Iron Man Goes Retro
Our good friends at Ain’t It Cool got a sneak peek at the first Iron Man armor to be featured in the upcoming film. I think it looks very cool, very evocative of the very first Iron Man adventure where he scrapped together the materials needed for his life-saving armor from used parts while held captive of the vile North Vietnamese bigshot, Wong-Chu!
I really like the armor, especially the glowing circle in the center of the chestplate. Getting some good vibes from Iron Man!
Also, some mixed news from Aint It Cool when it comes to FF2 - looks like the voice of Galactus will be Laurence Fishburne, and also looks like the early advance word on the film isn’t very promising:
[A]pparently in Seattle on the night of April 10th - Fox had a test screening of FANTASTIC FOUR: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER and the word on the screening that has reached me is that the film was “sooo bad that they felt dirty and wanted to write letters of complaint.”
The film is supposed to be released in June - not a lot of time to fix any problems, if they exist. Wait and see…
Iron Man does look promising. I was afraid the whole thing was going to be a CGI misfire, but if they’re making actual costumes, that does indeed give me hope that they’ll take this at least partly seriously. I assume the Mandarin is slated to be the baddie? How ’bout a Fin Fang Foom guest shot? We haven’t heard from him in quite a while.
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As for the FF, well, I recall the critical consensus was bad last time . . . and I really liked the movie! I’ll take this AICN report then, with a grain of salt. I’ll admit, the choice of Fishburne is not instinctively satisfying, but he might be just fine. If only they’d gotten Alec Baldwin. They wouldn’t have to make Galactus CGI to make him enormous; Baldwin could just wear a costume.
True, if they made it to Galactus’s scale, they’d've had to purchase a few thousand extra feet of material to let it out a bit so it’d fit Alec, but it’d have been worth it! He’d be perfectly cast: he could probably eat a planet’s worth of food as it is. Anyway if this movie does turn out bad, I knew it was a mistake to give the Surfer eyes!
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The Iron Man armor looks awesome!
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jaytee, I think the Mandarin will be the bad guy in the film. I wonder if it will be terrorists who kidnap the injured Tony Stark and force him to build a super weapon? After all, North Vietnam and Wong Chu are pretty dated!
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About FF, you are right: the critical word on the first film wasn’t very good, but the movie was much better than they let on. I enjoyed the film a lot and while it wasn’t perfect, it was fairly faithful to the spirit of the FF. I kept and open mind then and will keep an open mind now!
As for Alec Baldwin, yes, he would be the perfect giant-sized Galactus. I know in my heart they wont use the classic oldschool Galactus for the film, and more likely than not just shine a flashlight into the camera and give us Fishburne’s disembodied voice. Dud. Baldwin in that classic outfit stomping around Toho-esque sets is just what FF2 needs!!
If Baldwin couldn’t do it, it might be time to get one of my heroes, Gene Simmons, into the outfit and let him ham it up to his heart’s content!
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HF, I agree - this armor is a great sign that Iron Man may end up being pretty good! Wait and see!
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Gene Simmons, eh? He did do a bang-up job in “Runaway,” didn’t he? It would be a major disappointment if they do Galactus in the disembodied style you suggest. The whole point of Galactus is his almost inconceivable physicality. Who wants to listen to a ball of light get the Cosmic Munchies?
As for Iron Man, yeah, maybe terrorists instead, but given the unfortunate Hollywood superhero movie penchant for these “Oh No! It Was YOU Who Killed My [Fill in the Blank]” plot devices, it’ll probably be some guy out of Stark’s past who betrayed him all those years ago, and put him in that suit of armor.
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jaytee,
Some news. I am now hearing that Fishburne won’t be the voice of Galactus, but rather the voice of the Silver Surfer. Not the way I always imagined it, but lets give it a chance!
As for Gene Simmons, I think is some ways he is a lot like Galactus in real life! In a good way, of course!
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