That’s like asking why Doo-Wop groups think nonsense, made-up words are a good idea. It’s a hallmark of the genre. If those kinds of contrivances and logical flaws bother you, why would you even waste your time watching a film based on a comic book.
For me, the whole charm of the two big, decades-old, comic book mythologies is that crazy, stupid, totally illogical stuff happens all the time.
At last. I’ve finally found some other people who don’t think this movie was ultra-super-fantastic. I’m a long time comic reader, and I like them, but I just couldn’t get past all these hugely illogical events, mainly because there wasn’t even a lot of internal consistence. You can be was far out as you want compared to the real world; just don’t start contradicting the established internal reality.
Most of my complaints are already mentioned, but overall the level of plot holes was really pretty dreadful – worse than the Amazing Spider-Man, I think, and that was quite bad enough. It seems like the start of a disturbing trend in the superhero movie genre, though in the case of Iron Man perhaps it’s also a good dose of third movie blues.
A few other points I’ve been wondering about:
The vice-president’s daughter counts as at least a semi-public figure. If they’re so determined to keep Extremis a deep, dark secret (for no good reason, as discussed above), then how will her sudden acquisition of a new leg be explained? I don’t know if it would be possible to pass it off as a high-tech prosthetic, and then everyone else in a similar situation would start clamoring for one of their own anyway. What good would a new leg do her if she has to hide its existence all the time?
The part where Tony tells Rhodey that he can’t have a suit because they’re all ‘coded’ to him, Tony. Yet Pepper uses a suit, if awkwardly. And Tony (or Jarvis, whoever does that) was able to slap a suit onto Killian. Maybe the coding only affects being able to use the suit? Pepper might have counted as an ‘authorized user’, but wouldn’t Rhodey also be considered enough of a trusted ally to get the same status?
The only other thing I could think of was that Tony was joking, but in a situation like that, that would be a little harsh even by Tony Stark standards.
Also, why in the world did Jarvis activate the flight-plan to Tennessee while Tony was unconscious? He usually seems able to make rational decisions, but there he seemed like he was only able to do exactly what he’d been programmed to do, no more, no less.
I think the point is that at the moment, with the side effect of blowing up, extremis is going nowhere. However with more (government/Stark) financial backing, AIM can upgrade from a mere think tank to a bigger operation and perfect extremis. However with the status quo, with the side effect being what it is, it’s not selling well. They’re banking on the VP being so hellbent on curing his daughter that he would turn a blind eye to all sorts of ethical dilemmas involved in full backing and green lighting mass-extremis-research and development.
But… that opens up an entirely different plot hole all together.
It wasn’t really shown in the film (the beekeepers were replaced with extremis muscle) but the whole point of AIM is to have an ethics-free work environment for disgruntled mad scientists and researchers.
Jarvis was damaged somehow during the fight at Tony’s house. When Tony asked him why he flew to Tennessee, he answered somewhat confused and peevishly “You asked for a flight plan! I..I’m not feeling too well. I think I need to sleep.” So he just performed the last order he was given. Later in the movie, either he was self-repairing or Tony was working on repairing him, but he still kept ending sentences with the wrong cranberry.
I loved it. Not quite Avengers good, but it was in the same league; a highly entertaining superhero movie with fantastic action set pieces, good pacing, and enough plot to work. I was previously familiar with the Extremis plotline and I liked the new spin they put on it for IM3.
As for the big Mandarin twist, I didn’t mind it, and I thought it was a very clever way to take the story. However, I was really looking forward to seeing Iron Man duke it out with the Mandarin, and to see some good banter between the two. Ah well.
There are definitely gaping plot holes, such as why Killian’s plan was to send Maya to Stark Manor to kidnap Pepper while simultaneously firing missiles at the house. I wonder how he talked Maya into that one, and why she kept following the plan after that should have made it obvious that Killian considered her expendable.
I didn’t like how the suits all exploded into little fireworks at the end; the effect was kind of silly. Why would Tony program the suits to detonate and look like fireworks, when they normally explode into big, spectacular fireballs? Even if it was intended as a way to intentionally destroy them harmlessly, it was just a bit too convenient.
All in all, though, it was sufficiently exciting that I didn’t really notice or care about the plot holes until after it was over.
Stark had that flight plan programmed in because he was planning on flying there as part of the investigation. Jarvis sent him there because it was the last flight plan before the attack and because of malfunction.
Was that Killian’s plan? I got the impression that Maya and Killian weren’t on the same page on a lot of aspects of what AIM was doing and whether Extremis needed more work, so I took it as Maya pursuing her own plan semi-independent of Killian.
The remotely operated army of suits he could jump into was fun, but it lowered the stakes. Previously when Iron Man took damage or ran low, he was in peril. Now an entire suit gets chopped in half, but it’s okay because he can hop into any one of the dozens whizzing about. Even if that had to be there, in a final showdown, the audience should always have a good measure of how few “bullets” the good guys have left. It raises the tension and stakes. Stark may as well have had hundreds of suits though, because they were regarded as disposable and easily replaced.
Hm, that’s a point. I do recall some kind of exchange between Maya and Killian when he showed up in the hotel room. I remember Maya defensively saying something about still having succeeded or having delivered what Killian wanted (i.e. Pepper), so you’re right that she may have been operating outside his orders when she went to Stark Manor.
Still, it was stupid of her to do so, knowing Killian’s capabilities and that Tony had recently issued a televised challenge.
