Iron Man 3 [Spoilers Everywhere]
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Brad2770
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I know this is far fetched, but I feel there could still be a way The Mandarin could still be used. Killian thought he was using an actor to give a face to his terrorism, but what if it was the other way around. Everything is there for it to be possible.
I was a little disappointed that he was handled the way he was, but it wasnt too horrible and can be salvaged.
Absolutely! If it was done as well as it was in this movie. It was an unexpected twist from a Hollywood that has been doing remake after remake because they ran out of new ideas. I'm not attached to "cannon" from comic books because they are made up cartoons.
Szlia
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To be fair, The Joker has very little in the department of super hero comics mythology retardation. He is a disfigured and insane man, so a character with much potential in any fiction. The Mandarin on the other hand is littered with it. We are talking about a guy who found an alien spaceship. A spaceship that was somehow powered by 10 rings. 10 rings that each provide its wearer with a power more retarded than the next, that offer absolutely no coherent narrative structure whatsoever and that force the writers to dance around.
I mean here is one ring (I picked the worst):
Other aspects of the character are more interesting like him being the head of a state within the state in China or him being originally on the losing side of the chinese revolution. Apparently, some comic book writers managed to write good enough stories with the character. But for a movie where you have to introduce the character and cannot capitalize on the audience being used to its wonky nature, you are forced, if you decide to use it, to rewrite it to the point of being unrecognizable. It's a catch 22, because at some point you are sorta forced to use him as he is one of the main antagonist of the hero. What they did is certainly iconoclast, but at least they went all the way with it and put the story above the mythology,
I mean here is one ring (I picked the worst):
Seriously?
Other aspects of the character are more interesting like him being the head of a state within the state in China or him being originally on the losing side of the chinese revolution. Apparently, some comic book writers managed to write good enough stories with the character. But for a movie where you have to introduce the character and cannot capitalize on the audience being used to its wonky nature, you are forced, if you decide to use it, to rewrite it to the point of being unrecognizable. It's a catch 22, because at some point you are sorta forced to use him as he is one of the main antagonist of the hero. What they did is certainly iconoclast, but at least they went all the way with it and put the story above the mythology,
What part of the story required the use of "The Mandarin"? Wouldn't EVERY SINGLE PART of the plot be entirely the same if the villains name was "The Gentleman"? Or... "The Bosnian"? Or "The insert random mysterious culture"?
But instead of using any other name... they decided to use a name that fans of the comic books would get rustled over and people that have never read the comic books would not know about... just a stupid decision. Calling him Moon Moon would have probably been better!
If they do end up trying the double fake out... it would be better than just leaving the mandarin as he is now... but at the same time it does make Iron Mans arch rival look like a chump...
Had a stupid chinese friend talk about how when they translated the name "Mandarin" into chinese they transliterated it and didnt use the characters for Mandarin because they did not want to offend China... and at no point did he make the connection that Mandarin is what westerners call the chinese language... (which in chinese is pronounced zhong wen or putonghua) and as such the characters name would not be translated to those words but rather transliterated like most other proper nouns...
McDonalds = MaiDangLao
KFC = KenDeJi
etc...
As more of an aside... mandarin comes from many western languages name for "Minister" from a chinese translation of "guanhu?" which is language of the imperial magistrates... Mandarin.
But instead of using any other name... they decided to use a name that fans of the comic books would get rustled over and people that have never read the comic books would not know about... just a stupid decision. Calling him Moon Moon would have probably been better!
If they do end up trying the double fake out... it would be better than just leaving the mandarin as he is now... but at the same time it does make Iron Mans arch rival look like a chump...
Had a stupid chinese friend talk about how when they translated the name "Mandarin" into chinese they transliterated it and didnt use the characters for Mandarin because they did not want to offend China... and at no point did he make the connection that Mandarin is what westerners call the chinese language... (which in chinese is pronounced zhong wen or putonghua) and as such the characters name would not be translated to those words but rather transliterated like most other proper nouns...
McDonalds = MaiDangLao
KFC = KenDeJi
etc...
As more of an aside... mandarin comes from many western languages name for "Minister" from a chinese translation of "guanhu?" which is language of the imperial magistrates... Mandarin.
Gavinmad
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Yeah like I said earlier, I would have been ok with the Mandarin having just been a fabrication by Killian, but when he goes HAHA IM THE MANDARIN CAUSE I GOT DRAGON TATTOOS BITCH it just took it too far.
McCheese
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I don't think anyone is suggesting that the Mandarin should have been identical to how he is in the comics (i.e "magic" rings, crazy powers). The annoyance is that before the big reveal halfway through the movie, the version of The Mandarin they had created (as this terrorist mastermind) was really, really awesome. The look, the voice, the mystery...it was all really cool and I was looking forward to seeing him go against Iron Man (perhaps by using Extremis himself, rather than having "magic" rings). Then they pulled the rug out from under us and ruined that awesome character.
I would have preferred for Extremis to be the sole "villain" in this movie, and leave The Mandarin for later and keep him as a powerful terrorist. There really wasn't any real reason to connect the two in one movie.
Amzin
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Well spoilers are out the window I guess 
As someone already point out, there is no "The Mandarin" in the Ultimates universe (it's an organization), and a lot of the Marvel movieverse seems to draw from the Ultimates, so I could see that being the case here. Frankly I find it weirder that they didn't use the Mandarin in Ultimates and just remake him into something without the silly super power alien rings.
As someone already point out, there is no "The Mandarin" in the Ultimates universe (it's an organization), and a lot of the Marvel movieverse seems to draw from the Ultimates, so I could see that being the case here. Frankly I find it weirder that they didn't use the Mandarin in Ultimates and just remake him into something without the silly super power alien rings.
