Similarities between IM3 and Nolan's Batman Trilogy.

BTW, every time I hear someone being described as a "No Nonsense, Ball Busting, Quick Wit Humor kind of guy" it directly translates to me as "Self-Important Asshole"

No offense to him. It's just how these kind of people sound to me.

Comparing Ironman 3 to the Dark Knight trilogy yeah this wont piss out fans from both sides.

These are all true, but like themanfrommsars said, it comes down to Super Hero cliches...

Like Superman 2 he loses his powers...
Spiderman 2 he loses his powers...
X3 they all lose their powers...
Wolverine 2 he's losing his powers...
Ghost arider 2, guess what happens... Yep! Loses his powers...

Terrible, really??? That's a little harsh... I think Batman 89 was the best cbm to date when it came out... I think Batman Begins was better, but that's the only one of Nolan's that beat it... MAYBY TDKR

My favorite Batman movie is 1989. They got it so perfect, it was able to be both comic book-y and dark. Other CBM's that I think got the character exactly right are Superman 1&2, Iron Man, Spider-Man 1&2, The Avengers, X-Men 1&2 and FC, and Hellboy 1&2, among others.

@JokerFan

"I love that Nolanites bitch and moan about drastically changing Mandarin while praising Nolans work, and yet Nolan beat Ra's Al Ghul and Bane with the mediocre stick until it broke."

Why would your opinion on Ra's and Bane determine what other people are supposed to think? I don't really get how that works. So, because you didn't like those villains, other people are wrong and shouldn't be allowed to criticize the Mandarin or other various characters chosen at your discretion? I guess all your opinions are considered definitive and go in the history books. Would you be able to cope if I told you that Ra's and Bane were far above mediocre, and that the Killiandarin was an awful villain from a purely cinematic standpoint (i.e. comic accuracy being irrelevant)?

Another comparison: Bruce is placed in the Pit after his defeat and after learning some much needed lessons he escapes the Pit ready to take on his foe again.
Tony is stuck in a rural town after his defeat and after learning some much needed lessons escapes the confines of the rural town, ready to take on his foe again.

JokerFan

Lets be honest, if we could have a mutha[frick]ing badass play Ra's al Ghul like Liam Neeson, you do it. I was cool with Ben as Mandarin but it turns out Guy was Mandarin. You just don't go from Ben to Guy.

On the Batman 89 topic, love the Burton films and Nolan films but I think that Batman Returns, Batman Begins, and Dark Knight are way better.

Like the saying goes. Imitation is the best form of flattery...

This offends me. I was actually offended by this article's stupidity and willful ignorance. So here we go.

There's nothing exclusive about Nolan's trilogy. These "cliches" that we're referring to are called TROPES, and they are defined as...
Tropes are devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members' minds and expectations.

In other words, they're recurring because art imitates real life. Art imitates art. Fiction imitates fiction.

These elements have been going on for decades but CLEARLY Iron Man 3 just grabbed it from Nolan.

Here we go. I even color-coded it based off of Geoff Johns' emotional spectrum.

1. BROKEN MAN LYING DOWN

I found this one hilarious, especially in literal terms. Is the hero supposed to be standing? Is the hero meant to be invincible and never defeated, bested, or beaten? Should our hero never be broken, bleeding, or back-oriented? Anyway, the above five show Luke hanging from a pole in Cloud City after getting his world turned upside-down, Wolverine a bloody pulp after getting tossed a few hundred feet by Magneto in a thick forest (certainly not his first time), Spider-man being choked by Venom while pounded by Sandman, Bruce Wayne (Kilmer) regaining consciousness after getting grazed by a bullet by Two-Face in his own mansion, and of course, Bruce Wayne (Bale) waking up in pain from his curbstomp with Bane.

2. BROKEN FACE OF THE HERO

This is ALMOST as funny as the above, but only less because your pal REALLY missed the purpose of it, again, even in a literal interpretation. Tony wasn't defeated. He escaped, took a pounding, but managed to get Pepper out of harm's way AND his armory is safe and sound. Anyway, in the collection above: two from the Last Stand - Scott's abandoned shades and Xavier's empty chair... they echo the gap in Logan's life that he's trying to fill but is lacking direction; River is framed by a burning swing at a massacred site... demonstrating her loss of innocence, childhood, and identity stolen by the Alliance; Luke in Vader's broken helmet foreshadows a certain revelation, as well as denounces his path of impatience by mirroring "the Dark Side"; the shards of Narsil symbolize the defeat of Sauron AND the defeat/failure of man as it was wielded by the heir who cut the One Ring from the Dark Lord, who also claimed the Ring for himself... Aragorn's return to Gondor would be mirrored in the reforging of the blade that was broken; and the broken cowl, which symbolizes the fall of the Dark Knight.

Your pal's ADDED BONUS is silly and stupid. It falls completely under the trope "It's Personal", where a friend or loved one of the hero (or antagonist) is attacked, wounded, killed, or just insulted... and the hero/villain abandons reason to avenge that injustice. It's kind of like "you attack his heart"... well, actually just like that. You'll find it in damn near everything.