Yeah, there’s a CinemaSins about Iron Man 2 that complains that it seems like Tony can just print out suits in minutes. The Mk1 and Mk2 suits were special, but when he’s got Jarvis fabricating them non-stop, they do become a bit mundane.
Except that’s not remotely what happened. The movie is pretty explicit about how Tony has been building suit after suit as a manifestation of his PTSD (Jarvis does help him with the actual fabrication, but the design work is what I’m talking about here). Remember how every suit is different? It’s because Tony Stark needs there to be an Iron Man suit for every possible contingency, because he is terrified of the loss of control he’s feeling. That’s how we jump from Mark 6 in “The Avengers” to Mark 42 one movie later. It’s the result of compulsive behavior brought about by extreme mental trauma.
Never once do they imply that Tony Stark can just “print out suits in minutes.” If anything, they take some pains to point at that the mere existence of so many suits means that there is something deeply pathological going on in Stark’s brain, and that he has been neglecting everything in his life (including sleep) to build them all.
As a final note, CinemaSins is wrong about this point as well with regards to Iron Man 2. That film had plenty of flaws, but “Tony having too many suits” wasn’t one of them. Again, the writers were quite clear even in Iron Man 1 that Tony is constantly building new versions of the suit as he comes up with better technologies (remember Rhodey’s “Next time”?). So the fact that he’s up to four suits by Iron Man 2 is hardly unreasonable.
It was actually the Mark 7 at the end of The Avengers - that’s the one that flies down to him after Loki throws him off the building.
But you’re right - he’s been building a lot of suits that no one knows about. When Pepper sees the latest suit, she says “What’s that, fifteen now?” and he looks at the “Mk 42” printed on the wrist.
He certainly can’t design a new suit in a brief period, but there’s no reason to think that Jarvis couldn’t fabricate a duplicate of an existing suit in a matter of hours - that’s how long the first red/gold suit (Mk 3?) took to fabricate in the first movie.
No way. It’s the opposite, really - if we can ALL catwalk-jump like a superhero, what’s the point of superheroes? If everybody can do it it isn’t cool!
If Lois Lane can’t survive being caught by Superman in mid-air or if Mary Jane Watson freezes to death before being pulled out of the East River by Spider-Man then what’s the point of superheroes?
Sure, but that’s besides the point I was making. The complaint was made regarding the actual, constructed suits as depicted (which were all different designs). My counterargument is that, regardless of Jarvis’s magic fabrication powers, the existence of so many suits was fundamental to the story of Iron Man 3. It establishes that Tony has been working feverishly, without rest, since New York, because what happened to him really fucked him up, and sets up his entire motivation for his actions over the course of the film.
And IMO, Tony jumping from suit to suit in the finale was fantastic. It’s not like the suits themselves were the source of the “stakes” in any of the Iron Man films anyway - it’s the person inside the suit we as the audience care about, not the suit itself. I mean, Stark’s entire arc in this film is about realizing that Iron Man is who he is inside, regardless of what he’s wearing. Having him discard suits willy-nilly like the mere tools that they are is a perfect encapsulation of that theme.
I thought Iron Man 3’s final battle was the best in the series to date - it’s beautifully shot, internally consistent, utilized the Iron Man suits in interesting and inventive ways, and had a villain who (finally!) wasn’t just another dude in a bigger suit.
Yes, I understood why the flight plan had been programmed in the first place, but it still seemed odd that Jarvis just up and activated it at that point. Maybe if Jarvis was suffering from a really gigantic malfunction… though that’s a strange way to break down, too. I don’t know much about A.I., admittedly, fictional or otherwise, so that may make more sense than I realize.
But now it’s occurred to me that all this seems to indicate that Tony had no form of emergency plan whatsoever set up for the possibility of an attack on the house… which is silly, considering that he has no secret identity. Even without issuing his dare, he should have expected some disgruntled villain to come knocking sooner or later. And while it was dramatic having him reveal his address on live TV and all, it’s hard to believe that before then, his place of residence was an absolute and complete secret. You would think that any sufficiently motivated villain would have been able to track him down pretty easily. Heck, someone could have just followed Pepper home from the office one day.
As was once wisely (if evilly) said: When everyone’s super, no one will be.
Maybe I read too many Asimov short stories about robots but in my head, I interpreted Jarvis’ action as making the best of conflicting (sort of) commands. Had the house been fine, the suit would have flown him there and lacking a secret safe house a la the Fortress of Solitude* (I haven’t seen any of the other Iron Man movies or the Avengers or anything so if there is one, well, sorry.) Jarvis, via the suit attempted to convey Stark to the nearest location that would further his goal of understanding the Mandarin and also allow the suit to recharge.
*I know, I’m mixing my IPs. I don’t care. As far as I’m concerned, they’re all comics.
I think one “My name is Earl” actor reference by you in this thread is quite enough, thank you.
I thought that was odd, too. I mean, it’s an enormous mansion built into the side of a cliff in Malibu, CA. It’s certainly no Batcave. Not only is it strange that Tony didn’t have his own backup plan (I would have assumed a ridiculous amount of automated defense systems), but there wasn’t even a police (or SHIELD) presence there. It did seem monumentally convenient and reckless. Still, that’s how these movies work, and Tony was shown to be sacrificing a good deal of his responsibilities due to his trauma, so why not the home security system?