Tarrant
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They didn't even need to mention The Mandarin's name in this at all and I feel the only reason they did was to pull a quick one over on those who knew the comic.
"You will never seeeee me cooooming."
No, know what I didn't see coming? Marvel raping your character.
"You will never seeeee me cooooming."
No, know what I didn't see coming? Marvel raping your character.
Muligan
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There's a simple way to deal with this ignorance. Just make Killian a copy cat. Set it up to where Killian either encountered The Mandarin earlier, Mandarin refuse to work with him, Killian throw a spoiled rich-boy fit, and create the Mandarin OR have him hear of him while looking for "a face of evil" and decide that's exactly the type of face they need. In doing this, Killian decided that IF the Mandarin ever became known to the people then everything gets pawned off on him.
If there is a future for Ironman, I don't think you toss the Mandarin by the wayside. He's considered Ironman's primary ("arch") nemesis correct?
If there is a future for Ironman, I don't think you toss the Mandarin by the wayside. He's considered Ironman's primary ("arch") nemesis correct?
Tarrant
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Correct. Which is why I as well as others are so annoyed. If it was a minor villian whatever but this is -THE- villian for Iron Man.
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I thought the movie was overall good, but far from great. My issues:
- At the end, what happened, he threw away all the things that made him Iron Man? No suits, no glowchest, no nothing. And for basically no good reason? This is baffling to me, why would he throw all of that stuff away. Doesn't he feel some obligation to remain a "protector of earth" or whatever, along with the rest of the Avengers? How will this tie in to Avengers 2 and the rest of the Marvel movies? Did I miss something here?
- Extremis. Is this how it was in the comics? Even so, it's pretty stupid. Genetic engineering can't make you heat your skin to light-saber like heat levels. The end there when Killian was slicing up Iron Man suits like a Sith... well let's just say I was having trouble suspending my disbelief with the whole thing. It was on the same level as the Resident Evil movies where a fucking virus gives people super powers and tentacles and shit.
- Not enough Iron Man at full strength fighting the bad guys. Ya, I get you need to depower him for a chunk of the movie to add dramatic tension and whatnot. At the end though, when it's time to face off and kick some ass - aka The Payoff - it was kind of a letdown to see him still dealing with technical suit difficulties and such.
There are some good points though. The dialogue is great, all of Stark's charm and snark are intact and as good as ever. I remember laughing at quite a few bits in the theater. The acting was good all around I thought. Pearce does well to avoid going over the top ham in his role, which would be easy to do, and Kingsley is good as well. I also liked the James Badge Dale character. Most of the action scenes are well done, and the effects are seamless.
Overall: 7/10. Maybe very slightly better than IM2, but nowhere near as good as IM1 and The Avengers craps all over it.
- At the end, what happened, he threw away all the things that made him Iron Man? No suits, no glowchest, no nothing. And for basically no good reason? This is baffling to me, why would he throw all of that stuff away. Doesn't he feel some obligation to remain a "protector of earth" or whatever, along with the rest of the Avengers? How will this tie in to Avengers 2 and the rest of the Marvel movies? Did I miss something here?
- Extremis. Is this how it was in the comics? Even so, it's pretty stupid. Genetic engineering can't make you heat your skin to light-saber like heat levels. The end there when Killian was slicing up Iron Man suits like a Sith... well let's just say I was having trouble suspending my disbelief with the whole thing. It was on the same level as the Resident Evil movies where a fucking virus gives people super powers and tentacles and shit.
- Not enough Iron Man at full strength fighting the bad guys. Ya, I get you need to depower him for a chunk of the movie to add dramatic tension and whatnot. At the end though, when it's time to face off and kick some ass - aka The Payoff - it was kind of a letdown to see him still dealing with technical suit difficulties and such.
There are some good points though. The dialogue is great, all of Stark's charm and snark are intact and as good as ever. I remember laughing at quite a few bits in the theater. The acting was good all around I thought. Pearce does well to avoid going over the top ham in his role, which would be easy to do, and Kingsley is good as well. I also liked the James Badge Dale character. Most of the action scenes are well done, and the effects are seamless.
Overall: 7/10. Maybe very slightly better than IM2, but nowhere near as good as IM1 and The Avengers craps all over it.
Seananigans
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Re: Blowing up all his suits, I just assumed that he was keeping his own suit? He just blew up the army of automatons (which were, as mentioned, simply an over-reaction to NYC events)?
Tarrant
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All the suits were him trying to deal with his demons. He mentions his demons at the beginning and this whole movie was him trying to beat them. Blowing up the suits was the final step in doing so.
At the end of the movie he states he's still Iron Man. I've no doubt he'll make more suits....just not 80 of them in the span of under a year in order to keep his mind from imploding from all the stress.
At the end of the movie he states he's still Iron Man. I've no doubt he'll make more suits....just not 80 of them in the span of under a year in order to keep his mind from imploding from all the stress.
It was the comic book movie you make, when you don't want to make a comic book movie.
Anyways, from what I can tell the comic books are not just one linear story (no surprise really) when it comes to super heroes. You can just re-boot the movie franchise and tell a different story this time with a real Mandarin character.
Look at the original Batman movies, they changed the actor that played Bruce Wayne a few times and it didn't seem to have that much of an adverse effect.
Anyways, from what I can tell the comic books are not just one linear story (no surprise really) when it comes to super heroes. You can just re-boot the movie franchise and tell a different story this time with a real Mandarin character.
Look at the original Batman movies, they changed the actor that played Bruce Wayne a few times and it didn't seem to have that much of an adverse effect.
Brad2770
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