So I'm watching Iron Man 2, and who pops up on the screen? Elon Musk

[CatWoman]

I've watched that movie many times but never noticed him before.

Just like Trump wormed his way into Home Alone.

Why does Hollywood give these entitled, untalented fucks cameos?

Both appearances were uneventful and added absolutely nothing to the movies.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

1. Probably because the directors thought there's parallels between Tony Stark and Musk

So he would be an amusing cameo. He wasn't such a dick back when that came out, at least was not regarded as such.

[highplainsdem]

4. See reply 2.

[highplainsdem]

2. Hate to tell you this, but the writer of Iron Man said Musk was the inspiration

for Tony Stark:

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a40871355/tony-stark-iron-man-elon-musk/

Well, if Iron Man's combo of bravado, tech ingenuity, and sheer eccentricity had you seeing shades of Tesla CEO Elon Musk, then you were right on the money. Officially. In a new interview with New York Magazine, Iron Man writer Mark Fergus got to talking about the formation of the MCU's first superhero. According to Fergus, Iron Man's creative team tried to conjure up the image of a modern-day Howard Hughes, but as he admits, "I think people don’t know who the hell that is." So, seeing as this brainstorm happened in the early 2000s, who do you think came to mind? Fergus says, "Elon’s name was definitely in the conversation as the guy who grabbed the torch."

Check out the rest of the writer's thoughts, which include a couple other choice names:

[Musk], Trump, and maybe a little Steve Jobs. Trump was fun before he became president — he was actually kind of a goofy celebrity. Steve Jobs was always serious and angry; he never quite had that gift of the bullshit, the working the crowd that Musk has a real natural talent for. Musk took the brilliance of Jobs with the showmanship of Trump. He was the only one who had the fun factor and the celebrity vibe and actual business substance. I’m not sure we talked about too many other people; there are not many people like that around. It’s dangerous to be a celebrity businessman. One scandal and it’s billions of dollars. People want their CEOs to shut up and be good, quiet figures who aren’t in the paper dating celebrities. Because shit can happen.

There you go. Tony Stark: man, superhero, Elon Musk variant. I guess that explains Musk's cameo in Iron Man 2, doesn't it?

[CatWoman]

6. yes it does

but they created a monster.

[haele]

8. Iron Man, warts and all, was around way before Musk, before he was born.

The movie folks may have said they used Musk's then-reputation as a silicon valley/tech wunderkind as an inspiration for how Stark was to be portrayed, but the whole egotistical playboy all around scientific/engineering genius attitude was well baked into the comic book portrayal of Tony Stark/Iron Man well before Elon and his brother stopped stealing raw emeralds from Daddy's company safe to sell for video games and Tandy kits.
If anything, Elon Musk fashioned himself after the comic book Tony Stark.
Too bad Phoney Stark doesn't have the actual genius or tinkering ability to go along with the 'visions' he has also appropriated from other science fiction and comic book writers over the years.
I thought he seemed interesting (all from TED Talks and business publications) until he got canned from Paypal and the rumors about his actual talents started circulating. Using a large sum of payout money to jumpstart an existing tech company that was already being considered breakout technology is not genius, it's a good investment if you're wealthy and into marketing. Nothing wrong with marketing, but claiming it's because you're an engineering genius that Tesla took off is rather misleading. SpaceX was a gamble, but there was nothing really new in rocket science that wasn't already in the process of being developed or tested theoretically; leveraging peer reviewed research and funneling subsidies into being first off the launch pad is not really genius.
Likewise, I haven't seen a lot of patents he, himself is part of; his engineers and companies - but not himself as an individual.
But he sure has spent most of his life talking a good science story. Almost like he's read SF classics like Azimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Amazing Stories magazines - and remembered them really well.

Haele

[highplainsdem]

18. I don't see any reason to doubt Mark Fergus's explanation of how

Elon Musk figured into his screenplay version of Iron Man. Fergus obviously wasn't trying to take credit for the original, comic book character.

