The Big Picture: The Big Spoiler: Iron Man 3

speccy4i

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In my experience from what other people have said, there seems to be two reasons why people didn't like this version of the Mandarin: The comic purists that wanted The Mandarin from the comics as is and the people that didn't like it because they felt tricked.

I can understand the people interested in keeping the integrity of such a serious, realistic character, they just want the comics on the big screen, to quote Stephen Fry about the Hitchhiker's movie: "there are those that won't be happy unless the movie is just a camera focused on the book with somebody turning the pages every forty seconds."
I understand where they're coming from, I just think that they're wrong. If an alteration to an established character works within the context of the story being told then it's fine by me. Execution is almost always King.

The second group mystifies me. I don't understand people that don't like feeling tricked or lied to by a film. My best guess is that in this age of every single piece of information being made available on the internet beforehand, people have gotten used to walking into a cinema knowing exactly what they were going to get and any big surprises shake that feeling. It's why I've weaned myself off reading movie spoilers, I'd rather go in not knowing.
 

Stormtyrant

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As someone who enjoys the comic book stories but never got into reading them obsessively (i.e. I never read an Iron Man comic) I really enjoyed the Mandarin in Iron Man 3. I don't see why there's an issue, apart from the old "Change is sin!" complaint.

Also, Bob, your fake English accent is hilarious. Few people can do one well.
 

Strain42

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Best ending of any Big Picture episode lol I laughed my ass off.

I had a similar idea, and that's that I was trying to think if there were any Marvel heroes that Ben Kingley's character could actually end up becoming.

Your idea is better though.
 

aba1

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Hyper-space said:
aba1 said:
I actually prefer the realism and I hate when comics just drop all pretense of any kinda good story just to do something that will sell. You and me Bob have very different tastes, you just like to see shit happen I like development.

Though I agree on the Mandarin thing for this movie since it makes more sense from a logical perspective.
Are you equating realism with great story-telling? If so, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPE.

Fiction is a boundless ocean where execution is king. Anything can be made into a good story and "development" isn't exclusive to realism (or whatever idea you have of realism).
I didn't say that I said I PREFER realism then went on to say I hate when comics just do what ever despite not making sense with the rest of the story to just to sell more as a separate but related thought.

You combined my two thoughts into one.
 

weirdsoup

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If you heard that in Iron Man 3 Tony Stark would get a precocious kid side kick for part of the movie and that the Mandarin would be a washed up actor then it sounds terrible. But both are played so well that they become two of the best parts of the film.
 

mrseriousguy

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Sep 24, 2011
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The Mandarin twist was a nice surprise. You know how you go to the movies and you can almost predict what's going to happen next. This one came out of left field and I enjoyed the shift.

I'd pay to see Drunken Mandarin might show up again. The infinity Gems could land on earth and a certain drunk on parol/community service could find them. The man does like his Bling; booze and bimbos too. He's looking for a good time or a good football match and no one is going to stop him!
 

aba1

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Orekoya said:
aba1 said:
I actually prefer the realism and I hate when comics just drop all pretense of any kinda good story just to do something that will sell.
What?

Wait...

What?

So, in your mind, a story won't be good if they deviate from realism?

This isn't to be a dick, I just don't understand the logic behind what you just said. Please explain this.
Again didn't say that I said I prefer realism or at least the more realistic takes on things and then in a related but separate note that I hate when comics will drop all pretense of logical progression to create something illogical because it will sell more.

You combined my two thoughts into one.
 

Strain42

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The only thing that kinda disappointed me about Iron Man 3 was I kept waiting for Rescue to show up.

I mean Avengers Alliance is currently giving away Rescue as a reward for a mission based around Iron Man 3, and I kept seeing interviews with Paltrow and stuff where people are like "So, I hear you get to wear one of those suits for a while in this one." and yeah...she does, but for like 5 minutes.

For some reason I was expecting a great big final showdown of Iron Man, Iron Patriot and Rescue all kicking ass (though I did love the great big multi-suit battle that we did get)

I'm also a little sad that in 3 movies we never got to see Crimson Dynamo. I know he wouldn't have really been all that interesting or anything but...what can I say? I liked him.
 

Steve Dark

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I enjoyed the twist, but was disappointed with not being able to see more of Kingsley/Trevor's Mandarin. His odd Elocution in the trailers had me intrigued, I was wondering how they'd play his sorcerer/alien origin, and I was looking forward to an Iron Man vs Magic Rings epic battle finale. It was hilarious though, so I'll give it that.

As for Manderin in the future, I was kinda hoping they'd tease an actual Mandarin behind it all, and what with it being mentioned that Trevor had plastic surgery they had the perfect excuse just to reuse Kingsley as a villain with many decoys.


