(no subject)

[trinityvixen]

The shirt for the best candidate we can hope for in the next election. ::nods importantly::

More on BSG later when I rewatch the episode with 100% less snark.

Know what rhymes with snark, though? IRON MAN.

Worth the wait, methinks, and a kindly, geekly thank you to the folks who trekked out to see it with me. It's impossibly great that all the fabulous lines from the trailers were not even half the good ones. To my mind, it was created, start to finish, with a cynicism in all but the comic-y aspects. As in the world view was pessimistically realistic, but as soon as the question of flying, shooting robot suits came up, allllllll was good. The science wasn't laughably centered upon the way it was in Fantastic Four; they focused more on the process of refinement. So even if making a person-sized and -shaped fighter jet (with bluetooth!) is ridiculous, they took enough baby steps that it worked out all good.

And you gotta give it up to Robert Downey, Jr. Holy hell, welcome to inappropriate attraction land, population me, feiran, and viridian! (Don't deny it, viridian, I saw your LJ.) Yeah, well, short of killing a few people, I doubt there's much more Tony Stark could have been or done to be hotter. I can't explain the attraction except for the fact that there's something very funny and refreshing about a superhero who is vain as a peacock. (It worked for Johnny Storm!)

I think Robert Downey, Jr. really did well underplaying the big reversal in Stark's mindset while still making it clear that, while his personality wasn't completely reformed, his goals in life were. That's not an easy balance, but he did it supremely well--shifting Stark's macrovision and not his micro. There's a lot of absurdity to his position, but somehow he brought all the contradictory aspects into flesh. Amazingly, the fact that an engineering nerd like Tony Stark should never be as rich or as popular as he seemingly is--the nerd fantasy in other words--never seems impossible. It helps that, yes, Robert Downey, Jr. is attractive and funny and those are definite pluses when it comes to willing suspension of disbelief, but he did also sell the scientist and the inner child.

And then there's the ending where all of that comes into play in a big way. I never read the comics, but I was assured by jlc and kent_allard_jr that Tony Stark's double life was the most laughably badly kept secret in the Marvel universe. (Next to the secret identity of Moleculo the Molecular Man, that is.) It just proves how deeply informed on fan culture and how much respect that the writers and Jon Favreau have for that culture that they would end the film that way. That and it's the most self-involved LOOK AT ME moment in the whole film. It was fabulous. It reminded me of Dustin Hoffman's character in Wag the Dog--a certfiable genius in a given medium being completely unable to keep quiet about his not insignificant achievement despite a pressing need for secrecy.

Then again, his "secret" was always a joke, neh?

And the post-credits thing made Trinity look like her icon for this post. Because, seriously, whoa I had no idea that they were really going through with the Nick Fury movie. Knew it had been in the pipeline since FOREVER, knew that Samuel "The L stands for 'Snakes'" Motherfucking Jackson was going to be Nick Fury (good casting, but really a bit late in his life, alas), but I'd heard only that it was stalled. It proves something about Marvel's faith in Iron Man that they thought it was the best place to sound out a reception to a future movie with Nick Fury. And, I guess, the Avengers. (Could we really do an Avengers movie without the Cap? He hasn't had a movie yet which means, popularly, he's no one.)

It might also stink of desperation about their other franchises, though. They've got a Wolverine movie being filmed, and The Incredible Hulk is here, ready or not, and The Punisher 2 (now with 100% more Titus Pullo!) is on its way (probably straight to DVD), and there are talks of young X-Men, Magneto, and god knows what else. Iron Man, of all of those, is the only one not to have graced screens before, and whether or not the film execs realized it was going to be a smash hit and a great film, they can recognize that that character doesn't have the audience fatigue that the X-Men, et al. franchises do. Iron Man is as shiny as the armor and it just looks so different even when it's really not. (The fact that we saw a trailer for The Dark Knight with Iron Man is a case in point: yes, the parallels are there, but the connection is still not.)