But he sure has spent most of his life talking a good science story. Almost like he's read SF classics like Azimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Amazing Stories magazines - and remembered them really well.

Considering Musk having been born in 1971, his main early influence from science fiction and science fact was likely to have been Omni magazine

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omni_(magazine)

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/news-and-features/articles/visionary-iomni-magazinei/

Which had a circulation of about a million then, and claimed a readership a few times that. The digest-size science fiction magazines had circulations only a tiny fraction of Omni's.

I've mentioned a couple of science fiction influences on Musk here

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217460608#post8

because of Twitter posts alluding to novels by Frank Herbert and Gordon R. Dickson. Gordy's most well-known works, the novels in the Dorsai series, with heroes who are superhuman in ways, were published before Musk was born. But the first Dune film was released in late 1984, when Musk was at a very impressionable age. A young teen, seeing a film about a teenaged messiah.

A lot of people have pointed out that Musk apparently has a messiah complex.

Musk has said that his favorite philosopher is Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/extended-transcript-spacex-ceo-elon-musk-on-putting-boots-on-the-moon-and-mars/

MUSK: I would like to go to the moon and Mars. I think that'd be quite fun. But I need to make sure, like, the overarching goal here is help make life multi-planetary. This is not some sort of personal quest to go to the moon or go to Mars. My sort of philosophical foundation is in line with Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." Everyone has their sort of favorite philosopher, but my favorite philosopher is Douglas Adams.

KLUGER: That's a good one to have.

MUSK: Well, he's dead now, but he's got a (LAUGHS) great attitude, and he's fun guy and a good sense of humor. And what he was essentially saying is, "The universe is the answer; what are the questions?"

KLUGER: Lovely.

MUSK: And if we expand the scope and scale of consciousness, then we are better able to understand what questions to ask. We'll learn more, we'll become more enlightened. And so we should try to do the things that expand the scope and scale of consciousness. And becoming a multi-planet species and ensuring that we have a sustainable climate on Earth, these are very important to that overarching philosophy. So that's the philosophy I buy into.

What Musk was reading before that, though, included Nietzsche:

https://www.freshdialogues.com/2013/02/07/transcript-of-elon-musk-interview-with-alison-van-diggelen-iron-man-growing-up-in-south-africa/

Elon Musk: I guess when I was around 12 or 15…I had an existential crisis, and I was reading various books on trying to figure out the meaning of life and what does it all mean? It all seemed quite meaningless and then we happened to have some books by Nietzsche and Schopenhauer in the house, which you should not read at age 14 (laughter). It is bad, it’s really negative. So then I read Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy which is quite positive I think and it highlighted an important point which is that a lot of times the question is harder than the answer. And if you can properly phrase the question, then the answer is the easy part. So, to the degree that we can better understand the universe, then we can better know what questions to ask. Then whatever the question is that most approximates: what’s the meaning of life? That’s the question we can ultimately get closer to understanding. And so I thought to the degree that we can expand the scope and scale of consciousness and knowledge, then that would be a good thing.”

Alison van Diggelen: So you were having these deep thoughts at what age? 10…14?

Elon Musk: Yeah. In the…puberty, I guess….13 through 15. Probably the most traumatic years.

Nietsche and Schopenhauer were heavy reading.for a kid. But a simplification of Nietzsche's idea of a superman can be very appealing to immature, insecure minds.

Just before that section of that interview Musk admitted that as a kid, he was "reading all the time. So I was either reading, working on my computer, reading comics, playing Dungeons & Dragons…that kind of thing." He also admitted to liking the Iron Man comics then. Though he said he'd never imagined he might become the inspiration for the movie version.

