fixed" is nicely ambiguous as to whether Tony found a way to undo the Extremis changes (in keeping with the no-suit theme in the end of the movie), or whether he fixed the Extremis stuff so Pepper doesn't have to worry about exploding.
 

Lovely Mixture

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I saw the twist coming from a mile away. I guess I'm just savvy

The way everything was done was too suspicious. They never showed you "the Mandarin" outside of the broadcasts, the broadcasts were cliche as fuck (which of course was intentional, but it was too cliche even if you wanted it in the mere context of the film), you actually saw Killian doing things by himself as opposed to taking orders, and you saw more henchmen associated with Killian than with "the Mandarin."

cthulhuspawn82 said:
I cant believe so many people liked the twist, I saw it as a huge disappointment.
I didn't think it was good or bad, it was just there.

cthulhuspawn82 said:
I'm not one of those guys who demands the movies be like the comic, but when you promote that your movie will have an iconic villain that the fans have been waiting to see for years, then not actually feature said villain, that's false advertising and lying to your audience.
Hmm. Well I personally have always found trailers misleading (not that it makes it ok), but aside from that I mean "the Mandarin" is still a character in the film. The implication that he's a villain doesn't mean it's the truth.

cthulhuspawn82 said:
Imagine if you went to see the Dark Knight and learned that all that promotional material and trailer footage for the Joker was a scam, he isn't in the film, there is just a 5 minute scene of some crazy guy pretending to be him. The real villain is Black Mask or something. Even if it was still a good movie, wouldn't you be outraged?
Maybe if it had happened two decades a go. Media (not just movies, games and books) have been heavily pulling meta-twists since the late 90s, coupled with trailers usually being bullshit, it just comes off on how you receive it.
 

shadowstriker86

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Kataskopo said:
Ugh, I really disliked the twist. I mean, from the first 5 minutes you know Killian is going to be the bad guy, and then this Mandarin guy shows up and kills this oil CEO, he's not to be fucked with.

I mean, yeah he was just a sort of terrorist amalgamation, but he was unknown.

But then nope, it was Killian all along. And I didn't found it funny when it was discovered, I was just thinking really? This is the great villian, they wasted this for this stupid shock twist?

To be fair the scenes leading to that was awful as well, Tony Stark just waltzing through his "secure" place.
Damn it someone beat me to it! Pretty much ^^^ ALL THIS ^^^, i saw the switcharoo twist coming a mile away the minute pearce stepped on scene. Oh but did i have alot of gripes with this movie, not saying it's bad but considering the standard that's now set, i expected better. let's run down the list shall we?

1) very melee heavy oriented fights: aside from stark using an uzi for about a few seconds and the missles that blew up his house, can anyone actually recall projectiles or guns being used all that much? Remember in the avengers the iron man suit had a stockpile of missles that he launched at the scooter aliens coming in from the portal? What happened to all those? I mean i kind of half expected all those iron man suits to do this:

(@ 0:13)

2)The "Other" Twists: pepper surviving the 500 ft. fall into a pit of fire and the botanist chicks betrayal. i like how everyone just kind of glossed over that. Because they were both stupid and predictable.

3)This kind of goes back to the first one: The typical corporate villian. You know where else we saw this? DMC and GI Joe. Destro and that bald dude. No i don't remember what his name was and no i don't care either. Anyway, we've seen this type of villian done before and frankly I myself am sick of it because it's just been done sooooooooo much and we get it, corporate ceo's are scum, stop drilling it into our heads!

i mean i could write more but i think ya'll get the picture
 

Toxic Sniper

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I knew the twist beforehand, my father did not. We went to see the movie together. He loved the twist, and I did too.

I don't think the movie eschewed the sillier elements of the Marvel universe; a fire-breathing regenerating lava man is as silly as you can get. What it did was take something that is frankly rather offensive to me (as somebody who has dealt with xenophobic racism before) and shown it for what it really is: A racist caricature figurehead that is easy to hate and smokescreens anything else involved. The Mandarin is built up as a villain, but he's not a suitable arch-nemesis; he lacks any real personal connection with Tony like Vanko from Iron Man 2 did. Killian isn't a great villain, but he fulfills his role; I think Iron Man doesn't really need an arch-nemesis because the character is so strong on his own.

