Avengers Movie: Grrrr....stupid iron man

[deathbydeath]

Whedon and the Actor who played him managed to show us WHY Hawkeye might actually be awesome. That's what they needed to do in this movie.

Wait, Hawkeye is in The Avengers? All I saw was Jeremy Renner dressed up like a douchecanoe in a black leather vest and sunglasses.

Serious Face/Random Tangent: Hawkeye in that film was horrible. Whedon & Co. made a bland, generic badass out of a character who was anything but a bland, generic badass. In the 2010 Hawkeye & Mockingbird series, if you took away the bow you had a conflicted hero who wanted to be a larger-than-life ideal like Captain America yet was incapable of performing at that level. In the ongoing series by Matt Fraction, if you took away the bow you'd have a witty layman badass who is hilarious with Kate Bishop around. In Avengers, if you took away the bow, there would be nothing left worth looking at.

Sorry about the rant; I'm just not a fan of shit I like being half-assed to fill out a checklist.

EDIT TO BE BACK ON TOPIC: I agree with the OP, but bear in mind that the massive success of the Marvel Movieverse is in no small part because the Iron Man films, and those were successful in no small part to RDJ's performance.

 

[Angelous Wang]

Hulk: Wait who was he again? Oh right he had a couple of rage scenes and then showed up at the end where he could magically control his powers.

If you watched The Incredible Hulk movie, which technically speaking counts as the only canon Hulk movie with regards to the Avengers (despite it being another actor), Banner learned to control the Hulk at the end of the movie as was shown in small scene after the credit where he set the Hulk free at will.

 

[Eldritch Warlord]

Hulk: Wait who was he again? Oh right he had a couple of rage scenes and then showed up at the end where he could magically control his powers.

If you watched The Incredible Hulk movie, which technically speaking counts as the only canon Hulk movie with regards to the Avengers (despite it being another actor), Banner learned to control the Hulk at the end of the movie as was shown in small scene after the credit where he set the Hulk free at will.

Which seems rather inconsistent with him becoming an uncontrollable rage demon on the aircraft carrier aircraft.

Not a problem to me though. The "I don't every time get what I want" line earlier in the film fills in that potential plot hole. Maybe that was too subtle?

 

[KazeAizen]

In a Thundercats film each Thundercat would have their cool moment and exposition, but at the end of the day it's Lion-O that's gonna kick ass. Same with Iron Man and the Avenger. Maybe should be Captain America but HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA no. Captain America is no super hero, he's a super soldier, and America is the primary villain in all this.

Did you really just take a petty political jab at America via a comic book movie? Its kind of sad. America is not the villain in all of this if we want to be all about narrative and such....even if we didn't want to be about narrative America still isn't the villain so I don't know what you are trying to do beyond taking very very very petty jabs at a country.

 

[Mutie]

Did you really just take a petty political jab at America via a comic book movie? Its kind of sad. America is not the villain in all of this if we want to be all about narrative and such....even if we didn't want to be about narrative America still isn't the villain so I don't know what you are trying to do beyond taking very very very petty jabs at a country.

Nah, that wasn't a jab. The way I see it, it's Iron Man that got the whole ball rolling on all this (although the Thor story is rather detached), and Iron Man is nothing but the product of corporate manipulation (mandarin, the ten rings, iron monger etc.). I think if we learned one thing from the Winter Soldier trailer it's that Shield are NOT the good guys. Captain America is outdated because there is very little nobility left in the American Dream, hence why I was so impressed with their handling of the subject matter in the first place. He's the benevolent symbol of a malevolent force (I'm not flaming, nor am I taking an "our country is better" stand point; I am impartial and tend to see things as shapes and notions as opposed to political discourse).

 

[DrOswald]

Thor (especially with the whole getting back to earth plotpoint being completely ignored.)

It wasn't ignored it just wasn't elaborated on besides Thor: Dark World shows how Loki managed to move in and out of Asgard unseen, again not explained in any great detail but enough to make you go huh that's how it's done.

Why did Iron Man seem to get more awesome time, simple he has had more movies than anoy of the other and the last two, especially the third one have been the worst of the franchise movies, on the flip side Thor's latest one is just about EVERYTHING that Iron Man 3 should have been and was freaking awesome.

