Ironman- The Movie

[Velorath]

But there is no such thing as a good trilogy.

Back to the Future, Lord of the Rings, Hunt for Red October + Patriot Games + Clear and Present Danger, the Man With No Name trilogy, American Pie, Mad Max (while Thunderdome is seen as being the worst of the series, I wouldn't call it a bad movie), Night of the Living Dead + Dawn/Day of the Dead, the Bourne trilogy...

[Johny Cee]

But there is no such thing as a good trilogy.

Back to the Future, Lord of the Rings, Hunt for Red October + Patriot Games + Clear and Present Danger, the Man With No Name trilogy, American Pie, Mad Max (while Thunderdome is seen as being the worst of the series, I wouldn't call it a bad movie), Night of the Living Dead + Dawn/Day of the Dead, the Bourne trilogy...

[Phildo]

Who says Thunderdome is a bad movie?  I'll hurt them!

[Merusk]

Back to the Future I'd disagree with.. again on the 2nd movie.  It was amusing, but I think it dragged-down the whole series.  In a number of trilogies (that set out to be trilogies) the 2nd movie seems to be the weak link.   Probably because its so often used ONLY as a set-up device for the 3rd movie, and weakens its own narrative.  I feel the same way about Pirates 2 and  The Two Towers.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Back to the Future I'd disagree with.. again on the 2nd movie.  It was amusing, but I think it dragged-down the whole series.  In a number of trilogies (that set out to be trilogies) the 2nd movie seems to be the weak link.   Probably because its so often used ONLY as a set-up device for the 3rd movie, and weakens its own narrative.  I feel the same way about Pirates 2 and  The Two Towers.

Well the question is does a trilogy become greater than the sum of its parts? Empire strikes back wouldnt be a very good movie all on its own but as a transitional movie it made the other two better. The same could be said for a lot of "2nd movies"

[Velorath]

Back to the Future I'd disagree with.. again on the 2nd movie.  It was amusing, but I think it dragged-down the whole series.  In a number of trilogies (that set out to be trilogies) the 2nd movie seems to be the weak link.   Probably because its so often used ONLY as a set-up device for the 3rd movie, and weakens its own narrative.  I feel the same way about Pirates 2 and  The Two Towers.

Personally, I liked The Two Towers more than Return of the King.  Also, I liked Back to the Future 2 right away, whereas 3 took a while to grow on me.  As far as Pirates goes I really enjoyed the first one, but the second two needed to trim about an hour and a half off their combined running time.

[Trippy]

Seriously.. wtf is with an Indy movie opening with a musical number.  It's like the producer was fucking her or something.

Director, not Producer.

[Trippy]

He's just aging a bit. He's still the same old smartass, invincible cop.

He dodged an attack fighter in a semi-truck. It went from John McClain to cartoon at that moment. It was a fun movie. But it wasn't in the Die Hard universe.

He became a comic book superhero starting in the second one.

[rk47]

Finally saw Iron Man over the weekend. FUCK YES. I had no complaints about it whatsoever. I would have liked to see more Happy Hogan, but only because I like John Favreau as an actor. Robert Downey, Jr. just nailed that role like the Romans nailed Jesus. Jeff Bridges as Stane was fucking brilliant as well. I really found no fault with the movie whatsoever and look forward to the sequel and the Avengers.

It's great, it's really good. But I still don't like ultimate nick fury. It's just not Nick. He sounded too 'happy'. Also, Rhodes doesn't seem to fit the military types, he makes great chemistry with Stark in the movie, but hell he doesn't look like the military man part. 'Next time baby!' was a nice line though.

