[Iron Man -- that's kind of catchy.
It's got a nice ring to it.]
Given how huge the Marvel Cinematic Universe has become,
you might forget at times that it all started with a wisecracking guy named Tony Stark
and his cool metal suit.
[If you douse me again, and I'm not on fire,
I'm donating you to City College.]
Today we talk about the Marvel formula, and that formula comes from Iron Man.
[We had no idea it would turn out like this.
We were just hoping that people would see that movie.
Everybody was saying superhero movies were over.]
Director Jon Favreau even defined the winning recipe for a Marvel movie
when he said, quote,
“We ended up landing a tone with Iron Man that became the formula moving forward.
You want to mix great casting, stay true to the characters,
a combined universe that would allow cross-pollination.
And having humor and adherence to canon.”
[Sometimes you gotta run before you can walk.]
Iron Man also kicked off traditions like Marvel’s trademark mid and post-credits
scenes,
with an epic cameo by Samuel L. Jackson.
[I’m here to talk to you about the Avenger Initiative.]
Iron Man turns ten this year,
and it’s clearer than ever how pivotal the movie was
in shaping our current blockbuster landscape.
[Pepper, I've been called many things -- nostalgic is not one of them.]
So what made this film the golden ticket?
Why was it such a momentous entry in Superhero movie history?
[That's the coolest thing I've ever seen.]
[Not bad, huh?]
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Part of Iron Man’s success is that it was the right film for the right time.
It was released in May 2008, just a few months before another movie
that raised the bar for the superhero genre --
Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight.
The Dark Knight became the highest-grossing movie of 2008,
with Iron Man in second place.
And there’s a clear separation in superhero movie quality
before and after these films.
Iron Man came out at time when improving technology in visual effects
made a believable superhero movie possible in a way it hadn’t been before.
[Five years ago you couldn’t make a movie Iron Man
that showed the suit doing everything it could do in the books.
It would have looked fake and it would have taken you out of the movie.]
At the same time, Favreau used CGI in a relatively sparing, tasteful way --
he also included a lot of eal, practical effects.
And this magic balance made it so that the CGI that is in the movie
is all the more convincing.
Of course, this is another thing it has in common with The Dark Knight,
as Nolan is famous for relying on practical effects over CGI.
Significantly, Iron Man -- again like The Dark Knight --
was infused with social commentary.
It felt like the movie was saying something about its post-9/11, War on Terror era.
[We all share a certain common frame of reference in the last few years,
and I wanted to really show the anxiety of the time
and set it against a real backdrop.]
Tony is a weapons developer, and he’s captured by an Afghani terrorist
group
who want his expertise.
[He wants you to build a missile.
The Jericho missile that you demonstrated.]
So Tony starts to question the ethics of his business
and whether it’s really just war profiteering,
instead of serving of his country like he's been telling himself.
[I saw young Americans killed by the very weapons I created
to defend them and protect them.]
So Iron Man spoke to its times, raising questions
about the morality of military might, arms,
and the long-standing after-effects of global conflict.
In later movies, Tony’s moral conundrums get even more complicated --
especially in Civil War, where his conflict with Captain America
represents a debate over the role of government regulation.
[What if there's somewhere we need to go, and they don't let us?]
[We may not be perfect, but the safest hands are still our own.]
[If we don't do this now, it's going to be done to us later.]
And we can see Iron Man’s influence on a more recent hit like Black Panther,
which continues these kinds of questions for a new decade.
[I must right these wrongs.]
Other superhero movies have gone for more extreme or surreal villains.
But Iron Man’s villains are true-to-life types --
a Middle Eastern terrorist group
and an aging, greedy American businessman, Obadiah.
The two illustrate that there are villains on both sides of the conflict.
Obadiah is obviously in the wrong in conspiring with terrorists to kill Tony
--
[Ah, if you'd killed him when you're supposed to,
you'd still have a face.]
but his character has nuance, because he honestly believes weapons manufacturing
is essential to protecting the world.
[Your father, he helped to give us the atomic bomb.
Now what kind of world would it be today if he was as selfish as you?]
This was the first of many MCU movies in which the villain is a dark mirror
of the protagonist --
the villain has a lot in common with the heroic lead,
but unlike the hero, uses his abilities for evil.
And Iron Man created the Marvel trope of a superhero’s potential
to unintentionally do harm.
[Intelligence suggests that the devices seen in these photos
are in fact attempts at making manned copies of Mr Stark's suit.]
Obadiah makes his own Iron Man suit based on Tony’s,
and he uses it for evil.
[Trying to rid the world of weapons, you gave it the best one ever.]
In later Marvel movies, we see other heroes grappling with this question
of whether what they’re doing is helping or hurting.
[Who's going to avenge my son, Stark?
He's dead, and I blame you.]
This is getting at the difficulty of doing good in a complex world,
where well-intentioned actions can frequently make things worse
and just add to the chaos.
Iron Man hinged on a superhero who wasn’t already an icon.
Unlike DC heroes like Batman and Superman who have been household names
as far back as we can remember,
many of Marvel’s leads were more obscure before their recent silver-screen fame.
Iron Man had first appeared in the Marvel comics in the 1960s,
but he wasn’t necessarily a household name.
Casting Robert Downey, Jr. as Tony Stark was a bold move that paid off.
[What’s great for people who aren’t fans is they see Robert,
they bring a set of expectations to the movie based on who he is
and what his whole history has been.
And his level of talent, his sense of humor.]
Back in 2008, Downey was known as a very talented actor,
but he was just as well-known for his hard partying
and for being kind of a wildcard.