Iron Man is an awesome character, but only the first movie and The Avengers have been good enough to show us that.

I really don't understand all the hate for Iron Man 3. I thought it was easily the best of the Iron Man movies and, frankly, better than the Avengers. The only possible contender for top spot in the Marvel Movie universe for me would be Captain America, though I have not yet seen Thor 2. Why does everyone think it was so bad? What was wrong with it?

 

[KazeAizen]

Did you really just take a petty political jab at America via a comic book movie? Its kind of sad. America is not the villain in all of this if we want to be all about narrative and such....even if we didn't want to be about narrative America still isn't the villain so I don't know what you are trying to do beyond taking very very very petty jabs at a country.

Nah, that wasn't a jab. The way I see it, it's Iron Man that got the whole ball rolling on all this (although the Thor story is rather detached), and Iron Man is nothing but the product of corporate manipulation (mandarin, the ten rings, iron monger etc.). I think if we learned one thing from the Winter Soldier trailer it's that Shield are NOT the good guys. Captain America is outdated because there is very little nobility left in the American Dream, hence why I was so impressed with their handling of the subject matter in the first place. He's the benevolent symbol of a malevolent force (I'm not flaming, nor am I taking an "our country is better" stand point; I am impartial and tend to see things as shapes and notions as opposed to political discourse).

I see. Sorry. I've just run across too many people beating that horse to death for no other reason then to poke the bear. When you put it that way it does make sense and I suppose I shouldn't have left the Cap. 2 trailer out since it does look like S.H.I.E.L.D.'s skeletons are finally being let out of the closet. Heck its already showing that stuff in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. which would actually be awesome if the season finale actually tied in a little bit too Cap. 2.

 

[Mutie]

I see. Sorry. I've just run across too many people beating that horse to death for no other reason then to poke the bear. When you put it that way it does make sense and I suppose I shouldn't have left the Cap. 2 trailer out since it does look like S.H.I.E.L.D.'s skeletons are finally being let out of the closet. Heck its already showing that stuff in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. which would actually be awesome if the season finale actually tied in a little bit too Cap. 2.

Not need to be sorry, it did look like I was tolling. The fact that the Marvel films have become so introverted in their political explorations is one of the main reasons I'm still heavily backing the franchise. Their balls are growing by the year in their declarations of corruption and reflections of our current world state: I'm a strong believer that a lot of people learn far more through metaphor than fact (Lord of the Rings as the greatest World War 2 novel, for example) and feel that fictional entertainment is one of the primary devices through which artists can express their worries for the current generation. Every era needs it's Prometheus (the Myth, not the douchefest), just like every Frankenstein needs a Monster.

 

[DrOswald]

What I don't get is the whole "learn about sacrifice" arc for Tony. Didn't he willingly sacrifice himself in the first Iron Man movie so that Gwyneth Paltrow could blow Stane up? Sure, he survived, but he was OK with dying so long as he took Stane with him.

I don't think the plot was "Tony learns to make a sacrifice" so much as "Tony learns that you can't always cheat death."

The point is that the events of Iron Man 1 made Tony think he was an invincible badass and Iron Man 2 just cemented that in his mind. It is not that he wouldn't ever sacrifice himself. It is that he believed that there would never be a need to sacrifice himself. He was sure that he could always fight or think his way out of any problem. Other people might sacrifice themselves, but that is only because they were too stupid to see the way out.

In the finale of The Avengers he came up against a situation where there was no way out. He was certain he would die and, without hesitation, made the sacrifice. It was only by freak luck that he survived and he knew it.

The thing about that particular sub plot is that it is only half of a plot line, continued and resolved in Iron Man 3. If you think about it from the perspective of the one movie it doesn't make much sense. If you look at it as part of a series it works a lot better.

 

[KazeAizen]

Not need to be sorry, it did look like I was tolling. The fact that the Marvel films have become so introverted in their political explorations is one of the main reasons I'm still heavily backing the franchise. Their balls are growing by the year in their declarations of corruption and reflections of our current world state: I'm a strong believer that a lot of people learn far more through metaphor than fact (Lord of the Rings as the greatest World War 2 novel, for example) and feel that fictional entertainment is one of the primary devices through which artists can express their worries for the current generation. Every era needs it's Prometheus (the Myth, not the douchefest), just like every Frankenstein needs a Monster.

