Oo. Have to check it out then.
What was the reason? The control was through the helmet? And Tony would not be able to activate the thrusters if he's not wearing it?
If so bah!
We've seen tons of movies people jumping off planes into another airborne plane in a more realistic tone of movie.
Tony could have dived for the helmet,catch and wear it in mid air then activate his thrusters. That would be an awesome start of the movie.
No actually it was a lot more involved then that. The entire scene starts with Tony sick on the plane throwing up in the bathroom and there was a lot of humor. It also was the original opener with the title screen flashing "Iron Man 2", so if they went with this, the movie would not have started with showing him on the TV saying he was Iron Man while Whiplash looked on. Also he mentioned that the scene was too humerous and didn't setup a darker tone that he wanted. I might have missed a few reasons but go back and watch it to see. It is very interesting to see. Oh and he said that Pepper kissing the helmet instead of Tony was not scripted. She thought of it herself at that moment and everyone loved it. It was kind of a Han Solo in Empire moment when he answered to Leia "I know" instead of the scripted response "I love you too".