Looking back, we can see that Downey was perfect for the role of Tony
because he was a celebrity trying to turn his image around.
So Iron Man played on Downey’s suave, charming, bad-boy public persona.
[Slight correction, it’s not the number one movie in America,
it’s the number one movie worldwide.]
[Cheers]
[Self-deprecating as always, Robert.]
and added complexity to that persona.
Iron Man also set the bar for character-driven Marvel movies --
the intrigue comes less from the plot than from the protagonist himself.
Tony was a departure from the standard solemn or serious superhero personality --
he's a wiseguy.
[I’m just not the hero type, clearly.
with this laundry list of character defects, all the mistakes I’ve made, largely public.]
Fox’s Deadpool later played on this sarcastic persona
with great success.
[You're my hero.]
[No, no, no, no, no.
That I ain't.]
Tony embodied the playful sense of humor that later Marvel heroes and the MCU itself
is now known for.
[Is everything a joke to you?]
[Funny things are.]
He’d be far more fun to meet in real life than a Bruce Wayne or a Clark Kent.
[Is it cool if I take a picture with you?]
[Yes, it's very cool.]
Downey actually took inspiration from Elon Musk for his performance.
[Hey, I've got an idea for an electric jet.]
[You do?
Then we'll make it work.]
At the end of the first film, Tony famously breaks with the tradition
of superheroes keeping their identity secret.
[I am Iron Man.]
This ending was the metaphorical mic drop announcing how different Iron Man would be
from other superhero franchises --
which are so often about wrestling between public and private identity.
The movie was saying Tony was such a charismatic hero,
he didn’t need that default conflict in order to stay interesting.
[Big man in a suit of armor.
Take that off, what are you?]
[Genius billionaire playboy philanthropist.]
And almost all of the later MCU heroes followed Tony's footsteps
not even trying to keep their identities a secret.
Favreau has described Iron Man as “a story about a man who transforms himself.”
So Tony essentially is a self-made superhero.
[When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?]
[Last night.]
There’s something classically American about this kind of self-reinvention.
Tony doesn’t mutate or develop superhuman abilities.
[You're a laboratory experiment, Rogers.
Everything special about you came out of a bottle.]
Tony’s “superpowers” are really just technology that he makes.
So Iron Man emphasizes the hero’s intelligence and ingenuity
over brute strength.
[Tony Stark was able to build this in a cave!
With a box of scraps!]
That’s yet another way we can see the movie’s influence on Black Panther,
where the hero’s abilities come primarily from technology and natural sources.
The other part of Tony’s transformation is how hard he works to better himself.
There’s a double meaning to the Iron Man name --
of course, on one level it refers to Tony’s suit,
but Tony’s also presented as a kind of a metal man without a heart,
or strong emotional bonds.
[So you’re a man who has everything.
And nothing.]
This makes us think of the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz.
[Just because I'm presumin'/ That I couldn't be kinda human/
If I only had a heart.]
After the attack in Afghanistan, Tony’s left with a literal hole in his chest,
symbolizing this emptiness in his life.
But as he turns away from his weapons business and finds his purpose,
We see that Tony has a heart after all.
The arc reactor in his chest symbolizes this renewed strength and light inside him.
[All this came from that.]
By the third Iron Man movie,
Tony has to save the day largely without his suit --
so the takeaway is that Tony Stark, the person,
is what makes Iron Man special, not the suit or fancy gadgets he has.
Tony evolves from relying on his suit to realizing that his true power
is himself and the heart he puts into everything.
[I just finally know what I have to do.
And I know in my heart that it's right.]
Speaking of Tony’s heart, his relationship with Pepper
established Marvel’s formula for romance --
their attraction to each other grows out of friendship.
The two don’t even kiss in the first Iron Man,
and by the end of the movie they still aren’t officially a couple.
So this set a precedent for relationships in MCU movies developing slowly,
and being as much about friendship and compatibility
as physical chemistry.
Pepper was also the first of many female Marvel love interests
who are smart and can hold their own,
[You know that I would help you with anything.
But I cannot help you if you're gonna start all of this again.]
but who unfortunately end up having a pretty limited, supporting role.
[I'm not even sure what country Jane is in.
Her work on the Convergence has made her the world's foremost astronomer.]
[And the company that Pepper runs is the largest tech conglomerate on Earth.
It's pretty exciting.]
A lot of superhero movies are about learning to be a hero.
But Tony learns how to be a regular person --
despite his charms,
he starts off as a bit of a superficial jerk,
and he has to figure out how to be decent and do the right thing.
So with Iron Man, Marvel started the tradition of making superhero arcs
about universal human rites of passage.
We can especially see how the movie shaped Doctor Strange,
which is about another successful, overconfident man
who’s forced to reconsider his values and learn selflessness.
Iron Man hasn’t aged perfectly.
[I don’t want to see this on your MySpace page.]
There’s also the issue of how Tony treats women.
[Tony, remember me?]
[Sure don't.]
Black Panther co-writer Joe Robert Cole has said
he believes Tony’s behavior
early in the Iron Man franchise wouldn’t fly with audiences today.
That's probably why later Marvel movies have guided the character away
from that original womanizer persona and more towards becoming a leader
and a father figure to Peter Parker.
[I just wanted to be like you.]
[And I wanted you to be better.]
But in spite of Iron Man’s small flaws, the movie laid the groundwork
for everything that came after.
So as we look back to Iron Man a decade later, it’s striking
that almost every blockbuster we see today has been shaped by this movie.
[Mr. Stark, you’ve become part of a bigger universe.
You just don’t know it yet.]
It's Debra.
And Susannah.
You're watching ScreenPrism.
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