I try to see the metaphor in movies and such but for some reason it never hits me quite as hard as it should. Like I think about the movies and get enthralled in them but I'm never able to penetrate that top surface unless I am beat over the head with it and I kick myself for not being able to do that a lot. Hell I'm an aspiring game designer and believe me in that realm anyways I got ideas and stuff I want to get made that are about as subtle as a baseball bat to the face but I think need to be expressed in a medium in that pretty much a toddler maybe a young kid at this point.

 

[Zukabazuka]

Thor (especially with the whole getting back to earth plotpoint being completely ignored.)

It wasn't ignored it just wasn't elaborated on besides Thor: Dark World shows how Loki managed to move in and out of Asgard unseen, again not explained in any great detail but enough to make you go huh that's how it's done.

Why did Iron Man seem to get more awesome time, simple he has had more movies than anoy of the other and the last two, especially the third one have been the worst of the franchise movies, on the flip side Thor's latest one is just about EVERYTHING that Iron Man 3 should have been and was freaking awesome.

Iron Man is an awesome character, but only the first movie and The Avengers have been good enough to show us that.

I really don't understand all the hate for Iron Man 3. I thought it was easily the best of the Iron Man movies and, frankly, better than the Avengers. The only possible contender for top spot in the Marvel Movie universe for me would be Captain America, though I have not yet seen Thor 2. Why does everyone think it was so bad? What was wrong with it?

The problem I had with Iron Man 3 was all the suits he did pretty much sucked compared to any previous movie. Suit seems to run out of power and doesn't run of Starks reactor. First movie he could take a tank shell on and still stand up like nothing. Third movie the so called savior suit get wrecked by a truck. It barely had enough power to fly to alaska while in First movie he fly all the way to middle east, fight a bunch of bad guys. Have to avoid 2 jets and still make it back home without much of a problem when it comes to energy.
Second movie he seems to made some damn powerful reactor, well that one is just magically gone. Third movie just made him look so damn weak compared to the previous movies he was in.

Then to OP about Loki surrendering after Iron man shows up, he wanted to get captured by them. Even Fury said, "Why does it feel like Loki is the only one who wanna be on this ship"

 

[Mutie]

I try to see the metaphor in movies and such but for some reason it never hits me quite as hard as it should. Like I think about the movies and get enthralled in them but I'm never able to penetrate that top surface unless I am beat over the head with it and I kick myself for not being able to do that a lot. Hell I'm an aspiring game designer and believe me in that realm anyways I got ideas and stuff I want to get made that are about as subtle as a baseball bat to the face but I think need to be expressed in a medium in that pretty much a toddler maybe a young kid at this point.

Ah, see I'm a graduate Production Designer for Film, which as an industry is now very much steeped in pomp :/ As a set designer / builder, my main personal focus is on design through narrative; telling the stories that don't fit into dialogue or exposition through background design and props. The downside of that is it means I'm pretty excellent at tearing things to shreds... Like, just internally. I can sit down to watch almost anything and just think "Hahahaha, no..." It's a fucking CURSE! This is why I never want to actively study or work in video games. I want to love them.

 

[KazeAizen]

I try to see the metaphor in movies and such but for some reason it never hits me quite as hard as it should. Like I think about the movies and get enthralled in them but I'm never able to penetrate that top surface unless I am beat over the head with it and I kick myself for not being able to do that a lot. Hell I'm an aspiring game designer and believe me in that realm anyways I got ideas and stuff I want to get made that are about as subtle as a baseball bat to the face but I think need to be expressed in a medium in that pretty much a toddler maybe a young kid at this point.

Ah, see I'm a graduate Production Designer for Film, which as an industry is now very much steeped in pomp :/ As a set designer / builder, my main personal focus is on design through narrative; telling the stories that don't fit into dialogue or exposition through background design and props. The downside of that is it means I'm pretty excellent at tearing things to shreds... Like, just internally. I can sit down to watch almost anything and just think "Hahahaha, no..." It's a fucking CURSE! This is why I never want to actively study or work in video games. I want to love them.

