Iron Man 3 The Mandarin in Iron Man 3...Love it or hate it? - Part 1

[jonathancrane]

Spoiler

This weekend, I have the chance to watch the John Carpenter classic, Big Trouble in Little China, again. I can say that I understand what fans were hoping for in the third Iron Man film. However, I feel that if they had pursued that angle, it would have compromised the structure of this wave of the MCU. The first wave focused on magic as the binding plot device: namely, the mechanization and weaponization of a magic object: the Tesseract. Now, there is usually a film that falls outside of this cycle: Incredible Hulk had nothing to do with Asgardian magic. Hence,I suspect Thor: TDW is going to be the outlier of this cycle. From Iron Man 3 has shown, the emphasis has been on technology and technoterrorism, will undoubtedly play a part in the Winter Soldier (Bucky's surgeries/upgrades, and possible presence of AIM/HYDRA,) with GOTG playing up the aspect with the presumed space opera aspects. When Ultron's presence in TA is considered, narrative lines can be drawn in ink and some in pencil, until new information is supplied. So, having the Mandarin resemble his Big Trouble.. Cinematic Counterpart would mean that one of the cogs in the machine that is Wave 2 would not be in alignment with the others. With Thor pursuing a different angle, the MCU would not have as many direct narrative threads as it had in the previous cycle. Hence, the transferrance of the mysticism to technology was crucial, as I can imagine Ultron using the bio-tech in TA 2 like he did in Mighty Avengers, VOl 2, when he re-mapped Tony's genetic code.

 

[guitarking]

People complaining about no rock music need to grow up though.

People who don't understand the significance of a movie's soundtrack are just showing their ignorance.

 

[guitarking]

I have spent the last couple of months since seeing IM3 trying to accept how the Mandarin was portrayed on the screen, but still haven't come to terms with it.

Surfer

Why try to talk yourself out of hating the stupid twist? You are correct in hating it.

 

[Brother Jack]

I still have no problem with how they portrayed the Mandarin in IM3. I started reading comics in the early to mid 60's. Grew up with the original characters and storylines. I have seen so many changes made to characters by the comic companies that produced them over the years...that now I don't get too upset by any changes that the movie makers do. That doesn't mean that some changes don't irritate me...but on a whole, I don't get too put out by them.

I never really had a problem with the changes made from the character in the current comics. I never expected a straight translation and I found the version they came up with in the movie to be very compelling. My issue was that that character wasn't actually the character, and even when he was he was barely shown. It was a bold move that I've never seen before in a movie like this and I have to give some respect based only on that, but it still felt like an unnecessary destruction of what I found to be an interesting villain and then a switch to a less interesting one with Killian. It was that they changed the character that was initially presented in the film.

 

[Loki882]

The Mandarin twist would be the equivalent of in TDK, the Joker was wreaking havoc and doing his chaos thing. Then halfway through the movie, Batman finds him and you think there will be an epic fight. However, it turns out that the Joker is actually just some drunken, stoned out hobo living in his mom's basement who had been hired to pretend to be this psychotic lunatic. Then it turns out that Eric Robert's Sal Maroni is the REAL mastermind and at the end of the movie he say, in that faux-Italian accent "you wanted the Joker Batman, I'm the Joker."

 

[Surfer]

Why try to talk yourself out of hating the stupid twist? You are correct in hating it.

I know some fans might feel I am correct in disliking it, but just to clarify I didn't necessarily hate the twist itself. I hated what the twist meant to the changing of what I perceived as the Mandarin character from the comics. I often felt if they could have somehow incorporated the twist while having more of the traditional qualities exhibited by the comic book character in the form of looks and powers then I could have still been on board with the twist.

but as to why do I want to be able to enjoy Iron Man 3 more then I do? It is partially because I feel my continued enjoyment of their shared universe in part depends on me liking this connected movie. A connected universe is a sum of all of it's parts, and not unlike an engine with a damaged part, it will most likely not continue to operate with out it. So, that is my biggest concern besides my obvious disappointment.

Well anyways. Nuff said!

