What you have to do is create a world in which the comic fits. I feel that both Chris Nolan and Jon Favreau did this admirably.
We kicked it around one night on what would happen if you went back and switched Favreau to Batman and Nolan to Iron Man but made them keep the same script and same cast.
I think the answer to that hypothetical was somewhat answered by Cowboys & Aliens.
Favreau goes for the grimdark with a more-than-capable cast, but I don't think the material stood up to the tone they were trying to achieve (which, admittedly, is all over the goddamned place).
Bottom line: I think Favreau could have pulled off Batman Begins (probably with a little better photography of the action scenes), but he couldn't touch The Dark Knight with a ten-foot pole.
After IM2 and CaA I feel confident in saying that the first Iron Man wasn't(just) Favreau.
To be fair, Favreau wasn't having such a great time on IM2. There was a good deal of studio oversight and pressure to include Avengers material. And I think the three story credits and the five screenwriting credits on Cowboys and Aliens (none of which were Favreau) says a whole hell of a lot about that production.
Problem being that the Avengers stuff was some of the best stuff in the movie.
The real flaws are within the core of the movie. The sickness is stupid. The Villain(Whiplash) was ineffectual and the whole thing feels maraudering.
Agreed. The best parts of the film are the bits where Downey and Jackson interact, or Downey and Paltrow. The rest of the film is utterly aimless and completely without stakes.
But I'm hoping for good stuff with Shane Black. I might not should, but I am.
Really? They have the same vague conversation about his enlistment in...something twice.
But everything about Kiss Kiss Bang Bang suggests we should be looking forward to Iron Man 3.
The sickness was the studio. It was originally going to delve into Tony's alcoholism.
And should have. I think that Stark's struggles with the bottle is one of the most compelling parts of his character (and I loved how in IM1 he always had a drink in his hand).
What you have to do is create a world in which the comic fits. I feel that both Chris Nolan and Jon Favreau did this admirably.
We kicked it around one night on what would happen if you went back and switched Favreau to Batman and Nolan to Iron Man but made them keep the same script and same cast.
I think the answer to that hypothetical was somewhat answered by Cowboys & Aliens.
Favreau goes for the grimdark with a more-than-capable cast, but I don't think the material stood up to the tone they were trying to achieve (which, admittedly, is all over the goddamned place).
Bottom line: I think Favreau could have pulled off Batman Begins (probably with a little better photography of the action scenes), but he couldn't touch The Dark Knight with a ten-foot pole.
After IM2 and CaA I feel confident in saying that the first Iron Man wasn't(just) Favreau.
To be fair, Favreau wasn't having such a great time on IM2. There was a good deal of studio oversight and pressure to include Avengers material. And I think the three story credits and the five screenwriting credits on Cowboys and Aliens (none of which were Favreau) says a whole hell of a lot about that production.
Problem being that the Avengers stuff was some of the best stuff in the movie.
The real flaws are within the core of the movie. The sickness is stupid. The Villain(Whiplash) was ineffectual and the whole thing feels maraudering.
Agreed. The best parts of the film are the bits where Downey and Jackson interact, or Downey and Paltrow. The rest of the film is utterly aimless and completely without stakes.
But I'm hoping for good stuff with Shane Black. I might not should, but I am.
Really? They have the same vague conversation about his enlistment in...something twice.
But everything about Kiss Kiss Bang Bang suggests we should be looking forward to Iron Man 3.
I don't recall it being vague. What I do recall is it being fun.
Iron Man 1 isn't the greatest either. It's just the origin story is well established enough that RDJ can just throw the whole film on his back and drag the entire film to goodness with quality character work.
It's really noticeable how the plot and movie just fall apart when it stops being all about him.
I disagree that it was all RDJ. Though he did have a lot to do with it. The Action scenes are also probably the most competent and fun of any superhero film in the last ten years. The dessert fight especially was really fun.
Hmm, good point. I almost think of it as RDJ because what makes the action scenes really good is they help sell the character of Tony Stark. It's not just "here, explosions".
Iron Man 1 isn't the greatest either. It's just the origin story is well established enough that RDJ can just throw the whole film on his back and drag the entire film to goodness with quality character work.
It's really noticeable how the plot and movie just fall apart when it stops being all about him.
I disagree that it was all RDJ. Though he did have a lot to do with it. The Action scenes are also probably the most competent and fun of any superhero film in the last ten years. The dessert fight especially was really fun.
Hmm, good point. I almost think of it as RDJ because what makes the action scenes really good is they help sell the character of Tony Stark. It's not just "here, explosions".
RDJ does deserve credit for making Tony Stark fun to watch but he's not the only factor in why the Iron Man films are good. I'm starting to get sick of fans on the internet thinking he's 100% responsible for the franchise's success. He didn't do it on his own, it had a good supporting cast, good characters, brilliant special effects, excellent direction, decent scripts (YMMV on IM 2) and a character that's been created and refined for decades by various people before he touched the script.
edit: Nothing against you, shryke. Been wanting to say that for a while.
Harry Dresden on
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
The sickness was the studio. It was originally going to delve into Tony's alcoholism.
And should have. I think that Stark's struggles with the bottle is one of the most compelling parts of his character (and I loved how in IM1 he always had a drink in his hand).
I disagree. "Demon is a Bottle" is a vestige of a bygone era when comic books thought that hamfisted arcs about topical subject matters were valid substitutes for plots (see also: Green Arrow and AIDS, Superman and the War on Drugs, Daredevil and more AIDS).
Iron Man, the film series, is fun and features a fun main character. Let's not fuck that up for the sake of needless grimdarkery. Making Tony an alcoholic in no way improves or augments his character.
"If you make god bleed people will cease to believe in him. There will be blood in the water, and the Sharks will come"
Whiplashes mission statement. It sounds really awesome and very specific. He knew he couldn't beat him in a fight. So he didn't try. His goal was to remind the world that Ironman was just a man in a suit. That he could be beaten some day. Whiplashes goal is to make Stark look weak. The problem is that he really didn't do it.
Stark was already sick.
Stark is already being investigated and congress is already trying to push him into giving up his technology.
In short whiplashes actions for 9/10ths of the movie fail. He doesn't do anything and at the same time we don't get a sense for stakes. Stark starts the film with trouble he starts in the red and ends things a little better.
I'd start the film with the Stark expo. Do it fairly similar to the trailer we got with Pepper kissing his helmet and then his swaggering about the floor at his expo. Stark begins the movie on top of the world. Then instead of seguing into the court room scene we go strait to the Race. Whiplash attacks him and it goes very similar to the movies scene(minus Peppers hysterical screaming which I felt was a little out of character) except Whiplash nails him in the arc reactor. He still beats him and everything's ok but this time Whiplashes attack has consequences.
