2. The Mandarin (Iron Man 3)
I cant deny it: I loved Iron Man 3, flaws and all. I dont entirely agree with calling this move stupid, but since there is such a divided opinion on the Mandarin plot twist it needs to be mentioned. Basically, The Mandarin teased in the promos and the terrorist videos in the film isnt the real Mandarin, but an actor called Trevor. This leaves Guy Pearces character Aldrich Killian to be the actual villain of the piece. The trouble is that without any prior knowledge of the comics, it is very hard to fault this at all. The acting is incredible (Sir Ben Kingsley pulls it out of the bag with both the threatening and drunk sides of Trevor) and it is a clever plot that, unusually, almost no one guessed in advance. So whats the problem? People are angry because its the equivalent of scrubbing out Magneto from the X-Men world or Loki from Thors. Its very easy to take a polarised side on the matter, because while films and comics can and should be considered as completely separate entities, meaning that massive plot changes can occur in one without ultimately mattering to the other, it also means that Iron Mans arch-enemy is completely disregarded and is now unable to be in any other Marvel film. Its definitely good that the character wasnt portrayed in the full racist way that would be necessary to copy the comics- I think most fans agree on that much, at least- but there was clearly something more that people wanted from such an iconic part of the Marvel universe. This unfortunately left many feeling rather deflated after seeing the film, even though everything else was top notch.