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Yep, friends dragged me to the iron man 1 movie... As soon as it's revealed that he kept strippers on his plane, I was certain I didn't like him, and he was a douche bag.
He's an Ayn Rand style technocrat sleaze bag. Not a good person, more of just an entitled and immature rich guy. It's a fantasy comic for immature teenage boys.
[EDIT: ITT, people deny the premise of the comic they just read].
That was very much the intended message of that scene, I'm glad you understood it, but it seems like you ignored the rest of the movie by focusing on that and definitely never watched the sequel where he worked through a lot of that stuff.
Yep, if you give me a shitty person with no empathetic characteristics I'm gonna switch off a little...
... that's why good writing and good movies ACTIVELY AVOID turning the audience off their characters.
Oh they fixed it in a follow up movie??
That's your argument that I should have paid attention to the first movie and really liked the hateable unrelatable main character??? That there was another two hour movie I should have committed to?
Surely you see how that's a bad argument and you're defending a crappy movie.
Hey you should watch (and like) Terminator 5 because they really fix it up with Terminator 7 and 8.
Nah bro, that's not a good defense. That's a shitty argument.
Characters that have vices and go through actual arcs where they change and become better is... like a standard thing. Easy writing and easy movies avoid turning the audience off their characters because it's difficult to be good at making a movie (as with any discipline, being really good at it is really hard). Obviously, as a writer you want to create interesting characters with tons of depth, something that feels real and flawed, but the difficulty is in not falling too far into 'this person just sucks' AND not going too far into 'this person is infallible'. It's even worse if you attempt to convince your audience of a flaw that doesn't exist. Characters that have no flaws, or that lack real flaws and are just being angsty for poor reasons, are (generally, but not always) boring and uninteresting.
You fixating on the fact that Tony gets even better in the second movie from his starting point, when he's already working through his arc in the first movie, is funny. It's almost like good sequels are meant to build upon and add depth to their predecessors. Yes, the sequel takes some themes of the first and furthers them, unsurprisingly. No, you don't need to wait for the sequel to see Tony begin to change.
You can dislike Iron Man if you want for whatever reason you want, but I wouldn't go around trying to convince others it's a bad movie, especially with the reasons you provided.
It's not a convincing change, he goes from superficial and cocky privileged billionaire to cocky privileged billionaire with extra toys.
It's ugly both times and just seems fake. There's no gravitas or nuance depicted.
A character (when written well) is easy to identify with because they have human and well detailed moments that almost fall out of their context and into a universal context - a shopping bag breaking, a relative or pet dying, a childhood trauma, a shoe that gets a pebble in it, a shitty boss, being dumped... Having an addiction.
Strippers on jets and being captured by terrorists?
Nah. Like I say, he ends up essentially where he started. Also, I don't really believe that he got rid of the strippers. Like I don't really think he stopped viewing women like that. It wouldn't have surprised me if they were still present at the end of the film. In fact, I think it would have been more honest if they were.
Good writing should not turn audiences against characters?
Not if they the main character and they're going to have a convincing redemption arc. I just didn't find it to be a good movie, or a good redemption.
Who are the enemies - people? But they're "der terrorists".
Nah, it was a shit movie. Tony Stark remains a shitty character. It's my opinion, not everyone agrees or likes the same things - deal with it.
Not really sure why you're coming across so hostile at the end lol, I also don't like the film. Was just curious about whether you were saying that villains should be sympathetic, but I can see your point about protagonists - altho a convincing redemption arc does require an unlikeable protagonist, or at least a protagonist with unlikeable traits I personally feel.
Anyway, have a good day ✌️
Yeah, you too man, have a good day.
You should know better than arguing against a personality cult. The Marvel studios is one step away from being an organized religion, it just needs to associate the viewers having Thetan awareness of alternate selves across the multiverse to the Sacred Marvel Timelines. PS, don't bother mentioning the contradictory multiverses that explore and even acknowledge your claims, that will just rile them up.
Your basic argument seems to be that protagonists should not have character development that involves them realizing what a piece of shit they are and then change? How boring.
