So, the vice president commits treason in order to get the Extremis virus to use on his daughter/granddaughter only for her to possibly later explode (probably in a public place even though they know the Extremis virus is unstable) for no apparent reason. Nowhere in the movie from what I can recall do they explain why some people explode and others don’t. (Bad writing)
Each suit has their own arc reactor. The arc reactor is a power plant, not a rechargeable battery. Just like a nuclear power plant isn’t a rechargeable battery and just like a nuclear reactor needs fuel to “recharge” (in this case uranium) the arc reactor needed more of the element he created in Iron Man 2. Instead he uses a car battery ? The whole reason Obediah Stane stole Tony’s arc reactor in IM 1 was to power the Iron Monger suit. According to IM3 all he probably needed was a couple of car batteries. (again bad writing)
I’m sorry, but your explanation doesn’t make sense. You’re reaching. There shouldn’t be a difference in the strength of the armors whether somebody is in them or not. The ease in which they are destroyed at the end doesn’t fit at all with the previous movies and goes against the character of the armors as established in the previous movies. Even in the previous movies where the armors were damaged they at least seemed to offer some if not total resistance. The Extremis soldiers seem to cut through them like a hot knife through butter and ,not only that, but their clothing seems unaffected by their abilities. Maybe in the next movie Tony should make the new suits out of the same material as Pepper’s sports bra. It seems to hold up better against Extremis abilities then the suits.
Again a scene that didn’t make sense. Why was Iron Patriot so easily incapacitated ? Just because Savin heated up a small part of the armor everything else doesn’t work ? And why was Iron Patriot so easily hacked. You’d think after IM 2 when War Machine was hijacked by Vanko they would make it more difficult for somebody to hack the suits. One can assume that Tony made the Iron Patriot suit. Only Tony can use his suit because it’s only “coded” to him according to the final battle scene. Why didn’t he just “code” the suit for only Rhodey to use ?
Not true. Pepper uses the RT to kill Killian right at the end even though it’s not connected to an arc reactor. All it should’ve been able to do is fly, and in my opinion, even that is a bit of a stretch. (Bad writing)
Tony didn’t need to jump in any of the suits. They can be controlled by Jarvis. They are basically drones as seen in the final battle. Why not just give a command for Jarvis to activate all the suits and destroy the helicopters. (Major plot hole). Even if they were buried beneath the rubble, how is it possible for 34+ suits (minus suits from previous movies and mark 42), that can be remotely controlled by Jarvis, not break out.. Even if they didn’t blast their way out (which would be the most logical way) they could force their way out. Isn’t one of the suits called “the heavy lifter suit” aka Igor.. If it could lift a crane, surely it should have been able to break out by itself not mentioning the 34+ other suits helping. And there probably isn’t a need to”break” out of the vault anyway. Jarvis is uploaded into every suit and they should be able to open the vault from the inside by themselves (Again bad writing)
Here is a list of SOME of the other plot holes and plot device errors in the movie :
1- The attack on Tony's house. Tony Stark builds 35 suits (minus the seven from the previous movies) to be ready for any possible threatening scenarios in order to protect Pepper because she's the one thing he can't live without. He then calls out the bad guy only for the one scenario he seems not to have foreseen to happen - being attacked at his house, with Pepper in it, after giving the bad guy his address.
2- Killian needs Tony to stable-ise the Extremis virus/serum but sends three attack helicopters to kill him because he threatened the Mandarin - who by the way doesn't exist (Killian created the Mandarin - remember). Plot hole.
3- The Extremis soldier blowing up. They knew the extremis soldiers (at least some of them – not explained why) were unstable and yet Savin meets the guy in one of the most public places in Hollywood to give him the injector. If only they didn’t keep sending these guys into public places to blow up inconveniently there wouldn’t have been a need for Killian to create “Mandarin” cover story.
4- Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Tony endures a multitude of threats and injuries in the previous movies and no PTSD. Then all of a sudden develops PTSD after the one final battle in The Avengers. Even so, a deeply routed psychological disorder seems easily cured by “just building something”. He then continues to make a glove that can electrocute somebody and a couple of grenades and is instantaneously cured. You’d think after “building” 35 full suits after the Avengers he would’ve been cured long ago.
5- Maya – Extremis or no Extremis ? From the limited character development of Maya in the movie one would expect Maya to also have been injected with the Extremis virus/serum. After-all, it is basically her invention. This should explain why she turned bad (evil). Yet when Killian shoots her she dies instantly. No regeneration. (Vague character development).
