I'll stick to Black Sabbath, thanks
May. 5th, 2026 06:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annavereMy experience of the superhero genre is quite limited. Aside from some cartoons as a child, it is limited to having seen the first X-Men as a teen (of which my main takeaway was that the Logan and Rogue road trip was the most compelling part of the film, and I spent the rest of it rooting for them to discover the dark secrets of too-nice Professor X and run away from the conformist school for mutants, which was about as wrong a reading of that movie as it was possible to get - in my teenage defense, that is the plot of many a YA fantasy of the time).
Right before I discovered fandom, I ended up watching Thor, which was a mixed bag, but I really enjoyed Thor's fish out of water plotline on earth and the fight against the mecha on Main Street. Outside of that, it lost me a bit, but I had a good time with it. I only discovered once the credits rolled that JMS wrote the screenplay.
Anyway, from these two, I felt that the superhero genre wasn't really my thing, but that never sat right with me. Sci-fi and fantasy are genres filled with superpowers, after all, and that's part of what makes it fun. I don't mind a brainless action scene, even if a lot of the times, I feel blockbusters have their best set piece at the two thirds mark (Thor, Inception), and then I'm fatigued by the final boss battle. But that's a problem across all action genres. So maybe my disinterest is purely pretentious snobbery about their tendency to wear costumes? Bias because it's too popular? Dunno.
So, when I saw Iron Man in the "3 for a dollar" box, knowing it is the most guaranteed standalone of all the MCU, I was curious. I wanted to see what the fuss was about, pick up a few references and hopefully surprise myself. Even if it wasn't my cuppa, I figured at least it would be fun.
Instead, I now have a post I feel bad for making.
I'm gonna start by saying this isn't a bad film, technically. I do think the flashback sequence was overlong, but otherwise, they had a good cast, high production values, a score by Ramin Djawadi, the works. However, it wasn't a popcorn movie experience, because the subject was not escapist or amusing to me at all. I was expecting world-conquering supervillains with a metaphoric significance, but the writers went full "subtext is for cowards" and dished up Afghani terrorists supplied with U.S. weapons from arms manufacturers obsessed with the bottom line. This was not exactly what I was looking for as a relaxing good time.
I also had a Tony Stark specific problem: I don't like watching billionaires, at the best of times. The opening hook for this movie was watching a weapons manufacturer fall into the clutches of the very enemies he had been making bank bombing the shit out of, so I was left confused as to why I should be rooting for anything other than him suffering and dying for his sins. If it had been an actor I like, maybe charisma could have carried the day, but Robert Downey, Jr left me cold, so I was stuck, in a non-escapist movie, watching a despicable man eventually grow enough of a conscience to do something (and that something was still build a superweapon, whose power source instantly fell into the wrong hands, because duh).
So, I kind of loathed Tony Stark. His captivity was a speedbump on the way back to a life of conspicuous consumption, which did not help matters. He had a mansion in Malibu, a cool robot assistant, endless funds for his projects, a garage of sports cars, hot women throwing themselves at him irrespective of their own morals... The script kept trying to show the hollow center of his life, with no family, etc, but again: BILLIONAIRE. ARMS MANUFACTURER. Tony Stark was at no point the underdog trying to beat the odds. There was no "riches to rags" plot. He always had everything at his fingertips, with his own private lab, and the attempts to make out that he actually had "nothing" because he was "all alone" (except for his super loyal servants who waited on him hand and foot, put up with all his crap and loved him from afar) just sounded like the world's tiniest violin to me.
The film kept halting the plot to show off military tech, gadgets, gizmos and explosives. This focus reminded me why I'm turned off by James Bond. I don't resonate with it, as I don't have any interest or fascination with the lives of the modern mega rich (historical settings I will sometimes grant). So I found nothing compelling in the early portion of the film.
I did respect the eventual turn toward an antiwar theme, but tying a billionaire superhero power fantasy to topical real world problems just made it harder to ignore my distaste for this guy. I feel like I'm being a killjoy, and taking it too seriously, but it IS a serious topic, and the scriptwriters decided to go for it, and I don't think it has aged at all well.
While Tony Stark never became cool to me, he did improve once he lost control of his company, I'll give him that.
