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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
I wonder if Iron Man 2 would've been better if Vanko had just gone straight to prison at the end of the first act, and the rest of the film strictly focused on Tony's issues. He's not broken out by Hammer, he doesn't attack the Stark Expo, he's just the catalyst to prove that Tony was wrong and people can recreate the Arc Reactor technology.
That might've been too daring for the MCU at that point. A superhero film where the main villain is taken out in the first act and the rest is focused on character stuff? Even now, I think that'd be a tough sell for some audiences, particularly if there weren't any action set-pieces for much of the film. I dunno, maybe play up the conflict between Tony and Rhodey more? And maybe the climax could be them teaming up to stop some disaster that's not caused by Vanko? I dunno, there's a lot of room for improvement with Iron Man 2.
Even the demon in a bottle comic had a villain for most of it
Whose schemes and such exacerbated Tony’s issues
Edited by Bocaj on May 18th 2019 at 4:36:26 AM
Forever liveblogging the AvengersCombining Vanko and Tony's self-destructing arc resulted in both of them coming to an unsatisfying conclusion. Vanko turns from a cunning Xanatos Gambit master, to continuing to try to kill Tony beyond reason. Tony's issues get ironed out with a present from SHIELD that coincidentally happens to fix all his health problems.
The film needed to pick one of them and stick with it. If the former, Vanko's scheme, then the story should've adapted more from "Armor Wars", with Tony dealing with Iron Man knockoffs getting spread around the globe sooner than he expected. If the latter, then the story should've adhered more faithfully to "Demon in a Bottle", which centered on Tony's martyr complex, flying around the world trying to fix everything and drowning out his exhaustion with alcohol.
Edited by Tuckerscreator on May 18th 2019 at 1:41:43 AM
I feel like Vanko and Hammer both had potential to be great villains in different ways, they just both needed more screentime. The ideal Iron Man 2 situation would be more like how the villains are handled in Ant-Man and the Wasp, where one is serious and dangerous because of their powers while the other is a joke villain made dangerous because of their resources.
Really, Iron Man 2 had all of the elements needed to be great, everything just needed to be handled slightly differently.
rollin' on dubs
The biggest mistake that Star Trek Into Darkness made was making their villain a Generic Doomsday Villain. You could replace that movie's Khan with any Trek villain - or any character.
I agree, on the surface, Hela is a boring character, The Dreaded who comes back to menace everyone. Cate Blanchett put enough into the character that the villain was likeable.
Homecoming at least developed Tooms and his gang enough that I could understand (but not condone) his Start of Darkness.
The new movies should flesh out the villains if they are taking on established characters or start with the heroes to intro the new ones. After some time then the movie can give us some scenes on the villain.
The problem stems from comics - it's easy to shake up a book with a new villain. Give the villain a hook and just say he/she/it is teh evil. But that was when the major audience was school age children (mostly boys) who'd fall for that.
A good villain needs to have logical reasons for their plan even if their core motivation is Blue-and-Orange Morality.
- Star Trek - the Borg. Started out so alien that they were more scary than, "hey that's a good character". Overtime the TNG writers fleshed out the Borg as more than "You will be assimilated". Until the ''Voyager" writers messed that up.
- The Dominion from Deep Space Nine, between the shape shifting founders, the slimy Vorta and their {{mooks}, the Jem'Hadar - they coulda been "we're teh evilz". Instead we got to meet them over time. Bits and pieces here. The story was told from the heroes POV (even the name "Dominion" was hard to get for the heroes) - but as the viewer was introduced to the Dominion, so were the viewers.
- Babylon 5 - President Clake is the Ur-Example of President Evil: xenophobic, dictatorial and paranoid. JMS wisely had other Earth character speak on his behalf or implement his polices. We got bits and pieces, JMS said that Clarke was "more a force of nature than a person".
- The Shadows are a villain that would be hard to pull off. Their whole agenda is conflict makes races strong. Like Thanos, they believe that death is a good thing. Unlike Thanos, they wanted the younger raced to fight among themselves, not kill off 50% of them. The Shadows core philosophy was introduced by the Mouth of Sauron - a human working for them. They were cast as just a chaotic evil race until Captain Sherridan met the human spokesman and discovered that both the Shadows AND the Vorlons were hiding something. Like the Dominion, the whole story unfolded over the course of the show's run.
The MCU needs to make their villains act logiclly or at least consistent. They can parcel out info as the movies go on (at this point sequels are assured). They do respect the source material but changes have to be made to adapt the characters for the silver screen. If they introduce new villains, they need to avoid Generic Doomsday Villain and give us developed characters (like Tooms) or let the actors flesh out the villains (see Hela).
I tried to walk like an Egyptian and now I need to see a Cairo practor....I actually liked the Shield stuff in Ironman 2. Along with Hammer and Tony's issues it's my favourite stuff in it. I do think though that they should have removed Vanko completely and have it some sort of fully blown crime story, with Natasha, Hammer and maybe a third character as the three suspects. Like, I would still have the attack on the track, but I would have the attacker being an unnamed goon. Or maybe even have it be Vanko and have the movie treat him like an unnamed goon until the big reveal in the end that he was playing everyone all along in the end.
Yeah, I don’t really think the SHIELD stuff in IM 2 was the problem. It worked pretty well within Tony’s arc, it’s just that his arc wasn’t fully realized in the end and the SHIELD stuff made a great scapegoat vs the story as a whole just not being written very well.
