In a cave! With a box of scraps!
I went to see Iron Man 2 yesterday!
Am I the only one who gets so excited about long-awaited movies that I get nervous? My stomach almost hurt when I was sitting through the commercials because I had waited for so long for this film to come out and I was so very scared that I would be disappointed.
Well, I wasn't.
Some things could've been done better or differently (more about that later), but I still walked home with a great big grin on my face.
Things of awesome.
* The entire senate hearing. Oh, Tony! I sat through the scene jumping in my seat with glee.
* All the little nods to comic canon, like Tony's comment that he'd like to be Secretary of Defense (Yeah, Tony, that worked out sooo well...) and Happy's boxing (Oh, Happy!)
* I wasn't sure about the change of actor for Rhodey because it always throws me for a loop and confuses the hell out of me when characters changes their faces, but Don Cheadle worked well in the role.
* Nick Fury. Epitome of badass. Need I say more?
* Tony Stark. Built a particle accelerator. In his basement! With a box of scraps!
* I thought for the longest time that I had a crush on Pepper Potts, but now I've realised that what I really want is to be her best friend so I could drag her away from work once in a while and feed her lots of icecream and watch silly movies and give her a chance to relax.
There were a few things I would have preferred to have seen done differently though.
* Scarlett Johansson was kind of meh, which is a shame because I love the Black Widow of the comics.
* I felt Tony's alcoholism was a bit glossed over. It was shown, but not really dealt with and kind of rationalised away by the whole 'dying from palladium poisoning' thing even though he was already drinking like a fish in the first movie before he was sick. I wonder if they're going to really address the issue in the movieverse. I think it needs to be, especially if Tony's going to be in the Avengers.
* The Tony/Pepper kiss. I don't mind the kiss as such and I loved the 'weird'-comment afterwards, but if I had written the script, that is where I would have ended it. In other words, pretty much like it happened in the comics. (At least before that whole brain-erasing debacle, but neither of them were exactly in their right minds then and I'm just pretending it never happened...)
I don't know where the notion comes from that UST has to be resolved with sex. It can just as easily be resolved by the characters coming to the conclusion that it just won't work and that they're better as friends.
I can't possibly ship Tony/Pepper and it's not only because I'm a shameless Tony/Steve Rogers (Captain America) shipper. I just can't see Tony and Pepper in a romantic relationship that won't end in terrible heartbreak for the both of them. Pepper is going to have to do all the work and Tony will still manage to find a way to ruin it all, because that's what he does. She's going to have to forgive, over and over again even when he'll not even admit that he's done anything wrong. Tony really needs someone looking after him, but he's incapable of looking after someone in return. It works when Pepper is an employee and gets paid for the work, but it's not goint to work in a romantic relationship. Pepper deserves way better. Stick to Happy, girl! (And let's not talk about that part of comic canon either...*is in denial*)
(Random Fun fact: I based a lot of Entangled Particles!Rodney and Laura's relationship off of Tony and Pepper.)
* I wanted more fallout! I get that it's the kind of movie that has to have a happy ending where the hero gets the girl and the medal, but Tony did a lot of exceptionally stupid things in this film and came out of it relatively clean. There was a bit of it where Natasha wouldn't recommend him for the Avengers but even there it was hinted that it would work out in the end (of course it has to work out, there will be no Avengers without Iron Man). Again, it seemed like the excuse that he was dying at the time made it okay for him to behave like an ass and as soon as his friends found out about it (because of course he can't just tell them, that would be the sensible thing to do!) - instant forgiveness! Sorry, it doesn't work like that.
At some point, Tony has to realise that by putting on the Iron Man suit, he's taking on an enormous responsibility, both in and out of the suit. In many ways, he's still a spoiled brat with a really, really cool and potentially deadly toy, and this version of Tony has a lot of growing up to do before he can be a superhero.
Over to my random thinky thoughts about the character in general.
So. First I was going to call this section 'In defense of Tony Stark' but... well, there really are no excuses for him. Tony Stark is an unrepentant asshole, end of story. He's the kind of character you either love or hate.
Personally, I love him. Mostly because I have a weak spot for unrepentant assholes, but also because he's not just an asshole. He's complex and complicated and I think there are just as many interpretations of Tony Stark as there are fans.
