The superhero's suit of armor is pretty cool, but the toys he uses to build it are even more impressive
By Gregory Mone Posted 05.07.2008 at 3:27 pm 12 Comments

Tony Stark in His Lab Zade Rosenthal / Paramount Pictures

Yes, there are some great robot fight scenes, nefarious villains, a few human interest plotlines, even characters that seem like genuine people, but the new movie Iron Man is really about the lab, and its ridiculously cool toys.

Iron Man, which has grossed more than its reported $140 million budget in less than a week due to worldwide box office success, follows Tony Stark, a brilliant, vain, and wildly wealthy weapons designer who has a serious change of heart—literally and figuratively—after getting kidnapped by a band of terrorists. He goes on to build an exoskeleton that allows him to fly at supersonic speeds, catch SUVs, fire all sorts of missiles, and generally fight evil with tech. We previewed the flick in our May issue, while also comparing it with the real-world Raytheon Sarcos XOS exoskeleton. And although a few conversations with the filmmakers did indicate that the movie would be a tech fan's dream, it, um, blasted through even our heightened expectations.

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Entertainment & Gaming, 3d, AI, exoskeletons, humanoids, iron man, Marvel, movies, raytheon sarcos xos, robots, XOS
The suit itself is impressive—and we'll get to that in a minute—but it's the lab that really stands out. When Stark gets back home, he sets to work in his basement office. Designing and building a wearable robot might seem like an impossible task for one man, but he has quite a bit of help. Three or four AI-enabled robotic assistants work with him, and while he does talk to and even scold them, they're not cheesy, hard-to-believe humanoids that talk back. Instead they look industrial, built for specific functions, and slightly more plausible as a result. His computer-based design tools are even more eye-popping. A waist-high table projects 3D holographic images that allow him to test and tweak virtual mock-ups. At one point there's a projection of a gauntlet hovering above the table, and Stark slips his hand inside the image to see how it fits.

Realistic? Maybe not. But it's effective. All the design tools and robot assistants make you think it might be possible for a sufficiently brilliant and industrious inventor to do the work of ten or twenty engineers.

Building something with the capabilities of the film's suit, though, would require a bit more than a sweet lab. Unlike other superhero flicks, Iron Man pretty much skips the techno-babble and pseudo-scientific banter. Which is great, because there's no point trying to explain how Iron Man could fire powerful beams from his hands and chest without moving himself. That old action/reaction rule? The comic version of Iron Man dispenses with it by saying that Stark invented one-way force projection technology. But the movie chooses to skip the details, and keeps you focused on the flashy (albeit equally far-fetched) design and build process, and all the toys involved therein, rather than the laws of physics.

The key piece of technology in the suit is a hamburger-sized device called an arc reactor that spits out as much electricity as several large-scale power plants. There's no use pointing out the fact that no such device is close to possible based on what we know today. But the cool point here is that the filmmakers clearly thought about the kind of power you'd need to make a suit like this work. They realized it would be a major, major issue—and it's exactly the hurdle that real-world exoskeleton designers are facing today. They can build amazing machines that endow people with superhuman strength, but they're still trying to figure out how to power those wearable robots for more than short stints.

Stark's arc reactor would do the trick. It would also solve the world's energy problems, but if he had chosen that route to save the planet, the resulting film wouldn't be so much fun. And, more importantly, there wouldn't be any robot fights.

12 Comments

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briligg
05/07/08 at 10:37 pm

Tony Stark is vain, not 'vane'. A vane is something that tells you wind direction.
Really, how could you not have caught that.

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ill.logik
05/08/08 at 9:37 am

-----Tony Stark is vain, not 'vane'. A vane is something that
---- tells you wind direction.
-----Really, how could you not have caught that.

Could be that, just like Tony Stark, Gregory Mone is simply human!

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SpunkyBuggy16
05/08/08 at 10:04 am

I have to say that the big robot fight scenes played only second fiddle (though it was an awesome second fiddle) to Stark's lab. I want to build one SO BAD. If only I knew how.

I think I seriously drooled when I saw the holographic design projector attached to the computer...and almosed died when I saw how techy his house was.

Too bad the arc reactor is so unrealistic - oh the problems one of those things would solve.

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empjag
05/08/08 at 10:05 am

Dude how many articles are on this site ever week? Oh my gosh, he spelled vain wrong! He probably had spell check and since both vane and vain are in the glossary hmm.. maybe the guy just didn't catch it. Ever have a deadline for a project man? Why not just leave an actual comment instead of this bull crap.

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empjag
05/08/08 at 10:08 am

Oh look even I made a typo. every not ever.

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John Mahoney
05/08/08 at 10:40 am

Yeah you guys should be copy editors!

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teabags

from houston, texas

05/12/08 at 1:37 pm

only have one comment about the article other than great one, about the comment about the beams from his hands?? you were mistaken when you said he didnt move..you stated the "old action/reaction rule" well he actually did move when he tested that in the film, he tests it and it sends him flying backwards out of frame and colliding with something or things. Just wanted to bring that up because they did at least stick to that rule..those things may not be possible right now, or may be..im not a Tony Stark level Genius..but some of those toys are very possible/probable i believe right now

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Vomonte
05/13/08 at 3:15 pm

I believe that he went flying back because of his flight stabilizers in his hands, he wasnt trying to "shoot".

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0goober0
05/13/08 at 7:50 pm

"But the cool point here is that the filmmakers clearly thought about the kind of power you'd need to make a suit like this work."
--2nd to last paragraph near the middle.

I'm sorry, I don't mean to be nitpicking, but I read this and thought of a friend of mine who's very into comics and thought about how annoyed he'd be if he saw this
Just to give you an idea of how into comics and movies he is: You know that extra scene at the end of the credits in Iron Man? prabably not, but he did. He stood up and starting clapping and screaming with excitement when he saw Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury. Yea....that's how into comics and movies he is....

Anyway...Iron Man was a comic long before it was a movie and to say that the filmmakers thought about the power needed is not really true. Marvel and the people to write the comic were the people who thought about the power source of the suit....not the filmmakers.

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guruuswa
05/19/08 at 5:44 am

damn it dudes the reason they're called movies is because they're fake stories with fake things and all...not scientific documentaries. who cares how it works...so long as it looks cool. and as for the typos, get a life dude.

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orionhero
09/17/08 at 11:01 pm

ahem guruuswa!

side note: that movie freaking rocked!

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cowboy82
06/01/09 at 2:36 pm

COOOOOOOOOOOOLLLL!

Hey, briligg.......get a lyfe.(ooopsie, typo)

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