Technobabble reveals that the broken arc reactor poisoned him and any use of current Arc tech will worsen his condition. Now he's no longer dying because he won't stop being Ironman but because he's wearing the reactor at all. Whiplash has now managed a crippling blow. Stark is dying, the government is pressuring him to give them his suit and he has to give Pepper control of the company in hopes that maybe he'll have enough time to fix the arc reactors problem. But it isn't working.
Most of the movie goes by similarly except another character is introduced. Instead of Whiplash getting that stupid suit at the end and Warmachine being taken over a Crimson Dynamo character is introduced. There isn't much to him. He's the test pilot who will lead the drones at the end. He reveals himself to be a member of the 10 rings, whom are the ones that freed Whiplash in the movie, who's goal is to take down Stark. So Whiplash stays behind during the climax and is captured by Black Widow so her scene at the end isn't a complete waste of everybody's time and Ironman and Warmachine team up to beat the Crimson Dynamo.
"If you make god bleed people will cease to believe in him. There will be blood in the water, and the Sharks will come"
Whiplashes mission statement. It sounds really awesome and very specific. He knew he couldn't beat him in a fight. So he didn't try. His goal was to remind the world that Ironman was just a man in a suit. That he could be beaten some day. Whiplashes goal is to make Stark look weak. The problem is that he really didn't do it.
Stark was already sick.
Stark is already being investigated and congress is already trying to push him into giving up his technology.
In short whiplashes actions for 9/10ths of the movie fail. He doesn't do anything and at the same time we don't get a sense for stakes. Stark starts the film with trouble he starts in the red and ends things a little better.
I'd start the film with the Stark expo. Do it fairly similar to the trailer we got with Pepper kissing his helmet and then his swaggering about the floor at his expo. Stark begins the movie on top of the world. Then instead of seguing into the court room scene we go strait to the Race. Whiplash attacks him and it goes very similar to the movies scene(minus Peppers hysterical screaming which I felt was a little out of character) except Whiplash nails him in the arc reactor. He still beats him and everything's ok but this time Whiplashes attack has consequences.
Technobabble reveals that the broken arc reactor poisoned him and any use of current Arc tech will worsen his condition. Now he's no longer dying because he won't stop being Ironman but because he's wearing the reactor at all. Whiplash has now managed a crippling blow. Stark is dying, the government is pressuring him to give them his suit and he has to give Pepper control of the company in hopes that maybe he'll have enough time to fix the arc reactors problem. But it isn't working.
Most of the movie goes by similarly except another character is introduced. Instead of Whiplash getting that stupid suit at the end and Warmachine being taken over a Crimson Dynamo character is introduced. There isn't much to him. He's the test pilot who will lead the drones at the end. He reveals himself to be a member of the 10 rings, whom are the ones that freed Whiplash in the movie, who's goal is to take down Stark. So Whiplash stays behind during the climax and is captured by Black Widow so her scene at the end isn't a complete waste of everybody's time and Ironman and Warmachine team up to beat the Crimson Dynamo.
The sickness was the studio. It was originally going to delve into Tony's alcoholism.
And should have. I think that Stark's struggles with the bottle is one of the most compelling parts of his character (and I loved how in IM1 he always had a drink in his hand).
I disagree. "Demon is a Bottle" is a vestige of a bygone era when comic books thought that hamfisted arcs about topical subject matters were valid substitutes for plots (see also: Green Arrow and AIDS, Superman and the War on Drugs, Daredevil and more AIDS).
Iron Man, the film series, is fun and features a fun main character. Let's not fuck that up for the sake of needless grimdarkery. Making Tony an alcoholic in no way improves or augments his character.
You can do alcoholism without going full grimdark or it being "a very special episode".
Hell, they came pretty close in IM2 as it is. Replace the mystery drink with booze and the "locked in until he finds a cure" with "drying him out" and you are mostly there. It gives the party scene and fight with Rhodey some needed depth (but still doesn't help the movie's other problems).
In Avengers have a small moment where someone offers Tony a drink and Fury wordlessly takes it away, then in IM3 have Jarvis ask how his "meeting" was, or ordering water when someone else orders a drink.
The arc is handled and shows character growth across the films without getting preachy (which I would agree is a bad way to handle it).
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Linespider5ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGERRegistered Userregular
I like Iron Man 2.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
You can do alcoholism without going full grimdark or it being "a very special episode".
Yes, but why?
What's the point?
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
Night, that's just a reshuffling of the movie we already got, which was fundamentally flawed in addition to the minor issues you wallpaper over. Iron Man 2 should have been radically different from what it was, and continued in the vein of the original. The original succeeded where many superhero movies have failed because it avoided the two types of narratives almost all of them have fallen into:
1. The Origin, or, How I Learned To Fulfill the Iconic Requirements of My Costume
2. The Sequel, or, How The Stakes Got Raised By a New Villain
Iron Man isn't an origin story, although it contains one; it's the story of a man regaining control over his life. He goes from a self-centered drunken reprobate living high on his fame, Daddy's company, and the goodwill of his long-suffering friends to someone with goals, drive, empathy, self-awareness, and purpose; like a good drama should, the movie shows us this transformation (rather than telling us) through the change in each of his key relationships. He can no longer sustain his complacency, whether it's taking his best friend or Pepper for granted or letting Stane run the company in an unethical manner, and if you boil the film down to why it feels good (and why the sparing action feels purposeful), it's the pleasure we take in watching a man with a great capacity for problem-solving suddenly awake to and take head on all the problems in his life he's been ignoring. That's the engine that drives the movie; it's what people respond to when they watch it; it's what makes Downey Jr.'s performance so appealing (when he's being a dick it's funny, but when he's engineering his way around a problem it's actually thrilling). That engine is far more rewarding than the paper-thin nostalgia-bait wherein you wait for Uncle Ben to die because that's the beat you know comes next.