[stray]

The "man with no name" is an anachronistic thing. Leoné didn't intend those to be a "trilogy". He just liked the actors, and kept recycling them for different stories. Besides, Eastwood did have a name in 2 of them. He's only the man with no name in Fistful (the coffin guy calls him "Joe" though). Not to mention that it's just a remake of Yojimbo. He's "Monco" in a Few Dollars (Van Cleff was a "Colonel" something or other), and "Blondie" in TGTBATU (Van Cleef was "Angel Eyes"). Besides that, Blondie is a very different character than the other two -- Not the quiet, mysterious cowboy type. He's more of a talkative smartass in that last one. And if that isn't good enough, the difference between the Colonel and Angel Eyes is like day and night.

That said, yes, it's a kickass group of 3 movies. Not really a trilogy though.

LotR was good until, umm... Sean Bean died.

[Velorath]

The "man with no name" is an anachronistic thing. Leoné didn't intend those to be a "trilogy". He just liked the actors, and kept recycling them for different stories. Besides, Eastwood did have a name in 2 of them. He's only the man with no name in Fistful (the coffin guy calls him "Joe" though). Not to mention that it's just a remake of Yojimbo. He's "Monco" in a Few Dollars (Van Cleff was a "Colonel" something or other), and "Blondie" in TGTBATU (Van Cleef was "Angel Eyes"). Besides that, Blondie is a very different character than the other two -- Not the quiet, mysterious cowboy type. He's more of a talkative smartass in that last one. And if that isn't good enough, the difference between the Colonel and Angel Eyes is like day and night.

That said, yes, it's a kickass group of 3 movies. Not really a trilogy though.

The wikipedia entry does a good job at examining whether or not it's a trilogy:

In the "Dollars" Trilogy, Eastwood plays a character with the same mannerisms, wearing the same poncho, lambskin vest and hat, and sporting a silver rattlesnake-shaped plate on the handle of his gun. The question whether the intention was to portray the same individual character in all three films is debatable, but many fans believe that the last film in the trilogy, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is a prequel of sorts to the earlier two,[citation needed] since it is set during the American Civil War and before the period thought of as the "Wild West". Furthermore, Eastwood's character gradually acquires the clothing that he wears throughout the other films in the series, getting his hat, vest and other clothing from the assassin "Angel-Eyes" and taking his signature serape from an anonymous, dying soldier, in exchange for his duster. It can also be noted that the actor portraying the undertaker (Joseph Egger) from the first film shows up in the second as someone Eastwood's character is familiar with. Whether this points to the old man playing the same person or not is unknown as many of the same actors played roles in the three films of characters who were obviously unrelated (such as Lee Van Cleef, who appeared in both For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly as different characters). An expanded version of the movie soundtrack from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly released in 2004 featured a previously unreleased piece titled Il Bandito Monco, i.e. the "The Bandit Monco" (Monco is the nickname of Eastwood's character in the preceding movie and means "one handed" in Italian), lending support to the theory that Eastwood is intended to portray the same character in the three movies.[1] Another interesting note is that towards the end of the first film, one of The Man With No Name's hands is badly injured in a torture scene, and is never shown to totally heal: this might be a connection to the second movie, in most of which he uses only one hand, the other one being saved for shooting only. However, Christopher Frayling has pointed out in his Leone biography, Sergio Leone: Something To Do With Death, that the three films were not intended by Leone or his various script collaborators to be seen as a history of the exact same individual and that it was United Artists, not the filmmakers, who came up with the idea of specifically linking the three films together as a series by referring to the Eastwood character as The Man With No Name in all advertising materials for the movies.

[stray]

He's just aging a bit. He's still the same old smartass, invincible cop.

He dodged an attack fighter in a semi-truck. It went from John McClain to cartoon at that moment. It was a fun movie. But it wasn't in the Die Hard universe.

It wouldn't be too healthy to bungie jump with a firehose tied around your waist either. In fact, rig vs harrier is at least doable (even if not likely). Physically speaking.

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[Hoax]

Too bad the Avengers movie is going to have to be sans-Hulk because not only is he a shitty character, he's going to have had to terrible movies under his belt at that point & they haven't even managed to make him look good.  In fact the new Hulk is a step back from how he looked in the first one.