Which is probably why they're dragging Robert Downey, Jr. into The Incredible Hulk. It's a difficult thing to do given the fact that he's a megawattage name (for bad behavior if not acting) against the subtler star of that film. Ed Norton is fabulous and damned famous, don't get me wrong, but he's tended to shy from the spotlight in ways that Robert Downey, Jr. could never do. Ed Norton is also liable to show up anyone onscreen with him at any given time, but still, I think the clash of fame and the different polishes put to both of the heroes could cause extreme dissonance. Ed Norton is doing a darker, reflective piece; Robert Downey, Jr. just made a fun comic book movie despite its featuring torture, PTSD, and removable body parts. We'll have to see. I mean, I am going to, probably.

Um, anyone willing to come see The Incredible Hulk? I have discount tickets that drop the price to like $1.50 in Manhattan at a Regal theater. (Free outside of the island.) I know viridian tentatively agreed so long as she was plied with alcohol so as to avoid a repeat performance of our trip to see The Hulk. Anyone else? I promise the same ply-age.

Comments

[teneda.livejournal.com]

Then again, his "secret" was always a joke, neh?

You think that was bad? You should read the older Spiderman comics. Where Doc-Oc is dating Auntie Em and he finds out Spidey is Peter. I loved that next line from him.

"Em's gonna KILL me!!!

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but nothing in Spider-Man's arsenal save his webbing was something that an average joe with super powers couldn't have. Iron Man's requirements are as extravagant as Bruce Wayne's.

[gryphonrose.livejournal.com]

I can't read your post properly, since I'm seeing Iron Man tonight, but yes, I am definitely up for seeing Incredible Hulk.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Yay, I'll keep you in mind. Now, if I could only convince viridian that she actually did say she'd come with...

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm in the inappropriate attraction land, too - along with Ivy and Mithras. If you had told me I could be attracted to Robert Downey, Jr - but wow.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, who'd ever have thought it possible? The last thing I saw Robert Downey, Jr. in was A Scanner Darkly where he was buggy and paranoid and animated. Hardly flattering stuff. I guess he had to make up for it.

Looking pretty good for a forty-odd guy with a history of substance abuse...

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

Thing is, he was the kind of guy who I would probably be really happy if I could slink out of his house the next morning without having to see him. If someone had cleaned my clothes and called me a taxi, super bonus. 'Cause I'd definitely regret it the next morning.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Thing is, he was the kind of guy who I would probably be really happy if I could slink out of his house the next morning without having to see him. If someone had cleaned my clothes and called me a taxi, super bonus.

So, definitely the "F" in "F, Marry, Kill." I totally agree. Especially as that part of the movie seemed so fitting when that happened.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

Marrying would be the biggest mistake ever. And killing him seems like an awful lot of effort for no reason. I mean, c'mon. People repeatedly try to blow this guy up and he just won't die.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

He's also repeatedly tried to slowly kill himself with various opiates and is still around. It would seem rather silly to kill him after he survived all that. Sure, we all know that despite his remarkable resilience against drugs, Keith Richards would probably blow over in a stiff wind, but does that mean we let it happen? No!

[bigscary.livejournal.com]

Opiates? Not so much -- for depressants, he's reasonably faithful to big Al.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I am sure it was coke and rumored heroin. Then again, I don't really care.

[droidguy1119.livejournal.com]

It's more than good casting -- the current look of Nick Fury is directly based on Jackson, with his permission (on a mildly related note, Jackson's upcoming film Lakeview Terrace looks hilariously silly). No Nick Fury movies on the horizon, though, just another Iron Man (April 30th, 2010), Thor (June 4, 2010), The First Avenger: Captain America (as you said, working title, May 6th, 2011), and then Avengers (July 2011) were all added to the Marvel docket in the wake of Iron Man's $200m weekend.

And while the new trailer for The Incredible Hulk succeeded in making it look like a better movie, the computer graphics look astoundingly awful. I hate using this phrase, which critics love to apply to anything that looks less than incredible, but it looks like a videogame.

