Iron Man 2. Lots of talking and spoilers and irrelevant sidetracks and fangirling.
The basics. I wanted to make myself an arc reactor for mah chest, but didn't get a chance to find the lights I wanted to use, *sadface*. Dressed up like Natalia/Natalie/Black Widow instead, by which I mean I wore almost exactly what I would have otherwise worn (though it was kind of a cross between Natalie and Black Widow, because I was going to wear sort of tight fitting long sleeved/pants stuff like her BW costume, but it was going to be hot, so I pulled out the black skirt and fishnets instead). PICS OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN, so bleakone and I worked on our balancing the camera on the cat tower technique and got some.
ETA: Not-hilariously enough, I managed to have this computer bluescreen with one of those extortion viruses (a fake virus scanner pops up and won't let you open any programs, saying they've been infected) some 4 times between when I wrote most of this out and had to scramble to try and find it (as I'm writing it right in Semagic to post). When you open in safe mode, the automatically saved draft isn't there--Semagic can't find it, and if you go into the folder where the drafts are normally saved, you can't see it there either, but after a few reboots and one finally into normal mode, it came back! I thought it was totally lost, and there was no way I was writing it all up again because most of the desire to gush about a movie is sated by the typing, whether people read it or not, so yay!
So, I wanted to go to the IM1 IM2 double feature, but wasn't planning on it because it cost the same as my entire family is going to pay to go see IM2 on Saturday at the mall theatre and I had these three papers to write (down to just the one by now, though, thankfully) before the morning. But I was very, very pleased with having (I'm 85% sure) resolved the computer system not dropping my chem class issue (their system went down right after I did it, and I think they maybe restored from a recent backup or something and somehow lost that I put through the drop) that was otherwise going to drive me to suicide because I was so fucking angry with going to fail a class just because I quit going after I DROPPED IT.
Anyway, we went for the 9:30/12 back to back Iron Man 1 and Iron Man 2 show.
"They say that the best weapon is the one you never have to fire. I respectfully disagree. I prefer the weapon you only have to fire *once*."
Let's get this out first: AJDHFJKASHDFIUALWJESJHDHFLKASDFBNMZBXCVJNHA!!!111!!!!eleven!!1!!!! In the words of one of the Stark Expo attendees, "Blow something up!" "I already did that." Yes, RDJ, you did. It was my ovaries. Iron Man movies make me so sexually conflicted (not in a serious way, but you know)--on the one hand, you have the totally dude-ish me loving the explosions and big guns and hot babes with awesome fighting moves and wanting to lick the freckles on Pepper's chest and ACDC music. On the other hand, RDJ is, along with Judesie, Jason Isaacs, and David Tennant, almost entirely responsible for the bits of heterosexuality in me. But also, distinction. RDJ is attractive. Tony Stark is fucking hot. The brains, the guns, the cars, the money, the brains, RDJ's body, the power, the attitude, the brains. . . . Not to mention, one of my very very very few (actually, this is the only one coming to mind that I've actually sought out fics about) het ships is IM fandom. Pepper/Tony is kind of cute.
Speaking of IM fic, I also love how fandom!Pepper is totally kickass. We didn't see any of that in this film, really, now that I'm thinking about it, and I'm kind of pissed. There was a little bit of "Take Charge" Pepper, sure, and "Business Suit" Pepper, and "No, You Can't Have One Because I'm So Nailing That First" Pepper, but at the party when Stark gets pissed? She's "I Can't Deal With This" Pepper. When Natalie first flips Happy in the boxing ring the first time we meet her? She's "Girly Scream" Pepper. At the end after Iron Man blows shit up? She's "I Can't Deal With This, I Quit" Pepper. I got much less of an "I Am Awesome, Watch Me Walk All Over You With My Excessively Hot Tall Stilettos" Pepper vibe in this one. Idk, it wasn't overly there in the first one, and my expecting it is probably being colored by fanon, but I can only take so many "I can't take this"s before I tell her to STFU.
