Iron Man 3

[Gravedigger]

Originally Posted by Deberg_1990

This.

Those were not Marvel Studio movies. They are just licensed characters to the other studios.

I did read the Marvel got the rights back to Daredevil and Blade just recently. Maybe they could get a movies again.

Ghost Rider was a Marvel movie, so was Punisher: War Zone. At least Blade 1 and 2 were great movies. Regardless of the studio, a poor movie is a poor movie.

[Wallcrawler]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

Spider-Man 3 and X-3 were two of the worst comic movies to date, but it didn't have anything to do with fandom or continuity. They were simply awful movies. Iron Man 3 isn't even remotely in that ballpark.

IM 3 took a character from the comics, led us to believe in the trailers that he would be IM's nemesis in the film, and then just threw him out halfway through the movie. He was just some douchebag actor playing a role.

That's right on par with shitting all over "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility" with Spider-Man 3. Hey Pete, even if you would've stopped that guy with the cash, Sandman is the guy that killed your uncle. You've become Spider-Man out of guilt for no reason! Yay!

X-3 was a symphony of shit. Juggernaut losing his power to run through a wall when next to the mutant cure kid. Juggs isn't a mutant. That should've never happened. Throw in offing Cyclops in the first 15 minutes, offing Charles halfway in, taking away Mystique's powers and Rogue simply giving hers up, and you have the motherlode of F YOU FANs garbage.


We're supposed to believe that the Mandarin wasn't done because the 10 rings of power would've been too unbelievable? Then we do a story where dudes are melting everything around them, and exploding. All while taking a character that had about a half a page of mention in the original Extremis book, before putting a bullet in his own head and giving him the lead villain role.

Yeah, lets make the dead scientist, Aldrich Killian, the main mastermind and drop a massive deuce on the Mandarin and all of the fans of the comics. Iron Man 3 for me is right on par with X-3 and Spider-Man 3.

Especially loved the part where

Spoiler!

Pepper supposedly just "died", Tony is pissed off and ready for the payback beatdown, and just as the shit is about to hit the fan, the Armor smacks a post and falls to pieces everywhere for a comedy moment. Garbage. So we either were never meant to think that Pepper would die, or they took what was supposed to be a serious moment and ruined it. The whole movie sucked.

[Deberg_1990]

Originally Posted by Wallcrawler

IM 3 took a character from the comics, led us to believe in the trailers that he would be IM's nemesis in the film, and then just threw him out halfway through the movie. He was just some douchebag actor playing a role.

That's right on par with shitting all over "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility" with Spider-Man 3. Hey Pete, even if you would've stopped that guy with the cash, Sandman is the guy that killed your uncle. You've become Spider-Man out of guilt for no reason! Yay!

X-3 was a symphony of shit. Juggernaut losing his power to run through a wall when next to the mutant cure kid. Juggs isn't a mutant. That should've never happened. Throw in offing Cyclops in the first 15 minutes, offing Charles halfway in, taking away Mystique's powers and Rogue simply giving hers up, and you have the motherlode of F YOU FANs garbage.


We're supposed to believe that the Mandarin wasn't done because the 10 rings of power would've been too unbelievable? Then we do a story where dudes are melting everything around them, and exploding. All while taking a character that had about a half a page of mention in the original Extremis book, before putting a bullet in his own head and giving him the lead villain role.

Yeah, lets make the dead scientist, Aldrich Killian, the main mastermind and drop a massive deuce on the Mandarin and all of the fans of the comics. Iron Man 3 for me is right on par with X-3 and Spider-Man 3.

Especially loved the part where

Spoiler!

Pepper supposedly just "died", Tony is pissed off and ready for the payback beatdown, and just as the shit is about to hit the fan, the Armor smacks a post and falls to pieces everywhere for a comedy moment. Garbage. So we either were never meant to think that Pepper would die, or they took what was supposed to be a serious moment and ruined it. The whole movie sucked.

I'm sorry you couldn't enjoy. I Enjoyed it immensely. I'm not much of a comic book purist though. Each entertainment medium is its own thing.

[unlurking]

Originally Posted by Wallcrawler

Considering that they just shit all over the Mandarin, and there's no way that in the current continuity they can just "undo" that and actually get the real Mandarin into a film, there's not really much left to do for Iron Man that hasnt already been done.