Wait, what? Sorry but I have to say that by and large people seem to think the incredible hulk is going to do real well. Now I'm not going to defend a movie that's not even out yet but lets not count our eggs before they're laid here. If iron man is any indication, marvel studios knows how to sell their own property.

I would think everyone thought this but if you've seen the theatrical trailer for this new Hulk, wow, I dont know what's wrong with you.  I will say it now, that movie is going to be cgi ass.  The Abomination is the only thing that makes the Hulk look like not quite crap.  That movie looks like ass, retelling the whole origin story again?  Also lame.  Fuck that movie.  Thumbs down.

[stray]

It really doesn't look very good, I agree... But I still like the Hulk in general. So I might be able to enjoy in a guilty pleasure sort of way, like the Bana version.

[HaemishM]

Well the question is does a trilogy become greater than the sum of its parts? Empire strikes back wouldnt be a very good movie all on its own but as a transitional movie it made the other two better.

You are insane. Empire was loads better than the movies surrounding it, and frankly would have stood on its own quite well, IMO. It would have been a bit depressing with that ending, but damn it was just a fantastic movie without any setup from the other movies.

As for the new Hulk movie, I'm afraid it looks like monkey ass, and it really shouldn't. Ed Norton is a great actor as is Tim Roth. But the trailer just makes me think direct-to-video, and I can't quite pinpoint why. The two CGI monsters look terrible. I thought Ang Lee's version was good, just needed less gut-wrenching human drama and more HULK SMASH!!! This looks to have more Hulk Smash but hasn't improved the look, has replaced all the actors for no reason and seems to be directed by Uwe Boll's understudy.

[DraconianOne]

As for the new Hulk movie, I'm afraid it looks like monkey ass, and it really shouldn't. Ed Norton is a great actor as is Tim Roth. But the trailer just makes me think direct-to-video, and I can't quite pinpoint why. The two CGI monsters look terrible. I thought Ang Lee's version was good, just needed less gut-wrenching human drama and more HULK SMASH!!! This looks to have more Hulk Smash but hasn't improved the look, has replaced all the actors for no reason and seems to be directed by Uwe Boll's understudy.

Watched the trailer tonight on the big screen in front of Iron Man (which was very good) and I concur.  The bits with Norton as Banner looked more interesting than the Hulk vs Abomination parts which looked badly directed, poorly CGId and totally predictable and cliched.  Okay, it was only a trailer and they might have edited it poorly but there were some awful, awful parts in it.  I hope to be proved wrong.

Also, word to the wise: when trying to find examples of good trilogies, American Pie is not a good example. 

[Velorath]

Also, word to the wise: when trying to find examples of good trilogies, American Pie is not a good example. 

A lot of people like those movies, and the quality is consistant from movie to movie.  They might not be to your personal taste, but that's not really what's being argued here.

[stray]

They might be consistently good in a vacuum, I guess! The quality isn't good on any kind of relative level (movies of their type) imho. American Pie is pisspoor compared to other highschool movies. As for American Pie 2... Hmm, well.. I'll watch the Rules of Attraction over it any day. Not to mention other great college movies before those two (although that one was released around the same time).

Never saw American Wedding... Never want to.

There are no good trilogies.

[DraconianOne]

I might disagree with Stray about Temple of Doom (which imo is better than Last Crusade) but with regards American Pie, I'm entirely in agreement.  Consistently poor quality throughout, good for watching only if the paint has already dried. 

