History YMMV / IronMan1

* MoralEventHorizon: See [[MoralEventHorizon/MarvelCinematicUniverse here]].

** The trend for villains in Marvel movies to be a "[[EvilCounterpart dark reflection]]" of the hero, armed with similar powers or technology, also began with this film.

** At this point in his career, Robert Downey Jr. was ... a junkie. He was a loser who had ''had'' a career as a teen idol, but he was severely troubled. His casting as the future alcoholic Tony Stark was kind of a stroke of genius but also a holy what the fuck Hale Mary. Jeff Bridges as the villain Obadiah Stane was amazing, but also an out of nowhere brilliant move. Give the movie an unknown director and a WritingByTheSeatOfYourPants script that Bridges described as $20 million dollar college film... Hot damn. This shouldn't have worked. It worked.

* GeniusBonus: Tony's craving for a cheeseburger when he's rescued may seem like just a joke, but if you know anything about Robert Downey Jr.'s story of recovery it starts to take on a larger meaning -- [=RDJ=] actually credits [=Burger King=] with inspiring him to get off drugs because one day he was driving a car with a "half a ton" of drugs in the trunk, he decided to get a burger. He called it "worst burger of [his] life" and it actually made him reevaluate all of his life-choices. After that, he threw all the drugs into the ocean and checked into rehab. So, rather fittingly, Tony's equally life-changing decision to stop making weapons also involved a burger in some way.

* CompleteMonster: In the {{novelization}} by Creator/PeterDavid, [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Obadiah Stane]] is presented as [[AdaptationalVillainy far worse than his film counterpart]]. Just like in the movie, Stane is a [[WarForFunAndProfit warmonger]] and [[ArmsDealer weapons manufacturer]] who hires terrorists to murder his surrogate nephew, [[Characters/MCUTonyStark Tony Stark]], alongside an entire military squad. Using Tony's seeming death to take over Stark Industries and begin selling off dangerous weapons to terrorists for a profit, Stane later betrays and wipes out his former terrorist partners before attempting to murder Tony with his bare hands. After creating his own suit of superpowered armor and becoming the Iron Monger, Stane slaughters anyone in his way in a mad attempt to murder Tony and Pepper Potts, using a woman and her four [[WouldHurtAChild children]] as ammo to attack Tony with. In the novel, in addition to all that, in his prime moment of villainy, Stane completely ignores the fact that the damaged Arc reactor will explode and wipe out thousands of innocents, so hell-bent on crushing Tony that he is willing to take down an entire city in the process.

* CompleteMonster: In the {{novelization}} by Creator/PeterDavid, [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Obadiah Stane]] is presented as [[AdaptationalVillainy far worse than his film counterpart]]. Just like in the movie, Stane is a [[WarForFunAndProfit warmonger]] and [[ArmsDealer weapons manufacturer]] who hires terrorists to murder his surrogate nephew, Tony Stark, alongside an entire military squad. Using Tony's seeming death to take over Stark Industries and begin selling off dangerous weapons to terrorists for a profit, Stane later betrays and wipes out his former terrorist partners before attempting to murder Tony with his bare hands. After creating his own suit of superpowered armor and becoming the Iron Monger, Stane slaughters anyone in his way in a mad attempt to murder Tony and Pepper Potts, using a woman and her four [[WouldHurtAChild children]] as ammo to attack Tony with. In the novel, in addition to all that, in his prime moment of villainy, Stane completely ignores the fact that the damaged Arc reactor will explode and wipe out thousands of innocents, so hell-bent on crushing Tony that he is willing to take down an entire city in the process.

* CompleteMonster: In the {{novelization}} by Creator/PeterDavid, [[BigBad Obadiah Stane]] is presented as [[AdaptationalVillainy far worse than his film counterpart]]. Just like in the movie, Stane is a [[WarForFunAndProfit warmonger]] and [[ArmsDealer weapons manufacturer]] who hires terrorists to murder his surrogate nephew, Tony Stark, alongside an entire military squad. Using Tony's seeming death to take over Stark Industries and begin selling off dangerous weapons to terrorists for a profit, Stane later betrays and wipes out his former terrorist partners before attempting to murder Tony with his bare hands. After creating his own suit of superpowered armor and becoming the Iron Monger, Stane slaughters anyone in his way in a mad attempt to murder Tony and Pepper Potts, using a woman and her four [[WouldHurtAChild children]] as ammo to attack Tony with. In the novel, in addition to all that, in his prime moment of villainy, Stane completely ignores the fact that the damaged Arc reactor will explode and wipe out thousands of innocents, so hell-bent on crushing Tony that he is willing to take down an entire city in the process.

* MoralEventHorizon: [[spoiler:Stane]] does a lot of villainous things in this movie, but ordering the Ten Rings to kill Tony, [[spoiler:the son of his life-long friend]] just so he can sell arms to terrorists is where he first crosses the horizon. Everything after that is just furthering his personal agenda.

