Non-Spoiler question about Iron Man 3

[elfs]

Kouryou-chan, Omaha and I went to see Iron Man 3 for Mother's Day. It was an awesome movie, and the choice of Ben Kingsley as the villain was inspired and amazing. Robert Downey Jr. is in it to win it, and he's as good as always.

But here's the thing: Several times in the movie, Tony talks about "that thing that happened in New York." It's in the trailer, so I don't think I'm giving it away. There's a brief dialogue about the aliens and so forth.

Never are any other Marvel properties mentioned. Not once. The words "Avengers," "Shield," "Nick Fury," "Captain America," "Thor," and "The Hulk" are never mentioned throughout the film. "The big guy with the hammer" gets one mention. It's as if Iron Man 3 were following the conventions a parody porn film and never to using actual trademarks to avoid getting sued.

Does anyone have any good ideas why? It's like this strange vacuum in the middle of the script, like they were trying to cut Iron Man loose from the Marvel Universe for some strange reason.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Perhaps their license doesn't cover these other properties?

[elfs.livejournal.com]

See, that's what I was wondering. But all of those characters are owned lock, stock and battlesuit by Disney.

[ziggadon.livejournal.com]

Not saying I'm necessarily right on this one, but I read it as Tony trying to distance himself from the events and try and forget about it all.

On the other hand, why nobody else mentions it, I couldn't tell you.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Because it's Tony, and he's A) TRying to distance himself (as the other poster mentioned) and B) Still very self-centered?

[rix_scaedu]

Jarvis does mention SHIELD as one of the sources of crime scene intelligence used to reconstruct the Chinese Theatre blast.

[herewiss13.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure the references are there to link it to the Marvel universe, but they don't want to be too overt so that people can watch IM3 without having seen the Avengers.

I'm not sure who those people _are_, but apparently, film makers think they exist.

[sirfox.livejournal.com]

I agree with the other folks.

Partly it's to focus on Tony, and Tony tends to focus on himself.

Mostly, I think they wanted the movie/series to stand on its own without *having* to rely on the other associated movies and their attendant characters. I expect we'll get a choice few characters in the next Thor movie, as well, but it will be mostly independent of the other series.

[doodlesthegreat.livejournal.com]

It sounds like they're trying to avoid having to do with the films what gets done in the comics quite regularly, which is having to stick footnotes all over the damned things telling you you have to read three other different comics lines just to keep up with the plot. That crap was just one more reason I never could get interested in superhero titles, and Disney doesn't want to do that to themselves.

[vasaris.livejournal.com]

Personally, my impression is that the movie will still be accessible to those who haven't seen the other movies. While we're watching the films more-or-less as they come out, the still need to have a certain level of standalone appeal. In ten years, if someone randomly sees IM3 out-of-sequence and out-of-context, it will still make sense. I rather like the way they did that, tbh.