Guy Pearce is Aldrich Killian

[Ant-manic]

suddenly, i wonder if Obadiah Stane and Aldrich Killian knew one another. Stane was definately interacting with the Ten Rings. but he clearly wasn't pals with them. if he knew about the Mandarin, then he took a huge risk; double-crossing them. what happened to Tony's house in the third movie could just as easily have happened to Stane.

[DigificWriter]

Originally Posted by cherokeesam

Why does everything have to be a "point"? I was just asking a simple question.

I was just wondering about just exactly how long Killian has been "The Mandarin." i.e., I was wondering if Ten Rings existed before Killian, or if he actually created them as part of "the ruse," making it even more elaborate and twisted.

Personally, I think the scheme and backstory just makes a lot more sense if we assume that Ten Rings was a legit al-Qaeda style organization, but Killian didn't get involved with them until he decided he needed them to create a smokescreen for the exploding test subjects.

Marvel's official position is that Killian had been pulling strings for pretty much the entirety of the trilogy; IOW, he created the Ten Rings organization and used various individuals as 'frontmen' while he sat back and bankrolled things.

[cherokeesam]

Originally Posted by DigificWriter

Marvel's official position is that Killian had been pulling strings for pretty much the entirety of the trilogy; IOW, he created the Ten Rings organization and used various individuals as 'frontmen' while he sat back and bankrolled things.

I don't like the use of the word "official" unless you've got links and references to back it up. I'm not saying you're wrong; I'm saying I want to know how much of that statement is your reading of the situation, and how much is an actual quote from Marvel Studios on it.

It makes a difference. A Killian who's been actively involved in Tony Stark's affairs over the duration of the film franchise is a very different Killian than one whose involvement only really comes to a head in IM3.

[DigificWriter]

I've already provided a link to an article in which Marvel' s position on The Mandarin is established, but I'll do it again.

http://insidemovies.ew.com/2013/05/0...darin-spoiler/

In case you don't want to go through the entire article, though, here's the truly relevant info from it (found on Page 5):

“A lot of this movie is about characters going back into the shadows for various reasons and characters who have been in the shadows coming out and into the light for the first time,” Feige says. “It is Tony who, for various reasons, finds himself receding into the darkness. I don’t mean emotional darkness, I mean literally ducking out of the spotlight. And we’ll see other characters stepping up who have pulled strings from the background, starting to show their hand.”

[The Infernal]

Originally Posted by cherokeesam

Why does everything have to be a "point"? I was just asking a simple question.

I was just wondering about just exactly how long Killian has been "The Mandarin." i.e., I was wondering if Ten Rings existed before Killian, or if he actually created them as part of "the ruse," making it even more elaborate and twisted.

Personally, I think the scheme and backstory just makes a lot more sense if we assume that Ten Rings was a legit al-Qaeda style organization, but Killian didn't get involved with them until he decided he needed them to create a smokescreen for the exploding test subjects.

It doesn't have to be, but I assumed that you quoting me meant that what I said was somehow relevant to what you posted. It doesn't seem as though my quote had much relevance to what you actually said. It just seemed like a random change of topic, so it threw me off.

Personally I take the opposite view. I don't think there's anything that points to the Ten Rings being around before the Mandarin/Killian and I think it poses a problem if they were. That's an extra twist to the story that we don't hear about. It just feels more convoluted than it needs to be. Killian using them from the start makes it simpler and makes more sense to me.

Originally Posted by Ant-manic

seemed to me that they were a stand-in for the Taliban. given their diverse membership, they couldn't have started up over night. they'd need a reputation to amass so many recruits. Yinsen seemed to know all about them. and, of course, Stane knew.

They didn't start overnight, but neither did AIM. IM3 shows us that it was a while before IM1 that Killian first becomes inspired to become the Mandarin. It seems most likely he created both the AIM and the Ten Rings in that time.

[Iceman]

I liked Guy pearce as this ..guy. Good actor. Quite an evil bastard!

[TheWallCrawler]

He wasn't really threatening, he was more like a fabulous (quite literally) flaming male model. Why did they establish the fire-breathing thing btw? They never did it in the movie again, it really wasn't worth it to have that extremely cheesy moment

[Iceman]

Yeah, that was something that either should be used again or not in at all. Very strange! I guess I can see what you're saying about Pearce. I think it might be more that I already like the actor for previous work and so just like seeing him on screen in this. I'll agree he wasn't particularly threatening.

[Son of Coul]

It was basically to establish that both his ego and power had gotten completely out of control. He was probably on some extra heavy dosage and potentially on the verge of overheating (like Maya said, "What happens when you get too hot?"). Hence Savin's "WTF" face.

[TheWallCrawler]

Originally Posted by Son of Coul

It was basically to establish that both his ego and power had gotten completely out of control. He was probably on some extra heavy dosage and potentially on the verge of overheating (like Maya said, "What happens when you get too hot?"). Hence Savin's "WTF" face.

