Wednesday, a week ago (Feb 4), my wife and I got to rewatch Iron Man 3. It was the concluding part of our Trevor Slattery/faux-Mandarin backstory review (in reverse) following our completion of the excellent Wonder Man Disney+ show. Since I was taking the next day off to visit my mother in my home state, we amazingly finished it in one sitting! (If you're 55+, you may appreciate how rare that can be, which is why I like to still watch movies in theaters where you're forced to see it through without pause.) And I really, really enjoyed it, much more than I remember upon seeing it the first time back in 2013. (Doesn't look like I even blogged about it.) Well, I'm contributing this increased favorable opinion to BAPH (pronounced "BAFF"), the Backwards Appreciation Phenomenon.
(Add it to your lexicon folks, you won't find it in Websters...yet. Because I just coined it as a term, but the concept has been around for decades.)
The best way to describe the BAPH concept is through an example, and the classic one that started me thinking about it (all those years ago) is Star Trek: The Next Generation. I really struggled with the first two seasons of ST:TNG (a.k.a. NextGen) - you know, the episodes where they wore the footy-panjama uniforms with the pinstripe necklines. And I mean, struggle in real time, when it originally aired from 1987 thru 1989. This was also the era of the wooden performance of Tasha Yar and the annoying arrogance of Doctor Pulaski. I didn't hate it by any means (after all, it was sort of like 90's Toy Biz superhero toys*, you were thankful to have anything), but I didn't love it like I later would. (One day I might post about things I loved when I was 19 but that I don't care for as much anymore...)
*See what I mean...
Anyway, Season 3 of NextGen introduced the awesome thick black collared uniforms. And the Borg had made their first appearance near the end of Season 2. They were still finding their footing up to that point, but with "Yesterday's Enterprise", which aired 1990 Feb 17, everything cemented into place. Incredibly, when I later rewatched Seasons 1 and 2, I loved them! At the time (as it seemed to be focused only on Star Trek), I had coined it as TSE, the third season effect (see post about that here.) Talk about going back to the well, at least I'm consistent.
I guess you can also liken it to falling in love, which is appropriate with Valentine's Day this Saturday. As you become more familiar with "your" person, they become more attractive to you. And once the attraction is there, you look back, and it seems like it was always there from the beginning. That's why people sing and talk about "love at first sight". But I know for me, it wasn't until my wife (then only a friend) arrived at my best friend's apartment in Atlanta, where we were staying for Spring Break in March 1991, that the veil was lifted and I saw how beautiful she was! My feelings didn't follow for another 6 months or so (and hers not for another 14!), but I noticed a distinct difference. And to this day, I've asked her to always keep the top she wore that day (see below):
Back to Iron Man 3. Tony largely spends much of the movie out of his armour, and is MacGayver-ing it most of the time. This showcases his genius and fortitude, but it wasn't what I was expecting for the third installment of his sub-franchise. Then, after introducing a whole slew of armor versions, they all get blown up at the end, and you were left (at the time) feeling that his journey as Iron Man was over. Even the end credits said, "Tony Stark will return...", not Iron Man. - This, after the awesome first Avengers film. Well, I was let down somewhat for sure.
But then, we got Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), and Avengers: Endgame (2019). That's five years of rock-solid Tony Stark/Iron Man awesomeness, culminating in his sacrifice to save everyone!
So when I rewatched Iron Man 3, I now have all this foreknowledge in hindsight (talk about paradoxes). I realize how this story was such an important chapter of his character arc/evolution. And it was also super fun to watch! Honestly, I preferred the non-armored Tony over the climactic finale. What a risk the filmmakers took!** But they knew what they were doing, and even if I didn't appreciate it (as much) at the time, I do now. Similarly, Ben Kingsley (whom I always think of as Gandhi) shines more as Trevor Slattery because of what I've seen of his character on Wonder Man.
** Was Robert Downey Jr's contract up for negotiation back then?
What can I say? It's another prime example of BAPH for sure.
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