Related note Bob, are you going to do a "what's what/here's all the easter eggs you missed" for this one? I didn't see any Infinity Gauntlets lying in the background or references to a M.O.D.O.K. project, but I reckon you've got a better eye for such things!
 

walsfeo

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My only disappointment is that the villain was such a let down after the build up of the Mandarin. I loved the twist, it helped me appreciate the movie a lot more, but the fire breathing arms dealer was weak-sauce compared to the Mandarin build up. All of the emotional impact was spent when the hostage was killed, when Tony explored the back alley, and when Pepper thought he was dead.

And, while it was cool to have all the Iron Man suits in the final battle, I was surprised at how mighty the un-manned, un-guided suits could be.

In all though, I really enjoyed both the movie and Bob's spoiler of it.
 

xaszatm

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Sep 4, 2010
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Therumancer said:
Spoilers Below:


I'm not surprised Bob liked this twist because it pretty much matched his liberal sensibilities, moving away from a real enemy that would be especially relevent today given rising tensions with China, their racism, military build up, and the way that they have a rich ruling class living in huge, modern, cities while the rest of the population labours in sweatshops, shares beds with other people, and lives alongside it's livestock (which is how SARS got started). The stereotype of something like "Fu Manchu" or "The Mandarin" has become increasingly relevent today in a way it hasn't been for decades, as it pretty much epitomizes everything wrong with China, which is actually extremely antagonistic towards the USA (note an article right here on The Escapist about Chinese cyber espionage). The change in Iron Man being largely a "hey, let's not antagonize The Chinese and pretend there isn't a problem" fueled desician, while they re-directed the villainy onto something a bit more liberally appropriate, namely American military arms manufacturers.

I understand the political gesture in turning "The Mandarin" into a giant gag, but in doing so they ruined a potential for much needed social commentary, as well as pretty much destroying one of the all time great super-villains, more or less ensuring we won't see a proper version of a character just begging for some major FX treatment for a while to come.
I'm going to have to disagree with you there. The Mandarin is a caricature, but of old 60's Chinese stereotypes. The very idea that the could-have-been Mandarin would be in any way, shape or form commentary towards China now is quote silly. The Mandarin wasn't Chinese in any stretch of the imagination. He was just another Dark Knight Joker who I'm quite frankly sick of as a villain.

You see, the movie Mandarin, isn't some grand interesting villain. He's just another evil for EVIL ANARCHIST sakes villain. And I'm glad the movie shows us just how rediculous such a character is. Who could possibly follow such a madman? No one! It's all just a front man.
 

Malisteen

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I had mixed feelings about the twixt. I mean, overall I liked it and thought it was hilarious. I was very annoyed with the whitewashing in Kingsley's casting - I mean, yeah, the Mandarin was a shallow racist caricature, but having a shallow racist caricature played by a white dude doesn't make it any better. I'm still slightly annoyed that a role that could have been written for an asian actor instead was written for a white dude, but then again it kind of works as an added layer of commentary since the character was a white dude pretending to be asian to play to slack jawed western audiences, as is so typically the case for whitewashed roles.

I especially liked the hints in the 'Mandarin's' terror videos. "You will never see me coming", the entire fortune cookie thing about a white, western invention masquerading as something Eastern, I mean that was great stuff. And, once exposed, he was hilarious.


On the other hand, the kinds of things 'the Mandarin' was attacking the united states for are all things the West and the US in particular is guilty of. The White West has systematically abused and oppressed and exploited and manipulated and murdered its way to power in the world stage, even while pretending to positions of moral superiority - morals which never once fail to evaporate in the face of whatever is convenient for 'national interest'. That's what makes the terrorist caricature such a frightening bogey-man for Western audiences, the fact that on some level they know their success has come at the suffering of millions, and that if they were in the place of the oppressed they'd be out for revenge. Turning the mandarin into a joke symbolically invalidated all of the complaints and accusations he represented, replacing a potentially challenging criticism of Western imperialism in general with a much tamer and less challenging criticism of 'easy target' defense industry profiteers.

I mean, yes, there was the second level of western audiences letting their reactionary fears of terrorist bogey-men justify handing power over to those profiteers, but I just don't feel that level of criticism hit as hard, what with the obvious scapegoat profiteer villain distracting attention from it.


Again, overall, liked the twist, very funny, far better handled then any of the similar 'twists' in Nolan's Batman trilogy. But still.
 

PunkRex

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I think its a shame that we missed out on a big, iconic bad guy and just got another wanker in a suit pulling the strings but im not gonna lie, Kingsley was soooooooo funny.

Give and take I suppose.
 

annoyinglizardvoice

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I think he was an interesting enough character in the film, but I would love to see him acquire a taste for power and try to be a genuine super-villain in a later film (possibly as part of whatever they'll call the master of evil in the film 'verse)
 

Therumancer

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xaszatm said:
I'm going to have to disagree with you there. The Mandarin is a caricature, but of old 60's Chinese stereotypes. The very idea that the could-have-been Mandarin would be in any way, shape or form commentary towards China now is quote silly. The Mandarin wasn't Chinese in any stretch of the imagination. He was just another Dark Knight Joker who I'm quite frankly sick of as a villain.