Bring him in for Avengers 2 to team up and square off against Thanos, but as far as more Iron Man films, there's only so much of this you can do before it becomes stale. IM 1 was brilliant. 2 had a lot of action but was a bit of a letdown and 3....well lets just say Im putting IM 3 in that same little file along with Spider-Man 3, and X-3. Movies that just forgot where they came from and took a giant crap on the fans of the comics.

Id like RDJ back for Avengers 2, but as far as more Iron Man films, just stop before they get any worse IMO.

Minus the Spidey comparison, this.

The entire second half of the movie I couldn't stop thinking...

"Is that it? Is that really the Mandarin? He's got to be trying to fool Iron Man. Are we going to see him again? Was that really it?!"

I kept waiting for a news reporter scene similar to the way the movie started showing shots of an explosion at a prison and reports that the Mandarin escaped, dozens dead. I wondered if maybe the Mandarin was somewhere on shore or offshore watching the final combat scenes.

Yes it was a fun movie, but they never should have used the Mandarin. He was a pointless character the way he was used. They could have come up with any throw away character. No excuse for destroying the character like that.

I too hope Iron Man 3 was the last we'll see of Tony Stark (well, and Avengers 2). Villians are as important to a storyline as the hero.

[bevischief]

I was reading in the last days that Downey was getting concerned about the wear and tear on his body playing Iron Man. He has had something happen during the filming of him playing Iron Man.

[Anyong Bluth]

Originally Posted by bevischief

I was reading in the last days that Downey was getting concerned about the wear and tear on his body playing Iron Man. He has had something happen during the filming of him playing Iron Man.

Ya it was in a print article but that could easily have been said to work the backchaennels

[Buehler445]

Avengers is a ****ing golden goose. RDJ should get less, some others should get more. There should be concessions on both ends because nobody wants to be the one to kill the golden goose.

[The Franchise]

Fan boys were going to see this movie whether it had Mandarin in it or not.

[unlurking]

Originally Posted by Pestilence

Fan boys were going to see this movie whether it had Mandarin in it or not.

True, which makes the decision to neuter the Mandarin and piss them off even dumber. There was absolutely no reason for wasting such a great villain on a lame attempt at a plot twist.

[Chiefs Pantalones]

The wife and I saw this on Monday we were disappointed. Not good IMO, very forgettable.

[Jamie]

As a lifelong comics fan and someone who still reads 15-20 books a month, I can't believe there is this much affection for The Mandarin. He's dated and vaguely racist, and really only achieves his position of prominence because Iron Man has a shallow rogues gallery. People have been trying to fix him for the past 20 years. I don't see this as something like X-Men 3, where they wasted the the greatest X-Men story ever. I mean, what is the great Mandarin story? What about the character makes him Iron Man's best villain? It's not like we're talking about Magneto, Lex Luthor, or the Joker here.

[unlurking]

As someone who stopped reading comic books about 20 years ago, I have no idea what "trying to fix him" means. Iron Man was never one of my favorites, but the Mandarin was one of the few villains I remember. Regardless of how he got his prominence, he is still a prime adversary.

Before seeing this I had very low expectations of the portrayal of the Silver Samurai coming up, now I have even lower. Silver Samurai is no Mandarin, but he's a character story I absolutely loved in the first solo volume of Wolverine. If Iron Man were my Wolverine, and they expected a Jackie Chan style performance (who I love BTW) for Silver Samurai, I'd never watch another movie in the series again.

It's not just about the character and how PC they are, it's about our memories of them in certain times of our lives. I'd hate to read some 50's and 60's sci-fi all PC'd up. Hell, next you'll want to remake Star Trek and have a sober Scotty or chivalrous Kirk. I'm worried enough about how there going to ruin Kahn!

If a character is "dated and vaguely racist", then create a new one. Or if you must update him for the times, do so. Don't rewrite him into something completely different. He may not be the Joker, but he sure is a hell of a lot better than the Penguin (or at least he was).

[Jamie]

Originally Posted by unlurking

As someone who stopped reading comic books about 20 years ago, I have no idea what "trying to fix him" means. Iron Man was never one of my favorites, but the Mandarin was one of the few villains I remember. Regardless of how he got his prominence, he is still a prime adversary.

Before seeing this I had very low expectations of the portrayal of the Silver Samurai coming up, now I have even lower. Silver Samurai is no Mandarin, but he's a character story I absolutely loved in the first solo volume of Wolverine. If Iron Man were my Wolverine, and they expected a Jackie Chan style performance (who I love BTW) for Silver Samurai, I'd never watch another movie in the series again.