Meanwhile, his friend Rhodes was fine with all his jerkass behavior but then froze him out for trying to change the company's direction, and Pepper was completely loyal for years and then tried to resign the second he started saving lives. Nice people. Admittedly, they also improved afterward, and Pepper's brief turn to corporate espionage was suspenseful, but all of that came really late in the film. If it had happened earlier (this film is 75% setup), I would have been more invested.
The character I did like was Agent Coulson. I know he ends up being important, and he interested me by being professional and seeming to have a lot going on underneath his polite facade. Unfortunately, he was a bit player. Pepper teaming up with Agent Coulson could have been a fun subplot if it had been given more real estate, but that happened right before the big showdown began, at which point it became a mini-mecha slugging match.
Oh, and Nick Fury showed up in the end credits. I was surprised he already had the eyepatch (just assumed he lost that eye to up the stakes at some later point).
I also enjoyed the robot manservant computer system, and in general, all the scenes of Tony Stark failing to pilot his suit. He installed some truly next gen shock absorbers in that thing, because he should have been hospitalized about a dozen times in this movie for concussion and whiplash alone, but aside from that amusing bit of high speed handwaving, I really did appreciate how much time the script gave him to actually struggle with the suit. It added a little levity and those were the small details that helped me to buy the bigger actions when they happened, and did a lot more than the cave sequence to convince me he actually was a gifted inventor.
Exactly like Thor, the best action sequence was two-thirds of the way through, with Stark applying what he'd learned about his suit (and his treacherous business partner) toward rescuing Afghani civilians and trying not to get shot down by his own side. At that point, this finally became the popcorn movie I had hoped it would be, and I settled in, but that's really late to start finding a film compelling.
All of this is a me problem, I'm quite sure. Reviews are pretty universally positive. Tony Stark is a beloved character. This film launched an enormous franchise that reshaped cinema. I'm alone with my reaction, and I accept that.
This made me wonder why SGA was fine by me, as it also had loads of cool toys and heroes with the full weight of the military backing them. It helps that the military was focused on alien invasion instead of real life foreign wars, but I think the main difference is that they were constantly having to juggle the limited amounts of advanced tech they had, while being stranded, surrounded and constantly making the situation worse by their best efforts. Even with a resident arrogant supergenius, his role is mostly patching holes in a rapidly sinking ship while trying not to do anything stupid (like set the ship on fire). Heroes are defined by their limits, and I never got the sense (from this movie, anyway) that Stark had any.
Since Tony Stark is the de facto protagonist of the MCU, and everything else is tied in, I feel this is not the series for me. Maybe I did overthink everything and spoil it for myself, but I just had to get my thoughts in order as to why this mostly just made me feel really uncomfortable.
Right before I discovered fandom, I ended up watching Thor, which was a mixed bag, but I really enjoyed Thor's fish out of water plotline on earth and the fight against the mecha on Main Street. Outside of that, it lost me a bit, but I had a good time with it. I only discovered once the credits rolled that JMS wrote the screenplay.
Anyway, from these two, I felt that the superhero genre wasn't really my thing, but that never sat right with me. Sci-fi and fantasy are genres filled with superpowers, after all, and that's part of what makes it fun. I don't mind a brainless action scene, even if a lot of the times, I feel blockbusters have their best set piece at the two thirds mark (Thor, Inception), and then I'm fatigued by the final boss battle. But that's a problem across all action genres. So maybe my disinterest is purely pretentious snobbery about their tendency to wear costumes? Bias because it's too popular? Dunno.
So, when I saw Iron Man in the "3 for a dollar" box, knowing it is the most guaranteed standalone of all the MCU, I was curious. I wanted to see what the fuss was about, pick up a few references and hopefully surprise myself. Even if it wasn't my cuppa, I figured at least it would be fun.
Instead, I now have a post I feel bad for making.
I'm gonna start by saying this isn't a bad film, technically. I do think the flashback sequence was overlong, but otherwise, they had a good cast, high production values, a score by Ramin Djawadi, the works. However, it wasn't a popcorn movie experience, because the subject was not escapist or amusing to me at all. I was expecting world-conquering supervillains with a metaphoric significance, but the writers went full "subtext is for cowards" and dished up Afghani terrorists supplied with U.S. weapons from arms manufacturers obsessed with the bottom line. This was not exactly what I was looking for as a relaxing good time.