Surfer

 

[Loki882]

Surfer, did it bother you that they played to twist as a big joke?

 

[guitarking]

but as to why do I want to be able to enjoy Iron Man 3 more then I do? It is partially because I feel my continued enjoyment of their shared universe in part depends on me liking this connected movie.

And this is why such a garbage movie can still make a billion at the box office. 9 out of 10 fans going in WANTING to like it because it's connected to other movies they like and willfully overlooking it's significant lack of quality.

 

[Surfer]

Surfer, did it bother you that they played to twist as a big joke?

Yeah, that just added salt to the wound for me. The thing is Marvel stated the Mandarin character is racist and that they were worried about offending people as the reason behind why fans were not getting a more traditional Mandarin, and yet they had Ben Kingsley who is at least partially asian playing a bad @$$ terrorist with many attributes that personified the look and presence of the character from the comics, and then they proceeded to make him into a joke. Well to me making a joke out of a character could be construed as more of a racist move then if they had just continued to let him be the bad @$$ he was in the beginning of the film. I mean if you were in high school and you were considered to be a bad @$$ that would not be a bad thing, but if someone considered you to be a joke, well then you were probably going to be picked on and treated poorly. So, being a joke in my opinion can be equated to being treated poorly and since the person in this instance was Asian and had some similarities to the so called racist version in the comics then it could be said not only did they have a character that appeared racist in the movie, but that they choose to poke, prod and make jokes out of the racist character, which to me equates to a verbal bashing of the Asian community a lot more then if they had just taken the character seriously from the get go. Not to mention I feel like Studios are always so worried about pleasing audience members that are new to the characters and genre, over long time fans. It's frustrating when I have some audience member that has never read a comic in there life be the audience that they are targeting, while me and many other fans that have stuck by them through many years of stories, through their ups and downs and we get the shaft. It really urks me to no end. I mean sure I realize they are a corporation and they have to think in terms of money, but why do they have so little faith in their characters. Instead of changing the characters make other audience members fall in love with the characters and make them see what many of us fans have already found in comics. Embrace the comics damn it, and stop trying to make everything have to be so damn realistic all the time. The idea of comics is to enter a fantasy realm, where anything is possible, and sure it's nice when things seem plausible, but don't over think everything. Not everything needs to be explained down to every little detail. It's okay to let peoples imaginations work a little. Also, not every movie needs to be dark or funny. I feel like Marvel lately has gotten this cookie cutter type attitude towards their movies, where they think it requires 20% comedy 40% action, 20% character development or something like that. These movies can not all be done as the same equation, so I feel like they need to rethink things.

Well that is all I got right now.

Surfer

 

[Surfer]

And this is why such a garbage movie can still make a billion at the box office. 9 out of 10 fans going in WANTING to like it because it's connected to other movies they like and willfully overlooking it's significant lack of quality.

Well I only saw it once in the theater. Once was enough.

Surfer

 

[giveyourself12%]

but as to why do I want to be able to enjoy Iron Man 3 more then I do? It is partially because I feel my continued enjoyment of their shared universe in part depends on me liking this connected movie.
Well anyways. Nuff said!

Surfer

This times a million. As I was walking out of the theater after seeing IM3 I was like, "...I can never watch IM1, IM2, or The Avengers again and enjoy them because I know this is where they are heading with the character...whhhhhhy?!!!"

Which means I'll be subscribing to the theory that IM3 was the depiction of one of Stark's PTSD induced nightmares that he's recounting to Banner until something comes along in Avengers 2 that makes me have to accept that it all actually happened.

I know it won't happen, but it would be really cool if they decided with all of the money they made from Iron Man 3 & the Avengers, they were going to do some reshoots and make a Iron Man 3 Comic Book Fan edition for Blue Ray & DVD (almost like a director's cut of sorts) for all of the fans that were disappointed with how things went down in the movie regarding the Mandarin.

I have had this thought so many times. That's why I plan on doing an edit of my own when the blu ray comes out that addresses as many of the issues we have with the movie as possible. I'm hoping that that'll up my enjoyment factor a bit.

