"Iron Man 3" Review and Discussion Thread (spoilers)

[Agent Richard07]

But I'm really glad they didn't go with Tony being able to call the armor from his own bones...

Wow, that's weird.

"The Undersheath to the Iron Man suit components was super-compressed and stored in the hollows of Stark’s bones. The sheath material exited through skeletal pores and slid between all cells to self-assemble a new “skin” around him. This skin provides a complete interface to the Iron Man suit components and can perform numerous other functions. (The process in reverse withdrew the Undersheath back into these specially modified areas of Tony Stark’s bone marrow tissue.)"

It does seem "out there", but I can see it working in live action like the quicksilver from The Invisible Man series.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vcedco13Mb8[/yt]

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

The whole Palladium-killing-me thing thus makes little sense in IM2. If the core was poisonous, why not go back to carrying a car battery around? I suppose it would keep him from superheroing around, but when it's that or death, what would anyone choose?

Mark

 

[Captain Craig]

Fair enough. Though, I wonder why Tony didn't just hire more people to speed up the wreckage-clearing. He obviously had access to funds.

I was under the impression he was going for "they believe me to be dead" element of surprise. Remember the Chattanooga news van guy? So all that was likely being handled by Pepper, who knew he was alive but wouldn't have known it'd be nice to speed up the cleaning around he garage area.

 

[The Wormhole]

Here's a nitpick I thought up. When Tony gets his mojo back after the anxiety attack in the car that his kid friend help him through and then decides to hit the local hardware store to get all the stuff he needs to figure things out, how the hell does he pay for the stuff? Since he left his home in a hurry after it was, you know, attacked and destroyed by bad guys, I doubt he had any money or credit cards on him. But even assuming he did, I doubt even Tony Stark carries that much cash on himself at any given time, and wouldn't his credit cards be locked out if he was presumed dead?

 

[Dream]

Yikes! Guys, we dodge a bullet!

'Iron Man 3' cut Pepper Potts sex tape scene, says Shane Black

"In the second draft, Pepper slept with Killian because he was so pheromonally enhanced with Extremis that she couldn't resist him," Black told Empire.

 

[Dream]

Marvel Cliffhanger: Will there be an IM4 with RDJ?

 

[Agent Richard07]

Here's a nitpick I thought up. When Tony gets his mojo back after the anxiety attack in the car that his kid friend help him through and then decides to hit the local hardware store to get all the stuff he needs to figure things out, how the hell does he pay for the stuff? Since he left his home in a hurry after it was, you know, attacked and destroyed by bad guys, I doubt he had any money or credit cards on him. But even assuming he did, I doubt even Tony Stark carries that much cash on himself at any given time, and wouldn't his credit cards be locked out if he was presumed dead?

I figured that he did have cards and that no one got around to freezing his accounts yet.

Yikes! Guys, we dodge a bullet!

'Iron Man 3' cut Pepper Potts sex tape scene, says Shane Black

"In the second draft, Pepper slept with Killian because he was so pheromonally enhanced with Extremis that she couldn't resist him," Black told Empire.

That might have been fun.

 

[Snaploud]

Fair enough. Though, I wonder why Tony didn't just hire more people to speed up the wreckage-clearing. He obviously had access to funds.

I was under the impression he was going for "they believe me to be dead" element of surprise. Remember the Chattanooga news van guy? So all that was likely being handled by Pepper, who knew he was alive but wouldn't have known it'd be nice to speed up the cleaning around he garage area.

He seemed fine with gaining access to his monetary funds* and contacting Pepper. In fact, he could have just asked Pepper to prioritize the wreckage-clearing project.

*assuming he didn't go around stealing money from the kid's neighbors...

 

[davejames]

Here's a nitpick I thought up. When Tony gets his mojo back after the anxiety attack in the car that his kid friend help him through and then decides to hit the local hardware store to get all the stuff he needs to figure things out, how the hell does he pay for the stuff? Since he left his home in a hurry after it was, you know, attacked and destroyed by bad guys, I doubt he had any money or credit cards on him. But even assuming he did, I doubt even Tony Stark carries that much cash on himself at any given time, and wouldn't his credit cards be locked out if he was presumed dead?

Speaking of which... I'm not sure I really bought the whole "anxiety attack" idea either. Yeah I suppose if one of us suddenly found himself fighting aliens and flying into strange wormholes in the sky, they'd be pretty freaked out for a while.

But Tony had already been exposed to some pretty crazy and fantastic things by that point (a God of Thunder, a giant green rage monster, the crazy ass villains he already fought), so the events of that final Avengers battle don't seem like they would have been THAT overwhelming for him.

 

[The Old Mixer]

^He did have a near-death experience.

 

[Captain Craig]

Fair enough. Though, I wonder why Tony didn't just hire more people to speed up the wreckage-clearing. He obviously had access to funds.

I was under the impression he was going for "they believe me to be dead" element of surprise. Remember the Chattanooga news van guy? So all that was likely being handled by Pepper, who knew he was alive but wouldn't have known it'd be nice to speed up the cleaning around he garage area.

He seemed fine with gaining access to his monetary funds* and contacting Pepper. In fact, he could have just asked Pepper to prioritize the wreckage-clearing project.

*assuming he didn't go around stealing money from the kid's neighbors...