My two favourite superheroes are Spiderman and Iron Man, because they're both so very human and flawed. Poor Peter Parker is just plain unlucky. He works so hard but just can't seem to catch a break. Tony Stark, on the other hand, is the man who has everything but still manages to screw it all up for himself, time after time after time. He doesn't need anyone else to sabotage his life, he does a perfect job of doing it himself.
elspethdixon have said it better than I ever could in her character overview: Tony likes being Iron Man a lot, but he’s really not all that fond of being Tony Stark.
Basically - Tony has issues. Tony's issues have issues. Take a nice dose of survivor's guilt, an absent father, depression, alcoholism, self-loathing, not to mention all the times people have tried to use him for their own gain. He's a loner and in many ways he's very fragile and vulnerable, something he tries his very best to hide, both behind the facade of his public persona, and behind the Iron Man suit itself.
Iron Man is Tony's way to reinvent himself, to hide away Tony Stark and be someone else, a hero, someone worthy of the admiration and love he doesn't feel he himself deserves.
Here's another line I think defines Tony, from Dorcas Gustine's excellent story this time tomorrow (where were we) (Tony/Steve fic that fixes Civil War by way of timetravel!): It’s quite ironic, in a twisted way, that every time Tony tries to make himself better - because he always thinks he has to, as if being Tony Stark, being human, is some kind of disease he has to overcome - every time he tries to do the ‘right thing’, he inevitably ends up doing the greatest amount of damage, in the shortest possible time.
Tony's an engineer through and through and he really, truly believes that all problems can be solved with technology. He really doesn't relate well to other people (brilliantly shown in the movies where he gets along better with the robots in his lab than with the real living people in his life). Like so many other geniuses he strikes me as the kind of person who's had to learn his people skills, because it's not something that comes naturally to him. He hasn't done a great job of it either, but he gets away with it anyway because he's rich. The problem is that technology isn't the ultimate fix, and Tony just can't get that fact into his head. Sometimes you can't build your way out of a problem - you need to work through it, go to the core of it and fix what's really wrong. A lot of the mistakes Tony's made could have been avoided if he'd just been able to rely on people instead of gadgets.
Enough of me trying to analyse Tony. I sort of want to write something but I think that's going to have to wait until I'm done with Holmes and Watson's dysfunctional codependent antics.
(Oh, and once again I was the only one in the theater who stayed through the credits so see the last scene. Thor! I hope movie!Thor is a lot like Ultimates!Thor, because I really like Ultimates!Thor. Even if he's the only thing I like about the Ultimates...)
Am I the only one who gets so excited about long-awaited movies that I get nervous? My stomach almost hurt when I was sitting through the commercials because I had waited for so long for this film to come out and I was so very scared that I would be disappointed.
Well, I wasn't.
Some things could've been done better or differently (more about that later), but I still walked home with a great big grin on my face.
Things of awesome.
* The entire senate hearing. Oh, Tony! I sat through the scene jumping in my seat with glee.
* All the little nods to comic canon, like Tony's comment that he'd like to be Secretary of Defense (Yeah, Tony, that worked out sooo well...) and Happy's boxing (Oh, Happy!)
* I wasn't sure about the change of actor for Rhodey because it always throws me for a loop and confuses the hell out of me when characters changes their faces, but Don Cheadle worked well in the role.
* Nick Fury. Epitome of badass. Need I say more?
* Tony Stark. Built a particle accelerator. In his basement! With a box of scraps!
* I thought for the longest time that I had a crush on Pepper Potts, but now I've realised that what I really want is to be her best friend so I could drag her away from work once in a while and feed her lots of icecream and watch silly movies and give her a chance to relax.
There were a few things I would have preferred to have seen done differently though.
* Scarlett Johansson was kind of meh, which is a shame because I love the Black Widow of the comics.
* I felt Tony's alcoholism was a bit glossed over. It was shown, but not really dealt with and kind of rationalised away by the whole 'dying from palladium poisoning' thing even though he was already drinking like a fish in the first movie before he was sick. I wonder if they're going to really address the issue in the movieverse. I think it needs to be, especially if Tony's going to be in the Avengers.
* The Tony/Pepper kiss. I don't mind the kiss as such and I loved the 'weird'-comment afterwards, but if I had written the script, that is where I would have ended it. In other words, pretty much like it happened in the comics. (At least before that whole brain-erasing debacle, but neither of them were exactly in their right minds then and I'm just pretending it never happened...)
I don't know where the notion comes from that UST has to be resolved with sex. It can just as easily be resolved by the characters coming to the conclusion that it just won't work and that they're better as friends.
