How I Would've Made Iron Man 3 (Or what It Should've Been)
Everybody's already sick of Iron Man 3. So what is the best thing to do? Right. Let's talk more about it and let us make more people sick of it.
IRON MAN 3: WHAT IT SHOULD’VE BEEN
At this point, saying something about Iron Man 3 (whether in positive or negative context) is like beating a dead horse. A dead horse that has been dead for four years and that doesn’t have much left of her. Everything that could've been said about this movie was already said by both its apologists and haters. There isn't much to add. So instead of simply bashing the film, I'd rather suggest what I would change about the movie that would, in my subjective view, make it better. Or would make it better at least for me. So here's eight things I would change about the movie:
1. No Shane Black.
It’s been clear from the get-go that Shane Black is the wrong guy to ask if you want to make (a good) Iron Man movie. Not only does he lack the directing and the writing skills to make THE Iron Man movie, but also he has little to no respect or appreciation for the source material. Which has been clear not only by his blatant remarks regarding the rogue’s gallery of Iron Man, but also by not being able to remember in which year Iron Man was created (in 1963, Shane), despite that Shane Black claimed to be his fan since 1967. People like him should never direct films based on comics. Never! (I’m not even going to see Doc Savage.)
2. Keep Favraue.
Yeah, Favraue screwed up with Iron Man 2, no doubt. But we shall not forget that Jon was screwed over with Iron Man 2 after Marvel forced Favraue to include (shoehorn) a lot of unneeded plot threads that weren’t going to be originally in the movie, because Marvel needed Iron Man 2 to be the vessel for the Avenger’s advertisement. But since The Avengers became a hit, there would be no pressure on Favraue, and Marvel would definitely allow him to make the movie he wants to make (at least I hope they would). Yeah, he could have screwed that up as well. Still, it was Favraue who made the first Iron Man as great as it was. Besides, I don’t think it could’ve been any worse than what Shane Black did.
3. The script by Drew Pearce; throw it out of window and hire a new writer.
Much like everybody else, I had no idea who was Drew Pearce before Iron Man 3. And after seeing Iron Man 3, I do not want to ever hear or see anything from this guy. This guy has a writing talent of a dyslexic dog with a brain tumor. I personally do not know who was responsible for all those terrible ideas in the script - doesn't matter was it Shane Black or Drew Pearce - but since Iron Man 3 was a terrible film in general, I guess Drew can take credit for a lot of terrible ideas in the film. His main contribution being the infamous twist with the main villain. Which, by the way, according to Pearce himself, he thought about when he went into bathroom. (Yeah, I can see the “inspiration”.)
4. Make it a logical continuation of the first movie.
One of the biggest problems with Iron Man 2, besides the fact that it’s a terrible movie, is that it doesn’t acknowledge anything from the first Iron Man, except for a few trivial aspects. It almost seem as if all those important elements of the first Iron Man had no effect on Tony Stark as a person and he doesn’t even think about it (which shouldn’t be the case). The movie should bring back many emotional elements from the first movie and continue exploring them to give more weight to the events of the first movie and give Tony Stark more depth. Much like what The Dark Knight Rises did to Bruce Wayne by retroactively bringing back elements from his past, Iron Man 3 should’ve done the same thing.
5. Replace PTSD with alcoholism.
I don’t know whose idea it was to substitute the alcoholism with the shoehorned subplot about PTSD - which never comes to any conclusion in the film - but the creator of that idea should be (hit) slapped in the face by Iron Man Omnibus from Dennis O’Neil run. Anxiety and alcoholism ARE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT CONCEPTS, PAL! Alcoholism is something that you can control while PTSD is not. Here is how you do it: Tony Sark will suffer from nightmares and obsessive thoughts, but not because of the events in The Avengers. Like I said, “Make it continuation of the first Iron Man.” I'll explain the cause of his nightmares in my next paragraph. And the thing that you can bring with his alcoholism is, when he will be drinking, he will be reckless and self-destructive. It will bring an interesting idea that Tony will become a man that he was trying not to be after he promised Yinsen that he won’t waste his life. It will mean that Yinsen’s death was meaningless, since Stark once again becomes the man that he promised he won’t become again.