Iron Man 2 fails to sidestep and falls right into the black pit of letting the villains drive the conflict. I'd argue it should have taken the same form as the first film: Tony Stark comes to realize there's a problem with his life that he hasn't addressed, and he has to address it, and the process of addressing it involves robot suit fights. (Robot suit fights are still important!) This is sorta-kinda what the movie tried to do, but it makes all the wrong moves. It throws in too many problems at once (Tony is dying, Tony is being a dick again, Tony hasn't extricated himself from weapons manufacturing, the Iron Man suit is too powerful a weapon, Tony's father's business practices were unethical, and I'm sure I'm missing some). It muddles those problems ("Tony acting impulsively and rudely because he's dying despite drinking awful green liquid" is a poor metaphor for alcoholism, it's unclear how much Tony should be on the hook for his father's mistakes, etc). And most crucially, the film fails to follow the character arc from the previous movie. Instead of Stark awakening to and then solving his problems, he denies his problems until the plot--driven by the villains on one side and The Avengers movie on the other--solves them for him.
I would have taken the movie in one of two directions: either Tony comes to realize that, having solved the surface-level problems of his life, he's still an alcoholic (ie his personal improvements need to continue) or (the Dark Knight route) Tony comes to realize that, now that he's reinvented himself as Iron Man, his new role carries with it ethical and personal responsibilities he isn't addressing. In other words, the character changes that happened in the first film are either "a good step forward but he's not there yet" or "two steps forward, one step back". You could (and probably should) combine these, partly to avoid the problem AtomicRoss brought up (where a movie focused entirely on alcoholism gets too "A Very Special Episode"-y) and partly because they share the same root--arrogance (and its twin, low-self esteem).
So if the first film is "Tony is complacent until an event wakes him up", the second film is "Tony is arrogant until an event humbles him". You structure his relationships with the rest of the cast around that transformation--how does he demonstrate arrogance with Pepper, with Rhodes, etc, at the beginning, how does he demonstrate humility (/confidence) with them at the end. Then you choose two villains, one to strike early in the movie to break through his arrogance (perhaps believing himself invincible in the Iron Man suit, he goes into a fight drunk and loses), and one as the critical obstacle late in the movie whom Stark can recognize and defeat now that he is humble (but confident).
Now that you have that clarity you can start to build scenes and jokes and things around that, because you've sidestepped all the muddled thinking that comes from "But we have to have a scene where Rhodes puts on the suit and we have to have an action beat every fifteen pages and we have to set up the Avengers and we can't show Tony drinking too much and we need the villain to be really cool but also funny and..." that dooms most superhero sequels.
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Casually HardcoreOnce an Asshole. Trying to be better.Registered Userregular
So I watched that movie "Immortals' and it had so much potential but then falls apart.
I honestly should of played God of War again, instead of watching super models fight in plastic armor for 2 hours.
Iron Man one is very much an origin story. Tony's awakening to responsibility is just a different form of the standard super-hero origin of ... well, awakening to responsibility.
It actually falls apart when, like all origin story movies, it tries to tack on a villain at the end. I don't think it's ever worked. Batman Begins probably did it best and even there it didn't quite work.
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
edited April 2012
Iron Man is different because the superhero bit is almost incidental. Spider-man's story is "in order to be Spiderman, I have to realize that with great power..." Batman's story is "in order to be Batman, I have to realize the power of an ideal and..." Iron Man's story is not "in order to be Iron Man, I have to realize that people need my help" or whatever. The robot suit is just the way in which Tony Stark expresses his new self.
Quickedit: The difference is that Tony sets out to build a robot suit. Peter Parker has to live up to newfound powers accidentally given to him.
Iron Man is different because the superhero bit is almost incidental. Spider-man's story is "in order to be Spiderman, I have to realize that with great power..." Batman's story is "in order to be Batman, I have to realize the power of an ideal and..." Iron Man's story is not "in order to be Iron Man, I have to realize that people need my help" or whatever. The robot suit is just the way in which Tony Stark expresses his new self.
Quickedit: The difference is that Tony sets out to build a robot suit. Peter Parker has to live up to newfound powers accidentally given to him.
Tony Stark doesn't set out to build a robot suit. He does it incidentally as part of his escape at the start and then needs to figure out what to do with it.
He gains super-powers through some sort of experience and then has to decide what to do with those powers and how to use them. Just like every super-hero origin ever.
So just rewatched Jurassic Park: The Lost World. That movie is like one rewrite away from being good. The whole time I was watching I was thinking "if they had just spent a little more time on the script, and if Spielberg had returned to direct, this could have been really good". I was surprised as hell to realized Spielberg did direct that.
So just rewatched Jurassic Park: The Lost World. That movie is like one rewrite away from being good. The whole time I was watching I was thinking "if they had just spent a little more time on the script, and if Spielberg had returned to direct, this could have been really good". I was surprised as hell to realized Spielberg did direct that.
There're rumors he didn't.
Mad King George on
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
Iron Man is different because the superhero bit is almost incidental. Spider-man's story is "in order to be Spiderman, I have to realize that with great power..." Batman's story is "in order to be Batman, I have to realize the power of an ideal and..." Iron Man's story is not "in order to be Iron Man, I have to realize that people need my help" or whatever. The robot suit is just the way in which Tony Stark expresses his new self.
Quickedit: The difference is that Tony sets out to build a robot suit. Peter Parker has to live up to newfound powers accidentally given to him.
Tony Stark doesn't set out to build a robot suit. He does it incidentally as part of his escape at the start and then needs to figure out what to do with it.
He gains super-powers through some sort of experience and then has to decide what to do with those powers and how to use them. Just like every super-hero origin ever.
Very very broadly, maybe? I guess the difference to me is that if you took away the robot suit completely, there's still a movie there about Tony Stark almost getting killed and then trying to be a better guy despite resistance from his business partner. If you take away the ring or the mutant abilities or the Hulk serum or the Captain America whatever, those movies are no longer anything near the same story.
Most superhero origin stories are "These newfound abilities represent an ideal I now have to live up to"--Green Lantern's powers mean he has to be brave and civic-minded like the other space cops, Batman's abilities mean he has to be unstoppable and incorruptible, Superman's abilities mean he has an obligation to protect his new home, each mutant's power means they have to choose a side in a broader social conflict... I could keep going. The difference is Tony Stark's robot suit doesn't mean anything--it is literally a tool, something which he uses to accomplish his own goals. Tony Stark always had an obligation to not allow his company's weapons to be sold to terrorists; the suit is just the means by which he does this. Before Peter Parker had great power, he didn't have great responsibility; once he does, he has to live up to that.
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Mike Danger"Diane..."a place both wonderful and strangeRegistered Userregular
Sat down with some wings and watched Timecrimes. Neat little movie - I called the
bandaged guy being a future version of Hector
but I didn't see all of the other stuff along the way coming.
