Iron Man 3

[Pennilenko]

Holy Shit, some of you guys mean to tell me that the concept of Iron Man technology is just fucking unrealistic? I can't believe I've been fooled for so long into enjoying a lifetime of Iron Man comic books and recent movies.

I tell you I am completely shattered. Make believe is ruined for ever because it isn't real enough...

[Venkman]

I'm with Pennilenko. The amount of rage over the entire gray area of suspended disbelief is itself unbelievable

Autonomous individual pieces of armor than can self-assembled and fly hundreds of miles? Your Tony Stark, billionaire genius inventor who can hack into anything including super sekret guvmint black-level stuff. You don't have a personal satellite or twelve tuned to the sensors you just hyposprayed into your arm to pinpoint your location to within a few inches? I actually found those pieces fit well with how he evolved the tech. And that they can all fall apart at a light impact I figured was just some failsafe.

If you're gonna nerdrage on something, why doesn't he have a fucking cellphone in his ear so Rhody can come pick him up? Or why does he let his pad and girlfriend get beat all to shit when he's got a dozen non-paper-mache autonomous robots kicking around the sub-basement? And why does he build a bunch of pawn-shop tech to solo invade the mansion of a world-feared terrorist and not have a full backup arsenal with him, or some actual military types? Or why is Rhody such a completely useless tool in a suit that since it's government owned should have been bigger than the goddamned thing from the first movie?

There are legitimate story beats here that don't survive any real scrutiny. Complaining about the pretend use of entirely unbelievable technology that requires handwaving just to explain it to the sfx guys seems kinda silly.

tl;dr: the only thing that made sense was the tech

[rk47]

They forgot Poland.

[Ubvman]

I'm with Pennilenko. The amount of rage over the entire gray area of suspended disbelief is itself unbelievable

....

There are legitimate story beats here that don't survive any real scrutiny. Complaining about the pretend use of entirely unbelievable technology that requires handwaving just to explain it to the sfx guys seems kinda silly.

tl;dr: the only thing that made sense was the tech

Truth.
This applies to EVERY SINGLE FANTASY MOVIE out there from Metropolis to the present.
Whether be it magic or Stark tech.

[Ironwood]

Why did JARVIS die ?

[eldaec]

Edit: deleted a quote as I'm losing track of who thinks what and who is violently agreeing with whom.

Good fantasy stories have stuff that is internally consistent and makes sense as a story all the damn time.

Just take a look at the countless pages discussing lotr or asoiaf on this very forum.

I enjoyed this film, mostly because it made me laugh. But to argue that the flaws are irrelevant because it is 'only' an action fantasy film is daft.

As an entry in the marvel canon, viewed a year or more on it is going to seem like a silly film, especially if tony stark ever gets back into an iron man suit.

Given that reports say RDJ is interested in avengers 2 & 3 but not IM4, I get the feeling Black was given licence to burn up the IM concept, and took the brief to its illogical conclusion. For all the talk of this being such a standalone film, it actually changes the avengers universe far more than IM2, and more than I expect CA2 or Thor2 will.

[Pezzle]

The movie failed to suspend disbelief or maintain consistency even within this movie, let alone the other recent iron man appearances.  There is no tension and too much terrible background music.  RDJ has a clever turn of phrase, explosions, roll credits.     



This movie was bad, even for a comic book adventure film.

[Mattemeo]

Just came back from seeing it again; it still stands up. There's plenty of telegraphing, loads of exposition and it simply doesn't go out of its way to break its own rules. Skirt around them a little, yes. But it almost always comes up with a justifiable excuse. I swear to god the movie comprehension on this board is fucking strange. Stark can't call up the legion because with Jarvis out of comission, he's locked out of his own tech - a nice demonstration that he hasn't thought everything through, which is broadened by Harly telling him he should make a stealth suit - Stark simply hadn't thought of it. Call it hubris, call it PTSD. He's having to repower the suit via conventional electrical outputs in a suburban home - like charging an electric car, that shit's not happening in 5 minutes, and he doesn't exactly have access to nuclear fission in a garage with a lack of the right fucking sort of scraps he's not likely to make a miniaturized one (again) in the meantime (and would we want a rehash of that anyway?). As for the Mk 42 flying into pieces all the time, I'd say that was a fundamental design feature, and it only occured with the 42.

[SurfD]

Also, the thing IS the Mark fucking FOURTY TWO.

Even Pepper makes some kind of comment in the scene where he greets her after work with the suit where she thinks it is the mark 8 or 12 or something.

That just leaves plenty to our imagination about just how much "downtime" Tony has had to manage and the sheer amount of techno churn he has probably put into his suit development.   I mean christ, even with the, what, 4 suits we have seen him actually build over the first 2 movies there was DRASTIC increase in performance and functionality.  Just imagine the kind of shit he has had time to play around with working through 38 odd newer mark models.  The fact that the Mark 42 is capable of crazy shit should be about baseline at that point.

