Iron Man 3 Director Shane Black Defends Twist
Iron Man 3 director Shane Black has spoken out in defence of a controversial plot twist in the movie.
The filmmaker has been speaking to Screen Rant about the surprise move which saw Ben Kingsley's villain The Mandarin revealed as a fraud in the superhero threequel.
The veteran actor was cast as a washed-up actor from Croydon, near London, in the film.
"I would say that we struggled to find a way to present a mythic terrorist that had something about him that registered after the movie's over as having been a unique take, or a clever idea, or a way to say something of use," he explained.
"And what was of use about the Mandarin's portrayal in this movie, to me, is that it offers up a way that you can sort of show how people are complicit in being frightened. They buy into things in the way that the audience for this movie buys into it."
Developing his theme, Black explained that the twist was intended as a reflection on the manufacturing of fear for social control in modern society.
"And hopefully, by the end you're like, 'Yeah, we were really frightened of the Mandarin, but in the end he really wasn't that bad after all'. In fact, the whole thing was just a product of this anonymous, behind-the-scenes guy.
"I think that's a message that's more interesting for the modern world because I think there's a lot of behind-the-scenes, a lot of fear, that's generated toward very available and obvious targets, which could perhaps be directed more intelligently at what's behind them."
Iron Man 3 was [uuid=b7f20a16-ec76-4e32-b106-77406acda4db]knocked off the top of the UK box office chart[/uuid] this week.
