Awesome / Iron Man 3

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Awesome moments in Iron Man 3.

"What are you waiting for? It's Christmas. Take them to church."

"That's the thing about smart guys: we cover our asses!"

— Tony Stark

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• The film's end theme is titled "Can You Dig It" and is the dramatic main theme remixed into an old-school dance tune with elements of classic surf movie music. It's almost as if, in the wake of The Avengers, Marvel is saying "Yeah, check out what we can get away with now."
• The very first scene, as ridiculous as it was, qualifies as awesome due to Tony's Fridge Brilliance idea of implanting magnets in his arms that automatically summon the Iron Man suit from anywhere. The only other tech that even comes close to this is fellow genius Shuri's modifications to her brother's Black Panther suit; instead of magnets, she synced the nanobots to his necklace. Even so, Tony's is arguably more reliable, as it's less liable to get lost, damaged, or stolen in combat.
  • Tony doing a badass flip while in his armor (which is noted by the Marvel Handbook to weigh 225 pounds) in order to catch his upside-down face plate, and then sticking the classic Three-Point Landing in all of Iron Man's glory, is three seconds of pure awesome.
    Tony: I'm the best.
• Tony taking on an Extremis soldier and winning. While handcuffed.
• Iron Men make up the cavalry.
  • Also of note, Tony yet again jumps off a tall structure and into his suit. Several times.
• Happy Took a Level in Badass by turning into a clever Guile Hero at the beginning of the film.
  • Happy punching Savin hard enough in the face to make him activate his Extremis healing ability
  • He gets a specific one when he gets caught in an Extremis blast. He's on his back, barely conscious, badly wounded, and his first reaction is to point at the dog tags nearby, the one thing he knows Tony will need to look for to work things out.
• Tony calling out the Mandarin, though giving the Mandarin his address could be seen as Suicidal Overconfidence.
  • Fridge Brilliance: Tony's address is likely not THAT secret. He's a major public figure, and the Mandarin has incredible resources.
• Iron Man takes out a helicopter with a piano.
  • On that note, the fact that he manages to take down most of the helicopters while his suit is nowhere near combat ready.
• Harley with his flashbang, and Tony with his hidden single-shot repulsor cannon effectively knock Savin out cold.
• Rhodey kicking ass and saving the President by just being a Badass Normal. Tony is not the only one in the movie who proves he doesn't need the armor to be a hero.
  • Not just that, before that Killian tries melting him out of the armor. Rhodey is in terrible pain but begging the armor not to open... and then when he sees the safety failsafes will make it open anyway, he gets ready, and as soon as the Iron Patriot armor pops open he comes out swinging. If not for Killian breathing fire, Rhodey could probably have saved the day right then and there, with his bare hands.
    • Savin knocking out Rhodey with nothing more than an effortless shove shows how strong he is even in comparison to an average Extremis soldier.
  • At the climax, Rhodey asks for an armor suit, and Tony tells him that he isn't calibrated for any of the Iron Man armors. So what does Rhodey do? He goes and takes back his stolen suit.
  • Rhodey's impeccable aim period. He shows that he's earned his rank by being in the field.
• Rhodey is cornered by two Extremis soldiers on a suspended container. Rhodey proceeds to perfectly headshot both of them five times.
  • The Extremis soldiers get their own CMOA by no-selling the headshots due to their Healing Factor. So what does Rhodey do? Grab onto the locks of the container and shoot out two of the supports, sending the duo plummeting down, and then swings from it to the President like he's Tarzan.
  • Problem: it's Tony Stark, James Rhodes, and 40 or so suits of armor against all the bad guys. The armors can be piloted by Jarvis, but much less effectively than with a human inside them. Tony can just jump from armor to armor, but none of those are fitted for Rhodey. He has to get his own armor back for that. So he does. Even though it's suspended by cranes, over a Death Trap, with the President as hostage inside it, in the middle of a huge battle. Very badass.
• Tony finally taking the gloves off and blasting Savin with the Unibeam, blowing a hole through his chest.
  Tony: Walk away from that, you son of a bitch.
  Armor HUD: TARGET NEUTRALIZED