I also had a Tony Stark specific problem: I don't like watching billionaires, at the best of times. The opening hook for this movie was watching a weapons manufacturer fall into the clutches of the very enemies he had been making bank bombing the shit out of, so I was left confused as to why I should be rooting for anything other than him suffering and dying for his sins. If it had been an actor I like, maybe charisma could have carried the day, but Robert Downey, Jr left me cold, so I was stuck, in a non-escapist movie, watching a despicable man eventually grow enough of a conscience to do something (and that something was still build a superweapon, whose power source instantly fell into the wrong hands, because duh).
So, I kind of loathed Tony Stark. His captivity was a speedbump on the way back to a life of conspicuous consumption, which did not help matters. He had a mansion in Malibu, a cool robot assistant, endless funds for his projects, a garage of sports cars, hot women throwing themselves at him irrespective of their own morals... The script kept trying to show the hollow center of his life, with no family, etc, but again: BILLIONAIRE. ARMS MANUFACTURER. Tony Stark was at no point the underdog trying to beat the odds. There was no "riches to rags" plot. He always had everything at his fingertips, with his own private lab, and the attempts to make out that he actually had "nothing" because he was "all alone" (except for his super loyal servants who waited on him hand and foot, put up with all his crap and loved him from afar) just sounded like the world's tiniest violin to me.
The film kept halting the plot to show off military tech, gadgets, gizmos and explosives. This focus reminded me why I'm turned off by James Bond. I don't resonate with it, as I don't have any interest or fascination with the lives of the modern mega rich (historical settings I will sometimes grant). So I found nothing compelling in the early portion of the film.
I did respect the eventual turn toward an antiwar theme, but tying a billionaire superhero power fantasy to topical real world problems just made it harder to ignore my distaste for this guy. I feel like I'm being a killjoy, and taking it too seriously, but it IS a serious topic, and the scriptwriters decided to go for it, and I don't think it has aged at all well.
While Tony Stark never became cool to me, he did improve once he lost control of his company, I'll give him that.
Meanwhile, his friend Rhodes was fine with all his jerkass behavior but then froze him out for trying to change the company's direction, and Pepper was completely loyal for years and then tried to resign the second he started saving lives. Nice people. Admittedly, they also improved afterward, and Pepper's brief turn to corporate espionage was suspenseful, but all of that came really late in the film. If it had happened earlier (this film is 75% setup), I would have been more invested.
The character I did like was Agent Coulson. I know he ends up being important, and he interested me by being professional and seeming to have a lot going on underneath his polite facade. Unfortunately, he was a bit player. Pepper teaming up with Agent Coulson could have been a fun subplot if it had been given more real estate, but that happened right before the big showdown began, at which point it became a mini-mecha slugging match.
Oh, and Nick Fury showed up in the end credits. I was surprised he already had the eyepatch (just assumed he lost that eye to up the stakes at some later point).
I also enjoyed the robot manservant computer system, and in general, all the scenes of Tony Stark failing to pilot his suit. He installed some truly next gen shock absorbers in that thing, because he should have been hospitalized about a dozen times in this movie for concussion and whiplash alone, but aside from that amusing bit of high speed handwaving, I really did appreciate how much time the script gave him to actually struggle with the suit. It added a little levity and those were the small details that helped me to buy the bigger actions when they happened, and did a lot more than the cave sequence to convince me he actually was a gifted inventor.
Exactly like Thor, the best action sequence was two-thirds of the way through, with Stark applying what he'd learned about his suit (and his treacherous business partner) toward rescuing Afghani civilians and trying not to get shot down by his own side. At that point, this finally became the popcorn movie I had hoped it would be, and I settled in, but that's really late to start finding a film compelling.
All of this is a me problem, I'm quite sure. Reviews are pretty universally positive. Tony Stark is a beloved character. This film launched an enormous franchise that reshaped cinema. I'm alone with my reaction, and I accept that.