For all we know he did. When Jarvis updates him, he likely told Jarvis to do just that even though there is no scene where Tony says, "FYI Jarvis after I spoke to Pepper about rushing the rubble clearing update me when the bay doors are clear".

There is some serious over thinking going on here. Pepper knew he was alive, funds not frozen per her. We don't need a scene spelling that out, but some of you seem to be insisting we did.

We didn't see Batman spending time painting his giant fuel bat on the bridge but it happened. Let go a little and ride the coaster guys.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

The whole Palladium-killing-me thing thus makes little sense in IM2. If the core was poisonous, why not go back to carrying a car battery around?

The only way the subplot makes no sense is if you forget about Tony Stark's hubris. I think it's made pretty clear that he ignores the problem, and that, when forced to acknowledge it, he wants to solve it himself using technology. Yes, I guess he'd rather die than carry a car battery around.

 

[Dream]

IM2 becomes a much better movie when you realize that Vanko and Hammer were never a threat. A healthy Tony wouldn't have had any problems with them. Vanko and Hammer was always a distraction.

The huge threat of the movie was actually Tony's personal issues. The way he was handling his possible death was screwing up his friendship with Rhodey, and his romance with Pepper. He needed to stop being a jerk and solve the problem that was plaguing him before becoming Iron Man and kicking ass once again.

Yes, it is still the weakest movie in the trilogy. But I'm not as harsh on it anymore now that I look at it like that.

 

[The Wormhole]

^^I always viewed Iron Man 2 as more of a character piece myself anyway. That didn't bother me. What got to me was that a decent chunk of the movie was spent providing set-up for The Avengers. Yeah, I know that's because of studio pressure, but that doesn't mean I have to be lenient on it because of that.

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

I'm not sure bout the hubris thing. Tony's whole motivation in the first movie is to survive after being captured. The arc reactor replaced the car battery AND powered the first suit, while also allowing him to work on said suit without having to lug it around. I'm wondering if we can reconcile the palladium poissoning as something he HAD to do to counteract something ELSE that the reactor had been doing to him, or that he had become dependent on the reactor to serve as a really powerful pacemaker or something (as has happened in the comics). I've no problem watching the movie as a character piece, but the show is tough to watch knowing that the arc reactor, if it was indeed killing him, should NOT have been a problem to remove or replace with something else.

Regarding the armor thing, I always figured that Tony can't do anything armored up without JARVIS in some capacity, and the only active version of the AI was in the Mark 42 after the rest of the house was destroyed. We see in the first movie that JARVIS needs to be uploaded into a new armor, so it's reasonable to assume that the other suits are useless without at least being activated by the AI or Tony himself.

With the house and its version of JARVIS gone, Tony wouldn't be able to do squat with any armor until he fixed the AI to the point that it could remote to the wine cellar, upload itself into the armor stored there (or simply activate them), and call in the cavalry. Until that point, he was pretty much on his own and had to get to Florida pronto and incognito anyway. Isn't that pretty much what happened?

And as for funding, Batman had a credit card which I presume was untraceable, so...

Mark

 

[CaptainWacky]

Or he just stole money from the kid's house.

 

[LaxScrutiny]

And as for funding, Batman had a credit card which I presume was untraceable, so...

Batman is constantly portrayed as a person who has need and use for an untracable credit card. Tony Stark hasn't been.

That doesn't mean it is implausible, but it still makes the whole "I'm going to keep the world thinking I'm dead" and subsequent isolation completely vague. If he had a credit card, he could have bought higher tech power supplies and repowered the armour that much sooner.

The desired storyline needed him cut off from his usual resources, otherwise he just has unlimited suits of armour. But it doesn't take the dare and put him back in the equivalent of a cave. So I found myself confused as to just exactly what his situation was.

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

Fair enough. In that case, he could easily have been ripping off the kid's mom via bank hacking/transfer, stolen credit cards, pawned jewelry, etc. Doing so would just slow down the story though. Suffice it to say that Tony was doing that part of the story in analog mode and despite his background he could make it work. Maybe a bit of a stretch for him, but I think we'd rather watch him go all A-team on a box of parts from the local Radio Shack, than rooting through a single mom's drawers for hidden cash.

Mark

 

[The Old Mixer]

Regarding Tony's motivations in IM2, a key piece is the whole idea that the movie set up of Iron Man being an important strategic asset. I think the angle was overplayed (IM isn't on Doc Manhattan's scale; and what's with "stabilizing East/West relations" in 2010?), but that's where the filmmakers were coming from. Tony had a responsibility to be Iron Man, not a reclusive playboy plugged into a car battery...a responsibility that Rhodey taking the spare armor must have relieved somewhat, when all was said and done. That was also what Vanko's plan was about...he wasn't threatening Tony himself, he was threatening Iron Man's image. It was about the genie that Stark had let out of the bottle, the beginnings of a new arms race, and Tony trying to stay in control of the situation.

Plus there's the alcoholism to factor in...the guy is prone to self-destructive behavior. What to choose...playing it safe plugged into a car battery, or being one of the most powerful figures on the planet...?

 

[throwback]

The wealthy have offshore accounts. I heard that some of these accounts are listed with pseudonyms. Isn't it possible that Stark could have gotten access to one of those funds, and the villains, not knowing his finances, wouldn't be the wiser about his movements?

I watched the ending credits, and I saw a new scene. The oil executive was seen getting up from the ground. I wonder if the oil executive was keyed into the plan, and was one of the private funders.