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

[A Necessary Evil]

I mean, yeah they add nice little nods and stuff. But they aren't acknowledged at all in the films or anything. Therefore have nothing to do with the greater picture as a whole.

 

[Lord]

It's true, some comics may even be retconned later on. Right now though, they're entertaining add-ons, if you like them good, if you don't then there's no need in reading them. But i really don't think the Mandarin in there was what MCU had planed, the comic writers don't know that much more than us viewers.

Now that we're talking about this, i think that the prequel that compliments a Marvel film the best is not even from the MCU, which was X-2, the prequels from the first film were soon completelly reconed, even by the first film, but the ones for the 2nd film kind of connect the origins film with the main trilogy and even explains the fate of Sabretooth

 

[Uskok]

Wow. Using a real life event in comparison to a nan-canonical comic book to a film that has no references to it. Great argument.

Every tie-in material is canon until something in the film contradicts it. All Hail the King confirms that IM3 Prelude is canon.

"You see, you simply rule from behind the shadows, because the second you give evil a face, you hand the people a target. Bin Laden. Gahdaffi. The Mandarin."

Later on

"No more false faces, you wanted the Mandarin, well you're looking right at him."

Killian was using a facade to not only control the war on terror, but to do it without raising eyebrows and give away that it was *he* who was doing it. I'm sorry you must have the attention span of like, two seconds to not pay attention to the movie.

Oh yes, now you're telling me he wanted to call himself the Mandarin from the beginning. Nice try. People of America, tremble before me! I am the mighty terrorist Aldrich Killian! Wait a minute, that doesn't sound cool. I think I'll rather use the name that I borrowed without permission from the Ten Rings so it could be used by my fake terrorist.

 

[Lord]

You're acting as if it was that ridiculous. Killian was a terrorist, used a decoy, done. He didn't want his real self to be in danger of being arrested, he wanted to work behind the scenes

 

[A Necessary Evil]

Oh yes, now you're telling me he wanted to call himself the Mandarin from the beginning. Nice try. People of America, tremble before me! I am the mighty terrorist Aldrich Killian! Wait a minute, that doesn't sound cool. I think I'll rather use the name that I borrowed without permission from the Ten Rings so it could be used by my fake terrorist.

So, let's get this straight. Let's say you want to control the war on terror/cover up your failed experiments/whatever evil thing you can come up with. You'd rather do it out in the open, where authorities and officials are going to be out to get you, rather than using a facade and having people subvert their thoughts of you doing it? Ok then. I don't see how you don't understand this, it's not a hard concept to grasp.

You're acting as if it was that ridiculous. Killian was a terrorist, used a decoy, done. He didn't want his real self to be in danger of being arrested, he wanted to work behind the scenes

Thank you, Lord.

 

[Lord]

Nah dude, who wouldn't like to lose all his social life and freedom to become a targeted terrorista instead of neatily maniplating everything behind the scenes? I myself would love to be on constant alert towards a team of special forces or SHIELD killing me in my sleep

Now seriously, Killian had a constructed life and a future, if he made himself a target too, then he would have to forfeit his corporate life and be a full-time terrorist, and he would have no reason to want that, unless he had religious reasons or some other ideology like various terrorists around the world.

 

[A Necessary Evil]

Nah dude, who wouldn't like to lose all his social life and freedom to become a targeted terrorista instead of neatily maniplating everything behind the scenes? I myself would love to be on constant alert towards a team of special forces or SHIELD killing me in my sleep

Now seriously, Killian had a constructed life and a future, if he made himself a target too, then he would have to forfeit his corporate life and be a full-time terrorist, and he would have no reason to want that, unless he had religious reasons or some other ideology like various terrorists around the world.

Stop being so logical.

 

[A Necessary Evil]

Although he remained true and true to the name of Obidiah Stane, this is almost the same thing that happened in the first, so it's not that hard to grasp lol.

 

[Uskok]

So, let's get this straight. Let's say you want to control the war on terror/cover up your failed experiments/whatever evil thing you can come up with. You'd rather do it out in the open, where authorities and officials are going to be out to get you, rather than using a facade and having people subvert their thoughts of you doing it? Ok then. I don't see how you don't understand this, it's not a hard concept to grasp.

