Iron Man 3 The Mandarin in Iron Man 3...Love it or hate it? - Part 2

[Dagenspear]

Oh you're right

So when Killian said "I AM THE MANDARIN" it meant "I'm just the dude who hired another dude to disguise himself as another dude while I blow your house up"

I guess when Tony Stark said "I AM IRON MAN" it means "i'm just some dude who makes suits for the real tony stark"

okay lol

Yeah, cause if Stan Lee says "I am Spider-Man" that totally means he is, right? Oh wait, no. That's basically what this is. Killian created a fictional figure called "The Mandarin", but Killian does not represent any of this fictional character's beliefs or idealogies, nor is he in any way similar in style or in substance to said fictional character, so when he says "I am The Mandarin!" he is declaring himself as the figurehead of his organization, but he is not the actual character to which he claims the name of, he is a different one.

 

[Dagenspear]

There was a lot more to him than that. You're mostly talking about the surface stuff. Killian, on a narrative and thematic level, was a very interesting foil to Tony Stark. A man who started with nothing, took power he did not earn, and is motivated by a desire to reinvent himself as a great man and take everything he feels he is entitled to. It's a nice contrast to Tony Stark. Stane and Hammer weren't like that, and Hammer wasn't even the main villain in Iron Man 2, Vanko was. Besides some superficial similarities he wasn't much like any of those characters at all.

Except for in his goals, beliefs, style, substance and about everything other than his dumb dumb pathetic backstory, cause who wants an interesting compelling villain when we get someone who has crappy "themes" coming out his a**, and wants money and power.

***********************SNORE***************************

 

[Steamteck]

So,The Mandarin can't be Asian,bearded,long haired or robed without being racist? What does the term "Mandarin" have in common with a pasty faced, suit wearing, rich guy?

Oh,yeah.Dragon tattoos,and generic martial arts moves that are mandated for every character in action movies since the late 90's.

Interesting the same description can be used of many characters in actual Asian produced films. funny thing.

If the Mandarin is racist then almost any character using classic elements of or fitting into their cultural past or present is racist. No different than the British character, the Shining knight IMO.

 

[Green Goblin]

Thankfully IM3 didn't state that so there was no change.

Plus the IM3 prelude comics that came out before the movie did established that The Mandarinis a real person and is the head ofthe Ten Rings.

"You said you wanted the Mandarin, your looking right at him. It was always me Tony, right from the start!"

 

[ferpuerto17]

I am Thor, the god of thunder... I must be because I said I am. It is over... Killian is NOT the Mandarin. Comic book fans 1 - Movie watchers 0

 

[Ant-manic]

Yeah, cause if Stan Lee says "I am Spider-Man" that totally means he is, right? Oh wait, no. That's basically what this is. Killian created a fictional figure called "The Mandarin", but Killian does not represent any of this fictional character's beliefs or idealogies, nor is he in any way similar in style or in substance to said fictional character, so when he says "I am The Mandarin!" he is declaring himself as the figurehead of his organization, but he is not the actual character to which he claims the name of, he is a different one.

so why the dragon tattoos?

 

[Upset Spideyfan]

Does it really matter? It's not like we are going to see the "real" Mandarin or 10 Rings come up again.

So why couldn't they come up with a better story for the genuine article in Iron Man 3?

Seems to me this is a consolation prize for people that didn't like the Mandarin twist but it ultimately won't matter in the long run.

Yeah that's pretty much my attitude. If the Mandarin ACTUALLY shows up for real this time in IM4 then that'll be something but this just reeks of a tactic to try and win over people who are upset over how they mangled the character.

 

[Uskok]

Wait...

Does the one shot reveal The Mandarin to be real? I havent watched it yet.