I'm sure there is a small reason for it, it just wasn't worth it

[TheWallCrawler]

Originally Posted by Iceman

Yeah, that was something that either should be used again or not in at all. Very strange! I guess I can see what you're saying about Pearce. I think it might be more that I already like the actor for previous work and so just like seeing him on screen in this. I'll agree he wasn't particularly threatening.

I do like Pearce as an actor. And he was really good as Killian in the first half of the movie, a slimy manipulative business-bastard. But when he was established as the true mastermind and as "the real Mandarin" it went downhill from there

More than anything, I hated the cheesy one-liners. In the moments he was supposed be established of capable of being a serious threat to Tony has starts to spout out stuff like "Is this guy bothering you" and then when he melts Tony's chest plate he starts to do that akward baby talk "you feel like a turtle? A trapped turtle cooking in your shell"

[BigThor]

He was plenty threatening to me, especially when he was walking up to an unarmed Tony after ripping through his armor.

[cherokeesam]

Originally Posted by TheWallCrawler

He wasn't really threatening, he was more like a fabulous (quite literally) flaming male model. Why did they establish the fire-breathing thing btw? They never did it in the movie again, it really wasn't worth it to have that extremely cheesy moment

How on earth do you get "fabulous and flaming male model" for Aldrich Killian? The dude bedded Maya Hansen (Rebecca Hall) *and* Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow, aka The Most Beautiful Woman in the World per recent reports). That constitute homosexuality to you....?

And "the fire-breathing thing" was from the comics. Mallen acquired fire-breathing powers from Extremis, so that power was a direct nod to the Extremis comic.

[TheWallCrawler]

Originally Posted by cherokeesam

How on earth do you get "fabulous and flaming male model" for Aldrich Killian? The dude bedded Maya Hansen (Rebecca Hall) *and* Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow, aka The Most Beautiful Woman in the World per recent reports). That constitute homosexuality to you....?

And "the fire-breathing thing" was from the comics. Mallen acquired fire-breathing powers from Extremis, so that power was a direct nod to the Extremis comic.

The way he talks, acts and his one-liners. I'm not saying that he's really homosexual, I'm just saying that everytime he talks he's acting like a prissy male model. The fact that the character in the movie... "bedded" Maya Hansen and Pepper Pots doesn't prove anything since the movie makers can mold the script what they want it to be

and the fire breathing thing clearly wasn't that important when it was never used again, and it did nothing in service of that scene or the rest of the movie, so the nod to comics really wasn't worth those ultra cheesy off-putting few seconds

[BigThor]

Originally Posted by cherokeesam

How on earth do you get "fabulous and flaming male model" for Aldrich Killian? The dude bedded Maya Hansen (Rebecca Hall) *and* Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow, aka The Most Beautiful Woman in the World per recent reports). That constitute homosexuality to you....?

And "the fire-breathing thing" was from the comics. Mallen acquired fire-breathing powers from Extremis, so that power was a direct nod to the Extremis comic.

Wait? I've seen the film twice and I never heard anything about Killian "bedding" Pepper Pots.

All I saw was Killian flirting with Pepper in that giant hologram model of a brain.

[cherokeesam]

Originally Posted by BigThor

Wait? I've seen the film twice and I never heard anything about Killian "bedding" Pepper Pots.

All I saw was Killian flirting with Pepper in that giant hologram model of a brain.

A lot of it got left on the cutting room floor. The movie itself still insinuates that Killian had a thing for Pepper when she worked for him before, but it seems to suggest that she didn't return the attention. Shane Black and Drew Pearce had an interview recently where they said that it was, in fact, a full-fledged sexual relationship between the two, and there was a deleted scene where Killian actually showed an old sex tape with him and Pepper to make Tony jealous.

[theShape]

Originally Posted by cherokeesam

A lot of it got left on the cutting room floor. The movie itself still insinuates that Killian had a thing for Pepper when she worked for him before, but it seems to suggest that she didn't return the attention. Shane Black and Drew Pearce had an interview recently where they said that it was, in fact, a full-fledged sexual relationship between the two, and there was a deleted scene where Killian actually showed an old sex tape with him and Pepper to make Tony jealous.

Is that for real? Thank Christ they left that on the cutting room floor.

[Zinc Saucier]

Originally Posted by cherokeesam

A lot of it got left on the cutting room floor. The movie itself still insinuates that Killian had a thing for Pepper when she worked for him before, but it seems to suggest that she didn't return the attention. Shane Black and Drew Pearce had an interview recently where they said that it was, in fact, a full-fledged sexual relationship between the two, and there was a deleted scene where Killian actually showed an old sex tape with him and Pepper to make Tony jealous.

I might be wrong, but I could've swore they said it was just from an early version of the script, not a deleted scene. They never actually filmed it.