Genius, Billionaire, Playboy, Philanthropist

One Marvelous Scene

Nando v Movies started a video series inviting video essayist to weigh in on
what he has called, “One Marvelous Scene.” I've put a link to the whole
playlist here

Everything You Need to Know

So there are a few things I'd like to discuss before we actually delve into
why I chose this one marvelous scene and why I feel this scene is so important
to kicking off the more than 20 film MCU franchise.

• Archetypes of Superheroes
• Tony Stark: 5 Dramatic Situations
• A Scene as a Story

Archetypes of Superheroes

One of the main criticisms of superhero sequels is that they tend to rehash the
same themes and stories as their first installment. And to illustrate this, i'd like to take a detour to DC and talk about Batman.

As far as character and story go, I believe that the main reason The Dark Knight had a such a positive critical reception is that the archetype of Batman that is explored in The Dark Knight is different than the archetype explored in Batman Begins.

The Arc API provides a framework for analyzing and
developing characters in storytelling by archetype and is the source I'll be
using in my analysis. (I developed this framework with jmsdevx)

As shown below, “Batman Begins” follows the journey of Bruce Wayne as
the warrior. He takes on the role of a student of Ra's al Ghul to acheive mastery of various skills that will aid him in leaving a mark on Gotham City to provide the type of hero that was needed to save his parents. And the main struggle Bruce Wayne faces in Batman Begins is whether or not the ends justify the means.

What made “The Dark Knight” so interesting is that it did not reset the archetype of
Batman, but instead allowed the character to naturally evolve into the Master
role of the Hero. The Ruler. “The Dark Knight” then followed the journey of Batman
as the Ruler of Gotham and explored those theme's by contrasting him against
Rulers of different aspects of Gotham.

• Harvey/Two-Face
• Commissioner Gordon
• Joker

Batman

(Chris Nolan, David S Goyer, Bob Kane)

	WARRIOR/HERO	RULER
Aspect	Ego	Self
Method	Mastery	Control
Drive	Leave a Mark	Leave a Mark
Role	Student	Master
Shadow	The Ends Justify the Means	Tyranny

I believe that the biggest reason that Iron Man has remained so popular
throughout the life of the MCU, deliberately or through accident, is because his
character has evolved through so many archetypes during his screentime.

Iron Man

(Jon Favreau, Joss Whedon, Shane Black, Stephen McFeely, Christopher Markus)

	MAGICIAN	WARRIOR/HERO	RULER	MENTOR
Aspect	Self	Ego	Self	Self
Method	Power	Mastery	Control	Knowledge
Drive	Order	Leave a Mark	Leave a Mark	Spiritual Journey
Role	Master	Student	Master	Master
Shadow	Abuse of Power	The Ends Justify the Means	Tyranny	Arrogance

Tony Stark begins Iron Man as the Magician. A master of power who abuses that power to create weapons and irresponsably endangers the lives of thousands. He justifies this by hiding behind Order (the law and what is legal) and the climax of Iron Man involves Tony recognizing and casting off the shadow of the Magician.

The Avengers explores Tony's journey as the warrior, taking on combat and trying to figure out how to best serve this role.

Age of Ultron & Civil War explore Tony's evolution into the ruler role. His attempt to control the situation and protect earth lead to the creation of Ultron and pits him against the Avenger that helped him evolve from warrior to ruler, Steve Rogers.

And, finally, we see Tony take on the archetype of the mentor as he brings Spiderman into the MCU.

Tony Stark: 5 Dramatic Situations

Mike Figgis explores the base 36 Dramatic Situations
that make up the majority of all scenes in storytelling. Most stories are made
up of only a handful of these situations that recur throughout the character's lives.

In analyzing the appearances of Tony Stark in the MCU we can find that his
stories are governed by 5 core Dramatic Situations.

• The Enigma
• Daring Enterprise
• Disaster
• Remorse

• Necessity of Sacrifice

  Necessity of Sacrifice is more rare than the other situations
  since it is the pinnacle of Tony's arc. It is also worth
  noting that Tony's Dramatic situations almost always
  occur exactly in this same order.

We see Tony go through these exact situations in this exact order more than 10 times in the MCU.

• Avengers Climax
• Iron Man 3
• Age of Ultron
  • The Creation of Ultron
  • Saving Banner
  • Climax of Ultron
• Civil War
  • Sokovia Accords
  • Hanger Scene
  • Climax
• Infinity War

• Endgame

  I've made a chart to illustrate

These are the largest scale manifestations of this arc, but throught the series we also see countless scenes that also depict Tony's progression through this arc in miniature.

Which brings us to…

A Scene as a Story

John Truby's Anatomy of Story
outlines that scenes are where the writer translates the elements of
storytelling and character and presents them to the audience.

A scene is defined as ONE action in ONE time and ONE place. But the best
scenes are mini-stories which hold all the elements of storytelling. So at
their core, scenes and stories are the same. If you visualize a scene as a
triangle, the beginning frames what the scene is about then funnels and
culminates to a single point. A story is just a scene at a larger scale.