I can't possibly ship Tony/Pepper and it's not only because I'm a shameless Tony/Steve Rogers (Captain America) shipper. I just can't see Tony and Pepper in a romantic relationship that won't end in terrible heartbreak for the both of them. Pepper is going to have to do all the work and Tony will still manage to find a way to ruin it all, because that's what he does. She's going to have to forgive, over and over again even when he'll not even admit that he's done anything wrong. Tony really needs someone looking after him, but he's incapable of looking after someone in return. It works when Pepper is an employee and gets paid for the work, but it's not goint to work in a romantic relationship. Pepper deserves way better. Stick to Happy, girl! (And let's not talk about that part of comic canon either...*is in denial*)
(Random Fun fact: I based a lot of Entangled Particles!Rodney and Laura's relationship off of Tony and Pepper.)
* I wanted more fallout! I get that it's the kind of movie that has to have a happy ending where the hero gets the girl and the medal, but Tony did a lot of exceptionally stupid things in this film and came out of it relatively clean. There was a bit of it where Natasha wouldn't recommend him for the Avengers but even there it was hinted that it would work out in the end (of course it has to work out, there will be no Avengers without Iron Man). Again, it seemed like the excuse that he was dying at the time made it okay for him to behave like an ass and as soon as his friends found out about it (because of course he can't just tell them, that would be the sensible thing to do!) - instant forgiveness! Sorry, it doesn't work like that.
At some point, Tony has to realise that by putting on the Iron Man suit, he's taking on an enormous responsibility, both in and out of the suit. In many ways, he's still a spoiled brat with a really, really cool and potentially deadly toy, and this version of Tony has a lot of growing up to do before he can be a superhero.
Over to my random thinky thoughts about the character in general.
So. First I was going to call this section 'In defense of Tony Stark' but... well, there really are no excuses for him. Tony Stark is an unrepentant asshole, end of story. He's the kind of character you either love or hate.
Personally, I love him. Mostly because I have a weak spot for unrepentant assholes, but also because he's not just an asshole. He's complex and complicated and I think there are just as many interpretations of Tony Stark as there are fans.
My two favourite superheroes are Spiderman and Iron Man, because they're both so very human and flawed. Poor Peter Parker is just plain unlucky. He works so hard but just can't seem to catch a break. Tony Stark, on the other hand, is the man who has everything but still manages to screw it all up for himself, time after time after time. He doesn't need anyone else to sabotage his life, he does a perfect job of doing it himself.
elspethdixon have said it better than I ever could in her character overview: Tony likes being Iron Man a lot, but he’s really not all that fond of being Tony Stark.
Basically - Tony has issues. Tony's issues have issues. Take a nice dose of survivor's guilt, an absent father, depression, alcoholism, self-loathing, not to mention all the times people have tried to use him for their own gain. He's a loner and in many ways he's very fragile and vulnerable, something he tries his very best to hide, both behind the facade of his public persona, and behind the Iron Man suit itself.
Iron Man is Tony's way to reinvent himself, to hide away Tony Stark and be someone else, a hero, someone worthy of the admiration and love he doesn't feel he himself deserves.
Here's another line I think defines Tony, from Dorcas Gustine's excellent story this time tomorrow (where were we) (Tony/Steve fic that fixes Civil War by way of timetravel!): It’s quite ironic, in a twisted way, that every time Tony tries to make himself better - because he always thinks he has to, as if being Tony Stark, being human, is some kind of disease he has to overcome - every time he tries to do the ‘right thing’, he inevitably ends up doing the greatest amount of damage, in the shortest possible time.
Tony's an engineer through and through and he really, truly believes that all problems can be solved with technology. He really doesn't relate well to other people (brilliantly shown in the movies where he gets along better with the robots in his lab than with the real living people in his life). Like so many other geniuses he strikes me as the kind of person who's had to learn his people skills, because it's not something that comes naturally to him. He hasn't done a great job of it either, but he gets away with it anyway because he's rich. The problem is that technology isn't the ultimate fix, and Tony just can't get that fact into his head. Sometimes you can't build your way out of a problem - you need to work through it, go to the core of it and fix what's really wrong. A lot of the mistakes Tony's made could have been avoided if he'd just been able to rely on people instead of gadgets.
Enough of me trying to analyse Tony. I sort of want to write something but I think that's going to have to wait until I'm done with Holmes and Watson's dysfunctional codependent antics.
(Oh, and once again I was the only one in the theater who stayed through the credits so see the last scene. Thor! I hope movie!Thor is a lot like Ultimates!Thor, because I really like Ultimates!Thor. Even if he's the only thing I like about the Ultimates...)