Transformers: One - New Animated Prequel coming September 20th, 2024 - New Toy Official Images!

[ZacWilliam1]

Especially since the toy was packaged unmasked, meaning the spoiler was right there on display for all to see in the plastic bubble, before one ever even bought it and opened it up.

That reminds me of a decent while before Attack of the Clones released and I briefly checked the Anakin figure for a glance only for the package to say something like: "Removable hand to recreate hangar duel!"

Definitely biggest spoiler I've gotten from a toy.


-ZacWilliam, did better than my friend who said he would peek at just one page of the Phantom Menace graphic novel before the movie was out and opened it randomly right to OBi-Wan cutting Maul in half.

 

[LordGigaIce]

I mean I just brought up the Iron Man 3 twist as an example of trailers and toys trying to hide the plot. Didn't mean to get into A Thing about it but sure...

As an Iron Man fan I hated the Iron Man 3 twist. The Mandarin is Tony's archenemy from the comics and all the "he's a racist caricature!" stuff never sat well with me.
Fact is the Mandarin hadn't been treated like a Yellow Peril archetype since the early 70s. He got a massive revision that helped give him much more depth with the Hands of the Mandarin arc in the 80s. Hell, the award winning Invincible Iron Man run in the late 2000s/early 2010s (around when the MCU Iron Man movies were in development) featured the Mandarin as the main villain in a story that utterly stripped away any vestige of the Yellow Peril depiction, down to rewriting his backstory.
A blueprint to do the Mandarin properly had existed, arguably for decades. And they went with that stupid twist.

The most insulting part of it was that the Mandarin as played by Kingsley prior to the twist was yet another suitable reinvention that reflected the era it was made but nooooooo we can't have that.

The Mandarin was teased all the way back in the first Iron Man with the Ten Rings group. Iron Man 3 was supposed to bring that full circle, a buildup to Tony facing off with his comic book nemesis but we didn't get that.
And while the MCU finally put a good Mandarin on screen it was after Tony had been written off meaning that confrontation would never happen.

Iron Man 3 sucks. Its twist sucks. And in retrospect it's when I lost any enthusiasm for the MCU.

 

[Shadewing]

As an Iron Man fan I hated the Iron Man 3 twist. The Mandarin is Tony's archenemy from the comics and all the "he's a racist caricature!" stuff never sat well with me.

For the record, I've never felt that way about him. But the 90's were overly sensitive about that, so it kinda makes sense they'd want to change his colors at least tone down any perceptions of it.

As for MCU, well MCU's worst thing in like 90% of its movies, even the good ones; are the way they handle the villians.

 

[LordGigaIce]

For the record, I've never felt that way about him. But the 90's were overly sensitive about that, so it kinda makes sense they'd want to change his colors at least tone down any perceptions of it.

My apologies. I didn't mean for that to come off as a response to you, but I can see how it did.

I was mostly just referring to the general objections some people had about the prospect of the Mandarin before Iron Man 3/their defence of that movie's twist.

But you're right. The 90s were sensitive about that stuff (understandable) but reacted in weird ways.
"We'll make the Asian coded villain character green!" wasn't even unique to 90s Iron Man. James Bond Jr did that with Dr. No, and I'm pretty sure there's a Flash Gordon cartoon from the late 80s/early 90s where Ming is green.

It's a strange solution to the problem, and one that inadvertently makes things worse if you think about it for like more than three seconds.

For the record I love the 90s Iron Man show. It's goofy fun, and was what got me into the character. I wouldn't have read the comics that fixed the Mandarin if it wasn't for the show that made him green
I still have his action figure even. His hands are translucent green. GREEN WITH EVIL!

As for MCU, well MCU's worst thing in like 90% of its movies, even the good ones; are the way they handle the villians.

They still haven't fixed that. Like... I'm pretty sure Mads Mikkelsen has forgotten he's the main villain of a MCU movie.

They stumbled into Killmonger and Thanos but like the best villain post-Endgame has been who? DeFoe's Norman Osborn? A villain from an unrelated movie series?

 

[Shadewing]

My apologies. I didn't mean for that to come off as a response to you, but I can see how it did.

I was mostly just referring to the general objections some people had about the prospect of the Mandarin before Iron Man 3/their defence of that movie's twist.

But you're right. The 90s were sensitive about that stuff (understandable) but reacted in weird ways.
"We'll make the Asian coded villain character green!" wasn't even unique to 90s Iron Man. James Bond Jr did that with Dr. No, and I'm pretty sure there's a Flash Gordon cartoon from the late 80s/early 90s where Ming is green.

