Essential the way Gordon is to Batman? No. But for the last few years Tony has been an agent of Shield, the leader of Shield, Secretary of Defense, the liaison between superheroes and the government and god knows what else. Its what he does.
That's fine, but if that doesn't translate well on film you've just wasted time which could be better used in other areas, like making a genuine threat out of the villain because Whiplash was short changed. Talk about a waste of talent. You're making the argument Earle that this stuff needs to be there, I'm pointing out that if it's poorly executed it renders that stuff useless, which means you're adding this stuff for the sake of it not because it warrants it.
Why did they need to be in the first scene? The villain of this movie wasnt Vanko, it was Tony himself and his Palladium poisoning and those were in the opening scene. The Vanko scene was like the cold openings of TV series. Some guy falls ill - opening credits - House arrives at the hospital and Cuddy gives him the case.
Who said anything about the first scene? I said
first act, if the Shield/Fury, Black Widow stuff was better incorporated into act one around the story that began the film, ie Whiplash going after Stark, it probably wouldn't have felt so out of place. In act 2 Fury just shows up as if he's been there all along, no mention of who he is, no real introduction, it's as if he's been there from the beginning of the movie, that's just bad film making, it throws the entire movie off. And Vanko was set up as the villain of the film, not Stark, and what a wasted villain it was, he could have been awesome.
Lao could have just hidden in Gotham and been captured with ease, but Nolan made a big deal out of it and set up the whole Hong Kong scene.
It was cool and i loved it, but it could easily have been simpler, just like you want the IM2 to be simpler.
What's the location got to do with anything? You specifically said removing the Hong Kong sequence alters nothing in the plot, ie the capturing of Lao. You must then concede that whilst yes you can change the location to gotham, you cannot remove the capturing of Lao by Batman and handing him over the the police without affecting the course of the film.
We're going around in circles. The fact of the matter is that you're condemning Marvel's Avengers strategy simply because IM2 wasnt stellar and you completely ignore that the Avengers were only mentioned at the end of the film, as well as the fact that Favreau wasnt given the time he needed to produce a better film.
No Earle, I've been wary from the start of it because I believe characters risk getting short changed, IM2 simply started to confirm my suspicions. Forgive me for judging these things on what they are - films, not comics.
tl;dr just because B&R sucks, it doesnt mean that Mr Freeze cant be done right. Its risky but i am not so sure that if Cap and Thor fail that the Avengers will fail too.
The audience could easily be drawn by RDJ, cool action scenes or whatever.
De facto IM3 is my guess. I'll let you have the last word coz I'm kinda done talking about it. Have fun.