But as for no good trilogies - it's true that of 3 films, one is always going to be not as good as the other 2 but that doesn't necessarily make it a bad film.  The Godfather Part 3 was nowhere near as good as it's predecessors but it's actually not a bad film in it's own right.  ROTJ not as good as the first two Star Wars films but by no means terrible.  I know I'm in a vast minority in thinking Alien3 isn't a bad film but it's not as good as the first two at all.  I'd also rate the three Evil Dead films as well. Finding trilogies that are consistently (and universally acclaimed as being) good is difficult unless you start bending the rules a bit - i.e. conceptual trilogies rather than narrative trilogies.  Romero's troika of Night/Dawn/Day is pretty damned good; Dario Argento's Three Mothers trilogy is good (but inaccessible to a lot of people on account of being foreign); Three Colours Red/White/Blue are very good; Park Chan-Wook's Vengeance trilogy is fantastic. 

I'm holding out for Toy Story 3 though.

[Riggswolfe]

Also, word to the wise: when trying to find examples of good trilogies, American Pie is not a good example. 

A lot of people like those movies, and the quality is consistant from movie to movie.  They might not be to your personal taste, but that's not really what's being argued here.

American Wedding was shit. It almost made me despise Sean William Scott. Thankfully the Rundown and Bulletproof Monk made me change my mind about him being terrible. The first two movies were fun in a mindless teenage sex romp kind of way.

Other good trilogies:

Back to the Future. 2 was the weakest but it was still fun and inventive. It does suffer from set-up-the-3rd-itis a bit though.
Star Wars original trilogy. ROTJ was the weakest but if you removed the Ewoks and replaced them with Wookiees it'd easily be close to the first movie in quality and might even make a run at Empire as the best of the trilogy.
Indiana Jones. Again, the 2nd is the weak link but overall it's a very good trilogy.
The evil dead "trilogy". I put Trilogy in quotes since Evil Dead 2 is closer to a remake of 1 (or a special edition) than it's own unique movie. It's also unique in that the 3rd movie is the best IMO.
LOTR. I think this one is undeniable.


I think a lot of people would cite the Bourne Trilogy, but I found the two sequels to be overrated unwatchable messes and the worst destruction of an action franchise I've ever seen. I'd rate Rambo 3 higher than either sequel. Still, I'll throw it in here since a lot of people like these.

Wikipedia has a list of movie trilogies which might help: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_film_trilogies

I'll throw in an honorable mention for the Caged Heat trilogy but that has nothing to do with the err..quality of the movies so much as teenage memories.

[stray]

Godfather 3 has some cool parts, but it's so damn convoluted for me to call that a good movie in it's own right (and like you said, it's not even close to as good as the first 2). The only reason I hang with it is because... I have to. It's the Godfather.

I know that Evil Dead II technically wasn't a remake, but it comes off like one... So it's hard for me to call it a trilogy per se. Either way, I don't really care for it. It's not funny like the last 2. Ash wasn't truly born until 2.

Can't give my vote for Romero either! Haha. Night and Dawn were cool, Day not so much.

Those last two series you mentioned I've never seen.. I might check them out now.

LOTR is dogshit.

[Samwise]

Can't give my vote for Romero either! Haha. Night and Dawn were cool, Day not so much.

You shut your dirty mouth.  Day was the best one.

[Merusk]

Although not TECHNICALLY a Trilogy, Conan TB, Conand TD and Red Sojna are a good trio of flicks.   

[Phildo]

I agree with Merusk.  Conan ftw.

[stray]

Conan the Barbarian rocks... I'm a huge fan. I am genuinely surprised that anyone likes those other two though.

[Broughden]

Well the question is does a trilogy become greater than the sum of its parts? Empire strikes back wouldnt be a very good movie all on its own but as a transitional movie it made the other two better.

You are insane. Empire was loads better than the movies surrounding it, and frankly would have stood on its own quite well, IMO. It would have been a bit depressing with that ending, but damn it was just a fantastic movie without any setup from the other movies.

As for the new Hulk movie, I'm afraid it looks like monkey ass, and it really shouldn't. Ed Norton is a great actor as is Tim Roth. But the trailer just makes me think direct-to-video, and I can't quite pinpoint why. The two CGI monsters look terrible. I thought Ang Lee's version was good, just needed less gut-wrenching human drama and more HULK SMASH!!! This looks to have more Hulk Smash but hasn't improved the look, has replaced all the actors for no reason and seems to be directed by Uwe Boll's understudy.

