Pepper was probably viewed as a “hostile” due to her heat signature.
It’s not that they were not remotely as effective, it’s that they were not as effective remotely.
In the first Iron Man movie Rhodey says “The future of air combat… Is it manned, or unmanned? I’ll tell you in my experience, no unmanned aerial vehicle will ever trump a pilot’s instinct.”
The big battle at the end relied on suits being piloted by a computer program.
The point that’s not being addressed about the Pepper kidnapping is that she was to be used as leverage against Tony to force him to fix Extremis. Tony would refuse to fix the flaw in Extremis only for the benefit of a bad guy with soldiers. Once it was in Pepper, however, Killian reasoned that Tony would have no choice but to help in order to save Pepper.
My take on the plan was:
-
Create super soldier and get rich.
-
Oh noes! Super soldiers sometimes go all explodey.
-
Create fictitious super terrorist to cover up the explodey.
-
Realize that super terrorist is good for business.
-
Continue using superterrorist to cover up unintentional explodey but also start in with intentional explodey designed to do what the Military Industrial Complex is supposed to do: maintain fear to maintain profit.
-
Buy their own president to make #5 even more efficient.
And you know, Stark could have designed a artificial leg for the VP’s daughter which would make those for the Bionic woman look like Tinkertoys.
That’s why Killian told Maya he was kidnapping her, but didn’t Killian say he was happy with Extremis as-is when he shot Maya, while she was threatening suicide? Or am I misremembering that scene?
I thought it was quite a stretch that the VP was willing to murder the President and betray his country because his daughter’s leg was missing from the knee down. I love my daughters deeply, and would throw plenty of people under the bus to save their lives, but turn the entire country over to a terrorist to avoid a high tech prosthetic? That’s not even comic book believable.
See what happens when I take an hour to compose a post.
At least muldoonthief and I are on the same page.
I meant earlier, when Roadie was fist captured. He went into the sweatshop-room full of women, who all left except the one who was working for the villain. She grabbed his arm and activated her Extremis fire-powers, which somehow disabled him. And then the next we see of him he’s chained up, apparently unable to move or fly or shoot or fight back in any way. Am I missing something where his suit was disabled somehow, yet still fully usable by the villains later?
Yet even when Tony gets into one of those other suits briefly in that battle, he’s not as effective as he has been in the previous movies. It may have been that he wasn’t at his best at that point.
Basically, yeah. It seemed pretty straightforward to me. I’d add that #0 is; Use Extremis to cure physical ailments and enhance humanity but pay for the research and development with defense contracts. That leads into #1. I’d also maybe but 4 before 3.
Saw IM3 with my teenage son tonight and LOVED it! Very, very enjoyable. Spectacular, wry and fun - good mix of action and humor. Favorite lines:
“Walk and talk. Makin’ friends in Pakistan.”
“Because we’re connected.”
“You have a minute to live. Fill it with words.”
Y’know, I thought I recognized the tired-looking woman in the Tenn. bar! I loved her in My Name is Earl as Patty the Daytime Hooker: http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090124111034/mynameisearl/images/1/17/Patty.jpg
Agreed as to both. The rescue really was one of the best action sequences I think I’ve ever seen.
Don’t know how long it’ll stay up on YouTube, and it’s cut off a little at the end, but here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AbVp8B77MA
Seconded. It might’ve helped that I’d never heard of the Mandarin before.
Not about the movie itself, but in an effort to avoid spoiling someone on Twitter I mentioned “the character played by an actor who was in a British gangster movie.”
Of course, that still narrows it down to two.
Is the other one Ali G?
So Tony’s former fling Maya takes a (possibly) fatal bullet, then crawls off-camera holding an (allegedly) fatal dose of Extremis. And is never mentioned again.
Possible plot hook?
I was really expecting her to inject herself with it after being shot. Nothing to lose at that point, and that wasn’t an instantly-fatal gunshot wound.
Just the day before seeing the movie, I had watched the Breaking Bad episodes where she appears as a meth-head. 
Hell, it could’ve been Michael Caine, Ray Winstone, Ian McShane, Terence Stamp, Vinnie Jones, Jason Statham…
I came away thinking that I’d liked it, but the more I think about it, the more I think that all I really liked was Downey. It felt long, and the layers upon layers of plot eventually just felt stuck together to justify the set piece battles.
Stark gives out his home address and then isn’t ready to repel a couple of helicopters? The bad guys want Pepper, but they didn’t kidnap her immediately from outside the house? I initially thought this was because they thought Stark was dead, but at the time when they do kidnap her, they still don’t know he’s alive, do they?
The rescue of the people falling from the sky didn’t work for me. He can only carry four people, but by sticking them together – what? They all carry each other? It’s not that he just slowed them all down just enough to land softly; he was swooping to catch them and then pulling up with all of them in tow, which is to say carrying them all.
The battle at the end: Rhodes can’t use a suit because they’re all attuned to Stark – but Pepper can?
The product placement felt intrusive. All the Audis, the line about the sandwich that’s immediately a Subway commercial.
I liked the anxiety attacks. It was a realistic human touch amid all the mecha. I liked the genuine character development for Stark and the recognition of real consequences. It’s this human element that really made the movie work for me, and I applaud the risky (from a commercial point of view) decision to have Stark walk away from the suits.
Of course, that will only make it that much more disappointing when the studio inevitably contrives to make Iron Man 4, with Stark now played by someone like Taylor Lautner.
Thank you! This has always been a huge thorn in my side with superhero movies!
-
Mary Jane in the first Spider-man falling 40 or so feet then catching herself with her arms without completely shattering them
-
Lois Lane getting nailed in the head with a heavy, marine-grade steel door in Superman Returns and receiving nary a concussion or drowning while unconscious in the water
-
Tony Start taking incredible amounts of damage to his own body in all three Iron Mans without so much as a scratch. How many times has crash-landed at extremely high velocity? If an airplane isn’t going to save you from a high-speed crash, being wrapped in metal won’t, either, no matter how tough the alloy
Why do writers ever think super-durable norms is a good idea?
Edit: Plate glass is not as nearly as flimsy as Hollywood would have you believe. If you get thrown into a plate glass window in real life, be prepared for some broken bones and/or massive lacerations.
Because these movies make a bajillion dollars each. I agree that it’s stupid, but it works very well. I can’t say I blame them.