LB70145

I was very worried about how the Mandarin would be portrayed. Considering that the Mandarin is an outdated and racist caricature, I felt there was no way to have the Mandarin without controversy. I mean look at the casting: when Kingsley was announced people were like "that's racist, he's not asian!" but even if they cast an Asian actor, people would still have been like "that's racist because he's asian!" Damned if you do and damned if you don't.

I think it was a brilliant move for Shane Black to create such a self-aware character. It was supposed to be caricature that fed on American racism and terrorist paranoia. I think the thing that got me was when Killian yells, "I am the Mandarin!" at the very end. I thought that was a little over the top, but again it did not ruin the movie for me.

Iron Man 3 is hands down the best of the trilogy. Iron Man was bogged with origin story syndrome and Iron Man 2 was a 2 hour commercial for the Avengers. Iron Man 3 was funny, had the best action scenes, and had a story that had me on the edge of my seat many times.

@ccraft said:

How come the justice league members keep getting mind controlled? I feel like that is just a weak plot point for making them do bad stuff. I mean Red Arrow sneaks up on Batman and the rest of the JL members, lame. And now Flash, Green Arrow, and Plastic Man is guarding the power key hole thing. Stupid :(

Flash, Green Arrow, and Plastic Man are not being mind-controlled. The Justice League is just protecting the Crystal Key as a matter of safety.

Songbird and Tigra please!!!

@ltbrd: While I like some of the ideas you present, there are a couple problems that you will run into.

1) Making the threat come earlier will kill the pacing of the movie. If they have a climax style event early on in the movie, then the movie will feel dragged out. You need pacing and putting them under such intensity will make the movie plateau. Also, if the characters don't have group dialogue then people who go see the movie who don't know anything about these characters will not care about them. Character recognition goes beyond being able to name who these characters are.

2) As much as I like your idea for the origin trailers, WB is not going to do that at all. That will cost too much money to create. One of the reasons why Green Lantern was such a flop was that they poured too much money into their marketing. The marketing didn't pay off and since then WB has been pretty shy about doing such a marketing campaign again. Also, if the trailer doesn't show you anything for the movie, people who watch them are going to be mad that it didn't show you anything.

3) Going along with the trailers thing. Keeping the plot secret is fine and all, but people still need to be teased with something. There are tons of movies that have trailers that are liberal with movie footage. The movies still keep many parts of the movie secret, especially crucial aspects about the plot. I would point to movies like Looper and Brave as perfect examples.

I just hope the movie is good. I don't care if it flops or gets terrible reviews. I don't want to add another movie to the pile that already has Fantastic Four, Ghost Rider, and Green Lantern.

@Squares said:

I see they're giving Storm a mohawk again. Because that made so much sense the first time...

It was the 80s...

Are all of you high? Have you never read a Captain America comic before? Red Skull has looked like this before. Red Skull has many different looks people.

Aw man, that looks like Surge and Prodigy in the background. I really hope I am wrong...

Ed McGuinness is on art? Ughh... For a Loeb book no less? ARGHH!!!

@sethysquare said:

@Mycroftian said:

Love all the comments that say "I don't care about these characters." Of course you don't, they're new characters (or possibly little-known comics characters disguised with different names, I suppose) and all we know of them are these little blurbs. Nobody ever spontaneously liked a character without reading or watching something with that character in it. Really, this information doesn't change anything; we knew we were getting a SHIELD series with new characters, and given Whedon's history and the show's context, these are just about exactly the archetypes you would expect to see in the lead roles.

Which is exactly why we don't care.

Who wants to watch a TV about new characters when we could've had The Punisher, Hulk, Mockingbird and AKA Jessica Jones. I'll take any one of those over this show.

I am pretty sure Marvel took a look at what DC was pumping out on TV and decided that original content is better than adaptation. I feel that any show that was superhero-based may be too costly or simply not engaging week to week. Punisher and Jessica Jones may be too violent and dark for ABC. Hulk would probably be no good since I am sure Ruffalo would not do TV. And I feel Mockingbird has an equal chance of appearing on this show as Dum Dum Dougan or Maria Hill.

Original Content gives creators more room to play with the world. If they did an adaptation of an established character or title, there would be more pressure to stay "true" to the source material. I like the fact that Joss Whedon essentially gets to do whatever he wants with the everyday SHIELD Agent. We haven't really seen that kind of story from the comics and I would like to see the angle he takes this show.

If you don't care about the characters... fine. Characters are nothing without story anyway.

I knew Jason would be dead!!!