When I originally wrote my "Iron Man 3" review about a week ago, I planned to dedicate a large portion of it analyzing how effective the controversial Mandarin twist was. If I did, then that review would have gone on for ages, so I decided an entire article was more worthy of this subject. The twist, wherein the advertised Mandarin was revealed to be an actor named Trevor Slattery covering for the true Mandarin, Extremis creator Aldrich Killian, was something I originally found hilarious, albeit disrespectful. Subsequent viewings, however, have made me realize that not only is the twist necessary, it's also brilliant.
The thing about Mandarin is, he's only Iron Man's archenemy because he's the best out of a bunch of B and C-list villains who compose Stark's weak rouges gallery. Mandarin was initially invented as a personification of Communism, a Fu Manchu archetype designed to capitalize on the West's fear of the "Other." Since that's an incredibly racist and outdated version, the Mandarin has been reinterpreted every time he's appeared in comics or on screen.
He's been a corrupt archaeologist, a high school friend of Stark's, the spirit of a Chinese warlord, a robot, the name of an organization, and recently a terrorist-funding businessman who allies with other Iron Man rouges and even created an army of Extremis soldiers. Therefore, it only makes sense that the filmmakers chose to once again re-imagine Mandarin for this film, where he is the head of AIM and goes by the name Aldrich Killian.
After being rejected by Tony Stark in 1999, Killian decides that his best weapon in getting back at Stark and the world while proving his superiority is anonymity. When he and Hansen began experimenting with Extremis, causing soldiers to blow up, Killian decided that using a terrorist excuse was the best way to cover up his failings. But then the Avengers incident happened. As Killian himself said, "Ever since that big dude with the hammer fell out of the sky, subtlety's kind of had it's day."
In order to preserve his anonymous M.O. while also making his actions more public, Killian decided to use his imaginary terrorist threat to convince the American people to back his Extremis research. Since the media constructs our reality, he decided that an uber-terrorist that personified people's fear of "The Other" and perverted all forms of Eastern and Western iconography would aid in carrying out his goals.This uber-terrorist would give Killian a smokescreen to kill the President and install a new one, while simultaneously creating a scapegoat to justify militarizing his Extremis project. He even went the extra step and rebranded War Machine as the Iron Patriot, using him as propaganda to personify American military strength before perverting that as part of his Mandarin campaign.
This plan is, quite simply, brilliant. Not only is it highly original for a superhero film, but it offers great social commentary on the role of media and iconography in shaping our modern society, especially in a post-9/11 atmosphere. The great thing about it is, in a way, it's actually a highly meta-interpretation of Mandarin that stays true to his roots. Mandarin was originally Chinese because Stan Lee created him at a time when anything Asian was considered, in the West's eyes, to be evil. Nowadays, the Cold War has given way to the War on Terror, so any version of Mandarin would have to be a terrorist as opposed to a straight up Communist archetype. What Shane Black and Marvel did was take that idea one step further, asking "what if someone in-universe came up with this idea-that you could create an over-the-top character who personified the enemy of the West?"
As for the ten magic rings, while they could very easily be utilized in a post-Avengers world, the stories and tone of the solo "Iron Man" movies have always been action-comedy based tonally and tech-based storywise. Even though magic can exist in this world, it has no place in an Iron Man film. Extremis, however, does, since it deals with the misuse of science and whether scientific advancement is justified with military contracts. It makes total sense to make the real Mandarin powered by Extremis instead of magic rings, with the Ten Rings being referenced as the terrorist organization from the first film, here having their imagery used as part of Killian's attempt to make the Mandarin appear more threatening.
Some say the Trevor Slattery reveal is played way too much for laughs. Again, it keeps things in line with the action-comedy tone of the previous films, and cleverly upends the audience's expectations in order to focus fully on the Extremis storyline. It helps that Ben Kingsley is brilliant in both the fake Mandarin and Trevor personas, giving him a chance to flex his serious and comedic acting chops.
