(On that note, for anybody who has yet to watch the film, be warned of spoilers ahead.) Halfway through the film, thereabouts, we discover that The Mandarin isn't The Mandarin at all, but rather a has-been thespian named Trevor Slattery, posing as The Mandarin at the behest of Guy Pearce's villainous megalomaniac, Aldrich Killian, who (sort of) claims that he's The Mandarin. Well, now we deal with the aftermath. Only instead of guns, it’s his suit, which he has upgraded to the point where it interlinks with himself. Guy Pearce is a good actor and he delivers, but Aldrich Killian, while a good concept isn’t a particularly well-written character. The true villain of the movie was Tony's past self and the destruction he sowed as a weapons manufacturing playboy. The Mandarin's past is shrouded in mystery, but his followers described him as an ancient warrior-king that has inspired generations of men since the Middle Ages, perhaps even further back in time. You can follow him on Twitter at @agracru. We explain the making of Marvel's 'Iron Man 3', including how they crafted the Mandarin twist, changing the villain's gender, Robert Downey Jr.'s injury and more. Who's pulling the strings. Keeping in mind that Kingsley is speaking solely for himself and not as a mouthpiece for Marvel, this isn't exactly the worst solution for mollifying comic diehards without completely disrespecting Black's work on Iron Man 3. I’m just a man in a can.”. Except, the very next scene, Tony almost kills her in his sleep. 'Iron Man 3': Ben Kingsley Teases 'The Real Mandarin' Sir Ben Kingsley has a thing or two to say about the truth of his dual role as Trevor Slattery and The Mandarin in … A one-stop shop for all things video games. But like all good geek disputes, tussles over the nature of The Mandarin just won't die. Or perhaps Shane Black knows that the man behind the suit is simply that much more fascinating. Iron Man 3 provides popcorn with a twist. The Mandarin Will Be In Iron Man 3 By Matt Joseph @wgtc_site 9 years ago As many suspected, The Mandarin will be one of the villains in Marvel’s upcoming Iron Man 3 . does anybody know why the Mandarin wasnt real in iron man 3? The Mandarin plot twist left a sour taste in my mouth, as it did a lot of fans. Or The Mandarin will lose his sh*t and come after you!” Upon my latest rewatch, I realised the subtle sarcasm and annoyance in Guy Pearce’s tone. He also writes for Movie Mezzanine, In Review Online, and Paste Magazine. But Trev, bless him, may have made an indelible mark on that world. It is a very good movie. In Iron Man 3 Ben Kingsley portrays “the Mandarin”. Seems that the topic has stuck with Kingsley, too, and not just his creative cohorts and disgruntled fans. The Mandarin seeks to use Extremis as a weapon of mass destruction. When you watch it the first time, you’re so mesmerized by the facade that is The Mandarin, that your mind immediately translates that line to “Get your act together! We were just too dumb to see it. 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It is here that Tony begins to find himself and deal with his anxiety head-on, without his usual distractions. Insert The Mandarin. Ben Kingsley is half Indian, half English, playing a Middle Eastern terrorist who’s named The MANDARIN, talking about Chinese fortune cookies which are in actual fact, an American invention. In the most heartwrenching scene of the movie, the usually egoistic Tony bares his soul to Pepper explaining why he’s been distant. Iron Man 3 was another asset of Marvel to rule the movie halls all over the world. A big political twist. The "Enter the Mandarin" arc, where Iron Man clashes with the Mandarin. I remember just sitting down at the end of Iron Man 3, watching the end credits roll, feeling like I’ve been hit by a monster truck. I'll invent this actor, and he will be my mask.' What’s a superhero movie without a supervillain? To deal with his fear, Tony turns to work, or more specifically, he starts building Iron Man suits. You know, which is which? If you haven't, well, you've probably tangentially gained knowledge on the fracas through the magic of pop culture osmosis. Black asks the question: who is Tony Stark without Pepper and his suits? Bachelorette: Is Clare Crawley Already Tired Of Her Fiance, Dale Moss. I watched the movie a couple more times that year and then decided to bury my imaginary Blu-ray in my imaginary backyard… until yesterday, where I watched the movie again, the first time since it hit cinemas back in 2013. From his voice to his motivations, The Mandarin was a menacing force, one who is much, much darker than all the Marvel villains that came before it. Share; Tweet; 0. By Pritish Samantray May 18, 2019. Because of that, whatever is done in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings will need to stand in opposition to that propaganda villain from Iron Man 3. Except now we're being treated to the notion that perhaps Trevor really is The Mandarin after all, which makes his would-be rescuer in All Hail the King look like kind of a dunce. Iron Man 3 is a 2013 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character Iron Man, produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. But it is one that is just mentioned in passing without further exploration (Rian Johnson gets it right in The Last Jedi). Even as early as six months back, screenwriter Drew Pearce had a few things to say about the matter of washed up British actor Trevor Slattery's actual identity; his comments were timed with the release of Thor: The Dark World on VOD and home video, and the Slattery focused one-shot All Hail the King along with it. When Tony controls his suit remotely and saves everybody onboard the plane in a badass sequence, the suit is immediately hit by an oncoming truck and played off as comedy. Later in the movie Tony searches for Mandarin and finds the real truth about Trevor Slattery: Mandarin is played by Ben Kingsley in Iron Man 3. Through the kid, Tony realises that it isn’t the suits that make him Iron Man; HE is Iron Man. After living through a near-fatal incident in the Battle of New York, Tony feels helpless and small — “Gods, aliens and other dimensions. Again, Kingsley is just spitballing here - don't expect to see him return to Marvel films until otherwise noted - but as far as spitballs go, this is a pretty good one. The go-to source for comic book and superhero movie fans. In one of the scenes, we hear Aldrich Killian say, “Boss is about to record… Well, you know how he gets.”