As alluded to above, Pepper/Natalie? WANT. INTERNETS, RULE 35 THIS SHIT PRONTO. Kind of disappointed I didn't get a chance to finish my Pepper/Natalie (Natalia in my verse, because I like that name better) fic; like I expected, it got contradicted well and good. Natalie's already working for SHIELD when we meet her, so there's no evil. But she is Stark's PA. And later, I think, PEPPER'S PA, OMFG. And there's sitting next to each other at the Expo, and Pepper's one sort of voice falter when Nat comes in (supposedly it's because she'd been talking to Tony and then has to go back to real world, but that's kind of a stretch), and the look on Pepper's face when Nat breaks cover and smashes Hammer's head into things--she was just as turned on as everybody else in the theatre and it was awesome.
Not going to lie, but I think IM1 is probably the better of the two. Idk. 2 didn't lack for humanizing Tony at all, but it wasn't in the same way that 1 did--in one, we have him caring for Yinsin and blowing shit up because it's used for evil. In this one, it's a lot more self-centered. He drinks, he fights, he has his own cheerleaders, and all of the bad guys are after him. The drinking and self destruction and angst over the suit on its way to killing him was very comics!Tony during his angsty periods, but I much prefer idealistic past the point of recklessness!Tony. I get it. Character-wise, they did a terrific job. Things have cooled down, time has passed, everything's gone to his head a bit, and he has to deal with the palladium poisoning, so he's back to thinking about himself again, and it makes sense, but I just didn't feel it as much as I did in IM1. Also, the whole above discussed Pepper being awesome/whiny divide, and how Natalie was sort of just arm candy that got to kick ass at the end--they did nothing productive with her, IMO, and she had no role that somebody else couldn't have taken.
Speaking of palladium poisoning, how did Ivan know that palladium poisoning was a painful way to go? I get how he knew that it was in the reactor--Tony made a big deal about needing to strip down 11 or 12 warheads to get enough for the first circle of the cave!built reactor, so presumably it was integral to the initial plans--but has he seen it often way up there in Siberia? More Ivan issues: he wanted *his* bird, and was pissed when they didn't bring it. Then . . . that just disappeared? Like Hammer said, he seemed to be fine with the second bird anyway. Maybe that was supposed to be motivation for him to go rogue and make Hammer's suits go batshit on Tony, but Ivan hated Tony and would have done that anyway. It was strange, because it seemed like they were making it important, definitely something they mentioned a few times like you were supposed to notice it, but then . . . nothing.
Between Rhodey and Rhodey 2.0? I love Cheadle like anything else (he was awesome on ER as the medical student with Parkinson's), but I didn't feel it. Rhodey's more than a bit of a villain in this one--they didn't do as good of a job as I would have liked to keep us sympathizing with him. Sure, Tony's out of fucking control and blasting shit with the suit at a party with a bunch of civilians while he's incredibly pissed (both literally and figuratively, in a move that drew some of the longest LOLs from the basement-bred-guy crowd of the whole film--bleakone and I preferred "I'm very good at pleasuring myself", because it was both hilarious and said by RDJ, which meant it made my ovaries tie in a knot), so I totally get Rhodes putting on a suit and stopping Tony before anybody gets hurt, but then taking the suit to the military? Dude, that crossed the line into dick move. Lovelovelove how there was no even consideration of just blowing Rhodey out of the sky at the end, though, even when he didn't have control of the suit--Tony is, at heart, an awesome guy. Still, Cheadle!platypus didn't have the jocularity that Rhodey Mark 1 had, and the dick move at the end of what could have been a really good "I'm worried you're killing yourself" scene that simply escalated because Tony's a drunk and is out of control self destructive ruined that for me. I needed to see more debate, more angsting over doing it, more rationalization--it wasn't like he was taking the suit away from Tony so he couldn't hurt himself/people because he took an old model, so I couldn't really explain it away in my head.
Also could have used more explanation about the mention at the mini!SHIELD meeting of how Tony could have stopped Rhodes from leaving with the suit if he wanted to, though, as I didn't really see how he could have--A) he was wasted, and B) I assumed since Rhodey had his own passcode to get into Tony's workshop, most of the security features wouldn't work against him, especially if Tony already coded the suits to work for him in case of emergency/his death (which seems like a very plausible move).
