As of an hour ago Shane Black is directing Doc Savage, another comic book movie, so ya....
Though I guess at least it isn't a sequel to anything.
Really wish he'd make another R-rated action movie though.

Better than nothing, yes, but he shot that at his house with some friends. 

True, his clout helped it get limited distribution - but what I'm talking about is arm-twisting the studios to put some decent (not exorbitant) money into smaller, more personal projects in between the tentpoles, the way Soderbergh did.  Or the way Nolan alternated Batman flicks with harder-to-sell-but-much-more-interesting projects like Prestige and Inception.

I'm happy to accept more Avengers movies if it means we can also look forward to more interesting, offbeat releases a la Serenity or Cabin in the Woods.

But the whole point of the movie is that he's Iron Man whether or not he wears the suit! The movie was constructed to keep him out of the suit for as much time as possible, so that we understand what makes Tony Stark so special in the first place. He doesn't need the suit. The suit needs him.

Well I look forward to Iron Man 4: Noth'n but Tony Snark. That'll take the franchise in a new ballsy direction.

Last edited by avatar (2013-05-08 01:16:26)

I wonder if all this Iron Man 3 discussion will prompt a commentary for a film with Shane Black. Here's my recommendation:

But the very end of the film suggests that this is exactly the case. That's the symbolism of him getting the arc reactor removed from his chest while saying "I am Iron Man." That's why he was jumping in and out of suits during the finale. The suits aren't the superheroes, they're just tools that Tony Stark, the real superhero, uses to fight the bad guys.

Now, nothing you've just said is wrong, per se. But ultimately it's Tony's resourcefulness that allows him to get to the bad guy, beat him, and save the day.

Blakes 7 had a similar problem (old British 1970s SF). The Liberator ship they had was too powerful. It could outrun, outgun any Federation ship, so the writers had to concoct situations to make them vulnerable.

But that's a false resolution. We know that the suit is what's important, it's shown time and time again. Without a suit, there is *no iron man*, Tony turning up in a sports car to fight aliens achieves nothing.

The movie doesn't understand what the core of the character is about. This is a big part of my frustration.

His resourcefulness couldn't even help him escape from some cable ties. The suit literally flies in to the rescue like a D.E.M. not once but several times. But the movie is half-hearted here - most of the time it's a partially functioning suit, a prototype, a glove only, not fully charged, the flight power not working (like the Millennium Falcon's hyperdrive malfunctioning).

I've been trying to get this crowd to do Predator and/or Lethal Weapon since the day we started this monkeyfarm.

Along with Die Hard, that's the damn Holy Trinity of '80's action and still - no luck.  Kids today.  Meh.

Doc Savage is pulp, not comic book, although there have been some comics based on the character. We've yet to get Savage in a good movie, but I don't know if that's possible anymore. Those old characters often don't update well, or seem palatable to modern viewers if you leave them as period pieces. You're almost going to run into the same problem they had with John Carter, as nobody knows the stories anymore...

Put it like this. What would an Iron Man movie without any suits be? What would Tony do? How would he earn the title of hero?

As far as I can see, he'd either build other weapons instead of suits, or help with intelligence in a sort of "central command" role. I don't think anyone would come out of a movie like that and say "that was an Iron Man movie". It was a movie about a guy who knows technology. Tony would be a slightly more hands-on, verbose and articulate version of Bruce Wayne. Not saying it would be bad, but it would not be Iron Man.

Last edited by TechNoir (2013-05-08 08:38:07)