[UnSub]

When I saw it with a good friend I leaned over and said "Guy Pearce needs to be in more movies." I don't know what happened to him. He started out and was kind of a boring, handsome actor. Then he sort of disappeared off of my radar and then over the last two years he's come back and had some really great performances. Hell, his TED viral video for Prometheus was the best thing involved with that movie, including the movie.

Guy Pearce realised he hated where his Hollywood career was going when he was doing most of his acting stoned, so he dropped out, did indie films and small roles for a while (he even headed a short Australian TV movie series about the Jack Irish detective character) and apparently only picks the roles that interest him. He recently did another action film called "Lockout" - prison rescue in SPAAAACCCCEEEE! - and was apparently the best thing in "Lawless" (and looks super creepy with no eyebrows).

[Pezzle]

It could be the mk 300 for all the difference it makes.  The scene was bad.  Why does he need the number on the side?  Stark does not give a damn about the other models, why should we?  Only one of the others seems to be substantially different in any case, and they are as durable as a wet paper bag.  His callous disregard for public safety and the future of suit tech during the 'fireworks' scene was particularly wretched.  The entire suit fight scene was poorly done and ultimately irrelevant.  If the suits really do not matter, why bother?  You did not need as many moving figures on camera.  It took away any tension.  It was like watching that vile space fight scene at the start of new star wars when they rescue the emperor.  

I know, I know, people like Iron Man and big clangy suits.  So do I.  I like them more when there is some actual tension or decent development.  

Blah blah lost another suit, oh here is another!  Not compelling.

[HaemishM]

To be fair, you can blame all the "tons of empty suits fighting" schtick on legions of comics writers from yesteryear and today. That scene with 40-some odd Iron Man armors lining up is ripped straight out of the end of every Iron Man writer's run.

[Ironwood]

Just came back from seeing it again; it still stands up. There's plenty of telegraphing, loads of exposition and it simply doesn't go out of its way to break its own rules. Skirt around them a little, yes. But it almost always comes up with a justifiable excuse. I swear to god the movie comprehension on this board is fucking strange. Stark can't call up the legion because with Jarvis out of comission, he's locked out of his own tech - a nice demonstration that he hasn't thought everything through, which is broadened by Harly telling him he should make a stealth suit - Stark simply hadn't thought of it. Call it hubris, call it PTSD. He's having to repower the suit via conventional electrical outputs in a suburban home - like charging an electric car, that shit's not happening in 5 minutes, and he doesn't exactly have access to nuclear fission in a garage with a lack of the right fucking sort of scraps he's not likely to make a miniaturized one (again) in the meantime (and would we want a rehash of that anyway?). As for the Mk 42 flying into pieces all the time, I'd say that was a fundamental design feature, and it only occured with the 42.

He couldn't call up the other suits because of the concrete.  He can leave a message for Potts in a helmet, but can't connect to the server version of JARVIS ?  What, JARVIS LIVES IN THE SUIT ?  Why, in this world of hi-tech Wifi Cloud that he appears to live in, DID JARVIS DIE ?

You should shut up and stop telling people here they don't get it because of your own fuckin stupid tissue paper rationalisations.  Fundamental Design Feature my fucking Arsehole.

[Surlyboi]

JARVIS in the suit died because the suit lost power and the ability to connect to server JARVIS. Pretty consistent with technology both real and movie-based. Not much rationalization there. It wasn't Shakespeare, but the amount of nerd rage here is pretty fucking epic.

[eldaec]

Given that the suits can be powered by the reactor in Tony's chest, why did the suit lose power and once it had lost power for some reason, why not hook it up to the chest reactor? Also if he can phone the mainframe to leave a message, then even if we accept your local/server Jarvis rationalisation, why couldn't the suit contact mainframe Jarvis? Jarvis went crazy before the suit lost power.

But this stuff only really gets noticed because the characters were all doing things that made no fucking sense.

The film was fun but silly. Much as DKR was fun but silly. And was weaker than the previous films as a result.

[Ironwood]

Yeah, that.  I can phone all my fucking applications RIGHT NOW.  Some of you chaps are rationalising 'Tony Stark is a genius, it works like magic' while ignoring what that precisely means.

It means he should have Jarvis in his ear ALWAYS.  But that'd make things too easy and avoid the 'let's shoehorn a kid in there' nonsense.

[Margalis]

There was too much ionization in the atmosphere.

[Ironwood]

A Wizard did it.

[Merusk]

Tachyons.

[eldaec]

Narrativium.

[Rishathra]

Given that the suits can be powered by the reactor in Tony's chest, why did the suit lose power and once it had lost power for some reason, why not hook it up to the chest reactor?

I assumed that the individual pieces needed their own power supply for the occasions when they separate.  And his suit was kinda trashed at the time, so I figured he needed to do a small amount of fixup before donning it again, thus robbing him of the opportunity to charge it with his core.  I realize this is all rationalization on my part, and was not communicated by the movie AT ALL, but it made enough sense to me that I wasn't bothered by it while watching.