Also also? I have the hugest pet peeve ever for when movies put scenes in their trailers that don't end up in the actual film. Or even on the DVD (I'M LOOKING AT YOU, SHERLOCK HOLMES). The scene where Tony has Natasha in sort of a dance hold and he's steadying her arm out with one of the IM gloves and repulsors on like she's going to shoot? Not in there. "You complete me!" when Pepper kisses the helmet and tosses it out of the plane? Not in there. Furthermore, for how the promotion made it seem like the movie's title was practically "ACDC Iron Man 2", there were a lot fewer songs than I expected. "Shoot to Thrill" and "Highway to Hell" were the only ones I caught, and there were a lot of places where there was good excuse to use some and they didn't. I'm glad it wasn't "Iron Man 2: The ACDC Musical" or anything like that, but it just seemed strange based on my advertising-induced expectations.
But there were a few bits where I was just "Man, RDJ was such fucking perfect casting for Tony Stark." Some of the self-destruction alcoholism bits, and especially the daddy issues scenes--I actually turned to bleakone and was like "he's not even acting here." Man is a god. No, RDJ is > god.
Overall? <3. Awesome. Hurt me a little to pay $16 for a movie that was already bootlegged out on the internet and another movie that I had on DVD, but it was great. Spectacular action fun, Rubber Ducky Junior being flooringly cool, tons of humor, good music, terrific.
"I don't want to see this on your myspace page. Please, no gang signs. No, throw it up. I'm kidding."
(The hand repulsor is a head lamp with the headband elastic wrapped around my hand and a crochet gauntlet over it all so the light peeks out one of the eyelets.)
"That is an excellent question. Yes and no. March and I had a scheduling conflict but fortunately the Christmas cover was twins."
(I thought this was an appropriate quote for how my trying to show off my nails makes this this picture look like I'm about to feel Rachel up.)
"I do anything and everything Mr. Stark requires. Including occasionally taking out the trash. Will that be all?"
(Random quick cellphone picture from like 5 minutes ago to try and show off my Iron Man nails. Yellow tips were permanent marker layered a bazillion times [followed by clear nail polish, followed by another bazillion times], and then I had to go in and do the red base nail second, which is almost impossible. Especially considering I never have nails this long, I'm impressed. [Rachel had to help.])
"I did you a big favor. I have successfully privatized world peace."
ETA: Not-hilariously enough, I managed to have this computer bluescreen with one of those extortion viruses (a fake virus scanner pops up and won't let you open any programs, saying they've been infected) some 4 times between when I wrote most of this out and had to scramble to try and find it (as I'm writing it right in Semagic to post). When you open in safe mode, the automatically saved draft isn't there--Semagic can't find it, and if you go into the folder where the drafts are normally saved, you can't see it there either, but after a few reboots and one finally into normal mode, it came back! I thought it was totally lost, and there was no way I was writing it all up again because most of the desire to gush about a movie is sated by the typing, whether people read it or not, so yay!
So, I wanted to go to the IM1 IM2 double feature, but wasn't planning on it because it cost the same as my entire family is going to pay to go see IM2 on Saturday at the mall theatre and I had these three papers to write (down to just the one by now, though, thankfully) before the morning. But I was very, very pleased with having (I'm 85% sure) resolved the computer system not dropping my chem class issue (their system went down right after I did it, and I think they maybe restored from a recent backup or something and somehow lost that I put through the drop) that was otherwise going to drive me to suicide because I was so fucking angry with going to fail a class just because I quit going after I DROPPED IT.
Anyway, we went for the 9:30/12 back to back Iron Man 1 and Iron Man 2 show.
"They say that the best weapon is the one you never have to fire. I respectfully disagree. I prefer the weapon you only have to fire *once*."