It's not just about the character and how PC they are, it's about our memories of them in certain times of our lives. I'd hate to read some 50's and 60's sci-fi all PC'd up. Hell, next you'll want to remake Star Trek and have a sober Scotty or chivalrous Kirk. I'm worried enough about how there going to ruin Kahn!

If a character is "dated and vaguely racist", then create a new one. Or if you must update him for the times, do so. Don't rewrite him into something completely different. He may not be the Joker, but he sure is a hell of a lot better than the Penguin (or at least he was).

The Penguin (the comics gentleman gangster version, not the movies sewer mutant) is a much better villain than the Mandarin. Anyway, it's not about political correctness, it's about the fact that in 2013 this:


is ****ing ridiculous. And yes, lots of comics from the 60s look ridiculous now, and most if not all of the characters that are still around have been reconceptualized for modern audiences. The way you do that is you take the essential core of the character, the thing that makes them interesting in the first place, and you build off it. The problem is that the Mandarin doesn't really have the core. That's what I meant when I said people have been trying to fix him for the past 20 years, comics writers and artists have been trying to come up with a working modern take. And, as far as I'm concerned at least, none of them have really succeeded. The Mandarin's most compelling trait continues to be the fact that he's Iron Man's archenemy. Why is he Iron Man's archenemy? No reason, he just is.

And I think that's why they used him they way they did in the movie, because his status in the minds of the fans makes the twist work. I actually really liked Ben Kingsley's performance and thought that their take on the Mandarin worked pretty well as an update of the character. But when I ask myself, would I have liked the movie better if they had just done the Mandarin as another straightforward terrorist, I don't think I would have. Killian isn't a perfect villain (his motivations could have been better thought out, for one thing) but I appreciate the genuinely surprising twist and the attempt at something different.

Basically I think a lot of the disappointment comes from a place of ignorance. I don't mean this as a dig against you or even anyone in this thread in particular, but I think a lot of people who follow this stuff casually knew the Mandarin was considered Iron Man's archenemy, but didn't actually know anything about him. They're upset because they think a great character was wasted, but they don't realize how little meat was on those bones to begin with.

[Rausch]

Originally Posted by unlurking

As someone who stopped reading comic books about 20 years ago, I have no idea what "trying to fix him" means. Iron Man was never one of my favorites, but the Mandarin was one of the few villains I remember. Regardless of how he got his prominence, he is still a prime adversary.

Before seeing this I had very low expectations of the portrayal of the Silver Samurai coming up, now I have even lower. Silver Samurai is no Mandarin, but he's a character story I absolutely loved in the first solo volume of Wolverine. If Iron Man were my Wolverine, and they expected a Jackie Chan style performance (who I love BTW) for Silver Samurai, I'd never watch another movie in the series again.

It's not just about the character and how PC they are, it's about our memories of them in certain times of our lives. I'd hate to read some 50's and 60's sci-fi all PC'd up. Hell, next you'll want to remake Star Trek and have a sober Scotty or chivalrous Kirk. I'm worried enough about how there going to ruin Kahn!

If a character is "dated and vaguely racist", then create a new one. Or if you must update him for the times, do so. Don't rewrite him into something completely different. He may not be the Joker, but he sure is a hell of a lot better than the Penguin (or at least he was).

This has been the problem with Marvel since they started their "Ultimates" line years ago. Now Marvel is trying to mix Ultimates versions of characters and their "Normal" history and current versions.

I liked the original cigar smoking Nick Fury better...

[ThaVirus]

Originally Posted by Jamie

As a lifelong comics fan and someone who still reads 15-20 books a month, I can't believe there is this much affection for The Mandarin. He's dated and vaguely racist, and really only achieves his position of prominence because Iron Man has a shallow rogues gallery. People have been trying to fix him for the past 20 years. I don't see this as something like X-Men 3, where they wasted the the greatest X-Men story ever. I mean, what is the great Mandarin story? What about the character makes him Iron Man's best villain? It's not like we're talking about Magneto, Lex Luthor, or the Joker here.

I agree with this here. I was a huge fan of the movie but it had absolutely nothing to do with the Mandarin portrayal. Dude is a low-tier villain in my eyes. I could probably name 20 more prominent villains in Marvel alone off the top of my head..