Hey all,

Long time visitor, recent member, and rare poster here.  I've never attempted an entire fan edit, but I often find myself tinkering with scenes of my favorite films (and sometimes least favorite) for personal gratification.  With the release of Iron Man 3 this year, I've had the idea to create a mash-up of all three movies.  My main goal for this project is to create a single standalone Iron Man story that really strengthens the connection between the events of IM1 and IM3.  I don't foresee much, if any, cosmetic work.  And as my first real full length edit, I think limiting the degree of work to mostly editing, will help me keep my wits about me.

I will be removing all direct connections to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  On a related note, I plan on cutting out most of IM2; using only scenes that might strengthen the narrative between 1 and 3.  The inevitable problem here is that I will unfortunately create slight inconsistencies such as Tony's switch to a new arc reactor, amongst others.  Another blatant inconsistency will be the change from Terrance Howard to Don Cheadle as Rhodey.  I will do my best though, to minimize the inconsistencies, provided they don't break my biggest rule of keeping this independent of the MCU.

Ultimately, I would like to see the Mandarin & Aldrich Killian's schemes connect more directly to Tony's initial Ten Rings kidnapping.  I have been endlessly skimming through the movies over the past few days, and although it will be tough, I think it can be done. 

The last thing I want to address, I will refer to as THE BIG QUESTION:  Can the Mandarin twist be removed effectively?  No doubt this will be an enormous challenge to overcome, but I do have an idea.  If some of the Mandarin scenes can be effectively connected (and relocated) closer to the Ten Rings fiasco of IM1, then I might be able to make him an enemy that simply escapes the film without resolution.  If, at the end of the day, this change doesn't seem to work well, I have no problem leaving it the way it is.  I will however do everything I can to make it feel like less of a cop out.

I would love to hear any of your thoughts on this project, and any issues you think I may run into.  I'll do my best to keep things updated even if the thread falls into obscurity.  Thanks for any/all of your input!

~Humby

EDIT:  So one of the reasons I wanted to remove the MCU references was because many of them seemed contrived and out of place in IM2.  I have been thinking though, that I want to somehow incorporate Tony's reactor poisoning and his creation of the new reactor.  Not to mention I LOVE the Howard Stark scenes.  If I want to use this material though, it might be necessary for me to use the Nick Fury footage.  If I can do so without ruining the flow, I may renege on my no MCU rule.  This would certainly add to the run time, but right now I'm aiming for a total of 3.5 hours.  Long for a movie, but the more I start moving things around the more confident I feel that I can construct an enjoyable narrative. 

I'll try and post some videos within the next week.