No, he's still a cocky privileged shit at the end, I'm saying it wasn't a convincing arc or character development, and led no where. He was still just "fantasy rich guy" and the message was still just "wouldn't you like his life!" - the problem is that requires the audience to be VERY immature and stupid to begin with. I never felt a desire to be him or live his life. He seems like a pathetic kind of person really. That's honestly how I feel about Tony Stark, he seems like one of these rich guys whose not comfortable with himself and uses a cocky attitude as a defense mechanism. I just don't find that to be a compelling character, nor did I see any real change there.
Well, it is based on a comic and that over-the-top personality is just his deal. You don't have to like him and it's completely fine to despise him. Not everybody has to like everything. And you are correct, he remains a cocky shit. But he does have redeeming qualities and ultimately makes a huge sacrifice. So there's also a point in people liking him.
Comics Stark is generally a narcissistic alcoholic asshole who drives away everyone who cares about him and who has ruined his own company more times than I can count.
Hubris is practically his main enemy.
He was Elon Musk (with the exception that Stark actually is a genius while Musk is dumb as a box of rocks) decades before Musk even moved to the USA.
You've never been supposed to like him (except when written by some hack who doesn't understand the character). The only core Marvel hero more unlikable than him is Henry fucking Pym, who somehow manages to be even more of an entitled narcissistic asshole, but without the money or the charm.
The premise of the books is that heroes can be flawed, small, broken, unsympathetic assholes, behind the mask.
What made Marvel different back in the sixties when they got back into superhero books is that their heroes were human, flaws and all. Peter Parker was a broke teenager way out of his depth who accidentally got his uncle killed; Steve Rogers was a man out of his time pursued by ghosts of the past; Bruce Banner effectively had multiple personality disorder and ran away from society (and himself) to avoid causing harm; the Fantastic Four and the X-Men were families, with all the petty little squabbles that come with that, the latter having to deal with discrimination on top of that; and Tony Stark was a wealthy, narcissistic, alcoholic asshole, who played the hero to cope with it.
Now, of course Iron Man was not the right character to kickstart Marvel's cinematic universe. Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, or the X-Men would have been the ideal ones. Iron Man was never one of Marvel's best selling books, probably for the same reasons you don't like the character.
But it was the least worst they had left, after selling the others' rights to other companies. And, somehow, in great part thanks to Robert Downey Jr. practically having been born to play Tony Stark, they made it work.
Sure, they had a bit of a redemption arc; he stopped selling weapons, he managed to eventually have a family that loved him despite his flaws, and he died sacrificing himself to save the world... but he also created Ultron (with all the chaos that ensued), caused the Avengers to break up, and never really stopped being a self entitled narcissistic asshole.
But, here's the thing: there's nothing wrong with unlikable protagonists when acknowledged as such, even if they don't get a redemption arc.
Plenty of great books and films have extremely unlikely and flawed protagonists, who never redeem themselves.
See Tyler Durden, see Jack Sparrow, see Rorschach... fuck, see Victor Frankenstein, or Henry Jekyll, or captain Ahab, if you want to go deep.
The Iron Man films are not Marvel's best. They aren't deep, they don't add, by themselves, anything significant to the history of cinematography. They're just fun, simple, action films.
It's perfectly fine not to like them, everyone is entitled to their tastes. But not liking them because the protagonist is an entitled narcissistic asshole... is kind of missing the point, and not seeing the forest for the trees.
(Do note, though, that viewers who idolise Stark are also missing the point, probably to an even greater extent; like Rorschach or Tyler Durden you can enjoy a well written and acted character, but you're not supposed to idolise them or want to emulate them. They might be “the good guys”, maybe, but they're definitely not good people.)
Yes, that is literally the intended character.
Stan Lee wanted to make the most horrible being they could come up with (narcissist, weapon vendor, egomaniac, ...) to then try and turn them into a hero.
It was an experiment that turned out quite well.
It's always fascinating to see someone preemptively argue with what they think others are going to say.