*IRONMAN 3 SPOILER* What did you think about the movie twist and use of character plot in IronMan3?

[WindKnight]

I honestly loved it, though I had guessed the twist early on when stark noted the 'theatrics' in the videos. Admitedly, I'm not a big comics fan, more I'm a fan of the characters, and I knew so little directly of the madarin, i didn;t personally have a lot invested in him.

The only thing I'd like to note is all through the conversation with 'Trevor', I really wanted to see the role performed by Simon Pegg, only while he could have handled both aspects convincingly, his general reputation would have made the twist too obvious.

 

[Me55enger]

No, I didn't enjot it.

The superhero genre is entering a very stale stage at present. The antihero- the villian- is often the most interesting character. When I was looking at the trailers for Iron Man 3, I was expecting something similar. The Mandarin looked like a genuinely interesting enemy, as it appears that he was attacking Stark on a more personal/human level than the events of, say, The Avengers (Someting Joss Whedon has discussed.)

Instead, they disregarded his character for the sake of comedy and misplaced lightheartedness, releaving the true villian to be someone so generic, I would likely punch the man standing next to him by mistake.

Iron Man 3 was a hilariously terrible film in my mind, and this was an important aspect to my belief.

EDIT: Up until about 30 seconds ago, I was unaware the Madarin stemmed from the comic book franchise. Don't disregard my argument based on this, however, as I'm doubtful many of you would know who Lucifer handed to key to hell to when he resigned.

 

[moggett88]

I'll say AGAIN
We are about to discuss a fun tidbit of information that if you haven't seen the movie can and possible WILL kill the first act for you.

So for those who saw the movie lets look at two very big things for marvel.

Advance Idea Mechanics (AIM) Resurrectors of MODOK (Mental/Mobile/Mechanized Organism Designed Only for Killing)

And the fact that (SPOILER!)
The mandarin isn't a villian. Yea... this took me very much by surprise. In fact I was almost angry at first then I paused, took a breath, then said to myself "Lets see where they take this."

No Magical Alien tech. No ten rings to rule them all. Just straight plot device and a fun one at that.

So my questions to you.

Do you think the plot device worked?
Did you love it, hate it, or chafe the fence on it?
Are you a comic purist or are you happy to see the Movies take some levels of poetic licence with the content to make good films?

Well, since my knowledge of iron man is limited to the movies, to me it wasn't a plot twist that the Mandarin was just a front. I tried to avoid all mention of the film before I saw it (since I enjoyed the first two so much) but unfortunately saw a trailer, and as soon as I heard guy Pearce speaking I knew the twist

 

[Smolderin]

I don't get it guys....what is so twisty about it? I don't read the comics, so when it was revealed that the Mandarin was just a front, I was immediately saying, "Oh, so the Killich guy was the Mandarin", ....and when he said at the end, "I AM THE MANDARIN", I was pretty much thinking "no shit sherlock". Granted the thing with Kingsely was a pretty good twist, but Killich being the Mandarin? Saw it coming a mile away.

 

[pspman45]

that was fuckin STUPID
they were working with the mandarin, one of the most unique characters in the Iron Man universe, and they threw him away for the sake of ONE JOKE
AND IT WASN'T EVEN FUNNY
I think Iron Man 3 sucked, but maybe its just me

 

[Raine_sage]

They sacrificed a villain from the books that was a third rate racist characture of asians and hadn't really been used to any great extent in over a decade to not only make a fun plot twist but a statement on the conventions of summer blockbusters themselves. I've lost count of the number of dumb abrasive action movies i've seen with a generic foreign villain played by an english actor to sit spouting cliche'd anti-american nonsense just long enough for the patriotic hero to turn up and kick his ass.

Iron man 3 took the piss out of this brilliantly. The generic foreign villain is LITERALLY played by an english actor, and his generic anti-american posturing is revealed to be just that. A distraction. Even better the trailers made such a big deal of the mandarin, which actually had me worried for a while that it would decend into the typical 'merica F**k yeah!' drivel with chinese replaced by arab as generic foreign devil to scare middle america. Instead we got a middle finger straight up at it.

And again, the mandarin from the comics is barely a few steps removed from fu manchu, a dreadful racist relic. I've been reading marvel for 25 years and i'm glad they didn't use him as the main villain. What we got was so much better.

See this guy gets it. The mandarin was never a compelling character. He was in fact, a horribly racist character. And whatever spin the movie might have given him, keeping him true to his comic book origins would still have resulted in "evil asian guy" no matter what. Unless they did something like this. I like the fact that "guy who has ties to the middle east, styles himself as an asian mystic, and talks like a baptist preacher" was literally an amalgamation of the things middle class america has been trained to react to with vitriol. And that he was designed this way on purpose by the man who created him.

I liked that the actual villain's plot was pretty orwellian. Gain control of the government with a loyal puppet president. Create what would essentially be a neverending war on terror, manipulate the general public into being angry/afraid of who they tell them to. Who knows maybe over time replace more and more of the government with loyal extremis soldiers until the political landscape completely resembles something out of 1984. I wish they'd played this aspect up a little more but overall I'm happy with what they did do.

I feel like a lot of people miss that the story of the movie wasn't really centered on the villain(s) it was centered on tony. The main arc of the movie was him proving to himself that he was more than just a suit of armor and a lot of money, that he's a hero in his own right. It's also interesting to know that Steve's comment in Avengers probably hurt a lot more than he let on at the time.

 

[bigfatcarp93]

I'm sorry, but I hated it. Call me a raging comic nerd if you will, call me a butthurt geek. But at the end of the day, what was promised was not given. The Mandarin was built up like crazy in promos and trailers, and then... nothing. He doesn't even exist. Instead, we get the much less interesting Dr. Alrich Kilian. A good villain, sure, but I would have MUCH preffered lots of Mandarin awesomeness. Instead, he was just a sad excuse for a red herring. Lame.

That said, I still greatly enjoyed the movie.

EDIT: It also raises a MAJOR plot hole with the Ten Rings. We were always led to believe that they were followers of the Mandarin, and now we discover that there IS no Mandarin for them to follow. So... who the fuck were they? They can't have jsut been completely unrelated, because AIM was using the Ten Rings symbol, and they certainly don't seem like Kilian's kind of thing.

WTF?