Let's discuss Iron Man 3. [SPOILERS] (Page 2 of 6)

Doc Sub gets a like for he speaks the truth. The film is great fun.

So, the real problem here is not that the film has issues, but that it seems like it does. Even though the film does actually have an internal consistency, if people leave the theatre thinking that it was shoddily done, then that's a failing.

Well, I'm glad doc sub is here to tell us our opinions are wrong.

I'm going to preface this by saying I rather enjoyed this movie, but I also think it has it's flaws. It was good, and it was fun, but it's not perfect.

I left this movie really confused about what kills Extremis people and what they can regenerate from. She was either killed by electricity or the explosion. Explosions don't seem to work on the others, so it can't be that, but Tony mentions he can electrify his suit in the skydiving scene and he's smart enough to make that connection, but then he doesn't electrify any of them later, so I'm confused. Then the other guy doesn't die to the hand beams, but he does die to the Unibeam? And Guy doesn't die to the first explosion, but does to the second? I have no idea what's effective on these people.

I would like to point out that he was ok with neither of these things.

I was ok with (and totally expected) her having fire powers and super strength. I was confused as to why she suddenly had ninja skills. I was also surprised when Tony developed ninja skills when invading the mansion, but that was more easily to rationalize (but then he loses them later when they invade the dockyard, so I don't know).

The flimsiness of the suits was fucking ridiculous. They were ripping through them like paper, and I don't care how damaged it is, that kid shouldn't be able to break off a finger unless it has already been broken off. And them falling apart when they get bonked hard was fucking silly. Aluminum foil and indestructible are not your only choices here.

No it doesn't. Sure, you can electrify muscles to make them clench up, but Tony was electrifying the first three people in the chain so they wouldn't let go (without sending too much electricity through any of them) while the fourth guys is still free to flail around until he grabs somebody, then he's electrified too. Also Impossible maneuvers and G forces and all that. I was rolling my eyes, but it's a superhero flick, so it didn't really bother me. Oh, and it's a good thing they all could swim.

The speedtest didn't bother me, but I was wondering why the hell he needed more speed to log into a website and watch some video. And why Warmachine had excess to those files.

Sure, they have their own power supply, but I was wondering why they don't hook into his chest when they're on him.

Also, I was so disappointed the Mandarin was a fake, I wanted to see him being a badass and slinging some magic.

Last edited by ShadowDuelist (2013-05-04 05:53:40)

But here you sum up some of the problems with the movie. Why did the writers think so many suits were a good idea if it meant they had to cheat by completely ruining the consistency of the other movies in the process?

Also I can buy the hulk having extremely stretchy pants. Pants that survive temperatures high enough to melt steel I find harder to believe.

As for the X-Men DNA/Iron Man 3 DNA angle of finding certain things believable and others not so much, I think it is because the whole point of X-Men is genetic mutants.

Iron Man 1 and 2 are about normal people in suits. I realize that the Hulk and such are in the same universe, but The Avengers never focused on the technical aspects of The Hulk. It was more about his character and his anger.

When they in Iron Man 3 started talking about DNA upgrades and "this is your brain, see this spot which has nothing on it, we can upgrade your brain by putting stuff there" they took that crucial step too far into the realm of reality for me. If The Avengers had tried to justify The hulk by doing nonsense babble about the specifics of DNA I'd have felt the same way there.

It's the difference of saying "this is how it is, don't worry about it too much, it's not the point", and "For the sake of our plot we will betray known physics to the point where you can barely identify with the universe we are inhabiting anymore, and we will detail it in such a way where you consciously need to accept it even though having to think about it for more than 2 seconds will also make you realize how dumb this is".

Another quick example is The Dark Knight and the Joker. The Joker being able to setup incredibly fortuitous situations for himself so that he can break out of jail, etc etc, would be hard to swallow if the movie compelled you to look at it in even some detail. Instead they do the right thing and do not reveal anything about the inner workings of it. By keeping it a mystery they leave in atleast an ounce of plausibility and being able to rationalize it. If they actually detailed how the Joker was able to completely accurately predict events days in advance nothing they came up with would be a satisfying answer, because noone would be able to predict something with so many unknown factors without being able to time travel.

I will again reiterate that had I been more familiar with the comic book I may already have accepted these things. The Hulk is so well-known in popular culture that my reaction is "well of course he can do that, he is the Hulk, that's the character".

Last edited by TechNoir (2013-05-04 10:37:45)

As a sort of side note, this is a large part of why the Dark Knight didn't work for me.

Because this movie, the third in a trilogy (there have been 3 iron man movies about his origin story), turns around and says "you know Thor? Weaker than a nine year old child".

The movie operates as if it doesn't exist in the same universe we've experienced to this point, even though it clearly does. They reference incidents, and keep the wacky robots, but trash every other consistent thing we know about the character.

And as someone who doesn't read the comics, it basically made the character - which I had really liked to this point - less. Apparently iron man is a guy with remote control suits that do the fighting for him. Not that interested in seeing that movie - that's called robot wars.

Iron man is now a super hero who's fucking house does the tough stuff, while he sits around on his arse. Tony is nothing more than a manager.

Last edited by Dave (2013-05-04 18:05:21)

No, the finale showed us Jarvis the house was the hero, the Pepper. Tony was simply meat.

Iron Man 3 was pretty much all shite. Not as much shite as Iron Man 2 - but fairly close. Nonsensical plot, unrealistic villains.... where do I even start? The level of ridiculousness was through the roof from frame #1.

The only bits that were even remotely cool was Pepper donning the suit, and Pepper kicking ass at the end (tho I hated Guy Piercings fire deamon henchmen crap guys), plus the Mandarin fakeout (love that).

Soooo much stuff made Noooo sense. What's this stuff about Tony having Anxiety attacks... that went exactly NOWHERE!?

Holy hell.

Oblivion was the better movie BY FAR.

/Z

True, thats why they can never turn the engine off on tanks. Without it running, you can pull the barrels off with your hands.

Oh the 1000-suits at the end was just another layer of shite. The movie (and trailer) made this BIG DEAL out of all his suits being blown up - the only suit he had left was that mark 42 thing he was dragging across the snow... THAT WAS THE POINT.

Then, suddnly, totally out-of-the-blue and deus-ex-machina, he SUDDENLY had 1024 majikally autonomous suits, that he still could majikally jump into? Bollox.  [Not to mention the total inconsistency between the suits being driven by his ARC reactor when *he* wears them, but magically not when other people (or nothing) is wearing them]

Shite.

/Z

His six original suits were blown up, but the movie clearly shows that he has a large basement full of armors secure underground. It isn't so unbelievable that he made arc reactors for each of the suits, either, especially considering he was trying to build suits that could run without him in them.