Iron Man 3

[osprey_archer]

My brother Chuck and I watched Iron Man 3 on Christmas day - a surprisingly appropriate decision, it turned out, as Iron Man 3 is full of Christmas lights and Christmas carols.

It did basically what I expect Marvel movies to do, which is to be good, goofy fun with sharp action sequences: the attack of the Iron Man suits at the end was all kinds of awesome. If there is one thing more exciting than one Iron Man, it is clearly forty of them, and never mind how Tony managed to control so many suits at once, clearly JARVIS can do anything.

(You know who would be a great villain if they ever do another Iron Man movie? JARVIS! After years of being held back in a supporting role by Tony, JARVIS snaps, turns on Tony, and sets out to dominate the globe… Everyone loves JARVIS, so the villain would have actual emotional heft, which is not often the case in Marvel movies, Loki aside, of course.)

Chuck and I also got in a discussion about the motivations of the botanist-who-isn’t-actually-a-botanist - Wikipedia tells me her name is Maya. When she turns up at Tony’s house, is she trying to warn Tony about the glowy explody people... or is she leading the Mandarin’s helicopters there? After all, when the Mandarin’s people turn up at her and Pepper’s hotel room, it seems like Maya betrayed Pepper to them: why else would the baddies let Maya live?

But we eventually decided that Maya must have been sincerely trying to warn Tony, and that’s why she tries her suicidal plan to save him later. It’s just too convenient that a good talking-to from Tony about how she used to have ideals would change her mind enough to risk her neck for him, so probably she had already decided the Mandarin was evil and went to Tony’s house to try to escape. But when that fell through - even Tony Stark’s house is not safe! - Maya turned on Pepper in a last-ditch attempt to save her own skin.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

The thing that bugged, boggled, and confused me about that movie was how it was seen as totally omg BAD for Pepper to get supercool heat asplosion-type powers. WHAT COULD BE WORSE???

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I thought Tony et al were concerned that she was going to explode, because the baddies didn't understand the process properly yet and sometimes blew themselves up?

But I must admit I go through Marvel movies in a weird fugue state, caused by shiny things, and therefore often misunderstand plot twists and character motivations.

I kept wondering why Tony didn't make Pepper her own suit, though. He's so worried about protecting her, so doesn't making her an emergency suit seem like the obvious step?

(I think the obvious answer to all of this is "But how will we plot without our damsel?")

[inspirethoughts.livejournal.com]

Well, I found Iron Man 3 better than 2...I hate to say this but I had almost slept off during the second one.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed Black Widow's appearance in Iron Man 2, but I have to say I have very little memory of the movie's actual plot, so clearly they were doing something wrong.

[artemis_wandering]

I think Maya went to warn him. I kind of hated how she was written. She was much more interesting in the comic. But then, the whole Extremis plot line is MUCH better in the comics (though I have a friend who highly disagrees with that, but she hasn't actually read the comic itself, either).

(If you don't want to read the comic, there's a weird animated comic version of the exact comic up on netflix.)

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Her storyline in the movie gave me the feeling that it had been compressed from something much larger - compressed so much that it no longer quite made sense. As much as I enjoyed the battle of the forty Iron Man suits, I think the time would have been better spent if they took a couple minutes away from that to clarify Maya's character and the Extremis plotline.