[Ironwood]

And I have total respect for that, but when I see a guy with an Arc Reactor mounted in his chest that he's spent all the last film designing a new element for to power the core to unheard of and unimaginable levels and he's got a couple of fucking jump leads attached to a Car Battery, my first instinct is 'Wait, What?'

[Merusk]

It almost feels like they wanted to remove the reactor at the beginning of the movie, then pushed it to the end after his big emotional shift and things fell apart after that.  A singular change that fixes a lot of problems. (Though not the 'two phonecalls' part.)

[Ironwood]

That would have made more sense.

[Father mike]

This thread has added an entirely new layer to my anticipation of Pacific Rim.

[Ironwood]

ARGGGG

STOP DOING THAT.

[HaemishM]

Ok, but if we REALLY want to get all nerdragey and super-sciency about it, if he could have the shrapnel near his heart just fucking removed like he did at the end (SPOILER!!!!!!), why spend 3 movies with the reactor on his chest?

Basically, if you start poking holes in 3 based on LOGIC... the whole goddamn franchise falls apart. I'm not saying you guys don't have valid reasons for not liking it or having your suspension of disbelief experience a tachyon meltdown, all I'm saying is it's a fun movie that completely falls apart if you think about it for one goddamn second.

So don't. Or you'll fucking hate it. Which apparently you do.

[tazelbain]

Robert Downey Jr. is the voice of my generation and Iron 3 is his opus magnum.

[Pennilenko]

Some of you guys are killing me. I look foward to bajillion page thread of neckbeard nerd rage once the new trek movie release. Also if this thread is any indication, they just better shut the internet down when disney starts chuening star wars movies that have nothing to do with canon.

[Mattemeo]

He couldn't call up the other suits because of the concrete.  He can leave a message for Potts in a helmet, but can't connect to the server version of JARVIS ?  What, JARVIS LIVES IN THE SUIT ?  Why, in this world of hi-tech Wifi Cloud that he appears to live in, DID JARVIS DIE ?

You should shut up and stop telling people here they don't get it because of your own fuckin stupid tissue paper rationalisations.  Fundamental Design Feature my fucking Arsehole.

It really isn't my fault you don't pay any fucking attention and live to bitch about shit that doesn't matter.

[eldaec]

Pretty sure what 'nerdrage' there is in this thread isn't about the movie.

[Shannow]

He couldn't call up the other suits because of the concrete.  He can leave a message for Potts in a helmet, but can't connect to the server version of JARVIS ?  What, JARVIS LIVES IN THE SUIT ?  Why, in this world of hi-tech Wifi Cloud that he appears to live in, DID JARVIS DIE ?

You should shut up and stop telling people here they don't get it because of your own fuckin stupid tissue paper rationalisations.  Fundamental Design Feature my fucking Arsehole.

It really isn't my fault you don't pay any fucking attention and live to bitch about shit that doesn't matter.

F13 in a nutshell. :)

[Ragnoros]

This was a strange movie, and not really in a good way.

[Samwise]

Saw this last night.  Needing to charge the suit off external power to provide tension was pretty stupid given that the first movie established that he's got a power plant in his chest.  Herp derp.  Seems like they could have done the same story while coming up with some less stupid reason that he doesn't have access to any of his suits.  

I did love the bit with him Macgyvering a bunch of weapons and punching people, though.

I think had I written this movie I'd have skipped all the multiple autonomous suit nonsense, had him lose access to his suit because it gets stolen while he's drunk or something like that, he has to fight a bunch of minor bad guys with the Macgyver gadgets to get his suit back, then once he has the suit we get the big final action scene, except it's just him beating the crap out of all the super soldiers on his own instead of having an army of kamikaze tinfoil suits.

[Venkman]

This was a strange movie, and not really in a good way.

I actually felt that way about 2. It just didn't work for me. The big fight at the end was dumb, him falling all apart as party animal/wierd electrodes-in-his-head stuff was all herky jerky, that movie just wasn't good. They spent a good chunk of the movie establishing that he thought he was the only one who could be Iron Man. But that can only work if the audience believes an exosuit can only be powered by an arc tumor near ones' heart.

3 worked for me because it got him back to his tinkerer roots once he realizes the tech is out there now and that it doesn't matter because there's an as-powerful alternative way to super-humanism. It also got back to that figuring-shit-out sense of discovering newness. So what if it was all a bunch of A-Team/MacGuyver handwaving? The franchise has always been that. They never tried to root this in reality. We have Nolan's Batman for realistic billionaire-gadgety superhero stuff.

Granted, I do see why people care. See me in 2015 when the first of the Star Wars movies come out  So I can't nerdrage about nerdrage on principal. I'm just with Haemish on this: this entire trilogy falls apart the moment the very second thing Stark does when he gets home isn't to remove the goddamn shrapnel slowly killing him.