Baseless speculation!
May. 25th, 2012 12:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seriousficSo with Iron Man 3 now having cast up to four villains, I hear the comparisons to Spider-Man 3 springing up. Of course, too many villains is always a temptation and a problem for superhero movies--can't figure out a way to make one supervillain the antagonist for a whole plot? Just add more!--but I don't think that's what happening here. Writer/director Shane Black is kinda an action movie god, so I doubt he's fall into that trap.
Here's my thought: You have Ben Kingsley as an unknown villain--let's call him the Mandarin for now. Guy Pearce is the inventor of Extremis, the plot device in Warren Ellis's Extremis story arc that you might remember if you didn't fall into a boredom coma reading it, like I did (Tony Stark talks about cell phones and... Segways? That can't be right, I mean, these comics had Iron Man on the cover, correct?). Those are pretty A-list guys. Then you have James Badge Dale as Eric Savin and Ashley Hamilton as Jack Taggert. Yeah, Coldblood and Firepower--not exactly the honor roll on the Injustice League and not exactly actors who would qualify for Dancing With The Stars.
But I do seem to recall that the Extremis storyline involved a drug that people could take which basically made them into biological Iron Men. I'm guessing that's what happens here. Coldblood and Firepower, maybe a few others, are just henchmen working for Mandarin/Pearce who take Extremis and fight Iron Man. Think more Karl in Die Hard than Poison Ivy in Batman & Robin. Besides which, "big bad and miniboss squad" is the only way left for the plot to go. The Iron Man movies have already done "lone Big Bad" and "army of unstoppable-but-easily-stoppable minions." Slightly individualized minions are the way to go.
Also, this is just a guess, but with the pretty expected news that Thor 2 is having a villain other than Loki--they're kickstarting a Loki redemption arc, right? It just kinda makes sense to me. In Thor 2, you do the heavy lifting of Loki realizing what he's done and finally seeking forgiveness, then in Avengers 2 you have him helping the team against Thanos (who, remember, hates Loki now and is intent on punishing him for his failure) with all the mistrust and bantering that implies. You know Whedon wants to write Loki having to work with a group that hates and fears him--because he's an mass-murdering megalomaniac (past tense?).
ETA: Oh, and from Amazing Spider-Man, a look at what I take to be a proto-spider-suit costume for Peter (you know, just like how in Batman Begins, Batman has a proto-batsuit for a minute).
Remember how in the original Spider-Man, Tobey Maguire had a proto-spider-suit and it was dorky and endearing, not "badazz"? Since Spider-Man is meant to be a character we relate to, not one we find cool (or if we do, it's a coolness built on his relatability. It's cool that Harry Potter defeats Voldemort, but the character himself isn't cool--he doesn't strut around lighting cigarettes and bedding exotic gals)? I think with time, we'll see Raimi's take on the character in a new light, specifically in Spider-Man 3. The fanbase wanted a dark, badass Peter Parker when he was hooked on symbiote; maybe Raimi wasn't the person for the job, but it's not far wrong, his assertion that a "dark, badass Peter Parker" wouldn't be a cool guy, he'd just be a douchebag who thought he was cool.
So, knowing how inevitable a Venom redux is in the wholly-marketing-driven reboot, how much more emo, brooding, and violent can this Peter Parker get? Is he just going to be exactly the same, only occasionally going "This chocolate cake is really good, but it could use some brains. Shit, what'd I say?"
Here's my thought: You have Ben Kingsley as an unknown villain--let's call him the Mandarin for now. Guy Pearce is the inventor of Extremis, the plot device in Warren Ellis's Extremis story arc that you might remember if you didn't fall into a boredom coma reading it, like I did (Tony Stark talks about cell phones and... Segways? That can't be right, I mean, these comics had Iron Man on the cover, correct?). Those are pretty A-list guys. Then you have James Badge Dale as Eric Savin and Ashley Hamilton as Jack Taggert. Yeah, Coldblood and Firepower--not exactly the honor roll on the Injustice League and not exactly actors who would qualify for Dancing With The Stars.
But I do seem to recall that the Extremis storyline involved a drug that people could take which basically made them into biological Iron Men. I'm guessing that's what happens here. Coldblood and Firepower, maybe a few others, are just henchmen working for Mandarin/Pearce who take Extremis and fight Iron Man. Think more Karl in Die Hard than Poison Ivy in Batman & Robin. Besides which, "big bad and miniboss squad" is the only way left for the plot to go. The Iron Man movies have already done "lone Big Bad" and "army of unstoppable-but-easily-stoppable minions." Slightly individualized minions are the way to go.
Also, this is just a guess, but with the pretty expected news that Thor 2 is having a villain other than Loki--they're kickstarting a Loki redemption arc, right? It just kinda makes sense to me. In Thor 2, you do the heavy lifting of Loki realizing what he's done and finally seeking forgiveness, then in Avengers 2 you have him helping the team against Thanos (who, remember, hates Loki now and is intent on punishing him for his failure) with all the mistrust and bantering that implies. You know Whedon wants to write Loki having to work with a group that hates and fears him--because he's an mass-murdering megalomaniac (past tense?).
ETA: Oh, and from Amazing Spider-Man, a look at what I take to be a proto-spider-suit costume for Peter (you know, just like how in Batman Begins, Batman has a proto-batsuit for a minute).
Remember how in the original Spider-Man, Tobey Maguire had a proto-spider-suit and it was dorky and endearing, not "badazz"? Since Spider-Man is meant to be a character we relate to, not one we find cool (or if we do, it's a coolness built on his relatability. It's cool that Harry Potter defeats Voldemort, but the character himself isn't cool--he doesn't strut around lighting cigarettes and bedding exotic gals)? I think with time, we'll see Raimi's take on the character in a new light, specifically in Spider-Man 3. The fanbase wanted a dark, badass Peter Parker when he was hooked on symbiote; maybe Raimi wasn't the person for the job, but it's not far wrong, his assertion that a "dark, badass Peter Parker" wouldn't be a cool guy, he'd just be a douchebag who thought he was cool.
So, knowing how inevitable a Venom redux is in the wholly-marketing-driven reboot, how much more emo, brooding, and violent can this Peter Parker get? Is he just going to be exactly the same, only occasionally going "This chocolate cake is really good, but it could use some brains. Shit, what'd I say?"
