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[websandwhiskers]

I have been watching Iron Man II absolutely obsessively, mostly because I'm too broke to go to theaters and watch 'Avengers' quite so obsessively.  Also I draw while watching at home, and that's hard to do in a dark theater.  I still want to see it one more time before it goes out of theaters, though.

You know what I didn't notice before watching

Comments

[mhalachaiswords]

I watched Iron Man II for the first time after Avengers (I know, bad fan) but how I interpreted that was, Tony was *dying* and he gets thrown this huge emotional rush that contradicted his entire view of his father, and he was really just unable to deal with that. Then he found the world fair stuff and Science! which pushed a lot of the emotions back (which I think is how Tony is with a lot of stuff). Once the rush was over and the world was saved, I could see him trying more to repress it all rather than examine all his gushy feelings. But yeah a lifetime of feeling abandoned and ignored by your father could never be pushed away with thirty seconds of film.

And wasn't there a thing in Avengers where Steve was pushing Tony's buttons about Howard? Or is that a fan thing I'm misremembering?

[websandwhiskers]

Damn it, you make me want to go see the movie again to find out! There's that scene where they're pushing every button they have, but I can't remember if the daddy issues got into it. It seems like that may be a little low for Steve . . most of what he was throwing at Tony was "I miss my war buddies and how dare you not be them!" while most of what Tony heard was "you are pathologically incapable of being a good person on account of being you and not me, the Frankenstein!son your dad liked better

[mhalachaiswords]

Now that I think more on it, it seems like Steve was unhappy that Tony is So Not A Soldier and Tony's all like whatever bitch, I'm the awesomest sparkly unicorn with an Iron Man suit ever (and all the mixed signals in there too in teh conversation). I suspect that the Howard stuff is more fandom's button to push with those two.

But that scene was so freaking awesome. In fact, all Helicarrier lab scenes are my favourite ever. That and the rest of the movie.

Bruce and Natasha got paired up for most of the movie. She found him, he freaked her out good, she finds out that's he's Loki's master plan, he goes apeshit on her in the helicarrier, etc. I find it interesting how of all the craziness in the movie, the Hulk was the thing that actually got under Natasha's skin, made her lose her cool. Even with Clint being taken, she dealt with it and did all she could to get him back. But she had no idea how to deal with Bruce :)

[websandwhiskers]

Good points all, and I liked all the lab scenes too. It is totally unfair that you're too far away for us to go see this movie again, like, four more times, and dissect it over diner food

[redbrunja]

being told once, or even multiple times, by an impossible-to-please parent, that you're wonderful and amazing, isn't really that life-changing. It falls into the category of bullshit that would mean a lot more were it put into action in a timely manner.

Agreed. I really feel like Howard gets a huge pass for the fucking terrible job he did raising Tony. And I was rolling my eyes during that scene where Howard's like, 'you're my greatest invention.'

. . . . and fandom still needs more Natasha.

Always.

[websandwhiskers]

I don't object to the scene as such, I just hope it was what it was - an isolated kick-in-the-pants that gave Tony the mental jolt he needed at the time. If it's meant to solve all his issues, bleh, no. A few words of praise do not erase an entire childhood of neglect.

[redbrunja]

PREACH.

[carmarthen]

Yeah, the Iron Man movies are very Superheroes for Libertarians, which is probably why they don't resonate well with me (well, okay, Iron Man I I enjoyed; II I found deadly boring. But they also don't resonate with me on a moral level); the most die-hard Tony-Stark-facial-hair Iron Man fan I know leans pretty strongly libertarian.

I think Tony's father issues are probably deep-set enough a part of the character that they won't paper them over in Iron Man III. One hopes, anyway.

[websandwhiskers]

Libertarian is maybe a better way to put it (though both movies are strongly pro-military; again, not a complaint. The second one is interestingly pro-military but anti-big-business, and as such must have been giving the middle-of-the-road-conservative set fits. It's aimed at blue-collar conservative, I guess I'd say, which is a really interesting target audience for a movie about a character like Tony Stark.)

. . whereas Avengers was aimed squarely at the geeks, from its waif-fu hairstyle down to its ittle gov't conspiracy toes. And I <3s it. And the mainstream certainly didn't hate it, so yay for proof that you don't have to make your characters Joe Everyman to make a movie that will appeal to Joe Everyman (I mean, for pete's sake, our intro-to-the-world character is *Natasha* for about the first half of the movie, before she turns that over to Steve).

[carmarthen]

I'm not sure there's any dissonance between libertarian and pro-military, but eh, IDK. I'm just pretty sure the Iron Man movies weren't for me.

It's aimed at blue-collar conservative, I guess I'd say, which is a really interesting target audience for a movie about a character like Tony Stark.

Perhaps Tony Stark represents a flavor of the American Dream, minus, I guess, the pulling yourself up by your bootstraps part--but the material success and the car babes, I guess. At least superficially, he's got an appealing fantasy life. I'm not sure, though--I gotta admit, I don't really understand the desire to be Tony Stark, because even post-Pepper, I am not sure he has a life that would be much fun to actually live. But I don't understand wanting to be a Hollywood star, either, and obviously people do that!

Avengers really did an amazing job at broad appeal, and I'm still puzzling over that a bit, because it is so solidly aimed at geeks and outsiders; I think it's almost the superhero-y-est superhero movie I've seen, and I think there'

[websandwhiskers]

I can see the appeal of having the sort of intellect and power and privilege that Tony Stark does, as well as that raw confidence/bluster. I wouldn't do with it what he does, though - not saying I'd do better, but I'd do drastically different. Neither cars nor bimbos do much for me.