Okay, I know Generic Doomsday Villain has been misused a lot, so I decided to briefly check to see which MCU villains (films only) have been labelled as such on the site. It's surprisingly smaller than you think:
- Thanos before Avengers: Infinity War was released
- Malekith from Thor: The Dark World
- Surtur from Thor: Ragnarok
- 2014!Thanos from Avengers: Endgame
Across 22 films, only four have been labeled as such. And even that's a stretch, as Thanos stopped being one once he actually got stuff to do. I know it's pedantic, but people really need to stop throwing Generic Doomsday Villain as a crippling problem with the MCU films when it only really affected one film. The villains were not well developed? Yes, that's a fair argument. I just think people confuse Generic Doomsday Villain with a villain who's flat, when they're not the same thing.
But I think we're all in agreement Malekith was the worst villain in the MCU film, right?
My main problem with the SHIELD stuff is that I feel it exists in service to setting up future MCU films rather than it actually benefiting the narrative itself. Black Widow's portrayal in it is also one of the worst across the franchise.
I can agree that maybe it's not the main issue, but I would have no problem with it being excised.
Edited by Draghinazzo on May 18th 2019 at 6:09:42 AM
In my view, the SHIELD stuff causes problems in IM2 because it provides the answers to the plot conflicts too quickly.
Plot conflict 1: Vanko wants revenge on Tony for Howard Stark deporting Vanko's father to die in poverty. SHIELD: Nick Fury suddenly comes in to explain that that Howard was completely justified and he always loved Tony and founded SHIELD and was a hero or whatever.
Plot conflict 2: Tony is dying from palladium poisoning. SHIELD: Conveniently their founder discovered a new element that nobody knows what it does, but just to happens to cure Tony's illness.
So, basically that. Nobody has to deal with hard moral questions or change their behavior because the story suddenly plugs up all the holes.
Edited by Tuckerscreator on May 18th 2019 at 4:17:11 AM
The element thing probably would have happened without SHIELD itself being the one that told Tony about. Both would have. Tony’s arc is in part about coming to terms with his father’s legacy: the SHIELD parts are the movie’s way of expediting that, not the source of those plot points. They would have been there regardless.
Perhaps, but there isn't really much to come to terms with. It's just "here's a stash of stuff that justifies Howard Stark okay bye". Tony doesn't really have to change anything, the story just plugs up the problem of Howard and moves on. That it might've plugged it largely the same way regardless of SHIELD's involvement doesn't fix that issue.
I think what makes it so clunky is that the film wasn't really about Howard until that moment. Unless they were newspaper clippings from the opening that I forgot, it's really only until Fury shows up do we learn about Vanko's ties to the Stark family. We get a few hints, but that's the moment where it all comes together. And yet, any internal dilemma Tony might face is absolved by Fury assuring him Howard was justified in his actions. It'd be like if in Black Panther (2018), T'challa was totally cool upon learning his father murdered Erik's father in self-defense. It hampers the hero's relationship with the villain significantly.
I have the same problem with how Tony's issues with his father play out too. The scene where Tony sees the reel of his father saying how proud he is seems like it should be the emotional climax of the film. But it doesn't ring true because the only hint we got of Tony's daddy-issues was the scene with Fury. It's not an integral part of his character arc, but yet the film treats it as such.
In fact, I'd say that scene only works in hindsight once other films explored Tony's relationship with father in more detail.
Edited by chasemaddigan on May 18th 2019 at 7:01:32 AM
Here is why I liked the shield stuff: For one, since I new nothing about Black Widow, "Natalie's" role really intrigued me when I watched it the first time. Second, Fury showing up and setting Tony straight just works. At least for me. (What doesn't work is that the whole "Tony is put under house arrest by shield" doesn't even last five minutes, it would be more fun if they had thrown out the Vanko stuff in favour for giving THAT particular dynamic half an hour or so). And finally, the Black Widow action scene in the end is really, really needed to make the action less boring. Otherwise we have a guy with a whip against a guy in a suit, a guy in a suit against a guy in a suit and two guys in suit against a guy in a suit and a lot of robots. That was always the problem with Rhodey, his powers are too similar to Tony's. Natasha's are NOT so she offers the original hallway fight scene. And it is still pretty awesome.
Well, the overreaching theme of the movie is legacy, but it isn't really done well partly because Vanko's approach to destroy Tony's legacy doesn't really make sense.
Edited by Swanpride on May 18th 2019 at 4:16:01 AM
Well, Captain America: The Winter Soldier would be a hell more confusing.
A MCU would The Winter Soldier? Yeah, no. Plus, Ao S holds the whole thing together.
btw I think that the whole "it is just set-up for future movies complain regarding the presence of Natasha and Fury in Ironman 2 a little bit unfair. Because they actually fit better into the story than most of the other stuff AND they are a better set up than for example Thors hot vision tube or Loki somehow hypnotising Selvig.

EDIT: Weird page topper warning. And Hammer was never even pretended to be anything other than a complete joke in universe as well as out. Which could work in a different movie but really, really didn't at all in the one we got.
Edited by jakobitis on May 18th 2019 at 1:11:37 AM
"These 'no-nonsense' solutions of yours just don't hold water in a complex world of jet-powered apes and time travel."