Iron Man 2 How do you make The Mandarin work for a film?

[GL1]

Potential Problems:

• Origin involves aliens and alien technology
• Several of the rings are virtually magical, defying even pseudo-science
• Mandarin is based on communism, the conflict with which is dated

My thoughts:

Ten Rings are developed by various weapons dealers around the world by the shadowy black market Chinese administrative/strategy genius Khan. One of the rings even comes from Stark Industries.

Tone down and specialize each of the rings. Being able to make hands come up out of the earth is just plain old beyond reasonable.
Left Pinkie was "Ice Blast," give it some kind of high level communications setup, allowing it to jam signals and create communications and such.
Left Ring Finger was "Mental-Intensifier," give it that subsonic paralysis thing that Stane used on Tony and Raja.
Left Middle Finger was "Electro Blast," make it an incredible electrical power source with a taser function for Mandarin's up close attacks.
Left Index Finger was "Flame Blast," make it the intense laser thing.
Left Thumb was "White Light," give it a crazy hologram setup that allows for vivid illusions.
Right Thumb was "Matter Rearranger," make it
Right Index Finger was "Impact Beam," make it a repulsor beam, basically, like Tony's.
Right Middle Finger was "Vortex Beam," make it a gravity distorter thing either for Mandarin's personal levitation or slowing down others.
Right Ring Finger was "Disintegration Beam," make it a matter destabilizer, perhaps via sonics or radiation.
Right Pinkie was "Black Light," give it free range over the electromag spectrum, microwaves, ultraviolet

And on being timely and relevant, if we want to make Mandarin representative of modern rivals/threats to America, then just the fact that he has more functionality is a good start, but our precarious financial situation could be represented by Mandarin being plain old more beloved around the world than Stark. Heck, let Mandarin start a hostile takeover of Stark Industries. Now that's a reason to fight... or drink a lot.

just my thoughts.

 

[Danalys]

in the new film don't they have that terrorist orginisation named after the ten rings. so i'm assuming they'll just be some mysterious ancient artifacts that the mandarin will eventually get together. also the ten rings or what ever their name is could be a world wide issue that we just saw one part of.

 

[ShadowBoxing]

Well, to be fair, in regards to "defying physics" a lot of what's done in Iron Man already defies physics and is borderline magic.

 

[Leto]

I'm pretty sure the ring Raza the terrorist leader had was symbolic. Not an actual artifact, just a symbol he was a lieutenant of the Mandarin.

And with regards to communism China is now more than ever still an economic powerhouse in the world. Having the Mandarin represent their industrial power could provide subtle political commentary.

I'd keep the alien rings if their tone could be adequately portrayed. Iron Man is going to be interacting with a mythical god in Avengers, he's got to be able to fight larger than life characters in his own flicks.

I'd go with the origin that Gene Khan travelled to a remote valley in China where an alien spaceship crashed thousands of years ago, found flawed or damaged gauntlets or something that controlled the ship, and then set out to build an empire.

Fin Fang Foom is getting a redesign in Iron Man: Viva Las Vegas, and I keep imagining Iron Man zipping around a crazy looking dragon with the Mandarin on its back shooting energy blasts from his rings.

 

[Knightsaber Priss]

I was just thinking, couldn't the rings just be different mechanisms placed on mechanical gauntlets that give Mandarin the powers he has in the comics?

 

[Armored Avenger]

Base the Mandarin off his latest appearances in the comics, and he will work brilliantly in the film. The personality, motivation and look of the character were all amazing:

 

[GL1]

I don't think the personality, motivation and look are much of a concern, honestly. I'm just thinking over the origin.

Ten Rings as a worldwide organization? Interesting... and just give Mandarin some gauntlets? or nothing at all? Interesting...

I think the thoughts of "We're breaking physics, might as well break some more" and "He's going to be dealing with magic and aliens later, might as well build his franchise around it" are excuses, despite them being good points.