Let's get this out first: AJDHFJKASHDFIUALWJESJHDHFLKASDFBNMZBXCVJNHA!!!111!!!!eleven!!1!!!! In the words of one of the Stark Expo attendees, "Blow something up!" "I already did that." Yes, RDJ, you did. It was my ovaries. Iron Man movies make me so sexually conflicted (not in a serious way, but you know)--on the one hand, you have the totally dude-ish me loving the explosions and big guns and hot babes with awesome fighting moves and wanting to lick the freckles on Pepper's chest and ACDC music. On the other hand, RDJ is, along with Judesie, Jason Isaacs, and David Tennant, almost entirely responsible for the bits of heterosexuality in me. But also, distinction. RDJ is attractive. Tony Stark is fucking hot. The brains, the guns, the cars, the money, the brains, RDJ's body, the power, the attitude, the brains. . . . Not to mention, one of my very very very few (actually, this is the only one coming to mind that I've actually sought out fics about) het ships is IM fandom. Pepper/Tony is kind of cute.
Speaking of IM fic, I also love how fandom!Pepper is totally kickass. We didn't see any of that in this film, really, now that I'm thinking about it, and I'm kind of pissed. There was a little bit of "Take Charge" Pepper, sure, and "Business Suit" Pepper, and "No, You Can't Have One Because I'm So Nailing That First" Pepper, but at the party when Stark gets pissed? She's "I Can't Deal With This" Pepper. When Natalie first flips Happy in the boxing ring the first time we meet her? She's "Girly Scream" Pepper. At the end after Iron Man blows shit up? She's "I Can't Deal With This, I Quit" Pepper. I got much less of an "I Am Awesome, Watch Me Walk All Over You With My Excessively Hot Tall Stilettos" Pepper vibe in this one. Idk, it wasn't overly there in the first one, and my expecting it is probably being colored by fanon, but I can only take so many "I can't take this"s before I tell her to STFU.
As alluded to above, Pepper/Natalie? WANT. INTERNETS, RULE 35 THIS SHIT PRONTO. Kind of disappointed I didn't get a chance to finish my Pepper/Natalie (Natalia in my verse, because I like that name better) fic; like I expected, it got contradicted well and good. Natalie's already working for SHIELD when we meet her, so there's no evil. But she is Stark's PA. And later, I think, PEPPER'S PA, OMFG. And there's sitting next to each other at the Expo, and Pepper's one sort of voice falter when Nat comes in (supposedly it's because she'd been talking to Tony and then has to go back to real world, but that's kind of a stretch), and the look on Pepper's face when Nat breaks cover and smashes Hammer's head into things--she was just as turned on as everybody else in the theatre and it was awesome.
Not going to lie, but I think IM1 is probably the better of the two. Idk. 2 didn't lack for humanizing Tony at all, but it wasn't in the same way that 1 did--in one, we have him caring for Yinsin and blowing shit up because it's used for evil. In this one, it's a lot more self-centered. He drinks, he fights, he has his own cheerleaders, and all of the bad guys are after him. The drinking and self destruction and angst over the suit on its way to killing him was very comics!Tony during his angsty periods, but I much prefer idealistic past the point of recklessness!Tony. I get it. Character-wise, they did a terrific job. Things have cooled down, time has passed, everything's gone to his head a bit, and he has to deal with the palladium poisoning, so he's back to thinking about himself again, and it makes sense, but I just didn't feel it as much as I did in IM1. Also, the whole above discussed Pepper being awesome/whiny divide, and how Natalie was sort of just arm candy that got to kick ass at the end--they did nothing productive with her, IMO, and she had no role that somebody else couldn't have taken.
Speaking of palladium poisoning, how did Ivan know that palladium poisoning was a painful way to go? I get how he knew that it was in the reactor--Tony made a big deal about needing to strip down 11 or 12 warheads to get enough for the first circle of the cave!built reactor, so presumably it was integral to the initial plans--but has he seen it often way up there in Siberia? More Ivan issues: he wanted *his* bird, and was pissed when they didn't bring it. Then . . . that just disappeared? Like Hammer said, he seemed to be fine with the second bird anyway. Maybe that was supposed to be motivation for him to go rogue and make Hammer's suits go batshit on Tony, but Ivan hated Tony and would have done that anyway. It was strange, because it seemed like they were making it important, definitely something they mentioned a few times like you were supposed to notice it, but then . . . nothing.