Iron Man is different because the superhero bit is almost incidental. Spider-man's story is "in order to be Spiderman, I have to realize that with great power..." Batman's story is "in order to be Batman, I have to realize the power of an ideal and..." Iron Man's story is not "in order to be Iron Man, I have to realize that people need my help" or whatever. The robot suit is just the way in which Tony Stark expresses his new self.
Quickedit: The difference is that Tony sets out to build a robot suit. Peter Parker has to live up to newfound powers accidentally given to him.
Tony Stark doesn't set out to build a robot suit. He does it incidentally as part of his escape at the start and then needs to figure out what to do with it.
He gains super-powers through some sort of experience and then has to decide what to do with those powers and how to use them. Just like every super-hero origin ever.
Very very broadly, maybe? I guess the difference to me is that if you took away the robot suit completely, there's still a movie there about Tony Stark almost getting killed and then trying to be a better guy despite resistance from his business partner. If you take away the ring or the mutant abilities or the Hulk serum or the Captain America whatever, those movies are no longer anything near the same story.
Most superhero origin stories are "These newfound abilities represent an ideal I now have to live up to"--Green Lantern's powers mean he has to be brave and civic-minded like the other space cops, Batman's abilities mean he has to be unstoppable and incorruptible, Superman's abilities mean he has an obligation to protect his new home, each mutant's power means they have to choose a side in a broader social conflict... I could keep going. The difference is Tony Stark's robot suit doesn't mean anything--it is literally a tool, something which he uses to accomplish his own goals. Tony Stark always had an obligation to not allow his company's weapons to be sold to terrorists; the suit is just the means by which he does this. Before Peter Parker had great power, he didn't have great responsibility; once he does, he has to live up to that.
And without his super-powers, Peter Parker could have decided to help his community through activism or some such. The way normal people do.
Iron Man is an origin story for Iron Man. It's all about how Tony Stark gains "super-powers" and then uses that as an impetus to reshape his life around helping other people.
Man I am really worried about the whole Avengers movie thing. All this cross-movie stuff is starting to get to pretty BS levels already; it already screwed over one movie (Captain America), and after The Avengers drops you know every other Marvel movie past that will be trying to tie in that one to Thor/C.A. 2 and IM3.
Marvel already screwed over an entire medium for us, they don't need to do it to another one :?
So just rewatched Jurassic Park: The Lost World. That movie is like one rewrite away from being good. The whole time I was watching I was thinking "if they had just spent a little more time on the script, and if Spielberg had returned to direct, this could have been really good". I was surprised as hell to realized Spielberg did direct that.
Man I am really worried about the whole Avengers movie thing. All this cross-movie stuff is starting to get to pretty BS levels already; it already screwed over one movie (Captain America), and after The Avengers drops you know every other Marvel movie past that will be trying to tie in that one to Thor/C.A. 2 and IM3.
Marvel already screwed over an entire medium for me, they don't need to do it to another one :?
Let's not put words in other peoples mouth shall we? Especially since you know its a contentious issue.
In what way do you feel Captain America got screwed over?
The movie, on the other hand, was not only slavishly devoted to the comic, but didn't subvert the superhero movie the same way the comic subverted the comic book. Thus, you end up with what basically amounts to a version of Watchmen for people who can't be bothered to actually read the thing.
I believe it tried. One of the biggest subversions of the comic was in suddenly portraying comic book violence in a real-ish fashion. Instead of bam-pow, bad guy runs away, you have moderately graphic violence in which people are maimed or killed. Which is pretty much what would happen in the real world. The results are shocking.
The movie can't do this in the same way, though, because this is no longer 1985. We are used to our superheroes killing and maiming, because comics and their cinematic counterparts have become much darker. What to do? Snyder opted to ramp up the violence to crazy levels, and the result is shocking in much the way the Watchmen comic was shocking back in the 80s. Except the comic was shocking by virtue of being realistic. The movie was shocking by virtue of being gratuitous. I think this same theme was actually handled far better in Kick-Ass, which carried much the same theme of "real-life superheroes would be crazy motherfuckers who get people killed."
I think Watchmen, the movie, was highly flawed, but I think it was about as good as it could've been as a film, and at its worst it's a very interesting, very pretty, and usually fun movie.
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
As to LTofC, I don't think it's hard to see Pilate and Judas as bad guys even if they're bound by prophecy to bring about something very good. I mean, narratively speaking, we don't automatically give the antagonist a pass just because he fucks up his grand plan and inadvertently saves the world. Intentions matter.
Theologically it's a whole nuther ball game, but this isn't the thread for theology.
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
Iron Man is different because the superhero bit is almost incidental. Spider-man's story is "in order to be Spiderman, I have to realize that with great power..." Batman's story is "in order to be Batman, I have to realize the power of an ideal and..." Iron Man's story is not "in order to be Iron Man, I have to realize that people need my help" or whatever. The robot suit is just the way in which Tony Stark expresses his new self.
Quickedit: The difference is that Tony sets out to build a robot suit. Peter Parker has to live up to newfound powers accidentally given to him.
Tony Stark doesn't set out to build a robot suit. He does it incidentally as part of his escape at the start and then needs to figure out what to do with it.
He gains super-powers through some sort of experience and then has to decide what to do with those powers and how to use them. Just like every super-hero origin ever.
Very very broadly, maybe? I guess the difference to me is that if you took away the robot suit completely, there's still a movie there about Tony Stark almost getting killed and then trying to be a better guy despite resistance from his business partner. If you take away the ring or the mutant abilities or the Hulk serum or the Captain America whatever, those movies are no longer anything near the same story.
Most superhero origin stories are "These newfound abilities represent an ideal I now have to live up to"--Green Lantern's powers mean he has to be brave and civic-minded like the other space cops, Batman's abilities mean he has to be unstoppable and incorruptible, Superman's abilities mean he has an obligation to protect his new home, each mutant's power means they have to choose a side in a broader social conflict... I could keep going. The difference is Tony Stark's robot suit doesn't mean anything--it is literally a tool, something which he uses to accomplish his own goals. Tony Stark always had an obligation to not allow his company's weapons to be sold to terrorists; the suit is just the means by which he does this. Before Peter Parker had great power, he didn't have great responsibility; once he does, he has to live up to that.
And without his super-powers, Peter Parker could have decided to help his community through activism or some such. The way normal people do.
But that's not a moral requirement--if the movie had been "Peter Parker, the story of a nerdy kid who grows up, has no adventures, and romances Mary Jane" at no point in that movie would you have said, "You know what this character's story is about? How much he really needs to help his community."
Iron Man is an origin story for Iron Man. It's all about how Tony Stark gains "super-powers" and then uses that as an impetus to reshape his life around helping other people.