Genre-bending (especially bringing in aliens and magic) is immersion-breaking. It's one thing to blend genres (AvP, Avengers, etc) when you blend characters who have an established universe, it's a bit more precarious when you take a character who lives in an established tech-based earth-based world and add in aliens, not as a plot point to be explored, but simply as a run-of-the-mill origin... some random aliens out of nowhere, that serve no purpose other than a shortcut to putting Mandarin on IM's level.

I'd much rather they work within the setup of the first film and have the Ten Rings be Mandarin's worldwide organization and give him some funky gauntlets to assist him in some way. I would dare even make Mandarin a hands-off mastermind and have him create Ultimo based off of what he knows of Iron Man.

As for the today's China's economic power, that's what I was going for, but to portray Mandarin as a sleazy, demented China, as he was before, would be silly, and not representative of the current tension... the thing right now is that China has leverage on the US, and lots of it. As I said, the corporate struggle (Mandarin's organization getting all of Stark's contracts) could be interesting, for instance.

 

[Chris B]

I would say just explain the rings as being inventions of his. I do like GL1's approach to them. But the idea of making them ancient magical artifacts is starting to grow on me.

 

[Katsuro]

It seems like the rings are just going to be symbolic. There are probably ten leaders of the Ten Rings, with Mandarin either being above all of them, or being one of the ten who makes a grab for power.

 

[RonStoppablefan]

I just want the rings to be itroduced slowly into the movie and Mandarin as well. They need to do this right. I'm curious who could get the part of Mandarin, in fact I think I'll opean up a discussion about it in the sequal forums. I like the idea of the rings being a world wide type thing this time that would be fun.

 

[BobJM]

I think that the rings will be mainly symbolic in the films. Raza's ring is a sign of power. Mandarin will wear all ten and run the insurgent group as he continues weapon trafficking throughout the entire world.

No mystical powers or ice blasts or anything like that. If anything, give Mandarin some gauntlets that he can wear on his hands to emit blasts that he perfected from blueprints of the Iron Monger.

 

[ShadowBoxing]

Genre-bending (especially bringing in aliens and magic) is immersion-breaking. It's one thing to blend genres (AvP, Avengers, etc) when you blend characters who have an established universe, it's a bit more precarious when you take a character who lives in an established tech-based earth-based world and add in aliens, not as a plot point to be explored, but simply as a run-of-the-mill origin... some random aliens out of nowhere, that serve no purpose other than a shortcut to putting Mandarin on IM's level.

Although one of the very, very smart things about this movie was it "genre bent" a little right off the bat. Jarvis mentioning space travel, Stane suggesting technology was their weakness were all attempts to show the universe was more than simply tech.

 

[The Overlord]

But there is another problem, Mandarin isn't exactly PC and some might he clam he is a just a yellow pearl villain, brining up memories of Christopher Lee in yellow face as Fu Manchu. You have to real careful with him.

 

[GL1]

The old stereotypical Mandarin was offensive on several levels, yeah, but Mandarin as a badass genius is cool no matter how you slice it, the fact that he happens to be Chinese and love his culture and history is just part of what makes him unique, but if you focus on making a well-motivated capable character based on the modern real world, you won't have to even think about PC-ness.

Although one of the very, very smart things about this movie was it "genre bent" a little right off the bat. Jarvis mentioning space travel, Stane suggesting technology was their weakness were all attempts to show the universe was more than simply tech.

Hm... did notice that. Well said, and that does indeed sound very clever.

I think if they follow aliens or magic as a plot point and explore it, explain it and highlight that conflict of earth tech vs alien tech or tech vs magic, I think that could work... not what I'd do, but it could work. If aliens or magic is used as a one of excuse for unexplainable tech, then it becomes cheap, trite and lazy, imho. I don't think that's acceptable.

And, honestly, I'm not sure that magic vs tech is something that an Iron Man movie needs to be about at this point. I'd much rather see Mandarin with an elite "ten rings" organization, and some multi-multi-function gauntlets for a final battle rather than taking time to explain why the aliens who made the technology are important, why they came to earth, why its diametrically opposed and superior to earth tech, and other things to establish that it's not just a random excuse for heading the plot off in a given direction.

