Well, since he implied that there's a right or wrong way to do the Mandarin, I'd assume he hadn't. Maybe he only read Fraction's version. There were a few people who got into that post-movie, and he writes him the Fraction way.

 

I personally believe you can't really say Iron Man is it's own self-contained trilogy. If you were to watch only Iron Man, Iron Man 2, and Iron Man 3 then there would be a serious disconnect between the first 2 and 3. Avengers has a big part in Tony's character development and Iron Man 3 relies too much on Avengers to just simply ignore that.

Re-watching it again yesterday, ignoring any of the "different from the comics" stuff, the twist wasn't any good because there was a real sense of threat from the Mandarin. The videos with him were intense and threatening. After that there was no feeling of threat. It was all just gone. President gets kidnapped? "Eh." Big fight? "Cool to see but eh." Pepper falling? "Eh. She's going to survive because she was injected with Extremis." Fight between "Mandarin" and Tony. "Eh."

Killian just didn't seem all that threatening after what was hinted at earlier in the movie with the videos. And I get the twist being a metaphor for America and fear. It just seemed to flop after that reveal.

And Mandarin magical rings is a cop-out but fire-breathing Killian isn't wonky? Haha. Come on. You have to admit that was wonky.

 

I can't realistically see how Mandarin would have been portrayed without looking stupid.

"A green skinned Mongolian with fancy rings who has vaguely magical powers that aren't necessarily easily describable."


I don't blame them for taking the route they did. But sure, in a perfect world, I would have liked to see a real time Mandarin go toe to toe with Tony.

 

Yes it was for the former and is definitely for the latter.

 

It would have been an awesome twist in any other movie, or if the real Mandarin was an even better villain character. Since neither was the case...It was a huge waste of potential. I don't even read the Iron Man comics or now the character all that well, I just know that I was loving the movie version until it was completely undone.

 

What potential?

What were his motivations? Seriously, can anyone tell me that? What were the politics, or religious viewpoint that made him want to take credit for those explosions?

There were none. Everything he says is intentionally vague and anti-American. Both in universe and in real life. In universe, it was to not alienate anyone from any aspect of the fear, and in real life, it was to foreshadow his true nature.

And I disagree. We had three (semi) recent films featuring a film icon being broken down by a terrorist and having to come back from it- TDKR, Skyfall, and Star Trek Into Darkness. We don't need to over do it.

Besides all of that, a terrorist was the obvious way to go. To Nolanize the Mandarin. And I love Nolan, but I'm genuinely happy we got some outside of the box thinking in IM3.

And to protect all of my points, I would like to remind everyone that Shane Black is utterly infallible. Lethal Weapon 1 and 2, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and that awesome early draft of Last Action Hero.

 

That part was a joke.

 

The movie was fun, and the twist sort of plays in to what a Mandarin was in ancient China. the man behind the man. that and Trevor was funny as hell.

okay i'll admit that would have been cooler.

 

Meh, didn't bother me at all. It was actually pretty clever. It's not often superhero blockbusters shock me like that.

I just wish Killian wasn't such a douche. I think his character would have been better portrayed by someone like Leonardo DiCaprio or Ryan Gosling. Oh and he should have never had the lame dragon tattoo.

 

I know that the events of Avengers was a big part of Tony's character in this movie, but to have another magical villain (most likely pertaining to Asgard) would have made this movie "Avengers 2" more than "Iron Man 3" by bridging the Thor and Iron Man franchises in one movie. While Avengers instigated the problem Tony had to overcome in this movie, there was no use of any other members of the team or any Avengers villains. That's because each franchise has their own unique world, and if magic was introduced at the very end of Iron Man's franchise, it would have felt like the movie didn't correlate with its predecessors.

 

I didn't like Iron Man 3 at all, but the Mandarin twist wasn't the reason why. It sure didn't help though.

1) It's not magic. It's alien tech. Thor's or the bad Avengers aliens, either works.

2) It totally fits Iron Man's world that people can heat themselves up to 3000 degrees celsius and recover whole limbs in mere seconds with the justification that it was nanites (or something) adapted from a plant (or something). Nanomachines might as well be called magic. That's how they 'explained' all the shit in Metal Gear.

A dude in a nice suit who happens to have rings that shoot lasers? Or just Ben Kingsley who happens to have rings that shoot lasers. Or even Guy Pearce with rings that shoot lasers. Hell, holy shit, make Iron Man the Mandarin. Give him a suit that can shoot 10 different lasers from his fingers. Or instead of his repulsion glove that he makes half way through, have him MacGuyver up some rings from the busted Mk. 42 to shoot lasers from and then he disguises himself as a foreign man as he makes his way to the movie's finale.

D-don't get the wrong idea! I-it's not like I care about the Mandarin or anything!​

 

1) It actually is magic. Marvel magic IS advanced science.

2) No, they weren't nanites, and it wasn't from a plant. I'm getting mixed vibes from you. You knew the rings were alien tech, but you didn't know what Extremis was. I'm honestly unsure if you've actually read the comics or are like a bunch of people on the internet who pretend they have.

 

So you're agreeing it is tech?

I didn't say anything about the comics. I saw the movie once and I'm recalling what I remember. In the movie, the fire people gained their abilities from a virus designed to help war vets regrow limbs and get over trauma (or something) that was tested on a plant some years ago (I remember because Rebecca Hall is in that scene and dat face) and then that virus was adapted to humans (shown by Guy Pearce using holograms in another scene, something to do with brains?).

 

Yes, but I'm disagreeing with the notion that there's a distinction.

Well, it's not really a virus. It's more of a drug. But by describing it as a tiny robot that they got out of a plant, you were intentionally trying to make it sound stupid.

 

Okay, you make the argument that the Extremis virus was stupid, but somehow you find rings that shoot lasers to be the greatest replacement? Do you even know how stupid that would be against 40 Iron Man armors? You have Iron Monger, Vanko and the Hammer drones, and then a guy with rings that shoot lasers...

See the difference?

 

Most of them don't even shoot lasers, each one of them does their own crazy thing, like ice powers or mind control.

 

The "Mandarin twist" was cinematically weak. A cheap laugh, but weak.

 

They rather successfully removed all the old 'yellow peril' crap from the character by making him an amalgamation of various terrorists and revolutionary villains. In no way did this process discount the idea that this man found the Makluan Rings in his days of freelance terrorism and used them to elevate himself to a position of power within such a group and being able to reach out to Killian and dangle the respect and attention he desires in front of him in exchange for his ideas and infrastructure.

Plus it would been a great battle royale with Killian and the Mandarin vs. Iron Man and Pepper.

 

I think it ruined the impact of the movie. Mandarin was built up, and the whole gag ruined it. I mean, I love that design. He looked like a no-nonsense mastermind, but was actually a stupid joke. And the real Mandarin was some fire guy? What?

Shame. I wanted to see Osama Ben Kingsley wreck some stuff up.