SPOILER DISCUSSION

1.It’s a small thing, but I love how the flashback sequence at the start of the movie makes Yinsen’s eventual introduction seem completely in line. We know Tony doesn’t care about conferences, awards, or the opinions of any other thinker given his confidence in his own genius. It’s completely believable then that Tony could have met Yinsen, an incredibly smart scientist in his own right, at a conference while paying Yinsen no attention.

2.In another sense, this positions Yinsen as the embodiment of Tony’s journey towards becoming a hero. Yinsen represents Tony’s past callousness having both been ignored by the future hero to be, but he also gives Tony his new “heart” by both literally stopping the shards from entering Tony’s chest and helping him make the first arc reactor. His death motivates Tony to not only eviscerate the compound but also propels him to want to end the terrorism resulting from his inventions.

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3.The arc reactor is a failed project meant to help out the community through the production of unlimited energy. The fact that it’s a failed project is telling; like Tony’s disposition towards the world around him, this project has stalled and been kept in the background. It’s only when Tony first re-connects to the world around him by truly witnessing it that he moves forward on the project by creating his own mini-reactor.

Tony’s initial reactor is swapped out by Pepper, Yinsen’s spiritual successor in terms of pushing Tony towards change. She represents his tie to humanity – the family that Yinsen told Tony to pursue before Tony’s time was up. This reactor is then turned into a trophy by Pepper as a reminder of Tony’s heart, a literal manifestation of the symbolism. It’s this initial reactor – a combined project with Yinsen turned into proof of Tony’s heart by Pepper – powering his suit along with the initial failed reactor that end up saving the day; a poetic synthesis of past and present coming together to create a new path forwards to peace.

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4. The opening montage highlighting Tony’s rise up makes it fairly clear that there’s an antagonism between Tony and Obadiah (Jeff Bridges) . We go from a shot of Obadiah in clear control of the company, looking towards a “world” ready for his control. Then the next shot, shows him pushed from the foreground to the background as Tony takes his place. This time instead of staring towards an open future, Obadiah stares at Tony as Tony stares on obliviously.

This is why I love that Obadiah is the final villain. The set-up is there and the movie sets up the possibility of a betrayal early on with his agitated response to Tony’s decision and then builds up to the great double cross scene with Raza (Faran Tahir). Unfortunately, this is why the third act feels so dubious with what came before. We’ve come to expect that Obadiah is calculated and has a plan, but the moment Pepper gets a copy of his plans he abandons all sense of rationality and goes on a rage induced rampage that feels like a total betrayal of his character. Given that we know he’s future-oriented and has plans of becoming in charge again, there’s no way he would go on a public rampage that he’d have no chance of covering up. It would single handedly undermine everything he’d done up to the point.

I personally think the perfect moment to end the movie would have been during the icing sequence. It would have been a non-traditional end to a fight based on Tony’s main strength: intelligence. He would be rewarded with the victory not due to might but because of his diligence in testing and fixing his designs. It also makes little sense how Obadiah’s people would have made a suit that could sustain such damage when they were working with an outdated model and a much lower understanding of the design’s potential. If Favreau wanted to go out with the failed arc-reactor project callback, he could have just had Obadiah’s body fall down into the reactor into cue explosion.

5. I love how the movie uses Christine (Leslie Bibb) , the initial reporter who grills Tony with hard-hitting questions and eventually gets seduced by him. A lesser movie would have used the situation to establish Tony’s status as a playboy, but Iron Man explicitly utilizes Christine again at the halfway point of the movie to demonstrate Tony’s growth.

He shows up to his Fireman Ball and she accosts him in similar fashion to their first encounter. She calls him out for not changing and then shows him photos that reveal that his company is still supplying weapons to Raza’s forces. This time instead of wooing her or deflecting he goes to immediately take action. It’s a subtle way of demonstrating his growth to dealing with the problems with the world; he’s finally paying attention to the world around him.

6. I know I’ve mentioned Batman Begins twice already, but that’s because I love that movie and think that Iron Man compares to it in a lot of interesting ways (even if I think Batman Begins is better). One of the ways Iron Man edges out Begins is in the humanization of Tony Stark which is primarily developed via his relationship with Pepper. I think the main differences between Tony and Pepper’s relationship vs Bruce and Rachel’s are twofold: 1. the former couple is positioned in close proximity for most of the movie giving them ample time to communicate 2. Pepper actually learns Tony’s identity halfway letting the couple have a more thorough dialogue with one another.

The end result is we get time to see the couple interact through multiple stages of a relationship so their eventual end-state feels well-earned and justified. This in turn helps solidify Tony’s tie to the “real” world.

7.The last scene of Tony confirming his identity as “Iron Man” by Black Sabbath plays is picture perfect and leaves the audience in the best mood. Even with the hiccups in the third act, this is how you nail an ending.