I'm indifferent to it. I didn't mind it but I would have preferred to see Tony actually go against the Mandarin seeing as how that's one of Iron Man's legendary villains.

I can agree with this.

 

While not as disappointing as say "Batman stops his fight with Superman because their mothers have the same first name" It would have been awesome for a comic book esque manderan fight Iron Man.

 

Best answer given.

 

i didn't care either way, because i never really cared for the character. however, i did find it be extremely hilarious.

it'd be like if the joker was a fake. and really just a puppet of a lesser villain. hilarious. iron man 3 has the most balls of all the avenger's films, because of it.

 

No it was a let down. It was more of a let down after watch the HISHE on YouTube.

 

Guess I'm just weird but I thought it was one of the better parts of the film. We were pretty deep in superhero movies by that point so something different felt rather refreshing. All the posturing and bravado of super villains only to find out the guy was a total sham.

In a weird way it kind of shadowed the real world. We make someone up as being the ultimate big bad and if someone can just take down that one big bad then whole evil house of cards will go tumbling down.

Plus I'm just a fan of the old switch-a-roo. You think you know how the big bad because the story set it all up too conveniently for you and then boom things aren't like you thought because the real bad guy was just using someone.

 

I wasn't aware anybody liked anything from Iron Man 3.

 

Okay, the twist itself was pretty clever. The problem was, the twist completely diminished the movie and the villain was just another jealous corporate exec.

 

I didn't like the film overall and I had heard about the twist beforehand so I didn't really care. Then again they kind of made him live on that short All Hail theMandarin or whatever it was as they follow the actor Trevor in jail and he finds out the real Mandarin is after him. That short was better than all of Iron Man 3.
Just curious though why we are talking about this (again) this long after he movie was over. Just curious is all, I know there has been a thread with a poll about if we like the twist or not.

 

No. I get that the Mandarin is itself a racist caricature and wasn't expecting a 100% accurate take, but what we got was incredibly weak. Aldrich Killian was a very boring villain and a rehash of Stane and Hammer. You can't even claim that the whole commentary on stereotypical terrorists was clever or original since the first movie already did it and much better. Killian wasn't even a villain in the comics, the real villain was Maya Hansen, and even that would've been more interesting to see since we don't get many female main villains in the MCU.

Even though the show itself was weak, Iron Man: Armored Adventures did a decent job at modernizing the Mandarin and be a personal threat to Tony, even if he comes off as a Zuko rip-off at times.

 

I was fine with it.

And NEWSFLASH: you are not going to get an insulting Fu Manchu stereotype played straight in a major motion picture made in the 21st century. Disney has accidentally had problems with angry Asian focus groups in the past; they're not going to repeat that experience on purpose.

 

I hated the twist. While Trevor himself was pretty hilarious, it just wasted an iconic, and one of Iron Man's only good, villain. It really didn't help that Killian was by far the worst MCU and in general one of the most terrible villains. He was boring, his plan was overly complicated, Pearce phoned it in, and he had quite possibly the worst motivation ever (a rich guy played a mean joke on him almost a decade-and-a-half ago....just move on damn it!).

The racist arguments are bull too. For years now The Mandarin has outgrown his stereotypical foundation.

 

Cept he hasn't. They just spackled a new racist caricature over him.

 

I could care less about it. It is what it is, to me.

 

Except that they ended up repeating the purpose accidentally with Dr Strange's controversy over using a white dude for the Asian Ancient One. Thankfully, the Black Panther crew was not afraid to have a black villain.

To quote from a previous thread:

As a fan of the Mandarin, I wish he could have been done more faithfully, and with more tolerance towards ethnic superhumans.

 

Different situation. That's less racism and more "this movie gotta get released in China." And if you have a Chinese looking person (regardless of gender) playing the Ancient one the PRC will drop the ban hammer on Dr Strange. Guaranteed. They might anyway no matter what, but an Asian playing the Ancient one would be over the red line. I wouldn't be surprised if the story bends over backwards to move the monastery Strange ends up as far from Tibet as possible and still be on the Asian land mass.

 

HahahahahHAHAHAHAHAHahahahAHAHaha

What is "Chinese Imperialism"?! China has traditionally been on the receiving end of imperialism, getting stomped on and exploited by the European powers, the United States, and Japan, up until the Boxer Revolution, and then Japan again until WW2 ended, not the ones handing it out. Other than arguably Tibet, China hasn't been the slightest bit imperialist since somewhere in the 1800s. That's what Mandarin is supposed to represent?

Mandarin was a blatant Fu Manchu ripoff, himself a cartoony racist stereotype of something that never really existed in reality. As a pulp character in the 1930s, fine. I can enjoy that as a product of its time. But that shit isn't going to fly today.

Should the character have been at least half-Chinese like the comic character? Yeah, that would have been better. But other than that, you never ever were going to get something resembling the comic character in a modern day movie set in the present. No chance. Nor should you have, really.

 

It was a waste of a twist. I still consider it one of the MCU's worst moments. Right up there with Black Widow and Hulk's thing

 

On one hand it's a bummer to find out that the Mandarin wasn't all that he made out to be since he's one of Iron Man's greatest villains in the comics and other media but at the same time I think I can understand why they played it out that way. The concept of the Mandarin when he first showed up was a product of his time so in that regard I get that the MCU didn't want to offend anyone intentionally. That said the way they made Killian was still boring even if his motives were understandable. Had he been like Ras A Gual in Batman Begins I would've ben more forgiving.

Makes me wish they could've taken notes from the Mandarin that was in Iron Man Armored Adventures since I've heard that was a good version of the character.

 

As a comic fan...no. As a movie fan...yes.
The twist that Killian was the 'real' Mandarin was unnecessary however. Even more unnecessary was Marvel backpedaling and introducing the real-real Mandarin later on.