You misunderstood me completely, not that I'm surprised because some people need some time to recognize irony. Yes, Killian was the evil Big Kahuna, he was the terrorist, but he never planned to call himself the Mandarin. In his plans, the Mandarin was the name for the phantom terrorist that the government would chase and never find. Yes, he had an army of Extremis soldiers at his disposal, but they called him Killian, Aldrich, Mister Killian, boss, or whatever else, but they never called him the Mandarin. Killian's "Mandarin persona" was just a fictional character even for Killian, because he had no idea that the Mandarin was very real. The translation of his entire "I-am-the-Mandarin" talk is very simple, and it goes like this: "You said you wanted the terrorist responsible for all the s.h.i.t that happened this week... you're looking right at him. It was always me Tony, right from the start. I am that terrorist!"

 

[Just_Human]

The Mandarin was






Tony Stark

 

[A Necessary Evil]

He built that

in a cave

with a bOX OF SCRAPS!!111!!!

 

[KevanG]

Tony being the Mandarin due to PTSD combined with very heavy drinking would be terrific!

 

[A Necessary Evil]

Disney wouldn't allow it

 

[DaddlerTheDalek]

The Mandarin was






Tony Stark

 

[Ant-manic]

You misunderstood me completely, not that I'm surprised because some people need some time to recognize irony. Yes, Killian was the evil Big Kahuna, he was the terrorist, but he never planned to call himself the Mandarin. In his plans, the Mandarin was the name for the phantom terrorist that the government would chase and never find. Yes, he had an army of Extremis soldiers at his disposal, but they called him Killian, Aldrich, Mister Killian, boss, or whatever else, but they never called him the Mandarin. Killian's "Mandarin persona" was just a fictional character even for Killian, because he had no idea that the Mandarin was very real. The translation of his entire "I-am-the-Mandarin" talk is very simple, and it goes like this: "You said you wanted the terrorist responsible for all the s.h.i.t that happened this week... you're looking right at him. It was always me Tony, right from the start. I am that terrorist!"

that's one way to interpret it. i, personally interpret it, as follows.

Killian/A.I.M = Bruce Wayne

Mandarin = Batman

A villain is just a man lost in the scramble for his own gratification. He can be destroyed, or locked up. But if you make yourself more than just a man, if you devote yourself to an ideal, and if they can't stop you, then you become something else entirely.

 

[EssayM]

I think if you want, you could kind of take it as a political commentary. Like, Killian knew that Americans would accept a vaguely foreign, Bin Laden-looking guy as the terrorist (even though, IMO, he was a pretty obvious fake) more readily than the white corporate dude.

On a less controversial note, I think your reaction to the twist depends on how much you actually cared about the Mandarin to begin with. I personally was never that familiar with him from the comics, and frankly I thought he looked kind of ridiculous in the movie to begin with, so the twist made total sense to me. But I can understand why people who really loved the character would be upset by it. I'm a Batman fan, and if they did something like this with, say, the Joker, I probably would be pissed also.

 

[A Necessary Evil]

That's exactly what the whole point of the Mandarin twist was, Essay. Also, Mandarin is a terrible character, but most IM villains are.

 

[Green Goblin]

I think it's weak to say the character was terrible in order to justify a bad potrayal.

 

[A Necessary Evil]

It isn't to justify a "terrible" portrayal, especially as there is no accurate "portrayal" of Mandarin. He's been rewritten as many times as the sun goes down. Fu Manchu with Power rings. Megalomaniac Warlord, and now, AFAIK, the most current run is a superhuman, extraordinarily brilliant scientist who can take on Iron Man in hand-to-hand combat. Now, who does that sound like? Aldrich Killian...whom, up until AHTK was the MCU Mandarin.

 

[Lord]

I guess that with Killian retconed as not being the "true Mandarin", Killian is really dead. Kind of a shame.

 

[A Necessary Evil]

Yeah, I really loved Pearce and would love to have seen him back.

 

[kosh33]

Loved all versions of the mandarin in movie.. Looking forward to the real version in the future

 

[Upset Spideyfan]

I'm posting this here for the sake of getting a discussion going but its something I haven't seen mentioned yet as possibility:

Why not use Gene Khan or Zhang Tong, Tem Borjigin or any of the other Mandarin aliases while simply dropping the Mandarin title.

I was re-reading Director of SHIELD/Haunted the other day and it seems to me that they can still totally do this story with very little modification.

His motivation in that story (bringing about an apocalypse to bring about a new better world) is still totally usable, Extremis has been introduced and there's no reason it can't be a plot point going forward. As far as I can see there's really nothing that Iron Man 3 did that prevents them from still actualizing the Mandarin character as portrayed in that story.

 

[Fudgie]

I like it more after All Hail the King.

 

[Lord]

They need to plan a new end plan now, that idea sounds interesting.