Thread by @visakanv

Rewatching Iron Man (2007). I remember watching it for the first time at a friend’s place around 2010 or so. Opens with AC/DC

“I don’t want to see this on your MySpace page”, soldier fiddling with digital camera, extremely sharp. All of this first 3 minutes, super snappy editing

the montage of Tony’s life at the apogee awards is excellent exposition

the cut from “he’s always working” to him gambling is also excellent, giving the award to Caesar… seducing the journalist, introducing Jarvis, the house… Potts… 9 minutes!!

ahaha still hits

Tony successfully persuading a frustrated Rhodey to drink with him is also excellent

Before this was Tony/Pepper chemistry stuff

I’m struck on rewatch how dense and economical and yet light and breezy everything is, effortless mastery

17 minutes before we are introduced to, in my view, the most important character in the MCU: Yinsen

Tony refuses to build the Jericho missile and gets water tortured, I forgot about that. They take him on a tour through his stuff

Tony: either way I’ll be dead within a week

Yinsen: well then this is a very important week for you isn’t it

the construction of the minaturized arc reactor is treated with appropriate reverence

Iirc gulmira is where stark goes to rescue people later

Ramin Djawadi’s music is so excellent, truly on a GOAT trajectory

warlord monologuing about weapons technology and empire… threatens Yinsen, really sharpens Tony’s motivation/resolve… subsequent Mach 1 suit up scene really demonstrates how much Tony does need Yinsen and wouldn’t have made it without him

the Mach 1 reveal is pretty excellent, Tony is treated almost like the shark in a monster movie and the focus on the fear and helplessness of the goons is very smart

And this is the moment the MCU is born.

after Tony’s suit explodes he still has to walk thru the desert, which I’m pretty sure is a Lawrence of Arabia reference, which I imagine is on lots of serious filmmakers’ bucket list

obadiah’s handling of the press conference is very masterful

then we have pepper helping Tony with his arc replacement which is super intimate, and witnessing them navigate this is a treat

now it’s Mach 2 suit building time – meanwhile our villains are piecing together the Mach 1 suit. I feel like there’s a Yorick’s Skull aspect to “look at this mask”

I’m kinda tickled that Obie plays the piano, and the little thing with the pizza

the amount of effort Tony puts into learning how to fly, sorting out the suit, etc makes this scene really pay off

hoity toity party scenes are always fun, if I ever made a movie or a video game or whatever I would absolutely make sure to include one so you can see our badass heroes being nervous and shy about not quit fitting in. Pepper is endearing here

There are some looks that actors can do that can carry entire movies. RDJ’s intense angry wet-eye stare is one of them. And he’s decided to liberate Yinsen’s hometown from the warlords using his weapons

walkin away from explosions!

RDJ’s eyes again always used to maximal effect

One pilot shakes Tony off, which damages the other plane, and Tony gets to demonstrate his heroism by rescuing the pilot despite being threatened

problem with being a ruthless murdersome arse is all the other ruthless murdersome arses

pepper: I quit

Tony: I’m not crazy I just finally know what I have to do

Tony: and I know in my heart that it’s right

genius throwback… Tony really knows how to push people’s buttons (consider how he persuaded Rhodey to drink, journalist to go home with him, etc)

this scene where pepper is downloading the files and Obie shows up is so tense. We just saw that Obie has no issue murdering people so we worry for her. Music starts out subtly haunting and escalates in intensity

epic lil moment that reminds everyone what a bad mf Tony is

Obie’s villainy is really excellent I think because he has this mix of theatricality and competence. IM2 and IM3 villains don’t quite measure up. He might actually maybe be the best MCU villain apart from Thanos, I’m not sure

Tony being saved by his annoying robot was a lovely touch, and then Rhodes comes for him. The opposite of the murderous arsehole problem: good guys run into inconvenient difficulties but they win because they have friends

more suspense/horror tropes in the Iron Monger reveal, subtly well done thing that isn’t obvious

Obie: I’ve lifted you up for 30 years! I built this company up from nothing!

this the kind of shit you can work through in therapy ya know Obie

Ok the one sorta slightly weak bit of writing was I think how they got rid of Obie in the end (arc reactor explosion). idk, off the top of my head how I would do it differently, but I would try to weave more of the narrative into it. But it’s fine, still excellent overall

yea great movie still holds up even without the MCU

opens with AC/DC and ends with Black Sabbath, so good

yea this is where the potential strengthening is, if you wants to make Iron Man 1 even better. Obie has to lose specifically because he was wrong about this

“It’s not mine because I came up with it. It’s mine because I understand it.”

iron man 2 interestingly opens right away by demonstrating that Vanko is a real engineer/technologist like Tony is. We see his father die, we get a sense of the obsession from the posters on the walls… and he does independently invent the arc tractor

*reactor

Tony meanwhile is enjoying his success/victory, and demonstrates his showman chops. we have the budget for dancers now

How come nobody talks about how Tony Stark invented Theranos in Iron Man 2? Also Elon is in it yea and also Larry Ellison for some reason

the Elon cameo is actually very well done, aged well