I personally was disappointed as well about who The Mandarin turned out to be... yet after watching it a second time, I was able to enjoy it much more, as long as I ignored everything I knew about the Iron Man franchise (comics).

Now to defend your annoying fetish of different Iron Man models constantly breaking into pieces and Killian's paper-thin motives. -_-

I can appreciate The Mandarin for being so well kept, but not the muddled execution of arriving to it. So many plot points that led us from point A to point B felt misplaced.

I loved the choice. I thought it was hilarious.

I'm glad they went the route they did. The mandarin is just a ridiculous character - he summons a huge cybernetic dragon (fing fang foom) after he collects 10 rings. There was just no way he was going to work in this universe without major revisions.

I thought the 'rick roll' was great. Still laughing about weeks later.

Movie was garbage. Leave to Hollywood to make a Asian character blue eyes and blond hair. It was as bad as the last avatar movie by m knight.

Ken Watanabe would have made a perfect Mandarin.

I think people are going to see it because its iron man and have no idea about the comic book. It was as awful as the last 2 transformers movies.

Characters in Comic books change all the time. Hell DC changed a few storylines with the 52 reboot that are doing great. Yet you will always have those certain fans that rather read the same exact story for 100 years than see a single thing evolve or change.

Am I a fan of Hollywood changing stories? No, but they made the Mandarin interesting. I keep seeing people say "well they made him stupid," how? The guy "advertised" as the Mandarin WASNT HIM.

I remember the trailer, he said you'll never see me coming. Which was true, the mandarin never came. XD

The twist didn't need defending, and that certainly isn't what Black is doing here. Say what you want about the film, but the twist was brilliantly executed, and Kingsley's performance, on both sides of the ruse was nothing short of masterful. If the various award ceremonies ever recognized smaller roles such as this, Kingsley's performance would be a shoe-in for nominations across the board, at the very least.

The movie lost quite a bit of traction after this and the AF1 rescue; it was far from perfect, but this aspect of it was easily one of the most well executed points in the entire MCU. Way too many people are looking at this with fanboy goggles on.

I liked the Mandarin, sure he didnt have his rings that had awesome powers and all that other jazz, BUT it was still executed quite good. I really didnt expect the twist though.. A bit lame but I loved it... All and all The Mandarin reminded me of a drunk Austin Powers.

No problem. Glad I could help. Hollywood is notorious for fucking up movies. They did with dragonball. All Asian cast would have been nice to see. They're trying to do it with akira, they half way did with the last avatar. For prince zuko they wanted Jesse McCartney. Blond hair blue eye to sell the movie.

iron man 3 was entertaining indeed however given the chance i wished i did not watch it in the theater because i primarily watched it because i thought it will be an epic match between ironman and mandarin but instead there was a twist in the middle of the film and as soon as i saw it i felt robbed and after that i was starting to like it again in the final moments when starks iron man army brought awesomeness back and the sweet fight scene and to my surprise peeper potts was the one who killed the villain and i felt robbed again. i liked the concept of the twist but i hated wasting additional money on it in 3D.

I don't think it was the greatest way to go about things, but it's not like they can do anything about it now.