[arcane-the-sage.livejournal.com]

I would also have to add that since they got Jackson as Nick Fury, and with the more modernizing timeline, it seems that they may be going for "Ultimates" type of Avengers more than the classic. If that's the case then the Hulk may get tapped by Fury too (reason for everyone to actually see the next movie).

PS: Was it me or was that Abomination in the Hulk trailer?

[kent-allard-jr.livejournal.com]

No, IIRC it's already been explicitly stated that the baddie is Abomination.

The Hulk was actually one of the original Avengers, along with Ant-Man, Thor and Iron Man (Captain America came later) so he could be tapped anyway.

[droidguy1119.livejournal.com]

Oops, I think I tricked you into thinking I knew something about comic books. "Ultimates", classic, this I know nothing of.

Also not to be forgotten: Edgar Wright of Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead is directing Ant-Man from his own screenplay sometime. Unlike the other movies I mentioned this has no date.

[avram]

The odds are good that the Hulk will be involved somehow. The upcoming Hulk movie has Downey doing a cameo as Stark, and some kind of reference to the super-solider serum.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I wonder how smart the cross marketing will prove to be. With the Avengers coming after most of the component heroes having already had their movies, you have to wonder if the interest will still be there. DC has had a bitch of a time getting a Justice League movie together (complications due to the writers' strike only added to their list of problems).

If all the movies centered around Avengers have come out already, then they would have the stories taken care of but would people still want to see more, and, more importantly, would a studio be able to make a decent picture out of the group story?

[droidguy1119.livejournal.com]

At least they would be using Downey, Norton, et. al. instead of casting The O.C.'s leftovers. That would certainly be an improvement over the woulda-been-JLA movie.

WB should work on Batman vs. Superman instead if they want to make a blockbuster crossover.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Given that the biggest "Woo-hoo!" of I Am Legend was the entirely fictional crossover between Bats and Supes, I say HELL YEAH, WORLD'S FINEST FOR THE WIN.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Call me crazy, but wasn't the Hulk in the Avengers?

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I keep saying it: a body-building wearing near reflective body paint and a 70s haircut looks more menacing as the Hulk than $200 million worth of CGI. I'd have to watch The Hulk to see how it compares to The Incredible Hulk to figure which was worse in terms of graphics, but since I refuse to do that, I'll assume that the graphics are a little better yet not sufficiently improved over the last to make them less distractingly fake.

Yay sequels being green-lit though! It'll settle into fatigue soon enough (all of them have, which is why Iron Man's refreshing new-ness was, well, refreshing), and I doubt anyone, not even the folk behind Iron Man could make a non-ridiculous version of Thor. Captain America, mm, maaaaaybe, but the Cap's never been my favorite. Then again, I wouldn't have said Iron Man was either before this.

[droidguy1119.livejournal.com]

Well, Iron Man is the first flick produced entirely by Marvel Studios. Paramount is merely the distributor, once they recoup their fee for striking prints and marketing it, all the cash flows back into the Marvel empire.

They recently ditched Avi Arad, who is a producer in name-only on Iron Man, and I think these two factors made a huge difference. With Marvel at the helm of the ship (and their choices for the project, mainly Favreau and Downey, being more-than-savvy), it's possible that they could knock all of those projects out of the park.

On the other hand, one of them is the aforementioned Incredible Hulk. And, for my money, the CGI in The Hulk was top-notch (at least for Hulk himself -- not so much the ending). He's integrated into his backgrounds, and he looks like a physically existing creature with weight and force. The flaw in this Hulk is that he seems to be disconnected with his backgrounds, or worse, the backgrounds are sloppily animated as well, thus adding to the "videogame" look, not to mention he looks bizarrely sped-up and distractingly weightless.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I don't know what you were smoking when you saw The Hulk but that was the worst CGI "character" since Jar-Jar Binks. The only way that Hulk would have looked natural in its setting was if the rest of the people were animated by Pixar. It was so inhumanly shaped. I at least appreciate the definition on the muscle of this new Hulk.