But the movie makes this point specifically--"Iron Man" as a concept is meaningless, it's just a nickname that the press comes up with for a dude in a robot suit. Metatextually, the film brings it up basically as a joke moments before making it irrelevant:
"I am Iron Man," Tony says.
The suit is just a technology, appropriated and used by others (in plot points that are completely absent the sense of violation you'd get if, say, Lex Luthor stole Superman's costume and started wearing it). There's no "but which is the real mask" duality to it. "Iron Man" is not an identity in any significant sense.
And again, the super powers are how he reshapes his life, not why he reshapes his life. If Tony Stark had had the same experience in Afghanistan but escaped by putting on a burqa and sneaking out the back of the cave, he still would have come home a changed man; he just wouldn't have had the ability to enforce his changes on those around him (impressing Pepper with his seriousness, defeating Stane's plots against him).
So just rewatched Jurassic Park: The Lost World. That movie is like one rewrite away from being good. The whole time I was watching I was thinking "if they had just spent a little more time on the script, and if Spielberg had returned to direct, this could have been really good". I was surprised as hell to realized Spielberg did direct that.
There're rumors he didn't.
Oh really? Go on...
Well, all of these things are hearsay, but here goes: I think Joe Johnston was his second, and the story goes that Spielberg spent very little time on set, letting Johnston ghost direct most of the film as second unit, basically while he prepped for Saving Private Ryan.
Iron Man is different because the superhero bit is almost incidental. Spider-man's story is "in order to be Spiderman, I have to realize that with great power..." Batman's story is "in order to be Batman, I have to realize the power of an ideal and..." Iron Man's story is not "in order to be Iron Man, I have to realize that people need my help" or whatever. The robot suit is just the way in which Tony Stark expresses his new self.
Quickedit: The difference is that Tony sets out to build a robot suit. Peter Parker has to live up to newfound powers accidentally given to him.
Tony Stark doesn't set out to build a robot suit. He does it incidentally as part of his escape at the start and then needs to figure out what to do with it.
He gains super-powers through some sort of experience and then has to decide what to do with those powers and how to use them. Just like every super-hero origin ever.
Very very broadly, maybe? I guess the difference to me is that if you took away the robot suit completely, there's still a movie there about Tony Stark almost getting killed and then trying to be a better guy despite resistance from his business partner. If you take away the ring or the mutant abilities or the Hulk serum or the Captain America whatever, those movies are no longer anything near the same story.
Most superhero origin stories are "These newfound abilities represent an ideal I now have to live up to"--Green Lantern's powers mean he has to be brave and civic-minded like the other space cops, Batman's abilities mean he has to be unstoppable and incorruptible, Superman's abilities mean he has an obligation to protect his new home, each mutant's power means they have to choose a side in a broader social conflict... I could keep going. The difference is Tony Stark's robot suit doesn't mean anything--it is literally a tool, something which he uses to accomplish his own goals. Tony Stark always had an obligation to not allow his company's weapons to be sold to terrorists; the suit is just the means by which he does this. Before Peter Parker had great power, he didn't have great responsibility; once he does, he has to live up to that.
And without his super-powers, Peter Parker could have decided to help his community through activism or some such. The way normal people do.
But that's not a moral requirement--if the movie had been "Peter Parker, the story of a nerdy kid who grows up, has no adventures, and romances Mary Jane" at no point in that movie would you have said, "You know what this character's story is about? How much he really needs to help his community."
I don't know what you are going on about.
You made a comment about taking the robot suit out of Iron Man. You can do the same for any super-hero story. And it's still the same story. Tony Stark learns to accept the consequences of where his inventions go and works to better that. Peter Parker learns to have a social conscience and use the powers at his disposal to help those around him. Same shit.
Iron Man is an origin story for Iron Man. It's all about how Tony Stark gains "super-powers" and then uses that as an impetus to reshape his life around helping other people.
But the movie makes this point specifically--"Iron Man" as a concept is meaningless, it's just a nickname that the press comes up with for a dude in a robot suit. Metatextually, the film brings it up basically as a joke moments before making it irrelevant:
"I am Iron Man," Tony says.
The suit is just a technology, appropriated and used by others (in plot points that are completely absent the sense of violation you'd get if, say, Lex Luthor stole Superman's costume and started wearing it). There's no "but which is the real mask" duality to it. "Iron Man" is not an identity in any significant sense.
A dual identity isn't necessary. It's got nothing to do with an origin story.
And again, the super powers are how he reshapes his life, not why he reshapes his life. If Tony Stark had had the same experience in Afghanistan but escaped by putting on a burqa and sneaking out the back of the cave, he still would have come home a changed man; he just wouldn't have had the ability to enforce his changes on those around him (impressing Pepper with his seriousness, defeating Stane's plots against him).
And getting bit by a mutant spider isn't how Peter Parker reshapes his life either. That's the death of his uncle. Same with Batman. The only thing that makes him become a hero is personal tragedy. All the ingredients are there before.
Iron Man is no different then any other origin story. An important personal event causes <insert hero here> to reshape his life. Usually in order to help other people. The addition of some sort of super-power just provides the hero with enough power to make that new life goal attainable on a grander level.
There's no feasible way to argue Iron Man isn't an origin story when most of the movie is about how and why Tony Stark becomes Iron Man, the guy with a battlesuit who runs around saving people.
shryke on
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
As to LTofC, I don't think it's hard to see Pilate and Judas as bad guys even if they're bound by prophecy to bring about something very good. I mean, narratively speaking, we don't automatically give the antagonist a pass just because he fucks up his grand plan and inadvertently saves the world. Intentions matter.
Theologically it's a whole nuther ball game, but this isn't the thread for theology.
I'm not sure about whether or not intention matter in this instance, though. Luke Skywalker doesn't blow up the Death Star because Darth Vader makes him do it; villains are almost always obstacles to the goal, not enablers.
The biggest narrative disconnect is that Jesus literally isn't fulfilling his divine duty without martyrdom, and for that he needs to be martyred. If we expect Judas or Pilate or anyone to act differently, Jesus becomes just this slightly petulant prophet of Jehovah in a very long line of prophets for Jehovah.
The problem with the Gospels is that it narratively wants to have its cake and eat it, too. It wants to paint Christ in the light of an enlightened messiah who gives up his life in divine duty, but it also wants to condemn just about anyone who didn't lift a finger to stop it from happening. That simply doesn't make sense.
Well, Judas and co. didn't know things would turn out so well when they had Jesus killed. If you shoot a man while you're robbing his house are you suddenly exonerated if it turns out he's a serial killing child molester?
