Marvel Cinematic Universe Part II

[GenericUsername]

I liked that it dealt with PTSD. Was not a fan of how they did extremis or having Tony destroy the suits. It'd have meant more if the suits stayed destroyed or something. It just didn't go along with what he ended up doing right after that.

[John Venus]

Yeah, but again it didn't seem like the Netflix shows had the license to be that overt with the connection. That and it was all the more palpable that we got to see the Battle of New York from Kate's POV and it actually looked like it did.

Not every shortcoming is a result of restrictions or censorship. Maybe the creatives behind Hawkeye simply had better ideas on how to depict this kind of world.

I've been rewatching the MCU recently and I have to say that Iron Man 3 is one of my favorite movies so far. I guess I didn't really feel it when I first watched it (I was like 17 back then) but seeing it with fresh eyes has changed my total perception of it. Easily the most political Marvel movie (shocking based on how often MCU movies avoid those topics) and the Mandarin twist is frankly genius in how it recontextualizes the threat from Yellow Peril to modern terror and displays it as ultimately an effect and element of the military industrial complex. Straight up masterful. Shane Black having freedom to do whatever tf he wanted made something really special

Do you think the trailers teasing Ben Kingsley as an awesome supervillain played a part in the initial backlash and the actual film holds up better when you don't know how it was marketed?

[Frontier]

I liked that it dealt with PTSD. Was not a fan of how they did extremis or having Tony destroy the suits. It'd have meant more if the suits stayed destroyed or something. It just didn't go along with what he ended up doing right after that.

And a lot of the suits ended up getting wasted in one-hit kills by the Extremis soldiers.

I was also bummed we never actually got to see Tony use Extremis or make an Extremis armor. Instead he got stuck with probably his weakest armor in the whole franchise.

Not every shortcoming is a result of restrictions or censorship. Maybe the creatives behind Hawkeye simply had better ideas on how to depict this kind of world.

They also had more freedom to tie-in to the wider MCU than it seems like the Netflix shows had, especially with Feige's backing versus, well, Loeb.

[GenericUsername]

How I wish the MCU was in a spot then where they could have followed up IM3 with Armor Wars or something.

[The Kid]

I think IM3 would've been better if they'd dropped the Mandarin twist and done something more true to AIM than what we actually got, and used Maya Hansen better.

I do think Maya should have been the villain instead of Killian and I believe that was the original plan before Ike cancelled that because he said female villains don’t sell toys (thankfully he’s gone) but I disagree about the Mandarin twist. That was really smart writing and really important to the themes of the movie and it’s commentary on the corporate/military intertwining when it comes to terror threats and how our country and culture respond to them. Mandarin’s origins in the comics just make it even better when you remember he was pretty much a Yellow Peril stereotype with Cold War fears. The movie modernized that to a Middle Eastern peril and used it as great commentary on how these threats are given life by the military industrial complex to wage and prepare for constant war. Basically a reflection on who Tony Stark used to be in the MCU

IMO the Mandarin twist is a necessity in that movie and the story Black was trying to tell

[Ascended]

Amazed at the positive IM3 talk. But I agree, that film wasn't nearly as bad as some folk made it out to be. It's not quite on my list of favorites, but it's close. I always thought the Mandarin twist was pure brilliance, and that's a thing that has aged really well.

Didn't totally care for their take on Extremis, but Tony got to (something like) that armor eventually. And we're getting something like Armor Wars in the next year or two, albeit with Rhodey. Doesn't make IM3 itself any better but things leveled out in the end.

Watched Hawkeye episode two and this might be end up being my favorite D+ show yet. LARP. My god. Really digging the vibe of the show and I love that it's relatively small scale. Shame we haven't seen any origin flashbacks, I'm still really hoping we get some insight into Clint's past. But this show feels refreshing and different from the rest of the MCU stuff lately.

[Castle]

I liked that it dealt with PTSD. Was not a fan of how they did extremis or having Tony destroy the suits. It'd have meant more if the suits stayed destroyed or something. It just didn't go along with what he ended up doing right after that.