Whatever, they both look terrible. The point is that the constraints of CGI and our own awareness of what size people are and what sizes they aren't work against live-action visualization of the Hulk. Animating people is hard enough without having to work against this innate "That's not right"-ness of trying to animate a larger, taller, greener person.

[avram]

It just proves how deeply informed on fan culture and how much respect that the writers and Jon Favreau have for that culture

Oh yeah. I knew Favreau in high school, and he was a comics nerd back then, just like most of my social circle.

[hslayer.livejournal.com]

I highly recommend going through the Wikipedia entry on the movie. There's lots of cool behind-the-scenes info on there, including just how involved Downey was in the production. (Yeah, there are probably other, better sources for that info, but this is the best one *I* know of.)

I also found it interesting to read about Iron Man's origin story. I didn't know all the details before, but it sounds like they really did just take it and transpose it almost verbatim from the 60s (Vietnam) to today (Afghanistan).

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Good reads, both. We discussed last night the update of the origin story, but we all had it in our heads that Stark had a heart defect that required his extraordinary pacemaker, not the shrapnel wound of the movie. Turns out we were wrong. Huh. I wonder where the misinformation came from?

[bigscary.livejournal.com]

What's this "we" you speak of?

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

The assorted geeks--kent_allard_jr and jlc and I.

[ecmyers.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid The Incredible Hulk might make me angry, so pass.

Speed Racer though...

Also, they just announced Iron Man 2, and Thor, and The Avengers: Captain America. It's too much to hope that all of those will be as good as Iron Man, isn't it?

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

You wouldn't like ecmyers when he's angry...

Speed Racer! Matinee at least! The film is going to be visual crack, might as well get the full effect.

I maintain that there's no way to make a Thor film that won't be entirely campy. Captain America has the least interesting story ever. Iron Man 2, though, if they got the same folk involved? Could be gold (-titanium alloy)!

[droidguy1119.livejournal.com]

Everyone's signed for Iron Man 2. Downey in particular said he'd make fifteen of them if he was asked.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm not surprised given the latitude he enjoyed on making this one and the good rapport between all involved. It seems that just about everyone was a fan of the comic and all are dedicated towards growing the franchise instead of just milking it.

In particular, I look forward to them having to confront Tony Stark's alcoholism, Rhodey's breaking away to be War Machine (or, hey, they could do the story line where he takes over as Iron Man for a while), etc. Because the villains of the comics are either dated or dependent on Avengers-related story lines, there's a great freedom to explore more reality-based issues. This is something that Christopher Nolan has done with Batman Begins--confronting real problems upfront to give his hero a solid basis in his beliefs--and done quite well. I'd like to see that continue while still being (hopefully) entertaining in Iron Man.

[shell524.livejournal.com]

Like I said the other day. I will consider matinee-ing Speed Racer.

[slackwench.livejournal.com]

When the post credits scene was over, one of the guys I was with collapsed out of his seat and ran all the way out of the theater and all over the parking lot. I'm not exaggerating in the slightest.

The Captain America movie is scheduled for May 2011, and the Avengers movie is scheduled for June 2011. The Thor (yes, that Thor) movie is scheduled for June 2010. There's also going to be a second Iron Man movie in there.

[cbreakr.livejournal.com]

Wow, someone else actually saw Wag the Dog... Being perhaps the only person to actually like to first Hulk, I feel an obligation to see the new one, though being drunk couldn't hurt.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Wag the Dog is slyly brilliant, and I wish I'd been able to see it again when my class watched it in my war and propaganda class. (If there was a better movie for that class, I can't think of one.) Because as scarily relevant as it was back when it was made, it has become eerily prophetic since.

Hey, you are welcome to join the reluctant yet happily inebriated crew I'm trying to put together. I really think it will be the only way to survive The Incredible Hulk.

thanks much

[(Anonymous)]

favorited this one, man