On Iron Man 2: I barely remember *anything* about that film, other than the scene with SLJ and RDJ in the diner. I kept expecting Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer to appear, screaming: "Any of you fucking pigs move and I'm gonna execute every last motherfucking one of you!"
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
Well, Judas and co. didn't know things would turn out so well when they had Jesus killed. If you shoot a man while you're robbing his house are you suddenly exonerated if it turns out he's a serial killing child molester?
But Jesus told them all about what would happen beforehand.
And that's a terrible analogy. Jesus didn't need to die because he was an evil child molester.
As to LTofC, I don't think it's hard to see Pilate and Judas as bad guys even if they're bound by prophecy to bring about something very good. I mean, narratively speaking, we don't automatically give the antagonist a pass just because he fucks up his grand plan and inadvertently saves the world. Intentions matter.
Theologically it's a whole nuther ball game, but this isn't the thread for theology.
I'm not sure about whether or not intention matter in this instance, though. Luke Skywalker doesn't blow up the Death Star because Darth Vader makes him do it; villains are almost always obstacles to the goal, not enablers.
The biggest narrative disconnect is that Jesus literally isn't fulfilling his divine duty without martyrdom, and for that he needs to be martyred. If we expect Judas or Pilate or anyone to act differently, Jesus becomes just this slightly petulant prophet of Jehovah in a very long line of prophets for Jehovah.
The problem with the Gospels is that it narratively wants to have its cake and eat it, too. It wants to paint Christ in the light of an enlightened messiah who gives up his life in divine duty, but it also wants to condemn just about anyone who didn't lift a finger to stop it from happening. That simply doesn't make sense.
That's probably because it was written when getting reported to the Roman government and being crucified was a real concern for Christians. They kind of wanted to demonize the Roman government and say that traitors in the specific vein of Judas were just the absolute worst.
"If you make god bleed people will cease to believe in him. There will be blood in the water, and the Sharks will come"
Whiplashes mission statement. It sounds really awesome and very specific. He knew he couldn't beat him in a fight. So he didn't try. His goal was to remind the world that Ironman was just a man in a suit. That he could be beaten some day. Whiplashes goal is to make Stark look weak. The problem is that he really didn't do it.
Stark was already sick.
Stark is already being investigated and congress is already trying to push him into giving up his technology.
In short whiplashes actions for 9/10ths of the movie fail. He doesn't do anything and at the same time we don't get a sense for stakes. Stark starts the film with trouble he starts in the red and ends things a little better.
This is probably my main issue with IM2. When Whiplash gave that speech to Tony, I thought it was a great idea for a villain to come at Iron Man in that way. He didn't have to beat Iron Man physically, he just had to show the world that the seal was broken on ARC technology, there'd be "blood in the water", and Tony's world would come crashing down.
Problem is, as you said, Whiplash never really does anything after that, and Tony never spends anytime reacting to what he's done. Those things were already in motion anyway, so the stakes never feel raised. Then we get to Whiplash's endgame, and it's just to send a bunch of robot mooks after Tony. That's it. That's what all this was leading to. It's like if at the end of Dark Knight, Joker's plan for showing Batman the nature of people was to have a bunch of ninjas attack him.
So I just got back from seeing Joseph Khan's new film Detention and wow it was weird. In a good way but there are so many genre-mashups it's almost impossible to define the movie. The only other film Khan directed was Torque which he not only made fun of before the screening (oh yeah he was there to do a Q & A afterwards) but during the actual film as well. Really cool guy.
I'M NOT FINISHED WITH YOU!!!
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Casually HardcoreOnce an Asshole. Trying to be better.Registered Userregular
Well, Judas and co. didn't know things would turn out so well when they had Jesus killed. If you shoot a man while you're robbing his house are you suddenly exonerated if it turns out he's a serial killing child molester?
But Jesus told them all about what would happen beforehand.
And that's a terrible analogy. Jesus didn't need to die because he was an evil child molester.
He needed to die because God needed a complex sacrifice system where you have to kill a goat a week to go into heaven, so God sent his son down there to be the sacrifice to end all sacrifice because apparently God have rules and regulations that he needs to follow to.
From what I understand, it was less about God, and more a ploy to end the practice of sacrificial offerings--which, at the time, actually was a pretty big deal.
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Really? They have the same vague conversation about his enlistment in...something twice.
But everything about Kiss Kiss Bang Bang suggests we should be looking forward to Iron Man 3.
And should have. I think that Stark's struggles with the bottle is one of the most compelling parts of his character (and I loved how in IM1 he always had a drink in his hand).
I don't recall it being vague. What I do recall is it being fun.
Which a lot of the rest of the movie wasn't.
Hmm, good point. I almost think of it as RDJ because what makes the action scenes really good is they help sell the character of Tony Stark. It's not just "here, explosions".
RDJ does deserve credit for making Tony Stark fun to watch but he's not the only factor in why the Iron Man films are good. I'm starting to get sick of fans on the internet thinking he's 100% responsible for the franchise's success. He didn't do it on his own, it had a good supporting cast, good characters, brilliant special effects, excellent direction, decent scripts (YMMV on IM 2) and a character that's been created and refined for decades by various people before he touched the script.
edit: Nothing against you, shryke. Been wanting to say that for a while.
I disagree. "Demon is a Bottle" is a vestige of a bygone era when comic books thought that hamfisted arcs about topical subject matters were valid substitutes for plots (see also: Green Arrow and AIDS, Superman and the War on Drugs, Daredevil and more AIDS).
Iron Man, the film series, is fun and features a fun main character. Let's not fuck that up for the sake of needless grimdarkery. Making Tony an alcoholic in no way improves or augments his character.
"If you make god bleed people will cease to believe in him. There will be blood in the water, and the Sharks will come"
Whiplashes mission statement. It sounds really awesome and very specific. He knew he couldn't beat him in a fight. So he didn't try. His goal was to remind the world that Ironman was just a man in a suit. That he could be beaten some day. Whiplashes goal is to make Stark look weak. The problem is that he really didn't do it.
Stark was already sick.
Stark is already being investigated and congress is already trying to push him into giving up his technology.
In short whiplashes actions for 9/10ths of the movie fail. He doesn't do anything and at the same time we don't get a sense for stakes. Stark starts the film with trouble he starts in the red and ends things a little better.