I guess it might end up being the same for me for movies and video games. I can tear games to shreds but movies are gonna get an easy pass because I can enjoy them and seeing as I like Man of Steel, Prometheus, The Star Wars prequels I must be blind or apparently really easy to please. Still I am learning how games work and how narratives play out in them and....its an interesting perspective to say the least. Well I think we've gone thoroughly off topic now don't you?

 

[fix-the-spade]

Why do you think this happened?

Easy, by that point Iron Man had two smash hit movies and Downey Jr owns the role. Cpt America and Thor were great movies and great actors, but only one film each and relatively unknown stars. Hulk, well, y'know, two movies, two duds by Marvel standards.

Disney/Marvel put a shitload of money at risk with the combined/continuous movie continuity project and with the Avengers being the first big pay off of that project. They took an even bigger risk putting Joss Whedon and Zak Penn in charge of the movie, between them they had lots of good ideas and some huge TV successes (Firefly counts as a success now, ten years of DVD sales) but precisely one movie mega hit between them (Xmen 2). Disney needed some kind of guarantee people would go see the movie, enter Iron Man stage left.

Now that Avengers is both a hit and a mega-hit they seem to be taking more risks with plot/content, as evidenced by Iron Man 3's various twists and Guardians of the Galaxy's expected weirdness.

 

[solemnwar]

I know Robert Downey Junior was paid $50 million vs $8 mill for the other stars, but was it really necessary for him to overshadow them so badly? Why do you think this happened?

The other actors were paid a set amount. Robert Downey Junior agreed to a payment based off a percentage of what the film made during some amount of time. That's why he got so much more (at least according to what I've read).

 

[bigfatcarp93]

Anyone who's picked up a comic book in the last 50 years should know the answer to this: Iron Man IS more or less the most key Avenger. From a founding member of the team (An honor even Captain America doesn't hold) and being their first real leader and main sponsor, he set them up in their base of operations and provided intel and tech support.

In addition, RDJ's performance as Tony, without needing to be said, is staggeringly good, and of course more people would want to see it.

BTW: I'm so tired of explaining this to people, but Banner being able to go Hulk without attacking his teammates actually IS explained if you just pay attention.

 

[DrOswald]

Thor (especially with the whole getting back to earth plotpoint being completely ignored.)

It wasn't ignored it just wasn't elaborated on besides Thor: Dark World shows how Loki managed to move in and out of Asgard unseen, again not explained in any great detail but enough to make you go huh that's how it's done.

Why did Iron Man seem to get more awesome time, simple he has had more movies than anoy of the other and the last two, especially the third one have been the worst of the franchise movies, on the flip side Thor's latest one is just about EVERYTHING that Iron Man 3 should have been and was freaking awesome.

Iron Man is an awesome character, but only the first movie and The Avengers have been good enough to show us that.

I really don't understand all the hate for Iron Man 3. I thought it was easily the best of the Iron Man movies and, frankly, better than the Avengers. The only possible contender for top spot in the Marvel Movie universe for me would be Captain America, though I have not yet seen Thor 2. Why does everyone think it was so bad? What was wrong with it?

The problem I had with Iron Man 3 was all the suits he did pretty much sucked compared to any previous movie. Suit seems to run out of power and doesn't run of Starks reactor. First movie he could take a tank shell on and still stand up like nothing. Third movie the so called savior suit get wrecked by a truck. It barely had enough power to fly to alaska while in First movie he fly all the way to middle east, fight a bunch of bad guys. Have to avoid 2 jets and still make it back home without much of a problem when it comes to energy.
Second movie he seems to made some damn powerful reactor, well that one is just magically gone. Third movie just made him look so damn weak compared to the previous movies he was in.