This made me wonder why SGA was fine by me, as it also had loads of cool toys and heroes with the full weight of the military backing them. It helps that the military was focused on alien invasion instead of real life foreign wars, but I think the main difference is that they were constantly having to juggle the limited amounts of advanced tech they had, while being stranded, surrounded and constantly making the situation worse by their best efforts. Even with a resident arrogant supergenius, his role is mostly patching holes in a rapidly sinking ship while trying not to do anything stupid (like set the ship on fire). Heroes are defined by their limits, and I never got the sense (from this movie, anyway) that Stark had any.
Since Tony Stark is the de facto protagonist of the MCU, and everything else is tied in, I feel this is not the series for me. Maybe I did overthink everything and spoil it for myself, but I just had to get my thoughts in order as to why this mostly just made me feel really uncomfortable.
no subject
Date: 2026-05-05 07:55 pm (UTC)I do enjoy some of the MCU stuff (though like many, I've become pretty severely disillusioned with the whole thing, at this point), but yeah Iron Man was never really at the top of my list. These are some very understandable complaints about the film and the character.
no subject
Date: 2026-05-06 08:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-05-07 02:30 am (UTC)It was a lot of fun to keep up with as it was all coming out, but yeah it's just. . . not worth it anymore, for me and I think a lot of others. MCU or otherwise, I used to be a lot more invested in the superhero genre than I am now because it's just gotten so. . . eh, gestures at it all.
As far as I'm concerned, at any rate, the best superhero film/TV out there will always be the Batman/Superman/Justice League animated series from the 90s/00s. Those writers knew what they were doing, when it came to characterization and compelling plotlines.
no subject
Date: 2026-05-08 11:06 am (UTC)I saw some of those animated shows as a kid. Despite not being into superheroes, I watched a decent amount of them, so they were obviously doing something right!
My actual favorite in the genre was the boxset VHS my brother was given of the original 1940s Fleischer Studios Superman cartoons. We watched those a bunch of times growing up, and I remember them very fondly. Lois and Clark were memorable characters and the animation was excellent.
no subject
Date: 2026-05-08 04:56 pm (UTC)I haven't seen the 40s version, I'll have to see if I can track it down anywhere. For superhero stuff especially (and, to be fair, a number of other genres), I feel like animated media handle things in a way I enjoy a lot more than any of the live-action stuff. Especially some of the older ones, where everything was hand-drawn. You really have to care about what you're doing for that, y'know?
no subject
Date: 2026-05-09 12:25 am (UTC)I really miss hand-drawn animation. It was incredibly versatile and a definite labor of love, and I generally find it more aesthetically appealing, to boot.
no subject
Date: 2026-05-09 03:35 am (UTC)Definitely. If you go digging especially in animated shorts, there's still some great hand-drawn stuff out there, but I really miss when it was just the way animation worked. I certainly don't begrudge animators using the tools available to streamline their process, but you gotta love the work, y'know?
no subject
Date: 2026-05-05 09:01 pm (UTC)I don't know about that, I think quite a few people have engaged with the issues you bring up about the film. Also, I think that the way people feel about billionaires is at a very different critical point right now, in 2026, than they were in the late 2000s.
I also think that feelings about Stark and the franchise have been shaped by the fact that IM1 began it all, but it went to a number of different places, as did the characters.
I think that you're probably right about the franchise not being for you. I had rather a lot of issues with Infinity War and Endgame, which, financially anyway, were clearly the most popular films in the MCU. But at the same time I also loved many of the characters by then so it was not an unbiased view.
I'd be curious what you'd think of the latest Superman film. I think you'd enjoy it a lot more.
no subject
Date: 2026-05-06 08:54 pm (UTC)I heard a lot of good things about the latest Superman, and it's got a dog in it, so I expect it would be a bit more to my taste. :) And I'm sure Iron Man won't be the last superhero DVD that drifts through the local thrift shops!
no subject
Date: 2026-05-06 03:21 am (UTC)But I do remember thinking "Dear gods, this is wrong, wrong, wrong" while I was watching the thing.
So I give you my Loki icon. He doesn't like Tony much either.
no subject
Date: 2026-05-06 09:05 pm (UTC)