I'd start the film with the Stark expo. Do it fairly similar to the trailer we got with Pepper kissing his helmet and then his swaggering about the floor at his expo. Stark begins the movie on top of the world. Then instead of seguing into the court room scene we go strait to the Race. Whiplash attacks him and it goes very similar to the movies scene(minus Peppers hysterical screaming which I felt was a little out of character) except Whiplash nails him in the arc reactor. He still beats him and everything's ok but this time Whiplashes attack has consequences.
Technobabble reveals that the broken arc reactor poisoned him and any use of current Arc tech will worsen his condition. Now he's no longer dying because he won't stop being Ironman but because he's wearing the reactor at all. Whiplash has now managed a crippling blow. Stark is dying, the government is pressuring him to give them his suit and he has to give Pepper control of the company in hopes that maybe he'll have enough time to fix the arc reactors problem. But it isn't working.
Most of the movie goes by similarly except another character is introduced. Instead of Whiplash getting that stupid suit at the end and Warmachine being taken over a Crimson Dynamo character is introduced. There isn't much to him. He's the test pilot who will lead the drones at the end. He reveals himself to be a member of the 10 rings, whom are the ones that freed Whiplash in the movie, who's goal is to take down Stark. So Whiplash stays behind during the climax and is captured by Black Widow so her scene at the end isn't a complete waste of everybody's time and Ironman and Warmachine team up to beat the Crimson Dynamo.
:^:
You can do alcoholism without going full grimdark or it being "a very special episode".
Hell, they came pretty close in IM2 as it is. Replace the mystery drink with booze and the "locked in until he finds a cure" with "drying him out" and you are mostly there. It gives the party scene and fight with Rhodey some needed depth (but still doesn't help the movie's other problems).
In Avengers have a small moment where someone offers Tony a drink and Fury wordlessly takes it away, then in IM3 have Jarvis ask how his "meeting" was, or ordering water when someone else orders a drink.
The arc is handled and shows character growth across the films without getting preachy (which I would agree is a bad way to handle it).
Yes, but why?
What's the point?
1. The Origin, or, How I Learned To Fulfill the Iconic Requirements of My Costume
2. The Sequel, or, How The Stakes Got Raised By a New Villain
Iron Man isn't an origin story, although it contains one; it's the story of a man regaining control over his life. He goes from a self-centered drunken reprobate living high on his fame, Daddy's company, and the goodwill of his long-suffering friends to someone with goals, drive, empathy, self-awareness, and purpose; like a good drama should, the movie shows us this transformation (rather than telling us) through the change in each of his key relationships. He can no longer sustain his complacency, whether it's taking his best friend or Pepper for granted or letting Stane run the company in an unethical manner, and if you boil the film down to why it feels good (and why the sparing action feels purposeful), it's the pleasure we take in watching a man with a great capacity for problem-solving suddenly awake to and take head on all the problems in his life he's been ignoring. That's the engine that drives the movie; it's what people respond to when they watch it; it's what makes Downey Jr.'s performance so appealing (when he's being a dick it's funny, but when he's engineering his way around a problem it's actually thrilling). That engine is far more rewarding than the paper-thin nostalgia-bait wherein you wait for Uncle Ben to die because that's the beat you know comes next.
Iron Man 2 fails to sidestep and falls right into the black pit of letting the villains drive the conflict. I'd argue it should have taken the same form as the first film: Tony Stark comes to realize there's a problem with his life that he hasn't addressed, and he has to address it, and the process of addressing it involves robot suit fights. (Robot suit fights are still important!) This is sorta-kinda what the movie tried to do, but it makes all the wrong moves. It throws in too many problems at once (Tony is dying, Tony is being a dick again, Tony hasn't extricated himself from weapons manufacturing, the Iron Man suit is too powerful a weapon, Tony's father's business practices were unethical, and I'm sure I'm missing some). It muddles those problems ("Tony acting impulsively and rudely because he's dying despite drinking awful green liquid" is a poor metaphor for alcoholism, it's unclear how much Tony should be on the hook for his father's mistakes, etc). And most crucially, the film fails to follow the character arc from the previous movie. Instead of Stark awakening to and then solving his problems, he denies his problems until the plot--driven by the villains on one side and The Avengers movie on the other--solves them for him.
I would have taken the movie in one of two directions: either Tony comes to realize that, having solved the surface-level problems of his life, he's still an alcoholic (ie his personal improvements need to continue) or (the Dark Knight route) Tony comes to realize that, now that he's reinvented himself as Iron Man, his new role carries with it ethical and personal responsibilities he isn't addressing. In other words, the character changes that happened in the first film are either "a good step forward but he's not there yet" or "two steps forward, one step back". You could (and probably should) combine these, partly to avoid the problem AtomicRoss brought up (where a movie focused entirely on alcoholism gets too "A Very Special Episode"-y) and partly because they share the same root--arrogance (and its twin, low-self esteem).
So if the first film is "Tony is complacent until an event wakes him up", the second film is "Tony is arrogant until an event humbles him". You structure his relationships with the rest of the cast around that transformation--how does he demonstrate arrogance with Pepper, with Rhodes, etc, at the beginning, how does he demonstrate humility (/confidence) with them at the end. Then you choose two villains, one to strike early in the movie to break through his arrogance (perhaps believing himself invincible in the Iron Man suit, he goes into a fight drunk and loses), and one as the critical obstacle late in the movie whom Stark can recognize and defeat now that he is humble (but confident).
Now that you have that clarity you can start to build scenes and jokes and things around that, because you've sidestepped all the muddled thinking that comes from "But we have to have a scene where Rhodes puts on the suit and we have to have an action beat every fifteen pages and we have to set up the Avengers and we can't show Tony drinking too much and we need the villain to be really cool but also funny and..." that dooms most superhero sequels.
I honestly should of played God of War again, instead of watching super models fight in plastic armor for 2 hours.
It actually falls apart when, like all origin story movies, it tries to tack on a villain at the end. I don't think it's ever worked. Batman Begins probably did it best and even there it didn't quite work.
Quickedit: The difference is that Tony sets out to build a robot suit. Peter Parker has to live up to newfound powers accidentally given to him.
that's not really a reason
not one that doesn't apply to every character in every movie, or doesn't apply to every disease which iron man could deal with
Tony Stark doesn't set out to build a robot suit. He does it incidentally as part of his escape at the start and then needs to figure out what to do with it.
He gains super-powers through some sort of experience and then has to decide what to do with those powers and how to use them. Just like every super-hero origin ever.
There're rumors he didn't.
Very very broadly, maybe? I guess the difference to me is that if you took away the robot suit completely, there's still a movie there about Tony Stark almost getting killed and then trying to be a better guy despite resistance from his business partner. If you take away the ring or the mutant abilities or the Hulk serum or the Captain America whatever, those movies are no longer anything near the same story.