6. Stark’s inner conflict won’t have anything to do with the events of The Avengers. (Expand Yinsen's story.)
Stark can have nightmares, but they won’t be caused by what he experienced in The Avengers. It’s lazy and trivial. His nightmares will have nothing to do with him being scared of aliens. His nightmares will be caused by the feeling of guilt for the death of Yinsen. He will start seeing flashbacks with Yinsen every time when he’s depressed. He will start question his significance as a person. The reason why is because Tony Stark will question if his life was really worth it. Did Yinsen did died for a reason, or was his death meaningless? It will be the core theme of them movie – is Tony Stark was worth it. And, because of feeling of guilt and these obsessive thoughts, Stark will decide to hide his insecurities and problems by drinking. At first, it will be harmful, but then it will escalate and will become more and more prominent. People will try to help him, but he will keep pushing them aside because he feels guilty. And, what is more important, Stark actually have never told anyone about what happened to him in Afghanistan. So you can also add that to his personal conflicts. He feels guilty and lost and he needs help, and people want to help, but he cannot tell anyone the truth, because he’s afraid. And, another thing that I can could’ve been great, is that it may be revealed somewhere at the end of the film that some of Yinsen’s family members are still alive. Which will be reminiscent to Joe Quessada's short run where Stark found out that Yinsen had family. Tony Stark will find them, will go to their village - which is now rebuild after the attack by Ten Rings - and he will tell them the truth of what have happened. For the first time he will share this story with anyone. And he will say that Yinsen was the best man he ever met, and he promises that, despite what life holds for him in the future, he will make sure that he will do everything to make Yinsen’s sacrifice worth it. And thus, the entire theme of film will come to its conclusion. Tony Stark will finally move away from pain and guilt and will accept Yinsen’s sacrifice and will accept himself a person. And not only that would make for a better movie, it would make this movie more self-contained and less reliable on the events in The Avengers.
7. Do The Mandarin the Right Way or DON’T F&*&*&*& DO HIM AT ALL!
As for the casting, of course I’d want them to stay authentic to the comics, but you can bet they would not cast a Chinese actor, since overly-sensitive CCP wouldn’t like that. But I still think that they shouldn’t hire a white actor. Hell NO! I read that the original conception for the Mandarin in the first drafts of Iron Man was to make him Indonesian. If that’s the only way to do it – fine. Indonesians are related to Chinese, so I don’t see (big) problem with that. You could’ve get the lead guy from The Raid, Iko Uwais. He’s also a martial artist, just like the comic book Mandarin. Though, I’d want a real actor to play the role, since I’d want to see nuance in the character and his performance.
This Mandarin wouldn’t be some wacky Middle-Eastern terrorist who hates America, or some crazy dweeb who got mad at Tony Stark because Tony Stark promised to meet him on a rooftop but instead went to get laid with a pretty woman, no, none of that nonsense. This Mandarin would be refined, intelligent, charming yet terrifying. His agendas won’t have any political rationale behind. All he wants it to make himself the intellectual demigod whose wisdom and strength is beyond our comprehension. His entire outlook on the world will be based on the ideas of individual anarchism and individual superiority. This Mandarin, just like his comic book counterpart, will be inspired by the ideas of intellectual dominance. He’s against authoritarian control of the current world. All he seeks is power and accumulation of power in its purest form. He will go after Stark only because Stark’s the one who would dare to oppose him.
The core concept that the conflict of both these everlasting enemies embodies is the idea of rational objectivty versus subjective morality. The parallel that is very clear with Iron Man/Tony Stark and The Mandarin in the comics is how similar they are on a surface level yet how different they view society and world. Both men came from wealthy families, both were perfecting their skills through all their youth, and both men lost everything at one point in their life and had to rebuild themselves to become stronger and wiser than ever.
Mandarin possesses power and skills that can be considered even greater than those of Tony Stark but he doesn’t believe in any modern social values and governmental legislation. Mandarin is emotionally bankrupt. For him, power is what defines your existence. If you’ll become weak, the world will eat you and swallow you. Being deprived by Communists from his patrimony and birthright, Mandarin became staunch opponent of governmental control and authorities. Mandarin is a hard-hearted objectivist with pessimistic view on society. In his view, don’t kneel before the world; make the world kneel before you. Tony Stark possesses both intelligence and power, but unlike Mandarin, he also feels compassion and has moral compass. He believes in values and in people. He sees world through more optimistic prism. Both have great intelligence and wield a great power that can cause either harm or good. But both also have completely different paradigm of life and view on life.
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