Mister Fandango
Fleet Captain
The Mandarin disagrees.
"Iron Man 3" Review and Discussion Thread (spoilers)
- Thread starter Dream
- Start date
That figure may be a bit off.
LOL, I meant 40 years!
Fu Manchu with magic rings is derivative of undistinguished pulp writing, and worse, ignores all the ugly racial implications that could torpedo the movie's entertainment value. The first Iron Man movie was alert, focused on blowback and taking responsibility and Stark's fellow prisoner. The third movie was perfunctory enough. Incorporating the comic book Mandarin would have just been dickish.
PS Yes, there is distinguished pulp. Edgar Rice Burroughs, A. Merrit, Max Brand/Frederick Faust, Jim Thompson. Sax Rohmer isn't even very much compared to M.P. Shiel!
You had it write the first time, if not underestimating the age of the franchise. Any cursory look at art and literature from the medieval period shows Iron Man in full armor.
Mister Fandango
Fleet Captain
Minor changes for modern sensibilities would have been fine. What we got in the movie was nothing even remotely close to the Mandarin. He didn't have to be "Fu Manchu," but at least being real would have been nice. Ditto for having the rings. And, you know, just being a real, challenging, and interesting villain. Not a washed-up actor using a stupid voice. (Which, somehow, isn't insulting to the Middle East anywhere as badly as a Fu Manchu type would have been to China. I guess making fun of their stereotypes is okay since they're currently America's "enemy.")
It'd be like Batman facing the Joker... only to find out that the Joker is just a sticker on the back of some redneck's pick-up. Or Superman pited against Lex Luthor... who turns out to be nothing more than the letters that were on some chick's Scrabble slate.
But nevermind any of that. Jarvis also disagrees. So does the Extremis project. Neither of which needed -- in any way, shape or form -- to be changed for "movie going audiences." Yet changed they were. Even more absurdly, no one in the movie universe has shown even a mild interest in the super-advanced AI that is Jarvis. Which in insane considering his capabilities. Even the AI in the mechanical arm would be worth risking everything to get.
(Also, do yourself a favor and read back over what this subtopic is about before ranting on some more.)
But the major foreign affairs policy initiative under way is the "pivot" to Asia, meaning against China. Most of humanity is "our" enemy, including the larger portion of the domestic US population. Turning the Mandarin into a big fraud perpetrated on the US government isn't nearly as honest as a big fraud perpetrated by the US government. An audience member who insists can still interpret the ten rings logi with its Arabic script at face value, but the story says otherwise. I think that's about as decent as you're going to get for a summer blockbuster movie.
I personally would have had a real Mandarin of sorts, a US citizen of Chinese descent from a Washington Beltway security thinktank operating an intelligence operation to subvert China on behalf of the US government. And everyone of the ten rings a development of Stark technology. And the name would merely have been a nickname from Stark, as he mocked the academic credentials of the villain. Stark could simultaneously have been loose cannon, prima donna, lone man against the establishment, the establishment personified and hero taking responsibility. Neither of us got the Mandarin we preferred.
You're right about Jarvis and Extremis. Whatever Extremis was in the comics, it was hasty and derivative in the movie. As for Jarvis, I think I would have cast David Hyde Pierce. Talking to any real human would have been better.
I personally would have had a real Mandarin of sorts, a US citizen of Chinese descent from a Washington Beltway security thinktank operating an intelligence operation to subvert China on behalf of the US government. And everyone of the ten rings a development of Stark technology. And the name would merely have been a nickname from Stark, as he mocked the academic credentials of the villain. Stark could simultaneously have been loose cannon, prima donna, lone man against the establishment, the establishment personified and hero taking responsibility. Neither of us got the Mandarin we preferred.
You're right about Jarvis and Extremis. Whatever Extremis was in the comics, it was hasty and derivative in the movie. As for Jarvis, I think I would have cast David Hyde Pierce. Talking to any real human would have been better.
The analogy, of course, is broken; there was a real "Mandarin" of sorts in this film, and it was Killian. You might say that he wasn't Chinese. Well, you were ready to accept the non-Chinese Ben Kingsley as the Mandarin, weren't you?