3. NOT WHAT THEY SEEM

Hey remember that OLD movie with the scarecrow, tin man, and the cowardly lion... how they accompany this doe-eyed girl on a journey to find the solution to their character flaws, and how that journey takes them to the Wizard of Oz - who isn't exactly who he seems?
Just pointing that one out there because of how old that classic is.
What we have here is a combination of a red herring, a "Chekhov's Gunman", a chessmaster, and "the Man Behind the Man". A character will be introduced in the beginning, but will either die or be simply abandoned before the first act and/or prelude is over. Then this character's ROLE will be in the background, where a couple of bad guys will attempt to distract the audience (and lead character) of any connection or possibility that the big bad might be involved, and if anything, attempts to minimize that role. Eventually, the bad guys in the forefront will either be eliminated, or followed so closely that they're just forced to give it up - and then the big bad will reveal his or her self, who had been pulling the strings all along.
In the above: we have Alec Trevelyn - James Bond's former best friend and fellow Double-0 agent whose death was faked in the beginning and made his return as an arms dealer who's looking to get revenge on London;
Aldrich Killian - a scientist Tony snubbed who chose not to kill himself, but continue on with his research and built the Mandarin identity to mask his failures;
Robert Ledgard (the Skin I Live In) whose identity is very clear, but his intentions are intentionally masked to keep us guessing - is he trying to reconstruct his dead wife? is he trying to make a breakthrough in epidermal solutions? is he bent on revenge for his daughter's suicide? has he fallen in love with his captive? Likewise, the captive's identity (definitely not motivation) is in serious question;
Alexander Marcus is the fleet admiral who is approving of Kirk's initiative, and seems to have Starfleet's safety in mind when he sends the Enterprise on a mission to kill terrorist John Harrison... but his sins catch up with him, and he's revealed to have sacrificed the Enterprise for the sake of tying up a loose end while also preemptively starting a full-scale war with the Klingons;
Henri Ducard seems to be the right hand man of Ra's al Ghul and trains Bruce Wayne the skills he needs to fight injustice, but sh*t happens and he's on the wrong side of Bruce's explosive escape... later it's revealed that Ducard IS Ra's al Ghul as Bruce Wayne is Batman, and the mentor is back to finish what he started, with a bit of revenge sprinkled in the pot.

4. PISSED OFF LOVERS

It's actually pretty sexist when you think about it for five seconds. Are we saying that women aren't allowed to fight? And suppose this was a superheroine's movie, and her boyfriend was the one who did the villain in - would it be the same thing? No, in fact, it would infer that the superheroine's gender is what's holding her back. Anyway, this has also been going on for some time, although with variable extents. The trope is called "Violently Protective Girlfriends", as it illustrates the effectiveness of the berserk button when it is pressed, as well as a woman's ability to kick ass on their own.
Above: Lisbeth Salander - her friend with benefits is getting tortured by the big bad who's finally revealed himself, and because Mikael is incapacitated, she chases the serial rapist down, runs him off the road with her motorcycle, and watches him burn to death in the ensuing car wreck;
Mary Jane Watson tosses a cinder block at Venom's head when he's about to perform the coup-d-grace on Spider-man - and while in no way would that count as doing in the villain (just a useful, forceful distraction), if it weren't a superhero movie, Brock would be DEAD;
Pam Bouvier (License to Kill) gets the drop on Dario (young Benicio del Toro) as he's about to send Bond into a grinder, shooting him to knock him off his feet and to a BLOODY death;
Not a movie, but Liara T'Soni (Mass Effect) is sick of getting saved by her [possible] boyfriend/girlfriend, and conducts a plan to distract a villain long enough to get into a position where she can apply her powers to properly vaporize him;
Lastly, there's Selina Kyle, who sneak attacks the Batpod into City Hall and blows Bane away with one shot from said Batpod right before he can strangle Batman.

Those are just examples that sprung to mind.

Hey at least this isn't a 99 reasons why iron man sucked article, the tdkr ones were mind numbingly dumb.

Anyways regardless of when filming began there are some uncanny similarities that exist.

Nice article and so true.

Is it me or when you post, sometimes words are deleted. I swear I proof read my responses twice and then I post them words are missing!

@DCMultiverse

Eh I'm not actually offended, I just hammed it up. There'd be something (else) REALLY wrong with me if I was. It is frustrating though - the idea that many cling to, that the Nolan trilogy is just so groundbreaking and original, and that any movie it predates must therefore take inspiration from it, even to the point of using the same template.

Like Levi posted, Favreau stated years ago (and it's glaringly obvious) that the first Iron Man was inspired by Batman Begins - and geez, why not? It's the best Batman movie of them all.

I'm no historian, I just really like my movies.

@Levi
Don't abjure me man... I don't have Hellboy or the Golden Army on DVD.

Well guess what your getting for Christmas Tainted