Most superhero origin stories are "These newfound abilities represent an ideal I now have to live up to"--Green Lantern's powers mean he has to be brave and civic-minded like the other space cops, Batman's abilities mean he has to be unstoppable and incorruptible, Superman's abilities mean he has an obligation to protect his new home, each mutant's power means they have to choose a side in a broader social conflict... I could keep going. The difference is Tony Stark's robot suit doesn't mean anything--it is literally a tool, something which he uses to accomplish his own goals. Tony Stark always had an obligation to not allow his company's weapons to be sold to terrorists; the suit is just the means by which he does this. Before Peter Parker had great power, he didn't have great responsibility; once he does, he has to live up to that.
And without his super-powers, Peter Parker could have decided to help his community through activism or some such. The way normal people do.
Iron Man is an origin story for Iron Man. It's all about how Tony Stark gains "super-powers" and then uses that as an impetus to reshape his life around helping other people.
Marvel already screwed over an entire medium for us, they don't need to do it to another one :?
Oh really? Go on...
Let's not put words in other peoples mouth shall we? Especially since you know its a contentious issue.
In what way do you feel Captain America got screwed over?
It's really not bad. Just flawed. It bugs me particularly because I feel like it would be really easy to fix it.
I believe it tried. One of the biggest subversions of the comic was in suddenly portraying comic book violence in a real-ish fashion. Instead of bam-pow, bad guy runs away, you have moderately graphic violence in which people are maimed or killed. Which is pretty much what would happen in the real world. The results are shocking.
The movie can't do this in the same way, though, because this is no longer 1985. We are used to our superheroes killing and maiming, because comics and their cinematic counterparts have become much darker. What to do? Snyder opted to ramp up the violence to crazy levels, and the result is shocking in much the way the Watchmen comic was shocking back in the 80s. Except the comic was shocking by virtue of being realistic. The movie was shocking by virtue of being gratuitous. I think this same theme was actually handled far better in Kick-Ass, which carried much the same theme of "real-life superheroes would be crazy motherfuckers who get people killed."
I think Watchmen, the movie, was highly flawed, but I think it was about as good as it could've been as a film, and at its worst it's a very interesting, very pretty, and usually fun movie.
Theologically it's a whole nuther ball game, but this isn't the thread for theology.
But that's not a moral requirement--if the movie had been "Peter Parker, the story of a nerdy kid who grows up, has no adventures, and romances Mary Jane" at no point in that movie would you have said, "You know what this character's story is about? How much he really needs to help his community."
But the movie makes this point specifically--"Iron Man" as a concept is meaningless, it's just a nickname that the press comes up with for a dude in a robot suit. Metatextually, the film brings it up basically as a joke moments before making it irrelevant:
The suit is just a technology, appropriated and used by others (in plot points that are completely absent the sense of violation you'd get if, say, Lex Luthor stole Superman's costume and started wearing it). There's no "but which is the real mask" duality to it. "Iron Man" is not an identity in any significant sense.
And again, the super powers are how he reshapes his life, not why he reshapes his life. If Tony Stark had had the same experience in Afghanistan but escaped by putting on a burqa and sneaking out the back of the cave, he still would have come home a changed man; he just wouldn't have had the ability to enforce his changes on those around him (impressing Pepper with his seriousness, defeating Stane's plots against him).
Well, all of these things are hearsay, but here goes: I think Joe Johnston was his second, and the story goes that Spielberg spent very little time on set, letting Johnston ghost direct most of the film as second unit, basically while he prepped for Saving Private Ryan.
I don't know what you are going on about.
You made a comment about taking the robot suit out of Iron Man. You can do the same for any super-hero story. And it's still the same story. Tony Stark learns to accept the consequences of where his inventions go and works to better that. Peter Parker learns to have a social conscience and use the powers at his disposal to help those around him. Same shit.
A dual identity isn't necessary. It's got nothing to do with an origin story.
And getting bit by a mutant spider isn't how Peter Parker reshapes his life either. That's the death of his uncle. Same with Batman. The only thing that makes him become a hero is personal tragedy. All the ingredients are there before.
Iron Man is no different then any other origin story. An important personal event causes <insert hero here> to reshape his life. Usually in order to help other people. The addition of some sort of super-power just provides the hero with enough power to make that new life goal attainable on a grander level.
There's no feasible way to argue Iron Man isn't an origin story when most of the movie is about how and why Tony Stark becomes Iron Man, the guy with a battlesuit who runs around saving people.
I'm not sure about whether or not intention matter in this instance, though. Luke Skywalker doesn't blow up the Death Star because Darth Vader makes him do it; villains are almost always obstacles to the goal, not enablers.
The biggest narrative disconnect is that Jesus literally isn't fulfilling his divine duty without martyrdom, and for that he needs to be martyred. If we expect Judas or Pilate or anyone to act differently, Jesus becomes just this slightly petulant prophet of Jehovah in a very long line of prophets for Jehovah.
The problem with the Gospels is that it narratively wants to have its cake and eat it, too. It wants to paint Christ in the light of an enlightened messiah who gives up his life in divine duty, but it also wants to condemn just about anyone who didn't lift a finger to stop it from happening. That simply doesn't make sense.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
But Jesus told them all about what would happen beforehand.
And that's a terrible analogy. Jesus didn't need to die because he was an evil child molester.
That's probably because it was written when getting reported to the Roman government and being crucified was a real concern for Christians. They kind of wanted to demonize the Roman government and say that traitors in the specific vein of Judas were just the absolute worst.
This is probably my main issue with IM2. When Whiplash gave that speech to Tony, I thought it was a great idea for a villain to come at Iron Man in that way. He didn't have to beat Iron Man physically, he just had to show the world that the seal was broken on ARC technology, there'd be "blood in the water", and Tony's world would come crashing down.
Problem is, as you said, Whiplash never really does anything after that, and Tony never spends anytime reacting to what he's done. Those things were already in motion anyway, so the stakes never feel raised. Then we get to Whiplash's endgame, and it's just to send a bunch of robot mooks after Tony. That's it. That's what all this was leading to. It's like if at the end of Dark Knight, Joker's plan for showing Batman the nature of people was to have a bunch of ninjas attack him.
He needed to die because God needed a complex sacrifice system where you have to kill a goat a week to go into heaven, so God sent his son down there to be the sacrifice to end all sacrifice because apparently God have rules and regulations that he needs to follow to.