Again, magic or aliens can work, but it has to be integral to the plot, and thus, to the universe, it can't just be a random excuse.

 

[He-Man]

A long stretch but they’re saying IM2 will be used to introduce Thor. Maybe now the “10 Rings” are only symbolic and somehow something from Asgard give the rings their actual powers in IM2.

 

[Odin's Lapdog]

magic has a place in this universe, it's essential to confront iron man's rational scientific mind.

As well as doubting the mandarin's magic, i would like for tony to doubt thor's as a sceptic because it may cause some decent friction between them.

magic is a must, somethings aren't meant to be grounded. Magic I believe is an acceptible medium as long as there are limits set up to its extent on screen.

keep the rings as they are...

 

[Spider-Fan]

I say the gauntlets idea is the best one yet. But, I agree that the Ten Rings are probably a metaphor, and Mandarin is the main person in charge of the group.

Though he might wield something like a 10 Ring gauntlet to show he is the master of all the other divisions of the 10 Rings. I mean, he has to have some kind of power thing, or else he is not an interesting fight for Iron Man.

 

[GNR]

Base the Mandarin off his latest appearances in the comics, and he will work brilliantly in the film. The personality, motivation and look of the character were all amazing:

the current incarnation of Mandarin in the comics is really good and probably the most mature and subtle take on him ever

 

[S.A.A.D.]

If the rings don't come from aliens in Iron Man 2(assuming Mandarin is in it),then I prefer they(the 10 rings) start off as normal rings until Mandarin doe's some crazy stuff that has never ever been tried among his people from his culture that grants the rings the 10 different powers that he has in the comic books. Like Mandarin could have heard something that long ago it was said that if blah blah blah was done with the use of 10 specific rings then they would do 10 different things,I'm sorry if this idea isn't fresh and if it was done before in the comics. So yeah,Mandarin starts off as a bad guy already,finds these 10 special rings,and then you know.

 

[LadyMoira]

I say make the Mandarin a mixture of technology and some sort of mystical abilities that are never fully explained-that will actually make them easier for audiences to accept and help with the tension that Tony Stark always has with magic; it's not "logical" and he doesn't know how to deal. Like any technical problem, Tony is on top of, but the Mandarin's abilities don't follow the rules to him. I'm counting on the fact that the screenwriters will be smart enough to avoid some of the godawful Asian stereotypes in the early years of Iron Man, and that Favreau will be as successful in casting the Mandarin as he was getting Bridges, Howard, and RDJ on board. The right actor for the villain makes all the difference; look at Ian McKellan as Magneto or Cillian Murphy as Scarecrow and then look at Julian McMahon as Doctor Doom and then slam your head against the wall a few times.

 

[RockSP]

The right actor for the villain makes all the difference; look at Ian McKellan as Magneto or Cillian Murphy as Scarecrow and then look at Julian McMahon as Doctor Doom and then slam your head against the wall a few times.

 

[steven person]

im sorry to say this,but these are some of the worst ideas i have ever heard of for a movie.no offence,but every idea is just lamer and more stupid then the next.....they kept it kinda close to the comic.granted this place is for people to express their ideas....but come on.im just waiting for someone to say "bring in ironboy....that would be soooo cool" (yes,i know there is no such thing as iron boy).

 

[Badger]

What the hell is your Grand idea then? Don't just come in and bash everybody without at least giving your idea, you twit.

 

[Bren]

im sorry to say this,but these are some of the worst ideas i have ever heard of for a movie.no offence,but every idea is just lamer and more stupid then the next.....they kept it kinda close to the comic.granted this place is for people to express their ideas....but come on.im just waiting for someone to say "bring in ironboy....that would be soooo cool" (yes,i know there is no such thing as iron boy).

Err, where did this come from???



Great post. Really.

 

[BobJM]

Mandarin.....Iron Boy.......Mandarin

I'm not seeing where you're pulling Iron Boy from, steven. People are expressing their ideas on how to modernize a a famous character while remaining true to his characterization and you're bringing up childish ideas about disregarding source material and creating a new character.

Call me crazy, but I don't see what you're going for with this.