Makes sense that they would want to hedge their bets, not give too many specifics about where and when Tony/Iron Man might return. I hope he does, although have you heard that RDJ is not holding out for a raise for himself, but for the other actors from the Avengers (he's even expressed willingness to take a pay cut)? I think that's pretty awesome, if it works.
i did catch the line about Jarvis using SHIELD data for his reconstruction of the Mandarin Chinese Theater explosion. And you raise good points about SHIELD/heroes not wanting to get too involved with US politics; it just would have been nice to get a throwaway line to that effect -- maybe Rhodey saying something about how the military wants to handle this on their own and not get SHIELD involved. (And I just re-read your comment and saw you made reference to some line like that, so that's good, but it must have gotten by me, which suggests that it might have been too subtle. Same thing with Maya and Kilian's motivations -- they were there, but too subtle for a film like this. I'm not saying everything needs to be communicated with a sledgehammer, but they could have given them just a touch more depth I think.)
The film's self-consciousness about the realty of terrorism versus the face we expect it to wear was one of my favorite things about it. And I see what you're saying about Cap looking like a symbol of American imperialism (even though he doesn't actually work for the US military right now), although the same argument could be made for Rhodey, especially in the Iron Patriot suit.
Yeah, it is a shame that Mark Ruffalo wrecked that particular surprise. I still loved it, but I would have loved it even more if I hadn't known. There was a girl sitting behind me practically hyperventilating with joy, and if I hadn't known, that would have been me!
Re: So much tl;dr...
i did catch the line about Jarvis using SHIELD data for his reconstruction of the Mandarin Chinese Theater explosion. And you raise good points about SHIELD/heroes not wanting to get too involved with US politics; it just would have been nice to get a throwaway line to that effect -- maybe Rhodey saying something about how the military wants to handle this on their own and not get SHIELD involved. (And I just re-read your comment and saw you made reference to some line like that, so that's good, but it must have gotten by me, which suggests that it might have been too subtle. Same thing with Maya and Kilian's motivations -- they were there, but too subtle for a film like this. I'm not saying everything needs to be communicated with a sledgehammer, but they could have given them just a touch more depth I think.)
The film's self-consciousness about the realty of terrorism versus the face we expect it to wear was one of my favorite things about it. And I see what you're saying about Cap looking like a symbol of American imperialism (even though he doesn't actually work for the US military right now), although the same argument could be made for Rhodey, especially in the Iron Patriot suit.
Yeah, it is a shame that Mark Ruffalo wrecked that particular surprise. I still loved it, but I would have loved it even more if I hadn't known. There was a girl sitting behind me practically hyperventilating with joy, and if I hadn't known, that would have been me!