It's a strange solution to the problem, and one that inadvertently makes things worse if you think about it for like more than three seconds.

For the record I love the 90s Iron Man show. It's goofy fun, and was what got me into the character. I wouldn't have read the comics that fixed the Mandarin if it wasn't for the show that made him green
I still have his action figure even. His hands are translucent green. GREEN WITH EVIL!


They still haven't fixed that. Like... I'm pretty sure Mads Mikkelsen has forgotten he's the main villain of a MCU movie.

They stumbled into Killmonger and Thanos but like the best villain post-Endgame has been who? DeFoe's Norman Osborn? A villain from an unrelated movie series?

I didn't think you were actually targeting me, but for Autistic reasons, I felt the need to be sure to state that I didn't buy into that despite mentioning it.

Manderin being green, had some logic to it. I remember, least on his toy, he seems to have scales on his arms. And the rings come from Fin Fang Foom, a Dragon. So it was my believe that him having all the rings altered his appearance to be slightly Dragonish.

 

[Sabrblade]

They stumbled into Killmonger and Thanos but like the best villain post-Endgame has been who?

the MCU finally put a good Mandarin on screen

He may not have been the final-boss evil entity of the movie, but Shang-Chi's father was the main focal antagonist of the movie, and he was an excellent, well-written character with depth and complexity.

 

[Shadewing]

Shang-Chi overall has been probably the best post-End Game movie. Even box office wise it did really damn well... and they've done hug all with it since.

 

[Dekafox]

Yeah, I've been waiting for the sequel they set up at the end, and nada. He was a character I had literally never heard of before, seemed unimportant in the grand scheme of things, and they totally sold me on him.

 

[Superomegaprime]

Shang-Chi overall has been probably the best post-End Game movie. Even box office wise it did really damn well... and they've done **** all with it since.

Well Marvel has F up massively since End Game and a lot of people saw that film as the best place to pretty much jump off the MCU bandwagon as the character who was the face and the one whose films were actually making up the backbone of the MCU, were written out, but then again, Marvel did NOTHING truly meaningful with the Hulk, they had a character arc for him in Thor 3 & into IF War and then, come End Game, they destoryed him as a character with the whole Time skip thing and I honestly believe that the whole Snap thing, could of been used as a means to trigger the mutliverse, by pointing out, that having incredible power, has consquences and using it in the way Thanos did, could of caused a massive rift between Universes to enable the appearance of other heroes, such as X-men without having to explain why there has been no mutants in the MCU until that point!

 

[LordGigaIce]

He may not have been the final-boss evil entity of the movie, but Shang-Chi's father was the main focal antagonist of the movie, and he was an excellent, well-written character with depth and complexity.

He was but he's also frustrating to me as an Iron Man fan. Fact is I like Hands of the Mandarin's take on the Mandarin. I like what they did with him in Invincible Iron Man. I liked Kingsley's take before the twist. And I liked Leung's take.
Which only proves that there are multiple ways to adapt the character in modern media and the MCU's skittishness about featuring him in Iron Man's series (despite hinting that he was there) was unjustified.

It's also frustrating that the MCU finally got its head out of its rear and did a good, straightforward adaptation of the character only after RDJ stepped away/Tony Stark died.
Like as an Iron Man fan I don't think I'm asking for too much to want to see Iron Man punch his arch nemesis in an Iron Man movie, but apparently I was.

Setting that aside though... I still have issues with how he was handled in Shang-Chi. As you mentioned he's not the "final boss," and so any way you cut it that movie still ends in a grey CGI clusterf*** of a final fight, when the final confrontation between Shang-Chi and his father had far more emotional weight.
Secondly, they killed him after one movie. He was great for the film he was in... but he fell victim to Marvel's disposable villain problem.

Manderin being green, had some logic to it. I remember, least on his toy, he seems to have scales on his arms. And the rings come from Fin Fang Foom, a Dragon. So it was my believe that him having all the rings altered his appearance to be slightly Dragonish.

Oh absolutely. And in the episode where we get his backstory he's a normal ass Chinese dude and glows green when he gets the rings so in a vacuum this one is understandable. He's probably the easiest to justify of all the "Asian villains coloured green" that existed around that time.

 

[Undead Scottsman]

I mean I just brought up the Iron Man 3 twist as an example of trailers and toys trying to hide the plot. Didn't mean to get into A Thing about it but sure...

