Question: Why are Justin Hammer's hands dirty when he is sitting with Vanko in the hangar, after he busted him out of prison?
Question: Can someone please tell me why Stark brought strawberries when he visits Pepper in her office? He knows that she is allergic to them and we know that he likes/loves her, but it was a spiteful and mean thing to do. Not to mention insensitive. If he did that just to get the model, couldn't he had done it differently? The whole idea just doesn't make sense to me.
Answer: He wanted to do something nice for her, but since he is a pretty self-absorbed, shallow multi-billionaire, he forgot about her allergy. He remembered that there was SOMETHING about her and strawberries, but misremembered and thought it meant she really liked them. He makes a simple human mistake, not out of meanness or spite, but because he honestly does not remember.
Answer: I've only watched this movie once but I think he got the strawberries from the man on the side of the road, and he just didn't want them. The man did just place them on the seat of Tony's car.
He stopped on the side of the road to get the strawberries. The man didn't throw them into his car as he drove by.
Question: Why was it so hard for Justin Hammer to get Vanko's bird to him from Russia? Was it because he just didn't care or because he was running a highly inefficient company that simply couldn't find the bird?
Chosen answer: Hammer is impatient. he did not want to waste time and money to go find Vanko's bird. he just wanted Vanko to get the work done.
Answer: Couldn't get the bird from Russia as he couldn't be seen as being linked to him.
Question: Why do many people consider this to be one of the worst Marvel movies?
Answer: Having rewatched it recently I thought about this. At least partly it's because *at the time* some people felt it spent too long putting Avengers pieces in place, introducing Nick Fury more, Scarlet Widow, Tony's dad's history, etc. In hindsight however that aspect fits perfectly with the other films that came after it, so feels much less jarring now. I'd also say that Whiplash was somewhat underwhelming, and Sam Rockwell was criminally underused. Personally I'd rate Thor: The Dark World lower than this, but would also argue that the "worst" Marvel film is very much a relative term, as while some may be better than others, they've yet to really release a true stinker.
Answer: I absolutely love the MCU, and I consider this to be one of the weaker entries. Not because of world building and setting up future films, I never had a problem with that. I just personally find the story to be a little lackluster, and the villain to be rather bland (to be fair, I always thought Iron Man had a pretty weak rogues gallery anyway).
Question: How can Tony get from Malibu to Queens in 40 minutes? How fast can the suit fly?
Answer: While no upper limit on the suit's flight speed has been given, the first movie establishes that the Mark III suit was capable of supersonic velocities. With the new suit demonstrating a much higher power output that the original, as stated during the climactic battle sequence, it's reasonable to assume that Tony is capable of reaching the sort of speeds necessary to make the journey in the time available. The distance from Malibu, California to Queens, New York City is 2477 miles. This distance would require a speed of 3715 mph to cover in 40 minutes. That speed equates to Mach 5.007. The current record speed for a rocket powered manned vehicle was set by the North American X-15 at a speed of 4,519 in 1967. It would be safe to assume that a weapons manufacturer could design a flight system capable of those speeds.
Question: In the scene where Tony takes strawberries to the office, there is a cool 'thing' on the desk that doesn't stop turning. It looks like it's a holder with a metal stick on top, balanced by a loose stick on each end. Does anyone know what that thing is called? I can't find it on Google (but I'm probably using the wrong search strings).
Question: Why doesn't Stark like anyone to hand him things? Is it just a quirk or is there a reason behind it?
Answer: In the beginning of the first film, Tony has no problem being handed things. However, when he is kidnapped and his life is threatened and he realises that his weapons are being used for the wrong purposes, his mind starts to change. In his head, he believes that whenever he is handed something, terrible events happen. For example, when he was handed the documents to sign for his weapons in the beginning of the first film, he found out that they were being sold to the wrong people. Also, when the blonde reporter hands him photos, it's of a town being devastated because of his weapons, and he feels at fault. So he develops this small fear or dislike of being handed things because they do not end well and end up causing him pain.
Question: How does Ivan Vanko know that Tony Stark will be driving at the Monaco Grand Prix, and is therefore open to attack, when Tony himself made that decision at the Grand Prix, like, 5 minutes before the race was to start?
Chosen answer: He doesn't. All he knows is that Stark will be there. His aim is not necessarily to confront Stark directly, but to humiliate him by attacking the race; showing that Stark's technology is not unique to him, to crack the world's confidence in Stark so that the government will have no choice but to step in to bring him down. Stark choosing to drive the car, thus allowing Vanko to attack him directly, to "make him bleed", as he put it, is merely a very useful bonus.
Question: The boxes which contain the particle accelerator are marked "Project Pegasus". Is this some sort of comic book reference?
Chosen answer: Yes, it is. Project PEGASUS (standing for Potential Energy Group/Alternate Sources/United States) is principally a scientific base used in multiple stories set in the Marvel Universe, although it has also served as a place of incarceration for super-powered individuals at various points in its existence. Within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Pegasus is the SHIELD scientific base used in the Avengers movie to study the Tesseract, that is destroyed when the portal used to bring Loki to Earth implodes.