6- Trevor’s bodyguards - Extremis or no Extremis ? Why wasn’t Trevor’s bodyguards also Extremis soldiers ? All the other bad guys seem to be. Maybe it’s because Tony wouldn’t be able to disable them so easily with his glove and grenades (after-all, he doesn’t need his armor anymore or does he ?).
7- The kid. Tony tells the kid, after the kid tells him what happened to his dad, to not be a “******. Because dads leave”. Yet, one of the main plot points of Iron Man 2 revolved around Tony’s dad not being there for him as a “kid” and how he, over the course of the movie, comes to terms with it. You’d think he would sympathize with the kid but instead he fires off an insulting one liner for the sake of comedy. I find this insensitive and contrary to Tony Stark’s character as established in the previous movies. Also, Tony Stark is completely irresponsible by dragging someone else kid into dangerous situations without their guardians knowledge or permission. Where I come from that's called kidnapping. Again against character.
8- The mark 42 flying suit sections. The suit pieces have difficulty breaking through the chained door. Why don’t they just form the complete suit and break through. Also, the suit pieces seem to be capable of covering hundreds of miles in a couple of minutes even though they don’t have an apparent power source (not connected to an arc reactor - Not believable). Again, it would’ve been more believable if the pieces formed a complete suit capable of supersonic flight (which it doesn’t show, in case your thinking that)
9- Air Force One rescue. Basic physics seem to fly out of the window. It looked like a bunch of people suspended by wires. Instead why not have the suit break apart in mid air, as set up in earlier scenes, and have individual pieces of the suit attach to each person falling, slowing down their descent into the water and revealing in that way the suit was being remotely controlled. Instead we get another useless comedic scene of the suit being hit by a truck, flying apart, revealing it was remotely controlled. Instead of a cool scene showing an interesting capability of the mark 42 we get a scene showing how weak it is all for the sake of comedy.
10- Killian. For me probably the worst villain in all the Iron Man movies. I found his motivations extremely weak. Not only that, he isn’t even the only one with the Extremis abilities, he’s one of many and even turns Pepper into one.(Everything special about him comes out of a bottle). That to me makes for an extremely generic bad guy.
11- Point of main plot. The main plot of the movie was to show that Tony Stark doesn’t need to wear the armor. Yet, in the final scenes he not only needs one suit but 35+ other suits in order to defeat the bad guys. And in the end it’s not even him defeating the main villain, but Pepper, and guess what, by using part of the suit (even though she doesn't have an arc reactor). I’m not even going to mention why the other suits only show up at the end of the movie.
12- Removal of shrapnel. I think this is probably the biggest plot hole of all the plot holes. Not only does it destroy the plot of IM 3 but makes everything that happened after Tony Stark was rescued from the cave in IM1 redundant. As probably mentioned in this thread multiple times, if it was so easy to remove the shrapnel from Tony’s chest why didn’t they do it immediately after he was rescued in the beginning of IM 1. And there is no mention in the movie that he used the Extremis virus on himself in order to regenerate. Just by saying at the end of the movie that he used a stabilized version of the Extremis virus on himself to heal would’ve covered this major mistake.(Bad writing).
All the above and all the posts in this thread shows exactly what’s wrong with this movie. For every argument there is a counter argument and this is because the screenplay is vague and badly written. At times the writers and director seemed either oblivious to what happened in the previous movies or they completely ignored what happened in the previous movies (not even mentioning the comic books) thus causing huge plot holes or major errors in plot devices. The plot devices and character motivations are so vague that it is completely open to interpretation by the audience. This shouldn’t be. Everything you need to know about a scene or a character’s motivation should all be contained within the movie. All this discussion about why a character did this or why he did that should be explained within the context of the movie. You should be able to walk out of the cinema and not have any questions, as were the case with the previous movies including Avengers.
In my opinion, the writers and director are at fault. They seemed completely unfamiliar with the genre and out of their depth. What may work in a cop buddy comedy doesn’t translate into a comic book movie.
And I can almost hear everybody screaming “ You’re an idiot. Look how much money it’s making and how high it’s rated on imdb”. To me this only explains why “Firefly” was cancelled after 1 season and “Keeping up with the Kardashians” has been running for 9.
But in the end, it's only a movie.
Moving on.
Cheers.
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