Then to OP about Loki surrendering after Iron man shows up, he wanted to get captured by them. Even Fury said, "Why does it feel like Loki is the only one who wanna be on this ship"

Whole post is spoilers for Iron Man 3, so watch out:

Spoiler

Well, the "savior suit" was an experimental, incomplete, and untested lighter model designed for mobile deployment. And it didn't get wrecked when the truck hit it, it just broke into its pieces (certainly a design flaw of the untested suit, but then again it is untested.) And that was after it had been hit by a missile, repeatedly shot by a Gatling gun, crushed by the ruins of a very large house house made of rocks, fallen out of the sky, repaired using extremely crude tools for the job, and getting shot at again (though this time only by small arms.) By the point it got hit by the truck it was practically held together by duct tape. I think it did pretty good considering the circumstances.

As far as the suit only having enough power to fly across the united states, this is true but not exactly surprising if we, again, consider the nature of the suit and the situation. The power capacity of the suit might be much lower than the MK III because a single large battery is impossible. It needs many small power sources. In addition, it was heavily damaged. It is very possible that the connection between the suit and tony's reactor (and possibly the suits own reactor, if it had one) was broken and so it was running entirely on battery power.

I guess they could have spent screen time establishing the details, but techno babble doesn't make for good screen time when all we really need to know is that the suit is heavily damaged and isn't working.

And as far as Tony being so much weaker than in the previous movies, yes, that was kind of the point. Tony went up against an enemy that caught him ill prepared and is objectively stronger than he is even under the best of circumstances. Just as he was mentally and emotionally unprepared for his near death experience in The Avengers he is, despite his best efforts, now physically unprepared for this attack. Iron Man 3 is as much a movie about Tony Stark coming to grips with mortality as it is about Iron Man fighting super soldiers. Anyone is going to seem relatively weak in those circumstances, it is necessary for the narrative to work.

And I guess if you don't like that then you don't like that. I just really don't see how anyone can say Iron Man 2 was better when it was such a weak movie (I know you never said that, but many have.)

 

[Luminous Chroma]

I'm curious about the point of this thread.

Avengers has been out for over a year now. If ever there was a time to rant about desired changes to a movie, wouldn't it have been BEFORE the release of said movie?

See, that's just silly. How on Earth are we supposed to discuss a movie before it comes out? Even if the OP got early access to it, the rest of us wouldn't have.

Read the entire post. I specifically mentioned people being upset about Ben Affleck's casting as Batman, which is a precise example of how we can discuss a movie before its release. Aside from that, people speculate endlessly on movies before they come out. I've seen hundreds of threads on the Escapist (not to mention IGN, Ain't It Cool, etc) about what people would like to see/are dreading in any yet-to-be-released film.

 

[Laughing Man]

I really don't understand all the hate for Iron Man 3. I thought it was easily the best of the Iron Man movies and, frankly, better than the Avengers. The only possible contender for top spot in the Marvel Movie universe for me would be Captain America, though I have not yet seen Thor 2. Why does everyone think it was so bad? What was wrong with it?

A super hero movie in which the majority of the so called Super hero isn't able to be a Super hero because of reasons and self doubt.

It wasn't just that, Tony spends most of the movie wandering around NOT being Iron Man and then near the end it turns out that he in fact had the best part of 40 fully working Iron Man suits stashed away in some secret bomb proof bunker. That alone meant that someone somewhere thought this Iron man movie lets make it so that he could really have gotten access to the Iron Man suits whenever he wanted but lets make it so that he forgets all about them for most of the movie and then when he finally does remember about the suits the potential for a truly awesome action sequence ending ends up just being lame.

40 of these suits turn up and what we had was the potential for an action sequence to rival the fight for New York scene from the Avengers (you know the one where it starts with Iron Man flying defence then seemlessly pans to Hawkeve, then Hulk and Thor and it's all done in one truly awesome uncut shot. 40 Iron Man suits had the potential to do something that would have rivalled that scene and it just ended up being oh so forgettable and then to top it off the whole movie is wrapped up in a 3 minute epilogue, Stark cures Pepper Potts, manages to cure himself so he doesn't require the Ark Reactor in his chest and suddenly goes from being the damaged man who became a Hero to the the rich guy who dicks around in a suit of armour when he feels like it.

Of course this is my opinion, by all means if you liked the movie that's fine but The Avengers was fucking awesome and Iron Man 3, being the next movie to follow in it's footsteps had a whole lot to live up to. It not only failed to live up to the Avengers but it just didn't live up to the Iron Man movies that had come before it, including the second movie.