You see, the movie Mandarin, isn't some grand interesting villain. He's just another evil for EVIL ANARCHIST sakes villain. And I'm glad the movie shows us just how rediculous such a character is. Who could possibly follow such a madman? No one! It's all just a front man.



Then you apparently do not know "The Mandarin". Basically what The Mandarin is, is the Chinese version of Hitler, out to see Asia dominate the world. He's kind of like Captain America to racist chinese ideals and militarism, which is why he's "The Mandarin". In a lot of respects doing what Fu Manchu was up to, though being a super villain he wasn't quite as subtle as Fu Manchu was at times.

Back during the whole "Majripoor" arc in the 1990s you had this bit with Wolverine and Jubilee running into him. The last "free" members of the X-men if I remember, the rest having been overcome by the mechnitions of Cameron Hodge (then a head reanimated by mephisto's magic and placed on a giant cyborg body if I remember). They wind up escaping him largely because he winds up trying to recruit Jubilee because she's ethnically Chinese. Around this same basic time period he was running an alliance with "The Hand" and they kidnapped Psylocke and brain washed her, physically turning her into an Asian because The Mandarin couldn't stand having a caucasian minion even via The Hand alliance (The Hand was a bit less racist, but a natural ally).

While at one time there was a bit of racism inherant in this, largely having to do with the communist takeover of China, it wasn't paticularly relevent because as a whole China wasn't really doing much to anyone, and was actually an ally of a sort against Russia despite similar philsophies. However recently that has changed, the chinese who are incredibly xenophobic, especially nowadays, are building up a huge, offensive military force, and developing technologies they hope will force a conventional war, while engaging in cyber-espionage (along with the old fashioned kind) against nations like the US. They are also rattling their sabers about colonizing other nations by force, and gaining revent against the western world for the "trivialization of their culture" and not bowing down to whom should be the true masters of the world. This propaganda is in part how China's elite, the well educated people who live in some of the largest and most modern cities in the world, keep their slaves who work in the sweatshops, and live alongside their own livestock (which is how SARS got started) in line. It's a lot like what you saw with the USSR. It might be something that could be ignored, if China wasn't actually trying to develop this technology, and actually building a navy capable of projecting it's huge military into other countries. When a nation like China wants an offensive weapon like an Aircraft Carrier, you have to wonder who they are planning on attacking with it, that's not a defensive weapon.

Right now we seem to mostly be burying our heads in the sand when it comes to China, and trying to pretend they aren't a problem. We're worrying about being offensive and antagonistic, when really we should be both of those things to an increased degree in response to their own behavior. Seeing vilains representing the belligerance of China, rather than trying to dance around the subject for the purposes of political correctness is not a good idea.

See, 20-30 years ago, when some of those vintage Iron Man comics were written, I might actually kind of agree with you or Bob about what The Mandarin represents. Today on the other hand I feel he's a bit more relevent than he was then.

For the record though, the idea of the "face" of the Mandarin in the movie being laugable in it's agenda is kind of a nice piece of liberal propaganda in of itself. You say that you couldn't see his actual "motive" making sense when there is nothing else behind it, yet to be honest that's exactly the kind of behavior real terrorists engage in, and is part of any real war as part of psychological warfare. They made the guy seem more sypathetic to The Middle East than anything that should be called "The Mandarin" (got knows why they even used the name with this version), but at the end of the day his reasons for apparently blowing stuff up, were pretty much the same reasons as Al Queda... to hurt the US, force compromises, and scare the people, while making the US seem weak and ineffective.

Of course I'll be honest in saying that this is probably being over-analyzed in what wasn't that good a movie. For example even as far as the twist goes it has a major WTF moment in terms of Ben Kingsly claiming it was all fake and he was totally innocent, when the dude blew an oil executive's head off on national TV. Given that it worked I'd imagine they couldn't have faked it since the guy could have been IDed otherwise, and the whole thing would have been blown when Shield's recognition software said "it's Joe-Bob the actor, not a real Roxxon oil executive" or whatever. Of course like a lot of things in this movie we're not supposed to really think about it that hard, we're suppose to accept that he faked this and everyone fell for it, because well... the script demands it.
 

Kataskopo

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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.
 

Froggy Slayer

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I loved the Mandarin twist because honestly, I think that Killian makes a far, far better foil to Tony, especially in the MCU. Also, the fact that 'The Mandarin' is essentially a villain tailored to the West's bogeymen.
 

Froggy Slayer

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Strain42 said:
I'm also a little sad that in 3 movies we never got to see Crimson Dynamo. I know he wouldn't have really been all that interesting or anything but...what can I say? I liked him.
Vanko in Iron Man 2 was essentially an amalgamation of Crimson Dynamo and Whiplash.