What some may see as a waste of a role is really an excuse for Kingsley to play a character that goes against what people expect of him. If Kingsley was to play the Mandarin straight, how exactly would a final battle between him and RDJ work? Would audiences pay to see a 70 year old man trying to kill Iron Man with laser rings? Even for a comic book film, especially one set post-Avengers, that concept is way too silly to work onscreen, at least in a solo "Iron Man" movie.
Instead, Killian's plan makes him a much more threatening villain, which is helped both by Guy Pearce's intimidating performance and his epic final battle with Stark. The entire point of the film was that he was trying to divert attention from himself with a larger-than-life villain, so of course he seems lesser compared to Kingsley. But the fact that he convinced even Stark for a time to go on this wild goose chase is a testament to his genius.
In a way, Killian is a dark mirror to Stark, going through a similar character arc but in reverse. Stark started off rich and famous, embracing the limelight but not giving a second thought to whether his scientific advancements were actually helping anyone. Killian was a scientific idealist who started off small, before deciding to work in the shadows. Tony reinvents himself by augmentation through technology, and decides to help people. Killian reinvents himself by augmentation through Extremis biotech, and wants to use it to perfect other people. Tony develops an ego thanks to the media's fascination with him. Killian uses the media to further his own ends.
Tony becomes paranoid after "Avengers" and, to shield himself from harm, invents remote-controlled Iron Man suits as an apparent extension of himself. Killian, to shield himself from the public, invents the "remote-controlled" Mandarin persona. In the end, Tony realizes he is perfect, not because of technology, but because of his own humanity, and blows up his suits to remove his mask and show that Iron Man is not the suits, it's his human skills as a mechanic that make him super. Killian, in the end, goes power mad, convinced Extremis makes him perfect and adopting the Mandarin identity for himself, as a way of consolidating his superhuman status.
Thus, he is a manifestation of Tony's own demons, becoming what Tony would have become had he not broken his reliance on technology over the course of the film. This makes Killian even more effective as Tony's archenemy, because he compliments Tony's character arc that was always the main focus of the movie. And that's not even counting that he blew up Tony's mansion, put Happy in a coma, and nearly killed Pepper, stripping Tony of everything he holds dear and raising the stakes higher than ever in an Iron Man film. And if that's still not enough to convince fans he's a great Mandarin, since Killian borrowed the name from Chinese history and presented it as a title, someone else could become the Mandarin in an Iron Man or Avengers sequel and plague Stark with the actual ten rings.
Even if that doesn't happen, the Mandarin as presented here is faithful to the comics in his own way. Besides his plan and character arc being brilliant in the context of the films, Killian invented the Mandarin persona that Trevor then embodied, bringing life to the classical version of the character. When Killian takes on the persona towards the end, he becomes the modern-day version of the Mandarin, that of the terrorism funding businessman who creates an army of Extremis soldiers and fights Iron Man in an epic duel, where he uses energy blast fueled martial arts moves to reduce Stark's armors to shreds.
Not only this, but Killian/Mandarin has even more layers when you factor in the elements from other Iron Man villains. Killian's fire breathing may be a reference to Extremis villain Mallen, but combined with his dragon tattoos, the filmmakers paid homage to the Mandarin's use of Chinese iconography, as well as referenced Fin Fang Foom, the dragon whose species gave Mandarin his rings. On another note, his status as the "big brain" that heads AIM is a reference to MODOK, adding elements from another over the top Iron Man villain into Killian's layered portrayal.
Ultimately, the filmmakers made a great decision to take a bit character from the comics, Aldrich Killian, and expand him. They gave him a fleshed out plan and motivation while combining elements from other Iron Man villains to create a solid, threatening version of the Mandarin worthy of testing the MCU Tony Stark's mettle. True, we may not have gotten the armor vs. rings battle we were all waiting for, but we got a version of Mandarin that, like the different cartoons and comic variations, reimagines the character for the context of this story. Aldrich Killian is the perfect MCU Mandarin, and thanks to him "Iron Man 3" sets itself apart from its superhero movie brethren by doing something truly unique with adapting the material.
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