Between Rhodey and Rhodey 2.0? I love Cheadle like anything else (he was awesome on ER as the medical student with Parkinson's), but I didn't feel it. Rhodey's more than a bit of a villain in this one--they didn't do as good of a job as I would have liked to keep us sympathizing with him. Sure, Tony's out of fucking control and blasting shit with the suit at a party with a bunch of civilians while he's incredibly pissed (both literally and figuratively, in a move that drew some of the longest LOLs from the basement-bred-guy crowd of the whole film--bleakone and I preferred "I'm very good at pleasuring myself", because it was both hilarious and said by RDJ, which meant it made my ovaries tie in a knot), so I totally get Rhodes putting on a suit and stopping Tony before anybody gets hurt, but then taking the suit to the military? Dude, that crossed the line into dick move. Lovelovelove how there was no even consideration of just blowing Rhodey out of the sky at the end, though, even when he didn't have control of the suit--Tony is, at heart, an awesome guy. Still, Cheadle!platypus didn't have the jocularity that Rhodey Mark 1 had, and the dick move at the end of what could have been a really good "I'm worried you're killing yourself" scene that simply escalated because Tony's a drunk and is out of control self destructive ruined that for me. I needed to see more debate, more angsting over doing it, more rationalization--it wasn't like he was taking the suit away from Tony so he couldn't hurt himself/people because he took an old model, so I couldn't really explain it away in my head.
Also could have used more explanation about the mention at the mini!SHIELD meeting of how Tony could have stopped Rhodes from leaving with the suit if he wanted to, though, as I didn't really see how he could have--A) he was wasted, and B) I assumed since Rhodey had his own passcode to get into Tony's workshop, most of the security features wouldn't work against him, especially if Tony already coded the suits to work for him in case of emergency/his death (which seems like a very plausible move).
Also also? I have the hugest pet peeve ever for when movies put scenes in their trailers that don't end up in the actual film. Or even on the DVD (I'M LOOKING AT YOU, SHERLOCK HOLMES). The scene where Tony has Natasha in sort of a dance hold and he's steadying her arm out with one of the IM gloves and repulsors on like she's going to shoot? Not in there. "You complete me!" when Pepper kisses the helmet and tosses it out of the plane? Not in there. Furthermore, for how the promotion made it seem like the movie's title was practically "ACDC Iron Man 2", there were a lot fewer songs than I expected. "Shoot to Thrill" and "Highway to Hell" were the only ones I caught, and there were a lot of places where there was good excuse to use some and they didn't. I'm glad it wasn't "Iron Man 2: The ACDC Musical" or anything like that, but it just seemed strange based on my advertising-induced expectations.
But there were a few bits where I was just "Man, RDJ was such fucking perfect casting for Tony Stark." Some of the self-destruction alcoholism bits, and especially the daddy issues scenes--I actually turned to bleakone and was like "he's not even acting here." Man is a god. No, RDJ is > god.
Overall? <3. Awesome. Hurt me a little to pay $16 for a movie that was already bootlegged out on the internet and another movie that I had on DVD, but it was great. Spectacular action fun, Rubber Ducky Junior being flooringly cool, tons of humor, good music, terrific.
"I don't want to see this on your myspace page. Please, no gang signs. No, throw it up. I'm kidding."
(The hand repulsor is a head lamp with the headband elastic wrapped around my hand and a crochet gauntlet over it all so the light peeks out one of the eyelets.)
"That is an excellent question. Yes and no. March and I had a scheduling conflict but fortunately the Christmas cover was twins."
(I thought this was an appropriate quote for how my trying to show off my nails makes this this picture look like I'm about to feel Rachel up.)
"I do anything and everything Mr. Stark requires. Including occasionally taking out the trash. Will that be all?"
(Random quick cellphone picture from like 5 minutes ago to try and show off my Iron Man nails. Yellow tips were permanent marker layered a bazillion times [followed by clear nail polish, followed by another bazillion times], and then I had to go in and do the red base nail second, which is almost impossible. Especially considering I never have nails this long, I'm impressed. [Rachel had to help.])
"I did you a big favor. I have successfully privatized world peace."
