Iron Man 3 reaction post (now with sticky)

[whizzy.livejournal.com]

The time is nigh!

Please contain reactions, discussion, flailing, or anything of a potentially spoilery nature to the comments of this post.

Comments

[chariflame.livejournal.com]

I blurted out all my feelings and opinions into a really messy Tumblr post (http://scheduledfordeletion.tumblr.com/post/48827963528/iron-man-3) when I got back from the midnight showing this morning, but here goes nothing...

I was really happy with it. I was nervous about how they were going to handle Extremis, mostly - doesn't anyone get nervous seeing their beloved fiction adapted for the big screen? But it was so much better than expected. The visuals, and all the characters and plots! I was iffy about Iron Patriot too, but they made it work really well with the same hints of corruption/perversion of an icon as in 616.

Seeing Pepper in action was amazing, but I don't know how I feel about the long lasting effects of the ending, though. Only time will tell, I suppose! The Mandarin twist and Tony-not-even-getting-Extremis twist were fantastic. Kind of sad about the arc reactor, but it was inevitable/understandable.

Oh man... Tony's anxiety, though? It really hit home. It was slightly uncomfortable to watch from how much it hit home, but that's only a testament to how well they did it. They added some humour in (that kid was pretty brilliant) but it was still a serious concern. I think those scenes are what will stay with me the longest, I really liked the way they were handled.

[jungle-dizzy.livejournal.com]

I agree about Tony's anxiety being well done to the point it was uncomfortable to watch! And they did seem to handle the issue with care, I was so glad. :>

[w-a-i-d.livejournal.com]

I know, I have an anxiety condition and when his first attack happened I felt, "Oh, dear, I don't know if I like this, it's awkward and embarrassing and painful to watch and really recognisable and making me tense and... wow, this is exactly the way it should feel." I liked how it wasn't swooning over the hero's beautiful soaring orchestral manpain, it made you actually feel it as something claustrophobic and undignified and horrible. And it was real and serious and they never backed off on what it WAS but it didn't define him. And he's still a hero. It's wonderful.

And it retrospectively fixed the Avengers. I was one of those who was never happy that it was the one woman who had to be shown shaking with terror in a corner. I thought they would never show a man that viscerally scared -- and now they have.

And I like how he was never definitively pronounced cured -- you feel he's turned a very significant corner, but there's no "TADA! Those silly anxiety issues are fixed now, he will never have another attack again" moment.

[cloudsinvenice]

That's just how I felt - there was a sense of "I'm too close; I shouldn't be seeing this," and that told me they really, really got it right.

And you've given me another perspective on the anxiety not being referred to later on - I was thinking of it as a plotline they'd just dropped/misplaced, and seeing it as a mistake, but it would definitely have been more troubling if he'd said, "And those anxiety attacks never troubled me again."