If recall serves about Iron Man 3 and even 2, the major criticism was that the movie failed to really tackle its human themes like PTSD and alcoholism, the films were criticised of treating them as surface level, which back was an earlier point to MCU flaw in story telling of always trying to keep things light hearted at any cost.

the talk of iron man 3 here reminded me of another comic book movie Batman Begins, that movie had some and if not the best showcase of PTSD in a film and this is because unlike MCU that clearly has limits in story, Nolan is not afraid to go any where without worrying if the film will still be light hearted or not.

Tony's PTSD is almost non existence to Bruce Wayne in that film, a shame since Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne are roughly one and the same character.

[Castle]

]Amazed at the positive IM3 talk. But I agree, that film wasn't nearly as bad [/B]as some folk made it out to be. It's not quite on my list of favorites, but it's close. I always thought the Mandarin twist was pure brilliance, and that's a thing that has aged really well.

Since what qualify as good and bad films has drastically changed in the last few years, the positive talk here is not all that surprising as this is an MCU thread, however the criticism you see in the wider range of discussion about the film is deserved.

With iron man 3 as it was the third movie and of Tony personal arc away from Avengers, they should have just gone forward with the first story but Marvel or Disney which ever one canned it.

https://comicbook.com/movies/news/no...an-3-director/

Additionally it may be safe to say that the people who called the movie ''bad'' was likely older comic book fans demographic, which lets be honest is not Disney most important demographic when they map out the plot lines of marvel films.

[GenericUsername]

If recall serves about Iron Man 3 and even 2, the major criticism was that the movie failed to really tackle its human themes like PTSD and alcoholism, the films were criticised of treating them as surface level, which back was an earlier point to MCU flaw in story telling of always trying to keep things light hearted at any cost.

the talk of iron man 3 here reminded me of another comic book movie Batman Begins, that movie had some and if not the best showcase of PTSD in a film and this is because unlike MCU that clearly has limits in story, Nolan is not afraid to go any where without worrying if the film will still be light hearted or not.

Tony's PTSD is almost non existence to Bruce Wayne in that film, a shame since Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne are roughly one and the same character.

I can definitely see that and understand it. It can definitely be done better.

[Frontier]

I do think Maya should have been the villain instead of Killian and I believe that was the original plan before Ike cancelled that because he said female villains don’t sell toys (thankfully he’s gone) but I disagree about the Mandarin twist. That was really smart writing and really important to the themes of the movie and it’s commentary on the corporate/military intertwining when it comes to terror threats and how our country and culture respond to them. Mandarin’s origins in the comics just make it even better when you remember he was pretty much a Yellow Peril stereotype with Cold War fears. The movie modernized that to a Middle Eastern peril and used it as great commentary on how these threats are given life by the military industrial complex to wage and prepare for constant war. Basically a reflection on who Tony Stark used to be in the MCU

IMO the Mandarin twist is a necessity in that movie and the story Black was trying to tell

I think the twist would have sold better if Killian had been more memorable and they hadn't wasted AIM.

I don't think it was a necessity but I grew up with a more modernized version of The Mandarin before I even saw the movie so I viewed him kind of differently.

Amazed at the positive IM3 talk. But I agree, that film wasn't nearly as bad as some folk made it out to be. It's not quite on my list of favorites, but it's close. I always thought the Mandarin twist was pure brilliance, and that's a thing that has aged really well.

Didn't totally care for their take on Extremis, but Tony got to (something like) that armor eventually. And we're getting something like Armor Wars in the next year or two, albeit with Rhodey. Doesn't make IM3 itself any better but things leveled out in the end.

Watched Hawkeye episode two and this might be end up being my favorite D+ show yet. LARP. My god. Really digging the vibe of the show and I love that it's relatively small scale. Shame we haven't seen any origin flashbacks, I'm still really hoping we get some insight into Clint's past. But this show feels refreshing and different from the rest of the MCU stuff lately.

Personally I would've loved Tony to do Armor Wars but at this point it seems like the MCU is mining classic storylines for the supporting heroes to get the spotlight, which I guess works.