Bana sucked as Bruce Banner. Norton looks like he will do a better job in fitting the part and also in his acting abilities.

The CGI for the new one looks like some kid did it on his Apple for a Youtube video. WTF? They couldnt come up with better animators?

As bad as the acting, story and casting was in the first Hulk...Ang Lee fucked it all up and should stick to gay cowboy movies.

Lastly going back to some of the earlier Spiderman discussions.....Spider always had stupid villians, which makes movies with such sucky villians hard to stomach. Lizard, Vulture, whatever that stupid green and yellow 1970's shocker guy was. An entire fucking stable of super suck villians.

[DraconianOne]

Conan the Barbarian rocks... I'm a huge fan. I am genuinely surprised that anyone likes those other two though.

Once again we are in total agreement!

As regards the two trilogies you might watch, be warned that the Three Colours trilogy is rather heavy going, French-Polish set of films revolving around the idealistic themes of the French tricolor.  Don't say I didn't warn you.  The Vengeance trilogy, however, is fan-fucking-tastic (the three being Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy and Lady Vengeance).  Anyone who says differently is wrong.

[Phildo]

No one likes the second Conan movie or Red Sonja other than for the extreme campiness of them.  And in that regard, they're fantastic.

[Lakov_Sanite]

No one likes the second Conan movie or Red Sonja other than for the extreme campiness of them.  And in that regard, they're fantastic.

I remember watching red sonja on cable when i was a kid and at least once a year since it would always pop up and every time if i wasn't busy i would sit and watch, it's just an enjoyable movie to me, not great but entertaining on a weekend afternoon.

[Phildo]

And Ernie Reyes is the greatest child actor of all time.

[Venkman]

Lethal Weapon was a great trilogy, counting 1, 2, 4.

I don't consider LoTR a trilogy in the traditional sense because the movies merely followed the book format which itself, iirc, was forced on Tolkien by the publisher. And it's just one small story in a much larger narrative anyway. Meanwhile, when SW Ep4-6 launched, that was it altogether. Back and front stories have since been added, and while there's long been discussion of the SW story being envisioned as nine total movies, in the late 70s, it was 4-6 and that's it.

Many trilogies also just come out because the first movie was good enough to inspire sequels. Thus, the second movie is about some sort of retelling of the first movie to then justify a storyline that otherwise probably wasn't conceived of continuing at all. I don't know if this is actually the case, but I always got that sense from Back to the Future, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Die Hard.

[stray]

I have the hots for that chick who played the evil Queen in Destroyer (she was also Ursa in Superman 2)....Or maybe it was just her outfits. Olivia D'Abo was hot jailbait as well. Those are about the only saving graces.

Bridget Neilsen was pretty hot in her day too. But Red Sonja is crap all around.


Didn't know Oldboy was part of a trilogy...Will definitely check it out then.

[Phildo]

I have the hots for that chick who played the evil Queen in Destroyer (she was also Ursa in Superman 2)....Or maybe it was just her outfits. Olivia D'Abo was hot jailbait as well. Those are about the only saving graces.

Quoted for emphasis.  Hyborian sluts ftw.

[Abagadro]

What, no Grace Jones love?

[Evildrider]

Finally saw Iron Man over the weekend. FUCK YES. I had no complaints about it whatsoever. I would have liked to see more Happy Hogan, but only because I like John Favreau as an actor. Robert Downey, Jr. just nailed that role like the Romans nailed Jesus. Jeff Bridges as Stane was fucking brilliant as well. I really found no fault with the movie whatsoever and look forward to the sequel and the Avengers.

I read something about the movie being too long, and Favreau cut most of his scenes out of the movie.  They will probably be on DVD or something.