 

[Lord]

[YT]oIZF9vjO-3o[/YT]

 

[Loki882]

The movie wasn't garbage, I'd still rank it above IM 2, it was decent. It had plenty of enjoyable moments and the acting was great across the boards. It just also had some significant flaws and went overboard with the comedy I the second half.

 

[SilentWarriorZ]

Iron Man 2 may be an internet whipping boy, but compared to IM3 it's a masterpiece.

yeah , At least they didn't screw with his powers .

 

[SilentWarriorZ]

And this is why such a garbage movie can still make a billion at the box office. 9 out of 10 fans going in WANTING to like it because it's connected to other movies they like and willfully overlooking it's significant lack of quality.

This is an actual Fact and it gives wrong message to the Marvel as they did it now and they may continue to do it with other upcoming projects as well .

They will be under the impression that Fans will buy anything into so called "Twists" even it may degrade the original character itself .

Although the movie was not Totally Garbage but Mandarin was just Forced character in it .

Anyways , I just hope they won't Continue to Twist With any other Projects .

 

[Lord]

And this is why such a garbage movie can still make a billion at the box office. 9 out of 10 fans going in WANTING to like it because it's connected to other movies they like and willfully overlooking it's significant lack of quality.

[YT]oIZF9vjO-3o[/YT]

 

[The Overlord]

Yeah, that just added salt to the wound for me. The thing is Marvel stated the Mandarin character is racist and that they were worried about offending people as the reason behind why fans were not getting a more traditional Mandarin, and yet they had Ben Kingsley who is at least partially asian playing a bad @$$ terrorist with many attributes that personified the look and presence of the character from the comics, and then they proceeded to make him into a joke. Well to me making a joke out of a character could be construed as more of a racist move then if they had just continued to let him be the bad @$$ he was in the beginning of the film. I mean if you were in high school and you were considered to be a bad @$$ that would not be a bad thing, but if someone considered you to be a joke, well then you were probably going to be picked on and treated poorly. So, being a joke in my opinion can be equated to being treated poorly and since the person in this instance was Asian and had some similarities to the so called racist version in the comics then it could be said not only did they have a character that appeared racist in the movie, but that they choose to poke, prod and make jokes out of the racist character, which to me equates to a verbal bashing of the Asian community a lot more then if they had just taken the character seriously from the get go. Not to mention I feel like Studios are always so worried about pleasing audience members that are new to the characters and genre, over long time fans. It's frustrating when I have some audience member that has never read a comic in there life be the audience that they are targeting, while me and many other fans that have stuck by them through many years of stories, through their ups and downs and we get the shaft. It really urks me to no end. I mean sure I realize they are a corporation and they have to think in terms of money, but why do they have so little faith in their characters. Instead of changing the characters make other audience members fall in love with the characters and make them see what many of us fans have already found in comics. Embrace the comics damn it, and stop trying to make everything have to be so damn realistic all the time. The idea of comics is to enter a fantasy realm, where anything is possible, and sure it's nice when things seem plausible, but don't over think everything. Not everything needs to be explained down to every little detail. It's okay to let peoples imaginations work a little. Also, not every movie needs to be dark or funny. I feel like Marvel lately has gotten this cookie cutter type attitude towards their movies, where they think it requires 20% comedy 40% action, 20% character development or something like that. These movies can not all be done as the same equation, so I feel like they need to rethink things.

Well that is all I got right now.

Surfer

Again, Mandarin was not much of a character in the comics, his goals and personality seem to change with the writer, so he often comes across as shallow archetype, rather then a fully developed character. Why is Mandarin Iron Man's arch nemesis anyway, he comes across as your average stock villain that you can fit into almost any rogues gallery, its not like he has an interesting personal dynamic with Iron Man. How could the movie "embrace" the comic book Mandarin, when the comic can't even decide what kind of character Mandarin is?