You construct the scene as a mini-story by

• Determining how it fits in the overall development of the character(s)
  • Considering the Archetype Evolution
  • Considering the Relevant Dramatic Situations
• Hitting the same beats as your story
  • The first 4 Dramatic Situations
• Ending on the climactic, single point of your story
  • The 5th Dramatic Situation

John Truby also outlines how the multi-character story needs a main desire line which acts as the spine of the overarcing story and the character who acts as the spine in the MCU is undboubtedly Tony Stark.

Genius, Billionaire, Playboy, Philanthropist

So these three points culminate into a scene that is essentially a predictive work of art.

Not only is this the first scene where we see Tony Stark journey through his 5 Dramatic Situations in Succession. But this scene also incorporates Steve Rogers challenging the warrior archetype of Tony Stark that kicks off and eventually leads to his development into the ruler in Iron Man 3.

And Genius, Billionaire, Playboy, Philanthropist was written before any of these scenes happened. It was written before Marvel became an unstoppable franchise. It was written before Tony Stark was the bonified spine of the MCU. It was written when Thanos, the archetypical foil to Tony Stark's character was only a teaser. And it was written before Tony Stark

SPOILERS

sacrificed himself to prevent the universe from being half destroyed a second time.

Which means, that this scene, and the fact that it echoed Tony Stark's larger arc of the Avengers was solely responsible for setting up the main arc of the entire MCU. And this scene didn't have to sacrifice character development or relevance to acheive this.

And this sums up why I believe that Genius, Billionaire, Playboy, Philanthropist is one of the most important scenes in the entire MCU.

The One Marvelous Scene

STEVE: You know damn well why! Back off!

TONY: Oh, I'm starting to want you to make me.

This fight is the framing of the triangle.
What is an arugment in the scene is the presentation
of the main challenges of these characters

STEVE: Big man in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you?

TONY: Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.

STEVE: I know guys with none of that worth ten of you. Yeah, I've seen the
footage. (MORE)

STEVE: (CONT'D) The only thing you really fight for is yourself. You're not the
guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy
crawl over you.

TONY: I think I would just cut the wire. ENIGMA

STEVE: (SMILING) Always a way out… You know, you may not be a threat, but you
better stop pretending to be a hero.

Steve challenging Tony which acts as the catalyst of Tony completing the arc of the hero

TONY: (that did it) A hero? Like you? You're a lab rat, Rogers. Everything
special about you came out of a bottle!

Forshadowing, for the super soldier serum has nothing to do with what makes
him special. He has always been worthy. And he was chosen because of the
qualities that make him special.

…

STEVE: You're not going alone!

TONY: You gonna stop me?

STEVE: Put on the suit, let's find out.

TONY: I'm not afraid to hit an old man. DARING ENTERPRISE

STEVE: Put on the suit. At that moment Banner who's looking at the monitor
notices something about the Tesseract.

BANNER: Oh, my God!

OUTSIDE THE HELICARRIER Barton PULLS THE TRIGGER ON HIS BOW.
The arrow then EXPLODES THE ENGINE RIGHT OFF THE HELICARRIER! INT. BANNER'S LAB
­ MORNING Everyone is thrown in every direction. Steve, Fury, Thor and Tony are
thrown across while Natasha and Banner is down in the lower equipment room.
Steve looks up at Tony. DISASTER

STEVE: Put on the suit!

TONY: Yep!

…

GALAGA PLAYER: (points to monitor) Turbine's loose. Mostly intact, but it's
impossible to get out there and make repairs while we're in the air.

AGENT MARIA HILL: We lose one more engine, we won't be. Somebody's got to get
inside and patch that engine.

…

TONY: Good. See what we got. Tony flies in his IRON MAN suit and gets close to
the damaged engine. REGRET | DARING ENTERPRISE | DISASTER

…

IRON MAN: begins to push the rotor using BOOSTERS from his boots SACRIFICE

Chart

	ENIGMA
Genius…Philanthropist	“I'd cut the wire”
Avengers Climax	How to shut off the portal
Iron Man 3	How to save Pepper and shut down extremis
Age of Ultron	How to Protect the World
Hanger Scene	How to stop Captain America
Infinity War	Take the fight to Thanos
Endgame	Time Travel

	DARING ENTERPRISE
Genius…Philanthropist	“put on the suit”
Avengers Climax	Fighting Loki
Iron Man 3	fighting without his suit
Age of Ultron	Creating Ultron
Hanger Scene	The Fight
Infinity War	Battle on Titan
Endgame	Going back further to get Tesseract and more Pim Particles

	DISASTER
Genius…Philanthropist	ship attacked
Avengers Climax	New York
Iron Man 3	Extremis Fight
Age of Ultron	Sokovia
Hanger Scene	War Machine
Infinity War	They lose the stone
Endgame	Thanos comes back back with Nebula

	REGRET
Genius…Philanthropist	underestimating Loku
Avengers Climax	cant save them in time
Iron Man 3	Putting Family in Danger
Age of Ultron	the aftermath
Hanger Scene	His responsiblity for War Machine
Infinity War	The loss of Peter Parker
Endgame	The Recording (happens after snap)

	SACRIFICE
Genius…Philanthropist	restarting the turbine
Avengers Climax	flying the missile into space
Iron Man 3	almost dies before Pepper saves him
Age of Ultron	Quicksilver
Hanger Scene	Putting himself in danger rather than others
Infinity War	Here, Strange puts up the sacrifice
Endgame	Snap