Mister Fandango
Fleet Captain
I wasn't aware that I was.
Mister Fandango
Fleet Captain
Yes, that would have been the only way I'd "accept" what happened in the movie. It doesn't mean I would have been any more happy with it, or that it would have made the character even remotely similar to the comic book version of the character.
As I told stj: Do yourself a favor and read back over on the actual subtopic being discussed rather than just picking random tidbits.
As I told stj: Do yourself a favor and read back over on the actual subtopic being discussed rather than just picking random tidbits.
Maybe there was an actual Mandarin and A.I.M. had him "removed". Then they replaced him with the actor and took over Ten Rings as a front for A.I.M. operations.
You claimed it was the only way you could swallow what happened, and the only way you could stomach what happened. So it would have taken you from not swallowing what happened and not stomaching what happened to swallowing what happened and stomaching what happened. That would arguably constitute an increase in your relative happiness with what happened.
Possibly not an improvement in his digestion, though.
Do yourself a favor and stop acting like people who reject your bullshit skipped a reading assignment.
The Mandarin was a huge disappointment.
When you have an army of mutants, freaking Norse gods and all kinds of aliens you may just as well throw in ten alien rings that unlock superhuman powers (Clarke's "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." comes to mind) and some megalomaniac whose ego trip makes Stark seem humble in comparison.
But even with a handicap like that they still delivered an entertaining piece of popcorn cinema that made up for many of the shortcomings of the second movie.
When you have an army of mutants, freaking Norse gods and all kinds of aliens you may just as well throw in ten alien rings that unlock superhuman powers (Clarke's "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." comes to mind) and some megalomaniac whose ego trip makes Stark seem humble in comparison.
But even with a handicap like that they still delivered an entertaining piece of popcorn cinema that made up for many of the shortcomings of the second movie.
I can't remember how much this has been discussed, but I think it's worth keeping in mind this was a Chinese co-production, so that probably made them pretty paranoid about making the true villain Chinese. Even if they didn't want to go the full comic book version, it probably made them pretty nervous making him Chinese at all.
Well, I don't think any version of this story had him as Chinese.
It proves that you'd be hard pressed to name more than two Iron Man storylines which are considered to be bona fide classics of the superhero genre, and that's what I wanted to prove.
"Quite faithful", doesn't mean "slavishly faithful". Thankfully, they kept a lot of things and got rid of a few things that didn't work at all, like the Mandarin. If you want something that is exactly like the Iron Man comic books, I think you should read the Iron Man comic books.
Frankly, in this case, this didn't even have to be the reason. I haven't read the comics, but from what I know, he seems to be a Yellow Peril stereotype; and in the movie, he was a complete stereotype of the Middle-Eastern Bin Laden-type terrorist that most people have in their heads today (or some weird mishmash of cliches that Western people have about Asia). It was a smart thing for the movie to update the racist stereotype before subverting it. I called the Mandarin twist early on, but that didn't mean it was less satisfying when it happened. Sometimes guessing a twist just makes you want it to happen because it makes sense and makes the story better. I figured that the Ben Kingsley character would be just someone posing, since this franchise has so far been too smart to play such a cliche straight. (Plus, his theatrical intonation and odd unidentifiable accent that seemed like a British person trying to sound "exotic" tipped me off. Ben Kingsley is also too good an actor to not be doing that on purpose.)
I also loved what they did with Pepper; I was scared that they were going to really make her the typical damsel in distress (the theatrical poster certainly looked that way), and was pleasantly surprised with what they actually did.
I loved so many things about the movie. They did a lot of clever things, particularly with Tony's development, in everything from his interactions with the kid (where they also undercut the potential cheesy sentimentality) to his interaction with his biggest fan (a contrast to how he treated Pierce's character in the past) to the way he saved the people in the air. It's great how they subverted superhero cliches, as with the "we can't save them both!" dilemma, which would no doubt be played out for all it's worth in some other superhero movie. Also, touches like Happy being a Downtown Abbey fan were great.