[John Venus]

The Mandarin twist would have landed if the 'real' villain Guy Pearce's character had been more charismatic and had a better motivation besides being abandoned on a rooftop one night. Guy just doesn't have the same screen presence as Ben Kingsley. I get what the movie was trying to say but I think they could have done it better.

The Air Force rescue was also much better than the big finale of the movie with the Iron Legion. With the latter, I didn't like the Extremis soldiers all having the same abilities and the Iron suits were getting taken apart like paper mache. Thankfully subsequent movies did a better job with the armors. I think they went too big and too fast for this one because they didn't know at the time whether RD Jr would sign on to do more. IM3 was technically the last film he was contracted to do but afterwards he signed up to do more.

That said, I think IM3 (along with Civil War and the first Iron Man) are among RD Jr's top performances as the Tony Stark/Iron Man. Those PTSD and anxiety attack scenes felt very real and visceral. Plus Tony McGyver'ing his way into the mansion was pretty cool too.

[The Kid]

I think the twist would have sold better if Killian had been more memorable and they hadn't wasted AIM.

I don't think it was a necessity but I grew up with a more modernized version of The Mandarin before I even saw the movie so I viewed him kind of differently.

IMO I think the most important thing was the twist itself although yea Killian being better would have been nice. It's why I still think the first Iron Man is a better movie. I think the biggest thing is taking a character that was written as a racist Yellow Peril stereotype in the context of cold tensions with China and contextualizing him into modern geopolitics and basically reinterpreting his original comic counterpart and how said imagery is used to push the concept of 'forever war' except now Middle Eastern instead of Chinese as the 'peril' has changed. Sure you could just do a version of comic Mandarin but that would just be a standard MCU comic book movie and nowhere near as interesting as what we got. In general, I just love there was an MCU movie that tried these things. The Iron Man movies overall were good in this regard (IM and IM2 are both about the military industrial complex but to different levels of success as the first is a great movie and the second is mediocre) but IM3 is one where I found the message itself to be genuinely well written and well executed

[Frontier]

IMO I think the most important thing was the twist itself although yea Killian being better would have been nice. It's why I still think the first Iron Man is a better movie. I think the biggest thing is taking a character that was written as a racist Yellow Peril stereotype in the context of cold tensions with China and contextualizing him into modern geopolitics and basically reinterpreting his original comic counterpart and how said imagery is used to push the concept of 'forever war' except now Middle Eastern instead of Chinese as the 'peril' has changed. Sure you could just do a version of comic Mandarin but that would just be a standard MCU comic book movie and nowhere near as interesting as what we got. In general, I just love there was an MCU movie that tried these things. The Iron Man movies overall were good in this regard (IM and IM2 are both about the military industrial complex but to different levels of success as the first is a great movie and the second is mediocre) but IM3 is one where I found the message itself to be genuinely well written and well executed

I guess those themes just didn't really interest me that much, but I also had far different expectations for the Mandarin going into it.

[inisideguy]

I don't know if anyone noticed. But during the black market auction in Hawkeye, the first item auctioned off was a triceratops head. Not a skull. A head. Could this be a shout out to the Savage Land?

[The Kid]

I guess those themes just didn't really interest me that much, but I also had far different expectations for the Mandarin going into it.

It def probably differs per person but the most interesting thing about Tony is his corporate and pro-war background. IIRC Stan Lee created him because he wanted to see if he could make someone like that likable. In that regard, I really like how the Iron Man movies all attempted to deal with that and IM3 in particular did so by showing how the industry Tony used to be part of using 'the Mandarin' as their cover to push for the same instability that Tony himself used to contribute to. Tony being a weapons manufacturer in the past is such a rich backstory ripe for great exploration for how these industries connect to the our country's politics. IMO it's a much better story than a standard hero fights bad guy and wins story. It's like Winter Soldier to me. Great movie (one of the best MCU movies) but very toothless and has no interest in exploring any of the questions it quickly brings up in the beginning since it becomes an action hero vs. Nazi movie with all political implications sidestepped and ignored once the Hydra reveal happens