  • Then the plane blows up with him on it while in the sky, killing any doubt he's finished. No Kill like Overkill done right.
• Fridge Brilliance gives one to the President. When the Mandarin gives the ultimatum to call him or he will kill a man on live television, the President dials, but the Mandarin never answers the call and shoots the guy anyway. We later learn the Mandarin/Slattery is working off a script, and he looks nervous as the phone rings. Plus, the guy he appears to have shot is still alive. They didn't expect the President to actually call, and had no idea what to do when he did. Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right! indeed.
• Tony, only partially in armor, takes down Killian's men with a pistol, some repulsor blasts, ingenuity, and bouncing around like crazy with whatever thrust he can muster.
  • This is also an example for how fast the suit can fly. While the suit has been supersonic since the first movie, this is a whole new level. To wit: as the "Ponytail Express" henchman said, the distance between Miami and Tennessee is over 800 miles. Within barely a minute of Tony gesturing, the gauntlet flew in, with the rest delayed only due to the padlocked barn door. At the absolute minimum their speed had to be Mach 6, likely even more at max capacity. definitely more.
    • What makes it even more awesome is that, as shown by the suit running out of power, due to Harley's garage's questionable power supply, the armor was no where near fully charged.
  • Someone on Youtube pointed out that "Stark wins, not because the henchmen are completely incompetent, or because they couldn't hit a bullseye if they were standing two inches away. He wins, because he is laying down his own covering fire, keeping a watch for new enemies, and constantly moving so as to be a difficult target to hit." So the guards are actually pretty competent, and they actually have a shot at winning, considering Tony's chest and head are unarmored, and they have much better cover. Tony's just better.
  • The guards at the start of the scene respond the second Tony starts talking to them. He's tied up, with no gadgets or weapons, and they're still extremely careful around him, even while they're mocking him. If you look while Tony struggles with Ponytail Express, the guy is a few inches from shooting Tony. Even though he just got smacked in the face twice.
• Pepper fumbles and Does Not Know Her Own Strength in armor near the beginning, because it is one of her first times inside the armor, if not the very first. Presumably she's a fast learner, though, because once she has Extremis powers she can put them to good use and kill Killian herself.
  • Pepper finally getting her chance to show us her awesomeness in full display by saving Tony from Killian in the climax. Without missing a beat, she backflips off of Tony's knee, drags her white-hot fist through an Iron Man suit and brings it to the ground, rips off an arm and sends Killian flying, then assembles the gauntlet on her arm, removes a tankbuster missile, and blasts it, obliterating Killian.
• The Stinger: Just when you thought they weren't going to mention the Tony Stark/Bruce Banner bromance from The Avengers...
• Scenario: Thirteen Air Force One passengers and crew have been blown out of the plane and are falling out of the sky. JARVIS says the suit can only carry four people. What does Tony do? He guides each of the falling people into a skydiving maneuver and uses an electrical current to lock their grip so they can't let go of each other, and saves all of them, grabbing the last survivor just in time for Tony to turn up the thrusters and land everyone in the water. Then in a simultaneously awesome and funny moment, he turns to fly away and gets hit by a passing truck, breaking apart the pieces of the hollow armor, revealing that Tony had been controlling it remotely.
  • It's especially awesome in that they used a real skydiving team to pull it off. No CGI.
  • The passengers themselves deserve a mention. They're falling thousands of feet to their impending death, but as soon as Tony tells them to grab each other, they do not hesitate or panic for even a second, helping Tony and helping themselves in saving all their lives.
• Tony vs. Killian, as he keeps switching between armors and his opponent keeps up, Terminator-style. It's not the suits, it's Tony. He is Iron Man.
  Tony: JARVIS? Do me a favor and blow Mark 42.
• Some of Tony's more specialized armors get a chance to shine, such as a Hulkbuster-type armor and an armor equipped with twin piledrivers.
• The closing lines alone:
  Tony: So if I were to wrap this up tight with a bow, or whatever... I guess I'd say, my armor? It was never a distraction, or a hobby. It was a cocoon. And now? I'm a changed man. You can take away my house, all my tricks and toys. But one thing you can't take away? I am Iron Man.
• Tony's initial assault on the Mandarin's compound. He's lost most of his resources at this point, and can't power his suit back up in time. So he puts together an assortment of Improvised Weapons and plows through a dozen armed guards effortlessly.
  • This scene proved that the original build-a-suit-in-a-cave-with-a-box-of-scraps feat was not a fluke, and did not depend on terrorists with military-grade weaponry. Stranded in rural Tennessee, Tony builds an arsenal of Improvised Weapons, with parts he bought at the local hardware store, some borrowed children's toys, and even Christmas tree ornaments, in an auto mechanic's garage. A long-neglected garage, for that matter. And while the weapons he builds are not as effective as even the Mark 1 armor, he did it in only a day. All of this perfectly cements the lesson Tony tries to pass onto Peter in Spider-Man: Homecoming: if he's nothing without the suit, then he shouldn't have it.
• Maya pulling a High-Heel–Face Turn and threatening to kill herself if Killian doesn't let Tony go. It's sadly undercut when Killian decides to cross the Moral Event Horizon and just kill her himself.
• President Ellis is no coward. He faces down the stolen Iron Patriot armor that has just mowed through his entire Secret Service detail on Air Force One. He has nowhere to go yet he grabs a gun, and when that fails, he says, 'Go on, do it'.
  • Once he was freed, the fact that he was wearing the Iron Patriot armor for a few seconds was pretty cool.
    Rhodey: You look damn good, Mr. President. But I'm gonna need that suit back.
  • Same goes for his Secret Service detail. They might be a Redshirt Army, but it takes balls to take on a guy in a Powered Armor suit with nothing more than a pistol.
• While the Mark V/Suitcase Armor was based on the fan-favorite Silver Centurion, a proper S.C. armor pops up for the finale and disarms Killian.
• JARVIS has several awesome moments in this film. From saving his creator from drowning to rebuilding entire crime scenes to coordinating 40+ Iron Man suits in a full-on war while simultaneously putting one in front of Tony whenever he might need it, JARVIS showed that just because he's an AI, doesn't mean he's not a dangerous force to be reckoned with.
  • Hell, the entire final battle. Every Iron Man suit Tony's built vs Killian's suped-up Extremis lackeys, who they then proceed to utterly thrash. The only times that the bad guys can take one down is actually piling on top of it and using superior numbers, and even then JARVIS does his best to take the suit's destroyers down with them by making them kamikaze into places where they'll do a lot of damage.
    • A noteworthy moment during said final battle would be the piledriver-equipped suit knocking two Extremis troops into the air so that another suit can blast them in an impressive and awesome display of teamwork.
    • This exchange before said final battle just sells it:
      Tony: JARVIS, target all Extremis heat signatures. Disable with extreme prejudice.
      The Iron Legion, voiced by JARVIS, in unison: Yes, sir.
      Tony: What are you waiting for? It's Christmas...Take 'em to church!
    • "Gentlemen." (spilts into several parts and wallops them)
    • Also, take note that he built those suits as a hobby, and most of the ones we saw in this film were while he was suffering from PTSD (so he never ironed out their bugs; just built them and moved on). Now imagine him dedicating himself into building hundreds of suits - with proper debugging/testing, as he normally did before - and launching another "House Party Protocol". And with Age of Ultron revealing he can create a single armor that can go toe-to-toe with the Hulk himself, he'll become one of the strongest Avengers if this actually happens.
  • And despite being in one corner of the ship, Tony's able to give helpful orders like stabilizing the falling superstructure, marking out an armor which is getting dogpiled and needs help, etc.
• Trevor Slattery may be a washed-up, drunken, drug-addicted former actor but you have to give the guy credit - he gave such an awesomely chilling and convincing performance as the Mandarin that he had practically all of America quaking in fear of him. At the end of the movie, he even seems to have gained a fanbase from his performance.

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