Question: When does Stan Lee make his cameo in this movie?
Chosen answer: Very early on, as Stark's leaving the Expo, Lee appears ahead of Stark, dressed as television interviewer Larry King - Stark even greets him as "Larry" as he passes by.
Question: In both Iron Man movies it is made clear that the power source that Tony has in his chest is the same one that powers his Iron Man suits. How exactly can Col. Rhodes simply go downstairs and start using one? Why would Tony have a set of armor that didn't use the power source in his chest?
Answer: He always intended it to go to Rhodes. Natasha says there are security protocols in place to prevent someone just taking his suits. Tony knows that he isn't the best person to protect the people, Rhody is. Tony can't handle the consequences/unintended casualties of war. We see this in his ptsd in Iron Man 3.
Answer: As the suits get more advanced and elaborate they require more power, logically this means that the cores would need to produce more energy and would need to get bigger. Tony's heart on the other hand is perfectly fine, if not better, with less power circulating next to it. In the comics you see the armor using bigger and more arc reactors, some using several cores at once.
Answer: Tony most likely upgraded the mark 2 (War Machine) armor in between both films. We see in Iron Man 3 that each armor he build later is remotely controlled so they would need their own power source.
Question: The new element created -- what is it? And why does Breast Padiumul end so quickly?
Chosen answer: He created a new element more powerful than palladium that doesn't end quickly - likely Vibranium, but that's never referenced in the movie. Palladium was burning out quickly because of the continuous use of the Iron Man suit.
Answer: It was meant to be a type of Vibranium before Captain America came out, so it's left ambigious in the movies.
Question: At the end of the first Iron Man, Nick Fury appears and tells Stark about the Avengers Initiative. Then, in The Incredible Hulk, Stark makes a cameo and his conversation with Ross makes it seem like Stark's fully on board with Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. But, during this movie, Stark says he refused Fury's offer and at the end is not even a full member, certainly not someone Fury would send as a representative. Is the Hulk movie supposed to take place after Iron Man III? Did something happen between Stark and Fury between I and II, or did the production crew simply forget/neglect Stark's cameo in the Hulk film?
Answer: The Incredible Hulk takes place at about the same time as Iron Man 2 - during Stark's conversation with Fury at the end of the film, a live TV news report can be seen in the background from Culver University, the same location where the Hulk battled the troops under General Ross. Stark's a good choice to send to talk to the General; he's clearly personally acquainted with Ross, from their conversation in The Incredible Hulk, and is part of the Initiative, just in a consultant role, not necessarily as Iron Man.
Question: Something that has always bothered me about this movie - Howard Stark discovered a new element when Tony was a child, but did not have the technology to create it. He hid the plans for it in the Expo. I'm fine with that. However, is it just me, or does it seem like an extreme coincidence that the element his father found is the exact element that can replace the Palladium Tony is already using and that is making him sick? It also seems as though Howard knew he wouldn't be around to make it, even though it is only 20 years in the future. Is there implied to be some time travel having happened here, in which Howard Stark learned that at some point, Tony would need an upgraded form of Palladium and that he would not be around long enough to make it?
Answer: While convenient for the plot, there is no indication Howard Stark has knowledge of the future from time travel, although he was a smart enough man to know technology would advance enough for the element to be synthesized and he knew his son was smart enough to understand what needed to be done to create and use the new element. Howard Stark's Arc Reactor wasn't fully clean running and Howard knew with the new element, the Arc Reactor would be as close as possible to sustaining clean energy similar to the Tesseract. I can not say for certain, but I believe Howard's reactor ran on Palladium as well, so he was aware of the dangers it presented, he was not aware Tony would build a mini-arc reactor to put in his chest. Howard put the blueprint in the 1974 expo with instructions for S.H.I.E.L.D. to give to Tony when ready. However, it should also be noted that Stark Industries shifted from trying to provide sustainable energy to weapons manufacturing which was part of the reason Tony never discovered his father's work earlier.
Answer: There's no clear answer to these questions. Perhaps Howard had some theoretical ideas of where Arc Reactor technology would have shortcomings. Also Howard possibly expected Tony would follow his father's thinking, despite their clashes. Probably the filmmakers didn't come up with more detail than that and it's just a plot contrivance to keep the story moving and give us a sense of connection without worrying too much about the details.
Question: Is it just me or does Rhodey seem annoyed with Tony in his first scene?
Answer: Rhodey's first comment while said to Tony Stark, was also intended to be for the audience. It was a tongue in cheek 4th wall break. Basically "yes audience, we replaced Rhodey, it's done, get over it, and let's move on with the movie."
Answer: Rhodey is not annoyed with Tony specifically, he is annoyed that he has to testify before the Senator and that Tony was asking him questions as soon as he arrived. He also wants to play down his friendship with Tony so that he doesn't seem biased in favour of Tony maintaining control of Iron Man.
Chosen answer: It is stated in the commentary that Sam Rockwell wanted his character to have a spray tan, making his hands an orange color.
sadie