 

[OcStat]

The Mandarin twist would be the equivalent of in TDK, the Joker was wreaking havoc and doing his chaos thing. Then halfway through the movie, Batman finds him and you think there will be an epic fight. However, it turns out that the Joker is actually just some drunken, stoned out hobo living in his mom's basement who had been hired to pretend to be this psychotic lunatic. Then it turns out that Eric Robert's Sal Maroni is the REAL mastermind and at the end of the movie he say, in that faux-Italian accent "you wanted the Joker Batman, I'm the Joker."

Sure, if by the Joker you mean, The Mad Hatter, or some other C-Lister.

See Overlord's post above mine for enlightenment.

 

[giveyourself12%]

Sure, if by the Joker you mean, The Mad Hatter, or some other C-Lister.

See Overlord's post above mine for enlightenment.

I don't think comic villain hierarchy matters here. At least to me, it doesn't. We were presented with The Joker in the trailers of TDK as the main villain regardless of the Joker's standing in the comics. We were presented with the iconic (Kingsley's) Mandarin in the trailers for IM3 as the main villain regardless of the iconic (Kingsley's) Mandarin's standing in the comics.

We got the Joker in TDK as we were led to believe in the trailers. We were faked out on the Mandarin contrary to what we were led to believe in the trailers.

Therein lies the frustration.

It would be the same as if we were led to believe that IM3's villain was Evil JARVIS and it turned out that JARVIS was only pretending to be evil as a clever ruse to fool the evil LMD of Coulson into believing that JARVIS had come around to his vision of the robot populace rising up against the tyranny of the iphone overlords.

It just ain't right, man.

You gotta deliver when you promise things to audiences.

 

[OcStat]

I understand that position, but a trailer is just a taste of what the film will show. It isn't a plot synopsis or anything more or less than scenes from the film rearranged. Sounds like there was a whole group of people who got more caught up in what the trailer presented than what the actual movie was.

You guys are mourning for a character that didn't exist in the first place. And there's no way to say it was Iconic. The Mandarin is not iconic. The Mandarin presented in the trailers was certainly not iconic, how could it be? It was just a snippet.

The comic villain hierarchy doesn't matter to me whatsoever, thus my satisfaction with the movie's Mandarin. I think the true Mandarin in the movie is great, the fact that he had a double to put forth as the face to the name was smart on his part, and the movie makers, and the fact that all of us didn't see it coming is even better.

 

[jonathancrane]

Plus, the modification to the character added to the film's political commentary.

 

[CyclopsWasRight]

I don't think comic villain hierarchy matters here. At least to me, it doesn't. We were presented with The Joker in the trailers of TDK as the main villain regardless of the Joker's standing in the comics. We were presented with the iconic (Kingsley's) Mandarin in the trailers for IM3 as the main villain regardless of the iconic (Kingsley's) Mandarin's standing in the comics.

We got the Joker in TDK as we were led to believe in the trailers. We were faked out on the Mandarin contrary to what we were led to believe in the trailers.

Therein lies the frustration.

You gotta deliver when you promise things to audiences.

BINGO. Great post

 

[jonathancrane]

I understand that position, but a trailer is just a taste of what the film will show. It isn't a plot synopsis or anything more or less than scenes from the film rearranged. Sounds like there was a whole group of people who got more caught up in what the trailer presented than what the actual movie was.

You guys are mourning for a character that didn't exist in the first place. And there's no way to say it was Iconic. The Mandarin is not iconic. The Mandarin presented in the trailers was certainly not iconic, how could it be? It was just a snippet.

The comic villain hierarchy doesn't matter to me whatsoever, thus my satisfaction with the movie's Mandarin. I think the true Mandarin in the movie is great, the fact that he had a double to put forth as the face to the name was smart on his part, and the movie makers, and the fact that all of us didn't see it coming is even better.

This x100

 

[giveyourself12%]

I understand that position, but a trailer is just a taste of what the film will show. It isn't a plot synopsis or anything more or less than scenes from the film rearranged. Sounds like there was a whole group of people who got more caught up in what the trailer presented than what the actual movie was.

I would describe it as a whole group of people who felt that what was presented in the movie wasn't as good as what they were expecting based on the trailer.