Even before Iron Man 3 it was established that the Mandarin is real in the Iron Man 3 Prelude comic. Now, since a lot of fans have no idea about the existence of the comic, they believed that Killian is the Mandarin, but he's not. The timeline of this whole story would go like this:

1) The Mandarin leads the Ten Rings for decades, maybe even centuries.
2) Aldrich Killian needs to masquerade his failed experiments with Extremis as terrorist attacks so he studies the history of the Ten Rings and learns they are historically
associated with the man called the Mandarin. Killian thinks the Mandarin isn't real but likes the name and hires Trevor Slattery to play the Mandarin.
3) Slattery appears on tv as the "Mandarin" and gives his "lessons" to the USA. The Mandarin sees that and becomes very angry.
4) Killian fights against Stark and to look like some badass supervillain calls himself the Mandarin.
5) Killian is dead, Slattery is imprisoned in Seagate Prison and the Mandarin sends the Ten Rings to kidnap him. End of the story.

 

[Lord]

There are also some X-Men movie prequel comics that contradict later films and even the film itself by having Rogue kissing her boyfriend on a prom night or something like that. Those kind of stuff happen all the time, as the writers only early scripts or most of the time none at all, having to write a prequel with the same knowledge as somebody who didn't watch the film yet.

 

[TheLongestDay]

even before iron man 3 it was established that the mandarin is real in the iron man 3 prelude comic. Now, since a lot of fans have no idea about the existence of the comic, they believed that killian is the mandarin, but he's not. The timeline of this whole story would go like this:

1) the mandarin leads the ten rings for decades, maybe even centuries.
2) aldrich killian needs to masquerade his failed experiments with extremis as terrorist attacks so he studies the history of the ten rings and learns they are historically
associated with the man called the mandarin. Killian thinks the mandarin isn't real but likes the name and hires trevor slattery to play the mandarin.
3) slattery appears on tv as the "mandarin" and gives his "lessons" to the usa. The mandarin sees that and becomes very angry.
4) killian fights against stark and to look like some badass supervillain calls himself the mandarin.
5) killian is dead, slattery is imprisoned in seagate prison and the mandarin sends the ten rings to kidnap him. End of the story.

truth

 

[TheHeatKitchen]

Even before Iron Man 3 it was established that the Mandarin is real in the Iron Man 3 Prelude comic. Now, since a lot of fans have no idea about the existence of the comic, they believed that Killian is the Mandarin, but he's not. The timeline of this whole story would go like this:

1) The Mandarin leads the Ten Rings for decades, maybe even centuries.
2) Aldrich Killian needs to masquerade his failed experiments with Extremis as terrorist attacks so he studies the history of the Ten Rings and learns they are historically
associated with the man called the Mandarin. Killian thinks the Mandarin isn't real but likes the name and hires Trevor Slattery to play the Mandarin.
3) Slattery appears on tv as the "Mandarin" and gives his "lessons" to the USA. The Mandarin sees that and becomes very angry.
4) Killian fights against Stark and to look like some badass supervillain calls himself the Mandarin.
5) Killian is dead, Slattery is imprisoned in Seagate Prison and the Mandarin sends the Ten Rings to kidnap him. End of the story.

That's the only part I'm hoping you're wrong about.

 

[TheHeatKitchen]

Spoiler

"You said you wanted the Mandarin, your looking right at him. It was always me Tony, right from the start!"

In Killian's mind:
The Ten Rings is real
The Mandarin is their leader
The Mandarin is just a myth
The Ten Rings was extinguished after the events of Iron Man (Stark and Stane seperately playing their parts in their "demise")
He decides to use this "fallen" terrorist group to control the War on Terror
He hires Trevor Slattery to act as The Mandarin, thus "creating" The Mandarin
Because he "created" The Mandarin (as is his belief), he in fact IS The Mandarin.
Much like Bill Gates created Microsoft, there for IS Microsoft. He "created" him, so he has the rights to call himself by that title.