[haele]

21. Musk in the 2000's/2010's was hyped as one of the darlings of the tech world.

Along with Brandon, Zuckerberg, Thiel, et all. Understandably, Hollywood wouldn't look past the hype even though even then, there were already quiet questions even then how party bro Musk was accomplishing all this work on "his own" (while going to conferences and parties) without other good engineers doing the heavy lifting or otherwise leveraging off other research work to jumpstart his projects. Especially after he almost sunk Paypal and was asked to leave. Those working in the tech fields never questioned his ability to market or run a business. They just tended to ignore his actual engineering prowess and used his high level "vision" as a goal to spend his money to get to.

Honestly, I don't really expect the screenwriters to know the difference between an actual engineering or science genius like, say, Feinman or Nicoli Tesla, and flashy tech savvy marketeer and businessman starting out with a pot of money he could afford to burn through.

Haele

[Hermit-The-Prog]

12. Esquire should fact-check. Iron Man: 1963. Elon Musk: born 1971.

[Bucky]

13. I think you know what they meant

But to lay it out plainly: they mean the portrayal of Iron Man in the movie, not Iron Man the comic book character, was inspired by Elon Musk's media hype and self promotion.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

15. Then they totally screwed up. Tony Stark began with Iron Man -- Lee and Kirby.

The characters created by Lee and Kirby were plausible for this world long before any screenwriter tried to portray them in a movie. Any similarities of Stark to any real person are coincidental, as the disclaimers say. The ego may be as large, but the abilities and intentions are different.

[Bucky]

16. It always amuses me when people double down on clearly erroneous ideas

Yes, of course the movie character of Iron Man was mostly influenced by the comic book character Iron Man. On the other hand, the script and the director's and the actor's portrayal of Tony Stark is markedly different than what you can read in the 1963 origin story. Stark was gung ho and deadly serious and vehemently committed to anti-communism, not the glib party boy that Downey played

Either you didn't read the excerpt from post number 2 above, or you're willfully ignoring it, in saying that Elon Musk's public persona had no influence on the movie's script writer. The script writer himself literally said that. That's all anyone is saying. The way the jet setting nomadic above-the-rules way that Musk lives his life influenced how they built that character for the film.

Literally no one is saying the point that you're arguing against.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

17. I said the screenwriter screwed up.

Musk likely fancies himself as Tony Stark, but that's as offensive as traitortrump's "personal Viet Nam". For all I know, the screenwriter came up with this idea to impress Musk. It's still offensive. Stark was cynical but had a hacker's drive (see the jargon file, not popular press); Musk is driven by ego and greed.

[DFW]

3. I never even saw the film

But I had a friend who had a brief cameo in all of those Marvel films. He wasn’t important to the plot, either, but he had a MUCH more legitimate reason for being there

[Hugh_Lebowski]

7. Stan Lee, per chance? (nt)

[DFW]

10. Whatever gave it away?

Seeing as how they were all Stan's creations, I guess it was OK for him to do that!

[Hugh_Lebowski]

11. Cool pic!

Yeah, the knowledge required for proper deduction in this case was far from arcane

[highplainsdem]

19. You've known some very interesting people. And that's a great photo!

[DFW]

20. Stan called my family (except for me)......

"Your fabulous females." Notice whose hand on my wife's shoulder was the most visible!

I think that is the most accurate description of my wife and daughters anyone has ever given. I'll forever be grateful to him for that phrase.

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

5. Tangeranus did that because they filmed on one of his properties (I think).

He always insisted on showing up in the film. Although in at least one of them, his useless appearance was cut.

Noel Casler talked about how Tangeranus wanted so so so so much to be a Hollywood actor and 'in' that crowd.

(He worked with Tangeranus on The Apprentice, I think?)

But most people in Hollywood thought he was just an annoyance. Thus, the clause that he had to show up in the movie if they used his property for filming.

I agree with what others said: back when Iron Man 2 was filming, Phony Stark wasn't as much of an annoyance. I certainly didn't think he was horrible, but I suppose that was the whole idea with his image back then.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

9. Musk and TFG are very alike

[Bucky]

14. To be completely fair, Musk can read

Except, of course, the handwriting on the wall