8. Extremis As A Political Allegory - Iron Man 3
Extremis was the lynch-pin of Aldrich Killian's plan for world domination in Iron Man 3, for he took severely wounded war veterans and subjected them to his virus, which would either regrow their limbs and turn them into pain-induced psychopaths, or heat them to 3000 degrees and cause them to explode. It isn't particularly well explained in the movie, but the virus appears to transform its subjects into angry, violent thugs, when Shane Black and Drew Pearce's screenplay could have gone so much further with its idea. What if the Extremis agents viewed Killian as a saviour? They return from a war they didn't necessarily want to fight in, had Killian restore their limbs, and angry at their country for a war the U.S. arguably shouldn't have been in in the first place, they strike back against the President. It would have needed to be finessed into the screenplay so as not to seem too on the nose, but I really feel like Pearce and Black missed a trick here.