Marvel's 21 episode Superhero series. Spoilers.

[Baitball Blogger]

One of the things we're doing because of Covid, is watching the entire Marvel series in timeline order. Never would we have thought of doing it, if things were normal. When the movies first came out, I intentionally skipped the Iron Man and Thor movies because I had enough of the White arrogant savior theme. I actually unknowingly jumped into the saga when we went to the movies to watch the Guardians of the Galaxy and Black Panther movies.

But, we are lucky to have the distraction, so watching in chronological order of timeline, here are my observations:

I avoided the Thor movies, not just because of the Anglo-dominant theme, but because I also didn't care for Loki, and didn't understand why they didn't just kill him off in the beginning. But, I now realize he's an oily bugger. Also, he has redeeming qualities. I like complicated antagonists.

The Iron Man guy, I wasn't too off the mark with him, but, again, he moves the story line, so I'm forgiving. Same with Captain America. He tries so hard to be good, that I'm okay with the nostalgia. Interesting to see how traditional morals measure up to today's Machiavellian ways.

So, I'm in. Next movie for us to watch will be a Captain America movie, and Guardians of the Galaxy is not too far off after that. Hubby and I like to watch for the Stan Lee cameos and for the Easter eggs that come up after the credits.

But I do have a question. Why did Iron Man destroy his Army of Iron Man armor at the end of Iron Man III? That was a lethal weapon, and if he really was interested in protecting his loved one, that would have been something worth holding onto.

[blm]

1. We're watching Luke Cage now and loving it.

[exboyfil]

2. They messed up Iron Man 3

It had a lot of flaws in my opinion.

Why I think he blew up his armor was because the AI in it wasn't contributing enough to Stark's survival. All those suits left, and they didn't contribute to saving Pepper and Tony. They were mostly on the sidelines (at least enough to still comply with their programming - kind of like gradually circumventing Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics.

I was thinking this lack of participation would carry forward to Age of Ultron where the AI goes totally rogue and moves towards wiping out the human race. They never picked up the theme. Instead they made it a light show to demonstrate Tony's love for Pepper (which I thought was hideous). Then I don't think it gets mentioned again. In fact Tony is back to his Iron Shield approach in Age of Ultron. Even one line of dialogue like the Mind Stone will help us overcome the AI issue would have been enough. Ultron is a manifestation of the rogue AI - just not explicitly stated.

[haele]

4. Iron Man III was tinkered with by the studios. Fiege was able to get a Disney Exec "re-assigned"

on the basis of what that guy did interfering with the directors of Iron Man III and Age of Ultron, and the complete mess they had with the TV shows in terms of continuity.
The connection you discuss was one of the primary reasons Disney decided to put one person in charge of the overall vision (Fiege) and have him make the decisions going forward on the proper storylines to follow and to allow directors do do their own thing with a short list of "beats" they had to hit to ensure the story would advance in a way that could be natural and logical. Fiege understands Marvel comic books and the way their storylines work, and it seems he's very careful about setting up anything that won't be used later on, even if he has to wait to make deals with other studios regarding a particular character and the IP that studio may still own.
You'll see as you go on how each movie links to others or "pair up" more cohesively as they go along. There are a few misses, but very few. The Thor movies get much better, btw.
Neither were "bad movies", but they could have been better.

Haele

[qazplm135]

3. I think he destroyed them

because Tony was growing as a human being. Unfortunately, future events happened, like in Winter Soldier, that I think kept bringing him back to the idea that the Earth needed protection, both from ourselves and outside forces.

Tony and Steve have reverse journeys...Tony starts arrogant and self-centered, and ends up being one who counts on others and sacrifices, while Steve starts off completely selfless and ends up realizing it's ok to find your own happiness.

The Thor movies are boring as heck and then Ragnorak is one of the best Marvel movies out of nowhere, because they finally realized Thor was better as a less serious character. IM 2 and 3 were mediocre. Pretty much everything else Marvel was good to great. The Captain America sequels were some of the best ones.