. At the time, a portion of hardcore fans of Marvel comics stood outside Marvel Studios with flaming pitchforks and large signs that read “Die. If there's a real Mandarin biding his time in the MCU, why not have him be Trevor? Shane Black. Tony suffers from anxiety, something a suave, braggadocious guy like himself isn’t used to. So everyone might say, 'Is it Trev under there?' think tank and their calculated plan to use that Mandarin identity as a distraction. But I would argue that Kevin Feige’s willingness to take risks, experiment and allow auteurs to be well, auteurs, started a year before we teared up watching a motormouth racoon and a walking tree with horrible vocabulary, with Shane Black’s avant-garde Iron Man threequel. RELATED: Shang-Chi: What Are the 'Ten Rings' of the MCU Movie? The real Mandarin would have lasted for many films and all of the Avengers would have been needed to stop him. Smells Like Infinite Sadness A 40-something's musings on the current state of music, film and pop culture. For all the interesting themes that Black sets up, the film suffers the same problem as Wonder Woman: It just ends in an explosion fest. Currently, he has given up on shaving. The same thing applies to another scene in which Aldrich Killian says, “No eye contact with The Mandarin unless you wanna get shot in the face.” You assume that the threat comes from The Mandarin, but in actual fact, the trigger-happy person is Killian himself. However, Marvel is set to finally introduce the 'real' Mandarin in the MCU in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, played by Tony Leung. And now Sir Ben Kingsley himself has added some fuel to the fire with remarks made in a recent interview with IGN; he's currently doing the press rounds for The Boxtrolls, so of course the discussion eventually wove itself round to the subject of The Mandarin, Trevor Slattery, and character integrity. So when Iron Man 3 seemed to revisit Iron Man with the Ten Rings organization and Mandarin as the leader of the Ten Rings, it was exciting. By doing so, not only did he make Stark a far more interesting character, he changes the Battle of New York in The Avengers from a fun spectacle piece to something akin to a real world war. Leader of the terrorist organization Ten Rings. Tony Stark post The Avengers is even more so. It’s one of the wittiest Marvel Cinematic Universe films to date and has some excellent character exploration to go with it. However, it is a movie that doesn’t necessarily stick its landing. Instead of hitting the reset button and having Tony Stark go back to being his same old self, Shane Black turns him into a war victim, suffering from PTSD. Let's recap for posterity's sake: in Iron Man 3, the stylishly bedecked terrorist known as The Mandarin takes responsibility for a series of lethal attacks in the US, and Tony Stark takes it on himself to issue an ill conceived challenge to the man via television. Revisiting Iron Man 3: Is The Mandarin Plot Twist Really That Bad? All Rights Reserved. A troll. Die” — to the point where the studio had to release a short film as a retcon apology. The Tony Stark we get from Iron Man through The Avengers is interesting. Boston-based critic Andy Crump has been writing about film for the web since 2009, and has been a Screen Rant contributor since Spring 2013. As such they choose a nerfed and altered version of the Mandarin. There really still was (and still is) a Ten Rings organization out there. This movie isn’t just about Tony Stark, it’s also about Tony Stark in relation to his suits and Tony Stark in relation to Pepper Potts. It would also enrich the MCU by giving Kingsley another opportunity to do what he did so well in Iron Man 3: play two sides of the coin, the bumbling, hapless Trevor and the sonorous, menacing Mandarin. So naturally, Iron Man 3 made waves with the announcement that The Mandarin would finally appear. This isn't the first time he's opened up about Iron Man 3 and mused over the many and sundry misgivings over the direction Black chose to take The Mandarin in the film; it is, however, one of the more compelling suggestions put forth regarding the character's motivations. In Iron Man 3, a fake Mandarin was introduced and played by out-of-work actor Trevor Slattery (Ben Kingsley) who was used as part of a similarly fake Ten Rings organization (the real Mandarin … It takes place after the events of The Avengers, with everybody, both characters in the movie and audiences alike wondering now what? Everybody straight up buys Trevor's story without much fuss; it would be the perfect cover. In reality, we got a buffoon named Trevor Slattery in one of the most annoying rug-pulls in the history of cinema. It did not stand up to the expectations on box office. His name was an ancient Chinese war mantle, meaning \"advisor to the King\". 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