And I just have to say, Iron Man 3 blows the Dark Knight Rises out of the water when it comes to twists. Bane actually was built up as main villain material, so seeing him shafted like that honestly hurt. The Mandarin wasn't, and that's what let the twist with him feel natural and not disappointing.

Edit: It's funny that so many people are calling Killian a typical corporate villain, when he's actually another well-played archetype: The power hungry mad scientist. Seriously, he asks Stark to see his idea, Stark doesn't want to, Killian gets angry at the rejection of his ideas, injects himself with extremis, and begins doing crazy stuff like breathing fire. You'll recall at the beginning of the movie, he was asking Pepper to have Stark Enterprises help with his think tank.

Just because he wears a suit and doesn't have frizzy hair doesn't make him any less of a mad scientist for me.
 

Adam Jensen_v1legacy

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I too liked the plot twist. But that still doesn't make the movie good. It's bad. It's very bad. The entire second act makes no sense whatsoever. Why did Tony need to fix Mark 42 when he had an underground base full of Iron Man suits? Why did he have to travel to Miami in the car? The entire second act should not exist.

With all of the things they could have done with Iron Man 3, I have to ask why did they even bother with Mandarin if the best they could do is make the entire character fake?
 

Imperioratorex Caprae

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May 15, 2010
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In this day and age, spoilers are fine. You give warning and "Snape kills Dumbledore."
So, yeah. About that Mandarin, that would be an awesome idea. I also like Guy Pearce and he does make a badass villain or an anti-hero. Great actor, underrated in a lot of ways.
 

vid87

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I honestly liked the twist too (though it took a few minutes to process) and Kingsly was amazing. What I didn't like was that Killian's ultimate motivation was something I'm pretty sure has been done to death. I get there was an overarching theme and that the Mandarin twist actually fits into it, but I really wish the villain payoff was a bit more substantial.
 

DarthFennec

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Maybe it's because I'm new to the whole comic book thing, but I didn't even realize this was a twist. I just assumed the real villain was going to end up being Killian after the first few minutes of the movie. I walked out of the theater confused because I couldn't recall any big unexpected twists like everyone was making a big fuss over.
 

Hellfireboy

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After careful thought about the twist I have come to the conclusion that... you're wrong. In the first movie Iron Man's enemy was a military industrialist who employed a group of terrorist to help him sell more weaponry, in the second film it was a military industrialist who employed a single terrorist to help him sell more weaponry and in the third... a military industrialist who manufactures a terrorist to help him sell more weaponry. How exactly is this a step forward since it seems that Iron Man is just fighting the same guy in a different suit. In all of the movies it's just a rehash of military industrial complex: bad, Iron Man: good.

By nerfing the Mandarin they actually lost the opportunity to get deeper into the moral questions that are inherent to Iron Man as a whole. Stark Industries does not produce weapons. Unless they are for Stark himself in which case it's okay for him to make a missile that can take out a tank and is only the size of a cigar. You can barely own a handgun in California, which has some of the strictest gun laws in the US, but he has more than 40 high powered, advanced weapon systems in his basement and no one bats and eyelash. How does he get away with that? He is involved with a super secret organization that can conduct military operations anywhere in the world and can even order a nuclear strike on a major American city and no one knows who they answer to. The Mandarin could have been the guy to call him on this. He could have raised the questions of how much of a danger to the rest of the world does Iron Man represent. Americans might think it's cool to have an Iron Man who is an American but would the rest of the world agree? Would any other country or population feel threatened by the fact that he can just go into whatever country he chooses and start toppling governments just because he doesn't like what they're doing based on what he saw on CNN? Instead we got "military industrial complex: bad, Iron Man: good".