*** Said movie would star [[Creator/RobertDowneyJr an actor]] who, while acknowledged as talented, had become infamous for his drug addiction problems and numerous run-ins with the law in the lead role and was going to be directed by [[Creator/JonFavreau a man]] whose [[{{Film/Zathura}} last film]] had been a BoxOfficeBomb.

*** The lead-off movie would feature Iron Man, a B-list (at best) comic book character, who Marvel fans hated thanks to ''ComicBook/CivilWar'', a then-recent villainizing arc. Said arc would be adapted into [[Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar a movie]] 8 years later.

* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: Besides the fact that Tony is in Afghanistan during UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror, as he prepares for a picture with the soldiers, he says to them "I don't want to see this on your Website/MySpace Page." At the time of filming, [=MySpace=] was ''the'' social network, but by the time that the movie premiered, Facebook had usurped its title. ''Film/AvengersEndgame'' features a subtle CallBack gag toward the beginning of the film, where Tony says not to release a recording on "social media" instead of mentioning any specific social network, as if to future-proof that movie from running into the same issue.
** These films also use the latest in tech, which, even a mere few years later, is all out of date. In a world full of smartphones, Stark's high tech flip phone is adorable, and the soldier getting a selfie a few seconds before that is using a digital camera instead of, again, a smart phone.

* TheProblemWithLicensedGames: Sega's game based on the movie was criticized for making flying and shooting around in cool PoweredArmor seem downright boring, between poor controls, outdated graphics, and levels full of bugs and unrelenting enemies.

*** Said movie would star [[Creator/RobertDowneyJr an actor]] who, while acknowledged as talented, had become infamous for his drug addiction problems and numerous run-ins with the law in the lead role and was going to be directed by [[Creator/JonFavreau a man]] whose [[{{Film/Zathura}} last film]] had been a box-office bomb.

** Tony’s line about a “Titanium/Gold alloy” sounds like a HandWave from the writer(s) to justify Iron Man’s red-and-gold color scheme, but eight years later, [[https://phys.org/news/2016-07-lab-titanium-gold-alloy-harder-steels.html A lab did indeed discover a Gold/Titanium alloy]] that’s up to four times stronger than most forms of Steel. Tony literally was ahead of his time there.

** In TheStinger, Fury ask Tony if he thinks he's the only superhero in the universe. In ''Film/CaptainMarvel2019'' it's revealed that Fury met Carol Danvers in 1995, meaning that, not only he knew that another superhero existed (not counting Steve Rogers, of course), she was the inspiration behond the whole Avengers Iniciative idea.

** These films also use the latest in tech, which, twenty years later, is all out of date. In a world full of smartphones, Stark's high tech flip phone is adorable, and the soldier getting a selfie a few seconds before that is using a digital camera instead of, again, a smart phone.

** The juxtaposition of humor and action. This movie and later Phase One films were good about knowing when to leave one or the other to the side as needed. Later films would be occasionally criticized for not always maintaining this and reducing the tension of a few serious scenes. Downplayed overall, though, since most will agree that the franchise still runs on a good balance between the two.

** "The truth is... I am Iron Man." Unprecedented in any superhero movie before, its effect is lessened now that none of the supers of the Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse (except for Spider-Man) even ''have'' a secret identity, especially with so much of the known image of this series' Iron Man is him without his helmet on.

** Downey is also seen at the Disney Hall in ''Film/TheSoloist'' with Creator/JamieFoxx a year later. Foxx eventually would join the [[Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse MCU]] as [[Film/TheAmazingSpiderMan2 Electro]] in ''Film/SpiderManNoWayHome''.

* VindicatedByHistory: Creator/JeffBridges' turn as Obadiah Stane didn't get a lot of press at the time when the film came out, with most people focused on the action of Creator/RobertDowneyJr's performance. Fast forward through two phases of mediocre villains (barring Loki and ''maybe'' the Red Skull), and people started to notice just how good Bridges was as Stane, who was subsequently reevaluated as an excellent villain and a terrific EvilCounterpart.

* FranchiseOriginalSin: While many agree it's a very good movie, in retrospect, it set up several of the things that Marvel's movies would be criticized for later on.
** The use of TheStinger for a SequelHook. Marvel hadn't considered making a franchise of interconnected movies yet, so it came off more as a little AndTheAdventureContinues moment when you first saw it. But the continued use of them, with two per movie later on, would become grating as it felt like they were more about advertising future movies than adding a meaningful contribution to what you just saw.

** Downey is also seen at the Disney Hall in ''Film/TheSoloist'' with Creator/JamieFoxx a year later.

** The trend for villains in Marvel movies to be a "dark reflection" of the hero, armed with similar powers or technology, also began with this film.

*** This undoubtedly reached its apex with [[Film/IronMan3 this movie's own threequel]], which infamously [[spoiler:tried to retcon away Iron Man's arch-nemesis from the comics in favor of some generic asshole who barely even ''existed'' in the source material.]]