You guys are mourning for a character that didn't exist in the first place. And there's no way to say it was Iconic. The Mandarin is not iconic. The Mandarin presented in the trailers was certainly not iconic, how could it be? It was just a snippet.

By iconic I meant looking more like the classic Mandarin with all the pageantry. Robes...beard...rings...doesn't bother me that they were purely ornamental. I get that he didn't exist in the first place, that's the problem. He should have.

The comic villain hierarchy doesn't matter to me whatsoever, thus my satisfaction with the movie's Mandarin. I think the true Mandarin in the movie is great, the fact that he had a double to put forth as the face to the name was smart on his part, and the movie makers, and the fact that all of us didn't see it coming is even better.

I think Killian would have been a pretty good villain, besides being just another evil-smart-science-dude-in-a-nice-suit a la Stane and Hammer, if we hadn't had a taste of Ben Kingsley as The Mandarin, the anti-American vendetta-ed -super-terrorist, the idea of whom I was salivating over.

Plus, the modification to the character added to the film's political commentary.

Political commentary doesn't belong in an Iron Man movie. It changed the focus from what was going on with the Tony Stark character to, "Look everybody, this is what we expect a terrorist to look like, but they don't always...see? Bigger powers are sometimes at work...see?".

They could have explored the Mandarin's role in the Ten Rings and Stark's backstory, that he authorized the attempted murder of Tony Stark in the first film...that he facilitated Vanko's journey to Monaco to kill Stark...THAT should have been where "We create our own demons" came in.

Instead, we got an Iron Man movie that was not about Iron Man/Tony Stark much at all and instead indeed did get political commentary that I'd wager the writers thought was "important" with character elements glossed over about a guy we'd never heard of before that Tony ditched on a roof and the part about his story finally being complete amounted to some tacked on voice over at the end of the political comment-erm- "movie" about removing the arc reactor and everything being fixed.

 

[OcStat]

I think Killian would have been a pretty good villain, besides being just another evil-smart-science-dude-in-a-nice-suit a la Stane and Hammer, if we hadn't had a taste of Ben Kingsley as The Mandarin, the anti-American vendetta-ed -super-terrorist, the idea of whom I was salivating over.

It's a bummer it wasn't what you were hoping for, and I'm not trying to change your mind or get you to enjoy the movie more, but Killian was an Anti-American, vendetta-ed super-terrorist, who happened to also be evil, smart, and a scientist in a suit.

There are similarities between Obediah, Hammer, and Killian but I think they are all unique enough to stand on there own.

Political commentary doesn't belong in an Iron Man movie. It changed the focus from what was going on with the Tony Stark character to, "Look everybody, this is what we expect a terrorist to look like, but they don't always...see? Bigger powers are sometimes at work...see?".

I disagree, Killians motive's did not take any focus away from Tony. Tony spent the majority of the movie dealing with his own personal mental problems just as much as thwarting the Mandarin. I also disagree with the notion that there is no place for that in an Iron Man film. Iron Man is one of the few Marvel characters where a political commentary could be appropriate.

They could have explored the Mandarin's role in the Ten Rings and Stark's backstory, that he authorized the attempted murder of Tony Stark in the first film...that he facilitated Vanko's journey to Monaco to kill Stark...THAT should have been where "We create our own demons" came in.

Instead, we got an Iron Man movie that was not about Iron Man/Tony Stark much at all and instead indeed did get political commentary that I'd wager the writers thought was "important" with character elements glossed over about a guy we'd never heard of before that Tony ditched on a roof and the part about his story finally being complete amounted to some tacked on voice over at the end of the political comment-erm- "movie" about removing the arc reactor and everything being fixed.

Going backwards to retroactively add the Mandarin to the other film's events would've been a huge mistake. They did similar things with Spider-Man 3, and The Dark Knight Rises, and the results there were mixed, to say the least.

And what political commentary was there in the voice over at the end of the film? None. The political commentary is specifically in regards to the villain, and how we perceive villains. And again, this movie was very much about Tony Stark, lots more than Iron Man 2.