sadly, alas, no. if you've stumbled upon this post hoping to find some smart gear to wear as you do one of them boss "iron man" races involving water, bikes and running, you have, alas, come to the wrong place, look you see. this one is going to be all about the other iron man, as in Iron Man, him off of the comics and that smart film what they made.
this weekend i had reason to dig through a few more of the ever dwindling boxes we still have stuff in. whilst the purpose of this digging was, curiously, to find some Playstation 2, or if you like PS2, games, i found these as i went about my business. the toy element was one i had kind of forgotten about.
the above should look like a boxed, or if you like non-unboxed, smart toy which allows you to add elements of Iron Man armour to a realistic looking Robert Downey jrn action figure, along with an "ultimate" 2 disc edition of the DVD of the movie in a smart case which looks like most of the head of Iron Man. indeed yes, i purchased these in the wave of excitement which greeted the triumph of the first film, some eight or so years ago.
eight years on and it's kind of easy to if not forget then not recall just how important and influential that first Iron Man film was on the world of movies as we know it today. it really was one of those films which came along that you could point at and say was a "game changer".
why? well, let's have a look. at the time this came out, "super hero" or if you like comic book movies were in a slump. yes, i know the hype was building around The Dark Knight at the time, but it hadn't come along and smashed box office records just yet.
up to the point of release of Iron Man, we'd had two efforts at making a movie of The Hulk fail despite the talent thrown at them, Batman Begins won critical acclaim and praise from fans but was by no means a huge financial success, and the otherwise well received, money making Spiderman and X Men films had fallen apart with failed third films.
once again, as was the case right after Batman & Robin in the 90s, it seemed that the comic book movie world was dead, for if there is no money in it then no films would be made. quite a calculated risk paid off. in an unusual move, it was evidently the case that Disney & Marvel elected to go for which character would make the best film, rather than which character was the most bankable. let's be honest, as well liked as the concept was, before this film Iron Man was hardly the best known comic super hero, was he?
casting Robert Downey jnr was a similar masterstroke. it would be fair to say, pre-2008, he was an actor considered as talented as he was troubled, which is to say a lot, but for the most part the latter prevented people harnessing the former. whilst he wasn't grade A box office stuff at this stage, he was someone perpetually loved by fans. in no way was he a safe bet for the role, but he was a good one.
the knock on effects of the success of the films? well, at their most obvious, this would be all them Avengers films you see today. if Iron Man had failed on the level that Hulk did, it's unlikely more money would have been thrown at the rest. also, the financial success did, to a degree, allow Disney to get their hands on Star Wars, both in terms of the cost of doing so and winning the trust of everyone that they could do a very good job with that property. and, so far, you'd have to say they have.
but hey, back to my semi-shiny sealed plastic toy and DVD set. the question is, what to do with them? in terms of value, the action figure seems to fetch between £30 and £50 - far higher than the R129 i paid for it (roughly £5), but i am not sure that's enough to tempt me to sell it. whilst it would feel like a shame to open it up after all this time, i do kind of think that letting the boys open it and go wild with it offers the best value.
as for the DVD, well, it looks like it should be worth a pretty penny, but alas no. other than a superior picture quality being available on the Blu Ray, the market for physical formats - no matter how well made - is dead. the value seems to be less than £10, so that can just sit on the shelf untouched, i guess.
hmn, this blog post feels like it has all gone a bit sales pitch, which wasn't the intention. whilst people do from time to time get hold of me and ask about buying stuff off of me, i've never intentionally tried to sell on here, and that's not what this one was meant to be about. more just a remembering the impact of the film, and a bit of "hey, look at the cool stuff" i have sort of thing.
and, as ever, hopefully this has all been of interest to someone out there!
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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