In Reality:
The Ten Rings is real
The Mandarin is their leader
The Mandarin has led The Ten Rings for an unknown length of time (years, decades, centuries)
After the events of Iron Man, The Ten Rings lied dormant (as other posters have said), recovering from the hit they took
Killian hired Trevor Slattery to portray The Mandarin
The Mandarin saw Trevor's "lessons" to the US and took offense to their disrespect and impersonation of him and their organization
After the events of Iron Man 3, The Mandarin and The Ten Rings have finally learned that it was Killian who spearheaded the facade
With Killian dead, Trevor was the only person involved left to punish
Cue the events of "All Hail the King"

 

[A Necessary Evil]

Prelude comics and other types of spinoffs don't count as canonical to the plot, honestly. If so, we would have gotten that awesome Venom story from "The Black"

 

[Uskok]

"You said you wanted the Mandarin, your looking right at him. It was always me Tony, right from the start!"

From the start of the fake Mandarin bombings, not from the start of Tony Stark's little problem in Afghanistan that forced him to become Iron Man.

 

[Slushy]

If so, we would have gotten that awesome Venom story from "The Black"

Explain.

 

[A Necessary Evil]

Explain.

Uhhh there was some additional comic with the DVD release of Spider-Man 3 that showed Venom gaining Parker's memories, stalking Gwen at her house, and seeing the casefile of Flint Marko (which shows how he knows of him, something the movie forgot.) I like the movie, but they really should have filmed that, or at least shown the alternate team-up sequence instead. I have it, I can't scan it because I don't have a scanner, but I'm sure it's on Google.

 

[TheHeatKitchen]

The Real Mandarin:
Ken Wantanabe
Long descendant of Ghengis Kahn (but racial mix through family history of Chinese, Japanese, Syrian, Egyptian)
Leader of The Ten Rings terrorist organization
Has ten rings, powered by cosmic energy (rings' abilities are debatable)
Has been leading The Ten Rings for generations
Approx. 200 years old, kept alive and (relatively) youthful by the rings' powers
Genius intellect
Advanced hand-to-hand combat, various martial arts
Sees himself as the creator of Iron Man (as the armor and character changes for Tony didn't happen until The Ten Rings captured him)
Was behind the original plot of Iron Man and Iron Man 2 (the Jericho missile, Stane, Hammer's army, Whiplash)
Masquerades as a businessman, owner of a Japanese corporation that builds weapons tech (similar to Stark)

Just some random ideas.

 

[Flint Marko]

Rewatching IM3. Regardless of your thoughts on the twist you can't deny that Ben Kinglsey is hysterical. The part where he yells out during the soccer game gets me every time.

 

[A Necessary Evil]

Ole ole,ole ole ole

 

[Vartha]

heh loved the one-shot lol

 

[The Infernal]

I really enjoyed this one. Loved the retro style it had at times and it's great to see that Sir Ben seems to really love this character. He seems to have a really good personality.

 

[Levsky]

Actually, these rumours we were hearing about a year before the movie hit the screens turned out to be true. According to them, The Mandarin would be some kind of group, not just a single person. And after rewatching this movie a few times, I've realised it is the point. If you pay attention to words of Savin when he's about to kidnapp the president, you'll notice he's using "that's not how the Mandarin works" line which is the key. He's not referring to one person who is supposed to be in charge of all this operation but he's clearly talking like he himself would be the part of some big Mandarin group. The rumour I have mentioned was about the Mandarin group in which Killian is like brain, Trevor his mouth and creator of appearances, Savin makes muscles. All of this became the reality. I must admit that I really liked this whole idea they came up with in this film. I find it sorta intriguing and creative. Also I consider Killian the most dangerous, interesting and intelligent of all Tony's villains so far. Just look at what he has done and how he has gained all his power, influences, supplies... Not only was he a great mind, but also a really strong and experienced in combat opponent who could almost kill Stark if not for Pepper's help.

 

[A Necessary Evil]

"The rumour I have mentioned was about the Mandarin group in which Killian is like brain, Trevor his mouth and creator of appearances, Savin makes muscles"

the guy who played Savin actually said that, as a matter of fact lol.

The only rumor I heard about Mandarin anytime before/after IM3, was the Mandy was a sentient AI or something.

 

[GENERAL RAAM582]

Seems like Killian put up more of a fight than Savin though.

 

[A Necessary Evil]

TBF, Savin was a badass too. Took out a whole water tower on Tony lol. Also, he got to die like Mallen, which was cool.