Dissecting The Iron Man 3 Trailer

The new Iron Man 3 Trailer has been revealed to all but the most secluded humans holed up in barren, 4g –dead zones and wifi cold spots. Speculation was already inflating among fans, as this is the first post-Avengers escapade for Marvel, and the first for Tony Stark since the less than stellar Iron Man 2, which many people took for a hundred million dollar commercial for The Avengers.  The trailer’s release has only permeated that supply of imaginative wonder as it gets dissected frame by frame for potential clues to the story’s premise and direction.

We’re fans at heart; hence, we’re no different. Read our observations below.

The Iron Man Rises?

Before we begin, we understand that there are a million, non-linear ideas taken out of context that can go into a trailer. Often, these previews isolate tones, themes, and emotions targeted at a specific audience, which may be a far cry from the final product. How many of us remember thinking In Bruges was going to be a lighthearted comedy?

But there is no mistaking the new dark tones present in the third arch of the Iron Man franchise. It starts with a battered Tony Stark laying submissively in a frozen wasteland, and the rest of the trailer is a progression of ass kicking at his expense. It’s a polar shuffle from the marking strategies of the previous films, which used tracks from ACDC and Robert Downey Jr.’s one-liners to lure us into the seats with promises of fun and humor. It’s almost like they hired Christopher Nolan to direct it. Like The Dark Knight Rises, this installment will be the darkness before a dawn, though we can still expect Downy Jr. to be in full court jester mode since one of the more endearing qualities of the franchise is his tenacity to laugh at his own insane circumstances.

There are other similarities with Nolan’s Batman trilogy, the first of which being that Batman and Iron man are essentially inter-dimensional doppelgangers of each other, with both being emotionally unstable billionaires- with daddy issues- who use their fortunes to fund their vendettas.

Like TDKR, the villain is inspired from the first film, with Batman resurrecting The League of Shadows and Iron Man doing battle with his deadliest foe, The Mandarin, who was first alluded to in the first film with the inclusion of a terrorist group known as The Ten Rings. The baddies themselves are both international terrorists, with distinguishably questionable voices (Ben Kingsley sounds like he’s narrating a Charles Dickens novel), who employ methods of attrition as a strategy to slowly break down their opponents.  Bane crushed batman’s back and used his weapons and vehicles against him while the Iron Man trailer reveals that The Mandarin will blow up Stark’s home and sabotage the technology to manipulate his suit. Which brings us to our next critical observation…

War Machines

 Iron Man 3 looks to continue paving a journey to define what it is to be a hero, the seeds of which were planted by Captain America in The Avengers when he implied that Tony Stark was just an egomaniac in a suit.

“Take away the suit, and what are you?” He asks.

Of course Tony rose to the occasion by sacrificing himself for the sake of New York, and it appears that IM3 will continue developing that theme by stripping him of his toys and pushing his limits as a man.

We see shots of various suits of armors self destructing in sequence, and several (somewhat erotic) clips of the Iron Man suit attacking Tony and Pepper. There’s no doubt that director, Shane Black, knew the kind of response such imagery would generate. One can’t help but notice sci-fi elements from classics like Bladerunner and Isaac Asimov novels.

This game of man vs. machine will be escalated by Tony Stark’s voluntary fusion with nano technology. The inclusion of Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), and a shot of Tony  commanding pieces of his armor via telekinesis, all but guarantee that portions of the “Extremis” storyline from the comics will be at play. Expect Tony to gain the ability to manipulate technology – from cellphones to satellites – through the sheer will of his mind.

With over six months to go, many of these thoughts can be accused of moving prematurely, but where’s the fun in waiting to find out?