As an Iron Man fan I hated the Iron Man 3 twist. The Mandarin is Tony's archenemy from the comics and all the "he's a racist caricature!" stuff never sat well with me.
Fact is the Mandarin hadn't been treated like a Yellow Peril archetype since the early 70s. He got a massive revision that helped give him much more depth with the Hands of the Mandarin arc in the 80s. Hell, the award winning Invincible Iron Man run in the late 2000s/early 2010s (around when the MCU Iron Man movies were in development) featured the Mandarin as the main villain in a story that utterly stripped away any vestige of the Yellow Peril depiction, down to rewriting his backstory.
A blueprint to do the Mandarin properly had existed, arguably for decades. And they went with that stupid twist.

The most insulting part of it was that the Mandarin as played by Kingsley prior to the twist was yet another suitable reinvention that reflected the era it was made but nooooooo we can't have that.

The Mandarin was teased all the way back in the first Iron Man with the Ten Rings group. Iron Man 3 was supposed to bring that full circle, a buildup to Tony facing off with his comic book nemesis but we didn't get that.
And while the MCU finally put a good Mandarin on screen it was after Tony had been written off meaning that confrontation would never happen.

Iron Man 3 sucks. Its twist sucks. And in retrospect it's when I lost any enthusiasm for the MCU.

I hated the twist when I first saw it, but I love it now. I had such a wave of confusion when it was first revealed and it's rare to get that strong of a emotional reaction from a superhero movie. The twist of making the "Mandarin" such a blatantly artificial character - He's middle eastern/asian fusion technological terrorist, literally created by a think tank to be the most current events villain possible. (Well, for 2013)

 

[LordGigaIce]

I hated the twist when I first saw it, but I love it now. I had such a wave of confusion when it was first revealed and it's rare to get that strong of a emotional reaction from a superhero movie. The twist of making the "Mandarin" such a blatantly artificial character - He's middle eastern/asian fusion technological terrorist, literally created by a think tank to be the most current events villain possible. (Well, for 2013)

Eh to me it's too smart a take for its own good. To paraphrase Pitch Meeting... I just wanted to see the Mandarin, man. It's not that deep.
And I'm not sure I agree that any strong reaction is a good one.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

As for MCU, well MCU's worst thing in like 90% of its movies, even the good ones; are the way they handle the villians.

This is a major reason why the MCU lost me so quickly. I knew something was wrong when everyone was heaping wild praise on Iron Man but by the time it got to the end credits I already couldn't remember the villain's name.

 

[Sabrblade]

This is a major reason why the MCU lost me so quickly. I knew something was wrong when everyone was heaping wild praise on Iron Man but by the time it got to the end credits I already couldn't remember the villain's name.

His name was Jeff Bridges.

Spoiler

That's short for "Businessman Jeff Bridges".

 

[LordGigaIce]

This is a major reason why the MCU lost me so quickly. I knew something was wrong when everyone was heaping wild praise on Iron Man but by the time it got to the end credits I already couldn't remember the villain's name.

It's actually related to the Mandarin discussion 'cause Iron Man went into filming with the idea that the Mandarin would be the shadowy puppet master villain and Obadiah Stane would just be his heavy. Marvel Studios overthought the problem with the Mandarin though and decided to just not cast the role partway through filming, deciding to leave the Ten Rings as a hint for down the road.

The end result was that someone who wasn't really supposed to be the main villain ended up being that almost by default. And it shows. I like Jeff Bridges as an actor, but MCU Iron Monger has nothing to him (aside from a sick segway) and that would cast the dye for most MCU villains from thereon out.

 

[Cybersnark]

This is a major reason why the MCU lost me so quickly. I knew something was wrong when everyone was heaping wild praise on Iron Man but by the time it got to the end credits I already couldn't remember the villain's name.

How do you forget a name like "Obadiah Stane?"

 

[LBD "Nytetrayn"]

On the flipside, I remember how this backfired with Mask of the Phantasm, since they made the Phatasm's figure able to have a removable outfit. So anyone that bought that toy knew the twist before ever seeing the movie. Its a good thing the Internet wasn't really a thing back then, or it would have been plastered everywhere.

Same with The Blank from Dick Tracy:

And let us not forget Hasbro and Takara trying to cover up the twists of the new leaders in the '86 Transformers movie in various ways.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

That reminds me of a decent while before Attack of the Clones released and I briefly checked the Anakin figure for a glance only for the package to say something like: "Removable hand to recreate hangar duel!"

Definitely biggest spoiler I've gotten from a toy.

See also the Final Battle Jango Fett toy with a removable head. That toyline was something else.

 

[Donocropolis]

See also the Final Battle Jango Fett toy with a removable head. That toyline was something else.

I mean, ANY Star Wars figure has a removable head if you're motivated.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

True, and a lot of them are interchangeable.

Transformers team, please notice this.